March 29, 2007

SCHOOL SCENEin Almaden Valley

School board approves Leland’s joint field-upgrade project with city

SJUSD passage, following city council approval, finalizes acceptance of project

The board of the San Jose Unified School District approved a proposal for a joint project between the city and the district to upgrade two soccer fields at Leland High School at last week’s board meeting, according to School Board Trustee Leslie Reynolds.

The passage of the proposal on March 22, two days after the City Council voted to accept it, will install synthetic turf at Leland and build support amenities to facilitate community access for after-school youth sports.

The project spearheaded by Reynolds and Councilmember Nancy Pyle entails the city investing $2.15 million into the $5.75 million project to design and construct the new fields. In return for the investment and sharing of maintenance costs, the city will be entitled to 5,000 hours of use the three synthetic turf fields at Leland, which include the two fields slated for upgrade and Pat Tillman stadium, which already uses synthetic turf.

Both the district and the city hope to have the field upgrades completed by September, 2007.

—By Ali Abdollahi

Calling all singers: Library holding vocal contest for San Jose Teen Idol!

Will you be the next San Jose Teen Idol? Are you in your school choir? Are you taking singing lessons? Can you carry a tune while in the shower? If you are 12-19 years old, then you can compete for a chance to win the San Jose Public Library's first San Jose Idol competition. Complete rules are available at the Almaden Library (6445 Camden Ave. San Jose) and this local contest will be held on Saturday, April 14, from 2 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. in the large community room. The first-prize winner will win $50, second prize will win $25 and third prize will win $10. If you would like to compete, register by Friday, April 13 at Almaden Library's information desk. The first-place winner will be one of the finalists to compete at the main event downtown at the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library. Please come to the library to sign up for a time slot and to pick up a rule sheet. For more information, call (408) 808-3040.

Simonds hosts fourth annual Science Fair

The fourth annual Simonds Science Fair took place on March 21 featuring the hard work of 108 students in grades one through five.

At right: The 15 top ribbon recipients for first, second and third place at each grade level from first to fifth grade are pictured after the competition, along with Principal Janice Samuels. There were some group projects that won, as well as a tie in fifth grade. The award winners are as follows:

1st grade
1st: Tejal Bhika
2nd: Nathan Mirizzi
3rd: Nikhil Prabhakar

2nd grade
1st: Isha Prabhakar
2nd: Shelby Starek
3rd: Nicole Moskovitz

3rd grade
1st: Lindsey Will
2nd: Katie Lindsley & Katy West
3rd: Zakarie Kohlbrenner-Rios & Nicola Milinovich

4th grade
1st: Monica Boss
2nd: Augusta de Oliveira
3rd: Vincent Vo

5th grade
1st: Tallulah Dash
2nd: Madison Maxwell & Claire Palazolo tied with Vivek Ramanan
3rd: Maggie Garg

It’s almost time for summer camp

Camp Galileo returns to Simonds with classes in art, science and outdoor fun

By Jeanne Carbone Lewis
Staff Writer

Are you wondering how to keep your kids busy this summer? Do you want them to have a new educational experience? Or maybe you just need a break. Then Camp Galileo is the answer.

“Camp Galileo’s mission is to inspire kids to imagine and create, whether in the arts, sciences, or through physical activities,” said Galileo Educational Services [operator of Camp Galileo] Founder and CEO Glen Tripp. “Bay Area kids have built amazing towers, developed solar-powered cars, created Pollock-style paints, designed Egyptian cartouches and much more. And they learn to work together and debate ideas. And we have high quality educators to deliver the programs. At Camp Galileo our dream is not only to create a camp culture where kids can flourish, but also our staff.”

Campers at Camp Galileo’s Almaden Valley site at Simonds Elementary School show off a tower they created in the science curriculum’s design challenge. Photos courtesy of Pineapple Creative

The Camp Galileo Almaden location is at Simonds Elementary School and offers kindergartners to fifth graders a “learning-made-fun” curriculum emphasizing art, science and the outdoors developed in partnership with the de Young Museum, The Tech Museum of Innovation and Klutz.

One element of Camp Galileo is the design challenge educational approach, where campers are divided into small groups to create hands-on solutions to science and engineering challenges such as building model bridges to replacing bridges damaged in 8.4-magnitude earthquakes. And with camp ceremonies, theme days, and a rubber chicken mascot, no wonder parents and kids rave about Camp Galileo.

With an expected 11,000 total enrollments this summer at their 15 Bay Area locations, the-5-year old Oakland-based Camp Galileo has been welcomed by parents for their impressive partners and environment promoting a creative educational approach. In 2006, Bay Area Parent magazine named Camp Galileo the best camp for kids for the third year. And the camp counselors are just as exciting.

“Camp Galileo does an amazing job with their staff selection and training,” said Simonds mom Christy Barrese. “I have been very impressed with the credentials and experience of each staff member. I understand that Camp Galileo does quite a bit of training and team building amongst the staff the weeks before the campers even arrive. That makes for a solid, well organized, positive team. That’s what we experienced. This year both of my daughters will be in a full day for a week or two and my youngest daughter who is 2 will join them someday!”

