Local Schools Receive Awards From Williams College
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — McCann Technical School, Mount Greylock Regional High School, and Williamstown Elementary School received the local Bicentennial Olmsted Awards for faculty development from Williams College.Each school will receive $4,300 to fund professional and curricular development projects. The ceremony is scheduled for Thursday, May 24, on the Williams College campus.
For McCann, the award was granted to Sarah Hadley and Erin Mucci, who submitted a proposal to offer AP biology and AP literature and composition at the school. The grant money will be used for Hadley and Mucci to attend the AP Summer Institute, which prepares teachers of AP courses, and for classroom materials, which include books and other AP test prep materials.
At Mount Greylock, the award will be used to send four faculty members and one administrator to this summer's 20th annual Model Schools Conference, sponsored by the International Center for Leadership in Education. Those attending the conference are Christopher Barnes, assistant principal; Pat Blackman, middle school social studies; Lynne Jordan, wellness department; Amy Kirby, Spanish department; and Bob Thistle, high school math department.
The projects that will be funded at Williamstown Elementary School are “Flipping the Social Studies Classroom – Less Lecture and More Collaborative Learning Time,” “WES Data Team,” and “Curriculum Team.” The first project, proposed by fifth-grade teacher Rebecca Leonard, will employ the method of video lecture infused with footage to create history lessons. The data team project will expand the number of participants to better synthesize a macro/micro approach for data analysis and instructional interventions. Finally, members of the curriculum team will serve as leaders during the transition to the Common Core State Frameworks and will collaborate with the principal to plan professional development for teachers and monitor the progress of revising the school’s curriculum.
An endowment from the estates of George Olmsted, Jr. ’24 and his wife, Frances, fund the local Olmsted Awards.
