The playground at Huber Ridge Elementary will soon feature resources to help students play well with each other and resolve conflicts.
As part of the Peaceful Playgrounds initiative, educators will promote monthly themes around friendship, social and conflict resolution skills on yard signs sprinkled across the playground area. The signs will also feature games and activity ideas for structured play.
Thanks to funding from the Westerville Education Foundation’s fall grant cycle, Huber Ridge staff plan to launch the initiative in March. Peaceful Playgrounds is among 10 projects awarded funding from WEF. The foundation is currently accepting submissions from district staff for the 2023 Spring Grant cycle. The deadline for submissions is 5 p.m. Friday, March 17. All grants must be submitted via the electronic form found here.
“The goal of this project is to encourage students to appropriately develop their social skills, develop empathy and learn to support each other during conflict resolution,” said Chrissie Eshenbaugh, a speech language pathologist who created the Peaceful Playgrounds initiative and submitted the grant proposal.
Through play-based learning, Huber Ridge educators want to develop students’ play skills, group interactions and understanding of others perspectives. The project will be a focus on friendship skills for students in grades K-2 and conflict resolution skills for those in grades 3-5.
“The hope is that by promoting and teaching social skills development and conflict resolution, we can decrease the percentage of referrals during recess,” she said.
Projects funded by WEF support innovative and creative initiatives that enhance education for students in Westerville City Schools. The WEF awarded $12,476 to educators during the most recent grant cycle.
WEF grants are supported by the foundation’s general grant fund, Alliance Data Card Services and the Dr. George Tombaugh Fund.
Other WEF 2022 Fall Grant recipients include:
$2,090; Teaching students to transform their writing into spoken word by creating multimedia productions using podcasting and video recording software.
$850; Providing third-graders a deeper understanding of what life was like in Ohio during the 1890s with a visit to the Ohio History Connection, where they can explore transportation, immigration and daily life through primary and secondary sources while also interacting with the Ohio Village residents.
$800; Supporting a service project organized by WSHS’ Black Student Union where they will create no-sew blankets and visit some senior citizens in the community.
$1,246; Providing copies of “School Clothes: A Collective Memoir of Black Student Witness” for students involved in the Our Voices Matter club and Race and Ethnic Studies course. Students will have the opportunity to discuss their own experiences in the educational system and then teach WSHS staff on how they can improve the school from a lens of student learning and equity.
$1,320; Supporting the production “The Ones Among Us: Autobiographies of Immigrant Students,” which feature stories of immigrant students in Westerville.
$315; Providing copies of Jerry Craft's “New Kid,” a graphic novel about starting over at a new school and struggling to fit into a place that lacks diversity.
$1,655; Covering theatrical rights and production materials to bring “Akeelah and the Bee” to the stage as part of Westerville South Theatre Troupe 513’s Black Voices Project to celebrate and showcase plays written by Black playwrights and feature diverse casts.
$2,226; Providing classroom and instructional resources to support new emergent language students whose needs are unique in the class setting.
$1,500; Supporting the creation of a new school song in honor of Hanby’s centennial celebration to be performed in May.