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‘Muffins for Mom’ brings parents to school
Kirkmere school sponsors second annual event
By Sean Barron
YOUNGSTOWN
Jessica Saulsberry enjoyed a gathering of light food and beverages with many other adults and students, but she’s hoping the event that brought everyone together will be about much more than muffins and beverages.
The mother of three hopes another key ingredient will be continued collaboration among those with a vested interest in the Youngstown City Schools’ welfare and recovery.
“I’m definitely trying to stay involved. I want to know everything that’s going on and to keep up with their teachers, grades and behaviors,” Saulsberry said, referring to daughters, Alexys and Taliyah Wallace, who are Kirkmere Elementary School third- and fourth-graders, respectively.
Alexys and Taliyah were among the students who, along with their mothers, grandmothers, aunts and other
relatives, came to Thursday morning’s second annual Muffins for Mom event the Discovery Program at Kirkmere hosted in the school, 2851 Kirk Road, on the West Side.
The Discovery effort gives students added opportunities to take part in a variety of specialties such as art, dance, vocal music, investigative sciences, engineering and communications, according to the YCS’ website.
The Muffins for Mom program was one in a series of many throughout the school year that provide a higher number of parents and guardians with opportunities to gain a greater sense of what’s going on in the school.
The program also included workshops for the adults that gave them instructional tools in math and reading so as to better help the students in those areas, noted Principal Misha Scott.
“I want as many parents to be here as possible,” she said.
Many of the goals of Muffins for Mom also are in line with core tenets of a three-year recovery plan for the schools recently submitted to the Academic Distress Commission by Krish Mohip, the district’s new chief executive officer. Part of the plan calls for increasing students’ academic levels and achievement, along with more parent and community engagements in the schools.
Along those lines, Saulsberry hopes to see a greater number of after-school programs and other activities in conjunction with what the estimated 5,300 district students are learning in the classroom, she explained.
A major goal for Taliyah this school year is to earn straight A’s, she said.
A key thrust of meeting what’s outlined in the recovery plan is Kirkmere’s literacy collaborative, a standards-based, student-driven reading framework that has as a major piece interactive reading, in which discussions and students’ opinions of an author’s style, for example, are sought, Jennifer Roseck, the school’s literacy coach, explained during Thursday’s event.
Also part of the effort is a readers’ workshop consisting of mini 10-minute lessons, with teachers’ guidance, based on the youngsters’ ideas regarding a book’s structure and themes, Roseck continued.
The collaborative recognizes that students inherently love to learn, and its primary goal is to allow the youngsters to have a bigger voice in the process while moving a greater number of them closer to reading at grade level, she noted.
“I really encourage the kids to give us input and tell us where they want to go,” Roseck said, adding later, “We’re pushing them toward grade level much faster than what we ever accomplished before. Kids will self-teach if we allow that.”
Echoing those sentiments was Mike Butch Jr., assistant principal, who said he wants all the school’s estimated 320 students in grades three through eight to reach grade-level in reading and math. In addition, Butch hopes to see more parents in his school throughout the year, he said.
“Anytime they’re free, we want them in the classrooms,” he added.
Scott also thanked Victory Christian Center in Liberty for donating the muffins.