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 grew from those several classrooms at one school to supporting all Transitional Kindergarten to 5th grade classrooms at all elementary school campuses. We currently have tutors at Belle Haven School and Costaño School for the Arts.
Our volunteers tutor with RCP for an average of 3 years, often supporting the same teacher. Over the years, the creation and expansion of an all-volunteer leadership team enabled us to sustain the growth and continue to add high quality programming tailored to meet the changing needs and new curriculum in the school district. |
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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 and increased their emphasis on phonics which is an important as part of the "science of reading" approach to teaching literacy. |
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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, book/holiday gift give aways 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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