By NEAL WAGNER / Managing Editor

ALABASTER – Teachers throughout the Alabaster City School System will be able to purchase everything from wireless listening centers to a piano after the city’s Education Foundation presented nearly $8,000 in grants on April 13.

During the Board of Education meeting, the Foundation presented grants to 16 teachers, marking the first grant presentations by the upstart organization.

“We are so excited to be able to give money back in our first year,” Foundation chairperson Heidi Ramey said. “We had 49 grant requests, and we’re so excited to be able to award 16 of them. Hopefully, there are bigger and better things to come in the future.”

The Foundation provided grants to the following teachers:

-Creek View Elementary School teacher Ashley Tilley received $313 to help cover the cost of classroom math games.

-CVES teacher Kristy Ellis received $250 to help cover the cost of big book sets and storytelling materials from Lakeshore Learning.

-CVES teacher Ashley Williamson received $390 to cover the cost of wireless headphones, reading and math games.

-CVES teacher Donna Brown received $90 to purchase math teaching tools.

-CVES teacher Susan Stamps received $350 to purchase wireless listening centers.

-Meadow View Elementary School teacher Dennis Jones received $500 to help cover the cost of a new piano for the school.

-MVES teachers Michelle Brakefield and Jennifer Zeimet received $340 to purchase math teaching tools and teacher demonstration frames.

-MVES teacher April Price received $350 to help cover the cost of a project to show students the lifecycle of a chicken.

-Christi King at Thompson Intermediate and Thompson Sixth Grade Center received $500 to purchase new e-books for the schools.

-TIS teacher Holly Jackson received $250 to help fund a student cooking project.

-TIS teacher Susan Mitchell received $1,000 to help purchase Lego robots to teach science, engineering and math to GRC students.

-The Thompson Middle School seventh-grade science department received $1,500 to help purchase compounding microscopes.

-TMS teacher Melanie Tingle received $390 to help fund the purchase of a digital learning program.

-Thompson High School teacher Dorinda Shaddix received $455 to purchase materials to allow second-graders to bring their stuffed animals to be examined by the THS medical professions academy students.

-THS teacher Kimberlee Campbell received $1,200 to purchase a television, stand and soundbar for the school’s art department.