Farragut - Chromebooks Challenge
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Share this campaign to Facebook to help Farragut Career Academy get Chromebooks!
Farragut Career Academy is one of 9 schools using GoFundMe to help provide Chromebooks for their students as a part of the GoFundMe Chromebook Challenge. Until March 22nd, we are competing to see which school can get the most Facebook shares from this GoFundMe campaign.
- The school with the most Facebook shares will receive 100 Chromebooks.
- Every dollar donated to this campaign will be used to purchase Chromebooks. GoFundMe will match the first $5,000 donated to this campaign.
- Please help spread the word by sharing the campaign to Facebook and donating whatever you can!
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Farragut Career Academy is an IB World School in Southwest Chicago that focuses on a holistic understanding of our students. We serve a primarily Hispanic and African American community; nearly half of community members are foreign-born, which means that many of our parents don’t speak English. In addition, less than a quarter of residents graduated from high school themselves. Many parents work in low-paying factory jobs.* When combined, these factors leave our students with few role models in education and few resources to help them overcome educational barriers.
Farragut’s story is one of change, overcoming obstacles and giving back. A decade ago, violence within the community poured over into our school building, which led to high absenteeism and low levels of academic achievement within the school. Through the dedication of school staff, community members and students, we have significantly decreased the violence in the school and greatly improved the course and extracurricular activities we offer to students, which has led to increased attendance and test scores, and an overall better learning environment. In an environment where high-achieving students are being drawn to selective-enrollment and charter schools, Farragut is one the few neighborhood schools that continues to show consistent improvement.
As an IB World School, we seek to develop students who are open-minded, balanced, and caring inquirers. We’ve adopted a holistic understanding of our students that allows time and space for them to engage in personal projects which require them to research issues that are important to them and develop projects that address those issues. In the mathematics classroom, students using technology to discover properties of graphs in Desmos and learn how to analyze and manipulate data in spreadsheets. Science classes require students to create electronic lab reports with graphs and tables. English and social science classes have students researching and writing reports. Technology is essential for enabling our students to develop skills that will prepare them for careers beyond the factory jobs that many of their parents work.
While students do have limited access to computer labs at the school, most of those computers are almost a decade old. Startup time can take as long as five minutes and logging into the computers can take another few minutes. Students and teachers are losing valuable instructional minutes and are constantly being frustrated by the slowness of the computers. These old devices are not conducive to helping students with their personal projects. With Chromebooks, however, boot up time is 8 seconds and login time is only a few seconds, making the entire process less than 30 seconds. Students would be able to enhance their personal projects and classroom assignments through the use of Google apps, as well as through digital storytelling. Digital storytelling allows students to show off what they have learned in a creative, digital format through websites, online portfolio, Prezi, Blabberize, animoto, etc. In addition, students would be able to utilize the built in camera to record and integrate videos and interviews into their projects. Both the decreased login time and the ability to utilize Google apps will allow our students more opportunity to gain much needed skills.
Building off the momentum of improvement we’ve seen in recent years, we now seek to increase our student’s access to technology. Our children deserve the best chance possible at being successful in high school and beyond. Chromebooks will allow students to explore curriculum in new ways and receive individualized tutoring when they struggle. Our world is becoming evermore dependent upon technology, so it is essential that our students have every opportunity to learn the technology skills that will be integral to their future success.
Please consider donating to our campaign. We can promise you that an investment in these students will have significant returns as they go on to be adults who are positive contributors to our society. Additionally, whether you donate or not, please share our campaign on Facebook. We can win 100 Chromebooks if our campaign has the most shares, so click the blue button above and share it!
Here are a couple more unique aspects of FCA:
Culture of student service: Despite the difficult situations our students have to navigate, we are constantly impressed by their aspiration to give back to our community. Each student is required to do 40 hours of service learning over the course of four years at Farragut. This year alone, however, our senior class has completed over 9,766 hours of service learning; On average, that’s around 56 hours of service learning per student! They contribute to a food pantry, volunteer to play drum line in local parades, host coat drives, and run fundraisers to end childhood cancer.
Peer Jury: Of particular interest is serving fellow students through Peer Jury. When a student’s behavior has negatively affected the learning environment, our student jury works with that individual to help them rectify the damage done, as an alternative to suspension and detentions. This process helps the offender to understand the consequences of their actions, while the jurors learn communication, leadership and problem solving skills.
Step Up and Youth Guidance: Now, when students arrive for their first day of 9th grade, they are amazed at how supportive our teachers are and the amount of resources available to help them navigate the violence that happens outside the school walls. Farragut has developed partnerships with outside organizations that help encourage and support students. StepUp inspires teen girls through mentorship and encourage girls to become confident, college-bound and career-focused. Youth Guidance helps young men navigate difficult circumstances that threaten their future by providing support and develop the social and emotional skills necessary to succeed.
