Innovative Grants 2005-2006

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Grants awarded for the 2005-2006 school year:

Connie Logan, District-wide:  Success in Kennett Square will create DVDs highlighting the academic success of Latino students in the Kennett Consolidated School District (KCSD).  These DVDs, which address the need for families to be involved with their child’s education, will be shared with families and educators to give hope to students and families who are working their way through the American education system.  The DVD will be created in English for educators and Spanish for families, and will tell the success stories through the words and examples of the students in the Kennett schools.

Linda M. Rigler, Mary D. Lang Elementary School and the Chester County Even Start Program:  The grant will fund Even Start Plus, an extension of the Even Start Family Literacy Program.  The program will provide supplemental reading intervention services to elementary school students in the Even Start Program who are reading below the “Proficiency” level for their grade.  The program will be coordinated by Even Start personnel and will be volunteer-based.

Anton Romano, Kennett Middle School: This grant will fund an innovative music project called Smart Music.  This computer software will allow for the individualized recorded assessment of band and orchestra students and, in the future, choral students.  The goal is to provide a practice CD for all students in the choir to bring home, and to record/test all band students at least once per marking period and provide a “CD portfolio” of their work during the year.

Chris Hancock, Kennett Middle School: The Seven Summits of Fitness is a program to help students increase their fitness participation and goal setting with respect to fitness achievement. The goals of the program are consistent with both the health and physical education curriculums as it addresses fitness knowledge, fitness participation, and goal setting.  Seven Summits of Fitness seeks to consolidate the concepts and materials already being used in the Kennett Middle School through the Mapping Miles Program (orienteering) and Project ACE.

Carole Koroluck, Kennett Middle School:  Study Skills for 8th Grade is a study skills course for 7th graders entering 8th grade.  The 5-day class will focus on organization, goal setting, time management, note taking, study techniques, and more.  The goal of this program is to encourage students to have a high interest in school by giving them the tools they need to succeed. 

Sue Yocum, New Garden Elementary School and Kennett Senior Center: The goal of this community outreach program is to strengthen the already present bridge between second grade students at New Garden Elementary School and the Special Seniors at the Kennett Senior Center. To do this, Mrs. Yocum will create a children’s library at the Kennett Senior Center to be used when New Garden Elementary students and all children visit the center.  The books, which will have a grandparent theme, will be housed in a storage unit built by active seniors.

Maureen Keitch, Greenwood Elementary School: This project incorporates non-fiction reading into the first grades’ small reading groups and classroom libraries.  By exposing first graders to non-fiction reading, its content, structure and purpose, the students develop new skills that facilitate their learning for the future.  This grant furthers the implementation of the new writing program, Units of Study for Primary Writing: A Yearlong Curriculum by Lucy Calkins.

Anne Bailey and Wesley Gregg, Greenwood Elementary School:  This innovative program will work with the entire fourth grade to integrate reading skills into a study of multicultural literature using the story of Cinderella.  Working in groups, the students will be required to identify the similarities of this classic story that spans cultures and time.  One of the challenges for the students will be to understand that the Walt Disney version of Cinderella is not the original.  The students must learn and use the 1812 Brothers Grimm version, not the Walt Disney version, to compare to another culture’s version. 

The culminating event for this project will be “Cinderella’s Ball,” an event where students and parents can view the students’ visual projects, sample food and view items from other countries.

Louise Langille, Jan McDonnell and Colleen Thurmond, New Garden Elementary School:  The goal of this grant-funded program is for identified children in grades 1-4 to develop fluency and comprehension strategies that will allow them to become life-long readers and learners, by piloting the research-based Read Naturally Program.  The objectives of this program to reach this goal are to (1) develop comprehension and fluency strategies that will then develop confident readers, (2) train the parents of identified students in ways to support their children, especially in the Latino community, and (3) develop the program, and train personnel across grade levels to ensure that strong reading skills are in place upon entering Kennett Middle School.