A few years ago we encountered a wonderful place for helping school kids with math. Mathnasium had a location in Boca Lyons Plaza (southwest corner of Glades and Lyons), not far from Yokohama Sushi and Steve’s Wood Fired Pizza. We know one family who had a fifth grader struggling with math at grade level. After just a couple months that kid was doing much better and is now two grade levels ahead.
Unfortunately that location closed a couple years ago. In what might be a better spot, nestled in the elbow of the main structure at Westwinds of Boca, between Home Depot and Publix and near a number of restaurants, sits a new Mathnasium of West Boca. It’s fresh and clean and looks great inside.
The previous franchise still has a location just east of Town Center Mall, in the same plaza with Five Guys, Corner Bakery & Cafe, and Hooters:
That “east” location is thriving with a steady flow of kids and great staff and management.
For the West Boca location, it’s early. They’ve only been open less than a week, and it’ll take time for them to scale up to a full roster of students. It’s such a great experience we’re confident they’ll make it. They have bright and energetic leadership in Amy and Harel:
The key to Mathnasium is a curriculum called “number sense.” We would translate that to mean: “Not confusing students with all the nonsense bureaucrats jam into school textbooks and tests.”
Here’s a cute video that explains it a little:
They have several other videos on the Mathnasium Learning Centers YouTube channel.
One we remember from a few years ago is this tear-jerker giving the history of how Mathnasium came about:
Also helpful is their model. They aim to have no more than three kids per teacher and kids get a lot of one-on-one time because of that setup.
Like the east location the walls are full of cute math graphics and quotes:
For more on the Mathnasium approach, a pdf of their Welcome Pack is below:
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Category: Schools
Foster Phones at West Boca High
This happened yesterday. We held off publication so as not to ruin the surprise and to get the above photo. The details were provided to us by AT&T who confirmed the grandmother’s consent to release this information about the girls.
As part of a $300,000 contribution from AT&T, three Palm Beach County sisters – 15 year-old sophomore twins and a 17-year-old senior – will be surprised with smartphones this Wednesday at West Boca High. The smartphones will provide the students with access to the Internet for their studies and communication with their graduation coaches.
The sisters are among 50 Palm Beach County high school students in foster care to receive smartphones, one-on-one graduation coaches, academic enrichment, and participation in small learning communities as part of the Grounded for Life program. Grounded for Life is a collaborative initiative of ChildNet and the Best Foot Forward Foundation funded by AT&T Aspire, AT&T’s education initiative focused on school success and career readiness.
Ninety-five percent of youth leaving the foster Care system do not have their high school diploma. The Grounded for Life program is a comprehensive intervention to improve foster care youth’s engagement in learning and in high school through relationship building, mentoring, problem solving and persistence.
ChildNet was among 30 recipients selected from 1,100 applicants nationwide to share in nearly $12.5 million from AT&T. ChildNet is the Community Based Care (CBC) lead agency in Broward and Palm Beach counties, managing the local system of services and supports for the most vulnerable children. Its mission is to protect abused, abandoned and neglected children. The Best Foot Forward Foundation is the only nonprofit organization in Palm Beach County dedicated to the educational success of youth who have been abused, neglected or abandoned and have entered the foster care system.
Omni Middle School FCCLA Scores
Omni Middle School FCCLA Scores with Talent and Service
FCCLA stands for Family, Career and Community Leaders of America. It is a national organization with family as its focus that encourages students to give back to their community and build leadership skills.
Omni Middle School FCCLA recently participated in a district competition where students made banners, t-shirts and posters, which were judged for their creativity, construction, design, and theme presentation. Omni Middle School took first place in two contests and second place in the third.
Winning first place in the banner contest were Samantha Spoonhoward, Nicole Tesmond, Kasey Michaud, Victoria Kwong, Gayoung Choi, and Zoeya Cowles. Winning first place in the t-shirt contest were Kasandra Diaz, Ana Montoya, Aaleyah Diaz, Fabiana Sanchez, Camilla DeFilippi, and Jayla Tanelus. Second place winners for the poster contest were Valerie Kwong and Nicholas Lee.
Omni Middle School students also performed the flag ceremony during the event which took place on November 5, 2014 at the Cooperative Extension Service in West Palm Beach, Florida. Omni Middle School FCCLA received two other awards: Largest Middle School Affiliated Membership and Largest Middle School in Attendance.
During the FCCLA District Meeting students participated in a leadership game, held district elections, and planned community service activities. Brandon Arnone and Lauren Victoria did a spectacular job emceeing. Leah Brand sang beautifully and Anilyse Daniel danced impressively for the talent portion!
On Friday, November 7, 2014 a few Omni FCCLA students went to a local elementary school carnival at Morikami Park Elementary School. Samantha, Nicole and Valerie volunteered from 4:10pm to 7:10pm, and were supervising some of the games, such as bounce house twister and baseball hitting. Morikami PTSA was very appreciative. FCCLA is currently spearheading a food drive and has a beach clean-up planned.
