Welcome Back to School 2012-2013

There are always going to be changes in schools. Some good and some more challenging, but let's see what's happened to those coming back to school this fall. The staff will be happy to see Sonia Wong back from her year long tour. She took a sabbatical to learn more about Asian world. Sonia visited Taiwan, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, South Korea and more.

Taiwan

     
Cathy Hampton is back from her summer "Great Americana"  train trip to see some of the US National Parks. Visiting every national park is on her bucket list.  She went to Tucson, Saguaro National Park; San Antonio, the Alamo; New Orleans; and Monticello, Shenandoah National Park. Shenandoah was her 31st national park to visit.  She also visited Boston, Philadelphia, New York, and in Maine, Acadia National Park. Going on she went to Niagara Falls, Lake Michigan, and in Montana, Glacier National Park.

Liberty Bell

Brooklyn Bridge

These staff members took a short but fabulous vacation.  Here is Maureen Tecson, Vince Lindain, and Letty Munoz-Gonzales snorkeling on their holiday in Bermuda.

Maureen, Vince, Letty

Greg Snelling has returned from his first family backpacking trip in the Eastern Sierras, Inyo National Forest, John Muir Wilderness, enduring mosquito bites and rain, but enjoying the beautiful lakes and valleys.

Greg Snelling and family

Betty Silva is ready to go back to work after returning from her Yosemite trip with her grandson, Michael.  They had a great time enjoying the beauty of the park.

Sukhy Gill spent a wonderful family vacation in India and visited some of India's famous landmarks.

Suhky Gill and family

Dave Trier and Rachel Saucedo Jones both had babies. Dave's wife actually had the baby. Dave's son, Luke, was born on June 27th and Rachel's son, Xavier, was born on Aug. 12th. Congratulations to both of you!

Someone reminded me that AE's 4th grade teacher, Laurie Koehler, got married in Hawaii at the beginning of the summer. How could I forget?  What a lovely bride! Best wishes to you and your new husband.

Now its back to work. School begins on Wednesday August 29th.  The Alvarado Family Potluck is on Monday, the 27th of August. 

Cuts in Education Funding

Cuts in education funding in the year 2010-1011 have affected classroom supplies for students. Teachers are now going out into the community to procure supples for their students. Second grade teacher, Maureen Tecson, has been a help to many of the Alvarado teachers. Maureen has made it part of her job to find out where to get donated materials teachers and students need. Much of the materials have come from online sources. She enlists the help of her friends and family to vote for her classroom to get books for the class library from Cash for Classrooms and even fruit donated by Del Monte Fresh Produce®. She has also used AdoptAClassroom.org to get classroom supplies.

Cathy Hampton received confirmation of a donation of approximately 100 fiction books geared specifically to boy readers! Thanks to Maureen and the donors @ donorschoose! Vince Lindain received individual listening centers--cd players with headphones to differentiate reading levels for listening to books for his first graders. A reading carpet to help students focus and have their own personal space on the carpet was funded for Suhky Gill's third grade class. Thanks to a tip from Maureen, Letty Muñoz Gonzalez received a new listening center donated to the class from Chevron. The media specialist, Alisha Valine, received $800 for DVDS for the library from the Donors Choose website. Anita Schumann first grade project was also funded. Maureen's reminder emails has helped Alvarado receive about $3000 of donated supplies.

Teachers have always applied for grants to support special programs. New Haven Unified School District has a mini grant program and many teachers apply for these. Teachers have always applied for big grants but not for regular classroom materials. Kim Pratt wrote a grant to fund the B-Wet science program at Alvarado and now it's also at Pioneer. The B-Wet grant is a huge grant. However, it's a sign of the tough financial times when teachers have to go the extra mile to get ordinary classroom supplies.

Staff Photos 2009-2010 or Memories

Tracie Noriega, Principal
Cheri Benefield, Assistant Principal
2009-2010
Click on the photo to enlarge

Jeff Pickering on end of the year on Facebook: year-end assessments, report cards, Ocean Night, pink and blues, cum's, DRAs for far and below basic, NWEA, enter Data Director, finish up Writers Workshop, year-end picnic, field day, "Oceans" field trip, clean out room and walls. I'm forgetting something... Other than that, the rest of the year is pretty kick-back.

