The Endowment Campaign

Access and Innovation

ac-cess [ák séss][14th century. Directly or via Old Frenchacces < Latin accessus, past participle of accedere “come near”

Definition:1. a means of entering or approaching

a place. Blue Oak School providesfinancial assistance to over 30% ofour families so that our student bodyreflects the community of Napa andthe North Bay (compared to a 16%national average for independentschools). By educating children in an environment that embodiesthe richness and variety of ourworld, we give them the tools to bethoughtful and tolerant citizens. A diverse student body enriches andpromotes responsible leadership.

2. the opportunity or right to experienceor make use of something. Ourthoughtful teachers, leaders, andparents work together to provide a learning environment in which students are able to explore, create,share, and discover as they mature.

3. the right or opportunity to meetsomebody. Our students becomeconfident, aware, and inquisitiveexploring first themselves and thenothers in an environment thatreflects the world at large. We develop programs that further children’s knowledge and ability to collaborate in a complex world.

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Meeting the Challenge

of Our Future

Access and Innovationat Blue Oak School means:

• Access for a diverse student body

• A responsible, innovativeeducation in a rich academic environment tailored to student needs and interests

Blue Oak School is a respectededucational model in our local school community.

Founded in 2002, our curriculum is designed to foster children’s under-standing of, and stewardship for, theworld in which we live. Our School’s mission calls us to servethe needs of each child while servingthe larger community.

In the Fall of 2006, Blue Oak Schoolwill enroll 170 K-8 grade studentsfrom the North Bay area, includingNapa, St. Helena, Sonoma, Angwin,American Canyon, and Vallejo. We will reach another important mile-stone in the spring of 2007: our firsteighth grade graduating class.

Access and Innovation

Next Step:TheEndowmentCampaign

Blue Oak School is succeedingfinancially. Under the directionof our Board of Trustees, we

balanced the budget by meetingenrollment targets, carefully managingexpenditures, and exceeding ourfundraising goals. Our next step is to secure long term financial stabilityto allow Blue Oak School to servegenerations to come. Annual fundraising efforts have establisheda culture of giving amongst our constituents and members of theNapa Valley community. Access forfuture generations will be achievedwith the successful completion of our Endowment campaign.

Endowment CampaignThe Endowment Campaign launchedby Blue Oak School VolunteerLeaders will support outreach andgrowth. Our goal is to raise five million dollars over the next fiveyears. A successful EndowmentCampaign will fund projected costsassociated with supporting accessto the School. And a successfulEndowment Campaign will continueto fund new innovation.

A Blue Oak School education isunique, in part because it offers:

•Access, financial aid, and outreachto the community. We strive to beaccessible to the broad cultural and economic diversity of this area.Blue Oak School provides twice thenational average in financial aid as most independent schools.Despite the challenge of meetingthis goal, the School is committedto providing access to students inneed of financial aid.

•Educational innovation in a growing school. Maintaining ahigh-quality education for studentsrequires us to continually refinethe curriculum, and to hire andretain a high-caliber staff. The curriculum is brought to life by our experienced faculty, recruitedlocally and nationally by the Head of School. The faculty focuseson creating a rich academic environment that is tailored to students’ interests and needs.

Join usin continuing to provideaccess to innovative education for more children in the Napa Valley.

EndowmentCommitteeBackground andPerspectives

David BeckstofferEndowment Campaign Chair

David Beckstoffer is President ofBeckstoffer Vineyardsand lives in St. Helenawith his wife, Susan,

and their daughter, Claire, a BlueOak student. David is active in theNapa Valley community and hasrecently served as a Director of theNapa County Farm Bureau. He is currently a Director of the NapaValley Grape Growers Associationand Chairman of the FarmworkerHousing Advisory Committee.

