Alderwood
Elementary School is now recruiting bilingual high school and college students
in Bellingham to tutor students for Alderwood’s Spanish literacy club, El Club
de Lectura en Español. Orientation for the club is on Tuesday, Oct. 29 from 3:00
to 4:15 p.m. at Alderwood Elementary School, where new tutors will be trained
by Alderwood teachers and staff.
“High
school students and college students will be tutoring our younger kids that
have learned Spanish as a second language, and allowing them the opportunity to
practice Spanish with their new mentor and leader,” said Alderwood’s Assistant
Principal Josephine Estrada, who also works as a part time Spanish teacher at
the school. Estrada said Alderwood students will learn strategies to practice speaking
and reading in Spanish, and then transfer those new skills to their school work
in English during the school day.
There
are going to be service learning tutors from Western Washington University at
the orientation and, for the very first time, Spanish-speaking students from
Whatcom Community College, Estrada said. She said she can see the success for
Alderwood students in El Club de Lectura en Español, as they are able to
enhance their abilities in reading and writing English through learning how to
read and write in Spanish as well.
El
Club de Lectura en Español is only one of the many extracurricular learning
opportunities at Alderwood, said Estrada. She said other opportunities for study
include monthly literacy nights where Spanish speaking parents and community
members interact with students, and weekly professional learning communities where
teachers from each grade level collaborate and set goals for their students.
“I’m
very proud to be a part of this focus on student achievement,” Estrada said. “It
is amazing how little our kids have and yet, against all odds, they are
achieving.”
At
Alderwood Elementary, 82 percent of the students are eligible for free
breakfast and lunch, Estrada said. Over the past couple years, Alderwood
received awards from the state governor recognizing student achievements, and Estrada
said she is so excited to be part of the supporting, caring environment.
“Alderwood
works with the community to embrace diversity, and empower students to become
lifelong learners,” Estrada said. She said that Alderwood is the most diverse
school in the district.
Estrada
said that she works with other staff members, as well as the PTA, in efforts to
reach out to the community for support and contributions for the school. Estrada
said donors such as McDonald’s, WalMart, Kohl’s and Superfeet have all
contributed to Alderwood, and thanks to these contributors Alderwood now has a
bus for after-school homework club students to return home.
“PTAs
raise a lot of money when they have communities that have money, or can
fundraise it,” Estrada said. “Our PTA does not have families with that kind of
money.”
Noticing
the abundance of low-income families at Alderwood before her time as PTA president,
Becky Diaz has been working to improve all aspects of the PTA, said PTA Vice
President Erika Gurrola. Diaz and Gurrola work together to raise funds the
teachers need for events, and make financial decisions based on what the teachers
want combined with what the school needs, Gurrola said.
“It
has been really nice to know that our school is supporting us and helping us
out, we have accomplished a lot,” Gurrola said. “There has been a lot of
improvement in school over the last couple of years, the biggest improvement
being the PTA itself.”
Another
very diverse school in the district with a high attendance of low income
families is Cordata Elementary School, where the PTA tries their hardest to
fundraise in order to make all activities available for all children no matter
their economic status, said PTA President Angie Strand.
“It
takes a village to run a PTA,” Strand said “We work very closely together to
make every child’s potential a reality, which is the PTA mission statement.”
Alderwood’s Assistant Principal Estrada
recognizes that students do very well in spite of their reality. “We make no
excuses. We collaborate, and we bring in the community.”
