Author: BEF Editor

Thanks to our generous donors Beaverton Education Foundation has awarded $97,988, funding 65 classroom projects for the 2021-22 academic year.

Warriors Go Beyond the Building

Aloha High School
Students Served: 1,700
Recipient: Dennis Joule
Award: $2,500

Funding provided by the Go Warriors! Aloha High School Opportunity Funds

Aloha High School students will have a welcoming spot, suitable for classroom and social activities, thanks to our community’s generous support of their Beaverton’s Choice project. The space will benefit the student and staff experience far into the future and will also play a pivotal role in student leadership, as a group of dedicated students spearhead the project.

Mustangs are Meant to Move

Chehalem Elementary School
Students Served: 400
Recipients: Lisa Lane, Anna Montemayor and Angee Silliman
Award: $1,030

Funding provided by the BEF PE + Play Initiative

Chehalem Elementary School students will have more opportunities to get hearts pumping and bodies moving with the funding of their recent recess-focused Beaverton’s Choice project. Our community’s generosity means students will have valuable brain breaks and the physical activity they have been craving.

Enhancing Recess Through Structured Activities

Beaver Acres Elementary School
Students Served: 700
Recipient: Andrew Ratzke
Award: $305

Funding provided by the BEF PE + Play Initiative

Beaver Acres Elementary students can build stronger social relationships and increase their successes thanks to our generous community. Funds raised through Beaver Acres’s Beaverton’s Choice project will help students re-learn social skills they were not able to practice while in distance learning using structured activities that students can engage in safely and confidently.

Bilingual Books for Newcomers

Aloha Huber Park K-8 School
Students Served: 32 students and parents
Recipient: Dr. Molly Anderson
Award: $670

Funding provided by the Mike Osborne Memorial Award Fund

Families in the Aloha-Huber Park K-8 Newcomers Program are strengthening English language skills with bilingual books, available in their native languages of Arabic, Pashto and Spanish + English. Texts were made possible thanks to community support through Beaverton’s Choice and the Mike Osborne Memorial Award Fund.

Tools for Technology

Vose Elementary School
Students Served: 30
Recipient: Abbey Morariu
Award: $506

All of Abbey Morariu’s 3rd grade students at Vose Elementary are thrilled they can easily listen to relevant and enriching educational videos and books thanks to their upgraded headphones, made possible through Beaverton’s Choice. Thanks to community support, all of Abbey’s students now have access to good quality technology materials.

Aloha Band Symphony Experience

Aloha High School
Students Served: 30
Recipient: Aliyah Jackson
Award: $1,710

Funding provided by the Go Warriors! Aloha High School Opportunity Funds

Aloha High School band students will attend an Oregon Symphony performance of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix in preparation for their final concert of the year in June titled “A Night at the Movies”. This exciting and educational experience will help students shine in their final concert and was made possible through our generous community and the Go Warriors! Aloha High School Opportunity Funds.

Lights, Camera, Wildcats!

Westview High School
Students Served: 30
Recipient: Brandi Duke
Award: $1,020

Thanks to our community’s generosity, Brandi Duke’s Westview High School yearbook class has updated tools to help students learn valuable and relevant lessons. High-quality and professional tools increase student creativity, innovation, leadership and life skills and also direct focus on inclusiveness and diversity.

Bringing Baile Folklórico dance to Raleigh Hills

Raleigh Hills K-8 School
Students Served: 12
Recipient: Jennifer Alvarez
Award: $2,420

Students at Raleigh Hills K-8 have the opportunity to overcome increased barriers to student connection postpandemic thanks to our community’s support for a new after school club, Baile Folklórico. The cultural program focuses on the history and traditions of each dance, the meaning of the music and the significance of the clothing. It will also provide  ethnically marginalized populations who often face misconceptions and lack of ethnic representation in education, an opportunity to feel empowered and included within our school community. 

Science Solar Cars

Tumwater Middle School
Students Served: 414
Recipients: Susan Duncan and Brian Phelps
Award: $950

Funding provided by the BEF Building STEAM 4 All Initiative

Tumwater Middle School students and staff will end this year on a high note, completing a hands-on engineering project where they will build their very own solar cars! Thanks to our generous community, students will learn about the fascinating transfer of solar energy to kinetic/mechanical energy. They will sketch their ideas and reiterate their design many times to reach optimal speed. They will also experiment with different sized wheels, axels and gears in order to get their car to travel straight, fast and far.

Preparing for the Future: ISB’s Computer Science Club

International School of Beaverton
Students Served: 40
Recipients: Limor Geisler
Award: $1,430

Funding provided by the BEF Building STEAM 4 All Initiative

The International School of Beaverton (ISB) Computer Science Club has access to relevant programming resources, LeetCode + Replit for Education, and the funds necessary to create a chapter of the Computer Science Honor Society thanks to our generous community. Membership in the honor society allows members to graduate with national honor society recognition and be identified by colleges and other institutions for computer science proficiency.

Thanks to your generous contributions, the dollars raised are enabling enrichment programs in Beaverton schools that otherwise would not be possible. For current programs, and to begin your application, please visit Beaverton’s Choice, Beaverton Education Foundation’s online resource that brings community and classrooms together.

“You know it, because you learned it and figured it out!” exclaimed Hazeldale Elementary School curriculum and instruction support member, Heidi Gilbertson. 

Educators understood this year’s assignment: make learning fun again and overcome some of the largest learning gaps students have ever faced. Hazeldale’s new Fact Fluency math kits are helping staff do just that. 

