24 Apr 2007
Team Success To Recognize About 500 Billy Earl Dade and Edison Middle Students
Dallas—The academic accomplishments of Dallas Independent School District students who attend Billy Earl Dade Learning Center and Edison Middle Learning Center will be recognized with all the fanfare often reserved for athletic success at a pep rally from 10 a.m. to noon, Thursday, May 3, at Southern Methodist University's McFarlin Auditorium, 6405 Boaz Lane.
Team Success, an innovative way for parents, educators and students, will celebrate the roughly 500 students from both schools who are expected to make the grade over the past six weeks of the school year.
To qualify for Team Success, a student must maintain an A/B average and incur no unexcused absences or suspensions over a six-week period. Every 12-weeks, those who qualify are celebrated with a pep rally at which they are awarded prizes including t-shirts, bikes, PlayStations, money machines, and a "grand-prize" family trip to Walt Disney World.
"Team Success has been a very effective motivator. It has helped Edison students stay focused on their grades, behavior and attendance," said Jimmy King, principal, Edison Middle Learning Center.
The objective of holding the year-end celebration at SMU is not only to make the event more special, but also to help students who may seldom have visited a college campus to visualize college as part of their futures.
"We now have a more extensive way to reward students who are working hard to achieve," said David Welch, principal, Billy Earl Dade Middle Learning Center. "I think this is a fabulous program that really motivates students in the classroom."
The Team Success pilot was funded by the Foundation for Community Empowerment, which has a long history of supporting educational enrichment programs in public schools in Dallas' low-income neighborhoods. FCE was also instrumental in launching Dallas Achieves, which is engaged in
the radical transformation of Dallas ISD with the goal of making it the nation's top urban district by 2010.
"It's important to celebrate these students for one simple reason: They deserve it," said Marcia Page, FCE's president and CEO. "The hard work they do today will benefit each and every one of us as they grow up to become full participants in our community. We owe them all the attention and praise we can give them."
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