Every day at 2:40 pm, Imagine Bell Canyon’s formal classes end and BlazerWorld begins. Students stream out of classrooms and go to their jobs in our MicroSociety.
One of the challenges of 21st century education is how to connect what students learn in the classroom to what they will encounter in “real” life. Imagine Bell Canyon sought out and implemented a proven educational model that successfully immerses students in the real world, and we have been using it to connect concepts to reality for more than 10 years! Better yet, it’s so much fun that the students can’t wait to get involved.
MicroSociety
Every day at 2:40 pm, Imagine Bell Canyon’s formal classes end and BlazerWorld begins. Students stream out of classrooms and go to their jobs in our MicroSociety, called BlazerWorld. A MicroSociety is an educational model that gives students the opportunity to explore real-life situations and continuously learn from them. The original MicroSociety was developed by George Richmond in the late 1960s after he struggled to connect with and engage his students’ learning with real-life scenarios that would matter to them. He and his wife went on to develop a curriculum and training program for schools across the country to develop their own MicroSocieties.
BlazerWorld is Born
Imagine Bell Canyon envisioned how impactful real-world learning would be for students, so we embraced the MicroSociety curriculum, completed the 3-year training program, and worked with students to create our own MicroSociety, establishing BlazerWorld in 2009. At BlazerWorld, so named for our cheetah mascot, Blazer, students are governing and participating in a miniature society that mimics the larger society beyond school walls.
Students run this world, teachers are simply there to help. Grades K-6 students put the concepts they learn in the classroom to the test in their jobs and learn crucial interpersonal skills along the way. To quote a third-grader, “MicroSociety is the best part of my day because I get to make my own decisions and decisions for my own employees.”
Students Go To Work
The opportunities in BlazerWorld are endless. Students with a great idea for a new product have the freedom to start their own business. This gives the students an entrepreneur experience, an increasingly important skill set in the 21st century, helping them learn the fundamentals of running a business. [CallOutBox bgcolor=”orange”]“MicroSociety is the best part of my day because I get to make my own decisions and decisions for my own employees.” – Imagine Schools third-grader[/CallOutBox]Financial fluency develops, as well as knowledge of branding and marketing because every product must be developed, made, and produced by students. One of our second grade classes started a recycling venture only using items found at the school or donated from recycled materials.
Students work a variety of jobs in government and business. Participating in the BlazerWorld Market Place isn’t just about doing a job though. Our kids develop and practice the skills for getting the job; they write a resume and interview for the job they want.
Student business owners learn the right interview questions to ask to find the employees they want. Once they are employed, students receive a paycheck, pay taxes, and spend their money within the Market Place.
Leaders and Skills Emerge
Many times, the leaders that emerge in BlazerWorld are not necessarily the academic leaders in the classroom. BlazerWorld gives our students more opportunities to find and hone their strengths. A completely different, yet complementary, set of skills that will set our students up for life success, develops at BlazerWorld.
When students leave BlazerWorld, the learning doesn’t stop. Students out shopping look at products in a store and understand the many steps required to get that product on the shelf, and even think about what they might do differently. It’s incredible to see the connections our kids make and the dreams that emerge!
Imagine Bell Canyon has the flexibility and vision to find the educational programs and models, like MicroSociety, that develop our students’ skills and character and equip them to be amazing 21st-century citizens. Come join us in preparing students for their futures, we are enrolling now!
About Imagine Bell Canyon
Imagine Bell Canyon provides optimal teaching and learning in a safe and nurturing K-8 environment which prepares Blazer World citizens to be their best in a global and diverse society. Imagine Bell Canyon is a tuition-free public charter school that is recognized as one of Arizona’s top schools for academic excellence and a source of community pride. Enrolling now!
During my time as interim CEO of a five-campus charter school, my team spent a lot of time talking about the communities we served and the stakeholders in those communities. Each school serves a specific community, and each community has a unique set of needs, desires, goals and challenges. Over time, we developed a needs assessment framework.
So, what exactly is a needs assessment? It’s is a systematic approach to understanding the nature and needs of your community. I’ll go over the three key recommended steps in a needs assessment, as well as some of the pitfalls to avoid and how to bring it all together.
