Our students are from all over the world and range from middle class to disadvantaged. Our school has over 400 students. I work in two schools and have created a swim league from the two Jersey City schools. We are at the end of our second year. At #16, our students are extremely competitive, they work hard to have the best grades, and want to go to Ivy league schools. On swim team, they only want to win. At #16, they are very serious students.
#27 is a school in transition, with new students coming in, and rising scores.
There is a serious after-school program, with programs ranging from gardening to computer coding, funded by student-led donations. Swim team operates during those after-school hours and one early-morning per week. The students here are catching up to #16 in scholarship.
I would descibe the #27 atmosphere as a school with a heart. They are very much a family. They run drives for coatless students, cystic fibrosis students, they ran huge fundraisers to help a student's family when the student was battling cancer. When a teacher contracted cancer, they had pep rallies for her.
My Project
Our two teams are not part of an official swim league, because the students on my teams cannot afford those team fees. Our teams run on the tiniest budget. The two schools that fund this "league" can only have the entire swim season run 3 months! We have two competitions. Having one bus trip paid for will make a big difference. Each bus trip is $400.00. We hope that we can fund one of the trips.
My students really want to compete on their swim team.
They need to compete. Their parents cannot drive them. The bus fee is a must.
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