Come out to Aurora Theatre on September 21 for a special benefit evening for Berkeley Schools!   A generous donation of tickets means that all proceeds from the evening will support Berkeley Public Education Foundation’s grant and volunteer programs, providing enrichment opportunities for students in our pre-school through 12th grade classrooms and after-school programs. 

Celebrated Bay Area actress Margo Hall will be making her Aurora debut in Trouble in Mind, a 1950s play whose themes of race, power and privilege continue to resonate today.  A play-within-the-play centers on a mixed-race cast attempting to mount a production of a “progressive” new play on Broadway in the 1950s. This production—an anti-lynching drama set in the South—is written by a white man and directed by a white man, and marks the first opportunity for a gifted black actress to play a leading role on Broadway. But what compromises must she make to succeed?

Aurora Theatre is an intimate venue where the audience feels part of the action on stage.   Ms. Hall and Director Robin Stanton have kindly agreed for a post-play conversation that will draw us even further in to the play’s history and themes, and to the qualities of this particular Aurora production.  

We hope you can join us for this unique evening of engagement in the theatre and our Berkeley schools!  Tickets are available only through BPEF.   Click here for more information and purchase information, or call BPEF at 510-644-6244.

On Wednesday June 30 Berkeley Unified School District announced the selection of Pasquale Scuderi as the new Principal of Berkeley High School, where he will assume leadership beginning with the 2010-11 school year.  Read more about the announcement here: New Berkeley High Principal Announced   Having served in an administrative capacity at BHS during 2006-08, Scuderi is known and respected by the community.  Janet Huseby, who as the BHS Volunteer Coordinator travels between teachers, parents, administrators and students, expressed unqualified enthusiasm at the announcement, noting “he knows the staff, and the school, and the challenges,  which puts him in a position to build on the accomplishments of the past seven years rather than starting from ground zero.”

Mr. Scuderi will be one of three new principals serving BUSD schools next year.  Others are Jeremy “Paco” Furlan, joining the Rosa Parks Elementary community from Eugene, Oregon, and Alexander Hunt, who will take the reins from 20-year veteran Cheryl Chinn at Malcolm X.  Principal Hunt comes to Berkeley after ten years as a principal in Redwood City.

BPEF welcomes these new leaders and looks forward to working with them in the years ahead.

Over 450 public education advocates and supporters filled Hs Lordships on May 14 to recognize BPEF’s four honorees for their outstanding contributions to Berkeley schools.   This popular annual event spotlights achievement among teachers, administrators, volunteers and community leaders, and  raises significant funds for BPEF’s PreK through 12th grade grant and volunteer programs.

Thanks to the very generous support of businesses, organizations and individuals BPEF raised over $165,000 at the event! Don’t miss being part of this spirited and inspiring day next May (check back soon for the date).

Honorees for 2010 are profiled in depth in the luncheon program found here but with thanks to our editor friends at Berkeleyside blog brief highlights they ran in a May story appear below. You can also view a slide show here.

Tom Prince, Literacy Coach at BUSD and Berkeley Arts Magnet. Since the early 1990s, in Oakland and now Berkeley, Reading Recovery has been the chief inspiration for Tom’s work. This unique program focuses exclusively on intervention with struggling first-grade readers, starting from the positive premise of building up from what a student can do, rather than focusing immediately on what they can’t.

Richard Silberg, Drama Teacher, Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School. A 22-year veteran of Berkeley schools, Richard first taught 6th grade at Columbus Elementary beginning in 1988. In 1991, Richard moved to King Middle School and, with his colleague Phoebe Tanner, opened the first 6th grade class in any Berkeley middle school. Richard became the first actor hired by Berkeley’s Shotgun Players. At the urging of Principal Neil Smith, Richard first began teaching drama at King in 1995, and today at least two-thirds of King’s students have a class with Richard at some point during their three-year tenure.

Jabari Anderson, Two-Way Immersion Teacher, Cragmont Elementary. In his eleventh year as a teacher in 1st and 2nd grade multi-lingual classrooms, Jabari believes firmly that there are many paths into the brain, be they tactile, visual or verbal — or a combination of all three. His project, to produce materials and an instructive DVD to support language acquisition and reading fluency in the classroom and at home, represents the kind of innovative reach that BPEF has enthusiastically supported over the years.

