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Below are some of the pieces I've written recently. My focus is on parent education. Contact me if you'd like me to write for your publication.
- Santa Cruz County Families Find New Ways to "Go Green"
- The Power of Positive Thinking
- Tara Redwood School
- Urban Legends
- HPV Vaccine Offers a Healthier Future for Young Women
- Daddy Power: Dads Stay Home With Their Kids
- Going Against the Flow: Nutrition Education in our Public Schools
- Pre-K Is A Great Head-Start!
- New Alternatives in Pediatric Care
- Children's Book Festival for Santa Cruz Kids
- 'Tis the Season...for School Fundraisers
Santa Cruz County Families Find New Ways to "Go Green"
From Growing Up in Santa Cruz, January 2008
When Safeway introduced its own line of organic food products, it was clear that organic foods had hit the mainstream. While relatively few families eat exclusively organically grown food, most are aware of the benefits and at least try to fit some organics into their budgets.
But past the issue of food, "green" products - products that are ecologically friendly in a number of ways - have been slow to make their way into the family home.
The Power of Positive Thinking
Mount Madonna's Girls Volleyball Team Wins State Tournament with Highest GPA
From Growing Up in Santa Cruz, January 2008
Several years ago, the high school girls volleyball team from tiny Mount Madonna School in Watsonville was kicked out of the Santa Cruz County Athletic League. Their team was performing so poorly they weren't even allowed to compete.
Last month, that same team rose to the challenge and easily won the state championship, besting their competition in three quick, decisive matches.
What happened in between says less about individual athletes than it does about a community built on the side of a mountain.
Tara Redwood School
From Growing Up in Santa Cruz, August 2007
In this age of test scores and accountability, you hardly ever hear a principal or superintendent speak about how their school can make the world a better place.
That's just one way in which Tara Redwood School, a small private school located on the grounds of the Land of the Medicine Buddha retreat in Soquel, is different from the status quo.
"Our aim is to provide learning opportunities, tools and resources that will enable anyone, anywhere to develop his or her natural compassion and wisdom and contribute to peace in the world," explains founder Pam Cayton. And along the way, they also provide a Montessori-based education conforming to California standards for children preschool through third grade (with plans for extending through sixth grade).
Cayton and school administrator Lilian Brito have a common view of American education. Though neither was raised in the United States, they raised their children here and were distressed to see an educational model that, in Cayton's words, was more "Victorian" than modern--"failing to educate the whole child, mental, physical and spiritual."
Cayton had just come to the U.S. from studying the Mahayana Buddhist tradition with Lama Thubten Yeshe in Nepal. She was attracted to Buddhism not only for its spirituality, but also for the scientific and logical basis of the ideas.
"The principles we incorporate into the Tara Redwood curriculum are logic based," says Cayton. "Also, neuroscience validates the work we do at Tara, by revealing that due to the plasticity of the brain, one's thoughts, emotions and actions create neurons that in turn develop different parts of the brain."
Lama Yeshe developed a theory of education he originally called Universal Education. "Knowing yourself--your psychology, your physical condition--this is universal education," Lama Yeshe wrote. "In my opinion, we can communicate these things in a common, universal language."
Cayton decided that she would bring Lama Yeshe's ideas to life on the Soquel property that had just been set aside by her husband's family for the Land of the Medicine Buddha. She formed Tara Redwood School under the towering trees where it's hard not to feel a part of nature.
Every decision made at Tara is informed by Essential Education (the philosophy's current title). The decision was made to base the educational model on Montessori because of that method's respect for the individual child. Elements of other educational approaches such as Waldorf are adopted when appropriate.
The environment at Tara is "prepared" in the Montessori way, but is informed by the other traditions that the school incorporates. Aside from the playground, children play in a labyrinth of stones, hand-made mandalas, and the Wishing Garden. Each change made to the grounds is evaluated on the basis of its feng shui.
