Tuesday, December 25, 2007
New York Times Article...
Read the New York Times Story and Video featuring the International Community School at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/25/us/25school.html?hp
Friday, November 30, 2007
Monday, November 26, 2007
A Brief History of Saturday School
The Family Learning Program, familiarly known as "Saturday School," began three years ago to address the problem of illiteracy among child survivors of war. Its founders had noticed that while younger refugee children were able to learn English and integrate more quickly, their older, unschooled siblings had difficulty succeeding when they were placed in middle schools and high schools designed for the traditional American student.
Saturday School met for the first time in September 2004, in an ICS classroom. It had five students on the first day: all were teenage sisters who had spent their childhood as carpet workers in Afghanistan and had recently arrived in the United States with refugee visas. Their visas allowed them to escape the violence of their home country, where their father was killed and their brother was imprisoned by the Taliban.
The girls arrived with an intense work ethic, thirsty for education and excited to attend school. Yet, when they arrived, they knew no English and they struggled to catch up to their American peers in school. Saturday School designed itself around their needs: one-on-one attention in classes emphasizing reading, writing, English and basic social and life skills.
The girls learned quickly and the word spread. Other refugee girls began to show up at the door on Saturday afternoons, eager to learn. Before long, the teenagers began to bring their mothers and then their grandmothers, many of whom had never learned to read or write in their own languages and wanted to become self-sufficient in their new country.
The Atlanta Women's Foundation awarded Saturday School its first grant, which has enabled Saturday School to flourish. The program now offers classes for each generation, with an enrollment of 50 students and 15 volunteer tutors. Students are refugees from war and persecution in multiple countries, including Pakistan, Burma, Sudan, Ethiopia, Iran, Liberia and Guinea.
Three years after Saturday School got its start, all five of the teenage girls who were present at its first session are fluent in English. All have achieved phenomenal academic progress, having caught up to-and even overtaken-many of their American peers in the classroom. The girls all maintain A and B averages, and one recently received a four-year academic scholarship to an Atlanta private school.
Saturday School continues to grow and has recently had more interested students than it has space available. This year, for the first time, Saturday School extended classes through the summer to become a yearlong program.
Saturday School met for the first time in September 2004, in an ICS classroom. It had five students on the first day: all were teenage sisters who had spent their childhood as carpet workers in Afghanistan and had recently arrived in the United States with refugee visas. Their visas allowed them to escape the violence of their home country, where their father was killed and their brother was imprisoned by the Taliban.
The girls arrived with an intense work ethic, thirsty for education and excited to attend school. Yet, when they arrived, they knew no English and they struggled to catch up to their American peers in school. Saturday School designed itself around their needs: one-on-one attention in classes emphasizing reading, writing, English and basic social and life skills.
The girls learned quickly and the word spread. Other refugee girls began to show up at the door on Saturday afternoons, eager to learn. Before long, the teenagers began to bring their mothers and then their grandmothers, many of whom had never learned to read or write in their own languages and wanted to become self-sufficient in their new country.
The Atlanta Women's Foundation awarded Saturday School its first grant, which has enabled Saturday School to flourish. The program now offers classes for each generation, with an enrollment of 50 students and 15 volunteer tutors. Students are refugees from war and persecution in multiple countries, including Pakistan, Burma, Sudan, Ethiopia, Iran, Liberia and Guinea.
Three years after Saturday School got its start, all five of the teenage girls who were present at its first session are fluent in English. All have achieved phenomenal academic progress, having caught up to-and even overtaken-many of their American peers in the classroom. The girls all maintain A and B averages, and one recently received a four-year academic scholarship to an Atlanta private school.
Saturday School continues to grow and has recently had more interested students than it has space available. This year, for the first time, Saturday School extended classes through the summer to become a yearlong program.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
Saturday School Fall 2007 Newsletter
Download your copy of Saturday School's Fall 2007 newsletter here.
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