“They Deserve It”: How DC SCORES is Empowering the Community at Stanton Elementary
Community members share how Stanton’s partnership with DC SCORES has brought school-wide benefits.
Ward 8’s Stanton Elementary School has new silverware in its trophy cabinet.
In November, the school’s DC SCORES team won the Spirit Award at the nonprofit’s Eastside Poetry Slam. Stanton poet-athletes wowed the judges and audience members with a moving performance that explored the importance of teamwork, the power of art, and reflections on parental loss from two students who lost their moms at a young age.
The performance was even more impressive because it was the first time many members of the team had performed on stage. Ashley Jones, a DC SCORES poetry coach at Stanton, recalls how her poet-athletes mustered their courage for their big moment in the spotlight by cheering on the other teams. “By the time it was our turn, they said, I’m not afraid anymore. I think we can do this,” she says. “We got up and we did our thing.”
The slam victory didn’t just reflect the team’s poetry prowess; it was a defining moment of Stanton’s three-year partnership with DC SCORES, which has strengthened school community, given students new opportunities, and built a network of friends and mentors who support one another in and out of the classroom.
DC SCORES has helped her students “glow and grow,” says Jones. “They mixed and mingled, found new friendships, and became really confident.”
Investing in Wards 7 and 8
The high-quality programming offered by DC SCORES’ afterschool soccer, poetry, and service-learning curriculum is critical in Southeast DC, says Allen Richardson, Stanton’s principal.
The District has extreme levels of wealth inequality, which fall along racial and geographic lines. In DC, white households have 81 times the wealth of Black households, while residents in Wards 2 and 3 have 65 times the net worth of those living in Wards 7 and 8.
Richardson grew up in the District and is well aware of the resource gap between the families Stanton serves and their counterparts across the Anacostia River.
“It’s a sensitive topic because oftentimes, when we talk about Wards 7 and 8, those are the forgotten wards. Those are the wards that don’t always get the resources, they don’t always get the funding,” he says.
Yet, Richardson continues, communities in these areas are deeply committed to their young people and make strong partners when programs do invest in their schools.
“Everyone here in the Stanton family believes that we owe that to our children to give them the best possible experience, no matter what,” he says. “They deserve it, just like everyone else.”
“We never look at an opportunity and say it’s too big for them because they’re big enough,” he adds.
When DC SCORES established a program at the school in 2022, Richardson knew that Stanton’s staff, family members, and students would get behind the partnership.
“We’re on the field and we have our signs,” he says. “We have community members coming in to watch the games. We have families who travel just to watch their kids play on gamedays. They’ll take off work early because they want to be a part of the experience. That’s what DC SCORES does.”
Families in Ward 7 and 8 report greater interest in out-of-school time (OST) programming than other households, yet face higher competition for enrolling in OST programs. This means many young people are locked out of proven OST programming benefits, including higher academic success, greater college and career readiness, improved social and emotional well-being, and reduced exposure to violence.
To help bridge this gap, DC SCORES launched a campaign to raise $30,000. The amount will fund an entire year of programming at a Southeast school in Wards 7 and 8. The campaign is part of a broader initiative called Poet-Athlete City to establish a DC SCORES program at every Title 1 middle and elementary public school in DC by 2030.
“DC SCORES has been a really pivotal part in the development of our students,” says Richardson. “We talk about the collaboration that takes place, the teamwork, the confidence, and we see how it translates not only on the soccer fields but into the classrooms and the pride that [the students] have when they wear their DC SCORES uniforms.”
Fostering Community
DC SCORES also enables school staff to forge deeper relationships with their students and families.
The majority of DC SCORES coaches, including Jones, are teachers in the schools where they coach. She reports that the program has provided her with more opportunities to check in with students who may need extra support.
Richardson says that DC SCORES’ gamedays, poetry events, and community service projects have also given his team vital touchpoints to engage the school community. “It provides an opportunity for us to connect with all of our stakeholders, our students, our families, our staff, and the local community as well,” he explains.
One of the poet-athletes who has benefited most from the close-knit DC SCORES community at Stanton is La’Dae, a third grader on the team. She was a standout star of poetry slam when she and a friend, Na’vah, performed poems dedicated to their moms, whom they both lost at a young age.
“My favorite thing about DC SCORES is working together and having much fun,” says La’Dae.
“I like how they do an awesome job and how we all come together to plan,” she says of her teammates. “When it’s game time and we spread out and we work together trying to make a score!”
The power of that community cannot be overstated, says Richardson. “I’m a Washington, DC, native, Northeast DC. Everything wasn’t right there, you know?” he explains. “So, when you do have the opportunity to be part of something bigger than who you are…that’s the reason I got an education. There was someone who thought enough of me to include me.”
Expanding DC SCORES to include more kids like the young people Richardson teaches can only be a positive for the wider DC community, he says. He knows that young people are ready to take advantage of that opportunity. “Our students are able to take that confidence that they’re gaining through DC SCORES to the next level and make sure that they’re ready for middle school and high school,” he says.
He adds, “It’s a partnership we hope continues for a long time. It’s great for our families, great for our students. It’s great for our overall school.”
