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This school year, Division 35 awarded four mini-grants of $200 each to teachers in Lake County schools.
The only requirement is that the funds be used for the purchase of materials that can be reused in successive years, not for one-time expenses.
The Grant Committee, chaired by Elva Hohn, recently announced the following recipients of the 2017-18 grants:
– Jodi Mansell, a kindergarten teacher at Lakeport Elementary School, will use the grant money toward math games, replacing very old ones as well as ordering new ones.
– Jamie Breedlove teaches first grade at Lakeport Elementary School. She received a grant to purchase a rug that will provide each student with their own space to sit during group lessons.
– Amanda Laughner, a science teacher at Upper Lake High School, received a grant for the purchase of digital blood pressure meters which will be used in her biology, anatomy and physiology classes.
– Alisha Bazzano is a kindergarten teacher at Coyote Valley Elementary School. She will use the grant money to purchase Light Brite screens for her students to practice the spelling of sight words.
The Grant Committee met in December of 2017 to review and evaluate applications for the grants.
“It was a difficult decision to finally select only four from the many deserving applications,” said Hohn.
Members of the committee visited the recipients' schools to present the award at a faculty meeting.
Division President Joyce Anderson added, “We would like to thank all the teachers who submitted their applications. If we can grow our membership by just five more, we would have the resources to fund five grants in the next school year.”
Retired teachers are encouraged to join. Information can be obtained by visiting the Division 35 Web site at https://div35.calrta.org/ and clicking on the “Contact Us” button.
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In response to the U.S. Department of Education’s call for written comments, Attorney General Becerra joined a coalition of 20 attorneys general in calling for the Department to reject ACICS’s application, noting that the department terminated ACICS’s recognition over a year ago for pervasive oversight failures and for enabling fraud and abuse by predatory for-profit schools.
ACICS provided accreditation – and thereby access to federal student aid funds – for many of the programs offered by Corinthian Colleges, a now-defunct for-profit school based in California.
ACICS continued accrediting Corinthian even after upwards of 20 state and federal agencies initiated investigations into Corinthian, and up until the day Corinthian declared bankruptcy.
The California Attorney General's Office led the charge against Corinthian and its subsidiaries, seeking to put an end to abusive practices that left students under a mountain of debt and far too often without the jobs Corinthian had falsely promised its degrees would provide. The Office ultimately obtained a $1.1 billion judgment against Corinthian on March 23, 2016.
“Education Secretary Betsy DeVos must reject the application submitted by the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools. It should be a no-brainer,” said Attorney General Becerra. “This company failed to do its job and protect our students, and instead aided and abetted unscrupulous actors like Corinthian Colleges. The California Department of Justice urges Secretary DeVos to do what is right.”
Accreditors serve a critical role in ensuring that schools provide students with an education that meets minimum standards of quality. They function as gatekeepers, protecting students from abuse by institutions that offer education of little-to-no value. When accreditors fail to fulfill this responsibility, they enable abusive schools to engage in misconduct that can be devastating to students.
“ACICS’s previous stint as a nationally recognized accreditor provides a stark illustration of the damage done to both students and taxpayers when accreditors fail to fulfill their oversight responsibilities. During these years, ACICS willingly accredited predatory schools that left students across the country mired in debt and without the quality education they were promised,” the attorneys general write in their comments.
In submitting the comment letter, Attorney General Becerra joins the Attorneys General of Massachusetts, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Delaware, Hawai'i, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia and Washington.
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Treasurer Kicks Off 2nd Annual Scholar Dollars Program to Support K-8 Public and Charter Schools from State Treasurer's Office on Vimeo.
SACRAMENTO – An important part of a young person’s education happens outside the classroom – in extracurricular activities like sports, music or computer lab.But California school districts, facing tight budgets, have found themselves forced to cut back or cancel many of these vital after-school programs.
To help, California State Treasurer John Chiang on Tuesday announced the second year of Scholar Dollars, an innovative grant program that makes more than $300,000 available to schools to pay for extracurricular and after-school programs.