Some members in our chapter expressed what FCCLA means to them. “FCCLA is a leadership club to help us accomplish goals, to achieve hard work, and enhance leadership skills.” said Kasey Michaud. “I think that the meaning of FCCLA is learning to work to the best of your abilities to perform your duties, which strengthens leadership skills. FCCLA is a very good club because it helps kids socialize with other people as we spend time in someone else’s shoes while performing community service.” said Aaleyah Diaz. “FCCLA means to me that we will help people and become great leaders in the future. I want to help people be happy and help others to give back to their community. FCCLA is great,” said Fabiana Sanchez.
This article and the photos were submitted to us by staff at Omni Middle School.
Temple Hires Convicted Felon To Teach Kids?
Update: Congregation B’Nai Israel has issued a statement regarding this incident
Statement from Sharon Wagman
Executive Director
Congregation B’nai Israel
Prior to Judy Schelin’s employment in the infant program at Congregation B’nai Israel, she underwent a background check administered by the Florida Department of Children and Families and the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office. This is the standard employee policy for Congregation B’nai Israel for all teachers and teaching assistants in our Pre-School and Religious School. In both cases, she was cleared with: “A check of this agency’s records failed to indicate an arrest history for this person.” (Background check documents attached). This means she was cleared by the State to work on our campus. In addition, Ms. Schelin signed a document in which she attested, under the penalty of perjury, that she has never been fined or the subject of a disciplinary action.
Months into her job, she alluded to past legal issues, but did not disclose a felony conviction.
The welfare and education of our children is of the upmost concern and our top priority, and Ms. Schelin’s care of the infants in our program was superb. Ms. Schelin did not at any point have access to school funds, nor was her salary impacted by VPK funds, as she worked in CBI’s infant program (children ages six weeks to two years).
However, in further review of her background and concealment of her conviction, Ms. Schelin has been terminated from CBI effective immediately.
The release included documents from both the state Department of Children and Families as well as the county sheriff supporting that they did a background check and that it was clear.
West Boca’s Congregation B’Nai Israel is in the center of controversy after our friends at Boca News Now alleged that they are employing a convicted felon as a teacher. Two readers contacted us about it.
Back in 2010 a woman named Judy Perlin pled guilty to accepting $40,000 in bribes while running a youth education program. Not long after that the Palm Beach Post reported Ms. Perlin continued to receive a lot of federal and state money while running day cares serving kids in Broward.
Now Boca News Now says that Ms. Perlin is working at B’Nai Israel under the name Scherlin (which might be her maiden name). We called the temple to see what they had to say and we got a quick “No Comment.”
After that call we heard from an irate reader who self-described as a member of CBI Boca and asserted that the management at CBI knew about Ms. Perlin/Scherlin’s history and hired her anyway.
Please note that, mainly because of CBI’s “No Comment” response, we are unable to verify that the woman working at CBI is in fact Judy Perlin. But we do have more than one source saying it is her.
Ms. Perlin is listed on the property appraiser’s website as co-owner of a home in Boca Grove.
This is the second recent controversial incident involving CBI. A couple months ago one of their former maintenance workers was arrested on child pornography charges. At that time: “The school also said all employees and permanent vendors must pass a full background check before they’re allowed to work on campus.”
Considering that statement we wonder how Ms. Perlin/Scherlin managed to pass a background check.
Straight A's for High Schools in West Boca
The school grades are in for high schools and West Boca did well. Out of 524 high schools in the state that were graded, Spanish River High was #50 on the list with West Boca at #84 and Olympic Heights at #111. Boca High, which serves some West Boca families, did even better at #24.
The numbers for our local schools are actually better than they appear. Many of the highly ranked schools on the list are specialty magnet or charter schools, such as Suncoast (7) and Dreyfoos (10). Most or all of the students in these schools get in through a competitive process and so they have few weak students to bring their scores down. Our West Boca high schools are all open and take everyone in their zoned districts. The #1 school on the list is the Pine View School in Sarasota, which is an all-gifted program. #2 and #3 are choice programs in Brevard that only admit students who consistently meet standards on the same tests that drive the scores in this system.
Within Palm Beach County, the two schools at the top (Suncoast and Dreyfoos) are both magnet schools. Leaving such programs out, Boca High and Spanish River are the top two in the county. Other regular high schools that posted top scores in the county include Jupiter High, Park Vista (Lake Worth), West Boca and Wellington.
One interesting note is that Atlantic High ended up with a higher overall score than Olympic Heights even though OH had better test scores, particularly in reading.
Two spreadsheets are below, first for Palm Beach and Broward counties, and then for the whole state. They are based on the main spreadsheet from the state database, but with some edits to highlight Palm Beach County and West Boca schools.
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