Each day, the educators and partners at Neinas Elementary School build upon the school’s foun-dation of nearly a century of service. They work to meet the educational and social needs of the 270- plus students and their families in the tight-knit southwest Detroit community. And everybody – it seems – just keeps coming back. Students learn in the same classrooms as generations of parents, grandparents, great grand-parents, aunts, and uncles while universities, churches, former teachers, Forgotten Harvest, Bridgepointe Community Partners, The Detroit Institutes of Arts and even a national news network have maintained long-lasting partnerships.
“My mom sat in this desk.” “Just about every child here has had a family member attend Neinas,” says Principal Natalia Russell. “That ties us together and creates a sense of belonging. From the student’s perspective, knowing that ‘my mom sat in this desk’ helps them to take owner-ship of what they’re doing in school.” Inside the well-kept historic structure, individualized student-focused, hands-on and integrated science, technology, and language programs take place alongside recycling and social work services for a population whose families occasionally struggle with insurance issues, temporary homelessness, and deportation.
Hands-on Science Inside and Out The science curriculum spans a roomy class-room filled corner to corner with plants, experiments, desert ecosystems, nesting habitats, stuffed critters, solar system models and measuring devices. Walk through a door in the back of the classroom and you will come upon a rooftop experimentation station of birdseed-feeding experiments and more. Right now students are studying the effects of soda pop in plants’ soil pots and the impact on plants’ photosynthesis when a sub-stance is applied to its leaves. Science teacher Amy Lazarowicz, one of DPS’ master science and technology teachers, says, “It shows our students how things happen naturally. What would otherwise be hard to replicate for students in an urban setting grows naturally in their midst,” she says, using as an example several mounds of moss on one corner of the peb-ble-stone roof. “They might say, ‘oh, it feels just like carpet,’ rather than just reading about it or viewing it online.”
The Neinas ground level outdoor classroom is just below the rooftop classroom. It lines the southern side of the school campus and is already a fully developed, year-round, part-natural laboratory/part-urban oasis that is well beyond a collection of raised planting beds. Now, in December, the gardens are put to sleep with mulch. But learning has not stopped. During this time, students study the decomposition pro-cess and identify the winter birds paying a visit. The family of the departed teacher who created the main garden 14 years ago still returns regularly to the school to assist in its maintenance.
“Extreme” Community Ties “The ties are extreme with the community when it comes to Neinas,” Principal Russell says. “Our community support is phenomenal.” DTE Energy recently contributed winter coats for students, and families can depend on weekly food donations from Forgotten Harvest. Help is literally just around the corner with community partners like Courage Church and E&L Supermer-cado, the local grocery store whose building and parking lots wrap partially around the school cam-pus. Additionally, the Southeast Michigan stewardship Coalition, and the University of Michigan-Dearborn are among the partners in the science curriculum. The university has a wide range of connections to the school, with one University of Michigan-Dearborn professor even holding weekly summer college classes and developing project-based activities at Neinas.
In writing, fourth grade students receive regular visits from reporters and editors at Bloomberg News. Students gain exposure to jobs within the newsroom while building a rapport with professionals. This experience ends with a culminating annual trip to the service’s high-tech Southfield newsroom. Family needs are met by the Michigan Depart-ment of Social Services’ “Success Coach,”—a so-cial worker stationed at the school as part of the DPS/DHS Pathways to Potential program. Principal Russell refers to Success Coach Shannon Ramsey as “a very valuable member of our staff.”
Ready to begin the next 100 years with Smart Boards and new bilingual immersion In addition to planning generational observances of the school’s 100-year anniversary in 2016 with families and alumni, the principal, teachers and parents are eagerly working at a major curricular enhancement aimed at meeting the needs of the community and ensuring a strong future in terms of enrollment stability and growth. Smart Boards will be expanded to every class-room. Starting in Kindergarten next fall and expanding annually to additional grades, Neinas students will receive dual language immersion as the school establishes new connections to sis-ter-school Academy of the Americas, less than a mile away.
Neinas Elementary School
6021 McMillan Street, Detroit, MI 48209
Phone: (313) 849-3701 • Fax: (313) 849-4733
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