By COLE REIF
Great Bend Post
Many initiatives exist within a school district to educate and get students thinking. One of the initiatives USD 428 in Great Bend has tried to provide is career paths.
With the high school and middle school providing
courses in specific careers, Lindsay Mazouch said the grade schools are trying
to show the many career options to the children when they get older. Mazouch is
a technology coach and in charge of the library at Lincoln Elementary School.
Mazouch writes grants to obtain additional career readiness books that might
interest the students.
"We have a budget every year to order specific books," said Mazouch. "We have some we have to have for the State of Kansas. We don't have a lot of extra money to order books that the kids might be interested in. I always try to write a grant to make sure they get books they want to read."
The USD 428 Education Foundation awarded more than $23,000 in mini-grants to
teachers and school buildings in 2023, and Mazouch received a grant for E-Sports
and coding books. The books are designed to entice children to learn more about
coding and how it works in the real world and video games.
"We showcase the new books and tell the students about them," said Mazouch. "They have to get on a waiting list to read them. It's pretty cool to see them sparked through a book. A lot of times they're on a screen so we really try to reach them in a different way."
Last year, Mazouch received a grant for Dash & Dot robots where students
learn introductory robotics skills and coding through an application that tells the robots what to do.