Polk Teacher wins $1000 for Classroom as part of the Mohegan Challenge Grant
Watertown, CT - February 1, 2024 - Earlier this week, Ms. Stephanie Milo, fifth grade teacher at Polk elementary school received a special letter from the Mohegan Tribe that she was one of a record number of applicants whose application was selected as part of the competitive Mohegan Challenge Grant. Milo had submitted an application on behalf of her classroom at Polk school a few months back in hopes to qualify for the limited number of awards being offered through this important opportunity.
In alignment with newly passed State legislation Section 374 of Public Act No. 21-2, the State Department of Education is required to provide local public school districts model curriculum in Native American Studies, no later than January 1, 2024. For the Watertown Public Schools however, implementing more field experiences (field trips) and weaving in additional Native American/Indigenous Peoples specific curricular experiences through social studies where there are natural opportunities to bolster the already existing curriculum has already been underway over the last two years under the leadership of the district’s Director of Operations and Curriculum, Ms. Lisa Fekete, a Watertown resident.
Fekete shared, “Even before the State released the model curriculum, Watertown Public Schools was already well positioned to start the important work of infusing more education about our Native American ancestors and history of our local Watertown/Oakville community’s land and heritage into our existing curriculum. Watertown has been very lucky to receive gifts from community members that made it possible, over the last two years, to send our WPS students to the Institute of American Indian Studies (IAIS) and have faculty work on curriculum during the summer months. We are looking forward to continuing this work”.
Although the State Department of Education (SDE) continues to work with the State Education Resource Center (SERC) on creating a model curriculum to hand down to local school districts, Watertown Public Schools are in a unique spot where they’ve already carefully and specifically integrated more educational opportunities into the existing social studies curriculum across all schools from grades Kindergarten through 8th grade, uniquely for the Watertown community, over the last two years.
And now, with this additional award granted to Polk School, Ms. Milo will begin to infuse the generous gift from the Mohegan Tribe of: $1000 towards educational materials specific to Native American studies for classrooms, an amazing field experience to Tantaquidgeon Museum in Uncasville, CT and professional development for our faculty in pursuit of providing more opportunities to students to learn and experience the important history of our Native American ancestors of CT.