KINGSLEY — More than 100 fifth-graders filled the meeting room at the Kingsley Branch Library on Tuesday to ponder what their lives may look like 20 years from now.
One student hoped to become a police officer. Another talked about her dreams of being a tattoo artist, therapist and mom someday. A third student set her sights on the WNBA but envisioned owning a farm, too.
The fifth-grade classes of Kingsley Elementary School have 20 years to make those dreams become reality but they already share one achievement in common: authors of a published book.
Kingsley Area Schools’ fifth-grade teachers — Amy Alger, Kaylee DeWitt, Myranda Wagatha and Chelsey Jenkins — and administrators celebrated the students’ completion of their months-long project and their movement into middle school next fall, distributing physical copies of their collective work, “20 Years Later.”
The classes were also joined by Chip and Lisa St. Clair, authors and founders of the St. Clair Butterfly Foundation, who partnered with Kingsley Area Schools two years ago to provide social and emotional learning techniques for students and educators.
The couple created the nonprofit — founded in 2007 and headquartered in Michigan — to help integrate neuroscientific techniques, expressive arts and emotional learning to help children and adults process trauma. The first book the St. Clairs published was Chip’s memoir, “The Butterfly Garden,” which detailed his childhood with an abusive father, discovering family secrets, meeting Lisa in high school and learning how to process his experiences and self-regulate through emotional trauma.
“They’ve worked with a lot of small groups in our elementary school and with their background in writing, we thought we’d bring them in to participate with the fifth grade this year, too,” Kingsley Area Schools Superintendent Josh Rothwell said following their interactive presentation with the students.
Students took the opportunity to ask the St. Clairs questions, brainstorm story topics and discuss writing styles and techniques.
“Everyone has a story,” Lisa said, encouraging the students to continue writing their experiences and ideas.
During last week’s county board meeting, Grand Traverse County commissioners created and approved a resolution recognizing the effort of Kingsley’s fifth-grade classes, celebrating their literary achievement, as well as promoting literacy and creative writing skills for the county’s students.
“We need you to do what you’re doing as an 11-year-old … to make Grand Traverse County, your community, a beautiful place,” county Administrator Nate Alger said Tuesday. “Our board is thanking you for being brave, creative, imaginative and persistent in authoring your book, ‘20 Years Later.’”
Alger’s wife, who teaches the students math and science, said this is the second year Kingsley’s fifth-grade class has worked together to publish a book. She noted the children have put in hours of work, critical thinking and skill into crafting their individual stories, each contributing a page to the finished book.
According to the educator, some students have also shown immense improvement since the academic year started in September.
“We had a student who, at the beginning of the year, could write four sentences,” she said. “And now he’s writing an entire page. It’s really cool.”
The physical copies of the book also reward their efforts, Rothwell and Alger agreed.
“It’s a great experience for kids to be publishers and actually see themselves as an author, because most of the time, they don’t,” she added.
Eli Jahbrosier, 10, contributed a page to the book with his classmates, estimating he’ll become a law enforcement officer in 20 years and that he hopes to stay in Michigan. Jahbrosier, who turns 11 next month, hoped the book inspired readers to make their dreams become a reality.
“I think it’s pretty cool because I know other people can see it and they could be inspired by what I write,” Jahbrosier said.
Rothwell said he hopes the message will stay with the students as they grow and learn.
“Like Chip and Lisa said, ‘Everybody has a story,’ and we were able to bring every student in the fifth grade out,” Rothwell said. “Now all of these kids are motivated to write.”