Seeley Lake Elementary School will keep its technology, outdoor education, tutoring and other extracurricular activities after the school announced it received another five-year, competitive federal grant.
The school won the Nita M. Lowery 21st Century Community Learning Center Grant, valued at $150,000 annually. Bridget Laird, a high school English teacher and former SLE teacher, wrote the application for the grant, which she also received for eight years beginning in 2015.
While funding from the first grant ran out at the end of 2022, SLE was awarded other grants to keep programs open through the summer. Winning the grant again, however, has been a huge weight lifted off administrators shoulders.
“Why break up the band,” Laird said. “This has been really important to the community and it allows our parents to stay at work in the afternoon.”
The rules for spending the money are minimal: just don’t spend it on core education, which should already be covered by state funding. SLE uses the money for year-round programs, like the science, technology, engineering, art and math club, also known as STEAM.
Other programs are more seasonal, like summer activities, nordic skiing and Missoula Children’s Theater.
Laird said the school competed against 30 other schools in Montana for the grant, but Seeley Lake received it because of their plan to give students outdoor education.
“When the grant was up for grabs again, the Office of Public Instruction used Seeley as its example of a good program,” Laird said. “We were confident we had a good thing going.”
In the next five years, the school will continue its outdoor education and add music lessons from Alpine Artisans free of charge for students.
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