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The 2006-2007 NPMM Education Fund Board: Kathleen Berotti, chair Who We Are: NPMM Education Fund Advisory Board, composed of parents and alumni of History: In the wake of the 2004 The fund fairly quickly raised approximately $10,000, an amount allowing the school to hire a part-time science teacher. By January of 2005, the fund grew modestly to over $30,000, and the Advisory Board voted unanimously to continue funding our science teacher for the next school year, open an endowment fund, and hold an annual spring fund drive to meet the needs present in the 2005-06 school year. This booklet was developed to help us translate our goals for the coming year and the future of Normal Park Museum Magnet. Gifts are accepted for: General Fund: Contributions to our general fund allow the Advisory Board, in consultation with NPMM faculty and staff, to approve the distribution of funds to our school as needed. This allows us to use the collective generosity of our donors as expediently as possible. Endowment Fund: Donors may choose to direct their contributions to our endowment fund, which will serve to provide the bedrock for the continued success of our school. Our goal is to create an endowment of at least $100,000 over the next three years. Targeted Areas: The following pages provide greater detail of the school's needs in eight targeted areas of interest. Because our school works excellently across the curriculum, areas often overlap, but donors with a particular area of interest may choose to designate funding.
Museum Resources/Exhibit Design: Normal Park Museum Magnet collaborates with seven area museums to create an exciting educational venue. In 2005, only its fourth year, NPMM earned a Magnet Schools of More than places for 'field trips,' at NPMM our museums serve as primary sources and resources for inquiry. At every grade level, our course of study depends upon the integration of ideas and events across all disciplines. Our curriculum teaches mandated state and national objectives, but the modules that shape the curriculum are steered and energized by the needs and interests of students and teachers. While traditional schools follow a textbook, our curriculum is not bound by a front and back cover. Not only does every student benefit from museum resources- visiting museum sites at least four times each quarter for targeted study-- each learns through the "hands-on/minds on" process of exhibit design. Exhibits make learning real, and they serve as primary tools for assessment. Quarterly, we open our doors to host Exhibit Nights, where student work finds its audience. During Exhibit Night, visitors might find a Kindergarten student serving as the docent for a model replica of The superior level of innovation and flexibility in our curriculum and instruction incurs high costs, but we believe the cost of stagnation and regression is more steep. This school was launched in 2001 with a three-year federal magnet school grant, but in 2004 that funding ended. We need the resources to continue our unique and successful program. Immediate Need:
Wish List:
Literacy: Guided Reading, Early Intervention, Family Literacy Our Guided Reading approach requires teachers to adapt to each student's individual needs using authentic literature, not textbooks. Every day, students meet with a teacher in small groups where each student works to master his own book designed to challenge the student at his level, engaging directly with the teacher to practice decoding and comprehension skills. The teacher is trained to encourage students with specific kinds of questions that lead them to read independently. Guided Needs:
Wishes: So-called "natural readers" don't spring from under rocks in the forest. They grow out of book-rich homes, with parents who read to them and discuss language and books in ways that foster understanding. We know that the best way to feed a plant is to nourish the soil, and the best way to teach the child is to educate the family. Four times per year, NPMM would like to host our families for a meal and an evening of literacy training. Families will circulate through a series of stations where they could see examples of guided reading techniques, practice techniques with supervision, and ask questions. They will receive supplies, such as magnetic letters, journals, and flashcards, as well as the best gift any child can get: free books.
