A spartan, underused computer lab at Tualatin High School is expected to become a vital digital media arts center, thanks to a $15,000 grant from SELCO Community Credit Union.
The grant comes from the credit union’s 2025 Classroom Makeover program to help educators revitalize K-12 classroom spaces. This year’s $15,000 sums are going to the Tualatin initiative as well as others in Redmond and Eugene.
Announced Dec. 8, the Tualatin grant will create “a studio in which students design, create, and showcase digital projects that connect creativity, community and future careers,” according to a credit union news release.
The center, it says, will constitute a colorful, creative and inspiring studio that:
- Sparks student imagination and collaboration.
- Features technology upgrades supporting digital design, filmmaking and storytelling.
- Validates student voices and celebrates their creativity.
In the grant application, Anneke Schoneveld, a digital media arts teacher, said the money would transform a lab featuring bare, gray walls and harsh overhead lights and lacking any “spark of inspiration” into “a vibrant design studio where students feel secure, included and proud.”
“This makeover is about more than one room,” she wrote. “It’s about showing students that their voices matter, their creativity has value and their school community believes in their future. It’s about turning a lab of machines into a place of belonging — where every student who walks through the door feels ready to create, ready to learn, and ready to thrive.”
The credit union’s Classroom Makeover program is part of its SELCO Steps Up initiative, launched in 2024 to introduce initiatives in response to emerging community needs.
“One such need is additional financial support for educators, who often dip into their own pockets to make even modest classroom improvements,” the release said.
“Supporting educators as they reimagine the spaces where students learn and grow is central to the mission of SELCO Steps Up,” the release quotes Olivia Sorensen, community development supervisor for SELCO, as saying
The credit union hopes initial classroom successes will prompt more educators to share and sponsor their classroom ideas for reimagining or renovating school spaces.
For further details about the Classroom Makeover program, this and last year’s Makeover grant winners and SELCO Steps Up programs, visit selco.org/steps-up.
The Springfield-based credit union, which teachers founded nearly 90 years ago, has more than 150,000 members in 27 of Oregon’s 36 counties.