Extracurriculars: In addition, many students at Farragut participate in extracurricular programs offered by teachers, Enlace, and After School Matters. Some of the programs include lifeguard, dance, JROTC drumline, robotics club, mosaic, digital arts, and computer refurbishment. Mr. Ontiveros, runs an after school program to refurbish computers that are donated to local businesses and organizations free of charge. Last year, they installed a new computer lab for the local elementary school.
Here is a link to our school’s website with more information on Farragut Career Academy - http://www.farragutcareeracademy.org/
*Statistics taken from http://enlacechicago.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/LV-QofL-Plan_Document.pdf.
“[Farragut is] full of students with potential. Although the neighborhood around the school is not the best, there still are students that want to be successful and make an impact in this world. Having computers will expand our learning in so many ways.” - Joshua
“Farragut may be poor, but we as students are rich in knowledge, optimism, and perseverance.” -Jaylene
“Farragut is a good school with good students that want to learn. The only thing is since Farragut is in a “bad neighborhood” we don’t get a lot of money, so that’s why the school budget is really low. We need help because since we live in the year 2016 most work is done on a computer but we can’t if we usually don’t have enough access to computers.” - Anonymous student
“Farragut is full of students who want to change and fight for a better future. With education we hope to have a career and make a decent living, but it’s difficult to focus on our education when we don’t have what’s needed to learn and become better learners. With new Chromebooks it’ll help students improve with the technology and visualizations. It’ll help us learn and understand things faster. It will also teach us new skills and techniques that we can use later in life.” - Joel
“I remember being in the Technology Club in elementary school and learning how to animate objects. Growing up I had opportunities to learn so much about technology that has helped me even in my career as a teacher. Because of the impact it had on me, I strive to give my students as many opportunities as possible, participating in hour of code so they can learning about computer programming, creating discovery activities so that students can explore mathematics and understand it better, and assigning projects that allow students to work with formulas in Google Spreadsheets. Most of my students have not seen others go on to college and especially not in fields in math and science. If we want the best chances possible for these students, we have to give them opportunities to learn about and explore different fields. Having access to up-to-date technology is of utmost importance in providing these opportunities. Many of these students are stuck in a cycle of poverty and we need to do all we can to help them break that cycle through an engaging education that will lead to a future professional career.” -Mrs. Amanda Babb, Math Teacher
Farragut Career Academy is one of 9 schools using GoFundMe to help provide Chromebooks for their students as a part of the GoFundMe Chromebook Challenge. Until March 22nd, we are competing to see which school can get the most Facebook shares from this GoFundMe campaign.
- The school with the most Facebook shares will receive 100 Chromebooks.
- Every dollar donated to this campaign will be used to purchase Chromebooks. GoFundMe will match the first $5,000 donated to this campaign.
- Please help spread the word by sharing the campaign to Facebook and donating whatever you can!
__________________________________________________________________________________
Farragut Career Academy is an IB World School in Southwest Chicago that focuses on a holistic understanding of our students. We serve a primarily Hispanic and African American community; nearly half of community members are foreign-born, which means that many of our parents don’t speak English. In addition, less than a quarter of residents graduated from high school themselves. Many parents work in low-paying factory jobs.* When combined, these factors leave our students with few role models in education and few resources to help them overcome educational barriers.
Farragut’s story is one of change, overcoming obstacles and giving back. A decade ago, violence within the community poured over into our school building, which led to high absenteeism and low levels of academic achievement within the school. Through the dedication of school staff, community members and students, we have significantly decreased the violence in the school and greatly improved the course and extracurricular activities we offer to students, which has led to increased attendance and test scores, and an overall better learning environment. In an environment where high-achieving students are being drawn to selective-enrollment and charter schools, Farragut is one the few neighborhood schools that continues to show consistent improvement.
As an IB World School, we seek to develop students who are open-minded, balanced, and caring inquirers. We’ve adopted a holistic understanding of our students that allows time and space for them to engage in personal projects which require them to research issues that are important to them and develop projects that address those issues. In the mathematics classroom, students using technology to discover properties of graphs in Desmos and learn how to analyze and manipulate data in spreadsheets. Science classes require students to create electronic lab reports with graphs and tables. English and social science classes have students researching and writing reports. Technology is essential for enabling our students to develop skills that will prepare them for careers beyond the factory jobs that many of their parents work.
