John Dibert Charter School

We arrived safely in NOLA on Sunday, August 8 and began to explore the city as we acclimated to the 90 degree weather. We met with Joshua Fertitta, outreach coordinator with First Line Schools, who shared with us the history of charter schools in NOLA as well as the work at Dibert school. Today we hopped on the Canal Street streetcar and arrived at the school at 9:00 am. Several of us assisted the preschool teacher with cleaning and setting up the preschool "cottage" across the street from the main building. Others were involved with working with classroom teachers setting up their rooms. The dynamics of the group are the most interesting as the participants range broadly in age, academic experiences and backgrounds. Each of us is a teacher in some way, but some of us are organic farmers, former accountants, specialist in reading and math, and organizational skills. Tomorrow we need to finish the preschool classroom as children are coming Wednesday. Primary children are arriving gradually throughout the week. The group has already bonded well, sharing stories of their NLU programs, their eagerness to teach someday and what they have learned already from each other and their service work.