Anderson Elementary
Anderson Elementary School - Beginning in 2001, ALA Tulsa adopted the second grade class at Anderson, an at-risk school in Tulsa. In the following years, we continued this partnership and moved with the children as they changed grades. Throughout these years, 2001-2005, ALA Tulsa enjoyed working with Anderson in a variety of ways: (1) facilitating donations of warm clothing and school supplies, hosting class parties, rewarding school attendance, providing Christmas “grab bags” and Summer Fun Notebooks for each child in the adopted grade and painting a large mural in the school’s hallway; (2) providing a channel through which various law firms could make direct contributions to the school (computers, desks and supplies); and (3) providing additional hands-on educational opportunities, i.e., mobile aquarium visit and planting flowers in school flower bed.
Anderson is considered a “low-performing” school in the state because more than 30 percent of its students have scored below satisfactory levels in reading, English and math in the past years. However, in September of 2004, the Oklahoma State Department of Education released its Academic Performance Index scores stating that Anderson was one of the two schools showing “the greatest improvements among elementary schools. The API score for Anderson is 1,016, compared to 360 last year.”