Oct 04 2022

How to Improve Your Children’s School Successes

As an elementary school principal, I provide guidance and resources to support our students’ social-emotional and academic successes. Our school also uses Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) to reinforce positive social behaviors and define consequences for problem behaviors. We focus on ensuring a predictable, consistent, positive, and a safe school environment for all students. By using a common language on school-wide expectations, less time is spent on discipline. More time is focused on instruction, building a positive school climate, and promoting positive interactions between staff, students, and families. [Read more…]

Rafael Zavala

Dr. Rafael Zavala became passionate about learning at an early age. As a child of farmworkers in the Salinas Valley, Rafael attended Santa Clara University for his undergraduate degree and completed Masters’ Degrees at Saint Louis University and Harvard. Most recently, Dr. Zavala completed his Ed.D. from San Jose State University.

Mr. Zavala started teaching in 2002 at Solidad Unified School District in California and later at Cambridge Public Schools and Malden Public Schools in Massachusetts. After returning to California in 2015, Dr. Zavala served in diverse administrative roles including Assistant Principal, Administrator of School Climate and Culture, and Administrator II of Personnel Services. Rafael became the Principal of Sakamoto Elementary School in San Jose, California in 2021.

A primary focus of his work is to ensure the equitable educational support services for all students by implementing Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS). Mr. Zavala firmly believes that when district and school staff collaborate to create effective tiered behavioral support strategies, students will succeed at grade level and beyond.

www.GenParenting.com

Aug 09 2022

How Covid Affected Student Learning – Part 2

The Community and Schools Shut Down

Businesses were shutting down and asking employees to work from home. My husband was one of the last employees to work at his computer company. It made absolutely no sense to me why he was being required to go to work when the barista, serving coffee in the company lobby, was staying home. Finally, my husband received a phone call from his boss to work from home. I guess that Wednesday was the last normal day I can remember during the Covid pandemic. The next day, my husband worked from home and I worked at the school.

Then came Friday, March 13th. The day started out normal. One student complained about another as we entered the classroom after the morning bell rang. All of a sudden, the power flickered. My heart skipped a beat as the power generator kicked on and power was restored. Five minutes later, the school phone system went down, the power went out, and the internet was down. I think my heart stopped beating at that moment. My thoughts were that we are being invaded. What am I going to do? Will I have to evacuate and take my students up to a cul-de-sac at the top of a hill to stay safe? I could not imagine how I could evacuate and keep 24 fearful seven-year-olds calm while hiking up a hill? Most pictures in my head looked like hysteria.

I took a breath, got out my phone, and called my husband for many reasons. We live around the corner. I needed to know how widespread this was. I was in full panic mode. I thought that was pretty clever for the terrorists to shut down the internet. Cutting off communication made this a whole different ball game. Feelings of isolation started to settle in and my own fear was getting the best of me. I needed to hear his voice. My first question was is the power out at home? He said no. A wave of relief spread across my entire body. I think I felt all my muscles relax. Then I asked is the internet out at home. Another no! Thank goodness. Okay, now I can begin to think again. The question now was what the heck is going on? The level of anxiety was hitting like a roller coaster in the classroom. (Many of you who are teachers right now are thinking what in the heck were the students doing while she was on the phone. All this took place during my lunch break.) With the time remaining, I headed up to the front office for a bio break. I arrived in the staff room simultaneously with the principal. She was sitting down and looked as though she was in shock. She delivered the news to those of us on the second lunch period that she has to shut the school down. She couldn’t believe her own words.

How Do I Say Goodbye to My Students?

What I hate most about what happened next was that my gut instinct was right. I was only told to pack the students up because we are closing the school down. The virus was spreading and we could no longer keep students and staff safe. The immediate thoughts around campus were that we would be back in three weeks. Maybe it was my degree in Biological Sciences that guided me that day, or my work in biotech for five years. But my instincts that day led me to pack the students up with their workbooks for the rest of the year. It’s never a good feeling being right about difficult things and this was one of them. I taught the rest of the day as normal as possible. When the final bell rang, I walked the students to their parents and returned to my classroom. Friday, March 13th 2020 marks the last day that my second graders would see a classroom for 18 months.

Flake by flake, traumas continued to fall upon us. Power outages, failed internet connectivity, massive California forest fires, not to mention teaching seven-year-olds how to video conference. We needed time to heal. We needed the snow to melt.

Welcome New School Year

The 2020-2021 school year could be a novel on its own. The distance learning curve was brutal and the expectations were incredibly unrealistic. All that aside, where are we now? I was crushed by my own personal obligation to close the student’s learning gap and the trauma caused by online learning.

This coming school year my expectations have to shift. The students in front of me are not the students I have known during my teaching career. They need social emotional lessons grounded in team building and resiliency. STEM projects, music, art, and literacy intervention will be focus of what these children need to heal the trauma from the last two years of learning.

Danielle Gentry

Danielle’s first step in education did not begin with education at all. It began with her first love for science. She received a B.S. in Biological Science, with a concentration in Molecular Biology. Her five years of experience as a chemist in the biotech industry at SYVA and Dade Behring Diagnostics include both areas of quality control and research and development. Her contributions were qualifying products for release to sell to the diagnostic market as well as developing new diagnostic technology for immunoassay detection. Danielle’s subtle transition to discovering her passion for education was through the birth of her daughter. She became a stay at home mom. Her uber volunteerism at her daughter’s elementary school gained her access to her path of education. She now holds a multiple subject teaching credential and M.A. in Education from National University. She has over ten years of experience at Sakamoto Elementary School as an educator in kindergarten, sixth grade, second grade, and a 2/3 combination class. Her teaching is rooted in a constructivist model while fostering independence and accountability in the classroom.

