The Durango Education Foundation has nominated three earlier grant awardees for the Innovation Award given for the first time last year by the Bank of Colorado.

Through the Innovation Award, the winning applicant will receive up to $2,500 to complete an earlier request for funding that was not fully met.

The winner will be announced Aug. 21 at a convocation at Miller Middle School.

The nominees, which were partially funded by the Durango Education Foundation’s 2014 campaign, are:

Julie Popp, Durango School District 9-R spokeswoman, sought money for a conference to teach eighth-grade boys skills for success in high school. The keys to success in high school are responsibility, perseverance and respect, which build strong relationships, a healthy self-image and effective self-advocacy.

Kelly Von Stroh, a teacher at Animas Valley Elementary School, had a program to teach reading to English-language learners, which required a different approach than teaching reading to native speakers. The methods were devised by the Center for Applied Linguistics. Von Stroh would train other teachers.

Destiny Schipman, Rob Javier and Mike Jordan – teachers at Escalante or Miller middle schools – started a shared-reading experience for about 300 eighth-graders. The book was the Pulitzer-Prize winning novel Enrique’s Journey.

Twenty-two grant awardees from the school district and seven from organizations that support district programs applied for the Bank of Colorado award.

The foundation nominated three. The bank’s Innovation Award last year went to the Riverview Elementary School science lab. As a result of the award, community members contributed donated money for lab equipment.

daler@durangoherald.com