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TedxNapaValley, theater, SOS, Academy of Art

Education Roundup

Congratulations to Sonoma Valley High School senior Emilie Marenec, who beat out almost 100 students from four high schools to win the opportunity to speak at this year’s TEDxNapaValley event on Sunday, Dec. 2, at the Napa Valley Opera House. Each student presented their three-to-six-minute, multi-media talk centered on the theme of “Connected.”

Marenec, a violinist in the Napa Valley Youth Symphony, delivered a touching talk reflecting on family and music. TED is a 25-year-old nonprofit organization devoted to supporting world-changing ideas. TEDx, offers individuals or groups a way to organize local, independent TED-like events around the world. (See tedxnapavalley.org). SVHS juniors Buster and Eugene La Haye were finalists.

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The Sonoma Community Center’s Puppet Playhouse series is returning with a collection of three family-friendly puppet shows. The first performance is “Coyote Sings” on Sunday, Nov. 18, at 1 p.m. Afterward, there will be a puppet-making workshop with the artists. Details and tickets are available at the Sonoma Valley Box Office at the Community Center.

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The next Sonoma Valley public library book sale is this week, Nov. 14 through 17. The sale runs Wednesday 3:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. and the others days from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

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If you are on Facebook, you can “like” your school and have regular access to all kinds of great news and photos. Virtually every school in the Valley (as well as every nonprofit) now has a social media presence, whether it is Facebook or You Tube or Twitter.

The new nonprofit, SOS, (Sonomans Offering Support), is running their inaugural Christmas Adopt-A-Family Program. To get involved or sponsor a family, email them at sos.adoptafamily@gmail.com.

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I stopped by last week and picked up my club card at Sonoma Market, and signing up couldn’t have been easier. You check the boxes for up to three schools or nonprofits to receive a donation, and every time you shop, 5 percent of your purchase price is automatically accrued toward your beneficiary.

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A study published in the summer 2012 issue of Education Next found that delaying the start time of school by one hour increased standardized test scores, with the largest increases for students with below-average test scores. Nationwide, some schools are beginning earlier than 7:30 a.m. and others after 9 a.m. Districts frequently stagger the start times of different schools in order to reduce transportation costs by using fewer buses. A Congressional resolution recommended that secondary schools nationwide start at 9 a.m. or later, but not many public schools have made changes.

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The private, for-profit, Academy of Art in San Francisco and Oakland is now the largest arts school in the country and one of the biggest landholders in San Francisco (surpassed only by the Catholic Church). The university has nearly 20,000 students and the school projects 25,000 within five years (similar to the size of UC Berkeley). But it isn’t only an art school. I was surprised to learn that it is the only arts school in the nation with NCAA basketball and baseball teams. The school’s owner is an attorney named Elisa Stephens who, I gather, is quite well-known in San Francisco. The school had $247 million in revenues in the 2009-10 school year. On the downside, however, it has a graduation rate of less than 30 percent.

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On Thursday, Nov. 14, from 5 to 7 p.m., SoloQuest, on West Napa Street, will be celebrating its 15th anniversary. Soloquest offers tutoring as well as a private school program for middle school and high school students. The center offers full and part-time courses and works with students to help them solve learning challenges.

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Sonoma wineries, merchants and collectors have donated 50 bottles of wine to be raffled off on Friday, Dec. 7, to benefit Sonoma Charter School. Tickets are $20 each and you don’t need to be present to win. All proceeds benefit Sonoma Charter School to help maintain art, language, PE, music and drama programs. Tickets are available in the school office.

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With the holiday movie season heating up and parents gearing up to buy books for their children for Christmas, I wanted to remind people about the great resource of commonsensemedia.org. Not to be confused with conservative censoring groups, Common Sense provides useful information on subject matter of popular movies, books and TV shows. It is particularly helpful when choosing books for students who read far above their grade level and might be wandering into the realm of inappropriate topics.

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The Presentation School is offering its first shadow day of the 2012-13 admissions season on Thursday, Nov. 15, at 8:20 a.m. Parents of students in grades 1-to-8 who are interested in having their child participate in this half-day shadow of the school should contact admissions@presentationschool.com by Wednesday, Nov. 14. Presentation is also taking reservations now for its annual Home Tour and Boutique, on Friday, Dec. 14. The home tour and boutique run all day and guests choose a lunch seating at 11:30 a.m. or 1:30 p.m. Reservations are required and tickets can be purchased at presentationschool.com.

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Sonoma Valley High School’s drama department, under the direction of Jane Martin, is holding auditions for its next show, “Beauty and the Beast,” at 3 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 27 at the Little Theater. The performances dates will be March 1, 2, 3, 8, 9, 10.  

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As a community outreach project, mentors and mentees from Stand By Me recently helped make fleece blankets for kids at The Valley Of the Moon Children’s Home. Bernie Naughton and Holland Kensington donated the fleece. The Blanket Brigade will host its fourth annual Blanket Giveaway on Friday, Nov. 30 at the Vintage House senior center. If you are interested in helping out, contact Margaret Bell at 933-1693. To learn more about mentoring, visit sonomamentoring.org.

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The Sonoma Valley Museum of Art is hosting a Holiday Make-In on Saturday, Nov. 17 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. All ages are invited to try their hand at a dozen hands-on crafts. The Community Day is free to members and $15 for the general public. All art supplies are included.

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Speaking of holiday festivities, I went to the Victorian Craft Workshop at Gen. Vallejo’s house last year and the kids loved it. The workshop will be held this year on Sunday, Nov. 18, rain or shine, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Admission is free for children, $3 for adults and there is a nominal cost for each craft that they make.

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The Kenwood Elementary School Holiday Boutique will be held Monday through Wednesday, Dec. 3, 4 and 5. The boutique is a place where students can shop for holiday gifts as well as buy and sell items, all of which are made by students themselves. Most items are priced under $5.

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Altimira Middle School students are appearing monthly on Ken Brown’s morning radio show to talk about their programs and classes. If you are near a radio, you can give it a listen at 8 a.m. on Friday, Nov. 16, on KSVY-FM.

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If you subscribe to HBO, keep your eyes out for a film that also was screened recently at the Napa Film Festival. “The Big Picture: Rethinking Dyslexia,” is a documentary that the New York Times says, “busts any preconceptions about limits on what people with dyslexia can achieve.” Dyslexia affects 10 percent of the population and is widely misunderstood. The film airs on HBO frequently this month

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Last week, I joined more than 500 educators and parents in attending the California Association of the Gifted symposium in American Canyon. The full day program featured 20-plus workshop options about differentiation and enrichment for students at the other end of the special education spectrum. If your child has been identified as a GATE candidate, he or she would benefit from all the resources CAG offers, and their annual conference is coming up in Southern California in March. For more information go to cagifted.org.