Decatur City Schools Foundation

This fall we’ve been celebrating the generosity of our community over and over again. Lately we’ve been celebrating because Indorama Ventures has funded exactly $20,000 for materials, tools, and equipment for the Middle School Engineering and Robotics courses. Donna Cooper, Engineering and Robotics teacher at Cedar Ridge Middle School says, “STEM is the future of our children.” Cooper is privileged to make careers in technology accessible to her students. “Students participating in these courses explore a whole new world of thinking while developing hands-on skills for college and future careers,” Cooper says. The new courses will be well-equipped with many of the latest developments in robotics education. Indorama has funded robot kits (with expansion kits and parts), tools, iPads, and a digital projector to use throughout the course. In addition, they have made it possible to purchase 3D printers (with supplies) and an interactive document camera to take...

Imagine the frustration of having 120 students on your class roll, being required to have all of them improve in standardized achievement tests, and then discovering that 3 kids don’t speak English well enough to answer, “What is your name?” But they aren’t exempt from taking the test. Now imagine the frustration of being handed a test in another language, having to sit in a quiet room for hours with no idea what you’re looking at, and watching other kids around the room working as if there’s no problem. This situation is one that our teachers and students are facing every day, across the nation. But in Decatur City Schools, we have a group who are changing that. At the Expanding Children’s Eagerness to Learn (EXCEL) Center, Ressa Chittam and her faculty are changing the game for our school system and changing the educational experience for each individual student they work with. Secondary students in need of language support spend anywhere from half of their day to almo...

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...