Email  Print

Summer camps, garden training, FFA, closed captioning, host families

Education Roundup

Sonoma Charter School is hosting free garden training on Sunday, March 10.  Participants will get hands-on training in garden activities, extensive knowledge about California vegetables and successfully implemented gardening with kids. Each participant also takes home a garden leader training binder of activity guides and resource lists. Kathleen McCauley, a Sonoma Charter School parent, and Alane McCrea of Woodland Star Charter School, each took the training this past fall and were so impressed with the quality of learning that they wanted to bring it to our Sonoma Valley schools, preschools, teens, teachers, parents and community.  Check out kidsgrowingstrong.org/ to learn more about their organization.  

• • •

The Sonoma FFA chapter will be celebrating National FFA Week Feb. 16 to 23. This year’s theme is “Grow,” and it celebrates more than 80 years of FFA traditions. More than 550,000 members nationwide will participate this year in FFA at local, state and national levels. Through agriculture education and hands-on learning, it prepares students for the more than 300 career opportunities in the food, fiber and natural resources industry. Sonoma FFA members will celebrate with a range of activities culminating in Ag Spirit Day on Friday, at which time FFA students will also participate in public speaking contests in Santa Rosa. Contact Felicia Rush at frush@sonomavly.k12.ca.us for more information.

• • •

I was interested to read in the New York Times that Jerry Brown holds a position on the board of trustees of both the California State University system and the University of California system, and has been attending every monthly meeting of both boards.  He has been asking detailed questions about everything from student life to fundraising.  It is nice to know that making sure that these institutions are top notch is a high priority for him.

• • •

President Obama tackled education issues in his recent State of the Union address. He called on Congress to significantly expand preschool access to all 4-year-olds from moderate- and low-income families, and to incentivize high schools to adopt curricula that better prepare students for the jobs of the future. The preschool expansion proposal would provide support for states that want to substantially grow their early-childhood education offerings.

• • •

Education First is seeking Sonoma host families for students from Norway, Sweden, Italy or Spain for 26 days this summer. The students, ages 13 to 18, will be visiting from June 26 to July 22. They will be under the supervision of EF program staff from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. (Monday to Friday) attending language classes in the morning and participating in organized activities in the afternoons. Host families may join in for activities. Volunteer host families are asked to provide a bed, meals and transportation to and from the Plaza. Families may choose to host a boy or girl from any of the visiting countries. Students already speak English, are insured and bring their own spending money. For more information, contact Sonoma coordinator Heloisa Heinen at 504 994-4159, email indelevelgirassol@yahoo.com or visit efhomestay.org.

• • •

The Sonoma Valley Mother’s Club will be hosting a free preschool fair for the community on Saturday, March 16 from 10 a.m. to noon at the Sonoma Valley Veterans Memorial Building on First Street West. Schools, as well as teachers of music, art and other activities, will be on hand to describe their programs. Visit sonomamothersclub.org for additional information about the Mothers Club.

• • •

Educator Kumar Sathy is the author of “Attack of the Chicken Nugget Man: A National Test Prep Adventure.” I love her idea for helping kids practice their reading. She suggests turning on the closed captioning or subtitles and muting the sound when the TV is on. You use the menu button on your remote to enable this. The TV Guide channel shows the (cc) symbol next to a show if closed captioning is available. This just runs text along the screen at the speed of oral communication, which is the rate your child needs to learn to read as a step toward fluency.

• • •

Sonoma Valley High School is hosting College Night for juniors and their parents on Thursday, Feb. 28, at 6 p.m. in the high school pavilion.  The evening features valuable information about the college process and what juniors can be doing now to start planning.

• • •

On Saturday, May 5, Sonoma Charter School is launching a new event to benefit all the schools. The school’s Tamale Cookoff will take place at Cornerstone Gardens on Cinco de Mayo. SCS is coordinating with all Sonoma Valley schools to make this a Sonoma-wide fundraiser. Already in the works are bands, traditional Mexican dance, a tamale-cooking demonstration, kids activities and, of course, lots of tamales to taste. If you know of a restaurant or chef who would like to enter the tamale competition, a band or other entertainer who would like to offer their time to help Sonoma schools, a celebrity who would like to be a VIP judge of the cookoff, or have other ideas for contributing to the event, please email cincodemayo@sonomacharterschool.org.

• • •

I love hearing about great community service experiences of Sonoma students, whether it is in high school, college or beyond. Kyle Synder, Sonoma Valley High class of ’09, is currently a senior studying economics at St. Mary’s College in Moraga (and a former Sassarini and Adele student). Synder has just returned from a January term in Haiti as part of St. Mary’s “giving back” program. His team worked with a village up in the mountains and built a plant nursery (deforestation is one of Haiti’s main problems) and a composting toilet (with sanitation and general waste management being another main concern). They also installed a solar-powered water purification at an orphanage that was battling a cholera outbreak. You can read more about it at  smchaiti.blogspot.com/.

• • •

Gordon Neufeld, co-author of “Hold on to Your Kids,” will be speaking in our area several times during the month of March on topics that include Raising Children in the Digital World; Making Sense of Adolescence; Alpha Children: Reclaiming our Rightful Place in Their Lives; and Making Sense of Anxiety and Attention Issues in Children. For information go to neufeldtraining2013.eventbee.com.

• • •

Registration is open now for the Hayward-LaHonda Music Camp, July 20 to 27 in the Santa Cruz mountains. Now in its 52nd season, the camp inspires students in grades 6 to 12 to achieve their best musically in a variety of creative pursuits and to develop their music skills. The week includes rehearsals, performances, recreation and general camp life. This is a relatively affordable camp experience at $695/week. Go to lahondamusiccamp.org.

• • •

I am a big fan of the Federal Service Summer Language Academy. This three-week, residential summer program for high school students takes place at North Georgia University. Students choose a language to learn: Arabic, Chinese, Russian, German, Korean, French or Portuguese, and earn one high school academic credit.  In the afternoon, students hear presentations from FBI and CIA recruiters and representatives from other career areas. There is also a physical fitness component. Students live in dorms on the gorgeous campus. It is not cheap – $1,895 for three weeks ($95 a day) – but costs significantly less than most residential camps of this type, and scholarships are available. Go to northgeorgia.edu/summeracademy.

• • •

Woodland Star is launching a mentoring program in collaboration with Stand By Me Mentoring. Interested families are invited to come to Woodland Star on Thursday, Feb. 28 at 7 p.m. to learn more.  Contact Annie Cassidy with questions at anneandgrace@yahoo.com or call 996-6904.

• • •

The Peace Corps is an independent U.S. government agency that has been around for more than 50 years and now has more than 8,000 volunteers in 75 countries. This year, Washington state had the greatest number of students join the Peace Corps across the large school (University of Washington), medium school (Western Washington University) and small school (Gonzaga University) categories nationwide. On the other side of the country, colleges in Washington, D.C., came in a close second. Teach for America also recently released its annual ranking of the schools sending it the largest number of graduates. The University of California at Berkeley, Northwestern University and Wellesley College topped the list. 

• • •

Sonoma Charter School’s next Director’s Coffee Talk on Friday, Feb. 22, from 9 to 10 a.m. will feature Kathleen Hawing, vice principal of Sonoma Valley High School. Hawing is making the rounds of all of the middle schools this month, presenting information about the high school, meeting with parents and students and answering enrollment questions.