With temperatures rising as this summer of uncertainty continues, the Cherry Hill Education Association remains committed to easing student transitions into the next school year and making the best of an unexpected situation.
Using funds from its yearly New Jersey Education Association (NJEA) Pride Grant allotment, the Cherry Hill organization held two distribution events over two weeks in July to hand out educational resource bags for parents of Extended School Year-Special Education students. Carusi Middle School sixth grade math teacher Deborah Jacobs organized the “learning bag” project.
The first event occurred during a four-hour, afternoon window on July 9 at Johnson Elementary School, and the second followed a week later at Malberg Administration Building for those parents unavailable for the first.
“We provided a fully-stocked bag for each of our elementary students in the program: markers, crayons, a book they all like to read,” said CHEA President Steve Redfearn during a conversation with the Sun on July 20.
“These dropoffs were also a rare chance for parents to actually see which teacher their kid had when they were in school, because before this point, they only got to see them on the Zoom calls we had through the end of the year.”
Redfearn said the distribution events managed to reach approximately two-thirds of the necessary students, a good number considering the time of year.
“We now have some stuff left over from those two events, and we’ll just roll those over for the parents and kids that, for whatever reason, couldn’t pick them up like if they were on vacation the last two weeks,” he explained.
“We’re going to hold all that stuff at Malberg, and then come September, we’ll give the rest of it back,” Redfearn added. “Parents can pick it up or the kids can pick them up themselves once they go back. It was the best we could do, because you always second guess the date and time for the giveaways to try and accommodate everyone.”
Under normal circumstances, Redfearn said, the grant money would have been used for a whole school year’s worth of events, such as a STEM night or read-a-book-night, various events for senior citizens, and guest authors to address students during evening hours.
“When COVID-19 came about, we still had a certain amount of money left over because the kids were not in school and nothing was being held, and that’s how we were able to find the funding to do all that stuff for all our graduates,” he added.
Earlier in the summer, the CHEA used the available grant money to honor district pupils for their academic rites of passage. Included in the plan were lawn signs celebrating students’ ascension from eighth grade and high school, as well as the massive banners and conspicuous graduation picture installations outside both Cherry Hill East and West.
The organization also purchased the summer reading books for all district students about to enter middle school in the fall. Tim Casale, fifth grade teacher at Johnson, organized that distribution effort.
“We got it down to the last dollar; we used everything (available in the grant),” Redfearn stated. “Next year, we’ll get the same amount of money from NJEA, but we have no idea what things are going to look like in terms of in-school events and programs.
“We’re waiting on some kind of guidance.”
