Two teachers from the Snoqualmie Valley School District were among

the 1,000 other Washington educators chosen to participate in the Bill

& Melinda Gates Foundation’s Teacher Leadership Project (TLP).

Third-grade teacher Laurie Wesorick of Fall City Elementary

and seventh-grade teacher David Cruz of Snoqualmie Middle School will

spend their summer vacation honing their leadership skills and learning how

to effectively use technology in the classroom.

“Too often teachers have the technology but not the training to apply

it to their classroom,” said Linda Dobbs, the director of TLP. “This

program provides teachers the resources and skills to use technology as an

effective tool for improved teaching and learning.”

The TLP grant offers 11 days of training, $9,000 for classroom

hardware, which includes a printer and other equipment to bring the

classroom to a 1-to-4 computer/student ratio and a laptop computer.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will invest $45 million in

the Washington state program over the next three years and an additional

$25 million is earmarked for future national support of teacher

leadership development efforts.

For more information about the grant program, visit the

foundation’s Web site at www.gatesfoundation.org/learning/education.