Rainbow Primary School

After two years, we finally got the best meeting ever... the managers (Usha and myself) listened. We delegated out to the teachers some planning items. Most important, the feedback loop from teachers to management is firmly, firmly established. Usha Madam clearly enjoys her role as "listener" and "facilitator." I am so proud!!

The exams held last April had a big surprise. We got an "A" average for the school, over 1/3 of the students got an "A" grade, and only 10% failed outright. (These were all students who came less than 100 days out of the school year of 220 days) All those high A's (90%+) really carried the school into the overall "A" average. THANK YOU to those A students and their outrageously dedicated teachers! It turns out, they were all the students who ALSO attended over 200 days of school. We also found out from the data that we are doing great in recruiting the bulk of the most needy children, but we are missing students who are "Scheduled Caste." My thinking is they need special outreach programs to get them into the school. Our operating mode of "no fees" remains essential to reaching students like these.

The MV Foundation started 20 years ago in this state (Andhra Pradesh) to combat child labor. They now work in six states. I hope they plan to expand to every state. They work with minimal fuss, maximum understanding of the ground realities in slum and village India, keep low overhead, and produce results. Here is a picture of the parents, community leaders (called "Gram Panchayats"), youth committee members, and two MV Foundation staffers (far right) at Khanapur village. The man standing on the right edge of the group is Mallesh, he is the MV Foundation staff member dedicated to the Rainbow School back in Masthan Nagar. He took me to Khanapur to see a functioning, effective community-MV Foundation partnership. Khanapur is one hour east of Hyderabad(see map here ). In our slum, we are really struggling with building community relations. This visit gave me great hope. The original mission for the Khanapur Community - MV Foundation partnership was to focus on a handful ...

This is Anita from WIM talking about her work in the slums in Hyderabad. We are lucky to have WIM on our team! They bring milk and eggs to the kids every Sunday.

The Rainbow School's plot for the new building is now outlined on Google maps. Check this out!

Here is a funny video of one of our engineer and our contractor explaining how the "Great Wall of Mastan Nagar" was constructed. A piece of video on our rather sad and pathetic temporary home, "the shed," is at the end. The landlady raised the rent again on that place. I think she should pay us just to be there!

The new school year is starting off strong. There are eighty-four new students, three new teachers, and an entire new staff of helpers (except for Beeb the cook, of course). Here is a picture of our students who won "Best Attendance." From the left: Santosh, Baleshawri, and Suman. They got to see Spiderman at the IMAX and eat candy and ice cream until they could eat no more. At the building site all is well. The team constructed “the Great Wall of Mastan Nagar,” our fourteen foot high retaining wall. The contractor starts pouring the foundation tomorrow. I also visited an amazing Naandi-built government school in central Hyderabad to see what ours will look like (except much, much smaller) post-construction. I am very jealous of this school: trees, garden, open spaces, classrooms the size of our entire first floor, and a computer room! Back at the school, after planning and many good ideas, Usha Madam has come up with a “scheme” to help integrate the slowest learne...