Overview

How the RootsandGoals.org Pk3-12 Homework Project works

The Project started in 2005 as the School Time Capsule Project focused on life goals. We had 8th graders writing letters to themselves about their goals for 10-years into the future. The letters were stored in a large vault in the school lobby students passed daily. The letters were to be returned at the 10-year class reunions.

In 2010 both Sunset High School and Pinkston High School saw the academic progress Quintanilla students were showing as Freshmen. They both started School Time Capsule Projects of their own along with Greiner Middle School. Each school secured a vault and began having their seniors, or 8th graders, plan their lives 10-years into their future in letters to themselves. These letters were archived in the respective schools vaults by class. 

Then also in 2010 letters from parents and relatives about their goals for the students were added and requested from the parents by each principal. But by 2015 we never were able to get more than 30% of parents to write such valuable letters to their students.

The 2016 Language Arts Coach at Quintanilla, now married and named Ms. Niki Lincolin Goff, suggested firing the principal from writing parents and instead having all students in all grades write their own letters to their own parents asking for these letters.  Immediately 80% of children began to receive letters!  Teachers were in tears for joy for their students. The students value these letters!  But, since this was the 11th year of the Project, Quintanilla was already the highest School Effectiveness Indices (SEI) scoring middle school in DISD after 10 years of focus on goals. We did not notice any 2016 academic improvement! 

In 2017 T.W. Browne Middle School was in it’s 5th year as a failing school. DISD was putting in additional resources to avoid being forced by the Texas Education Agency to close the school.  The Principal, Dr. Jonathan Smith, knew the old School Time Capsule Project and wanted to try out the new all-grade StudentMotivation.org model with students writing to parents asking for the letters back themselves.  It worked wonderfully!  Not only was Browne no longer a failing school by the end of 2016/17, but they had the highest School Effectiveness Indices score of all 33 middle schools that year, and for all years since 2008! (See “Data” section from menu for details.)

The Browne 61.7 SEI score has not been beaten by any of the remaining 32 non-magnet middle school since 2017!  Obviously the T.W. Browne StudentMotivation.org Project was being helped by the abundance of resources from Central Office that year, but the StudentMotivation.org Project was in transition.

Finally, by 2026 the transition was completed with the improved RootsandGoals.org Pk3-12 Homework Project!  The old School Time Capsule Project and StudentMotivation.org Projects were gone! 

The newest RootsandGoals.org Pk3-12 Homework Project is the most recent big change made. The Project was simply moved from the crowded DISD class schedules to begin being a homework project on 1/14/26. As a homework project any school on Earth can start the RootsandGoals.org Homework Project more easily using only a fraction of one class period to hand out the directions, 2 envelopes for each student, and to explain the project! They can begin accelerating PK3 through 12th grade student achievement within just one year with minimal class time investment!

The three Project Handouts in the Handout Section of the RootsandGoals.org website menu are available in both Spanish and English. Google Translate (translate.google.com) allows translations for free into over 104 other languages currently available!

The RootsandGoals.org Pk3-12 Homework Project will always remain free to use.  See details on the homepage.