Monthly Archives: December 2020

Marymount School Embraces a Broad New Vision

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Marymount School Embraces a Broad New Vision, originally published in Santa Barbara Independent on November 19, 2020.

Marymount School Embraces a Broad New Vision, originally published in Santa Barbara Independent on November 19, 2020.

Independent School Welcomes Diverse Backgrounds

Founded as an all-girls Catholic school in 1938, Marymount School is an evolving educational story. Over the decades, according to Head of School Christina K. Broderick, the Riviera campus has made “this slow progression from an independent Catholic school to an independent school with a Catholic tradition to an independent school with a couple of Catholic traditions to now where we are as an independent school that really focuses
on the cultural and spiritual diversity of every background.”

Kaleidoscope, the school’s signature curriculum developed more than a decade ago in collaboration with UCSB, “uses the top 10 world religions to allow students to find out about how we decide on our moral decision-making and ethical decision-making through
the lens of different ethnic cultures and backgrounds, both religious and nonreligious around the world,” said Broderick.

“We are really here to welcome all faiths and traditions and to make sure that we have a very inclusive and welcoming community to all faiths and ethnic backgrounds,” said Broderick, who recently formalized the inclusive values of Marymount with new Mission
& Vision statements.

Discipline also looks a bit different than the old-school ways. “It’s not about disciplining kids — it’s about restorative communication,” she said. “My middle schoolers here at Marymount will always know that Mrs. Broderick will say ‘self-reflection leads to self-correction.’ We don’t really do detention here or punitive discipline. It’s all about how we figure out how we made a mistake based on our own ideas about something. And how do we then restore ourselves and the community and say I’m sorry, change your actions, move on.”

Marymount also recently announced a forward-thinking policy on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), while expanding its offerings to include 3-year-olds. A new director of student wellness and DEI and a licensed clinical social worker, a full-time learning specialist, a full-time school nurse, and a full-time director of student wellness are available
to work with all students and families.

“We don’t have a traditional org chart,” said Broderick. “We have learning and leadership teams, and we all make very collaborative decisions. It’s fun — it’s a lot of fun.”

Though she admits it sounds “super smarmy,” Broderick is proud that her favorite social media hashtag is #HappyKidsLearn. “If they’re happy, their brains are going to be open, and they’re going to be able to take in all the information we’re going to give them,” she
said. “But if they’re anxious or they’re worried about their social interactions or worried about stuff at home, they’re not going to be paying attention in class. There’s a ton of research to support that, but whether the discussion is inclusivity or social emotional wellness or the pandemic, we want these kids to feel comfortable and safe.”

marymountsb.org

SB Independent Cover, Schools of Thought, November 19, 2020.

SB Independent Cover, Schools of Thought, November 19, 2020.

Originally published in the Santa Barbara Independent on November 19, 2020. To read the section as it appeared in print, please click here.

 

Midland Boarding School’s COVID Advantage

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Midland Boarding School’s COVID Advantage, originally published in Santa Barbara Independent on November 19, 2020.

Midland Boarding School’s COVID Advantage, originally published in Santa Barbara Independent on November 19, 2020.

Historic S.Y.V. Outdoor School Is Great Fit for Today’s Teens

While every school struggles with COVID restrictions, Midland School’s 2,860-acre campus and nine decades of outdoor-minded, college preparatory education lends itself to an easier pivot than most. Students returned to the boarding school for grades 9-12 in late October.

“I’ve never seen a senior class that’s more vested in our collective good,” said Head of School Christopher Barnes, who’s been working round the clock for months to make their return to the Los Olivos campus possible. “The seniors are like, ‘Yeah, we’re going to make sure everybody wears their mask.’ Inside of these challenging moments are also these incredible opportunities for students to learn how to tolerate adversity, to find the grit and really evaluate what the needs are versus the wants, and really discover the very best version of themselves. That is profoundly exciting as an educator.”

Clearly Midland’s experiential, place-based curriculum is more desirable than ever right now. With health guidelines in place, students will still be able to work on the farm and in the garden, ride horses, go hiking and camping, and all of the other special things they normally do.

Enrollment is up at least 10 percent from last year. “The phone was ringing through the summer, and we definitely had to tell some people no,” said Barnes. “As much as I would love to welcome even more kids, we’re sort of at capacity relative to the situation we find ourselves in now. It leaves us with a few spare cabins for isolation or quarantine if needed; we need to reserve some of that bandwidth for that.”

