2022-2023 Spark Grants

Kelli Heckman, band director at Hopkins North Junior High School, plans to start a middle school drumline next fall. The drumline will rehearse one day a week after school and will perform for school and community events in the 2023/2024 school year and possibly the Hopkins Raspberry parade in the summer of 2024. This ensemble would be comprised of 5 snare drums, 2 quint toms, 4 bass drums, 2 cymbals, possible drum set, and multiple practice pads in order to include more people.

North Junior High - Keli Heckman

Hopkins Schools has heard from parents and caregivers of the need for before and after school care for middle schoolers. In response to this need, Community Education will launch a new before and after school program for students in grades 6-8, offering a safe space for students to explore their passions, learn new interests and spend time with friends. Housed at North Junior High (soon to be North Middle School), the program will be open to students from both middle schools. Busing will be provided for students from West. HEF is partnering with Community Ed to provide critical supplies and materials.

Community Education (North and West) - Jennifer Pierce

Christine Halverson from the District Department of Special Services and Special Education Teacher Andrew Bowes who work in Meadowbrook Elementary School’s RISE Program recognize that funding awarded through this Building Self Regulation Strategies Grant will assist their K-6th grade students in building community, trust and safety in their school environments and lead to more positive peer interactions and an increase in side-by-side learning.

Meadowbrook Elementary School - Christine Halverson and Andrew Bowes

The Outdoor Experiences class has steadily increased in popularity at Hopkins High school over the past several years. Outdoor Experiences is an immersive and exploratory learning class where students spend as much time as possible outside and in nature. A key cumulative element of the course is an overnight camping trip with their peers. This grant will provide gear — tents, sleeping bags, and camp stoves — to enable all students to participate in this unique outdoor camping experience.

Hopkins High School - Karl Schroeder

The Community, Growth, and Inspiration Grant’s goal is to take 7th-9th grade students who are part of the Learning Choices Changes (LCC) program at North Junior High School (NJH) outside of their classroom walls and into the community on highly-active outings that allow them to practice their social-emotional skills while also engaging them in meaningful and challenging activities. Special Education Teacher Christopher Johnson aspires to give these students, who suffer from emotional behavior disorders, authentic opportunities to develop their confidence, empathy, humility and future thinking with grant funds.

North Junior High - Christopher Johnson

Tanglen 4th grade teacher Natalie Ringold works hard to ignite her students’ passion for all things STEM. A corner of her classroom is filled with items that ignite exploration and discovery, like shells, rocks, feathers, and even a deer skull! This grant will provide her classroom with simple shelves to contain and protect her STEM collection. And the grant will enable her to purchase additional items to round out her collection — an energy conversion kit, a biology kit, a bug discovery kit, a marine life specimen kit, and ant farms.

Tanglen Elementary - Natalie Ringold

In an effort to strengthen our Hopkins football program, Head Coach Trevor Tolly’s desire to develop Hopkins football players and the program to be able to compete at the highest level of football in the state. In order to do so Tolly identified that proper equipment was imperative and the Football Equipment Grant primarily focuses on the purchase of a fundamental piece of equipment known as a sled.

Hopkins High School, North & West Junior High - Coach Treor Tolly

Naturalist Jim Ikhaml has been tapping maple trees on and around Gatewood Elementary and educating students about the syrup tapping process for the last three years. Under his direction and with help from parent volunteers, his Maple Syrup Program, created for all of Gatewood’s pre-K – 6th grade students, has become a much anticipated learning season throughout the Gatewood school community.

Gatewood Elementary - Naturalist Jim Ikhaml

Dreaming of a playground for all children of all abilities, Glen Lake teacher Betsy Julien’s Glen Lake Accessibility Project Grant will enable equitable and inclusive recess play for all students. With hopes of adding a wheelchair swing and other accessible playground equipment to the current Glen Lake upper playground, wheelchair-bound students will be able to grow their connections and friendships, strengthen their communication, social skills and interactions by playing together with one another as well as with their non-wheelchair-bound peers.

Glen Lake Elementary - Betsy Julien

This award will help students engage and also to remove the barrier of not having the appropriate tools for testing. With the appropriate tools they will be able to practice for the ACT and to improve.

Hopkins High School - Jenniger Heimlich

Further expounding on Tanglen’s previous HEF Innovation Lab Grant which challenges, creates, constructs and connects students, the Innovate Recess Grant is the dream of Library Media Generalist Holly Thompson coming to fruition. This grant will create opportunities for all Tanglen students to be part of small groups that visit the Innovation Lab once a week during recess time to participate in make-and-take-projects and varying focused challenges.

Tanglen Elementary School - Holly Thompson

Building on a renewed interest in jazz, this year’s edition of the Jazz Cooks Grant partners with the culturally-authentic combo known as Salsa Del Soul. Focusing on establishing jazz as a curricular offering during terms three and four of the current school year, with the intent to develop greater diversity in instrumental programming and musical experiences while bringing Teacher Nora Tycast’s desire to fruition and shining a spotlight on the Afro-Cuban and Salsa Combos, some of the earliest forms of Latin jazz.

Hopkins High School - Nora Tycast

KIBO is a user-friendly robotic device specifically built to help children aged 4-7 years old develop skills within the concept of coding without requiring screen time from any device. Using wooden KIBO blocks with UPC codes, children create sequences of instruction for KIBO by scanning them in and telling the robot what it should do to complete various challenges and tasks. Glen Lake preschool students will have the opportunity to experiment with this 21st century classroom pet.

Glen Lake Preschool - Rob Mullen

This grant will provide new equipment for the Early Childhood Special Education motor room at Harley Hopkins. These students have an abundance of energy, and this new equipment will allow them to express that energy in a positive, safe environment that removes barriers to learning and supports their needs.

