Blog

Alycia Zimmerman is a 3rd grade teacher and long time Feedbackland volunteer; DonorsChoose.org is thrilled to share her guest blog post below:

For the past several years, I’ve volunteered about one evening a month at the DonorsChoose.org headquarters. I help out in an area they’ve named “Feedbackland” – where all of the Thank-You Packages from funded classroom projects are logged in and mailed back out to the donors. With hundreds of Thank-You Packages arriving every day, there is nothing simple about this massive appreciation-operation. The Feedback team prides itself on a one-day turnaround for all Thank-You Packages, which means that it is an incredibly industrious hive of volunteers, interns, and staff members, all working together to pass along the thanks.

Meet Your Informant

I’m in my fifth year of teaching public elementary school, which I began as an NYC Teaching Fellow. I discovered DonorsChoose.org during my first year teaching; my very first funded project provided the materials for the only art projects that my students did that entire school year. When I switched to a different low-income school in the Penn South neighborhood of Manhattan, I walked into an empty classroom with even fewer supplies than my previous school. Through the incredible generosity of donors, I was able to outfit my new classroom and provide an enriching, high-end academic experience for my students ever since.

Now back to my Feedbackland exposé …

Of course I volunteer at DonorsChoose.org because I love giving back to an organization that has given so much to my students, an organization that doesn’t just talk about improving education, but that facilitates small, meaningful improvements every single day. But let me share some of the other, less noble reasons why I love volunteering too.

Reason #1: A Forced Exit Strategy

We dismiss our students at 3:40, and that’s officially when my workday ends too. However, my colleagues and I spend an additional hour or more grading student work, planning for upcoming lessons, and organizing our classrooms. Most days, I leave school around 5:30, but not on volunteering days. On my monthly volunteer day, I tidy up while the students are still in the room. I prep some lessons during my lunch period. And I walk out of the school by 4:00 pm! The sun is still shining, and I experience the displaced elation of a kid cutting class – time to volunteer!

Reason #2: Grown-ups Only, Phew!

After dismissing my wonderful, energetic third graders, I walk eight blocks uptown from my school into the heart of NYC’s fashion district to arrive at the DonorsChoose.org headquarters, tucked away on the second floor of a humble office building. Now as you know, I’m a teacher, and I love my job. But after a full day of teaching, it is a welcome novelty to spend some time in a kid-free office environment. Admittedly, DonorsChoose.org is hardly a stuffy workplace, with its robin egg blue walls and its come-as-you-are dress code. Nevertheless, the chairs are all full-sized, and everyone can use the bathroom whenever they want. For a teacher, this is a big deal!

Reason #3: The Friendly Staff

You probably won’t believe me, but everyone at DonorsChoose.org is friendly. Yes, I mean EVERYONE! I don’t know where they find all these people in this city of don’t-make-eye-contact, manners-are-for-sissies New Yorkers. Walking around the DonorsChoose.org office takes me back to my freshman year of college when I made my first Midwestern friends and was constantly amazed that people smile to begin conversations. It’s lovely being around so many warm smiles, plain and simple.

Reason #4: The Scanner

After I set up my wedding registry several years ago, I handed back my handheld barcode scanner with a sigh, assuming my days of barcode scanning were over. Not any more – last year, DonorsChoose.org set up a new system to “check in” Thank-You Packages using a barcode scanner for the mailing labels, and now I’m happily pointing and clicking away. I always get a secret thrill when I hold my scanner high and aim at a Thank-You Package with the flair of a Charlie’s Angel. Yes, I’m one fierce scanner-wielding teacher!

