David L. Holder Education Foundation Supports Hampstead Hill Academy

BCP and Hampstead Hill Academy would like to thank the David L. Holder Education Foundation for their recent grant of $8,000. The grant will support the Hampstead Hill Hornets Girls Soccer Team and Boys Basketball Programs, as well as an outdoor leadership experience at Genesee Valley Outdoor Learning Center. Genessee Valley provides groups experiences in the fields, woods and lakes on their 300+-acre property.

The David L. Holder Education Foundation was established in 2008 upon David’s untimely passing due to a rare form of non-hodgkin’s lymphoma. Although a mere 35 years at the time of his death, David left behind a tremendous legacy of community service, a passion for nature, and a commitment to public education.

In order to honor David’s memory and keep his passions alive, the Foundation will both continue to contribute to organizations that David cared about, and build new, enduring relationships and programs in the communities that he supported.

David Holder was an active member of the Baltimore Curriculum Project Board of Directors from 2006-2008 and is dearly missed.

For more information on the David L. Holder Education Foundation visit: http://davidholderfoundation.org/

Soccer League Unites Schools and Community

Fourth grader Colby Johnson summed it all up when he told everyone at school about his experience playing soccer in his Patterson Park after-school league: "I like being out in the park for soccer. I learned how to keep the ball away from people on the other team, and I had fun." It is just that simple—playing outside in a public park, challenging oneself to learn, building skills and having fun doing it. This fall, three neighboring schools—Patterson Park Public Charter School, Hampstead Hill Academy and Wolfe Street Academy—developed their own soccer league where 66 students in grades two through five learned to play the beautiful game of soccer. More importantly, they learned to play as a team and respect themselves and others.

Read full article:
http://www.greatkidsupclose.org/site/apps/nlnet/content2.aspx?c=hhKNI1PBImE&b=5108423&content_id={29932024-CEB2-45F0-A6A0-E5F280865490}&notoc=1

Ziger/Snead’s Classroom of the Future

In the summer of 2009, Ziger/Snead participated in Architecture for Humanity’s Classroom of the Future Open Architecture Challenge. The brief was to work with an existing educational organization to create a classroom design that would best serve their needs into the next century. Participating designers worked with schools from all over the world, but we decided to stay close to home, partnering with our friends at the Baltimore Curriculum Project. BCP is a nonprofit charter school operator that runs five schools in the city. We’ve worked with them in the past, collaborating on a vision for a renovated auditorium at the Collington Square School, and on the recently completed library, early learning center, and Phase One Masterplan for the Hampstead Hill Academy.

For this project, Rhonda Richetta, the principal of City Springs School, brought our team from Z/S into the classroom to talk to students about architecture, and find out from them what their school needed.

Read full article: http://greenlineblog.com/2009/12/zigersneads-classroom-future/

Higher Achievement at Collington Square

Liz Bowie's article in the Baltimore Sun on December 1, 2009 describes the Higher Achievement Program at Collington Square School of the Arts.

Read here: http://www.baltimorecp.org/Press_files/Sun_120109.html

Wolfe Street Academy Custodian Helps Haiti

On a damp Monday morning with the wind exceeding 40 knots, Jean Locklear was out sweeping the trash that slobs had dumped on the street over the weekend.

Jean Locklear is the custodian at Wolfe Street Academy, the little neighborhood school at Gough and Wolfe streets, and she has a strong sense of what should be done and how it should be done.

Therefore she was out in her shirtsleeves in a howling gale with broom and dustpan, because no matter what happens trash is not welcome at Wolfe Street Academy. The rain may be falling sideways and tree limbs might be creaking ominiously, but there is litter in the tree wells and on the sidewalk and that is just unacceptable.

Besides, the place has to look its best when children and staff—organized by (who else?) Jean Locklear, collect loose change and paper cash for Haitian relief at the end of this week.

“It’s terrible, and they need help,” says Locklear. All of the money collected will go to the Red Cross.

Students and staff will be in front of the school and at the corner of Wolfe and Gough streets from 7 a.m.-noon on Thursday and Friday, Jan. 28-29. They will have buckets to collect cash.

“We have some buckets with wide mouths so if the light is green people can toss change on the fly,” said Mark Gaither, principal of Wolfe Street Academy.

The Red Cross is providing aid and shelter to earthquake refugees, most of whom have been living outdoors since the earthquake struck on Tuesday, Jan. 12. The 7.0 earthquake was the worst in two centuries in the poverty-ridden Caribbean country, and many buildings collapsed in Port au Prince. Most of the rest of the buildings remaining in the capital are uninhabitable. It is a catastrophe.

You do what you can, so Jean Locklear, showing the mindset that sent her outside in a gale to sweep the sidewalk, went to WSA principal Mark Gaither to begin organizing a penny drive to help the Haitians.
Wolfe Street Academy is a preK-5 school where 93 percent of the students receive free or reduced-price breakfast and lunch. More than 50 percent of its students speak English as a second language. Very few WSA families are well-do-do. Big checks for Haiti might not be forthcoming at WSA, but loose change is a real possibility.

Gaither keeps a five-gallon water cooler jug in his office. He has told his students that he wants it to be so heavy by the end of the week that he can no longer fill it. It was about a quarter-full on Monday, with loose change, many singles and a five-dollar bill.

Every morning at breakfast he makes a big weight-lifter act of hoisting the bottle. He grunts and groans. The children laugh and go cadge some more money from Mom or Dad or the neighbors.
“I talked about money for Haiti at our Martin Luther King service day,” said Gaither. “Usually there is a lot of noise in the room when I make announcements, but this time they went quiet.” He made a flat motion with his hands and said a quiet “whoo.”

“I told them how proud I am of them. They understand how terrible it is there.”

People going to work can drive straight down Wolfe Street on Thursday and Friday morning and drop off a donation. Jean Locklear, and the children who understand that times can always get tougher, will be there to accept with a smile.

by Jacqueline Watts

From The Baltimore Guide, 10/27/2010

Screening of Film by Collington Square Students at The Charles

From Liz Bowie's InsideEd Blog:
http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/education/blog/2009/09/baltimore_city_schools_and_fil.html

Last year, Collington Square Elementary/Middle School teacher Koli Tengella worked with students to make a 30-minute film that portrayed students participating in an academic contest they didn't think their school could win. The film explores the social stigmas many students face in schools, he said.

On Thursday, the Charles is allowing third- through eight-graders from Collington Square to view the first showing of the film. It won't be open to the public, but we will try to have it online here in the coming days. And Tengella said the the film will be shown again at the central branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library on Sunday, Nov. 1 at 2 p.m.

"I personally want these children to understand their world is much bigger than they think it is," Tengella said.

Tengella, Collington Square's theater arts teacher, said he was able to get the help of a filmmaker to work with the children. About 50 children act in the drama and only three adults.

Hampstead Hill Opens Early Learning Wing

WJZ-TV covers the ribbon-cutting ceremony for Hampstead Hill Academy's new Early Learning Wing on August 28, 2009.

http://wjz.com/local/kipp.new.school.2.1149820.html