These 7 principals won an award that comes with $20,000 for their schools. Here are their dream projects.

Every year, the Lindback Foundation awards several Philadelphia School District leaders with prizes for Distinguished Principal Leadership.

Each award comes with $20,000 for the winner’s school. Here are the seven 2025 Lindback principals and their plans for their prize money:

KaTiedra Argro plans to use the bulk of Girls’ High’s award to establish a Positive Behavior Interventions and Support room — a nod to the program that rewards students for good behavior, attendance, and academics. Students will be able to use their PBIS points to spend time in the room, envisioned as “a sanctuary for students to take scheduled breaks, equipped with trauma-informed materials that promote mental well-being and calming techniques — essential components for boosting academic performance.”

Argro, a Girls’ High alum, wants to use part of the money for field trips to build experiential learning.

There’s no place in Casarez’s Kensington building, constructed in 1899, for the whole school to gather — no auditorium or real gym. So Balbuena wants to use her Lindback money to build community with a whole-day, whole-school outdoor trip to “enhance bonding, teamwork, communication, and problem-solving abilities among our students.”

» READ MORE: This Philly principal struggled as a student. Now she inspires kids in Kensington.

Without the Lindback money, the trip would be an impossibility; transportation costs are prohibitive. But with the $20,000, Balbuena plans to charter tour buses and pay admission to space that will give the Casarez community a “transformational student experience,” she said.

The Lindback prize money will help build language labs at Hancock, in the Northeast.

The language labs will help both students and families, particularly those who are English language learners or deaf or hard of hearing. American Sign Language instruction will be offered, and the space will have sophisticated technology, bilingual books, instructional materials and language games. The money will pay for experts to train staff and community members on language acquisition and ASL, and for part-time instructors to offer workshops.

Furman plans to use the funds to provide arts-based experiences for students at the Port Richmond middle school, paying for trips to the Philadelphia Ballet and Philadanco. (All AMY at James Martin students take dance classes.) The funds will also pay for rental space for the AMY at James Martin basketball team, which struggles to find space. (The school is currently co-located at Penn Treaty High School while a new, $62 million facility is being constructed.)

The rest of the money will be earmarked for boosting parent engagement — paying for events like Back to School barbecues, new student celebrations, parent workshops, and evening performances for families.

“Providing these opportunities, especially ones where we can offer our students and families a meal and fellowship, will help us to grow our sense of community and encourage our families and schoolwide community to come together in celebration and support of our students,” Furman wrote.

Lawrence will use some of the Lindback money to add “modern resources” to “promote more innovative teaching strategies.” Other funds will pay for programs for academic enrichment and social-emotional learning, both for struggling students at the Frankford school and for all children to “develop interests outside the classroom” and for accelerated learning materials for advanced students.

John Marshall will also utilize funds to partner with outside organizations for mentoring, workshops, and after-school activities and for community activities to keep families involved — including sessions to help families support students’ academic achievement and mental health.

Finally, the money will allow John Marshall to create “sensory hallways” to help students who struggle emotionally to calm and regulate themselves.

The Lindback $20,000 “will significantly enhance educational opportunities for our Potter-Thomas School students and positively impact the community,” Polk wrote.

The money will expand the North Philadelphia school’s Career and Technical Explorers digital media and robotics programs. Potter-Thomas can now only afford for sixth graders to participate in the CTE exploration program — the Lindback funds will allow for fifth, seventh and eighth graders to also have access. Robotics, only now available to fourth graders, will allow kindergarten through third grade students, including those in autistic support classes, to join in classes and develop problem solving, coding, and engineering skills.

“This funding will provide students with tools to overcome barriers and thrive, having a transformative impact on our students and community,” Polk said.

Travis wants to use the Lindback funds to improve West’s graduation pathways — ways students can fulfill the state’s Act 158 requirements with multiple roads to a diploma. Specifically, Travis plans to build on the school’s Career and Technical Education programs — building a recording studio with equipment like digital audio workstations, computers and recording software, microphones, a mixing board, and sound equipment; enhancing the current Digital Media pathway; providing a learning laboratory for students in West’s Fine Arts pathway; and allowing students in the 21st Century Business pathway to have enhanced experiences.

Travis has big ambitions: the Lindback money will allow West students to design original music and create their own music label, to partner with local middle school students to learn about communications and with Temple students to spread their work to a wider audience.