2025 Spring Grants
At David Douglas School District, Spring brings flowers and David Douglas Educational Foundation Spring Grants!
Each spring, school district employees are invited to submit requests for DDEF-funded Spring Grants for the following school year. The grants are reviewed to identify if they meet grant requirements and awarded, if warranted.
This year’s Spring Grant awards were finalized at the April 2025 DDEF Board Meeting and six grants totaling about $5,200 were approved. In addition, three other grant requests were directed to resubmit their requests as a DDEF Opportunity Grant because they didn’t meet Spring Grant criteria.
2025-26 Spring Grants Awarded
This year’s grants cover a wide range of student needs and class levels. Awards included:
MECP (Preschool/Early Childhood Special Education): This grant provides 8 licenses of the Go Talk Now application for the MECP Inclusive Preschool/Early Childhood Special Education classrooms. The application is designed to support communication and social interaction for a wide variety of learners. It is a highly versatile communication support for learners with significant disabilities as well as for peers. The application provides a multi-sensory interface for language learning that included text, pictures, voice output, and video. In addition, it can record speech so that our dual language learners can have their home language represented and supported.
Gilbert Heights (grades K-5): This grant provides an iPad with case to assist in providing speech and language therapy to students at Gilbert Heights Elementary School.
Menlo Park (grades K-5): This grant provides alternative seating for the SLC-AFS classes to help support student participation in a variety of activities.
Ron Russell Middle School (grades 6-8): This grant will provide 50 instrument tuners for the growing orchestra program. The tuners enable the students to hear the correct pitch, training the ear for the correct tune which increases student independence and confidence.
David Douglas High School: This grant provides eight force/acceleration sensors for physics classes and physics units in freshman science classes. Students will use sensors to support labs when learning physics concepts. These concepts include but are not limited to Newton's laws, kinematics (motion, velocity, acceleration), conservation of momentum and energy, gravity, friction, impulse and rotational motion.
CTP/SP (Post-Secondary Special Education): This grant provides specialized equipment that allows art projects to be adapted for switch access, thereby expanding opportunities for students with complex needs to engage in meaningful, independent artistic expression. Many of these students face physical barriers that prevent them from engaging in traditional art-making without extensive support. The equipment funded by this grant eliminates these barriers by providing pre-designed visuals and ready-to-use instructional Google Slide presentations.