Stories

During our in-service professional learning day in August, we reflected on six years of curriculum development since launching our summer grant program in 2021. What began that year as a group of only eight teachers has grown into a cohort of twenty-four summer grant participants, all working to strengthen and elevate our academic program.

Good curriculum design, like solid architecture, requires significant work, much of which may go unseen. The planning and collaboration teachers engage in ahead of time and alongside their daily teaching are like the foundational supports of a bridge built over water: the work begins beneath the surface, before the finished structure is visible, and long before students cross. Our teachers lay these foundations early so that students can benefit from stronger, more intentional learning experiences throughout their academic lives.

Below, you will find a brief timeline of just a few of those foundational pillars developed over the past six years (with many other impactful initiatives not listed here!).

Timeline of curriculum improvement through summer grants

• 2021 - Foundational Work: Launched the summer grant program to provide dedicated time, funding, and resources for teacher-led innovation. Inaugural projects established our Portrait of a Graduate, improved our learning support strategies in lower school, and integrated SEL-aligned literature into lower school libraries.
• 2023-2024 - Common Framework: Built dedicated, protected collaboration time directly into the school calendar to support regular cross-grade and cross-divisional work, and formally adopted Understanding by Design (UbD) to establish a shared language and framework for backward curriculum planning.
• 2024-Present - Program Improvement: Grounded in a shared framework and cross-grade alignment, faculty implemented improvements in phonics and reading, math, health, the arts, responsive classroom approaches, scheduling, field trips, and Joy Term (to name just a few!).  
• 2025-Present - Deep-Dive Review Cycles: Expanded our approach to deliberate, deep-dive reviews of our learning progression. Examining two core disciplines annually, Design Teams reviewed Math and Writing last year, are assessing Spanish and Social Studies this year, and will turn to STEM and ELA in 2027-2028.

The work our teachers undertake through these summer experiences directly impacts our students’ experiences in the classroom. We are grateful for all that our teachers do, and want to especially thank those faculty members who took time out of their summer to help build the bridge that is our academic program here at Prep. We are proud of our faculty of learners and leaders who embrace new challenges, contribute to the broader work of strengthening our programs across grade levels, and continually learn from one another. In doing so, they model for our students what it means to be a lifelong learner and ensure that the bridge we are building together is strong enough to carry them forward. 

The impact of this work can be seen in the breadth of this summer’s projects and professional development experiences.

2026 Summer Grant Projects

Professional Development

• iTheatrics Annual Musical Theater Professional Development  
• SAIS Institute for New Teachers
• International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) Annual Conference
• NAMC Infant/Toddler Montessori Diploma Program  
• IMSE Orton-Gillingham Plus Course

Curricular Improvement

• Social Studies Curricular Review Design Team (participants from all three divisions)  
• Spanish Curricular Review Design Team (all Spanish teachers) 
• Lower School Immersive Art Exhibition Development   
• 4th Grade Collaborative Classroom Being a Reader & Hands-On Math Enhancement  
• K-2 Phonics & Sight Word Scope and Sequence  
• PK-4 Spanish Cuaderno de Español  
• 3rd Grade Hands-On Math Curriculum Enhancement  
• Kindergarten Hands-On Math Curriculum Enhancement  
• Middle School Makeup Work System  
• The Bulb Community Service Project