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The BEF is proud to announce the winners of this year's Ernest R. Caverly Awards for Excellence in Teaching! Amanda Kretschmar, Pierce librarian, and Lisa Rodriguez, BHS math teacher, have won this year's prestigious honor. They will deliver speeches and be recognized along with all of this year's grant, award, and fellowship winners at the Celebrating Teachers event on May 6, 3:30pm, BHS STEM Commons. Please join us in congratulating these two amazing educators and in recognizing the excellence in all of their colleagues!

Hanna Cha, Caldecott Honor Award-winning illustrator and author, visited the Baker School on March 6th. During her visit, Ms. Cha met with first, second, and third-grade students and educators. She shared her process for illustrating, explained how she draws inspiration from her life experiences, and discussed how she decides what to write about. She emphasized the importance of discovering one’s voice and the valuable lessons learned from making mistakes. The visit was made possible by an Idea Lab grant, which was applied for by Baker School educators Katie Wang, Sara Zekri, and Katlin Fenn Bixby this past fall. These dedicated teachers [...]

Lawrence School held their first ever Community Reading Day on Monday, March 3, 2025. This engaging morning for students and teachers focused on celebration of community, culture and literature, built around a shared reading of picture books. The Community Reading Day titles for this year, one for our K-3rd grade classrooms and one for 4th-6th grades, highlighted these themes.  Given the critical importance of understanding the significance of Black History Month in America, they chose this special event as a culmination to the honoring and celebration of Black History Month at Lawrence School.   The event was the brainchild of Vanessa Bilello, [...]

In January, the BEF held our annual celebration of the Green Apple Society, our opportunity to thank our donors and raise up the work of our grant recipients. This year we were fortunate to hear from Pierce ELA teacher Marlene Goncalves and BHS Head of School Anthony Meyer about their recent Collaborative grant work, and the impact that BEF funds have on their practice and the experiences of their students and colleagues.

The BEF's November Board meeting is typically a retreat for the Board to get to know one another and set goals and expectations for the year. This year's retreat featured special guest speakers: John Hodgman, longtime Brookline resident and one of the BEF's founders, and Deborah Brooks, the BEF's first Board president and first Executive Director. Advisory Board member Shalini Kasida moderated an informative discussion with Deborah and John, giving us a new perspective on the founding and mission of the BEF as well as outlining many fascinating parallels between the education and political climate back in the early 1980's and [...]

Another exciting 5th grade Spelling Bee is in the books! Over 50 fifth graders representing all 8 Brookline elementary schools gathered in the BHS auditorium on Sunday, November 17th to compete in the 27th annual BEF Spelling Bee. Congratulations to winner Sophia Karl of Runkle, and to runners-up Andrew Tran of Lincoln, Dani Chen and Joshua Tsai of FRR, Kinsley Ahn and Kavi Shastry of Baker, and Maxwell Jacobs of Runkle. Thank you to our sponsors, Brookline Booksmith, Brookline Teen Center, and Wegmans! And a special thank you to our pronouncer, Abbey Stephens of the Brookline Public Library, and our judges, [...]