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A handful of classes will benefit from some additional funds through “grants” given by the West Salem School Board at its June 9 meeting.

The annual grants are monies budgeted by the school district and awarded toward the end of the school year as a way to help fund additional educational requests. Teachers and staff submit applications for the grant money; this year there was $4,000 available.

“It’s above and beyond regular expenses we budget for,” said school board President Errol Kindschy. “Hopefully we can take as many ideas as we can.”

This year there were seven applications and all but one was funded. Henry Althoff, a school board member and chair of the ad hoc committee that looks at grant requests, said he was pleased with how the money was able to be dispersed.

“We’re extremely pleased on how this turned out,” he said. “There’s a real gambit of things (we were able to approve).”

The largest grant of $1,453.55 went to high school technology education teacher Paul Liethen for robot kits. The kindergarten through 12th-grade art department received $993.95 for its Empty Bowls project to raise money for the local food pantry. Middle school teachers Janice Stuntebeck and Terri Martinson received $689 for a document camera. The school board was able to fund $500 of the $3,000 request of kindergarten teacher Sherri Wizner for a bully prevention speaker. Multiage teacher David Langer was awarded $209.80 to fund a garden compost and brush bins. And fourth-grade teacher Heidi Ebert received $150 to go toward the fourth- and fifth-grade trip to the Outdoor Education Center to view forest logging.

The only application not funded at least partially was a $2,000 request from elementary music teacher Lisa Jones and second-grade teacher Cyndy Nichols to help fund the creation of a CD that will be sold as a fundraiser for the OEC. Althoff said he and the committee felt the district might already have resources that could accomplish the same result.

“It’s not that we’re not for it,” Althoff said. “We just thought there was a better way to do the same thing.”

In all, the grants issued by the board totaled $3996.30.

Other items

In other business, the board approved the hiring of several individuals, including: William Solsrud as the technology director; Jonathan Jones as a high school mathematics and computer science teacher; Justin Running as the middle school physical education and health teacher; Kari Schultz as the middle school reading teacher; Elizabeth Faller as the high school physical education teacher; Ryan Waldhart as the middle school band teacher; and Jane Henricks as a middle school social studies teacher.

The board also approved a 3.8-percent salary and benefit increase for elementary Assistant Principal Lisa Gerke for the 2008-09 school year.

In addition, the board approved middle school sports to have WIAA membership.