Happy Retirement ManYee
Click on the photo to enlarge

Amazing Art of WOW

Through the 1990's Cathy Hampton and ManYee Desandies continued to develop their internet portal for students. It was kid friendly. Cathy's daughter Julianne Hampton made the above as the initial drawing for the web page. The clouds were added for grade levels and specialized subjects on the hill. They were so kind to put a portal for the media center on the hill. All this was on their own time. They still taught their classes, but at home worked on technology for the students.

Ace was developed as a subject portal.

Samples of Covers of Mrs. Desandies Web Books

Mrs Desandies used the technology in her classroom constantly. Kids loved being in her class even those who at first were not that happy with being in school. Over the years her students made hundreds of books about the subjects they were studying. All were made with kids doing the work. As the 90's progressed many of the books were made on and for the web. Students were encouraged to go online and read the stories from their class and all the other classes she taught.

1990's: The Dot Com Revolution

The 1990's began the dot com revolution in Silicon Valley and in education. New Haven needed people with computer experience in education and business. When Rhonda Neagle left to become the media specialist at James Logan High School, Donna Uyemoto, the personnel director at New Haven, knew Alvarado needed someone to teach the teachers how to use the computers. Sharon Chambers remembers, "In August 1990, Jay Hendee, the district librarian, and Julia Strong looked at my portfolio, interviewed me, and hired me. I was thrilled, but terrified. A teacher told me, Rhonda Neagle, had big shoes. Good Luck trying to fill them. I was now the student's media teacher, manager of a very old 16000 volume library collection, and the technology facilitator."

"Fortunately for me the staff at Alvarado was amazingly supportive. The following year each teacher got their own computer for their classroom. It was on a cart. On Wednesday mornings we had training time until 10 am. No students came to school until 10:30 on Wednesdays. A set of classes were designated for each month in individual rooms for topics such as work processing, Kid Pix, and CD roms etc. Teachers rolled their cart to these rooms for instruction. I recruited teachers with computer experience to teach these classes. Marty Brown, ManYee Desandies, Cathy Hampton, Debbie Fryman all taught many classes. These teachers took charge and designed their own class work. After class each teacher rolled their cart back to their own class. This worked well because teachers had a choice as to what class they wanted. The other reason this worked was the AE staff was basically a really nice group of people. We also had technology training at staff meetings and I had a drop in after school users group where teachers could get help on anything related to technology."

We also had tremendous support from the district for technology. We had district meetings led by visionaries Jay Hendee and Roger Hoyer. These two were some of the first to realize the significance of the use of technology in education. Jay Hendee was the Head Librarian and Roger Hoyer was the director of Educational Technology. The librarian at James Login High School, Rhonda Neagle, also shared their vision. They went to conferences all over the United States to see how we could implement programs in New Haven. They were supported in this endeavor by our Superintendent, Guy Emmanual. The district meetings with teachers were not top down meetings. These were meetings in which everyone could discuss how to use programs and how best to teach the teachers and students to use the programs. As teachers our voices were heard. New Haven developed a reputation among California school districts as one of the leaders in educational technology. Due to the fact that all the district librarians were onboard with the vision, each school had a representative who would move students and teachers forward into the unknown but exciting future of educational technology. We had no idea how technology would look in twenty years, but we were game to do our best to learn how to use it with staff and students. You have to remember in 1990 most teachers did not even know how to use a computer, did not have one in their classroom, and some thought they were just a passing fancy. By 2011 technology went further than any of us could have ever imagined.

In 1995 some teachers were invited to a Summer Institute at Logan on using the internet. Liz Jordan and I developed Kids and Creeks an ecological website. Cathy Hampton and Manyee Desandies began to develop WOW. WOW or Wildcats on the Web was designed to be used by K-5 students. It was the first comprehensive internet website for students in New Haven. Now this website is no longer viable as the software used to develop it is no long available. Things change quickly in the technology world. The links cannot be revised and some of the sites have been cannibalized. However, if you look at WOW you can still see some of the ideas that were used. In 1999 a link for the media center was added.