Teacher’s union makes donation to Eastpointe Community Schools

EASTPOINTE — Teachers in Eastpointe Community Schools will have another tool with which to instruct students, thanks to a recent donation from the Eastpointe Federation of Educators scholarship committee.

At the May 9 Board of Education meeting, district Assistant Superintendent Christina Gibson announced that the Eastpointe Federation of Educators had approved the purchase of Literacy Footprints kits for all teachers throughout the district.

Literacy Footprints is a guided reading system designed for classroom teachers and support staff who are teaching children to read and write. The kits contain sequenced texts in a variety of genres.

“Every teacher will have a cadre of resources available to them to work at small-group guided reading instruction, and we’ve had many teachers involved going and doing presentations with the scholarship committee,” Gibson said. “We thought it was time to publicly thank them for their dedication to our school district and our community and the investment in our children.

“The scholarship committee has had many, many very generous donations from former staff members, from community members through all of their fundraising efforts, and they have invested upwards of $70,000 this year into Eastpointe Community Schools,” Gibson said. “The purpose of the money from the committee was to help our students to recover lost learning from COVID.”

There are 11 members on the scholarship committee. The committee raises money each year to provide high school seniors with college scholarships. According to the minutes from the meeting, the committee members changed some of their bylaws to expand their efforts.

“On behalf of the teachers and staff and the retirees involved in raising the money, we’re so very pleased to have the opportunity to share with just more than the senior class. We help these seniors, and we do some different things, but right now, we see so much need at the lower levels and particularly in literacy,” EFE President Lincoln Stocks said. “Thank you very much for the opportunity to share our wealth and our hopes for the recovery of our lost learning with the kids.”