8 Stamford Teachers Named 2023 Fund For Teacher Fellows

STAMFORD, CT — Eight Stamford Public Schools (SPS) staff members are the recipients of 2023 Fund for Teachers (FFT) Fellowships, which will allow them to travel and study both in the United States and around the world.

This year, 131 Connecticut teachers received grants. The 2023 SPS FFT recipients include staff members from Turn of River Middle School, as well as all three Stamford high schools.

The CT fellows will be traveling throughout the United States and to over 50 countries in order to meet their goals of better addressing the needs of their students by deepening their curricular understandings.

• Susan Dougherty (Stamford High) - Dougherty will attend NASA's LiftOff Alumni Teacher Development sponsored by NASA's Texas Space Grant Consortium and UT Austin at Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. She will also participate in Cubes in Space Rocketopia at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Washington, DC to identify research competitions, scholarships, internships, and careers for special education and underserved students and also to launch students' experiments into space.
• Drew Denbaum (Westhill High) - Denbaum will observe the educational system in Kyoto, Japan, to identify why its high schools have some of the highest rankings in the world for student performance and happiness. He will incorporate these findings with Stamford students, with a goal to improve student positive attitudes about their education.
• Robin Konrad (Westhill High) - Konrad will participate in the Florence Academy of Art's Portrait Techniques and Traditions class. The experience will hone her personal and teaching skills to support the creative development and social emotional health of emerging artists through their depiction of humans as distinct individuals.
• Kristina Lawson/Jenel Iyer (team application) (Stamford High) - Lawson and Iyer will complete training at Sonora Yoga in Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica, to learn strategies that incorporate mindfulness exercises, yoga, journaling and art and dance as therapy to assist them in becoming trauma informed teachers who better support English Learner students in crisis.
• Robert Lutz (SHS) - Lutz will explore four Italian cities in order to understand their historical and cultural influences on multiple Shakespearean dramas. His goal is to inspire students to produce more authentic and complex narratives that develop a sense of global significance by making more insightful connections with characters.
• Caitlin Sheeran (Turn of River Middle) - Sheeran will participate in the International Round Table Symposium at the University of Oxford to explore mental health, education and the disproportionate impact the pandemic has had on students living in poverty and students of color. She will also take part in a Mindfulness Retreat in the English countryside with the goal of developing strategies to create a more supportive learning environment.
• Vincent Urbanowski (Academy of Information, Technology and Engineering) - Urbanowski plans to continue his work with Caltech astronomers and other educators to explore methods of working with professional, and freely available astronomical data, to bring access to students across the social spectrum such that they can do and present authentic astronomical research in exciting low cost/high reward projects.

"These amazing SPS FFT Fellowship recipients are an inspiration for the entire district," said SPS Superintendent Dr. Tamu Lucero in a news release. "FFT recognizes the creativity, drive, and limitless imaginations of educators from across the country. We are thrilled to have eight staff members awarded the opportunity to embark on truly extraordinary learning adventures."

In recent years, SPS staff members from various elementary, middle and high schools have received the funding to embark on self-designed professional learning odysseys.

"These fellowships empower our teachers to enhance their practice while amplifying their impact on the students in their classrooms,” explained Charmaine Tourse Davis, SPS director of talent recruitment and retention, in a news release. "As a district, we encourage all staff members to take advantage of every unique opportunity to develop their skills, knowledge, and confidence while continuing to push the boundaries of their personal and professional growth. Congratulations to all."

Fund for Teachers is a national organization that supports educators' efforts to develop skills, knowledge and confidence that impact student achievement.

Since 2001, Fund for Teachers has invested $35 million in nearly 9,200 teachers, transforming grants into growth for teachers and their students.