They’ve gone “very deep into the four Ws,” said Barnes. “Wear your mask, watch your distance, wash your hands, and, finally, we are in this together.”

He’s excited to be an educator at such a pivotal time. “We are living through some major inflection points in history, and at the same time we’re not just dealing with a global health pandemic,” said Barnes. “We’re dealing with Black Lives Matter and a profound shift in perspectives with regard to social justice issues — and we are and want to continue to be a participant in that. We are in the midst of a straight-up economic depression, and we’ve had to dole out lots more financial aid and double down in terms of supporting our families
and make sure that we can honor our promise for them.”

SB Independent Cover, Schools of Thought, November 19, 2020.

SB Independent Cover, Schools of Thought, November 19, 2020.

Originally published in the Santa Barbara Independent on November 19, 2020. To read the section as it appeared in print, please click here.

 

Montessori Center School Creates Positive Kids with Positive Forces

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Montessori Center School Creates Positive Kids With Positive Forces, originally published in Santa Barbara Independent on November 19, 2020.

Montessori Center School Creates Positive Kids With Positive Forces, originally published in Santa Barbara Independent on November 19, 2020.

Developing Well-Rounded Students with Time-Tested Techniques

Dr. Maria Montessori would be 150 years old this year, but her teaching methods have managed to stay relevant for more than a century. Here are a few reasons why Montessori continues to be prized by so many of today’s parents.

Development of a Lifelong Love of Learning
“Children are encouraged to develop a love of learning for their whole lives,” said Melanie Jacobs, head of school at Montessori Center School. “We try to hook into their motivations and interests so that their learning is guided by that and they’re wanting to
learn from inside. I think that’s how self-motivation is formed. We want it to be a lifelong love of learning, so that they’ll be inspired to continue to learn throughout their whole lives.”

The Importance of Independence
“We also focus on independence and self-sufficiency and resilience, which this year especially, I think is actually very important,” said Jacobs. One of the Montessori
sayings is “Never do for a child what they can do for themselves.” “We certainly guide a child that needs help, but then we step back and allow them to do as much of it as they can so that they become advocates in their own learning, especially as they get older. There is a lot of creative thinking and thinking out of the box, and there’s also a lot of collaboration with their classmates, which I think is really important right now because in their future work endeavors, collaboration is a big part of how companies encourage their employees to work.”

The Peace Curriculum
Strategies vary depending on the level of the children, but there’s a peace shelf or a peace corner in every Montessori classroom. “It basically helps children to learn conflict resolution skills really early, so even in our 3- to 6-year-old classrooms, you might see something like a talking stick or a love light,” said Jacobs, who has been with the school for 27 years and is in her fifth year as head of school. These tools are used to talk out conflicts and to
learn to listen to what the other person is saying, “and then together they try to find some sort of compromise to solve their conflict. When they’re younger they need more guidance, but then as they get older into the elementary grades, a lot of the time they’re really able to work out what the problem is on their own.”

Respect and Appreciation for Differences
A big Montessori theme is to encourage a lot of respect for and curiosity about other cultures. “In today’s world, I think that’s very relevant,” Jacobs said. “Families are encouraged to share their culture in our community, and then it allows the children to
sort of see the commonalities across all of the races and cultures for better understanding and respect.”

SB Independent Cover, Schools of Thought, November 19, 2020.

SB Independent Cover, Schools of Thought, November 19, 2020.

Originally published in the Santa Barbara Independent on November 19, 2020. To read the section as it appeared in print, please click here.

 

Coding Meets Community at Providence School

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Coding Meets Community at Providence School, originally published in Santa Barbara Independent on November 19, 2020.

Coding Meets Community at Providence School, originally published in Santa Barbara Independent on November 19, 2020.

Students Create App to Connect Kids with Nonprofits

Challenged by their teachers in their coding class to create some sort of an app, Providence Engineering Academy junior Sydney Whited and sophomore Ruby Kilpper created the Santa Barbara Volunteer Opportunities (SBVO) app, matching service-minded students to volunteer-seeking nonprofits.

Coding wasn’t either one of the girls’ favorite aspects of engineering prior to the project. But Kilpper explained, “I like to tackle each problem on its own and each assignment on its own, so I kept an open mind, and I really ended up enjoying it.”

