CAVS in the News
Inland Empire Magazine - September issue - 2007
Upland Woman Founded Carden Arbor View School
Liset Marquez, Staff Writer; Upland/Claremont
City News
Article Launched:11/16/2006
Claudia Humphries of Upland was not pleased with the public school system,
so she decided to start her own school -- Carden Arbor View School in
Upland.
"I had been a public school teacher all my life, teaching at Whittier.
Then, one year I substituted at a Carden school -- Mrs. Carden taught
me that year," she said. "I fell in love with the curriculum,
there was a why to everything, it was not about memorizations to everything."
In October, Carden Arbor View School in Upland celebrated its 25th anniversary.
The private school uses a method developed by Mae Carden, which focuses on the development of the child not just academically; It uses performing arts and focuses on the child's development into a responsible individual, Humphries said.
Humphries had been teaching for more than 10 years when she decided to
open up the school, and she still teaches grammar and history.
But opening the school was not easy. Humphries said she almost lost everything
she owned when she decided to build her own school.
"I thought to myself I can start a school by myself, I'll get a
mortgage on the house," she said.
Which is what she did, and for five years she did not get paid more than
Advertisement$500 a year.
One day, during her daily trip up and down San Antonio Avenue to take
her daughter to preschool, it occurred to Humphries that she might be
able to use empty land adjacent to and owned by Upland Christian Church.
Humphries said she asked the pastor of the church if she could build
a school. In turn, she would let the school use the classroom space on
Sunday for Sunday school. The pastor agreed.
The biggest hurdle was yet to come -- building the classrooms. Humphries
said she met a lot of opposition from the City Council, But after months
of meetings and help from parents interested in the school, she succeeded
in getting the permits to build.
Headmaster Cathy Edwards, who has worked at the school for 24 years,
said she believes the curriculum has been the key to its success.
"We really value small group instruction," she said, pointing
out that the classes max out at 21 students.
Accredited by the state of California as an independent school, there
are 185 students enrolled, 26 faculty members and five staffmembers, who
serve in part-time or full-time positions. Students come from as far away
as Hacienda Heights and Covina to attend, Edwards said.
On just three acres, the school has been able to expand without acquiring
more land. Three buildings have been added in the past 25 years, Humphries
said.
"When we started expanding we really did go up as fast as we could,"
Edwards said.
Edwards said she originally came to the school because she was disappointed
with the public school system.
"I fell in love with the philosophy that every child matters and
with the belief that parents know they will have to volunteer," Edwards
said.
Jackie Muhr, parent and member of the Board of Trustees for Carden Arbor
View School, said the curriculum is developed appropriately for each age
group.
"I was opposed to schools that taught to test, I knew there was
much more to school than tests," she said.
A year after it opened, Edwards said she began teaching junior kindergartners,
which is the equivalent to preschool.
"The Carden curriculum is very well integrated from grade to grade,"
Edwards said. "Everything is deliberately planned in the curriculum,
expectations and milestones will expand to create personal responsibility."
Liset Marquez can be reached at (909) 483-8556 or by e-mail at liset.marquez@dailybulletin.com.
Students hope future city can find peace
By IMANI
TATE
STAFF WRITER
Article Published:
Upland/Claremont City News
Friday, February 4, 2005
With wars waging around the world, fears of terrorism troubling the hearts
of children and adults and personal tragedies dominating news broadcasts,
Carden Arbor View School's Future City Competition teammates imagined
a more utopian existence.
The first thing they considered when preparing for the 13th annual Future
City Competition was the name of their city.
Accepting Claremont youth Scott Zylstra's suggestion, Kevin Sack and Jasneet
Aulakh of Rancho Cucamonga and Aaron Day of Upland agreed to name their
futuristic municipality Terra Pacis (Land of Peace).
Pacis - peace - was the word that stuck out in Scott's mind during their
seventh-grade Latin lessons at the private Upland school. The four young
city planners decided peace would best convey what they wanted to accomplish
for the people who live, work and play in their beach side community.
The name established the mission of the city that won third-place honors
in the regional Future City Competition held Jan. 29 at the California
Science Center.
Jasneet, 13, and 14-year-olds Aaron, Kevin and Scott, all in eighth-grade,
narrowly missed winning second-place in the regional contest against middle
schools in Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Orange, Riverside and San Diego
counties.
"There were 22 points between the first-place regional winner, Martin
Luther King Jr. Middle School in Oceanside, and second-place Stanford
Middle School from Long Beach," said Gerald Blackburn, retired Boeing
Company space projects' manager and Future City's judges' coordinator.
"King joins 36 other regional winners advancing to the national finals
to be held in Washington, D.C., during National Engineers Week, Feb. 20
to 26.
"But there was only one point between Stanford and Carden Arbor View
for second- and third-place honors," Blackburn said.
Carden Arbor View's futuristic foursome was guided by computer technology
teacher Carolyn Zitar and mentored by Michael Del Castillo, a Cal Poly
Pomona engineering senior and substitute teacher/phonics facilitator at
Sultana Elementary School in Ontario.
The Upland team also won the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers
best electrical power system award and second-place for Southern California
Gas Company's energy conservation award.
