College Ready

My whole career has been spent working in Title 1 schools. Over 90% of our students qualify for free and reduced lunch, which means they are growing up in poverty. I was in a professional development session once where the presenter asked-do you expect your students to go to college? The question stuck with me. Of course, I'd love to see all my students graduate from college, but did I realistically expect that to happen? Gave me something to think about.

Now every year, after we do our awards ceremony, I give my students a bank that I label with their name and "College Fund". I want the students and their parents to know I believe this is something they can do if they work hard. Even though they are Kinder students, we talk a lot about college. (They don't want to go because they don't want to leave their parents :) . I share pictures of my college and we talk about how they can choose what they want to study. I think they leave me knowing that could be in their future.