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2024 Grant Day - March 15th
The Lake Forest High School Foundation celebrated its 22nd annual Grant Day on Friday, March 15th. Foundation Trustees traveled the halls of LFHS surprising grant recipients with the exciting news that their grants had been funded. Amidst smiling teachers and cheering students, 14 grants and 1 standing grant (MVP Funding) totaling just over $151K were awarded across 15 different curricular areas. The Foundation is thrilled to partner with LFHS once again to provide state-of-the-art technology, cutting-edge resources and enthralling guest speakers that enrich the educational experience for all students. Congratulations to all of our grant recipients!
Virtual Reality Headsets
This grant funds 30 VR headsets. The new headsets will bring a transformative upgrade in technology, offering enhanced features for a more immersive educational experience including higher quality visuals, more applications, and a device management system to keep all on track. 
Study Hall Exercise Equipment
Freshman student Ranya Patel submitted this Grant. These exercise desks will allow students to take a break from sitting during the day, which reduces many health risks. Often, repetitive physical movements help burn calories, increase energy and increase concentration which, in turn, increases productivity. She asked 2 but we granted 6! 
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Outdoor Bicycles & Helmets
Wellness and The Outdoor Education classes have granted 35 Trek bicycles, kickstands, helmets and water bottle racks to bolster the Outdoor Ed bicycle riding unit. Having a full set of dependable bikes available on site at the school for all students in a class would allow for more classes to participate in this type of activity and would allow for this unit to be run more often. Mr. Werner worked closely with Kiddles in order to secure accurate pricing and a discount. 
ChatGPT for use in Math & Social Studies
By integrating GPT into high school social studies and math education, teachers can enhance their teaching methods, provide more personalized and engaging learning experiences, and prepare students for a technologically advanced world. The purpose of this grant is to allow for up to 32 educators to have GPT Team access for a calendar year. As AI becomes more integrated into various aspects of life, including education, familiarizing students and teachers with tools like GPT prepares them for future learning and working environments 
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Alex Saratsis Speaker
Alex Saratsis is the co-managing director at Octagon Sports. He previously spoke to the Hellenic and Finance Clubs about his culture, professional background, and the importance of finding things that you love. He will be speaking during Career Exploration Day. 
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Author Visits LF Reads
The Library will invite three authors to visit early in the school year who will have had titles included in the LFHS Reads 2024 summer reading program. The visiting authors will provide both a culminating experience for the optional summer reading program and a marvelous kick off event for the reading and writing workshop programs in English classes. With the support of the English Department, Each author will be invited to give a larger presentation in the RMA, and then push into English classes, or the smaller auditorium, to do generative writing work with students. 
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Harlan Cohen Visits
Harlan Cohen, author of The Naked Roommate and Win or Learn (among others) and Instagram/TikTok advice guru will speak to both parents and students. Harlan gives great, practical, advice ranging from how to make friends, how to talk to teachers, and how to deal with rejection. He is personable and relatable. His message is clear, rejection is a part of life and we all must be willing to risk rejection in order to reach our dreams. While this is easy to say, when Harlan Cohen says it, it validates those feelings that many students (and parents) have a hard time accepting. Mr. Cohen presents an open forum for discussion and interaction, actually taking text questions from the audience during his presentation. |
2023 & 2024 Learning Forward Conference for School Innovation & Improvement Plan Leadership
The School Innovation and Improvement Plan (SIIP) team has received a two-year grant to take cross-sectional staff and administrators to the 2023 and 2024 (nine each year) Learning Forward Conference. The insightful conference provides collaborative learning opportunities to bridge research and implementation in order to improve best practices in classrooms, teams, buildings, systems, and regions. The knowledge gained from attending this conference will influence the SIIP Team’s efforts to reinvent professional learning at LFHS. |
Non-Permanent Writing Surfaces
Integrated Math wanted to implement the ideas from the book “Building Thinking Classrooms.” This strategy emphasizes problem solving and teamwork by getting kids working in small teams on unusual problems. It emphasizes the usage of vertical non-permanent surfaces as it is difficult for students to be anonymous when they are standing at the board and non-permanent surfaces encourage risk-taking in a way that a piece of paper does not. 
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Theater Class iPad & Filming Equipment Fine Arts
Students in theater classes perform 5-6 times as LFHS moves toward student portfolios, the Theatre department will now be able to capture curricular student performance in higher quality. These can then be used for: Filming audition videos for college, monologue critiques and filming student performances 
Art Impact Project and Women’s Club
The Women’s Club will partner with The Art Impact Project for an art project experience in the spring semester and the fall semester of next year. The project will be a heart painting project inspired by artist Jim Dine. The painting will represent what is in the artists' hearts in words, colors, writing on the back of the canvas, etc. |
25 iPads, Pencils, and Animation Software Art
The Animation classes have been granted 25 iPad Pros as well as Apple Pencils, Procreate and Procreate Dreams software for 25 machines to augment the animation curriculum. By providing 25 iPads with Procreate and Procreate Dreams animation software, we ensure that every student has equal access to the latest industry-standard software. iPads for Multilingual Learners
Providing iPads to multilingual learners will best support their English Language acquisition which benefits their academic and personal growth. 
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Video Production V2
In the dynamic field of digital media, staying current with technology is beneficial for providing a precious educational experience. Our students have shown remarkable enthusiasm and talent in video production, and we must support and nurture this interest with the right tools. Upgrading our equipment will allow students to work on more complex projects, mirroring real-world scenarios and industry standards. |
