School to Get Spring Face-Lift: Students, Teachers Will Perk Up Scott Academy.

By Ese Isiorho, The News-Sentinel, Fort Wayne, Ind.

Mar. 28–Call it “Extreme Makeover, School Edition.”

On Saturday, about 170 college students and educators from across the state will renovate and refurbish Levan Scott Academy, 950 E. Fairfax Ave., with new paint, landscaping, benches and inspirational signs.

The event — whose actual name is “Outreach to Teach” — is sponsored by the Indiana State Education Association (ISEA) and chaired by Ashleigh Schoff, a senior education major at the University of Evansville.

“This is an important endeavor because it affects the lives of many students at the school and also makes a difference in teachers’ lives,” Schoff said. “The project makes the teachers and students feel they are important to our state. We are trying to create environments for students that will help them learn.”

Scott Academy, named for the former high-ranking African-American administrator in Fort Wayne Community Schools, serves about 265 students in grades pre-kindergarten to 5.

Members of Outreach to Teach, a 9-year-old national program of the National Education Association, will come from Indiana University Northwest, Manchester College, the University of Southern Indiana and Indiana State University. They raise funds and work on one school each year. Last year, the lucky school was an elementary school in Brazil, Ind.

Students went to their home schools or communities to solicit donations. Those efforts, coupled with a fundraiser, netted nearly $10,000, said Andrea Hargrove, president of ISEA’s executive board and a University of Southern Indiana education major.

“It’s a perfect time,” said Scott Academy Principal Crystal Thomas. Students will be on spring break next week, allowing plenty of time for the paint to dry.

Thomas, who has been principal at Scott for seven years in separate stints, said the school needs some help with its aesthetics.

“We have some challenges in the front of the building maintaining the lawn,” she said, explaining that it doesn’t get much sun. The school also lost some graphics on its interior wall when the building was last repainted. The Outreach program will supply the school with paintings.

“Even when we get our new building with the ($500 million FWCS) renovation plan, we’ll be able to take those paintings and install them in the new building,” Thomas said.

Parents, teachers and staff from the school have already lined up to help Saturday: painting walls, changing window curtains and giving the building a good cleaning.

“It is definitely a community effort,” Thomas said. “There’s lots of excitement in our building.”

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Copyright (c) 2007, The News-Sentinel, Fort Wayne, Ind.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.

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