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CAPE funds
multiple school projects
By Mary Ann Price
Citizen Staff
Middle
school student involvement in the college planning process, a
Reading Literacy Book Club for elementary school students and
opportunities for teachers to be scholars are some of the grant
ideas that were funded by the Canton Alliance for Public
Education (CAPE) during the 2007-2008 school year. Nine projects
submitted by Canton Public School teachers were selected by the
CAPE Grants Committee.
“We develop
a request for proposals and a grant application,” said Grants
Committee Chairperson Cindy Thomas.
Superintendent of Schools Dr. John D’Auria and Galvin Middle
School principal Thomas LaLiberte distribute the applications to
teachers, who must first receive approval for their ideas from
the administrator to whom they are responsible.
Thomas said
that CAPE runs a principal grant cycle in the spring for the
upcoming school year. Recently, a second cycle has been held in
the fall to allow teachers who have done professional
development work over the summer to try new ideas.
“We wanted
to help them use their enthusiasm and fresh experience in the
classroom,” Thomas said.
CAPE looks
for projects that can be replicated from one year to another.
“A key
element is sustainability,” Thomas said, noting that ideas
should enrich the experience of students and teachers, support
activities across the schools or have districtwide impact.
Hansen first
grade teacher Claire Lund and Hansen Assistant Principal Mary
Cawley wrote a grant called Technology and the Writing
Process: First and Fifth Graders Collaborate on Writing
through “Writing Buddies.” Lund wrote an earlier grant for a
Reading Buddies program that was also funded. “We wanted to
expand that program to writing,” she said. “We write across the
curriculum.” The new grant funded a project in which the first
graders wrote autobiographies with the help of their fifth grade
Reading Buddies. A CAPT grant provided the funds for two
visualizers, machines that allow teachers to project a page from
a book, or a student’s writing. With the CAPE grant, the
teachers bought a software program called Stationery Studio,
which creates bordered stationery on computers, so that
students’ work is printed on paper that looks like a book.
“We do a lot
of pre-writing and brainstorming in the classroom,” Lund said.
“Then we go to the writing lab and the fifth graders help with
stretching their writing and the editing.”
The
autobiographies, complete with photos, are ready this week, and
Lund is grateful for the funding from CAPE. “It’s critical,” she
said. “It adds that extra piece to the curriculum.”
Other CAPE
grant recipients from this school year are: Time Passages: A
Walk Through Canton’s Past, school: JFK, Luce, Hansen in
collaboration with CHS CmPS Team, applicant: Patricia Phalan on
behalf of the CmPS Team; Science in a Box, school: Luce,
applicant: Bridget Wade; Exploring Inuit Culture and Canada,
school: Luce, applicants: Cynthia De Vito, Marie Lawrie, Kaitlyn
Wroblewski, Elisa Blanchard; Galvin Goes Global with
Massachusetts Foreign Language Week, school: Galvin Middle
School, applicants: Laurie Moore, Denise Buckley, Maryellen
McNally; Advancing Math Competency through Mobil Math
Literacy, school: Hansen, applicant: Maryanna Biedermann;
Reading Literacy Book Club, school: Kennedy, applicants:
Susan Mathieson, Julee Jaruszawicus, Kim MacKay, Aimee Lyden,
Jennifer Henderson; Assessment of Early College Awareness and
Postsecondary Planning, school: Canton High School and
Galvin Middle School, applicants: Stephanie Shapiro, Marla Schay
Barker; and Teachers as Scholars, school: all,
applicants: John D’Auria, Robin Billing.
June 5, 2008
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