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More than 20 students will have the opportunity to close the gap in their reading and writing skills to the level of their peers at Lawson Elementary with the addition of the Fountas & Pinnell Leveled Literacy Kits. The Fountas & Pinnell Leveled Literacy Intervention provides designed lessons in reading and writing to help special education teachers provide the necessary skill set that students need to become proficient readers and writers. The goal of the program is to have students who are struggling with reading become proficient readers and lifelong learners. Students are benchmarked and their progress is measured weekly. Research has show that special education students using this program progressed an average of 7.5 months in an average of 18.5 weeks. That’s a significant jump in a short period of time helping these student close the reading and writing gap with their peers.

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Putting together a newspaper or yearbook can be a large task Well, the task just became easier for up to 150 high school journalism students as the Foundation helped purchase an Adobe Creative Suite software package — considered the industry standard within the creative community. The software – Illustrator, InDesign and PhotoShop - will be used by students to created the weekly Johnston High School newspaper and annual yearbook. The Johnston High School student publications have a reputation across the state and national as being trendsetters. With this new software we look forward to seeing what our talented students will create.

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With the additional of a 3D printer, the Johnston High School PLTW and Industrial Technology classes will have the opportunity to experiment hands-on with the latest technology being using in the engineering and manufacturing world. The printer is used in Computer Integratrated Manufacturing to design and machine parts for robots and automated processes.

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3D printing is a process of making three dimensional solid objects from a digital file. The creation of a 3D printed object is achieved using additive processes.  In an additive process, an object is created by laying down successive layers of material until the entire object is created. Each of these layers can be seen as a thinly sliced horizontal cross-section of the eventual object.

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Up to 200 students will have the opportunity to actually design and make parts to solve engineering problems, create working prototypes to fit with existing mechanical devices, as wells as design and build parts for robots.