May 17 2022

Embrace and Learn from Mistakes and Challenges

by Erik Youngman, Guest Blogger

Regardless of your children’s age and where you live, there are daily opportunities to help children embrace and learn from mistakes and challenges. Teachers and parents have an important shared responsibility and opportunity to model and empower critical skills to children. Children make progress when teachers and parents model and empower learning from mistakes and challenges with a growth mindset. Progress and change are dependent upon specific skills that are required and improved while learning with a growth mindset and become even more important as expectations and rigor increase. [Read more…]

Mary Ann Burke, Digital Education Expert

Mary Ann Burke, Ed.D., Digital Education Expert, is a substitute distance learning teacher for Oak Grove School District in San Jose, California and the author of STUDENT-ENGAGED ASSESSMENT: Strategies to Empower All Learners (Rowman & Littlefield: 2020). Dr. Burke creates digital language arts and substitute teaching K – 12 activities for teachers and parents. She is the Cofounder of the Genparenting.com blog. Burke is the former Director II of Categorical & Special Projects for the Santa Clara County Office of Education that supports 31 school districts serving 272,321 students in Santa Clara County. She is also a previous Director – State & Federal Compliance for Oakland Unified School District, the former Director – Grantwriter for the Compton Unified School District, and was the initial VISTA Director for the Community Partnership Coalition in southern California. Much of her work focuses on creating innovative digital trainings and partnership programs for teachers and families to support students’ learning. These programs were featured as a best practice at a National Title I Conference, California’s Title I Conferences, AERA Conferences, an ASCD Conference, the NASSP Conference, and statewide educator conferences.

Apr 05 2022

College and Career Explorations

When children are preschoolers, they love to think about what they want to be when they grow up. Some want to be garbage collectors, doctors, princesses, and athletes. Whatever career passions children relish, it is important to reinforce these interests with relevant play activities and enrichment outings to learn more about various careers. Parents can help children visualize a plan for a career opportunity by encouraging their children to:

Communicate with folks in specific professions.
Research the educational and job requirements for potential careers.
Participate in field trips and community activities to learn more about specific careers.
Attend parents’ work activities and shadow parents, colleagues, and friends to explore various careers
Encourage children to help at work with duplications, mailings, and computer inputting if permitted by the company.
Secure community service volunteer responsibilities, internships, and paid jobs.

As children enter middle school and explore various careers, they must learn how to research various college and career academic requirements to ensure that they are taking the proper courses for a specific career. They can attend career exploration days, meet with college counselors, and attend college tours to learn more about academic preparations. The more children understand the requirements for specific careers, the greater their successes will be to prepare and plan for appropriate course selections.

Early College Options

Early college, or the ability to take college courses in high school, can save thousands of dollars in educational preparations and tuition costs later. Middle school and high school students can learn more about early college by contacting their local school district to determine which high school campuses offer community college courses at the high school site. Parents and students can also contact their local community college to learn which courses high school students can register for during and after the school day. Additionally, many state and private colleges offer summer and vacation break intra-sessions on different careers including computer coding, science and math academics, performing arts, and writing workshops.

Community Service Leadership Opportunities

As part of their high school graduation requirements, most high school students are required to participate in community service activities. Some students use this time to explore careers and provide community services at elementary schools, for youth sports teams, and at various social service agencies. During summer breaks, students may participate in an international business program or cultural exchange program in another country. Other students work at summer jobs or internships to learn about merchandising, computer coding, and legislative support services for a local legislator.

Much success supporting your children’s school leadership and career planning options.

Mary Ann Burke, Digital Education Expert

Mar 29 2022

Becoming a School Leader

Parents are their children’s first teachers. Many feel inadequate on how to become a school leader. Some parents may have had a negative experience in their own academic experiences. Others may have attended school in another country. By participating in their children’s classrooms, parents can learn how to help their children at home with their homework and school projects. Parents can share their own skills, hobbies, and cultural experiences with students in the classroom. Additionally, children will respect their parents’ presence at the school and feel important. Parent classroom volunteers can:

Provide food donations when requested and help prepare meals with the students.
Donate classroom supplies requested by the teacher and prep curricular projects at home for classroom use.
Serve as a classroom parent representative to provide added support for class parties, field trips, and grade-level events.
Share a talent or hobby in small group learning centers.
Mentor and shadow new classroom parent volunteers.
Provide interpretation and translation support for parent volunteers and students

Classroom Support

Classroom parent volunteers will be able to:

Gain insight in how their children are adjusting to the new school year with their classmates and the academic course work.
Observe how the teacher is coaching and interacting with various students when responding to diverse educational challenges.
Advocate effectively with teachers and staff because they have an established relationship and committed partnership with the school community.

School Leadership Roles

As parents become experienced classroom volunteers, many will receive leadership training from teachers and parent mentors to expand their volunteer leadership at the school. Parents can become school leaders and support the school by:

Serving as a parent representative on school and district committees
Participating in the school’s Parent, Teacher, and Student Association (P.T.S.A.)
Supporting a school’s fundraising foundation with fundraising and sponsorship events
Soliciting and advocating for added community partnerships at the school site through community-based organizations and local businesses
Leveraging added instructional support services by organizing special events, field trips, and community service projects for students and their families
Creating a school-based performing arts program with local artists, museums, and community theaters
Expanding physical fitness and nutritional programs with community-based organizations and sports groups

As parents partner and expand their roles at school, they will become more confident in supporting their children’s academic needs and successes.

Mary Ann Burke, Digital Education Expert