Summer Stipends
Summer innovation stipends are independent learning initiatives that focus on a theme related to a school’s goals. Teachers pursue learning related to a new unit of study or program that they hope to introduce into their curriculum. While coaches and administrators can provide guidance to teachers, it is expected that much of the work will be done independent of direct supervision. Several benchmarks are established over the course of the summer with the expectation that faculty will report on their success and/or frustrations. At our school, we offered a limited number of stipends for which faculty had to apply. In order to receive the stipend, teachers had to keep a log of their work on a shared document, fill out a progress report and submit an abstract their final project. Using a variety of digital media, helped teachers correspond over the summer and kept administrators abreast of their progress. Finally, the teachers had to present their work at an in-service meeting and share their resources via either Google Drive or the school website. The return on investment for our school was tremendous. Giving teachers an opportunity to collaborate with one another over a long period of time yielded high-quality programs that might never have added to our curriculum without these stipends and benchmarks.