News from the NEF

This grant, along with funding from Needham High School Friends of Music, funded a two-week musician residency in which Tia Fuller— Grammy-nominated Black female jazz saxophonist, composer, Berklee professor, and featured musician in Pixar’s Soul—shared her musical expertise and experiences with overcoming the glass ceiling often faced by Black and female-identifying musicians with Needham student musicians from High Rock, Pollard, and Needham High Schools. This residency coincided with the inception of a newly-established lab jazz program at Pollard that provides beginner jazz instruction to High Rock and Pollard students. Needham jazz students had the opportunity to prepare and rehearse Fuller’s original Grammy-nominated charts alongside her, which culminated in a combined performance in January encompassing all jazz programs in the district.

Grant writer Spencer Parrish, Needham High School Band Director and Music teacher, noted “Our time with Tia Fuller proved to be transformative for all involved. It is rare for professional musicians of Fuller’s caliber to be effective music clinicians in public school settings. Given this, Steve Heldt [Pollard Band Director] and I were pleasantly surprised to witness the efficacy of Fuller’s interactions with our students. Her feedback was differentiated for each respective age group, and the depth of her knowledge and experience as a professional jazz musician led to immediate (and lasting) improvements in the performance quality of our ensembles. Students walked away from the experience feeling pride for the tremendous musical accomplishment of performing and rehearsing alongside a Grammy-nominated musician. This residency seems to have provided them with inspiration to continue performing and learning about this special musical genre. These outcomes were everything I had hoped for when submitting the initial grant proposal.”

Last year, Elizabeth Hitron, librarian at Sunita Williams Elementary School, working with Kelly Haas, Sunita Williams’ ELL teacher, and Jenn Potter, Broadmeadow’s librarian, received a grant to fund the purchase of books written in languages other than English for all of the elementary school libraries. The program was developed in a partnership between the libraries and the elementary ELL teachers who are seeing a sharp increase in their caseload of students, many of whom have little to no English when arriving in Needham, and who have noticed a lack of appropriate reading material. The books, written in students’ home languages, support their academic growth and independent reading, as well as offer an opportunity to see themselves reflected in the books around them. These collections are housed in the five elementary libraries for ELL teachers to access for their students, as well as for general circulation.

Books were chosen in three ways: 1) translated copies of popular titles so that students new to the U.S. can access materials their peers are reading, 2) books originally written in world languages and reflecting other cultures, and 3) books in a variety of reading levels to accommodate different ages and reading skills. 

According to Ms. Hitron, “The new world language books have been a very welcomed addition to all five elementary school libraries. As an elementary team, we have had many successes with these new books – students and staff alike have been delighted with them. It has been a lot of fun presenting books to students in their home languages. A second grade student at Newman was thrilled to find a book in Chinese. His classmates were so impressed he could read it! Another student at Newman who recently moved from Israel (and had little to no English) was so happy to borrow many books in Hebrew, her first language. A Mitchell student was very excited to find books in Russian because his dad speaks Russian at home. He checks them out and has his dad read them to him before bed.”

Molly Mullin, Eliot Elementary School librarian, added, “The new world language books arrived in the Eliot Library perfectly timed with the arrival of a new family to the school. The family had recently fled Ukraine and the children could read in Russian. Our new Russian language books were the first books that these students checked out of the library. It was wonderful to welcome them, provide them something they could read, and to show them that we embrace and respect other languages. While we have electronic resources to provide ebooks in other languages, having a diverse collection of print books is also very important to our school culture.”

This fall, Kristen Mazzocchi, Needham High School Theater teacher, coordinated workshops to provide the necessary training for Pollard and Needham High School students to participate as technical crew and designers in the school district’s theater productions.

Given the lack of live performances during the pandemic, Kristen realized that veteran crew members were unable to pass down their knowledge to incoming students. This left students without the necessary skills and training to take leadership roles in managing the technical aspects of theater production. To make up for this learning loss, Kristen applied for an NEF grant to run workshops in stage management, as well as sound, lighting, costume, and set design, with local industry professionals. In addition to learning the basics, students were introduced to new technologies that are being used in the theater industry so that they can elevate the production level of Needham’s school performances in the future. The after-school workshops were open to all Pollard and Needham High students and no prior experience was required.

According to Kristen, “The students were able to put much of their new skills right to work since many of these workshops were held … at the same time as the set building for the Students Acting To Make A Difference production [of The Addams Family]. Students went right from the workshops to actually building the set, focusing the lights, and using a new digital sound board that they had just been trained on. It was amazing to see what the students just learned being put into practice!”

Last year, the NEF funded professional training with Mass Mentoring Partnership (MMP) for Needham Steps Up (NSU) mentors at Needham High School. NSU pairs up to 20 income-eligible students with a Needham High School teacher to mentor them throughout their years in the high school. The training included:

• providing mentors with a more cohesive and clear understanding of mentorship, particularly within a high school setting
• helping mentors increase their responsiveness to students’ needs
• helping mentors understand boundaries
• helping mentors establish clear guidelines about the types of issues they can tackle on their own and when it is important to seek outside help

The grant also funded professional training of NSU staff members in a “train-the-trainer” model so that future mentors will receive the same instruction. Since all mentors are NHS teachers, this grant will not only benefit the students in the program, but also the students in the mentors’ classrooms.

According to grant writer and NSU board member, Martha Cohen Barrett, “the training … provided a foundation and a sense of the mentors as essential to their mentees’ high school success. NSU will build on that sense of skill and intentionality going forward, linking what they do to the mission of both NHS and NPS. This year’s mentor training served as a springboard that we will build on. For example, we … did one exercise at the end of training that had mentors move toward different sides of the room depending upon what they would do in a particular situation. Not only did the exercise provide examples of how mentors see mentoring through different lenses, but it shed light on the different ways in which the mentors are living their experiences with their mentees. However, there wasn’t time for the mentors to debrief and problem-solve together. In the future, we will do more of these kinds of activities, aiming to create training that runs like a thoughtfully conceived lesson plan.”

This summer, Needham High School Social Studies teacher, Laura Magno, attended the National Endowment for the Humanities’ (NEH): Heart Mountain Educator Workshop in Wyoming. More than 14,000 Japanese Americans were confined at Heart Mountain during World War II. The week-long workshop included visits to the nationally recognized interpretive center at Heart Mountain, as well as the Smithsonian-affiliate museum, the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, and the Homesteader Museum. The experience will enhance teachers’ understanding and provide resources and lessons for the Needham High Social Studies Department.