The teachers attracted to Tara are not always well-versed in Buddhist tradition, but have a similar mindset.
"The teacher should regard himself or herself as a guide and a facilitator, someone who nurtures latent qualities already existing within the students rather than someone whose job it is to fill up empty pots," writes Cayton in the manual she is developing for the school.
Even teachers with jobs elsewhere have consulted with Tara on their approach.
"Teachers call from all over," Brito explains. "They want to come and watch us so that they can bring new ideas back to their schools."
The students' emotional intelligence is developed through daily rituals that emphasize processes they can use as tools to solve their problems. Each day starts with a circle, during which the children both "center" themselves (looking inward) and send good wishes (looking outward). Physical objects such as shells or stones are used to help younger children connect abstract ideas to the physical world. The teacher helps the children develop the skills and vocabulary that they will use in real applications.
One of these skills is conflict resolution. The children learn a process with a memorable name, "The Five R's." When a problem arises during the day, the children already have a fundamental framework for discussing the problem--they are not approaching it without tools to work with.
Another fundamental approach of the school is called "The Seven Steps" and teaches children to step-by-step turn their desires into concern for the welfare of all beings. Throughout the day the classes discuss "the wish for happiness, cause and effect, the interconnectedness of things, and the constancy of change," whether they are applying principles of mathematics to gardening or noticing a common theme between their lives and the lives of children in India.
"Whenever any topic or subject matter is being taught--whether it be geography,
history, mathematics or whatever--teachers are encouraged to introduce these Essential Education principles, such as interdependence, wherever appropriate," writes Cayton.
Where standard educational approaches are only starting to embrace this philosophy in restricted ways (such as "writing across the curriculum"), for Tara it is a fundamental aspect of educating the child.
"Education has come a long way from the Victorian values of rote memorization and sitting quietly while listening to the teacher," Cayton says. In her current role, she is working to create a training document that codifies Tara's approach for new teachers.
Cayton and Brito are also eager to spread the idea of Essential Education far beyond the small number of students that they can accommodate. They see that their small efforts have a ripple effect, moving outward with the children they teach and the teachers they train. By starting small, focusing on their own school and the people they have contact with, the educators at Tara live what they teach.
Urban Legends:
Concerned Parents Make an Easy Audience
By Suki Wessling
From Growing Up in Santa Cruz, July 2007
We all want to be the best parents we can be to our children, and for some of us, this means keeping up on the latest health and safety news. It's a pretty big job. What with toy recalls, new health studies, and those much-forwarded e-mails you receive, it's hard to keep it all straight.
The first task is to gather the information; the second is to check it out. It's this second task that parents often skimp on, and so urban legends grow and get passed on.
Pre-K Is A Great Head-Start!
By Suki Wessling
From Growing Up in Santa Cruz, May 2005
A 1989 summit hosted by President George H.W. Bush called for universal pre-kindergarten education for all children by 2000. That goal, of course, has not been reached. A U.S. Census Bureau estimate in 2001 put the number at 52%. But in those years parents who have embraced preschool education for their kids have been turning more often to an innovation in preschools: the pre-K only classroom.
The traditional preschool puts children from age two to five into a mixed-age classroom where the children gain skills in important developmental domains: social, physical, and academic. But as any parent knows, the developmental needs of two-year-olds are quite different than a child about to enter kindergarten. "Children thrive in a setting that challenges them to reach just beyond their skill level, while still honoring their current abilities," says Ali Spickler, director of Simcha Preschool in Aptos. "A two-year-old's classroom, for example, should allow for children to help pour and mix during a cooking project, there should be rich language around the foods being prepared. A four-year-old's class can expand on that rich experience by including a recipe chart for children to track measurements or to dictate stories of the tastes and smells and cultures of those foods and make comparisons."
A child in a pre-K classroom will have the opportunity to develop more skills. "Pre-K education is a bridge between the freedom of preschool and the structure of kindergarten," says Midori Tetreault, pre-K teacher at Secret Garden Preschool in La Selva Beach. "Pre-kindergarten education offers children exposure to concepts that they will need to master in kindergarten without the pressure or necessity to perform at a particular level."
