NORTHAMPTON — The Northampton Education Foundation has approved $15,727 in grants for six projects that will be carried out at the city’s schools by the end of the academic year, including the introduction of new learning and professional development tools.
The largest grant this cycle is $5,000 to fund the creation of a learning module at all city schools called “A Mother’s Bond,” which will use storytelling to encourage educators and students to think critically about race and institutional racism.
In a statement announcing the grants, the education foundation said the school district will team up with the organization Self-Evident Education “to connect students to the history of their specific geography, connect their own lived experiences to stories from our past, and connect a sense of justice in the present and future to an understanding of the past.”
Foundation board member Megan Rubiner Zinn said the small grant program is open to “any teacher with a creative idea who can’t fund it themselves with their normal budget, or a professional development idea for themselves or their colleagues.”
Previously, the education foundation’s twice-annual small grants have supported a wide range of efforts including outdoor learning about the life and philosophy of Henry David Thoreau, boosting the Northampton High School jazz band and designing a middle school class that teaches coding for drones. Applications for the next round of grants are due in mid-April.
A $3,000 grant will support a family reading and math program at Leeds Elementary School, and $2,520 will be used for printing the fourth volume of The Viking Runestone, a book of artwork and writing by the students, faculty and staff at Smith Vocational and Agricultural High School.
JFK Middle School’s seventh grade English educators received a $3,000 grant to design lessons on the cultural and artistic movement known as Afrofuturism.
“Their goal is to make the English curriculum diverse and culturally responsive, to bring joy and engagement into the classroom while maintaining high expectations, and to promote student achievement in reading and writing,” the education foundation wrote in its statement. The unit will center on “literature circles based on various fantasy books by authors of color.”
A $1,811 grant will help fund Women’s History Month and voting rights programs at JFK Middle School, and allow for the creation of a voting rights resource section in the library. The school also will display the League of Women Voters art exhibit “She Shapes History” for students and staff.
The PACE program, for 18- to 21-year-old students with moderate to severe disabilities, received $396. The program will buy concrete mix, molds and decorations including glass beads to create student-designed stepping stones for their outdoor courtyard.
In addition to the twice-annual small grants, The Northampton Education Foundation awarded three endowment grants for the 2021-22 school year totaling $61,640. The grants include $36,640 for an outdoor education program for elementary school students through the Hitchcock Center; $20,000 for educational programming with Grow Food Northampton; and $5,000 for a resource library project serving high school students.
Brian Steele can be reached at bsteele@gazettenet.com.