Or school truly serves students from all walks of life. Our students come from various backgrounds in which the classroom is typically their safe place, and where they feel the most structure. Our school also features a strong Affective Needs Program serving students with severe behavioral needs while maintaining as much inclusion in the general education classroom as possible.
94% of our student population qualifies for free or reduced lunch.
These students come from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds with fifty of our approximately three-hundred students labeled as English Language Learners.
We work hard to give every student what they need to be successful during their time with us, but we only have so much time with them. Statistically, one in six children who are not reading proficiently in the third grade does not graduate from high school on time, a rate four times greater than that for proficient readers- and the rate is higher in children from low-income families and rural areas. Additionally, 50% of children from low-income communities start first grade up to two years behind their peers.
We want to change this, starting in kindergarten.
My Project
Our district was granted a bond several years ago to provide updates to our older buildings. Each summer, a selection of schools were given these necessary makeovers in some small ways (updated internet infrastructure or new front entrances/paint) and in some big ways (demo-ing entire buildings and starting from scratch).
Unfortunately, due to the pandemic, our funding for this bond will be drastically reduced for years in the future.
This means that our school will not be included in the updates for several years- although all the schools in our district do require them.
Our building is 66 years old this year, meaning that it is desperately in need of some critical facility updates like new bathrooms, foundational work and a new cafeteria/kitchen. What our classroom teachers were most looking forward to was a classroom furniture and storage update. We are currently working with a mish-mash of furniture sets from years ago with pieces from here and there that work for our kiddos, but we are lacking storage.
One piece of furniture that we are desperately missing in kindergarten is a classroom mailbox system. This critical piece of furniture allows students to store their work and allows teachers to hand out important papers in a streamlined way. Especially in the primary grades, classrooms work best with systems. Our kindergartners would be able to build their organization skills and have a designated space for papers with a mailbox/cubby system.
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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 Ms. Begley and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
