Foundation Fellows Program

Foundation Innovator Fellows Program
The “ACS Foundation Innovation Fellows Program” is a comprehensive approach to retaining early/mid career professionals by allowing teachers to design and implement innovative approaches to addressing the achievement gap in their classrooms.

What do teachers get out of this program?

  • Professional development of their own choosing and design
  • Funds ranging from $500 - $5000 for classroom materials & project supplies
  • Additional planning time
  • Leadership opportunities
  • A community of “Fellows”

This opportunity is made possible by a generous grant from the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation, the Beattie Foundation, and the Asheville City Schools.

Apply now to be a 2012-2013 Foundation Fellow! Submit a completed application to the Asheville City Schools Foundation by June 13 at 5:00pm.

Download the application.

 

ACSF Foundation Fellowships 2011-2012

 

Fifth Grade Science Fellows

Fellows: Tonya Sweater (Claxon Elementary) Holly Gregg (Claxton Elementary), Kimberley Eggett (Claxton Elementary), Victoria Angelotti (Jones Elementary), Mary Elston (Jones Elementary), Molly Peters (Vance Elementary), Jeri Lutz (Vance Elementary), Kelly Schultz (Isaac Dickson)

District Team Leader: Donalyn Small

New essentials standards are coming. Asheville City Schools will be ready for them. For the 2011-2012 school year, the Fifth Grade Science Fellows will create lessons and adjust their pacing guide to accommodate the new standards. By creating an organized assessment method of current standards, they will be better prepared for teaching and assessing their students when the new essential standards are implemented. 

Award amount: $3,350

 

 

Conscious Discipline

Fellows: Gaelyn Evangreene (Isaac Dickson Elementary), Jennie Robinette (Claxton Elementary)

Last year, Gaelyn Evangreene piloted a program of conscious discipline, a method of integrating social-emotional learning and discipline into the classroom. ACSF is pleased to renew support for this project and help to extend it into eight other district classrooms. All teachers involved will increase their understanding and knowledge of brain-based discipline and classroom management. Our financial support includes funding for two group study books as well as a set of classroom read-aloud books. 

Award amount: $3,229 and $600

 


Reaching All Learners: Engaging the Disengaged

Fellows: Rhonda Sizemore, Laura Maynard, Rachel Reeser,  Ali Trainor, May Castelloe and Marti Sullivan (all of Isaac Dickson Elementary)

Reaching students thought to be unreachable is one of the greatest challenges to educators. Through this project, the Fellows will investigate whether differentiated enrichment opportunities driven by brain research and student interest will improve engagement and student achievement. Through a collaboration between three classroom teachers, two reading specialists, and the AIG teacher, the fellows will design instruction to encouraged targeted students to build foundational and high-level thinking skills. Through the yearlong process, the Fellows will aim to develop procedures for curriculum mapping that will help other teachers address the neurological, emotional, and environmental aspects of learning. 

Award amount: $2,220

 


Project-Based Learning Research

Fellows: Mark Jankowski, Kevin Laws, John Moody, Terry Wright, Sara Monson(all of Asheville Middle School)

District Leader: Matt Whitesides

Relevant, real-world problems, questions, issues and challenges become the basis for

team-driven projects that encourage students to work together and create presentations and products that showcase what they have learned. Throughout the two-year grant period, the Fellows will develop embedded curriculum and activities. The result will be a cadre of teacher leaders and approximately five classroom teachers who will be able to offer their learned expertise to others at their grade level, in their school, and across the district.

Award amount: $10,000

 


The Paideia Seminar Cycle

Fellows: Amanda Swartzlander, Betsy Ray, Jesse Pitt, Jen Doherty, Jeff Dewhirst, Nick Rogowski, Nadeen Rolfe (all of Asheville Middle School)

District Leaders: Melissa Hedt and Pam Cocke

Fellows will examine the Common Core State Standards to discover the nexus of the standards within each core content area and apply the standards to seminars for each grade level and the school as a whole. Through Paideia Seminars, students will study and analyze complex texts with their peers using active reading strategies during pre-seminar; discuss the text in a seminar led by a teacher facilitator who poses open-ended questions; then respond in writing during the post-seminar. Seminars will include all four core academic areas. Some texts will be used school-wide, and others will be grade-level specific. 

Award amount: $4751

 

 

Teacher-to-Teacher

Fellow: Jerome Hughes (Asheville High School)

Do practice tests make a difference on SAT performance? Fellow Jerome Hughes and another AVID teacher will be trained by Princeton Review as SAT Test Prep Instructors, then incorporate SAT strategies into AHS’s AVID elective and SAT preparation class curriculum. Their Fellows research will focus quantitatively on the level of improvement each student makes as measured by full-length practice SATs and actual SATs, and qualitatively on how the instruction impacts students' overall level of test taking anxiety measured by student and teacher surveys.

Award amount: $4300