The Foundation for Madison's Public Schools awarded more than $48,000 to support six staff-initiated grants for the 2008-09 school year. The FMPS grant program enables teachers and administrators to fund creative and innovative projects that are outside the core school budget.

A committee consisting of community and FMPS Board members carefully selects grants, which must be approved by the Board of Directors.

To date, the Foundation has given over $600,000 through a variety of grants programs to MMSD projects.

The six project titles, grant amount, project leader, and project description:

Madison-City of Four Lakes, Our History and Our Home - $10,000
Susan Hamblin, Department of Teaching and Learning
This grant funds the graphic artist to complete the layout for the Madison-City of Four Lakes, Our History and Our Home book, printing of 2000 copies and the Web-based construction.

AVID Summer Training - $9,120
Tom Kanies, East High
AVID is a program designed to provide underachieving and underserved populations training for skills they will need to be successful in advanced level high school courses and four year college programs. This grants support summer training for teachers at the AVID institute.

Literacy Initiative Grant - $9,120
Annie Potter, East High
This grant supports 5.5 days of training for 12 East High teachers to learn content area reading strategies across all major content areas as implementation materials. The professional development is part of a sustained coordinated effort to improve literacy at East.

Learning to Read by Reading - $9,000
Mary Ellen LaChance, Department of Teaching and Learning
The grant funds the one time purchase of a Rigby PM software site license that will allow the district to pilot and, if successful, sustain an intervention for first grade struggling readers.

"Drama Days" - $8,256
Sylla Zarov, Muir Elementary
This grant funds equipment and a visiting artist to assist teachers in incorporating the dramatic arts in their teaching practices, help students understand the various elements of drama and experience dramatic performance themselves, and relate dramatic experience to Muir School's Above the Line activities.

General Music Expansion - $2,369 ($2,033 — Music Endowment Fund)
Ben Jaeger, Spring Harbor Middle
The grant will expand student experiences in general music through the purchase of guitars, keyboards and a digital recorder.