Working together to support BVSD schools

We hosted a Parent Partnership Summit last week and were thrilled to see so many schools in the Boulder Valley School District represented. This event brings together parent leaders from schools across the district to strengthen fundraising efforts and connect with other parent leaders to grow their impact in our schools.

Working together to support schools

PTO and PTA organizations across BVSD provide important resources to supplement the educational experience for students and help build community. Impact on Education convenes the leaders of these organizations each year to ensure they know how we can support their efforts and how we work each day to support the students and educators at their school.

After a brief update on our programs and recent happenings, we shared this new video about how we are supporting the mental health of BVSD students affected by the Marshall Fire.

An important part of supporting schools is making sure all families are included. To support parent leaders, we invited representatives from the NAACP Boulder County Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Collaborative to share resources and ideas for implementing or strengthening school DEI committees.

An update from the BVSD Superintendent

In addition to presenting information on and answering questions about the BVSD Facilities Critical Needs Plan and the All Together for All Students strategic plan, Dr. Anderson also spent over an hour with us discussing pressing current issues in the district including

• the labor shortage affecting special education and transportation
• safety and security in the district, including a debrief on the Fairview High School threat
• declining enrollment
• math acceleration pathways

We’re grateful that Dr. Anderson was able to spend so much time with BVSD’s parent leaders at the summit to share important and timely updates and answer questions.

BEFORE YOU GO …

Impact on Education is a nonprofit organization, and we depend on our community to help us put our mission into action. We need your help to to provide opportunity and resources to 30,000 students and 4,000 educators in the Boulder Valley School District.

Investing in our schools is investing in our children and our communities

Where students learn matters. In Colorado, without adequate state funding, school districts are on their own to provide and maintain the schools where students and teachers do their essential work everyday. This fall Boulder Valley School District (BVSD) is asking our community to invest in improving schools across the district. The only way for BVSD to address the critical needs included in ballot measure 5A is by asking our taxpayers — our community — for help.

The $350 million property tax increase asks property owners to invest approximately $118 per year, or $9.83 a month, for each $600,000 of home value. While the ballot is crowded with tax measures this year, it’s important to support ballot issue 5A this year because our buildings are aging and require immediate maintenance to extend their useful life, and new home construction at the northeastern edge of our district will lead to overcrowded and inequitable classrooms if we fail to act. 

Perhaps the most exciting projects included in measure 5A, however, are the proposed investments that will provide BVSD students with quality skills-based learning experiences. The Boulder Chamber identified workforce development as a priority need for local employers and BVSD’s Facilities Critical Needs Plan would include renovating our middle and high schools to offer innovative classrooms and learning laboratories that will ensure our graduates are equipped for postsecondary success. 

What’s included in Ballot Measure 5A

Renovating buildings to better prepare students for their futures – 15%

BVSD is ready to transform the student experience in college and career preparedness. Proposed renovations at PK-8, middle, and high schools will expand or create flexible, agile spaces where students can experience industry-inspired environments with the latest equipment, helping them acquire valuable technical skills along with the real-world, hands-on experiences that lead to high-wage and high-growth jobs that are in high demand. Allowing students to build their own path to success is important, and GradPlus enables a skills-based curriculum where students don’t have to choose between learning a skilled trade or further academic pursuits.

Critical maintenance, facility improvements, rebuilding New Vista High – 68.9%

Measure 5A also represents the District’s highest priority building needs that must be addressed in the next four years in order to optimize taxpayer investments. Nearly 60% of the buildings in BVSD are over 40 years old and the cost of current critical building needs, recommended by the Capital Improvement Plan Review Committee, will only increase if the measure does not pass. Plans also call for the 70-year old New Vista High School building to be replaced.

Relieving overcrowding in schools – 13.8%

The only BVSD school in Erie, Meadowlark PK-8, is at 100% capacity in grades PK-5. Development that’s already under construction in the area requires a plan to address enrollment growth before it’s a crisis. Building a second elementary school in Erie will accommodate new students and relieve overcrowding in other district schools, which leads to inequitable classrooms and learning experiences.

