2023-2024 Grant Awards.
Innovation Grants
Innovation Grants award up to $5,000 to support innovation and excellence across our district. Innovation Grants engage students in deeper learning, pilot new educational approaches and support educators to collaborate across disciplines, grade levels and schools. Initiatives are multi-faceted and take place over the course of the year. Funding is comprehensive and can include professional development, collaborative planning time for professional learning communities, guest speakers and outside facilitators, classroom materials, technology, and more.
Title: Elementary Ceramics Education
Educator(s): Meredith McGowan, Elementary Art Educator; Laurie Lawler, Principal; Steven Black, Director of Visual and Performing Art
School: Lincoln School, All Elementary Schools
Description: This grant will replace the kiln at Lincoln School and create collaborative opportunities for students at other Melrose elementary schools to have their ceramic work finished. In addition, curriculum connections will be made with classroom teachers at Lincoln to connect kiln projects to social studies and science coursework, exploring the role of pottery in history and the science of the materials.
Title: Decodable Chapter Books
Educator(s): Christine Rice, Janelle DeMerchant, Stephanie Shah, Special Education Teachers; Susan Jones, K-5 Instructional Coach
School(s): Lincoln School, Horace Mann School, Hoover School, Roosevelt School, Winthrop School
Description: This innovation grant will support students' social emotional needs and reading skills by providing decodable chapter books. Books they can decode give them a boost of confidence to be able to mirror what their peers are reading. Building a library of varying skills and options (single story to chapter books) supports the research found in the Science of Reading that promotes the practice of learned skills to build fluency and accuracy.
Title: Modified ELA Curriculum Materials for all K-5 Learners
Educator(s): Monica Knaak, Tami White, Katie Lang, Special Education Teachers
School(s): All Elementary Schools
Description: Educators will unify and streamline work across the district to allow for modified curriculum resources to align with the K-5 reading curriculum. Educators will increase access to the curriculum using visuals, choices, and other modifications. The finished resource will be available to general education and special education teachers across the district.
Title: Core Vocabulary and AAC District-wide Lending Library
Educator(s): Michelle Theodore, Speech and Language Pathologist, AAC District Consultant; Additional Speech and Language Pathologists and Developmental Learning Classroom Teachers
School(s): Early Childhood Center and All Elementary Schools
Description: The District-wide Core Vocabulary Initiative and AAC District Lending Library will support deeper learning for students with complex communication needs across the district, in addition to targeting all students' language skills. Using a core word vocabulary is an evidence based practice that allow communicators to express themselves using a wide variety of concepts with a very small number of words.
Title: The World Around Me: Grade 1 Social Studies Pilot
Educator(s): Melanie Wilcox, Michelle Malaguti, Ursula Boyle, Grade 1 Classroom Teachers
School(s): Winthrop School
Description: The first grade educators at the Winthrop School will pilot a comprehensive social studies tool to enhance classroom instruction. The World Around Me: Yesterday and Today series from Studies Weekly is centered around inclusive learning for all abilities. Students will benefit from the easily consumable, accessible, multimedia content that adheres tightly to the Massachusetts Curriculum Framework. Teachers will engage in professional development throughout the year as they plan, implement, and assess the impact of this approach with the potential of expanding across the district.
Title: PreK Thematic Read-A-Loud Literacy Curriculum
Educator(s): Donna Rosso, Principal; Rebecca Hendrick, Kristen Sasso, Kara Murphy, Sarah Lamapasona, Mary Crump, Lori Burns, Franklin Teachers
School(s): Franklin School
Description: Franklin School educators will collaborate to implementation a phonemic awareness program starting Fall 2023. This project will support professional development time in order to align Franklin Curriculum with the K-5 Literacy curriculum and fill in gaps in current practice.
Title: Middle School World Language Curriculum Design
Educator(s): Katia Marticorena, Director of World Languages; World Language Teachers
School(s): Melrose Middle School, Melrose High School
Description: Working with a curriculum expert, the World Language Department will collaboratively design a thematic, first-year world language curriculum to be taught across all modern languages (French, Spanish, Italian, and German) and classic languages (Latin). This new class will focus on the proficiency level of the learners and the 5 C’s central to foreign language curriculum: Communication, Cultures, Connections, Comparisons, and Communities. The grant will also provide language-specific resource materials.
Title: Re-designing Middle School Tech Engineering
Educator(s): Melissa Rice, STE Director; Tech Engineering, Digital Literacy, Computer Science Teachers
School(s): Melrose Middle School
Description: MVMMS will undertake a redesign of the Tech Engineering course offerings. This will include piloting new educational approaches, supporting educators in collaboration, and evaluating the efficacy of this work.
Title: Algebra II Stem vs Stats Course Pathway Redesign Extension
Educator(s): Marissa Puccio, Jessica Sorrentino, Anthony McElligott, Math Teachers
School(s): Melrose High School
Description: Building on a successful first year, the math department will continue their work to make Algebra 2 a successful experience for all students. With this year's grant, they will revise existing work to better support both higher needs students and high performing students, as they create more scaffolds, curriculum supports, and more in depth Pre-Calculus extension modules.
