Christina Faulk, a McKinley High School Mathematics teacher, recently was awarded a $2,000 Learning and Leadership Grant funded by the National Education Association (NEA) Foundation. The Learning and Leadership grant program is designed to provide funds for individual public school teachers and support staff to participate in high-quality, professional development experiences.

Faulk will use her award to attend the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) Interactive Institute on High School Mathematics in Orlando in July. The Institute is designed to provide teachers with strategies for creating high school math classrooms in which students are engaged in reasoning and sense making. As an attendee, Faulk will participate in sessions designed to build stronger teacher content knowledge, student-teacher relationships, parent-teacher relationships and hands-on learning experiences. After the conference, Faulk will share her knowledge with her colleagues and document the impact of new teaching methods.

The NEA Foundation is an independent public charity created in 1969 and sustained by contributions from educators, corporate sponsors and other supporters of public education. Over the last decade, the Foundation has awarded more than $7 million in grants to educators in every state in the country.

Each year, the Foundation awards about 150 grants to public education professionals in two primary categories: Student Achievement Grants for initiatives to improve academic achievement and the Learning and Leadership Grants for high-quality professional development. Applications are accepted three times a year. The deadline for the next round of applications is June 1. For more information, visit neafoundation.org.