Plan Would Bring Volunteers’ Knowledge To Schools In/Around: Moran Prairie

Volunteer Roger Cochran envisions Moran Prairie, his neighborhood, as a vast pool of experience and resources that area schools can use.

There are military veterans, world travelers and retirees with more than 20 years’ experience in science, business and even education.

All that knowledge is wasted if people don’t share it, Cochran said.

“We’ve got to get that person who has been to China and get them into the classroom,” he said. If Cochran gets his way, schools will soon be able to tap all those talented people systematically to supplement and enrich their students’ education.

Cochran is proposing that five Moran Prairie public schools - Adams, Hamblen, Moran Prairie and Mullan Road elementaries and Chase Middle School - set up tutoring centers that recruit a pool of experienced volunteers and use them to give children one-on-one tutoring.

Initially the volunteers would offer reading help, but later they would branch out into other subjects.

He still has to sell the individual schools on the idea, he said.

He’s succeeded at Jefferson Elementary, however, and in several Valley schools, and School District 81 officials say they are backing him. He also has the interest of several community organizations, including the Moran Prairie Neighborhood Association and the Southside Senior Activity Center.

Senior citizens are essential to Cochran’s plan. He said seniors make for excellent volunteers.

Older people usually have the right attitude for working with children, he said.

“Patience, time and love,” he said. “And those are the three tools we need to make this happen.”

His idea fits nicely with Spokane School District’s plans, according to Community Partnership Coordinator Marybeth Smith. She said she has been working to accomplish throughout the entire school district what Cochran has suggested for his neighborhood.

The next step for Cochran will be to figure out just how to go about doing that. Smith plans to have databases of volunteers up and running by August, and Cochran said he is trying to generate interest in the community.

Cochran will be presenting his idea, dubbed the Moran Prairie School Reading Program, at the Moran Prairie Association’s quarterly meeting next Thursday. He’s hoping that a new county library being built on Moran Prairie will stimulate interest in a reading tutoring program, he said.