The BHS Innovation Fund is excited to award a special COVID-19 Teaching and Learning Response Grant to Brookline High School educators in Summer 2020. Reacting with urgency to the unprecedented change in the educational environment due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Innovation Fund recently spearheaded an effort to offer new grant funding, outside of our annual budget, for targeted faculty summer workshops. For the first time ever, all five core academic department chairs came together and proposed a unified effort to solve the school-wide challenges ahead. During a three-week period this summer, approximately 30 BHS educators from the Departments of English, Math, Science, Social Studies and World Language, as well as Special Education and Career and Technology Education, will collaborate simultaneously to address academic skill gaps, assess remote learning, share best practices and build community for students. Teachers, department chairs and school administrators will prepare for the 2020-21 school year by developing a cohesive vision, a workable strategy and a functional implementation plan, ensuring that the educational experience at BHS remains as strong and supportive as ever.

The BHS Innovation Fund is constantly evolving and responding to the academic needs identified by BHS teachers across departments, supporting teacher-driven curricular initiatives at Brookline High School for over twenty years. Funded program areas include: new and interdisciplinary courses, academic scaffolding, school-wide connections and faculty inspiration. With the COVID-19 Teaching and Learning Response Grant, the Innovation Fund further accelerates academic innovation by providing necessary resources to educators who have identified urgent needs for out-of-the box thinking and planning. At the summer workshops, educators will:

• Capture best practices at BHS and beyond in response to the school closures and resulting remote teaching and learning;
• Research strategies for improved remote teaching experiences from peer institutions at the state and national level;
• Examine the BHS curriculum through the lens of synchronous and asynchronous education;
• Create a “Welcome Back to School” plan for September that will build a strong sense of community and establish routines and opportunities to connect with students; and
• Build a variety of diagnostic approaches to assess the needs of incoming students, from content understanding to learning styles and support needs.

The BHS Innovation Fund’s Summer Grant Promotes Wellness in Remote Learning Model – Sagamore Jan 2021

Founded in 1998, the BHS Innovation Fund is a community-supported 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that is unique for a public high school because it offers grant funding to faculty and administrators for initiatives that aren’t covered in the current curriculum and budget. Learn more about the 30+ innovative, interdisciplinary and forward-thinking programs the BHS Innovation Fund has supported, thanks to the generosity of the Brookline community, parents, alumni and education advocates, at www.bhsinnovationfund.org. For more information, please contact bhsinnovationfund@psbma.org.