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Goal

The goal of this grant program is to improve comprehension skills and building a strong pre-literacy vocabulary by providing our prekindergarten students with real-world experiences that they can then read about in our classrooms through our thematic units.
 

 

What will be done with my students

We propose to utilize the funding provided by this grant to schedule a series of field trips during the academic year for our pre-K students. Our prekindergarten department is comprised of four inclusive classrooms, containing both typically developing students with varying levels of exceptionalities, and one class is a supported varying exceptionality class. These field trips will be tied to their curriculum so as they begin to learn about a subject, they will also be able to experience it first-hand.

Field trips include a visit to Horse Power for Kids to learn about farm animals, local wildlife, to interact with farm animals and to experience their first ride on a horse. A trip to Tampa Bay Watch to learn about the marine environment that surrounds St. Petersburg, a visit to Great Explorations to learn about science, technology, mathematics, and our community helpers, or as simple as a picnic at the Del Holmes Splash Pad to see how water moves, enjoy nature, and experiment with movement. We believe these funds for fields trips will greatly enriched their learning experience and give them tools to begin a strong foundation in self-expression, mathematics, and the sciences.
 

 

Benefits to my students

Central to achieving a quality education is the goal to have all children able to read and comprehend what the read by third grade. Mastery of reading skills must begin prior to the kindergarten years as children are exposed to the world around them and begin to translate that exposure to their understanding of the printed word.

For many children in our school, their world is limited to the distance between their homes and their classroom. Many families lack transportation or the means to take their children places and provide them experiences that many of us take for granted. These experiences can include a simple walk on a nature trail, or seeing farm animals in a pasture, walking down a city street, or even walking through a park. Lack of experience with the larger community and the world beyond their homes and our school creates a major impediment to their understanding of even the most elementary of reading material.
 

 

Describe the Students

John M. Sexton Elementary is a Title One school and provides 100% of its students with free breakfast and lunch. In addition, Sexton Elementary is one of the few schools that provides individual supported varying exceptionality classrooms and integrates these students into the mainstream student body as much as possible including but not limited to physical education, music, art, cafeteria, gardening, and schoolwide celebrations and activities. Our students having varied emotional, physical, language, and educational needs that are met in varied ways throughout the campus such as whole group, small group, one on one, scaffolding, pull out and push in services. We have 452 students in PreK through 5th grade. Our student population is blend of many different cultures and races including but not limited to Multiracial, Black, White, Hispanic, Vietnamese, Taiwanese, Japanese, and Russian students. The students going on this field trip our aged 3 years through 5 years and are in blended classroom where students with varying exceptionalities learn along-side their typically developing peers. 

 

Budget Narrative

The largest expenses now are the costs of the busses which have almost tripled in the past five years. After that we have admission costs that have been reduced by the HorsePower from $15 per person to $10 for our Title One School. 

 

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