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When John Eaton Elementary School opened its doors over 100 years ago, Cleveland Park was a sleepy, country outpost, and not the vibrant community we know today. We have since grown from a neighborhood school serving 20
students to a diverse and internationally-focused school, serving over
400 children from all four quadrants of the District. While Eaton’s vision
has broadened through our World Cultures Program, evolving instructional
design, and enriching partnerships with premier cultural institutions, in 2011 we celebrated our continued foundation of academic excellence, parental
involvement, and community outreach.
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Eaton, in coordination with local historian Lucinda Janke and artist Kesh Laduwahetty, created an Eaton historical website in 2012 to document our rich history. This project would not have been possible without the support of the Humanities Council of Washington, DC, and a DC Community Heritage Project grant, funded in part by the DC Historic Preservation Office, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities.
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In 2011, in honor of our centennial, our Enrichment Coordinators created a Student Sleuth program for then-fourth graders to investigate their school's history. The students learned grass-roots research and got to work with Kimberly Springle, director of the Charles Sumner School & DCPS Museum. The students presented their findings at the library, then, as fifth graders, at the Annual Conference on DC Historical Studies, the first children to present. Eaton documented this lesson plan so that other schools could replicate this wonderful program.
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In 2012, our Enrichment Coordinators worked with a new crop of fourth graders on a follow-up project to Investigating Your School's History. These new Student Sleuths built upon the work of their predecessors, finding and then researching Eaton's historical items. Among our old photographs, relics like a 1930's home economics cookbook, and even recovered artwork, the students learned how to study objects and determine their meaning to the school. Eaton documented this lesson plan as well, with the hope of sharing our work with other schools.
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