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Date: 10/26/2023
LONGMEADOW — Dozens of grants from the Longmeadow Educational Excellence Foundation were presented to Longmeadow Public Schools teachers at an award ceremony on Oct. 12. There was $83,101 in LEEF grants this year alone.
“When we give teachers the space and the opportunity,” Superintendent M. Martin O’Shea said, they rise to the occasion. Teachers wrote grant applications for projects and materials that touch all disciplines, from engineering to drama. The grants will “enrich the education of Longmeadow Public Schools,” he said.
LEEF Vice President Seth Stutman said that before he was an educator, he was excited as a parent to see the innovations and projects the grants funded. With 2023 being his first year as a teacher, he said,
“Now, I get it.” Teachers spend their free time writing grant applications to “make [lessons] come alive,” he said.
Some of the teachers displayed the fruits of their grant applications. Pam Novak, who teaches eighth grade at Glenbrook Middle School, received a LEEF grant for virtual reality headsets. The equipment allows students to swim with sea turtles or climb a mountain from the comfort of their classroom.
Longmeadow High School physics and engineering teacher Aaron Keller passed around wooden creations that students designed with a computer-aided design and drafting software and made with the 3-D cutter that was purchased with a LEEF grant. The projects ranged from a lidded box to a flexible wooden cylinder made possible by the equipment’s precision.
LEEF Co-President Sara Sam-Njogu handed out the awards, which numbered in the dozens. Some teachers received multiple grants. Aside from the laser cutter and virtual reality headsets, musical instruments, robotics, flexible kindergarten seating and music in foreign language curriculum were among the projects and materials funded by the grants.