LEEF awards 39 grants to Longmeadow teachers

Date: 10/9/2014

LONGMEADOW – The Longmeadow Educational Excellence Foundation (LEEF) awarded 39 grants this year for a total of $97,299 to school district teachers for classroom projects ranging from 3D printing technology to literacy, foreign languages, and music programs.

About 370 grants have been awarded since LEEF was founded 13 years ago, Evan Robinson, former LEEF president said. More than $1 million has been raised since LEEF began its mission to create and maintain a fund for the benefit of district students.

Beth Renola, a resource room teacher at Blueberry Hill Elementary School, received grant funding for two projects, District Lexia Reading and Elementary Comprehension.

“Lexia provides teachers with real time data, lessons, interventions, enrichment, and activities, all with a little click,” Renola said. “Last year, we had about over 300 kids at Blueberry in the Lexia program. We had first graders working at third, fourth, and fifth grade levels. It was amazing.”

Anne Marie Salvan, an instructional technology teacher at Glenbrook Middle School, was awarded with a grant for a SMART Board and green screen studio for the school’s computer lab.

Salvan said LEEF grants awarded during the last 10 years have contributed to roughly $20,000 for technology equipment, including this year’s two grants for a combined cost of about $7,000.

“Being the technology teacher at Glenbrook, I think it’s really important to invite the students up to actually run their own tutorials for their classmates,” she explained.

Megan Schwartz, the social studies department chair at Longmeadow High School (LHS), said two grants awarded for classrooms are A Present for the Past and Race Bridges – Stories Connect Us All.

An Emmy award-winning storyteller in December will speak to juniors about the Native American perspective of history for Race Bridges, she added.

“The next grant is for our juniors as well and it is a grant to put a piece of non-fiction in the hand of every junior student, 250 students,” Schwartz explained. “So, with this grant, teachers are going to be able to pick a piece of non-fiction that goes along with their curriculum and get a class set of that, their choice.”

Schwartz said A Present for the Past would support the English language arts program and the Common Core State Standards.

Other awarded grants include launching an eBook initiative at Wolf Swamp, Center, and Blueberry Hill schools, a digital piano for Center School, and spectrophotometers at LHS.

Jen Cosgrove, member of the LEEF Board of Directors, said Band Day, a grant that brings Middle School bands together, has been funded several time during the last couple of years.

“It pulls together the middle school bands and it gives them a chance to play together where they wouldn’t otherwise be able to and also to learn from master instructors both from the professional community in Springfield and through LHS,” Cosgrove added.

A large portion of LEEF grant funding comes from its annual gala, which will take place this year at Twin Hills Country Club on Nov. 1. The gala will feature live and silent auctions, as well as food and entertainment. Gala tickets may be purchased at goleef.org.

Auction items this year include a comprehensive orthodontic treatment by Yanni Family Orthodontics, a Super Bowl To Go package from Backyard Bar and Grille, tickets to see the Boston Red Sox, jewelry, gift certificates to local spas and restaurants, and getaways to private homes in Florida and Maine.