Town foundation steps up to fill gaps of budget cuts
GREENWICH — Bruce Museum volunteer docent Kit Mill sat before a Julian Curtiss School first grade class, asking students questions about different types of backyard animals — squirrels, birds, foxes and more.
“Which is the male?” Mill asked the kids, while holding a branch that had two mallard duck specimens attached to it.
“The male is the green head because the male has to have more colors so it can mate,” replied first grader Sy Goldman. “A female has to have more camouflage so the predators (can’t see them).”
This class was one of two Julian Curtiss first grade sections that took a Tuesday morning field trip to the Bruce Museum to spend time learning from a museum staff member about outdoor animals, while also getting the chance to take a selfguided tour of the three museum science exhibits.
Thanks to a grant of about $53,000 from the Greenwich Alliance for Education, all first grade classes will get to visit the Bruce Museum and all second grade classes will get to visit the Greenwich Audubon Center.
Tara Fogel, the district’s K-8 curriculum program director, submitted a grant proposal to the Greenwich Alliance for Education to be able to send every GPS first grade class to the Bruce Museum and every single second grade class to the Greenwich Audubon Center. The application came in the wake of some difficulty funding field trips.
As the district’s budget became more crunched, Gia Burton, co-chair of the Parent Teacher Association Council’s Curriculum Enrichment Committee, said it could no longer offer as many GPS-sponsored experiences as it did in past years, resulting in a loss of some
district-wide field trips. Therefore, individual school PTAs had to attempt to raise the funds, creating an opportunity disparity within the 11 elementary schools.
“Some schools that have (Parent Teacher Associations) that raised more money were able to provide more trips, maybe a longer opportunity, it just sort of varies on the different things,” said Julie Faryniarz, executive director of the Greenwich Alliance for Education. “But the fact is that these experiences enhance what the students are learning in school.”
So, Burton said her committee tried to figure out creative ways to be able to bring these educational experiences back to the district, focusing on working with community organizations. Burton originally reached out to Faryniarz at the Greenwich Alliance for Education to see if there was a way for the alliance to financially help out with the idea.
After seeing there was a need for district-wide science out-of-the-classroom experiences, Fogel submitted the grant proposal to the alliance and ultimately received the funding for this year. Fogel said, for next year, she was able to put the costs of the field trips into the science budget, making it a district-assured experience.
“Some of these students didn’t get to take any field trips last year, especially our first graders, so they didn’t really get a chance to experience that so they like the idea of getting out and about, learning in the field,” Fogel said.
She said she worked with both the Bruce Museum and the Audubon center to ensure that the programming is connected to what the students were learning in class.
“We really tailored the programs to suit our student need and our Greenwich Public Schools’ curriculum,” Fogel said.
Fogel said the “Science Beyond the Classroom” grant has funded about 65 sections of students to go to the Bruce Museum and Audubon Center. She said in total, there were between 31 and 33 field trips this year.
“I think what was so powerful about the grant and the experience is this idea that nature is in their backyard,” Fogel said.
The work isn’t done to continue offering these types of experiences to all GPS students, Burton said.
“We all have visions for expansion of this programming,” Burton said. “We’re not done leveraging our local resources ... I also can see us partnering further with other local resources in social students and ELA.”