Signing Off …

I could go on with more self-serving reasons why volunteering is a great way to spend an evening, but if I can’t spill all my secrets. Let’s just say that they have snacks, students Thank-Yous have a high cuteness/hilarity quotient, and there’s an occasional Charles Best sighting. (I get star struck.) So fellow teachers, when you send in your Thank-You letters, know that there is a volunteer like me on the receiving end who is going to ooh and aah over your students’ handwritten epistles and darling artwork. (I’ll also moan when I’m showered in sparkling glitter, but donors surely like glittery cards, so keep it coming.) It’s rewarding to see the other end of the feedback loop behind every funded project, and it’s totally inspiring to see the amazing work my colleagues are doing in classrooms around the country, thanks to the generosity of DonorsChoose.org donors.

Laurie Kimmet is a middle school music teacher in Columbus, Ohio. Ms. Kimmet is now in her eighth year of teaching. We’re excited to share Ms. Kimmet’s story with you!

When did you decide to become a teacher?

I always knew I wanted to be a teacher.  I used to make my little brother “play school” with me.  I even gave him homework!  When I was in sixth grade, I began playing the French horn.  I loved every minute of it.  At that point it just seemed natural to combine my two passions:  music and teaching.

Tell us about a project you’ve recently had funded through DonorsChoose.org. How did your students react to receiving the materials?

We have been fortunate to have several instruments and additional supplies funded.  Every time the new stuff arrives all of my students are excited.  Our school mail is delivered during my lunch period.  There are always students in my classroom during lunch.  Whenever we receive a package from DonorsChoose.org, the students all argue over who gets to “do the honors” of opening it.  They then quickly spread the word (they are in middle school after all, it’s what they do best!) to their other classmates as to what we just received.   They may not play the instrument that we receive but they are still proud to have it in the music program.  One of our most recent projects was for supplies.  Every student benefited from the supplies we received as they all got new cleaning and care supplies for their instruments.  All of our instruments are in much better condition and are cosmetically more appealing now.

Throughout Teacher Appreciation Week, we’ll be asking our supporters to tell us about their favorite teachers. Who was your favorite teacher?

This is a hard one!  I was incredibly lucky throughout school to have been blessed with many great teachers.  I think that is why I had such a powerful inclination to be a teacher myself.  Of course, all of my music teachers were phenomenal.  Thanks to Mr. Luikhart, Ms. Hayward, Mr. Kelby, and Mr. Sark who always encouraged my love of music.  I am also an avid reader.  I remember reading some pretty heavy stuff in Mr. Otte and Mr. Leipensperger’s classes.  Those books created the foundations for many of my beliefs.  Mr. Ballard and Ms. Anglam worked with me when I was struggling; they never gave up on me even when I thought algebra and chemistry were impossible.  Finally, Mrs. Johnson my fourth grade teacher who was the first person to ever make me feel “gifted”.

We know how hard it can be to choose just one favorite teacher! Thank you Ms. Kimmet for sharing your story with us! To see Ms. Kimmet’s classroom projects, visit her DonorsChoose.org teacher page.

Mrs. Viau teaches Statistics, Advanced Placement Statistics, and AP Microeconomics at The Frederick Douglass Academy I.

She’s been very successful at getting her classrooms the resources they need, as you can see on her DonorsChoose.org page!

Mrs. Viau is helping us judge our Hacking Education contest and we needed a place to publish her impressive bio…so here it is.

Mrs. Jane Viau

Mrs. Viau has been teaching at The Frederick Douglass Academy I for the past nine years.  Prior to becoming a New York City Teaching Fellow and joining the faculty at FDA, Mrs. Viau had a 16 year career in real estate finance and investment  banking and worked at MetLife, Fitch IBCA and Merrill Lynch.  She holds a Bachelor of Science in Management from Binghamton University, a Master of Business Administration from The Stern School of Business at New York University, and a Master of Arts in Secondary Math Education from The City University of New York.

Mrs. Viau was named New York State Teacher of the Year 2009-2010 by Teachers Insurance Plan.  She was named winner of the 2009 New York City Teaching Fellow Award for Classroom Excellence and received her award from NYC DOE Chancellor Joel Klein, and she was designated “Outstanding Educator of the Year” in June 2008 by Education Update; she was a recipient of a 2008 College Board AP Fellows Scholarship.

