From Chocowinity Middle School

Two teachers and the guidance counselor at Chocowinity Middle School recently received Partners in Education (PIE) grants from the Beaufort County Schools Education Foundation. Shannon White, president of the Foundation, was on campus to notify the winners.

Mandi Stone, sixth-grade English and language arts teacher, entitled her grant “Putting a Face on Bullying.” The grant will fund the purchase of class sets of the book, “Wonder,” by R.J. Palacios, a novel about a boy named August whose physical appearance makes him the victim of bullying. Stone will work with students in small and large groups and discuss how the characters react to August to educate students on how to be a friend and how to stand up to bullies. She also hopes that those students who may have issues in their own lives that cause them to be bullies will see how they can change their own behaviors to find more positive ways to express themselves.

“Storm Team 5” is the name of the grant written by Natalie Leary, a fifth-grade teacher. Leary’s grant will allow fifth-graders to become a weather team using models to make clouds and other types of weather phenomena. The students are going to use real weather instruments and interactive software to predict weather events and the effects of those weather events.

CMS guidance counselor Kendra Ratliff’s grant, “Career Exploration through Virtual Job Shadowing,” will give all students at CMS a year’s access to the Virtual Job Shadow website, where they can explore a wide variety of careers by participating in virtual job shadowing using modern interactive videos that capture a day in the life of professionals. Students will also be able to access search engines where they search careers to match abilities and interests, post-secondary schools, and jobs and internships.