SPRING 2008 AWARDS - $19,271 awarded! (Projects to be completed between 7/1/08 and 6/30/09)

08S-1 How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk (3rd year) RFKRR $900
Susan Lucey, Margaret Riddle, Patty Tesswill, Cindy Berry, Lynne Lovett, Pat Connors, Evelyn Gore
ESPs and teachers must work collaboratively and consistently with students yet they have almost no chance to do professional training together. Teachers and ESPs will gather to read a Responsive Classroom book that addresses both groups. The intended result is to provide clarity and consistency for students. The positive effects of this initiative are noticed every day.

08S-2 Peer Educator Participation for Summer Adventure and Leadership Inst. (1st yr) JFK, NHS $2,000
Keri Camarigg, Salem Derby, Gail Scordilis
Twelve to fifteen incoming 9th grade students will be identified for participation based on risk factors. The goal of the program is to provide these students with support and strategies for improving in the identified categories of risk, through their participation in The Summer Adventure and Leadership Institute. The Institute will take place over five weeks, starting in July, 2008, and be led by high school students who have completed a semester-long Peer Educators course. Programming will include kayaking, rock climbing, problem solving, trust building, mountain biking. The project will receive substantial in-kind contributions from the Smith College, and the Northampton Athletic Club.

08S-3 Building Bridges (1st year) NHS $2,000
Maureen Moore, Yajaira Fuentes, Kathy Goodwin-Boyd, Ellen Hirschberg
This project provides an academic support component to at-risk students involved in the Summer Adventure and Leadership Institute. It will be carried out through the students’ first semester at NHS via in-class supports, and after-school tutoring and activities to help bring them. Skills learned during the summer will be reinforced on a consistent basis throughout the fall to help in a successful transition to NHS.

08S-4 Serious Play! Theatre Ensemble Residency (1st year) NHS $2,000
Stephen Eldredge, Jane Madden
The Serious Play! Theatre Ensemble residency will introduce NHS theater arts students to the methodology and techniques of physical theater through a 3-day intensive. The methodology used will explore “the actor’s readiness and availability, dramatically speaking.”

08S-5 Literacy Through Photography (2nd year) NHS $2,000
Kate Way, Michael Jacobson-Hardy
This year-long project will serve up to twenty “underachieving” students, who will borrow the project’s cameras to document their lives, both in and outside of school. The focus will be on combining written and visual literacy as a means of expression, and on producing work of quality and depth which reflects the students’ lives. The final phase of the project will be to select and combine various photographs and writing from each student into a group show to be exhibited in the area. At each step along the way, students will be learning skills deeply embedded in both language and image-based literacy.

08S-6 Down the Hall, Across a Divide (3rd year) JFK $1,000
Julie Spencer-Robinson
Ms. Spencer-Robinson notes that the previous years of this grant provided one of the best experiences of her teaching career. Ten students with developmental disabilities spend time with a sixth grade reading class of regular and special education students. This project provides a weekly opportunity for the two classes to learn about each other and from each other, through reading and writing on themes including disability. In addition to classroom shared activities, the two classes have social events and a field trip to the Eric Carle Museum.

08S-7 Parent Math Nights (1st year) Leeds $1850
Michelle Subocz, Ruth Mackenzie, Kathleen LaJoie, Dar Cote-Houghton
The goal of this project is to increase mathematics achievement at Leeds School by providing information to parents so they can support their children in making sense of mathematics. Three evening sessions will be held.

08S-8 20th Century Irish Literature (1st year) NHS $2,000
John Selfridge
This project is the development of a multi-media course in Irish literature. The course would bring reading, writing, and research together to foster an understanding and appreciation of an important national literature, and will include an internet exchange between NHS and Irish high school students.

08S-9 The Bridge Street Chess Club and Tournament (2nd year) BSS $886
Johanna McKenna, Pamela Schwartz
This project will allow for the continuation of an after-school chess club and in-classroom chess teaching. It will include third through fifth graders, and will culminate in the second annual chess tournament.

08S-10 Geography Studies (1st year) BSS $635
Susan Carroll Hanno
There will be 10 after-school study sessions for all interested 4th and 5th grade students. They will use maps, atlases, study guides and websites. The project will culminate in voluntary participation in the National Geographic Bee, in January, 2009.

08S-11 Culinary Competition (1st year) SVAHS $2,000
Nelson Lacey
All interested students take part in eight weeks of after-school training in the areas of menu building and design, food cost %, plate presentations, garnishing, hands-on practice with different foods, equipment and cooking methods, and practicing working in competition-like conditions. Five students will be selected to take part in the state-wide Pro-Start culinary competition, with a chance at advancing to the national level.

08S-12 Veterans in the Classroom (2nd year) SVAHS, FLC, NHS $2,000
Robert Wilson, Kathy Brown, Chip Kaufmann, Ernie Brill
The project will bring volunteer veteran speakers, trained by the Veterans Education Project (VEP), into classrooms to give presentations that will complement the History, English, Health, Violence Prevention, and Substance Abuse Prevention curricula. Speakers will share compelling stories about important historical eras, drawn from wartime and civilian life experiences, from the 1940s to the present.

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Last Updated: June 16, 2008