NHS Video Production Lab and Studio
This project will complete the design, construction, and studio furnishings for a high-profile video production center on the first floor of the high school. Phase 3 of a multiyear effort to create a multi-media integrated arts space, the video center will raise the profile of these communication tools to make them more accessible to all students and encourage their use across the curriculum. The center will house the video filming and editing technology purchased in 2023, moving NHS closer to the long-term vision for the integrated arts area.
Phase 1 was completed in 2022 – to fund the design plan for the space, iPad Pros/pencils for educators, iPad carts for students and digital photography equipment. In 2023, we outfitted the graphic arts and video labs with state-of-the-art technology for both teachers and students. In 2025, the new video production center will be completed.
District-wide Visual and Performing Arts Festival
This event, held in May, features students across all grade levels participating in band, orchestra, chorus and other forms of performance art, as well as a display of student-created visual art to the community. Organized by arts teachers at the Molin, Nock and NHS schools, the Waterfront Festival is a wonderful opportunity for students across all grade levels to perform and display their artwork for a broad community audience and each other. This grant fully funds the festival for the third year in a row.
NHS Investment Club
The NEF conceptualized and funded an Investment Club at Newburyport High School, the first of its kind in a public high school in the state to have students investing and learning using real money (with supervision). Learn more.
Literacy: Feed Your Mind Book Vending Machines
The NEF purchased two book vending machines for our Bresnahan and Molin Elementary schools in 2024. The goal of the program is to increase excitement about books, offer incentives for students to read, as well as target high-risk students by offering them an avenue to earn books and close the achievement gap. Student can earn tokens for positive behavior and then go to the vending machine to “purchase” a book. Since the machines were purchased, literacy lesson completion K-3 has doubled! This grant will fund books to replenish the machines. Learn more about past Literacy projects.
Library Books and Literacy Support
Since inception, the NEF has supported literacy programs district-wide, as well as the physical improvement of the library/media center spaces. This year, the NEF will allocate funds to the Bresnahan and Molin/Nock libraries (similar to our support for STEM materials) to allow them to purchase books and materials to enhance literacy and the love of reading.
NHS Career Pathways Initiative
The NEF is continuing to raise funds for Newburyport High School’s Career Pathways program. We have expanded our support with 3 colleges: Northern Essex Community College, Endicott College and Southern NH University. Learn more.
Discovery Fridays: Gif-o-Graf Machines
Discovery Fridays are a new monthly hands-on, immersive experience at the Molin school designed to help students become creative, collaborative, problem solvers. Use the “Pedagogy of Play,” each has a curriculum-aligned theme such as “Building and Engineering” for students to explore—perhaps by building the tallest tower they could and recording its height in different units. One theme will ask students to expand their skills in storytelling, collaboration, and problem-solving by creating 2D animations with a Gif-o-Graf machine. This grant will purchase four Gif-o-Grafs, storage bins, and other manipulatives to support Discovery Fridays.
Real World Design Challenge
A team of NHS students were again state-wide champs in this competition to address an engineering challenge confronting leading industries. The NHS team was unable to compete at the national level when they won in 2021 (due to COVID). This grant will defray travel and hotel expenses for the team to support them as they compete in the national/international round in May, 2025, in Arlington, VA.
One-to-One Student Technology
A 1:1 program guarantees that every student has access to a reliable and agile portable device, allowing uniformity, creativity, accessibility, learning beyond the classroom walls, innovation, and is an important component of the district’s “portrait of a graduate vision”. After years of planning, the district initiated a 1:1 campaign in the fall of 2023, using a lease-to-own program for iPad Air devices at Newburyport High School. The NEF plans to support need-based scholarships to ensure that every student/family will have a pathway to invest in a device that is their own.
NHS Technology Club
The Technology Club has been a successful club at NHS for many years. Students work to build computers that are used throughout the district. Our investments over the years have included the NHS library computers, high-end computers for engineering/arts to run CAD and design software at both NHS and Nock/Molin, and more. In 2025, we are funding the club’s work to replace PCs in the engineering lab at NHS.
District-Wide STEM Initiative
Newburyport High School STEM
The NEF is continuing to raise funds to provide students with the opportunity to explore a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) curriculum where they will be actively engaged in solving advanced problems with a high level of thought and decision-making.
Bresnahan and Molin-Nock STEM Labs
The NEF continues to raise funds for the completed interactive STEM Labs for our elementary and middle school students. The goal is to keep investing in state-of-the art components and materials to allow for inquiry and project based, hands-on learning around STEM topics.
Learn more about our STEM Initiative
District-wide Tower Gardens
The Tower Gardens at the Bresnahan, Molin, Nock and High School are aeroponic gardening systems that grow greens and herbs and maintained by students and teachers. With the NEF’s support, materials will be purchased to keep up the indoor gardens running and stocked throughout the school year.
Nock Seismograph Activity
Initiated in 2015, earthquakes can be detected all over the world and provide phone alerts that data is recorded on the seismograph. Data collected includes Time, Depth, Magnitude, Location. Learn more.
