Van Buren County High School will upgrade its facilities after securing a $10,000 grant through the TVA School Uplift Program.
Computer Science Teacher Rachel Sparkman said the funding is an automatic award provided to schools that complete a 12-month energy efficiency and participation program. Sparkman said the initiative involves tracking utility bills and logging energy usage to identify cost-saving opportunities for the local community.
“It’s a grant that with participation they provide funds that we can use to improve our classroom and improve our school buildings, improve student experiences, and just for the participation, it’s the, it’s automatically a $10,000 grant,” Sparkman said. “We log the electric bills and usage as well as gas and water bills and usage.”
Sparkman said the high school will use the money to purchase 24 new classroom tables and chairs for a specific classroom to be selected this fall. Sparkman said the grant will also fund four charging stations for mobile devices to be placed in communal areas for student use during lunch and breaks.
“It gives us the opportunity to connect with our local power and utility companies, and gives us opportunities to make small changes that make impacts with cost savings and energy efficiency as well as the opportunity to update a new classroom or build a 3D printer lab or do various other things around our campus that we may not have disposable funds to be able to do in the moment,” Sparkman said.
Sparkman said the application process required meeting with an energy coach monthly and watching coaching videos over a one-year period. Sparkman said she also distributed free lightbulbs provided by the TVA to the community and sent quarterly reminders to staff about power conservation.
“I presented information to our middle school and our high schoolers through to encourage them to understand what TVA is and what it does for our community,” Sparkman said. “I sent out quarterly emails reminding teachers about turning things off and reminding them to, you know, turn their lights off when they leave the room or unplug their computers for the weekend.”
Sparkman said the program serves as an educational tool to help students understand the roles of the TVA and Caney Fork Electric. Sparkman said the partnership allowed her to teach students about various career paths in the energy sector, including engineering and communications.
“It helps our students and our community understand like what and make a connection with TVA as our source of power in our area as well as get a closer understanding with Caney Fork Electric, to bridge the gap of the education of what, you know, how do we get our power, why do we pay for our power, those kinds of things on top of the other things that TVA does as well,” Sparkman said. “I was able to, um, educate students with about the different other jobs, other than just our electric but like engineering and communications work and things like that, through the TVA opportunities.”
Sparkman said this is the first time in several years the school has received the grant, noting that this year featured “energy champions” at both the high school and the elementary school.
“Because ultimately our job is to educate others,” Sparkman said. “And it helped build a stronger community within our school building and the outreach that we were able to do with other partners in the community it helps strengthen those connections.”
Sparkman said the program is a team effort that can be operated independently by schools or across an entire school system.