Avery Trace Middle School is using an estimated $10,000 grant from TVA to lower energy costs and enhance the overall experience for students.
Avery Trace STEM Teacher Billie Jo Crabtree said the school forms an energy team to find ways to save energy and improve the school. Crabtree said students get to vote on ideas of how they can use the grant to improve the school. Crabtree said students voted to use the grant to build outdoor classrooms.
“We bought benches and tables and planters and everything to go in those planters, so the kids can have some outdoor classroom experience,” Crabtree said. “They can actually plant things and pick from it and harvest it when it’s ready while they are out there doing other school activities.”
Crabtree said the school also used the grant to install safety and energy-efficient window tint in bottom-floor classrooms and to make improvements to the playground. She said playground improvements were especially needed on the 7th- and 8th-grade side.
“The 5th and 6th grade have somewhat of a good playground, but the 7th and 8th-grade, a lot of the bus circle area is very unlevel and had some drainage issues, and so we got some of the equipment the swing set, for the 7th and 8th grade, and a lot of different equipment for them to play with during that time,” Crabtree said. “But the biggest part that we are still working on, we are still working with Rogers Group to kind of work on filling in that circle to get it more leveled out before we sew stuff on it and try to have a more maintainable area for them to have to play for safety and everything.”
Avery Trace Middle School Principal Lesley Herron said her favorite part of the playground improvements has been watching teachers show students how to play tetherball. Crabtree added that the new tetherball sets and swings have helped bring students closer together.
“There were kids that would have never played together, and they are standing there looking at that ball, and they start knocking it around, and so it was so funny just to see them,” Crabtree said. “My classroom is right beside that area, and you can hear them, and sometimes it sounds like bloody murder out there because they are screaming and yelling. You go out there and look, and they are just playing because the swingset is right outside my door, and so they are really enjoying the stuff that we got with the grant.”
Crabtree said other schools across the school system have also used the grants to make similar improvements. Crabtree said TVA offers the grants every year.