Cleveland, Ohio
Row 2 (l to r): Javin Sain, Susan Conrad, Lori Haag (Principal), Tracy Johnson, Kaia Abdur-Rasheed, Mary McDonnell-Krupa
Parade the Circle
Parade the Circle is an annual parade started by the Cleveland Museum of Art incorporating floats, puppetry, costumes, and music. Last year, our Pre-K through 8th grade school developed a partnership with the museum after the Director of the Parade enrolled her granddaughters in the school. This led to collaborations on several family engagement activities including the Lantern Festival, Chalk Festival, and Parade the Circle.
The school’s art and music teachers worked with museum representatives to create a “peacock” float, make costumes for students, and plan and practice choreography for the parade. The local Junior High Band also participated, with guidance from the music teacher. Students in the art class created original art to cover the float, and students helped make costumes. On weekends and holidays, parents and community volunteers under the direction of art museum staff also helped decorate the float and make costumes. All participants had a pizza party before the parade and were ready to showcase the year of creative work.
Family Literacy
Pizza Hut’s long-standing program, Book It, aims to build students’ love of reading by encouraging schools to enroll and guide children to read for pleasure at home some minutes every night. When they complete their school’s plan for reading, children earn a free personal pizza. The program was designed for all school levels, starting in kindergarten. Tremont Montessori Preschool decided to enroll in Book It to benefit its preschool students.
The ATP shared a monthly calendar from the Cleveland Public Library with all students’ parents via e-mail and in print form. This included daily literacy and reading-related activities that parents could conduct with their children at home and send the completed calendar in for a coupon for a free pizza as part of Book It. The ATP also worked with Cleveland State University on a project to provide quality books for classrooms and professional development for teachers on early literacy. The Cleveland Schools Book Fund offered on-line stories by age level for students to listen to at home. After listening, children could draw a picture of a favorite part to earn a copy of that book for their home libraries.
Family Literacy is featured in Promising Partnership Practices 2016.
