Foundation Grants

Every autumn, the Cleveland Heights High School Alumni Foundation awards grants to fund worthwhile academic projects at Cleveland Heights High School. The Funds for these grants come from proceeds of the Foundation's Holiday Cocktail Party held in December, and generous donations from Heights High graduates. Projects that have been funded by the Foundation and its predecessor, the Alumni Association, include:

Start The Presses!
Newspapers across the country are suffering, as the way people receive their news changes and The Black & Gold has not been spared. In an age when news can reach the entire world in the time it takes to post something to the internet, Facebook allows you to instantly know what your friends are doing, and the device in your pocket allows you to write, photograph and film anywhere, The Black & Gold is looking to change how it is delivered.

In place of a stand alone paper, The Black & Gold will become an insert in The Heights Observer, the very successful community paper produced by FutureHeights. Instead of reaching just Heights students and creating its own distribution network, The Black & Gold will be able to reach not only the intersection of Cedar & Lee, but the entire community and beyond. Great for alumni, The Heights Observer is posted on-line, so alumni as close as Shaker and as far away as Shanghai will be able to access The Black & Gold.

The Alumni Foundation is proud to be able to support The Black & Gold in this effort through a grant.

Everyone Has A Story

A cross-curricular project that focuses on documenting the various and rich war stories of residents of Cleveland Heights and University Heights, Everyone Has A Story will be an interactive endeavor involving classes from TV Production, AP Literature & Composition, and AP United States History.

By working in teams to create documentaries that focus on our community's involvement and contributions to history, students will create visual and auditory stories that will support research and writing skills; allow a connection between the curriculum and real-life; and further develop organizational and communication skills.

West Side Story

If only all fights were solved by highly choreographed dance numbers. Building on the success of 2007's presentation of Fiddler on the Roof, staff and students came together for another outstanding musical, this time the classic West Side Story. "This is the culmination of months of hard work, rehearsals and commitment from our students," Musical Director Craig McGaughey said. "We are extremely excited to share this timeless classic with our communities".

The Alumni Foundation is proud to be happy to support the return of the musical to Cleveland Heights High School.

The Raku Project

In museums across the globe one of the few artifacts that consistently survive from thousands of years ago are ceramic vessels. More than just age-old Tupperware, they are often embellished with images and art from the periods and cultures that created them.

In The Raku Project, students will create vessels and sculptures that tell the story of man's partnership with clay, using cross-cultural patterns, symbols, iconography and primitive firing techniques. Students will undertake group ceramics while exploring the historic research of primitive ceramic firing, construction of outdoor kilns and pit firing, construction of combustion chambers, chemistry of glazes, organic material additives and various glaze techniques.

The Raku Project will assist History classes that want to gain working knowledge of 16th century Japanese tea ceremony, Science classes experimenting with glaze compounds and their effects with heat, and Math classes calculating measurements and weights.

Black & Gold Pages

In an era when students receive more and more information from numerous electronic mediums, one method still has great demand – books. While students have busy and full schedules, some still find the time to read with others purely for pleasure, and then meet to discuss what they have read. The Foundation’s award to the Black and Gold Pages assists the reading group to expand its membership and the number of books read. The Black and Gold Pages attempts to bring authors in to speak on their works, such as Janette McCarthy Louard, author of Mama’s Girls. Since the Foundation knows that every good meeting needs a nosh, students are able to see what others saw in the fiction they read over a slice of pizza, making sure that everyone has an enjoyable time while broadening their horizons.

Holocaust Studies

Since the 1970’s, students in the Holocaust studies class at Cleveland Heights High School have participated in many unique and innovative experiences, including trips to concentration camps, cities in Eastern Europe and have participated in a multitude of community activities. Funds from the Alumni Foundation are being used to assist to send approximately fifty students to visit The Holocaust Memorial Center in Farmington Hills, Michigan. Students enrolled in the Holocaust Studies class will be joined by foreign exchange students as well as students active in the AFS Inter-Cultural Club in touring the center. As a follow up to the trip, students will host a series of dialogues with local Holocaust survivors who will share with the students their personal experiences.

Guidance to Go

As Cleveland Heights High School moves forward with the Small Schools Initiative, the need to increase and expand student and parental involvement in the Guidance Department has grown. The Foundation’s grant allows the piloting of Guidance To Go with the R.E.A.L. School at Heights. Staff will meet regularly with students on a variety of topics including decision-making, study skills, time management, etc., with the goal of imparting on students skills that they will be able to use during their time at Heights as well as in their life. After piloting the program in the 2004-2005 school year, the program will be duplicated and applied to all of the Small Schools in the 2005-2006 school year.

Increasing Potential Of Developing Readers

With money from this grant, a new program titled “iPOD Readers (Increasing Potential Of Developing Readers)” will target below grade readers to participate in a book club that will take place starting in January 2008 and ending in April of the same year.

Each student will receive an iPod for use during the duration of the book club. Each iPod will be equipped with an eBook and related podcasts. A novel and journal will also be supplied for each student. Students will have the opportunity to read the novel while listening to the text on the iPod, listen to related podcasts, create their own podcasts and participate in on-line discussions in order to support comprehension. In addition to downloads specific to the iPod Readers book club, each iPod will have the English Language Arts audio texts downloaded for student use. The iPods will be returned at the end of the book club so that iPod Readers can be replicated each semester.

Distinguished Alumni Hall of Fame Display Case

As the number of inductees into the Cleveland Heights High School Distinguished Alumni Hall of Fame grew over the years, there was less room to acknowledge those who had been inducted. The display cases outside of the auditorium at Heights became increasingly crowded, not to mention that time took its toll by removing a bit of the luster from the exhibit.

