Use this search box to find articles that have run in our newspapers over the last several years.
Reminder Assistant Editor LONGMEADOW The Longmeadow Educational Excellence Foundation (LEEF) awarded $94,635 in grants to 22 different educational projects last week. With this round of grants, LEEF has awarded $472,000 since its inception five years ago. The grants are annually awarded to teachers for creative and innovative projects within the Longmeadow school system. "Educators today have to face greater demands than ever before," Joe Aberdale, a LEEF board member, said. "Communities expect teachers to achieve great goals without a lot of resources. The goal of LEEF is to make teachers' visions a reality." Aberdale quoted a Chinese proverb to drive his point home: "Tell me I will forget. Show me I will remember. Involve me I will understand." The grants were awarded to teachers of all subjects and of all grade levels. As the winners were announced, they were handed a rose by LEEF co-presidents Ellen McKenna and Peter Greenberg. Kayla Werlin, a music teacher at Longmeadow High School, earned a grant for "Imagine: A Celebration in Children, Community & Song." "I originally did this project two years ago," Werlin said. "All the kids in all the choirs, fifth through twelfth grade, get to perform in Symphony Hall one evening. Each class presents a different song contemporary, classical, world or a capella. With 800 students and their families involved, it's quite a big night. The response was so enthusiastic last time I decided to do it again." The title of the program is inspired by the last song of the evening, John Lennon's "Imagine." Cara Taylor, an art teacher at LHS, presented a new program this year with "The Empty Bowl Project." Her art students make ceramic bowls in class and will then host a dinner at the high school in late winter, most likely in February. A ticket to the dinner includes a bowl as well. All the money raised will go to local food banks, according to Taylor. "This also teaches students that art can exist outside of museums," she added. Janet Coyne Smith's "Up Close and Personal Digital Microscopy in the Classroom" will bring students closer to the slides they examine than ever before. The grant will purchase cameras that fit on the ocular pieces of microscopes to take photographs of the specimens and slides students look at. The image can then be transferred to a projector or a printer. "Students can make their own slides part of the curriculum," Smith Coyne said. "If we're doing a unit on pond ecology, students can take pictures of microscopic plant and animal materials and develop their own unit from them." When performing dissections, students can use the cameras to make a step by step guide of dissection procedures to make their own dissection manuals. "The possibilities are endless," she added. Other projects awarded grants include a journalism resource library, literature for middle school social studies, a Williams Middle School drama club and "LHS Library Never Sleeps: Online Access 24 Hours a Day," developed by librarian Lori Robbins. "This database will show parents what tools are available to their students at home," Robbins explained. Superintendent Jahn Hart, who is celebrating her tenth year in Longmeadow Public Schools, said she remembers the buzzing about establishing a local educational fund a decade ago. "How fortunate we are to give our educators almost $500,000 over the past five years," she said. "I think we may be the envy of other districts because of how successful we've been. This really helps the continuous improvement in Longmeadow. "I want to thank the educators for thinking about these projects and what's best for the students," Hart continued, "and the community for supporting LEEF." For more information on the program, visit www.longmeadowleef.org. | ||||||
