Dove Hill Newsroom
Lisa Anderson
The Evergreen School District has a new ally in their mission to provide high quality 21st century education. PEER (Partners in Education Enrichment Resourcing) Foundation, a locally-based non-profit organization started by two determined entrepreneurs, is taking an innovative approach to education enrichment.
Stacey Johnston and Lisa Anderson met in 2014 working together in a non-profit organization that supported their children's elementary school through resourcing and enrichment programs. Their experiences helped them to realize that perhaps there was an opportunity to create an organization that could support multiple schools.
Their ideas led to a bigger conversation that eventually became a strong and compelling vision. The goal of providing support to schools seemed needed and feasible although there were many unknowns. This did not phase the duo.Each with years of experience in defining and building businesses, they set out to create an organization that would support the education system. Creating an innovative approach to enrich education and establishing partnerships is a core component to PEER's philosophy.
In spring of 2015, the pair started to talk with Evergreen about what would be most beneficial to the district schools. By the end of the year, PEER Foundation was established with a mission to create partnerships with schools and parent communities that empowers learning by resourcing enrichment programs.
PEER's first project was to implement a system by which schools could use a "direct donation" model for fundraising. PEER's direct donation model facilitates a higher percentage of parents' donations to go directly to the school instead of a low percentage as with other types of fundraising (i.e. local restaurants, cookies or magazines). With a button to "donate now" on a school's website, it becomes much easier for parents to support their child's school.One of PEER's first direct donation partners, Norwood Creek Elementary School, raised $55,000 in under 3 months to supplement the school's budget.
The next challenge was to secure vendors to implement STEAM-based enrichment programs for schools. They found it difficult to find existing programs that fit the bill. The team took a "what if" idea and turned it into a strategic business decision to offer the enrichment programs themselves.They identified a partner to help them bring the much-needed STEAM programs to students and obtained preliminary designated subject CTE teaching credentials.
To date, the STEAM workshop curriculum that was developed as a result of PEER's partnership with Evergreen School District has been delivered to over 3,000 elementary school students. Programs include 3D printing, robotics, physical computing, circuit design, digital and stop motion animation, app development, and coding. PEER has worked to customize an intentional, sequential set of workshops that build upon each other so that students get increasingly advanced exposure over time. "We are setting out to develop a model that exposes elementary school students to specific 21st century skills," Johnston explains. " For example, we begin in kindergarten with an introduction to robotics which starts the kids thinking in very logical sequences and patterns.Moving forward, sixth grade students then participate in workshops that draw on coding experience learned in lower grades as they explore creating apps."
As the organization's scope of work increased, so did the need to secure a place to house the operations and development efforts. Reaching another agreement with ESD, PEER moved into an underutilized space at LeyVa Middle School. Part of PEER's investment was for the duo to spend a couple of months updating four classrooms with bright paint, clean surfaces, and new flexible furnishings.This updated space, "The Studios at LeyVa", is home to what PEER calls their "creative technology playground" where the middle school students enjoy an open environment with guided STEAM projects once weekly after-school.
Looking forward, PEER will be expanding its programs to include more after-school and summer workshops. In addition, PEER will be partnering with NFTE! (Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship) to launch a program called "Operation Mindset" at LeyVa this summer.