Sports and the impact on student achievement
|
>View discussions about this entry Country: United States
Organization: Riverview High School - Championship Academy
Sport - Other
Year the initative began (yyyy) - 2002
Positioning in the Mosaic of solutions
What is your signature innovation, your new idea, in one sentence? - By including more students in educational conferences, we can touch the hearts and souls of even more athletes or increase interest in sports careers.
Describe your innovation. What makes your idea unique and different than others doing work in the field? - The uniqueness of our learning community stems around the athlete. Teaching in a manner that the student athlete can relate to and best understand the subject matter. Assisting students with goal setting, identifying options that are related to sport and sport related careers, with the understand of personal freedom, speech, individual personality and conforming to the curriculum guideline of our county & state.
What are the existing barriers, the biggest problem, your innovation is hoping to address/change? - As a public school, working within the research of students in small learning communities, our obtainable funds are limited.
Delivery Model: How do you implement your innovation and apply it to the challenge/problem you are addressing? - We are working with students that have an interest in sports and sports related careers. They are expected to demonstrate honesty and integrity at all time. We prepare them for college and/or entry into the work force with studies including science, health, sports, recreation, jouralism, photography and communications. The instruction is geared toward high expectations, with a component including integrity, commitment, honesty, respect, pride in our community and improved academic outcomes for our students.
How do you plan to grow your innovation? - Our small learning community is growing every year, and the program creates opportunities for all students to become involved in their community, taking advantage of co-curricular and extra-curricular activities. Working with the same group of dedicated teachers and sharing the same common group of students, allows the teaching staff to bond with these students, create more personalized learning experiences for them and to guide them along toward their goals.
Provide one sentence describing your impact/intended impact. - To be able to give our less fortunate students the greatest opportunities to witness first hand the related careers that are of their interest.
What impact has your innovation had to date/or what is your intended impact? Exactly who are the beneficiaries? - The students are our beneficiaries. We have increased school attendance and achievement by having our students learning by the manner in which they think, in a field that they are most interested in and by teachers that have the common sports mentality, using those sports ideas as real-world examples to be able to assist students to clearly understand the subect matter being addressed.
Please list any other measures reflective of the impact of your innovation? - Students become aware of careers and oportunities that are available to them by having the chance to see first hand what they can do as a career with what is of the utmost interested in, the sports field.
What are the main barriers to creating or achieving your impact? - Our main barrier to enabling our students to see these opportunities is the funding to be able to transport these students to the many facilities in Florida.
How is your initiative financed (or how do you expect your initiative will be financed)? - We have applied for grant monies from our own school foundation, from fund raisers and events that the academy must man, supervise, organize and run, from outside donations of alumni that are either in a sports career or have been in a sports career.
If known, provide information on your finances and organization. - Please list: Annual budget, annual revenue generated, size of part-time, full-time and volunteer staff. The only budget that we have to operate with is the funds that are collected through the various events that we run and grant monies that can be obtained from year to year. Donations are inconsistent.
What is the potential demand for your innovation? - We currently are able to send at maximum 30 students on any one grade level experience, to off site facilities, each grade level being limited to only one opportunity to travel per year. We have students that have a great interest in attending these such conferences, but many that do not have the financial means to be ble to attend due to tight budgets.
What are the main barriers to financial sustainability? - While the teachers are working and preparing lesson plans and activities, we cannot be out soliciting funds for such educational conferences. The demands of the small learning community system, the limited resources available, students from less fortunate situations and the continued increase in the interest of our academy make for unstable financial budgeting.
What is the origin of this innovation? Tell us your story. - With the constant change in the field of education, teachers and coaches met in transit to a sporting event, discussing how to best impliment curriculum to fit the need of a changing society. Since the personnel involved in this meeting were very close to the 27% of the student population acitively involved in athletics, hence this gave birth to our Championship Academy and our motto, "Those who stay will be champions" (Bo Schembechler).
Please provide a personal bio. Note this may be used in Changemakers marketing material. - I am a Mathematics teacher of the Championship Academy, involved daily with the students that are facing the challenges of their graduation requirement exam, in our case the FCAT. During my regular day I service the students registered in my Geometry classes and after school daily, I assist students that need extra help or those that are struggling to keep their eligible GPA in order to stay in their desired sport. I joined the academy 4 years ago.
Contact Information:
Suzanne Johnson
Mathematics Teacher Riverview High School - Championship Academy (Small Learning Community - Public School System) Discussions about this entry |
Hi Suzanne --
Even though we are competitors, "Training Todays Youth, Producing Tomorrow's Sports Executives" (my entry), we both seem to have the same passion for helping the high school youth. If you already have your 501c3, I recommend you take a look at the Staples Foundation grant, which specifically funds outside activities. If you would like, I would love to share some of the grants I am applying for which support what you are trying to do with the babies at Riverview. -- li
Since I am assisting the students of our academy, I would love to know what other grants would support such activities. We are also searching for a grantor to purchase video and learning equipment for both our football and basketball teams. If you know of any grants, and are willing, please share. Thank you!