The Shrewsbury Education Foundation announces its grants for the 2020–2021 academic year.  Total funding for these TEN grants is $ 10,119.91.

Picture This
Kristine Cobb & Sarah Williams   (Shrewsbury High School)
 
This grant will cover the cost of several initiatives for the Traditional & Digital Photography Course:

• Visiting Artist: Ron Rosenstock for a Zoom Presentation
• Posters of students work to display in the building and note cards to be shared with faculty
• Additional new cameras

 
The Spreading Sunshine Project
Lisa Arteca & Laura Candelaria   (Oak Middle School)
 
Spreading Sunshine cards will let staff recognize students for doing a great job, improving in a class, or completing an act of kindness.  Outside funding will allow staff easy access to card that is blank inside.  This small personal connection with a student or family can make a huge difference.
 
Digitize the Walls with Rocketbook Beacons 
Melissa McCann   (Sherwood & Oak Middle Schools)
 
Rocketbook Beacons are four restickable, reusable triangles that convert the content on a writing surface into a digital image with the free Rocketbook app.  The Rocketbook Beacons and app help teachers make accessible to students and colleagues the content they routinely post on their whiteboard, easel and walls.  Whether a student is learning at school or at home, and whether a teacher is teaching from their classroom or their home-office, the written notes can be easily shared and accessed electronically long after the whiteboard has been erased and the easel paper recycled.
 
Picturing Diverse Experiences!
Hannah Hopkins & Hilary Clegg   (Sherwood Middle School)
 
This grant will allow for the purchase of diverse picture books for the Sherwood Middle School community.  Research shows that having rich literature that represents a variety of ethnicities, religious backgrounds, abilities and experiences is beneficial both for students who can see themselves in those books and for students who are being exposed to something new.  Picture books are the perfect way to provide texts that all students can access, so that they can apply concepts they are learning in class, support a variety of social emotional learning skills across content areas, demonstrate perseverance, represent a diversity of experiences, and adjust to new challenges.
 
 
Life is About Exploring Pasta-bilities
Gina Campo & Shirley LeMay   (Shrewsbury High School)

The Mediterranean Cuisine and Foods of the World classes teaches students about different cultures and cuisines, as well as opens their diverse minds and eyes to the ways of all different types of people.  This grant will allow student to learn the art of pasta and sauce making, including Italian and Asian dishes.
 
Holocaust Book Collection
Kelly Yellin   (Shrewsbury High School)
 
This grant will allow the Shrewsbury High School English Department to expand the existing book collection within the department so that students will have the ability to read and learn about a variety of different narratives that pertain to the Holocaust.  The past year there has been a steady increase in the number of antisemitic incidents across the country.  It is clear that conversations need to occur and through literature, more people will be reached.
 
 
Home Language Collection
Emily Breberg & Allison Berkley   (Shrewsbury High School)
 
Per year, SHS averages 50 ELL students from around the world.  The home languages of SHS can reach up to 38 separate languages and dialects.  36% of SPS students speak a language other than English at home.  Currently, the SHS Media Center print collection is exclusively in English.  This grant will allow the purchase of books to create a Home Language Collection in the Media Center.  Research shows that students who have access to their heritage language are better engaged and more successful in educational environments.
 
The Promise of Pickleball at Paton School
Jane Lizotte   (Paton School)
 
The grant will strength student, staff, and family engagement in fun, healthy activities that promote and celebrate teamwork, sportsmanship, community, and wellbeing.  Due to space limitations at Paton, the “cafegymatorium” serves as both the gymnasium and cafeteria.  The funding will purchase two ClassPlus Paddle Pro Pickleball Premium 4-Court Sets that can be used on the school’s expansive blacktop space before, during, and after the school day. 
 
Music in Motion: Developing Students Understanding of Melody
Jillian Falvo    (Coolidge School)
 
The grant funding will purchase Resonator Tone Bar sets for the Coolidge Music program to expose younger students to melodic concepts in the absence of singing.  Students will listen to examples of simple folk songs and will explore those songs with kinesthetic, aural, and visual exercises.  The tone bar ladder will enable students to experience familiar songs without singing them.  Through iconic notation and movement, students will see and feel the direction and the relationship the pitches have to one another.  From there, students will explore grade level appropriate melodic concepts and then improvise and create their own short melodies using the Resonator Bell and Ladder set.
 
Classkick
Heather Leger   (Shrewsbury High School)
 
The purchase of the Classkick app will allow teachers to provide students with a way to practice their interpersonal conversation skills with their classmates and teachers in real-time.  It also provides their teachers with a way to access their skills during Zoom (outside of the classroom).  The app allows teacher-student interaction to become interactive, mimicking what would usually happen in the classroom.  They can record questions, answers, dialogues, prompts, directions, etc., and students have the ability to listen and then immediately record their answers.

The application period for 2020–2021 grants are now closed.

The SEF will consider the applications and notify the grant winners when completed.

Community Advocate
November 2, 2020

[ read the story here ]