1997 - 1999 Moving on and Moving Down

The first full year of class size reduction in K-3 was 1997. Each teacher had 20 students. It was a dream come true. Prep teachers still had 30 kids. The triad teachers were happy to have their own classes. All the classrooms were occupied. We still had about 450 students. We just had many more teachers. However, our student population was soon to go up.

In 1997 the Synergy Media Retrieval System was installed in the hub room and each classroom. We had instant broadcast video in each room including the office for about six years, then it started falling apart. When the district lost the only two people who knew how to make it work school wide, Jay Hendee and the technician, Richard, that was the death knell. By 2009 Synergy was no longer was viable. The technology had changed 500% during that time span. It was old equipment that had not been updated.

After much debate with parents and students, in 1998 5th grade moved down from the middle school. It was quite a switch for them and us. Now we were a K-5 school with about 650 students and five more teachers. More portables were moved out to the grass area. Prep teachers did the “wheel” as an elective for the 5th graders. The media specialist started the AE television broadcast with each 5th grade class. The wheel only lasted one year. The system was too complicated for elementary students and their teachers to handle. It just didn’t work.

In 1998 began the Cell and Excell literacy training program for teachers. Laurie Koehler was the ExLL coach and Bee Medders was the CELL coach. ExLL was for 4th and 5th grade. CELL was for k-3. CELL stands for California Early Literacy Learning. The focus is on teaching reading and writing including content reading for the 4th and 5th grades. Teachers spent a lot of time on this training much of it during staff meetings. Much of their focus was on using read alouds in the classroom everyday and twice a day if possible. The buzz word now was "coaching" instead of trainers. The coaches went into classrooms and worked with teachers and students.

Leonore Sanchez

Jill Baer

We also had some office changes. In 1996 Nancy Mumm replaced Barbara Finnigan as a clerk III. Barbara went to the district office to work with Kathy Moniz. In 1998 Mike recruited Jill Baer from the district office to come to Alvarado when Leonore Sanchez retired. Leonore came to AE from Hillview Crest in 1984 with principal Hector Carabello. Jill worked with Mike at the district office and liked his jolly sense of humor.

Early 1990's: The Staff and BTSA

Alvarado was a k-4 school with about 400 students. Julia Strong-Yoho was the principal and Tess Melendez was the assistant principal. Tess was in the process of getting her doctorate, so after two years at AE she left to go to a principalship in another district. In 1993 Barbara Debarger replaced her as the new AP. Marge Slakey was the Resource Specialist. Bernadette Muhlestein was the Science Specialist. Susan Fivelstad was the Reading Specialist. Sharon Chambers was the Media Specialist. Mark Simmons was the P.E. teacher. Laurel Tanner was the music teacher. Barbara Murkland was the school psychologist. Bernadette Hawkins and Constance Reed were special education teachers. Constance was also a footbag or hacky sack champion. She would demonstrate her skills and try to teach the students how to do it. The students loved it. Sally Kaneko, a first grade teacher, was our expert on Early Childhood Development. She and partner, Bee Legaspi Medders, who joined her in 1991, went to Marin county for training.

There are two photos for some of the 1990's because we had a huge staff which included all the support staff such as aides, the school secretary, and custodian. In later years the classified staff members were not included in the photographs. Lenore Sanchez remained as the school secretary. Barbara Finnigan was a clerk III. Manual Perez was the long time school custodian. Grace Paniaquia worked part time in the health room.

BTSA stands for Beginning Teachers Support Association. BTSA has been instrumental in bringing in many great new teachers into Alvarado and the New Haven School District. These teachers student teach in our schools and learn from master teachers. Cathleen Hampton has been an active leader in BTSA since the inception and a long time master teacher. As of 2011 Mrs Hampton remains as the BTSA coordinator. According to Ms. Hampton, the first year of BTSA was 1993. It evolved out of the California New Teacher Project which Annette Iwamoto and Virginia Swihart (Lynne's Thomson's mom) were instrumental in developing it at the state level. All of it came from the fact that teachers were leaving the profession very quickly because of lack of support. The statistics were 50% left within the first 5 years. New Haven was one of the first BTSA projects in the state (I think there were only 10), so we were an original! For the next 20 years the BTSA program provided training after school for all new teachers in the district. This was a required training and very extensive which also involved some classroom visits by the project coordinator.

1992-1993 Staff

Julia Strong-Yoho Principal

Barbara Debarger Assistant Principal

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Early 1980's

Staff Photo 1980-1981
Hector Caraballo, Principal
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Hector Caraballo was principal at Alvarado for much of the decade. Leonore Sanchez was the long time school secretary. In the middle 80's the office and the staff room were completely remodeled. Melinda Stephen was the librarian/media specialist prep teacher for the first part of the decade.

Liz Jordan joined the staff in 1984 as a science prep teacher. Liz recalls, "the Science preps began the year that I began in the district. There were 5 full time k-4 science teachers: Holly Scroggins, Linda Carey, Fenna Gatty, Mary Rodriques and me (I was at Alvarado and Decoto the first year). Steve Politzer and Steve Zapiain were part time science teachers that first year. Only Holly had formal science training, and Holly was the only one not hired back after the first year. Hector hired her to be a classroom teacher when he found out that she was not being rehired as a science teacher. The five full time science teachers created the entire k-4 science program that first year, working every weekend, attending workshops and creating hands-on lessons for every grade level. It was invigorating and very intense. Sometimes we did not have our own classrooms and had all of our materials in shopping carts, going from classroom to classroom each period!"

Staff Photo 1983-1984
Hector Caraballo, Principal
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