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environment conducive to learning and myself into a strategic and purposeful teacher.” The mentors are a cadre of veteran teachers from around the Bay Area and the Ravenswood district itself, who work side by side with every first- and second-year teacher to assist in their growth and help to foster a supportive working environment. “When teachers have a collegial atmosphere, a good school climate and feel the power to make a difference for the kids, they want to stay here even though they could make $5,000 or $10,000 more by traveling over the bridge,” mentor Barbara Allen said. Allen, a Palo Alto resident, spent decades as a special-education and second-grade teacher in San Jose’s Berryessa Union School District. Sometimes it’s as simple as bringing the new teacher a cup of coffee or meeting her on a Saturday or after school to help set up a classroom library or a folder system. “In education, it’s easy to develop a culture of blame — kids can blame teachers, teachers can blame parents, parents can blame the school — but we try to encourage a different way of thinking about the situation, to help empower the teacher,” Jen Bloom said. Bloom taught English-language learners in San Francisco and later was a founding staff member of an Oakland charter school before join-
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you observe as benign as quite the opposite. “I resent not being able to give my input on the subject.” Daryl Savage, chair of the Human Relations Commission, called the private nature of the group’s meetings a “controversial issue” but defended the current policy. She said the meetings entail “lively exchanges of candid ideas” and said group members would be less forthright if they knew their comments would be scrutinized by the public or repeated by the media. Police Chief Dennis Burns, who spearheaded the group’s creation, said the group has yet to hold a full discussion on whether to make the meetings public. Burns said he understands the critics’ concerns, but he also stressed the importance of allowing group members to talk freely. “I have witnessed the value in this group of having some really candid conversations and having an exchange that’s really honest and not staged in a way that makes people feel constrained. “I’m not saying we won’t make it open, but we have to first check with the people in the group and see what their positions are.” Former Palo Alto Mayor Jim Burch, who sits on the Community Advisory Group, said he very much opposes the idea of opening up the meetings. Burch said opening the meetings up would “reduce the effectiveness of the group drastically.” Burch said the group features a great
ing the New Teacher Center. She mentors teachers at Flood, Willow Oaks and Green Oaks schools. “It’s an intimidating situation for a new teacher to walk into on the first day — a class will have some students at grade level, some two grade-levels below, some with no English and some ‘inclusion’ (special-education) students. It’s so complex, all the different challenges,” Bloom said. “Our role is not to evaluate, just to support. Really listening in a nonjudgmental way is one of the ways we can build trust. Listening and reflecting back what we’ve heard can help teachers see things in a different way.” Mentors also sit through classes and record data on how a new teacher is performing. “A teacher might say, ‘The kids won’t listen.’ Then you look at the data with her and see she was talking to a group of 5-year-olds for 14 minutes straight. She can see, ‘Oh, wow: No wonder they get a little antsy on the rug,” said Jenny Morgan, who co-directs the project at Ravenswood. Mentors gain credibility in Ravenswood by showing up regularly in the classroom. “I had a conversation the other day with a teacher who was glowing about (mentor April Stout),” said Ravenswood math teacher-turnedmentor Ryan Stewart. “This teacher had multiple mentors from different universities, but she said how much of an asset it is that April can be there, know the kids, the curriculum, the challenges, and offer support tarvariety of points of view. But he emphasized the fact that despite their differences, the group members listen to one another respectfully and focus on making things better. Opening the meetings up to the greater public would attract critics who are only interested in berating city officials, rather than in working for improvement, Burch told the Weekly. “If it’s anything like the council meetings, we’ll have people coming who aren’t willing to work with the police so much as argue about the past,” Burch said. “Some of them don’t seem to be interested in reconciliation and moving forward.” Roger Smith, who is also a member of the group, also said the meeting should remain closed. Smith, a former CEO of the Silicon Valley Bank, said he’s been impressed with the “free flow of information” coming from group members and said making the meetings public would “stifle the conversation.” “The conversation is very different when it’s recorded,” Smith said. The group also includes the Rev. Paul Bains from East Palo Alto’s St. Samuel Church and Palo Alto High student Lucas Brooks. Tommy Fehrenbach, who formerly chaired the Palo Alto Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors, is a member, as is local resident Karen Purvis, who in 2008 publicly complained about being a victim of racial profiling. The group’s other members are Harold Boyd, Ann Hardy, Carolyn Brown Digovich, Charles King, Cynthia Campbell, Arash Dabestani, Karen McAdams, Anne Ream and
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geted to those particular kids. “She knows what the teacher is going through on a daily basis.” Mentors also help new teachers learn how to manage the bureaucracy — especially important in a district such as Ravenswood, which is mired in state mandates and a federal court order on special education.
