Pueblo/District 70 – Colorado State University earn $1 million grant to train teachers
   
Pueblo School District No. 70 and Colorado State University - Pueblo will receive nearly $1 million from the U.S. Department of Education to improve the teaching of traditional American history. The Southeastern Colorado American History Project: Preparing Teachers as Historians and Instructors of American History will be a collaborative professional development project that brings together elementary and secondary educators from 17 rural school districts with CSU-Pueblo and a network of regional historical agencies and foundations. 
 
The grant was announced July 13 at a meeting of the Pueblo School District 70 Board by Patricia M. Chlouber of the U.S. Department of Education.
 
Over the next three years, the project will receive $999,990 to implement a comprehensive strategy to improve the quality of teaching and learning of traditional American history in area schools.
 
The grant will help fund summer history courses for area K-12 teachers, as well as resources for curriculum development, a regional History Day event for high school students, and an annual conference on teaching American History. 
 
Victoria Marquesen, CSU-Pueblo associate dean of teacher education, sees the grant an addition to the school’s mission with regard to serving the needs of Southern Colorado. 
“This is just part of our ongoing vision at CSU-Pueblo to provide access to quality professional development for K-12 educators,” Marquesen said. 
 
Teams of K-12 teachers will participate in summer institutes and immersion activities to increase content knowledge in traditional American history; engage in school-based joint efforts to develop history curricula; form professional networks for interaction among all history teachers; and help disseminate curricula that will improve student achievement, focusing on students in high-poverty schools.
 
Co-program director Jonathan Rees, CSU-Pueblo associate professor of history, sees the grant as a way to help this generation learn from the experiences of past generations.
“This grant will help teachers to help students understand the ever-changing world around them by better understanding our history,” Rees said. 
 
Content addressed in project activities will focus on important themes in American history of importance to citizens in southern and southeastern Colorado, including Wars that Changed America; America as Economic Engine of the World: Commercial and Industrial History from Colonial Mercantilism to Modern Capitalism, and History of the American West. 
For additional information, contact the directors of the Southern Colorado American History Project, Jonathan Rees, CSU-Pueblo associate professor of history, (719) 549-2541, or Ginger Andenucio, director of instruction at Pueblo School District 70, (719)542-0220.

     
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