Using an interactive, hands-on approach, specially trained actor-teachers visited for five consecutive days. The actors brought various tools including: scripts, props, costumes, –even stage blood– to turn students into an acting troupe, exploring classic literature from an actor’s point of view.

If You Give a Mouse a Coookie author, Laura Numeroff, visited Granger Elementary, and shared her journey to becoming a published author, which included lessons on the creative writing process, working with illustrators, perseverance, and how a student’s impact can create massive change for others.

This grant enhanced the high school’s Digital Media Production class and its capabilities to efficiently produce quality video/audio media projects that highlight achievements of Highland students and staff.  (Watch the video)

This grant will create a permanent art gallery in the vestibule between the hallway and the auditorium, bringing exceptional artwork down into the public areas of the building. There is an inherent educational value for the students to be able to display their work and admire and critique their pieces as well as those of others.

A 3-day intensive workshop with the Sanyuka Children’s Choir in October 2023 will increase cultural awareness and allow Highland students to discover firsthand the diversity of world music through the eyes of peer performers. Beyond the music, the interaction among the children will deepen their understanding of culture, poverty/need, perseverance, and joy of the Ugandan children.

Updated equipment for Highland auditorium’s microphones to match the technology of our sound board to benefit district-wide fine arts performances, including musicals, theater performances, concerts, community and staff meetings, and other events held in the auditorium.

This grant provided students Social Emotional Learning opportunities through small group art projects, an A.L.L. small group speaker series, and two, whole-school, interactive art installations, the first one titled “I Matter Because.”

Assisted the music program with the development of a steel drum band at Highland. Students continue to learn a different range of rhythms and music literacy, increase hand-to-eye coordination and memorization skills.

A new set of bass pans and another cello were commissioned to provide more opportunities for kids to play in the popular new Highland High School Steel Drum Band.

The Baker Family funded this initiative, now in its tenth year, of increasing college attainment through college access and success advising, financial aid counseling and scholarship services with appointments at the high school for students and parents.

A unique opportunity brought an otherwise non-traditional PE classroom activity to Hinckley Elementary students, exposing them to the game of golf and its lifelong health benefits. Students learned grip, swing, proper putting stance, golf etiquette, and about local golfing opportunities available to them. Also, students had a “Family Fitness Night” where families played mini-golf with their student.

This project provided CPR and AED certification for all 7th grade students at Highland Middle School in May 2023.

With WEB, students help students succeed. Members of the 8th grade class are extensively trained as WEB Leaders to be positive role models and motivators who guide 6th graders to discover what it takes to be successful in middle school.

Through in-depth exploration of the colors of rainbows as light energy in the form of waves, students gained an understanding of how nanoparticles interact with absorbing photons to produce colors across the spectrum from blue to red.

These wheels provide cutting edge technology and mechanisms for our robotics members to use in STEM-oriented tasks and include modern sensors which will allow our team to sense position and travel, program automatic movements without human input, and will provide a complex and limitless source of projects, experience, and creative outlets in engineering tasks.

Useful and effective tools like Arduino electronic development boards, their parts and sensors as well as the 3D printer and its parts cover all the basics needed for a new STEM Club to helps expand students’ interests by building projects that start with the basics and end with complex builds.

In its tenth year, the Intercultural Program has become an integral part of Highland’s World Language curriculum, and our greater school district and community. The program is centered around homestay exchanges both abroad and here in Northeast Ohio. The details and curriculum of the program are adapted each year to reflect the mutual goals of each sister school and the World Language Program at Highland High School.

Funding is provided to Highland students who need financial assistance with travel expenses. To date, more than 200 Highland students and staff have had the opportunity to travel abroad through the Intercultural Program.