Grant to Salt Lake school exceeds $25,000

It's the most impacted school in the state — that is, Mountain View Elementary has a lot of low-income, at-risk students.

Thirty-three different languages are spoken in the classrooms, 88 percent of the students are learning English and 94 percent are at or below poverty level.

But despite those challenges, the school is succeeding on standardized tests and meeting federal academic benchmarks. Leaders credit the efforts of amazing teachers but say nearly $65,000 from the Williams Foundation has certainly helped.

On Friday, leaders from the Williams Foundation, an organization linked with Williams Northwest Pipeline, presented more than $25,000 to the school earmarked for helping the families and students in the school community.

Last year the school received $30,000 from the foundation, and the year before that it were given $10,000.

Foundation leaders said they have a 17-year relationship in volunteering at the school.

PJ Secrist, spokeswoman for Williams, said the foundation's goal was to help the school raise academic achievement among at-risk students, provide adult role models and boost teacher morale through positive association and community support.

Mountain View principal John Erlacher said a portion of the funding will go to providing opportunities for tutoring and one-on-one reading instruction for students.

"One of the things a lot of our kids miss is reading one on one with another person," Erlacher said. "With the program they'll get an extra 30 minutes a day working with another person listening to them read."

Another portion of the money will be going to fund after-school English as a second language classes for both the students and parents. Another program will teach parents how to become more involved with their child's education while providing incentives for parental involvement.

Plus, the funding will help create an anger management program for students under fifth grade, since the district's programs only go from fifth grade up.

Erlacher said though the school has a number of students with anger issues, he would guess the issue is about the same in other schools — he just wants to get on top of it.

He said the foundation's donation has helped spur measurable improvements at the school, located at 1380 S. Navajo, such as an increased participation in after-school programs and increased achievement in reading and oral language.

Jason Olsen, Salt Lake City School District spokesman, said the donation was one of the biggest grants to an elementary school from one donor the district has seen.

Highly impacted schools are measured by factors like the numbers of students on free and reduced-price lunch, single-parent homes as well as the numbers of minorities and refugees.

The Williams Foundation supports education through the Williams' Grassroots program, which is designed to aid the academic, artistic, athletic and social interests of students in preschool and kindergarten through the 12th grade.

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E-mail: terickson@desnews.com