Title: Spring 2024 Department Wide/Community Musical
Educator(s): Steve Black, Director of Visual and Performing Arts; Kim Piper, Choral Director; Matt Repucci, Band Director
School(s): Melrose High School
Description: As the visual and performing arts departments work towards a Spring 2024 production featuring department wide and community collaboration, this grant will support extra development time for leaders of chorus, band, visual arts, and orchestra classes as they work to integrate these classes into this ambitious performance.
Title: Digital Arts Initiative
Educator(s): Susan Jerz, Visual Art Teacher
School(s): Melrose High School
Description: The MHS visual arts program will provide students the opportunity to further their art using mixed media and technology. By introducing both technological resources and a practicing artist who combines both traditional and digital mediums, students will expand their own art and better prepare themselves for a possible arts career in the future.
Title: MVMMS Multi-Author Visits and Writer's Workshops
Educator(s): Nora Tsoutsis, English Language Arts Director 6-12
School(s): Melrose Middle School
Description: The MVMMS ELA teachers will pilot an initiative in which students will have the opportunity to expand their reading repertoire and engage more deeply in their own writing experiences. They will pair lessons with author talks and provide students the opportunity to publish their writing.
Boost Grants
Boost grants award up to $500 for individual educators to implement a new project, elevate an existing experience, or try something new in their classroom.
Title: The Language of Art for Community
Educator(s): Elizabeth Collier, Classroom Teacher; Lynette Bruce, Art teacher
School: Horace Mann School
Description: Educators will bring the Horace Mann School community together through grade level painted canvases that are connected with a unifying theme. These will be displayed in the building going forward to reinforce the shared school community.
Title: Visual Learning in Elementary Band
Educator(s): Matthew Repucci, Band Director
School: Roosevelt School
Description: This grant will allow music students at the Roosevelt School to add visual learning to reinforce their music lessons and to increase the functionality of creative music making spaces within the school.
Title: The Science of Reading
Educator(s): MaryKate Isakson, Kindergarten Teacher
School: Roosevelt School
Description: A Roosevelt kindergarten teacher will pilot strategies related to the Science of Reading and help share learnings with the District's new Literary Task Force.
Title: Deutsche Bibliothek
Educator(s): Michelle Stepper, German Teacher
School: Melrose High School
Description: This grant provides resources for a classroom German library which will build upon what teachers have already started on their own. All students will be able to choose a book for reading and discussion, to improve language and fluency in German.
Title: Language Honor Societies
Educator(s): Denise Wagstaff, Michelle Stepper, Nicsa Dagger-Cain, Isaac Haven, Asha Weider< World Language Teachers
School: Melrose High School
Description: This grant will allow establishment of official chapters of the honor societies for our five languages at Melrose High, allowing for recognition and celebration of student efforts and achievement in world languages.
Title: Genocide Studies Pilot: Survivor Stories
Educator(s): Anne Gardiner, Lisa Lord, Social Studies Teachers
School: Melrose High School
Description: The high school ELA department will create a pilot about the Holocaust and Holocaust survivors. Support materials will be available, and they will have the opportunity to engage in deeper study and research on their own to learn more about other genocide survivors' stories.
Title: AP English Coaching Sessions
Educator(s): Nora Tsoutsis, English Language Arts Director 6-12
School: Melrose High School
Description: The ELA department will provide AP English Language and AP English Literature students an opportunity to work with a specialist in this area, with specific feedback on how to elevate writing. This will benefit both the students and staff who are part of this substantial program.
Professional Development Grants
Professional Development Grants award up to $1,000 to educators to deepen knowledge in their field, develop new skills, or explore opportunities that will enhance teaching and learning in the classroom. Grant recipients also have a commitment to share professional learning with other educators in their building or practice/content area across the district.
Title: A Deeper Dive into Behavior Disorders
Educator(s): Kim Barbagallo, Third Grade Teacher
School: Horace Mann School
Description: This PD opportunity will provide a Horace Mann teacher with a deeper understanding of Child Behavior Disorders to provide more support for those students.
Title: Orton Gillingham Practicum and Beyond
Educator(s): Jenna Lamusta, Michele Burke, Special Education Teachers
School: Winthrop School
Description: This Professional Development opportunity will help support two Winthrop Elementary Special Education teachers in their training in Orton Gillingham techniques for reading intervention, using practices supported by over eighty years of research.
Title: Written Expression: Scaffolded Strategies for Beginning Writers
Educator(s): Jessica Stone, Jennine Stevens, Maureen Quinlin Special Education Teacher
School: Horace Mann School
Description: This professional development grant explores diagnostic assessment, process writing, and specific instructional strategies for teaching basic writing skills to struggling writers, particularly students with language-based learning disabilities.