The OUSD Options applications must be submitted by Friday, Jan. 14, 2011. More info here

Please feel free to call Alice Philips (Brewer Counselor, 510-531-6600 x505) anytime to discuss the Options process.

Happy New Year Edna Brewer Families!

We are kicking off 2010 with a strong focus on academics and continuous improvements to our facility and overall school program.

As many folks have noticed, we have had a camera system installed on our campus. This system is a response to the four break-ins we experienced in November and December. The cameras also will be used to review any safety threats we encounter during the school day. Even with this technology, we must still strive to instill in our students, staff and community strong values and standards of excellence that enable us to hold each other accountable and keep our campus a safe place.

We are nearing the end of the first semester and as a teaching staff, we have made great gains. We recently developed an Instructional Leadership Team to address a number of school-improvement initiatives. We are building leadership in our teaching ranks and working to involve stakeholders every step of the way.

The facilities committee is working on a number of initiatives, including utilizing solar energy at Edna Brewer and possibly getting one of the fields covered in turf. The school garden is coming alive with help from our science teachers and our county nutritionist.

At the end of the school day, 6th graders are being released out of the front door, 7th graders are being released out of the gate on Excelsior Street, while our hearty 8th graders are exiting the gate on East 38th Street. Traffic problems have eased on 13th Avenue, while East 38th Street has experienced congestion.

Please do not idle on East 38th  St. waiting for your child. Additionally, we are concerned about the safety of students hanging out in front of the school for long stretches of time waiting to be picked up. Please make after-school arrangements for your children in order to prevent this safety risk.

Please be part of our team in 2010! If you are able, help our dedicated PTSA by giving what you can. Any donations can be left in the PTSA mailbox in the main office. Thank you for your support and a very happy new year to you.

Sam Pasarow, Principal
510-531-6600, x 501
principal@ednabrewer.net

Greetings Edna Brewer community. This is Mr. Pasarow with a quick update on Edna Brewer. I want to thank parents and guardians for taking my frequent, automated phone calls and being in communication with the school about important events.

The Edna Brewer Campus has been burglarized several times in November and we are beefing up our security system by adding surveillance cameras to our campus. If you witness trespassers or suspicious activity on our campus, please call the police immediately.

To increase safety, we are locking all perimeter doors at 3:30. Students will not be able to come and go at that time. This will help us ensure that the building is secure after the after-school program concludes for the night. As a general policy, we are asking students not to wait outside of the school for parent pickup after school. It is our hope that parents and guardians will arrange alternatives to students’ waiting for lengthy amounts of time in front of the school for pickup.

Our excellent after-school program continues. In January, at the end of the first semester, students currently enrolled in after-school classes will be given the option to change them by written request. Haneefah Shuaibe, our after-school program coordinator, will be sending out complete information about schedule changes after the winter break, so stay tuned.

Academically, we are balancing several key initiatives. Learning targets drive our classroom lessons and we are working as a staff to come up with high-quality learning targets that involve critical thinking.

It is hard to think critically and it is hard to teach critical thinking. To help teachers plan learning activities and create the conditions that promote critical thinking in the classroom, we have begun using Classroom Instruction That Works by Robert Marzano. This book synthesizes hundreds of research studies on teaching strategies.

According to Marzano and his co-authors, research in the “soft” sciences (education and psychology) is every bit as rigorous, if not more so, than research studies in the “hard” sciences like particle physics. That is all to say that there is ample research about what it means to teach well and this is great news. We as an organization can build capacity in our amazing new and continuing Brewer teachers.

Edna Brewer uses cooperative learning, and the physical layout and teaching in our classrooms reflect this. Cooperative learning makes better communicators out of our students. They will all too soon be participating in a diverse, fast-paced global economy, which will require cooperative interaction.

In October, we had an excellent staff training on lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender issues that arise in middle schools. This was taught by a parent and some community members. In the training, we focused on how to keep Edna Brewer safe for all students.

Our staff also has been focusing on Classroom Management techniques under Noah Salzman’s guidance—nine of our forty teachers are new, so this guidance is much appreciated and Salzman’s methods work, as evidenced by improved management in a number of Edna Brewer classrooms.

We have hired a terrific teacher-coach who works with our teachers on English Language Arts. We continue to benefit from having Ms. Ortega play the role of math teacher-coach while also teaching our math intervention classes.

On December 2 we had a meeting for all GPA 2.0-and-under students. The meeting was well attended by students and parents. There were many constructive conversations and it was a beautiful sight to see our community come together for these students.

For safety reasons, the school staff is now clearing students from the front of school at 3:30 p.m. each day. If you cannot pick your child up by then, please make arrangements to meet them at a location other than Brewer—a local park, coffee shop, friend’s home, etc. No students will be allowed to wait in the front of the school after 3:30 p.m. We appreciate your cooperation in keeping our school and our students safe. For more information, please contact the school administration or the After-School Program at 510-531-6600.After-

From our Principal Sam Pasarow:  On Friday morning, October 16th, a 6th grader was killed in a hit and run accident in front of Frick Middle School.  Please talk to your children about this horrific loss and the importance of being safe when walking to and from school.  Please also be aware that 13th Avenue–the street that runs in front of our school–is a dangerous place to pick up and drop off your child.

The street is too narrow to accommodate traffic flow and the many illegally parked vehicles.  We are requesting the city’s help in changing the traffic pattern on 13th Avenue.  Until then, we urge you to pick up / drop off your child on one of the less congested streets like East 38th Street or Excelsior Street.  It is vital that we make our school safe for our children.
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