MCPS Awarded Grant From Crusade For Children

The McCracken County Public Schools special education department was awarded a $13,000 grant from a Louisville telethon.

The funds from the WHAS Crusade for Children will provide sensory equipment and communications technology for students with special needs.

The Crusade's support will replicate Hendron Lone Oak's successful sensory program to better serve McCracken's growing population of high-need students.  The funds will also help launch an Augmentative and Alternative Communication Library that can be used district wide to test which AAC technology best supports each student's needs.

Over the last three years the number of high-need students at McCracken County schools has increased from about 75 in 2015 to 125 at last count, including 87 with autism.  

WHAS announced the awards following its 66th annual telethon, the oldest local telethon in America.  Since 1954 the Crusade has raised more than $190 million for organizations that serve special needs children in all 120 Kentucky counties, as well as more than 50 southern Indiana counties.

This year the Crusade awarded 218 grants totaling nearly $5.7 million.