Dear REALM families,

Happy May! With just over a month left in the school year, we have a lot of great things coming up, including STAR testing, field trips, fundraisers, and more.

Important dates at-a-glance:

May 7-10: STAR Testing (Middle School)

May 7: High School WASC visit for accreditation

May 14: Parent Alliance Mtg

May 16: High School Summer and Sports Information Night, 6:30 at the middle school

May 16: 7th grade boys field trip to Slide Ranch

May 17: 7th grade girls field trip to Slide Ranch

May 20: NO SCHOOL in observation of Malcolm X’s birthday

May 27: NO SCHOOL in observation of Memorial Day

May 28: Film Screening: If You Build It about our Studio H program @ David Brower Center

May 31: Fundraiser at La Peña Cultural Center

June 6: All-day field trip (more details to come)

June 7: REALM Day at the High School

June 14: Last day of school

August 27: First Day of School, 2013-2014 school year

STAR testing at the Middle School this week!
STAR testing will take place this week at the middle school, from Tuesday (today) through Friday. Release times will remain the same, 3:25pm and 1:55pm on Wednesday. The data from the students’ tests help us to provide the best instruction possible. Therefore, please talk with your child about the importance of this test and prepare them accordingly.

REALM Track Jackets now on sale!
To celebrate our REALM pride, we now have REALM Renegade track jackets, custom made just for our school community! Jackets are available in adult unisex sizes XS-XL and can be purchased for $40 at both school campuses. Wear your REALM pride on your sleeve and get your jacket today!

Parent Alliance Meeting
All families are invited to join us for the parent alliance meeting on May 14th @ 6:00pm at the middle school. The discussion will include the role of room parents, fundraising, the new family orientation panel and continuing the conversation around Parent Alliance Leadership. Please bring a dish to share.

We are looking for Room Parents! If you are interested in being a coordinator of communications, field trips and volunteering for your child’s first period classroom, please let us know. With Room Parents we can effectively communicate with each other and get information out regarding school events, field trips, fundraisers and social events. Contact Pete Normandin at petenormandin@gmail.com or (510) 504-4177.

Please get in your REALM Roster request forms As Soon As Possible! If you need one, please pick one up at the M.S. office, or ask your child, they went home last Monday!

Film screening May 28: If You Build It, a documentary about our design/build program
Our Studio H design/build program at the high school is the subject of a documentary film! Join us for a sneak peek screening of the film, titled If You Build It, which tells the story of Studio H students in North Carolina prior to coming to REALM. The film illustrates the value and power of creativity and community-driven projects as part of our students’ learning experience. The screening is May 28th at 7pm at the David Brower Center in downtown Berkeley, including a raffle of items designed by REALM students. All proceeds from ticket sales go straight to the Studio H program at REALM high school, which is currently building a classroom out of shipping containers and hand-made skateboards. BUY TICKETS HERE.

Fundraiser and La Peña
Please join us on Friday, May 31st at La Peña Cultural Center for a REALM fundraiser featuring the return of Los Mocoso, poetry, music, and theatrical performances by REALM Middle School Students. Doors open at 7:30pm. The admission price for students and REALM parents is $10 and general admission is $15.

The REALM Parent Alliance is collecting between $5-$10 from each family for a classroom Gift Basket to be auctioned off at the La Peña fundraiser. Please send a check or cash with your student, to be given to their first period teacher. The money raised from the Gift Basket auction will go to improving the After School Program, school supplies and field trips for our kids! Thank you!

Sign up for Studio G, summer design + building camp for girls – Scholarships are Available!!
If your daughter is 9-12 years old and loves creative arts, building, and making, sign her up for Studio G, a new summer camp for girls. REALM’s Director of Creativity and high school design/build instructor Emily Pilloton will be running the camp at the high school campus from July 8-19. Girls will build projects out of wood and metal, learn creative design skills, and connect projects back to math and science concepts. Other counselors include two REALM high school students and our amazing 9th grade math teacher Ms. Moody! More information and online registration can be found HERE. Registration forms are also available at the middle school office, or please email emily@projecthdesign.org for information about scholarships.

ForMe Camps at REALM High School the weeks of June 17th, June 24th, July 22nd and July 29th
Digital Music Camp: This camp is designed to empower our campers with the ability to make their own soundtrack with the tools that are available to all! Over the course of a week, campers will be learning how to create their own compositions through programs such as Garage Band all the way to Ableton Live! All equipment and software are provided.

Art Makers Camp: We believe that every person has an inner artist in them – it just needs to be nurtured and encouraged to come out. Art Makers is our camp providing both the instruction, outlet and mediums to let your child’s inner artist out! This year we are putting a green spin on things and are using everyday materials as our canvases. Using various tools ranging from paint brush to markers to paint pens, your kids will learn techniques and concepts from experienced artists, illustrators, muralists and word art specialists. Each week will end with an art show for parents and families to experience our special work of art; students will take some of their art pieces home.

For registration and schedule go to www.formecamps.com; use discount code “REALM” for a $50 discount at registration.

Tissues!
With allergy season underway we would greatly appreciate donations of Kleenex. Thank you!

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Thank you for all you continue to do to support our school community. We look forward to seeing you soon at one of our upcoming events as we continue to build an amazing REALM together.

Together in service,

Victor Díaz
Director, REALM Charter School

http://www.realmcharterschool.org

This past weekend was the Pioneers in Engineering robotics competition hosted by UC Berkeley at the Lawrence Hall of Science! Our team of high schoolers, led by Mr. Starr, had been building a robot since March and performed admirably over two whole days of competition and robot tinkering.

