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This teacher needs your help!

Mr. S. from Los Angeles, CA is requesting a classroom visitor through DonorsChoose, the most trusted classroom funding site for teachers.

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Providing Athletics To Scholars

The cost of paying 2 referees for 5 home games is $692, including <a target="new" href="http://www.donorschoose.org/html/fulfillment.htm" onclick="g_openWindow('http://www.donorschoose.org/html/fulfillment.htm', 300, 800, 'fulfillwindow');return false;">fulfillment</a>.

  • $709 goal

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Hooray! This project is fully funded

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Twelve years ago, with neither money nor facilities, a bunch of enthusiastic inner city high school students started an athletic program at a school that was never supposed to have athletics. In fact, Los Angeles Southwest Middle College HS was a last chance school for at-risk students, a drop-out prevention program. A bunch of those wayward students, rehabilitating gang members, found a social studies teacher to be their baseball coach and a field in a local park, they talked a math teacher and an English (me) teacher into starting a basketball program at our school. We found a league in which to play, an outdoor basketball court for practice, and a park gym in which to play home games. Los Angeles Southwest MCHS eventually added boys and girls tennis, boys and girls basketball, soccer, volleyball, and softball. Our athletes have accomplished great things -- not championships but the growth and maturity of learning sportsmanship, teamwork, how to win with class and how to lose with dignity. Some used sports as a means by which to escape the culture of gangs, crime and hopelessness in which they had been reared. Nearly all have graduated high school and many have gone on to college. And yet, our school is perpetually on the verge of having to shut down its athletic program due to the LA Unified School District's refusal to fully fund sports programs in its schools. The school district provides transportation but not equipment, uniforms, or the cost of referees and umpires for home games. Such expenditures must come from ?student body funds.? Larger high schools generate thousands of dollars from ticket sales for home football and basketball games and the vending machines and student stores on their campuses. We are a small school without space for vending machines or a student store and without a football team or our own gymnasium for basketball games. Coaches have gone into their own pockets for thousands of dollars over the years. We have had to forfeit games because we couldn't pay referees. We have tried a variety of fund raising schemes, but in an impoverished community, such efforts are often futile and are a great distraction from academics, which our students can ill afford. To subsidize the program, a fee of roughly $50 each referee per game is needed. This may seem a small amount of money but to a number of these young men and women it is unattainable. We are a tremendously successful school. Not only have we turned around the lives of many young people over the years. We are academically among the top high schools in the city. Our academic performance index is 739 (the surrounding high schools in South Central LA have API just above 500!) Last year, our students' Language Arts test scores rose 9%, the greatest gain of any school in the district. We have about 80 athletes. They deserve the experience of interscholastic sports.

Mr. S. Middle College Senior High School Grades 9-12

Equity Focus

At this school, more than 50% of students are Black, Latino, and/or Native American, and more than 50% come from low-income households. Learn how your donation to this school supports a more equitable education.

This project will directly impact historically underfunded classrooms.

More about Mr. S.

Los Angeles, CA View local requests

Nearly all 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

60 students impacted 3donors

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Where Your Donation Goes

Where your donation goes
Visitor Total
Various basketball officials (Officiating LA City Section junior varsity basketball games) $550.00

Visitor cost

$550.00

Vendor shipping charges

 FREE

Sales tax

 $0.00

3rd party payment processing fee

$13.75

Fulfillment labor & materials

$17.00

Total project cost

$581.17

Suggested donation to help DonorsChoose reach more classrooms

$127.57

Total project goal

$708.74

How we calculate what's needed

Total project goal

 $708.74

2 Donors

-$627.00

Donations toward project cost

-$582.00

Donations to help DonorsChoose reach more classrooms

-$45.00

Excluded support for DonorsChoose

-$82.76

Still needed View calculationHide calculation

 $0.00

Our team works hard to negotiate the best pricing and selections available.

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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 Mr. S. and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.

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