Donors choose IHS teacher

With ever-burgeoning budget shortfalls, teachers have to stretch their imaginations to discover innovative ways of getting materials for their classes. With a class of 22 and no funds in the school’s coffers for new books, Iola High School’s math and physics teacher Scot Yarnell got creative.
He applied for funding through DonorsChoose.org, a Web site dedicated to teachers’ individual class projects and needs. The site highlights classrooms in need with rural, poverty stricken or college bound students. Contributors select the school, region or project they wish their funds to go to.
In January, Yarnell asked for money to purchase the latest edition of a physics text he uses for his college bound students. The books are the same as those used at Pittsburg State University, he said. Their price tag was $156 each.
Yarnell asked for $800, the maximum allowed for a first-time applicant to the site. The request sat for a while, but then, in May, the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation donated half the requested amount. U.S. Cellular and an anonymous donor contributed the remainder of the funds, he said.
Yarnell received his textbooks in August: five shiny new editions of Douglas C. Giancoli’s “Physics: Principles With Applications.”
He completed his supply by purchasing an older edition through Half.com, a discount Web vender. Those books cost about $9 each, plus shipping, Yarnell said. The school reimbursed him for that purchase.

YARNELL first learned of DonorsChoose from what seems an unlikely source — his cell phone company.
Turns out Cellular One, with whom Yarnell has his service, contributes $100,000 to the site every year, and is specific about what regions of the country the money goes to.
“US Cellular gets to pinpoint what areas they want,” Yarnell explained. “They go where they have everybody in their coverage area.”
The venture with DonorsChoose was Yarnell’s first time applying for a grant.
“I was shocked that I got it, and first thing off the bat, too,” he said.
He has since solicited — and received — funds for Students Against Destructive Decisions’ anti-tobacco campaign through Tobacco Free Kansas. Yarnell is the group’s sponsor.
There are requirements once a teacher receives funding from any grant, Yarnell said. Records must be kept on how the money is used. Reporting back to the grantor is a must.
DonorsChoose requires a “thank you packet” of “five to six letters written by the students,” and photographs of students using equipment purchased, he said. He is now in the final stages of completing that packet. Once approved, he’ll be eligible to apply for further grants from the site.
“The more projects you get funded, the more funding you can ask for,” Yarnell said of DonorsChoose.
One dream he has is for a physics lab. “It’s all theoretical without a lab,” he said.

THE FORMER engineer knows labs.
Yarnell graduated from PSU in 2001 with bachelors degrees in physics, chemistry and plastics engineering.
He worked for a few years in Ohio as a materials engineer before his father, Raymond Yarnell, suffered a heart attack in 2004. With his father incapacitated, Yarnell returned home to Buffalo to run the family farm. But his true interest lie in teaching.
“I thought about education when I was in my last year of my bachelors degree, but decided I needed a break from college. After one year working as an engineer, I started taking classes to become a teacher,” Yarnell said.
He began those studies at Indiana University, completed them at PSU in 2005, then went on to receive a masters in education administration from Emporia State University in 2009.
Yarnell has taught in Iola schools the past five years, two at Iola Middle School and the last three at IHS.
“Being an educator is not as easy as many believe,” Yarnell said. “While in college, I studied advanced physics and chemistry but that compares none to figuring out a teenage student.”
But, it may have helped him think out of the box to seek alternate funding. With budget cuts of over $425,000 proposed, Yarnell said, “DonorsChoose would definitely be something for teachers here to look at, especially this year.”
A new grant year begins Jan. 1, he said.