Looking for the perfect holiday gift for your teacher or school staff? Give them a personalized Warm Wish from NEF.
With every Warm Wish, the teacher/staff member receives a personal note from the student and a free beverage of their choice from Aero Coffee Roasters – and a donation made in their name to NEF.
Show your appreciation for the educators who have worked so hard to support your child this year!
Warm wishes will be printed individually with your personal message and delivered to the schools for you. Deadline to order for delivery before the winter break is December 14. Any orders placed after that time will be delivered when school resumes in the new year.
This year has proven to be a bit challenging when it comes to well…everything. Due to the COVID-19 shutdown, NEF events, like everything else, were put on hold. As the summer went on, we realized that the school year would look a lot different than in the past, and with the introduction of remote learning in the spring, it was likely the teachers and school administration would require new tools and programs that the school budget was not able to support. In August, NEF decided to run a grant cycle so that the district could apply for grants with the focus on remote learning. The grant cycle moved faster than is typical and NEF was not surprised to receive a good number of applications. Though there was limited funding this year, NEF was able to support quite a few of the grants. For a full list of the grants supported, click here.
Help us say “Welcome Back!” to our amazing students and staff with a display of colorful pinwheels for the front of each Northborough school! Not only are the pinwheels a wonderful way to show that we are “Northborough Strong” — but each pinwheel represents a donation that will directly fund a request from a teacher or administrator in our district. NEF has received a number of requests in the past month to support online and hybrid learning initiatives. With your support, we can continue to fund programs that will help the teachers and students navigate this new landscape.
Girls and boys, choose your favorite grown-up, put on your favorite fancy clothes, and join us for a very special evening of dancing, games, hors d’oeuvres, sweets and more!
4:30-6:00 PM recommended for kids ages 6 and under 6:30-8:00 PM recommended for kids ages 7-12+ (note: an adult ticket can be used for both time slots)
Time to start thinking about what to give your wonderful teachers and school staff for the holidays. If you are looking to get a jump on gifting, get them a Golden Apple! You have the option to purchase a Dunkin’ Donuts or Target gift card as an added bonus. It’s one-stop shopping! Plus, all proceeds go toward funding programs for our schools!!
The deadline to purchase Golden Apples is December 16th.
NEF awarded $66,000 in funds to 16 grant recipients during a special ceremony held at the Northborough Free Library on Sept. 24, 2018.
Superintendent of Schools Gregory Martineau attended the ceremony, along with representatives from each school and the Northborough Free Library.
NEF Grant Committee Chair, Kim Haven recognized the significance of the continued support of corporate sponsors, members of the community and schools, and the organization’s many volunteers who help make the fundraising events successful. A special thanks was given Kerri Sullivan-Kreiss of SullivanKreiss Financial, her continuous support and for being the 2019 NEF Platinum Sponsor.
Fundraisers in 2018-19 included the Applefest Gala, Golden Apple Appreciation Gifts, Trivia Night, Gala Jr., and the Mother/Daughter Princess Tea Party. Proceeds from these events enabled NEF to fully or partially approve funding for the grants funded this year.
NEF has created a yearly theme for the grants. Applications do not need to relate to the yearly theme, but it is presented in an effort to inspire unique ideas. This year’s theme is Taking a Team Approach. We asked applicants to think about ideas that would encourage teamwork amongst students, departments and schools and many of the following grants touched on that theme. This year’s awarded grants are as follows:
Melican has HeART: Building a Stronger School Community Through the Arts (Melican Elementary School): The goal of the Melican Has HeART project is to deliver meaningful Social Emotional Learning content and experiences to the Melican community (staff and students) through the arts, using various media– including drawing, painting, photography, video production, drama, music, and dance/movement. Students with strong social-emotional skills are not only equipped to be better learners, but they are also better friends, classmates, and members of the community. When Social Emotional Learning (SEL) is integrated into school lessons, everyone benefits. This grant supports the belief that we are all artists and hopes to use the arts to build a more connected community at Melican.
Think Tank (Algonquin Regional High
School): Algonquin Regional High School
has begun the process of turning one of its standard business classrooms into a
“Think Tank”. This grant will provide the Algonquin Business Department the
opportunity to purchase furniture to encourage students to create, innovate and
collaborate. The classroom will transform into an active learning space for
students with the objective to facilitate social learning by designing spaces
where students can easily connect and collaborate. The rolling school tables
encourage easy shifts between lecture, discussion, and project work and allow
freedom of movement for the instructor, enabling frequent interactions and
ongoing assessment, thus creating an innovative workspace for both faculty and
students.
Vertical Playpen (Zeh Elementary School): Zeh School is fortunate to be one of the only elementary schools in the state to have a high element challenge course. The vertical playpen will be the first new high element added to this challenging course since 2013 and will replace an older climb, to create new challenges and excitement for all Zeh students for many years.
Student Motivation, Engagement & Achievement in Reading (Melican Middle School): Middle schoolers who learn to enjoy reading independently show success in all academic areas. Oftentimes, middle schoolers choose books that are either too easy or too difficult and then get turned off from the experience. Providing students with a wide range of engaging texts at their independent reading level makes reading both pleasurable and beneficial to improving literacy skills. This grant will provide students with engaging and level-appropriate texts. Additionally, it will provide an intervention tool for students not yet reading proficiently at grade level.
Access Through Technology (Proctor Elementary School):
This grant supplies The Learning Center
at Proctor School with large screen Chromebooks equipped with headsets with
microphones in order to provide students with significant learning challenges
better access to the curriculum. For students with significant fine motor and
tracking difficulties, the larger screens and keyboards are better suited for
reading and developing keyboarding proficiency. The headsets with microphones
are much better at accurately recording the students’ speech, so they reduce
the amount of revising needed when working on lengthy written assignments.