Identify and Engage the Stakeholders
A good place to start is to establish the nature of your community and its segments. Of course, we can think of your school and its immediate neighborhood. For many charter schools, this may be the case. We have some schools that work with us that have students commute 30, 40 minutes by car. For those schools, community means something more than geographic proximity.
Your community is composed of your students, their parents, loving guardians and any adults actively invested in the lives of these students, and community members. The internal segment of your community is composed of the teachers and staff, the school leadership and the board. Another segment of your community would be the authorizers. The owner of your school building is definitely a stakeholder. [CallOutBox bgcolor=”orange”]A needs assessment is a systematic approach to understanding the nature and needs of your community.[/CallOutBox]
Atlantis Charter School in Fall River, Massachusetts, has built a unique coalition of universities, businesses, financial and philanthropic institutions, and other community groups. Through this coalition, the charter school students have access to the Berklee College of Music in Boston and TJ’s Music, a real recording studio in Fall River. Atlantis students have access to a curriculum that mirrors what’s taught to Berklee first-year students. Through another partnership with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), students have access to the university’s Integrated Design Management (IDM) lab. Programs such as these create a pipeline for students into STEM and the Arts.
What I aim to do with these examples is twofold. On one side, I’m hoping to lead you towards making as exhaustive a list of stakeholders as possible, leaving no stakeholder behind. On the other, I want you to think ahead and identify – based on your school’s mission, direction, and goals – the relationships you might want to establish in the future.
Determine What Questions to Ask
In previous posts, I’ve written about your WHY (the reason you’re doing what you’re doing, the vision you have for your school) and about growth. Both of these should guide this exercise. Your WHY should be accurately reflected in your Mission Statement. Your growth plan should be a topic in your board meetings and your conversations with school leadership. Keep both of these in mind, and think of the questions these inspire.
Some examples of questions to consider:
What values/principles do they associate with this community?
In their eyes, what are the key issues facing the community?
In their eyes, what are the ways in which your charter school can forward those values/principles?
In their eyes, what are the ways in which your charter school could help resolve the key issues affecting the community?
What are their key expectations, and their hopes, in terms of your relationship with this school?
In their eyes, what current aspect of your school do they hold dear? What elements and programs of your charter school drew them to the school?
In their eyes, what current aspect of your school needs bolstering or improving?
Resource Mapping
Resource mapping is the process of identifying internal and external supports and services that can help you accomplish a set of goals.[CallOutBox bgcolor=”orange”]Some resources will inevitably prove more fragile or less reliable than anticipated through this process. At the same time, you might have some welcome surprises. [/CallOutBox]
As you speak with or survey the various stakeholders, you should keep resource mapping in mind. Find out which stakeholder can help in what capacity. Find out what tools, assets, materials, programs, facilities, etc., they have which might be a resource to your school. What people are available, what skills can they leverage? What’s their time availability, and what are their expectations? (recognition, prestige, compensation, etc.) In the examples above, resource mapping led to those relationships with universities, local businesses and local nonprofits.
Resource mapping can show you:
Additional resources available to do more of what you’re already doing
New resources that can help you accomplish the same things in a more efficient manner.
New resources that can empower you to provide additional solutions to community needs.
Resource mapping has to be followed by active and strategic resource management. This is where the rubber truly meets the road. Do keep in mind that some resources will inevitably prove more fragile or less reliable than anticipated through this process. At the same time, you might have some welcome surprises with people or assets who prove a lot more valuable than you expected.
Pitfalls to Avoid
Not casting a wide enough net
One example of that, with a charter school, would be to forget to include authorizers. Or to leave out board members. The board members are ultimately responsible for the effective running of your school. They should always be included at the early stages of planning.
In a community where grandparents or extended family play an important participatory role in the life of the student, these family members should be included as stakeholders.
The students themselves are definitely key stakeholders and can also prove valuable resources. Students can be activated to create a GSA or a No Bullying campaign. Students can help organize fundraisers and do prep work for school events. Students can voice their needs, which may impact decisions about facilities, lunch menus, musical instruments, field trips or even new pilot programs to consider.
Another key aspect of this is that people who have been invited to be part of a process are much more likely to contribute, and people who have been excluded from a process are most likely to find fault and complain.
Not listening to snippets
Feedback and input won’t always arrive through formalized channels. The offhand comment a parent makes as they’re picking up their student, the suggestion another parent voices from their car during dropoff, the observation a teacher makes at lunch – all of these are snippets that can point to a serious problem or a surprising solution.