Pressure to perform in kindergarten? A lot of parents are worrying about just that as concern over the performance of California students has led to increased emphasis on academic learning in kindergarten. Joni Hyerle, co-teacher in the pre-K classroom at Simcha Preschool, has had to change her teaching to keep up. "With the change in standards for kindergarten, children entering school need to be familiar with many kinds of academic learning which used to be the standard curriculum for kindergarten," Hyerle says. "It is appropriate for children who will be starting kindergarten to have at least a year to learn letters, symbols, the associated sounds, how to use a pencil for writing, scissors for cutting, number symbol recognition, one-to-one correspondence, operations, measurement, comparisons, data collecting and graphing, patterns, and basic geometric shapes."
But a pre-K classroom isn't just about academics. Deborah Ivie, whose daughter just entered pre-K at Secret Garden, says her daughter is thrilled that the pre-K classroom can offer more variety. "Grace loves being a 'big kid'. The kids do more sophisticated circles, they have poetry book for each season and they memorize poems and illustrate them." Mark Silberstein, whose two sons are at Simcha, agrees. "I walked in one day and the kids were taking apart a bicycle! What a great way to teach them about materials, tools, construction, and how things work."
"Socially, I work with children to become problem solvers with their peers. The children are encouraged to use their words, express their feelings and ideas, and they are expected to interact with everyone with a high level of respect for feelings as well as personal space," explains Tetreault. The level of dialogue is also higher, allowing children with developing verbal skills to express themselves. "One day, between all the rains, we had an outdoor nature hunt," Hyerle recounts. "One of the items we were looking for was a feather. We could hear birds. The teacher directed attention to listening to the birds and then asked if we went close to the birds, "Do you think we will find a feather there?" One girl replied, 'I don't think we will find any feathers. You know, those feathers are screwed in tight!'"
Many parents fret about whether their children will be ready for kindergarten, especially because it's unclear to a lot of us what "kindergarten readiness" is. According to Tetreault, "Kindergarten readiness requires that a child self-regulate socially, emotionally, and physically to the best of his or her ability and this is no small feat. In my opinion, for many children giving them this year makes the difference between being a leader versus being a follower." Pre-K teacher Darlene Hall of A Child's Reflection in Santa Cruz says that the academic achievements of her students are not the key to their success in kindergarten. "It's maturity -- learning to get along with other children, to share, and learning compassion for each other. In our school, when one child gets hurt, another will run and get ice to help them."
Hyerle says that in theory, a state mandate for universal preschool is a fine idea, "So that all children, and not just the children from families who can afford to pay, have the preparation to be successful." But teachers agree that there's a downside to government intervention. "I enjoy the freedom I have in creating my own curriculum," Tetreault states. "I would be afraid that we would have to give up our autonomy if the government was involved."
The debate may rage on in government and academic circles over what appropriate curriculum is, but there are a lot of satisfied parents whose pre-K graduates have succeeded in kindergarten. Tetreault states it plainly: "Children who have been in my pre-K class do better in kindergarten than they would have without it. I can't say that they are doing better in comparison with other students but in terms of their own personal growth the benefits are immeasurable."
Elise Atkins, whose daughter is in the Simcha pre-K, sees kindergarten-level work already happening. "Today, when I picked her up, Sonja was making a chart with them about items that float and items that sink. Charting seems like a pretty advanced mathematical skill, one that is just barely touched on in kindergarten, yet it is brought to them in a way that is meaningful and easy to understand."
And Silberstein, whose sons will be off to kindergarten in the fall, has no worries about their readiness. "They have learned the basic lessons about being in a classroom and getting along and being responsible for clean-up and cooperation. They are excited about kindergarten and I don't think there is any anxiety about what otherwise might be the "unknown." Simcha has prepared them for this next step and at the same time, engaged them fully."
