Partnership to Close the Opportunity Gap in STEM Education

The Schools Fund’s new K-12 STEM programs are designed to transform the trajectory in BUSD for our most vulnerable students. Every year, 500 students are invited to explore career-connected skills through hands-on learning at our Maker Camp (6^th-10^th grade), Super Science Saturdays (1^st-5^th grade), and holiday break STEM enrichment (K-5^th grade). Offered with BUSD’s Career Technical Education (CTE) program, these free, innovative out-of-school-time opportunities start to build students’ self-knowledge and prepare them to take advantage of the college and career opportunities ahead—in Berkeley High’s CTE pathways and beyond.

Partnership with Wareham Development and BUSD

Paving the Way to Arts Engagement at BHS through Music Scholarships

The Schools Fund is committed to ensuring that the full diversity of Berkeley students are able to access and thrive in the performing arts. 

This past summer, Schools Fund donors paid for a free week of music camp for forty 5^th and 6^th graders to encourage more students to continue their music education into middle and high school. Currently, Berkeley High’s nationally acclaimed music programs are not reflective of the entire student body at Berkeley High. With the phenomenal new “A” Building, we want to ensure that a diverse range of students benefit from the state of the art facilities and opportunities for artistic and personal development at Berkeley High. After last year’s success, we are expanding our scholarships to reach sixty students this summer.

Heeding National Calls for Better Literacy Instruction

In Berkeley and across the country, there is an acknowledged crisis in literacy and a major shift underway in how we teach reading. These two projects highlight how the Schools Fund is addressing the issue of literacy: 

• Summer enrichment is often out-of-reach for students from lower-income backgrounds, resulting in a predictable setback in reading skills that equates to the loss of a school year or more by 5^th grade. We are funding high-interest, take-home “summer libraries” for hundreds of priority elementary students.
• In an effort to buoy BUSD’s investment in phonics-based literacy, we’re outfitting every K-5 literacy coach and intervention teacher at all school sites with new book sets for the 2023-24 school year that are not only aligned to the “Science of Reading” but more culturally reflective of our students.

Addressing Food Insecurity for BUSD Families

Nutrition is a basic condition for learning. However, one third of Berkeley students are socio-economically disadvantaged, with many struggling to access enough nourishing food to keep their focus in the classroom. 

• Through our partnership with the Berkeley Food Network and our School Support volunteers, we bring food to families through school site food pantries and regular home delivery of groceries. These food resources reach more than 500 families each school year.
• Our donor-funded Berkeley High On-Campus Food Equity program provides snacks and on-the-go food to students during and after the school day, distributed through 15 intervention groups, reaching more than 800 students needing this support.

“Growing Our Own” in the Face of a Nationwide Teacher Shortage

• The Schools Fund is proud to have seed-funded a partnership between BUSD and Berkeley City College to build a pathway at Berkeley High for students interested in teaching as a career.
• We continue to support BUSD’s “Classified to Certificated” pathway to help advance BUSD staff of color on their journey to becoming certificated classroom teachers.
• We’re investing in teacher retention with a new educator-led collaborative designed to retain Black educators in BUSD schools.