2025/2026 Parents’ Guild Wish List Fully Funded Items


Baritone Saxophone-Yamaha Bari Sax
Requested By: Mark Messina
Amount Funded: $6,975

Umbrellas for VPAC Outdoor Tables
Requested By: Karen Koprowski
Amount Funded: $3,000

Cozy Collaboration Corner
Help us create a cozy collaboration corner in our classroom—a special spot where students can read, write, and work together comfortably. This low, kid-friendly table paired with four soft, supportive seats would give students a welcoming place to learn in a new way. The cushioned chairs adjust to each child’s comfort, easily store away, and feature washable covers, making them perfect for everyday classroom use. The sturdy table adjusts to the right height for growing learners and provides the perfect surface for reading groups, partner work, and quiet collaboration. This space would help students feel comfortable, focused, and excited to learn together—something they’ll use and love every single day.

Requested By: Stacey Smith
Amount Funded: $850

Flexible Spaces for 1st Grade
Flexible seating is an important and developmentally appropriate approach for first-grade students. It supports their natural need for movement, choice, and active engagement in learning. At this age, children are still developing self-regulation, attention, and physical coordination. Providing a variety of seating options, such as floor seats, lap desks, or traditional chairs, allows students to select a learning space that best meets their individual needs. Flexible seating encourages proper posture, increases focus, and reduces off-task behavior by allowing safe, purposeful movement throughout the day. It also fosters independence, responsibility, and social-emotional growth as students learn to make appropriate choices and collaborate respectfully within a shared learning environment. By honoring first graders' developmental needs, flexible seating creates an inclusive classroom environment where all students can learn comfortably, confidently, and successfully! Thank you for taking the time to read this proposal for my 1st grade class!

Requested By: Kathleen Nguyen
Amount Funded: $576

Extended Care Activities
To expand the activities offered in Extended Care, these activities are intended to help students have a variety to choose from while in Extended Care. Activities promote students' fine motor development and foster community within Extended Care.

Requested By: Nadia Crochet
Amount Funded: $1,300

Reading Days for Reading Knights
The library program promotes literacy and a lifelong love of reading across all divisions. This initiative does that by expanding a typical Book Fair week into a community-wide celebration of reading and literacy with author visits and special events in addition to the book fair.

Money would mostly be spent on speaking fees for visiting authors. There may be other possible event expenses, such as materials and food. The distribution of funds will vary depending on the authors secured and the event themes.

Requested By: Sara Gomez
Amount Funded: $3,500

5th Graders’ Growth in Writing Classroom
For writing, these students need space to meet their physical needs. This relates to ergonomic positioning, writing posture, attentiveness, and, quite simply, their level of comfort. Many of these students are already at a teenage height and weight percentile, according to the growth chart.

Requested By: Jeanette Laugier
Amount Funded: $4,401

Welding Station
This project will expand the capabilities and offerings for our engineering students, the FRAME club, and the Automotive Club.

Requested By: Jeff McLean
Amount Funded: $3,770

2025/2026 Parents’ Guild Wish List Partially Funded Items

Library Furniture
This proposal supports a larger project currently underway to update the spaces in Aldrich Library. The school has made a purchase this year for new furniture for the Academic Resource Center and the upstairs teaching space. This PG project would replace the miscellaneous collection of furniture in the Learning Support Services Center with high-quality, school-grade furniture selected and planned by our Library Interiors consultant. This furniture would improve testing accommodations and workspaces for our LSS students.

Requested By: Tiffany Whitehead
Amount Funded: $12,000.00
Amount Unfunded: $1,961.68

TOTAL FUNDED BY PARENTS’ GUILD: $36,372

2025/2026 Directly Funded by Individual Parents


PK4 Language, Math & Science Center Materials
We use language, math, and science centers as part of hands-on learning in PreK-4. The language materials will help with phonics skills, the math centers will reinforce counting and number sense, and the science materials support Project-Based Learning and exploration.

Requested By: Stephanie Ezell
Amount Funded: $1,227

Middle School Science Seating
It will allow students who struggle to sit still to be successful. By giving them the chance to wiggle constructively, they will be able to focus on their work.

