Foundation to Fund Grants Valued at $28,260
For Elmwood, Hopkins, Middle and High Schools

HOPKINTON, MA – May 16, 2017 – The Hopkinton Education Foundation (Ed Foundation) awarded 6 grants totaling over $28,260 to schools in the Hopkinton Public School system.  These 6 grants were chosen as their ideas best met the foundation’s criteria for innovation and positively impacting the Hopkinton Public School System. After today’s announcement, the total funds awarded to the Hopkinton Public School system are nearly $1.3 million.

 The grants awarded in this cycle support a wide range of disciplines including critical thinking skills, science, diversity & empathy, English language arts, and mathematics. “This year we funded a big variety of new curriculum tools for the teachers.  Introducing collaboration and diversity in a fun way to an early age is very exciting.   It is also great to see new ways of teaching things like math and grammar”, said Alexis Miller, Education Foundation President.

This year’s award recipients are:

  • Break Out of Traditional Learning awarded to Lauren Mack at the Elmwood School for $750 – Stephen Gray Innovation Grant -This grant funds six EDU Breakout Boxes on which second and third grade students will work collaboratively to solve a series of critical thinking clues in order to open a locked box. These activities can be tailored to reinforce or learn any aspect of content curriculum in a fun and engaging way.
  • The STEAM Powered Classroom awarded to Laura O’Malley at the Elmwood School for $10,000 – This exciting grant will enable instructors from Science from Scientists to come to 3rd grade classes and teach engaging, hands on, STEAM based lessons that tie to the new science standards while focusing on critical thinking skills and collaboration. Teachers will also receive lesson instructions for future use.
  • Celebrating Neurodiversity through Bibliotherapy awarded to Mariel Calnan at the Hopkins School for $500 – Students often ask teachers “Why do you teach them differently? Why do they get to do that?” This grant funds a collection of books on various disabilities and struggles that children may face. This library and I ts associated lesson plans, will help teachers explain the hidden differences in learners.  Teachers will incorporate these books and lessons  into morning meeting and other parts of the school day helping students learn to understand both themselves and their peers.
  • Membean awarded to Noreen Sloan at the Middle School for $5,100- This grant funds a web-based multimodal vocabulary system that uses brain-based research on learning to improve vocabulary retention and ultimately improve reading comprehension and writing. Homework is automatically differentiated and appropriate for each student.  All middle school students will use this new vocabulary program.
  • NoRedInk awarded to Noreen Sloan at the Middle School for $8,000 – This grant funds a program designed to help teachers differentiate grammar practice while keeping students engaged. Ultimately this project will increase the quality of a student’s writing across content areas by providing him with high interest content and adaptive, differentiated instruction in grammar.
  • Building a Thinking Classroom awarded to Kathy Campbell at the High School for $3,910 – DELL EMC Grant for Math and Science – This grant allows two math teachers to set up their classrooms in a collaborative way so that all students (225) can be “at the board” at once and work together on solving problems.  Teachers will use a strategy called Cuethink, an innovated application to improve critical thinking skills and math communication using 4 phases.  This will result in a truly “Thinking Classroom.

“Congratulations to all of the grant recipients for their hard work and outside of the box thinking,” said Maureen Belger, Ed Foundation Grant Committee Chairperson.  “We are proud to be a catalyst for innovation motivating our educators and students.”

About the Hopkinton Education Foundation

The Hopkinton Education Foundation provides funding, ideas and professional development to help Hopkinton educators deliver innovative educational experiences that inspire students to strive for excellence and become lifelong learners.  Since its inception in 1992, the Foundation has made 325 grants valued at nearly $1.2 million.

The Education Foundation partners with businesses, individuals, and other organizations for funding that will promote awareness of the Education Foundation’s mission, vision, goals, and successes.  It is generously supported by EMC Corporation, Phipps Insurance Agency, Middlesex Savings Bank, Hopkinton Independent, Kidsborough, Elizabeth Blake Orthodontics, Staples, and Unibank

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Media contact:

Sara Maida
Email: [email protected]
Tel: 508-439-2653