Blog

We are excited to introduce four community leaders who recently joined the BEF Board and bring unique perspectives, ideas, and talent to the BEF team. Please join us in welcoming: Jonas Cisneros (Intel Corporation); Jessica McBride (Strategies 360); Vincent Pollard (OnPoint Community Credit Union); and Olga Vargas (Vernier Software and Technology).

Each of these members shares BEF’s vision to create opportunities for Beaverton students to reach their highest potential. Over the next few months, we’ll be highlighting all of these members. Today, we introduce, Jessica McBride.

Jessica McBride, Strategies 360
Director of Communications

Jessica McBride visited 5th grade student leaders to celebrate their accomplishment of working with BEF to bring 3D printers into Jacob Wismer Elementary! 

Jessica’s commitment to students and educators inspired Jessica to want to join the BEF team. Jessica is a proud product of Beaverton schools – attending Jacob Wismer Elementary, Stoller Middle School, and Sunset High School. Then, as a teacher in the Beaverton School District, she witnessed the importance of BEF’s role in the classroom as an educator in the Beaverton School District. Jessica’s current role as a full-time communications strategist makes Jessica a great messenger for sharing BEF’s vision with our partners.

We asked Jessica how BEF makes a meaningful difference in the lives of students and teachers in Beaverton. In her own words, “BEF doesn’t just supply funds for learning materials for Beaverton students. BEF provides opportunities for authentic student learning and voice and empowers students across the district. Three fifth-grade students, at my alma mater, Jacob Wismer, were enthusiastic about bringing 3D printers to their school. Rather than dismissing them, their principal guided them to write a BEF grant for the funds themselves. Not only did these students hone valuable writing, math, and critical thinking skills, they learned that their voices matter. They realized that they can create positive change within their school community. None of that would have been possible without BEF.”

Jessica is an active member of the Beaverton community. In addition to the BEF board member, Jessica serves on the Beaverton School District Budget Committee.

Want to volunteer with BEF? Applications are accepted at any time of the year. Learn more today!

The Beaverton Education Foundation is honored to receive a $15,000 grant from the PGE Foundation to sustain and expand hands-on career technical exploration pipeline programs for middle school students in the construction trades and manufacturing fields.  

Thank you to the PGE Foundation for their commitment to working with our community to eliminate disparities and create an equitable society where all people can realize their full potential.

How do you promote a Social Media Detox Challenge? On social media, of course! 

“Since I deleted Snapchat for the challenge, my phone was really quiet for a whole week, it was pretty nice.”

– ISB student after completing the Social Media Detox Challenge

Called one of the most pressing issues of our time, International School of Beaverton (ISB) Social Worker Evan Robbins was ready for the monumental task of asking teenagers to consider giving up social media. Evan worked with two ISB seniors to create a 7-day “Social Media Detox” challenge with the goal of encouraging the ISB community to have a healthier relationship with social media by increasing awareness of social media dependence by students, their families and ISB staff.

Evan knew he would have to use the very thing he was asking students to do without, social media, to promote the challenge to middle school students, high school students, ISB staff and ISB households. Along with social media posts, posters in the school hallway promoted the week-long detox challenge. The recruitment worked, and 170 students and staff, along with 25 households, signed up for a week off from social media. A combination of curiosity and prizes helped motivate the recruits to join in the experiment. 

“We could not have done this without BEF,” Evan explained. “The community’s support for our project was huge and encouraged even more students and families to join the challenge.”

In the end, post-detox survey responses revealed that participants felt positively about the experience and gained valuable insight about their social media use – 61% of respondents said the challenge led them to think differently about their social media use and 24% said they were likely to lessen their use going forward. Many students reported having more time to do things, like school work. 

“The social media detox made me realize how much time I spend on social media aimlessly scrolling, and how much time I’m wasting doing so.”

“Overall I accomplished more work than I normally would.”

“I really appreciated how I got my time back, I had been meaning to go off social media and this was the push I needed.”

