The Donors Choose project received support from 48 donors raising a total of $5,681. This money is going to be used to buy a class set of rechargeable TI-84 graphing calculators. Various donations came from the McCallum community including students, parents, grandparents and former McCallum employees.
Furthermore there were matched donations by DonorsChoose and various contributions from businesses like Texas Gas Service. Each donor accompanied their donations with a heartfelt note and message to the math department. Austin ISD budget cuts have spread throughout many schools so having a program like Donors Choose has provided essential resources that are expensive.
These calculators will benefit the algebra students especially as they prepare for the STAAR exam. It will help them build a foundation for their future math courses.
For math student and junior Olivia Pittman calculators have been an important tool in her everyday life here at MAC.
“I think it is important for Mac to have good calculators because they are an important tool within multiple subjects,” Pittman said. “Sometimes calculators have a learning curve, and it is good to know how to use them before going out into the world.”
Pittman believes that having calculators provided to the students gives everyone an equal opportunity to use a calculator.
“They are also expensive,” Pittman said. “They are not always feasible for every child to have their own so providing equal access is important.”
Pittman is grateful that McCallum gave her the opportunity to use calculators on standardized tests.
“While it’s not necessary to use a calculator for success, it can be incredibly helpful to know certain shortcuts and tricks for quick paced testing,” Pittman said. “Getting practice with this during my math classes at mac has definitely helped me during standardized testing.”
Piitman feels content to know that people are donating to get calculators.
“It is good knowing people care about our education,” Pittman said. “It also shows people care about making sure everyone gets high quality equal opportunities.”
For math teacher and department chair Angie Seckar-Martinez, Donors choice has helped her gain the resources to support her students and lead them to success.
“At the beginning of the year I knew I wanted to fundraise to get rechargeable color calculators in at least every algebra classroom,” Seckar-Martinez said. “Algebra is a foundational class and students in this class need to pass an End of Course exam for the course.”
Math teacher Jada Stewart helped start the Donors Choose on behalf of the math department. The math department advertised for this project by handing out flyers at Back to School Knight.
“We got many donations that evening, many of which came with matching funds,” Seckar-Martinez said. “Throughout the rest of the semester funds continued to come in from individuals and businesses.”
Last summer, Seckar-Martinez created a Donors Choose for a set of 10 calculators and was amazed by how quickly it got funded.
“Thanks to MacJ, the project got widely shared and quickly funded,” Seckar-Martinez said. “The messages from McCallum families and other supporters uplifted me.”
There are several other teachers who have also used Donors Choose. Another math teacher who benefited from this Donors Choose is Katie Liesmann. When this project started Liesman didn’t even know these calculators would go to her own students.
“We raised money as a team to get more calculators for the department,” Liesmann said. “But I didn’t know they would be for my classes until I got a message saying your calculators are here. That was an exciting moment.”
When Leismann told her students that they would get to use the calculators they were excited to know how Donors Choose and the community helped produce them.
“They generally feel shocked when they find out how much the set of calculators cost and that the community donated to help us get them,” Liesmann said. “We went through the process of giving the calculators names and assigned one to each student that they will always use. “
Liesmann was not too surprised to hear that the community helped fund these calculators due to the amount of support the community always gives to McCallum.
“I am not short on gratitude or appreciation that they got funded,” Liesmann said. “We are lucky in that regard because not all schools have the type of community support that we have.”
