Past Grant Recipients

2021-2022

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.

Elementary Level

PLAY FOR CHANGE

Lauren Kelly Talanian, Caitlin Golden, Jen Root, Niki Duffy

This grant fully funds a year-long partnership between the Claypit Hill School kindergarten teachers with facilitators from Play for Change. Through theatrical experiences, puppetry, music and art, children will experience lessons in racial justice and learn to become change makers.  The facilitators from Play for Change will also work with the kindergarten teachers to crate and then share anti-racist and social justice lessons. This work is directly in line with the Adoption of School Committee Anti-Racism Resolution.  

Elementary Level

KINESTHETIC LEARNING IN THE CLASSROOM

Brian Jones & Laurel Pirelli

Loker Elementary School

This grant funds the purchase of four pedal desks. The desks will provide an opportunity for students to exercise while learning in order to help students who struggle with attention.  The pedal desks will be a tool used to help make learning more accessible for students, as the kinesthetic activity can increase students' ability to be more focused and thoughtful in their learning, while at the same time students can benefit from the emotional regulation and endorphins that come with increased exercise. 

UKULELES FOR CLAYPIT HILL MUSIC CLASSES 

Joy Slesinger 

This grant provides funding for the purchase 25 Makala ukuleles, ukulele strings, and hanging rack at Claypit Hill School. 3rd grade students will learn how to use the ukulele (replaces the recorder) in their general music classes. 3rd, 4th and 5th grade students, who do not participate in the strings or band program and instead participate in the Music Workshop class, will receive ukulele instruction. Learning chords and basic melodies and gaining knowledge in how to read music will encourage lifelong music making.

HEAR HEAR! AUDIO BOOKS FOR ALL!

Colleen Flannery, Ruth Burman, Anne Powell

This grant purchases a number of eBook/ audio book titles on Sora to expand the library that is already in the elementary schools. The added titles will give the students more readily available and easy access to popular audio books to further their enjoyment of reading. This is especially important for struggling readers whose interest would have waned while waiting for a book which would otherwise not have been available.

SLANT BOARD LENDING PROGRAM

Hannah Rinehart

This grant creates a lending program for slant boards, a general education support tool that helps students with common visual skills and fine motor development difficulties. The Occupational Therapy department will use these new slant boards for all general education students and staff to test their effectiveness for students who might benefit before determining that a student should have one on a permanent basis. 

Middle School

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC GIANT CONTINENT MAPS

Katherine DeLima, Maria Alcocer, Leigh Hildalgo, Daniel Fernandez-Davila, Dylan Merry, Dalia Stewart

This grant fully funds the acquisition of the National Geographic Giants maps for the social studies and world language middle school teachers to use with their students. The maps will allow students to learn in an interactive manner and support their understanding of world geopolitics and world geography.  The size of the maps will encourage students to interact with them and experience lessons in a more engaging and dynamic manner.   In addition to the maps, the grant supported the purchase of additional materials to use during social studies and world language lessons.  

High School

ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE “A WORLD OF DIFFERENCE” PEER LEADERSHIP PROGRAM

Allyson Mizoguchi and Nicole Haghdoust

This grant provides funding for the ADL Program “A World of Difference” to be implemented at Wayland High School. The program aims to build a coalition of student leaders with faculty supports who are trained in and empowered to strengthen anti-racist and anti-bias practices from within the school community. Students selected as peer leaders will receive training and they will be mentored by adult Program advisors from within the school and also the ADL. Student leaders will then meet with groups of students to provide education and skill-building around recognizing and addressing bias, communication around differences, build understanding of differences, and promote an overall environment of inclusivity, tolerance and belonging.

WAYLAND EXPLORATION LAB FOR DESIGN (WELD) AT WAYLAND HIGH SCHOOL 

Hayes Hart-Thompson

Designed as a "school within a school", the Wayland Exploration Lab for Design (WELD) imagines a culture where students pursue projects that are meaningful to them and develop teamwork, empathy, and passion. The program will lead students through a semester long Introduction to Innovation course, an elective of their choosing, and a year long capstone class for upperclassmen to utilize their own individual skills and passions on a team focused on incubating and accelerating an idea into an actionable project or business. In line with WPSF's mission, this program will be integrated into the curriculum by using current offerings and creating one additional capstone class to pull the program together. Additionally, there is an emphasis on social emotional learning that allows students to pursue ideas of interest, practice leadership and self- reflection through Stanford d. School's Library Design focused on diversity, equity and inclusion. This project encourages experiential learning and creative endeavors by allowing students to explore the methodology of innovation across their experience at Wayland High School. This will all be based in the WELD two part space that will allow multiple teachers and students to utilize innovation tools and methodology simultaneously.   

VERNIER- HUMAN PHYSIOLOGY SENSORS

Cyd Tyska

This grant funded purchase of 9 Human Physiology Go Direct Sensors with accompanying software, vernier's Graphical Analysis Application. The sensors will enable the Twelfth Grade Anatomy & Physiology students to measure and record physiological signals like heart rate, blood pressure, respiration, muscle force and reflexes in the body in real time. The sensors record readings directly into the classroom macbooks or laptops allowing the class to analyze the data with the accompanying analysis software. The sensors will provide students each year with a more state-of-the-art platform to study human physiology, responses to stimuli and the use of laboratory equipment to gather and interpret data. This WPSF grant innovation will bring real-word experimentation opportunities to the classroom thereby enhancing both involvement and engagement of the students.

HEALTHY CULINARY SKILLS CLASS GRANT

Scott Parseghian

This grant provides funding for new equipment for the Healthy Culinary Skills Class Elective at Wayland High School. The additional appliances and cooking tools will allow students the opportunity to explore and master new techniques in healthy cooking that they can then bring home to their families. This new equipment and the life skills learned in this class will continue to benefit students during their transition to adulthood and beyond.