Gwinnett teacher needs your vote to win $100K grant

A Gwinnett County teacher needs your vote to win a $100,000 grant she believes would "be a life-changer for academically at risk students."

Sharon Smith, a teacher at Brookwood Elementary School, is one of 15 nationwide finalists vying for one of six grants from Farmers Insurance's "Dream Big Teacher Challenge." According to a news release from the city of Snellville, Smith would use the grant to "implement a tuition-free after-school program for the lowest achieving 10 percent of third-, fourth- and fifth-grade students at Brookwood and Meadowcreek elementary schools."

“This tuition-free, innovative intervention would help strengthen students' weakest math and literacy standards through explicit instruction that would be applied to the building and maintaining of a community garden and aquaponics system," Smith said in the news release. "Students would also learn about entrepreneurship as they realized jobs that needed to be filled, completed job applications and interviewed for these jobs."