A group of teachers at James Hart School have banded together to organize a student Beautification Club that will continue their efforts at dressing up the building.
Their students’ first major projects are bulletin boards. When spring arrives, the volunteers in the afterschool club will move outdoors and into the school’s courtyards to clean up around the outside of the Homewood school and add colorful plants, said teacher Tara Amin.
Teachers Leslie Berry, Valentina Cimino, Xanthia Gaines and Amin took on a beautification project of their own. In one of the school’s main hallways was a wall covered in a type of plastic. The four started to strip away and found three layers of wall covering, including a fabric. That left them with a scarred wall that took lots of special care, including two coats of primer and two coats of chalkboard paint to get a blank wall. The teachers used colorful vinyl to cut out kids in various activities to decorate the wall.
They put in four months of primarily their own time after school to get the wall project done.
District 153 Superintendent Scott McAlister said he appreciates the teachers’ efforts.
“They’ve really done a nice job of dressing it up,” he told school board members at the December meeting.
The teachers have encouraged students at the sixth, seventh and eighth grade school to join the club. Volunteers from all grade levels are working together on the bulletin boards that are brightly colored and give positive messages.
There is a “Scientist of the Month” board highlighting scientists who have made outstanding contributions in the field, a board with positive messages for the LGBTQ Club, and one outside the nurse’s office that has information about asthma.
Their next project is a board students will pass on their way to the counselor’s office. It will have a message of kindness.
“All corners of our building are getting beautified,” said Amin, who gives credit to former Hart staffers Stephanie Wright and Nona Riedel, who had started the Beautification Club several years ago. When they left, the club waned and Amin was anxious to get it started again.
Teacher Cimino believes the club’s efforts will make a difference in the building atmosphere.
“We want kids to be proud of their school,” she said. Making it colorful will help.
The teachers hope the club will sponsor a money-raising effort to purchase an electronic bulletin board in the commons area.
