May 4, 2017
Are you interested in learning how other school communities communicate? Are you responsible for a newsletter on your child’s campus? How does your school get information out to its parents: email? Paper fliers? Facebook? Join us at the next roundtable meeting to discuss how different schools communicate with their communities. Kate Degelau-Pierce, the SEF communications VP and SMS newsletter editor, will facilitate the discussion. We would appreciate it if everyone could invite the individuals responsible for the parent/teacher newsletters and online presence at your school and be prepared to share information on best practices.
When?
Monday May 8th at 6:30 pm
Where?
SSD District Office at 819 W Iowa Ave
The meeting room just to the right of the main entrance – it’s easy to find!
May 1, 2017
Did you know…
- All fifth grade students in SSD go to science camp for one week?
- Some schools are still raising funds for those students, even though the students have already gone to science camp?
- Sunnyvale Education Foundation will match donations made by May 24, up to $5000 to help with that gap?
It’s true! A donation of $300 would pay for one student’s full science camp tuition, but anything, even $10, will help. Thank you for your support!
Mar 27, 2017
One of the mini-grants from last year was for microscopes at Fairwood Elementary School. These are lovely little additions to their science program, allowing the students to see and learn about really small things (like leaf cells)!
Donate to the Sunnyvale Education Foundation to make more like this possible!
Mar 16, 2017
Amazon is celebrating its #1 ranking in customer satisfaction by the ACSI, and we benefit! Today, March 16, Amazon will donate 5% (10 times the usual donation rate) of the price of your eligible AmazonSmile purchases to Sunnyvale Education Foundation. Get started at smile.amazon.com/ch/47-3825871[amazon.com].
So if you’ve been putting off buying a new pair of jeans, or want the latest bestseller, or just need to get a bunch of stuff for the house, head over to Amazon today and we’ll both be better off.
Thanks for your support!
Mar 12, 2017
Sunnyvale Middle School bought new art books!
This is a great set of books that get used mainly (but not only) in the 6th grade Fundamentals in Art class.
What a great way to learn more about history and culture! We’re so happy we were able to help SMS buy these.
Dec 12, 2016
You may remember us advertising free TB tests in October at Vargas and Lakewood. As you know, having a valid TB test is a requirement of being a parent volunteer at SSD schools, so this is often a barrier to getting people to help out at their students’ schools. So, you may be thinking, how’d those go?
Well… we facilitated 68 TB tests, 49 skin tests and 19 blood tests. (Blood tests are necessary for people who have been inoculated.) Parents and other potential volunteers from all 10 SSD schools were tested, most people from Vargas and Lakewood Elementary Schools, which is where the tests were given. This is great! We were anticipating about 30 people per day of testing (there were 2), so we’re happy to have made this impact.
There were many lessons learned (that we’ll use to smooth out future testing days), but the biggest one was how few people knew that there was a risk assessment worksheet they can have their doctor fill out to avoid taking a TB test at all! (I think this is the form; do check with your school to confirm.) Many of the school offices have these forms. This is definitely the easier option!
Hopefully we’ll be able to offer this again next year. If we do, we’ll do it at different schools. Your donation would help ensure that we can offer these tests again! Thanks for your support.
La fundación para la educación de Sunnyvale apoya a los padres con la prueba de tuberculosis para hacer voluntariado.
La fundación para la educación de Sunnyvale (SEF), organización sin fines de lucro 501(c)(3), en conjunto con el distrito escolar de Sunnyvale, ofrecieron exámenes de laboratorio para la tuberculosis para apoyar a los padres completando el requerimiento para voluntariado en nuestro distrito escolar. Los exámenes se condujeron en octubre en dos fechas diferentes en la escuela primaria Lakewood y en la escuela primaria Vargas. Padres de todas las escuelas pertenecientes al distrito escolar de Sunnyvale participaron en este programa gratuito, un total de 68 pruebas cutáneas y de sangre fueron otorgadas. La fundación para la educación en Sunnyvale está emocionada que formó parte en incrementar mas de 60 voluntarios para nuestras escuelas! con la ayuda de la comunidad y donaciones corporativas, la fundación para la educación de Sunnyvale tiene esperanza de otorgar más pruebas de tuberculosis para incrementar la participación de los padres de familia y el voluntariado en nuestras escuelas.
Oct 20, 2016
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!
Sep 19, 2016
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!
Aug 10, 2016
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.
May 19, 2016
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!
