No senior teachers - the school lost them when it lost funding because so many of its students had moved elsewhere.

No field trips - or money for any.

No music or art classes. No students from families living above the federal poverty level.

But now Schiller has something that no other public school in Chicago has: volunteers from Chicago Sinai Congregation, just a few blocks away in actual distance, but worlds apart from the grim realty of Schiller, its students and their families.

The Reform congregation has "adopted" Schiller and is helping out there in numerous ways.

In one of the first portions of the program to be implemented, congregants go to Schiller several mornings a week to read with, or to, the students. Help with reading is a particularly crucial need at the school. Most students read far below grade level and, according to school personnel, 25 students in 2nd, 3rd and 4th grades can't read at all.

"The kids get very excited" when the volunteers arrive, according to Erin Walter, the literacy director of Open Books (www.open-books.org), a non-profit organization dedicated to improving reading skills and raising awareness about literacy that has joined with Sinai for a "reading buddies" program. "They're like, oooh, my buddy is here. The kids are really taking to the Sinai volunteers and it's been very nice even in the early stages to see bonds developing," Walter says.

Those new bonds have been developed as part of a lengthy process on the part of Sinai congregants, rabbis and staff. Called Face to Face, it involved congregants meeting to discuss what social issues they were most concerned about, according to Debbie Shepard, the temple's social action coordinator.

"Several issues emerged as being of the most concern: health, seniors, the environment, poverty, education," she says. "Then we broke into groups and the poverty and education groups merged. They wanted to find a good project to work on. Sinai has a very long history of being involved with and supporting public education, and education is very important in the Jewish community, which has a long tradition of helping those in need," she says.

The idea of adopting a school jumped out (many other congregations around the country have done it, Shepard says) and congregants went to the Chicago Public Schools' Partnership Office, which facilitates such pairings. When they said they were seeking a school that had a need for their help and was accessible to Sinai's Gold Coast location, Schiller emerged as the most logical choice.

"The needs there are enormous," Shepard, who has visited the school a number of times, says. "All the kids live in public housing and qualify for the federal free lunch" for low-income students. "They are really struggling with low test scores and reading below grade levels. There is a very committed administration and staff but they have a lot of challenges."

The once populous elementary school, Shepard explains, now has only 187 students. Enrollment declined sharply when the greater part of the Cabrini-Green projects were torn down and families moved away. The students who remain are those whose families "don't have any place to move to," Shepard says.

The changes in the neighborhood impact the school in other ways as well: Since funding is based on student enrollment, Schiller's funds are low. Because of it, "they lost some very important staff members and some of their more senior teachers. It's a real struggle to keep up with the needs of the students," Shepard says.

Rabbi Michael Sternfield, Sinai's spiritual leader, says that "compared to public schools in more affluent neighborhoods, the inequity is shocking. This school has almost no resources. There is nobody to teach music or art. The kids come hungry. The level of parental involvement is awful. If there was ever a school that really needed significant help, it's this school."

Jayne Schreiber, a congregant and Schiller volunteer, agrees. "We met with the principal during the summer, and we were pretty shocked at how in need the school is," she says. "A lot of us live downtown, our kids go to private schools, and the differences are so striking."

In the reading buddy program, Schreiber says she learned quickly that "the first thing you need to ask the kids is have they had breakfast. If the answer is no, you tell them to go get breakfast and then come back."

"Speaking personally, this is the ideal project for us," Sternfield says. "It is so logical for us to be there. It's only a mile or two away from us but it is worlds apart. I feel this is incredibly important for our temple to do. We can talk a good game all we want about alleviating poverty and working for peace, but all that is just a lot of talk until you do something."

With Schiller, "We try and do more than just apply a Band-Aid," he says. "We have made a long-term commitment. The kids get very little support from the system or the people they live with - usually one parent or grandparent and sometimes hardly even that."

The project was developed as a yearlong program, but Sternfield and Shepard say it will go on as long as it is needed. Congregants are now in discussion with the principal and other administrators to develop a list of ways they can be most useful to the school.