New Alternatives in Pediatric Care
From Growing Up in Santa Cruz, August 2005
Dr. Lucy Hu was called in on a special case several years ago. Sophia was seven-and-a-half months old and suffering from a rare lysosomal storage disease. She was not expected to live past two years. Such a case would not be unusual for Dr. Hu, who worked for twenty years as a pediatrician in a children's hospital in China. But in this case, she was in the United States and practicing Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). She treated Sophia with acupuncture and Chinese herbs, hoping to slow the digestive problems that caused diarrhea and made Sophia unable to sleep for more than two hours at a time. While waiting for western medicine to come up with a cure, Sophia's family found that they could improve her quality of life—and eventually extend it by years—using TCM.
The use of traditional treatments such as acupuncture for children is cutting edge in the U.S., but Dr. Hu says that it was part of her education in China. "The Chinese government likes every M.D. to study Chinese medicine as well. Because they have a policy, they say you are Chinese, you need to know Chinese medicine." In the children's hospital where she worked, she would often refer patients to the TCM doctors on staff. "It's very fair for the patient, I think. Why? Because there's not only one way to treat a patient."
Such an attitude is a long time coming in this country. Recently, however, use of TCM with children has become more accepted. Although the American Academy of Pediatrics has no official position on acupuncture, a number of studies have shown its effectiveness and the NIH released a Consensus Statement that described it as "promising." Acupuncture is used to treat a range of problems with children, including digestive problems such as Sophia's, learning and behavioral problems, pain, and common respiratory symptoms caused by illness and asthma.
Dr. Hu was born into a family with a long tradition of work in medicine. Her great-grandfather was a TCM doctor, and Dr. Hu was the third daughter in her family to get a western-style M.D. "In China, family is very important," Dr. Hu explains with a twinkle in her eye. "We listen to family—I know it's different here! My daddy said one, two, three sisters, in the future you will study medicine!"
From a very early age, Lucy saw the importance of pediatricians to families. "I listened to stories," she explains. "Every time children are sick, daddy and mommy are so worried—I'll find a doctor, send to the hospital. Pediatricians are so important for the family, especially for the parents, especially for the children."
She entered medical school after high school and started to work in the children's hospital in Dalian. She had worked for twenty years in pediatric medicine when she and her husband saw the opportunity to rejoin family that had immigrated to the United States. "After my country's policy changed—the open door—we said we wanted to visit relatives here. But at first it's not easy, so we decided it was better to wait in Hong Kong." During their five years in Hong Kong, Dr. Hu assessed her chances of being able to practice as an M.D. in the United States and realized that there would be more demand for her skills in TCM. "I found in Hong Kong a TCM school because my mind is thinking, if I immigrate to the U.S., my major job will change to TCM, because I know that here there are not too many TCM doctors."
Dr. Hu has found success and growing acceptance here. Traditional Chinese Medicine explains that acupuncture restores balance to the Qi ("chee") in the child's system. Western medical analyses of acupuncture are still inconclusive, but it is believed that the stimulation from acupuncture needles is carried to the brain via pain fibers. Acupuncture is used in conjunction with other treatments rather than being seen as the sole treatment to be followed. So while many Americans see an either/or approach between accepting western medicine or using TCM, the Chinese are more practical. "In Chinese hospitals we have different departments, west and east—every department works together," Dr. Hu explains. "It's totally different here."
On staff as the department chair of Pediatrics at the Five Branches Institute of TCM in Santa Cruz, Dr. Hu sees a variety of young patients, from babies to adolescents. She admits that treating children with needles is not something that you can start right away. "Your attitude needs to change with the children. Not very serious, you need to seem like a friend. Fun first with the children." She starts to unload her pockets, displaying a doll, some small toys, and a piece of candy. "You see my pockets always have lots of different things for the children. Chinese herb candy."
