STARSHINE SCHOOLS

The mission of StarShine is to distribute a nationwide, scalable model for creating schools and community training centers that inspire, teach, track and improve student achievement and graduation, especially for underserved and migrant communities. The accomplishment of this mission will result in developing a peaceful world, sustainable job creation with people prepared to reach their life goals. History: The first StarShine Academy was formed similar to a one-room school house as a kindergarten through 12+ grade, in response to and the year after 9-11, on September 3rd, 2002 with 28 kids. It is a state and charity funded school started in an unused church building, wired for high speed Internet, painted by community volunteers, modeled after other successful schools, and leveraging strategic partnerships with corporations and government for education materials and internships. StarShine's site was at the time in the highest crime rate, highest student attrition and teen pregnancies, 98% Hispanic. The schools now operate at capacity, and are used as models to improve and create other community learning centers. They are opened from 7am to 6pm to include parents, business leaders and the community in classes. The neighborhoods had previously been some of the worst sites in Arizona for drive-by shootings and the park across the street was populated mostly by drug dealing, crime ridden inhabitants, many of whom made the park their resting place at night. The neighborhood community pool had been drained and the homes in the area looked as if all hope for vibrancy ended many years ago. There was an overall ugliness that appears when beauty, hope and dreams become so clouded that trash, sickness and despair seem normal and thus are allowed to continue to grow. The school site and surrounding neighborhood has a vibrant community feeling now. Homes in the area have been cleaned and renovated. As beauty and hope began to grow within the walls of a little school, the energy was infused in nearly every surrounding neighbor. The phenomena that occurred was one of the reasons the school was chosen as a model site for peace initiative summits with the United Nations and a sustainability conference for September 11-21, 2004, that continues yearly. As a United Nations team visited the school, one of them remarked that at the smallest level, the school has shown the world the way that we all can turn into a more peaceful, artful, more interdependent world. The first graduation ceremony for 2004, held at the Arizona Capitol Senate Building graduated previous dropouts who each inspired the audience with their eloquent speeches. Vernon Parker, now Mayor of Paradise Valley, as past USDA Asst.Sec., Head of U.S. Civil Rights, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, and State Superintendent, Tom Horne gave keynote speeches because of the unusual success of the school. StarShine Academy International Schools maintain dual accreditation, both international as well as U.S. and believes that to instill greatness, we must value and support the uniqueness in each and every person and to help EACH child to build their individual success. Seeing each child as a necessary and integral, unique part of the universe has brought once ignored children and their families into almost unheard of success, scholastically as well as socially. This year, the school opens another school, StarShine Academy Global Transitions for Refugee Children from war-torn countries. There are 68 languages among them. This completes three schools in Phoenix and one in Sudan near Darfur. We will begin distributing StarShine Academy Field School in A Box on Oct. 1 throughout Liberia with Feed The Children.