Katharine Jefferts Schori, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church of the United States.

Imago Dei has been designated a Jubilee Ministry Center by the Episcopal Church! We are now part of a network of more than 600 Jubilee Centers in the United States that address both the symptoms and causes of poverty by providing direct services to people in need, such as food, shelter, education and healthcare, and also by advocating for human rights.

A delegation from Imago Dei joined the Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, Presiding U.S. Bishop, and the Right Reverend Kirk Smith, Bishop of Arizona,  in April at a celebration of Arizona Jubilee Centers that included St. Andrew’s Children’s Clinic in Nogales; All Saints Church in Safford; the Naco Wellness Center in Naco; and the Empowerment Through Education Program for Sudanese, Interfaith Cooperative Ministries and St. Andrew’s Church in Tucson; among many others. The gathering, held at St. Andrew’s Church, affirmed the Jubilee Mission of helping those in need in our communities and welcomed Imago Dei into the network. On the occasion, Bishop Jefferts Schori said, “You are restoring dignity . . . you are claiming people as God’s beloved by what you are meeting in them. And I think you are receiving some of the same from them. You know what the gift is in participating in someone else’s life. That story that you are able to tell the wider world is transformative, and it invites other people to extend themselves. Thank you for what you are doing. Thank you for your witness, your presence, and your love for God’s people.”

And we would like to thank everyone in the Imago Dei community for making our work as a school and now as a Jubilee Center a reality.

Check out this video about the Jubilee network, featuring Reverend Christopher Johnson, Officer of Social & Economic Justice for the Episcopal Church:

Follow the Jubilee Ministry on Facebook and Twitter.

National First Place, School of the Future Competition

The competition combines research, arts, math, language arts and science, as students design environmentally responsive schools that enhance learning and engage the surrounding community. The competition encourages students from all over the world to work in teams to plan and design a school that will improve the learning environment and the facility’s energy efficiency, as well as being sensitive to the environment.

“Schools that foster student achievement, conserve resources and enhance the surrounding community are vital to every neighborhood nationwide,” said NAR President Moe Veissi, broker-owner of Veissi & Associates Inc., in Miami. “Realtors(R) care deeply about improving communities and these creative designs produced by six outstanding student teams do just that. Along with Realtors(R) in every community, I am honored to recognize each team in the School of the Future Design Competition.”

Each student-led team is required to submit a project model made from recycled materials, a short video or presentation, and a 750-word narrative description outlining the planning process and the reasoning behind their design. Six finalist teams receive a trip to D.C. to present their projects to the national design jury. The competition is sponsored by the National Association of Realtors and the Council of Educational Facility Planners International along with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the American Institute of Architects, the American Federation of Teachers, the National Education Association, the U.S. Green Building Council and more than 20 associations and private companies.

This year, Imago Dei presented a plan for a school designed for the children of Niger in West Africa. The plan calls for using local resources such as plastic bottles and bamboo and is mainly powered by solar components. The structure would use natural light and shade sails of woven bamboo to provide relief from the extreme heat. The students also designed a portable school made out of the same materials as those for the permanent structure. The portable school would allow children to attend classes who cannot travel to the main campus.

While they were in Washington, our students met with the Ambassador from Niger, toured the Capitol, ran into former Arizona Representative Jim Kolbe and brought home first prize! Congratulations!

In front of the Embassy of the West African nation of Niger

With the Nigerien Ambassador

Why are they meeting with the Ambassador from Niger? In previous years, Imago Dei’s students developed designs for their own future school campus; this year, the students designed a school campus for a partner village in Niger, West Africa. Their design uses renewable materials that are either locally available or affordable and energy-efficient.

“Niger is a desert nation, so it shares some similarities with our own Sonoran Desert,” said Imago Dei Visual Arts Specialist Linda Cato, who accompanied the students to Washington. “The students learned a great deal about the variety of desert ecosystems possible in the world and were able to apply their knowledge to potentially help their peers in an extremely resource-limited country.”

The winning design incorporated outer walls constructed of Polli-Bricks, a lightweight, transparent material made from recycled plastic water bottles. The campus structures can be reconfigured easily to accommodate changing classroom needs, and their design incorporates vernacular style elements, so that the campus fits seamlessly into its surroundings. And the resourcefulness and inventiveness of their design skills has led them once again to Washington! Here they are posing with the former Representative from Arizona, Jim Kolbe:

With former Representative Jim Kolbe

Good luck in the competition!!

http://az-esf.org/

Joanne Vigilant: “…Rounding the corner is Ms. Vigilant! She knows how to psych out ignorance and make the play, allowing all of her students to learn.  Along with her strong code of ethics and principles, Ms. V brings to Imago Dei her years of teaching experience, her ability to work with young people and a her own enthusiasm for learning.  Ms. Vigilant, working alongside a passionate team of teachers, will no doubt bring it home for a touchdown!”

