Manish Kumar, leader of the AHS Ping Pong Club, goes in for a shot during a tournament held in November at Malden High School. In March, with support from AEF, the club will send two teams to the playoff round, with the chance to advance to compete at the national level.

Pay a visit to Arlington High School on any Tuesday between 2:10 and 3 p.m., and you’ll find students engaged in a number of activities, whether it’s creating digital music in the performing arts wing, feeding and caring for the animals that make up the district’s popular Animal Lending Library, or participating in a friendly game of ping pong or badminton in one of the school gyms.

That hour is known as X block, a time when many high school clubs hold their meetings. Led by students, these clubs give members the opportunity to explore topics and activities beyond the school classroom. While students are responsible for raising most of the funds needed to sustain these groups, the Arlington Education Foundation last year launched a new program called Club Grants to help support them.

Student groups may receive up to $350 each though a competitive application process. Last month, in its second year of the program, AEF approved a total of $3,050 in Club Grants for nine different student activity groups at AHS.

One group to receive a grant was the Ping Pong Club, led by AHS senior Manish Kumar.

The AHS Ping Pong Club participated in a tournament with other area high school students held at Malden High School in November. The club recently received an AEF Club Grant to help support its tournament fees.

“I was really stoked,” Kumar said. He joined the club as a freshman, and has watched it grow over the last four years to around 30 consistent members. In November, the club sent two teams to compete in the first round of the American Youth Table Tennis Organization’s New England Scholastic Table Tennis League Tournament, held at Malden High School. In March, the teams will compete again in the playoff round, with the chance to compete at the national level if they win.

Kumar said the $350 grant from AEF will allow the club to participate in these tournaments in a way that is accessible to all students, not just those who have the financial means to do so.

“There are many clubs at Arlington High, and a lot of these clubs are to ‘build your resume,’” for college and beyond, Kumar said. “Ping Pong Club is more recreational. If you want to try the sport and be interested in it, you can. You can also take it more seriously and go to tournaments and join the team.”

Amitai Zur, an AHS junior who leads the Spanish and Portuguese Club alongside AHS senior Anna Samary Marques, said they plan to use the $300 grant they received from AEF to host two dance sessions with the Latin Dance Studio in April. The club, along with the AHS Latino Student Union, hosted similar events last year, attracting about 50 students per session to learn salsa, bachata and other dance styles.

“We want to expand on the dances from last year, and it’s great that we have it two years in a row, with a lot of students coming back,” Zur said. “Some of the kids remember some of the dances, and they will be able to keep expanding” their knowledge.

The AHS Spanish and Portuguese Club held two dance sessions with the Latino Dance Studio last year. They plan to host the sessions again this April, thanks to support from an AEF Club Grant.

Receiving support from AEF is a game changer, Zur said. “It’s super helpful, and it was needed. A lot of the time, when we are doing stuff, the club leaders often spend money out of their own pockets. We have to save receipts and divide the balances among the leaders. [With the grant] the leaders can spend more time leading the activity instead of having to figure out financial stuff. We receive more money through the grants than what most leaders are willing to spend out of their own pockets. We are high school students! It opens a lot more doors.”

With Thanksgiving quickly approaching, Arlington Education Foundation’s holiday STARs campaign is in full swing. STAR awards recognize the contributions of individual teachers and staff members, while also supporting educational innovation in Arlington.

STARs can be purchased for anyone from across Arlington Public Schools, not just classroom teachers. Custodians, librarians, lunch staff, nurses and administrative assistants, or even an entire learning community at the middle school level, are all eligible to receive an award. Each STAR costs $20, and donors can add a short message to be included on the certificate, if they choose. AEF will deliver the personalized awards to recipients before winter break. 

“By purchasing a STAR, you not only honor an individual educator, you also invest in future creativity and growth across Arlington Public Schools,” AEF co-president Stephanie Murphy said. “Your donation to AEF funds our many grant programs, including Innovations and Continuing Scholar awards that help teachers and students explore new ideas and bring inspiring projects to life.”

