Dear Lawrence Families,

The staff and I could not be more grateful for the incredible support of the Lawrence PTO and the Brookline Education Foundation (BEF).  The PTO raises a great deal of money every year and then uses those donations to support staff by providing stipends to every teacher to use for their classroom, award grants for staff to engage in professional development to strengthen their craft, and purchase resources that allow for greater student engagement.

Additionally, the BEF awards multiple grants every year to educators across the district.  Below is a list of Lawrence recipients this past year.

THANK YOU PTO and BEF!

2018 - 2019 LAWRENCE SCHOOL GRANTS

The following Lawrence School educators have received BEF grants:

Meredith Ritter, 3rd- 8th Grade Visual Arts

Art New England: Color Studio

Ms. Ritter will attend the “Color Studio Course with Nancy McCarthy” at an Art New

England workshop run through the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. The

workshop assists artists to take the basic concepts of value, hue, and saturation to

the next level. While working on her own practice, she also hopes to translate

knowledge and experiences from this course into her work with her middle school

students in two Brookline schools.

 

Kaitlin Robinson, K-3 Spanish

Attending the Northeast Conference of the Teaching of Foreign Languages

Ms. Robinson will attend the 2019 Northeast Conference of the Teaching of Foreign

Languages. The conference will address subjects including: integration of culture,

content, and language; authentic classroom discourse; and performance-based

assessment. She hopes to acquire concrete techniques and activities to apply to her

Spanish classes, as well as learn new things that will inspire her work.

 

Kathleen Moriarty, Librarian

Diverse Learners, Diverse Libraries: American Library Association Annual Conference

Librarians from three Brookline schools will attend the 2018 Annual Conference of

the American Library Association. This conference brings together leaders in the

field and will expose participants to new materials, enhance their knowledge on

diverse books and authors, and inform them about programming occurring in

schools and public libraries nationwide. Our librarians will focus particularly on

enhancing their knowledge of current and diverse materials and methods for the K-

12 student body, and bring new ideas and energy toward the ongoing goal of

building collections that reflect the diversity of students in the Brookline district.

They will share this knowledge with all school librarians in the Brookline schools.

 

Kaitlin Robinson, K-3 Spanish

Fostering Spanish Language Comprehension and Literacy with Puppets

This collaborative grant will allow six elementary Spanish teachers to receive

puppetry training through workshops with Brookline Puppet Showplace Theater.

These teachers will then work together to design engaging lessons and materials

that will apply to their curriculum. They will implement the work in their classes,

which they expect will bring the language to life and increase student

comprehension.

 

Susan Flegenheimer, Russell Morin, Nicole Poirier, Speech and Language

Pathologists

Speech and Language ASHA National Conference 2018

Speech and language pathologists from every Brookline school will join other field

professionals to attend the 2018 American Speech Language and Hearing

Association (ASHA) national conference taking place in Boston. This premier

conference of speech and language offers opportunities to learn about the latest

research, clinical practice, skills, and resources needed to improve school based

SLPs’ work, and the chance to network with national and international leaders in the

field.

 

Jill Demsey, Literacy Coach

Teachers College Reading and Writing Project Coaching Institute, Year 2

This grant will allow the remaining seven Brookline Literacy Coaches to attend the

Teacher’s College Reading and Writing Project Coaching Institute. Last year, four

coache, including Lawrence's Dianne Muendel,  attended the Institute through a BEF grant. The coaches will strengthen

their knowledge of the writing curriculum that the District adopted three years ago,

and will be able to support teachers through classroom coaching and professional

development.

 

Lawrence educators will also participate in the following Systemwide

Grants:

Leadership Team Retreats

In the 2018 - 2019 school year, the District Leadership Team includes a high

number of administrators in their first or second year in Brookline, or in interim

positions. This BEF grant will extend District Leadership team building and

leadership development work by funding three off-site retreats to be held

throughout the academic year.

New and Interim Principal/Administrator Mentoring Program

Recognizing the importance of the first few years in a new leadership role, as well as

the ongoing transition in the Principal positions, this grant, now in its third year, will

continue to support new and interim Brookline School leaders with a mentoring

program during their period of transition.