About 30 special education students in grades 3-5 are improving their grades and self-esteem at DeSoto Elementary School.
By DENISE WATSON BATTS
Published May 7, 2004
Rita Moore always closes her afterschool program focused on the positive.
"Can someone tell me one good thing that happened today?" she asked the group of about 30 kids at DeSoto Elementary School last week.
"We finished our books," one child said, referring to the autobiographies they had crafted.
"We played the xylophone," another added.
"I learned how to reduce fractions."
Moore viewed their enthusiasm as a sign that the kids were feeling good about themselves and would transfer that confidence to their grades.
Moore, a teacher at DeSoto, designed the Exceptional Student Education After School Enrichment program last year to improve test scores by building self-esteem and confidence. It targets third-, fourth-, and fifth-grade special education students with learning or language disabilities. Those students typically struggle in school and have a degree of frustration and defeat, Moore said.
All of DeSoto's students receive free or reduced priced lunch and research shows that poverty is an indicator of failure. The students' test scores, however, have earned the school an A ranking from the state.
The program, "came from my philosophy of looking at learning as a risk," Moore said. "If you don't take risks, you don't learn. These kids have had some failures."
The mantra: practice, practice, practice, and never give up.
The program runs Thursday afternoons from January to May. The sessions open with students meeting with Moore for a brief pep talk, then they separate into classes of movement (physical education), multimedia creations (computer arts) and music.
The students spend 30 minutes in each class.
Activities such as bowling and rope jumping become studies in team building, sequence learning and following directions. Playing the xylophone teaches culture and music and working together to achieve harmonies. Writing autobiographies hones computer skills while helping students determine their strengths and weaknesses in a fun way. Students decorated their story covers in bright colors and titled them "Gorgeous Guadalupe," "Entertaining Edgar," and "Soccer Ball Cesar."
The results are showing in their grades. Students in the enrichment program scored the same as the average student at DeSoto on last year's FCAT tests. "You can see it in their faces," Moore said. "You have parents tell us, "My child likes the program, he wants to come to school now."'
The program is funded by grants from J.P. Morgan Chase and the Clorox Company Foundation through the Love and Hope Foundation. The grants will allow the program to run year-round next school year.
Many of the students want to participate again.
Ebony Thomas, 13, said she's gone from Cs to Bs in social studies and feels better about school.
