Southern Trinity Joint Unified School District Receives Grant From Rural Schools Collaborative

Image from the Southern Trinity Joint Unified School District

“Our principal, Andy Felt, was just awarded a grant from the Rural Schools Collaborative for his class project ‘Hiking Historic Homesteads,’” said Lyndsey Bray of the Southern Trinity Joint Unified School District. “Mr. Felt became our principal in 2020 and is working hard to change the climate of our small school district. Instead of STJUSD being a place students are forced to go to school, we are working to make it a place students are excited to attend because of different and interesting opportunities we offer.”

According to the Rural Schools Collaborative website, Felt was one of 11 “Celia B. Godsil Grants in Place Fellows” selected from 26 States.

While Felt was teaching history at Van Duzen Elementary School during the 2019-2020 school year, he said he planned out a trip for his students so they could gain a better understanding of westward expansion and the homestead era. When he discovered “Grants in Place”, he saw the potential to expand on what he had already done.

“I was like, ‘You know what? We could do this again,’ Felt said. “And kind of up the game quite a bit and turn it into a learning opportunity on multiple levels.”

Felt said he hopes he can use this opportunity to teach kids how to safely navigate the woods using compasses and maps.

“Our finished project is going to be a small book,” Felt said. ”What it will include will be photographs of the sites we visit. We hope to possibly gather photographs of these areas that have either been published and hopefully we can find ones that haven’t been.”