Since 1995, Bay Area Coalition for Equitable Schools (BayCES) has been coaching principals and teachers to help them create and sustain high-performing small schools and districts that will improve education for underserved Bay Area students and families. In Oakland Unified School District schools, BayCES assigns experienced educators to coach principals on leadership development and instructional improvement.
Grant Amount: $75,000
Project Dates: 07/09/2007 through 07/09/2008
Project Web Site: www.bayces.org

The Developmental Studies Center has helped teachers in schools and after-school programs to foster children's academic, ethical, social, and emotional development through curricular tools such as its Caring School Communities program. The San Francisco Unified School District began piloting the program in eight schools in 2003 and has identified improvements in social connection, math and reading scores, academic engagement, and motivation. The Center is expanding the program to more San Francisco schools, and two schools using the program will be demonstration sites that model best practices for educators elsewhere.
Grant Amount: $100,000
Project Dates: 07/09/2007 through 07/09/2008

Partners in School Innovation (Partners) provides professional development for public school administrators, principals, and teachers in low-income Bay Area communities that serve students of color and English-language learners. Partners is creating a training tool kit. It includes leadership development training modules that describe effective school leaders' roles and responsibilities; measure leaders' competence and their progress toward school improvement; build leaders' skills and knowledge to transform their schools from low- to high-performing; and provide concrete examples of high-performing schools.
Grant Amount: $75,000
Project Dates: 07/09/2007 through 07/09/2008

Fiscal Sponsor: Regents of the University of California
The mission of the Center for Urban School Leadership at the University of California, Berkeley, is to train a diverse cadre of high-quality principals to lead Bay Area public schools. The Center's Principal Leadership Institute has placed 275 principals, assistant principals, and district-level leaders in schools. A three-year induction program and a coaching initiative give current principals additional job training, and an Aspiring Administrators program recruits and trains teachers considering becoming administrators. Other programs support district-level administrators to cultivate, support, and evaluate school-based leadership, and provide school district leaders with data to guide decision-making. With W&EHF funding, the Center will hire a project director to work on continuity planning with the executive director, build infrastructure, strengthen new programs, and create a plan for documenting and evaluating Center activities.
Grant Amount: $100,000 [2007], $75,000 [2008]
Project Dates: 11/27/2007 through 11/27/2010

The San Francisco School Alliance (Alliance) works to catalyze positive, strategic change in the San Francisco Unified School District and to build private support for the city's public schools. The Alliance launched the Leadership Initiative to develop, recruit, and retain school leaders, and now, after planning for 12 months, is implementing a three-year effort to delineate a new leadership development framework for the district.
Grant Amount: $100,000
Project Dates: 07/09/2007 through 07/09/2008
Project Web Site: www.ecclf.org

826 Valencia, known for its Mission District tutoring center, helps students enhance their writing skills, and motivates teachers to get their students excited about writing. W&EHF funding supports 826 Valencia's in-school program, which provides one-on-one services and academic assistance to San Francisco public school teachers and students, introduces an innovative literacy curriculum, and gives teachers techniques for improving their writing instruction.
Grant Amount: $35,000
Project Dates: 12/14/2007 through 12/14/2008
Project Web Site: www.826valencia.org

On the Move's Reach Program, a teacher-designed credentialing and leadership program, differs from most teacher credentialing programs by emphasizing job-embedded coaching in which participants are regularly observed in the classroom by coaches and peers. Participating teachers work from an individualized learning plan that they help to develop, with content and curriculum directly relevant to their classroom work.
Grant Amount: $80,000
Project Dates: 03/29/2007 through 03/29/2008
Project Web Site: www.onthemovebayarea.org

Resources for Indispensable Schools and Educators (RISE) is a national nonprofit organization that works with 40 principals in low-income Bay Area communities to help them attract and retain teachers. This grant supports the design and implementation of Working Conditions: analyzing survey results, gathering retention data, developing the technological infrastructure to incorporate the findings onto the RISE Website, and using that data to increase teacher satisfaction and address attrition.
Grant Amount: $40,000
Project Dates: 07/13/2007 through 07/13/2008
Project Web Site: www.risenetwork.org

