Go Above and Beyond: Support May Center for Learning

Dear May Center Friend, 

One of my mentors once told me, “Nobody is born lazy. Human beings, by nature, want to grow into their best selves.”  One of the great joys of my work at May Center is watching a student go above and beyond their own expectations. When a child’s reading level improves by three grade levels after eighteen months of hard work, it is a victory. When a child who used to hide under the table performs in front of a room full of people, it is transformative. Our mission at May Center is to empower students with learning differences to become masters of their own destinies. This is life-saving work. 

This growth is not magic and it only comes about with persistence and grit. When you work with children with learning differences, you see a team of people behind them, going above and beyond the call of duty, and it is this collaboration that is building a foundation for a bright, promising future.

Every day I see parents going above and beyond for their kids; working second jobs to pay for tuition; rearranging their lives to accommodate appointments and stopping at nothing to find the right support for their children. Often these parents are exhausted and worry that they are not enough. And yet, they go on, often with the support of extended families and friends who share their commitment to go above and beyond for the children they love. 

Every day I see our May School teachers going above and beyond to truly “see” each student - agreeing to sponsor reptile club, shooting hoops with a student in the gym, having a lunch date with a student who has had an especially hard day. This year in particular, our May School teachers have gone above and beyond with our new arts integration program, challenging themselves to learn new pedagogy with the goal of bringing more opportunities for design thinking and creative problem solving to their students.

Our vision is to access and impact every child with learning differences not only at May Center, but in the greater Santa Fe community. In order to do that, we must go above and beyond the paradigm of a typical school. Indeed, we see ourselves as an outward-facing organization, developing avenues for service to the greater community:

• Through May Evaluation Center, we provide comprehensive educational evaluations that diagnose learning differences like dyslexia.
   
• Through our teacher training program, we have empowered more than 200 educators in the past year alone to support students who learn differently in their classrooms. 
   
• Through support from grants from Santa Fe County, Frost Foundation and others, we have launched a partnership with Communities in Schools that places May Center tutors in a public school working with small groups of students who have been identified as struggling with reading and writing skills. With more support, our goal is to expand this program to at least four public schools that demonstrate significant need, both in socio-economic circumstance and in literacy proficiency.
   
• Through community partnerships, we bring our expertise in the field of learning differences to other local schools including Waldorf and The Master’s Program, providing oversight of accommodations, teacher coaching, one-on-one tutoring, and evaluations. 

May Center’s commitment to all learners in Santa Fe County needs your support. We hope you’ll join us and go above and beyond as a donor to help us to reach more students. Help us empower more children in Santa Fe County to reach their potential, through providing financial aid to students in our school, through our evaluations, through our teacher training, through our community programs. 

In a state that consistently ranks 49th in the nation for education, we have much work to build a strong foundation for our future. Early intervention is key. A gift to May Center for Learning is an investment in the future of our community. Help us go above and beyond.

Thank you,

Amy Miller
Executive Director