After relaxing the children with conversation and fun, she initiates touch with her bare hands. "I talk friendly, I relieve the nerves first. Second, I touch the baby. I say, oh, would you like the massage? I give the baby a special tuina massage, finger massage. We are closer, and we touch. Then the back massage, very gentle, no crying." She integrates the parent into the treatment, asking the child to give her parent a hug so that she can access points on the back. "I say, Oh, please, hug your mommy, love your mommy. Then I try the back points, very quickly. They don't know anything!"
Along with fun and relaxation, a pediatric acupuncturist relies on speed and accuracy. "The technique is different with adults," Dr. Hu says. "Adults will lie down for a half an hour. You put the needles in. But a baby cannot do this. Babies move all the time!"
Parents who have had to drag their child into to the pediatrician's office for a shot will be surprised at the reaction of Dr. Hu's patients to being stuck with needles. "Most children like me," Dr. Hu says with delight. "They say, Lucy, give me a treatment. I say, you'd like to come back? They say, yes, I'd like to come back!"
Sophia has been Dr. Hu's patient for three and a half years, inspiring her mother, Karen Herzog, to start a foundation to promote Integrative Medicine (www.sophiasgarden.org). "I think there's a lot of fear about pediatric acupuncture, people are afraid of needles, probably because of blood draws," says Herzog. "But pediatric acupuncture is very quick, it's just in and out. Sophia just has a lot more vitality after the acupuncture. Lucy also does tuina, infant massage, and by then Sophia's just putty in her hands!"
Herzog credit's Dr. Hu's success with Sophia to her integrated understanding of western and eastern medicine as well as her natural rapport with children. "We've gone to many doctors, and particularly the western doctors don't put their hands on Sophia, they don't touch her. Lucy's hands are all over her," Herzog explains. "We call her the living treasure. She is truly a brilliant doctor."
Parents can find more information about Pediatric TCM at the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, http://nccam.nih.gov/health/acupuncture/index.htm.
Going Against the Flow: Nutrition Education in our Public Schools
From Growing Up in Santa Cruz, December 2005
Teacher Sierra Knight had a captive audience at Linscott School in Watsonville one recent Tuesday evening. Parents are required by the charter of this public school to attend one two-hour meeting per month, and the topic on this night was nutrition.
"I picked the trash in my room," she explained. "I'd just like you to look."
On the table in front of her were wrappers and bottles from the children's lunches: chips, apple juice, crackers. The parents turned over each package and read the ingredients. Even some packages that had words like "healthy" and "natural" on the label contained high amounts of sugar (sucrose, maltose, fructose), fat, and salt. "Wow," one mother exclaimed, "this is really opening my eyes."
We are in the midst of a crisis that many parents aren't equipped to handle. Junk food is often cheaper and more accessible than a healthy, home-cooked meal. "It costs more to feed your family well when you can get a meal for $2.75 at Burger King," points out Shama Ball, a parent volunteer who runs Vine Hill Elementary's FAN Club, which teaches nutrition and fitness to kids and parents.
Greg Muck, a teacher at Freedom Elementary, agrees: "And I think a fair amount of people shop at 7-11 because it's close." He points out that 7-11 is the most accessible source of food to Watsonville High kids.
"My students' eating habits vary tremendously," explains Vinnie Hansen, a teacher at Watsonville High. "I have football players whose coaches have forbidden them to eat candy. However, most students consume a lot of garbage—fries and sodas, ice cream and gum." Amy Shellman, who teaches Health to freshmen at Watsonville High, says that her students are receptive to improving their diets. "They track their eating for 3 days. They often influence purchasing and cooking [at home] during and after this time! They also analyze food labels in class, then go home and analyze one more in their cupboard."
Educators say the key is to catch the kids young and design programs that will educate them and their families, as well as develop a taste for good food. Muck explains that at an underfunded school like Freedom, fluctuations in funding have a devastating effect on the teachers' efforts. In the past, Freedom received grants from Community Alliance of Family Farms (CAFF) "to incorporate nutrition education into every classroom during regular school hours." That grant, along with others that allowed the children to visit farms on fieldtrips, has been cut.
