August 16, 2003

Pupil program pays off; Perfect attendance in summer class earns $100 gift card by Ngoc Huynh, Contributing writer

First-grader Ashantae Sneed was so excited when she got $100 for perfect attendance on her last day of summer school Friday that she screamed, "I have a million dollars."
As part of the Newton Learning program held at Our Lady of Pompei School, 915 N. McBride St. pupils who completed the six-week summer tutoring session received gift cards for good attendance. From a group of 140 pupils, 101 did not miss a day of classes, which earned them $100 apiece, while 23 students got $75 for missing one day and nine got $50 for missing two days. "They came to the school for that reason in the beginning," said Kara Shore, a math and science teacher, "but ... as the program progressed, they really started to enjoy learning."

The Newton curriculum is part of a federally mandated program that provides free tutoring for children at schools with poor test scores. For three hours a day, pupils worked on activities connected with reading, writing, math and science.

One reading assignment from "Don't Eat the Teacher" introduced words like crunch and bunch. Pupils also worked on a math project creating their own maps and measuring the distance between roads. In a science project, the youngsters learned about the mummification process, made their own mummy and had a mummy parade. Randi Ludwig, local program director, said children usually don't want to come to summer school but attendance was amazing. Most of all, she said, they had fun while learning.

"While they were here, they were extremely engaged," said Ludwig.
"They've done a lot of critical thinking, a lot of why questions, a lot of things that challenged the kids," Ludwig said.

The announcement of winners took place in the school cafeteria. Few pupils were able to keep quiet so Ludwig used a bull horn reminding them to use quiet voices. Several parents arrived to watch their children. Denise Anderson, of Syracuse, sat next to her son Denzel Rawls who cried on the weekends because he wanted to be in school. Denzel, 6, held on to an unopened white envelope with his $100. "I'd like to buy dinosaurs," he said. Denzel also had a safe place to store his money. "I'm going to put it under my bed because I don't want nobody to open it," he said.

His mother said the tutoring helped Denzel stay educated for the fall semester. She also said she was pleased with the teachers. "They really took their time to make sure that all the kids got it and not leaving behind anyone else," Anderson said.

While most parents had $100 to spend with their children, Karen Brooks, of Park Street, Syracuse, had $300. Her twin sons, Rodney and Ryan Brooks, 7, and daughter, Natalie Brooks, 6, made it to class every day. Brooks said she will use the money to buy her children some new toys and clothes. Pupil Nina Tran received $75. Nina, 8, missed a day when she went to the airport to say goodbye to her grandmother who was moving to California. "She was more important than money to me," Nina said.