Improving ADA access on playgrounds – 2.3%

So that students of all physical abilities can benefit from play and exercise, playground mulch on a number of elementary playgrounds would be replaced with rubberized solid surfaces that are wheelchair friendly.

Vote yes on 5A

Public schools are a pillar of local cities and towns, providing an important thread in the social fabric of our community. It’s difficult to imagine our neighborhoods without their local schools – critical infrastructure that enables learning, social connections, and student growth and achievement to take place. In order to positively impact our economy and community we must educate our youth, facilitate avenues for careers, and provide safe facilities for learning. 

Voting yes on 5A is a vote for public education.

BEFORE YOU GO …

Impact on Education is a nonprofit organization, and we depend on our community to help us put our mission into action. We need your help to to provide opportunity and resources to 30,000 students and 4,000 educators in the Boulder Valley School District.

Our partnership with BVSD prepared more students for Kindergarten

One of the magical ingredients to our work is our partnership with the Boulder Valley School District. We’re much stronger when we work together, and our Kinder Bridge program is a prime example.

Why we became a champion for early learning

Preparing students for that all-important first year of formal schooling allows us to address opportunity gaps facing our youngest learners. The BVSD community is diverse in many ways, welcoming students from different races, cultures, economic and family backgrounds.

Because we know school readiness can impact everything from reading at grade level to graduating high school to being career ready later in life, Impact on Education partnered with Boulder Housing Partners over six years ago to start offering a summer program that provided high quality early learning experiences to preschool age students heading to BVSD. In 2022 this program was woven into BVSD’s summer learning, allowing us to serve four times the number of students and provide 50% more instructional hours.

What Kinder Bridge offers students

This past summer, 170 rising Kindergarten students with identified risk factors participated in our Kinder Bridge program. These students wouldn’t have otherwise had access to summer preschool and would have arrived in our kindergarten classrooms less prepared than their peers. The new partnership allowed us to:

• Increase the number of students served, enrolling 170 preschoolers from 30 schools at three sites in Boulder and Lafayette
• Enroll 40% Free and Reduced Price Meals (FRPM) students
• Provide BVSD transportation to make the program accessible to all students
• Double instructional hours, providing 80 hours of instruction focusing on letter recognition, counting, letter sound formation and recognition, name-writing, executive functioning and social emotional skills

The impact of the 2022 Kinder Bridge program

While many students were already demonstrating Kindergarten-level behaviors at the beginning of the summer, all students saw growth on the BVSD TS-Gold Kindergarten Readiness Assessment, and 65% left the program within the expected range of a kindergartener one month into the school year. The greatest gains were in identifying letter-sound correspondences and taking care of their own needs appropriately.

Class attendance averaged 86% across the three sites and 92% of families indicated plans to enroll their students in BVSD Kindergarten.

Looking ahead to 2023 we’ll continue working closely and proactively with BVSD to improve and enroll students in our Kinder Bridge program.

*The BVSD TS-Gold Kindergarten Readiness Assessment measures literacy/letter recognition, numeracy/number recognition and counting, and executive functioning skills necessary to engage productively and positively in a kindergarten class.

BEFORE YOU GO …

Impact on Education is a nonprofit organization, and we depend on our community to help us put our mission into action. We need your help to to provide opportunity and resources to 30,000 students and 4,000 educators in the Boulder Valley School District.

8,000 students provided with essential school supplies

Preschoolers returned to classrooms today, which means every school across Boulder Valley School District is filled with students, educators and staff eagerly anticipating the school year ahead.

Helping families in need

An important first step to the school year is ensuring every student starts the year with the supplies they need to be successful. In partnership with the St. Vrain Valley Schools Foundation and our Title Sponsor, Western Disposal Services, we helped over 8,000 students facing financial hardship through our Crayons to Calculators school supply distribution. Students across the Boulder Valley School District and St. Vrain Valley School District received grade-level appropriate school supplies, backpacks and headphones.

