Rural Program Development

A professional-grade espresso machine and an ice cream maker may not seem like educational tools, but with a $3,000 ESSER Rural Program Development grant, the West Grand School District has turned them into teaching machines.

West Grand’s money used the funding to bolster its Career and Technical Education classes, which were disrupted during the pandemic. Remote learning was no substitute for the hands-on learning the program provides.

Reading isn’t usually considered a competitive sport, but elementary school students in three southeast Colorado school districts waged a pitched Battle of the Books with the help of an ESSER Rural Program Development Grant.

Students from Wiley, Rocky Ford and Cheraw school districts recently squared off in a quiz-show-style contest, quarterbacked by Santa Fe Trail Board of Cooperative Education Services Assistant Director Natalie Brown.

Students in Edison School District No. 54 are learning industrial arts skills to repurpose an old school bus into a habitable home using ESSER funds that were available to rural school districts for strengthening student engagement.

The tiny 112-student school district in Yoder was one of 47 Colorado rural school districts that applied for money from the $141,000 Rural Program Development grant.

The Colorado Department of Education is using $125,000 of federally allocated ESSER III funds to plan and deliver professional development opportunities for math teachers in the San Luis Valley.