23 minute read
#NuevaTogether: Nueva Steps Up to Support One Another and the Greater Community
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#SUPPORT
(1) Maya C. ’21 engages in remote learning from her home. (2) Fourth grader Eliya W. dons a homemade toga for her class’s School of Athens philosophy discussion. (3) I-Lab engineer Rob Zomber works in the I-Lab putting together mask-making kits. (4) Alyssa H. ’22 and her brother Andrew sew face masks. (5) Twin fifth graders Anjali and Natasha M. perform Beethoven’s “Contra Dance” as part of the virtual Menuhin-Dowling concert. (6) Paul Knight’s kindergarten class enjoys a Zoom gathering together. (7) Eighth grader Temilola S. holds up her graphic novel cell in her writing class.
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#COMMUNITY
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#VIRTUAL
(8) Kindergartners Jude S. and Cyrus S. play a game of chess together via FaceTime. (9) Parent Julie Choey and her son, eighth grader Mason, work together to sew face masks for the community. (10) Mandarin teacher Jamie Gao leads a spring break class for PreK–2nd grade students. (11) Andrew Alexander and Michaela Danek’s 10th-grade advisory meet during the first week of remote learning. (12) First grader Macallister B. grins from ear to ear when his STEAM project is shared with the entire Lower School. (13) Amelia Marvit ’20 works to 3-D print face shield reinforcing clips. (14) Hannah D. ’23 performs an original song, “The Joker,” as part of Coffee(home), a virtual open-mic style event organized by Upper School students.
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Ask a student, teacher, or parent what makes Nueva so special, and more often than not, the answer you will hear is, “The community.” This community has demonstrated in big ways and little ways what it means to come together during a time of great need to support one another, as well as the greater community around us. >>
>> There have been more than a dozen initiatives spearheaded by Nueva faculty, students, and parents—everything from making personal protective equipment and creating COVID-19 related art to hosting togetherness Zooms and fundraising.
Early on in San Mateo County’s shelter-in-place order, three members of the Nueva extended leadership team—I-Lab Director Angi Chau, Social Justice and Equity Director Alegria Barclay, and Director of the Innovative Teacher Program Allen Frost—began to talk about the ways Nueva students could get involved in COVID-19 support and outreach.
“There were students reaching out to the I-Lab, and the I-Lab team recognized that they had the tools and equipment needed to get to work on some of the community’s personal protective equipment (PPE) needs,” Alegria said. “While talking with Angi, we decided to join forces because not everyone may be interested in making, so we wanted to provide an opportunity for students with varying interests and skill sets.”
Echoing Alegria, Angi said, “When the three of us talked about ways we could get involved in the efforts to fight COVID-19, we all realized we were hearing from Upper School students who wanted to participate.”
So, on April 9, Angi, Alegria, and Allen hosted a Community Support Planning meeting for Upper School students. During the meeting, which was attended by 32 people, students and faculty discussed a number of ways they could help with these efforts.
I-Lab and Maker Initiatives
Angi’s team oversaw efforts that utilized Nueva’s I-Lab resources and expertise. When she met with her team prior to the Community Support Planning meeting, she posed the question, “What can we do to give students a sense of agency in effecting change?”
Her team took off with answers to that question. George Jemmott, Upper School I-Lab engineer and machine shop manager, spearheaded an initiative to make face shield parts using 3D printers. He partnered with Maker Nexus, a nonprofit organization focused on maker education, which had put out a call to hospitals and determined there was great need for face shields. He coordinated with interested students and provided them with all of the materials needed to print parts. The school also loaned out Nueva 3D printers to students who wanted to get involved but did not have a printer and to maximize the number of parts Nueva can produce.
The Nueva team focused on printing reinforcement clips. “This is a simple part to print and we were able to produce 100 to 150
REMOTE LEARNING PLAN “Nueva’s approach to remote learning begins with the assertion that the learning experiences teachers design when school is in regular session cannot be simply replicated through remote learning... Nueva deliberately uses the term remote learning rather than technology-specific labels such as ‘virtual learning,’ ‘e-learning,’ or ‘online classes.’ Rather than being tied to an electronic device for their learning, Nueva’s goal is for students to read, communicate, and engage in authentic learning experiences, while continuing to be physically active... Accordingly, Nueva’s shift to remote learning begins with consideration of how we can intentionally align remote learning experiences with our mission and vision.”
