{"monthlySchoolDonationEnabled":true,"callToActionDisplayName":"Newington High School","outOfStateSupporters":61.9,"allowSchoolLevelGiving":true,"hasFundedProjects":true,"projectGratitudeData":[{"teacherId":7837236,"projectId":10154600,"letterContent":"It is with tremendous gratitude that I submit this impact letter for your generosity in funding my \"Stories That Empower: Building a Library for Multilingual Voices\" project.\r\n\r\nAs an English teacher, I have always believed that there is something powerful about a student finding a book that feels like it was meant for them. For some students, that moment happens easily because they see themselves, their families, or their experiences represented in the books they read at school. For other students, that moment can be much harder to find.\r\n\r\nI have spent many years watching students struggle to connect with required texts. Sometimes I would look around my classroom and wonder: What if the problem isn't that these students don't like reading? What if they just haven't found the right story yet? That question has stayed with me.\r\n\r\nThat is why this project meant so much to me.\r\n\r\nWhen the books arrived, I was genuinely excited. There is something wonderful about opening a box of new books and imagining all the conversations, questions, and discoveries that might happen because of them. I placed We Are Not From Here, Blackout, The Revolution of Evelyn Serrano, and American Born Chinese where my students could see them. Before long, students were picking them up, looking at the covers, flipping through the pages, and reading the descriptions. They were curious.\r\n\r\nI want my students to know that their stories belong in literature. I want the students who have struggled to see themselves in the books we read to finally have those moments of recognition—the moment when a character's family looks a little like theirs, when a character speaks about an experience they understand, or when a story makes them think, I know what that feels like.\r\n\r\nThese books are more than additions to my classroom library. They are opportunities for my students to see that there is no single story that represents what it means to be young, American, multilingual, or part of a particular culture.\r\n\r\nI think about the concept of books being mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors. Students need mirrors—books in which they can recognize themselves. They need windows—books that allow them to look into lives and experiences different from their own. And they need sliding glass doors—books that allow them to step into another world and experience it, even for a little while, through someone else's eyes.\r\n\r\nThat is what I hope these books will become for my students.\r\n\r\nMore importantly, I hope they will help my students understand that their own voices matter, too. When students encounter characters who are trying to figure out who they are, where they belong, and how they want to be heard, they are given an opportunity to think about those questions in their own lives.\r\n\r\nThank you for believing that students deserve to encounter a wide range of voices and experiences in their classrooms. Thank you for helping me put books into the hands of students who may discover a character who looks like them, a family that reminds them of their own, or a story that helps them understand someone else's life.\r\n\r\nMost of all, thank you for helping me build a classroom where my students can discover that their voice, and their stories, belong.","fullyFundedDate":1773857450648,"projectUrl":"project/stories-that-empower-building-a-library/10154600/","projectTitle":"Stories That Empower: Building a Library for Multilingual Voices","teacherDisplayName":"Mrs. Narowski","teacherPhotoUrl":"https://cdn.donorschoose.net/images/placeholder-avatars/272/teacher-placeholder-9_272.png?auto=webp","teacherClassroomUrl":"classroom/7837236"}],"pageName":"schoolpage_43743","usesDonorsChoose":true,"infoPageType":"school","demographicsInfo":{"numStudents":1192,"numTeachers":94,"percentFrplEligible":37,"percentAsian":10,"percentBlack":5,"percentWhite":50,"percentIndigenous":0,"percentLatinx":28,"showFreeAndReducedPriceLunchInfo":true,"showDemographicsInfo":true,"sourceTooltipString":"the National Center for Education Statistics","percentHawaiianImputed":0,"percentMultiracialImputed":5,"gradesServed":"9 - 12","studentTeacherRatio":"12.7:1","demographicsDataSource":"MDR School","equityFocus":false,"titleOne":false,"metroType":"SUBURBAN","ncesMetroType":"SUBURB_LARGE"},"inStateSupporters":38.1,"schoolId":43743,"financialInfo":null,"twitterShareText":"Learn more about Newington High School on @DonorsChoose:","schoolName":"Newington High School","canonicalPageUrl":"schools/connecticut/newington-public-schools/newington-high-school/43743"}