Getting To Know My Community!

Sojourner Truth Academy is an Elementary School where I will be doing my Public Achievement Coaching for my Education 2600 class at MCTC.

I used www.education.com to look up the test scores for the fourth graders. It seems that the scores have dropped since last year by 6%. In math the fourth graders scored about 47% compared to last years 50%. In Reading they scored 26% opposed to the 50% scored correct last year. When put up against the state wide average these students scored considerably low. Minnesota's math average was 77%, and reading was at 73%.

At Sojourner Truth Academy there is an equal ratio of girls and boys. All but 4% of their students recieve free or reduced lunches in which eligibility is based on their family's income levels. 77% of Sojourner Truth students are black and 23% are Hispanic.

In doing my google search I happened upon the award winning Ms. Mitchell. She won the $25,000 Milken Family Foundation National Educator Award this past November for being an outstanding teacher. The Award was established to recognize teachers who do exceptional work and to encourage others to go into teaching as a career. Ms. Mitchell is a director of curriculum for the K-3rd grade teachers at Sojourner Truth.
(www.facebook.com/home.php#!/note.php?note_id=466919404801&id=98094084332 ...also there's a youtube link: www.youtube.com/watch?v=porw4YfWI00)

I found this really AWESOME video from one of the fifth grade classes at Sojourner Truth!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNaf1rmjdjw
They also had a woman come and perform a famous speech!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJHm1KSJakU

In a KARE 11 article from April 2010 that I read I found out that at lunch time the students will write letters to the President. It's called 'Bring the White House to Our House." The students will write letters about anything! For some it's a journaling process. For each letter they write they get a ticket that goes into a weekly drawing. This lunch program was formed out of the need for something constructive to do when students had finished eating their lunch because they would eat it in 2-5 min. with 15 min. left of lunch. (www.kare11.com/life/community/schools/coolschool/coolschool_article.aspx?storyid=848102&catid=148).

I had a hard time finding crime statistics in the neighborhood...I could only find informationon Minneapolis crime statistics.

Lastly (for this post at least), the website to the school which is very informative and gives an inside look on the school: http://www.sojournertruthacademy.org/.