One potential practice would be to write quick emails to yourself, with the word “snippet” at the beginning of the subject line. Then, every so often, search for the keyword “snippet” in your emails, and look for trends and patterns in these snippets.
Missing the emotional component
As people share their thoughts, ideas and feedback with you, they are less likely to share the emotional context behind these thoughts. It’s a good idea to look for the underlying emotional triggers. An expression that comes to mind is, “if the problem was the problem, there would be no problem.” What this means is, if people knew and expressed what’s bothering them, the solutions might be immediately evident.
In listening to stakeholders, it helps to imagine yourself as part detective and part therapist – looking for ‘the things behind the things.’
Not understanding social structures
It can be disheartening to spend energy and time coordinating with one individual or group, only to find that they’re not the true decision-makers. To make plans based on assurances from one source, only to learn they’re not empowered to give such assurances. In identifying stakeholders AND in resource mapping, you’ll want to chart the relationships and structures among these. This will lead you to fruitful conversations with the right people.
Not recognizing external influences in your community
I recently worked with a school that did an exceptional job of identifying their stakeholders and making sure to ask the right questions, and getting solid information. What they missed was that a whole segment of their student body were family members of transient military personnel. When 10% of their student body left the school as a result of relocation over the summer, the school had to scramble to bring enrollment back to its baseline.
In our present situation, the COVID-19 pandemic is very much one such external pressure that is playing havoc with our plans. School leaders should stay nimble and adaptable, and have a Plan B and even Plan C ready.
Cohesiveness: Bringing it all together
Once you follow all of these steps, you’ll have a sizable volume of information. The task that remains is to sort through it, organize it, and most of all, sort out the conflicts.
You might find one segment of your community loves the idea of dropping the focus on language immersion in favor of an accelerated learning initiative. Meanwhile, another segment may become downright disaffected with the school if the language focus is dropped. Issues of heritage, ethnicity and tradition may make this especially emotional. Moving forward with the change without thoroughly addressing these concerns could spell doom for a school.
Conflicts and misalignments can be resolved through meaningful conversations with stakeholders to understand their motives and drivers better. Sometimes conflicts can be resolved by finding “the third solution.” Instead of A or B, there may be a C solution that accommodates both needs.
You don’t have to please everyone. Prioritize and decide what aligns best with your WHY, along with what contributes to the growth and sustainability of your school. Then, communicate, communicate, communicate. People react best to change when they’re given plenty of information about the reason for a change, the scope of the change, and its expected impact.
A needs assessment and resource mapping exercise does not dictate what you should do next. It provides key information toward that – but your next moves need not be reactive. Armed with all the information, you can move to the next stage, strategic planning.
Since 2017, Charter School Capital has held an annual essay contest celebrating exceptional teachers. We call it the Dewey Awards, in celebration of Mr. Richard Dewey – a teacher who provided exceptional mentorship to our founder and CEO Stuart Ellis. Every year we get a brilliant selection of stories written by students from charter schools all over the nation. This year’s winners are featured here. But each of these stories is worth sharing.
This week we bring you a story written by Ashley Hardman, about Mrs. Hannah Sutton of New Summit Charter Academy, in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
I met Mrs. Sutton in 2019 as her teacher’s assistant. She was young, bubbly, and always smiling. She had the best laugh and was great with her students. After working with her a little I learned that we were both from the South and we began to share stories of growing up in a very similar way. We joked about our accents, foods that we loved, and places to visit.
Mrs. Hannah Sutton
She quickly became more than a coworker and became a close friend. I have learned more from her than I thought possible, everything from teaching techniques, navigating technology, to be a true friend. She was always quite creative with her first-grade class in helping them learn math concepts with number bonding with Big Mama’s House, to hearing her funny voices during storytime, to her fun Sparkle games to learn sight words.
I was so delighted when my own little first-grader was placed in her classroom the following year. No longer her teaching assistant, but now a parent I knew that my little one was in great hands.
Coming back to school after being out the entire spring due to COVID, no one really knew what to expect. Thankfully we have a wonderful school that recognized the importance to evaluate each student’s need.
We are now only finishing the first quarter of school and already my girl is reading quite a bit more than she was when she started the year. She loves school and enjoys math. She often has asked for more homework. There are only so many years we have with them and to know that her teacher is truly instilling a love of learning in her students is the best I could ask for.