World Savvy educates and engages young people in community and world affairs. Its Teachers Program, a one-on-one consulting program launched in 2002, builds teachers' capacity to integrate age-appropriate contemporary global issues curriculum into middle and high school classrooms, provides the curriculum, and helps teachers develop the skills to mainstream this integration. World Savvy uses the best curricula available on contemporary global issues, creates original lesson plans as needed, and frequently modifies existing curriculum for English-language learners and students of varying abilities within each classroom.
Grant Amount: $25,000
Project Dates: 07/12/2007 through 07/12/2008
Project Web Site: www.worldsavvy.org

Fiscal Sponsor: Yosemite National Institutes
The Headlands Institute, a campus of Yosemite National Institutes, provides environmental education to Bay area students, teachers, and parents. The Institute serves more than 10,000 students and 2,000 teachers annually though its residential multiday field science program, and provides hundreds of public school teachers with professional development in the field of environmental science. The W&EHF is supporting the Headland Institute's effort to expand its environmental offerings for public school teachers working in low-income communities, and to create a more cohesive program that incorporates its teacher-training offerings under one umbrella.
Grant Amount: $50,000
Project Dates: 11/27/2007 through 11/27/2008
Project Web Site: www.yni.org

The Williams settlement mandated that every child in California public schools receive the basic necessities of education: instructional materials, permanent and trained teachers, and clean, safe, functional, habitable school facilities. In the settlement, the state allocated $1 billion to correct the educational inequalities identified in the suit. The ACLU of Southern California is monitoring the settlement terms, including the claims process that parents and students can use to compel their schools to make needed improvements using settlement funds. W&EHF is supporting the ACLU of Southern California's outreach and community engagement work in Oakland Unified School District schools to implement Williams reform.
Grant Amount: $20,000
Project Dates: 12/19/2007 through 12/19/2008
Project Web Site: www.aclu-sc.org

Chinese for Affirmative Action established the Visitation Valley Parents Association (the Association) in 2005 to bring together Chinese immigrant and limited-English-speaking parents and provide them with the training, support, and structure to become educational advocates. The Visitation Valley Parents Association is expanding its core programming. Staff and parent leaders will have greater roles and responsibilities at their school sites, join decision-making teams such as School Site Councils, and train new members.
Grant Amount: $50,000 [2007], $50,000 [2008]
Project Dates: 07/09/2007 through 07/09/2009
Project Web Site: www.caasf.org

Fiscal Sponsor: CIF of the San Francisco Foundation
The Bay Area Parent Leadership Action Network (PLAN) facilitates parent dialogue and networking, provides them with training and leadership development opportunities, and acts as a hub for information-sharing and action among diverse communities. Each year, PLAN holds a training for parent organizations and parent leaders, and hosts Parent Leadership Action Forums. PLAN is expanding its work by providing follow-up training to parents and parent trainers who participated in the Training of Trainers program; refining and updating the curriculum; and coaching staff of family resource centers. PLAN also intends to expand the number of Bay Area parents and parent organizations served.
Grant Amount: $60,000 [2007], $60,000 [2008]
Project Dates: 07/09/2007 through 07/09/2009
Project Web Site: www.sff.org

Parent Advocates for Youth (PAY), a program of Coleman Advocates for Children and Youth, works to ensure that parents' views inform school- and district-level policies. With a previous grant, Coleman implemented a new method for reaching parents at three low-performing schools. Training and coaching provided to groups of parents in neighborhood settings has resulted in new parent-associations, strong parent representation on school site councils, and parent-to-parent communication across the three schools. Coleman will continue to expand efforts to help parents strengthen their leadership skills and ensure that parents from the three schools are connected to parents at other schools.
Grant Amount: $60,000 [2005], $60,000
Project Dates: 12/07/2005 through 12/07/2007
Project Web Site: www.colemanadvocates.org

