About Weston Education Foundation
The Weston Education Foundation (WEF) is an all volunteer, non-profit organization with a broad mission to foster excellence and innovation in education in Weston. WEF looks for and funds projects that are not normally included in the school system budget. The foundation’s project’s fall into three major categories: a grants program (our teachers are our schools greatest asset!), introducing new technologies into the school system and sponsoring community- wide education programs through Weston Open Learning and Weston Talks.
WEF was founded in 1994, in response to the loss of state funds and to provide money for new technology which was becoming increasingly more important in the schools.
The founding Board members recognized a need for alternative sources for funding education in the Weston schools. That need still exists today. As school budgets get tighter and tighter it becomes increasingly more difficult to introduce new technology into our schools, to allow dedicated and creative teachers to have a “wish list” of projects and teaching methods that they think will inspire our children or explore a particular subject or area in depth. With donations we can continue to support that process.
Walk through any of the Weston schools and you can see the impact of WEF’s fundraising efforts. The wall mural that hangs in the WMS library was produced as the result of a WEF grant, “Eureka Electricity” the purchase of electrical reference books, voltage meters and various other materials enable students to create an Electricity Exhibition in 5 th grade, the 1st Data/Video projector, high speed Internet access for all schools, The Media Lab at WHS (known to the students as the Videography Lab),a sound system for the WHS auditorium and the pilot program called the “Wireless Library” all created from WEF funds. The “Wireless Library” was quite successful and was picked up by the district and this technology was introduced to all schools as the Computers on Wheels. Those are just a few of the WEF’s past projects.
This past year alone WEF has approved grants for 14 guitars for the WMS music department to use with 8 th grade general music classes, for 6 Digital Spectrophotometers for WHS science classrooms. WEF’s Expert-in-Residence grant enabled an expert to aid our school district redesign the K-5 science curriculum and to work with teachers. We also approved the 1 st grant to be given to the new Intermediate school, a Teacher Development and Creativity grant to expose TAG students to the Chinese culture, geography and the Mandarin language. Those are just some of the grants approved in 2004-2005.
This fall will see the introduction of the Interactive Whiteboard Labs into our schools. This new technology actively includes students in the instructional process while using a variety of learning software and Internet activity sites. None of these projects would have been possible without donations from the community. We are very excited about this Interactive Whiteboard project.
WEF is a 501(c)(3) corporation and your contributions are tax-deductible. We welcome your ideas and your involvement. Through the generosity of our donors we have and will continue to make a difference. I urge you to learn more about the WEF. If you are interested in supporting or becoming involved with WEF, send e-mail to the WEF Chairman.
