Current Grant Recipients

Since 1983, WPSF has funded over $4 million in staff and teacher grants. With school budgets under continual pressure, WPSF's grants are increasingly important to maintaining the tradition of excellence in Wayland classrooms.

View Past Grants here.

The Children’s Way

IMAGINATION BLOCKS

Katherine Chagnon

This grant provides funding for a set of 55 blocks made of soft, lightweight, waterproof non-toxic foam in a variety of shapes (bricks, tubes, cylinders, & connectors) and for storage bins for The Children's Way Preschool. Students will be able to create, design, collaborate, and play together while problem solving, exercising their imagination, and using math and science skills.

SUPPORTING PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS AND EARLY READING SKILLS BY INTEGRATING MULTI-SENSORY SOUND CUES

Mary Ellen Heilman

This grant provides photo cards called “Kid Lips” picture cards that show the correct placement of the tongue, teeth and lips when producing specific sounds, as well as mirrors to allow students to see their own mouths creating sounds.  This methodology allows for a consistent, multi-sensory approach to teaching foundational reading skills, specifically targeting single sound errors.

All Elementary Schools

WiLSON READING SYSTEM LEVEL 1 TRAINING FOR READING SPECIALISTS

Martha Godfroy, Christine Hayes, Miriam Morrison, Sarah Sontag, Sherry Grace

This grant funds additional training and certification in the science of reading for the elementary Reading Specialists team of five supporting all elementary schools in Wayland. It builds upon the district’s previous investment in Fundations as its core phonics program at the elementary level and will enhance the Reading Team’s ability to meet identified needs of those students identified as at risk for dyslexia in grades K-3 across the district.  The Wilson Reading System is research based, widely recognized as effective and aligns with the International Dyslexia Association’s guidelines for working with at-risk readers and students with dyslexia.

LIBRARY AND HEALTH EDUCATION COLLABORATION

Jennifer Flynn

This grant will increase access to a broad range of age and developmentally appropriate fiction and non-fiction texts that align with the elementary health education curriculum. This is a collaboration between the Elementary Health Education Specialist, Wellness Department Staff, and Elementary Librarians that will include the development and implementation of lessons that introduce students to materials in the school libraries that support the development of health literacy. 

PEER MEDIATION

Sarah Sontag

This grant funds 30 hours of training in the art of mediation for 15 teachers in the elementary and middle school levels and 1.5 days of professional development time to create an implementation plan to train students and additional staff. Peer mediation is a voluntary and confidential process in which a student trained as a neutral third party helps other students in conflict get clear about their concerns, better understand one another, and come to a mutual agreement about how they want to handle their differences.

SUPPORTING PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS AND EARLY READING SKILLS BY INTEGRATING MULTI-SENSORY SOUND CUES

Mary Ellen Heilman

This grant provides photo cards called “Kid Lips” picture cards that show the correct placement of the tongue, teeth and lips when producing specific sounds, as well as mirrors to allow students to see their own mouths creating sounds.  This methodology allows for a consistent, multi-sensory approach to teaching foundational reading skills, specifically targeting single sound errors.

Claypit Hill Elementary

ADOPTING AN ONLINE PLATFORM TO SUPPORT SOCIAL SKILLS THROUGH MULTI-TIERED INTERVENTION (EVERYDAY SPEECH)

Mary Ellen Heilman

This grant funds the pilot of an online platform, Everyday Speech, to support social-emotional and social communication teaching and interventions.  This will be used by speech-language pathologists, social workers/counselors, school psychologists, and general education kindergarten teachers at Claypit Hill, making the project both interdisciplinary and multi-tiered in nature.

Loker Elementary

BILINGUAL (SPANISH/ENGLISH) COMMUNICATION BOARD

Amanda Major, Liliana Smith, Cristina Sandza Donovan and Brian Jones

This grant funds one medium post mount, double sided Spanish/English communication board for the Loker School playground. The board is a visual representation of images and text to support students with learning and using core vocabulary in Spanish and English. This interactive tool will help enrich the vocabulary of students with communication difficulties as well as students and staff who would like to expand their Spanish vocabulary.

