Updates

After Arlington High School students make the climb to Michael Sandler’s 5th floor classroom after lunch, they are confronted by a chart comparing Facebook users’ engagement with fake news to their engagement with real news. 

“Which one is winning?” Sandler asks, gesturing at the smart board. “Which kind of news gets the most likes and shares?” 

“The fake,” says a student in the Psychology and Human Behavior class. Others, reading the graph, nod in agreement. 

“Thanks to AEF, I was able to spend time in an environment where everybody is interested in psychology and learn from people whose work I’d only read about,” Sandler says. “The breadth of expertise at the event was amazing. It was a real gift to attend.” 

“OK,” Sandler says. “Now which of the types of cognitive bias we’ve studied might explain that? Why would people be more attracted to something that’s fake but supports their world view, versus something real that might challenge it?”

“Confirmation bias,” another student offers. “We believe what we already think is true.”

Using a mix of texts, videos and cartoons, Sandler goes on to introduce a range of other cognitive biases as well as real-world contemporary examples. “Psychology is always changing,” he says. “I want to keep it fresh and current and focused on science.”

The desire to keep his course up to date and relevant to his teenage students led him to apply for an Arlington Education Foundation grant to attend the American Psychological Association’s annual convention in Denver, Colo. this past August. Sandler received roughly $2,200 from an AEF Continuing Scholars Award to help cover travel and registration costs. 

“Thanks to AEF, I was able to spend time in an environment where everybody is interested in psychology and learn from people whose work I’d only read about,” Sandler says. “The breadth of expertise at the event was amazing. It was a real gift to attend.” 

At the conference, he discovered two APA initiatives that have been informing his teaching this fall. The first is an effort to add more student collaboration to the teaching of psychology. In his Psychology and Human Behavior class, for example, he assigns each student a cognitive bias to research and then sets up a “speed-dating” exercise to compare the types of biases. 

The second initiative aims to introduce students to the range of careers within the psychology field by bringing practitioners into the classroom. “While we often think first of therapists or clinical social workers, there are psychologists in the Armed Forces, in Fortune 500 companies and in research, too,” says Sandler, who also teaches AP Psychology at the high school. 

He says he is eager to connect with Arlington residents in the psychology field who might enjoy visiting his classes and discussing their work with students. 

As Sandler reminisces about the APA convention and its effect on his teaching, he exudes an enthusiasm for his subject that he says has held constant in his 18 years at the high school. “I feel very lucky that I get to talk about psychology all day long,” he says.

Both his students and his peers have noticed: Sandler was the AEF’s STARs Teacher of the Year in 2011, and most recently, a 2025 recipient of an Excellence in Teaching award from the APA’s Committee of Teachers of Psychology in Secondary Schools.

When you are about to lose your cool in a situation, what do you do?

First, it might be helpful to identify what you are feeling and why. Then, you might need to draw upon some tools — some moments of deep breathing, for example — to help calm yourself down.

Such abstract concepts can be difficult for adults to wrap their heads around, let alone 3- and 4-year-olds. But teachers and staff at Menotomy Preschool are employing creative ways to help their young students understand these ideas and much more, and they are utilizing funds from an Arlington Education Foundation grant to do it.

Last year, preschool teacher Sif Ferranti and social worker Elena Knightly had an idea: What if they could create custom manipulatives — three-dimensional objects — to help make some of the lessons they were trying to teach more concrete, improving learning for students of all abilities in the classroom? To turn this idea into reality, they looked to AEF, applying for and receiving a $4,000 Innovations Grant to purchase a 3D printer for Menotomy Preschool.

Now, when Knightly is teaching preschoolers how to use calm-down strategies, she reads to them from a picture book and shows them laminated illustrations of different types of breathing. But she also hands out custom-printed 3-D objects — a figure 8, a snail, a starfish and a wave — for students to hold and touch and practice the strategies she is helping them to develop.

Young children learn best from hands-on strategies that engage all the senses, including touch and feel, Knightly said. Having a three-dimensional object to hold makes learning accessible for students who are not quite ready for other modes of instruction. “Developmentally, the trajectory goes from recognizing an object, to holding and feeling the object, and then to picture representation,” Knightly said. “So we want to make sure we are not skipping that first object level for kids, and to be able to hold something not only occupies little hands, but it really solidifies learning in a different way for them, so that they are much more engaged in a lesson and much more willing to participate than just being spoken at.”

The 3D printer is not just for teaching social-emotional skills. Ferranti and Knightly are using it to create custom manipulatives for other lessons as well, enhancing the school’s curriculum in subjects such as math, phonics and writing. When teachers read Eric Carle’s “Brown Bear, Brown Bear,” students hold 3-D representations of each of the animals featured in the story, and then play with them throughout the day. Instead of a counting jar filled with marbles or blocks, there is a jar filled with dozens of small plastic fall leaves, And instead of a generic two-dimensional pizza math game, there is an apple tree with removable apples, allowing teachers to connect lessons to the everyday activities students might be participating in with their families at home.

