Scottsdale Schools part of IB program participate in ‘Day of Service’
Staff Reports | Digital Free Press
Working in collaboration, students in Scottsdale Unified School District’s three International Baccalaureate schools — Anasazi Elementary School, Mountainside Middle School and Desert Mountain High School — assembled learning kits earlier this month to support some new Valley residents.
Their work, part of Arizona’s nearly 40 IB schools’ annual ‘Day of Service’ on Nov. 15, delivered to the Welcome to America Project, which is a Tempe-based organization that assists refugees from around the world who have been recently relocated to the Phoenix area through the U.S. State Department.
In the weeks leading up to the ‘Day of Service,’ SUSD’s IB students and their families donated and collected school and personal care supplies for the Valley newcomers. Anasazi students also created welcome cards in Swahili, Spanish, Arabic, English, Farsi, Burmese and French to deliver with the kits.
Anasazi IB Coordinator Sara Armstrong hopes this first Day of Service is the beginning of other joint initiatives with Mountainside and Desert Mountain.
“WTAP provided a perfect opportunity for our students to embrace the key fundamentals of the IB, which include international mindedness and action,” Ms. Armstrong said.
At Mountainside, student government and National Junior Honors Society members put together middle school supply kits that included pencils, pencil sharpeners, highlighters, erasers, pocket dictionaries, folders, pens, spiral notebooks and rulers. At Desert Mountain, students enrolled in the school’s IB Diploma Programme assembled both learning and personal hygiene kits.
Mountainside IB Coordinator Traci Gillespie said that the families WTAP helps are highly motivated, resourceful and eager to start their new lives in the U.S.
“They develop strong ties to their new communities, make active contributions, work hard, pay taxes and are expected to become self-sufficient within six months,” she said. “The IB Day of Service is an important undertaking as we embody our mission statement of striving to develop principled, caring and inquisitive learners in order to prepare them to be knowledgeable and respectful global citizens.”