Ensuring every student has access to school supplies creates equitable classrooms across all grade-levels.

Our community stepped in to help

We’re pleased to share that our Crayons to Calculators Community Challenge exceeded its goal of raising 10% of the $250,000 program cost. Many local organizations worked hard to gather donations and thanks to these supporters and our program sponsors, we’re proud to support a strong start to the year for all students.

There’s still time to support back-to-school! You can make a gift toward our Community Challenge fundraiser through September 7.

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BEFORE YOU GO …

Impact on Education is a nonprofit organization, and we depend on our community to help us put our mission into action. We need your help to to provide opportunity and resources to 30,000 students and 4,000 educators of the Boulder Valley School District.

Four ways we’re driving change in BVSD classrooms

Over the years, we’ve catalyzed change in the Boulder Valley School District by piloting initiatives and accelerating innovation in classrooms and schools. Right now, we’re seeing four recent investments driving change for students.

Early dyslexia intervention

In 2019, BVSD was working to roll out a new phonics-based curriculum in elementary schools and begin screening Kindergarten students to identify those at risk for dyslexia, but they lacked the funds to quickly train all educators. Impact on Education, in partnership with Boulder Valley Kids Identified with Dyslexia (BVKID), stepped in to fund professional development and training for 46 BVSD interventionists and classroom educators.

The training took place in the summer of 2020 and meant that during the 2020-21 school year, every school in BVSD had at least one interventionist who was trained in the Orton Gillingham approach to better support students. In 2021, IOE also supplemented BVSD’s educator training, but we are pleased to share that this summer, BVSD made their biggest investment to date for this critical training opportunity by funding 85 elementary educators to participate in the training.

Helping students catch up on reading and math

Every student experienced disrupted learning in 2020 and 2021, and many now need extra support with their reading and math skills.

Last year, we partnered with BVSD to invest in the Really Great Reading curriculum to help students build foundation skills in reading, and students made wonderful progress:

• 285 students in eight schools used the curriculum
• 12 teachers were trained and provided materials for implementation
• Students who used RGR were almost twice as likely to improve their reading skills

To catch students up on math skills, we funded licenses for IXL Math at several BVSD schools during the 2021-22 school year. The original request came through our Academic Opportunity Fund and was quickly adopted across the district leading to impressive results:

• 5274 students in 23 schools used the program
• Students answered over 1,107,520 answered questions
• 33,808 skills were mastered and 64,770 skills deemed proficient

Seeing the success of these investments, BVSD is now funding the Really Great Reading curriculum more broadly throughout the district and paying for IXL Math access for all middle school students for the 2022-23 school year.

Preparing students for their futures

Beginning in 2019, we have worked in partnership with BVSD and external experts to build a vision of how to better prepare students for their futures. BVSD’s new GradPlus initiative is a direct result of the $40,000 investment we made to move this work forward and ensure BVSD has a solid roadmap and implementation plan to launch for the 2022-23 school year. GradPlus is a game changer in how BVSD will prepare students for their future and will make it far easier for students to gain credentials, work experience and post-secondary credit towards degrees while still in high school.

Driving change in BVSD

Catalytic change is one of our core values and it’s something we strive to do wherever possible. By investing in new tools for learning we’re providing new opportunities for students of all ages to see success in school.

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BEFORE YOU GO …

Impact on Education is a nonprofit organization, and we depend on our community to help us put our mission into action. We need your help to to provide opportunity and resources to 30,000 students and 4,000 educators of the Boulder Valley School District.

How BVSD families prioritize our work

With nearly 30,000 students enrolled in the Boulder Valley School District, we highly value the insights and opinions of their parents and guardians. Earlier this summer, we asked them some questions about our work and were thrilled to receive over 1,000 responses. 

As a thank you for responding, all participants were entered into a drawing for $50 King Soopers gift cards, and the winners are listed below.