“ The endowment will help the school to grow in the yearsahead as program,

facility and staff needs evolve andchange. The endowment will alsohelp us continue to maintain adiverse student body and relievefinancial pressures, allowing theschool to focus on the students,which is really what this is all about.I am involved in the endowmentcampaign because I believe that a well funded endowment is important for the long-term successof the school.” — David Beckstoffer

Lisa CortEndowment Campaign Chair

Lisa Cort spent morethan 13 years as a marketing professionalcreating, developing,

managing, and implementing innova-tive communication programs inbusiness-to-business and consumermarkets at several Bay Area high-techand interactive media companies.Lisa and her husband, DavidGoldman, are co-founding families of Blue Oak School. They have two

children attending Blue Oak School.Lisa is also on the Board of theCommunity Foundation of the Napa Valley.

“We cannot just lookat our day to dayoperations to makethe school successful,

but we have to look out beyond ourtenure at the school. The trusteeshold the school in trust for the chil-dren of the future. As a founder Ideveloped the school as a gift to mychildren, my community and thechildren of future generations. Weall need to look at the bigger pictureand dream about a day when ourgrown children can come back totheir alma matter and give back toa place that provided them with thefoundation that allowed them tomake a difference. We are raisingfuture leaders.” — Lisa Cort

C. Paul JohnsonEndowment Campaign Chair

C. Paul Johnson is the owner of Astrale eTerra Winery. Paul isthe former Chairman

and CEO of First Colonial Bancshares,Chicago. He graduated from MichiganState University and served as a pilot in the US Air Force. He serves onthe boards of the Adler Planetarium,the Leakey Foundation and RooseveltUniversity, and is the formerChairman of the Crow CanyonArchaeology Center.

“I think that diversity of the students andfinancial aid is thecompelling story

that will resonate well. A largerendowment is critical for the schoolin case of an unforseen financialproblem that needs substantialfunding. It is a financial safeguard.”— Paul Johnson

Joel PetersonEndowment Campaign Chair

Joel Peterson iscofounder and thewinemaker atRavenswood winery in

Sonoma. Joel is a member and for-mer president of the Sonoma ValleyVintners and Growers Alliance. He isa founding member and formerPresident of Zinfandel Advocates andProducers. Joel is a Senior VicePresident with Constellation Winesand the Centerra Wine Company. He also serves on the Oregon StateUniversity College of Science Boardof Visitors. Joel, his wife, Madeleine,and their son, Galen, are activelyengaged in the Blue Oak experience.

“The endowment willprovide the flexibilitynecessary for theschool to control its

operational direction and pursue itsvaluable progressive educationalagenda. A well funded endowmentis the key to the long term financialstability and sustainability of BlueOak School. Successful execution ofprograms that tend to be chronicallydifficult to fund, which includeenvironmental programs, tuitionsupport, value added programsand general operations, is criticalto the mission of Blue Oak. Anendowment that supports Blue Oakin these areas will make a criticaldifference for the children and provide worthwhile value to thecommunity by maintaining a highvalue educational institution in the Napa Valley.“ — Joel Peterson

A Blue Oak SchoolEducation

Blue Oak School is the firstindependent, non-profit, non-denominational school

in Napa County. The School is avibrant, diverse community wherelearning is an active, joyful processof discovery. Designed to draw outeach child’s innate curiosity, our curriculum inspires students tothink, question, and create.

The School offers a broad, liberalarts curriculum. In grades K-5,homeroom subjects include reading,writing, math, science, history, art,spelling, handwriting and more.Specialists teach music, art, Spanish,drama, and physical education.

Middle School courses include math,science, humanities, Spanish, music,art, physical education, life skills,and electives, as well as a strongadvisory program.

The themes that run throughout thecurriculum are character education,environmental responsibility, use of technology, respect for other cultures, service and community.

“The curriculum begins with the children. It draws on what they already know and what intereststhem. A course of study is created by mixing these factors with the teacher’sknowledge and a sense of what children need to learn.”

Scott DuyanHead of School

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The Curriculum

The faculty at Blue Oak School cooperativelycreates the curriculum. It follows these guiding principles:

•Children “learn by doing.” Children do science, not just read about it. They explore,make hypotheses and test them. They createmathematical models and use them in practicalapplications. They read children’s literature, and write their own stories. They make music.

