Teachers

Here’s the new link you need. Bookmark it on your computers.

http://intranet.ousd.k12.ca.us/?1994Nav=|&NodeID=65

Shop for Sequoia

Next time you buy something online through Amazon.com (only try this at home, kids, with your parents, kids), make sure to get there by clicking on the Sequoia Amazon link. If you do, our school gets money when you shop!

When you access Amazon.com via our school link, Amazon will donate 4% of your purchase to the Sequoia Dads Club in support of vital enrichment programs for our students. You pay nothing extra!

You can click HERE for now, or look over on the right side of the Sequoia Times and you’ll see a link in the blogroll box.

Pancakes and Praise

Sequoia was recently covered in the local newspaper, The Montclarion! Here’s what they said about us:

Dad’s Club fundraiser raises money,
builds school community

By J.M. Brown
Correspondent

Armed with a metal spatula, new recruit Martin Bond assumed his duties gladly.

As one of the newest members of the 70-year-old Dads’ Club, the Hawaiian-shirt clad Bond tended to the crispy bacon and sizzling sausage accompanying the hot cakes and scrambled eggs that help fund art and garden classes for his son, Miles, and 350 other students at Oakland’s Sequoia Elementary.

Even though it meant a spending a sweaty, grease-laden Sunday morning in front of a steaming grill, the club’s annual Pancake Breakfast and Rummage Sale is exactly the kind of opportunity Bond and his wife sought when choosing the Dimond District school instead of one closer to their neighborhood near Mills College.

“An important reason we chose Sequoia is the active parents’ club,” said Bond, who is among a quarter of the school’s parent population that lives outside its attendance area.

Many parents at last weekend’s event said the high amount of parent involvement is what draws them to Sequoia. Established in 1939, the Dads’ Club is the oldest parent organization at the Lincoln Street school, which itself turned 100 this year. While the group’s name indicates all-male membership, there are plenty of women who take part.

The Dads’ Club has worked with the school’s other key organization, the Friends of Sequoia School, to raise a combined goal of $30,000 annually for the arts, library, garden and other enrichment programs that are often the first to be slashed when public schools suffer deep state funding cuts like those seen this year.At least 270 people gobbled up 700-plus pancakes on May 3, raising more than $1,100. Parents and community members also bought more than $2,000 in books, clothes and other items at the rummage sale, which started Saturday and continued Sunday.

“We try to do the most good for the most number of students,” said breakfast organizer Scott Wikstrom, whose daughters, Clarisse and Eleanor are in the fourth and first grades, respectively.

Attendance at the breakfast has doubled in recent years, and there also has been a steady increase in the Dads’ Club membership, Wikstrom said. He believes a key reason is that parents from the neighborhood are more willing now than in years past to explore the benefits of public school.

Besides fundraising for the school, events like the breakfast are also key social opportunities for parents, who are ethnically and economically diverse, to get to know each other and the school staff.

In fact, the reputation of Sequoia’s staff is a big draw, said parent Leila Abu-Saba, whose son Jacob is a second-grader. Like Bond, Abu-Saba lives closer to another school but chose Sequoia for its teachers.

“We love this school,” she said as she sifted through children’s T-shirts at the rummage sale. “There is not a single teacher you wouldn’t want your student to study with.”

Abu-Saba said she also appreciates the school’s mission to teach nonviolent conflict resolution and nurture a well-developed sense of parental community. Indeed, parent engagement is critical to a school’s success, said Amy Colt, who lives in the neighborhood and teaches at nearby Bret Harte Middle School.

“It’s very, very big,” Colt said of parent fundraising efforts. “They can reach out to many parts of the community, like homeowners who are going to stay here.” At the rummage sale’s crowded clothing table, Colt loaded her arms with shirts and pants for students at her school who have to wear uniforms but can’t afford a bunch of new clothes.

Several feet away, prospective Sequoia parent Kathie Rhodes also rummaged through the piles, hoping to find a bargain.

She and husband Roger King, who live just around the corner, plan to send their two children, now ages 1 and 3, to Sequoia when they are old enough.

“It’s a great fundraiser to bring the neighborhood together,” Rhodes said , adding that she heard Sequoia’s principal, Kyla Trammell, and the teachers are wonderful.

“It’s exciting to have a high-quality school in our neighborhood.”

The school will have another opportunity to raise funds from 5-9 p.m. May 12-14. Red Boy Pizza, 1500 Leimert Blvd., will host Dine Out for Sequoia. The restaurant will donate 15 percent of proceeds from diners who present a flier that can be downloaded at the school’s site, www.sequoiaschool.net.