What parents and guardians know about our work

The last school year was unlike any other and we were curious which of our investments BVSD families knew about. The top five investments were:

1. Supporting students and staff affected by the Marshall Fire
2. Providing backpacks and school supplies to students in need
3. Funding mental health staff, training and programming
4. Offering summer learning opportunities for rising Kindergarteners
5. Funding targeted tutoring

The importance of our investments

Our work focuses on three key areas: early childhood education, student success, and college and career readiness. While investments in these areas vary from year to year, BVSD families felt the most important work we do is:

1. Provide extra help and learning opportunities for students in need
2. Meet critical needs and respond to crises
3. Support BVSD educators
4. Address early childhood education
5. Address college and career readiness
6. Provide college scholarships
7. Spur innovation

Where we’re focusing this school year

As students prepare to return to schools, we’re working to ensure they start off strong by:

• distributing backpacks and school supplies to students with financial need
• launching another year of our Academic Opportunity Fund which provides mini-grants to educators and schools
• continuing to work with BVSD to provide accessible mental health support, and
• expanding our Career Readiness Academy to serve more students

How to stay in the loop

Over 60% of our respondents said they didn’t hear enough about our work. If you feel the same, we’d love to have you join our monthly e-newsletter or follow us on our active social media channels, primarily Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

Gift card winners

Four respondents were randomly selected to win a $50 King Soopers gift card. Winners should have received an email with a link to your gift card. If you did not receive yours, please email info@impactoneducation.org. 

• Claire Peterson
• Carolyn Szoke
• Joel Kaar
• Maria Arellano

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BEFORE YOU GO …

Impact on Education is a nonprofit organization, and we depend on our community to help us put our mission into action. We need your help to to provide opportunity and resources to 30,000 students and 4,000 educators of the Boulder Valley School District.

We’re challenging the BVSD community to raise $25,000 for back-to-school supplies

We work all year to provide opportunities for BVSD students, but an important first step is ensuring every student starts the school year with the supplies they need for a strong and successful academic year.

89% of parents & guardians expect rising prices to impact their back-to-school shopping plans.

Numerator

Especially right now as inflation hits its highest level in four decades, times are tight for families and we know that many will struggle with back-to-school expenses for their children this fall. Our community is also seeing the harsh reality of the Marshall Fire affecting local families who have a greater need for financial support than they have during previous school years.

Why school supplies are so important

In addition to families affected by the fire, there are over 8,000 local students living in or near poverty who often go without essential school supplies. When families face difficult financial decisions or tradeoffs, such as buying groceries or school supplies, it can impact a student’s success in the classroom and in life. Ensuring every student has access to school supplies creates equitable classrooms across all grade-levels.

To a student in need, a backpack filled with school supplies is so much more than a backpack; it’s a powerful toolbox that bolsters self-esteem and unleashes confidence.

How we provide school supplies to students in need

Our annual school supply distribution, Crayons to Calculators, provides age-appropriate school supplies, headphones, and a new backpack to over 8,000 students facing financial hardship in the Boulder Valley School District and the St. Vrain Valley School District.

In partnership with the St. Vrain Valley Schools Education Foundation, our Title Sponsor Western Disposal Services, and our other generous sponsors, we fund this $250,000 program to ensure each student will head back to school with the tools they need to succeed.

Our challenge to the community

The Crayons to Calculators Community Challenge encourages individuals and organizations to host mini-fundraising campaigns to raise $25,000, or 10% of the total program cost.

The challenge is a fun way to bring organizations and networks together in support of a common goal: supporting local students and equitable classrooms. The challenge lasts for four weeks, and we provide resources and tips for fun activities that encourage individual and team participation.

Expanding early learning for incoming BVSD Kindergarteners

We want to prepare as many children as we can for that all-important first year of formal schooling. From academic knowledge and skills to executive functioning and social emotional learning, high quality early learning experiences are critical to their future success.

Our Kinder Bridge investment

Impact on Education partners with the Boulder Valley School District (BVSD) to fund Kinder Bridge, providing summer learning for over 160 rising Kindergarten students. Access to early learning, including reading and math, is not equitably available to all children who will enroll in the district, so we invest in this program to provide access to those historically underserved.

