Help Me Give Back to My Community - Starts With My Students

Celebrating Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month

This project is a part of the Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month celebration because it supports a Latino teacher or a school where the majority of students are Latino.

My Students

Everyday, my students' lives and their futures are at stake in our Oakland/Fruitvale community they are growing up in. In our classroom, literacy and writing are the keys for the future of my students to ensure they are among the first in their families to graduate from college and have a career.

My students are intelligent young women and men of color who are beating the odds every single day of what statistics about their community say about them.

They are majority English Language Learners representing cultural and ethnic backgrounds from Guatemala, El Salvador, Mexico, Nigeria, Vietnam, and China. Our school and classroom is focused on community, and we strive for success every day together - because we can't get there alone - and we also strive for someone - and that is each other, our neighborhoods, and moreover our families. My students and I share a very personal cultural and familial background, and these connections have aloud us to connect achieving their dream - that they too will absolutely reach their graduation stage just like I did as the first in their family to graduate from college. They are taking the first step in 5th grade to having a strong literacy foundation to make it and have access to scholarships through high academic achievement.

My Project

My 5th grade students vary within a spectrum of low 3rd-grade reading levels to 8th grade+ level reading. At our school, Lucy Calkins' Reader's Workshop Curriculum is absolutely altering the lives of our students and we see the impact in their interest in reading. In 5th grade, our classroom library is missing essential literary resources that will spark my students' interests that will ensure they all have a "just-right-book" in front of them at all times. The book list I've created have been informed by my students reading needs but also their hobbies and more importantly bring them reflections as to who they are socially, emotionally, culturally and ethnically to support their personal development. The books I am asking for will also ensure that my students will reach our goal of growing by at least 1.5 years of reading this year and transition out of our school ready for the demands of middle school.

Literacy and writing are a high priority and provide my students an opportunity to redefine what success looks like for students growing up in Oakland.

My students know that only 1 in 20 students in Oakland will make it to college. But we've committed to being 27 out of 27 students who beat those odds. My "Class of 2025" will reach their dreams with your book donation.