Mid Year Progress…
In the October of 2020, Shawn and I were looking over some assessments that some volunteer teachers had done on our then NTI students. We had opened the Mackin building up to kids in the neighborhood to come and get online during NTI when schools were closed due to the pandemic. We had 60 kids coming to the building 3 days a week. We would help them log on, and understand and complete their school work and NTI classes through JCPS. Of those 60 kids, all lived within a 2 mile radius of our building, but they went to 19 different schools across the county. We were surprised at the things we had been seeing the last couple of months with the students reading and math abilities. We of course didn’t have access to JCPS assessment results, so we decided to run some very informal assessments ourselves to see where the students were.
The results were shocking. Of those 60 kids only a handful were on grade level with reading and math. Most were more than one grade level behind, our middle schoolers fared the worst, with most reading substantially below grade level, one 8th grader was struggling to read at a second grade level. We sat in one of the basement offices at the Mackin and just cried. We had been running open gym and after school programs for years at that point. We had recognized some deficits when we had conversations with kids or worked on projects with them, but it was another thing entirely to be looking at a report showing how far behind the kids in our neighborhood were.
Behavior Interventionist Beth working with some of our Junior Kindergarteners
Those assessment results spurred us to immediately create Mighty Oak Academy. We knew we couldn’t help every kid in the neighborhood, we were limited with space at that point, but we could start. Within 2 months we hired teachers, enrolled students, and opened Mighty Oak Academy with 27 students grades K-8 on January 4, 2021. We knew we had a mountain to climb when it came to academics, and to be honest the first year and half we were open, academics (while obviously the goal of a school) took a back seat to helping our students with social and emotional learning. They had to learn how to be in school again for or even how to be in school for the first time for many. You have to remember, 3rd graders in the fall of 2021 hadn’t been in school since they were kindergartners. Those first months of 2021 and first full year of school of 2021/2022 we were spent more around calming melt downs, keeping students physically in the classroom, dealing with multiple levels of trauma than worrying about what parts of the social studies curriculum we were going to teach.
Reading, writing and math were still basics that we taught throughout this period, but even those were a struggle. We had to learn why so many kids had melt downs when you asked them to write simple sentences or paragraphs about their morning, or spelling tests would induce full on violent episodes of throwing trash cans and pencils. Students were more likely to throw a tantrum than admit they didn’t know how to do something and ask for help. We had to build trust and teach that just because you didn’t know how to do something, didn’t mean you were in trouble or “bad.”
Last year’s 4th/5th grade class working on math games.
As we started the 2022/2023 school year, we brought in more educators, as well as a behavior interventionist, and formed a partnership with a therapist to be able to provide more supports to not only our students but our teachers as well. The focus was still relationship first, academics second. If we couldn’t build relationships with our students where they felt safe, trusted us, and felt loved, then they physically wouldn’t be able to learn. We assessed all our students on reading at the beginning of the school year and then went to work building relationships. Gradually over time, the number of daily meltdowns lessened. Out of class time became less and less, and our teachers, now with stronger relationships with their students were able to focus more and more on academics.
Last week we finished documenting all our mid-year reading assessments. We compared these new assessments to where our students were at the beginning of the year. The progress was significant. 70% of our students had gains in reading ability. The assessments we use have multiple reading levels within each grade level. In some cases, students increased so many reading levels they went up a grade level from where they started at the beginning of the year. While we still have a long way to go, the results are so encouraging. At the beginning of the year only 24% of our students were on grade level in reading. At our mid-year progress report 33% were on grade level. Normally only having a 1/3 of your students on grade level in reading would be cause for concern, but we are celebrating this improvement. Our students are capable of great things, we’ve seen such success of what loving them has done to their emotional and social well-being that we can now start to see them catch up and excel in academics. We had a few students that went up more than one grade level in reading from the start of the year to mid-year.
We will be doing a final assessment at the end of the year and will be sharing those as well. It all starts with relationship, it’s a foundation of the kingdom, without relationship you can’t go very far. We’re excited to see how far our students go in the future.
This year’s mid year progress report.
1,000 at $25 a month…
We are wrapping up the second week of our the 1,000 for $25 campaign. Huge thank you to all who have joined in so far!
It costs $13,500 a year for each student to attend the school. Our long term goal is to increase our sustainability activities to help offset some of that cost, such as the fish fry, St C's Tees and a new pre-school which will operate as both a preschool and a daycare. While we work to build these sustainability efforts we are seeking neighbors to come along side the school to help support students attending.
We are super excited to share our mid year progress report, especially regarding out student’s gains in reading. Our students have great potential and we want to help them see all their dreams come true! 1,000 neighbors giving $25 a month will help cover the costs for more than 20 of our students. Please consider joining this effort by clicking the button below to donate today!
Come join us this Friday at the Fish Fry…
This Friday we will be selling fish from 11am - 7:30pm. Please come out and support Love City and Mighty Oak Academy. All proceeds from the fish fry go to support students at Mighty Oak Academy!
2519 St Cecilia St
11:00 - 7:30pm
We've started a new semester at Mighty Oak Academy and can always use supplies. If you are interested in helping, please click the link below to either donate, or click here to see our Amazon list for specific supplies that are needed.
If you are interested in volunteering or to find out more information about supplies needed please email: info@lovecityinc.org or call (502) 272-078.