A handful of teachers applied for and were awarded Carl Perkins grants, which benefit vocational programs.

Those teachers were Ron Garcia, Karen Barker, Marilyn Arnerich, Jackie Williams and Birgit Bonham. The five will use their grants to purchase technology-related equipment and supplies for their respective classes.

Williams and Bonham jointly wrote a proposal for and will share a $7,000 award. Williams, a fourth-year teacher at Prospect, oversees a class on life management for freshmen and independent living for juniors and seniors. Williams, who had also been awarded a grant two years ago, said she needed an in-focus projector and compatible laptop computer.

"I wanted it to be a self-contained unit," Williams said. The equipment, which will be purchased shortly by the district, will be used by students to make presentations.

"I'm really interested in project-based learning," said Bonham, a teacher of child development. Bonham, who's in her ninth year at Prospect, will purchase five video cameras so that her students can create a commercial or public service announcement in class. "They put a lot more work into that sort of thing," Bonham said.

Barker runs Prospect's advanced and beginning food preparation classes. The advanced courses prepare food for the school's Blue and Gold Cafe, catering food for various official school functions throughout the year. "These classes teach them cooperation, following directions," Barker said.

The home economics department, Barker said, was badly in need of a big refrigerator. "There's just never enough funds available to do that sort of thing," Barker said. Barker will use her $1,184 for the fridge and donate the old one to the school faculty room.

Engineering/drafting, photography and media production teacher Garcia has been at Prospect for 32 years. The $8,000 that Garcia received will benefit all three classes, since the funds will be used to upgrade and install computers. After that happens, the computers will allow for computer-aided design and photo and video editing. On a day-to-day basis, students will be able to improve on their current program of creating a daily video bulletin for the entire school.

Garcia's students were enthusiastic about getting flat-screen computers and faster machines. "They're always excited to get new toys to play with," Garcia said.

Arnerich, who received $2,000 for her business classes, could not be reached for comment.

Karen Wagner, principal of Boynton High School, is the Campbell Union High School District's coordinator of state and federal grants. Wagner said this year every school in the district, with the exception of Leigh, applied for Carl Perkins grants.

"We kind of decided jointly that everybody needs something," Wagner said. As a result, all schools were awarded varying amounts, though usually not what they asked for, since the district received more grant proposals than it could fund.

The district is in the process of submitting purchase orders for the items. "All money has to be spent and all merchandise received before the end of June," Wagner said. "I either use it or lose it."

"It's been a godsend for our vocational classes," Wagner said.

Garcia agreed. "With cutbacks from the state, this has become the major source of funding for the business department and the industrial technology department," Garcia said.

"It's the only thing that's been supporting home ec and farm education," Bonham added.

Now, however, this grant money is in trouble. While the U.S. House of Representatives is recommending a $20 million increase in those funds, the U.S. Senate is considering cutting the current amount. The proposal has been under discussion since January 2002 and will affect the 2003­04 fiscal year.

Vocational program educators are urging community members to contact their legislators in support of maintaining or increasing the grant funding.

"We've had a campaign the last two years to save this money," Wagner said.