Projects We’ve Funded

As of Spring 2025, we have supported the professional learning of over 550 Bay Area teachers as part of 115 funded projects.

Year Awarded

Level

Subject

County

Mindful Mentoring for Teacher Leaders at Garfield

Our team of six elementary educators will work with The Teaching Well to obtain a two year cycle of wellness coaching. The program will include both self and collective care practices, and will also teach us how to model healthy SEL habits for our students. By integrating mindfulness into our teaching practice, we will develop tools to better manage our stress and build emotional resilience. Our students are still developing their prefrontal cortexes and rely on us to offer a regulated presence they mirror through co-regulation. Engaging in Mindful Mentoring and Group Coaching, the teachers on our team will not only grow individually but also as a cohesive group, equipped to mentor others and sustain this professional learning approach within the Garfield community.

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Creating Culture through Collaboration

This project will provide CVUSD Middle and High School Activities Directors (ADs) with dedicated collaboration and professional development time in order to build our own capacity as well as our students’ capacity for leadership and school connectedness. Because there are only 1 or 2 Activities Directors at each site, opportunities to collaborate and take part in meaningful professional development are limited. This dedicated collaboration and professional development will support our growth as a team and our ability to inspire and connect students to their schools. California Association of Directors of Activities (CADA) resources will add a new layer to our professional knowledge.

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Collaborative Problem Solving: Help Ignite a Future of Hope

Teacher and administrator burnout is growing at our school. Our nucleus of trained teachers will improve the school’s response to challenging student behaviors and address key factors, such as chronic absenteeism and family engagement. We will work with a consultant to implement Collaborative & Proactive Solutions (CPS, via https://livesinthebalance.org), partnering adults and students to find agreed-upon solutions, while also building student agency and problem-solving. We will take a case-study approach with target students, apply it broadly in our classrooms and collaborate weekly to debrief. This project will invest us with purpose and enthusiasm to revitalize the school community in service of students.

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Bilingual DEI Learning through Project Based Learning

This project aims to develop and implement DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) curricula through project-based learning that incorporate diverse perspectives, cultures, and voices in a K-8 Mandarin immersion school.

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Inquiry to Empower Collective Efficacy

Our goal is to empower staff to conduct classroom inquiry to galvanize our collective efficacy – a shared belief that through our collective action, we can positively influence student outcomes.

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The Power of Play

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.

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Equity Learning Walk

This team of middle school teachers will cultivate a transformative learning community committed to anti-racist and inclusive education for all students, staff, and families. In the first year of the grant, they will apply the skills from Jenjii Hysten and Blaze Consultancy’s Emotional Intelligence, Equity, & Inclusion training to design and pilot a preliminary equity learning walk.

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Operation RISE Above

At this team’s school, every staff member serves as an advisor to a cohort of 12-16 students (a ‘RISE’) from freshman year to graduation. The team of teachers plans to create a professional learning series that codifies the expectations and supports for teaching lessons during daily RISE time, mentoring advisees, maintaining relationships with RISE-ee’s guardians, and other advisor duties.

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Investigating Illuminated Inequities as an Opportunity to Transform

A team of six elementary school teachers will engage with professional learning provider Feathership to create a structure and space for an Equity Centered Professional Learning Community. Feathership will strategically partner with the team and facilitate monthly workshops on radical self-love and anti-racist leadership.

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Improving Instruction and Engagement through Spanish Professional Development

This team of reading teachers has been teaching in East Palo Alto for 7-20 years, and they want to become conversationally fluent in Spanish. Team members will each complete an intensive program of online Spanish tutoring through Verbalicity and attend trainings by the Center for Applied Linguistics to connect their language lessons to their teaching.

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Meaningful Integration of Special Needs Students in PE

This team plans to implement the Unified PE curriculum, bringing together special education and general education students in an atmosphere of inclusion and acceptance.

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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.

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Leadership with Passion

This team of six high school teachers from Eastside Union High School District will finish the creation of a five year-long comprehensive A-G leadership courses, and strengthen their shared passion for being Leadership Teachers.

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Culture of Mindfulness

The team of five high school teachers, representing a variety of subject areas and grade levels, will participate in a series of mindfulness courses and retreats over the course of two years.

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