My students need more hands-on practice with marking reading passages, but we're running low on paper. We use copy paper for boring things like homework and assessments but we also use paper for things like the classroom newsletter and publishing our writing.
I've been working with this same grade of students for 2 years now; I looped with them from first to second!
While there's been a lot of growth, many of them are really struggling with more challenging skills and need additional practice.
I work at a wonderful school in East Nashville that serves a large nearby housing project, with a majority of our students qualifying for Free Lunch. We don't ask for students to provide much in the way of supplies and many don't bring in any at the start of the year.
Our school has a reputation for doing well with "value added" scores but we continue to have low overall proficiency In trying to improve reading, we work a lot with the students who struggle and often don't give the students who need enrichment. This means that oftentimes the resources provided by our school system aren't meeting the needs of our students. Having these resources will help target the differentiated needs in reading and writing to engage all my learners.
My Project
We are requesting 5 additional cases of copy paper. This year, my school allotted each teacher 5 reams of paper for the quarter which translates into a box of paper a year. That doesn't sound that bad until you realize that that means each child can only have 2.7 pieces of paper per week.
While we try to do authentic writing in our notebooks, this means if we want to send home classroom newsletters and homework pages for math and reading, there is no paper left over for anything else. This means we can't give students graphic organizers to support their growth in comprehension. We can't give them word sorts to support their development of spelling patterns. As much as we hate testing, we won't have enough paper left over to give them any assessments. That is, unless teachers purchase their own paper- which as grade level chair, I know that every member of my team has.
This project will allow us as teachers to reduce the out of pocket costs of paper so that we can plan activities and lessons to meet our students' needs without feeling restricted by our paper allotment.
More than half of students from low‑income households
Data about students' economic need comes from the National Center for Education Statistics, via our partners at MDR Education. Learn more
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Mrs. Woodburn and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