Happy Hollow Elementary

OGE MORA AUTHOR/ILLUSTRATOR VISIT

Meredith Hoag, Colleen Flannery

This grant provides funding for Oge Mora, an award-winning illustrator and author, to visit with students at Happy Hollow for a day. Her books focus on warm and joyful stories about people coming together. Ms. Mora will visit with each grade level and will combine story-telling and art collage. The goals are to get students excited about reading and creating, to show students a connection between visual arts and writing, and to expose students to culturally diverse representation.

Wayland Middle School

ACCELERATED INTEGRATED METHODOLOGY FOR SPANISH AND FRENCH

Danuta Bujak Czubarow

This grant funds AIM (Accelerated Integrated Methodology) which is a new, innovative approach to teaching languages. Using the context of a creative story or drama with gestures and music  the program helps students acquire language (Spanish or French) in a way that allows them to read stories and act them out resulting in more connection with the language they are learning. This non-traditional way of teaching world languages has been found to be very effective in helping students reach proficiency.

UPDATING READING AREA FOR LANGUAGE BASED CLASSROOM

Jennifer Mathieu and Matt Santmire

This grant funds the creation of a dedicated reading nook for struggling middle-school readers. By creating a designated, calming space with comfortable seating and leveled reading material in different genres, the teachers of the language based classroom at WMS will enhance the academic experience of these learners.  The goals are to enhance student self-confidence and provide a safe space to continue to explore what students love to read while continuing to grow their independent reading competencies.

ADAPTING MATH CLASSROOMS TO A BUILDING THINKING CLASSROOMS MODEL

Michael Kotin and Rebecca Poulo

Building Thinking Classrooms is a research based instructional approach to teaching math that increases students’ participation, comprehension and engagement. Standing and working vertically with non-permanent surfaces is central to this approach. This grant will significantly increase the amount of white board working space for students in middle school math classrooms. The floor to ceiling white board workspace will allow math students to work in small groups, wrestling with challenging math concepts by giving them space to capture their ideas and thinking without having to immediately erase their work. The White Boards are key to advancing the Building Thinking Classroom approach, allowing Wayland Middle School math teachers to align best teaching practices for all math learners. 

WAYLAND MIDDLE SCHOOL PLAYGROUND EQUIPMENT (GAGA BALL PIT)

Tyler Steffey

This grant funds the building of a Gaga Ball pit in the backfield area of the Middle School. This game is played inside an octagon-shaped set of walls and is a popular and familiar game among students. It is intended to increase active outdoor time for students.

PEER MEDIATION

Sarah Sontag

This grant funds 30 hours of training in the art of mediation for 15 teachers in the elementary and middle school levels and 1.5 days of professional development time to create an implementation plan to train students and additional staff. Peer mediation is a voluntary and confidential process in which a student trained as a neutral third party helps other students in conflict get clear about their concerns, better understand one another, and come to a mutual agreement about how they want to handle their differences.

Wayland High School

DEVELOPMENT OF AN ENGINEER AND DESIGN SCIENCE COURSE

Allyson Mizoguchi, Bill Bobrowsky and Hayes Hart-Thompson

This grant funds the initial steps in developing an engineering and design science course at the High School, intended for launch in the 2025-26 school year. It specifically provides for a STEM retreat among the high school science staff, as well as the salary for teachers to develop a sample curriculum over several summer work days. The goal of the course is to teach students about engineering and different engineering careers, engage students that are hands-on learners, and encourage more young people to explore modern STEM prospects.

FORENSIC ANTHROPOLOGY BONE REPRODUCTION SETS

William Bobrowsky and Janet Carmichael

This grant provides for the expansion of the curriculum offered by the WHS Science Department in its popular Forensic Science course to add a unit on forensic anthropology. With the purchase of high quality bone reproductions, displaying both gender and geographic ancestry differences, students will be able to enhance understanding of skeletal analysis and how bone expertise and study can help solve crimes.  Forensic anthropology has grown in the importance of solving missing person and violent crimes as the study has developed and the acquisition of the bone reproduction sets funded by this grant will enable WHS students to gain a better understanding of the role of forensic anthropology to solve crimes and apply those theories and skeletal analysis skills in the course’s final Practical unit - a simulated crime-solving event.

WIRELESS CAMERA SET UP FOR THE FIELD HOUSE

Scott Parseghian

This grant funds a wireless camera system for the WHS Field House. This system will allow the Wayland Sports Broadcasting Class and other users to capture video while moving freely around the entire field house, rather than from a fixed standpoint. This gives videographers the ability to capture many more angles for live broadcasting.