On the other side of the county and the spectrum is Pacific School, where Stephanie Raugust leads a school lunch program where the fourth through sixth-graders prepare lunch for the entire school. "When my oldest daughter, who's now a mother, was in school, we qualified for the free lunch program. I watched her pick up these lunches—they were packaged stuff and she didn't touch them."
Raugust's program, designed 21 years ago, tries to engage the children in the process of growing and preparing food. "Children need actual hands-on learning experience, true responsibility, and that gives them their sense of worth and value." But she also wishes that she could reach the parents as well. Parents who feed their children packaged food are taking part in a national trend toward creating an unhealthy generation: According to various studies, children aged one to five are as likely to drink soft drinks as juice, children eat about five to ten times more sodium than they need, and five percent have high blood pressure. This is the first American generation, researchers fear, that will bring the average life expectancy down. Teachers are looking hopefully to a federal mandate that requires school districts to create nutritional guidelines, which may help them in their battles for more nutritional school lunches, at least.
Back at Linscott, Knight sees lots of hard work ahead. "Because of our structure, we have more flexibility than other schools. We're working on curriculum, like the parent education night, and building our garden, training teachers, cooking in the classroom." But this small program is fighting against millions of dollars in advertising: "My students' lunches have too much sugar, juice instead of water, no whole grains. And the kids want to trade food so even if the parents try to send good things, the kids are attracted to the packaged stuff. The parents fall for the media blitz, what their kids are going to like and respond to, and that's what they buy."
Resources: CAFF.org, ecoliteracy.org, cspinet.org/nutrition/, fitnessfinders.net, lifelab.org
Children's Book Festival for Santa Cruz Kids
From Growing Up in Santa Cruz, December 2005
Experts say that the best way to get your kids to do something is to model the behavior. Kids aren't going to stop eating junk food if they see their parents eating chips and soda. And kids are less likely to read well if they come from households where books aren't a focus of the family's activities.
The first weekend in December will give families in Santa Cruz an opportunity to model the correct behavior—and have fun! The Children's Book Festival on December 4 at Temple Beth El in Aptos will weave the love of books in with other things kids enjoy—music, art, and dress-up.
Ali Spickler, director of Simcha Preschool, emphasizes that reading should be a part of everyday life for preschoolers. "The most effective way to foster early literacy is to tie your child's learning in with their interests. If your three-year-old is fascinated with Thomas the Tank Engine, read lots of Thomas books."
Although the importance of literacy is clear to most parents, how and why they should encourage their young children to read is often misunderstood. Most parents seem to understand that reading out loud to their preschool children is something they "should" do, but don't understand its importance beyond spending time with their children. But research has shown that being read to is more than a pleasurable activity that bonds parent and child.
Children who have been read to enter school at a completely different level than their peers, even if they have received no formal instruction. Children modeling their parents' reading know which direction to read, which direction to turn pages, and what constitutes a word, and they understand the difference between a letter and punctuation. These are the sorts of lessons that leave children from non-reading households behind even before school starts. Furthermore, children who have been read to on a daily basis have as much as an eight-year jump on the other kids in forming a full vocabulary.
"Home and school libraries that lean more toward books with rich artwork, beautiful photography, and with the type of content that matters to you most will be the ones that nurture your child and help them develop wonderful early learning experiences that last through their lives," suggests Spickler.
A child entering school without a reading background is already at risk for passing through school with low literacy, which is the most important factor which predicts success for adults. So what can be done for a school-age child already behind in reading skills? Literacy researchers, teachers, and booksellers alike emphasize enjoyment, community, and following a child's interests as ways to encourage reading.
