Spring-Ford Educational Foundation Corporate Contributions The Spring-Ford Educational Foundation is happy to announce a win-win proposition to local Pennsylvania corporations:
Corporations can support the Foundation by pledging funds for innovative educational programs in the Spring-Ford Area School District, while also receiving a 75% to 90% credit on their corporate state taxes. The Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development recently certified the Foundation as a participating organization in the commonwealth’s Educational Improvement Tax Credit Program (EITC). This program
awards tax credits to businesses that make contributions to approved Educational Improvement Organizations. Spring-Ford Educational Foundation is now such an organization. The approved EITC programs your company would directly support through donations are:
Videoconferencing: At the 7th Grade Center, students participate in several videoconferences each year on such topics as diversity and ecology. Teachers and lecturers from around the world are brought into the classrooms to enhance the social studies and science curricula. Students from diverse communities and backgrounds come together and learn about one another, while they explore, communicate and analyze information and ideas.
RAM COUNTRY Spring-Ford Television Programming: Spring-Ford Area High School currently has a broadcast-quality TV studio at the 10-12 Grade Center. Students are enrolled in the classes to acquire the skills to produce quality television segments. In addition, studio personnel produce monthly television programming on our RAM COUNTRY television channel via a Comcast digital television channel. As part of the language arts curriculum, students are responsible for the journalism of the feature stories, from the initial idea through the final edit prior to air-time. General public interest is provided in written feedback for students to review and gain insight.
The technology curriculum allows students to grasp the hands-on experience necessary to show video highlights of important scholastic events. Students gain a general understanding of the equipment and its functionality. The development of the skills necessary to coordinate this project confirms the commitment of both students and educators and their driving force to enhance the classroom environment.
Environmental Teams (Envirothon): The students in the 7th Grade Center participate in the Montgomery County Envirothon. This competition challenges the students’ abilities to consider an environmental issue, discuss its likely ramifications and effects, develop possible solutions and present their findings. The Envirothon seeks to find students level of knowledge regarding soil/land use, forestry, aquatic ecology, wildlife and natural resources and then proceeds to raise that level of awareness through the competitions. Students also share experiences with scientists, foresters and wildlife specialists.
Artist-in-Residence Workshop: Students and art teachers gain valuable experiences by working with professional artists in a variety of media and styles as they continue to explore new avenues of creativity. The school community gains a lasting legacy from the projects that remain as permanent installations in the buildings. An Artist-in-Residence program enhances the curriculum in a number of ways. The artist works on projects with a small group of students, who gain technical and creative experiences, while also enjoying the pride they feel when a mural or sculpture is complete. The professional artist offers a new perspective and helps to broaden the understanding of different cultural art forms and styles. The expertise of the professional artist for in-service workshops gives art teachers new experiences with techniques, tools and styles that expand the current curriculum units and continue to develop students’ skills for many years beyond the initial training. Groups of talented students also benefit from working in smaller workshops with the visiting artist to build portfolios and develop new skills. Themes for artwork include collaboration with
other subject areas to reach across the curriculum for inspiration. The Artist-in-Residence program supports our current curriculum with active, hands-on art experiences with a professional. It offers career exploration for students as well. The program revitalizes the school atmosphere by bringing new ideas, new ways of thinking and new contexts for creating. It is an exciting program for Spring-Ford on many levels.
Music Enrichment: Each year Spring-Ford Area School District is involved in several outreach programs which relate to our music curriculum.
At our elementary level, we have the Pottstown Symphony visit for a day of performances for all of our 2,815 students. At the middle school level, a professional jazz group is brought in for two days to provide a day of clinics for our middle and high school jazz students. Both our students and the jazz musicians perform at our middle school jazz festival that first evening, and then provide a 90-minute evening performance open to the public on the second day. Clinic topics focus on several aspects of music theory and performance, along with providing our students a venue to receive instruction from the area’s finest professional musicians. District-wide, we work with Musicopia (formerly Strings for Schools) in providing music assembly programs for almost 7,000 students in our school district. Each music teacher and building principal is given the opportunity to select an outreach program which correlates with a topic that is pertinent to the school’s curriculum that year. These interactive performances completely engage all students and provide the motivation and confidence for students to further pursue their musical interests. We have the opportunity to bring in the string trio “Time For Three” through Musicopia for a morning of assemblies with our 8th grade student body (which is rated very highly by both students and teachers), followed by an afternoon session especially for all of the string students in our district.
Tax credits may be applied against the tax liability of a business for the tax year in which the contribution was made. For more information, visit www.newpa.com.