TEACHERS LEARN BY DOING Upper School Division Head Stephen Dunn said it best in an email he sent out to Upper School parents. “The Nueva faculty has been remarkable in so many ways, and especially for their hard work in turning their curriculum from rich project-based, handson classes into a remote, synchronous, asynchronous, and distinctly handsoff experience,” he said. “It is no easy feat to redesign your class on the fly.” ¶ Since Nueva announced the move to remote learning, Nueva teachers from prekindergarten through 12th grade have learned by doing, adapting their curricula and utilizing digital technologies to bring their classes into an online space.
parts each day,” George said. “Maker Nexus volunteers printed the other key components of the face shield, but there was a bottleneck to completing each one because of the need for reinforcement clips. I am proud to have recognized this bottleneck so that we more effectively helped this effort.”
In total, Nueva students and faculty produced more than 5,000 reinforcement clips for face shields.
Senior Amelia Marvit and her freshman siblings, Huxley and Selina, joined George’s efforts early on.
“Before we started 3D printing PPE, we were all going more than a little bit stir-crazy in quarantine,” Amelia said. “While it made sense that we just had to stay inside, it seemed bizarre that the most helpful thing we could do in a pandemic was . . . nothing. It’s so amazing to be able to contribute to the cause. We’ve all been in much better spirits knowing that we’re lending a hand in these unique times. And it’s really been such a team effort here, which is even more rewarding since we’ve been so isolated. My siblings and I teamed up with Cevi Bainton to keep printers running almost around the clock (averaging around 20 hours per day). It’s kind of crazy to think that these tiny plastic pieces are making a real difference in people’s lives, especially because we don’t follow their journey much further than our front porch. I think I finally realized the impact of 3D printed PPE when George sent us the words of a New York ER doctor.”
Another effort spearheaded by a member of the I-Lab team was mask making. I-Lab engineer Rob Zomber worked tirelessly beginning in week 2 of shelter-in-place
to put together mask-making materials.
“The intent of this project at the beginning was different from what it has turned into,” he said. “Originally, students in my engineering and fabrication class wanted to get involved, so I thought I could get them some sewing machines and have this be part of our class. When students started sharing what they were doing, I began hearing from other students, as well as faculty members and parents. It really snowballed and I ended up with a list of 70 people who were full of turmoil and uncersewed masks.” tainty. Sewing masks was my way
Once the masks were comof reconciling the way I was feeling, plete, Nueva volunteers either and the privilege I have, with my donated them to people and desire to help those less fortuorganizations they knew were in nate. It was something concrete I need, or they sent them back to could do, and thanks to Rob’s and Rob, who coordinated donations Alegria’s organization, something for local organizations. I could trust would be received by
“Rob and I aligned our efforts,” those in need.” Alegria shared. “I had been “I love seeing the completed working to support vulnerable masks because usually when I sit populations, and it became clear down to sew, I’ll make 10-15 in one that they were in urgent need of sitting,” sophomore Anya P. said. face masks.” “It’s definitely super rewarding to
Nueva students and see how many you’ve done faculty members also and then start the process supplied masks to the all over. I’ve also enjoyed Center for Farmworker Families, Xinampa, 1,500 teaching my brother how to sew. It’s really fun because the Disability Justice mask-making kits we get to hang out, listen to Culture Club, and the Mid-Peninsula Boys and assembled by Rob Zomber and a team of faculty music, and sew.” Not only did these Girls Club. volunteers mask-making efforts help a
Sophomore Alyssa H. was variety of people and organizations involved with this effort sewing in the community, they also proved masks. She said, “I decided to to be opportunities for families to get involved because I wanted spend time together. to help out in some way, and “Since the beginning, Mason the opportunity to sew masks (eighth grade) was trying to figure felt accessible and productive. out how to help, what he could do I was feeling this great disparity or what we could do together as between my own lived experia family to help others during the ence sheltering at home and what pandemic,” said Nueva parent Julie I was seeing and hearing on the Choey. “We’d heard that a friend news, because where my life felt was making masks to donate to stagnant, I knew others’ lives local hospitals to wear over N95
← Faculty and staff participate in a friendly game of team trivia.
masks so that the masks can be used for longer. We were surprised that there was such a need for homemade face masks. We suddenly felt the urgency to make them quickly, set up an assembly line in our rec room, with my husband Mark and younger son Griffin measuring and cutting while Mason and I sewed on the machine, finished by hand, and ironed. We’d catch up on the day, listen to music or podcasts, watch TV or just work in silence. The days on end sheltering at home have been tough but we’ve enjoyed the time as a family working on a project together.”