DonorsChoose provides a Website on which teachers post project ideas and requests for learning materials. Donors then select projects to fund and receive documentation showing how their gifts were spent. DonorsChoose now is partnering with the PTA to implement the second year of the Parent Advocate Leaders project, in which parents in targeted San Francisco public schools recruit teachers to post projects on the DonorsChoose Website. If this collaboration with the PTA is successful, DonorsChoose will adopt the model nationwide.
Grant Amount: $25,000
Project Dates: 02/28/2007 through 09/28/2007

EdSource provides reliable, impartial information to educators, policymakers, the media, and the general public about California's public education policy issues. EdSource held one-day forums in Northern and Southern California on school finance reform, bringing together experts on finance and state education policy to discuss research, politics, and possibilities for school funding in California. The forums were attended by more than 500 participants in addition to being broadcasted on EdSource's Website.
Grant Amount: $5,000
Project Dates: 04/18/2007 through 10/18/2007
Project Web Site: www.edsource.org

The Emery Unified School District's approach to developing effective schools combines emphases on community engagement and arts education with many features of the small schools movement. The Fund's grant supports the district's work to implement a comprehensive plan to improve student learning outcomes through teacher professional development, parent leadership programs, cooperative efforts between artists and teachers, and expanded visual and performing arts programs. The grant was awarded jointly by the Fund's Education and Arts programs.
Grant Amount: $100,000 [2006], $100,000
Project Dates: 07/10/2006 through 07/10/2008
Project Web Site: www.emeryed.org

While federal and state science standards have become more rigorous, most teacher training programs have not provided new science teachers the support they need to meet the standards. The Exploratorium Teachers Institute, begun eight years ago, offers a training program in which veteran science teachers mentor and coach beginning teachers in the best practices of science teaching. The Exploratorium expanded this training program to deepen teachers' subject area expertise and instructional leadership skills-two important factors in student learning improvement.
Grant Amount: $75,000
Project Dates: 03/29/2007 through 03/29/2008

Jamestown Community Center (Jamestown), in partnership with Columbia Park Boys and Girls Club, Mission Learning Center, and St. John's Education Threshold Center, is strengthening parent and youth voice and participation at three Mission District schools undergoing major restructuring. With this grant, Jamestown will help build a foundation for parent and youth engagement in the three schools through mobilizing and building parents' skills and understandings about school reform, and providing student leadership opportunities. Jamestown will also publish a guide to parent and community involvement in school reform based on their experience with this project.
Grant Amount: $50,000 [2005], $50,000
Project Dates: 09/14/2005 through 09/14/2007

Fiscal Sponsor: New College of California
Trying to Uplift My Folks (TryUMF) is an academic and conflict-resolution program for Oakland Technical High School students. Over 36 weeks, TryUMF students read college-level essays and book selections on subjects such as globalization and social movements; tour colleges; hear guest lecturers, including educators and activists; and serve as peer counselors and leaders in conflict mediation.
Grant Amount: $15,000
Project Dates: 02/28/2007 through 02/28/2008

Oakland Kids First (OKF) supports youth-to-youth organizing focused on educational improvement in three Oakland high schools. Its most recent efforts have included a multi-faceted youth assessment of these schools, as well as school-level campaigns to implement peer academic counseling programs. With this grant, OKF refined and shared more broadly its approaches for motivating and engaging youth to make their schools more effective. OKF conducted an extensive series of trainings open to youth-serving groups and school personnel, refined its approach to strengthening youths' understanding of decision making and policy development in public education, and published a guide that summarizes these tools for youth engagement.
Grant Amount: $55,000 [2005], $45,000 [2006], $35,000
Project Dates: 09/14/2005 through 09/13/2008
Project Web Site: www.kidsfirstoakland.org

