April 5, 2024
Three of CLCI’s sites – Oyler, Roberts, and the Academy of World Languages – will be honored by Adopt a Class at their annual celebration on May 15 at Duke Convention Center.
Tiffaney Hamm, CLCI’s Director of Enrichment at Oyler, a prek-12 community learning center, will be awarded the Adopt a Class Champion of the Year. Adopt a Class, a unique business team mentoring program, started as a pilot program at Oyler in 2003 by Bill Burwinkel, a business owner next door to Oyler. The first group of mentors were Bill’s employees who visited their “adopted” classrooms several times a year, hosted a visit to their business, and maintained a pen pal partnership in between visits. Under Hamm’s energetic leadership and with the dedicated and collaborative partnership of the Adopt A Class staff, Oyler is now 100% adopted with teams from 12 different companies including the Port Authority of Greater Cincinnati, Duke Energy, and US Bank.
The Junior League of Cincinnati and the American Planning Association, two non-profit Adopter teams working with the students at the Academy of World Languages, are finalists for the 2024 Best Nonprofit Team. The Junior League’s involvement with the AWL Kindergarten has spans more than a decade with most of the original members of the team still providing unique enrichment opportunities. As AWL is one of the few public elementary schools in the country offering Russian language instruction, the Junior League team brings the Cincinnati Ballet to the classroom to learn about the Nutcracker ballet. The League also underwrites a trip to see the Nutcracker performed.
The engagement of the teacher with the Adopt a Class team is essential to the success of the partnership and Ms. Judt, a teacher at Roberts Academy, will be recognized as one of the three 2024 Teachers of the Year.