Projects We’ve Funded

As of Spring 2023, we have supported the professional learning of nearly 450 Bay Area teachers as part of 96 funded projects.

Year Awarded

Level

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The Power of Play

William G. Paden Elementary School, Alameda Play theorist Brian Sutton-Smith concluded, ‘The opposite of play is not work–the opposite of play is depression.’ While research supports this, traditional schools continue to treat play as frivolous and double down on the pressure to raise students’ standardized test scores. Meanwhile, teachers are leaving the profession and students […]

Our Changing Planet – Community of Practice

Maya Lin School, Alameda Wood Middle School, Alameda Island High School, Alameda We want to deepen our understanding of environmental justice, indigenous wisdom and creative practice, to better understand our world, and as educators advocate for just climate solutions. Working with local experts/organizations in our community, we will deepen our knowledge and our facilitation practices […]

Building the Structures: Effective and Lasting PBL

Lazear Charter Academy, Oakland Our school was slated to be closed by OUSD and families organized to keep the school open as a hub for interdisciplinary arts and science education for the Fruitvale community. Staff, families and students have worked hard to dream up our new school vision to ‘use quality education as a tool […]

Equity Learning Walk

Differentiation through Student Self-Efficacy

Deeper Learning & Stronger Support for Teachers

Improving Outcomes for Multilingual Scholars through Collective Capacity Building

Studying Climate Justice Through Science, Art, and Action!

PBL Pilot: Empowering Oakland

Know Better, Do Better – The Science of Reading

Longwood Elementary, Hayward Burbank Elementary, Hayward Schafer Park Elementary, Hayward This team of primary grade teachers strives to learn more about evidence-based best practices to support early reading acquisition for all students, including English Learners and students with disabilities. By attending training sessions with a variety of professional development providers like The Reading League, as […]

Indigenous Voices in the Music Classroom

Literacy GLADiators

This team plans to empower their emerging multi-lingual students and teachers with powerful literacy instruction through neurology-based and culturally responsive language acquisition strategies.

Integrated Learning for Equity

This team will increase their learning and leadership skills with Arts Integration and Culturally Responsive Teaching in order to support growth and learning with colleagues throughout their district.

Facing History’s Professional Learning Community for Ethnic Studies

This team from across the Bay Area will launch a professional learning community focused on learning and growing in the area of Ethnic Studies.

Building a Community of Literacy Leaders

This team of teachers plans to level up their existing Literacy Inquiry Group by attending literacy and EL trainings and partner with experts.

Berkeley High School World Language Makeover

This team’s goal is to modernize their World Language Department by training in teaching strategies that focus on communication and meeting the national standards created by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Language (ACTFL).

Amplifying Student Voice: Developing Teachers to Support East Oakland’s Young Writers

This team will regularly meet with the Bay Area Writing Project (BAWP) coaches to design a project-based, action-oriented, writing curriculum that integrates expository, persuasive, and narrative writing into standards based social studies and science units.

Revving Up for Dual Immersion

This team of teachers at a newly Dual Immersion (DI) school will focus on teacher preparedness as their school transitions to be a DI program.

Increasing Access to AP Curriculum for Language Learners

This team of teachers aims to support the unique literacy needs of English Language Learners taking Advanced Placement classes by engaging English Language Development (ELD) experts. San Lorenzo High School, San Lorenzo

Deepening Mathematical Practices and Improving Student Access to College Math

This team of six high school math teachers with a 100% English Learner population at their school are seeking to improve college math readiness in their school community.

Revolutionizing How Students Engage With Climate Change Education

These four high school teachers will develop climate change units through four disciplines (life science, earth science, chemistry, and physics).

Project Based Learning to Improve Equity in Learning

Five middle school teachers endeavor to learn the skills for, gain exposure to, and create a sustainable culture for project-based learning at their school.

Cycle of Inquiry Committee Looking Closely

This team of six middle and high school teachers will systematically consider their students’ learning, with a structure of collegial discussion focused on data. As teachers, classroom time occurs rapidly with little time to think deeply.

Spanish Teacher Professional Learning Community

The team of six elementary-level Spanish Dual Language teachers are pursuing professional development in second language acquisition.

Be GLAD

The team of four elementary school professionals identified the need to create and maintain an embedded ELD program that is woven throughout their curriculum in order to support their 52%-ELL student population.

Transformational Teacher Mentoring

The team of five high school teachers and one middle school teacher at four schools across the Bay Area are part of the Trellis Mentor Fellowship, through which they have all made a five-year commitment to mentoring new teachers.

Project Based Learning with a Maker Mindset

The team of four elementary school teachers will pilot a Project Based Learning (PBL)/Maker-Centered program.

Interdisciplinary Real World Challenges

The team of four middle school teachers will work collaboratively on Project-Based Learning (PBL) techniques to address two pressing student needs: increase student readiness for Algebra 1 and improve English/Language Arts writing skills across subject areas.

Improving Mathematical Literacy: School Wide, TK – 12

The team of five teachers, spanning elementary through high school, will engage in a two-year study around best practices to improve mathematical literacy.

Reading Lab Sites

The team of three elementary school teachers will conduct “job-embedded” professional development in the form of lab-sites (action research in the classroom during the course of an entire lesson) to help increase the effectiveness of classroom Reading Workshops.

Oct 5 – Nov 14, 2023	LOIs Accepted for 2024 Grant Cycle (rolling submissions)
By mid-Dec 2023	Invitations to Apply Extended to Selected LOI Submissions
Spring 2024	LIGHT Awards Grants Made

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