Thousands Receive School Supplies from Impact on Education

As soon as the spread of COVID-19 required schools to close, Impact on Education jumped into action. As the Foundation for Boulder Valley’s public schools, we created our Critical Needs Fund to support students and schools in a variety of ways during the unprecedented school closures. And in just under two weeks we have received over $70,000 from 400 generous supporters.  This support has been overwhelming, and we are deeply moved by our community’s commitment to education and our students.

Because of these financial contributions we have:

Our Critical Needs Fund remains flexible to meet the emerging needs of this crisis and we are prepared to fund tutoring and enrichment programs so students don’t fall behind.

Will you help us build the Critical Needs Fund so we can continue to help our students and families during this time of need? All gifts made now through the end of March will be matched dollar for dollar up to $100,000 thanks to generous gifts from Suzanne and Dave Hoover, joined by Brad Feld and Amy Batchelor.

Please make your gift today and share your support with others to help us secure $200,000 for the Critical Needs Fund before the end of March.

Addition Resources:

Please click here to learn more about BVSD’s Home Learning Kickoff Plan

Please click here to learn more about BVSD’s Materials and Food Distribution Plan

Please click here to learn more about Emergency Food Distribution

Please click here to learn about the Boulder Valley School District’s response

Please click here to learn more about resources in Boulder County

Please click here to learn about the State of Colorado public health and action plan

Read reporting on BVSD and IoE efforts to support students

Read in Daily Camera: BVSD is showing that school is a community

Read in Brad Feld blog: Boulder Non-Profits to Support for Covid-19 Relief

Read in Daily Camera: BVSD, SVVSD launch remote learning with schools closed amid coronavirus

Read in Daily Camera: BVSD starts Chromebook distribution ahead of home learning during coronavirus

Read in Daily Camera: A note from the publisher to Daily Camera readers

Read in Broomfield Enterprise: Impact on Education announces $100,000 Critical Needs Fund Match

Read in Daily Camera: BVSD hands out about 1,450 bags of food amid coronavirus pandemic

View: Photos of BVSD Sees Increased Demand for Food While School is Out

Read in Daily Camera: BVSD, SVVSD provide updates on at-home learning plans

Ensuring Boulder Valley Students are supported in this time of need

While we are collectively facing a time of unprecedented stress and uncertainty, we could not be more proud to be part of such a caring and committed community. 

These challenging times have put our mission as the foundation for Boulder Valley’s Public Schools to the test. And, we are happy to say, our pillars of support do not waiver, even in times of crisis.

Now that schools must remain closed until at least April 17, we know that the needs will continue piling up.

Our safeguards and action plans are solid, and our relationship with the Boulder Valley School District is strong. With your help, we can handle this crisis and provide the essential tools our students need right now while also planning ahead to create mechanisms of support so that students do not fall behind.

During this unprecedented school closure, Impact on Education is:

How you can help now:

Make a contribution to our Critical Need Fund.- this allows us to immediately tackle the district’s need in the three areas above.

Stay up to date on what we’re doing and how you can help by reading our newsletters, following us on social media and coming back to our website often.

Share these needs and our website with friends, colleagues, family and neighbors.

We are grateful to be part of a community that is so committed to education and to helping support our neighbors.

Other Resources: 

Please click here to learn more about Emergency Food Distribution

Please click here to learn about the Boulder Valley School District’s response

Please click here to learn more about resources in Boulder County

Please click here to learn about the State of Colorado public health and action plan

Read Daily Camera reporting on BVSD and IoE efforts to support students

Read: A note from the publisher to Daily Camera readers

Read from Broomfield Enterprise: Impact on Education announces $100,000 Critical Needs Fund Match

Read: BVSD hands out about 1,450 bags of food amid coronavirus pandemic

View: Photos of BVSD Sees Increased Demand for Food While School is Out

Read: BVSD, SVVSD provide updates on at-home learning plans

Impact on Education is in direct and constant communication with Boulder Valley School District (BVSD) to ensure that our students and families are supported during these uncharted times.

Currently, all schools in Boulder Valley School District are closed until April 17th.

We are working closely with District leaders to ensure we are able to provide food to the families who rely on school for meals. At the same time, we are raising critical funds to prepare for the possibility of remote learning for students without access to technology. 

As the Foundation for Boulder Valley School District, we at Impact on Education are stepping up to help support students and schools in unprecedented ways.

We are focusing our efforts in these three places:

We are working closely with BVSD Food Services to line up volunteers to assemble bags that will be distributed to families in need next week across our community. Many students rely on school for breakfast, lunch, and weekend nutrition. With our partners at BVSD, we are committed to ensuring that students and their families receive nutritious food while students are unexpectedly out of school. If you’d like to volunteer, please sign up here. Please understand opportunities are fluid, based on pending needs and potential group gathering restrictions.

In case school closures extend beyond spring break, we are getting tens of thousands of school supplies and backpacks ready to be used to support ongoing learning among students without access to technology.

Once this is all behind us and kids are back in school, Impact on Education is looking for creative ways to fund after school/weekend enrichment to help our kids catch up and make sure that the gap in learning doesn’t become a permanent deficit.

How you can help now:

We are grateful to be part of a community that is so committed to education and to helping support our neighbors. 

