At WPSF we’re supporting
innovative ideas, winning classrooms and boundless futures. See the 2025-2026 grants we supported below.

2025-2026

  • Sheyda Flisher, Lisa Fennelly, Elisabeth Schaefer

    Amount Funded: $2,960.81

    This grant funds innovative, flexible seating and movement-based equipment for classrooms at The Children’s Way. These additions are designed to enhance access, engagement, and participation for all learners while supporting a Universal Design for Learning approach that proactively addresses learner variability. By offering a range of seating and movement options to all students, this initiative promotes equitable access to learning while affirming student dignity, eliminating the need for labeling or segregation. Through these improvements, classrooms will better support diverse learning needs, foster independence, and create a more responsive and inclusive educational experience for every student.

The Children’s Way

Elementary School

Grants

  • Ilana Wyner
    Loker School
    Amount Funded:  $690.00

    This grant funds the creation of a dedicated Social Emotional Learning (SEL) library at the Loker School.  The library will offer both English and Spanish language resources for teachers and students and will serve kindergarten through grade five.  In conjunction with an ongoing curriculum on social emotional teaching, these books will allow teachers to develop, share, and reinforce key SEL concepts in meaningful, familiar, and developmentally appropriate ways.

  • Nina Kazlas
    Claypit Hill School
    Amount funded: $770

    This grant funds two mobile white board tables for the K-5 special education program at Claypit Hill School.  It will allow educators an opportunity to provide students with multi sensory learning experiences in reading, encoding, and math. Using these tables as a multi-sensory approach to teaching reinforces skills and concepts and has been proven effective in student achievement and success.

  • Christopher Jorge
    Happy Hollow School
    Amount funded: $7,356.30

    This grant funds an adapted traverse climbing wall in the Happy Hollow School gymnasium.  The adaptive wall hand holds make the wall inclusive to all students, regardless of their varying physical needs.  It will add a fun, engaging, and motivating way for students to build skills and confidence while improving overall gross motor skills.

  • Colleen Flannery-Schwarz
    Happy Hollow School
    Amount funded: $6,000

    This grant funds the integration of WonderBooks into the Happy Hollow School library collection.  WonderBooks combine a high-quality print book with an integrated ready-to-play audiobook. WonderBooks can help improve literacy outcomes for early readers, multi-language learners (MLL), and students with learning differences by providing a user-friendly multisensory reading experience.

  • Jacqueline Moquin
    Claypit Hill, Loker, and Happy Hollow Schools
    Amount funded: $900

    This grant brings the Living Voices program to all three elementary schools to present “The Right to Dream,” which explores the civil rights movement through the story of a young man growing up in the segregated south.  Through dynamic solo performance and archival film, this multimedia production brings the 1960s struggle for voting rights and civil rights into sharp, human focus.  This program aligns with the new “Investigating History” social studies standards, and will help students gain insight into the struggle for civil rights for all.

  • Happy Hallow, Loker, and Claypit Hill Schools
    Joanne Carlisle, Stephanie Frye, Kate Narita, Cristina Sandza-Donovan
    Amount Funded: $3,000

    This grant funds a multi language library at all Wayland elementary schools that will provide English Learners access to high quality books in both English and their home languages. The funds will be used to curate a collection of bilingual and culturally relevant texts, which will help support literacy development, academic achievement, and cultural identity among multilingual learners. 

  • Claypit Hill School
    Raechel Belloli
    Amount funded: $2,397

    This grant funds a new software program to support students in the ILC/Milestones class at Claypit (serves students district-wide).  This program uses Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA), which is an evidence based scientific approach to understanding behavior and how it is affected by the environment. This computer program is built for autism educators to help teachers plan lessons, track progress, and create reports, allowing teachers to adapt lessons more quickly and keep data in one place. 

  • John McCoy
    Amount Funded: $3,532.80

    This grant supports the purchase of a classroom space divider, rug, and bean bag seating, to create a designated, sensory-sensitive space within the S.A.I.L.S. classroom (Specialized Academics and Individualized Learning Skills) at Wayland Middle School.  SAILS supports students with global disabilities.  Students are able to take short breaks during the day, either at designated times or when teachers recognize signs of stress, sensory overload, or difficulty with attention and regulation.  Research shows that sensory supports – such as soft seating, controlled lighting, and quiet spaces – allow students who are feeling stressed or emotionally dysregulated to practice self-regulation and coping skills so that they can return to learning with minimal disruption to themselves or others.

  • Klara Sands and Jacob Montwieler
    Amount Funded: $3,000.00

    This grant supports the build-out of three classroom libraries for Spanish Language Arts

    classes, one for each grade level. Students enrolled in the Spanish Immersion program

    study Spanish Language Arts at Wayland Middle School instead of the introductory

    languages their peers study. Funds will be used to purchase high interest readable

    Spanish novels, graphic novels, poetry books, and nonfiction texts to keep students

    engaged in the target language and enhance the language acquisition gained from

    reading. These libraries will support a literacy environment necessary for middle schoolers to achieve true biliteracy.

Middle School Grants

High School Grants

  • Jennifer McGillis, Amy O’Connell, Sarah Lee, Eric Bosco
    Amount Funded: $3,913.81

    This grant funds a new camera, new lenses, and memory cards to expand and enhance the multimedia equipment used by Wayland High School Journalism classes, WSPN, and Yearbook. By providing additional and more advanced equipment, these programs will be able to increase innovation and the quality of multimedia storytelling while also growing the availability of professional-level camera equipment to a larger number of WHS students.

  • Scott Parseghian
    Amount funded: $7,500

    This grant funds the purchase of two high-definition video cameras and ten external hard drives to support the Sports Broadcasting program. The HD cameras will be used for live broadcasts and a variety of student-led sports media projects, significantly improving video quality and production value.  This equipment will enhance hands-on learning while allowing students to produce higher quality broadcasts for the school and community.  

  • Philip George
    Amount Funded:  $1,922.51

    This grant funds the addition of two new white boards to a high school English class, which will allow for consistent and effective implementation of kinesthetic activities in grades nine and eleven English.  The instructor will be able to build core skills in thesis development, quotation integration, and literary analysis in ways that are engaging, fun, and meaningful.  The white boards offer an opportunity to pilot novel approaches to traditional skill building that serve as a pilot for possible expansion to other classrooms  in the future. 

  • Aidan O'Hara
    Amount Funded: $7,500

    This project will facilitate a once-in-a-lifetime learning opportunity for Wayland High School theater students.  The grant helps bring a professional theatrical flying effects company to the school to safely install and supervise a temporary flying system for the fall production of Mary Poppins, allowing students to experience industry-standard stagecraft firsthand.  Students will engage directly with professional flying directors through rehearsals and training, gaining hands-on learning in technical theater, physics, safety protocols, collaboration, and performance technique.  The project advances arts education while supporting social-emotional learning, as students build confidence, trust, and problem-solving skills in a high-stakes, collaborative environment.