The Operation Round Up Board of Directors initiated a program offering small, $500 grants to teachers. Grants were available to K-12 teachers in math or language arts for the 2019-2020 school year. The funds are made available by South Plains Electric Cooperative members contributing to Operation Round Up. Their monthly bill is rounded up to the next dollar, and the extra change, averaging only $6 per year, funds projects like the teacher mini-grants, scholarships and much more.
Tinese Ammons and Briana Massey are seventh-grade English Language Arts and Reading teachers at Frenship Middle School and are 2019-2020 Operation Round Up Mini-Grant recipients. Ammons and Massey purchased new books to host a tournament of books with the mini-grant.
March Madness with books was the theme for the 2019-2020 school year at Frenship Middle School. Students read books that were on the bracket and voted to determine the best book. Students must have read both books that were going head-to-head on the bracket to be able to vote. This reading tournament created a reading community among the students.
“Students were having discussions about literature, about why one book is better than the other, and providing recommendations to their friends on their next book choice,” Ammons said. “Students are reading outside their preferred genres and finding new areas of interest. Thank you, South Plains Electric Cooperative, for this opportunity!”
