Mini Grant Winners

2006-2007

In an effort to collaborate and share ideas the 2006-2007 mini-grant winners and a brief description of their project is listed below. If you are interested in information regarding any of these mini-grants, please contact the grant winner. You may obtain contact information from the online staff directory.

Name/ Mini-Grant Title/Division	Purpose
James Bailey “Crafts: Community Resources Applied for Teaching Students” Special Education	This multisensory project will provide an opportunity for the CDS classroom to participate in several shopping experiences (AC Moore, Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Hannaford), make a number of projects related to our social studies standards and assist in the facilitation of the students' individual goals. A multidisciplinary approach will provide students the opportunity to interact with peers and adults in a unique environment. This opportunity will allow students to experience increased communication, sensory input and develop motor skills
Aaron Bochniak “Microsoft Office Project Standard 2003” NERIC	Microsoft Office Project Standard assists in the planning and management of projects. With this software, the BOCES and the NERIC could efficiently organize and track tasks and resources to keep projects on time and within budget. This pilot would allow the NERIC to assess the feasibility of using a software solution to help aid in the project management process across departments. Project will allow for assigning resources, evaluating changes (and their impact), track performance, generate reports and allow for the sharing of project plans.
Katie DiPierro “Assessment Informs Instruction” Special Education	My students' individual programs are based on their performance levels on the Assessment of Basic Learning and Language Skills (ABLLS). The ABLLS is a criterion-referenced assessment tool that measures functional academic, language, social, reading, math, and self-care skills. I utilized the ABLLS to develop a classroom curriculum based on the students' individualized strengths and needs. There are several classroom kits available to develop a curriculum based on the ABLLS. I will utilize the grant to obtain the classroom kits.
Donna Lamkin “Capturing Great Moments in Classrooms” Special Education	This project would pay for Rachelle Menshikova, a videographer, to produce an instructional tape highlighting special education classrooms that are moving toward research-based literacy practices. For the past 4 years, our division has been working toward effecting instructional change through a Four Blocks Literacy Initiative. Teachers receive overview trainings and 8 teachers each year are individually coached and continue to learn through implementation. By recording special ed teachers as they engage in supportive practices, other teachers will be able to see demonstrations of strategies that can be accommodated for their students. Grades 3-12 are targeted to link with the state standards, ELA and regents testing requirements.
Kristina Matott “Davinci and the Notebook” Special Education	Building on the Davinci Code and Renaissance studies, the students and staff will replicate Leonardo Davinci's works with 21 activities. Introduced to the students by a traveling actor who shares his notebook and his early experiments with flight, both staff and students will be challenged as a collaborative team to recreate his experiments. Then students will use their findings to design their own notebooks learning about a man who painted the Mona Lisa and invented the bicycle and countless other machines.
William Rouleau “Fork Truck Operator Training” Career and Technical Education	This project we be a team teaching effort on the part of the Building and Grounds Maintenance, Construction Trades, and Heavy Equipment instructors at the Schoharie Center. It will bring together 3 classes to provide vital, OSHA required, safety training on the operation of fork trucks. Whatever career path students decide to take from our respective programs, the odds are good that fork trucks will be in use, and that knowledge of their safe operation will be required.
Lisa Schuff “Say it with Pictures” Special Education	Children love to see themselves and the people and places that are part of their world, in pictures. This project will provide Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children the use of photographs of themselves and their school environment for the purpose of developing vocabulary, oral and written language. The photographs and written descriptions / stories will be compiled in a binder for each child and will address each child's individual speech and language needs. The children will have the opportunity to share their binder stories with peers, staff and families.
Jodie Smith “Fiesta Mural” Special Education	As an extension of our integrated curriculum unit on multicultural studies, the students and staff will create "Honoring Our Latino Ancestors". Guided by a visiting expressive art therapist, both staff and students will be working as a collaborative team to create images and quotations to enliven the hallway. This is a creative outgrowth of and ELA experience of reading, Honoring Our Ancestors in freshmen classes. Students will research a Latin American country, write its embassy with a business letter and submit a report and image for the artist to consider.