Almaden’s Camp Galileo director is Charlotte Tucker, who returning for a second year. After receiving a bachelor of arts degree in liberal studies from San Francisco State University, Tucker spent two years with SCORE! Educational Centers, directing the Menlo Park Center and working as both a teacher and mentor to kids. She had 10 years management experience before becoming a full-time mom and part-time math tutor. And besides Tucker there are lead instructors, team leaders and counselors in training to provide a complete educational and fun-packed week of camp.

“This will be our third year at Camp Galileo, and we are thrilled with the program,” said Barrese. “The first year, my oldest daughter was going in to first grade and she went to the camp without knowing anyone. The counselors were just fabulous introducing her to other kids right away. The second year, I entered my other daughter who was 4-and-a- half years old. The counselors once again did such a super job with their enthusiasm.”

Barrese serves on the Camp Galileo local advisory board along with Simonds parent Nicole van der Hulst, and San Jose Museum of Art director of art Val DeLang, The Tech Museum of Innovation director of education Missy McAlexander, Holy Family School principal Gail Harrell and other parents from local schools.

Campers at Camp Galileo’s Almaden Valley site at Simonds Elementary School play water ball in the outdoor curriculum.

“I thought the curriculum was rich and varied and I appreciated that the projects planned over a few days, which provided the campers with experience in long-term planning,” said Barrese. “I am an elementary school teacher, and I felt that all of the activities in which my girls participated were age appropriate and challenging. Their themes are rich and varied and at the end of each day I received a full verbal description of what my child did that day. I also received a full-page flyer of the curricular concepts they had covered. Very impressive!”

But it’s not just parents who are raving about Camp Galileo.

“I liked when it was water day and we got soaked with water!” said Anya Barrese, 7, with vivid recollections of last summer’s Camp Galileo. “It was a really hot day! We played sponge water relays. I also liked when we painted Andy Warhol self-portraits. I also liked the science classes because we got to make astronaut Rovers for Mars with marshmallow people and learned about space. We played with hula hoops outside. We made tie dyed t-shirts the first day to be a part of our [age group] team. Our team was the purple dolphins. We voted on it!”

Part of Camp Galileo’s mission is a commitment to make summer camp available to kids of all socioeconomic backgrounds granting 1,000 scholarships over its 15 locations, providing a child with a full week of camp. The Galileo Scholarship Program provides full and partial awards to low and middle-income families who need financial assistance.

For more information on Camp Galileo, call 1-800-854-3684 or visit www.campgalileo.com.

Williams Elementary School students bring home ‘History Hunters’ title

Fifth-grade students across district compete in history competition

Eric Zimmerling
Times Intern

Quick. What is the capital of Rhode Island? Or how about the capital of Maine? What about New Hampshire?

If you answered Providence, Augusta and Concord respectively in a very short amount of time then you are off to a successful start in the first part of a history and social sciences competition…for fifth graders.

Four fifth grade students at Williams Elementary School made up two of 14 teams from various elementary schools that competed in the second-annual “History-Hunters” competition at the Santa Clara County of Education on March 16.

Students (from left to right) Nishanth Subramaniam, Dominique Chan, Michael Flickner and Justin Foxhaven of Williams Elementary School prepare to face off against each other in the “History Hunters” competition on March 16.

The competition consisted of two-person teams competing against each other in three rounds.

The first couple of rounds featured students mapping out states and their capitals, rivers and other landmarks all the while knowing latitude and longitude. The final round was the buzzer round in which teams were quizzed on their knowledge of social studies from the 1650s to 1750s.

After advancing in all of their rounds and whizzing past the competition, Nishanth Subramaniam and Dominique Chan from Williams Elementary School won first place.

“It was a fun experience and a good way to learn about history,” Chan said. “It really was a once in a lifetime opportunity because it is only for fifth graders and I’m really happy I got to participate and even win.”

Nishanth’s mother Malini is a teacher at Graystone Elementary School, another school that had two teams in the competition. Subramaniam watched her son’s team at Williams defeat her students in the competition.

“It was a little bit awkward for me,” Subramaniam said. “I was happy for him but disappointed to see my students lose. Williams has a lot of smart kids so I knew it was going to be tough for us.”

Diane Benson, a teacher at Williams that has three of the four students in her class that participated in the “History-Hunters” event, said the competition is a great opportunity for students to show their knowledge of history.

“These kids worked so hard getting ready for the competition,” Benson said. “A lot of the information they were quizzed on we haven’t even reached in the book yet so they studied over their winter break to get ready. The hardest part was only choosing four students to participate because there are so many bright kids at Williams. One of the good things is that we taped the event and will use the questions during class so that everyone has an opportunity to participate in answering questions.”

After both teams from Williams defeated its first couple opponents, they were forced to face each other.

“That was one disappointing factor of the competition,” Benson said. “Our two teams had to compete against each other which meant they couldn’t meet in the final. The same thing happened to Graystone who also had two teams in the event. They were forced to knock out one of their own teams when they competed against each other.”

Chan and Subramaniam defeated Michael Flickner and Justine Foxhaven of Williams before going on to win it all.

Flickner said even though he didn’t win, he had a great time. “I read the book three times getting ready for this,” Flickner said. “I had a great time doing it and was glad I could participate.”

Seeking School News

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