Multi-Cultural Make-Up- Differences and Similarities

Skoglund Middle School

Center, CO

Requested Amount: $2, 500

Donation Amount:

My middle school multilinguals lack the resources to obtain equipment and the exposure of community which will enrich their cultural understanding.

As the Culturally Linguistically Diverse educator at Skoglund Middle School, we strive to expose our students to every equitable opportunity their peers alike are experiencing. The reality is, my middle school multilinguals lack the resources to obtain equipment and exposure that would otherwise be easily accessible if funding were available. This fund would allow us to purchase three specific culturally responsive classroom literacy sets for students to establish a connection, acquire several Kindle books for students whose accommodations of having text orally read aloud, along with an end-of-year field trip to wrap up the cultural connection.
When education is utilized to promote a sense of cultural pride, youth have increased hope, academic achievement, and physcial health, particularly for Latinx youth (Yager-Elorriaga et al., 2012). Thus, we are requesting funds to expose my multilingual students to textbooks that aren't readily available in our school. In addition, we will purchase devices that would offer the option to read aloud, and we will conclude with an end-of-year field trip to make a cultural connection between themselves and the community. We primarily serve students of color-88% Hispanic, 2% Native American, 2% Black - and having the opportunity to establish a connection to their cultural backgrounds via literacy or in-person experiences would allow them to have real-life personally relevant exposure that can impact their views of the world at their fingertips.

Currently, our district's makeup consists of 88% Hispanic, followed by 2% Native American, and 2% Black, and 8% White. In addition, with 92% high rate of students qualifying for Free and Reduced Lunch, our community altogether demonstrates a damaging socioeconomic status which has led to an overall impact of lack of access to necessary resources for our students. The impact requires that our district, at times, heavily relies on outside supports and resources. As a CLD educator, each class portrays an array of diversity with unique educational backgrounds. Where each student has the opportunity to excel given resources that elevate their success. The aforementioned resources wouldn't be possible without the support of funds such as this one.