Riverside Adopts New Program To Reignite Passion For Learning Sparc Will Use Creative Ways To Help Students Who Don’T Fit Mold

Riverside educators hope a new program will help reignite some adolescents’ passion for learning.

The SPARC program - which stands for Service oriented, Project-based, Accelerated learning, REAL enterprise-based, with Community collaboration - will give teachers a chance to try out alternative teaching styles with up to 80 sixth- through eighth-graders this fall.

“We are trying to make learning exciting and meaningful,” said program coordinator Janet Kemp. “The teachers are excited and motivated to help kids become more interested in school.”

Riverside was one of 22 schools in the state to receive a $90,000 grant from the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction for creation of an innovative program.

SPARC is open to students who have found school difficult. They are the students who, for example, have had problems with attendance, academic performance, behavior or family support.

“They’re not bad kids; they’re the ones who don’t fit into nice little rows,” explained teacher Cory NeVille. “They’re the ones who learn differently.”

Informational meetings will be held Aug. 17, 24 and 31 from 6 to 6:30 p.m. in the district board room. Registration sessions will be held immediately after each meeting, until 8 p.m.

Four teachers - NeVille, Linda Campbell, Marcy Gallinger and Carrie Jennings - will be in charge of the SPARC program, giving students more one-on-one instruction time. There will also be a counselor, secretary and a teacher’s aide.

All of the SPARC classes, except music and physical education, will be held separately from other middle school classes in the Riverside Ponderosa Wing. Instructors will focus on hands-on learning and providing real-world uses for what students are being taught. All lessons will be based on the state essential learning requirements.

“SPARC classes will be set up like a community,” NeVille explained. “Students will clock in, like they’re coming to a job. They’ll all have specific responsibilities.”

Students will receive a token salary, with which they’ll pay for renting their lockers and other facilities.

As part of the program, some SPARC students will help run a satellite food bank at the school. They’ll help organize monthly food-drives that will rotate among the district’s four schools. Some will work in a greenhouse.

Students also will work on different projects in mixed-age groups. Some will study flight, build something that flies and take a field trip to Cape Canaveral. Others will study ecological issues that tie into a unit on oceans and take a field trip to the coast.

“We want to create projects they can sink their teeth into,” NeVille said. “We want them to be reading, writing and problem solving but get so involved they forget what they’re doing.”

For more information about SPARC, call Janet Kemp at 292-8315.