“The Scholar Dollars program sows a wide field with a single seed,” said Chiang. “In the short-term, it provides hundreds of grade school children with the means to start an after-school tutoring program, buy band equipment, or take a field trip to a science museum they may not otherwise be able to afford. With the long-term horizon in my sight, this is another step I am taking to ensure every California child has a college savings account to battle both rising tuition and out-of-control student loan debt. ”
This year, the program will award 20 grants, ranging from $5,000 to $30,000 each, depending on school size, to K-8 public and charter schools in California.
Schools can spend their grants on musical instruments, computers, library books, gardening tools or sports equipment, or support enrichment programs like tutoring labs, student counseling, science and technology instruction, and many other activities.
Scholar Dollars also helps the adults, by giving a break to the administrators, teachers and parents who spend many of their weekends and evenings at bake sales, car washes and other events to raise money for the equipment and programs that are essential to providing kids a well-rounded education.
Scholar Dollars is administered by ScholarShare 529, California’s college savings plan. The program recognizes the critical role that California schools play in preparing students for college success by providing essential extracurricular programs that foster college-going cultures on their campuses.
In its first year, Scholar Dollars was immensely successful. In 2017, more than 390 schools across the state registered and over 411,000 votes were cast. All told, the program awarded $300,000 to support extracurricular activities and afterschool programs.
Schools spent their Scholar Dollar grants in a variety of ways. Alfred B. Nobel Charter Middle School in Northridge purchased 80 new Chromebooks. Village School in Campbell sent a classroom of 5th-graders to science camp. Shannon Ranch Elementary School in Visalia built a much-needed new running track.
“This grant has helped Nobel go a long way towards meeting our goal of ensuring that all students have access to a computer to increase computer literacy, research skills and create products that have real world implications,” said Felicia Drew, Assistant Principal, Alfred B. Nobel Charter Middle School.
“With grants like Scholar Dollars, we can continue giving our children an extraordinary school experience and guide them into being lifelong learners,” added James Crawford, Principal, Village School.
Eligible schools can register online at MyScholarDollars.com and apply for a grant. The registration period is open now through March 7, 2018.
Enrollment is as easy as ABC. There are no formal grant requests or cumbersome red tape. A school administrator, teacher or PTA president can enroll a school in a matter of minutes.
All K-8 public and charter schools in California are already uploaded to the Scholar Dollars website, so enrollment is as simple as selecting your school from the list, entering your contact information and describing the program your school wants funded.
Once a school is registered and approved to participate in the grant program, it will be included in the voting period. Encouraging your community to vote during this time is a critical part of the process because the more votes your school receives, the better positioned it is to win a grant.
Anyone 18 years or older is eligible to vote and can cast a vote once per day during the voting period. Voting runs from March 12 to March 23, 2018. The Scholar Dollars program provides a variety of resources to help schools get out the vote, such as a customizable PDF flyer as well as copy and images to use in email blasts and/or social media posts.
ScholarShare 529, which supports Scholar Dollars, offers families a diverse set of tools to help pay for college, including investment options, tax-deferred growth and withdrawals free from state and federal taxes when used for higher-education expenses. Studies show that kids with a savings account in their name are six times more likely to attend and graduate college.
To learn more, enroll or vote for a school, visit www.MyScholarDollars.com.
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UKIAH, Calif. – During the fall semester, Mendocino County Office of Education students at New Beginnings School and West Hills School participated in a semester-long science, technology, engineering and math project, one of 18 such projects in Central and Northern California supported by PG&E to create portable energy sources for energy-deficient schools in rural Ecuador.
The PG&E Solar Suitcase Project is part of the PG&E Foundation's Better Together Giving Program, designed to empower teens to build We Share Solar Suitcases (www.wesharesolar.org).
Theresa House in the MCOE Curriculum and Instruction Department teamed up with MCOE Alternative Education teachers Jeanne Metcalf and Annette Morrison to offer this hands-on program in which students learned about the design and operation of basic photovoltaic (solar energy) systems and electricity as they explored issues of renewable energy and sustainability.
As a culminating project, each school built a 12-volt DC stand-alone solar system, the solar suitcase.
“Students used their new skills and knowledge to give the gift of light to children in underdeveloped areas of the world,” House said.
This year the solar suitcases will be deployed in March to energy-deficient schools in rural Ecuador to provide overhead lights in classrooms.