The R.E. and D.L. Tarrant Foundation makes competitive grants each year to a variety of Vermont organizations working in the human services and education fields.

In addition to these responsive grants, we also periodically undertake proactive initiatives in areas where we feel we can make a difference.

Foundation Initiatives:

The I-LEAP Project in Collaboration with Milton Middle School and the University of Vermont Education Department – Drawing on his own experience in school, Rich was concerned about students who aren’t engaged.  He wanted kids who weren’t excited about learning to have options that would get them interested, help them achieve academically and allow them to gain practical skills.  Doing this, he felt, would improve outcomes not only for these students, but for their peers as well.

I-LEAP (The Learning and Engaging Adolescents Project) was developed in conjunction with a team of educators at Milton Middle School and faculty from the UVM Department of Education.  The program’s purpose is to provide disaffiliated 7th and 8th graders with a hands-on, self-driven, self-paced, technology-rich classroom, with a key focus on student engagement and relevancy of task. 

In this program, students help drive their own curriculum.  They use a web portal (www.i-leapteam.org) designed to help them access, interpret and share information individually and in groups.  It offers a forum for discussion, a cache of tools and resources, and an opportunity to showcase work.  The I-LEAP curriculum focuses on literacy, research skills, strategic thinking, time and project management, and presentation. 

Students participating in the program are nominated by teachers, guidance counselors, parents, and by themselves.  Indicators may include: creative thinking, chronic tardiness or absenteeism, negative perception of the classroom, students who don’t have strong peer or adult relationships, and those who are interested in technology.  Students may be traditionally high-achieving or low-achieving and may or may not have Individualized Education Plans.

A central long-term goal of I-LEAP is to determine strategies and tools that will be useful to teachers and students in other classrooms in Milton and around the state.  Faculty and graduate fellows and interns from UVM will evaluate the impact of the project over the course of four years and will begin to disseminate the model.  We are specifically interested in learning which aspects of the model are shown to have a high impact on students and the learning environment that can be implemented at little or no cost to a district.