Business Education Foundation 2015 Mini-Grants

Access to Success: File folders will be purchased and installed outside all freshman classrooms providing students who have missed class to access to any notes, homework or class assignments they may have missed.
Elizabeth Burdelski | Bristol Eastern High School

Book Club: Read Listen and View: This grant provides funding to purchase, books, auditory books and the book as a movie to create a book club for third grade students. During book club students will read/listen to a selected book. They will hold collaborative discussions and watch the movie version to engage compare and contrast dialogue to improve reading comprehension.
Marcy Deschaine, Christine Morin, Sarah Rutkowski | Mountain View School

Close Reading Using an ELMO Document Camera: A major goal in fifth grade in close reading which requires students to develop a deep understanding of the text, by marking important details, vocabulary and analyze various aspects of the text. This is essential in analyzing non-fiction genres. The Elmo allows the teacher to model these strategies to the entire class at once. Students can also share their work.
Julia Darcy | South Side School

Coffee Hour for Performance Writing: In conjunction with writing workshops and contests, student writers will perform their work at evening coffee houses for fellow students. The pieces will also be offered to students and staff who wish to interpret and integrate them into other creative media such as art or film.
G. Gale Dickau, Paul Pinette, Kate Scanlon | Bristol Central High School

Curl-up with a Great E-Book: This grant provides four kindles to allow children at all reading levels the opportunity to read independently to improve their reading accuracy, fluency, stamina and comprehension. This technology will be also use as a motivational tool and a SRBI intervention to help struggling readers.
Marcy Deschaine | Mountain View School

Document Cameras to Improve Scientific Literacy and Engagement: This grant supports the purchase of a document camera to increase direct instruction of literacy strategies and student engagement in science courses. The camera will work with the Smartboard to facilitate the display of student work, model note-taking, summarizing and writing skills, provide a platform for student presentations and increase communication between students and teachers.
Keagan Radziwon | Bristol Eastern High School

Driving Safe Decisions: This grant provides funds to purchase driving simulators gaming systems that will be used in high school health and transportation technology classrooms to demonstrate and reinforce the dangers associated with driving while impaired or distracted without a safety risk to students. Twenty four classes per year totaling over 350 students will participate.
Chris Carrier & Jonathan Horan | Bristol Central High School

Engaging Our Minds by Engaging Our Core: Student chairs will be replaced with stability balls. Students need to make small movements to stay seated. Brain research shows there is a link between movement and academic progress for some students who have difficulty staying on task. The goal is to increase time on task by incorporating movement while seated.
Vicki Ciralli | Northeast Middle School

Greene-Hills Garden: Large planters separate the cafeteria at Greene Hills School. This project will plant a community garden in the planters. Classes from K-8 will take turns taking care of the planters and keep different types of data on the plants. All the produce will be donated through the Family Resource Center.
Terry Grant | Greene-Hills School

In Focus: Document Camera to Enhance Learning: The document camera will be used by fourth and fifth graders at Ivy Drive School to help them learn the elements of close reading. Teachers can display printed materials and have students analyze key ideas and details. Teachers can share a map, 3-D scientific objects or photos to the whole class at once expanding the opportunities for student learning. Students can also use it for their own presentations.
Mila Zadrozny | Ivy Drive School

Literacy a Home for Grade 2: The funds will be used to purchase book bags and leveled books that will be brought home and returned to school each week. This project will promote family literacy and insure students have the level appropriate books they need to increase foundational skills, fluency, word recognition and phonics.
Tiffany Fox | South Side School

P.U.S.H. “Parents Using Strategies at Home:” The PUSH program is designed to give parents the tools to support learning at home and create a partnership among educators, students and parents. Students can sign-out content specific backpacks in math, reading, science and social studies for one week filled with educational activities and resources for students to share with their families. These backpacks will be used to connect with families and support student learning.
Robert Garry and the PUSH Committee | South Side School

SMART Document Camera Interacts with the Musicians at Mountain View: The document camera will allow music teachers to annotate the music scores with marking and music symbols to increase music literacy. The teacher can visually help students model the steps of creating music leading to the performance of their composition. It will help spark students’ creativity.
Joy Cannata, Kelle Barrieau, Olga Harhay | Mountain View School

Stand-Up Desks: Sitting still in a classroom for 84 minutes can be difficult. With students with ADHD it is even more difficult. The desks will allow students who need to stretch and move around to be able to concentrate on their school work. The desks will be used to increase student performance, work completion and student engagement.
Jennifer Plourde | Bristol Central High School

Supplementary English Resources for Special Education: This grant provides auditory books to supplement the books approved for the curriculum at a specific grade level. This will offer a different instructional technique/tool to help students with different learning styles increase their reading ability and engagement in literacy lessons.
Colleen Cyr, Kelley Lynne Thibodeau, Michael Higgins | Bristol Eastern High School

Tutto Italiano: Through this grant the world languages department will purchase Tutto Italiano a new audio magazine for intermediate and advanced speakers of Italian. It is designed to help improve the fluency and literary skills in both students and teachers. The magazine offers fiction and non-fiction articles along with an accompanying audio CD improving listening comprehension and speaking skills.
Gina Gallo-Reinhard | Bristol Eastern High School

What is on My Plate and in My Garden: is a program that introduces children to My Plate, the new food guide pyramid. Children will learn the importance of healthy eating, better food choices and fun ways to exercise through various activities. Students will also create a healthy cookbook and work with media technology to create videos about healthy choices which will be shown on the school’s television network. Students will also plant a garden in the schools raised beds.
Cindy Ahern & Derrick Lachance | West Bristol School