“Everybody’s doing fall right now, so we are learning as we go how to make the curriculums that we use more purposeful for kids,” Knightly said. “Instead of learning about counting and numbers in a pizza game all year long, we are really refining it so that it connects to what they are doing in real life.”

“Right, why are we doing a pizza game? We’re picking apples with mom and dad,” Ferranti adds. “So we can adapt and make it fun.”

Even the preschoolers themselves are joining in on that fun, Ferranti said. One 4-year-old student had the idea to create a Statue of Liberty torch for the line leader to hold, so Ferranti printed one. In the process, students are exposed to concepts in history, stem and other subjects. “They have good ideas, those kids,” Ferranti said.

The custom manipulatives are available to around 100 students in classrooms throughout the preschool, as well as an additional 35 young children from the community who come in for discreet services, such as once-a-week speech therapy.

“We are developing skills and we are connecting objects we make with the curriculum,” Ferranti said. “We are here to teach people, and we are here to teach all the people. We are really excited we got the grant.”

“People’s success is about skill, not will,” says Katie Miller.

A school counselor at the Gibbs School, Miller grows animated as she discusses an approach to discipline called Collaborative Problem Solving (CPS), in which she and colleagues across the district received summer training. She says the CPS motto of “skill, not will,” offered her a new lens on her work with sixth-grade students and their teachers. Now, when she hears from a teacher with a challenging student, or from a student struggling to meet school expectations, she asks herself what skills the student may be missing and how she, the teacher and the student can collaborate to build that skill. “People do well if they can,” she adds.

The CPS summer training, funded in part by a $32,000 District Investment grant from the Arlington Education Foundation, is part of a district-wide initiative to align disciplinary approaches at the town’s three secondary schools. Arlington High School has been using the CPS model (a program of the Department of Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital) for about a decade, while Ottoson Middle School and Gibbs are in the early stages of implementation.

AHS Principal Matthew Janger says the AEF grant will allow the high school to deepen and re-energize its work in CPS. A key part of the model, he says, is encouraging staff to think in terms of a Plan A, B, and C when it comes to student misbehavior. Plan A is what he refers to as “the adult plan,” whereby, if a student breaks a rule, there’s an immediate consequence (from a lower grade to suspension) aimed at encouraging them to follow it next time. Plan C is what he calls “the student’s plan, where the teacher just drops the expectation.” Plan B, on the other hand, asks staff to consider that misbehavior may reflect the absence of a skill and collaborate with the student on improvements.

He credits CPS with helping reduce the average annual suspensions at AHS from about 75 to 20, and with improved relationships between adults and students. He also stresses that CPS is not about giving in or letting students get away with bad behavior, but rather seeking to understand the reason for it and engage students in the solution.

“If a kid is chronically late, and you ratchet up the consequence, and they’re still late, there’s got to be more going on,” he said. “If the kid doesn’t know how to be on time, punishing them for being late doesn’t teach the skill.”

Ottoson Middle School, which is in the first year of implementing CPS, had approximately 25 staff and some families participate in the August training, and Principal Rochelle Rubino said she already sees the results at work. “We’re turning to CPS to engage in difficult conversations and help students engage collaboratively with an adult around a challenge,” she said, noting that the model helps in situations ranging from a student having trouble with homework to one refusing to attend school.

She said she’s grateful to AEF’s grant for continued professional training during the school year. She also believes the shared language of Plan A, B, C across grades 6-12 will be beneficial to staff and students, a sentiment echoed by both Dr. Janger, of the high school, and Andrew Ahmadi, principal of Gibbs.

While Gibbs sent only a few staff to this past summer’s workshop, Ahmadi said he’s been excited to see participants like counselor, Katie Miller, share her knowledge with others. He hopes to offer more formal training to staff during the school year, as well as next summer. “It was a very powerful experience,” he says.

Reflecting on how the workshop informs her day-to-day experience at Gibbs, Miller says the Plan A, B, C language helps her and her colleagues keep in mind that they always have a choice in their response and a range of tools available. “There are times I get a call from a teacher, and we don’t have time, and we have to accept that the student won’t meet the expectation right in the moment,” she says. “But you do so knowing that when you have more time, you can work on a Plan B.”

Thank you to all who attended and supported the Arlington Education Foundation 2025 Innovation Showcase on January 27. It was an inspiring night of collaboration between Arlington Public Schools and AEF.

See the list of awardees represented below or check out a recap of the night on our Facebook page!

District Investment Grant

Strategic Initiatives Working Groups
Dr. Elizabeth Homan, Superintendent
2023 – Grant Amount $42,000

This grant provided the Arlington Public Schools with funding for stipends, texts, and resources for Working Groups that each focus on one or two initiatives of the Five-Year Strategic Plan. The groups 

• Gather input related to their initiative(s)
• Analyze data from the school district related to their initiative(s)
• Consider, test, and refine ideas for implementation
• Recommend and lead actions

Groups include building leaders, curriculum directors, teachers, families, and students.