Mathematics: In May, 1999, the Hamilton County Schools adopted "Everyday Math" as their system-wide approach to teaching mathematics. While Everyday Math is based on solid research about connecting abstract ideas to concrete processes, our teachers and students find that our math curriculum requires more -- including traditional computation instruction, hands-on problem solving, and exhibit designs that further connect problem solving to the world. Learning becomes relevant when given a purpose and an audience, and exhibit building allows this to happen. Students create marketplaces and models. For example, to teach 3rd graders about finding area and perimeter, our students create model homes for exhibit night. After learning to write checks, students design and build their homes. They must calculate and measure to create rooms of the required dimensions (perimeter), add wallpaper, paint, and flooring (perimeter and area), and calculate payments for the appropriate amount of materials to complete their projects. With the help of recent professional development, our teachers are working to provide the same individualized instruction for math as they do for reading. This approach requires additional materials as well as further professional development to assure quality and progress. However, our school system's limited resources has hindered innovation and makes professional development more costly and rare. Needs:
Wishes:
Science: Inquiry = Examining the world through direct experience --National Science Foundation The first funding garnered and approved by the NPMM Education Fund was dedicated to filling a post vacated after the 2004 budget cuts. In August 2004, classroom teachers struggled valiantly to utilize our science lab. When Laura Federico took over, it got messy-gloriously messy. After Ms. Federico began teaching, parents saw a difference. At home, at kitchen tables, fourth-graders began pulling straws between their teeth until the end is flat, clipping the corners, blowing like crazy, and snipping inches off the ends to make various tones with a reed instrument. Seven-year-old kids used soup and placemats to demonstrate how a tsunami moves through the ocean. Where once lingered a flower, there's a flurry of stems, petals, and pistils (if you don't know, ask one of our students). Beside the salt shaker is a new centerpiece: the separating sediments of the Ms. Federico works with students, teachers, and museum staff, and now science is an integral part of our curriculum and a fun part of every student's week! Scientific inquiry is also pursued with our museum connections, in our regular classrooms, and in exhibit building. For example, 5th graders take their inquiry of cell structure to the Tennessee Aquarium's Learning Laboratory. Students utilize dissecting microscopes, video scopes, and compound microscopes and have access to animal and plant cell slides, as well as live organisms farmed from the Aquariums water tanks. Students sketch cell structures and use these sketches as a starting point for watercolors completed in art class and displayed on Exhibit Night. Students also have opportunities to learn about plants, the environment or the chemistry of cooking through working in our gardening clubs and learning academies. These opportunities are made available through the help of parent and community volunteers and are partially financed through our PTA. Needs:
Wishes:
Arts: Visual Art, Music, Photography, Dance. At Normal Park Museum Magnet, art is not tangential to learning; art is integral to our curriculum and our mission. When students study the body, they create models. When they study medieval cultures, they practice court dancing. When they study slavery, they sing songs from the Underground Railroad. We understand that intelligence manifests itself in a variety of ways, and that it's the duty of educators to access that intelligence in every way possible. Currently, we employ two full time fine arts teachers, and our students attend music and art classes weekly-more often when the curriculum requires it. Moreover, students often have the privilege of working with visiting artists who bring special expertise to our classrooms. Thanks to the generosity of Allied Arts, our students and their families are invited to attend classes and workshops with our faculty and visiting artists, allowing us to create everything from birdhouses to beautiful stained glass masterpieces. Because our students learn through the process of exhibit design, visiting artists often supply the talent and expertise that elevates student work to "museum quality." Students also choose weekly "academies." During the last hour of every week, students take part in lessons they've chosen based on their own interests. Many of these-folk art, clay-mation, photography, yoga - draw on the artistic talents of our faculty, staff, parents, and community volunteers. Additionally, NPMM offers an after-care program that frequently features additional instruction time in, for example, key-boarding and creative movement. The arts are instructional extensions and open doorways to other cultures. All our investments in the arts help foster an appealing environment, a love of the arts, and the growth of our children's minds. Needs:
Wishes:
Physical Education: Here's a "no brainer": Our society is becoming obese; kids need physical activity. But Physical Education is NOT a "no brainer"- In fact, kids' brains NEED physical activity the same way they need good nutrition and adequate sleep! Wiggly kids need movement to concentrate. Just keep any batch of children inside for a rainy week, and you can see their concentration deteriorate. According to the National Association for Sport and Physical Education (NASPE), "It is the unique role of quality physical education programs to develop the health-related fitness, physical competence, and cognitive understanding about physical activity for all students so that they can adopt healthy and physically active lifestyles. Today's quality physical education programs are important because they provide learning experiences that meet the developmental needs of youngsters, which help improve a child's mental alertness, academic performance, readiness to learn and enthusiasm for learning." The NASPE further states that a strong program provides students with "opportunities to improve their emerging social and cooperative skills and gain a multi-cultural perspective." The NASPE recommends that elementary school students have "instructional periods totaling 150 minutes per week" with a "qualified physical education specialist" utilizing "adequate equipment and facilities." However, despite the clear need for more physical education and physical exercise, after the summer 2004 cuts, elementary schools in Needs:
(currently a part-time position funded by HCDE)
such as kick-balls, baseball equipment, jump ropes, etc. Cost: $1,000. Wishes:
Big wish:
Facilities: The priority of the general fund is academic. Facilities improvements result from targeted gifts only. Welcome to the oldest Built in 1896 and originally housing a teaching college, this "Normal School" became "Normal Park Elementary" in 1932. Although it proudly educated thousands of Chattanoogans, Generous grants such as those from the Community Foundation of Greater Chattanooga and Allied Arts have allowed us to restore and transform aspects of our building. Our exhibit hall's hardwood floors gleam, and large stained glass mosaics brighten our portico and stairwell. Parents and teachers have labored as woodworkers and painters, and the HCDE has replaced floor tiles in the bottom floor. The HCDE and the Chattanooga City Parks Service have committed funding to repair and fortify our retaining wall (summer, 2005), adding safer steps and an If you're interested in historic restoration, or simply in providing a safe and pleasant environment for our students, then we invite you to tour our building. While you're impressed by the above accomplishments-- and of course, those of our students-if you observe closely, you may also be dismayed and motivated to help. Needs:
Wishes:
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