JEANIE RITCHIE GRANTS

History

In the past 22 years, the MPAEF’s Jeanie Ritchie grant program has dedicated close to $400,000 to fund more than 345 grants to teachers and staff throughout our District.  These innovative programs have touched thousands of students at all of our schools.  Successful grants have often been expanded to benefit larger numbers of students and in some cases have become permanent parts of the curriculum. Some of these curriculum cornerstones are Writing with Writers, Dancing through the Decades, Pioneer Days, Visiting Biographers, Family Message Journals, The Colonial Faire and The Renaissance Faire.

The grant program is named in honor of Jeanie Ritchie, a founder of the MPAEF who believed strongly in supporting innovative educators. Grants are evaluated anonymously by a 15-member parent/teacher committee based on criteria including the quality of curriculum integration or enhancement, sustainability or timeliness, cost and, in the case of repeat grants, previous evaluations.  Each year one grant also receives the Ingrid Smith Math and Science Award in memory of a respected former MPAEF board member and district parent who passed away in 2004. 

This fall, the Foundation awarded 22 innovative teaching grants totaling $47,643. These recently funded grants range from $164 to $6,000 and supported over 69 teachers in pioneering projects at all grade levels—kindergarten through 8^th grade—at all four District schools. The projects, many of which were interdisciplinary, involved curriculum areas such as science, music, literature, art, drama, physical education, foreign language, leadership and community service. Adapting to the creative ideas of the teachers and students in our district, the program funded three new types of grants this year including a student initiated grant with teacher support, a lunch time grant and an after school program for boys.

“The Jeanie Ritchie grants are truly the venture capital of the teaching world,” said MPAEF Co-President Steve Hoffmann.  “These grants provide critical seed money for teachers to try out new and innovative teaching ideas in the classroom.  The best of these ideas take hold and become integrated into the mainstream curriculum.”