Stories in Our Community
Fulton School Receives $20K Grant for Innovative Project
Published June 2026
The Fulton School was one of six area schools chosen to receive 2026 Innovator Grants through the Innovative Technology Education Fund (ITEF). Doling out a total of $298,612 this spring, Innovative Technology Education Fund awards these competitive grants to help schools in the region implement innovative educational technology and creative solutions for K-12 students.
The six recipients were The Fulton School, KIPP St. Louis Public Schools, Nerinx Hall High School, Sister Thea Bowman Catholic School, The Biome School, and the Fort Zumwalt School District.
The Fulton School received $20,988 for their project, “Creating Parallel Timelines: Virtual and Real Life (IRL) Learning Environments.” Their plans support a student-created installation that integrates virtual reality and physical timelines with robotics and AI technology to enhance individual and class lessons. The students will design a website with a virtual reality timeline, build robots, and create 3D-printed models to transform the school’s middle/high school hallway into an interactive learning space.
“I think we all worked really well together to accomplish this,” said Peter Seddon, Fulton School 11th grader and student team member. “I can't wait to get to work on implementing in our school's environment all of the different aspects we've come up with. Personally, I'm most looking forward to purchasing the new equipment. Setting it up will be a lot of fun.”
The objective is to develop the technical infrastructure (hardware and software) to enable students to create parallel, virtual reality (VR) and real-life (IRL) timelines for individual and class projects. This project will result in a website that makes it easy for students to create VR timelines based on real-life spaces. They will also outfit a hallway for real timelines that students can use in parallel to their virtual spaces. The real spaces will be augmented with assistive robotic technology. Both spaces will have access to a local AI conditioned with time and locale-specific documents that can converse with a user.
In the VR space, students will be able to interact with the timeline using VR headsets or a web browser, by touching objects, for example, that would give information, play media, link to other websites, or transport them to other VR spaces.
The IRL timeline could be a basic map on paper, but the students intend to use magnetic whiteboards with QR codes (automatically generated by the website) that map to different viewpoints in the VR space. They will program robotics-based guides to lead to different parts of the timeline, allowing for the addition of 3D-printed and other Makerspace-manufactured items.
The software, robotics, and AI will be built in the Makerspace Lab at The Fulton School by the student team, with the oversight of Dr. Lensyl Urbano, an Upper School Math and Science teacher and Director of the school’s Makerspace Lab.
“I really think that pairing virtual environments with real, physical ones amplifies the advantages of both,” explained Dr. Urbano, “and helps negate the disadvantages. I'm also really excited to see what our students come up with as they collaborate with their teachers to create local AI systems that actually aid learning instead of getting in the way.”
Photo at top: Dr. Lensyl Urbano and the Upper School student team at The Fulton School who worked on the award-winning 2026 ITEF grant proposal, “Creating Parallel Timelines: Virtual and Real Life (IRL) Learning Environments.”
The Innovative Technology Education Fund (ITEF) is a St. Louis-based, charitable, nonprofit, private 501 (c)(3) foundation that supports innovation in education by funding advanced technology in the classrooms of public, private, parochial, and charter schools in the greater St. Louis area. In addition, ITEF provides opportunities for educators to continue to grow and learn in their field. Their work is supported through the FCC license they hold for four Educational Broadband channels in St. Louis, Missouri. For more information about ITEF, visit www.innovteched.com
TFS Alum & Olympic Gold Medalist, Joy Dunne, Returns to Campus
Published May 2026
TFS alum and Olympic Gold Medalist Joy Dunne joined us for an all-school gathering to speak about her experience at the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics as part of the USA Women’s Hockey team.
She shared stories about the opening ceremonies, playing with some of her idols (like Hilary Knight and Kendall Schofield), meeting famous folks like Snoop Dog, and Olympic perks like the cool apparel from the Team USA sponsors.
She talked about growing up in a hockey family with five older brothers and sisters. She learned to skate at age 3 (the same age she started at The Fulton School!). She said she thought she wanted to be a figure skater, but it didn’t take long to realize “God had different plans for her” and she was destined for hockey. She played for the AAA Lady Blues for 13 years, graduated from Fulton School in 2023, then headed to The Ohio State, where she is currently a forward on the Women’s Hockey team and a senior majoring in Social Work.
Joy spoke to the students a lot about gratitude. She said a motto she had while she was at the Olympics: “A bad day here is still a really good day.”
Joy is, well, a joy to be around, talk to, and know. Photo Album Here
Published February 2026
Fox 2 News cameras were on hand to capture the students, faculty, and staff gathered to celebrate one of our alumni: Joy Dunne, TFS Class of 2023. Psst... she started here in preschool. Joy is currently competing in Milan as a member of the USA Olympic Women’s Hockey team (#24) -- a team that has absolutely dominated the Olympic games. Everyone came to campus decked out in their red, white, and blue. Fox 2 News spent some time interviewing Mrs. Douglass and one of Joy's friends and former classmates, TFS senior Lily Leonard. The segement aired on the Channel 2 and Channel 11 evening news!