2024 Education Excellence Award Winners
Each year, the SET SEG Foundation hosts the Education Excellence Awards in partnership with the Michigan Association of School Boards (MASB), granting funds to public school programs that change lives and impact students’ futures. In addition to the $2,500 grant, award recipients receive an “Education Excellence Winner” road sign and commemorative trophy to proudly display their accomplishments in the community.
And the winners are…
Detroit Public Schools
The Drew Horticulture Program serves special needs students and creates hands-on experiences that translate to adult life and career readiness. Students learn how to grow and tend fruits and vegetables, providing their crops to the school cafeteria, an in-school farm stand, food banks, and a stand at the Detroit Eastern Market. The program even offers opportunities to learn marketing and sales through selling produce to local restaurants.
Dundee Community Schools
Peer to Peer Celebrations connects autistic students with their peers, allowing them to build relationships and learn from each other. This partnership in the classroom creates an environment that celebrates equality and friendship, with students spending time together in class, at recess, and during lunch. Students, ages four-years-old to fourth grade, learn social-emotional skills, empathy, and kindness.
Ewen-Trout Creek Consolidated Schools
The Panther Den Community Caring Cart is a donation-based clothing closet serving students and the greater Ewen community since 2017. The Panther Den is filled with new and used clothing in all sizes and personal hygiene items, organized by volunteers, and displayed so that those in need can “shop” with dignity for items to fit their needs. When students and community members’ basic needs are met, their confidence and achievements in and out of the classroom continue to increase and benefit.
Glen Lake Community Schools
Essential Rotations is a series of classes middle school students take each year that promote social-emotional learning, social awareness, ethics, and self-management. Each grade level focuses on a different element of learning.
- Sixth-grade students take the Hug Your Brain course, learning about self-awareness, mental health, and how to work with their peers to collaborate and problem-solve.
- Seventh graders learn about social media, awareness, and dilemmas, focusing on developing their identity, ethical decision-making, and respecting other’s perspectives.
- Eighth-grade students take woodshop, which is a creative approach to teaching self-management through responsibility, self-discipline, and goal planning and achievement.
This series of classes helps students learn more about themselves and their mental health and allows them to develop into their best selves safely and securely.
Grand Ledge Public Schools
The annual STEAM Showcase at Beagle Middle School highlights the projects that art and STEM students complete during the school year. About 400 students create over 2,000 exhibits including everything from simple machines and interactive prototypes to multimedia art displays throughout the school. Last year, the theme was based on the hit Netflix show “Stranger Things,” and over 250 students, families, faculty, and community members attended to see the installations created by the middle school students.
Lakeshore School District
Each spring, Hollywood Elementary students and staff come together to give back to the school and community, learning social responsibility, kindness, and charity. Students participate in a variety of projects like decorating lunch sacks for Meals on Wheels, weeding garden beds at local businesses and schools, making blankets for nursing home residents, and creating baby bags for new mothers. Children develop their social-emotional skills and can apply STEAM learning to create their projects.
Oakland Schools
Farm-to-Fork is a collaboration at Oakland Schools Technical Campus between the Agriscience & Environmental Technology and Culinary Arts/Hospitality program. For five weeks, the agriscience students raise 24 chickens, entering their top 12 largest chickens into a competition. Following the competition, the students present the progression of raising chickens to their culinary arts peers, who then receive the processed chickens to use in the kitchen and teach the agriscience students to break down and prepare a meal with the chickens raised.
Rogers City Area Schools
The School Garden is an integral part of the botany class at the high school, providing hands-on learning as well as fresh produce for the school cafeteria. The program utilizes the garden as an opportunity for students to learn about plant biology, environmental science, and sustainability, reinforcing their academic concepts with real-life experiences. The plans for the program include growing the greenhouse to produce even more crops to sustain the cafeteria and expanding the variety of produce grown throughout the year.
St. Charles Community Schools
This year, the Beautification Day program celebrates 50 years of supporting the St. Charles community, with thousands of students contributing over the program’s tenure. Originally started as an Earth Day cleanup, students now go out and serve their community by completing projects like litter clean up, planting flowers and trees, and even building birdhouses and benches. Students from grades 7-12 apply STEAM concepts to their projects, combining academics with social responsibility and stewardship. This program has grown to involve generations of families and learners as the community comes together to support each other.
St. Johns Public Schools
LINKS is an inclusive education program that caters to the diverse and unique needs of all students regardless of their abilities. At St. Johns Middle School, special needs students are paired up with other students to create a support system in and outside of school. This program increases academic achievement and social-emotional development for all students involved, creating lifelong friendships and connections.