Ballard Science Class Looking for Help
Eric Muh's science class at Ballard High has signed up at Donors Choose for some financial help.
We are a large urban comprehensive high school. Teachers have a variety of students from English language learners to special education students with a variety of individual needs to Advanced Placement students. We'd use the laminator for all these classes.
You may recall that Donors Choose is a great organization that allows teachers to ask for help - big and small - for their classes.
If there are other SPS teachers/schools asking for help, please let us know and we'll add them.
We are a large urban comprehensive high school. Teachers have a variety of students from English language learners to special education students with a variety of individual needs to Advanced Placement students. We'd use the laminator for all these classes.
You may recall that Donors Choose is a great organization that allows teachers to ask for help - big and small - for their classes.
If there are other SPS teachers/schools asking for help, please let us know and we'll add them.
Comments
Go Beavers
Dolls for Empathy Building and Character Education
If you give to my project you will add a lot to my instructional toolbox for social skills lessons, games, group activities and role-plays. Kimochi feelings icons are small plush beanbags that have the word for an emotion on one side and an illustration of the corresponding facial expression on the back. Plan Toy dolls are small, wooden, poseable, multi-ethnic dolls for students to use as they learn and practice valuable strategies for solving common friendship and social problems.
"Schools with 10%-39% of students receiving free/reduced lunch are denoted as 'moderate poverty' while schools with more than 40% of students receiving free/reduced lunch are denoted as 'high poverty'."
http://help.donorschoose.org/app/answers/detail/a_id/371/kw/poverty
Parent
Schools with 10%-39% of students receiving free/reduced lunch are denoted as "moderate poverty" while schools with more than 40% of students receiving free/reduced lunch are denoted as "high poverty".
N by NW
So I emailed back with a YES! The entire donation process went through Donorschoose.org which now (rather embarassingly) requires one's Facebook info, and posts stuff from the application. But as far as I understand, this particular project is already completely paid for, making the Facebook postings reeeally awkward.
As far as poverty and asking for money: That's complicated.
a) I would rather none of this got posted on Facebook. I know Facebook is a place where people post their great stuff so their friends can feel bad :) but, not what I wanted, at all.
b) Are kids at Ballard in poverty? Some, yes. Should they or their teachers be made to feel bad because their average level of poverty is not as dire as somewhere else? I guess that's an individual decision. I know that I don't get one penny from SPS or the state to run my classes. They pay for the roof and the heat and the computers and the furniture, but every piece of string, every inch of tape, that comes from parents of my students. Or me. I end up in the hole at least $1000 every year. I'm not starving, but it's not exactly a great situation, either.
c) The previous project I was involved with was a laminator. For the entire school. Our old laminator broke, and there was no money to fix it or purchase another. We could have eventually raised the money, but Starbucks was giving away $10 donorschoose cards at the time (donorschoose was new). So I organized a coalition of the willing among staff & community, and $10 at a time, we built up enough of an account to buy a new laminator. It took, I'd guess, about 50 hours of my time. Probably would have been quicker to get a part time job at 7-11. :)
Not to mention the countless hours on astronomy field trips, UW Observatory and star-gazing juants to Sunset Hill Park.
Thank you Mr. Muhs
randi niemer
Turkey Tom
http://www.greatschoolsforamerica.org/gsa-wp/dont-choose-donorschoose-org/
http://iserotope.com/skip-donorschoose-donate-to-iserotope-directly/
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/16/teachers-reddit-donorschoose-school-supplies
and for the data crunchers:
http://jcberk.com/donorschoose/
-FYI
I agree that teachers should not have to fundraise to get classroom supplies. But that is the way it is right now. I see Donors Choose as a bandaid. As Eric Muhs said, either he pays for supplies or his parents do. And in some schools, PTA's do. I think this is a common situation.
As far as Donors Choose being funded or started by someone from Teachers United--I don't really care. I don't care if Bill and Melinda Gates is in it, either. It's clearly not an ed-reformy charity.
As far as donating to the school or to the teacher, good luck getting a tax deductible receipt. Good luck for the teacher getting anything from a donation made this year to the school that ends up in his or her classroom this year. If an item is something that you can order online and get to the teacher and you don't need a reciept, that's probably a good way to go. But most of these items are in the range of $500 to $1500 and require coordination of several donors. I think most people don't like the idea of writing out personal checks to teachers. Aside from PTA's, there isn't a good way to do this.
As far as fees goes, that is the price you pay for vetting of projects, coordination, postage, and infrastructure. Their administrative charges aren't any higher than any other charity. It has the highest rating possible from Charity Navigator who vets charities.
school mom
http://www.donorschoose.org/project/lego-activities-for-students-with-autism/1083440/?rf=email_dccontent_2013_11_teacherid_731116&challengeid=196258&utm_source=dc&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=sendfriend
HIMS teacher
http://www.donorschoose.org/project/lego-activities-for-students-with-autism/1083440/?rf=email_dccontent_2013_11_teacherid_731116&challengeid=196258&utm_source=dc&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=sendfriend
It's great a savvy teacher can get on these sites and ask and it makes me feel good because I'm giving directly and I can see exactly where it's going. Here's my concern, what about the teachers or schools who don't post? Are they losers? Are their kids? How many books can teachers buy to replace textbooks in a poor county in Mississippi? Why should they have to go on to a site to market (yes, there's a marketing strategy to all of this ) and beg for such basics? Why should Mr. M. spend 50 hours for a laminator?
I worry it pushes the fix further down the road. My feel-good fix lasts a short while until I click on the site again and see the ever expanding requests.
And yes, the site has the highest rating. Good for them. So does TFA.
It'll be interesting to see if crowdsourcing can translate to crowdfunding all our schools per McCleary. Any venture entrepreneur takers?
FYI
It's our money and giveaways that make these companies successful. Are we, the people, getting a good return on those "investments"? I just wonder where we, the people, are heading with this. The ever widening economic gap, the decline of our middle class, the bitter partisanship in our government and among ourselves are symptoms of what we have given up. And it's not money.
FYI
Thanks to the Turkey Tom family for their generous offer.
I wonder if there could be a "gentleperson's agreement" that educators from these sorts of schools would use their internal resources first, and leave Donors Choose for educators at schools with more limited assets at their disposal. Along with an effort to reach out to educators at the less affluent schools to make sure they know about the site.
I know, I know, it's a great project and deserves funding. But pulling back from this one particular project, I was just trying to think of ways to level the playing field a little bit overall.
-sleeper