2017 CIIP Program Book 2017 CIIP Program Book | Page 32

Community Partner: Liberty Elementary School & Rec and Tech Center
Intern: Samantha Igo
Site Supervisors: Joseph Manko and Kim Trueheart
What is the Liberty Elementary School?
Liberty Elementary School #64 is a part of the Baltimore City Public Schools System
located in Northwest Baltimore. Under the direction of Principal Joseph Manko,
Liberty Elementary has become one of the top performing schools in the city.
• Helped run the summer school program through a
variety of administrative tasks, including working the
front desk, writing a weekly newsletter for parents
and various memos for teachers, and organizing
weekly fun events for over a hundred summer
school students.
• Completed a variety of projects that helped ready
the school and teachers for the fall, from putting up
bulletin boards to cleaning classrooms and going on
house visits to families with flyers and t-shirts.
• Supervised ten Youth Workers, ages 14 to 20, by
delegating projects, mitigating conflicts in the
workplace, and managing a variety of paperwork.
• Tracked daily attendance and learning improvement
data in Excel as proof of concept for summer school
grant funders.
"Trying to distill this job into just a few bullet points honestly feels underwhelming. While the tasks I listed are in fact a large part of my work day, they
really can't do justice to the experience of working in Liberty every day. To understand, you'd have to visit.
Walking past the royal blue front doors, you'd probably see the principal, Mr. Manko, greeting some of the four hundred and fifty students by name as
they excitedly go from breakfast to their classrooms, none of which have any walls. Wandering around during the day, the soun d of first grade teachers
reading while their students sit criss-cross-apple-sauce will mingle with the sounds of fourth graders racing to answer multiplication problems. Their
voices and laughter will float over the book cases used to separate the rooms, but they don't disrupt each other. It's a vibr ant, energetic environment,
with beautiful student-made art hanging on the walls and from the ceiling tiles and on the windows.
Liberty is far and away an anomaly when considering urban public schools--let alone public schools in Baltimore City. Its success pushes back against a
system that continues to cut funding and resources, and ultimately demonstrates that it doesn't value a quality education for all. Being at Liberty for eight
weeks opened up for me what it takes to try and function in a broken system, and the amount of backbreaking work, and love, t hat goes into nonetheless
providing one of the best educations in the city.
What I didn't put in the task list was becoming part of a family of passionate, selfless parents, teachers, faculty, and comm unity members who will never
do something without considering the question: "How does this benefit our children?" This school system embodies what it mean s to have a wrap-around
education: one that benefits the entire student in the classroom, at home, and everything in between.
But more than anything, I would say working here--with all its eye-opening, chaotic, hilarious, difficult moments--should be necessary for all our mayors
and Senators and Representatives and our Presidents. Education cannot be abstract when you hug the children sitting in classr ooms with moldy ceiling
tiles above their heads, or when you're forced to work through lunch everyday, or when you watch a fifth grader graduate know ing there isn't a single
strong middle school for them in the entire city to keep them on track for college.
This internship did give me a lot of those typical work skills we toot on resumes and in job interviews, but I know the most valuable thing I gained has
absolutely nothing to do with that. Instead, it quipped me with a passion I can feel deep in my belly for making sure all chi ldren are given the basic
32 human
right of an education that can give them a fair chance at excelling in life." -Sam