Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/229155
CTA &You Member actions Small chapters do BIG things Does size matter? Not for members in CTA's smallest local chapters. Advocacy to help students and improve working and learning conditions looks a little different. Listen in as members from small chapters talk about their big accomplishments. CURTIS CREEK FACULTY ASSOCIATION: MEETING STUDENTS' NEEDS, PROMOTING STUDENTS' WORK COMPILED BY DINA MARTIN a student art project to thank firefighters for their valiant work in the Sierra Rim Fire in August turned into a beautiful calendar that has raised several thousand dollars for Curtis Creek School in Sonora. But that's just the latest of several big ideas to come out of the Curtis Creek Faculty Association, which represents 27 teachers in this one-school district in the Sierra Mother Lode. We sat down with Liz Miller, GATE coordinator and CCFA president, and Colleen Whitlock, science teacher in grades 6-8, to talk about the school's recent successes. W H AT B E G A N A S What's the advantage of being a small chapter? LIZ: You can get more people involved in projects. We have six to seven teachers in every department, so we can pretty much involve everybody. Probably our biggest change was expanding our science program three years ago so that grades 1-8 have it every day. We had a memorandum of understanding with the district when we went through the financial spiral and the district closed a smaller school. Part of what we did to help the district was go to one bus run. When that contract expired, teachers expressed a desire for students to have a longer academic day. Kids now stay longer at school, so we were able to add science as another period. COLLE E N: Our entire staff has had science training. We actually worked our science teaching into our Mission and Vision Statement. Six teachers are involved in TCATS, a three-year California Mathematics and Science Partnership grant. This grant provides professional development for teachers to improve math and science instruction. Previously we had three additional teachers involved in K-2 STARTS, a four-year California Postsecondary Education Commission grant to improve teacher quality in science. LIZ: Our primary science teacher worked as a teacher at Yosemite Valley School for 20 years, and our fourth- and fifth-grade science teacher started her career as a wildlife biologist. Colleen got a Honeywell grant and went to Huntsville, Alabama, to train as an astronaut for a week. We even incorporate science standards into our literature unit and our school garden. We also have a local artist in residence, Tracy Knopf, who worked with the students on a school wildlife mural. COLLE E N: Last year five teachers wrote a grant for professional development from CSU Chico for $30,000 to research a problem, talk about what we are going to do, and address it by collecting data. Because we are a Title I school, we wanted to find ways to use science to reach lower-socioeconomic kids who have high absentee rates. When we are doing those hands-on activities, kids tend to want to come to school. So we're seeing if that correlates to the attendance rate. 46 Educator 12 Dec 2013 v2.0 int.indd 46 Colleen Whitlock and Liz Miller. Courtesy photo. Is there anything unique about your school culture? COLLE E N: We're a very small town. And we know all the kids. It's really neat when I walk through the school and the eighth-grade students are all going up and hugging their kindergarten and first-grade teachers. We have a monthly assembly that involves the whole school and a Family Science Night where all the kids participate. Whatever we have, all the kids are involved and the older kids help out the younger kids. Tell us about Rim Fire Reflections. LIZ: Our school was only six miles from the fire, and we were closed for a week. When we came back, we decided to do something for first responders. I asked our muralist to do an art class for the older kids called Rim Fire Reflections and incorporate art and poetry. This was never intended to be a fundraiser and never intended to be a calendar. Long story short, the watercolors were phenomenal, and the combination of the poetry did a double punch because we all went through it. When we decided to create a calendar, I added photographs and Rim Fire facts. And it's taken off. LIZ: We're in 40 businesses, we've had an article in the Modesto Bee and in the Sonora Union Democrat. The student artists are going to Yosemite National Park to make a presentation to the park supervisors, and the local Sonora Area Foundation and Tuolumne County Arts Alliance are paying for the framing of the art going with them. A nonprofit organization in San Francisco, Wholly H2O, wants to showcase the students' art to educate people about the watershed. I couldn't ever imagine that this would happen! To find out more or to purchase a calendar for $10 plus shipping, go to www.rimfirecalendar.com. DE C E M B E R 2013 | JANUARY 2014 12/14/13 3:33 PM