Blue Magnolia donates to Magnolia West High School Life Skills classes

Blue Magnolia, a coalition of the 10 Magnolia Democratic precinct chairs, collected and donated items to the Magnolia West High School Life Skills classes.

What happened

According to a news release Aug. 18, members of Blue Magnolia focused on collecting specialty items that students and teachers of a life skills class need outside of a regular classroom. The donations will be shared among the six Life Skills classes at MWHS:

• 60 headphones
• 40 noise-canceling headphones
• Toiletries, such as toothpaste, toothbrushes and deodorant
• Hand sanitizer, backpacks and school supplies

"Blue Magnolia decided they wanted to collect school supplies for the kids but everyone wants to give out backpacks, paper, school supplies and things like that to regular students," Precinct 18 Chair Ernie Halsell said in the release. "However, the Life Skills teachers and students are often overlooked during school supply donation drives. They need certain special items like headphones that the school can't provide, so we wanted to do that for them this year."

Some context

The Texas Education Agency describes a life skills class as a program that teaches functional communication skills and functional academic skills, such as counting, adding, language structure, reading and sharing a space with others.

• According to the release, MISD has 235 students in its Life Skills and Able classes.
• The district has approximately 2,300 students in Special Services.
• There were almost 200 referrals to special services for this school year, the release stated.