Grade: 9-12

Teacher Name: Janelle Bence

Description and purpose of grant:

“Home is not a place. It’s a feeling.”--- Cecelia Ahern

With this in mind, how can one create and sustain a sense of home? This can be a challenge, especially if a move has taken place... or will in the near future. It is important to set the tone for continued excellence and culture and bring it from one place to another. Seneca stated, “Every new beginning comes from another beginning’s end.” There is excitement and possibility for sure, but the unknown can be stressful, especially when relocating to a smaller place. The initiatives in this grant provide a hopeful transition. 

Home is a place of gathering where, once you enter, there is a real sense of who lives there. A home is full of signs of what the residents are about, as well as a place where they feel comfortable and safe. Enter: New Name. New Home. New Adventures.

This grant would fund movable showcases to celebrate the learning on campus and mobile relaxation stations to encourage the well-being of learners and staff alike. These initiatives will further customize the space and allow the community to establish a sense of the identity and culture of the school straightaway. While on the current campus, these initiatives will emphasize legacy while also paving the way to create transformative practices in the new building. Hope Squad, our peer-to-peer suicide prevention and wellness leadership group, will assist in scheduling the movable displays and Relaxation Stations. Since one of Hope Squad's missions is to sustain a sense of belonging and community, this grant would support the important work of this organization.

Feeling more at home is invaluable, and this grant,  New Name. New Home. New Adventures, upholds the mission and core values of our district:

1. Coppell ISD understands how great teaching and deep learning go hand in hand. Our students connect with those they trust and crave opportunities to share their learning and understanding. But how is this learning shared with the rest of the school? How can this work, which is such a part of our identity, be celebrated? How can learner work be displayed and made more accessible to anyone who visits the campus? Movable wall partitions and displays will provide much-needed flexible sharing of work. These movable displays will highlight great teaching and deep learning, while also adding valued decoration and color to the halls, resonating with the rich legacy of innovative projects and learner-designed final products.

2. Making the displays mobile allows learners to share more widely exactly how their learning interacts with and impacts the world around them. The ability to move such displays mirrors how many of our classes work beyond the boundaries of walls and content. Many of our projects are interdisciplinary, and it makes sense that the work can travel across spaces just as the learning has traversed multiple disciplines.

3. The Relaxation Stations represent the caring relationships the school has with learners and staff, as they show that well-being is a priority. Promoting self-care is also crucial to provide individuals with the opportunity to learn how to balance work and life. 

4. Both of these initiatives, the mobile bulletin boards and the Relaxation Stations, show that when we invest in each other, we learn and flourish, and that we value each individual’s contribution because success can be different for everyone. Seeing how various learners show their learning and affording individuals moments of calm and care uphold the district’s mission statement: Working together, we are committed to creating profound learning experiences for each child, while nurturing meaningful relationships, to positively impact our world.

Implementation process: 

Faculty and learners will work together to ensure the mobile display units are updated and moved throughout the school. There will be a form to request use of said displays, as well as a calendar of events to schedule use of roving displays. Teacher aides can assist in the updating of the displays, and changing the student work could take place during flex sessions. The cooperation and scheduling of how and when to update these displays will strengthen collaboration across classes and groups. It is worth noting that student work does not solely originate from classes. There will be opportunities to celebrate the work of clubs, organizations, and even some of the extracurricular activities like theater, art, and music. Community events and collaboration with community partners will also be highlighted and shared on these traveling displays.

It has always been a goal for Hope Squad to create a space for calm, a place that would be accessible to anyone who may need time to decompress. With the forthcoming move and with every space claimed for classes, there would be no way to create this experience in a room. The mobile Relaxation Stations will travel between classrooms, where each learner and staff member will have time with the cart for a week. The Relaxation Station will rotate. It can be used during independent study. The cart will have many items to encourage calming activities: coloring books, massagers (neck, shoulders, back), breathing exercise handouts, sensory strips, QR codes to relaxing playlists and other activities, guided meditations, etc. Having rolling Relaxation Stations would allow moments of calm for everyone. Hope Squad could be in charge of ensuring the Relaxation Stations cycle to different classrooms. Since space is at a premium, having everything contained in a cart would help to keep items organized. Hope Squad would be responsible for restocking supplies.

Items you plan to purchase with grant money

• Grid wall towers
• Grid wall bases
• Peg Hooks
• Wire shelves
• Sign holders
• Literature holder
• Rolling cart
• Neck and shoulder massagers
• Massager for chairs
• Coloring books
• Markers
• Sensory Strips
• Legos
• Magnets
• Fabric room dividers
• Gallery push pins
• Sheet protectors
• Buddah Boards

In the event my grant is not fully funded, this is minimum amount I would need to get started on this project: $1980.92