Edwards Elementary afterschool classroom receives a visit from Colorado’s lieutenant governor

Lt. Gov. Dianne Primavera visited the PwrHrs Afterschool program at Edwards Elementary School on Wednesday, April 3, to learn about the role of the program her office oversees, Serve Colorado, in Eagle County. Primavera spent time in a classroom of fourth and fifth graders under the leadership of AmeriCorps member and future teacher Tiffany Meekey.

“I have a special affinity for AmeriCorps because my daughter was an AmeriCorps member,” Primavera said.

Her daughter completed a year of service in a middle school in Lafayette, she said, and one of her daughter’s 8-year-old students later became an AmeriCorps member himself, and then Primavera’s executive assistant.

Serve Colorado is one of five programs the lieutenant governor’s office oversees. Serve Colorado provides support and resources to community organizations to fulfill local needs through service. AmeriCorps Colorado is one of three programs Serve Colorado supports to promote its mission.

One of Primavera’s goals with Serve Colorado is to increase pathways for transitioning service to employment.

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AmeriCorps members in Eagle County are organized and connected with local schools through the Vail Valley Foundation’s YouthPower365, which aims to provide year-round programming for local children.

“AmeriCorps pretty much packages our entire mission in one thing: Meeting the needs of kids, and service to the community,” said Sara Amberg, YouthPower365’s executive director. 

The AmeriCorps position with YouthPower365 is called Peak Pathfinders, which is now in its third year. There are 14 AmeriCorps members currently in the program, spread across nine sites, working with students ranging in age from kindergarten through seniors in high school.

The role of the AmeriCorps participant varies depending on the needs of the school, Amberg explained. Members typically provide academic and socioemotional support wherever it is most needed in the school where they are assigned.

“I would say this year, in particular, maybe some of last year, we started to see really clear results, of kids that were on academic probation, they would go work with a (AmeriCorps) member, and then they would be off academic probation,” Amberg said.

Meekey is a Peak Pathfinders AmeriCorps member in her third year of AmeriCorps. She is one of two Eagle County-based AmeriCorps members in the teacher residency program, which requires that AmeriCorps members be in their second or third year of service and sets them up to become full-time teachers. It is the first year of the teacher residency program in Eagle County.

Last year, Meekey was stationed in Gypsum Creek Middle School, providing support with academics and socioemotional skills. She decided to stay in Eagle County, and in AmeriCorps, to follow the path of becoming a teacher.

“I thought it would be a really good way to continue giving back to the community because that’s something that’s very important to me, and also a way to get into teaching,” Meekey said.

Retaining AmeriCorps members within Eagle County is a goal of the program. “Every cohort that we have in our third year, we are going to try to keep them around in the county,” said Walter Gilles, YouthPower365 AmeriCorps manager.

At Edwards Elementary School, Meekey provides general support in classrooms, has a mentor teacher with whom she works directly, leads literacy and math small groups for first graders, and teaches her PwrHrs Afterschool group.

Meekey has a bachelor’s degree in psychology, a skill that often comes in handy in the classroom. Meekey’s psychology background comes out in her teaching, said Ma. Julieta Cavallo, a teacher at Edwards Elementary School and the AmeriCorps site supervisor for YouthPower365.

“When she’s with kids, working with kids, you can see her passion there,” Cavallo said.

Meekey is working toward her alternative certification through Colorado Mountain College and can begin work as a fully qualified teacher while finishing her final courses in the fall. 

Primavera asked questions about Edwards Elementary School, learning that it is a dual language school, with teaching conducted in English half of the time, and in Spanish the other half of the time.

Ahead of visiting the classroom, Meekey shared a little bit about her PwrHrs group of fourth and fifth graders with Primavera.

“We’ve been doing some project-based learning, and the different activities that we work on, they support skills in literacy, math, critical thinking,” Meekey said.

In the PwrHrs classroom, Primavera shared information about her role with the students.

The students told her they knew that the Lt. Gov. position is “like the vice president.” Primavera spoke about the work she does, from overseeing the Colorado Space Coalition to reducing healthcare costs to acting as the governor when Gov. Polis leaves the state.

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Meekey led her PwrHrs students through a project they had been working on over several days: Creating their own animal shelter.

In pre-established small groups, Meekey’s classroom had already collaboratively constructed logos and preliminary designs. During Primavera’s visit, the students moved to the next stage of the project: Drawing and labeling their plans for their parts of the animal shelter, and then building physical structures out of legos.

During the activity, Meekey and Primavera moved throughout the classroom, chatting with the students about their projects and speaking with each other.

When it was time for Primavera to head back to Denver, Meekey remained in her classroom; even on an eventful day, her students remained her top priority.