PEF, HCDE, the Benwood Foundation and the Footprint Foundation, in collaboration with CO.LAB, hosted the third annual Teacherpreneur 48Hour Launch weekend and pitch night July 31, with 16 Hamilton County public school teacher teams pitching ideas to transform public education.
“Teacherpreneur has been, for three years now, a showcase for the innovative and entrepreneurial thinking our educators bring to Hamilton County – and the community support for these teacher leaders is always tremendous. We’re grateful to our many partners, and especially the Benwood Foundation and the Footprint Foundation, for investing in this next generation of Teacherpreneurs, in their students and in our community,” said Dr. Dan Challener, president of PEF.
The Teacherpreneur Incubator was designed to provide support, time and resources for educators to incubate big ideas and execute them in the best interest of their students, their profession and the Chattanooga community.
A weekend of intense preparation culminated at The Church on Main where the sixteen teacher teams pitched for two minutes each before a panel of judges and a crowd of 250 community members, with many more watching via live stream. Teams competed for up to $10,000 each, with $75,000 in total funding available. Judges selected the top three projects, and the live and online audience selected two crowd favorites. A total of 12 projects were selected for funding. Additionally, all sixteen projects will continue to receive support throughout the year from PEF, Causeway, CO.LAB and other community partners.
“We were blown away by these teachers,” said Tia Capps, communications director at CO.LAB and one of this year’s judges. “The diversity of ideas, their passion – picking just a few ‘winners’ was next to impossible.”
The first-place winner was East Side Elementary teacher Kelsey Huynh for her "Helping Hands Ending Hunger" project. She is partnering with the Chattanooga Area Food Bank and Triumph City Schools (Triumph, GA) to reduce food waste from school meals by sending unopened refrigerated goods, like milk, home to food-insecure families, as well as working to expand the model for implementation across the district. As the top project, “Helping Hands Ending Hunger” will also receive legal support from the Chambliss Startup Group.
Developed by Tyner Academy teacher Victoria Jones, "Community Classroom Connections," a digital platform for connecting schools and community partners, was the second-place winner.
CSAS teachers Kristin Burrus and Judi Jasinksi were the third-place winners with “STEAM Hub,” a pilot space for developing real-world STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art and math) curriculum for students in grades K through 12.
The two audience choice awards went to Red Bank High teacher Stacy Hill's "Ins(pi)re Core,” a low-cost robotics kit designed to make math more engaging, and HCDE Literacy Coach Melanie Commander's "Quick Reads," an app to help literacy teachers efficiently assess reading levels and give more individualized attention to early readers.
This year’s event was once again live-streamed through EPB's City Stream. Michael Stone, PEF's Director of Innovative Learning explained, “Thanks to EPB, this year’s Teacherpreneur event reached a larger audience than ever – we had over 450 unique votes cast in support of our teams, and we’re thrilled to see our teachers recognized for taking risks, thinking big and transforming classrooms, schools and communities across Hamilton County.”
For the first time, PEF partnered with Causeway to raise funds for Teacherpreneur projects through crowdfunding, which will be matched dollar-for-dollar thanks to the generosity of Footprint Foundation.
In addition to the top three teams and two audience selections, the following seven teams were selected to receive proof-of-concept funding:
Amanda Edens, East Side Elementary (Increasing Accessibility for Success);
Bethany White, Hixson High (The Future Starts Now);
Brittany Harris and Colleen Ryan, Hardy Elementary (The Passage);
Heather Brown, Sale Creek Middle High (The Text Collective);
Henry Oston, Dalewood Middle (Science Genius);
Sarah Candler, Ooltewah Middle (Community Communications Lab: From the Classroom to the Boardroom);
Zach McCoy and David Wilson, STEM School Chattanooga (ProtoGO).
The following four teams will receive in-kind support:
Nicole Wellington, CSLA (School Without Walls);
Felicion McMillon-Diakhate, Barger Academy (Chattanooga Has Talent);
Kendall Snider and Megan Witty, Ivy Academy (Choose One/Change One);
Sherry Konwaler, Tyner Academy & Karen Mitchell and Constance Buchanan, Soddy Daisy High (School Based Enterprise).
For more information visit teacherpreneurcha.com and contact PEF’s Geoff Millener at geoff@pefchattanooga.org or 423-648-4448.