Schools Foundation Awards $277,000 In Grants for 2007-08

Awards for Books, Speakers, Trout, Kayaks & More

by Jill Kirchner Simpson of the MSF; photos by Fred Levine

(March 7, 2007) Often, a teacher’s day-to-day work goes unsung, unappreciated, or unobserved except by students. On Monday evening, March 5, the Mamaroneck Schools Foundation Grant Awards Ceremony was a chance for the community to acknowledge, appreciate and celebrate the work of some of Mamaroneck’s most devoted teachers and administrators. The work being done through four current grants was showcased, and thirty-one new grants were announced and awarded to applicants for the 2007-08 school year, in a program at Mamaroneck High School’s PACE auditorium. (See: Complete List of Grants)

Mamaroneck High School student Elisha Noon demonstrated the rich sound of the new Schimmel piano for the PACE performing arts auditorium purchased with an MSF grant.

The venue was chosen to show off one of this year’s grants, a high- quality Schimmel upright piano, purchased for the PACE performing arts curriculum. Mamaroneck High School student Elisha Noon demonstrated the piano’s tone in a performance of Chopin. Attendees were treated to a mini-concert, with two other musical performances. Strings teacher Amy Rosen and her afterschool fiddling group, The Fired-Up Fiddlers, played lively pieces they’ve learned just five weeks into their grant, designed to teach fifth, sixth and seventh graders a new, more informal approach to playing string instruments. And a string quartet from the high school, with students Edward Rosen-Wallberg, Yuni Sameshima, Jonathan Williams, and Will Carlyon, performed Beethoven’s String Quartet in F Major, Opus18 by way of demonstrating what they have learned in a partnership with the New York Philharmonic, orchestrated by music teacher Alex Romanov through another grant funded this year.

An MSF grant to String teacher Amy Rosen is supporting the Fired-Up Fiddlers.

Teacher Michelle Burton brought to life the “Da Vinci Trunks” grant currently funded at Central School second grade, with a video of the children’s artwork and observations about how studying, drawing and writing about scientific specimens such as insects and skeletons has helped enrich their pursuit of all three disciplines—writing, art and science—in the spirit of Leonardo da Vinci.

Heidi Dunleavy, Barbara Henkind and Susan Leon of the Mamaroneck Schools Foundation with Superintendent Dr. Paul Fried.

In the next phase of the evening, Susan Leon and Heidi Dunleavy, co-chairs of the MSF grants committee, along with a host of presenters, announced thirty-one new grants for the coming school year, totaling $277,000. MSF president Barbara Henkind noted that this brings the total number of grants awarded since the start of MSF in 1996 to over 200, equaling more than $1.75 million in funding for new and innovative programs in all the district’s schools.

While grants in recent years have included a lot of new technology, and this year was no exception, there was a noticeable emphasis on books in the current awards —ranging from a special Pre-K section of the Mamaroneck Avenue School library that will display high-interest books in more accessible ways, to new, up-to-date science and technology texts for every school library in the district, to classroom book collections targeted to middle-school boys, who research shows start to lag behind girls at this age in reading interest and ability.

New books and periodicals will also help inspire topics for research among high school students in the original science research program, and make poetry and the classics accessible to special education readers in the middle and high school. “The many grants focused on books this year reflect research that providing appropriate books in accessible and inviting places helps create more accomplished, lifelong readers,” noted Heidi Dunleavy.

For the first time, the Mamaroneck High School Student Council applied for grants of interest to their consituents, including seed money for a weekend evening performance series, and outdoor chairs and tables for the campus. Parents will also benefit from a speaker series designed to bring well-known experts to address parenting issues for a variety of ages.

Scientific inquiry will be enhanced through an on-site laboratory with microscopes and computers at the Sheldrake Environmental Center; through the expansion of the “trout in the classroom” hands-on study of ecosystems in the seventh grade; and through computers powerful enough to support the PASCO Scientific Interfaces, purchased through a past MSF grant for the high school physics department. A new history program, “History Alive!” will invigorate the teaching of the middle-school social studies curriculum.

Kayaking will become part of the middle-school physical education curriculum with a grant to provide fifteen whitewater kayaks to be used at the Hommocks pool, and perhaps out on the Sound with the creation of a high school kayaking club.

A significant grant will allow the district to hire an experienced consultant/grant writer to apply for funding from corporate and philanthropic foundations for programs such as technology, narrowing achievement gaps, and early literacy.

“This is the best night of the year,” observed MSF president Barbara Henkind. “It is so inspiring to see the dedication and creativity of our teachers and administrators who devote significant time and effort to dreaming up, developing and implementing these exciting new programs for our students.”

For more information, contact the Mamaroneck Schools Foundation at (914) 698-9079, or www.mamaroneckschoolsfoundation.org.