The Mobile Register has a nice letter this morning with an uplifting letter carrying a story we knew all along.
If you live on Dauphin Island, or if you vacation there or visit Dauphin Island from time to time you already know the people there are generally good to the core - genuine, honest, straightforward, hard-working. Let's not forget to mention sharp as a tack. And their kids... let's just say the apples aren't falling far from the trees on Dauphin Island.
The good news from Dauphin Island
I will not let this matter go unspoken, unwritten or unnoticed. Mobile needs to hear some positive things occurring every day in our schools.
I am a teacher at Dauphin Island Elementary School. Our students and their families lost so much due to the effect of Hurricane Katrina. Some lost homes; others lost businesses, jobs and even the bikes they rode to school.
Before the hurricane, I had 17 students enrolled in my class. After the storm, only 14 returned. Three families lost everything and left the island.
Recently, we were told that the United Way was beginning its campaign in the schools, asking for monetary donations. How could these students give, when they had lost so much?
We talked to the students about helping others, for we had been helped in so many ways. The next day, the students began giving their snack money and change from their coin banks. Students began asking parents and local businesses to donate. The excitement grew and overflowed.
I would like to report that the 14 second-grade students raised more than $100 in less than a week for the United Way. We do know the true meaning of the phase, "It is better to give than to receive."
I would also like to share with Mobile that our fifth-grade students last year scored 100 percent on the State Mandated Writing Assessment. This score was not only the highest in Mobile but the highest in the state. I do not think this accomplishment was ever published.
The same 14 second-graders have qualified as a National Reading Renaissance Model Classroom. Model Classroom certification indicates that Reading Renaissance/Accelerated Reader methods have resulted in measurable increases in student reading performance.
Through this technology reading program, students read on their own personal levels to achieve goals set at the beginning of a 12-week period.
They have read more than 350 books in 53 days and have taken comprehension quizzes and have maintained a 91 percent reading average.
We believe at Dauphin Island School that all students can learn, whatever it takes. This Reading Renaissance Program is one of the methods we use to help students read and comprehend what they read.
These second-graders are not "learning to read." They are "reading to learn," and are caring and giving individuals. These combinations create great citizens and proficient workers for Mobile's future.
CAMILLE H. McGUIRE
Dauphin Island Elementary School
Dauphin Island