ORANGEBURG, S.C. — Brookdale Elementary School in Orangeburg was awarded a $5,000 grant from the Battelle Foundation Fund of The Columbus Foundation.
The grant was secured through The Savannah River National Laboratory K-12 Catalyst STEM Grant. The money from this grant will be used for their full S.T.E.A.M. ahead Olympics family night event in December.
With the assistance of The Savannah River National Laboratory, Brookdale will be able to bring their families together for a night of learning about science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics.
Tiffany Sanders is a first grade teacher at Brookdale and says this grant will make changes.
“This grant, it gets students excited about learning," said Sanders "It get’s them engaged it’s student centered.”
Brookdale's principal LaTonya Nelson says this year's family night will have a new exciting theme.
“The theme this year is going to be the Olympics. So, we are going to be doing a lot of hands on activities, games, competitions. All of it is going to be centered around grade level standards.”
In this years SC PASS Ready Scores, Brookdale saw a decrease in one area, English language arts.
Principal Nelson says her team is prepared to prevent this from happening in the next school year.
“The dream is to have all students performing on grade level," said Nelson. "That’s the ultimate goal but also we know that we have some work to do. So a realistic goal is every year to see some gains. And we have been fortunate to see some gains because I work with some hardworking educators.”
The Savannah River Site will also be assisting with Brookdale Elementary robotics programs.