Lottery has been very good to Cherokee County School District

The Cherokee County School District continues to receive $450,000 annually from the state's education lottery.

This amount has remained steady since the lottery started in 2002. State law requires lottery funds to supplement public education and not replace existing budget funds.

State figures show 26 percent of lottery funds go towards public school education.

Lottery prize winners receive 59.5 percent, 7 percent goes to lottery ticket retailers and operating costs are paid from the remaining 4.8 percent of every lottery dollar earned.

County schools have primarily used the money to provide science, math and reading coaches, said Dr. Linda Sellars, assistant superintendent for instruction and curriculum. These academic coaches develop strategies to improve student achievement in the classroom.

"The lottery funds have allowed us to place academic coaches in the schools," Sellars said. "We do use some lottery funding to operate afterschool programs in the early grades."

The school district has received money from other sources to provide more services to students.

The district received $272,637 in federal funds to implement a Title VI plan for technology. The funding has allowed the district to purchase complete active board systems, 21 class sets of graphing calculators, classroom performance systems (CPS) and $127,000 for Vernier probe systems to support the district's new science curriculum.

A CPS is a student assessment tool where teachers use remote control devices and an instant response system to see how well students are learning a topic. Vernier provides interfaces, sensor probes and software for data collection such as temperature for science lab activities.

"This is the first time that we have qualified for these funds. We may not have this funding next year," Sellars said. "This will allow us to increase the use of technology in our classrooms."