Blog Post #11

As mentioned in the last blog, private and Catholic schools do not receive state funding, as it is a private institution. From this, the school is not able to receive any funds from taxation, they are dependent on the private donations, funders and tuition fees. The school is not affiliated with taxes that increase the funds for the school, however the school must pay taxes for property and other similar rental or ownership duties.

Blog Post #10

Catholic schools rely on private funding to keep them running, this funding comes in various forms : tuition, donations, private loans and so forth. The problem with this is there is no state funding. I would say the money that school receives is somewhat stable, but it is dependent on meeting a certain number of students per grade, per year or semester. The school my CP works at now, St. Lawrence Academy is struggling to meet a high enough number of students to generate enough money to keep the school from closing. There are private funders of the school, and fundraisers that generate donations and those help, but the majority of the money comes from the tuition.  The decrease in enrollment is affecting the school because it is on the verge of closing. If in the next few years, the school doesn't receive more funding it will close down.

Call to Action Day Post

My "call to action" was slightly different than what most students participated in with NDNU. For Call to Action day, Kate and myself held a community clothes drive and donated the collections to Goodwill. Kate and myself both had a bag or so of clothes that we needed to donate, and that's when we decided that instead of just donating the two bags we had combined that we should go door-to-door in our neighborhood and see how many bags we could fill and donate. Kate was able to collect one full bag from her neighbors alone, which is great, and she had a bag from her personal closet. I also had one full bag from my closet and when Kate arrived at my house we were able to collect two more bags from my neighbors. All together we collected five bags of clothes and donated them. Though this was not the offered "call to action day" activities scheduled, I feel confidant that Kate and myself did a great job in participating in our own "call to action" with our own communities. GO US! :)

Blog Post #9

My CP does not deal with "recourse to judicial processes as a way of resolving problems" and  he definitely does work with the prison system in anyway. John doesn't discipline the students haha The best way to answer this question would be to compare his administrative role as a way to "resolve problems" within the school. He must make sure that the teachers are doing their jobs properly and that students are performing at the highest performance levels they can. I'm guessing there would be some type of discipline for teachers failing to reach certain goals? But I'm not 100% sure on that one.

Blog Post #8

This blog topic is a little tricky. " How does your CP interface with local governmental units?" This is tricky because my CP does not directly interface with local governmental units. I would say that the closest the school would get to that is by following California's regulations for a curriculum.  The school must actively participate in and follow a certain criteria for the California Department of Education. While there is no "leader" to my knowledge that has had an impact on my CP, I would say the California Department of Education has been the force behind making sure St. Lawrence is performing up to the departments standards. St. Lawrence is a four year credited school ( which believe it or not some high schools are not.... scary!!).

Blog Post #7

There is much conflict the John Bennett faces with his job. As mentioned before, he is both a teacher and part of the administration. John's struggle is with delegating certain responsibilities and disciplinary actions to his fellow teachers. Having new administrative duties means that it is now his job to worry about logistics and numbers when it comes to learning and producing certain; where as before it was to simply teach and follow the state guidelines. Now that it is his responsibility to do all of the above, John is faced with a more stressful work load. John has told me about certain situations involving teachers where he has to reprimand them for not following certain regulations, and as a result there is now a strained colleague relationship. However, it is now his responsibility to ensure that teachers are performing to produce a certain outcome for their students.

Blog Post #5

For the week of 2/5/14 the class was to participate in "Founder's Week" or go to class ... I went to class.

Blog Post #6

My community partner has not sought any legislative changes, however, as a new member of the administrative board at St. Lawrence Academy he has sought to make changes within the school. John Bennett, my community partner, has been trying to make changes within the school, some of the changes that he and the administration have been working on include: enrollment increase, better teaching styles, more productive goals, getting UC credits for 90% their classes and more. The administration is putting forth the effort to make these changes possible by raising more funds for the school and getting the community, parish, students, teachers, parents and alumni to participate in school events. While this does not affect government legislature, on any level, it does affect the school, which the structure is very similar to. I am lucky enough to see the administration and teaching side as John is doing both teaching and administration. So thats really helpful to be able to understand both sides.

Blog post #4

My CP does not participate in public campaigns. The focus that Mr. Bennett (my community partner) is informing his students about the political process so when they are of voting age can make educated decisions for themselves. The students apply some of these skills to on campus organizations such as Amnesty international and Associated student body. Mr. Bennett provides the skill set for the students to go out and campaign for themselves, though how many of them actually do it, is debatable. I believe that the education of our possible future leaders is so important, because these are the people that will one day campaign for important issues.

Blog Post #3

My CP is working with a private school, so the relationship between the students and the teachers is a pretty standard student/teacher relationship. However, because the school (St. Lawrence Academy) is so small, the students are able to build life long, trustworthy relationships with the teachers. The teachers and students are involved in many school and outside school functions. There are events, fundraisers, sports, clubs and more that help to build friendships. I know from persona experience, that the teachers at SLA impact the lives of students beyond the classroom. Five years after my own high school graduation, I still see a handful of teachers on a personal level, whether it be going to dinner or getting drinks. This is common for graduated students to have these types of relationships with the teachers.

Blog Topic #2

Dr. King lead demonstrations to publicize the enforcement of voting right for the African American people. The demonstrations that were organized gained much media attention, mostly for the brutality used on the demonstrators by police officials. However, these demonstrations seemed to work as the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed. As far these rights being in danger for those in the U.S. it could be seen that some minority group's rights are still in danger. For example, illegal immigrants could be seen as being in danger of their voting rights, or at least intimidation preventing any type of rights from happening. Intimidation can sometimes be worse then not having the right at all. If I were legally allowed to vote but because of intimidation didn't feel safe or was denied( like many were in the 1960's) I would be incredibly upset.

First post!

So, I'm not 100% sure what our first blog post was supposed to be, but I think it had to do with our community partner? Warm? cold? Anyway, I guess i'll just explain a little about my community partner.  I aspire to be a high school history teacher, so last semester I sought an internship at Saint Lawrence Academy in Santa Clara working as a teacher's assistant. The teacher I work for is my former history teacher, John Bennett (yeah, he has the same name as Mark Wahlberg's character from Ted!.. pretty cool). Mr. Bennett has new administrative duties, and re-structuring (if you will) the teaching method's that the teacher's use is one of them. Lucky for me, I get to help out in his classroom, he teaches AP U.S history, regular U.S. history, and World history and I get to assist him in his administrative duties as well. I think it's pretty cool, I really enjoy it and I look forward to doing it again this semester.