Federation Star - May 2019

14 Federation Star May 2019
JEWISH FEDERATION
Stand Up for Justice Educator Grants awarded
by Jewish Community Relations Council
By Beth Povlow, Stand Up for Justice Educator Grant Chair
After the November 2009 incident
called “Kick a Jew Day”
the Friday before Thanksgiving
at a Naples Middle School, I felt
compelled to turn lemons into lemonade.
With the support of the Jewish
Community Relations Council and the
sponsorship of the Jewish Federation,
I set out to develop a program that offered
grants to educational professionals
who could demonstrate effectiveness in
sensitizing kids to respect each other
no matter what individual differences
existed between them.
Beth Povlow, Stand Up for Justice Grants Chair,
and Irv Povlow
With wonderful assistance and
advice from Champions for Learning,
Collier County Public Schools, and the
Holocaust Museum, after seven months
we were ready to announce the Stand Up
for Justice Educator Grants. Our first
grants were bestowed in the spring of
2011. Since then, we have issued many
varied and wonderful grants; we have
had classroom teachers across many
disciplines; we have had principals,
counselors and even a school psychologist
win grants. The principals in those
schools create the atmosphere and
encouragement for the fantastic work
being done every day in our schools to
make our world a better place.
This year, we had three Honorable
Mentions. The first went to Naples
High English Department Chair Naomi
Rothring (Principal Darren Burkett).
Darren Burkett and Naomi Rothring
Mrs. Rothring is a Cambridge AICE
teacher of Global Perspectives, where
students explore issues including child
labor and nations in crisis from multiple
viewpoints. They consider ideas they
had not previously thought about, and
discuss how these new perspectives
have changed their points of view about
others. They do this in a welcoming
environment of mutual respect that nurtures
respect for others across the globe.
A second Honorable Mention
went to Kacee Farrar (Principal Jessica
Campbell), a 4 th grade teacher at Avalon
Elementary School. Mrs. Farrar fosters
a sense of community and respect for
Kacee Farrar, Jessica Campbell, Jill Seitz
others through books and posters. An
example of a poster is one about thinking
before you speak. It asks: is it true, is
it helpful, is it inspiring, is it necessary,
and is it kind. I love the exercise where
she has her students empty a tube of
toothpaste, then get two minutes to put
the toothpaste back in the tube with pins.
It’s an impossible task that illustrates
that the toothpaste is like words – once
they come out they are impossible to
take back!
Our third Honorable Mention went
to Julie Frizzi (Principal Meredith
Kirby), a counselor at Naples Park Elementary
School. As a child, Mrs. Frizzi
faced challenges beyond her control that
left her feeling scared, lonely, anxious
and depressed. This led her to become a
school counselor so that she might help
children who faced similar challenges.
She searched for that one magical program
that would help children navigate
through turbulent times. She found it
in yoga. She realized that inside each
Julie Frizzi and Melissa Stamper
child was the greatest organic calming
tool, the human breath. During yoga
breathing, she had them say things to
themselves like, “I can change; I am a
good friend; I am powerful; I believe in
me; I am focused; I am kind.” Saying
these words during deep breathing had
an amazing effect. When a child would
see another child who was frustrated,
angry or distressed, he or she would
say, “Breathe.” The children brought
this home with them and taught their
families the techniques, which led to
reducing normally stressful times for
the family. Family members would call
Mrs. Farrar to thank her. She recently
conducted a workshop for school principals
showing them these techniques.
Our 3 rd place winners are Cara
Denny and Candace Johnson, counselors
from Golden Gate Elementary
School (Principal Kelly Bergey).
Golden Gate Elementary is a unique
school with students from different
countries and cultures, speaking many
different languages. Cara and Candace
created a Kindness Club with Kindness
Leaders to facilitate activities promoting
kindness both within the school as
well as outside the school community.
