August 2013

In This Issue...

Giving Thanks and Looking Ahead

Learning to Read with the Help of Early Literacy Intervention

Giving Thanks and Looking Ahead

Today marks the last day of the Bellevue Schools Foundation's 

2012-2013 fiscal year. Many, many thanks to all our 2012-2013

donors whose

contributions provided one million dollars to give our students the best possible public school education! Tuesday morning, September 3rd, as students stream into their classrooms, Foundation staff and volunteers will set out - with your help - to secure and provide one million more dollars to Transform Education and Support Students.

Learning to Read with the Help of Early Literacy Intervention

Students at Sherwood Forest Elementary and other Title I and LAP schools across the district are learning to read in record numbers thanks to early literacy intervention. Foundation funding provides kindergarten classroom aides to increase the adult-student ratio and allow teachers to spend more quality time working with kids, individually and in small groups.

"At Sherwood Forest our Kindergarten aides in both the English and Spanish Dual Language classrooms provided much needed support in developing the literacy skills of Kindergarten students," reported Sherwood Forest Principal Allison Deno.

"Targeted interventions were successful as demonstrated by the end of the year reading assessment data. Our highly-qualified kindergarten teaching staff were able to not only provide instruction to students in a more concentrated manner but they were able to develop the skill of the aides such that each student who worked with any adult for additional support in the kindergarten classrooms was provided with high quality instruction."

Sherwood Forest students made impressive gains, with 96% of students meeting or exceeding literacy benchmarks at the end of the year.

Increased funding in the 2013-14 year will make it possible to expand the program to more classrooms to better meet the needs of an increasing number of kindergarten students.

Welcome to Our New Foundation Board Members!

We're excited to welcome six new trustees to the Foundation board for the 2013-14 year. Each of the new trustees brings a unique perspective and set of experiences to the board, and we look forward to working with them over the next 3+ years as we focus on increasing the impact our donors make for Bellevue students. If the new trustee orientation yesterday was any indication, these six individuals are going to make incredible contributions to the organization! 

Dan Nygaard  Parent, International School Group Health Cooperative	Kea Rensch  Parent, Medina Elementary Owner, Merin Designs
Bob Riley  Grandparent, Big Picture School Retired engineer	Andre Thomas Parent, Sammamish High School Telecommunications entrepreneur
Archana Verma  Parent, Odle Middle School VIBES mentor	Mary Yuhas Parent, Spiritridge Elementary Teacher and BSD instructional coach

Apply Now for Enrichment & Innovation Grants

The Enrichment & Innovation grant program provides grants to teachers to support innovative projects or activities. Past grants 

have included marine science

Enrichment & Innovation grant applications for the 2013-2014 school year are available on our website. Please encourage Bellevue teachers to apply!

Elementary school applications are due by 5:00 p.m. on Friday, September 27, 2013.

Middle and high school applications are due by 5:00 p.m. on Friday, October 11, 2013.

Learn more about Enrichment & Innovation grants...

Kindred Spirits a Generation Apart

By Roxanne Kröon Shepherd, Executive Director

Two memorial services eight days apart celebrated the vision and contributions of two significant community leaders. On August 16th friends and family of Bill Henningsgaard and his son Max shared stories, inspiration, and tears. On August 24th those who knew and loved Don Fleming celebrated his life and mourned his passing. Having known and respected both men, and worked closely with the former, I attended both events and was struck by how blessed we all are that each chose to make his home in Bellevue and to invest so much of themselves here.

Bill Henningsgaard's is perhaps the more familiar name because his death was a tragic surprise and the organization he helped found, Eastside Pathways, was getting traction and gaining visibility within the last two years. Don Fleming was one of the co-founders of the Bellevue Schools Foundation in 1979, handling the legal work involved in creating one of the first-ever nonprofit organizations dedicated to raising money for public schools.

Scribbling notes while enjoying an afternoon with Don and his daughter Anne last year, I captured this as part of his and others' motivation for creating this Foundation: "We didn't want their poverty to hamper their futures." Bill made a similar point in a ParentMap interview about the genesis of Eastside Pathways:  "After attending a Bellevue Schools Foundation coffee at Lake Hills Elementary School in January 2011, he 'was stunned' to learn of the numbers of kids who were struggling to succeed in many of Bellevue's elementary schools. 'They were facing hurdles connected to poverty, language and mobility, and our schools weren't able to close the resulting gaps,' he says."

Over this Foundation's thirty-four years, hundreds of thousands of children have benefitted from Don's investments and hundreds of thousands more will in the years to come. I believe the same will be true for Bill's vision for, commitment to, and investments in Eastside Pathways.

The following was included on the back of the program distributed at Don's service as it had significant meaning to him. It seems particularly appropriate to include here. From Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France:

Society is indeed a contract. . . . It is to be looked on with reverence, because it is not a partnership in things subservient only to the gross animal existence of a temporary and perishable nature. It is a partnership in all science; a partnership in all art; a partnership in every virtue and in all perfection. As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born. Each contract of each particular state is but a clause in the great primeval contract of eternal society, linking the lower with the higher natures, connecting the visible and invisible world, according to a fixed compact sanctioned by the inviolable oath which holds all physical and all moral natures, each in their appointed place.

Welcome, Jing Mei!

On Wednesday, the Bellevue School District's newest school, Jing Mei Elementary, was officially opened with a ribbon 

cutting. Mandarin dual language education began in Bellevue two years ago with a single kindergarten classroom housed at Ardmore. Sufficient family interest prompted the district to make the decision to expand the offering into its own school. Parents and others associated with the program suggested the name, which means "beautiful view," the Mandarin version of our city's name, which means the same thing in French. The School Board voted to accept the name at their August 27th meeting.

Our district's aspirations for this school were significantly boosted by the recruitment of Vivian Tam to serve as principal. Vivian moved here with her family from Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she has been a teacher and grant project coordinator for Chinese-English immersion.

Instruction at Jing Mei will employ a two-way immersion model. Two-way immersion is a distinctive form of dual language education in which balanced numbers of native English speakers and native speakers of the partner language are integrated for instruction so that both groups of students serve in the role of language model and language learner at different times.

Sincere welcome and best wishes to Principal Tam and everyone associated with Jing Mei. We're glad you're here!

Learn more about the school and the two-way immersion model...

Do You Know Someone Who Would Make a Great Foundation Ambassador?

Foundation ambassadors have a gratifying and important job - connecting the Foundation with people and important issues at the school level while raising awareness about the great impact donors make for Bellevue students!

The time commitment over the course of the year is relatively low, though many of our ambassadors choose to get involved with other aspects of the Foundation as well. We provide everything ambassadors need to be successful, from materials to post on the school bulletin board to tips for recruiting Spring for Schools table guests.

Below are the schools still in need of an ambassador. If you or someone you know is interested, please contact Megan  for more information.