Our homework every day is in google classroom, so if an e-learning environment is needed again, I have no doubt that her students will not only be ready, but they will be successful. I truly couldn’t ask for a better teacher and friend!
When charter schools focus on enrollment marketing, quite often, the focus is on digital initiatives. Google Ads campaigns. Facebook advertising to drive enrollment. Email marketing efforts. A revamp of the website. And more.
All of these are excellent ways to drive enrollment (and we deliver all of these as part of our pay-for-performance enrollment marketing solutions). But often, school leaders underestimate the importance of analog efforts – what I call “the ground game.”
A charter school’s ground game consists of the strategies and initiatives the charter school leader may implement at the local level. These are “old school” promotional efforts, networking, and just plain getting to know folks.
Three key initiatives can bring amazing results and help fill the waitlist at a charter school. (These are initiatives that I’ve implemented myself, back in the day when I was the interim CEO of a multi-campus charter school organization.) I share them below.
Tour of the School (Weekly)
Tours allow parents to come in and see for themselves what your school is all about. Parents want to experience what you have that is interesting or unique, they want to see your classrooms and see the grounds, and they want to meet the staff and get a sense of to what degree the ‘vibe’ of the school aligns with their culture and their vision for their child’s education.
It’s important to note that I’m not saying that the CEO or Principal of the school needs to commit to this charter school tour weekly. Tours can be delegated to staff members or even volunteers.
While informal, the tour should be pre-planned and scripted to decide the topics you want to be included strategically, the key talking points to float up, the main areas of the school that you would like to showcase. Did your school get new equipment? Was the cafeteria recently upgraded? Did you add elements to the playground? Is there something unique or interesting in your class layout or materials that you’d like to highlight? Write these points down and have a printout that volunteers giving the tour can use as a guide.
Note that school tours should continue year-round regardless of when school is in session or not.
I encourage you to prominently display how to sign up for this weekly tour on your website, Facebook page, and other promotional materials.
“Back to School” Evening Session (Weekly)
This should be a presentation delivered by a member of school leadership. It can happen at the campus or a meeting place off-grounds – it doesn’t have to be at the school. Make sure the chairs are comfortable for adults and ensure ample seating to allow for all who attend.
This presentation should be about an hour. Ideally, it would include a PowerPoint-like slideshow. Along with being visually pleasing, a presentation will provide a ‘cheatsheet’ for the presenter to follow to avoid getting lost (Although be careful that the presenter doesn’t just parrot the words on the slides! The slides should just be a guide.). Here is a great TEDx talk on delivering strong presentations.
Coffee with the CEO (Monthly)
Promote a once-monthly event to meet the leadership of the school. Events could be “Pie with the Principal,” or it can include any other member of school leadership – perhaps on a rotating schedule. The important point is that parents get to sit down with you or a member of school leadership and get their questions answered.
Events are also an excellent opportunity to create a support system for the school. You’ll have a chance to find highly engaged parents and turn them into volunteers. A parent can then help you with Instagram, another can help with flyer distribution, another can help with the school tour. You can also create a team that will help lobby for charter school acceptance when proposed bills threaten charter schools.
Show up to these events fully engaged – with patience, empathy. Quite often, the most vocal parents, and one might even say annoying, turn into the school’s strongest supporters if allowed to participate and have their voices heard.
Many of the successful schools I’ve counseled in my role as VP of Business Consulting here at Charter School Capital have mentioned parent and caregiver engagement as a key element of their growth and success. Listening to parent input, tailoring the school’s offerings to what parents articulate as needs, showing them that their voices matter, all of this counts.
There are other components of a school’s “ground game.” You can network with the leaders of the local Boys’n’Girls Club, and you can make your facilities available for town events (when feasible and appropriate).
Over the past year, many charter schools became hubs for distributing COVID-19 tests, vaccines, and even food. While this should never be done strictly for promotional purposes, this kind of engagement with the community positions a school as a reliable resource and a positive presence in the community.
By all means, continue your email marketing initiatives, your website upgrades, and your social media efforts as well.
How to Keep from Being Overwhelmed
The key to avoid being overwhelmed is delegation. Finding trusted volunteers for activities such as the school tour and the Back-to-School night will take a load off your shoulders.
