Empowering Innovation: Educators Bring Learning to Life with Educate Fairfax Grants
- alexis10428
- Sep 25
- 5 min read
Opening Doors for All Students
For the past six years, Educate Fairfax has provided grants to Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) educators, with the goal of creating equitable access to innovative learning opportunities in alignment with the FCPS Strategic Plan. As the 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated exclusively to supporting FCPS students, schools, and educators, Educate Fairfax has awarded 255 grants totaling $409,000, directly impacting more than 80,000 students.
These grants have made it possible for teachers, counselors and other school-based personnel to dream big and give their students experiences and tools that would otherwise be out of reach.
Susan Blackwell, the STEAM Lab and Computer Science teacher at Colvin Run Elementary School, has been teaching STEAM classes for several years. In recent years, she began bringing those lessons into the self-contained autism classrooms at her school.
She said she was faced with a challenge: finding STEAM activities that met the unique needs of her students.
“If you try googling STEAM activities for students with autism, there's nothing. And it was very difficult to find things like manipulatives that I could use in the wide range of abilities that you found in the classroom,” she said.
When she did find manipulatives that she felt could work, the next problem was funding them. That’s when she discovered Educate Fairfax Grants. Each fall, educators and staff can apply for up to $2,000 to bring innovative ideas and hands-on learning to life.
Blackwell, a 15-year FCPS teacher, said she had never heard of the grants before but decided to apply. She was thrilled to learn last year that her application was funded.
She used the grant to purchase manipulatives that met the unique needs of her students, such as Duplo building blocks, animal figurines, and mini-robots.
“A large chunk of my money went to something called Bee-bots, which are actually little robots. They would be able to program the robot with the simple commands of forward, right, left or back and then hit go and the robots would go to the right place,” she said.
Programming the robots, she added, not only helped students learn coding but also taught them how to follow directions.
Blackwell wasn’t alone. Last year, 107 grants were awarded across 100 FCPS schools, totaling $180,273 and impacting 36,000 students. It was the largest grant distribution in Educate Fairfax history.
Refurbishing Laptops, Rebuilding Connections
Other grant recipients included Megan Mutscheller, a marketing and business IT teacher at Hayfield Secondary School. Every year, Megan, a Virginia Student and Refurbishment program Coordinator, receives donated computers from the Department of Defense. Along with 50 to 100 students in Information Systems, Business and IT classes, and FBLA, she leads the refurbishment of these computers so they can be donated to wounded veterans at Fort Belvoir.
Virginia STAR is a statewide initiative where students refurbish hardware from state agencies or private companies and earn IT repair certification.
“They clean them from the outside in, check the battery life and replace it if needed, take out the old hard drives, put new hard drives in and new storage and then format them and add a program called Office Libre which is a version of Microsoft they can use but without the cost,” she explained.
The grant helps cover the cost of computer batteries, hard drives, and food for an event where students present the laptops to veterans. Students also plan every detail of the event, from posters and name tags to thank-you cards and time spent with veterans.
“We have stations with a couple of kids per station and they sit with a veteran and open up the computer and help them connect to the Wi-Fi, put their name on it, add a password, show them how to personalize the computer and answer any questions that they might have while they're still there with us,” she said.
Megan has received an Educate Fairfax grant for this program for the past five years, typically donating about 100 laptops annually.
“I’ve had a great experience doing this and I don’t plan to end it any time soon,” she said.
One student reflected in a paper:“Every student was able to set up and find a responsibility that they were not only comfortable with, but able to do with diligence and comfortability. The food at the event was a big hit, not only for the veterans, but for the volunteers.”
Exploring Careers Beyond the Classroom
Annandale High School used grant funding to take students to Northern Virginia Community College’s Medical Education Campus and the Alexandria Campus. There, students explored careers in automotive technology, HVAC, and health sciences, while learning about prerequisites and application deadlines.
One student shared:“It was really impressive to see all of the tools they use to learn, and when I saw the whole school, it was my desire to go there in the future.”
Matt Garland, a music and computer technology instructor at Fairfax Academy, used his grant funds to take students on field trips to three local studios – Trilogy, SiriusXM, 38 North – and American University. The trips exposed students to real-world experiences in music production, audio engineering, and related fields.
“We are a computer lab and everything we do within the lab is structured within the software that FCPS supplies but it doesn’t necessarily give the real-world industry experience that my students will explore when they go to collegiate programs or start their careers elsewhere,” Garland said.
For many students, these trips solidified their career choices, inspiring them to see music beyond performance.
“When they get exposed to a lot of industry standard equipment and they get to hold a $3,500 microphone or see a giant mixing console it's encouraging and it's inspiring them," he said.
Meeting the Needs of Multilingual Learners
At Stone Middle School, director of student services Tami Brumett applied for a grant after seeing a flyer in her school mailbox. She used the grant money to buy headsets with microphones for the school’s 140 multilingual learners.
Students classified as multilingual learners are tested annually in reading, writing, listening, and speaking. Headsets allow them to record and replay their voices as part of language practice.
Each headset cost about $20, which exceeded the school’s budget and wasn’t feasible for families.
“Each year 140 students will use these headsets, so it wasn’t just a one year and done. We can reuse them for years,” she said.
Encouragement for Educators
All five educators expressed gratitude to Educate Fairfax for supporting innovative ideas and said they are applying again for this year’s cycle, which opened September 10.
Tami encouraged other FCPS staff to apply.
“You don’t have anything to lose. It didn’t take as long as I thought, and I was really happy with the results.”
Susan added that it’s important that all students have innovative experiences.
“This one little boy finally got the Bee Bots, and he just had this magical smile on his face, and was just like, ‘yes, I did it.’”
Continuing the Impact
Educate Fairfax works with community partners to create opportunities that help students explore, create, and achieve. The grant program is one of many ways the nonprofit strengthens schools and empowers educators to spark curiosity and open new doors for students.
The 2025 grant cycle is now open. Apply here: https://www.grantinterface.com/Home/Logon?urlkey=fcps