Rainbow Primary School

Today we are visiting to check in with the Rainbow School, deliver school supplies, and (most of all!) design the next year for the school with the teachers and the PRATHAM team. I can't wait!

I wanted to thank each of the teachers! Private Teachers: Meher Jain, English G. Prashanth, 4th Standard P. Raju, Computers and 5th Standard "Computer Raju!" K. Lakshmi Devi Y. Manjula U. Divya K. Renuka S. Sunitha Government Teachers Headmaster, G. Ramulu M. Parameshwari K. Sampath Kumari Thank you Teachers! HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

On Monday, August 18, I was so happy to return to see the Rainbow School. The teachers have made a plan to shift from Telugu to English medium. My friend at Pratham, one of the largest education NGOs -- serving 5 million children in South Asia and Africa -- agreed to help my teachers. My co-partner, Kalpana, is taking the lead on a facilities upgrade. She will oversee an upgrade to the preschool and main building. Kalpana and I have found donors in India and the United States. The children were sharp, completely up on their marks. The teachers were creative, driven, relentless. More to come!

Post by Sheryl Sandberg .

Today we had an excellent set of visitors, more to come. 

While Kappy and I (and Ismail) get the 2012 financial reports ready, the teachers are working hard to implement new ideas in their lesson plans. As usual, we have delays in government salaries for these teachers and delays in payments for various other needs at the school. Kappy is working on ways to help with the cash flow. She spoke to several area papers and received a good response from readers, some went to the trouble to call in and push the government to deliver these payments. Kappy is amazing. In more good news, the Mahindra Foundation is donating salary for a computer teacher for the Rainbow School for the next school year. 

The school continues to grow and expand in healthy ways. Our two teachers who had babies,  Divya and Sunitha, are back! Here is Sunitha in her classroom. The nonprofit partners and the local community continue to support the school. The Indian Literacy Project teacher is conducting ongoing English classes and loaning books from our new library. Very exciting! I have also heard our headmaster is energetically engaging the government to support the school alongside Kalpana Madam. I knew when I left the school in 2008 everything would work out because the teachers, the children and the parents would never let the school fail. It looks likely that the school will be awarded "Best" again for 2012-2013. I wish our sister schools, including the Madhapur Mandal School, all the best but now that Divya and Sunith are back I believe there is extra competition this year!