In the same vein, you can entrust your enrollment marketing efforts to us. Our pay-for-performance model makes the decision completely stress-free. We only get paid for delivered results. We can help with logo design, an upgraded website, paid advertising on Google Ads and Facebook, and a lot more. Reach out today to learn more!
Whether you’re an educator, a passionate community member, or an entrepreneur looking to make a positive impact, starting a charter school can offer a unique opportunity to provide a nourishing learning environment to kids. In this blog post, we’ll walk you through the essential steps of how to grow and fund a charter school in the state of North Carolina.
The History of Charter Schools in North Carolina
According to the NC Association of Public Charter Schools, North Carolina first enacted charter school law in 1996.
The purpose of the North Carolina charter school movement was as follows:
Improve student learning
Increase learning opportunities for all students, with special emphasis on expanded learning experiences for students who are identified as at risk of academic failure or academically gifted
Encourage the use of different and innovative teaching methods
Create new professional opportunities for teachers, including the opportunities to be responsible for the learning program at the school site
Provide parents and students with expanded choices in the types of educational opportunities that are available within the public school system
Hold the schools established under this part accountable for meeting measurable student achievement results, and provide the schools with a method to change from rule-based to performance-based accountability systems.
A year after the birth of the North Carolina charter school movement, there were 27 charter schools. Charter schools in North Carolina experienced a setback that year: An amendment to the charter school laws gave local boards of education a say in new charter school proposals in their district. Still, by 2001 the state had reached its 100-charter school cap. At that point, the Charter School Advisory Board advised raising the cap by 10% each year. In 2011, the 100-school cap was removed.
North Carolina charter schools tend to have a specific educational area of focus. Schools are focusing on gifted students, athletics, military children, virtual teaching, and more.
Two points of controversy have long existed about charter schools in North Carolina: One of them, fueled largely by a 2006 study by Robert Bifulco and Helen Ladd, which reported that charter schools underperformed compared to district schools. Charter school leaders in North Carolina countered that charter schools tend to serve at-risk students, which explains the difference in test scores. The other concern has been racial imbalance: Since over one-third of all North Carolina charter school students are Black, some critics raised concerns over a trend of resegregation. Charter school leaders dismiss that claim, again emphasizing they serve at-risk students, often in financially disadvantaged neighborhoods, and these neighborhoods have a vast Black representation.
However, the consensus is that charter schools in North Carolina tend to have smaller class sizes, fewer discipline problems, and a better all-around learning environment.
Still, with charter schools being a heated political topic, acceptance has been mixed. According to a survey conducted by Reach NC Voices in 2019, 38% of North Carolinians support charter schools, 52% oppose them, and 10% neither support nor oppose them.
Two points of controversy have long existed about charter schools in North Carolina: One of them, fueled largely by a 2006 study by Robert Bifulco and Helen Ladd, which reported that charter schools underperformed compared to district schools. Charter school leaders in North Carolina countered that charter schools tend to serve at-risk students, which explains the difference in test scores. The other concern has been racial imbalance: Since over one-third of all North Carolina charter school students are Black, some critics raised concerns over a trend of resegregation. Charter school leaders dismiss that claim, again emphasizing they serve at-risk students, often in financially disadvantaged neighborhoods, and these neighborhoods have a vast Black representation.
However, the consensus is that charter schools in North Carolina tend to have smaller class sizes, fewer discipline problems, and a better all-around learning environment.
Still, with charter schools being a heated political topic, acceptance has been mixed. According to a survey conducted by Reach NC Voices in 2019, 38% of North Carolinians support charter schools, 52% oppose them, and 10% neither support nor oppose them.
Starting a school in North Carolina
Step 1: Research
Gather data on existing charter schools, public schools, and private schools in the region. This information will guide your planning and help you determine the viability of your charter school idea.
Step 2: Develop a Solid Business Plan
Outline your school’s mission, educational philosophy, and goals. Define your target student demographics and the unique approach you will take to meet their needs. Additionally, include detailed financial projections, outlining anticipated expenses and potential revenue sources. Your business plan will not only help you secure funding but also serve as a roadmap for the school’s growth and development.
Step 3: Navigate North Carolina’s Charter Application Process
In North Carolina, establishing a charter school requires approval from the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (NCDPI). Familiarize yourself with the state’s charter school application process. Be prepared to demonstrate how your school will fulfill a demand that existing public schools may not be meeting.
