Our most recent efforts for fundraising has been very positive. In the past two weeks, we met with potential vendors about special pricing for our mobile labs vehicles and are encouraged that our first "AstroTruck" could possibly be financed via special grant funding by a local donor. Much thanks to Linda Bascik at the MISD Education Foundation for her unwavering support and excitement as she works to find us some "out of the box" solutions to our needs. So many people, like Linda, have been helping us get this Initiative off the ground, so we want to publically point out our heros and MVPs when they encourage us so greatly. In our efforts to raise funding for the entire project, we started the approval process to get on the upcoming bond, to be voted on at the end of the school year. We are encouraged to hear that chances are favorable to having at least the first 3 project phases (as laid out here) included as a part of the overall bond package. If this carries forward as anticipated, we could see these phases started as early as the 2017-2018 school year. This would carry us through the robotic observatory construction and StarTruck mobile lab phases, something that, when implemented, would greatly impact 33,000+ student in our district. While the public phases of the project (Phases 4 and 5) would require alternative funding sources, we are absolutely encouraged by these earlier developments. We feel that once people measure the impact of what we can do, at least in part, then funding for the whole project will come in time.
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For a moment, I want to take the time to welcome you to our website. As you can see, much of this will evolve into being a very detailed, all-encompassing information spot for the Mansfield ISD Space Center Initiative. Welcome! Please forgive our construction as this will be a fluid site full of edits, additions, and features. Our goal is simply to keep people with interest well-informed of our progress in these endeavors, which is namely to impact the way that astronomy education (and indirectly STEM education) is currently done. Please take the time to read what we post about our needs, project plans, and goals. And please visit often, as it will be important to stay up-to-date with the latest news. As we add information and features to the page, we will post to this news/blog page. Thanks and best regards... |
AuthorsJay Ballauer Archives
April 2017
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