Staff Board of Trustees
News from Reaching Heights
For Immediate Release: December 19, 2006
The relentless search for effective strategies to meet the varied needs of our students is a school district strength that Reaching Heights is proud to support with the School Team Grant program.
This year 19 school-based teams of teachers, staff and parents in eight district schools are testing their ideas for addressing achievement challenges with $21,200 from Reaching Heights. Reaching Heights awarded six grants in July and 13 in October for the 2006-07 school year. The projects create a collage of solutions to address a multitude of achievement issues in classrooms across the district, and across grade levels and subject areas. The projects are as varied as the students they are meant to serve but reflect the district expectation for rigor, relevance and relationships.
New assessment tools to help identify learning styles among high school students, a herpetologist in residence, visits by authors and artists, email book conversations, in-depth studies of family history, special tools to master sight words, robotics, incorporating Smart Boards to teach several subjects, a photography project to inspire writing, and a goal-setting reward program are a few of the projects designed to spark student interest and effort.
The Reaching Heights Spelling Bee, donations to the Thank-A-Teacher program, and contributions from the Di Geronimo Family Foundation and Cleveland Heights and University Heights Teachers Retired pay for the grants.
This was a big year for grants to Heights High. A total of six projects are in process in four of the small schools. Boulevard and Coventry Elementary are each implementing three projects, and Bellefaire School and Wiley Middle School each received two grants. Single grants were awarded to Noble Elementary School, Roxboro Middle School and for a project involving students at the three middle schools.
Congratulations and thank you to all 26 teams that applied for grants and for those who will use these funds to test their ideas for promoting student achievement and increasing district knowledge of effective strategies.
The first deadline for grant requests for the 2007-08 school year is June 30, 2007! The next Reaching Heights Adult Community Spelling Bee is April 24, 2007.
Boulevard Elementary School
I Wear My Success on My Sleeve – $1,000
Every child at Boulevard will write specific and measurable goals for themselves in three areas: reading, math and behavior. They will receive a grant-funded special achievement t-shirt when they achieve their goals. Students who earn t-shirts will wear their shirts on Fridays. This project is designed to create an environment of goal setting, hard work, and achievement while boosting school pride. Project Manager: Jackie Kerzner.
See/Read About My World – $540
Photos are useful prompts for writing. Funds will pay for disposable cameras, film processing and notebooks for third, fourth and fifth grade special education students who will create a writing/photo memory album of their school year. Project Manager: Kathleen Gill.
Author Visit: Patricia Polacco – $1500
All Boulevard students will participate in a year long author study of Patricia Polacco and her books. As a culminating event, the author will spend a day with Boulevard students reinforcing the excitement of reading. Project manager: Bari Garfield
Coventry Elementary School
Sight Word Improvement Project –$1484
Sixty K-5 special education students in four classrooms will use Cardmaster machines to learn and reinforce sight work vocabulary. The machines are about the size of a laptop computer. Project manager: Project manager: Karen Willmitch.
We Are All Writers: Creating a Love, Purpose and Respect for Writing –$500
Cynthia Larsen, a Coventry parent and writer/educator, will be a writer-in-residence who will work with all of Coventry’s second graders over a 12 week period to help them develop a love, sense of purpose and respect for creative writing. Students will select their best work for publication in a magazine and will present their work at a Writer’s Coffeehouse. Project Manager: Tameka Bradley.
Celebrate Coventry: Dramatic Presentation of Our School’s History – $1,500
All classes at Coventry will work with Kulture Kids, an organization known throughout the area for its multicultural arts programs designed to support school curriculum. These artists-in-residence will work with students to study the history of Coventry, both the neighborhood and school, put that history into the national context of each era, and culminate the year with a performance of the student play.
Noble Elementary School
Electronic Book Club- $750
Students in grades 3-5 will be invited to participate in a book club designed to promote a love of reading and enhance writing skills. Students who select the same book to read will make up a club which over four weeks will use email to exchange thoughts about the book with a high school student or parent, and participate in several after school enrichment activities related to their book. Project manager: Paige Baublitz-Watkins.
Middle School Projects
Roxboro Middle School
Writing and Reading – A Cleveland Connection- $1,000
About 100 students on the sixth grade team will read a book by local author Shelley Pearsall and then participate in four different writer’s workshops led by the author. The workshops will focus on editing, a difficult aspect of the writing process. Project manager: Amy Bloomberg.
Monticello, Roxboro and Wiley Middle Schools
Progressive Arts Alliance Rapsody Hip Hop – $1,500
This project partners the Why Try curriculum for at risk middle school students with PAA (Progressive Arts Alliance) to bring “RHAPSODY Hip Hop Education Program” to 20 students at each middle school (60 students total). It will help prepare at-risk 8th graders for the transition to high school. Funds will provide 3 full days of programming from PAA with a goal of improving students’ academic and behavioral performance. Project Manager: Cindy Schmidt.
Wiley Middle School
Teaming with a “Smart Board” - $1500
The seventh grade team will use the Smart Board to teach multiple content areas. The project is a replication of a project funded last year for math teachers who showed success with the new technology. Project manager: Heather Penny.
American History is MY History- $900
This is a 10 week long after school program (once a week) to engage 12 reluctant learners in 8th grade American history by researching family history using on-line and library sources. Students will prepare a public presentation of their research and a video/DVD of family interviews. Project manager: Katie Anderson.
High School Projects
Heights High – Mosaic Experience
Mosaic Experience Books – $1170
110 copies of four book titles will be added to the high school library. These can be used as class sets when teachers are working on a whole class reading selection and can also be available through the school library. Project manager: Gary Swider
The MIDAS Touch – Approved up to $1,500
This team will purchase an assessment tool called the Multiple Intelligences Developmental Assessment Scales (MIDAS) and participate in training to administer and interpret the MIDAS. The data will help students understand more about how they learn and will help teachers more effectively design instruction to respond to the way their students learn. Project manager: Alfred DeGennaro.
Herpetologist With Live Specimens- $400
A local herpetologist who will bring live specimens that will motivate students in eight Nature Studies classes to learn more about amphibians and reptiles. Project manager: Fred Thaxton.
Heights High – PRIDE School
Tiger TV Productions- $1,500
Grant funds will cover half the cost of a DV Digital Mixer/Switcher to be used by the TV Production students and TV/Video Production club. With this equipment, these groups will be able to digitally produce and broadcast a school-wide television morning news show and produce edited digital media of school functions. Project Manager: Jeff Glass.
Using Technology to Improve Academic Performance of Low Achieveing Students in Math – $1,500
This team will incorporate more technology in Algebra I classes in order to reduce the 50% failure rate by at least 10%. Grant funds will pay for a Smart Board. Project Manager: Melissa Egbert.
Heights High – Legacy School
Restructuring Advisories –$800
Eight Legacy staff members are working to make the Legacy Advisories more effective. The funds will be used to provide a portfolio for each student that will include document their academic and personal achievements during the school year. Project manager; Mary Kay Lange.
Bellefaire School
Educational Supply Center – $750
Students will staff a school supply store to provide a convenient source of needed school supplies, improve social and academic school and to raise funds for student activities like
the basketball and cheerleading teams. Project manager: Danielle Roberts
Robotic Invention Program- $1,400
Students will use grant funded Lego Mindstorms sets to design, build, and program robots that they will use in competitions with other students. The robotics materials will give students a rich and motivating learning experience that will help increase their knowledge of science, math, reading and technology, and to develop problem solving and higher level thinking skills. Project manager: Judy Spainhoward.