“Ignorance -0, Learning-6!”

Kittredge Bret Harte: “…..And trailing right behind her 7th and 8th grade team members is Kitt Bret Harte, fresh from her winning team in the Midwest…..back to her home team in Tucson in the 5th grade class. Kitt teaches Science and Language arts, and believes that establishing great relationships with students, families and faculty is the season pass to higher level thinking and great performance. She and her co-teachers will be cheering on her team to the finish line!”

Judy Sensibar: “Running alongside her teammates is Judy Sensibar, teaching 7th and 8th grade Language Arts. She’s a well-seasoned player, having taught English as far away as Jakarta, Indonesia, and as close to home as the University of Arizona Poetry Center. She enjoys the comradeship of a spirited staff and the support to work one-on-one with students. Small classes and a strong work ethic should make this a winning year.”

I would like to introduce you to the coolest middle school in Tucson, and the one that needs our help more than any other.  It is called Imago Dei ( Image of God in Latin) and is run by a female Episcopal priest named Anne Sawyer.

They are looking at relocating to downtown, offer a ten hour a day, 11 month a year program, tuition free for 80 inner city kids.  All of their first graduates went on to the high schools of their choice. They intend to remain a middle school and view their mission as preparing kids for a premier high school experience.  I have just given them $100,000.  They are not a charter program but a tuition free private school that relies on community support. They can receive corporate tax credit gifts, which is the easiest way for your business to contribute by earmarking your Arizona income tax to the school. They are facing some real cash flow problems.

I would love for you to visit the school.  I know you all do a lot already but this is the most worthy cause I have seen in Tucson in a long time, and I don’t ask often.

Fletcher

Fletcher’s email generated this wonderful response from Bruce Dusenberry, President of Horizon Moving Systems. Thank you, Bruce, for the kind words and generous support.

Imago Dei is indeed an outstanding school.  It is where Lynne and I contribute our private school tax credit donation every year. I just wanted to thank you for your amazing generosity and to affirm your opinion that a contribution to Imago Dei middle school is an outstanding investment in the future success of underprivileged inner city kids. The school is truly in need right now and any donations will be deeply appreciated.

Bruce Dusenberry

Fletcher and Bruce are true champions to our cause.  Thank you to all of our friends who continue to support Imago Dei.  It is because of your generosity that our students will have the tools to live into their full potential.

We’re especially excited about our new project based-learning, an instructional model that involves students in investigations of compelling problems that culminate in authentic products.  Projects put students in active roles to solve problems, make real decisions, investigate, and document their findings, just as they will in real world situations.  Documented benefits include increased attendance, growth in self-reliance, improved attitudes toward learning, and greater academic gains than other models.

Imago Dei students have been involved in this type of model in the past, when they won the national CEFPI (Council of Educational Facility Planners International) School of the Future Design Competition. They combined sustainable building practices with architectural innovation to engineer a green campus that we hope to actually build in the near future.

Based on the creative nature of project-based learning, our art teacher, Mrs. Cato, will be traveling to all our classes this year to infuse a visual art component in every curriculum.  She will be developing projects based on what is happening within each teacher’s class that will challenge the students to solve problems that do not have a predetermined answer.

Project-based learning is going to provide a very exciting school year and lots of challenges.  We are all looking forward to the creativity and imagination of our students.

• In a national sample of 25,000 students, those with high levels of arts learning experiences earned higher grades and scored better on standardized tests than those with little or no involvement in the arts, regardless of socioeconomic status;
• According to the U.S. Department of Labor, arts instill “foundational skills” needed for employment, like reasoning, decision-making, thinking creatively, problem-solving and visualizing;
• Students consistently involved in music and theater show higher results in standardized tests in mathematics and reading;
• An 11-year national study that examined youth in low-income neighborhoods found that those who participated in arts programs were more likely to be high academic achievers, to participate in math and science fairs and to be elected to public office than those who had little or no arts education.

Finally, in a three-year study of at-risk and delinquent youth, arts programs were found to increase academic performance, improve attitudes and behaviors, reduce delinquency and increase communication skills.

“Art is central to a civil society. Kids who create don’t destroy.”— Terry Semel, former Chairman and CEO, Warner Brothers Music

Citations: U.S. Department of Labor, Secretary’s Commission, 1991; Community Counts: How Youth Organizations Matter for Youth Development; YouthARTS Development Project, U.S. Department of Justice, National Endowment for the Arts, Americans for the Arts, 1996-99.