Inspired in part by Whited’s experience with the National Charity League’s sign-up program for volunteering, the pair designed the SBVO to improve on that concept with an easier interface and a bit more emphasis on the types of work (homeless services, elderly, special
needs, children, animals, etc.) that might interest students. The idea is to find a service opportunity with the best fit for you.

“Especially in the beginning of the app, I was definitely the brainstormer,” said Whited. “But Ruby was the go-getter the whole time,” she said, recalling the various challenges they went through to create the project. “Having a one-step signup was something we thought would really increase the amount of student volunteers in Santa Barbara.”

The girls were recognized for their creative efforts by Representative Salud Carbajal, who presented them with the Congressional App Challenge award on January 6, 2020, and invited them to a reception at the House of Representatives in Washington, D.C. “My office and I looked at all the entries,” Carbajal told them. “It was a very competitive pool, but your app rose to the top very quickly. It was innovative, practical, and user friendly. Concept-wise it is very strong, but the way you approached it was very well executed.”

The students were excited to go to D.C. to participate in the annual #HouseOfCode on March 24, but that was canceled due to the pandemic. Additionally, work on the app, which is still in the development and testing stage, was derailed a bit when school went online last spring. But with Providence students back in class as of mid-October, Whited
and Kilpper are hoping to continue to fine-tune SBVO and eventually make it available for the whole community to use.

providencesb.org

SB Independent Cover, Schools of Thought, November 19, 2020.

SB Independent Cover, Schools of Thought, November 19, 2020.

Originally published in the Santa Barbara Independent on November 19, 2020. To read the section as it appeared in print, please click here.

 

S.Y.V. Charter School Grows Green Thumbs

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S.Y.V. Charter School Grows Green Thumbs, originally published in Santa Barbara Independent on November 19, 2020.

S.Y.V. Charter School Grows Green Thumbs, originally published in Santa Barbara Independent on November 19, 2020.

Irises—and Intellect—Bloom When the Garden Is a Classroom

Using the garden as a classroom is certainly a welcome adaptation during the days of COVID. But this type of outdoor education has been a key curriculum component at Santa Ynez Valley Charter School since its founding in 2000, said Executive Director John Dewey.

Last year, the public charter school added a new iris garden to the mix, planting more than
120 unique irises. Each student in grades 3-8 chose and planted their own individual breed of the flower, complete with fun (and legit!) names like Rainbow Shadow, Milk in My Coffee, and Ice Sculpture. Tending these flowery plants and their showy flowers, students
learn about planting, cultivating, harvesting, and composting, and teachers are able to incorporate lessons about the natural world, plant biology, ecology, and the environmental impact of humans on the planet.

The Iris Garden is the newest feature in an almost three-acre garden on the property, which is cared for exclusively by students and parents. In order to plant the irises, the team
reclaimed a hillside and the 5th graders did the work to terrace it, using railroad ties and “other bits and bobs,” said Dewey. “We have also logged the names of each plant, who planted it, as well as a photo of their blooms.”

As students start to return to school, the new 3rd graders will plant their irises, and so will all the staff members — they might even “dig down” to 2nd graders.

“It’s pretty exciting for the kids,” said Dewey. “They have ownership of it, and they get so excited when their iris blooms.”

Also in the works for this school year are a series of grade-level gardens, which the students take care of and choose the themes for. The first gardens had a native plant theme and a butterfly garden focus, with flowering plants that attract insects
and butterflies.

Santa Ynez Valley Charter School also recently became an Ocean Guardian School, a program sponsored by NOAA for schools to do projects that foster the protection of watersheds and the ocean. They are using the funds to separate food waste from trash and turn it into compost for the gardens.

SB Independent Cover, Schools of Thought, November 19, 2020.

SB Independent Cover, Schools of Thought, November 19, 2020.

Originally published in the Santa Barbara Independent on November 19, 2020. To read the section as it appeared in print, please click here.

 

S.B. Middle School Pedals Through the Pandemic

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S.B. Middle School Pedals Through the Pandemic, originally published in Santa Barbara Independent on November 19, 2020.

S.B. Middle School Pedals Through the Pandemic, originally published in Santa Barbara Independent on November 19, 2020.

