Death of Past Alvarado Principal

Jim Blood
1971

Jim Blood former principal of Alvarado Elementary died at the age of 89 on March 30, 2014. He lived in Fremont since 1957. He taught in New Haven School District for 30 years. He retired from the district in 1980 where he was the principal from the 1960's to his retirement. Joan Logue, who worked with him, described him as a caring person who loved to visit with students and parents. He was married for 67 years and spent some of his retirement volunteering at various homeless shelters.

A Visit With Retired AE Teachers

After teaching for 20 or 30 years, retired teachers wonder what life will have in store for them. It's time to enjoy life and have adventures sometimes in a completely new direction. The following are examples of life continuing to be well lived.


Margo ZanzingerAs a retired person, my family has opened a frozen yogurt shop, Top-A-Lot Yogurt, 738 Water Street, Santa Cruz, CA. Our shop was voted the BEST frozen yogurt shop in Santa Cruz by the people of Santa Cruz in the Good Times news paper for 2011. I have become a Practioner at Innerlight Ministeries in Soquel, CA. I live in a retirement community, right on the ocean. I love to hear from all my teacher friends, so give me a call.

Rita McBride

I have been square dancing for the past 8 years. My dog, Bagel, and I are part of the Ohlone Humane Society's Animal Assisted Therapy Program.

Bagel

Bagel and I visit 2 nursing homes in Fremont as visitors to seniors and we go to the Fremont Library for the Read To A Dog program each month. I also go to Logan graduation ceremonies to see students I had in my kindergarten class years ago.

William Legaspi and Tim Alarcon 2011 Logan Grads with Rita.

ManYee Desandies
ManYee has been semi-retired for the first year of her retirement. She has worked with students three hours a day at Alvarado on the Leveled Literacy Intervention program. Taking walks around the lake with her dog has allowed her to expand her nature photography hobby to include magnificent photos of birds which are published by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. She continues to explore the joys of technology with her ipad and even gives free ipad lessons to her friends. Her handsome grandson, Jinyao, is the joy of her life.

Joan Logue
Joan lives in a Sun City retirement community and loves it. She loves the golf, the Mac group, and even has her own set of Bocce balls. She is also thrilled with her grandson, Jamie. For the last 8 years she has been the leader of the bereavement group.

Mary Ogden
Mary lives in the beautiful city of Discovery Bay with the wind and the water to enjoy. She lives close to her daughter and her grandchildren and spends a lot of time with them.

Sharon Chambers
I spend my time working on my garden patio, getting my house in order, and writing this blog and a few other blogs. I still love using technology. I also love to spend time with my two lovely granddaughters. Last year we had an adventure with the girls in Nevada City helping their Uncle Josh with his gold mine and swimming in the river.
We also spent a holiday vacation taking care of the girls in Texas while mom and dad were at work. When done, we were exhausted.

Marty Brown
Marty is still Best Friends Forever (BFF) with Debbie Fryman, who is now at Eastin. She often goes over to help Debbie with her classroom.

The Conflict Resolution program was started to teach students how to resolve their conflicts in a peaceful way without having to go to a adult to settle the problem. Students learned leadership skills and had extensive training after school to develop their skills. Students learned to listen and develop empathy for others. Conflict Managers had to give up some of their play time either at recess or at lunch to do their job. In the photo to the left Bernadette Muhlestein supervises conflict manager training.

All the students in every class were taught to give an "I message" to students when they had a problem on the playground or in the classroom. When the program was in fully utilized, there were about 70 conflict managers.

Bernadette Muhlestein and Joan Logue started Conflict Resolution together. According to Joan, "We took a class and had inservice in the process. We had a guidebook for the exact process students were required to follow. As I remember, the Conlict Manager would see a problem, ask them to step into the circle and then say, "What happened" to each of them, one at a time. Then after listening, they would say, "How did that make you feel?" After their answer, the Conflict Manager would ask, "What will make it better now?". If they answer "Don't do that again" or something then the Conflict Manager asks the other if that's OK. If it isn't then they can go to the office to solve it. But if they want it over fast, then they all agree, shake hands and go on their way. And it worked!!!! The Conflict Manager kids were chosen from the higher grades and trained continually. We did a lot of role playing in the class which was always after school. It was a great program!!"

Role playing

The above photo shows Greg Snelling training his Conflict Managers. After Joan retired, Greg and Bernadette did the program. As of 2010 Greg Snelling and Paul Hornbook are the Conflict Resolution teachers. At the end of the the school year all the conflict managers with their conflict teachers went on a special field trip as a reward for all their hard work.

Conflict Managers at Work

Joan and Greg at the Conflict Manager Pizza Party

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
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1964 to early 70's: School Life

Staff Photo 1971-1972
Jim Blood, Principal
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Joan Logue recalls when she came to Alvarado in 1964. The community was still an agricultural community and Alvarado was a K-8 school. The students were caucasian, Japanese, Chinese, or Mexican Americans. Across the street from the school were cauliflower fields. Many parents were migrant workers. Sometimes when parents both had to work they would keep their older girls out of school to babysit the younger children. They did not move from community to community to work. The families lived in Union City and worked around it in various agricultural jobs. Joan lived in Mexico before coming to AE so she was fluent in Spanish. Her first year at AE Joan taught 7th and 8th graders how to read in Spanish. The Mexican students could speak Spanish, but most could not read it.

In 1965 the school district was unified and Alvarado was now a k-6 school. The student population now consisted of younger students. There was only one bathroom for boys and one for girls. In order to keep the bathrooms clean, they had bathroom contests to see who could keep the bathrooms the cleanest. The students were very respectful of property and did a great job of keeping the bathrooms clean. In 1977 when the old sugar mill was demolished, Joan took her class out to see it as it happened. During the early 70's teachers and principals were still allowed to punish students for improper behavior by spanking them. Sometime in the mid 70's that policy was rescinded.

By the end of 1972 the population of teachers and aides had increased. Virginia Betzer was the reading specialist.

1970-1971
Jim Blood, Principal
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1968-1969 Staff
Jim Blood, Principal



1967-1968 Staff
Jim Blood, Principal
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The principal at Alvarado was Jim Blood. After the district unified they did not have assistant principals for a long time. When Mr. Blood left to teach at Alvarado Middle School, Hector Caraballo became principal. His Assistant Principal was MaryAnne Cavello.

In 1973-74 Alvarado Middle School was completed mainly by moving in portable classrooms to the lot next door to Alvarado Elementary. Alvarado Middle School was a 5-8 school, therefore, Alvarado Elementary became a k-4 school.