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The Lowndes County Board of Education recently received a Community Service Grant of $7,500.00 to help students in the Career and Technical Education Program cover the necessary fees to participate in programs and clubs and will help pay for dual enrollment classes. These funds, derived from the Education Trust Fund, were presented to Board of Education Superintendent Jason Burroughs and Career and Technical Education Counselor DeAndre Crowell by District 23 Senator Malika Sanders-Fortier. “It is our hope that this grant will help you continue to do what you are doing for our students and our children, they are our greatest resource,” Sanders-Fortier said. The goal of Lowndes County’s Career Technical Education Program is to provide students access to a flexible system of rigorous academic and work-based learning through a sequence of courses designed to prepare them for life after high school. “Mr. Crowell primarily works with the students at our two high schools to try to put them on a path where they can get a credential so when they leave high school, they can go into the workforce with that credential and seek employment,” Burroughs said. “The primary reason for having a career tech counselor is to make sure these students are ready for college or the workforce.”When Sanders-Fortier started her first term as an Alabama State Senator, she invited the entire community throughout District 23 to advise her and to help rebuild rural communities. The invitation was extended to all citizens and residents of the district.
These Deputy Senators helped Sanders-Fortier create a grants process, spread the word in District 23 and review grant requests after learning about the state’s budget process.
Marla Moore serves as one of these Deputy Senators. “Young people who have just gone through a pandemic have experienced technology and innovation in a way that is different from any other generation,” Moore said. “Our hope is that these educational mini-grants will inspire more innovation. Innovation and technology make educational experiences more accessible, and we want to support these endeavors.”Grants like these provide additional resources to and give students opportunities that they might not otherwise have had. According to Burroughs, another grant application recently submitted by the Board of Education is through an initiative called Amazon Bootup. This grant, from Amazon, will provide a curriculum for computer science in elementary schools and will provide professional development for the teachers.