This project is part of the Black History Month celebration because it supports a Black teacher or a school where the majority of the students are Black.
My Students
Our school is a rural school in southeast Louisiana. All students at our school receive free breakfast and lunch. Our community is not a wealthy community, but they are rich in community spirit. In the beginning of the school year, a local church invited our entire faculty in for a lunch and prayer. At that lunch, the church pledged to support us as much as possible with prayers, manpower, and finances as available.
Our parents often work multiple jobs to make ends meet.
The children needed a safe place to be supervised after school hours while their parents work. This prayer lunch inspired us to collaborate with local businesses to help build up our free after-school program. Through local and federal grants and business sponsors, we now have a free after school program for students in grades in three to five. We have found our students are most interested in STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math) classes so we made our after school program a STEAM-focused program. In our program, we have a science lab, a coding class, a computer literacy class, a maker lab, music/dance class, and the "math and science of cooking".
My Project
At Christmas, we had a wonderful celebration. The students performed numerous dances and songs for their parents. Our school was all over social media in a positive light. Parents and teachers just stared at the stage with silly grins on their faces and cameras pointed at their babies. It was such a wonderful experience that we want to celebrate as a group again. Our end of the year program will once again include musical and theatrical performances by our students, but it will also include an awards ceremony.
Students who are often overlooked because of academics or discipline will have their time to shine in this awards ceremony.
Each class will choose shining stars in their class. I know one of the students that I will give the "chef" award to is often displays discipline and academic problems in their regular classroom. However, in my class, she is amazing. In discussing this idea with other teachers in the after school program, they have shared similar stories.
As always, we like to conclude our program with refreshments. This allows us time to mingle with parents. It is through this mingling that we learn ways to improve our project. You could consider it an unofficial needs assessment. Parents feel happy and at ease to share the good, bad, and possible ugly. It is through this feedback that we are able to grow. Thank you for your consideration.
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Mrs. Mixon and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
