Hudson Valley Writing Project receives grant for self-study

NEW PALTZ — The Hudson Valley Writing Project (HVWP) at the State University of New York at New Paltz was recently awarded a grant for $36,000 from the National Writing Project to support a three-year program evaluation.

The HVWP was one of 10 sites chosen to participate in the third phase of the National Writing Project’s Project Outreach Network, an initiative designed to improve inservice for teachers working with students affected by poverty. The group at New Paltz will form a site-based inquiry team that will work closely with a program advisor and the network of fellow Project Outreach Network award recipients.

Over the next three years, HVWP directors and teacher consultants will work to determine the needs of teachers in Hudson Valley communities affected by poverty and to design an accessible and relevant pilot program.

“Our goal is to come up with a conceptually strong and effective program,” said Tom Meyer, HVWP director and an associate professor of secondary education at SUNY New Paltz.

The HVWP’s core programs include the Invitational Summer Institute, inservice programs such as Saturday Seminars, professional staff development, writing conferences and a Young Writers Program. Participation in HVWP’s core programs have grown from 24 participants in 2001 to 1,133 in the 2004-2005 school year, according to a status report put out by the group in October 2005.

The HVWP at SUNY New Paltz is one of 195 university-school partnership sites in the NWP network, an organization that serves more than 140,000 educators annually. HVWP currently serves teachers in Dutchess, Orange, Putnam, Rockland, Sullivan, and Ulster County.