UC Berkeley’s Cal Corps Public Service Center. Cal Corps’ deep commitment to organizing student volunteers provides extensive summer and school-year tutoring support for developing K–8 readers at Berkeley public schools, city recreation centers, and other non-profit youth programs. Its mission, to “promote leadership through service, and to foster social justice and civic engagement”, is powerfully reflected in BUILD — Berkeley United in Literacy Development.

Cheryl Chinn, Principal at Malcolm X for 20 years and a BUSD employee for 38 years, is retiring at the end of this school year.  BPEF recognized Cheryl with its “Distinguished Educator” award in 2009, and is proud to have funded dozens of grants to support her teachers and students during her tenure.  Our local “Berkeleyside” blog featured Principal Chinn in an article and interview this week, which you can find here.

Congratulations, Cheryl on an outstanding career of accomplishments, and best wishes for your well-deserved retirement!

In light of the recently announced California State budget cuts, Superintendent Bill Huyett wrote a letter explaining what this means for Berkeley Unified and its programs.

Read the letter on the BUSD web site here: http://berkeley.net/2010-budget-cuts-1/

All BUSD families, students, faculty and staff are invited by BPEF and BUSD to a free, private evening at Lawrence Hall of Science to view the exhibit “RACE: Are We So Different?”.

Click here for event details!

Carol Olson reading for Emerson's DEAR Day 2010

On Friday, March 5th, over 150 volunteers from UC Berkeley, local businesses, churches, and neighborhood groups joined Berkeley School Volunteers and Berkeley Public Education Foundation in the Berkeley Public elementary and pre-schools for DEAR Day, or “Drop Everything and Read” Day. Conceived as a way to celebrate literacy and the birthday of the iconic children’s book author Dr. Seuss, DEAR Day aims to brings folks from our community into the schools to drop everything for one hour and share their love for books and reading with youth across the USA.

A big thank you to all who participated. Our volunteers consistently make this event a great success! If you would like to join us next year, please contact BSV with your name, email address and phone number; we will add you to our e-newsletter and keep you informed of our events and volunteer opportunities throughout the school year.

Read more about DEAR Day and see some local heroes reading to Berkeley youth here:
http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2010-03-04/article/34791?headline=Berkeley-Drops-Everything-to-Read

We are proud to announce that the City of Berkeley has recognized BPEF and its Berkeley School Volunteers annual DEAR Day — or Drop Everything and Read — event with a proclamation naming March 5, 2010 as DEAR Day in Berkeley! Over 135 volunteers, including Mayor Bates, all City Council members, our new Chief of Police Michael Meehan, and BUSD Superintendent Huyett will join community members at each of our 11 K-5 schools to read a favorite book or two. Thank you to them and all the volunteers who are so important to the vitality of our schools and make this day a success. Click to view the proclamation DEAR Day proclamation!.

We are happy to introduce Clay Saunders, musician and entrepreneur, who before we even met began sending us checks from his BEETHOVEN GUTTER WORKS equal to 6% of every job he and his crew do cleaning, repairing or installing gutters and washing windows. The funds support music in all Berkeley public schools.

Clay’s budding business is built on a collective model, and he intends to expand his members and services to cover nearly everything you might need for your home–a new roof, windows, patio, plumbing…you name it! For now, windows and gutters are his specialty, so make note of this number next time you’re in the market for such services: 831-869-8060. Thank you, Clay!

BPEF has announced its 2009-10 Classroom Grants.  Two  hundred seventy five applications were received, and 236 grants awarded for a total of $161,029!   Teachers at every grade level, from Pre-K through high school, received awards for their ideas and innovative projects.  Funds are supporting new technology, fiction and non-fiction books, special education support materials, field trips to sites around the Bay Area, math and science curriculum materials, visual arts supplies and artist residencies, family events, tutoring support–236 opportunities for our students to expand their horizons and learning.   A complete list of the grants can be found here.

Board members from BPEF fanned throughout the city to distribute grants to every school on November 18.  What a fun job that is!   We put some smiles on teachers’ and principals’ faces.  Surveys continually show that teachers reach into their own pockets to the tune of well over $500 per year to enrich their classrooms and curriculum.   Those are preciouos dollars they should keep for their hard work and commitment.  It’s our job, with your support, to fulfill their needs and dreams.   We can only fund half the total dollars requested right now.  With you help, we will do more!