•The curriculum is child-centered and develop-mentally appropriate. It is tied to children’sneeds and interests. Learning takes place inmeaningful contexts.

•The curriculum builds from a foundation. It draws on what students already know andextends their established base of knowledge.Students connect to new learning and retain the known.

•The curriculum stresses understandingrather than memorization. Students transferlearning to new situations, teach other students,and create. Real understanding occurs when students also see the limitations inherent inwhat they have learned.

•The process of learning is emphasized. Whenprocess is central, there is no need to cheat, noneed for parents to do homework, no need toavoid risks. Risk-taking and an occasional failureare encouraged.

•The curriculum is integrated. Faculty membersblend disciplines to stimulate understandingfrom different viewpoints. Teaching is extendedthrough fiction, music, art, and non-fiction.

•Inquiry is at the heart of the curriculum.Important questions are asked and addressed.

A Blue Oak education follows a path laid out by the whole faculty and summarized in the Curriculum Map. The Map sets out the waypointsfor each student in broad terms—subject by subject and grade level by grade level. TheCurriculum Map is a living document, regularlyassessed and updated by the faculty to ensurethat all skills and topics are addressed in a developmentally appropriate sequence.

Ultimately, it’s about character.A Blue Oak School educationencourages a constellation

of character traits that comprise a fully-realized human being: responsi-bility, compassion, respect, honesty,empathy, integrity, humor, humility,thoughtfulness, curiosity, courage,open-mindedness, resilience, andselflessness.

Blue Oak School is an independentschool—which means that we receiveno state or government funding, nor are we supported by any religiousinstitutions. Our students come fromNapa, Sonoma, and Solano Counties.In order to mirror the make-up of thecommunity in which we teach, theSchool provides generous financialaid. The degree of our commitmentto financial aid sets us apart fromthe great majority of independentschools.

Two areas of inquiry are central to a Blue Oak education: community

and sustainability.

Community We begin teaching about the communities of home and classroom.Children then learn about the widercommunities of school, city and county, state, country, and world inever-expanding circles. They study important elements of community ateach level: tolerance, understanding,inclusiveness, open-mindedness, and compassion. Other pertinentissues are explored, such as the comparison of human communitiesto other biological communities, our place in these ecosystems, andour responsibility for them.

The study of community is both multicultural and global. We striveto represent diversity in our school

population. Board policies, fundingstrategies, hiring, and daily lifereflect not only the diversity of the children, but also expand theknowledge of and empathy for many cultures.

SustainabilityOur curriculum and school cultureaddress broad questions and considerpossible answers in daily routines.What can be learned from history or science that enables us to envisionsustainable human enterprises?What can we learn from our presentcircumstances and future predictionsthat might lead us beyond our presentpreoccupations to responsibility for the world? How can we enableour students to make the kind ofchoices that will lead them not toecological dead-ends but to the kindof growth that can be accommodatedby the planet? What information do they need? What habits of mindmust they have? What skills will

they need to pursue their dreams?

An emphasis on both communityand sustainability leads us to

study connections. Our cur-riculum focuses not only on facts buton the connections between them—the processes, not just the products.

Creative, compassionate teachers whoshare a passion for children, collabo-ration, and building community arenecessary for teaching character.Talented faculty make connections tochildren, and their effect on a child’slife is transformative. We hire andnurture the best faculty available.

We live on a finite planet, yet withseemingly infinite appetites. Childrenwho grow up working cooperativelyand caring about one another areless likely to want everything forthemselves at the expense of others.An education that encourages children to see the big picture andtake the long view will enable themto create a sustainable future.

Blue Oak School sets itself to these essential questions becausethis is important work. From the student’s point of view, it is engagingwork. Supporting children in thedevelopment of their characterthrough a curriculum that inspiresis the best gift we can give them, and their best preparation for a successful future.

Building Character