In honor of Black History Month, the City of Round Rock has kicked off a series of community events throughout February. On Saturday, February 6th, Hopewell Middle School teacher Carla London and students from her 7th grade Texas History classes played a key role. Not only did they attend the city-wide celebration in honor of Garfield McConico -- the first African-American member of the Round Rock City Council -- but they also interviewed former students of the old Hopewell School about local history and their experiences attending the African-American school.

The 7th graders were impressed to hear about what Round Rock was like for prior generations. As several of the Hopewell Alumni explained, the town was much smaller and everybody knew everybody else. The Hopewell Middle School students used camcorders to capture the oral histories as part of a service-learning project, tying academics to community service. Next, they plan to partner with the Hopewell media technology classes to create a video that will be shared with the entire student body at Hopewell Middle School and possibly archived at the Round Rock public library.

Black History Month culminates with a district-wide celebration on February 27, 2010 at the Performing Arts Center at 3:00 pm with the theme: "Reflections: A Mirror into Black History".

To learn more about service-learning in Round Rock ISD, visit: http://www.roundrockisd.org/index.aspx?page=3421