Takoma Park Middle School PTA Mini Grants
The PTA is offering small grants of under $300 to parents, teachers and staff to inspire creative approaches to learning. Mini-grants can be used to support activities or materials such as: artist in residence to create mosaics, English classes to have a poet in residence, After School Academic Academy-attendance incentives, MSA prizes, books for book clubs, guest speaker fees, grade level instructional materials, foreign language DVDs, graphing calculators for classroom
Please keep two things in mind as you develop your proposal. The first is that projects need to fit into the overall existing curriculum and class schedule setting—proposals should not call upon teachers or administrators to expend significant extra effort to enable your project to work. Please discuss with the principal how or whether your idea can be accommodated.
The Mini-Grant Committee will review applications and present recommendations to the PTA. In the event of competition for funds from similar projects or projects for the same grade, the PTA will evaluate the applications and award the grant to the project that best supports the PTA’s mission. The PTA will make final mini-grant decisions in November 2018.
What Has the PTA Funded So Far This Year?
| The PBIS committee is interested in providing incentives to students who demonstrate our core values at school. Last year this was done by offering chipotle gift cards to students. The staff members who ran the committee last year thoughtthat the money for this initiative came from a PTA grant. |
| Mr. Slaglehas been working on setting up an after-school computer club for the kids at TPMS. He would like to fund the purchase of microcontroller boards to use in the club. The computer boards he plans to use in the club should be new to everyone but can be programmed with several different methods, from block-based visual programming for beginners to more advanced Python and C. The boards also have a number of sensors and outputs that will allow for many interesting interactive projects to be developed without requiring add-on parts. There are many other areas in computing that they could cover in the future, but having these boards will give us a great series of projects to work on as the club gets established and can serve as the basis for future projects in robotics and wearable technology. |
| Mr. Porch’s science enrichment opportunity for our students. |
| Ms. Linsenberg Math Department Classroom Incentives: I am using behavior incentives within the classroom to promote a place of respect, safety, and positivitity! Over the past few weeks, I have noticed that students respond well to positive reinforcement that comes in many different forms. From praise to stickers to stamps, it all works. I would like to reinforce appropriate behavior in the classroom. With the transition from 5th to 6th grade, I believe this will help many students continue to adapt to middle school. |
| Mr. Goehring requesting money for the Difference Makers and their financial support for our food pantry. They are trying to maintain our food pantry which currently serves about 51 TPMS families who are food insecure. The food purchased would be shelf stable food, as well as produce to supplement our weekly pickups. |
| Mrs. Seyoum Math Department provides Extended Day Program (EDP) for students struggling with Maths 6, 7, 8, IM, and Algebra 1. Students have the opportunity to be entered in a raffle to win prizes whenever they attend an EDP session. The sessions are offered weekly from November to April. Students who attend all 25 sessions get a special reward: a Kindle Fire/e-reader. |
| Mr. Goehring: Requesting money for STEAM Night is the largest program at Takoma Park Middle School other than Back-to-School. The program showcases the work of students in the areas of Science, Math, Technology, Engineering, and the Arts. He brings presenters and special programs as well. The event has an annual cost of about $2000. He always asks the PTA for some financial support. It is the one program at TPMS that benefits the entire school as well as the school community. The grant will fund the traveling planetarium- it costs about $600, so $300 mini-grant would pay half. |
| Mr. Baker: P.E. Department Turkey Trot which is an annual event where all students are invited to participate. The course is one mile covering the entire school campus. Every year the top ten finishers are given a Turkey Trot t-shirt |
| Mrs. Kowaleski School Nurse and Mrs. Hankins 7th Grade Counselor: Wellness Group for 7th Grade Students. This wellness group project promotes a healthy lifestyle, which includes learning food nutrient content, healthy food preparation, exercise benefits movement opportunities, and stress reduction strategies. |
| Mr. Baker: P.E. Department hosts two spurts celebrations (Fall Sports & Winter/Spring Sports). All participants (about 140) receive ribbons and select participants will get other prizes. |
| Mrs. Seyoum Math Department hosts the Survivor Incentive System tried to help with students who struggle with motivation. More than a third of her students receive Special Education/504 accommodations. She created this incentive system, which is like the Survivor Show on TV, where student teams that earn individual and team point stamps. At the end of each week, students with the most stamps erceive a prize. At the end of each quarter a student with the most stamps gets another prize. The two classes compete against each other and the winning class gets a pizza party. |
| Mrs. Norden Math Department also hosts the Survivor Incentive System tried to help with students who struggle with motivation. She and Mrs. Seyoum created this incentive system, which is like the Survivor Show on TV, where student teams that earn individual and team point stamps. At the end of each week, students with the most stamps erceive a prize. At the end of each quarter a student with the most stamps gets another prize. The two classes compete against each other and the winning class gets a doughnut party. |
| Mrs. Seyoum Math Department hosts the Math Department Student of the Month Celebration. The entire Math department rewards students every quarter with an ice cream sundae and a celebration, a certificate, and a small prize (bowls, spoons, ice cream, toppings for each quarter) |
| Mrs. Davis FACS class: She leads Real Food for Kids Culinary Challenge, which is a tri-state competition, where students create lunches that meet specific benchmarks of nutrition and that meet school lunch guidelines. |
| Ms Idehen: Dance Group uniforms |
| Ms Idehen: Dance Group |
| Mrs. Gordon: 3D-printer for Technology Class |