Mrs. Viau was a contributor for the Barron’s 4th Edition of AP Statistics, and she assisted in proofreading the Barron’s AP Statistics flashcards.  Currently, she is a member of the Teacher Advisory Planning Committee to develop the 4th edition of Stats:  Modeling the World.  Additionally, she is a consultant instructor in AP Statistics and AP Microeconomics for the REACH (Rewarding Achievement) program in NYC, and she has presented at the Sharing our Success in Urban Math and Science Conference held at New York University.  She has been an Exam Reader for The College Board for the AP Statistics examinations for the past three years.

Furthermore, Mrs. Viau is an active grant writer who has raised over $50,000 for classroom materials and resources.  She was a founding and integral member of the FDA Summit committee which created a school-wide interdisciplinary program to commemorate the 2009 Inauguration of President Barack Obama.  She was a founding member of the FDA – Edinaman Secondary School Partnership with our sister school in Ghana, West Africa.

Mrs. Viau has been serving on the Teacher Advisory Panel for the “Measures of Effective Teaching” project sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for the past two years.  She served on a state-wide educator panel regarding “Review of Assessment Design and Content Specificiations for New York Performance Assessmens for Teachers and School Building Leaders” for Evaluation Systems of Pearson.  She is a member of the Global Association of Teachers of Economics, the National Council for Teachers of Mathematics (“NCTM”) and serves on the Board of Directors of Educators 4 Excellence.

Mrs. Viau currently teaches Advanced Placement Statistics, Statistics, and AP Microeconomics.  Based on number of African-American and Hispanic students who earned the ‘passing’ grade of 3, 4 or 5 on the May 2010 AP Exam, her AP classes for the 2009-2010 school year ranked #1 and #2 (missing the #1 spot by only one student) for AP Microeconomics and AP Statistics, respectively.

Updated 4/12/11: removed the mysterious references to an upcoming project and linked to our app/analysis contest.

We already know that DonorsChoose.org teachers are creative and dedicated to their students. But we love when we also get to witness a glimpse of the collaboration that takes place between teachers – like the teachers at Lincoln High School in San Francisco. Six teachers at the school have created a Green Academy for students, a three-year program for at-risk students who are interested in environmental issues and green collar jobs. Part of the program includes a Green Service Learning Elective, in which students will implement recycling programs, plant gardens and install solar panels!

Valerie Zeigler, a Green Academy teacher, has submitted a project to DonorsChoose.org requesting digital cameras that will allow the students to document their work and serve as ambassadors to their fellow classmates, families and other teachers. ABC -KGO in San Francisco spoke with Ms. Zeigler and her students about the program and the kinds of things they will learn thanks to the help of donors who support the Green Academy.  You can see the clip and the students hard at work here!

Open Society Institute – Baltimore (“OSI-Baltimore”) invites Baltimore City teachers to tap into $25,000 in funding to improve student attendance.

Examples of classroom projects OSI-Baltimore will be supporting:
- Elementary:  Giving out certificates or snacks at an awards ceremony – for the student of the week or the whole class!
- Middle:  Giving out play money for each day of attendance; allowing students to purchase rewards.
- High:  Holding regular contests for strong attendance and improved attendance, and giving out rewards.

How OSI-Baltimore will be funding projects:
- Teachers should submit projects for materials $350 or lower.
- This funding will be offered as a 50% match offer, so OSI-Baltimore funding will activate automatically when other donors choose to join in and fund the rest of the project!
- High school teachers:  If your project also is preparing students for the rigors of college, mention this in your short essay, so that your project will receive 50% funding from The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Click here to see the teacher flyer with examples of the types of classroom projects that OSI-Baltimore is supporting (file is 1 MB; allow 10 – 15 seconds to download).

Visit OSI-Baltimore’s website to learn more about OSI-Baltimore or student attendance.