Free TB Testing!
We are super-proud to be offering free TB testing to SSD volunteers at both Vargas and Lakewood Elementary schools in the next couple of weeks. Please check out the flyer for all the relevant details!
Helping out at Lakewood
As part of the grants to the schools last spring, Lakewood Elementary used part of its money to buy food for a dinner for neighborhood parents. The goal of that dinner? To introduce parents to the school and its strong community.
It helped keep the kids entertained, and it looks healthy to boot!
I know at least one neighborhood family was wowed by the teachers at this event, making the decision to send their child to Lakewood instead of a private school. I’m so happy Sunnyvale Education Foundation could help them!
Ellis 4th graders went to Mission San Juan Bautista
SEF helped pay for Ellis Elementary School’s fourth grade trip to Mission San Juan Bautista. This is a trip that fourth graders across the district make after they study the California missions and their history. This is always a highly anticipated outing amongst the students, parents, and teachers! We’re proud to ensure that Ellis’ students were able to go last spring.
Going to the library…
Today’s field trip story is from a teacher, formerly at San Miguel Elementary school. This story shows just how hard it can be to get a class to take even a short, “free” field trip.
For my past six years I have planned a “free” field trip to the Sunnyvale Public Library, where typically 2 or 3 of my 24 students have ever visited before, though almost all were born here in the Silicon Valley. Almost all of the parents have immigrated, many only finished between 2nd-6th grade themselves in Mexico, and heartbreakingly many many of my students at the beginning of every year in my class do not have one single book in their homes. Honestly. It’s the truth. The parents verify regularly and I have done home visits to see it with my own eyes. Though after nine years of this shock, the shock still hits me every time and I can barely believe this is true just 10 miles from where I grew up and got an amazing education.
Anyway, back to the library field trip. Most importantly, we have no cap on chaperones and encourage families – parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents and younger siblings! – to join us so that the parents also see where the library is and all it has to offer and will hopefully return. (Not being able to bring younger siblings is a big inhibitor for many parents who want to chaperone.) The second graders each get their very own library card and get to check out books which I return three weeks later, unless a parent takes them back. The thing is, while the visit once we get there is free, getting there and back to school costs a couple hundred dollars per bus.
As our Parent Association (PA) funding has dropped even more over the last few years, last year instead of spending almost half our grade level’s PA money for the year on this one bus to travel within Sunnyvale for a FREE field trip, we decided to try taking the city bus. That took so long and was so involved with staggered rounds (we didn’t all fit on one so had to go in increments, spreading out the time even more!), and involved about a mile of walking each way, that the kids AND parents were so tired and distracted from the intended goal of the outing, that all they wanted to do was sit, eat, and rest at the library. They weren’t as excited about the tour or to walk around and see all the library has to offer.
The whole public-bus complications were so hard on the kids, parents, and teachers too, that the grade level is not going to the library at all this year. Sixty second graders who won’t get a library card and all those families (typically more than half of the students had family members who could join!!) who won’t get to see the library and might never go on their own!
And this library is right here in Sunnyvale. Once San Miguel families in past years had been there through our field trip many would go back regularly. Parent education is huge for this population, as mentioned, since most of the parents have no experience from their own growing up to even have the concept of a public city library or taking their kids to check out a bunch of new books every couple weeks FOR FREE! Yet so many of our San Miguel parents have told me time and time again that the number one reason they made the incredibly difficult decision to leave their own home and families and to immigrate was because they wanted better for their kids and specifically better education. Many would take their kids to the library if they had the example of what to do there and the eye opening experience that a field trip can provide.
Field trips provide a lot of great things for the kids and their families. We hope to be able to support more of them in the future – and with your donations we could!
Field Trips are Awesome!
One of the most-requested things from our schools and parents is field trip buses. Currently, unless a bus is rented by a school’s PTA, parents have to drive on field trips or the kids walk. The big fourth grade field trip is to Mission San Juan Bautista – when schools can get buses for it. This is just one of the field trips SEF could to fund next year. Here’s an essay from a student who was able to take that trip this year:
That was the best field trip ever! Yesterday I went to San Juan Bautista. My group and I loved it there. We saw an old hotel, garden, fire station, and we had a great tour.
In the hotel there were just 3 rooms and not many people came to stay at the hotel perhaps because they had a house of their own. Although it was small it had a great view. There was a chicken coop next to the hotel. It had 4 chickens. The chickens are probably used for eggs and meat.There are only 3 tables in the the dining room. This hotel isn’t anything like what we have now.
In the garden there were many flowers. If you look on the cement floor you can see many paw prints. The garden was very beautiful. There was also a mill used for grinding grain. Although it was tied up we could see how it was used.
The fireman used wagons. Their buckets were red. The bottom of the bucket had a round end to it and at first, we thought it was to carry more water but it was to keep the people from taking and using it. If people took it they wouldn’t be able to place it on the ground. Fireman don’t need to place it on the ground they just need to pour the water on fire.
If you wonder why San Juan Bautista was such a busy place in the olden days, it was because many wagons would stop there much like a busy airport these days.
The best part of this field trip was the tour. We learnt many historical facts. We learnt the ways of many Native Americans and cultural facts. We made ourselves look like Native Americans.
This was one of my favorite field trips ever but not many kids are lucky enough to go to a school that can afford money to go to this wonderful place. I learnt a smart way to build a bucket, why San Juan Bautista was so busy in the olden days and much much more. I wish all kids get to enjoy this great town.
Wyndia
