I just wanted to take a moment to thank the Enumclaw Schools Foundation for offering grants to teachers. This new program has provided a wonderful opportunity for teachers to “go big” with their ideas to enhance learning for students. For example, this summer I had the idea to bring a very famous children’s author, Roland Smith, to our school. He visits schools all over the world and I was nervous about being able to find the funding to bring him to Black Diamond Elementary. I applied for the grant and between that and a generous donation from our PTA, was able to bring Mr. Smith to our school.

It was an amazing day! The learning from this day has and will continue to benefit students, teachers, staff and parents who attended. We had two power point presentations, book signings, a live call-in show and teacher training. Our plan is to have a Young Authors Fair in April. For this event students will get to display books they have written during the school year. They will get to be real authors and hold readings for others to enjoy. Our day with Roland Smith inspired kids to write and gave teachers new ideas to implement in their classrooms. I have seen the positive effects already. Teachers have been sharing during our Professional Learning Time, the lesson plans they have come up with that are using ideas from Roland Smith. Students are seeing how they can be like Mr. Smith and write about what is important to them. That is all it takes to start out as a writer. They are learning how to journal, write every day, use story boards and much, much more.

All of this was made possible by the grant and our PTA. I encourage our community to support the Enumclaw Schools Foundation so they can continue to offer grants such as these to teachers in the future. You can do this by visiting their website at: www.enumclawschoolsfoundation.org. There you can learn more about the organization and if you holiday shop at Amazon.com, they have a link you can click which will automatically donate a portion of your purchases to the ESF.

Thank you again, ESF and Black Diamond PTA for helping my dream and the dream of our students come true with a truly wonderful day that will stay with us forever.

Sara Davis

Enumclaw