These Chromebooks and accessories will be an effective and impactful addition
for the groups of kids who receive support in the Learning Center.
Building a Tiered Approach
to Support Social/Emotional Needs (Zeh,
Peaslee, Proctor, and Lincoln Street Elementary Schools): The
Northborough elementary schools are building a tiered approach to support
students’ social/emotional needs. This multi-faceted professional development
project, designed with consulting psychologist Dr. Craig Murphy, will
contribute to teachers’ capacity for supporting all children who would benefit
from classroom strategies designed to build social skills, resilience, and
self-regulation strategies and to alleviate anxiety and other social/emotional
challenges.
Full Steam Ahead – All Aboard! (Zeh, Peaslee, Proctor, and Lincoln Street Elementary Schools): This grant provides the four Northborough elementary schools with more opportunities for experiential learning in the STEAM curriculum. STEAM (which stands for Science Technology Engineering Art and Mathematics) is a curriculum driven by problem-solving, exploration, and discovery while incorporating technology and engineering into teaching and learning. This funding will provide DashBots, Makey Makeys, Bee-Bots, and related accessories to all elementary schools in an effort to support the District’s vision to “promote high expectations and excellence for all in a dynamic learning environment that inspires opportunities for thinking critically, solving problems, and engaging intellectual curiosity” and to “integrate relevant technology and foster innovation to set the stage for success in a global society.”
Bibliotherapy in a Bag (Zeh, Peaslee, Proctor, and Lincoln Street Elementary Schools): Bibliotherapy is defined as “the use of reading materials for help in solving personal problems.” The librarians at the four Northborough elementary schools are working together to create small collections of picture books (fiction and nonfiction) that can be used to support and enhance the valuable work going on in all of our buildings in the area of social-emotional learning. These book sets will be organized by theme, circulated in tote bags, and available to be borrowed by teachers and families.
Northborough Children’s Book Award (Northborough Free Library and Northborough Public Elementary School Libraries): The NCBA is a collaboration between teachers and librarians aimed at inspiring all 3rd, 4th, and 5th-grade students to read great literature that develops their individual literacy skills. In the fall, knowledgeable school and public librarians from Northborough gather together to deliberate and vote for at least 12 recently published book titles that serve as the nominees for the awards. Multiple paperback copies of these titles are purchased and divided between all of the Northborough elementary schools as well as the town’s public library. Students who read at least 3 of the selected titles can vote for their favorite at either the public library or during their library classes in school. In June, votes are tallied and the winning author is notified.
The Sensory Path (Zeh, Peaslee, Proctor, and Lincoln Street Elementary Schools): The Public Schools of Northborough are committed to the growth of the whole child, including our students’ social/emotional learning and self-regulation. The Sensory Path is a graphic movement path on the floor that students can move through during the school day to improve self-regulation and attention. For a student to be adequately ready to access the curriculum they need to have a calm body and be in an available state for learning. When students are able to maintain an optimal state of attention their access to the curriculum is enhanced. Having an easily accessible and fun strategy for movement in The Sensory Path will allow elementary school students to naturally improve self-regulation throughout the school day.
Let’s Read Together (Zeh, Peaslee, Proctor, and Lincoln Street Elementary
Schools): This grant gives K-3 students an opportunity to read aloud
with a parent while learning about a new topic or enjoying a humorous fiction
story. These books are specially formatted for a parent and child to take turns
reading alternate pages aloud. The parent’s pages feature higher-level text, while
the child’s pages feature text that matches the child’s reading level. Each
school will have a supply of these books to lend to families to help encourage
meaningful reading experiences at home between parents and children.
Straight From the Source (Peaslee Elementary School): This grant will provide the district with valuable professional development relating to the use of primary sources in the classrooms. The training is run by Primary Sources, a highly regarded non-profit organization dedicated to global and cultural learning. Its goal is to help teachers become familiar with how to integrate “primary source” resources into the new Social standards and the English Language Arts standards. The workshop involves looking at how the topical materials are constructed and what they include, and discusses how they might fit within or relate to the curriculum teachers are using now.
Understanding Differences / Disability Awareness (Zeh, Peaslee, Proctor, Lincoln Street Elementary Schools, and Melican Middle School): Northborough Southborough Special Education Parent Advisory Council (NSPAC) in conjunction with the K-8 school libraries will update and enhance the current collection of books about specific disabilities or with strong characters who have specific disabilities. Disability awareness literature gives students the opportunity to become connected as they learn to address their curiosity about disabilities; grow in understanding, respect and empathy of the struggles of a disabled classmate, sibling or community member; and celebrate differences and strengths in themselves and others. Resources, such as books, promote conversation and discussion–both of which are needed as students continue to learn how to interact, to live and to work with one another no matter the differences.
The Play’s the Thing (Zeh, Peaslee, Proctor, and Lincoln Street Elementary Schools): At the Northborough elementary schools, instruction in drama and public performance is quickly becoming a popular and well-received program. These programs are led primarily by the music teachers and librarians in the schools, and they are memorable and rewarding experiences for students and staff alike. This grant will provide curricular materials (such as scripts, downloadable music, lesson plans, and activity books), a collection of props, lighting equipment, and sound equipment (including wireless headsets and a stage snake)– all to help these programs continue to grow and thrive.
NEF invites you to the 7th annual Mother/Daughter Princess Tea Party on Saturday, May 11 from 2 pm – 4 pm at Algonquin Regional High School, 79 Bartlett St, Northborough.
Appearances by Moana and Ariel are scheduled so be sure to bring a camera and wear your princess attire.
Reservations are required and spots fill up quickly. To register, click here.