MFEE Funds Neurodiversity Library to Foster Inclusion at School

MFEE funded a lending library featuring neurodiverse characters.

April is Neurodiversity Celebration Month, but Bradford Elementary School’s SATp committee and special education teacher Laura Giasone wanted to enhance the conversations about belonging and acceptance happening at school all year long.  

Thanks to a grant from the Montclair Fund for Educational Excellence, Bradford staff now have access to a new Neurodiversity Lending Library. It’s stocked with books that provide teachable moments about inclusion through literacy, specifically about neurodiverse learners. 

The MFEE-funded collection includes dozens of titles both written by and featuring neurodiverse individuals with grade-level appropriate themes and vocabulary. Giasone paired each book with an activity that teachers can use in their classrooms at any point in the year. 

“All students at Bradford School will benefit from this project,” Giansone wrote in her grant proposal. “It will also foster questions regarding different ways to communicate, different styles of play, and provide examples of what acceptance and inclusion for our neurodiverse peers can look like.”

The books explore expressions of different feelings, ways to engage with peers, and how it feels to be different than your peers. And importantly: “It will also give every student at Bradford an opportunity to be represented in literature that is shared in their classrooms,” she said. 

Each year, MFEE awards $60,000 in grants to educators across the Montclair Public Schools. It’s been funding teachers’ big ideas for 35 years, and the grants remain a core part of the organization’s mission. They aim to spark innovative ideas and support teachers who nurture future leaders, and to engage students of all ages and across content areas. Generous donations from our community donations fuel this work. 

Stay tuned for more grant spotlights!