Sternfield says the congregation is committed to "everything from simple one-on-one tutoring to helping in financial ways with school supplies and books - whatever we can do to raise the quality of what goes into the school is a mitzvah. We're hoping this will be perennial as long as the school is there and functioning." The future of the school is in doubt as more and more families move out of Cabrini, he explains, but for now there are no plans to close it.

Besides the reading program, the congregation is developing a project in which nursing and medical students teach health education classes. They have been in contact with a catering company that will donate food for a teacher appreciation breakfast. A scholarship from the Chicago Tribune Freedom Museum went for buses to bring students to the museum on a field trip, and the Sinai group is also sponsoring other field trips for students to attend a children's theater production and visit other sites.

"A lot of the kids don't get a chance to get out of the neighborhood, so we're trying to bring in as much as we can plus offering them the opportunity to go on field trips," Shepard says. "We're hoping to stay there as long as we can be of benefit to Schiller and grow the number of volunteers we can provide."

Special assembly programs have focused on Martin Luther King Jr. and on the history of music, "ragtime to rap." Music students and musicians are being recruited to teach classes and congregants are collecting cereal box tops for a program in which schools can earn supplies. A career day and school Web site are in the works.

Congregants are also seeking help from the public to donate books - so far an ongoing book drive has collected more than 100 volumes for the school's tiny library - as well as school supplies, sports equipment and winter coats. There's also a need for more volunteer tutors and soccer coaches, Shepard says. (Contact her at 312-867-7000 or dshepard@chicagosinai.org.)

Brian Billings, Schiller's vice principal, recently told Shepard that 25 students in grades 2, 3 and 4 can't read. "Teachers are mandated to teach at grade level, so the kids keep falling behind," she says. Volunteers are particularly needed to give reading and phonics help on weekday mornings from 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. Shepard says training will be provided.

The Sinai volunteers "have been an outstanding addition to our staff," Billings says. "We are underfunded due to low student enrollment and the gentrification at Cabrini-Green, and the volunteers are really helping to provide our students with a quality education."

Students are also "benefiting tremendously" from the monthly field trips the congregation is sponsoring, he says. "We didn't have the funding to do it before. It's been a great partnership. (The volunteers) have gone above and beyond, and we thank them and the congregation tremendously for their efforts."

Those volunteers are people like Vicki Woolner Samuels, who goes to Schiller on Friday mornings to provide reading help to any students in 3rd through 5th grades who care to drop in to her room.

A "professional volunteer" who also runs her own small business, Woolner Samuels is active with another organization that works in the public schools using the arts to enhance literacy. But she decided to volunteer for the program at Schiller because "I liked the idea of doing one-on-one reading. My kids are grown, and it's been a long time" since she has read to or with a child.

After getting over the shock of having to pass through a metal detector to enter the school, Woolner Samuels found the students to be "friendly. They want to learn, they seem happy to be in the room with you, they want to read." She has worked with one student who won a "readathon" at the school last year and "already likes to read. But this gets them special attention from an adult and gets them indoors," she says. "Our main purpose is not just for those who absolutely can't read. There is a very big range (in reading ability) from very halting to somewhat fluent, but they all definitely need a lot more exposure."

Erin Walter, the Open Books literacy director, says the Sinai volunteers are "wonderful" and that "the kids really benefit from having a diverse group of volunteers in terms of age and ethnic and gender diversity. Any time you bring in a new group of volunteers it adds a lot to the kids."

An Open Books representative is at the school on days when the volunteers come, and goes around the grounds inviting students to come and read with the volunteers. A number of students take up the offer, and undoubtedly more will decide to do so when the weather grows colder, she says.

The Open Books program has also planted a "reading garden" at Schiller with benches and a box full of books so kids and their reading buddies can sit outside and read during nice weather. Sinai volunteers and their families also helped with that project.

