Teacher Leaders Partner with the Community

On April 10^th, fourth graders from Echo Hill and Novak Elementary Schools came to the LRC to meet with a volunteer for 45 minutes in order to learn about the state they were studying for State Fest projects.  In the fall, Kim Ophoff (Instructional Strategist at Novak) and Laura Robertson (Instructional Strategist at Echo Hill) met with Karla Terry, Community Relations Coordinator for the district.  They discussed the idea of having volunteers share information about a state they lived in prior to moving to Iowa.  Karla began the work of finding district volunteers who had lived in states other than Iowa who would be willing to take time out of their day to visit with the students about their state. 

Kim and Laura worked with Karla to plan out the morning.   They received help from Alison Vis, Human Relations Clerk, to reserve the gym space at the LRC.  Kim worked with Phil Miller, Human Resources generalist, on how the gym space would be set up.  Alison was instrumental in getting name tags printed for the volunteers and providing a seamless check-in process for them.  In addition, Debra Barry, Teacher Leader Program director, helped Kim and Laura get things set up on the day of the event. 

Community volunteers share their knowledge of the 50 States.

On the day of the event, students arrived in shifts.  Echo Hill arrived at 9:15 and visited with their state volunteer until 10:00.  Novak arrived at 10:15 and stayed until 11:00.  Students had a list of questions to ask their volunteer, and several of the volunteers had other information to share.  Many of the volunteers brought i-Pads, items that represented their state, and even maps to help the students learn valuable information to use back at school as they created projects for their State Fest Celebrations.

This pilot project was such a success that all of the elementary strategists plan to work together next year to make this an event for all 4^th graders to participate in district-wide!  Thanks again to all of our wonderful volunteers for the support in making this event a memorable one for the students at Echo Hill and Novak!

*article submitted by Laura Robertson, Instructional Strategist at Echo Hill Elementary