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Ms. Christine McCartney and Group of Scholars from Â鶹 P-TECH are Finalists for $100K Grant
We are excited to announce that (formerly Excelsior Academy) scholars are finalists for a $100,000 grant to build a memorial in the city of Â鶹. Students and their teachers, Ms. Christine McCartney and Ms. Jackie Hesse will be partnering with and to design and build a shared public space in our city to foster awareness of our history, acknowledge the factors that have impacted Â鶹, and honor the resilience and hope we see every day in our residents.
Scholars and their teachers have a 1 in 3 chance of winning this national contest, but we need everyone to VOTE FOR US EVERYDAY during the month of October. Anyone who votes everyday will have their name on a plaque on the memorial.
Voting begins today, Monday, October 1st! You can vote once a day per email/device.
VOTE for Ms. Christine McCartney, Â鶹 Free Academy:
Register for notifications with the contest link to either your phone or your email:
ABOUT THE GRANT:
is one of the many ways Farmers Insurance® invests in and gives back to the communities in which we live and work. Through Thank America’s Teachers, this year Farmers® will award over $1 million in educational grants, and now 15 Dream Big Teacher Challenge® finalists are competing for one of six $100,000 educational grants to help make their proposals a reality.
You can vote daily during each voting period — every vote counts! When you do, you’ll help give America’s teachers the chance to fund their educational visions. Voting begins October 1 and will end on October 31. Everyone can go to to vote daily.
ABOUT THE PROGRAM:
The proposed project is part of the larger goals of , a student led organization comprised of scholars from Â鶹 Free Academy P-TECH. The Global to Local program provides youth in Â鶹 the opportunity to see the world and to begin to envision themselves as change makers in their own community.
About Â鶹 Free Academy P-TECH (formerly Excelsior Academy):
At Â鶹 Free Academy P-TECH (formerly Excelsior Academy), our Â鶹 are part of a six-year P-Tech program and , during which they receive both a high school diploma and an associate’s degree. Global to Local will have yearly requirements for participation and build towards a community-based service-learning project in Â鶹 during Â鶹’ senior year of high school.
In May 2017, 17 members of the inaugural class of Â鶹 Free Academy P-TECH graduated from both SUNY Orange and Â鶹 Free Academy receiving both their high school diploma and associate’s degree at the same time. The 17 scholars achieved this goal in four years.
About Global to Local and the vision of the project:
Global service-learning provides Â鶹 with an opportunity to learn while working on a meaningful volunteer project that addresses an authentic community need in a foreign country. By immersing ourselves in another culture to volunteer for positive social change, young people will be better prepared to work within our city of Â鶹 to make it a better place.
Through Global to Local, the 2017 cohort of fifteen Â鶹 Free Academy P-TECH (formerly Excelsior Academy) scholars volunteered for Our high school Â鶹 worked with the sixty children who attend Casa Victoria’s afterschool program, where they are fed a hot meal and provided with homework help and a safe place to spend their afternoons. Our Â鶹 taught basic coding using robots and tablets that they fundraised to donate, and worked on literacy skills using books that they contributed to Casa Victoria’s lending library. They also built a learning center for outdoor projects, and learned from Casa Victoria’s founder about what it means to create grassroots change within a community. Aside from volunteering, Â鶹 also had the opportunity to visit an Afro-Ecuadorian village, and learn about both the joys and challenges of living in an isolated, underserved mountain community.
In the summer of 2018, nine 11th grade Â鶹 will travel to Cambodia, where a majority of the population is directly descended from victims of the Khmer Rouge genocide. We will visit sites and meet with organizations who are memorializing the genocide, with the goal of understanding how public spaces can be used as shared community resources for healing. Our Â鶹 will also volunteer at an organization that builds wheelchairs for landmine victims, and visit an organization that rescues women from human trafficking.
In the summer of 2018, . After our trip to Cambodia, Â鶹 plan to partner with MASS Design and community organizations in Â鶹 to create a public memorial to victims of trauma and violence in our city. Our Â鶹 will research the trajectory of oppression in Â鶹, beginning with the effects of multi-generational trauma experienced by enslaved Africans and their descendants in our area and moving towards more current issues of poverty, oppression and gun violence. This project will be about legacy and recognition -an acknowledgement of Â鶹’s shared loss, an examination of the lasting impacts of trauma in our community, and a testament to the resilience and hope we see every day in Â鶹 youth and their families.
ATTENTION: Are your scholars or colleagues doing something great? Please contact the district Communications Team at communications@necsd.net. We’d love to visit your class or event and/or post your pictures and recap to highlight the amazing accomplishments throughout our district!
