There’s a reason everyone remembers their favorite teacher. Outside of family, teachers can have the greatest influence on a child’s academic performance, moral character, and future success. They can make all the difference in the world. To honor Margery Barancik’s career as an educator, Charles & Margery Barancik Foundation has launched the TIME Fellowship Program (Time to Inspire Margie’s Educators). The program will support as many as 25 awards to Sarasota County educators, each totaling up to $12,000, to help pay for projects that are intellectually revitalizing and personally renewing. The goal is to help rejuvenate their own curiosity and deepen personal and professional development. Teaching is a difficult profession, and the COVID-19 pandemic has brought many pressures to bear. TIME is aimed at helping teachers recharge and remain with their life’s work. The Foundation is inviting current Sarasota County School District K-12 public school teachers, assistant principals, and principals who have at least three years’ experience working at the District to apply to the program. The projects proposed should seek to creatively expand an educator’s experiences through intellectual and physical journeys that are of a unique quality and provide opportunities for personal fulfillment that might otherwise not be available to them. The program was inspired by Lilly Endowment’s long-running Teacher Creativity Fellowship Program. Many participants have used their fellowships to travel – across the United States and throughout the world – and to tap into interests as varied as filmmaking, mountain climbing and culinary exploration to artmaking, language immersion and environmental conservation. Applicants of the program need to prove their status as a current classroom teacher, principal, or assistant principal with at least three years’ experience teaching in Sarasota County public schools. Selected applicants must affirm their intention to continue teaching in Sarasota County Schools for the next three years after project completion.

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