Christine Braun, Middle School I-Lab engineer and shop manager, printed face shields visors and assembled face shields kits for Xinampa farmworkers. She has organized a group of Middle School students eager to get involved in a variety of COVID-19 related efforts, including putting together the components of the face shields so that they were ready for distribution.
Freshman Clay M. worked on a completely different maker project, one that was also much needed in the community.
“I fermented ethanol, concentrated it, distilled it, and combined it with hydrogen peroxide, glycerol, and aloe gel to make hand sanitizer,” Clay said.
LOWER SCHOOL HUMANITIES The fourth-grade team loved the challenge and innovation this new remote learning has offered. “It pushed me to think outside of the box (my computer screen!) and embrace the Nuevan concept of ‘learning by doing,’ which is quintessentially Nueva,” said teacher Sarah Merkt. ¶ One area of the curriculum that adapted well to this new space was incorporating the current-events project into morning meeting discussions. These important SEL check-ins gave students space to talk about what was going on in the world, which connected well with the class’s current-events discussions. ¶ Sarah shared, “We had just finished a large unit studying various components of the Olympics. Two students found an article about the postponement of the Olympics and, over Zoom, held a thoughtful discussion of the implications of holding the Olympics a year from now.” ¶ Said fourth grader Dixon F., “It was fun to share information and news about the world, but it was also a bit hard to tell people that the biggest worldwide sports event of the year is canceled.”
SIXTH-GRADE PHYSICS Remote learning poses a particularly big challenge with courses that are most hands-on and typically utilize many materials. ¶ Teachers in science, art, engineering, and design adapted by reimagining their hands-on experiences in an online space. ¶ Middle School science teacher Dalton Lobo Dias incorporated a variety of online tools to help his students understand advanced concepts. If you stepped into one of his Zoom classes in late March, you would have seen Dalton showing students his handcranked generator while simultaneously showing a simulation of the underlying physics of what he was doing. This was part of the wrapup of a unit on electromagnetism. ¶ Throughout Dalton’s lesson planning, he kept top of mind the question, “How can I engage, assess, and frequently check in with my students?” He found that his students loved quiz games, and so he incorporated a number of these games into his class using sites such as Kahoot, Padlet, and Quizlet. ¶ Dalton added, “The amount of time the administration dedicated to helping teachers learn to use and to teach with these online tools was so great. They carved out time and space for teachers to learn and meet and get caught up with technology.”
Using a five-gallon bucket secured with an airtight lid and an S trap airlock, sugar, wash, and yeast, Clay was able to successfully make a one-liter batch of hand sanitizer. The key to effective hand sanitizer is making sure the ethanal is above 60 percent of the total solution.
Clay added, “To test that the hand sanitizer truly works, we grew bacteria in petri dishes and once we had visible colonies, we applied some of the hand sanitizer to the dish and viewed it under a microscope to make sure the pathogens were dead.”
After successfully testing his process, Clay was able to ramp up his operation to be able to have two to three batches of ethanol concentrating and distilling at the same time, so that he can produce three liters of hand sanitizer a week. The finished products will be donated to LifeMoves, an organization that provides temporary housing for the homeless population.
“I saw an opportunity to make a difference and help communities during this time, and I’m able to leverage my knowledge and experience in chemistry to make an impact,” Clay said.
Documentation of the Pandemic
“I was thinking about how we can give students a creative outlet for their own feelings and responses,” Allen said. “One of the things that Alegria and I teach in our senior seminar, Rage, Romance, and Resilience: A Cultural History of the HIV/AIDS Epidemic, is the importance of documenting and recording what people are feeling.”
Students recorded oral histories; photographed empty streets, boarded up business, and social distancing signage; wrote poetry and short stories; and created art related to the pandemic. Jennifer Paull, director of the Writing and Research Center, collected and posted Quarantine Diaries of members of our community, “to share and archive what people have created during the shelter-in-place,” she said.
“Creative expressions can be just as sustaining and empowering as things that ‘look like activism,’ and can oftentimes suit students’ skill sets more,” Allen added.
