ACE Spectrum
ACE Spectrum
Ace Spectrum is about you — the ACE Learning Centers.
It’s a quick sharing of ideas, inspiration, opinions and best practices among our continuing education organizations.
Please join the conversation.
San Francisco International High School Supports Financial Aid Process for Span Scholars
By Guest Blogger Amanda Chui, Fellows Program Manager, San Francisco International High School
Students review financial aid opportunities.
With Span in its third year, our program has grown supporting our graduates both near and far. Participant numbers aren’t very obvious on a day-to-day basis until our larger events roll around.
This year due to the growing number of SFIHS alumni attending San Francisco State University, the SFIHS Span program planned three separate financial aid opportunities for all participants to attend. The first event took place at San Francisco State University on October 16, 2016. Students attended drop-in hours between their classes with their Span coordinator at SFSU. Between 8a.m.-1p.m., the Span coordinator met with approximately 18 students, completing and submitting their financial aid applications. FAFSA and California Dream Act applications must be completed and resubmitted each year a student is in school.
A SFIHS student carefully reviews financial aid packages.
For many of our Span Scholars, this process involves collecting information from their own employment and their parents’ employment, which often means making sense of tax documents from countries outside of the United States. This is a daunting prospect and helping students through it, thank to our ACE Learning Center, is always greatly appreciated.
This opportunity allowed our SPAN students to not only practice scheduling their time wisely, but doing so in a manner that allowed them to be just a tad step ahead with their 2017-2018 school year!
Span Scholars complete FAFSA and California Dream Act applications.
NorCal Society of Professional Journalists Honor Members of KALW’s Audio Academy
By Ben Trefny, News Director, KALW Public Radio
KALW‘s Audio Academy keeps on bringing home the hardware. Our latest honors are two excellence in journalism awards from the Northern California Society of Professional Journalists, which we’ll accept at a ceremony in November.
Hannah Kingsley-Ma and Liza Veale, both members of the class of 2015, were recognized for their radio documentary about unaccompanied immigrants attending Oakland’s Castlemont High. The story Seeking Asylum: Young Migrants Hope to Make Oakland Their Home won the prize for best audio feature and long-form story in the region. The piece they made for KALW also aired nationally on Latino USA. Check it out below.
New Kids on the Block: When Unaccompanied Minors Enter High School
The other award is for a KALW collaboration with Oakland Voices, a project of the East Bay Times and the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education that trains East Oakland residents to tell stories of their own community. Four stories that made up Sights & Sounds of East Oakland were recognized, collectively, as the outstanding community journalism production of 2016. Those pieces — about a foreclosure, a public art project, flamenco dancing, and an arts collective — were reported with the close assistance of Hannah and Liza along with Holly J. McDede and Jeremy Dalmas (’14), all of whom are currently beat reporters with KALW’s news department.
Raja Shah (’15), Angela Johnston (’14), Audrey Dilling, Theresa Scott (on behalf of Louis A. Scott), and Ben Trefny attended the San Francisco Peninsula Press Club awards ceremony.
This recognition follows a sweep of the radio awards presented by the San Francisco Peninsula Press Club, which honored former Audio Academy members Isabel Angell (’14), Angela Johnston (’14), Liz Pfeffer (’14), Raja Shah (’15), along with Louis A. Scott from the San Quentin Prison Report, Leila Day, and me for our work over the past year.
It’s always nice to be honored like this, but it’s especially fulfilling to see how the training we provide at KALW is clearly manifesting in extraordinary work.
The class of 2017 is really getting involved now, too. They’ve been trained, now, on pitching stories, basic engineering, sound recording, and the editing process. They’ve recorded audio for KALW’s My Mixtape segment and the opening credits montages for Crosscurrents. They’ve been assigned Storycorps pieces to cut, and they’ve pitched stories for a series we’re producing about KALW’s own neighborhood: San Francisco’s Portola District. They’re on a steep learning path, but that means they’re ready to start reporting!
We’ve been ramping up our election coverage at KALW — just like the rest of the media — and we’re going to have support on Election Night from several members of the current cohort, including Jeremy Jue and Cari Spivack. And Cari, actually, just turned around her first story — coverage of an impromptu “tent-in” right out front of San Francisco’s City Hall. Check it out right here.
Looking forward to much more!
Span Scholars Return to Campus at San Francisco International High School
By Kyle Halle-Erby, Span Program Director, San Francisco International High School
It’s October and the seniors at SF International are deep into the college and financial aid application process. Thankfully, they have the support of our ACE Learning Center to support their continuing education at multiple points.
A Span Scholar shares his experience about the all important senior year with SF International seniors.
At the start of this school year, almost three dozen of our Span Scholars returned to campus to talk with our current seniors about the importance of their senior year. The Span Scholars talked about their own experiences of 12th grade, how they managed their time (and didn’t), how they handled stress, and what they wish they had known then.
The Span Program, a central part of our ACE Learning Center, supports our recent graduates as they begin college. This wrap around support keeps alumni close to our community and makes it possible for events like this to take place with ease.
High school students listen as college students tell.
Recent graduates are an invaluable resource for our current students. Nearly all of our 12th graders are the first in their families to attend college so having near peers who are succeeding in college shows our students that they really do have what it takes. What a great way to set the tone for senior year.
Here are a few words of wisdom from our Span Scholars to our current 12th graders:
“Remember you’re not alone. Everyone else is going through the same stress and frustration, it’s not just you.” – Medhanie, SFIHS class of 2013
“Bother your teachers. In college, your professors are hard to find. Here, your teachers will talk to you about anything. Go see them, talk to them and make them teach you more.” – Mario, SFIHS class of 2016
“Apply for scholarships. When I was a senior grade scholarships felt like so much work, but they actually pay and they are much easier than washing dishes.” – Kuang, SFIHS class of 2013
Span Scholars discuss their college experience with soon to be college attendees.