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  • February 7, 2024

Previously, there was a very limited amount of therapy materials and lesson plans available to support our students’ social-communication and social-emotional learning needs. Everyday Speech, an online subscription, complemented the district’s existing curriculum (“Social Thinking”) by providing district speech language pathologists with access to evidence-based materials for use in individual lessons, small groups, and classroom presentations. These materials could also be shared with parents for home generalization. Everyday Speech gave PreK-12 educators access to a full curriculum of materials, including social skill modeling videos, handouts, interactive activities, and the capability to assign homework and share materials with families.

In relation to the core curriculum, the project expanded learning opportunities for students in a creative and innovative way. Following the COVID-19 pandemic, there was an increased need for supporting our students’ social-emotional health and well-being. Addressing our students’ social-emotional needs led to a reduction in aggressive behaviors and promoted a more positive school environment for everyone. Everyday Speech offered creative and innovative ways to learn social-emotional and social communication skills by providing lessons through various modalities, ensuring that all types of learners could benefit.

  • February 7, 2024

The grant was awarded to create a collection of literacy resources aimed at educating on inclusion, accessibility, acceptance, and justice for people with disabilities and differences. It followed up on the previous year’s “Celebration Station” grant, which provided a diverse range of books on different holidays, cultures, and celebrations. The grant sought to enhance the existing collection by adding new books that cover a significant aspect of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) related to disability awareness, ensuring there was no overlap with books already acquired. The project was designed to extend DEI initiatives, assist teachers with more inclusive instruction, challenge oppressive systems for people with disabilities, and enrich the core curriculum by reflecting diverse experiences and perspectives.

  • February 7, 2024

The grant was requested to obtain financial assistance from the FSAS for two international service-learning trips to Mexico and Ecuador organized by SHS. The need for support arose due to increased travel expenses, which were attributed to higher costs of building materials and inflation affecting both nonprofit trip organizers. The service-learning activities were highlighted for their educational benefits, including enhanced academic knowledge and engagement, connections to broader global issues and communities, and a deeper comprehension of the students’ roles in the world. These trips were designed to extend students’ learning experiences beyond the classroom and into international settings.

  • February 7, 2024

The grant facilitated the P.A.L.S. (“Peers Assisting Language and Speech”) program, which provided additional iPads to peers in classrooms with students who have severe communication deficits and use AAC devices (iPads with picture-icon programs for communication). These iPads were utilized by peers during recess, playtimes, and partner-reading sessions to engage with the target student in conversation, identify sight words/core vocabulary, and practice interactive reading comprehension.

The initiative offered general education students the social-emotional benefit of forming friendships and interacting with students with disabilities and diverse needs. It also allowed target students to learn age-appropriate language, sentence structure, and social language skills from typically developing peers using the same AAC devices. The program aimed to promote inclusion and acceptance of students with disabilities and severe communication deficits. Both target students and their general education peers gained additional practice with Core Vocabulary/Dolch sight words, constructing grammatical sentences, and responding to WH questions during paired book-reading activities.

  • February 7, 2024

The grant supported Saline Area Schools, including Woodland Meadows, in their ongoing efforts to create inclusive and welcoming learning environments for all students. The grant was used to transform the entrance of Woodland Meadows with a large decal or sign that reflected the school’s mission of inclusivity. The “Welcome to Woodland Meadows” decal was designed to include representations of the diverse learners from Woodland Meadows and the broader Saline Community, setting a tone of inclusiveness for students and community members alike.

The project related to the core curriculum by providing “windows and mirrors” for students, ensuring that everyone felt represented and welcomed at Woodland Meadows. This visual representation aimed to foster a robust learning environment that would positively impact all areas of the core curriculum and enhance learning experiences in a creative and innovative manner.

  • February 7, 2024

The Feelings Buddy basic tool kit, along with corresponding items, was introduced to the ECSE program through a grant from the school foundation. This initiative was aimed at assisting students in understanding emotions and developing self-regulation skills, which are considered critical for future success. The program emphasized the importance of distinguishing between feeling an emotion and embodying it, as the latter can lead to uncontrolled reactions.

The Michigan State Board of Education’s Early Childhood Standards of Quality highlighted the necessity for children to develop the ability to experience, express, and control their emotions and social interactions. The Feelings Buddy tool kit was designed to support this development by fostering emotional security and social connection among children, which in turn would encourage them to explore and learn confidently.

The tool kit employed a mix of drawing, dictating, and writing activities to help children narrate events, sequence them appropriately, and express their reactions. This approach was intended to facilitate children’s emotional and social learning within a nurturing and positive educational environment.

  • February 7, 2024

A grant from FSAS was utilized to acquire building materials more suitable for the Special Needs population at the school. The existing building sets, which contained small parts, were challenging for students with underdeveloped fine motor skills to manipulate.

The goal was to make the curriculum accessible to all students by providing them with materials they could use successfully. Recognizing that students with fine motor difficulties struggled with the small components of the current building materials, the school sought to expand its resources. They aimed to include larger scale manipulatives, such as Duplo Blocks, which are bigger than Legos, and MegaBloks, which are even larger than Duplo Blocks, yet all serve a similar function.

The intention was to enhance the variety of options available to students with special needs, enabling them to engage more fully in classroom activities. An additional benefit of this initiative was that all students would have access to these new materials, with priority given to those with different abilities.

  • February 7, 2024

Saline Live, a group of volunteers outside the school system with the necessary technical expertise and training, worked with the student’s family to identify their situation and needs. Saline Live assessed the options available to the family to provide access and the resources available to help reduce the financial burden if needed. The volunteers from Saline Live then collaborated with the service providers (ISPs), financial providers, and the family to install and activate access for that family. Once access was provided, Saline Live continued its relationship with the family to offer technical assistance and support when challenges arose.

This grant bridged the gap while discussions and decisions were made about the best options to ensure the grant’s continuation in perpetuity.

  • December 29, 2021

Young children learn best through play, and they also learn many things from books that are read to them. If this grant is funded, the Young 5’s students will get a hands-on opportunity with a variety of pretend foods from around the world that will increase their exposure and awareness of different cultures. To further this exploration of cultures, the grant will also help Y5 students hear stories from books that will either reflect their own lives, the lives of those they know, or teach them more about people who are different from them. Together, these experiences will enrich the current Young 5’s curriculum, specifically our social emotional units and select themed units of study.

  • December 29, 2021

The goal of Leveraging Literature to Build Inclusive Classrooms and Empower Students is to infuse classroom communities with more diverse, equitable, and inclusive texts. The focus learning communities for this grant will be 8th-12th grade students, 9th-12th English Language learners, the 6th-26 Life Skills/Young Adult students, and the ECSE participants.  The facilitators of these learning communities will have the opportunity to select texts that celebrate and honor diverse perspectives in which students can see themselves and others in a positive light, that act as springboards for deeper dialogue around social justice, and/or are conduits for access to topics, ideas, and understandings that may be otherwise unavailable.