The recent award by the Northwest District of a 2022 Catalyst Grant to Hope Lutheran Classical Academy is a tremendous blessing for the school’s outreach mission in the Idaho Falls community.
Already, teachers and students are seeing the tangible benefits of improved classroom information sharing. Seven new laptops for teachers were recently purchased with these grant dollars, replacing outdated machines. These new machines provide enhanced abilities for the teachers to utilize new large screen monitors in two classrooms that Hope Lutheran Parent-Teacher Organization (PTO) partner purchased and installed this past summer. The other classrooms will also be equipped with new large screen monitors over the next couple years.
Catalyst Grant funds were used to purchase a new monitor and wall mount that allows Hope’s office staff to be aware of activities outside school entrances. Safety of students and staff cannot be over-emphasized.
Technology has a short life span that requires periodic upgrades. The Catalyst Grant has allowed the school to start bridging the technology gap and provide the teachers and staff with up-to-date equipment for classroom/online instruction and office use.
As a small classical, Christian school, Hope Lutheran does not have a dedicated IT staff. Therefore, Hope is working with an IT business partner to modify IT infrastructure and architecture to allow better outreach to the homeschooling community. This is in addition to starting a 7th grade and a hybrid learning program next school year that will include significant online learning – again, courtesy of the Catalyst Grant!
This April, the school will replace the current school IT firewall with a new one funded through the Catalyst Grant. This new firewall will provide excellent content filtering for the students while allowing teachers to reach outside walls to the homeschooling and hybrid program students. This grant funding now allows Hope Lutheran to better spread the Good News of Jesus outside the walls of the school building!