“Some of the teachers come in here with a strong social-justice background, wanting to make a difference. They know it’s going to be tough, but they say it’s tougher than they thought it would be, but not for the reason they anticipated,” said mentor Marie Crawford, a veteran of the Redwood City School District and the education program at San
Jose’s Tech Museum. “They were thinking the kids would be tough, but they notice that that’s the easiest part. They fall in love with the kids almost immediately. It’s the compliance measures, the pacing schedules they have to stay on, the benchmarks they have to share and the test scores that become so important. “These things take hours and hours of paperwork.” Morgan said: “We help them navigate all the different requirements and initiatives, and maintain some perspective so they can understand the bigger goal and purpose. That way they can take them on in a meaningful way and feel good about it rather than get bogged down by it.” Mentors also have helped organize “professional learning teams” at each school, enabling teachers to meet together regularly to develop a sense of collaboration and shared purpose. The New Teacher Center’s work in Ravenswood is supported by a $2.46 million grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, which expires this year. “This is our last comprehensive year,” program manager Kitty Dixon said. “Next year we will support at a minimal level,” adding that “there are no additional grants in Ravenswood at this time.” De La Vega said she “had not had that conversation (about grant renewal) with anyone yet.” N Staff Writer Chris Kenrick can be e-mailed at ckenrick@paweekly.com.
Nancy Tadlock. Agent Scott Savage and officers DuJuan Green and Mariana Villaescusa from the Palo Alto Police Department also participate in the group meetings, Burns said. Bains said he isn’t opposed to making the group meetings public, but cautioned against doing that too soon. The group needs more time to gain traction, Bains said, before the public is invited to the meetings. “You need to get a process and a system in place that’s working,” Bains told the Weekly. “It takes much more time to resolve an issue when you have 100 voices participating than when you have 10 voices.” Harold Boyd, a retired Stanford University administrator who had helped raise money for the university’s Martin Luther King Research and Education Institute, also said he’d be open to making the meetings public. His comments at the meeting would remain the same whether or not the public were watching, Boyd said. “I think the more transparency we have in public affairs the better the citizenry will understand the purpose for the group and what we’re engaged in doing,” Boyd told the Weekly. The advisory group sprung into existence last year as part of an “action plan” the Police Department launched to counter widespread accusations of racial profiling. Critics were particularly enraged by comments made by former Police Chief Lynne Johnson made at an Oct. 30, 2008, community meeting. Johnson suggested that officers were instructed to stop and question
African-Americans on city streets as part of the department’s response to a string of street robberies. In the following weeks, Johnson offered numerous apologies and maintained that the department does not practice racial profiling. Nevertheless, she resigned at the end of 2008 under a storm of criticism. Burns said one of the purposes of the new group is to “engage the community and get their perception on what we can improve.” He also said he hopes the group will help the department provide information to the greater community about its various programs and procedures. “We want to reach out to the different groups who may not have a real voice and a real connection with the police department,” Burns said. “The purpose is for them to educate us and, hopefully, for us to educate them.” The group has held four meetings so far. The first meeting focused on introductions, Burns said. The second one was an “overview” meeting in which the group discussed its mission and vision. The third meeting included a detailed discussion of the department’s policies and procedures. The fourth one featured a question-and-answer session that touched on mental health issues, student well-being, the department’s Explorer program and ways for the police department to get involved and have a “positive presence” in the community. Burns said the group was also asked to read and to be prepared to discuss the latest report from Independent Police Auditor Michael Gennaco. Group members had also
toured the Police Department facility and swapped stories about their police experiences. Participants haven’t always seen eye to eye, Burns said, but there haven’t been any shouting matches, Burns said. Every group member has shown a willingness to listen to divergent points of view, he said. “Some of the members are people who have questioned the police in the past and have legitimate concerns,” Burns said. Ray Bacchetti, the vice chairman of the Human Relations Commission who helped pick the group members, agreed that public meetings would curtail the level of discourse. The group is not intended to function as a “police review board,” Bacchetti said, but rather as a board that gives honest advice and helps to improve communication between the department and the community. Bacchetti also noted that the city already gives police critics a variety of channels for expressing their views. “People who have concerns about the police have all sorts of actions they can take,” Bacchetti said. “They can contact the police auditor or go to the City Council or the Human Relations Commission — which they do. “Just to provide another venue would completely undermine the purpose and the function that was on the police chief’s mind when he started the group.” N Staff Writer Gennady Sheyner can be e-mailed at gsheyner@ paweekly.com. Editor’s note: Daryl Savage writes the ShopTalk column for the Weekly.
Jennifer Bloom
Mentoring
Fourth-year teacher Martha Garcia teaches third grade at Green Oaks Academy in East Palo Alto using GLAD strategies (Guided Language Acquisition Design) to teach academic vocabulary and science concepts.