Gay Lombard, children's book buyer for Bookshop Santa Cruz, will be at the Festival with selected favorite books and recommendations for parents. She says that the common thread between her customers is that parents who love books instill that love in their children. The key is to choose books that speak to the child. "The reason that the Mother Goose line has always been popular [with young children] is because of the rhyme and the ambiguity—there is a mystery in words," she explains.
For older children who resist reading, try to find a book that fits their interests: "I know kids who never read until they were much older and a certain book would just do it." Finally, she advises, make it a family affair. "Have reading as an activity that everyone does together that the adults value—not just for the kids but they value it for themselves."
And not to say teacher isn't always right, but Lombard suggests that any pleasurable reading experience can help: "There's nothing nicer than taking a book that isn't a gorgeous piece of literature into a bathtub and whiling away an hour or two. I do think it's important to have a mixture of books in your life."
If you would like Gay Lombard to address your questions about children and reading at the festival, please contact her at 423-0900 or e-mail your question to webmaster@simchakids.org by November 30. The Festival runs from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., Sunday, December 4. Temple Beth El is on Soquel Drive at Porter Gulch Road in Aptos.
Read the full interviews with Ali Spickler and Gay Lombard
Daddy Power: Dads Stay Home With Their Kids
One of the first things I noticed about being a mom in Santa Cruz County were the dads. No matter what time of day, I saw dads at the park, dads at our music class, dads out with school groups. Several dads at our son's preschool either stayed at home with the kids or did a large amount of the daily care. I wasn't a mom when I lived in the Midwest, but somehow it seemed unlikely to me that I'd see so many men there who had taken on full-time parenting. ...
Read the full article on Growing Up in Santa Cruz.
'Tis the Season...for School Fundraisers
From Growing Up in Santa Cruz, October 2006
Your kids don't have to be that old for you to remember traditional public school fund raising schemes. In fact, your school might still do a few: collecting labels, selling cookie dough, Scrip, t-shirts, raffles. School fund raisers of the past focused on selling small things, and often used the kids themselves as salespeople.
"My dad was a grade school principal and I can remember saving soup labels," remembers Andrea Williford, chair of fund raising at Linscott Charter School in Watsonville. "They had great results from that back in the day. But I don't think schools see the same return from those programs anymore."
Now enter the twenty-first century. The reigning queen is a relatively new entry into the world of public school fund raising: the benefit auction. It's largely run by parents--often parents who have left professional jobs to become stay-at-home moms or dads--and it's usually an event that leaves out kids almost entirely. Parents get to leave the kids at home for the evening, dress up, and hang out with other similarly freed parents. And spend money. Lots of it, the school hopes.
In the past, auctions were more likely to be held for private schools with more affluent families, but now even mixed-income public schools are trying it out. Mar Vista in Aptos is on their fourth auction this year. Main Street School in Soquel has been running their auction for eleven years, which makes them pretty much professionals. "In the first few years it didn't raise as much money," says Donna Mosich, co-chairperson of the Friends of Main Street. "It's only in the last five years that it's raised the bigger sums of money. Now it's on par with our fall fund drive which starts when school begins."
Running an auction, organizers say, is more straightforward than trying to coordinate lots of small fund raising projects, and less susceptible to outside interference.
Kim Luke is coordinating the traditional parade and carnival that Gault School in Santa Cruz has held for fifty-eight years. She describes the sort of "roadblocks" that lead schools to abandon other fundraising schemes for the simplicity of an auction. "The parade used to only cost a couple of hundred dollars to do. But ever since a few years ago when an older gentleman plowed through a group of people at a farmer's market there are all new regulations to block off streets for any reason."
Gault's auction, Luke admits, has been easier to keep going and makes the bulk of the school's parent-raised funds.
All of the parents who run fund raisers point to two important considerations. One is the school's relationship with the business community. "Gault school has been helped by our community again and again," Luke says, "and has never been asked anything in return." When Gault was suddenly hit with new fees for their parade, business owners stepped in to pay.
