Moments in the CitySquare Education Department

Some days my job is really hard. It's emotionally stressful. I haven't yet figured out the best way to tell people the amazing things I see each day. Dealing with a very minimal staff that turns over every summer and end of school year because we depend on Americorps members who can only serve a limited number of terms makes consistency and knowledge of expectations almost impossible some days. This week has been one of my worst in a while in some ways...and then today came...and I end on a completely high note. I wanted to share those moments. Here are some of the happenings from today:

1) The elementary school principal called and said Hunger Busters will be delivering the school 300 meals each week, M-Th. They can't use all of them and wanted to know if we can use them. She may ask Hunger Busters to deliver to the Ed Programs their own 300/week as a separate site. Solves our problem of never having food for our teens who stay from 4:00-8:00.

2) Richardson East Church of Christ wants to get more involved in Roseland. I suggested they do an annual drive that would supply our Ed programs with supplies (like construction paper, binders...everything expendable) since the kids in our community already have a back-to-school day. The minister said he thinks he can make that happen.

3) I had a brilliant idea of how to grow our numbers and maximize the number of staff we have...without adding any more. During Christmas break we will probably switch our two entire buildings so that Teen U and Mid Teen U will move in to the ASA space and vice versa. Because of the space, we can potentially expand the ASA numbers to 50 and maybe even 60 eventually...without adding any more Americorps or staff than we already have. (If any of you are interested in volunteering over Christmas break, email me!!)

4) I worked late tonight planning for Monday's staff retreat to help us figure out the education department's plan for the next 6 months. I had invited staff, one parent, and a couple of teens. I was extremely excited when one of my staff called saying that the middle schoolers were upset they weren't represented. She wanted to know if some could come, too. Of course they can!! How exciting! About 7:30 this evening, the 2 chosen ones saw my office light on and came to my office to ask if they could come be a part of Monday's meeting. They were so excited..and so cute! When I mentioned we would be planning curriculum, Antonio (who was in the ASA about 2 years ago) asked if we were going to do check books like we did when he was in the ASA. He was so excited about potentially doing more with balancing checkbooks like we did when he was younger. Then he asked if they still had the weekend backpacks like we used to have. He explained that he learned how to play chess that way. (I was thinking he learned from Mr. Carmen, our former chess teacher). Antonio said all the younger kids knew how to play and he wanted to learn so bad. I remember finding a How to Play Chess book that I gave him. I had no idea that he actually read it and learned to play chess from that book!!! When I told them about some of the curriculum possibilities, they were so excited and were already brainstorming possibilities.

5) There was a fight on Tuesday at Teen U. I was emotionally sick when I heard. We (our Americorps members who witnessed, me, Dallas Housing Authority (DHA), the parents, and the 2 girls) met on Wednesday. Though the parents were about to fight on Tuesday, my staff and DHA had handled it beautifully. When the two families came back together on Wednesday, everyone was much calmer. I suspended both girls for a week. One girl apologized completely unprompted. The other had no desire to so I told her not to come back until she was ready to accept responsibility. Ends up, she went back to Danielle that evening, gave her a hug, and apologized for her behavior. Expectations. Love 'em!

6) Tomorrow is a college trip to TWU and UNT. The staff only had 1 person on Wednesday because the kids found out they had to leave at 7:00 a.m. and decided they weren't going. I was very discouraged. I don't know what she did, but she text'd me this evening saying we have a full van of 12 kids, plus the three of us adults. Though the staff hadn't thought to do parent visits to talk to parents themselves, after I told them they needed to, she and Veronica hit the streets and talked to each parent. I am very hopeful (crossing my fingers) that we'll have 12 kids tomorrow morning.

Anyway, it's been a good day. :)

Kwane's sly way of telling us he's learning

I absolutely LOVE being around kids...especially when I can see the lightbulb go on. :) ...and today was one of those moments.

I went downstairs to the After-School Academy to get some footage of the mural the kids designed, drew, and are now painting. (I'll put it together in a post soon). As I stood watching three of the kids paint, Kwane stood beside me. Quite honestly, I wasn't paying him any attention whatsoever. I was focused on the mural painting for one, but I've also learned to ignore his antics at times when he decides to act out. So I guess I was unconsciously tuning him out.

I can't quite explain my brain, but I could hear him talking, but it was little one or two word phrases so I guess I thought he was just talking to himself figuring someone would notice and tell him to be quiet or something (it's a way to get attention). Something in my brain told me what he was saying was familiar, but I guess I was just too focused on other things to pay him any mind.

"Hey. Who?"

"Oh?"

"Me?"

"You."

