A New Elementary School

By Mandy Demmert - Explorer Parent

I was a teacher for 8 years before my second daughter, Cailin, was born.  Education has always been on my brain.  I have a lot of opinions about how education, elementary education in particular, should be.  Since my 3-year-old, Abby, has been at Explorer, kindergarten has been on my mind.  I am realizing that it is coming faster than I am ready for (are we ever ready for it?!).  My husband and I have been talking a lot about elementary school since the last 12 months.  We are both concerned about our public school.  I taught in public schools for 8 years, but I can confidently say I will not send my daughters to our neighborhood school (for numerous reasons).  We have begun looking into other options, including private schools.

I received an e-mail from Abby’s Las Madres play group about a very intriguing alternative.  I have heard wonderful things about Discovery Charter School in the Moreland District.  We are in the Campbell District, so I knew that getting into Discovery was a hope and a dream.  It is lottery to get into charter schools, and being out of the district, our chances are slim.  This year alone there were 700+ applicants for the kindergarten class at Discovery.  Obviously, there is a great desire for education that follows the Discovery model.  Thus, the quest has begun to develop Discovery II. The link to the new school’s development is:

http://www.discoveryk8.org/DCS_II/index.html

Here are a few quotes about the Discovery philosophy:

“Curriculum is aligned to each student’s developmental level to allow children to feel successful regardless of academic level.”

"Students should have time to develop at their own rate and be presented with daily opportunities to learn at their own developmental level in each academic area.

“…students learn from each other, from teachers, and from cross-age tutors.”

"Curriculum should be designed around themes.”

“The brain is pattern-seeking and looks for connections between pieces of information.”

Discovery II will be a mirror of Discovery 1 (in terms of curriculum, philosophy, and teaching style).  The location has yet to be determined, but it is likely to be in Campbell or San Jose.  There are so many details yet to be worked out, but the plan is for the new school to open with Kindergarten through third grade in the fall of 2013.  The school needs to decide if they will be a part of the county or be part of a district (districts tend to be very hesitant to include charter schools for a variety of reasons).  If the school belongs to the county, the applicants will be admitted regardless of their home district.  If they belong to a district, the applicants will likely be favored if it is their home district.  Funding varies greatly based on which of these affiliations they chose and there are advantages to each.  They are also considering using Proposition 39, which would have to be voted upon.  To learn more about using Prop 39 and charter schools, go to http://www.calcharters.org.

It is exciting for me to see the creation of a school, especially a school I am passionate about.  Obviously, the intent of my being a part of this group is that my girls will be granted some kind of preference in the lottery when they begin school.  Nothing is guaranteed at this point, but it is exciting to see more schools being founded with this philosophy of parent involvement, positive discipline, and a child-centered education.  It is drastically different from almost every other public school I have seen.  I am honored to be a part of the founding of this school.

If you are interested in learning more, I urge you to come to the next planning meeting on June 5 at Discovery School and join the yahoo group by emailing Discovery2-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.

Seeing Double in the 4-Day Class

Amy's twins at Explorer's 4-Day outdoor classroom.

By Amy Trayer, Explorer board president and 4-Day parent

When you first walk into the 4-Day class at Explorer, you will probably see 25 very busy children building blocks, looking at books, writing in journals, eating a snack, painting, dressing up, riding bikes, making mud pies in the playhouse or playing with the classroom pet rat, Daisy. Children in this class have to be four years old by July 1, so at this time in the year some children are already starting to turn five while the others are anxiously counting down the months until their “big day.” What you might NOT notice right away is that there are SEVEN sets of twins in the class. Yep, you read that right--over half the class is twins. But wait, it gets better: two out of the three teachers in the class are a twin and two parents in the class have identical twins. Twins definitely rule in this Explorer classroom.

Why so many twins in one class? Let’s just say word travels fast in the twin community and a few years ago several of us who had twins quickly spread the word on our parents of multiples club online forum about this fabulous parent participation preschool. The play-based, developmentally appropriate curriculum and parent education is why you come to Explorer. Reality is as a parent of multiples (or even two small children) preschool can be quite expensive so affordable tuition is a big draw as well. We didn’t all know each other ahead of time--there were two new families that just happened to register and that just happened to have twins also. This class was destined to have many multiples!

Seven sets of twins on the class roster meant we had more children than parents. Scheduling six working parents in the classroom per day could get a bit tricky. Each parent of twins works double (two times per week, instead of one) and luckily we have a fabulous class rep who does all of the scheduling AND who happens to be a twin herself AND has a set of twins that graduated from Explorer’s 4-Day class two years ago. Thank goodness our class rep is a twin “sympathizer.” We all breathed a sigh of relief. If anyone could manage this crazy schedule, she could!

It’s been so much fun seeing all the twins in action. We have a great mix of boys and girls: two sets of g/g twins, two sets of b/b twins and three sets of b/g twins. They are all fraternal too! Having a sibling in the class is definitely an advantage, but it’s also important that they create other friendships as well--something we are all working on with our children. All the twins have been split up into different small group times and more often than not, they choose to sit next to someone other than their sibling during whole group times.
Other than having to work double in the classroom, having twins in the 4-Day class means double the laundry! Each child wears the Explorer T-shirt 4 days per week which means 8 shirts that need washing plus some extras (coming home messy means a good day at school). Most families carpool and luckily I was able to find two other moms with cars as big as mine that can fit four booster seats.

Personally, I have really enjoyed watching my boy/girl twins grow and change over the last three years at Explorer. This is the first year I’ve watched them be more independent from each other. My son, who in the past would want to play only with his sister, is now seeking out other children to play with and creating friendships. They will start kindergarten next year and the big question for most parents of multiples is whether to keep them in the same class or separate them. Some schools already have a policy in place, but our home school does not. I probably won’t know what my preference will be until the end of this school year because something tells me my twins are going to change a lot in the next few months.

If you do visit the 4Day class at Explorer, you might not notice the seven sets of twins when you first walk in because each child has a unique personality. What you will notice are the seven tired parents of twins who are working double time because being at Explorer is so worth it!