Filled with manipulatives and videos, the kits help students visualize fundamental skills in interesting ways and move beyond memorization techniques. Thanks to BEF’s crowdfunding platform, Beaverton’s Choice, Fact Fluency kits are now available to every grade level at the school.

Recently we were invited to attend a small group session where we saw the math kits in action. We watched as students gathered around a table, excited to discuss how many cans of tennis balls were needed for a proposed group activity. As the parameters changed, the students worked together to identify patterns and determine different ways to calculate the necessary amount of tennis balls needed.

BEF board member, Kimberly Ogadhoh, explained it best, “ The kit itself seems so simple – visually representation of math concepts using everyday objects to tell a math story – but the real expertise is the way the teacher brings the whole lesson to life, by prompting, questioning and confirming,” adding, “The kids seemed to really enjoy shouting out answers, and just being back in school in general.”

Learn more about all the great projects seeking funding on Beaverton’s Choice.

A school district speech pathologist turned to Beaverton Education Foundation (BEF) for help when she faced a challenge: students were using assistive and augmentative communication (AAC) technology to communicate better in their classes, but there wasn’t enough technology for all those students’ teachers. For the technology to be most effective, both students and teachers need it. 

The solution: BEF leveraged funds from the Hoover Family Foundation to provide software enabling 34 teachers and speech and language pathologists to better serve more than 100 students in 31 specialized classroom projects across 23 schools this year. 

Providing this technology for use on educator devices, allows staff to fully incorporate AAC language into classroom routines and makes it an integral part of the school community, says Cassie Sementelli, the District’s augmentative communication specialist, who’s leading the charge implementing the new technology across the District.

“Teachers and staff benefit from being able to ‘show’ instead of just ‘tell’ students how, when and why they can use their communication tools to participate in classroom routines, demonstrate their understanding of the curriculum and interact socially with their peers,” says Sementelli. 

This spring, dedicated iPads were loaded with seven of the most frequently used assistive and augmentative communication apps to help teachers and speech and language pathologists support the communications needs of their students. In February, Sementelli hosted a “Virtual Kick Off” party for educators to provide initial training on the new tools, and more trainings will be offered as new apps are rolled out on the iPads and to provide opportunities for educators to share ideas, challenges, and expertise.

Thank you to all the Beaverton educators who go above and beyond to make sure our students have the tools they need to succeed. Make a donation today to help every student prepare for their brightest future.

Celebrate Staff Appreciation Week and honor your dedicated staff members with a gift to the Beaverton Education Foundation. 

With a minimum $10 donation per staff member, BEF will send a personalized note to say “Thanks for all you do” and a $5 Dutch Bros gift card. Your donation amount will not be shared with the honoree. A portion of each purchase helps fund BEF awards to Beaverton’s Choice staff-driven classroom projects, from STEAM to reading to social emotional learning, and more. 

Make your special gift for Staff Appreciation Week by Tuesday, May 3.

How it works:

• Visit this site and submit the name of the educator, staff member or coach you want to honor
• Include their school and a brief message of thanks
• BEF will deliver your personalized note of thanks and gift during Staff Appreciation Week, May 2-6

For multiple honorees with the same message, please email melyndas@beavertonedfoundation.org for assistance.

After six years on BEF’s board of directors, Jennifer Burran concludes her service next month, and we’re incredibly grateful for her contributions. During her tenure on the board, she served as board chair during the 2020-2021 school year, guiding the organization through its first responses to the pandemic. She’s worked in philanthropy for more than 20 years, including at the Annie E. Casey Foundation and Lemelson Foundation, and is now the director of grant operations at the Fidelity Foundations. She has two children who spent many years in the Beaverton School District. We asked Jennifer a few questions about her inspiration for supporting BEF and how her professional background influences her legacy with us.

Why did you join the BEF board?

Not long after my family moved here from Baltimore, I considered volunteering for our school’s Parent Teacher Organization (PTO), but when I heard about BEF, it was really intriguing. I have this passion for creating equitable experiences for children and I thought that through BEF, I could contribute on a larger scale. I could impact all of the schools, not just one.

How has your background working in philanthropy benefited BEF?

I have a unique lens for understanding what funders look for in terms of organizational strengths, and that includes diversity. Diversity can manifest itself in leadership, board membership and the funding base. I started conversations with the board and BEF’s executive director Kristine Baggett about diversifying the organization and especially the board, and I think we’re starting to make good progress there.

What are you most proud of from your time on the BEF board?

As I said, we’ve really stepped up recruitment of a diverse board, which is very important to me. I’m also really proud of my contributions related to operations, since that’s a skill set I bring to the board. I was on the team that revamped the Beaverton’s Choice platform and marketing plan a few years ago, and I’ve worked with the staff to document policies and procedures. I also feel really good about the types of projects we’ve funded, including the Middle School Trades Exploration Program and Camp Achieve. 

What impresses you most about BEF?

BEF demonstrates community strength as a collective, that’s the magic of BEF. It brings together so many different businesses and individuals in Beaverton to support the schools and appreciate all our teachers and educators. It gives me a sense of community and that I’m contributing to a larger effort.

What are your favorite things to do in Beaverton?

I love spending time outdoors in the beautiful parks in Beaverton, whether it’s the Tualatin Hills Nature Park or the pathways through Bethany.

Join the BEF board to follow in Jennifer’s footsteps and make an impact across all Beaverton schools. Learn how to volunteer or nominate a leader today.