Over 30 teams from different Bay Area high schools participated in this competition where teams had to design a robot that was both autonomous and could be remote-controlled. The playing field was a large square where the robots got points for moving cubes into goals and for flipping giant dice. Our team of 9th graders did amazingly and Mr. Starr will send a follow-up email detailing their performance. Major props go out to:

Jordan Walker
Jahntu Ashande
Carlos Andrade
Abel Gaim
Malek Armstrong
Billy Ruby
Caetano Hyams
Naveed Yeganegi
Spencer Cherry

And to Mr. Starr for spending a ton of time and energy planning and organizing our energetic students.

You can also find some information and the competition brackets on the PiE website.https://pioneers.berkeley.edu/home/

Please congratulate our students in their fantastic achievement!

On April 10th and 11th, all of our students participated in an all-day Design Challenge at the high school campus! Using 100 bricks, advisory groups were asked to take on creative tasks as a team: Build a robot with a name and function; Construct a perfect circle in which your entire team can fit; Build the tallest structure you can, using all bricks. Over the course of the day, students worked together and demonstrated great grit, teamwork, creativity, and tenacity to build beautiful structures out of the bricks. In keeping with our tenets of Love, Grit, and Action, each activity required problem-solving, communication, and determination. The last activity asked students to construct a domino effect that crushed an egg at the end. It was a great way to end a fun day!

Drop off the kids and enjoy an evening out!

Where: REALM Charter Middle School
When: Friday, April 19th
Time: 5:30 – 9:30pm
Cost: $20 per child

Includes: Spaghetti Dinner, Movie, Video Game
Room, Art and Crafts, Music and Fun!

Supervised by our after school staff. Email Tanisha Walton (tanisha@realmcharterschool.org) for more information.

Today in Mr. Hargreaves’ 6th grade music and wellness class, students began clearing a bed for planting at Berkeley Youth Alternatives, up the street from our high school campus. Stay tuned for more updates as the garden project progresses!

On Friday, March 22, the entire 9th grade class went on a field trip to Mt. Diablo State Park.
During the trip, they hiked through nature, rock climbed over boulders, and reflected on the past year as a Realm student. All students (and teachers!) had a great time and are looking forward to another trip!

Ms. Luna (7th grade Humanities) and Ms. Vasquez (6th grade Math) took their all-girl advisories on a hike in Tilden Park. The hike was a challenging one, uphill to Wildcat Peak where they enjoyed a view of the SF bay with its many bridges and islands. The trip also included a Naturalist talk at the pond where students interacted with Newts their egg pods, a visit to the Little Farm petting zoo, the nature learning center and community-building games. Special thanks to The Sierra Club’s Inner City Outings for volunteering to help drive and facilitate the successful, day-long adventure!

In the past few weeks, many of our advisory groups have been focusing on the importance of college-readiness and college-going culture. Our amazing counselor, Ms. Amber Lester, put together the above presentation to help engage students and provide important information to help students navigate the process. The presentation also helped inform our conversation for the City of Berkeley’s College and Career Day this past Monday. We encourage all students and families to view the presentation above and keep college-readiness in mind every day and throughout the rest of the school year!

As first period begins at 9 a.m., teachers greet each student with a smile and a handshake, calling them by name as they enter the classrooms. Groups gather in flexible spaces, their chairs clustered together for team-based work. In Ms. Walker’s 6th-grade class, groups of four students are building structures with bricks to learn about ancient civilizations: “As a team, build a Kushite temple with a burial chamber using only 25 bricks.” Across the hall in Mr. Young’s science class, students are putting post-its on the wall, brainstorming designs for environmentally friendly toys, to learn about natural resources and the impact of synthetic materials.

The weekly advisory class meets this morning, a Friday, and students gather in their gender- and grade-specific groups of roughly fifteen peers. Over the next hour, they share personal challenges, talk through academic struggles, and ask advisors for help with personal or family problems. It is a safe and intimate space.

Between class periods, the halls rise and fall with the noise of students greeting their friends and teachers. The pulse of the building is palpable. At lunchtime at the middle school, students gather around three long redwood tables and enjoy healthy, freshly prepared food served by parents and staffed. Some venture outside to throw a football, while others work on homework or spend some non-academic time in their favorite teacher’s classroom.

After lunch, at the high school, the buzz of the tablesaw can be heard from outside the door of Studio H, our 10th-grad design and construction class. Students are working in teams around high drafting tables, building cardboard and basswood models of their designs for a classroom structure they will build for their school community. Across the hall in Ms. Diaz’s room, students are setting up microscope stations for an experiment. In the office, our campus manager, instructional coach, and a few teachers discuss the best strategies for classroom management.

When school ends at 4pm, students flood out of the building and await their ride home, greeting the friends they have not seen since first period, embracing their significant others, and skateboarding down the sidewalk. Many students do not leave campus, though, instead attending study hall in Ms. Turner’s room to revise their essay due later in the week. Others rush to basketball practice to prepare for their upcoming game. Teachers and staff gather formally and informally as they did at the beginning of the day, to reflect and share practices.

On October 18th the REALM Parent Alliance had a very productive meeting. During our time together parents/guardians gave feedback on 6 hot topics crucial to the design and development of REALM; Design Thinking, Workshops/Speakers, the Future of REALM, Video Games & Technology, Counseling and Wellness, & Project-Based Learning. Within each area we asked families to write their Questions/Concerns, Connections/Contributions and Ideas. We used a design thinking model similar to what’s used in the classroom to solicit parent input, it proved to be a lot of fun and a great way to gather parent concerns, input, and knowledge. Notes from the meeting can be viewed here, including verbatim responses from parents.

We are planning another meeting within the next month. The date will soon be announced.