School readiness can significantly impact everything from reading at grade level to graduating high school to being career ready later in life.

Center for American Progress

Working with BVSD and community partners we identify the students most likely to be in need of programming to prepare them for the classroom. 

What students learn

At three schools across the district, students receive six weeks of summer instruction focusing on letter recognition, counting, letter sound formation and recognition, and name-writing. They also cultivate executive functioning and social emotional learning skills which are important for kindergarten readiness.

Learn more about BVSD’s summer learning program >>

The importance of early learning

We invest in Kinder Bridge and our partnership with BVSD because our schools are well-positioned to provide young children and their families with high quality early learning experiences. We’ll work closely with BVSD to evaluate the progress students make during this summer’s program as they prepare for their classrooms this fall.

Announcing our 2022 college scholarship awardees

We’re excited to share that we’ve awarded $40,000 in scholarships to seven graduating high school seniors in BVSD. Applications were reviewed by a group of trained community volunteers, and student winners were selected based upon their academic achievement, financial need, and other eligibility requirements.

“This year we saw a deep field of scholarship applicants filled with students on their way to doing great things. We’re grateful to our scholarship review team for taking the time to learn about each applicant and make some tough decisions. Each applicant embodied a student empowered to soar and we’re proud to support our awardees as they take the next steps on their education journey.”

—Matt Tebo, IOE Program Manager

Our newest Earl & Barbara Bolton Scholarship, is awarded from a $500,000 endowment left to Impact on Education by its namesake. The couple grew up in Boulder County, attended Boulder Valley public schools, and were well known in the community for their love of aviation, history, education, and travel. The scholarship is intended for students planning to study engineering, forestry, nursing, or medicine in the state of Colorado.

Earl & Barbara Bolton Scholarship

The $5,000 Earl & Barbara Bolton Scholarship was awarded to Nia Sorel, a senior at Monarch High School. Nia plans to major in Integrative Physiology and Kinesiology at CU-Boulder beginning in the fall. This scholarship award is renewable for up to four years, with the potential to fund $20,000 of Nia’s college expenses.

“My fascination with biology and medicine stemmed, evoking a curiosity about what it would take to be a doctor. As my educational career continues, I crave a deeper understanding of medicine-based sciences; to interpret the human body and the effects of medical intervention.”

—Nia Sorel, 2022 Earl & Barbara Bolton Scholarship Winner

Dennie & Donna Wise Scholarship

One of Impact on Education’s longtime scholarships, the Dennie and Donna Wise Scholarship, was endowed by a former board member to support up to two students a year planning to pursue a vocational, technical, or community college education. 

A $1,000 scholarship was awarded to Jaime Ibarra, a senior at Boulder High School and to Julian Mastrine, a senior at Monarch High School. Jamie plans to attend Front Range Community College in the fall to pursue her interests in psychology and nursing, and Julian plans to study Automotive Service Management at Lincoln Tech in Denver. This scholarship award is renewable for up to two years, funding up to $2,000 of each recipient’s tuition. 

“I always want to make sure my people, and others are safe, that their mental and physical health is doing okay. I am bilingual and I can make a difference with the latino community with being able to translate and attend to Spanish speaking patients.”

—Jaime Ibarra, 2022 Dennie & Donna Wise Scholarship Winner

“I’m a young mechanic who loves a trade that’s dying. If we, as a new generation of mechanics, were able to change the whole idea around how a shop functions, then it could be a whole lot better.”

—Julian Mastrine, 2022 Dennie & Donna Wise Scholarship Winner

Additional scholarship recipients

Independent Order of Odd Fellows  – Boulder Lodge #9 Scholarship
Impact on Education administers a scholarship for the Odd Fellows Boulder Lodge #9. They are a long-established part of the Boulder community and wish to reward and assist graduating seniors in the Boulder Valley School District who demonstrate a strong commitment to their community and personal excellence. Each scholarship is renewable for up to five years, funding up to $5,000 per recipient.

