Funding will support creative scheduling initiative and student-centered advisory programming
The AMLE Foundation Fund has selected Prodeo Academy in Columbia Heights, MN and South Allegheny Middle School in McKeesport, PA as the recipients of its 2025 Successful Middle School Grants. That AMLE Foundation Fund established the grant in 2023 to provide funding to educators engaged in promising, research-based practices that fulfil one or more of the 18 Characteristics of Successful Middle Schools and might supply insights and replicable strategies for the broader middle level education field.
Prodeo Academy’s initiative, “Building a Culture of Belonging and Achievement” will convert the school’s homeroom period into a robust and personalized advisory program. In addition to including dedicated relationship and community building activities, the school will implement a student-centered scheduling tool which allows students to make personalized choices for how to spend the time based on their individual needs. Staff will also be equipped with ongoing training to build their skills as advisors and mentors.
“We’re a small school, and resources like this grant go so far for a small school,” said Principal in Residence Jennifer Cooley, “The vision is a space where kids feel safe, kids feel seen, and kids are uplifted to explore who they are, where they feel successful, where they feel challenged, and how to navigate those challenges. Advisory is so important because it provides consistent structure where kids can engage in that way.”
South Allegheny’s “Thrive Time: Beyond the Bell – Passion, Play, and Purpose” initiative will integrate mental health support, student agency, and creative expression into the school schedule through makerspace explorations, intramurals, and student-driven clubs and passion projects. The multi-faceted approach combines physical movement, hands-on, project-based opportunities, and student choice to reimagine the middle school experience to embed joy, creativity, and future-ready skill building.
“It’s like recess for the soul,” described Jennifer Wachs, the school’s Reading Interventionist and Media Center Specialist. Jenna Whitney, Director of Innovation and Digital Learning, added that they anticipate benefits beyond social and emotional: “Creative classes build confidence in students that they can take back to their core classes. And they end up wanting to be more creative in those core classes.”
Each will implement their projects over the next schools year and anticipate reporting the results and lessons learned for their colleagues in the spring of 2026.
Both grant recipients encourage their fellow middle level educators to apply in future years. Cooley sees parallels between the grant’s themes and what middle schoolers are going through themselves developmentally. “Middle school is a time of big ideas and innovation,” she says, “If we’re telling kids to go for it, we’ve got to do the same. And I think our applying for this grant was doing just that.” Wachs added that all you need is a core desire to benefit kids to be successful, “Trust that your ideas matter. It actually helped as we applied for the grant to clarify our why. And our kids are so worth it.”
In addition to the Successful Middle School Grant program, AMLE’s Foundation Fund supports a variety of other initiatives benefiting the middle level education field, including the Successful Middle School Research Grant, the Educator of the Year Program, and collegiate grants. “The AMLE Foundation Fund was created in 1994 as a way for middle level supporters to donate funds that could be used to support and sustain efforts to improve the education of young adolescents,” said James Barnes, AMLE Foundation Fund Chair, “Thanks to the generous donations of members and others, we are delighted to have reached a point where we can offer grants to schools to implement innovative programs that promote replicable, research-based practices based on the 18 Characteristics of Successful Middle Schools. We look forward to hearing and sharing the story of their work in the hopes that schools around the world can learn from their initiatives.”
Learn more about and donate to the AMLE Foundation Fund.
Learn more about the Successful Middle School Program.