Fellow Rotarians:
 
Guy Lynch, Lynn and I kicked off the Kideract season on Monday, October 19th, at Kermit R. Booker Sr. Empowerment Elementary School.  The topic for this first session of the school year was "What is Rotary?"
 
Booker Principal Dr. Beverly Mathis was her usual gracious and dynamic self.  The 40 or so 5th graders present were uniformly polite, attentive, and responsive.
 
Guy presented the students with an explanation of the Kideract program.  Then I told them basic facts about Rotary and about some of our major service projects including the drive to eradicate Polio.
 
Lynn followed by using our Rotary motto of "Service above Self" to engage the students in a discussion of how they can be of service.  She provided examples of successful service projects carried out by young people.
 
Then Guy and I finished with a discussion and recitation of The Four-Way Test.  This included some test cases where the students told the group why and how the examples met or failed the test.
 
Dr. Mathis questioned the group about specific points we had made during our presentations, and their responses were gratifyingly accurate.
 
Kermit R. Booker and Bertha Ronzone Elementary Schools are indeed at-risk schools as evidenced by their "2008-2009 School Accountability Summary Reports."  These reports are available on the Clark County School District Web Site, www.ccsd.net.
 
Booker had 445 students of whom 131 students had Limited English Proficiency and virtually all students qualified for Free or Reduced Cost Lunch.  The Booker transiency rate was 35.1%.
 
Ronzone had 806 students with 409 having Limited English Proficiency and 614 qualified for Free or Reduced Cost Lunch.  The Ronzone transiency rate was 43.4%
 
In my opinion, we are providing a valuable service to these students and to the community.  As Rotarians, we can be proud of this example of Service above Self.
 
The Future of Rotary is in Your Hands.