While students do have limited access to computer labs at the school, most of those computers are almost a decade old. Startup time can take as long as five minutes and logging into the computers can take another few minutes. Students and teachers are losing valuable instructional minutes and are constantly being frustrated by the slowness of the computers. These old devices are not conducive to helping students with their personal projects. With Chromebooks, however, boot up time is 8 seconds and login time is only a few seconds, making the entire process less than 30 seconds. Students would be able to enhance their personal projects and classroom assignments through the use of Google apps, as well as through digital storytelling. Digital storytelling allows students to show off what they have learned in a creative, digital format through websites, online portfolio, Prezi, Blabberize, animoto, etc. In addition, students would be able to utilize the built in camera to record and integrate videos and interviews into their projects. Both the decreased login time and the ability to utilize Google apps will allow our students more opportunity to gain much needed skills.
Building off the momentum of improvement we’ve seen in recent years, we now seek to increase our student’s access to technology. Our children deserve the best chance possible at being successful in high school and beyond. Chromebooks will allow students to explore curriculum in new ways and receive individualized tutoring when they struggle. Our world is becoming evermore dependent upon technology, so it is essential that our students have every opportunity to learn the technology skills that will be integral to their future success.
Please consider donating to our campaign. We can promise you that an investment in these students will have significant returns as they go on to be adults who are positive contributors to our society. Additionally, whether you donate or not, please share our campaign on Facebook. We can win 100 Chromebooks if our campaign has the most shares, so click the blue button above and share it!
Here are a couple more unique aspects of FCA:
Culture of student service: Despite the difficult situations our students have to navigate, we are constantly impressed by their aspiration to give back to our community. Each student is required to do 40 hours of service learning over the course of four years at Farragut. This year alone, however, our senior class has completed over 9,766 hours of service learning; On average, that’s around 56 hours of service learning per student! They contribute to a food pantry, volunteer to play drum line in local parades, host coat drives, and run fundraisers to end childhood cancer.
Peer Jury: Of particular interest is serving fellow students through Peer Jury. When a student’s behavior has negatively affected the learning environment, our student jury works with that individual to help them rectify the damage done, as an alternative to suspension and detentions. This process helps the offender to understand the consequences of their actions, while the jurors learn communication, leadership and problem solving skills.
Step Up and Youth Guidance: Now, when students arrive for their first day of 9th grade, they are amazed at how supportive our teachers are and the amount of resources available to help them navigate the violence that happens outside the school walls. Farragut has developed partnerships with outside organizations that help encourage and support students. StepUp inspires teen girls through mentorship and encourage girls to become confident, college-bound and career-focused. Youth Guidance helps young men navigate difficult circumstances that threaten their future by providing support and develop the social and emotional skills necessary to succeed.
Extracurriculars: In addition, many students at Farragut participate in extracurricular programs offered by teachers, Enlace, and After School Matters. Some of the programs include lifeguard, dance, JROTC drumline, robotics club, mosaic, digital arts, and computer refurbishment. Mr. Ontiveros, runs an after school program to refurbish computers that are donated to local businesses and organizations free of charge. Last year, they installed a new computer lab for the local elementary school.
Here is a link to our school’s website with more information on Farragut Career Academy - http://www.farragutcareeracademy.org/
*Statistics taken from http://enlacechicago.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/LV-QofL-Plan_Document.pdf.
“[Farragut is] full of students with potential. Although the neighborhood around the school is not the best, there still are students that want to be successful and make an impact in this world. Having computers will expand our learning in so many ways.” - Joshua
“Farragut may be poor, but we as students are rich in knowledge, optimism, and perseverance.” -Jaylene
“Farragut is a good school with good students that want to learn. The only thing is since Farragut is in a “bad neighborhood” we don’t get a lot of money, so that’s why the school budget is really low. We need help because since we live in the year 2016 most work is done on a computer but we can’t if we usually don’t have enough access to computers.” - Anonymous student
“Farragut is full of students who want to change and fight for a better future. With education we hope to have a career and make a decent living, but it’s difficult to focus on our education when we don’t have what’s needed to learn and become better learners. With new Chromebooks it’ll help students improve with the technology and visualizations. It’ll help us learn and understand things faster. It will also teach us new skills and techniques that we can use later in life.” - Joel
“I remember being in the Technology Club in elementary school and learning how to animate objects. Growing up I had opportunities to learn so much about technology that has helped me even in my career as a teacher. Because of the impact it had on me, I strive to give my students as many opportunities as possible, participating in hour of code so they can learning about computer programming, creating discovery activities so that students can explore mathematics and understand it better, and assigning projects that allow students to work with formulas in Google Spreadsheets. Most of my students have not seen others go on to college and especially not in fields in math and science. If we want the best chances possible for these students, we have to give them opportunities to learn about and explore different fields. Having access to up-to-date technology is of utmost importance in providing these opportunities. Many of these students are stuck in a cycle of poverty and we need to do all we can to help them break that cycle through an engaging education that will lead to a future professional career.” -Mrs. Amanda Babb, Math Teacher
Organizer and beneficiary
Farragut Career Academy
Organizer
Chicago, IL
Craig Banta
Beneficiary