In line with Ector County ISD Superintendent Scott Muri’s theme of leveling up, newly minted Permian High School Head Theater Director Micaela Grenier has been awarded a grant titled Take the Drama to the Next Level.
The $3,500 grant was awarded by the Education Foundation.
“… We are working on raising the bar on everything we do on campus, improving our productions, improving our competition production; just everything we do. There’s a state festival every year called Thespians. I thought it was really important that we take our students to that and that they get that experience …,” Grenier said.
At the festival, students can take master classes with Broadway professionals, professors from universities, or other teachers and experts in the field, all of which Grenier said will help them level up.
The grant was specifically to take students to the Thespians Festival, although it won’t cover the entire cost.
She said she thinks they will take about 24 students, which is the entire varsity class.
“There’s a registration fee for each student, hotel stay and then the biggest cost is transportation, because buses are limited and gas is expensive. The grant is going to cover the students’ registration fee and their hotel cost. So that way, while we fundraise and work on sponsorships, and the students make their payments up until we go in November. … It reduces their overall cost to attend,” Grenier said.
There are two festival locations this year — one in Grapevine and one in San Antonio. PHS is going to the one in San Antonio. Dates are Nov. 12-15, she said.
Grenier noted that it has been many years since PHS has participated in the festival.
“When I called to register our troupe, the last time Permian had attended was when Odessa had a 915 area code. So it’s been a while … The cost can be prohibitive to a lot of students and it’s a lot to organize. It’s a big undertaking to try and get 24 kids to this contest and entered into their categories and all those things …,” Grenier said.
The festival is very beneficial for students as they get to be with 7,000 of their peers, she added.
“… There’s 4,000 students in this school and of those 4,000, our program right now has about 250. But not all of those kids signed up to be here. Some of them are just here to get their fine arts credit, or they got put into this class. And so for these kids to get to go and be with 7,000 theater students who are there because they love theater, they want to improve their skills, they want to meet other people who do what they do, that part alone is really important for them to experience …,” Grenier said.
Students also have a chance to take part in college and scholarship auditions, compete and potentially go to the International Festival if they qualify for it.
“All of that is an incredible opportunity for our students,” Grenier said.
Celeste Potter, director of the Education Foundation of Odessa, said over the last two or three years, the Foundation has seen a decline in the number of teachers applying for grants.
“We could actually be giving away a lot more money than what we are,” Potter said.
In August, the Education Foundation announced it had awarded $89,798.66 to Ector County ISD teachers for the 2022-2023 school year through its innovative grant program.
A news release detailed that the Grants Committee approved the funding of:
Eleven elementary classroom requests totaling $31,022.32; 10 secondary classroom requests totaling $44,285.74; and six secondary fine arts requests totaling $17,050 in partnership with Odessa Arts who contributed $5,000 to the Foundation for this special allocation. Additionally, the Grants Committee allocated $10,000 to be awarded during the 2022-2023 school year to ECISD teachers through DonorsChoose, an online platform that allows teachers to seek funding for special projects throughout the year.
Since its inception in May 2000, the Education Foundation has awarded more than $2.7 million to ECISD teachers throughout the district through its grants program, its website said.
Grenier said she would encourage other teachers to apply for grants from the foundation. The funds she received take some of the burden off her students and booster club.
“I think every teacher who wants to expand their students’ opportunities should write a grant. It takes a little bit of preparation on your part and the only thing that someone can say is not this time, but the answer might be yes. There could be hundreds or thousands of dollars into play for our students. If they don’t apply, then that money just sits there. It has to come back to our kids, and so yes, I think every teacher should write a grant,” Grenier said.
She added that it wasn’t too difficult to fill out the application.
“They offer classes for us. They send out emails, they’re like come to this grant writing workshop and we’ll walk you through it. … Some people are faster writers; some are slower writers, but I think the whole process to write the grant took me less than a day … The signatures and those kinds of things take a little bit longer. But none of it as an educator was prohibitive. I think a first-year teacher could write a grant and 25-year teacher could write a grant; no problem,” Grenier said.
A native Odessan and PHS graduate, Grenier is in her fourth year with ECISD. She started as an assistant with the program.
Grenier was in the theater program at Odessa College where she earned her associate degree. She then got her bachelor of arts degree in theater and musical theater performance from West Texas A&M University in Canyon.
“I’ve always really loved the program and I worked here (at PHS) as an assistant for two years and then had the opportunity to receive a promotion and work as a head director at a middle school and start a brand-new program at Bowie, which was great because we need feeder programs — both high schools,” Grenier said.
“Before this year, there were no feeder schools … There was one elementary school that had theater, and then the two high schools. That’s a lot of years (where) we lose the kids’ interest, or they get pulled into other things. So the opportunity to start a feeder (program) was really exciting. I went to Bowie and I loved it. I loved my students. I loved my team that I worked with. The Fine Arts team there is a dream. I hoped that maybe one day I would have the chance to come back to Permian, but I thought it would be several years down the road,” she added.
At the end of the school year, the opportunity presented itself to return to PHS.
The Associate Theater Director is Jeremy Falch.
Grenier said they currently attend Varsity UIL and are planning to participate in Junior Varsity UIL this year.
“We’re working on growing our numbers and expanding our offerings, so that way these students who maybe aren’t necessarily ready for a full UIL competition, but they want to do the extra stuff and they want to compete, they have that opportunity as well. This year, we are working on establishing our varsity and junior varsity production classes,” Grenier said.
Youth theater, especially for teenagers, is very important to Grenier because that’s what she said saved her life.
Growing up, she said she did well enough in school, but she wasn’t making great choices and didn’t have great friends.
“… I got asked to audition for a student directed performance by a senior in one of the classes I was in. It opened up a whole new world for me. I found something that I was good at, that I enjoyed, (where) I was able to make good friends. It got me on the right path to make good choices for the future. I didn’t have any plans to go to college. I didn’t really have any plans at all and finding this and falling in love with it and the people in the community that kind of surrounded me and guided me, helped me get into school and get scholarships and do all of the things that I needed to do to have a successful life instead of just existing, or going down a path that a lot of my friends at the time ended up going down, which wouldn’t have been good,” Grenier said.
Grenier is married to Caleb Willams, an orchestra teacher at Bowie.
