The 3rd Annual Casino Royale! took place at the Hotel Sofitel on Friday, April 8th benefiting the School-Force Education Foundation. We had over 350 attendees from all seven Belmont and Redwood Shores schools, including the Superintendent, the Assistant Superintendent, principals and several of our teachers. Everyone had a great time gambling for Raffle Prizes at our Casino and we had a Grand Prize Poker Tournament winner. This year we added a Live and Silent Auction consisting of amazing items donated by our community. At the end of our Live Auction, we had a Fund-a-Need targeting to enhance our children's education. There were fabulous hors d’ oeuvres, desserts, dancing and we even gave away a few Champagne Gems.

School-Force’s mission is to raise money to invest in keeping our schools excellent. The programs supported by School-Force have a positive impact for all the children in the district. School-Force raises money to help bridge the gap where government funding falls short. In contrast, it is the duty of the Belmont-Redwood Shores School District Board to make decisions about boundaries, negotiate labor agreements etc. School-Force does insist that the District to be fiscally responsible in these decisions, and encourages the involvement of the community as much as possible.

The fast answer? Zero dollars. The real answer? Zero dollars and hours upon hours of work by generous School-Force volunteers.

In another successful fundraiser, the annual Reading Power Read-a-thon raises over $217,000 for School-Force. From January 14 to 28, the district's six elementary schools got fired up with reading. Together, students read more than 1.5 million minutes, and more than 600 students received Certificates of Achievement and were inducted the 1000 Minute Club at their schools. Students earned one dragon scale for every 100 minutes read and used the scales to build their schools' dragons, some of which grew as long as 25 feet. All told, students earned more than 10,000 dragon scales.

Active engagement with music affects brain development and helps develop listening skills. You've probably heard of the “Mozart Effect,” the theory that listening to classical music even briefly can increase certain types of intelligence. Although researchers ultimately found that the concept had been oversold, newer studies indicate that studying and practicing music over time can have profound effects on the brain.

On March 4, 2011, the Belmont-Redwood Shores School District released an update from the Superintendent stating that the school libraries will be partially restored for the remainder of the school year. (See text of the memo copied at the bottom of this post.) The community has voiced many questions about how this agreement came about and why it is happening now. While the School-Force Board does not have all the answers to these questions, we offer the following perspective that we hope provides some insight into the issues.

With this new blog space the School-Force Education Foundation has an opportunity to increase dialog with the community. For now, we've just reposted some relevant articles from past eNewsletters. Going forward, we plan to include original material written by School-Force board members and guest blogs from interested members of the community...

Do the math: Decreasing number of dollars divided by an increasing number of students = fewer dollars per head. As a designated "basic aid" district, a district located where local property taxes are sufficient to fund schools at state-mandated levels, the Belmont-Redwood Shores School Disctrict (BRSSD) attains most of its revenue from those local taxes. Unlike "revenue limit" districts, BRSSD does not receive a proportional increase in funding from the state when enrollment rises...

It was at first a complicated discussion about the district budget at last week's School-Force board meeting. We talked about furlough days, budgeting next school year without knowing the level of incoming revenue, and losing another $1 million should the proposed state tax extensions not make it on the ballot or are voted down*. We debated the best ways to communicate these challenges to parents in the district.

As president of School-Force, I have the privilege of speaking with many, and hearing much. Very often the comments are positive. But just recently, a parent told me that she wasn't going to participate in a School-Force event because she was upset about the state of our schools this year....

Amber Keeney, first-grade teacher at Cipriani Elementary, can’t imagine doing her job without Reading Specialist Julie Levonian. Collaborating and communicating all year, the two are partners in helping students with support in reading...

Many parents, for various reasons, consider opting out of public education and sending their children to private school. The ongoing education funding challenges in California have certainly caused this topic to come up in many households. However, there are some families in our district who have gone the other direction –- taking their children out of private schools to enroll them in Belmont-Redwood Shores public schools...