Cool Classics Inc.

“PPP Loan Foregiveness”

“Honoraria, Books, Supplies, Internet, Phone, Field Trips and Travel, Mileage, Insurance”

“Credit Card Payable - $22, Expense Reimbursement Payable - $1,564, Payroll Taxes Payable and Withheld Payroll Taxes - $11,328”

“Cool Classics! is a nationally recognized, award-winning, book-based, after-school program that uses arts-integrated, diversity-driven curricula to improve literacy and reading comprehension while developing critical thinking skills and introducing Chicago public school elementary school students to a wide range of arts, humanities and cultures. Since 2006 it has introduced more than 1,208 elementary school children in underserved Chicago communities to the world of ideas. By focusing on close reading, rigorous discussion and deep analysis, a rich learning experience is created for our children that develops core competencies and enriches their understanding of literature, humanities, arts and culture while expanding their vocabulary in an engaging program. Students are held to the highest academic standards and provided with the tools for success. Cool Classics! was honored as one of 12 winners of the 2017 National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award. The award is given by the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities 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 1,600 volumes that can be checked out and read at home. Participants have read more than 5,739 books since the lending library began in the Fall of 2009. They have taken 180 trips to art galleries, libraries, museums, concerts, plays, dance performances, libraries, restaurants, bookstores and more since the 2006 pilot. Students have done 64 performances for their peers, families, teachers and administrators, and created nearly 5,309 artworks, which have been displayed in their schools and local Chicago Public Library branches.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.”