The Tamaqua Blue Raider Foundation announced the recipients of five grants to teachers within the school district during its annual meeting Saturday night at The Restaurant at The Station.

Tamaqua Area School District teachers throughout all grades were asked to present grant requests to the foundation, explaining how the funds would be used to enhance the learning experience of their students. The district's administration helped facilitate the process.Robert A. Miller III, president of the foundation's board of directors, announced the winners of the five grants, which totaled $3,000.The grant recipients included the following.Jolene Barron, technology and computer coach for Tamaqua Area's three elementary schools, proposed the implementation of mobile technologies into the elementary curriculum. Barron plans to purchase an iPad to complement a classroom set of iPod touch devices to provide connectivity to the students' existing iPod devices, while also serving as the management tool for the entire system.Corinne Betz, library media specialist for Tamaqua's three elementary schools, proposed the purchase of new Accelerated Reader books for grades 3-5 for the Tamaqua and West Penn Elementary libraries and new picture books for the Rush Elementary library.Susan Featro, ESL (English as a Second Language) teacher, had Interplay as a Catalyst for Language Acquisition as the topic of her grant. She plans to use the award for German and ESL students to capture and enhance the correlation of verbal communication with non-verbal communication and voice inflection.Millini Skuba, language arts teacher at Tamaqua Area High School, proposed language enhancement for grades 9 and 11 and the institution of a summer reading program for grades 8-11, which will include some middle school faculty.Kimberly Snyder, art teacher at Tamaqua Area Middle School, plans to use the award to have the Class of 2017 students create a large 170 piece painted mosaic representing some of the most influential artists of the world. The completed piece will include historical facts about the artists and styles and be permanently mounted in the school's cafeteria or lobby.