Welcome to the 7th School-Force Education Foundation eNewsletter.  Please email mailto:communications@schoolforce.orgif you wish to add or update an email address. If you do not have an ongoing relationship with the Belmont-Redwood Shores School District, please feel free to unsubscribe below.

 

 

President's Message:

 

 

Many contributions arrived with wonderful letters reflecting on the donor’s motives for giving. Often the notes simply said, “We wish we could do more.”    My favorite was a letter from a  senior citizen detailing her own children’s educational experience.  Her children attended Barrett in its last years and then went onto Cipriani, Ralston, and finally Carlmont. Now, she noted proudly, her children have become a doctor, an attorney, and, most importantly, a teacher, a position paying tribute to the educational privileges  they all enjoyed as children.  While this woman’s $250 donation was smaller than she would have liked, not giving simply was not an option for her. Education to her represents the future.  She felt compelled to support today’s children just as her own children had been supported years ago.

Our own kids really jump-started the I’m in! campaign with their amazing Reading Power Read-a-thon success.  $207,000 was raised during Reading Power; twice as much as last year!   Huge thanks to everyone who worked so hard to make that happen. (A proper Reading Power article will be included in next month’s eNews.)

We as families, local businesses and community members took a stand to lessen the impact of the financial crisis.   Last week the School Board reinstated 16 certificated elementary teachers as well as other positions. (For more information about the meeting please see the Board Highlights which will be online at http://tracking.etapestry.com/t/12403471/128856684/54014034/0/). As a result of the funds School-Force raised, and the Board's action, all elementary schools are currently slated to have:

The Budget Advisory Commitee (BAC) also recommended using $10,000 of School-Force funds to support Ralston’s Athletic Program, but the board has yet to take action on that recommendation.

 

The matter of furlough days is still unresolved because of contract negotiations, although the BAC has recommended reducing the number of proposed furlough days to five from six.

School-Force’s fundraising year ends June 30, so there is still time to raise more money.  Also of note, there is still significant uncertainty in the state budget, so more bad news is still possible.

 

This intense, short-term School-Force campaign saved jobs and programs because of your support.  Neighbors, families, local businesses, and others rallied so all our children can have brighter futures.  I am proud to be a member of this community and am amazed by its dedication to its children.

 

Ardythe Andrews

President, School-Force Education Foundation, & Parent, Central Elementary School

 

 

 

School-Force is run entirely by volunteers, the vast majority of which are parents with children in the district. This volunteer team allows the foundation to hold operating expenses, which excludess the costs associated with large events, to around 2% of contributions.  Consequently, when any area of School-Force needs improvement, typically the foundation needs another volunteer or two. Or twenty. 

 

Please volunteer and be part of the solution!  Most education foundations that raise $1.5 million a year have paid staff.  With your help, School-Force can minimize expenses, and allow the vast majority of your donation to fund district programs.

 

Strategic planning is now underway for the 2010-11 year.  The Foundation is adding Board positions and needs to fill many additional roles.

 

Open Board Level Positions include: Annual Giving Co-Chair, Communications Co-Chair, Nesbit Liaison, Sandpiper Liaison and Ralston Co-Liaison.

 

Additional volunteers needed to serve as Website Communications Lead, Casino Royale Lead, August Write a Check Lead, Reading Power Lead, Major Donor Team Members, Thank You Note Team Members, Communications Team Members, Business Outreach Team Members, and Members of Campus Teams.

 

School-Force raised twice as much money in the last eight weeks than in the previous eight months due only to the efforts of a huge surge of volunteers working on the I'm in! campaign.  Without that volunteer force, the fundraising could never have been so successful.

 

If you are interested in any of  these positions, or have a question for the foundation, please email Ardythe Andrews or your School Liaison.

 

 

1. The funds raised cover only half the budget shortfall.  As of today, schools will have no libraries next year,  furlough days that cut into instruction time are still possible and other programs have been cut.
2. The need for the 2011-2012 school year is likely to be the same as, if not greater than, that for the upcoming year.  In the future, everyone will need to give what they gave this year and then stretch further to give more.

 

Rising to the Challenge

As part of the I’m in! campaign, the local business community was approached to partner with School-Force to help narrow the District budget shortfall.  Provident Credit Union, a local financial institution headquartered in Redwood Shores, quickly rose to challenge and committed $20,000 to the Belmont-Redwood Shores community and the I'm in! campaign. Provident agreed to take the lead role in the campaign and is now a Platinum level sponsor.   Thank you Provident Credit Union for being involved members of our community! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s the best way for fourth and fifth graders to learn about science:  Roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty. Literally.          

In one recent session at Central Elementary, students in science specialist Janet Mastalir’s class dug into soil and water to learn if isopods, or roly-polies, prefer an environment that’s dry, moist, or soaking wet. In an experiment teaching about both the organisms themselves and the crucial scientific concepts of constants and variables, students piled up equal-sized amounts of soil, varying only the moisture in each, and set the creatures free to see where they gravitated. 
 
Belmont-Redwood Shores School District elementary students have long benefited from the specialists like Ms. Mastalir who teach their hands-on, see-for-yourself science classes.  Teaching science well requires a strong knowledge of the subject matter and significant equipment, planning and setup for labwork. The district’s financial status, though, has put those science specialist positions at risk, and it’s in part up to the School-Force Education Foundation to raise the money to secure those positions each year.
 
Both educational researchers and teachers agree that of the core academic subjects in elementary school, science is the one best taught by specialists.  In a 2008 article in the pedagogical journal Science Educator, researchers at Northern Arizona University and Western Michigan University noted that most regular classroom teachers, who are generalists, lack the specialized scientific knowledge and experience with lab materials to teach science well. Science lessons developed by specialists demand far more problem-solving from students than do those planned by generalists, and students learning from specialists are more likely to be “engaged in inquiry-oriented activities and demonstrate critical-thinking abilities,” the researchers noted.

 

 

 

 

 

The district’s current crew of elementary science specialists are a key force behind student success at Ralston Middle, where science classes are demanding from the start.  Ralston’s science program routinely produces excellent students, many of whom earn distinctions in local science fairs, says Ralston science instructor Michael Bradley, who teaches seventh graders.  “Our scores are strong, and our science program is strong,” says Mr. Bradley. “It comes from the fundamentals these kids get at the elementary level. If we didn’t have that foothold in elementary school, we wouldn’t be able to do as much as do now.”

Elementary science specialists in the district include Amy Fauce at Sandpiper Elementary and Bill McClurg at Fox, Cipriani and Nesbit, as well as Ms. Mastalir at Central.  As specialists, these teachers are able to concentrate on the labor-intensive work of organizing lab materials and planning multi-step experiments.  “I’m able to research just this one area,” says Ms. Mastalir, who’s in her second year at Central.  “I can really prepare and figure out what students need to know and what I need to do to make them successful.”
 
To be a specialist, teachers pursue training in science pedagogy, including courses specifically on teaching the Full Option Science System, developed by the Lawrence Hall of Science at UC Berkeley.  In that highly regarded curriculum, fourth graders learn to identify rocks and minerals, build a simple compass, design a simple circuit, and understand food chains.  Fifth graders learn about weather systems, elements, and circulatory, respiratory, and digestive systems.  All the district’s students in those grades receive two hours of science instruction a week, taking part in discussion, inquiry, and experimentation in small groups. Every student learns to collect and organize data and keep written records.

Had the district’s science specialists been cut, next year students would have received science instruction from their classroom teachers, whose expertise lies in teaching math, language arts and social studies. Under such a scenario classtime instruction would likely incorporate less labwork and experimentation and more worksheets and textbook reading. Students, though, would still be held to state standards for content, including material that appears on the STAR science test given to fifth graders. 

Ms. Mastalir, who previously taught science as a classroom generalist in another local district, notes that teaching science well can be “overwhelming” for a regular classroom teacher. “As a classroom teacher, you’re on a treadmill, so you have to prioritize,” she says. Teaching science, “you’d hit the highlights and prepare the students for the test.”

For students, that scenario would be nowhere near as rich and rewarding as learning from a specialist who can zero in on science’s complexities and help them literally see the subject in action. Remember the roly-poly experiment?  Students initially observed that the roly-polies simply wandered about and didn’t appear to have any preference in moisture level. Then they realized the experiment needed another input: time.  The students left the bugs overnight and the next day found other evidence:  All the creatures were happily rolling about in the moist soil.   The young scientists were ready to draw their conclusions.

 

Funds will be used to partially support upper grade Science Specialists and program materials.

School-Force is pleased to announce that Oracle awarded the Foundation a $20,000 Impact Grant to partially fund 4th and 5th grade Science Specialists, as well as materials for experiments.  The program has been instrumental in giving upper grade children a more focused hands-on science curriculum, which has resulted in higher test scores.   The foundation gratefully accepts this additional support from Oracle, which is particularly appreciated in this year of educational fiscal crisis.  The local technology corporation clearly sees the need to give our children a strong introduction to science in this digital age. Oracle has also been a continuing strong supporter of music in our schools through its sponsorship of the foundation's Annual Save the Music Festival.  We thank Oracle on behalf of the childrenof the Belmont-Redwood Shores School District