King Elementary School: Half-Pint Poets. Full-Size Hearts.
A Half-Pint Poet steps to the mic at King’s Family Night.
Like shoppers in line for first crack at a hot new product they were waiting for the doors to open at yesterday’s afterschool Family Night event at King Elementary School. And what a celebratory circus of kids and their futures it was!
Harding Middle School’s DJ Wolfpack was the ringmaster, setting the musical tone in the circular entryway. The library was given over to reps from Iowa State University’s ISU4U tuition defrayal program, a main attraction for mothers like Jessica White. Her daughter Zariah is the oldest of five. If each of them completes 5th grade at King (or Moulton), 8th grade at any of the DMPS middle schools, graduates from any of the DMPS high schools and qualifies for admission to ISU upon application there they will qualify for 100% tuition scholarships.
“My husband is a Hawkeye fan but even he has to admit this is a great opportunity that ISU is providing,” said White. Fifth graders like Zariah were signing letters-of-intent on Thursday, formally establishing a link that will enable ISU to track prospective enrollees and help keep them on track, according to the university’s coordinator of ISU4U Katherine Richardson Bruna. “It really is an exciting partnership between us and Des Moines Public Schools,” she said. “And you can see here today that the King community appreciates it.”
Yes, you could. King had the feeling of a satellite campus orbiting the main one only thirty miles and several short years away.
ISU education students manned many of the hallway booths that were set-up like sideshows to enthrall future Cyclones. Another popular attraction was the dunk tank “staffed” by King Principal Peter LeBlanc. Enough pizza to serve hundreds drew a queue in the cafeteria. But the real highlight had to be the half-pint poets that made their public debut in front of a packed house.
More than a dozen 3rd-5th graders were invited by King Counselor Nyla Mowery to participate in a spoken word poetry workshop that began meeting twice weekly after school in January. The kids are mentored by seasoned veterans from the Movement 515 program that began several years ago at Harding Middle School and has since mushroomed into all of the DMPS high schools and become a force for change in the broader community.
It was a perfectly poetic storm that gathered in the King gym: Shakespeare’s birthday; hours before the Movement 515 SLAM finals at the Temple for Performing Arts downtown would decide the team that will represent the district at this summer’s Brave New Voices International Youth Poetry Festival in Atlanta; half-pint protégés about to step up to the mic for the first time…and they threw down thunder and lightning about haters and friends and food and fear. “HALF-PINTS, WHOLE HEARTS!” roared one of the chants. Fingers snapped and hands clapped, en masse. The rookies couldn’t wait to take their turns. No sooner did one finish and bounce off the podium, beaming, than the next hopped up to hear their brave new voice boom throughout the room.
Fifth graders Sofia Mayrivero and Anna Vu were two of the petite poets. They’re best friends, Anna’s poem revealed, right after the line about “my life is complicated but that’s something for another poem…”
There are many more where Thursday’s fabulous batch came from.
