How a $500,000 donation will help Norman elementary school students learn

NORMAN – A $353.9 million bond proposal approved by Norman voters in early 2023 means each of the school district's 17 elementary schools soon will have a so-called "STEAM" classroom. But equipping those science, technology, engineering, art and math classrooms isn't cheap.

That's where the Norman Public Schools Foundation comes in. On a crystal-clear autumn Thursday morning on a playground at McKinley Elementary School , while surrounded by schoolchildren, officials from the foundation – a separate entity from the school district – announced a record gift of $500,000 toward the cost of curriculum, equipment and tools to outfit the new hands-on learning spaces.

The classrooms will be known as "Foundation Labs," both a nod to the foundation and to the goal of building a strong academic foundation for every student. To put the size of the gift in perspective, the foundation, since its inception in 1984, had given about $4.3 million total to the school district before Thursday.

"With this partnership between the school district and the foundation, we're not just building labs, we're building futures," said Alesha Leemaster, the foundation's executive director. "The Foundation Labs will ignite curiosity in our students, preparing them for the challenges of tomorrow."

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Chris Graves, the chairman of the foundation's board, said the gift "will ensure that all 17 elementary schools in Norman have a Foundation Lab that is fully stocked with materials that will prepare our future workforce by ensuring that all students have access to explore these critical areas of learning."

McKinley will be one of the first Norman schools to have a STEAM lab, with the classroom now under construction. It should be ready by the start of the 2025-26 school year, school Principal Carol Emerson said.

"It will affect every kid at our school," Emerson said. "Students will be able to be creative and be involved in those areas. It's amazing."

Thanks to the foundation's gift, Emerson said, teachers "will have to opportunity to work with these kids on a grade-level curriculum in a way that we haven't been able to before. We don't have enough money to buy all these materials, no school does. Without these, we would be talking to them about an experiment, but not really doing the experiment."

Curriculum will be key for the STEAM classrooms to meet their full potential, she said, and being able to purchase pre-prepared curriculum – instead of having to develop their own – "is magic for a teacher," Emerson said.

Norman Superintendent Nick Migliorino said the foundation's donation complements "all the great things that are happening in the classroom, so those passions can be realized. ... Buildings are important – we have to have the space – but it's what happens inside the buildings that is most important, providing opportunities and resources for our teachers is paramount, so that our kiddos have the best opportunity to achieve at their highest potential."

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Justin Milner, the district's associate superintendent and chief operating officer, has been the its point person for bond projects. A few weeks ago, he watched as one of the bond's high-profile projects, the groundbreaking for a permanent facility for the Oklahoma Aviation Academy – an aviation immersion school – took place at Max Westheimer Airport.

He spoke Thursday about the excitement surrounding that project, and then motioned to the McKinley playground, by that time full of children, and the under-construction STEAM classroom.

"This is where it starts," he said.