FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT:Trina
Ostrander 510 • 644-6244
Tuesday, December 2, 2003
Grants to Teachers Help Berkeley Schools in a Bad Year
The Berkeley Public Education Foundation celebrates its 20th
anniversary
this month by awarding teachers in the city’s 17 cash-strapped
schools a
total of $137,235 in Classroom Grants. Teachers throughout the
school
district will receive 178 grants in every subject and every grade.
Classroom Grants, funded each fall in response to teacher
proposals, will
send fourth grade California history students to Gold Rush sites,
pay for
copying of Berkeley High School’s College Handbook, buy books for
struggling readers and shovels for school gardens, translate school
newsletters into Spanish, and meet an array of other classroom
needs.
“The 182 proposals we received this year were testimony to how the
state’s
economic crisis is coming home to roost in our schools,” noted
Trina
Ostrander, the Foundation’s Executive Director. “The state has
slashed
funding for before- and after-school programs, for the arts groups
that
offer some of our most successful education collaborations, and
many other
important programs. Teachers have written eloquently of their
extra need
for community support this year.”
State funding cuts for textbooks were particularly severe,
plummeting from
$65 per student in recent years to just $22. With real costs
reportedly
exceeding $80 per student, this year the Foundation also funded
two urgent
requests from Neil Smith, Director of Curriculum for the School
District.
One will help prepare Berkeley elementary school students for
California
Standards Test in science, which will count this year for the
first time.
The test, to be administered to all fifth graders this spring, is
aligned
with a recently published textbook for which, at $41 per copy, some
Berkeley schools simply have no funds. Using contributions from a
thirty-year science education grant given by Bayer Healthcare, the
Foundation awarded up to $10,000 to buy the books upon which
students will
be tested, and local schools will be judged.
The second grant is to strengthen the School District’s literacy
instruction with libraries of “Guided Reading” books that teachers
use
with small, ability-matched groups of students to teach how to
learn from
reading.
Teachers from five elementary schools submitted proposals
requesting
Guided Reading books. With consultation from Smith, the Foundation
consolidated the proposals into a $10,000 grant that will build the
collections at all Berkeley elementary schools. Foundation leaders
hope to
add to these collections later this year and in the future.
“Berkeley’s
Early Literacy Plan is making 75% of our third graders able
readers, and
their success continues as they move through the grades,” noted
Ostrander.
“Early Literacy is one of the most promising solutions to the
Achievement
Gap, but once again our schools don’t have the money they need. We
can
step in to help make it happen with a relatively small amount of
carefully
targeted money. We think this is a great use of our donors’
dollars.”
The Foundation is funded by generous Berkeley residents and
businesses. In
addition to its Classroom Grants, the Foundation operates Berkeley
School
Volunteers, which last year recruited nearly $1 million of trained
volunteer time into local classrooms. The Foundation also
delivered nearly
$350,000 for special projects including Berkeley High School’s
Health
Center, the Hills Artists in the Schools Program, and the Family
Resource
Collaborative at Rosa Parks Elementary School.
Teachers will be presented with their grant awards at a festive
reception
on Friday, December 5, from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m., at St. John’s
Presbyterian
Church, 2727 College Avenue. Refreshments are provided by local
restaurants Bay Wolf and Home Restaurant in San Francisco.
Reporters are
welcome.
==============================================================================================================================
Mark A. Coplan
Public Information Officer, BUSD