ALC celebrates Day One (Front page of Oakland Trib!)
dennis guikema
ALC begins!
By 8:30 this morning the building was bustling with middle school activity. Summer is over. Planning has ended. Showtime! The Alternative Learning Community is no longer a dream: it is a school.
Thanks a million to the generous folks who have contributed to the genesis of our critical mission to give Oakland middle schoolers a second chance at success. Many of you have donated and volunteered in order to help get ALC off the ground. If you haven’t had the chance to lend a hand yet, it is really easy, and even $10 makes a difference. You can donate on-line at http://www.alcOakland.com/supportalc or you can send a check made out to “ALC/OSSF” to the Alternative Learning Community, 9736 Lawlor St., Oakland, CA 94605. We are counting on donations to support a whole-school trip to a ropes course in September, a “bike livery” on campus that will be rolling in three weeks, and an overnight trip for our sixth graders to a sustainable farm in Half Moon Bay. All donations are tax deductible.
There were so many highlights on our first day that it will be impossible to account for them all. One of them, certainly, was when Lydia, the mother of a former student came to say “hi” and “congrats” on the article in today’s Oakland Tribune. It was the first that any of us had heard of this news. Lydia and I ran out and got the paper. Check out the article that ran on today’s front page!
http://www.insidebayarea.com/oaklandtribune/ci_6730116
There is also much to report from August’s preparation. The month started with collaborative development of our behavior plan, advisories, and the formatting of the individual learning plan each student will have. For five days most of the teachers and some advisors and I went to the Sierras for a Wilderness Leadership Training with BAWT (http://www.bawt.org). This was no walk in the woods. Every waking minute was packed with scenarios of everything that could go wrong in the wilderness along with intense debriefing of our leadership. This formal training, plus BAWT’s massive gear library, is another great resource that will help the ALC staff expose youth to experiences that will enable them to grow academically, personally, and as leaders in our community.
I’ll write again soon about the peaks and valleys on campus as we start the year… or better yet, do like my friends Eric and Lydia did today, and come visit to see it for yourself.
Thanks, again, for your support!
~ Dennis
Alternative Learning Community
of the Oakland Unified School District
510-879-1735
dennis....@ousd.k12.ca.us
http://www.alcOakland.com