Our Neighborkids are Some Serious Award Winners!

Today puppy Gus, Holly, and I stopped by Amorie’s house and were chatting with his family.  Suddenly Amorie’s grandma, Miss Barbara, called over to him and said, “Amorie, did you tell Miss Allison about your awards?”  When he said no, she replied, “I can’t believe you didn’t tell Miss Allison about them!”  At that, Amorie darted inside, and in a few minutes he came out with not one but a handful of awards that he received in school this week!  It turns out that at Gocio Elementary, this is a time of the school year when “Renaissance Awards” are given out to students, as well as classroom awards.  

Thanks to Holly, who shared her Gocio student agenda book with me later when we got home so that I could read some about the Gocio school traditions and culture, I soon learned that these are a few categories included in the Renaissance Awards:

• The “Principal’s Award” is given to students with a GPA of 3.0 or higher, O’s (outstanding) and S’s (satisfactory) in all academic areas, and behavior and work habits that reflect ongoing student effort and no office referrals resulting in in-school or out-of-school suspensions. 
• The “Super Citizen” award is given to students who are respectful to others and positive role models.
• The “Awesome Attendance” award is for students who are present and on time every day.

Luckily, I had my camera with me when Amorie came out with his handful of awards, so I said, “Amorie, let’s take a picture - this is definitely a photo op!”  The next thing I knew, Amorie was offering to share his awards with Holly, so they both could be in the picture.  Holly told us that she got one of the same awards that Amorie got, so that is the one she is sharing in the picture.

Once we snapped the photo, lots of other neighborkids started talking about how they got awards at school too!  So here are some pics of some preschool award winners I had the honor of photographing on Amorie’s front porch:

  

It didn’t stop there.  Soon Ray Ray was saying, “Miss Allison, we have lots down at our house too – why don’t you drive down to our house to come see?”  And at that, a bunch of kids hopped on their bikes and sped down the street, so Holly and I hopped in the car to follow.  DuShun told us that his bicycle tire was flat, so he hopped in the backseat with Holly too.  To add to the excitement, DuShun brought along Semaj’s electric guitar, and as we were driving down the block he was playing it, and even teaching Holly how to play.  DuShun is one talented musician!

Before long we were at Amorie’s cousins’ house (Ray Ray, DuShun, Quan, James and Semaj).   Ray Ray had already announced to her brothers that we were on our way to see their awards, so when we arrived…WOW!  They weren’t kidding!  I couldn’t believe how many awards they had to show us!  Turns out we’ve got some serious high achievers in our neighborhood! 

  

What a tremendous discovery we made today – finding out that our neighborhood is chock-full of award-winning neighborkids.  This is yet another reason I am so pleased to be living in Central-Cocoanut, as a neighbor.