The Oakland Small Schools Foundation helps participating small schools in Oakland school district to identify, secure, and manage resources for needs that would otherwise be under funded by traditional public schools. The Foundation is expanding programming for parents and supporting four public small schools-two in East Oakland and two in Oakland's Fruitvale neighborhood-to build or grow successful family resource centers. The principals at the two schools with existing family resource centers (Think College Now and ASCEND) will mentor the principals and staff at the other schools that have just begun to develop family resource centers (EnCompass Academy and Korematsu).
Grant Amount: $75,000
Project Dates: 07/09/2007 through 07/09/2008
Project Web Site: www.smallschoolsfoundation.org

OAEC launched its School Garden Teacher Training and Support Program in response to the training, curriculum, technical, and resources challenges faced by many school garden projects. OAEC is expanding the program's Low-Income School Project, providing a complete professional development package with training and follow-up support to teams of teachers, parents, and staff from 25 Bay Area public schools.
Grant Amount: $25,000
Project Dates: 07/16/2007 through 07/16/2008
Project Web Site: www.oaec.org

Fiscal Sponsor: Pacific News Service
New American Media, a project of Pacific News Service, builds the capacity of ethnic media outlets to report on educational policy issues and inform diverse communities in the Bay Area and statewide. Its successful fellowship program pairs members of the ethnic media with more seasoned mainstream educational journalists to report on education policy in ethnic newspapers. New American Media is expanding its fellowship program, increasing its own education coverage, and translating that coverage into different languages.
Grant Amount: $50,000
Project Dates: 07/09/2007 through 07/09/2008

Many parents find it challenging to navigate the bureaucracy within a large urban school district. Parents for Public Schools has become a trusted source of information and assistance, encouraging families to enroll their children in public schools by helping with the application procedures and publicizing public schools and their programs. In recent years, the organization expanded its work to include extensive outreach to parents in underserved communities. This grant provides general operating support to Parents for Public Schools to focus on organizational capacity building.
Grant Amount: $100,000 [2007], $100,000 [2008]
Project Dates: 11/27/2007 through 11/27/2010
Project Web Site: www.parents4publicschools.com

Fiscal Sponsor: Philanthropic Ventures Foundation
The Take Home Book program promotes parent involvement in early literacy by providing quality hardcover books in canvas bags to Bay Area kindergarten, first- and second grade students who take the books home and read with their parents. The program increases primary-grade students' literacy by encouraging parents to read out loud to their children regularly and by giving parents the information they need to help their children learn basic skills for independent reading. Take Home Book is already established in all kindergarten and first-grade classrooms in the San Francisco Unified School District; a grant from the W&EHF will support program expansion to all second-grade classrooms.
Grant Amount: $10,000
Project Dates: 08/29/2007 through 08/29/2008
Project Web Site: www.venturesfoundation.org

The Bridge-to-Success Refugee Youth Development Program provides refugee youth with academic and social-emotional support and helps their parents develop English language skills so they can participate more actively in their children's education. Bridge-to-Success trains volunteer tutors and mentors, then pairs them with refugee students and their parents. The volunteers provide at-home or on-site tutoring, English instruction, and assistance understanding the American public school system.
Grant Amount: $15,000
Project Dates: 02/28/2007 through 02/28/2008
Project Web Site: www.reftrans.org

Fiscal Sponsor: Regents of the University of California
The Center for Cities and Schools promotes understanding between educators and urban policy makers in order to bring the support of civic agencies and community organizations to public schools. The Center, along with Bay Area educators and civic leaders, is implementing a three-year action plan to cultivate best practices and potential strategies for community-school collaborations that includes curriculum and professional development workshops.
Grant Amount: $150,000 [2006], $150,000 [2007], $150,000 [2008]
Project Dates: 12/11/2006 through 12/11/2009

