Featured Grant

The BEF's October board meeting, which was a potluck dinner held at the home of gracious Board member Erin Meyer and her husband Nat, featured presentations on two fascinating grants. First, BHS math teacher Julia James told the Board, Advisory Board, and staff members present about her grant-funded trip to Nicaragua, where she studied Spanish and prepared to lead a student trip to teach math to younger students in the Dominican Republic later this year. Her experience in the restrictive political climate of Nicaragua was profoundly impactful, as were the connections she made with her instructors and local people she got [...]

At our first Board meeting of the 2024-25 school year, BEF Board members were thrilled to hear from Driscoll librarian Anne Reid and art teacher Olivia Reyelt, who received a Teacher grant this year to create Driscoll's Year of the Turtle! Their grant began with a trip to Costa Rica over the summer, where Anne and Olivia worked with local wildlife conservation teams to record turtle breeding activities and help endangered sea turtles navigate safely between the beach and the ocean. It will continue all year long as turtles infuse life at Driscoll with a new energy and joyfulness - the [...]

This month, the BEF Board was thrilled to hear from BHS Spanish teacher Erica O'Mahony about her recent trip to Colombia. Erica's grant, entitled “Cartagena: Afro-Latino History and Culture in Colombia," took her to Cartagena over April vacation. She took many tours while there, having prepared for her trip with extensive research into the history of African enslaved people, freed slaves, and the communities they built in and around Cartagena during the nineteenth century, both in cooperation with white Creoles and Indians, and in isolation. She interviewed many local people, recorded examples of local Afro-Latino language, art, and dance, and returned [...]

At our February Board meeting, BEF leaders were thrilled to hear from 2024 grant recipient Joslyn Vendola. Joslyn teaches math in the EXCEL program at Brookline High School (and is the 2022 winner of the BEF's Caverly Award for Excellence in Teaching!) and she received a 2024 grant along with several colleagues to design a drivers' education program at BHS, specifically seeking to break down existing barriers to getting a driver's license that are related to cost and to accessibility that exist for students with financial or learning challenges. Joslyn and her colleagues have taken the drivers' education course and become [...]

At our January meeting, the BEF Board heard from BHS social studies teachers Roger Grande and Astrid Allen about their trip to Puerto Rico this past summer. Along with BHS colleagues Stephanie Hunt and Emily McGinnis, Roger and Astrid received BEF funding to explore the impact of colonialism and climate change on Puerto Rico's culture, ecology, and industry. They immersed themselves in history, agro-ecology, and culture in diverse settings ranging from the city of Old San Juan to the El Yunque Rain Forest. The BHS educators hope and are planning to translate their learning into a trip designed for students in [...]

At the December, 2023 Board Meeting the BEF Board was thrilled to hear from Teacher Grant recipient Danielle Goldie, 7th grade science teacher at Baker. Danielle's grant took her to Iceland on a tour specially designed for educators. She learned about the geologic forces which formed the nation of Iceland, and explored volcanoes, glaciers, the reef between the continental plates, and many other ecological wonders. We learned so much about geology! Danielle's enthusiasm and curiosity were infectious - her students are so lucky to get to learn from such a curious and engaging educator! Thank you, Danielle!

Welcome back to school! The BEF Board was thrilled to hear from Heath middle school teacher Elyse Terry at our first Board meeting of the year. Elyse recently traveled to Rome on a BEF Teacher grant, and told the Board all about her wonderful experiences there. She had never been to Rome before, and plans to infuse her personal experiences there this past summer into her 7th grade social studies curriculum. She learned a lot about the daily lives of ordinary ancient Romans, about the tensions between current-day life in Rome and the study of archeology and antiquity, about gender roles [...]

  BEEP teacher Alicia Osborne-Stackpole reported this month on her Idea Lab grant to build and utilize a mud kitchen with a water pump and painted stone fruits and vegetables with her students. Alicia requested funding for this project because of the growing body of literature indicating positive developmental impacts for preschoolers of outdoor, hands-on sensory learning. Alicia's students, by playing with the mud kitchen outdoors in nature, experienced physical, cognitive, linguistic, and social-emotional growth during the course of the year. The BEF is so excited to be able to support project such as these, that enable educators to explore new [...]

Alison Kerr, a French teacher at Heath and Runkle, applied for and received a Brookline Education Foundation Collaborative Grant in 2022. She was one of 33 educators to attend the ACTFL Conference at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center that took place on November 18-20 of 2022. 29 of the 33 educators in attendance were classroom teachers representative of all eight Brookline K-8 schools and Brookline High School, covering all K-12 grades. Alison applied for the grant because it was a good opportunity for teachers to get to know each other and to work together. It was clear from Alison Kerr’s [...]

Alison Hansel, Pierce School Math Specialist, traveled to Seoul to study Korean! Earlier this month BEF board members were treated to a presentation by Alison Hansel about her experience of traveling to Seoul, Korea to study the Korean language with help from a BEF grant. Ms. Hansel, a math specialist at the Pierce School in Brookline, began studying Korean during the pandemic lockdown. Like many (if not all) educators, Ms. Hansel felt burnt out and exhausted after going through the subsequent remote and hybrid teaching challenges. She was looking for a means to reconnect with her work and renew her motivation, [...]