"Schiller is close to our office and close to our hearts," Open Books' Walter says. "It's serving as a pilot for our programming," which includes a number of projects around the Chicago area designed to increase reading and literacy. The Sinai volunteers have enhanced that program greatly, she says.

For volunteer Meryl Lyn Moss, who recently sold a business and "wanted to do something to help, to give back in the world," Schiller provided the perfect opportunity. "I like to do things that involve the people themselves rather than big groups of women talking and talking," she says. "This is an underprivileged school and the children don't have that much consistency in their lives. Everything is disorganized there. All the kids are below poverty level and don't have stable home lives."

Most of the students, even those in higher grades, "read at first grade level or don't read at all," she found. "Unless we can get to some of these kids and bring them up to speed, ultimately there isn't going to be much hope in their lives."

So far Moss has read with the same little girl for the entire three weeks that the program has been in force. "She seems to look forward to it and so do I," she says. "They posted some pictures on the Internet (of the students and volunteers) and I downloaded them and showed them to her, and it was like she'd never seen a picture before. She loves when we read books together, and I encourage her to try to read at home. I'm hoping that between Sinai donating money and the volunteers we can make a difference."

Her philosophy, Moss says, one she's trying to live out at Schiller, is that "just to throw money at things doesn't help. In my opinion, you have to be involved."

Marilyn Marks, who is retired but takes adult classes at Northwestern University, decided to volunteer at Schiller because "I always think that education is such an important part of every child's experience. It's probably the only way children can change their circumstances. I love to read to my grandchildren and they always thought I was a good reader, and I thought this would be an opportunity to continue that," she says.

At Schiller, "I've found the children to be very warm, very receptive. The children I've read with have very low skills, and I worry terribly about them." Working with third graders, she found them "really quite naive, which makes it easy in some ways. They're very approachable, very curious about me."

Some of the children were fascinated by her "veiny hands," she says. "One little girl thought that perhaps something was wrong, and I said, oh, those are grandma hands, and she wanted to know about my family. I don't think they know very many people who are my age. Their grandmothers are my daughter's age."

Marks also found that the children had little experience with anyone outside of their own neighborhood and "desperately need outsiders to be interested in them. I just hope that my being interested will make a difference." As for reading skills, she says, "I have not yet had a child who could really read to me."

Volunteer Jayne Schreiber brought some books to the school courtesy of a friend who is a children's librarian who suggested "fun books." She found that "some of the kids are at a really low reading level, although I got one girl who is quite a good reader. If they can read, I find age-appropriate books and they read to us. If they can't, I read to them."

She has also been involved in a book drive and a winter coat drive Sinai is holding for the school. "The principal told us a lot of the kids don't have winter coats," she says. "And we're doing two teacher appreciation breakfasts. The teachers so appreciate that."

Schreiber adds that projects like this are one reason she feels so at home at Sinai. "The rabbis are very committed to the temple fulfilling mitzvot, not just being a house of worship but going into the community and doing some good," she says. "It's one of the reasons my husband and I really like being members of Sinai. It's a very welcoming temple and so strongly believes in giving back to the community. That makes it all the more special."

Kathy Bernstein had worked in another public school volunteer program for a decade; she gave that up a few years ago but decided that she wanted to get back into the schools again. When she saw an article in the temple bulletin about the reading buddies program, she decided it was for her.

Now she reads with third graders, finding that "some of them have a preschool knowledge of reading. Some don't know the letters." Interested in tutoring students on a more intensive basis, she has requested another hour of the program from Open Books, a new program that will start next month. She'll work with one or two students, a half hour at a time. "Their attention level isn't much higher than that," she says.

Her impression of the school is that "the administrators are so wonderful and so happy to have the help. They're open to almost everything that Sinai can give. Any help we can give these children may help them along, give them an interest in reading, help them find out that reading is not such a terrible thing to do."

The students she has worked with were "very willing to work, but with very limited abilities. It just needs a little more organization, which is true of any new program," she says.

"With the administrators being so cooperative and the children very willing and the women (volunteers) very willing to help, it has the possibility of being really something."