Thursday, September 10, 2009

Read with the Kids at Tubman Elementary

While at Columbia Heights Day, we met volunteers from the Grassroots Education Project (associated with DC for Obama) who are launching a pilot program at Tubman Elementary. You can check out their initiative online here. And you can sign up online to help here.

And here is a description of the program from on of the founders:

DC for Obama launched its Grassroots Education Project on August 22. The Grassroots Education Project will be partnering with Tubman Elementary School in Columbia Heights throughout the coming school year. To date, the project has recruited nearly 350 volunteers who will spend countless hours in the months ahead improving education outcomes at Tubman Elementary.

Through tutoring, mentoring, parent outreach, grant writing, community outreach, fundraising and others activities, we hope to transform this school into a true community school and improve the overall quality of education. Instead of simply going in and focusing our resources on the school to achieve short-term results, we endeavor to cultivate leaders within the surrounding community that can sustain our progress. If we're successful in our efforts, we'll replicate this model across the city.

This pilot program will begin with our Tubman Team, but will hopefully expand after it is initiated and evaluated. Tubman was chosen because it is in the lower 1/4 of DC Public Schools, based on test scores, and it is conveniently located in an accessible and diverse neighborhood. The principal at the school is a dynamic leader who is very excited about our involvement. We have the ability to really take Tubman to the next level in helping it to more fully develop into a community school.

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