Requested by: Emily Nikolaus & Jessical O’Neal
Amount Funded: $902

Theatre Department Steamers
Having costume steamers allows the theatre department to keep our costumes fresh and looking sharp for the productions. Having more than one steamer would also allow students to take responsibility for maintaining their own costumes and, ultimately, give them greater ownership of their productions. It would also allow us to continue to have more clean and well-maintained costumes for our theatre productions.

Requested By: Ali Brady
Amount Funded: $381

TOTAL FUNDED DIRECTLY BY INDIVIDUAL PARENTS: $2,510

2025/2026 Unfunded Wish List Items

Young Investigators
Young Investigators will pretend, create, and design through imaginative play. With purposeful materials and space to explore, students develop problem-solving, engineering, and learning skills.

Requested by: Maria Campbell
Amount Unfunded: $11,000

Freshen Up for PK3
Pre-K3 has been running on the same primary purchases originally bought for the class over 10 years ago. We need STEM centers and materials to keep them interested in going.

Requested By: Jenifer Vinci
Amount Unfunded: $1,494

Robotics Refresh
Robotics Refresh will allow upgrades and additions to the sets of robots already in use at the QUEST Center. As with any technology, robotics equipment requires constant updating and replacement to keep it in the best working order for our students. Coding and Robotics are important skills for our students to acquire and polish as they grow. Coding and robotics are applicable to all subject areas and offer the bonus of helping students develop other important skills, such as following directions, locating and correcting errors in their work, perseverance, collaboration, and more.

Requested By: Stacy Hill
Amount Unfunded: $3,890

Lights and Shadows
The Lights and Shadows project will help us address science topics that are difficult to teach to young learners without a hands-on experience. These materials will be used by PK3 through 3rd graders to investigate, discover, and create activities related to light, shadows, and the properties of matter.

Requested By: Stacy Hill
Amount Unfunded: $1,200

Garden Enhancement & Work Area
I have been working to maintain the gardens at Lower School since I taught in 1st grade. We use the garden for several of our Project-based units, like Farm to Table, Life Cycles, and Insects. This is also an area the Garden Club tries to maintain to provide a space for all grades to use for their learning. We have also added a cabana we can put out in hot weather, so we can still work in the garden.

Requested By: Jenifer Vinci
Amount Unfunded: $2,487

Quiet Revolutions
Since the Learning Lab began, I have provided targeted support to students who need additional assistance. This supports the mission of nurturing and developing the whole student, with a focus on intellectual development, by empowering students to reach their full potential despite learning or attention differences. Our classroom has made tremendous progress, and we want to go even farther. I’m excited to propose acoustic treatments, two K–2 pedal desks, and the addition of Art3D Liquid Fusion / Liquid Motion Floor Tiles to create a calmer, more engaging, and developmentally supportive space.

Currently, our pedal desks are sized for 3rd–5th graders, and they’re in high demand. Adding two K–2 specific pedal desks will expand access for our smallest learners and ensure ergonomic fit and safety for early elementary students. These pedal desks create “quiet revolutions”: small spins that make a big difference.

The addition of liquid motion floor tiles provides students with calming visual feedback and can soothe those who become anxious when tackling difficult tasks. They are durable, safe, and slip-resistant, which is great for movement or brain breaks. They are soothing without being overstimulating.

Our Learning Lab sits in a Main Gym classroom, and the noise from the gym filters through the walls and ceiling, becoming a major distraction during lessons and tests. A noisy learning environment makes it hard for students to concentrate and comprehend — especially those who need a little extra support. I’m excited to propose acoustic treatments that will dramatically improve the space. With these acoustical panels, we’ll create a space where quiet progress makes loud results. Acoustic treatments are a practical, research‑backed investment that will make our Learning Lab more comfortable, equitable, and effective. Thank you for considering this proposal to reduce noise and create a calmer, more productive space for all our students.

Requested By: Laura Portwood
Amount Unfunded: $6,100

Be Our Guest!
The Development Team hosts about 1 event per month for our alumni, donors, stakeholders, and current community members. When food is served to many guests, and the refectory is used to serve students, it would be ideal to have 4 new, matching chafing dishes for events, meetings, and gatherings.

Requested By: Katie Thompson
Amount Unfunded: $665

TOTAL UNFUNDED: $26,836 + $1,961.68 for library furniture