Supporting One Another
Nueva parents have always supported the school and its faculty and staff. That has rung true now more than ever, as they came together to raise critical funds and to share their appreciations.
The NPA site said, “The Digital Appreciations Project provides an easy way for students and parents to share digital appreciations with Nueva faculty and staff. Notes, artwork, photos, quick videos, and other appreciations are submitted through Google forms and collected in a Google Drive folder which is shared with the recipient. This will provide a digital collection of expressions of gratitude for the recipient to keep.”
This act of kindness has had a lasting impact on both faculty and staff.
“The impetus for these initiatives was wanting people to know they are so appreciated and to make people feel loved,” said NPA Co-president Eileen Horng. “There are so many things that Nueva is doing for the outside community, and the NPA wanted to make sure that those in our own community receive some of that love.”
Upper School Spanish teacher Jo Newman said, “It was lovely in the busyness of the day to read an appreciation that makes everything that I’m doing seem even more meaningful.”
The NPA also gave each faculty and staff member a gift card to further show their appreciation, using funds that would have otherwise gone to spring events.
“We used funds that would have been unused otherwise and thought this was the perfect way to use those funds to show our appreciation for the faculty and staff who made a Herculean effort to pivot to remote learning,” Eileen said.
Another area of parent-driven support was the Nueva Faculty and Staff Support Fund, which has provided needed funds for faculty and staff to weather the storm of financial hardships they have encountered.
“Many of you have asked how you can provide additional support in light of the new circumstances faculty and staff are facing because of these changes,” Head of School Diane Rosenberg wrote to the community on April 1. “Seeded by the generosity of several community members, we are establishing a special fund to help faculty and staff with the expenses resulting from this transition.” In the six-day campaign, parents demonstrated what Nueva means to them by donating more than $240,000 to the fund. “We have a number of faculty and staff whose spouses have been laid off,” Diane said. “Rather than having two incomes, they now have one. This fund has helped with ongoing help with expenses like food and rent. It has also helped provide WiFi upgrades to support teaching and learning.”
Students also stepped up to spread joy and appreciation, through the Student Council (StuCo) philanthropic effort Appreciations for Nueva.
“To bring together our community in this new remote-learning world, we invite students and
↑ The Upper School yearbook staff gives each other virtual high-fives for completing the 2019–2020 yearbook.
teachers to share any appreciations for Nueva that they may have for the school under the new circumstances,” StuCo leaders Colin C., Anton P., and Camille C., wrote in an email on March 25.
For every student submission, StuCo donated $3 to Second Harvest Food Bank. Their goal was to donate $500 and they were able to meet this goal.
Middle School students also worked with Lower School Division Head Megan Terra and Middle School Division Head Liza Raynal to create a Lower School/Middle School buddy program. Middle School students paired up with Lower School students to offer them social time with a Nueva peer.
The Upper School Kindness Club members, led by senior Maya Malavasi and junior Gavi G., make it their mission to spread joy and kindness in the Nueva community, and they wanted to keep the spirit alive even if they couldn’t physically meet as a club.
“Most of our traditional projects—such as Appreciation Flooding, lollipops, and the Wall of Appreciation—are difficult to implement remotely, so Gavi and I discussed ways that we could continue to brighten people’s days,” Maya said. The Weekly Fluff newsletters [we send every week] were the product of those discussions!”
The Weekly Fluff email, sent to all Upper School students, included a section about ongoing projects the club was leading—the collection of small wonderful things and appreciation flooding—as well as Wonderful Happenings and a Calendar. (See green sidebar below for examples.)
Through this project, “we also wanted to make sure that we still realize and appreciate that we are a community, to combat the social isolation that many of us may be feeling,” Maya added. “Having a
THE WEEKLY FLUFF WONDERFUL HAPPENINGS SUBMISSIONS:
• Rob and the rest of the
I-Lab team making and providing kits to help us make masks for PPE! Now
THAT’s community!
• I ran over 12 miles for the first time.
• I worked really hard on a drawing and I think it looks really good!