A growing body of research has shown social media use to have negative effects on mental health, especially among adolescents, with links to depression and anxiety. Inspired by the response he received this year, Evan is already planning to build on the success of this challenge and make adjustments for another challenge next year. 

Supporting innovative approaches to educational challenges are at the core of BEF’s mission. By sharing the ISB community’s experience, Evan’s leadership offers an opportunity to expand the impact of this singular effort into other schools and to reach more Beaverton students in the future.

A new BEF and Intel volunteer project offers Intel employees the opportunity to work with 8th grade students in real-time design and problem solving activities at three Beaverton middle schools. 

Intel employees are joining Future Lab classes at Mountain View, Stoller and Tumwater to engage with students in a hands-on project from start to finish. The students are using RFID, or radio-frequency identification devices, for the project. RFID provides a good entry into preparing for more advanced work in high school and thinking like an engineer.

This project means the same volunteers will be in the same schools each week in April and May. This gives students an opportunity to develop real connections with the volunteers. 

“Being able to partner with Intel volunteers who have become experts in their field is incredibly exciting,” shared Tumwater MS teacher Benjamin Lloyd. “These volunteers have shown a pathway from school to work. It helps bridge the gap between what kids are learning now as middle school students and where they might see themselves in a few, very short years.” 

On the first Friday, Mountain View’s 8th grade students were greeted by three Intel employees who were students not so long ago. In fact, two of the three are graduates of Beaverton and Sunset High Schools! The employees shared about the kind of work they do and how they got from high school to Intel. 

Students and volunteers then kicked off the design cycle using RFID to solve a problem. This cycle includes conducting an inquiry and analysis, developing ideas, creating a solution and evaluating the designs. 

Thanks to partners like Intel, BEF mobilizes community contributions to bring STEAM–science, technology, engineering, arts and math–into classrooms and into after school and summer academic enrichment programming. BEF’s STEAM 4 ALL Initiative engages students to think critically across multiple subjects, provides hands-on, valuable and real-world experiences and connects student learning to career opportunities. 

BEF is grateful for this opportunity with our long-time partner, Intel. Just as individual STEAM subjects are important on their own, when integrated become more powerful, by connecting volunteers to students, Intel and BEF are even more powerful together.

Congratulations to the 2024 winners from the Herzog-Meier Senior Art Scholarship Show! In collaboration with BEF, the 36th Annual Herzog-Meier Senior Art Scholarship Show featured 200+ student art submissions from all district high schools. Scholarship and Special Commendation winners can be found below.

SCHOLARSHIP WINNERS

• Jessica Melgar Lemus, Aloha High School
• Amelia Lee, ACMA
• Josiah Oyemaja, BASE
• Ariana Inciarte, Beaverton High School
• Danica Spillers, FLEX
• Sarah Trastanetz, ISB
• Anna Ryusaki, Mountainside High School 
• Katherine Torelli, Mountainside High School 
• Lilly Brayson, Sunset High School
• Kamilla Kollarcikova, Westview High School

SPECIAL COMMENDATION

• Elise Babin, Aloha High School
• Ava Reynolds, ACMA
• Ava Mueller, BASE
• Sophia DeYoung, Sophia Worley, Beaverton High School
• Sofia Regazzoni, Hannah Chhar, ISB
• Peyton Calcagno, Charolette Cortese, Mikayla George, Kayla Matsumoto, Anna Ryusaki, Mountainside High School
• Isabella Loitz, Southridge High School 
• Raina Raphy, Kaylee Nguyen, Sunset High School 
• Gracie Lund, Darcy Lee, Kamilla Kollarcikova, Cindy Campos Moro, Westview High School

A $5,000 grant from the Cultural Coalition of Washington County in association with the Oregon Cultural Trust was secured to provide art supplies to participating seniors at every high school.

And, THANK YOU to Herzog-Meier for supporting the students, arts and arts education.