Recent Grant Recipients

The Westhill Educational Foundation is pleased to announce our grant recipients for the 2022-2023 academic year. Due to the continued support of our donors and community members the Foundation was able to award nearly $30,000 to Westhill educators throughout the fall and spring, benefiting student learning and supplementing the curriculum in new and interesting ways. The winners of this years grants are:

First grade students at Walberta Park were given the chance to learn about the life cycle of a chick and see baby chicks hatch and grow. Teachers connected this experience to students’ EL lessons on birds as well as their science unit on how to care for living things.

This grant supported Westhill Day of Jazz featuring CNY based Jazz combo ESP. The day-long event included two in-school performances by ESP for students in grades 5-12, two hands-on afternoon workshops with instrumental and vocal jazz students in grades 6-12 and concluded with a public performance on the evening of April 11th.

Four virtual reality headsets and educational apps were purchased for use at Westhill High School. Headsets will be loaded with educational apps in specific content areas and teachers will be able to borrow the headsets to provide an immersive experience that complements the content that they are teaching.

This spring, author Victoria Jamieson visited OHMS. Funding from this grant helped to create excitement prior to the event and support the author visit.

This grant helped WHS students participating in the Academic Decathlon an opportunity to go on an immersive learning trip to explore and study “The American Revolution and the New Nation” in the birthplace of our Nation, Philadelphia PA. With this experience students were able to gain a better understanding of The American Revolution through hands-on, engaging experiences.

Students at OHMS benefitted from this grant, which provided a school-wide day of activities to promote positive self worth and encourage healthy choices. In addition, students had the opportunity to listen to two speakers, Marc Mero, founder of Champion of Choices, and Kayla McKeon, Special Olympian and lobbyist for the National Down Syndrome Society as they addressed students with messages of compassion, acceptance, positive relations and self-worth.

This grant provided funding for a class set of snowshoes to be used for animal trekking, bird watching, and winter exploration. They will be used at Westhill High School for students in environmental science and biology classes and can also be used in physical education classes.

This grant helped to support WHS students who competed in the DECA state Conference in Rochester this past March. Students attended various workshops relating to business concepts and participated in role-plays of real-life business scenarios.

This grant helped to implement supply closets at each of the four schools in the district. The objective is to provide students access to school and personal supplies and is intended to both increase access to these items for all students and reduce the burden on staff who typically purchase these items for students when needed.

Through this grant, the OHMS library was able to build its graphic novel collection by adding a series of Manga books. This grant provided funds to purchase the first 25 books of the Manga series Hikyu!!! By Haruichi Furudate.

This grant will create a special collection of books at both the Onondaga Hill Middle School Library and the Westhill High School Library that address the language needs of students. The collections will consist of books that support English Language Learners (ELL) and books in Spanish and French to support our World Language curriculum in both buildings.