Educators presented with praise, grant money
By Melissa Muntz Community Reporter

Shrewsbury - The Shrewsbury Education Foundation (SEF) presented grant funding to 10 teaching teams during the group's 16th Annual Award Dinner and Dance Jan. 25.

SEF awards grants to support programming that is determined to be creative and innovative, with clear goals and objectives and a longlasting impact for students and the school system.

"The teachers in the Shrewsbury Public School System do the heroic each day, working wonders in our schools with our children," SEF member Steve Grip said. "The fund supports excellence in the schools by financing extraordinary curricula, faculty development, student services and activities, special programs, the purchase of equipment, and other unique education endeavors."

This year's winners were all chosen for their collaborative eff orts to maximize resources for students in the entire district.

Kelli McSweeny and Michelle Simler received funding for nine MP3 players as well as a subscription to Audible Books, which will benefit high school students who are struggling to read at grade level due to dyslexia.

Informational Backpacks is a current program that provides informational material on such health-related topics as death and dying, bullying, and divorce that can be sent home to help families cope with difficult situations or can be used in the classroom.

Lisa Smith and Jill Wensky have received a grant that will allow them to update and expand upon the 36 backpacks currently available to students.

Students at Oak Middle School will now have access to interest-based workshops, thanks to the work of Lisa Daly and Kristin Minio. The program aims to foster a positive culture and climate throughout the middle school by establishing stronger connections between and among peers, students and staff.

"It's fun to be a lively letter learner," a program presented by Noreen Camerato and Joanne MacLaughlin, will provide all kindergarten classrooms with materials to reinforce letters and letter sounds to improve reading skills.

Parker Road Preschool students will learn "Language through Lyrics," thanks to Arlena Boyle and Kara Vincelette. Their grant award will be used to create a music CD that helps children with speech and language concepts while promoting social skills through group interaction and enhancing audio memory skills.

Special Education students operating the Life Skills Coffee Cart at Sherwood Middle School will now be able to serve coffee because of single-serve coff ee pots provided by SEF.

Corinne Jones, Jessica Prescott and Caitlin Daley requested the pots so that students would be able to take pride in being fully independent servers, something the grant applicants said was critically important to meeting the Life Skills Program objectives.

Lori Herring, Shelly Hoey, Mary Ann Hogan and Gina Kelley were awarded the matching funds needed to provide every Floral Street School classroom with a digital camera, which they said allows teachers and students to meet proposed state standards in technology while enhancing the experience in other areas such as science and language arts.

Floral Street School has also received funding for "Position Active Inquiry," a program proposed by Kara Frankian that will allow students to perform science investigations and showcase their work.

Mette Schwartz was awarded a grant for "Science Rocks," which targets students who are struggling with science and aims to better prepare students for high-school-level science classes and increase their MCAS scores.

Lastly, Kate Cleary, Timothy Kewriga, Eric Rutan and Scott Yonker secured funding for a program at Oak Middle School that centers around the concept of transition across diff erent subject areas such as the Middle Ages, volcanoes, exponential functions, and the process of growth and decay. Students will work on a portfolio that will serve to both demonstrate their work and tie the subject areas together.

Since its inception in 1992, SEF has awarded $200,000 in grants to the Shrewsbury Public School District.