jill jokela
Jill Jokela has been involved with the Mendota Elementary School Parent Teacher Organization since her fourth grade daughter was in kindergarten, and she became its co-president when her 2nd grade son was in kindergarten. So she has a pretty good sense of what the Madison school was like before and after SAGE.

"I know every first grader can read when they leave first grade now and I know that was not the case in previous years," Jokela says.

Jokela visits the school every week to take part in a third grade reading project, and says there is also a qualitative difference in the entire atmosphere at the school. "The thing that is most striking to me is that the classrooms are so calm," she says. "Everybody's working. They are on task and doing what they are supposed to do and working together with other kids. It wasn't like that before."

Jokela says there has been a great deal more parent participation in the last few years. She thinks parental involvement and support are essential in improving educational quality. Home-reading programs have attracted 100 percent participation from parents. Other events and projects have brought high numbers of parents into the school to interact with students and teachers. One such project is in the Publishing Center, where parents help typeset and edit stories written by children in the SAGE wing.

Jokela thinks a great deal of the increased parental involvement and support has happened because smaller class sizes have created more intimate settings and made it easier for parents and teachers to get to know each other.

"Parents get to know their kids' teachers better so they're more comfortable coming to school," Jokela says.