A Day at Open Doors

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF AN OPEN DOORS STUDENT

Imagine you have jumped into a time machine and are traveling back to your middle school years.  You are walking out of school and rather than heading to an empty home, you are walking towards Open Doors Academy where there are three or more adults waiting anxiously for your arrival. 

You enter the site, throw your bookbag down, and find a table with your friends.  It is Wednesday so you head to the kitchen to help Ms. Debra put snack together.  The Cleveland Foodbank has delivered a filling meal of spaghetti, salad, garlic bread, and milk.  Your stomach is grumbling in anticipation of a full meal.

Snack and Community Announcements

Snack is ready to go and Ms. Debra tells you to let the coordinator, Ms. Tenille know it is time to eat.  You let Ms. Tenille know and then take a seat, to wait your turn.  Your table is called and you and your friends jump up to grab food.  After you grab your snack you rejoin your friends and begin to tell stories about teachers at school and rumors that are spreading about how one of them purposefully gave one of your good friends a detention for doing absolutely nothing!

Ms. Tenille quiets the group down and prepares to go through announcements. You learn that next Friday, Open Doors is going on a field trip to the Recration Center to go ice skating and you are pumped!  He also encourages you to remind your parents about the upcoming Family Night at the Movies, where you will get the opportunity to see "The Blind Side" before anyone else does! Announcements are finished.  It is Wednesday, so you know it is "Braniac Day", a day filled with different opportunities to engage in the arts.  You were presented with a list of choices, Art Class, Poetry Slam, Cooking Classes, The Newsletter Council, or Creative Writing.  You love to cook, so you picked cooking class. It is 3:30pm and it is time to head to your homework room.

Homework Hour

Ms. Tenille tells the group to line up and head to your homework room.  You head to your room where Mr. Chris is waiting for you. You start off with 20 minutes of Academic Challenge. Today you are presented with a fractions game challenge.  You and your friends compete to see who can properly answer the lowest denominator for the fraction on the board.  As you shout out you have the answer, your friend runs up to the board, writes out the correct answer and your team scores a point!  The final score of the game is 12 to 11 and your team wins!  After you finish the game, you pull out your planner and show Ms. Tenille all of your assignments, showing that your teachers signed off on all of your homework.  You pull out your books and begin studying.

Enrichment Hour

An hour passes quickly, it is 4:30pm and it is time to get geared up for cooking class.  Transition time is called and you pack up your bags and run downstairs to meet Ms. Sarah, who is running cooking class that day.  She tells you that today the group will be making personalized pizza!  The other kids in your group along with you decide who is going to do what.

Roles are delegated and everyone gets to work.  You and your friend, Sam, are in charge of cooking the meat.  You head over to the stove and with the help of a John Carroll University Volunteer get ready to cook!    After the meat is done you bring it back to the group and join your friends in assembling pizzas.  Even though you have just eaten a full meal, your stomach starts to grumble again as you anticipate the time when you will get to eat the pizza you are preparing.  Finally, you are done and the pizzas are ready!  A great reward for working hard that day!

Social Time

It is now 5:30pm.  You help Ms. Sarah clean up the kitchen and head upstairs to join your friends.  When you arrive upstairs you notice that the other kids have finished their projects and are also having fun hanging out.  Some of the kids are playing games on the computers, others are playing a game of "Catchphrase".  You look out the window and notice that Mr. Mike has taken a group of students outside to throw around the football.  You ask Ms. Sarah for permission and run outside to join in the game.  Before you know it, it is time to go home.   Arriving home you have dinner with your parents, watch a little TV (remember you finished your homework at Open Doors) and head to bed before the start of the next day!