This year’s awardees were Jessica Funk from Monarch High School, Gabriela Borlovan from Centaurus High School, and Amairani Chirinos from New Vista High School.

Panther Pride Excellence in Leadership
An additional award we administer, the $1,000 Panther Pride Excellence in Leadership, was awarded to Madelyn Hardee from Boulder High School.

We offer these scholarships to support Boulder Valley students in financial need who wish to pursue higher education. We’re able to provide this type of important financial support thanks to generous bequests left to the organization from local community members. If you’d like to discuss opportunities for planned giving, including bequests, gifts from a retirement account, charitable trust, or real estate, please contact darcy@impactoneducation.org.

IOE funding expands mental health support for BVSD students and staff

This post is an updated version of this article posted on February 25, 2022.

Children’s Hospital Colorado declared a pediatric mental health state of emergency in May of 2021, citing skyrocketing demand for mental health services among Colorado’s youth. In addition to the well-documented impact of the pandemic on mental health, our community also experienced a mass shooting and Colorado’s most destructive wildfire in 2021. 

BVSD is committed to providing mental health support for students from kindergarten through graduation. For young learners, sharing feelings and learning to work through problems will be all they ever know, and for older learners, having school-based support is critical to navigating mental health struggles.

We’re investing over $800,000 to support the ongoing mental health needs of students and staff throughout the Boulder Valley School District.

Mental health professional development for BVSD staff

School Age Care (SAC) staff serve a diverse group of students daily at 32 sites throughout Boulder Valley School District (BVSD). From grade levels to academic ability levels to emotional and behavioral health levels, SAC staff must manage each student’s needs and create a safe environment outside of school hours for students and staff.

Impact on Education funded six hours of Calming Kids professional development for BVSD School After Care educators to teach them strategies for managing student mental health needs and their own. The first sessions were held in 2021 thanks to a partnership with the City of Boulder’s Housing and Human Services Department, and additional sessions are planned for 2022.

Expanding BVSD’s team of mental health advocates

In the Boulder Valley School District (BVSD), referrals of students to Mental Health Advocates have risen by 86% this school year compared to the same period during the 2020-21 school year. 

Mental Health Advocates supplement what BVSD’s school counselors can provide since their focus is exclusively on mental and behavioral health. Within BVSD, Mental Health Advocates: 

• provide prevention and intervention services for students, supporting their social-emotional and behavioral development, student achievement, and crisis intervention
• provide both group and individual counseling support and work directly with students, parents, and staff members
• help families access external resources, including making appropriate referrals to community partners such as Mental Health Partners and Jewish Family Services

Impact on Education provided funding to hire four additional Mental Health Advocates to be deployed year-round in BVSD’s schools most impacted by the Marshall Fire. 

“We are seeing a significant increase when it comes to the social-emotional support our students need at this critical moment. Those impacted by the fire are working to process everything that happened. It was a deeply traumatic experience and it will take some time for these students to cope with the tremendous amount of loss and PTSD that everyone impacted by the fires are struggling through.”

Tammy Lawrence, Student Support Services Director

The additional support of four new Mental Health Advocates will ensure all of the schools impacted by the Marshall Fire have the intensive layer of mental health support needed, and expand BVSD’s capacity to respond to mental health referrals. 

The intensity of mental health concerns and the time required to provide support and intervention varies dramatically from case to case, but BVSD’s leadership is confident that adding these clinicians to the School District team was the most critical immediate step.

Funding to support mental health has come from our generous community partners

• Community Foundation Boulder County
• CDP Colorado Wildfires Recovery Fund
• AT&T
• United Healthcare
• Google
• City of Boulder Housing and Human Services Department

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YOU CAN HELP …

Impact on Education is a nonprofit organization, and we depend on our community to help us put our mission into action. We are still actively raising funds to support the mental health needs of Boulder Valley students and staff. You can help by making a gift to support this work.

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