More information about this region's service-learning programs can be found by contacting the following local educational agencies:
Humboldt County
Eureka City School District
Eureka City Schools (ECS) serves 5,000 kindergarten through grade twelve students, offers a rich variety of educational opportunities that are unparalleled in the region, and has the most diverse population in the area. Eureka is located 250 miles north of the San Francisco Bay Area, where students are in an island economy, isolated from a world that demands skills to enter the international market.
Guided by a mission statement and organized within a strategic context, the ECS governing board has a policy for the wide institutionalization of service-learning. The district’s Project Serve supports service-learning as a curricular, cocurricular, and extracurricular experience that connects students across the school and community with the benefits of civic engagement and responsibility. Project Serve provides all of the schools within ECS and five feeder districts with the resources to develop high-quality service-learning activities designed to meet or exceed state academic content standards. Project Serve has been in existence since 1993 and is poised to become a new leader for California as well as a national model that demonstrates the importance of sustaining service-learning practices with continuous support and funding.
Through high-quality service-learning activities, students solve problems, document progress, and present their results through the use of technology and other tools. Students also mentor each other, develop accountability, and acquire ownership of the learning process. The tenets of Project Serve include putting students in charge, requiring them to help others, and enabling diverse students to serve and study together.
Project Serve’s numerous linkages with community agencies and higher education support its schoolwide implementation by providing a regional model, which has been honed over time. A Local Evaluation Team informs the governing board and the project’s Advisory Committee as it evaluates the benefits of service-learning for students, teachers, schools, and the community and monitors progress toward districtwide institutionalization of the program. Project Serve’s model demonstrates to other districts how evaluation processes can institutionalize academic practices through the use of service-learning results that indicate student success.
With 14 years of experience in supporting a school that received the National Service-Learning Leader School Award in 2000 and two Golden Bell Awards in 1999 and 2005, Project Serve is ideally suited to promote the integration of service-learning into the curriculum at all local schools. Project Serve is an outstanding model of service-learning for the state and an example to the federal government of why it is important to continue this program’s long-term funding
Contact Information:
Eureka City School District
2100 J Street
Eureka, CA 95501
Coordinator: Rick Jordan
Phone: 707-441-2262
Fax: 707-445-1956
jordanr@eurekacityschools.org
Jacoby Creek Charter School District
The Jacoby Creek Charter School District (JCCSD) is a one-school district that serves 419 students in kindergarten through eighth grades. The district is located in the unincorporated village of Bayside, a rural community adjacent to Arcata, which is a city of 15,000 people located on California’s northern coast, 300 miles north of San Francisco.
The JCCSD uses project-based learning, community service models, and service-learning models. The goal of this community-based, student-centered program is to provide a clear school vision that supports California’s standards and assessments, demonstrates accountability by highlighting students’ achievement and school success, and integrates community service and civic responsibility into the curriculum.
The JCCSD service-learning initiative, "Community, live in it, learn from it, and give to it," develops and maintains a learning atmosphere that promotes high academic achievement and enhances the social, civic, cultural, and personal development of all students. The district’s goal is to foster strong partnerships that promote becoming an integral part of community development. The district seeks to create a feeling of connection, a sense of commitment, and a shared purpose among faculty members, students, parents, and members of the community. The district has gained strong support for its service-learning initiative. Each child who graduates from JCCSD is offered at least one service-learning experience per grade level. The service-learning school policy was adopted in May 2004.
The district successfully implemented 20 high-quality projects in 2005–06. Environmental issues have been identified as a critical community need, and such projects as dune restoration, salmon rearing, watershed restoration, water-quality sampling, and waste and energy reduction address these needs. Other projects address developing intergenerational relationships, caring for animals in captivity and in the wild, growing and donating food for the hungry, and assisting the Water Safety Coalition by creating water safety public service announcements. The initiative is vigorously supported by the district and the community, as evidenced by more than 80 established partnerships, which include Humboldt State University and the City of Arcata. Numerous local, state, and non-profit agencies provide invaluable opportunities through which students and community members demonstrate that learning and serving together benefit both individuals and the community.
The advisory and evaluation committees work to develop policies and assessment strategies for projects that enhance a student’s natural desire to learn while helping others and meeting needs throughout the community.
Contact Information:
Jacoby Creek Charter School District
3616 Edgewood Road
Eureka, CA 95501
Phone: 707-442-6130
Fax: 707-822-4896
