How S.C. students benefited from Colbert’s gift
Last spring, comedian Stephen Colbert fulfilled every single grant request made by South Carolina public school teachers on the nonprofit fundraising website DonorsChoose.org.
He did so by auctioning off the desk from his comedy news show, The Colbert Report.
The fulfilled grants totaled $800,000 for nearly 1,000 projects from 800 teachers across the state.
Colbert made the surprise announcement via a live video call to state Education Superintendent Molly Spearman at Alexander Elementary in Greenville last May.
Now, as Colbert begins his new late-night show on CBS, The Greenville News decided to revisit Alexander Elementary to see how teachers used the classroom supplies purchased through the joint donations by Colbert (a South Carolina native), Greenville-based ScanSource and education nonprofit Share Fair Nation.
Friday afternoon, music teacher Michael Parrish selected six well-behaved students to grab a set of fuzzy-ended mallets and tap the notes “C” and “G” back-and-forth on six new wooden xylophones as other students clapped in rhythm.
The instruments cost $700 apiece and were a wish list item for Parrish, who had never had a DonorsChoose grant fulfilled before.
“This was actually the first grant that I wrote and they suggested you keep it under $400 but I said ‘I need all these because we don’t have a lot of instruments.’ We don’t have enough to put children on them and four instruments isn’t enough for 25 kids in our class.”
With no idea what was in the works, Parrish wrote the grant for about $2,500 for the xylophones, which he said are the easiest pitched instruments for young children to learn. Thanks to Colbert, his students were tapping away on a recent Friday afternoon.
“Music education for our school is something that helps them in all areas of school,” he said. “As they learn music, they learn rhythm, they learn math skills, they learn reading skills.”
Down the hall, second-grader Shyanna Blake sat on a bright green plastic wobble chair as her teacher Ann Boiter read a book to the class.
Blake rocked back and forth on the round chair, which she called a ‘hokie stool.’
“If somebody likes to rock in a chair, they can have a hokie stool to rock in,” Blake said. “It’s fun to move in and you don’t even have to move your body, you can just move your chair.”
That sort of classroom extra wouldn’t be funded with a limited school budget or money teachers receive from the state to purchase school supplies. It’s an extra, but it helps fidgety students pay attention, and in Boiter’s class, the students each get a turn.
At Alexander, a small Title 1 neighborhood school, teachers actively made DonorsChoose requests over the past several years. Last February, the school surpassed $100,000 in projects funded since DonorsChoose came to South Carolina in 2005.
Teachers were encouraged to have projects in the works. So when Colbert announced his gift, several teachers at Alexander had grants funded.
One teacher received organizational packs to hang on her kindergarteners chairs. Another got rubber balls to play outside. A special education teacher received a tricycle for his students to pedal in the school yard, which allowed them to interact with other students and improve social skills.
One teacher received enough iPads for her entire class. Another had asked for funds to pay an artist to paint murals on the school walls.
The media specialist, Beth Bailey, received more than $300 worth of books specifically for girls, like Critter Club or Cupcake Diaries.
“We had a lot of books for girls, but we also wanted something for girls to enjoy, and that has just filled our shelves,” Bailey said. “I’m just thrilled to be able to introduce our students to some new authors and the Stephen Colbert funding gave us that opportunity.”
The staff and students were elated to receive the new supplies, said Principal Sonya Campbell.
“It put a lot of things in their hands that they did not have before,” she said. “Everyday, useful hands-on to make procedures go better, to put more opportunity and creativity in students hands.”
Campbell stressed that the supplies were for the students, not the teachers or staff. They’ve had so many projects funded that the school created an auditing system so even if a teacher transfers to another school, the supplies stay with the students at Alexander, she said.
Now, as a new school year pushes into high gear, more South Carolina teachers have discovered DonorsChoose.
Another 1,591 requests are active.
But it’s unlikely Colbert will auction off his new desk any time soon.
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