Our Funding Priorities
Every year, the Foundation works closely with the MLWGS administrative team to determine the best way to support our students and faculty. The Foundation’s direct giving to the school is done through our Enhancement Grant Program, which allows teachers and administrators to receive funding for activities that make the MLWGS experience unique, including funding for educational and extracurricular activities, including student travel; teacher professional development and continuing education; and student financial aid to ensure that all students have the resources to reach their full potential.
Instructional Enhancements and Academic Teams
FY22 Budget: $110,000
Funding for Educational and Extracurricular Activities supports things like:
Costs associated with competitive academic teams like We the People, Model Congress, SABR Analytics Competition, MLWGS Robotics
Domestic and international travel associated with classroom experiences and student interest groups like the Books and Cooks Senior Seminar (New York), Peer Mentors trip to the Museum of African American History, International Relations (Library of Congress & the State Department), Military History Senior Seminar (Charleston, SC), AP Environmental Science trips, the Music Department (Nashville), Historiography Senior Seminar (Harper’s Ferry & Antietam), Photojournalism (Virginia Beach – whale watching), Social Studies (Dooley Museum, Maggie L. Walker Historic Site), French I (French Embassy), Latin Pre-AP (National Gallery)
Class-related international travel opportunities serve the mission of the school by advancing gifted students’ understanding of world cultures and languages. MLWGS is fortunate to have faculty members willing to go above and beyond to develop and execute these trips. The Foundation significantly offsets the cost for many and covers the entire cost of the trips for students in financial need. Over the past few years, we have helped send dozens of students abroad, to places like the United Kingdom, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Canada, and Morocco. For many students, these trips represented their first ventures outside of the US. In 2019-20, we’ll be offsetting the cost for the first-ever South Africa senior seminar trip.
Academic enhancements and equipment with supplies such as books, software, drawing tablets, clamps for woodworking in art, drums for our new drumline, forensic equipment for our biology students, clamps for woodworking in art, and murals depicting the areas or our world history curriculum for our library that will add beauty as well as soundproofing.
Teacher Professional Development and Continuing Education
FY22 Budget: $30,000
Our teachers are lifelong learners, which is one of the ways they inspire our students’ love of learning.
Foundation support for teacher professional development includes:
Assistance with graduate school tuition, including the Gifted Endorsement all teachers are required to maintain
Underwriting of costs associated with attendance at professional conferences and workshops. Each year, our teachers attend professional conferences and workshops focused on the best practice in their subject areas, the socio-emotional needs of gifted students, professional organization meetings, and other events that inform their teaching, including the Virginia Tech Biotech Educators Conference, MathFest, the Association of Writers & Writing Programs Conference, and the Southern American Studies Association, Teaching Econ and Personal Finance Virtually, Applied Statistics, Modeling in Biology, AP remote instruction, 2021 Most Pivotal Decisions of War symposium, and Developing Intercultural Competency
Student Financial Aid
FY22 Budget: $30,000
In recognition of the fact that not all students attending MLWGS have access to the same set of resources, the Foundation works with the MLWGS administration and Office of Counseling to offer financial assistance to students in need in the form of student aid grants. All financial aid is provided completely confidentially with a goal of ensuring that every student who accepts the challenge of attending Maggie Walker is able to take advantage of all that it offers, regardless of their family’s financial situation. Financial Assistance is offered for things such as:
Student fees
College application fees and SAT & ACT reporting fees
Class-related travel costs
Smaller items like a class shirt and covering the cost of class-related lunch field trips for a Books, Cooks, & Culture student
Wireless Internet cards
Eye glasses
Lunch plans
If you think student aid funding could benefit your student, please don’t hesitate to contact Dr. Lowerre or reach out to your student’s teacher or counselor to discuss. We want to help your exceptional student make the most of MLWGS!