• Daily Times • Selena Millard
Awards night: Kaitlyn Whitman (center in red), a third grader in Mrs. Martinelli's class at Western Coventry Elementary School, narrates a slide show presentation with her classmates at Tuesday night's Service Learning Awards presentation at Coventry High School.
Community connections
Students share service projects
Jessica Carr • Daily Times
WASHINGTON VILLAGE — The Coventry school community gathered at Coventry High School Tuesday evening to see how a $32,000 grant that the Coventry School District was awarded from the KIDS Consortium was put to use.
The audience sat back and viewed a slide show of the Blackrock Elementary School International Festival "Let's Travel Around the World."
They listened to the kids from Western Coventry Elementary School discuss pictures of their new outdoor classroom. The group watched a presentation by Charles Blanchette, which detailed the work his eighth grade students at Knotty Oak Middle School did as part of their on-going anti-vandalism campaign, and they also learned of the intergenerational project run by Coventry High School teacher Kathy Hudson, which connecte
"The primary purpose of the ceremony was to celebrate the students' accomplishments and their contribution to the community," said Dolores O'Rourke, the co-chairperson of the KIDS Consortium grant project. "Studies clearly bear evidence that students that participate in service learning programs are much more engaged in their communities in their futures and prove to be better prepared to solve real life problems in the community."
Service learning programs differ from traditional community service projects in that they are driven by academic integrity, involve student ownership and incorporate apprentice citizenship.
"Each of these projects were student initiated and student driven. We had students clamoring to be a part of certain ones," O'Rourke said. They were also curriculum based, but they all expanded well beyond what the traditional curriculum calls for. Community is a big part of the third grade curriculum, so
(Western Elementary School third grade teacher) Joyce Martinelli integrated this big project into her traditional curriculum."
This three-year federal grant was .awarded to the Coventry School district last year.
Coventry School Superintendent Kenneth DiPietro played a major role in its reception, but has had the assistance of numerous other administrators during the distribution process.
"Teachers in grades K through 12 can still apply for the money that is remaining in our grant budget," said Christine Spagnoli, the director of grants and resources for the Coventry School administration.
"We received the money last year and are just now really getting the word out about it. We still have funds available and teachers are encouraged to apply. They just have to propose a service learning project with an academic component," Spagnoli said. "Look at all of these great programs, had we not been awarded this funding, none of them would probably ever been able to have been carried out otherwise."
Daily Times • Selena Millard
Helping hand: Coventry School Committee member Ray Spear encourages third grader Alana Colabro to speak about her project Tuesday night.