Report: Chatham Schools Use Technology to Teach

The Chatham Education Foundation helps provide iTouches for Chatham classrooms.

Over the last few years, the Chatham Education Foundation fundraised to provide several schools with new Smartboards. Now, one Chatham teacher finds that other technological advances can help her educate students, and the CEF helps provide her with those tools. In districts like the Chathams, with a local education foundation, the parents’ fundraising group is called on to meet needs like upgraded technology that the district can’t budget for. During the past school year, the Chatham Education Foundation (CEF) awarded more than $70,000 in grants to teachers and schools. Not all of that was for computers or other technology. But over the last decade, the CEF has given out dozens of grants for various tech-related projects. For instance, one…

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Education Foundation Donates Over $20K to Chatham Schools

The funds will be used at Chatham High School, Washington Avenue School and Lafayette Avenue School.

The Chatham Education Foundation recently donated over $20,000 dollars to the School District of the Chathams for use in three schools. Chatham High School was granted $9,997.66 for the purchase of several netbook computers, an addition to several netbook computers already available for student use. Another $9,740 was donated to Washington Avenue school to purchase 13 SMART document cameras, which "[allow] documents to be magnified, viewed and annotated directly on the SMART Board," according to the CEF's Fall/Winter 2010 newsletter. The CEF also donated $720 to Lafayette Avenue School for fifth grade teacher Erik Yates. This is Yates' third CEF grant. Yates said that the model of CEF allows for tools to get into the classrooms without an …

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EduNation: A Patch Report on Our Schools

CEF Provides 'Private Funding for Public Education'

'Concerned parents' and others help keep Chatham district among state's elite.

Abigail Maddi is worried about Chatham schools. As President of the Chatham Educational Foundation (CEF) and the mother of two middle school students, Maddi wants to attract the best teachers to Chatham. With the latest Board of Education-approved salary increases for the teacher's union the lowest in decades, Maddi worries that teachers may go where they have a chance to earn more. "We need to look towards private funding to maintain the kind of education that we're accustomed to here in Chatham," Maddi said. Only the Best Chathamites are accustomed to a very high quality of education. Chatham High School was recently ranked the No. 8 best high school in the state by NJ Monthly, a jump of two spots from No. 10 in 2008 (the last year …

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