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Hopkinton Education Foundation (HEF) Announces 2009 Grant Awards Totaling $42,500
May 26, 2009 — The Hopkinton Education Foundation (HEF) awarded eleven grants totaling over $42,500 to schools in the Hopkinton public school system. Since its inception in 1992, the HEF has promoted excellence in education in the Hopkinton Public Schools by funding $820,000 towards innovative programs requested by teachers, administrators, and other professional staff.
Recently awarded grants support a wide range of disciplines including social skills development, science, art, reading, literature, online research skills, and foreign languages. Kim Pucci, President of the HEF Board of Directors explained, “This year’s grants not only extend to multiple disciplines, but also impact instruction at all Hopkinton schools. The educational practices and ideas introduced with these grants are all innovative. Some bring new technology to enhance the understanding of current course material; others use traditional teaching fundamentals, such as books, in an original way.”
The EMC Grant for Science & Mathematics Award this year is funding the program “SMARTer Health Classes” submitted by Elmwood School Wellness Teacher, Christine Basile. The grant will fund a Smart Board for the Health Room at Elmwood School which will benefit all 518 Elmwood students. Smart Board technology brings learning alive as students interact with learning games, take virtual tours of body organs and systems and participate in data collection and graphing to learn about the cause and effect of healthy and unhealthy practices. Direct student involvement in Smart Board programs enables students to build body systems, to apply their learning to real life problems, and to see their collected data presented in charts and graphs. The excitement of open ended explorations of the heart, lungs, and circulatory systems impacts involvement and deepens understanding. The flexibility of the Smart Board enables teachers to create cross-curricular lessons with science and math as data is researched and analyzed.
HEF also awarded the Stephen Gray Memorial Award for the most innovative grant application to Ann Marie Dlott, Hopkinton Middle School Secondary Technology Integration Coordinator with co-applicants Cynthia Fiore, Diane Johnson, Dawn McNally, Jessica Caruso, and Maria Savell. Dlott’s grant request is entitled “Speak To Learn,” and will allow all 6th and 7th grade foreign language students to collaborate in a safe, educational online environment. Using VoiceThread (a Web 2.0 application), students will be able to create stories, upload pictures, highlight objects in a picture, and speak or write Spanish or French commentary about the pictures. They can add comments to each other’s VoiceThread and engage in online discussions. VoiceThread also provides opportunities for teachers to assess students on their language proficiency. Students and teachers can access this program from any computer, anywhere, and at anytime.
This year, for the first time, HEF awarded the Star Realty Grant. This grant, awarded to Kelly Pickens, Center School Psychologist, and co-applicant, Kristyn Traversi, Guidance Counselor, for their request entitled “Social Development Books to Coordinate with Open Circle” will benefit all Center School students by providing each Center School classroom with ten to twelve books covering the topics addressed in the Open Circle social skills development curriculum. The topics include: awareness of feelings, how to handle teasing, when to tell and when not to tell a grown up, giving compliments, including others, listening, awareness of personal space, interrupting, how to manage worries, trying when it is hard, and being a good friend.
Also of note, HEF funded an expansion of the very successful 2008 Grant “Empowering Student Writers.” The request for the expansion, submitted by Director of Humanities, Alan Keller, says in part “In our first year of using the Criterion Writing Evaluation Service, there has been great benefit to the students fortunate enough to be in the two grade levels currently using Criterion, grades 8 and 10. Criterion provides our students with timely feedback across the five domains of writing for anytime, anyplace access with the click of a button. One of the foremost benefits is that teachers can assign more writing assignments and consequently spend more time giving students specific, individualized feedback while targeting areas of instruction in student writing through online assessments. This timely feedback along with the user-friendly interface has shown an increase in student motivation for writing and teachers have also reported a reduction in grading time.” As a consequence of the success of the program, the School Department included funding for grades 8 and 10 in the annual budget and HEF will sponsor expansion of the program to grades 6, 7, and 9. Clelland Johnson, HEF Treasurer and chair of the HEF Grants Committee said, “This is exactly the type of success HEF strives to achieve -- fund an innovative pilot program, see dramatic benefit, expand the program, and then continue the program as part of the School Department budget.”
Regarding the complete package of grant awards this year, Johnson noted, “While the economy falters, and our town continues to face expense levels that rise faster than income levels, HEF wants to ensure that innovative educational programs are not squelched by the requirement to fund state mandates, contractual payroll obligations, and other ‘maintenance-type items.’ We believe that these grants will have a lasting, positive impact on the students and teachers who are their beneficiaries.”
