Â鶹´«Ã½

Meeting the academic needs of students even when they are not in the classroom.

Starting this month, Sheffield City Schools is offering a new resource for all grades - Homework Boxes.

Heather Collum is behind the new program.

She serves as the Curriculum and Instruction director for the district.

"Sheffield City Schools are about students and what's best for students and it just always does my heart good when we are doing these kinds of things," said Collum.

She gathered inspiration from an initiative in place at her last school district.

"When you came to kindergarten, when you did your kindergarten assessment like in March when you early registered, you went home with a summer box that would help you practice skills over the summer so just took that and sort of went further with it," Collum said.

Sheffield's boxes include resources based on grade level as well as pencils and several books.

"Provide easy access for students, supplies that are easy to review and practice along with making it a little fun," Collum said. "It also incorporates parent, student, teacher fun each night."

Collum said one of the goals is to get parents involved, especially when it comes to reading.

"Those skills are spiraling skills," said Collum. "It's not something you have to have a degree to know how to help your child with at home." 

The district used leftover federal money from a pandemic education relief program to pay for the boxes.

Collum said it's been so rewarding to bring this project to life.

"Just seeing it come to life and just seeing the boxes go to a student and a student's eyes light up when they get six brand new books from Scholastic to be their own is just a big blessing," Collum said.

According to Collum, the remaining items for the boxes should arrive this week.

She hopes to distribute all of the boxes by Aug. 26.