Our History
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RCP started because of three caring individuals |
Inspired to help students in East Palo Alto and eastern Menlo Park, three local mothers, Ann Carter, Sharon Purcell and Carol Chalmers, founded an organization in 2008 and decided to call it "All Students Matter" (our original name) to reflect their belief that every student deserves a quality education no matter what neighborhood they live in.
With a small group of friends they started volunteering in several classrooms at Belle Haven elementary school. |
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Volunteers make our community stronger |
We have increased our presence in the Ravenswood district every year since our inception and currently have almost 200 trained tutors. Our volunteers tutor for an average of 3 years, often supporting the same teacher.
Over the years, the addition and expansion of an all-volunteer leadership team enabled us to sustain the growth and continue to add high quality programming. |
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Executive Director
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Carolyn Blatman joined the founders volunteering in the classroom and quickly became the organization’s first Executive Director with a vision to improve the program and expand its reach in Ravenswood from serving one school in several grades to serving TK-5th grade on all elementary school campuses. She served for 10 years and helped transform our organization into a true partner in the school district with a corps of well-trained and passionate volunteers.
Angie Holman has been our Executive Director since 2019. She has built a strong relationship with the school district as they transitioned to new leadership and new strategies. She guided RCP through program modifications as we became a vital part of the district's tiered support for students and as they dealt with remote learning during the pandemic, revamped their English Language Arts curriculum for the high-dosage tutoring, increased their emphasis on phonics so important as part of the "science of reading" approach. |
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Always meeting district priorities |
Our approach is to align with the district's priorities and curriculum. Our program has always had an emphasis on building students' literacy skills:
We also support the district with other needs such as online tutoring during the covid pandemic, helping prepare computers/iPads for distribution to students, English language proficiency testing, covid testing and much more. |
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A new name,
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In the fall of 2021, we became Ravenswood Classroom Partners. Our new name reflects what we do best -- partnering with Ravenswood teachers in the classroom for student success.
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