Grassroots Education Project

Want to help close the achievement gap in our local community? We’re always accepting new volunteers in our Reading All-Stars program at Tubman Elementary School in Columbia Heights. Read more about the program and how you can help here.

Over the next few weeks, we are helping to raise money to purchase new books for the Tubman Elementary library. Your contribution will be submitted directly to Follett Library Resources, and once the fundraising drive concludes, the following books will be purchased. These books have been carefully selected by our Reading All-Stars volunteers that read with Tubman students each week. Getting these books into the library will help us continue to foster a love of reading among the students that are in danger of falling behind.

You can make your contribution at http://www.titlewish.com/101294.

Book list (still in formation):

A New Coat for Anna by Harriet Ziefert
Actual Size by Steve Jenkins
And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson
Are You Ready to Play Outside? by Mo Willems
Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey
Brave Irene by William Steig
Bread and Jam for Frances by Russell Hoban
Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina
Captain Underpants by Dav Pilkey
Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes
City Dog, Country Frog by Mo Willems
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs by Judi Barrett
Crazy Hair by Neil Gaiman
Diary of a Wimpy Kid Series by Jeff Kinney
Dinosours Before Dark by Mary Pope Osborne
Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! by Mo Willems
Fiesta Babies by Carmen Tafolla
Frog and Toad Together by Arnold Lobel
George’s Marvelous Medicine by Roald Dahl
If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Joffe Numeroff
Interrupting Chicken by David Ezra Stein
Ivy and Bean by Annie Barrows
Jellybelly by Dennis Lee
Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale by Mo Willems
LMNO Peas by Keith Baker
Magic School Bus by Joanna Cole
Matilda by Roald Dahl
Merle the High Flying Squirrel by Bill Peet
Mirror by Suzy Lee
Muggie Maggie by Beverly Cleary
My Weird School Daze by Dan Gutman
One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia
Owen by Kevin Henkes
Perfect Square by Michael Hall
Rapunzel’s Revenge by Dean Hale
Rosa (Caldecott Honor Book) by Nikki Giovanni
Shadow by Suzy Lee
Sheila Rae the Brave by Kevin Henkes
Stellaluna by Janell Cannon
Swirl by Swirl by Beth Krommes
The Bailey School Kids by Marcia Thorton
The Curious Garden by Peter Brown
The Eleventh Hour by Graeme Base
The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein
The Man in The Moon by William Joyce
The Missing Piece Shel Silverstein
The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister
The Water Hole by Graeme Base
There is a Bird on Your Head! by Mo Willems
Un Lun Dun by China Mieville
Walter the Farting Dog by William Kotzwinkle
Wave by Suzy Lee
Wayside Stories by Louis Sachar
We Are in a Book! by Mo Willems
When You Reach Me by Rececca Stead
Yucky Worms by Vivian French

Sign up here! To learn more about our program, click on the Reading All-Stars page. We look forward to seeing you soon!

Exciting News!  On Monday 12/13, President Obama and the First Lady were at Tubman Elementary School to sign the child nutrition bill (Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, S. 3307)!!!

Video of the event is available on C-SPAN here.

Reading All-Stars student Luis Avelar and his mother watch next to President Obama.

The bill strengthens nutrition standards and reimbursement rates for school meals and other anti-poverty programs such as Women Infants and Children (WIC) and the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP).  This is the largest federal effort in 30 years to fight childhood hunger and obesity. The bill also includes grants for Farm-to-School programs, including school gardens.  Bill fact sheet here.

Whoa! How’d Tubman Elementary get picked for the signing ceremony?

Timeline:
August 22, 2009 – DCPS Beautification Day (Grassroots Education Project’s very first event!!)
Volunteers help Tubman Elementary School build its first school garden and help with other projects around the school.  Teachers Ms. Golub and Ms. Helgerson use the garden with students in science lessons and enrichment activities.  More info here and photos here.