To welcome new students, they have
Kindness Ambassadors (who speak the
same language) greeting the students
with a welcoming gift and escorting
them to their classes. Kindness Leaders
perform random acts of kindness around
the school, distribute compliment cards,
hold student shout outs, write thank you
notes to recognize and encourage their
classmates, and pass out Seagull Cents
for purchases at the school store. A most
positive outcome was that the Kindness
Leaders recognized that spreading kindness
not only made others feel good
but impacted their own moods as well.
They graffitied the school with artistic
messages of kindness and respect. When
Hurricane Michael hit the Florida panhandle,
remembering their own fears
after Hurricane Irma, they drew pictures
of hope and comfort, which they made
into a quilt and sent to Hiland Park Elementary
as a symbol of comfort, hope
and connection. These kindness efforts
became contagious, creating new bonds
across different grade levels, cultures
and races that are creating lasting friendships
and respect. Students are seen
standing up for one another schoolwide.
Our 2 nd place winner is Phuong
Gano, a 3 rd grade teacher at Shadowlawn
Elementary School (Principal Dr. Oliver
Phipps). Phuong, as a mother herself,
saw the impact on her own children of
leaving notes of love and encouragement
in the lunch boxes she packed for
them.
Shadowlawn is a school where
more than 82% of students are on free
or reduced-price lunch, and a majority
are from Hispanic homes where English
is not spoken. Parents are working two
and three jobs to make ends meet, and
many have trouble helping their kids
with homework in English. Mrs. Gano
realized that since 82% of the school is
eating school lunch, 82% of students are
not getting any special notes to show
that someone is thinking about them.
So in her classroom, students have
their own Lunch Notes Notebook. Beginning
in September, every two weeks
during the last 15 to 20 minutes of the
day, notebooks were randomly passed
out (students could not get their own
notebooks) and students wrote notes
in the notebook about the owner. For
example, “I admire you because...I like
you because...I really liked it when
Dr. Oliver Phipps and Phuong Gano
you...” Each notebook is special to
the owner so students focus on writing
something that would make the
recipient feel good. At the end of the
year, students will have a notebook
with stories and notes that show how
much they were cared for in third grade.
These lunch notes teach children to be
thoughtful of each other and to respect
one another regardless of their religious,
racial or cultural differences. Lunch Box
Notes has become a favorite activity.
The children want to do it at the end of
every day now. We know that hate can
be taught. Phuong Gano is teaching her
students how to love and be loved.
Jody Schreiber, Cara Denny, Candace Johnson, Kelly Bergey
Our 1 st place winner is Cindy St.
John from Oakridge Middle School,
where one of Principal Kim Lonergan’s
teachers has received a top spot for the
last three years. Mrs. St. John teaches
8 th grade English/Language Arts where
Kim Lonergan
The Diary of Anne Frank and the Holocaust
are on the curriculum. Being a
Cambridge AICE Global Perspectives
teacher, allows Mrs. St. John to examine
the Holocaust in greater detail and
even teach them about other genocides.
She has taught them about the Japanese
internment in the U.S. during World War
II as well.
Her work is very expansive, but I
will focus on one series of activities
involving children who were interned
for a time at Theresienstadt, the Nazi
“show camp,” that was particularly
touching. There were a total of 150,000
children over time interned there during
the war; only about 150 survived. Each
of Mrs. St. John’s students was given
the name of a child to research on the
Museum of Tolerance web page. They
Cindy St. John
each made a beautiful personalized
butterfly to represent their child and
placed it in a large rectangle on the wall.
Students presented a short biography
on their child to the class so the child
would never be forgotten. At the end of
the bio, they reported what happened to
the child. If the child died, the butterfly
was removed from the wall. There were
very few butterflies left. There were a lot
of tears in the class. I understand from
Mrs. Lonergan that those tears spilled
out into the whole school.
You are able to see all of the Stand
Up for Justice projects from year 1 to
the present on the Federation website at
www.jewishnaples.org. It is worth your
time to do so.
What do you think?
The Federation Star
wants to know!
Send your letters
and comments to
fedstar18@gmail.com.