Passionate About Education

Beyond the Basics

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Sometimes endings are simply new opportunities. That’s what Jackie Rosswurm discovered after retirement. She started as a first generation college graduate from a small factory town in the Midwest. Forty-four successful years later, Jackie had seen every aspect of the public school system in roles from teacher to principal to acting superintendent.

But in 2013, she decided to transition into a new chapter of her life and retire.  “I do not know what the future holds, but I do know that my life’s work is not yet complete and…that my belief in the value of education will lead me to my next challenge and opportunity,” stated Jackie in her letter to the Beaufort County Board of Education announcing her retirement.

It turns out Jackie was not yet finished with her life’s work. For the past two years, she has served as Chairman of the Board for the Foundation for Educational Excellence. They are contributing money to projects for which teachers don’t have funding. The impact for students countywide has been significant. Since 2009, the foundation has given almost $125,000 in grants to teachers and students in our area.

The foundation, created in 2007, is a non-profit organization with 12 very passionate volunteers. Many board members are former teachers or current parents, who are directly aware of the need for more funding avenues for public education.

Jackie and the other board members recognize teachers have ideas they want to implement that are “outside the box.” But in public education, budgets can’t often be stretched enough to fund new, innovative ideas. Grants from the foundation allow teachers in our district to dream bigger than budgets may allow.

“The foundation opens the door for teachers to use innovative instructional ideas to improve student achievement,” said Jackie. “What better way to increase student achievement than to give kids more opportunity in school to be interested in learning?”

In 2015, grants were awarded to 59 teachers for programs including, “Reinventing Photography” at Battery Creek High School, “Language Arts Differentiated Centers” at Hilton Head Elementary and “The First LEGO League Team” at River Ridge Academy in Bluffton. “This year, we just surprised 12 teachers with balloons and big checks at eight different schools throughout Beaufort County with grants totaling over $23,500 for great projects,” stated Jackie. “That support will impact more than 4,000 students.”

 “The Foundation’s mission is to take words like ‘drop out’ and ‘bored’ out of our student’s vocabulary, We want to see students going to school each day excited about what they are going to learn and coming home excited about what they have learned.”

Supporting public education is a passion from which Jackie Rosswurm will not retire. Her firsthand knowledge of how hard teachers work and the reward of watching the spark in a student’s eye when they’ve learned something amazing, warms her heart and keeps her motivated to keep working for the future of our public schools.

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