An auction such as Linscott's depends on the business community to donate the goods and services that the parents buy, and like all school fund raisers, Williford hopes to attract businesspeople to the auction itself. Most school auctions seem to get a few participants from the larger community, but mostly depend on their parent community for attendance. "People will ask their friends, neighbors, business partners, realtors, other people from the community," Mosich says about getting non-parents to come.
"One year we made an effort to reach out to the broader community and spent a fair amount of money on advertising, but it wasn't very effective," explains Jim Wason of Mar Vista. "We'd love to have it more of a community event."
Auctions are a lot of work, both in the months preceding and at the event itself. "Being organized is the key," explains Williford. "I think the most work is actually gathering the donations, the solicitation of the donations."
"This year at Gault we're asking every parent to commit to a certain number of hours, and if they can't commit to find extended family to do those hours," says Luke. "Aunts, cousins, grandmothers, neighbors--so that the children feel that feeling of extended community."
Aside from talking about the money and the programs it will fund, community is the word auction organizers bring up most. "At our auction last year, it was a great success because we saw the changing face of Gault," Luke explains. As the community has integrated more Spanish-speaking families, the events have changed in response.
Williford says that managing parent volunteers is a joy compared with her past as a corporate manager. "I think it's a different vested interest, people are here by choice and not because of monetary gain. I see a quality to their participation versus somebody who's just collecting a paycheck."
These parent volunteers have a lot of advice to make things run smoothly. "Every school inherits their fundraising, and it sounds really sappy, but I didn't invent fundraising at Gault," Luke says. "I make notes, what works, what doesn't work." She says she has a fat binder filled with notes from previous years' parent volunteers.
Williford sees opportunities to learn from each year's event. "Last year I was told that some thank you notes had been sent out that hadn't been. That's a pretty big deal that to me was devastating," she admits. New software that Linscott has invested in "will hopefully take those hiccups away."
Mosich says that after eleven years, they're not stuck with the auction as their only option. "If you do it every other year," she suggests, "you don't burn out either of your resources--either the parent volunteers or the supporters. It's hard to pull those resources together every year." She says that Main Street is looking at writing more grants. "If Starbucks is willing to give us a $50,000 grant for forty hours of work, that's a better return than having twenty people putting in forty hours each [on an auction]."
Whatever the approach, none of the parent volunteers thinks that fund raising for schools is going to go away. Mosich shrugs at whether Governor Schwartzenegger's election-year gift to school arts programs will change their fund raising. With more money, she says, "We may reevaluate our programs and make them different, more robust. Last year we added a drama musical program in which they did a live musical performance. What Main Street's program is based on is providing more. If we get more dollars, we'll just provide more."
"The reality is that every school is going to have to do fundraising," Williford says. "We're making a more consistent professional program that the school can use year after year."
Luke says that you can see Gault's long history of fund raising filling up the storage room they call "the swamp." Cleaning it out, she came across "bean bag toss backdrops that we don't use any more but no one can seem to throw away because they look so sentimental--they're kind of moldy from sitting down there!"
All the fund raising organizers point to flexibility and the help of a changing cast of parents as the key. As the schools' needs change, the parent communities will be ready to take on new challenges.
HPV Vaccine Offers a Healthier Future for Young Women
From Growing Up in Santa Cruz, February, 2007
Imagine going for a routine exam and your doctor offers you a series of three shots which will protect you from getting a dangerous form of cancer. What would your decision be?
If you're a parent, you may not get to make that decision anytime soon for yourself, but you will get the chance next time you bring your adolescent girl in for a check-up. An exciting new vaccine, approved in June 2006, offers young women protection from certain types of genital human papillomavirus, related viruses that cause up to 70% of all cervical cancers in women. The vaccine is given in three doses over a six-month period and has shown occasional sore arms as its only side effects. The Centers for Disease Control recommends that all girls 11 - 12 years old get the vaccine, as well as girls and young women from 13 to 26 who have not already been exposed to the virus.
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