Sue Breyer, CalRTA Division 33 Vice President

The students of five local teachers will see some new gadgets, games and gizmos in their classrooms before the school year ends, thanks to the California Retired Teachers Association’s State and Division 33 Teacher Grant programs. The names of four lucky $100 grant winners were randomly drawn at Division 33’s recent membership luncheon on April 12th. A fifth name was selected in early March in a CalRTAstatewide drawing.

The Division 33 $100 grant recipients were Darian Benzango, a Kindergarten teacher at Cawston Elementary School in Hemet; Kaeli Trask, a 7th grade English Language Arts (ELA) teacher at Thompson Middle School in Murrieta; Alicia Gee, a third grade teacher with the Menifee Virtual School in Menifee; and Lee Jones, a student government teacher at Tahquitz High School in Hemet. Hemet’s McSweeny Elementary School Transitional Kindergarten teacher, Dawn Jackson, received one of CalRTA’s 40 state $100 Teacher Grants in a drawing held March 11th and was surprised to find out that she would receive another “matching” $100 from Division 33, a $200 windfall for her and her students. She plans to use the money to purchase some much-needed hands on activities to reinforce her students’ fine motor skills, letter recognition and science knowledge.

Darian Benzango is currently taking the LETRS course (Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling) – and will use her $100 check to purchase phonemic awareness games and hands on activities for her kinder students! “Thank you so much! It was very exciting to find out I was this month’s winner,” Benzango exclaimed after receiving her award notification.

Seventh grade ELA teacher Kaeli Trask was also excited at her selection. “Thank you, thank you, thank you! I am beyond thrilled I was chosen as one of the CalRTA Teacher Grant Winners this past month. The $100 grant will allow me to purchase Calming Fluorescent Light Filters to dim the harsh classroom lights for my students, and a large collection of golf pencils — my students are constantly in need, and these provide a quick way for them to grab a pencil and continue their work,” Trask said.

Lee Jones, Tahquitz High School ASB Director and 17-year veteran educator, shared her excitement upon receiving her $100 grant. “Thank you for this gift! I will be using it to purchase a lighted-tripod so that the students can record events ‘live’ and share what we are doing on campus,” Jones explained.

Menifee Virtual School’s third grade teacher, Alicia Gee, explains, “I have always been interested in hands-on science activities. With the $100 I plan to build science kits that my students can use while at home as they are part of the Menifee Virtual School. Thank you!”

CalRTA Division 33 will hold one final drawing for this school year on Tuesday, June 7th, during their scholarship luncheon. Teachers in the Hemet, San Jacinto, Temecula, Menifee, Murrieta, Nuview, Romoland and Lake Elsinore School Districts can access the application at div33.calrta.org/scholarships-and-grants/ or tinyurl.com/CalRTADiv33TeacherGrant. Teachers will also receive notifications via email at their school sites and can find more information on the CalRTA Division 33 Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/calrtadivision33.

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Teachers to purchase much-needed classroom supplies

Sue Breyer | CalRTA Vice President

For the third time this school year, CalRTA Division 33 randomly drew the names of three lucky teacher grant winners at their February 8th general meeting. Each local educator will receive a $100 check to be used in their classrooms.

Jill Sugita is a math teacher and former Teacher of the Year for Tahquitz High. Mrs. Sugita loves working with students and helping them to succeed. When she was informed that she had been selected to receive $100 for her classroom, she explained, “I plan to purchase a whiteboard and pens for my students to use as part of my math 360. My class has become more engaging for students when they are the ones up on the whiteboards (and not me). A student recently made a comment about how he tends to disengage from all his classes, but he cannot in mine because he likes to be up doing things, even if it’s math!” Bethany Gibson, an IB Language and Literature teacher at San Jacinto High School, is in her eighth year of teaching. An advocate of lifelong learning, Ms. Gibson shares her enthusiasm for literature and the pursuit of knowledge every day with her 12th grade students. “I have been fascinated by archetypes since university, and I spent several months during Covid developing lessons related to the topic of archetypes, says Gibson. “I will use these funds to purchase a class set of Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere.

It is a Modern fantasy novel that is a fantastic example of Gaiman’s use of archetypes, and I have wanted to teach this novel for years,” she explains. San Jacinto High School’s second lucky winner is Vanessa Ensign, a 9th and 10th grade math teacher who, like many of her colleagues, plans to use her winnings for much-needed classroom supplies. “I plan on using the $100 grant to print “invisible math” posters, which help students understand that as they progress through higher levels of math, they learn that there are “hidden rules” in mathematics,” Ms. Ensign explains. “I started as a new teacher 3 years ago, and I planned on printing these popular posters for my 2nd year after realizing how much they are needed in the classroom. But then distance learning happened. Now that we are back in the classroom, I am realizing again how much I need to get these posters printed for my students.”

Local teachers in the Hemet, San Jacinto, Temecula, Murrieta, Menifee, Lake Elsinore, Nuview and Romoland School Districts can apply for these “no strings attached” $100 grants. CalRTA, which selects 15-20 $100 grant recipients each year, shares grant registration details with school site administrators who then are encouraged to share the information with their staff. Teachers can also access grant application forms at CalRTA Division 33’s Scholarships & Grants page on their Division website: https://div33.calrta.org/scholarships-and-grants/. Applications will open on March 12th for their April 12th drawing.

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