Help The English Teacher's Friend with Start Up Costs

The English Teacher's Friend is dedicated to you, the secondary English teacher.  I believe in offering innovative, practical approaches to one of today’s biggest challenges – providing truly engaging and relevant learning opportunities that also connect to the tested standards.   It is achievable.  The enthusiastic feedback from my work over these past three years has only strengthened my conviction in this regard --- and inspired me to do more to encourage and advocate for our educators and students.   

This is why I am thrilled to announce a new, non-profit endeavor which will operate under the auspices of The English Teacher’s Friend: The CORE Initiative.  CORE (Creative Opportunities for Relevancy and Engagement) will offer all of the trainings, workshops, and materials that I currently provide, as well as some exciting new programs especially for at-risk students.  By creating the CORE Initiative, I will be able to secure funding to serve schools currently struggling to pay for services – and get resources to those who want and need them. 

As a non-profit I will also be able to implement some new programs such as the Summer Symposium for teachers and NAS (Not A Statistic), a mentoring program for students in the Achievement Gap. See the bottom of the page for these and other programs that will be implemented once this non-profit is established.

Other aspects of The English Teacher’s Friend will remain the same; Premium Membership, the Monday Morning Connection, and the extensive website resources will all be enhanced by the partnerships and ideas flowing from the CORE Initiative, as well as our affiliation with Scholastic’s Alliance of Young Artists & Writers. Not to mention new opportunities for scholarships, awards, and publication!  It is a very exciting and critical time for building support and validation for what really works – and what really matters – to teachers and students. 

The English Teacher’s Friend is committed to staying in the forefront of these efforts.  Thank you for being a part of it! 

Click here to view a presentation detailing some of the programs.

Where We Are

Because of the immense generosity of our members, the fundraising efforts gained earned us enough to cover the costs of legal services and all the IRS paperwork filing costs ($1500 total).

What We Need Now

January marks the deadline for the Scholastic contest. As an affiliate we owe an annual fee and will need to establish paid or volunteer adjudication. We also hope to provide an awards ceremony and publication for Central Florida student winners.

Where We Are Going

With luck, we hope to have nonprofit status in the early months of the new year and can start applying for larger grants and funding. Our first year has a budget of $250,000. We will implement and continue the programs listed below.

Teacher Programs / Benefits

Student Programs / Benefits

Resources

Publications at discount for workshop participants and/or members

Weekly newsletter with free resources.

Website with extensive free resources and lessons

Encouraging writing and publication

Scholastic Alliance of Young Artists & Writers students in 35 select counties of Florida will have the opportunity to compete locally for the prestigious writing awards and recognition. A publication and award ceremony will be offered to recognize these writers. A focus on reaching the students not typically represented.

Services

Workshops and trainings – FREE of charge for Florida schools and teachers and minimal costs for schools outside of the state.

Premium Membership – Minimal costs for an online personal assistant (the non-profit will hire more teachers to provide the best one-on-one service)

On site assistance – for Florida schools to meet the specific needs of the school in regard to the mission of the organization.

Narrowing the Achievement Gap

NAS – Not A Statistic Summer school option for achievement gap students. These select 12-15 students will work for two weeks over the summer to earn English credit and build a curriculum in partnership with a few teachers. This curriculum will be interactive and involve local sites and history. Students will visit these sites and write about what they learned. Parent connection will be a big part of the curriculum and so will further mentoring. From the 12-15 we expect to select 3-5 which will present at the Summer Symposium and will become mentors for the next school year and beyond.

Products

Provided by sponsors free of charge to our teachers

Products must be in sync with the mission of the organization.  

Workshops

Online and On Site Workshops will vary based on the student /teacher /school need. Online writing workshops to support the Scholastic Alliance will run during the month of December. Summer Writers on Wheels will incorporate traveling and writing. 

Events

Summer Symposium: a unique conference model. This conference will be held over the summer. Teachers will not pay to attend.

Non-profits will not pay to exhibit.

The emphasis for the workshops will be in sync with the mission of the nonprofit.

Student/teacher collaborations for many of the workshops.

Writers on Wheels – an opportunity for teachers to travel and write while learning tricks and tools to use in the classroom.

Student Programs

Voices in Verse – Local mentors will meet with students after school to share and develop spoken word artists. These artists will compete against each other in Poetry Slam events.

MORE TO COME….