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Project Manager: Hannah Dingman
School: Lincoln, Lynch, Ambrose
Type of Grant: Collaborative
Target Grade: K-5
Curriculum: Literature
Start Date: 10/1/2023
The grant seeks to build community within each school through a shared experience that celebrates a culture different than mainstream American culture. This grant promotes cultural awareness in Winchester’s youngest students. It is also an experience for our teachers. I’m excited for the opportunity to immerse large communities in an immersive, celebratory experience through music.
A short term goal is to provide a joyful, shared experience that students will have and be able to discuss afterward. All students benefit from this because they will have gone through the experience together within their school and classroom community. Students can discuss this experience before and after, during morning meetings (Social emotional learning) or they can use the experience to speak and/or write about it as it has connections and oportunities for connection to other content areas. Examples of connecting curriculum areas include: ELA, science or social studies, depending on grade level. For example, grade 1 learns about sound in science. ELA has many opportunities for expansion- opinion witing, nonfiction writing, poetry, or narrative writing can all benefit from this experience. ELA writing is across all grades, 1st through 5th. In social studies, students in grade 2 specifically learn about countries around the world. Kindergarten learns about community as well as sounds in relation to letters. The long term impact is for students to have a better understanding of other cultures and to appreciate differences. Building cultural competency takes exposure to people different from yourself, and to be curious about their beliefs. This is a great example of providing exacty that exposure to our students. It is also a joyful experience that builds on the excitement and curiosity of our youngest learners.
The following percentages are from DESE, and found in the Winchester district profile as well as the school specific profiles. This grant would provide a collaborative approach to addressing a need. The need is to build cultural awareness in Winchester’s elementary schools. Our student race and ethnicity identify as predominantly White. By school, Ambrose identifies as 82% White, Lincoln 74%, Muraco 61%, Vinson Owen 65%, and Lynch at 54%. Additionally, we have a student population that identifies as 20% Asian, our second largest race identifier. Within this 20%, our Winchester students and families hail from many different Asian countries. This opportunity also benefits our elementary teachers. The majority of our elementary teachers identify as White. The percent of teachers that do not identify as White ranges from 3%-10%, depending on the elementary school. A total of 3% of our elementary teachers identify as Asian. This is a good opportunity for our teachers to learn more about a specific Asian culture. This would be collaborative because our teachers, SEL coaches, and curriculum coordinators would use this enrichment opportunity to highlight and celebrate our school diversity and the rich culture of Japan.
Total: $7850
