RENTON, Wash. - Symetra and the Seattle Seahawks have awarded three Puget Sound-area schools - Dimmitt Middle School in Renton, Meridian Park Elementary School in Shoreline and Roxhill Elementary School in West Seattle - with Symetra Heroes in the Classroom "MVP Awards." Through the award, each school received a $10,000 grant to fund an innovative student achievement program.
Dimmitt Middle School will use its MVP Award to expand the school's Reading Workshop program, an innovative approach to reading instruction that lets students choose books that match their interests and comprehension levels. Meridian Park Elementary School will establish a new Creation Station & Learning Center to promote hands-on exploration of math and science concepts. Roxhill Elementary School will use the award to help fund the Saturday Academy, giving up to 50 third- through fifth-graders the opportunity to further develop their math and reading skills by attending special Saturday sessions at school.
The Symetra Heroes in the Classroom program honors teachers in the Seattle, Shoreline and Renton School Districts for educational excellence throughout the NFL football season. Twenty-four teachers were recognized as Symetra Heroes in 2011, making their respective schools eligible to compete for an MVP Award. The winning programs were selected by a committee of representatives from Symetra, the Seahawks, the Alliance for Education and the three school districts.
Dimmitt Middle School (Renton, Wash.): Reading Workshop
In 2010, Dimmitt Middle School's Language Arts Department adopted a new approach to teaching reading that moved away from a traditional anthology textbook. The team recognized that for students to become better readers, they must have access to books they want to read and can understand. Dimmitt supplied each Language Arts classroom with a library of popular books at various reading levels and transformed the school's reading instruction. As a result, students experienced significant progress in their reading achievement and standardized test scores. The MVP Award will be used to expand Dimmitt's classroom libraries with new books over the next three years.
"Classroom libraries are essential to the success of the Reading Workshop program," said John Schmitz, principal of Dimmitt Middle School. "Currently, Dimmitt supports 11 classroom libraries at three grade levels. These libraries frequently need to be updated with new books to meet the needs of new groups of students and to ensure that students have access to timely, popular titles. Given the incredible diversity of the Dimmitt student population - ethnically, racially, socioeconomically, with dozens of languages spoken at home - classroom libraries allow us to provide books that grab the attention of our wonderfully diverse student body."
Meridian Park Elementary School (Shoreline, Wash.): Creation Station & Learning Center
By creating an extended learning center that is specifically focused on math and science, Meridian Park intends to build a program that can have an impact on every student - and help improve state standardized test scores along the way. The Creation Station project will integrate and enhance the school's science and math curriculum by promoting hands-on, real-life learning experiences in a special classroom where kids can play educational games, use microscopes and build with Legos and robotics kits. All of the materials, lessons and educational games used will be fully aligned to each grade level's academic expectations and curriculum for Washington's math and science standards.
"For students to love learning about math and science, they need to feel a connection to it and feel inspired by hands-on learning opportunities," said Amy Jessee, principal of Meridian Park Elementary School. "The Creation Station & Learning Center will provide an innovative, fun and challenging way for students to achieve mastery in science and mathematical concepts through project-based learning. It takes us beyond classroom textbooks and links to other curricular areas such as writing, social studies and social-emotional learning. We believe the Creation Station will have life-long ramifications in terms of preparing our students for the real world - inspiring both our at-risk students to make a tangible connection to math and enriching the learning experience of our highly capable program students."
Roxhill Elementary School (West Seattle, Wash.): Saturday Academy
Roxhill Elementary School serves a diverse student population. Nearly 80 percent of the school's families live in poverty. Many students are English language learners, and their parents have minimal experience in the American school system. This combination of factors creates challenges for Roxhill's students, both in terms of their academic development and their parents' access to the information they need to maximize their involvement in their child's education.
Roxhill responded to this need in 2010 by creating Saturday Academy - an innovative program to advance student achievement by providing learning opportunities based on individual student need and to actively involve parents. The program promotes an attitude and drive for academic excellence through engaging activities designed to encourage, inspire and motivate students to fulfill their dream of attending a university upon high school graduation.
"Roxhill is committed to academic excellence for each and every child, and we recognize that some students need extended learning opportunities to achieve academic success," said Carmela Dellino, principal of Roxhill Elementary School. "Saturday Academy supports the regular classroom instruction and intervention programs that are an integral part of the school day. In addition, we continue to offer opportunities for parents to increase their understanding of the curriculum, skills and benchmarks critical for their students' success. The parent component of Saturday Academy is one way we fulfill this need, by giving parents the opportunity to learn with their children - and gain the confidence and knowledge they need to help their children learn at home."
The schools, represented by a principal or staff member, were honored by Seahawks President Peter McLoughlin and Symetra Executive Vice Presidents Jon Curley and Rich LaVoice during an on-field check presentation at half-time of the Seahawks' final regular season home game on Dec. 24, 2011.
For more information about the Symetra Heroes in the Classroom program, visit www.symetra.com/heroes.