"Yo.Yes."

As he spoke them in small sentences, his words somehow soaked in to my brain and I realized what he was doing. I quickly turned toward him with a big smile on my face. He returned my big grin and simply said, "I saw it," with a mischievous look on his face. It was obvious he knew that he was going to shock me with his statement.

See, on our After-School Academy blog we have a Story Time link (you can see it at the top of this page. I try to post a new read-aloud that I or someone else has read to our Flip video camera and loaded to the blog. It reminds me of Reading Rainbow. When I started doing it, I didn't know if it would catch on, but I figured it couldn't hurt and it didn't take a lot of effort.

Yo! Yes! has been up quite a while. I'd never heard any kids comment on the story so I didn't know if they were utilizing our Story Time posts. Evidently, some are. If they're like Kwane, they're watching it so much that they've memorized the words. Kwane has, at times, been one of our biggest challenges. But more and more often, we are seeing his mischievous nature come out as he slyly tries to tell/show us he's learning.

Yo! Yes! is one of my favorite children's books. I'm sure you'll love it, too. You can listen to it below. If you would like to be a guest reader for us, please read your favorite book, post it to youtube, and email me the link so I can embed it in our StoryTime link. We need new stories!

We are moving!

Though we still have some paperwork to do before it is official, the Dallas Housing Authority has graciously allowed us to have a WONDERFUL space that will be our own.

In all of my years of working with kids, we have never had space that is brand new and solely our own to use. Knowing that we will now have this space is such an exciting time for us, filled with so many new possibilities!

Yesterday, during a staff development meeting, I took the staff (Sylvia and our three Americorps members) down to the new space so we could begin envisioning how to decorate and what classes to have where. I was so excited when the staff walked in and I watched their eyes get big with excitement and immediately started throwing out ideas. Their energy made me so proud and pleased to have acquired these four as staff this year.

Andricka (a senior at Skyline high school and first time Americorps member) couldn't believe she was going to have her own classroom for her Kinder-2nd grade kids. I kept chuckling as she continued to beg for a classroom of her own... "Please, can I have that classroom for my kids? (as she carefully choose a specific room for her class)" It took several times to convince her, "Yes, Andricka. That can be your classroom." "Really???" "Yes, Andricka. It's your classroom for your kids."

She's already throwing around new ideas of how to decorate for her Voting and Elections class and figuring out how to implement her new Math class (after going to an amazing PBS math training we received through a grant).

I love getting the right people on board. It makes all the difference in the world when people are excited about education, excited about learning, excited about teaching kids, and excited about working with parents. With Ms. Doris, Kristina, Andricka, and Ms. Sylvia, I know we have the right team!

Never lose faith!

For the last four months, our After-School Academy has been in limbo. With staff cutbacks and the upcoming demolition of Turner Courts, it has been challenging to figure out how to transition to a new program in Roseland TownHomes.

After growing a program for 8+ years, it's really hard to figure out how it all started and to replicate that. It's also hard because we and those around us expect us to start where we left off--with a full slate of 30 kids. On top of that, we have the challenge of figuring out how to restructure the program with less staff and uncertainty about a location.

We did start, though. The Central Dallas Church was gracious enough to allow us in their facility for as long as we needed. We are partnering with J.W. Ray (thanks to Ms. Brenda Powers, Community Liaison) and have two chess club rotations (thanks to Carmen Chairez, Minority Business Development Association)--20-25 kids in the first class and 8-10 kids in the second class! Jennifer Africawala (CDM Americorps program) helped me figure out how to have 3 Americorps members instead of two...and Kristina Williams, Andricka Lindsay, and Doris Thomas are absolutely wonderful!

Texas Capital Bank (Richard Mauldin) and United Central Bank (Cheryl Gilbert) provide finance classes for our elementary kids and we offer art classes through Theresa Cissell (another Americorps volunteer) and Catherine Hamrick (a Richland art major). And more people keep coming!

Sylvia Baylor has been amazing as she has been so willing to step in to coordinate the program in our transition. It is because of her, as well as the help of Marva Epperson-Brown, Danielle Evans, and Kim Johnson (other CDM staff), that we now have 26 kids enrolled and are growing every day! It is also because of Sylvia that we will now have a reading teacher from J.W. Ray Elementary volunteering with us once or twice a week!

There are more partnerships that I'll tell about in future posts. For now, we are off to a great start!

Way To Go C.J.!!!!

I am soooo proud of C.J. He is doing really well in school. He passed all of his bench mark tests. What really impressed me is that he made a 96 on his reading benchmark. How great is that I was so happy!!! keep up the good work!!! Momma love you!