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>>Theresa Bierer: A group of graduate students has been going off campus to empower school-aged
students. They are called the power achievement teams and they have been working in two Flagstaff
elementary schools. The Public Achievement Model was created about
ten years ago and has become an international movement, engaging people in citizenship,
democracy, and public work. In Flagstaff it started here at Killip Elementary School.
>>Jacob Dolence: We're talking to the students we are asking them what are your ideas, what
are problems in your community? >>Bierer: These students are part of an afterschool
program designed to help them academically with time set aside to learn about democracy
and how to tackle problems they've identified. >>Dolence: They said the books in the library
are old, they're torn, and they're outdated. So I said "what are you going to do about
that?" >>Bierer: Through public achievement principles
the students work together, raising money for school library books.
>>Dolence: A group of eight kids, who didn't mean the state testing standards, bought a
hundred new books for their library. It was really powerful.
>>Bierer: Other public achievement projects here at Killip include helping a domestic
violence shelter and a community garden, with students learning important life lessons along
the way. >>John Kester: I really saw these kids developing
team building skills, working with other students, really being respectful of other people, where
before they were really trying to talk over each other.
>>Bierer: These skills are powerful for any age group but perhaps especially critical
for the younger generation. >>Kester: So I think it's really important
to get that exposure early on so once they get into middle school/high school they can
already have a sense of how they can make a difference in their community.
>>Bierer: Part of NAU's public achievement work is including university freshman, who
are joining in the effort, training to go into the elementary schools, themselves. The
students working on public achievement projects feel passionate about the programs potential
and its timing. >>Lauren Berutich: I think that our children
are the future, but I think that that is the now. I think we can't say this is for our
grandchildren anymore, because it is imperative now that we empower our children to make a
big difference in their communities. >>Bierer: NAU's public achievement efforts
were started in the city's lower income neighborhood and include community members as well as students
and faculty. >>Romand Coles: When you see it especially
in the neighborhoods where we're working it's a real mix of all different folks, the whole
range of people in flagstaff and when you see people coming together to do that work
it is very powerful, it's infectious. >>Bierer: Through public achievement and successful
projects in the community, NAU is proving democracy is not just a concept
Organizers of the public achievement project would like to see it extended state wide.