The Martha Holden Jennings Foundation aims to enhance the growth of young individuals within Ohio’s non-religious primary and secondary education settings, and to elevate the teaching profession through inspiring creativity in instruction and amplifying teachers’ achievements.
The foundation offers Grants to Educators to support its core objective of honoring and fostering innovation among classroom educators and administrators in Ohio’s public PK-12 schools. Projects funded should be classroom or school-wide initiatives that directly involve public school students in a deep learning experience. These experiences should help students acquire and apply new knowledge or skills through complex processes involving multiple steps and levels of analysis, ultimately leading to changed thinking or behaviors. Projects must be designed with clear, appropriate learning targets, involve iterative cycles of inquiry and reflection, and adequately demonstrate student learning and next steps. The grants emphasize enhancing students' abilities in critical reading, writing, research, mathematics, problem-solving, self-directed learning, and interdisciplinary understanding, as well as engagement in scientific, social scientific, artistic thinking, and meaningful problem or project-based learning. The maximum funding available per project is $3,000.