Irving Elementary School is a busy place these days, as lollipop drums, Japanese printmaking kits, beanbag chairs and an array of school supplies arrive through the front door.
In a cash-starved city with a struggling public school system, taxpayers should note the money for the supplies aren’t coming from your wallet.
They have been donated through DonorsChoose.org, a website that lets people donate money for specific projects that teachers create to improve their classrooms.
“There’s definitely a buzz in the building as things are being delivered,” said Jennifer Olson, Irving School’s principal.
Started by a social studies teacher in the Bronx in 2000, DonorsChoose.org allows teachers to submit projects that are reviewed and posted online. People make donations to the projects of their choice.
When a project is entirely funded, the material gets shipped free of charge to the school.
Donorschoose.org categorizes projects by the field of study and by schools of need.
“Irving is a school of need based on the student population,” Olson said.
Olson was hired at Irving in August reform the struggling school, which has a deep achievement gap. The school population has a high poverty rate. About 75 percent qualify for free or reduced lunches.
Teachers’ families and friends have contributed to DonorsChoose.org so far, but Olson wants to give the community the opportunity to donate also.
“This is a really great way to look at teachers’ ideas that align with something they’re passionate about and then contribute toward those ideas,” she said.
Potential donors may go to the website and search by the school’s zip code to find Irving school. They can click on one tab to see “open” projects and another to see projects already funded.
Each project remains online for six months.
There are eight projects at Irving that still need funding, including indoor recess board games, science lab materials, a color printer and a listening center.
A total of $8,796 has been donated so far, and the school needs $1,816 more to fully fund the projects.
One of the many benefits of the DonorsChoose.org program is that “it frees up funding for other projects,” at Irving, Olson said, in the areas of technology and redeveloping the library.
Olson introduced the DonorChoose.org program to the faculty in March.
“I told them to ‘dream big,’” she said, and 20 teachers came up with projects.
“It has brought tremendous excitement among the faculty,” Olson said. “The range of projects was very broad.”
Jennifer Hull, the school’s music teacher, has received lyres for the marching band and percussion instruments such as a lollipop drum and cymbals.
“The band had been underfunded,” Hull said. The instruments enable students to participate in community events.
She’s hopeful that drums for a multicultural music program will be funded through DonorChoose.org.
Art teacher Charlice Culvert received tools her students can use to create fish prints, employing the techniques of Gyotaku, the Japanese art of fish printing.
Culvert received a nine-piece set of fish forms and ink sticks to make prints of the fish.
Tracey Hayden’s fourth grade class, received beanbag chairs and clipboards to use for independent reading and research.
On a recent afternoon, her students sat in two carpeted areas, quietly reading.
“The children needed a space,” Hayden said. “They love being able to have flexibility in learning. The chairs have enhanced their activities.”
Candy Lebel received butterfly habitats and larvae for the entire second grade, and the students will observe the butterflies’ life cycles and eventually release them on school grounds.
Other Irving teachers have received picture cards for special needs students, a kidney-shaped table for a fourth grade reading class, computer speakers, fraction sets and science kits.
As a motivator, Olson offered grand prizes for those responding to the DonorsChoose.org challenge, and Culvert, Lebel and Maria Melillo, a second grade teacher, were chosen from the drawing.
Two of the prizes included teaching sessions Olson presented on kindergarten art and character development for second graders.
One teacher “won” a temporary parking space in front of the school.
DonorsChoose.org has received monetary boosts from People’s Bank and from the Horace Mann Insurance Company.
Horace Mann “was founded by teachers for teachers,” Olson said.
The company organized an “Imagine a Better Classroom” drive that committed $250,000 dollars to fund DonorsChoose.org projects, said Rich Adinolfi, the local Horace Mann agent, and matches dollar for dollar any donation between $1 and $100.
Adinolfi conducted workshops in March to educate Irving teachers about the DonorsChoose.org program.
The program “gives teachers the empowerment to know they don’t have to dig money out of their own pockets,” he said.
DonorsChoose.org has a benefit to him.
“I like helping people,” he said.
Olson has made sure to tell Irving School students how the school acquired the new materials.
“We want the kids to know that good things happen when you do good things,” she said.
