We’re thrilled to announce Josiah Quincy Elementary School, a Chinese immersion school in Boston, MA, as the 2024 Halamandaris Award winner!
The annual Halamandaris Award honors Heart of America founders Bill and Angie Halamandaris and recognizes outstanding leadership and innovation at one of our Alumni Schools. It is awarded to a school or community organization that made exemplary use of a Heart of America renovation investment. Josiah Quincy Elementary stood out this year through its outstanding use of the newly renovated makerspace and its dedication to students’ learning experiences.
Since Heart of America helped them bring a new makerspace to life in 2023, Josiah Quincy Elementary has vastly expanded STEAM programming. Librarian Heidi Boulogne says that throughout working with Heart of America, “we were given the ability to choose which way we wanted to go and design our own space to fit with our school community.” The transformed space has not only fit into the community; it has opened up the space to new and innovative learning opportunities. The librarians host weekly lessons for teachers and their classes, which provides teachers with “the benefits of the hands-on lesson experience and best practices advice for STEAM activities,” in addition to the standing option for them to borrow materials or schedule a time in the space for their class. All students from grades K1-5 can access the space and have age-appropriate extended lessons that support curriculum-based projects that teach students to code, 3D print, and use robotics.
Josiah Quincy Elementary’s programming goes beyond the classroom and after-school activities and local partnerships. Staff use the space for meetings, tutoring, special morning programs for students, and after-school programming. The school invites community members for volunteer tutoring or events like book fairs and STEM Night, and partners like Tufts Dental hold daily meetings there. With the new space, students and their families engage in afternoon programs like Tech Goes Home and community support or affinity groups like Northeastern “Strong Women Strong Girls” and Big Brother and Big Sister. They’re even hosting the new Boston Partners for Education’s after-school program “Dragon Academy,” funded through a grant from the Massachusetts Department of Education (DESE), which staff says provides students with “the opportunity to use the makerspace and materials for some of their hands-on learning” and focuses on students of color who are “under-performing academically.” Josiah Quincy Elementary is certainly maximizing the potential of its makerspace and library!
We were able to virtually surprise librarian Heidi Boulogne and Assistant Principal Wai Chin Ng with the news that they would receive a $10,000 grant to fuel school-based programming and upgrades! Check out the school’s reaction!
They already have exciting plans for how the grant will help their students thrive, learn, and discover. One of their hopes has been to give younger students, who have been excited about the 3D printer but didn’t have access to age-appropriate materials, more opportunities to explore those interests with a class set of 3D printer pens. Josiah Quincy Elementary also plans to purchase enough iPads to complete their set so they can accommodate for an entire class at once, as well as incorporate new Cubelet and Lego robotics kits and STEAM curriculum, which will allow them to “focus on creating an engaging, hands-on learning environment that fosters creativity, problem-solving, and collaboration” with materials that “encourage problem-solving and design thinking as students build, test, and iterate on their ideas” no matter their age level.
With the new tools and curriculum, staff can increase students’ exposure to skills like coding, engineering, and digital fabrication that promote preparation for their future STEAM careers. Staff at Josiah Quincy Elementary are excited to see how the grant will “create a vibrant, collaborative makerspace where students can explore, build, and discover.” We can’t wait to see Josiah Quincy Elementary’s vision in action!