Decatur City Schools Foundation

Charles Dickens once wrote, “A very little key will open a very heavy door.” Our teachers know this to be true, and many will prove it in their classrooms after receiving funds from Senator Arthur Orr’s Mini-Grant program this fall. Through the program, individual teachers may apply for grants ranging from $50­–$75 to purchase tools and supplies, and you’d be surprised at the impact a small classroom grant can have! Janell Hill at Leon Sheffield Elementary was excited to hear she was receiving funds. She shares, “Additional classroom funds are hard to come by, so you can imagine how delighted I was to hear that I had received the mini-grant from Senator Orr.” She already has big plans for how she will use her money to provide more classroom seating options for her students! “Using stability balls in place of traditional seating does wonders for the focus and engagement of many students. In addition, research has shown that using a balance ball improves posture. The im...

We are excited to announce the newest member of our team, and some of you may know her! Carrie Hill is happy to be returning to Decatur as the Communications Assistant for Decatur City Schools Foundation. Carrie’s main goal will be to share the success stories of Decatur City Schools with everyone who supports us. She’ll be using her writing skills to create press releases and blog posts, as well as handling Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook posts. “I’m excited to get to come back and be a part of the school system that shaped me as a kid! Decatur is fortunate to have the foundation supporting our schools, and I can’t wait to be involved in supporting the success of our students and teachers. " Jesslyn Reeves, Executive Director of the Foundations shares, "We believe Carrie will help us to continue the effort we began this year to communicate better than ever with our community about how supporters are making a difference, how the foundation is working with th...

On Sunday, July 30, 2017, the Church at Stone River showed Decatur exactly what it took to stuff a school bus full of supplies and food for Chestnut Grove Elementary School. And after they stuffed the bus, they celebrated the way any good southern church celebrates—with a cookout. It took a church reaching out. It was during a church missions meeting that the idea of supporting their local neighborhood school first surfaced. After Ted Amey, lead pastor at Stone River, contacted the principal at Chestnut Grove to see how they could help, the idea became the July missions project. And it was a project for sure! Church members received supply lists from Chestnut Grove teachers so they could buy exactly what the students needed. And yes, there were about a million bottles of glue and a billion 3-ring binders, but there were also a whole lot of goodies, too. The generosity of Stone River members provided snacks, water bottles, and fun supplies in addition to the necessities. ...

Challenge spurs a reaction—one of either defeat or victory. For Zoe Watkins and Malieq Senior, two 2017 Austin High School graduates who have received the Rice Scholarship, challenge demands dauntlessness. Zoe’s dauntless enthusiasm was sparked by her battle with liver sarcoma. She is now a 7-year survivor, but she didn’t always feel so strong. Even long after the liver sarcoma had been defeated, Zoe still struggled with the chemo affecting her brain. “They call it chemo-brain,” she says. “It makes my brain fuzzy, and it is super hard to concentrate for long periods of time—sometimes even a class period is too long.” When Zoe’s grades started dropping, her parents offered to let her pull out of the advanced classes she was taking, but Zoe was determined to not only graduate from advanced classes, but also with honors. “Putting in the extra time was really, really hard,” Zoe says, “but somehow I graduated with honors. It’s a miracle.” Zoe will continue her education at S...

Teamwork is a beautiful thing, and generosity is another beautiful thing, so when they work together, they make something so beautiful the whole world stops to stare. And it just so happens that these two beautiful forces collided in the teamwork between St. Johns Episcopal Church and Banks-Caddell Elementary School in Decatur, AL. And the whole town is staring. Seeing the needs of Banks-Caddell—96% student poverty rate and low reading test performance—St. Johns decided to invest in changing those statistics. By implementing Homework Helpers, Backpacks for Food, and Camp McDowell sponsorships, St. Johns has made generous changes to their community. Within the first year of teamwork, 77% of students raised their reading test scores, and 82% raised their math test scores. In addition, 4 students increased their reading level by a grade or more, and 9 students increased their math level by a grade or more—in only 8 weeks. The academic progress has the Homework Helpers progra...

In June 2017, the Rotary Club of Decatur generously agreed to fund $1,500 for Innovative Reading Tools in Decatur City Schools. Since their very first donation of $500 in 1998, the Rotary Club of Decatur has modeled a lifetime of giving through the Decatur City Schools Foundation totaling over $11,000 to date. With partners like Rotary and many others, it seems like the Foundation is always celebrating something new and exciting. The change we’re celebrating this time is the introduction of reading materials supporting the Decatur City Schools effort to increase the reading skills of over 4,000 students in Kindergarten - 5th grades. These reading materials are called Leveled Reading Libraries, and will be used in all 12 of Decatur’s elementary schools. Leveled Reading fosters a level of ability that is custom-made for each reader; in which student reading is guided not by a certain age, but by a certain level. The entire project budget is $23,723, but library set...

For 8 years, Paul Allen had been pining after a laser cutter to use in his engineering classes at Decatur High School. But after his 39 years of teaching, Allen knew better than to assume that he would ever round up $38,000 to spare on buying one. Then while doing research, Allen heard of a company called Boss Laser in Sanford, Florida which offered a laser cutter three times more powerful than he had been expecting, but also small enough to fit in a classroom door. Also, it was only $20,000. But even though everything seemed perfect, $20,000 was still a lot of money to drum up. That’s where 3M came in. In September 2016, 3M representative Lendon Haggard met with the Decatur City Schools Foundation to discuss career tech needs, and together they decided to meet the need of $19,995, the exact amount needed to buy a laser cutter for Allen’s classroom. Haggard says, “Since a lot of employees (at 3M) are hired from surrounding communities, it’s critical that 3M s...