NC Charter School Application Process
The NC Charter School application can be found on DPI’s website. Charter school applications used to be reviewed by the Charter School Advisory Board, which recommended to the State Board of Education which ones should be approved or denied.
The state superintendent, as secretary and nonvoting of the review board.
Eight members appointed by the leaders of the House and the Senate (four each).
Two members appointed by the State Board of Education who are not current members of the Board and who are charter school advocates in North Carolina.
The lieutenant governor or the lieutenant governor’s designee.
Step 4: Secure Funding
Funding is a critical aspect of launching and sustaining a charter school. North Carolina offers various funding sources, including state and federal grants, private donations, and fundraising efforts. Explore available funding opportunities and craft a compelling case for financial support based on your business plan’s projections and the unique value your charter school brings to the community.
Like traditional public schools, charter schools receive funding across several buckets, Schauss said. These include:
State: Base allocations and restricted state funds administered through DPI.
Local (county) current expense
Federal: Grants administered through DPI
Capital financing
Enterprise funds, like through the National School Lunch Program, and before and after school programs
Other local funds
Step 5: Build a Supportive Team
Assembling a strong and dedicated team and board is essential to the success of your charter school. Recruit qualified educators and administrators who align with your school’s mission and share your passion for education. Collaborate with community members, parents, and local organizations to garner support and build a network of advocates for your school.
With the right planning and a commitment to educational excellence, your charter school can positively impact the lives of countless students and families in North Carolina.
Need support?
We’re here to help! We can get you the money, resources, and know-how to create a thriving school. Get started here.
According to an article from The Center for Education Reform, 42% of charter school closures are due to funding. It’s well known that charter schools face unique financial challenges, so it’s important to get ahead of these issues as schools grow. Making sure your school has the money to meet operational costs, pay teachers and staff […]
According to a survey conducted by the nonprofit National School Choice Awareness Foundation (NSCAF), 53.7 percent of parents are considering new schools for their children. Most school searches start online, which means it’s important for your school to be both searchable and have online curb appeal. Here are 5 ways you can improve searchability and […]
Many of the challenges school leaders face share a common theme: helping your school grow while staying flexible. Flexibility has to be more than a mindset; it also has to be a component of a strategic plan and an aspect of your school culture. The following tips come from The Charter School Growth Guide, which […]
Are you renovating or expanding your school facility? Whether you’re looking to add a gymnasium, basketball court, library, science laboratory, or need additional classrooms to accommodate growing enrollment, the construction process presents an opportunity to further your school’s mission and enrich the educational experience for your students. Here’s how to set your project up for success from […]
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To help you achieve your goals, we’ve put together this informative and thorough guide to share best practices and call out common pitfalls to avoid. Over the past decade, we’ve reviewed thousands of charter school budgets and helped guide countless schools through their charter school financing processes.
Since 2017, Charter School Capital has held an annual essay contest celebrating exceptional teachers. We call it the Dewey Awards, in celebration of Mr. Richard Dewey – a teacher who provided exceptional mentorship to our founder and CEO Stuart Ellis. Every year we get a brilliant selection of stories written by students from charter schools all over the nation. This year’s winners are featured here – but each of these stories is worth sharing.
This week we bring you a story sent by Cameron Fields, about his teacher Taylor Idoni at Genesee STEM Academy of Flint, Michigan.
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Hi, my name is Cameron Fields and my school is Genesee STEM Academy of Flint, Michigan. I would like to vote my teacher as the best homeroom teacher that I have. She is a great teacher and a great example of what you can be when you grow up. She is our teacher of math and college or career. She is our homeroom teacher.
We don’t always start out with her early in the day for online school. Well, we start out with her after our lunch break. Although we may have little time, she makes the work seem fun and easy when it’s really complicated. And sometimes if she has already explained half of the assignment while the class is still working on it, I go back in and find some more answers and have five or one more questions to answer when I’m on the assignment.
When she assigns the assignment, I typically try to finish the whole thing without help, but sometimes I may need a little help with the assignment because it can get a little hard, but sometimes it can be a little easy. And that’s why I think my teacher, Mrs. Adam, of Genesee STEM Academy, Flint, Michigan, should win the $1,000.
