Tulsa Teacher Needs Help Winning $100,000 Grant

A Tulsa teacher is a finalist for a $100,000 grant. She has plans on how to spend it, but first she needs the votes to win it.

The kids at Eisenhower are in Spanish and French immersion classes throughout the day until they get to science, which is largely in English.

The grant would bring science into the immersion curriculum.

In the classrooms at Eisenhower International School, almost every word is either Spanish or French.

The school is purely language immersion, so, every day, 500 children learn their lessons in another language; but the immersion process stops with science.

"It's hard to get science in the target languages that fit immersion, so it really takes our teachers working together to build the curriculum," said Eisenhower International School teacher, Sandra Weller.

Weller teaches third grade and couldn't believe the science curriculum - in French - was almost 20 years old.

The projects for hands-on learning are so old that parts are missing and the information is outdated. Some of the children's parents recognize it from when they were in school.

If Weller wins the grant, the students get new science material - in Spanish and French - that meets current standards.

9/16/2015 Related Story: Tulsa Teacher's Dream Could Lead To Grant

Weller said, "And it's vertically aligned, it's aligned with Oklahoma standards. This is going to help every child in our building for the next six years."

Farmers Insurance is having an online contest to pick two winners out of five finalists - and Weller is on that list.

"I have a two in five chance, but it’s all based on votes, and the only way to win is if people vote for us," she said.

You can vote at Thank America’s Teachers, and the voting runs every day in October.

Weller said Farmers told her she's not in first place, so students and parents are taking on a social media campaign to urge people to vote for the only Oklahoma school up for the huge grant.

The winners will be announced in December.