Education
This weekend, the West Contra Costa Unified School District held the first of a series of public meetings to encourage residents to discuss how the next five years might look for public schools. On Saturday, about 130 people arrived at Ford Elementary School to participate in the first of six town hall meetings organized by the school district and Capitol Impact, the consulting company hired to develop the district’s five-year strategic plan. Jay Schenirer, the founder of Capitol Impact, who…
Curator Melinda McCrary stands next to a clunky antique radio that’s perched on a classic wooden stand in the Seaver Gallery at the Richmond Museum of History. She signals for me to shut up and listen, then flips on a switch. Immediately the room fills with the voice of a sports commentator, and I am transported to the 1950s, listening to blow-by-blow accounts of the ups, downs and heartbreaks in a classic baseball game. This subtle but powerful use of…
Kennedy High special education teacher Salvatore Morabito has seen plenty of powerlifters. The 71-year-old Belgium-born weightlifter has been pounding iron since he was eight years old. And now, at the crowning point of his career, the schoolteacher for students with severe disabilities has found the perfect training partner—someone who can out bench press him. “I taught weightlifting for many years,” Morabito said in his subtle European drawl. “[And] as you might guess, I am a strong believer in weight training….
Rodrigo Dorador remembers the night he almost had a panic attack in Arizona. A sheriff’s car was trailing behind the van he rode in with his mother. They’d been at a football game — despite his undocumented status, Dorador attended one of the most prestigious Jesuit schools in the state, Brophy College Preparatory in Phoenix. His mother looked at him as the car trailed, inching closer and closer behind. Dorador returned her nervous glance. Wouldn’t it be ironic, they both…
Play Rugby USA, a nonprofit organization focused on the wellbeing of school children in disenfranchised communities, is getting a jumper in Richmond by piloting an after-school rugby program at Washington Elementary School in Point Richmond. According to Stuart Bagshaw, the executive director of Play Rugby USA’s California branch, the program is now in over 200 schools in New York and in 60 schools in Los Angeles. Students, both boys and girls, wore red and yellow Velcro belts Friday after school…
Dozens of palm-sized faces hang from the ceiling in Steve Mainini’s art classroom at Kennedy High School. The ceramic reflections of former students dangle in wire cages and defy gravity as if trapped in some sort of bad dream. But for the hundreds of students that have enrolled in Mainini’s art classes the past eight years, the art teacher with a crew cut is no Freddy Krueger—instead his students and peers regard him as an inspiration. “Soul Cages,” Mainini called…
Kennedy High freshman English teacher Aaron Colacion does it his way. And because of that the school and the district may reap a financial reward. The third-year teacher is one of five finalists competing for the Bay Area’s 2013 Comcast SportsNet All-Star Teacher Award. Grand prize: $20,000. Colacion said if he won the twenty-grand he’d like to buy Kennedy High School small Acer computers called Nettops. He said because students are so strapped for computer lab time, that would help…
Mr. Wilks strides onstage, a 12-ounce bottle of Coca Cola in hand. The bottle fizzes as he cracks open the seal. He takes a gulp. “Man, that’s good.” Between swigs of soda, he tells an audience his family has been in Richmond since the beginning. His grandparents were shipbuilders during WWII. His grandfather went to work at Chevron. His parents were teachers and “community folks,” and now he’s a teacher at Richmond High. Actually, Wilks isn’t a teacher; he’s an…
When Jose Irizarry took his Richmond High School class to visit San Francisco General Hospital recently, it was not your typical field trip. The students donned scrubs and spent time with hospital surgeons learning how to tie sutures and practice with arthroscopic surgical machines. They even got to study a human cadaver. For Irizarry, the trip was a chance to teach real world skills required for a career in a health profession. The visit, and the goals, are part of…