First Week at E-prep

For my senior project, I am working at Entrepreneurship Preparatory School (E-prep) with Lindsay Kopit. As Lindsay mentioned, E-prep is a public charter school in Cleveland. So far, I have really only been with the kindergarten and first grade classes and they are so much different than Agnon, the school that I attended as a child. The children walk silently throughout the hallways, they do not have recess or any kind of break, and they have to wear uniforms. It is such a strict environment, but it really seems to be working for them.

My first couple days at E-prep have been great so far. In the morning, I am usually doing some kind of craft project for the teachers. On Monday, I helped cut out paper hearts, which the kids will use to write down their blessings. This task was actually rather tedious, but the teacher was really grateful, so it was not too bad. Today, Lindsay and I made five large caterpillars that the teachers will hang in their rooms. These will be used as behavior monitoring devices. All of the children have their name on wooden clips at the top, and if they misbehave, their name moves further down the caterpillar. Their first offense moves them into the think chair, but after several more strikes they are sent to the dean’s office. This week is also teacher appreciation week, so Lindsay and I have been passing out t-shirts and other treats to the teachers. The teachers were delighted but Lindsay and I were pretty happy ourselves because were we the recipients of leftover delicious food.

During the afternoon, we have been doing DRA testing with the children. This stands for Developmental Reading Assessment. On Monday I was able to test two children, Heaven and Devin by myself. Heaven moved up three reading levels, which is a big deal! She was so excited, she couldn’t wait to go home and tell her mom. She was also thrilled that she got to move her name up on the level chart in the hallway. Devin was also able to move up a reading level and he was just as excited. During this time, Heaven and Devin also both told me a little bit more about themselves and what else they were studying in school. It was so fun being able to work with the students and get to know them. I can’t wait to work with the young scholars more!