Law Firm-Classroom Partnership: It Doesn’t Take Much

BY JUSTICE SALVADOR A. MUNGIA

When my kids were growing up, they got everything—well, maybe not everything, but they got a lot. In contrast, there are so many kids who don’t get nearly what they need. It doesn’t take much to help those kids.

The Beginning

I have heard it said that the biggest regrets you will have in life are not the things you did, but the things you didn’t do. True enough. In 2009, when I was WSBA president, I had hoped to start a program to get lawyers into schools. Other matters kept that from happening. Such is life, right? Eight years later I wanted to remove this idea from the regrets column.

I didn’t know if my law firm, Gordon Thomas Honeywell in Tacoma, would even go along with my idea, but I thought I’d better see if there was a school receptive to my plan. The school had to be relatively close to our firm with an under-resourced student population. I found Sheridan Elementary on the east side of Tacoma. It was 10 minutes away, with a student population that was 80 percent kids of color, 80 percent kids eligible for free or reduced school lunches, 10 percent kids from unhoused families. I called the principal, Anna Marie Griebel, set up a meeting, and went to the school. 

“Half-baked.” That pretty much summed up my plan. I explained to Ms. Griebel that my intention was to get members of my firm to go to Sheridan two times a month for an hour to help the teachers. I wanted to start with the first-grade class and have our firm follow that class all the way through fifth grade. And then we would start all over with a new first-grade class. I told her that we would do more—I just wasn’t sure what that “more” would be yet. 

She loved it. 

My next task: Get my firm to sign off on the idea. The firm’s response: They loved it.

The Middle

We got started by having the first graders, all 84 of them, go to the firm’s Tacoma office. (The school didn’t have funds for this field trip so the firm paid for two buses to take the kids.) Our offices were on the 21st and 22nd floor. Most, if not all, of these kids had never been in a building taller than two stories. Pacific Lutheran University, my alma mater, donated 100 PLU shirts for the kids and their chaperones. Tacoma’s mayor, Marilyn Strickland, greeted the kids. The students met attorneys, paralegals, legal assistants, and other support staff. 

The half-baked idea was becoming a little more baked.

We did more.

I was serving on the University of Washington Gates Public Service Law Advisory Board at that time and shared what we were doing. A law professor said that we should have a field trip to the UW. I responded, “Great idea—do you have any funds?” They could pay for one bus—GTH would pay for a second. The kids, most of whom had not been out of Tacoma, were ecstatic. The Gates Scholars, a dominant share being women and students of color, were the hosts. They told the kids their stories—which mirrored the kids’ lives. We toured the UW campus. The scholars put on a presentation: “Cookie Monster vs. Bert and Ernie.” The kids participated. The kids loved it.

We know that if you get a kid to just visit a college campus, they are more likely to go to college. Like I said, it doesn’t take much to make a big difference. 

The idea, the program, has become fully baked since the start. Each December before winter break, the teachers tell me what each student is interested in. Denise Lowry, a GTH paralegal, takes those lists and gets cash donations or books to meet every kid’s interest. She and her team wrap each book with the kid’s name on it. When we pass out the books the kids go absolutely bonkers. I’m talking about screaming with joy, showing the book they got to anyone and everyone in the room. Again, it doesn’t take much to make a difference.

We keep a community “bookstore” in the front office stocked with books where any kid in the school can take for free. We have had the kids design the firm’s holiday card and given prizes to the top three designers. We have donated bikes. We have volunteers going into the classrooms to help the kids learn to read, write, and do math. 

Through education policy we know that if a kid is unable to read at grade level by the end of grade three, there is a direct correlation to incarceration as an adult. Reading has been a priority for us. When the kids were in fifth grade one teacher told me, “Sal, this is the first year that all my students were reading at grade level and you all were a part of that success.” The rewards are huge.

The End

There is no end. While we took one year off after our initial cohort finished fifth grade, we started back up three years ago with the first-grade class. We are now in the third grade. 

I have sat on the floor with kids trying to teach them their “ABCs,” or reading to them, or listening to them reading to me and helping them sound out words. I have had kids sneeze on me, cough on me, and wipe their runny noses on my clothes. I’ve brought home colds more than once.

I’ve had kids hold my hand as we lined up for recess and say, “Sal, I’m never letting you go” with my replying, “I’m never letting you go either.” I regularly have kids tell me that they miss me. And I always respond, “I have missed you so much.”

Any day I volunteer at Sheridan I know will be the best day of the week for me. And that will never end. 

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