Riviera Campus Finds Creative Challenges to Keep Kids Active

Getting teens and tweens outside and active is particularly challenging during the days of COVID, so Santa Barbara Middle School (SBMS) — well known for embarking on pedal-powered learning adventures — challenged students to ride at least 26 miles during the month of September, while they were still learning from home. (They returned to in-person
classes in October.)

The 26-mile marker is approximately the same distance students normally ride for their two-day orientation bike ride, explained Communications Manager Merritt Bauer. Since the pandemic restrictions shut down that activity, they decided to use the Strava app to
challenge students and families to ride at least 26 miles.

“Families were very into it,” said Bauer. Providing even further incentive, they had the kids vote on what the prize would be if they hit their total goal of 5,000 miles of activity within the month. “Prizes were everything from a dunk tank to having our headmaster dress up in a pink gorilla suit for a week, which is exactly what ended up being the winning choice,” she laughed.

The challenge — which allowed other physical activities such as surfing, hiking, walking,
and even golf to be logged — ended up exceeding their goal by almost 800 miles. “We had all of our families participate in over 800 individual activities, which I think is pretty incredible,” said Bauer.

As a celebration when the Strava challenge was complete, and with strict and complicated
health and safety mandates firmly in place, staff and students were able to do some bike rides in small groups. “We actually ended up driving through Goleta on our bikes and seeing a lot of SBMS alums and families who know our school and were screaming as we biked past, ‘We’re so happy to see you guys back on the road,’ ” said Bauer. “It was definitely positive feedback all around just seeing people in the community and our families who had just been dying to get our kids back together.”

When they ended their rides at Goleta Beach, as promised, Head of School Brian McWilliams was there to greet them in a pink gorilla suit, jumping hairy feet first into the
ocean with the kids on the final day.

SB Independent Cover, Schools of Thought, November 19, 2020.

SB Independent Cover, Schools of Thought, November 19, 2020.

Originally published in the Santa Barbara Independent on November 19, 2020. To read the section as it appeared in print, please click here.

 

SBCC Foundation Delivers the Promise

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SBCC Foundation Delivers the Promise, originally published in Santa Barbara Independent on November 19, 2020.

SBCC Foundation Delivers the Promise, originally published in Santa Barbara Independent on November 19, 2020.

An Update on the College’s Signature Project

The SBCC Promise — which provides regional high school graduates the opportunity to attend Santa Barbara City College full-time, free of charge, for up to two years — started its fifth year this fall, with 5,000 students projected to have benefited by the end of the year.

SBCC Foundation CEO Geoff Green gave us an update.

Have there been any changes to how the SBCC Promise works? We’ve been adjusting the offerings of the Promise based on feedback, so for us it’s a real-time experiment. One of the things we’re trying to figure out is how many students complete two or three years of the Promise but still have to stay one or two or three more semesters to be ready to transfer.

We’ve also gotten requests from a few students saying, “I’m ready to go, but I can’t afford to pay for all of these transfer applications.” So we just added that if they go to a counselor and say, “I need help with this,” we’ll pay for their transfer apps. We’ll do that for students who were Promise students in, say, 2016-17 and are just now completing what they need for transfer.

You also changed the program so students who have a unit load accommodation, and take fewer classes because of a disability, can stay in SBCC Promise for longer. Yes, as we learn about different things, we’ve been doing that kind of stuff as we’ve also tried to measure and monitor.

Does SBCC Promise pay the college the same amount it would get if the students were paying individually? Yes, and in fact this was one of the unanticipated benefits that [former SBCC president] Jack Friedlander told me about the first semester we did this, before he retired. He said, “Do you realize you actually generated a half million dollars last semester for the college? All of those students, who based on previous data would not have been full-time, they went full-time so they could take advantage of the Promise. Because of those additional units they paid for, that equaled half a million dollars of revenue for the college.”

How are you doing right now in terms of funding? It’s tough. We have now sustained it for 4.5 years. [Initially,] we raised about $3.5 million within six months. So we raised enough money to get all the way through year one and two and part of year three very early and then it sloughed off. Basically, we were excited, we put all our energy into the program, and now we have to circle back and kick up our fundraising. So you can expect after the pandemic moment starts to shift back to whatever our new normal is, you’ll see a big public campaign around funding the Promise.

SB Independent Cover, Schools of Thought, November 19, 2020.

SB Independent Cover, Schools of Thought, November 19, 2020.

Originally published in the Santa Barbara Independent on November 19, 2020. To read the section as it appeared in print, please click here.

