St. Louis, MO. – The Innovative Technology Education Fund (ITEF) awarded $296,047.86 in Innovator grants to five area schools. These competitive grants allow schools in our region to implement innovative educational technology for k-12 students. The 2025 Innovator Grant recipients are:
Crossroads College Preparatory School, $68,573.29
To create an Innovation Hub to foster innovation, collaboration, real-world problem solving, empowering students to explore emerging technologies and develop critical thinking skills. The Innovation Hub will serve as the headquarters for the 5th day program, design thinking courses, student enterprises including the Drone Crew 2.0—Crossroads’ video production firm and the student-run market.
Halls Ferry Intermediate, Ferguson-Florissant School District, $36,933.37
To create a STEAM Lab that houses art and library materials to collaborate and promote literacy, creativity and innovative thinking; to curate new items for classroom lessons, to teach students a design process with end-result products from approved student pitches sold in the school store, and to form an after-school STEAM club.
Normandy Middle School and Normandy High School, Normandy Schools Collaborative $55,865.20
To create two Social Emotional Learning Lounges at the middle and high school for students disproportionally impacted by trauma. The Social and Emotional Learning Lounges let students explore, understand and manage emotions through five zones; iCreate (engage in independent mindfulness activities), iMove (encourage movement through virtual reality to reduces stress and increase emotional regulation), iRelax (learn calming techniques through apps and virtual books), iFeel (interactively explore emotions, mental health and wellness) and iConnect (engage with peers and develop career readiness skills through virtual reality).
Ritenour High School, Ritenour School District, $67,000
To provide a career and college readiness website and mobile app called Connect to connect students, professionals, mentors, and alumni in all career fields to learn about careers, network, and be introduced to resources for achievement. Connect will also offer virtual and live job shadowing and events like career fairs to introduce students to industries and professional networks.
The Soulard School, $67,676
To utilize an AI powered application to guide students in applying systems thinking to key areas like social emotional learning, robotics, and real-world student led problem solving. AI and coding tools will help students see the world differently, recognize connections, learn design solutions and use knowledge gained to solve community challenges.