In 2000, a new display case was installed in the main lobby at Heights. The three-sided display includes a guide that allows visitors to quickly find an inductee, and has space to accommodate Hall of Fame inductees until 2048. Profiles for all inductees were renovated and placed under Plexiglas. This case allows students and visitors to easily see Heights High successes and receives plenty of viewing from visitors before they attend concerts at Heights.

Je Ne Comprends Pas

Research shows that students taking a foreign language have a greater openness towards other cultures and people. With French following English as the most frequently used language in international affairs in an increasingly interconnected world, there is a greater need for bilingualism. The Foundation’s grant allows Heights High French students to serve as teachers to elementary and middle school students which allows the high school students to practice their skills, and increases student interest in learning a foreign language. Financial support from the Foundation covers not only materials, but also transportation and staff costs.

Forensic Science Grant

Ever since O.J. Simpson’s notorious car chase was viewed by millions of people on national television in 1995, America has become increasingly obsessed with forensic science. Whether it is being portrayed in movies, books or countless television programs, the interest in forensic science continues to grow. According to the latest Nielson ratings over 50 million people watched one of the three CSI: Crime Scene Investigation shows on CBS.

Awarded to the R.E.A.L. School, the Forensic Science Grant’s goal is to incorporate forensic science into the curriculum to help capture the interest of students while at the same time addressing he state science standards covered in the Ohio Graduation Test. One of the main goals it to help instill in students the notion that science is not something that starts and stops with the ringing of the school bell. Science is all around them and impacts every aspect of their lives.

Mosaic Music Studio

Part of the Small Schools initiative is to create five smaller schools within Heights High. One of is the Mosaic Experience. The Mosaic Experience infuses a rigorous course of study with the arts and technology to develop life-long learners who use creative thinking to adapt to a challenging global society. This project is the first step in the creation of a multi-purpose music/project room. The grant helps to purchase of recording studio equipment. The recording studio portion of the music/project room is envisioned as affording students the opportunity to develop the skills needed to record and mix live music as well as re-mix recorded music. The music studio will allow students to build an avocation into a vocation, develop skills in instruments of their choice at the same time learning group interaction skills.

Green Acres

Students often learn best with firsthand and hands-on experience. This field trip will take the students into the heart of nature in Northern Ohio along Lake Erie. The trip begins at a family farm with students touring the farm following breakfast. They then will visit Back to the Wild – Wildlife Rehabilitation Center and then The Ohio State University Stone Lab on Gibraltar Island in Lake Erie. Students will eat and sleep at the facility. While there, they will participate in classes on ornithology, herpetology and fish dissection; conduct experiments on Lake Erie during a science cruise and drive an underwater submersible. The trip will also include visits to Crane Creek State Park, one of the best birding areas in the U.S. as well as a stop at the Old Woman Creek Reserve, an estuary in the National Estuarine Research System.

Take A Picture

Improvements in technology have swept the world of photography, with the cost of digital cameras plummeting, making a once luxury item into a commonplace item. This has made for tremendous changes in the photo industry, both in how photos are taken as well as stored and printed. Software now allows the most causal photographer to improve and edit their work, but only a fraction of the photos taken are printed. While technology allows an image to be posted on the internet and seen by anyone around the globe it does not make for an easy way to exhibit or display photos without an outlet or a battery. The Alumni Foundation’s grant will allow the Mosaic School at Heights to purchase a high quality color printer to use for photography classes as well as the Photography Club.

Harp Purchase for the IMD

Cleveland Heights High School has a long tradition of excellence in the musical arts. This tradition also has to operate within the modern realities of budget restrictions, and that was just the case when the Instrumental Music Department, (IMD), needed to purchase a new harp. The existing one was no longer playable, nor could it be renovated. Because of the cost of a new harp, it looked as if the IMD would no longer be able to include one. The Alumni Association joined with other funding sources to supply the IMD with the funds necessary to purchase a harp, helping to maintain our musical prowess at Heights High.

Tiger TV

While technology has advanced to the point that cell phones that fit in the palm of your hand can capture movies, announcements at Heights High are stilled conveyed the same way they have been for over fifty years, over the PA system. The goal of Tiger TV is to replace an anonymous voice from a loudspeaker with a five-minute daily television morning news show with local and school news, announcements, interviews, features of student interest plus coverage of sporting events and school functions.

Students will participate in every facet of production, from writing and directing to set design, editing and engineering. The Alumni Foundation’s support will cover half of the cost of a mixer/switcher to be used in the cutting and editing of footage. Tiger TV will initially use the cable TV network that exists at Heights for distribution with the desired goal of eventually being broadcast over the school district’s community access channel.

History Alive

All too often history class is viewed as static and merely the memorization of dates and places from the past. History Alive attempts to have students literally walk in the shoes of those from the past. The first step in the process is for students to research and report on the lives of unsung African American heroes. Following a peer review, students then research and create period appropriate attire of their hero. Participants then visit elementary schools, teaching younger students about the historical figures they have researched. Following this, students compose essays on their experiences in presenting to elementary students.

Tradition!

With only two musicals produced at Heights High in the last fifteen years, the time was right to bring it back in 2007, and what better production than Fiddler on the Roof. With the goal to make a production of this size an annual event, it ultimately included over 200 students including elementary students making this a system-wide event.

Vocal Music Instructor Craig McGaughey worked with elementary music teachers, a choreographer, costume technician, accompanist, eight student musicians, and eight professional musicians to bring the show together. “The music is wonderful and the themes are relevant to teenagers today,” McGaughey said. “Parents and their teenage children have different ideas about happiness and the future. Every teenager can relate to that.”

Click the image to download the grant application form.