South Lake Schools receives $41,000 grant for auto program

ST. CLAIR SHORES — According to a press release, South Lake Schools received a $41,000 grant from the Margaret Dunning Foundation to purchase and install a new scissor lift for their automotive program at South Lake High School.

“This project will help our students gain valuable hands-on experience working on vehicle steering systems, including vehicle alignments,” the press release said.

John Thero, South Lake Schools curriculum director, said the grant application opened in March and was pretty straight forward. He said they had a need to replace the items in the automotive program.

“I completed the grant, collected budgetary numbers, told them about our auto program, what we were trying to do and submitted a budget for what we were requesting,” Thero said.

In late July, a representative from the foundation looked at the auto shop.

“So I took her over to our auto shop and showed her what exactly we were looking to replace,” Thero said. “At that point she said that more than likely we would be funded.”

At their September meeting, the foundation made final decisions regarding grant applications. At the time of the interview, the school district was waiting for the check to come and the timeline for the installation was still unknown.

“I’ve got the quote here. Once we get the money, we’ll put a PO out,” Thero said. “And then we’ve also got to remove the old lift that’s in there. We’re in the process of removing that lift now. I imagine it will probably take one to two months to get it installed.”

They are hoping the items in the auto shop become available for this school year.

Superintendent Ted VonHiltmayer said the lift that received grant funding is one of three in the shop.

“This one would be the one that they had used to complete wheel alignment and those types of things,” VonHiltmayer said.

Both VonHiltmayer and Thero are excited for the grant funding and the new equipment. Thero explained they purchased a new wheel balancing machine from a separate fund last year as well as a fairly new wheel alignment system they purchased a few years ago using state funds.

“We do have some large pieces of equipment that are fairly new in that program,” Thero said.

VonHiltmayer said he’s been with South Lake Schools for around 29 years and that the auto shop ran for years before that.

“It was there prior to me starting and I know that they used to have, actually, a car that they raced,” VonHiltmayer said.

Thero said the old lift did not pass inspection and the kids cannot complete wheel alignments until the new one is installed.

“They can use the other three lifts to do brakes and front-end work and oil changes and things like that, but we can’t actually do wheel alignment because that lift is not usable,” Thero said.

VonHiltmayer said that it does not have a significant impact on the curriculum.

“It’s one thing to learn about something from software or a book and it’s another thing to actually do it,” VonHiltmayer said. “They are losing out on that hands-on aspect in that one particular area. So we’re hoping to bring that back as soon as we can.”

Thero and VonHiltmayer said they really appreciate the support of the Dunning Foundation.

“They seem to have a strong focus on supporting programs, specifically auto programs,” Thero said. “But I know they support other hands-on type activities.”

“It doesn’t just benefit South Lake students,” VonHiltmayer said. “We do get students from Grosse Pointe for example. So there are students in some of the surrounding schools that are actually able to take part in our CTE program and take advantage of that.”

In other news, Thero said they’ve also recently replaced the ELA curriculum at the elementary school level, the math curriculum at the middle and high school levels and they are currently completing a pilot for high school science curriculum. They also replaced the English and social studies curriculums at the high school levels last year.

“We’re seeing the benefit of those,” Thero said. “Our test scores went up slightly going into this year.”

Thero said they’re investing in their core curriculum in all areas as well as working with teachers focusing on instructional practice.

“Because if we’re providing them with the curriculum then we want them to spending their time on (determining) how do they teach that curriculum in a really engaging way that students enjoy learning,” Thero said.

Thero said they usually replace curriculums around every six or seven years.