Fiscal Sponsor: San Francisco Day School
Day School Summerbridge, a tuition-free academic enrichment program, is a collaboration of the San Francisco Day School, the Breakthrough Collaborative, and university partners. The program provides fifth and sixth grade public school students with an intensive six-week summer program, after-school tutoring, and academic mentoring. Day School Summerbridge's teacher training and mentoring component also offers college and graduate students from the University of San Francisco the opportunity to teach in the summer programs.
Grant Amount: $15,000
Project Dates: 02/28/2007 through 02/28/2008

The San Francisco Education Fund (Ed Fund) is continuing a project on sustaining a first-rate teaching force and expanding its public engagement efforts to include citywide discussions on how to strengthen public schools. Teacher effectiveness and retention have been addressed through publishing research findings, developing teacher appreciation activities, and helping craft a district master plan for professional development. Citywide conversations, conducted in collboration with the San Francisco Unified School District, provided a mechanism for gathering community input about public education.
Grant Amount: $50,000 [2005], $50,000 [2006], $100,000
Project Dates: 12/07/2005 through 12/06/2007
Project Web Site: www.sfedfund.org

San Francisco School Volunteers (School Volunteers) recruits, screens, trains, and places volunteers in public schools where students will benefit most from their skills and expertise. School Volunteers' two-phase strategic plan provides more comprehensive, targeted services to 36 underperforming schools (phase one started with six schools) and measures the impact of volunteer services on student achievement at those sites. Now in its second phase, School Volunteers is expanding its volunteer service model to the 30 remaining focus schools.
Grant Amount: $50,000 [2007], $50,000 [2008]
Project Dates: 03/29/2007 through 03/29/2009
Project Web Site: www.sfsv.org
Note: conditional

Fiscal Sponsor: San Francisco Unified School District
The Standards at Home project will provide kindergarten through third-grade teachers with binders of activities for parents to do with their children; the activities are aligned with academic standards and the standards-based report card. During parent teacher conferences, teachers will give parents activities that address their children's specific learning needs. W&EHF supports the design of the K-3 activities and implementation of a spring pilot in seven schools.
Grant Amount: $25,000
Project Dates: 12/14/2007 through 12/14/2008

Fiscal Sponsor: San Francisco University High School
Summerbridge San Francisco is a year-round, tuition-free academic enrichment program for public and parochial middle school students from families with limited resources. The primary goal of Summerbridge San Francisco is to prepare participating students to enter and compete in academically challenging high schools, and go on to college. A grant from the W&EHF provides the program with general support.
Grant Amount: $15,000
Project Dates: 09/10/2007 through 09/10/2008
Project Web Site: www.sfuhs.org

Small Schools for Equity (SSE) opened June Jordan High School as a small public school in the San Francisco Unified School District in fall 2003. Support from the Fund enabled SSE to expand and solidify the service learning program, a key component of its curriculum for students in all four grades. In addition, SSE is developing its capacity to document and share lessons learned about all aspects of the school's design, curriculum and activities for students and parents.
Grant Amount: $75,000 [2006], $75,000
Project Dates: 07/01/2006 through 06/30/2008

Fiscal Sponsor: Tenderloin Housing Clinic
La Voz Latina de la Ciudad Central (La Voz) began two years ago to meet a growing need for neighborhood-based cultural and language-appropriate services that could help Spanish-speaking parents to support their children's education. La Voz's central goal is to build strong parent knowledge, skills, and leadership at elementary schools located in and near the Tenderloin. La Voz holds weekly meetings in which parents come together to participate in educational workshops and cultural events that are relevant to their school communities.
Grant Amount: $25,000
Project Dates: 02/28/2007 through 02/28/2008

Youth Treatment and Education Center (YTEC) is an alternative high school that offers a comprehensive set of educational and therapeutic services for troubled youth who have come into contact with the juvenile justice system. With this grant, YTEC is conducting a multi-year evaluation to improve services, and document and share best practices.
Grant Amount: $35,000 [2006], $25,000 [2007], $25,000 [2008]
Project Dates: 09/18/2006 through 09/18/2009
Project Web Site: www.ytecsf.org