• I played Scrabble with my dad and our combined score broke 600 points. UPPER SCHOOL CREATURE COMFORTS Students in Rob Zomber’s design thinking and engineering course, Creature Comforts, exemplified what it means to be Nueva students: flexible and open to anything. ¶ The class tasks students with working with Conversation Ambassadors to learn the needs of the animals and animal keepers and then building homes for specific animals. So, given the shelterin-place, students had to come up with creative ideas for moving forward. ¶ “I had a heart-to-heart talk with them,” Rob said. “Every student shared that this is something they want to do fully. We’re going to keep going, and as soon as we can do the install, we’re going to do it.” ¶ In the meantime, students came up with the idea to create enrichment activities for the animals. They researched a variety of enrichment activities and created CAD drawings before bringing them to life. ¶ “The zookeepers were stoked because they were under the impression that this was going to become a theoretical project,” Rob said. “They loved that the students were so into this. The students feel connected to the animals and have their hearts set on making the animals happy.” ¶ “After these last few weeks, I realized that it is very possible to do these things at home despite the various difficulties, and am excited to see what this class will be like in the future,” said junior Aidan P. “Although I was looking forward to getting to know the I-Lab this year, I now know that I will still be able to learn a ton of stuff about designing and building things from home.”
M AYA M A L AVAS I ’20 Upper School Kindness Club
Faculty and staff also connected with one another during this time, through the creation of the Togetherness Committee. Led by Alegria, Allen, Joy Gao, Nicole Miller, Jim Morrison, Jen Paull, and Elizabeth Rossini, this committee organized a variety of events, activities, and connections to help bring colleagues together.
Activities and events organized by Togetherness Committee included letter writing, a happy hour cantina (“Bob and Diane came in costume,” Allen said. “It was amazing!”), a spring break zoom
hour around the theme of “campfire stories,” and a trivia night.
Community Partnerships
When Middle School students met with Christine on April 29, they brainstormed ways they could help support the community. Out of that meeting came the idea to support seniors in the community through the creation of fun, entertaining videos. They explored fundraising opportunities to purchase PPE for the homeless population in San Francisco.
Sophomore Humza R. led efforts to raise critical funds for restaurants in his neighborhood. Humza decided in mid-April to gather some of his Palo Alto-area friends to raise money for two local restaurants: Kirk’s Steakburgers and Sancho’s Taqueria.
“We organized this fundraiser as part of our organization, HERO Swim, which we started three years ago,” Humza shared. “We host a swim-athon fundraiser every fall to raise money for different causes around the world, but we felt like this was a really important time to help out those in need, which is why we put this effort together.”
Sophomore Matthew S. spent the spring organizing Nueva benefit concerts, which he hopes to bring to the Nueva community this summer.
“It’s difficult to maintain normalcy in our lives in these unpredictable times, but playing and
enjoying music is a constant no matter the time, place, or circumstance,” he wrote to the community. “That’s why I’m asking all musically inclined members of the Nueva community to record a video of themselves playing or singing a piece of music. It can be any length, any genre, and any instrument; as long as that piece of music is meaningful to you in some way, I’d love for you to record it.” Matthew plans to compile the videos he collects and livestream them as benefit concerts in order to raise funds for those most impacted by COVID-19.
“I wanted to find a way to use music to strengthen our interpersonal relationships and feel connected as a community even while we are physically separate, and I wanted to help raise funds for those who are put in the most jeopardy by this pandemic. This benefit concert project is my way of bringing those two objectives together into one project,” he said.
The NPA also supported the greater community, through a fundraising effort titled “Protecting Our Front Lines Project.” Through monetary donations, the NPA was able to purchase 10,800 surgical masks, 332 N95 masks, 230,000 pairs of nitrile gloves, 60 face shields, 1,650 gowns, and 400 caps for California Pacific Medical Center (CPMC), Kaiser San Jose, Mills-Peninsula Hospital, Seton Medical Center, and Stanford Hospital.
After receiving a donation of PPE, a director of one of these hospitals wrote, “I just wanted to thank you all for your heartwarming support. These have been challenging times for us all. But you all have given me new hope, and my heart brims with joy knowing that we have a community that cares. We appreciate you all. I am crying tears of joy.” [N]
← To keep his Upper School students guessing, I-Lab engineer and Quest co-director John Feland dressed up in a new costume for every day of remote learning. He said, “What started as just wearing silly hats with fun backgrounds has turned into a daily challenge as I set out to have a different costume for the rest of the year. The goal is to show students you can be remote and still have fun!”
To see more photos of John’s daily costumes, visit @costzooms on Instagram.
See page 53 for how alumni have supported the Class of 2020.
