From trash to teaching tools

By Jean Reid Norman

Monday, March 23, 2009 | midnight

Teachers are master recyclers. They can take all kinds of trash — from tile samples to extra T-shirts — and turn it into classroom materials, Public Education Foundation Director Judi Steele said.

Marble tile samples become a math game. A plastic windshield cover with MGM Mirage on one side becomes a colorful science display on the other.

Since 2002, the Teachers Exchange, run by the nonprofit foundation, has been the clearinghouse to get those supplies to teachers. On Monday, the foundation launched a new push to increase the number of businesses contributing to the inventory and the number of teachers shopping there.

“You can get anything here, from furniture to pencils,” said Chaparral High School teacher Deborah LaPlante, who said she shops for supplies at the exchange once a month. Among the items she picks up are backpacks and notebooks for students who may not have them.

“I use it a lot,” she said.

The exchange, set up in a donated corner of the Czarnowski Exhibit Services building, 3165 W. Sunset Road off Interstate 15, displays shelves of notebooks, paper, pencils, carpet samples, T-shirts and other items available to teachers in exchange for “points.”

Teachers receive 300 points when they sign up to shop at the Teachers Exchange. When those run out, they can get 500 more for a $20 donation to the foundation, Steele said.

Paper of all sorts — most with out-of-date logos — goes for five points per pound. Pencils are one point a box. Shirts with MAGIC and Harley-Davidson designs: four points. Backpacks: 20 points.

The big stuff — computers, furniture and the like — is kept on warehouse shelving behind the storefront.

“You never know what’s going to be here,” Steele said.

Though the exchange has been around for years, many teachers don’t know about it, said Jan Jones, senior vice president of communications for Harrah’s, a longtime supporter of the foundation. So the company on Monday announced a $708,000 grant to get the word out to teachers and to businesses with stuff to get rid of.

The money is funding a public service announcement for television, fliers and improvements to the exchange’s Web site to allow teachers to place orders online, she said.

There is still plenty of reusable stuff from conventions going to waste, she said. Companies need to get the word that a donation to the Teachers Exchange can get them a tax deduction.

Robert Forbuss, senior vice chairman of the Public Education Foundation’s board of directors, said he sees the creativity teachers have in recycling items every time he visits the elementary school that bears his name.

“Teachers take stuff from here and transform their classes,” he said. “They use everything you can imagine.”

Among the items on the shelves Monday were art puzzles that came from the now-closed Guggenheim and Las Vegas Art Museum gift shops, Steele said.

Such closures are sad, but the donations are a silver lining, she said.

“We know there is a lot of stuff out there that can be transformed into learning material,” she said. “We want businesses that are downsizing to give us their equipment that they don’t need anymore.”