Harley Hopkins Early Childhood Education - Barbra Bosch & Ann Rossow

Link Crew is a new orientation and transition program for Hopkins High School (HHS) that will help welcome approximately 500 freshmen and make them more comfortable coming into their high school experience. This Link Crew Grant will enable 100 juniors and seniors to be trained to serve as Link Leaders. This role of mentor, teacher and support system for the incoming freshman class will foster relationship building, culture positivity and community.

Hopkins High School - Correne Larsen

Reflecting the vision of our Hopkins Public School District while integrating the highly regarded Mindful Schools K-6th grade curriculum, Teacher Stephanie Trebil brings this one-of-a-kind opportunity for first grade students and their teachers to learn mindfulness strategies together as part of the Mindfulness Tools for Social Emotional Wellness Grant at Eisenhower Community School.

Eisenhower Community School - Stephanie Trebil

After distance learning, many special education students have greater sensory issues. The amount of noise and proximity to peers and staff is overwhelming and often causes students great distress. The NJH Sensory Room Grant will make a sensory friendly decompression space possible for both special education and general education students and assist them in being successful learners in their classrooms.

North Junior High - Margaret Sagstuen, Micki Mandell & Steph Rossow

It’s perfect timing for the Robotics, Circuits and Coding Grant at Tanglen Elementary since this school year STEAM was adopted as a new special at the school. STEAM Specialist Martha Raid shares that 1st through 6th grade students at Tanglen will have a unique and rare opportunity to “engage with technology on their own” and gain mastery of math skills in areas including mathematical operations and basic input and output, as well as working on science standards, such as defining a simple design problem.

Tanglen Elementary - Martha Raid

Tanglen Elementary Literacy Coach Anne Baird and Special Education Teacher Mary Slobig were inspired to request the Rising Together Through the Science of Reading (SOR) Grant because of their core belief that all students have the opportunity to become proficient readers, spellers and writers and the SOR’s solid grounding in equity. Informed by the Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling (LETRS) training and ongoing learning about the SOR, the teachers are better able to tailor instruction to address students’ literacy needs.

Tanglen Elementary - Anne Baird & Mary Slobig

Young children learn through doing. They are, by nature, active learners. With this grant, the Meadowbrook Early Childhood and Preschool program will purchase a wide range of open-ended materials for their motor room. These materials will help children interact with the world through balancing, crawling, visual tracking, coordination, and cooperative play. Sensory play helps to support language & cognitive development, problem solving, and both fine and gross motor skills.

Meadowbrook Preschool & Early Childhood - Ann Aanestad, Emily Holmgren & Kelly Mordick

The We are West Junior High School Podcast Presentations Grant will create a podcast studio that will replicate a typical small production studio with all the necessary equipment and elements required to design and prepare for interviews, set up logistics, and record audio podcasts after instruction in class and during enrichment programming. Students in enrichment programs will learn to edit and prepare their podcasts for distribution and broadcast to the WJH student body each Friday morning when working in WIN (What I Need) enrichment sessions, during lunch choice time, or during the after-school activity option.

West Junior High School - Lindsey Leseman

Hopkins Junior High Vocal Music Teacher Ian Stillmunks aims to combine a new and modern band approach with the traditional choir model, intertwining the creation of music with the performance piece of choir, and show students that they are “able to write and perform their own music in much the same way that their favorite artists do,” with the Songwriting in the Choral Classroom Grant.

West And North Junior High Schools - Ian Stillmunks

What started out as an Awesome Fund grant (whose implementation was disrupted by COVID) has morphed into an official DJ Techniques class. The class will use the equipment already purchased, but, based on the level of enrollment anticipated for next year, they need more — more sophistication and just more. This grant will fund 18 DJ controllers, headphones, locked storage, and mobile carts.

Hopkins High School - Jonathan Feulner

Kids and Company provides a relaxed, low-pressure opportunity for students to experiment with STEM activities and have fun doing it. This grant will provide Tanglen Kids and Company with a Maker Cart for use as part of their Inventor’s Lab. Students will get to design, create and problem-solve while making cool things like wiggle bots, hydraulics, vehicles that move, launchers, crazy contraptions and so much more.

Tanglen Kids & Company - Michelle Chapin

This grant will provide safe and purposeful equipment for the Tanglen Tigers Motor Room. School motor rooms are beneficial for all students as a way to provide a space for a variety of motor activities to incorporate sensory input, balance, motor coordination, motor planning and strengthening. Motor rooms can be beneficial spaces to provide proactive and short (10-15 minute) breaks that are built within a student’s school day to provide meaningful ways to move their bodies, in order to promote regulation and calming for returning to the classroom learning environment. Supporting our students ability to attain a “ready to learn” state, while also supporting foundational physical skills necessary for higher-level learning, is essential for all learners.

Tanglen Elementary— Meagen Seabul

The North Junior High Special Education team provides services for many students who have social and behavioral disabilities. To support their work and insert a “fun factor” into their students’ learning, these NJH teachers are launching a project focused primarily on board games. With this grant, the teachers plan to purchase more than 2 dozen different inexpensive games that will provide the opportunity for students to build a variety of skills and develop strategies for interacting with others.

North Junior High Special Ed - Nicole Doescher-Train

Always at the forefront of bridging gaps, Alice Smith Elementary recognizes the innate connection between their school and their community. For many years, teachers and staff have known that students and families rely on the school for more than its rigorous academic endeavors. Focusing on the students holistically included finding a solution for their students’ need for clean clothes and a reprieve for teachers and staff who frequently took students’ winter gear and extra clothing items home to wash on weekends in order to assure students had clean clothes each Monday morning.

Alice Smith Elementary School - Esl Teacher Ellen Poppy And Elementary Guidance Counselor Kristin Lutz