To fund its grants, HEF hosts its signature Winter Gala and other events, such as the Annual Golf Ball Drop and Community Spelling Bee (with the HPTA). HEF also conducts fundraisers such as the Annual Community Appeal and the twice-annual Thank-A-Teacher program. In addition, HEF is supported by several local corporate sponsors: EMC Corporation, Star Realty, Phipps Insurance, The Milford National Bank, Hopkinton Wine & Spirits, Hallmark Sotheby’s International Realty, Middlesex Savings Bank, RE/MAX Executive Realty and The Richmond Group. “With their on-going and generous support,” says Pucci, “we significantly increase our ability to award innovative grants to fund educational programs for the children of Hopkinton.” To learn more about the Hopkinton Education Foundation, please visit www.HopkintonEdFoundation.org.
EDITORS – For further information: Clelland Johnson Kim Pucci clelland.johnson@earthlink.net kimpucci@comcast.net508-435-3926 508-625-1202
2009-2010 Grant Program Award Descriptions
This grant will provide each Center School classroom with ten to twelve books covering the topics addressed in the social skills curriculum, Open Circle. Themes include teasing, bullying, respecting differences, tattling, personal space, and interrupting.
This grant will fund a Smart Board for the Health Room at Elmwood School. Smart Board technology brings learning alive as students interact with learning games, take virtual tours of body organs and systems, and participate in data collection and graphing to learn about the cause and effect of healthy and unhealthy practices.
This grant will fund full-spectrum lighting for the Elmwood Art Studio. Full-spectrum lighting duplicates the characteristics of daylight in the blue north sky. Like sunlight, full-spectrum light contains the full color spectrum of the rainbow, which is a must when working with color. In addition, research shows that in schools, classrooms and other work environments where people spend time learning and working under simulated sunlight (full spectrum lighting and color), they experience less stress and anxiety, improved behavior and attitudes, improved health and attendance, and increased performance and academic achievement.
This grant will fund a pilot program using Senteo remote control response devices in conjunction with a classroom Smart Board. The Senteo system allows teachers to send and receive information from individual students (which is instantly recorded on the instructor’s computer), graph anonymous results on the Smart Board, and to assess class and individual student concept development in all curriculum areas, continually.
This grant will fund grade level-appropriate versions of books and plays of the original fables and fairy tales upon which the second and third grade reading anthology is based. Students are expected to have a working knowledge of these stories so they can compare, contrast, and recognize the humor in the modern version. But, in many cases, they have never heard the original stories.
This grant will fund an author study focusing on the life and literature of Patricia Polacco. Through books and audio tapes, students will become immersed in her stories and her autobiography. They will make discoveries about her writing style, story ideas, voice, and themes. Patricia Polacco has a diverse family history. Her father’s family is Irish, her mother’s is Russian, she is married to an Italian Jew who survived the Holocaust, and her best childhood friend was African American. These diverse relationships shaped her attitude about justice and her appreciation for cultural histories. The themes of tolerance, acceptance and an appreciation for uniqueness are found in her stories. By exploring these themes and comparing her stories to their lives, students will make connections to important ideas and traditions in their families.
This grant will fund a Smart Board and interactive Senteo devices for one Hopkins School classroom. With Smart Board technology students will be more engaged in instruction for all curriculum areas. And, with Senteo technology, teachers will be able to get immediate feedback as to students’ comprehension allowing them to revisit, reinforce, re-teach, or move on, based on the results. Also, students will not feel embarrassed to answer because their responses will only be seen by the teacher.
This grant will fund a Smart Board for the Hopkins library that will be used to teach all Hopkins students online research skills, including search engine skills, online database usage, and use of the online library catalog. The use of the Smart Board will improve student engagement. Additionally, because scheduled library classes only occupy about half the available time, the Smart Board will be available to any teacher at Hopkins to use for their classroom instruction.
This grant will fund technology to allow students to collaborate in a safe educational online environment. Using VoiceThread (a Web 2.0 application), students will be able to create stories, upload pictures, highlight objects in a picture, and speak or write Spanish or French commentary about the picture(s). They can add comments to each other’s VoiceThread and engage in online discussions. VoiceThread also provides opportunities for teachers to assess students on their language proficiency. Students and teachers can access this program from any computer, anywhere and at anytime.
Empowering Student Writers is a technology that facilitates improvement in student writers’ skills. For the 2008-2009 school year, HEF funded a grant for a pilot program in grades 8 and 10. There has been great benefit to the students fortunate enough to be in the two grade levels currently using the technology. This grant will fund expansion of the program to grades 6, 7, and 9.
This grant will fund two video cameras to be used to enhance science teachers’ Moodle sites. The Moodle sites have been an excellent vehicle for providing students with additional resources for learning, formative assessments, further reading, and more. However, one limitation has been the difficulty in finding existing on-line sites that provide videos related to the science curriculum. Videos of lessons, demonstrations, and labs are a terrific way for students to review material for an exam, see things they missed when they are out sick, reinforce concepts covered in class, and more. |
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