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Mission: Founded in 1980 by a group of passionate parents, south pasadena educational foundation (spef) is dedicated to promoting educational excellence in the south pasadena unified school district through various fundraising and enrichment programs. Administered by a volunteer board of directors composed of parents, community members and business leaders, spef provides much needed support to the students in south pasadena in all educational areas including academics, curriculum and technology, library services and support, visual and performing arts, science, character building education, counseling services, and athletics. Donations to spef support south pasadena's five public schools: arroyo vista elementary, marengo elementary, monterey hills elementary, south pasadena middle school, and south pasadena high school. Since its inception, spef has raised close to ten million dollars to restore and enrich educational programs beyond that which the school district is able to fund.
Programs: Grants to the south pasadena unified school district provide additional equipment and materials for the benefit of all students enrolled in the district. Through spef's major grants committee, spef will continue to help fund the district's initiative to improve campus-wide student socio-emotional health through teacher training on positive behavior reinforcement, promotion of self-regulation techniques, and greater use of small group peer counseling for students that need support. Spef also funded the launch science curriculum for $100,000 to bring the next generation science standards and new science curriculum into the elementary classes.
spef runs afterschool enrichment classes, the annual 5th grade musical, summer school and summer camps. The spef summer school serves over 2,000 children from kindergarten to 12th grade. Our annual 5th grade musical brings 5th graders from all three elementary schools together to learn about and perform a musical for the entire community. Spef's basketball & leadership skills camp is an annual camp in we collaborate with a. C. Green to bring his coaches and curriculum to the south pasadena summer camps and work with students. In addition to teaching and developing basketball skills, the camp provides an environment promoting character and confidence building for the students who participate.
the teacher direct grants allow teachers and support staff to apply for grants up to $4,500 to implement unique programs in their classrooms, helping them enhance the curriculum to meet the needs of all students and ignite curiosity. Teacher direct grants affect all curriculums, such as science with juice for juice chemistry grant and the femineers, engineering for females grant, learning to code with our ozobots grant and, literacy and music with the music touches everybody library grant. Standing desks were purchased to improve learning opportunities in the classrooms for students with adhd and the kindergarten imaginations were encouraged with the imagination playground grant.