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Jazz camp, online college, Spanish immersion, graduate school

Mary Ann Spitzer will be vice-principal and academic coordinator at Altimira Middle School next fall, pending school board approval in August. Spitzer has worked in the district since 2003 as a special education teacher, curriculum and intervention coordinator and volleyball coach. Most recently,
she was interim principal at Flowery.

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The next Barn Sale benefiting the Sonoma Valley public schools is Saturday, July 7 from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Field of Green on West Watmaugh.  If you have donations or would like to volunteer, please contact Holly Bennett at 484-4747.

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Deb Carlen will be teaching the art of memoir at Readers’ Books for ages 12 to 17. Her “My Life So Far” class will run from 10 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. for a week in the Reading Garden starting July 30. For more information contact her at dkcarlen@comcast.net. The cost is $85.

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Tamara Unger will be offering a one-day Kid’s Clay Workshop on Saturday, July 7 from 9:30 to 11 a.m. in the Readers’ Books Reading Garden for ages 5 to 13. The fee is $28 prepaid. Contact Unger at 935-7555 or email potterpaws@comcast.net.

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For the past five years, I have worked as a volunteer in the College & Career Center at Sonoma Valley High School, conducting workshops on college planning and admissions for juniors and seniors. This month, I toured Stanford, University of Southern California (USC), UCLA, Pepperdine and Claremont McKenna College (CMC) to make sure my information is up-to-date. While these schools range from tiny and private (CMC) to huge and private (USC) to huge and public (UCLA) to just downright gorgeous (Pepperdine), each had a compelling story about what it offers its students. Biggest surprise of the trip? USC is poised to raise $5 billion in donations by 2018, on top of $1 billion given to the school in the last year alone. That is one well-funded university.

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Sonomans Offering Support (SOS), the new local nonprofit, is offering Spanish immersion classes for children 6 and under beginning Monday, July 9. Email info@sonomansofferingsupport.com for more information. Classes will be held on Monday afternoon or Friday mornings, and the students are grouped by age. The cost is $75 for a six-week session and $15 to drop in. Location tbd.

The Sonoma Valley Jazz Society is offering a Jazz Camp from Monday, July 30 to Friday, Aug. 10 at Hanna Boys Center. Their jazz educators include bassist Andrew Emer (camp director), former jazz camp student pianist Jake Aspinall, and saxophonist Roger Glenn.  The two-week session (10 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.) will culminate in a professional performance in Hanna’s new auditorium. The cost is $300. Call 373-0700 or visit sonomavalleyjazzsociety.org for more information.

With the goal of eventually making Sonoma Valley High School’s new linked learning pathway clear to all, here is another explanation – instead of treating all subject matters independently, linked learning does what its name implies: link them. This will require slight changes in the classroom syllabus and will require teachers to collaborate more. The purpose of this is to make the education process more interesting as well as relevant. The curriculum also adds electives that are relevant to the chosen track. These electives may also involve spending time in relevant businesses in the community.

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Everyone assumes that getting a graduate degree will help you earn more money but I recently read an interesting piece about certain graduate degrees that don’t pay off in terms of boosting future earnings (www.bankrate.com). First on the list was an MFA (master’s in fine arts) as it was found to boost income for grads just 3 percent. Second was a computer engineering graduate degree. Students going into computer science just don’t need a grad degree. Next up was any graduate degree in advertising, marketing or public relations. Employers in these fields would prefer to see an MBA. Next up was a law degree from second-rate school. The quality of the law school is paramount is future hire-ability. Finally, degrees in meteorology or atmospheric science were found to add a tiny 1 percent to future earnings. With graduate degrees increasingly expensive and financial aid almost impossible to secure for graduate study, the impact of a higher degree on future earnings can’t be overlooked.

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Online college is not a good choice for your typical recent high school graduate. These programs work best for strongly motivated adults who have a clear career path or want training for specific jobs. They basically increase access by providing less college: less face time with caring teachers, less campus life with other students, less “atmosphere.” A good traditional campus with close faculty member contact is a better choice for most young people.

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Have you heard about Facebook investor Peter Thiel’s $100,000 fellowship grants that require the winning students to drop out of college? Many of these students (all under 20) have already completed a lot of college coursework on their own so it isn’t as controversial as some claim but the accomplishments and plans the fellowship winners have are amazing. One of the 20 winners is actually from our neck of the woods – Penngrove. Tune in to CNBC at 7 p.m. on July 11 and 12 to see a documentary on the students and the selection process.

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IBM’s new free CityOne computer game is similar to Sim City but it challenges players to solve real-world business, environmental and logistical problems within retail, banking, water and energy industries as part of the game’s goal of revitalizing a metropolitan area.  It is very popular among business school students around the country and worth checking out.

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I have written on this before but a new story from the Los Angeles Times further explores the trend of California students heading out of state for college (in search of the ability to graduate in four years, smaller class sizes and scholarships for out-of-state students.) Some out of state schools have doubled the number of Californians in their freshman classes. Washington State University enrolled twice as many freshmen from California in 2011 as the year before. The University of Arizona and Arizona State each have boasted freshman classes with more than 1,000 Californians in recent years. The University of Oregon, which enrolled about 500 California freshmen five years ago, enrolled 1,000 freshmen in 2011. 

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Sons of fathers with high incomes tend to end up with higher than average incomes themselves. New research shows that it is more dad’s intelligence than his earnings that helps a son on his way. The Journal of Political Economy covered the study which found that human capital endowments passed from father to son – in the form of smarts, advice, work ethic – seems to contribute more to a son’s success than how much money his father makes/made. Why they didn’t also study daughters is beyond me.

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I want to give one last plug for the Sonoma Valley Education Foundation’s Red & White Ball on Saturday, Aug. 18. The ball funds art and science programs in the elementary schools; the gardens which now provide produce for the school cafeterias; and the Teacher Support Network at Sonoma Valley High School which provides more than 50 volunteers who assist in both academic and elective classes. Ball funds are also shared with the PTOs at each school and the Boosters Club. The Education Foundation was very happy to report to me last week that it recently received a donation of $25,000 from the Sandy and Joan Weill Foundation in support of our schools as well as a $15,000 grant for the expansion of the El Verano pre-school for the 2012-13 school year.

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With school out of session, my column and the Our Schools page goes on hiatus today until the first week in August. Please continue to send me story ideas and news items over the summer at ourschools@sonomanews.com and I will be back Tuesday, Aug.7. Happy summer!