The 2005 contest was the second-time around for the three boys and they
inadvertently inspired Jasneet's participation this year.
"The Future City kids last year were so actively involved and appeared
to be having so much fun," Jasneet recalled. "They made a presentation
to the whole school at an assembly. It was really dignified. They were
all proper and really knew what they were talking about. They made me
want to join and be a part of that."
Kevin hopes to become an engineer and saw the competition as a wonderful
way to gain hands-on experience in his chosen career.
"This contest makes you think and solve problems," Kevin said.
"You think differently from when you're in a school classroom. It's
more real-life situations."
Aaron agreed, noting "this broadens our awareness of all aspects
of engineering. We get to look at things we'd like to be when we get older
that normally we wouldn't know anything about."
Scott
said he hadn't previously considered the composition of city services,
planning, infrastructure, public safety, health, transportation, energy,
senior and youth recreation, water conservation, educational quality from
preschool to university levels and the effects people and things have
on the environment and natural resources.
When designing and putting together a city, even in an essay or scale
model, "you've gotten to consider everything," Scott said.
They'd all worked on group projects since fourth grade - studies, research
and models for volcanos, the California mission system, marble mazes,
weather instruments, scientific principles and drama skits - but everything
was confined to traditional and classroom learning. However, Future City
allows them to go beyond the walls of the classroom and textbook pages,
they said.
"You've got to have critical-thinking and problem-solving skills,
so you can design things that are practical and possible," Aaron
said.
One of the biggest problems they initially faced was working to proper
scale to create the civic model of Terra Pacis.
"When you're building a golf course, for instance, you cannot build
super-giant hills, lakes and greens," Jasneet said, laughing. "Things
have got to be realistic. It took us awhile to manage scale size."
They didn't let reality, however, interfere with imagination and creativity.
The MagLev, full name Magnetic Levitation, reminded one of the L which
transports Chicago citizens around the midwestern town. The MagLev train
floats, replacing conventional public transit systems. Suspending the
rail system, they thought, would reduce congestion and accidents, be faster
and quieter to lessen noise pollution.
"It's powered by opposing magnets," said Scott, the team's "idea
man."
Residents may also utilize traditional buses, ferries and taxis to get
around town, but they must go subterranean to use express routes. The
freeways of Terra Pacis are all located underground to save space. And
all cars are powered by hydrogen, electrical or solar sources for the
sake of better air quality.
"It's illegal to have a gas car in our city," Aaron declared.
The Future City Competition - nationally sponsored by the National Society
of Professional Engineers and sponsored in Southern California by the
Gas Company in cooperation with a host of public and private sector engineering,
planning, law enforcement, fire services, transportation and corporate
groups.
The adults behind it always inject a critical issue in the overall program.
Past issues have linked Future City to Hillary Rodham Clinton's Mars Millennium
Project, unique ways to satisfy senior citizen services and solutions
for environmental issues.
This year, competition coordinators tossed in the exploration or use of
stone, sand and gravel in creating roadways.
Carden Arbor View teammates "used rubberized asphalt for all of our
paved roadways," Kevin said. "It replaced sand in concrete with
bits of tire rubber. This reduced the need for mining aggregates out of
the Earth and also absorbed sound so the roads are quieter. It's a way
to recycle tires, too."
"And it's cheaper," Jasneet interjected.
Terra Placis' energy sources include solar and hydrogen power and hydro
electrical turbines located in the rivers transversing the city. The water
purification plant removes the salt from ocean water and recycles it for
residential and commercial uses.
In some cases, they centralized services - putting a fire station and
a community center on the same site to consolidate fire prevention/paramedic,
recreational, community education, daycare and senior citizen services
for residents.
To combat future overcrowding, they put lots of schools close to neighborhoods.
This conveniently locates educational facilities near parental homes,
gives students the option of walking to school and reduces traffic congestion.
They wanted residents to have a variety of leisure options, so a botanical
garden, museum, performance arts center, soccer facilities, a World Series
Little League park and beaches for surfing, snorkeling and sunning are
all located in Terra Pacis.
The four students said they learned a lot more than how to build a city.
"I learned you must use team work and you can't always expect things
to be the way you want," Kevin said. "You learn to be flexible."
Scott said cooperative work is a life skill that will help them be successful
in all aspects of their personal lives and professions. Organizing and
planning are also important, he added. "You can't just put a building
in the middle of somewhere," said Kevin, giving an example of the
value of planning.
Aaron discovered the significance of compromise and looking at the big
picture to decide what's best for the most number of people. Jasneet fine-tuned
her research and oral communications' skills.
Farshad Dehbozorgi, 16, is now a junior at Claremont High School and hopes
to become an attorney. He's never forgotten the lessons learned from his
2002 involvement with Carden Arbor View's Future City team.
He's still applying research and public-speaking skills, responsibility
and accountable attendance in his school and community lives.
@Tag:Imani Tate
can be reached by email at i_tate@dailybulletin.com
or by phone at (909) 483-8544.
SimCity - Future City Competition
1530 North San Antonio Ave., Upland, CA 91786
(909) 982-9919 phone (909) 981-3221 fax