 

SBCC Career Center Opens Job Pathways

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SBCC Career Center Opens Job Pathways, originally published in Santa Barbara Independent on November 19, 2020.

SBCC Career Center Opens Job Pathways, originally published in Santa Barbara Independent on November 19, 2020.

Helping Students Begin School with the End in Mind

Offering a range of services, from internships to job fairs, résumé help to interview prep, the Santa Barbara City College Career Center helps prepare students for future success in myriad ways.

“When you come into college, there are literally hundreds of majors that you could choose from and thousands of different kinds of jobs, so one of our approaches is trying to simplify that for students as much as possible,” said SBCC Career Center Director Chris Phillips, who uses the “Guided Pathways” model to clarify a career path for students. “We try to help them make good, informed choices about their direction at the college.”

To do so, the center helps students narrow down their major and then follows up with work-based learning content. “We bring employers to campus and we try to get them internships and have kind of a career awareness about what they’re going to do after their major,” he said.

With that end in mind, the center offers one-on-one academic counseling, workshops, career planning classes, and faculty collaborations. Two staff members focus on employers and one specializes in internships, even helping employers develop an
internship program if they don’t have one. There’s also an online job and internship posting system exclusively for SBCC students.

The center works closely with the Office of Equity. “We are really trying to acknowledge the populations of our students who might not be getting this information,” said Phillips. “We want to really actively reach them and try to bring some more equity to the students when it comes to finding jobs and supporting all of our students. That’s really at the front and
center of what we’re doing as a career center and as a college.”

sbcc.edu/careercenter

SB Independent Cover, Schools of Thought, November 19, 2020.

SB Independent Cover, Schools of Thought, November 19, 2020.

Originally published in the Santa Barbara Independent on November 19, 2020. To read the section as it appeared in print, please click here.

 

Waldorf Education Honors the Head, Heart, and Hands

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Waldorf Education Honors the Head, Heart and Hands. Originally published in Santa Barbara Independent on November 19, 2020.

Waldorf Education Honors the Head, Heart and Hands. Originally published in Santa Barbara Independent on November 19, 2020.

101-Year-Old Tradition Offers a Holistic Approach to School

The 101-year-old Waldorf educational tradition is still thriving today at The Waldorf School of Santa Barbara. One of the key components is the whole child educational approach, which Administrator Teddy Macker described as, “Trying to encourage the intellectual,
artistic, and practical capacities of our children equally in a loving, reverent holistic manner, and I think that in itself is unique.”

Instead of “teaching to the test,” as a focus, “We want our children to flourish as human beings, wholly,” said Macker. “So we privilege working in the garden like we might privilege math. We privilege painting like we privilege history, so it’s an integrated, holistic curriculum wherein all of the human is honored.”

“Head, Heart, and Hands” is one of the catch phrases you often hear. “When we talk about the head, we are talking about the academic and intellectual development of the child,” said 6th grade teacher and Administrator Carolyn Kaster. “So we see that we have a rigorous curriculum, but in addition to that, we are working with building capacities within the children. Rather than having a vessel that you’re filling up with information, we see it as building capacities in the children to learn and also fostering imagination and creativity.”

The heart, she explained, refers to social and emotional learning. “In our philosophy, we value the relationships,” said Kaster. “It’s very common in our school and in all Waldorf schools for the teacher-student relationship to span several years.” The long-term teacher-student and teacher-parent relationships create a unique partnership and connection.

The “hand” component, Kaster said, concerns the artistic approach to education, whether that means visual art, music, dance, woodwork, or another discipline. “All of the artistic parts of the curriculum are really woven throughout,” she explained. “So what you’ll see is that there’s not much of separation between art and the curriculum, but that there is art woven through.”

Altogether, Macker said that these programs ensure that their students’ socioemotional is thriving. “We’re really wanting the children to not be these mere heads sitting in desks who can pull off cognitive feats,” he said. “We’re really wanting them to be whole. For us, happiness is wholeness, so we proudly — and we do it fallibly, of course, and
imperfectly — but we proudly fabric the social emotional into everything.”

waldorfsantabarbara.org

SB Independent Cover, Schools of Thought, November 19, 2020.

SB Independent Cover, Schools of Thought, November 19, 2020.

Originally published in the Santa Barbara Independent on November 19, 2020. To read the section as it appeared in print, please click here.