Laurel Crabtreet is a second grade teacher at Forest Hills Elementary. She
cares about her students, and they love her too if the cabinet drawer full of letter and drawings in her classroom are any indication.
In an interview with Abbey Walton of Live 5 News, Crabtree elaborates. Forest Hills Elementary falls into the Title I School, and Colleton County School District is a Title I District. “This means that 40% or more of our school population is low income and we’re a low income area,” Ms. Crabtree explains. This designation has made Crabtree aware of an area where her students need a little help. While she wants to expose her students to understand how reading is important, she discovered that reading outside the school is not as simple as one might think.
Many students do not have access to reading materials outside school and some do not have a way to take their child to the library.
Her solution is to provide the students with a book of their own. This book
will be theirs to own, read, and take care of. Her goal is to obtain a gift bag
(decorated with tissue paper) they can take home, a card, a multicolored pen, and most importantly “Oh, the Places You’ll Go” by Dr. Seuss.
Ms. Crabtree’s efforts were noticed. The project is now fully funded and her
hopes of providing more for her students are now a reality.
