The Somerville Math Fund has been supporting the city’s mathematics teachers by awarding grants out of appreciation for their hard work and dedication.

By Erica Voolich

Many teachers have great ideas on how to make their classrooms a better place for their students to learn math. The teachers’ ideas frequently outrun the budget schools have for supplies and their own ability to subsidize their classroom. The Somerville Mathematics Fund tries to fill this need through the generosity of their donors.

This year has been an unusual year. The Somerville Public School buildings have been closed since last March. Teachers who won Somerville Math Fund grants last year were just receiving or ordering their materials when everything changed because of the pandemic. We allowed the teachers to adjust their orders from classroom materials to materials for home remote learning. We still don’t have an actual date for the Somerville students and teachers to be physically back in their classrooms. It was hard year for teachers to plan, as a result we had a large drop off of applications.

This year we have five teacher winners, four have hopes of returning to the actual classroom sometime in the near future. Each teacher’s grant has a generous sponsor who is making their teacher’s work easier. Our congratulations to each of the winners and our thanks to each of the sponsors for their generous support:

• Kelly Dickson, Winter Hill Community Innovation School (6th – 8th, Autism Teacher), Math Games & Manipulatives, sponsored by Winter Hill Bank
• Meredith Rothstein, Winter Hill Community Innovation School (5th – 8th, Autism Teacher), Manipulatives to develop Basic Skills sponsored by Lali and Jay Haines.
• Roxane Scrima, John F Kennedy School, (K), Math Manipulatives for home packets for each family, sponsored by East Cambridge Savings Bank.
• Amanda Singleton, Winter Hill Community Innovation School (4th-5th, Autism Teacher), Individualized learning math manipulatives, sponsored by Tufts University.
• Meaghan Tubridy, Albert Argenziano School, (3rd – 4th, Special Education), Individualized packets math materials for home and school sponsored by William Kuhlman.

The Somerville Mathematics Fund was chartered in 2000 to celebrate and encourage achievement in mathematics in the city of Somerville, Massachusetts. Over twenty-one years, the Somerville Math Fund has awarded $133,418 in teacher grants supporting three hundred forty teachers’ projects in the city of Somerville along with emergency grants to East Somerville teachers after the devastating school fire.

In early April, the fund will be seeking applications from students who reside in Somerville for college mathematics scholarships. Over twenty-one years, the Somerville Math Fund has awarded a total of $445,000 in four-year mathematics scholarships to ninety-nine students. Links to the scholarship application form is available at www.somervillemathematicsfund.org For more information, to volunteer or to make a tax-deductible contribution, please contact Erica Voolich (617-666-0666 or mathfund@gmail.com).