Students at Corte Madera, the Portola Valley School District’s fourth- to eighth-grade school, spent the start of their first day of school on Aug. 21 watching the solar eclipse at a variety of stations created by parent volunteers and staff members on the school’s blacktop.
Sun-spotter devices enabled kids to trace the sun, and paper plates with small holes punched in them showed how shadows were affected by the moon passing in front of the sun.
At 10:15 a.m., students, teachers and volunteers, using solar-filtered telescopes and eclipse glasses, watched the eclipse at its peak coverage of 79 percent.
“I think it makes the first day of school that much more magical,” one parent volunteer said.
Some teachers incorporated the eclipse into their lesson plans, showing videos and giving talks on the science behind eclipses. For many students, this powerful experience was just the beginning of an equally exciting school year.
Portola Valley School District
• Enrollment: 609, down 45 from 2013-14 and down 16 from 2016-17
• New programs: stand-alone transitional kindergarten, second year of Challenge Success (a Stanford-developed program to reduce stress on students); in-house coaching workshop for readers and writers, both campuses; Chromebook take-home program expanded to grades 5-7; digital portfolios for grades 6-8; Google Classrooms manages online curricula district-wide; Google Expeditions takes students on global virtual reality field trips.
• New courses: sixth-grade integrated science using Next Generation Science Standards; coding and video game design; new middle school Spanish curriculum.
• New staff: Three new teachers, one new paraprofessional.
• New facilities: EngageSpace outdoor spaces for students to play, gather, and socialize at both schools; a Facilities Master Plan is assessing the district’s infrastructure, modernization, and program needs.
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