When you walk into Crystal Badders' and Cindy Cleveland's third grade classroom at Stemley Road Elementary School, a Foundation School in Talladega County Alabama, you know you are in a place where students are valued and challenged. You are surrounded by student writing, photographs, and anchor charts. Students' lives are evident on the walls, in the books on the shelves, in writing notebooks and in conversations. Families and community members are welcome, although there are many obstacles to their coming to school in this rural, low-income community. In spite of that, the presence of families is felt everywhere in the classroom.

Teachers have crafted techniques to integrate families and community into their classroom instruction. When students are involved in decisions about what they study, the people who have meaning and significance in their lives are present. Through the curriculum, the classroom moves out into the community and the world comes into the classroom. Students' families, neighborhoods, communities and cultures are celebrated and become indispensable instructional resources.

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