Eight teachers from throughout Central and Southern Illinois have been awarded a series of classroom grants totaling $2,500 from the Illinois Schools Energy Management Group (ISEM). The recipients of the ISEM Teacher Grants include Evelyn Suggs (Massac County High School), Regenna Bierman (Marion Jr. High School), Brittany Huff (Centralia High School), Elaine Bogard (Grayville Jr-Sr High School), Rebecca McIntire (Effingham High School), Amy Abernathy (Jonesboro Elementary School), Randy Sasse (Brownstown Jr-Sr High School) and Jaclyn Nelson (Mulberry Grove Elementary School). Suggs, Bierman and Huff were each awarded $500 grants while Bogard, McIntire, Abernathy, Sasse and Nelson will receive $200 each.
Pictured: Brittany Huff, Rebecca McIntire, Amy Abernathy, Randy Sasse, Jacyln Nelson
The winning grants will help teachers pay for innovative classroom initiatives. The ISEM Teacher Grants will fund items and ideas such as helping young students with their ability to read and spell along with phonological awareness skills, Chromebooks, robotic kits that operate on solar power, graphing calculators and computer software to aid in improving writing skills.
Terry Milt, retired Superintendent of Johnson City Schools and Coordinator of the ISEM Group, says these Teacher Grants are very important to teachers. “Everyone knows that teachers often spend their own money to support their learning activities in the classroom. Teachers are very frugal spenders and know how to stretch a dollar. $200 or $500 grants go a long, long way in helping a teacher purchase items for their classrooms.” Milt added “ISEM is dedicated to helping those teachers whose school districts are part of our vast energy buying group.”
Initially, ISEM announced they would be awarding three $500 Teacher Grants. Due to the overwhelming number of applications received, ISEM’s managing entity – Affordable Gas + Electric (AGE), decided to add five $200 grants to the original three grants, thus nearly doubling the dollars contributed to the overall grant total.
Illinois Schools Energy Management Group (ISEM) is an electricity and natural gas management group for Illinois schools. The group provides procurement of electricity and natural gas supply, energy efficiency audits and advice and coordination of new technologies such as solar. Visit https://www.isemgroup.org/ to learn more.
ISEM is managed by Affordable Gas + Electric (AGE), one of the largest commercial and residential aggregators in Illinois. AGE currently aggregates nearly 100 residential electricity communities in Illinois and 21 Ohio community aggregation programs. Additionally, AGE manages the Southern Illinois Chamber of Commerce Bulk Buying Group as well as the Illinois Oil & Gas Association Buying Group.