Vail Christian High School awards 5 faculty members with grants to pursue research, growth opportunities
Faculty projects include learning Spanish, understanding AI, connecting with teachers across the world and more
For the third year, five Vail Christian High School staff members received Faculty Innovation Grants, a program made possible by the Richard M. Schulze Family Foundation.
“Faculty and students are the school’s most important assets and to ensure we provide our students with the very best Christian education possible, we must regularly invest in our faculty,” said Steve O’Neil, Vail Christian’s Head of School.
“This grant opportunity provides our faculty with the resources to pursue highly customized professional research and growth opportunities that enable them to innovate their instructional practices and curriculum with the goal to help their students achieve at the highest levels possible.”
With support from the Richard M. Schulze Family Foundation, 14 Vail Christian High School Faculty Innovation Grants have been awarded since the program’s inception in 2022. The 2024 recipients were recently announced as listed below.
Kristin Baker, an English teacher, will be taking Spanish courses at Colorado Mountain College over 15 months.
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“To better understand my native Spanish-speaking students, I would like to put myself in the seat of a student and learn Spanish. I need to know and show interest in their language and culture to better understand how to teach them,” Baker said.
Sandra Burner, the school’s resource director and a teacher, will attend a Learning and the Brain conference in Boston titled “Teaching Students to Think, Create, Innovate, Learn, and Adapt for an Anxious, AI Age.” At the conference, neuroscientists, psychologists, researchers and educators will explore brain science, neurodiversity, what makes humans different from machines, and what skills students will need to thrive in an automated age.
Sarah Hochtl, a science teacher, will attend the Student Entrepreneurship Symposium at Cincinnati Hills Christian Academy, along with fellow teachers Stephanie Ward and Heidi Cofelice. They will learn how the school has used its teaching kitchen for successful student entrepreneurship opportunities. Specifically, Hochtl will take what she learns from the symposium to further explore the high school’s investment in a teaching kitchen.
Ashley Nock, a math and theology teacher as well as the school’s co-director of Christian life, will attend a multi-day Benedictine monastery retreat. With more exposure to ancient spiritual practices, she hopes to renew her perspective on concepts she teaches in theology, incorporate them into chapels and emphasize them during the school’s Soul Care Week.
Stephanie Ward, a Spanish and Social Studies teacher, will travel to Spain over the summer to complete the last 60 miles of the Camino Frances trail with a group of sixteen other teachers from around the world. She looks forward to integrating her love for Spanish and history with her Christian faith and bringing that all back to the school to share with her students and the community.