Thank you from all of us at Impact on Education

Read the Daily Camera reporting

Other Resources: 

Please click here to learn more about Emergency Food Distribution

Please click here to learn about the Boulder Valley School District’s response

Please click here to learn about the State of Colorado public health and action plan

From the Department of Public Health & Environment:

Social distancing is an effective public health tool for preventing the spread of disease, but it’s still important to connect with friends & loved ones. Try video chats or just give them a call. Remember to keep 6 feet between you & others if you do need to go out in public.

Impact on Education is proud to announce Sue Taddeucci as the recipient of the 2020 Blake Peterson Lifetime Achievement Award. Sue is a Special Education Multi-Intensive Learning Center Teacher at Southern Hills Middle School.

Sue exemplifies what Blake Peterson valued most in educators, an extraordinary heart for the students she works with. This commitment is best exemplified by how she individualizes her approach to working with each student’s needs and strengths to optimize their potential. Her endless enthusiasm in working with families, pioneering new teaching approaches, facilitating the groundbreaking peer tutoring program, and mentoring an incredible number of educators in special education, has changed the lives of countless individuals in our district and throughout the state.

Sue has served the BVSD community since 2007 when she joined the Creekside Elementary preschool program. She’s been catalyzing and innovating within the Special Education department at Southern Hills Middle since 2010, and building a norm of inclusivity in the process. Her tireless dedication to partnering with all of the positive influences and roles in a student’s life – parents, caregivers, families, student classmates, paraeducators, colleagues, district administrators – with only the goal of that student’s growth as the focus had led to progression and learning that is truly transformative. 

Equally important, her sphere of positive impact extends beyond her classroom walls and BVSD. Sue drives a Peer Tutoring Program that caught the eyes of the Colorado Department of Education, and her energetic, inclusive teaching style is a positive model for special education teachers and programs across the state. 

Thank you, Sue, for bringing out the best in your students and in all those around you!

Click here to read an article about the 2020 Blake Peterson Lifetime Achievement Award Winner, Sue Taddeucci, in the Daily Camera.

Things are starting off strong in 2020, and we are diving into some exciting new work to prepare all students for a promising future. In alignment with BVSD and consistent with the District’s  Strategic Plan, Impact on Education is funding two new initiatives this spring that will help students in our community meet the challenges and opportunities that await them. 

First, we are proudly piloting a new career exploration tool in five BVSD middle schools. We believe that providing students with many opportunities to explore careers from a young age will inspire and excite them. This program is unique because it features jobs that are projected to be in high demand in the future and allows students to explore these careers virtually through videos with actual Coloradans working in the field. Eighty-five percent of those featured on video are from underrepresented groups, and the program features information about clubs or electives that might help interested kids gain more opportunities to build their skills. We will gather information from students and teachers to determine if using this program achieves its goals and will use that data to inform future investments. 

Second, we’re developing an action plan with BVSD designed to reimagine the ways we are preparing students for their futures . Options for students to build skills, gain college credit or technical certifications, and access work-based learning opportunities while in high school are not as abundant in BVSD as they are in peer districts. Building upon successful best practices and then harnessing the talent and knowledge of our local community, Impact on Education expects that we’ll be able to offer new and exciting choices to all students K-12 in the coming years.

According to the World Economic Forum, 65% of children entering school will work in jobs that don’t yet exist. And another recent ManpowerGroup survey cites 45% of Human Resource Managers who say they are unable to find qualified workers for available jobs (“Talent Shortage Survey”, 2018). Ensuring that our schools are preparing students for successful futures is a focus of BVSD, so we are proud to fund both of these new efforts and look forward to seeing all of our students graduate and succeed in the future. 

With the incredible partnership among Impact on Education, Education Foundation of the St. Vrain Valley, and both Boulder Valley and St. Vrain Valley School Districts, the Crayons to Calculators program is a key component in tackling the achievement gap most schools in Colorado face.

Every once in a while, we have the privilege of meeting some of the families who are recipients of the C2C backpacks. (Each school is the primary distributor to their families). On a stifling hot day in early August – a week before the official Back to School Nights, a mother and daughter stopped by the Impact on Education office to pick up the needed five backpacks for Annika and her siblings. As Annika sifted through the massive selection of PreK through high school backpacks, searching for the perfect style to fit her brother’s and sisters’ personalities, her mother, Joy, expressed her gratitude for the Crayons to Calculators program.

“You always have the right supplies – it is exactly what each of my kids needs from the school lists. I am grateful that you pay attention to this, as it allows for my kids to be like all the other kids on the first day of school”

She explained that she loved coming to the Impact on Education office to pick up their bags because her children loved to have the supplies early.

“I love watching them spend time together, personalizing their backpacks and organizing all their supplies. It is such a stress relief to see my children walk confidently into the school building for the new year already prepared, and nobody knows that I cannot afford to get them this basic need.”

Then Joy’s face started to glow with the look of a proud mother. She said, “My oldest daughter is a senior this year and with the support of BVSD and programs like Crayons to Calculators, she is doing very well.”

Tears started to form in the crease of her eyes. “My Dana has a 4.0, and colleges are asking her to apply to their school – she will be the first in our family to go to college.”

After an exchange of hugs between Joy and the Crayons to Calculators Coordinator, Annika stood up with the five bags in her hands with a huge smile on her face and she proudly announced, “And I am going to be the second.”

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