In the past year alone, AEF awarded over $170,000 in grants to Arlington Public Schools that allowed educators to attend conferences, participate in workshops and retreats, and explore new methods of teaching in their classrooms. Other grant highlights include:

• • An exciting new $4,000 pilot program to award funds to clubs at Arlington High School. Students applied for these grants, took ownership of projects, built leadership skills and made a real impact. 
  • $20,000 to the district to support the Spy Ponder Threads Closet and Community Welcome Center, providing essential resources to students and families. 
  • $4,000 to Ottoson Middle School for the creation of a soundproof Music Production Studio, where students can record projects and explore sound engineering.

• $4,000 to Brackett Elementary School to create a Native Learning Garden to provide students with hands-on experience in exploring and building ecological habitats that support pollinators, birds and water management.

To learn more and to purchase a STAR, log onto www.aefma.org/stars. Deadline is Nov. 30 for delivery prior to winter break!

As a high school student growing up on Bainbridge Island, Wash., Adam Gooder found his home in the art room. It became the place where he met his friends, spent his off blocks and lingered before and after school, eventually launching him into a lifelong career in the arts as a professional photographer, filmmaker and teacher.

Gooder hopes to create a similar environment in his classroom at Arlington High School, where since fall 2023, he has taught digital photography, animation and filmmaking to hundreds of students in a program that is rapidly expanding, thanks to new state-of-the-art facilities made possible by the completion this month of the high school’s five-year building project. 

It’s an exciting time to be in the visual arts department, Gooder said, where growing demand has led to the creation of new courses: Last year, the department added Digital Photography II and this year, students will have the opportunity to take Digital Photography III. “[It] feels very grassroots,” Gooder said. “I don’t find myself having to sell it to students. I keep the lab open, and kids show up.” 

But the increasing popularity has also created new challenges to solve. 

“Our class sizes are too big to take to a museum,” Gooder said. “For example, Harvard Art Museum is a great resource, you can take a bus there. But they have a limit of 40 students, and last year, I had two Digital Photography II classes, each with 24 students in them. What do I do? Do I exclude some students? Do I pick which class I’m going to take?”

Instead, Gooder began to brainstorm ways to bring outside expertise to his students. For help, he turned to Arlington Education Foundation, a community-based nonprofit that works to empower and support public school teachers and staff. In the fall of 2024, Gooder applied for an Innovation Grant to fund a new visiting artist series to bring the professionals — animators, photographers, filmmakers — into the classroom. 

“I needed a way to give students that breadth of experience,” Gooder said. “What I want students to see is that these are viable careers. If you love it enough you can find a way to make money with it. … It took the pressure off of feeling like if I don’t take them on a field trip, then I am doing them a disservice.” 

AEF awarded Gooder a $2,800 grant to bring in four or more visiting artists over an 18-month period. Last spring, students in Gooder’s filmmaking and digital photography classes had the opportunity to work with award-winning filmmaker Thomas Percy Kim and sports/commercial photographer Adam Glanzman. Kim premiered his first feature-length film, “Isle Child,” at the San Francisco Film Festival last spring, while Glanzman’s clients have included the Boston Red Sox, Adidas and the LPGA, among many others. Gooder specifically looks for artists who are open to mentoring young people. 

The experience so far has been incredible, Gooder said. Many students told Gooder it was their favorite part of his class, and the visits led to interactions that extended well beyond the class period. One student, a graduating senior who is now attending NYU this fall, asked Gooder if he could stay after class to interview Kim about filmmaking; he showed Kim his portfolio, and the two of them talked for over an hour, Gooder said. Another small group of students, along with Gooder, had the opportunity to help Kim on set with a commercial film shoot in Concord. “It was a paid gig, and it was a good experience for them,” Gooder said. “They did audio and they did some set dressing and a little bit of shooting, served as background actors in some cases. That all came out of that one artist visit.”

Gooder still has $1,700 left on his AEF grant, and this year, he hopes to bring in at least three more artists, including an animator. He is grateful to AEF for giving him the opportunity and resources to take creative approaches in his classroom.  

“An AEF grant is really, really important to be able to give our students an enriched experience,” Gooder said. “I’m teaching in a creative field, I want my teaching and my classroom to be creative too. I want to innovate, I want to change it up. …It’s a way of honoring teachers, this kind of grant program, because what it does is to say you are the expert and tell us what you need.”