Members of the Community Engagement Class tend the community garden at Alliance Medical Ministry in Wake County.
How do students at a private school understand and respond to the critical needs in their community? One way a group of us tried to break out of our CA “bubble” was in an innovative class that began this year.
In January 2018, Dr. McElreath offered the junior class the opportunity to create a new Community Engagement class at our school, and he said we could choose the topic we wanted to explore. Five of us met weekly until we eventually chose the broad but important theme of poverty and inequality in Wake County.
During Discovery Term, we met with experts from academia, nonprofits, and governmental agencies to learn more about this issue. At the beginning of this school year, using the knowledge we amassed during DT and with 4 new classmates, we split up into 4 subtopics: inequalities in housing, criminal justice, healthcare, and education.
Throughout the year, we continued researching—identifying major problems and potential solutions to these pressing matters. By January, we presented some of our ideas for improving inequalities to students, parents, and some of the experts we had interviewed earlier. We still hope to speak with some decision-makers in government and corporate settings before we’re through!
This last trimester, however, we have mostly shifted into advocacy and volunteer work. We’ve identified several organizations working hard to alleviate inequalities, and we’ve spent time learning from and supporting folks at Habitat of Wake County, the Alliance Medical Ministry, and a phenomenal preschool called Learning Together.
Learning Together’s mission is to “meet the developmental, educational, and health needs of young children of all abilities.” Primarily serving lower socioeconomic individuals with a variety of learning differences, Learning Together bridges the gap between where students are and where they need to be, making their matriculation into Wake County Schools with their age-peers possible and successful. This past year, 27 of their 32 students who finished the pre-school were able to begin regular kindergartens in Wake County with their friends. This is an incredible place!
LT’s work addresses successfully some of the essential inequities we have been studying in education and healthcare, and they do so with many children in families that are housing insecure. In ways that may seem less immediate, their work may even prevent their students from ever becoming involved in the criminal justice system.
We’re so impressed by Learning Together that we have joined an effort to support the school’s Bridge Gala fundraiser on May 9. If we are successful, we will help Learning Together families maintain access to healthy food this summer. Without our help, LT may have to shut down from June to August, depriving children of their most consistent source of healthy meals.
By the way, you can help! If this school’s mission and results impress you like they did us, we hope you will learn more and contribute to this effort.
And if you can, we hope you will join us for the Gala on May 9!
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Alisha, Grace, Izzy, Jaishree, Leksi, Madi, Mesha, Michael, Ryan, & Dr. McElreath
The Community Engagement Class
