Logan Growing Its Own Apple Program

Mike Mattoon’s classroom is open to parents.

In fact, he expects them to come in and work, just like their kids.

And parents like Marla Langley, who spent Tuesday morning grading math papers, don’t mind.

The classroom is one of three APPLE it’s an acronym for Alternative Parent Participation Learning Experience - classes at Logan Elementary. The APPLE program was pioneered over the past 20 years by teachers, parents and students at Franklin and Garfield Elementary schools.

Last year school district officials started a third APPLE class at Logan to provide space for students on waiting lists for the other two programs.

Now the Logan APPLE program is looking for students - and their parents, or course - to apply for next year’s class. Families from anywhere in the Spokane School District can participate in the Logan classes.

Being only a year old, the Logan APPLE program is just getting established. Mattoon and two other teachers are working with committees of parents to make Logan’s program as exciting as the older APPLE programs.

Parent participation makes APPLE classrooms different from regular classrooms. Each school year APPLE parents agree to spend 90 hours helping with the class, serving on committees and driving students to field trips.

Mattoon keeps a calendar of his lesson plans so parents can decide what they want to help with. Parents can also take work from a basket filled with papers to grade.

“You take in the science centers, the computer classes and the cooking lesson, and there’s no way one teacher can do all that,” Mattoon said. “These students get it because of their parents.”

On Tuesday morning, while Langley graded math tests, two other parents prowled around Mattoon’s room. While Mattoon lectured, the two moms helped students.

Special programs, such as a science unit to prepare students for a trip to the Turnbull Wildlife Refuge, are designed and written by parents. First- and second-graders are learning Cantonese from Anda Hsu, the mother of one of their classmates.

Field trips, like one to a mine in Idaho last fall, became possible because there were parents available to drive the cars and supervise, Mattoon said.

“In APPLE there are 50 adults working on one thing instead of one teacher working on 50 things,” fifthgrader Will Phillips said.

Earth Day is in the bag

North Side elementary school students are working on some bag art in preparation for Earth Day on April 22, said Rick Leon of the Sierra Club.

Northpointe Safeway is sponsoring an art contest for students. For the next two weeks students will draw environmental designs on grocery bags. Then the bags will go on display at the store.

On Earth Day itself, customers will carry groceries out in the bags that were decorated by students.

Frozen in time

Shiloh Hills Elementary’s 90 fourth-graders will be frozen in time tonight.

Beginning at 7 p.m., the kids will pretend to be wax statues of historic people, teacher Joann Harmon said.

“We line them up and down the hallways,” Harmon said. “The kids pretend to be wax statues that come alive when their hands are touched.”

Students are playing such characters as Christopher Columbus, Jackie Robinson and Martin Luther King Jr. The students have written short speeches that those people might have made about themselves.

Cartoon carnival

Madison Elementary’s parentteacher organization is hosting its annual carnival from 3 to 7 p.m. March 25.

It will be held in the northwest corner of Franklin Park. Most games, including the cake walk, the goldfish toss, cork-gun shots and the wheel of fortune, cost 25 cents to play.

In past years the proceeds from this event have been used to upgrade Madison’s computers and buy new physical education equipment.

MEMO: Education Notebook is a regular feature of the North Side Voice. If you have news about an interesting program or activity at a North Side school or about the achievements of North Side students, teachers or school staff, please let us know. Write: Education Notebook, North Side Voice, P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210. Call: 459-5484. Fax: 459-5482.