Teacher Feature...
Coping with a School Fire
by Marcie Goudie and Bonnie Aspen
A five-alarm fire raged through Vallejo's Steffan Manor Elementary School for ten hours on Saturday, April 7. Located 30 miles north of San Francisco, this K-5, multi-track school was gutted and over 700 students were left without their school. Teachers lost curriculum materials that had taken them years to accumulate. Steffan Manor students were temporarily placed in classrooms at Cave Elementary School because Cave students were off track this week. Steffan Manor students will be going off track for a month after this week, but other students will return April 16. They have no school to return to. Classes will held in portables that are being located on the grounds of another nearby elementary school.
Marcia Goudie teaches in Vallejo at Cave Elementary School. She posted information about the fire on the Teachers.Net First Grade Mail Ring and received this reply: "Marcia, Several years ago as I was entering town late on a Sunday night, I saw a fire on the hill near my school. I started crying about all the things that I had lost. It turned out to be a vacant house near by. Anyway, a couple of years ago one of the T.net regulars told about her mother's school burned to the ground. I need to "clean house." Could I mail off a box to you, then you could give it to the First Grade teacher using your classroom? I would love to help out in some small way. Would that be okay with you?" KathyB/1st/IA
How would you cope if this fire happened in your school? Which of your curriculum materials would you want to replace first? We would like to provide these devastated teachers with those materials as soon as possible! Please look through your closets at school and home. Is there anything you can donate? A partial list might include file folder games, children's books for classroom library collections, center activities, resource books, bulletin board borders and letters, and math/reading manipulatives. Marcia is coordinating the effort in Vallejo. If you are mailing or shipping from outside the San Francisco area, please send to:
Bonnie is coordinating the effort in the San Francisco area and is
willing to pick up donations from San Francisco, the Peninsula, and East Bay.
Steffan Manor Teachers
C/o Bonnie Aspen
Prospect Sierra School
2060 Tapscott Avenue
El Cerrito, CA 94805
510-237-5361
bonnie_1stgrade@yahoo.com
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