Performing Arts Innovation & Expansion Grants

Multicultural Concert Series iPads for Performance
Jing-Huey Wei, Performing Arts Director
2023 Grant Amounts Totaling $19,000

In the last few years AEF has sponsored several grants for the APS Performing Arts Department.  Today, we are showcasing two grants brought by Jing-Huey Wei (Performing Arts Director and Chelsea Austin (Grants Administrator and Performing Arts Facilitator). 

These grants aim to make the performing arts more informed by multiple cultures and more agile in their ability to perform in various venues.  Students will demonstrate how they use the iPads for String and Band performance.

Innovations Grant 

The Pondercast
Brenda Mahoney, AHS – Library Assistant 
Fall 2023 – Grant Amount $4,000

Students of the Pondercast Club aim to inform and engage the Arlington High School community through a weekly broadcast announcements/news program. The club gathers, records, and presents various happenings and issues involving Spy Ponders to the AHS student body and staff.

Funding from AEF allowed the Pondercast Club to purchase the video and audio equipment as well as peripherals needed to reliably produce a program that aims to bring the entire Spy Ponder community together.

Development & Expansion Grant

Building a 21st Century Visual Arts Program
Leo Muellner, Director of Visual Arts
Fall 2023 – Grant Amount $15,000

In the last two years, AEF has sponsored several grants from the Visual Arts Department.  Today, we are showcasing this Development and Expansion Grant which established new Visual Arts programming at AHS in Animation and Filmmaking, which expanded access to the Digital Photography programming.  The new entry level classes have been popular with students and very successful and the department has recently launched new advanced classes in these subjects.

Development & Expansion Grant

Books to Enhance Literacy
Christina Cooney, English Language Arts Director
Gretchen Vice, Brackett Elementary School Principal
Karen Donato, Thompson Elementary School Principal
Winter 2024 – Grant Amount $15,000

This grant was submitted by Dr. Mona Ford Walker, Deputy Superintendent of Teaching and Learning, and Chelsea Austin, APS Grants Administrator to support Reading Curriculum for Arlington’s K-6 students across seven Arlington Schools.  

The grant allowed APS to purchase decodable texts to support struggling readers, and audiobooks to support over 1000 students learn pronunciation.

Interdisciplinary Problem Solving Robotics

Rashmi Pimprikar, Director of Digital Learning
2023 – Grant Amount $24,000

This grant expands on a grant from the AEF in 2022 which created a robotics curriculum for grades K-2. This 2023 grant funded the creation of a robotics curriculum for grades 3-5, introducing Microbits and Finch robots at all seven elementary schools.   

This goal of using these robotics education tools in the classroom is to provide a starting point for developing basic programming skills, and practicing the directional language, measurement, problem-solving, and collaboration, with an interdisciplinary approach.

Innovations Grant

Reading Across America
Karen Donato, Thompson Elementary School Principal
Jennifer Mansfield, Thompson School – Diversity and Inclusion Group (DIG) Member & Parent
Fall 2023 – Grant Amount $4,000

The scope of this project is to provide Thompson grade K-3 classrooms with a picture book each month, and grade 4-5 classrooms a chapter book each month, “that explore a topic related to diversity and inclusion”, for the 2024 calendar year.

Innovations Grant

National Academy of Science Transportation Design Competition

Talia Askenazi, AHS Student Class of 2025
Petru Sofio, AHS Student Class of 2024 & Northeastern University Class of 2028
Fall 2022 – Grant Amount $2,255

This grant allowed two AHS students (a sophomore and junior at the time) and their guardians to travel to Washington, DC to present their CADD design solution to the National Academy of Science Transportation Design Competition.

Innovations Grant & Continuing Scholar Award 

STEAM Circuits in Art 
Maker Project Teaching Program
Stacey Greenland, Dallin Elementary School Art Teacher
Spring 2023 – Grants Totaling $1,451

Ms. Greenland’s grants allowed her to work with students across all grade levels to incorporate simple circuits, LED lights and whirring motors into their 2D and 3D art projects, incorporating the Science of circuits into the Art Curriculum and building the foundation for a Makerspace at the Dallin School.  

Continuing Scholar Award

Massachusetts Foreign Language 
Teacher of the Year
Na Lu-Hogan, World Language/Mandarin Teacher – Ottoson Middle School
Fall 2024 – Grant Amount $2,300

Na Lu-Hogan was selected as the Massachusetts Foreign Language Teacher of the Year and will represent Massachusetts in the Regional Teacher of the Year Program in late February 2025.  AEF was pleased to support her participation in the Massachusetts Foreign Language Association Conference (October 2024) and Regional Foreign Language Association Conference in New York City later this year.

Continuing Scholar Award

Esquela Playa Spanish Teacher Training, Malaga, Spain
Sarah Franford, Ottoson Spanish Teacher
Spring 2024 – Grant Amount $2,500

This grant sponsored travel to a language learning program in Spain which allowed Ms. Franford to build conversation skills in day-to-day activities with both children and adults.  She was able to bring back videos, artifacts and other inspirations for her work teaching Spanish to middle school students in Arlington.

Join us on January 27, 2025 from 6 – 8 pm for the Arlington Education Foundation Annual Innovation Showcase.

Please RSVP here

More info: