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Book fairs, lottery tickets, open houses, fall fundraisers

Education Roundup

Kudos to Readers’ Books, which will hold several in-store book fairs during evenings in November to benefit our local schools. So far, Flowery School has reserved Thursday, Nov. 15, and Prestwood Elementary has set aside Thursday, Nov. 29. If you would like your school to be included in these fundraisers, have your PTO contact Andy Weinberger at info@readersbooks.com right away.

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Altimira Middle School is hosting its third annual fundraiser, The Howl, on Saturday, Nov. 3, at Moose Lodge, from 5:30 p.m. to midnight. Open to the whole community, the night includes appetizers, raffle, silent auction, buffet dinner and dancing with live music. Tickets are $35 each. “After Dinner” tickets are available for $15. Donations are still being accepted. For tickets, contact Mark Curtis at MCGoFish@gmail.com. To donate, email Joanna Greenslade at joannagreenslade@yahoo.com. 

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The annual Sonoma Charter School Halloween Carnival is on Friday, Oct. 26, from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. Sponsored by the Sonoma Charter School Student Government, the carnival is entirely student run. The community is invited to come in costume, play games, visit the haunted room and the cakewalk.

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Have you ever wondered if Sonoma schools truly benefit from lottery ticket sales? Well, they do. According to the lottery website, $4.3 billion in tickets were sold last year, and $1.3 billion of those proceeds went toward education. In Sonoma, we received $684,318 in proceeds from lottery ticket sales last year. Nothing to sneeze at, but perhaps not as much as everyone had hoped when they voted for Proposition 37 back in 1984.

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Congratulations to Sonoma Valley High’s first seniors to be accepted at their top college of choice. Alexis Krouzkevitch will be attending Arizona State University. Serena Spry and Barbara Hodgkison have been accepted at Azusa Pacific University. Jordann Dagner will be attending University of Idaho. Due to space limitations, I will only be reporting on students who know where they will attend college in the fall.

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Financial Aid and Scholarship Night for Sonoma Valley High seniors and parents is at 6 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 25, in the Pavilion. This is an important workshop if you are confused about the difference between merit aid, financial aid, scholarship, grants and loans.

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Adele Harrison’s sixth grade class is hosting a Pasta Feed from 5 to 7 p.m. Friday, Nov. 9, to help offset the costs for its sixth-grade outdoor education program to Alliance Redwoods in Occidental. Tickets should be purchased in advance at the school office ($10, children under 5 free). There will also be a bake sale table and a “to go” option. The program is reliant on fundraising to offer this opportunity to the entire sixth-grade class, regardless of a student’s ability to pay.

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I have a new favorite website: bjpinchbeck.com. Billed as a homework helper, the graphically appealing site contains hot links to hundreds of resources to help students with virtually any kind of homework or any kind of research.

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Congratulations to Prestwood Elementary School’s newly elected Student Council officers: fifth-graders Jake Dannon, Reed Hewitt, Sabrina Baker and Luke Sendaydiego.

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October is Learning Disabilities Month. When people talk about learning disabilities, they typically mean dyslexia (reading problems), dysgraphia (writing problems), dyscalculia (math problems), executive function difficulties (problems with organization); or ADHD (trouble regulating attention). The leading website on these issues – ldonline.org – has a lot of great detailed information if you are interested in learning more.

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Marin School of the Arts, which is a separate high school housed on the campus of Novato High, is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. The school is free and provides a range of art specializations including creative writing, dance, digital arts, film and video, instrumental and vocal music, musical theater, photography, theater arts and visual arts. Currently there are 14 Sonoma students enrolled, most of whom carpool there together. MSA is hosting an open house for eighth-graders and their parents from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 25, and the upcoming shadow dates are: Thursday, Nov. 15; Thursday, Dec. 6; Thursday, Jan. 10 and Thursday, Jan. 24. Marinschoolsofthearts.org.

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Montgomery High School in Santa Rosa is hosting orientation seminars for its International Baccalaureate program. Sonoma parents and students are invited to get an overview of the IB Diploma Program (grades 11-12) and the pre-IB program (grades 9-10). Meet in the school library at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 8, and Wednesday, Dec. 5. To attend, contact Dorothy Battenfeld, IB Coordinator, at dbattenfeld@srcs.k12.ca.us.

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Sonoma Academy is having its fall open house from 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 25. Attend by signing up on their website, sonomaacademy.org, or by calling 636-2476.

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Justin-Siena High School in Napa is well known for its theater program. Its fall production is Celeste Raspanti’s, “I Never Saw Another Butterfly.” The plot is a true story about a girl in the Terezin concentration camp who survives thanks to a teacher and her own sense of hope. The play runs Nov. 1 to 4 at the Napa Valley Opera House; and tickets are $20 for adults and $12 for children. Justin has its fall admissions open house from 1 to 3 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 28. Go to justin-siena.org.

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The Presentation School is having the first of three admissions tours for prospective families at 9 a.m.  Friday, Oct. 26. The morning starts with a showcase presentation by K-8 students, after which parents will split into groups by prospective student grade to tour the campus and visit classrooms. Email admissions@presentationschool.com to reserve a spot or to schedule a shadow date.

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Nominations are now open for the annual Tikkun Olam Awards. Ten teens will be selected to receive $36,000 each in recognition of their volunteer service projects. Bay Area philanthropist Helen Diller created this award to empower the next generation of Jewish leaders. Teens can be nominated by teachers, community leaders or rabbis, or they can nominate themselves. The nomination form is at jewishfed.org/teenawards/process.

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Sonoma-based Seeds of Learning is holding its annual fundraiser, celebrating its anniversary (21 years this year), from 5 to 9 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 3, at Andrews Hall in the Sonoma Community Center. Tickets are $95 and include appetizers, a gourmet dinner, wine and a silent auction. Visit seedsoflearning.org for more information about the event and their youth and adult service work trips to Central America.

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The new teen center at the Boys & Girls Club is having an open house from 5 to 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 25, in the Maxwell Clubhouse. The club purchased a large portable building as an interim solution to creating more program facilities for teens. The portable was made possible by funds from individual investors and the Sonoma Wine Country Weekend. Sonoma Materials, Beanstalk Energy and volunteers from Sonoma Raceway helped to beautify the new teen area with picnic tables, flower boxes and new fencing.

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The Boys & Girls Club has sent out a gorgeous leaflet featuring photos and write-ups of the teens who participated in its College Board program last year and are now in their first year at a wide variety of two- and four-year colleges. It is about as inspirational a piece of direct mail as could ever be produced.

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Professor Word is a free browser “bookmarklet” that helps students learn new SAT and ACT vocabulary words. When you are reading a webpage click on the Professor Word bookmark to identify the SAT and ACT vocabulary words on that page (and definitions for any unfamiliar word). Go to professorword.com.

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Coursera was founded by two Stanford professors after they taught an online computer science course that attracted more than 100,000 students. Just one year later, Coursera.org offers 116 free courses from 16 top universities in disciplines such as medicine, philosophy and artificial intelligence. So far about 900,000 students have enrolled.