May 11, 2010 — White House Childhood Obesity Task Force Unveils Action Plan: Solving the Problem of Childhood Obesity Within a Generation, in conjunction with Michelle Obama’s
“Let’s Move” Campaign.

June/ July 2010 — House introduces/ marks up H.R. 5504, Improving Nutrition for America’s Children Act
May/ August, 2010 – Senate introduces/ marks up/ passes S. 3307, Health, Hunger-Free Kids Act (unanimous consent–amazing!!!)

October 12, 2010 — White House chefs Cristeta Comerford, Bill Yosses and Sam Kass hold first “Breakfast and Books” event with Tubman Elementary.  Over 500 chefs adopt schools nationwide for nutrition education programming as part of the Chefs Move! to Schools effort.  Coverage in WaPo here.

October 21, 2010 — Principal Harry Hughes, Ms. Golub and Ms. Helgerson, and students from Tubman and Bancroft Elementary Schools join Michelle Obama at the White House for their Fall Kitchen Garden Harvest event.

From left to right: Principal Harry Hughes, White House chefs, FLOTUS. Foreground: Tubman and Bancroft Elementary students

December 2, 2010 — House passes S. 3307 on a bipartisan vote of 264 – 157.  (Michelle Obama statement here)

December 13, 2010 — Bill signing!!!

Congrats to Mr. Hughes, the staff at Tubman Elementary, and the thousands of anti-hunger and anti-obesity advocates nationwide who made this moment possible.

Jon Elkin
Reading All-Stars Co-Coordinator
www.GrassrootsEducationDC.org

Thank you to everyone who helped to make our first year at a great success!  You are having a real impact on the lives of the students at Tubman Elementary.  In our first year alone, working together, we’ve delivered over 4,000 hours of volunteer service to Tubman, including:

• Over 3,000 hours of one on one tutoring via our Reading All-Stars program.  This program started last fall and we’ve kept it going all summer.  We’ve held over 1,700 one-on-one tutoring sessions involving over 150 different Tubman students.
• Over 1,000 hours of service in work projects.  The highlight was MLK Day last year when over 180 volunteers spent the day working on a variety of projects including leveling the library, renovating the teachers’ lounge, fixing computers, and creating a word wall.  Volunteers have also helped with Beautification Day, Literacy Night, and other projects at Tubman.

We’ve also seen some exciting results.  During the 2009-2010 school year, students in the Reading All-Stars program were over twice as likely to become proficient in reading as other Tubman students. Of the students who were not proficient in reading at the beginning of the year, 25% of those participating in Reading All-Stars reached proficiency by year end.  For kids not participating, the number was only 11%.  There aren’t enough students to call this result statistically significant, but it’s a very encouraging sign that we are making a difference.

Can you help us make it closer to 100% this year? Then sign up here!

Principal Hughes and the top 4 summer readers

This past saturday, the Summer Reading All-Stars program concluded with a pizza party and awards ceremony.  Forty-six students were given awards for participating, with special recognition going to the students who had logged the most total reading time.  The winning student had logged over 31 hours of reading during the six week program!

Special thanks go out to Tubman Principal Harry Hughes, Assistant Principal Diane Riley, and Teacher Maria Samenga for helping to train volunteers and administer the program; to Ms. Janice Berry from DCPS for coming out and fingerprinting the volunteers on a saturday morning; and to the more than 50 volunteers who gave up their saturday mornings to make sure the kids of Tubman kept reading all summer.  You are all Reading All-Stars!

Next saturday (8/21) is Beautification Day at Tubman.  We’ll be landscaping the grounds, organizing the library, and helping teachers get their classrooms ready for the kids, who will be starting just a few days later.  If you are interested in joining the team for this day, please sign up here.

The Reading All-Stars program has provided over 3,000 hours of one-on-one reading tutoring to kids at Tubman Elementary School over the last year.  The fall program will be starting up in late September.  Stay tuned for details.