Cool Classics Inc.

“Description;Amount^Expense reimbursements;120|Rebates from Vendors;466^Total;586^”

“Description;Amount^Books and Supplies;1651|Computer and Internet;175|Field Trips;3257|Honoraria;574|Insurance;1468|Meals and Entertainment;69|Licenses and Fees;112|Telephone;418|Local Transportation;1389^Total;9113^”

“Description;EOY Amount^Expense Reimbursements Payable;390|Payroll Tax Liabilities;9008^Total;9398^”

“Cool Classics! was recently honored as one of 12 winners of the 2017 National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award. The award is given by the NEA, the NEH, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services, in cooperation with the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies. The award recognizes the country's best creative youth development programs for using engagement in the arts and the humanities to generate a wide range of positive outcomes. The awardees - chosen from a pool of 350 nominations and 50 finalists - were also recognized for improving literacy and language abilities, communication and performance skills, and cultural awareness. Among the program's many other accomplishments, Cool Classics! students were honored to record with Ella Jenkins, the internationally known children's singer and musician, in 2009 for Smithsonian Folkways Recordings. That CD, Ella Jenkins: A Life of Song, was recently released in connection with the opening of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Student outcomes for the program include increased enthusiasm for reading and improved reading skills, improved critical-thinking skills, better reading comprehension and analysis, mastery of vocabulary and literary terms, ability to link the arts and ideas to their own lives, improved analytic skills among older students. Indicators of program success include high average attendance rate of 85% or higher, voluntary engagement in recreational reading at home, high ratings from students, parents and teachers. Students enjoy borrowing privileges from the Ella Jenkins Lending Library, which has nearly 1,500 volumes that can be checked out and read at home. Participants have read more than 3,330 books since the lending library began seven years ago. School principals and administrators, classroom teachers and parents report improved in-class and at-home academic achievement and social-emotional behavior. Students also see gains on standardized tests where they score ahead of their peers not in Cool Classics! programs. Standardized test results demonstrate improvement in students' reading and vocabulary comprehension, accompanied by their increasingly sophisticated grasp of literature, art and ideas. Cool Classics! began tracking its students' standardized test scores in the 2012-13 school year and participants have almost always outpaced their peers not in the program on the all the standardized tests administered - sometimes by as much as 33 points. Recent highlights include a gain of 28.3 points in reading speed and accuracy among second graders at one school in the 2014-15 school year - nearly double the growth of their peers not in Cool Classics! Third graders at this school also outpaced their peers at a similar rate on the NWEA (Northwest Evaluation Association) test, gaining 8.9 points in contrast to the grade average of 3.7. The year before saw an average of 10.7 points improvement in 2013-14 reading scores by Cool Classics! first graders at one school while their peers lost 10.4 points on the same test. Second graders there increased their scores by 50.2 points while those not in the program improved by just 22.6 points.”