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Taylorsville • In her professional development courses, Cindy Bateman was encouraged not to engage in social networking with her students and their parents.
She was told it was a bad idea.
Bateman believes otherwise, and has the ultimate argument against that theory. Actually, she has 5,000 arguments against it.
Bateman, a fifth-grade teacher at Plymouth Elementary, led the school's online charge to earn a $5,000 check last month through Kleenex's Facebook campaign.
"It ended up being group thing, and really brought the school together, and the parents together," said Bateman, now in her fourth year at Plymouth. "I have an example of how social networking turned out to be a real positive experience for our school. It really worked for us."
Bateman learned of the program after looking through a "grant blast," or an email of available grants. Within seven days, Bateman — along with fellow teachers, Plymouth students and the PTA — had rallied more than 200 votes on the Kleenex Facebook page.
That total was good enough to finish in the top 100 in the country, and earned Plymouth a huge chunk of change to help fund field trips.
"It's a critical piece of maintaining and doing some additional things that support what's happening in the classroom," Plymouth Principal Tysen Fausett said of field trips.
Bateman established Plymouth's spot in the list of schools, then pounded the pavement to drum up support. She said she went to a local park where many students played football, and spoke to parents to help get the word out.
The school's 202 votes were less than half of the top school's total, but were more than enough to separate them from the pack in a tight race to the finish. Plymouth was the only Utah school among the 100 winners.
"When we first logged on, we were like number 458," Bateman said. And it just spread like wildfire. It was so competitive, that there were about 50 schools — from 50 to 100 — all with the same number of votes.
"It got so busy," she added, "that we overloaded the system."
In recent years, Plymouth students have taken local, cost-conscious field trips. The Kleenex grant, which will be divided evenly among the school's seven grade levels, will allow teachers to think bigger when it comes time to taking their 630 students off campus.
"We haven't been able to go to Hill Field and take the kids to the museum," Bateman said. "We actually haven't been able to go to a museum. I would love to do that."
Bateman said uncovering grants similar to that offered by Kleenex is critical to educating students. As school budgets continue to be spread thin, every penny helps.
That's why Bateman is diligent about scouring lists of potential grants. Her class recently signed up for Disney's Planet Challenge, a project-based learning environmental competition, which has allowed them to tend to a garden in Bateman's classroom.
In fact, Bateman said many items in her classroom have been procured via grants.
"I've been very, very lucky because I've had a lot of support through grants and funding," Bateman said. "I've got selections of books that have all come through funding this way."
Added Fausett, "It's wonderful that these opportunities come up. And what an opportunity for our kids now."
Easy money
Plymouth Elementary in Taylorsville won $5,000 through a Kleenex Facebook campaign.
The money will be split evenly among the seven grade levels (about $714 for each grade) and will be used to help fund field trips.
Teacher Cindy Bateman, who helped lead the charge to win the grant, says teachers and schools rely on grants to help stock classrooms and assist in educating students.