Dr. William L. Cobb Elementary School Community Fund

 
 

Dr. William L. Cobb Elementary School has been an integral part of our neighborhood and multi-generational community.

Our school district is facing budget cuts that will affect our ability to maintain our staffing levels or provide support and resources that our students and families so critically deserve.

Of whom:

  • 72% of our students are economically disadvantaged

  • 10% of our families are experiencing homelessness

  • 60% of our students and families are African American and 25% are Latinx

To view this video, type in the password: “CobbTigers”

We are reaching out to you, our community, for donations to support our efforts to continue to serve the well-deserving children of our Dr. William L. Cobb School community.

We are hoping to raise $100,000 by the end of the 2023-2024 school year.

Please donate today!

Small Schools Work

We are a small school with 150 students enrolled from PreK to 5th grade, including:

  • 13 teachers, 

  • 1 instructional coach

  • Reading Specialist

  • School Social Worker

  • Elementary Advisor 

  • Family Liaison

  • 10 paraeducators

  • Special Education service providers 

  • A range of traveling teachers (Art, Music, Library, PE, Computer Science)

Each member of this team is a critical part of a system of integrated and structured support for our diverse student population. 

Anti-Racism

As we face the reality of our past and its failures we have embarked on a visionary path to assess and remedy the injustices that we can control. We are engaging in a reflective process to shine a light on how institutional racism and personal biases affect the school, its practices and policies, and ourselves.  

We have created an Anti-Racism Task Force, which has become a critical component of the instructional, cultural and academic work we strive to accomplish. The Anti-Racism Task Force has earned grants to fund Racial Healing Circles and Family Focus Groups where we compensated our families to take the time to share with us about their experiences at Cobb. 

We aim to not only shine a light, but hold up a mirror. It is challenging, painful and necessary. It is also a hallmark of our commitment to moving beyond the fallacious belief that racism is the result of immediate actions of bias, rather than a deeply embedded part of our culture and therefore ourselves.

Trauma

Many of our students have faced, and continue to face, some sort of trauma - isolation, anxiety, loss.  Many have also experienced the generational trauma associated with racism - hatred, fear, marginalization, economic exclusion, housing discrimination, over-policing and a culture that has normalized “whiteness” as an ideal that all people of color should aspire to.

  • 72% of our students qualify for a free or reduced lunch

  • 10% of our families are experiencing homelessness

  • 78% of our students are children of color

  • 21% of our students receive Special Education Services

Each of these groups, through action or negligence, continues to experience discrimination. The weight of this is evident. One in six of our students receive some form of trauma therapy or mentoring through the school and our partners.

Partnerships

Our students and families can no longer afford to wait for the promises of equity that have been made over the years. Equity is the result of excellent, dedicated and reflective people combined with the significant resources required to support the work that they do. 

Our outreach to you, our community, is not an act of desperation.  Rather, if we may be so bold, it is a reminder that you are our neighbors and we are your school.  We are not just that beautiful building on the corner.  We are an institution that has and must continue to serve the children who arrive on our campus for the next 100 years.