CURRENT GRANTS

Awarded for the 2024-2025 School Year

 

Community-wide:

Framing Student Talent - Friends funded the purchase of 75 shadow-box style frames to showcase student art around town at 8 locations: Glover, Brown, Village, Vets, Community Center, Admin Building, National Grand Bank and the Festival of Art. The ease with which art is displayed in these new frames increases the number of student pieces that are displayed annually. It also motivates students to create art, develops student pride in their work, and allows the entire town to benefit.

BROWN SCHOOL

Current Grants, 2024-2025:

  • Inchy the Bookworm - The student “Give Back Club” at Brown proposed this grant, which will add a second Inchy the Bookworm vending machine to our community schools. The first book vending machine, a roaring success at the Village School, will now be joined by a second at the Brown Elementary School. Here, students will have the opportunity of accessing high-interest books from their very own vending machine, with the goal of supporting and encouraging a love of reading throughout the school community.

  • Zones of Regulation Implementation - a framework that provides Common language for all school staff (and families) to use with students to help students to identify and understand their emotions. This grant funded 3 hours of in-person training for 15 staff.

  • Brown School Tricycles for Integrated Pre-School - Friends funded two tricycles for the integrated pre-school at Brown School. These specially made trikes help with motor skills and posture, and promote sharing and physical activity. They are the most popular item on the pre-school playground!

  • Weather Stations at Brown & Glover - This grant funds two Tempest weather Systems for our elementary schools. K-3 Students will now be able to collect and analyze up-to-the-minute, hyper-local weather data for Marblehead. Students will access environmental information that is pertinant to their own lives, in turn personalizing their study of science as a whole. Not only will teachers use these weather stations in their day-to-day lessons, but ultimately they will be used in a STEAM enrichment club or weather club.

GLOVER SCHOOL

Current Grants, 2024-2025:

  • Audio Enabled Books - Friends will fund the creation of an Audio Enabled Library at the Glover School. Grades K-3 will benefit from the purchase of approximately 150 books across all genres that will aid children at all reading levels. These books, which offer the option to either listen or read the content, promote confident and independent reading without the use of screens.

  •  Glover School Bee Bot Mats - Friends funded mats to enhance the popular Bee Bot coding bots we funded last year at Glover School. Alphabet, community, and customizable mats allow second grade teachers to incorporate the Bee Bots into the curriculum enabling them to focus on spelling, map skills, math, writing and teamwork.

Village School

current grants, 2024-2025:

  • Decodable Texts Library - Decodable texts allow students to practice decoding words (reading) using the letter-sounds they have learned, with content that is age appropriate and supports class curriculum. Today, Village borrows decodable texts from the elementary schools. While students may be at a 1st, 2nd, or 3rd grade reading level, teachers have found that students are often self-conscious of and not interested in reading the elementary decodable texts. This grant funded 1,400 decodable texts for 4th, 5th, and 6th grade at Village.

  • Conversation Starters - Friends is delighted to fund "Conversation Starters”: A series of books that will be utilized during advisory blocks at Village School. Conversation Starters will help kids engage in topics that are current, age appropriate and will challenge them to think critically with their peers. Teachers can help kids lead conversations that will break down barriers and open up dialogue between students.

Veterans School

current grants, 2024-2025:

Marblehead High School

current grants, 2024-2025:

  • Teachers as Scholars - Teachers as Scholars is a professional development program that offers courses designed to inspire and invigorate teachers by providing exposure to the latest work and best thinking in a wide range of fields. Teachers learn new skills and techniques across disciplines and age ranges that are immediately applicable in the classroom. This grant funds 10 teachers and 2 administrators to attend.

  • High School Graphing Calculators - Friends funded 10 graphing calculators for the high school math department to allow higher level math students who don’t have access to these expensive, required devices to borrow them. Following an established, need-based system, students will be able to “check out” the devices and use them for the school year.

  • Culture Feast - Friends has contributed significant funding for the annual Culture Feast to be held at Marblehead High School in June 2025 for the entire town to bring awareness of all the diverse cultures represented within the student population. The Culture Feast is a celebration of food, art, music, and culture and is student-planned and student-led.

  • Dual Enrollment - Friends will fund a college level course taught at MHS by an Endicott College professor in the fall of 2024. This will give up to 25 MHS Juniors and Seniors the opportunity to earn 3 college credits and expose them to a popular college information platform.

  • Visual Arts Chairs - Now, all the visual arts classrooms at the high school will be outfitted with ergonomically comfortable, adjustable seats and stools. This new seating allows students to better access and work with varied media in their art classrooms. It also fosters and support a collaborative work environment.

Marblehead Community Charter Public School

current grants, 2024-2025:

  • Art Room Upgrade (Kiln) - The art room at Charter doesn't have a kiln like the other schools in Marblehead. This grant funded a kiln for the full school (grades 4-8) at Charter which will enable enrichment for the art program and other project related enrichment.

  • Charter School 3D Printers - Friends funded two 3D printers to start a 3D printing enrichment program at Charter School. Students will explore new ways to create and build using engineering and design principals, and learning about iterative processes and troubleshooting.

  • OM Drum - Friends funded the purchase of 4 authentic handmade drums from Bamako, West Africa and a two-hour interactive African drumming presentation for the Marblehead Community Charter Public Schools. These drums are used during all music classes, during Exhibition to support student projects, and during presentations. Students are taught the health benefits of drumming as well as rhythms of various cultures.

  • Chemistry of Cooking - Friends is excited to support Marblehead Charter School’s project-based learning structure by providing all the materials necessary to integrate in-school cooking projects with Chemistry, Math and Health lessons. Grades 6-8 will be able to participate in multiple lessons and enrichment opportunities that will culminate in the production of a cookbook available to the entire Charter community.