BUENA PARK, CA – Jamboree Housing Corporation announced today that it has partnered with the Buena Park School District to help advance the district’s K-6 digital learning initiative, “Classrooms without Walls,” which will provide students with IPads and associated instruction to access the growing universe of online educational materials and experiences.
Jamboree, which is developing Clark Commons, the apartment community across the street from Mabel L. Pendleton Elementary School, has offered to support the initiative with meeting areas and digital connectivity services that it will make available to the elementary school as part of the company’s community impact programming. Jamboree is in the process of building the 70-unit affordable apartment property in partnership with the city of Buena Park on a 1.94-acre site that is within a larger mixed-use community being developed by City Ventures.
Laura Archuleta, Jamboree President, said the connection with Mabel L. Pendleton Elementary School is one of several steps the company is taking in Buena Park and in other communities in which it owns or is developing apartment communities to share its social, education and health enhancing programs with the surrounding community.
“Jamboree’s mission is to deliver high quality affordable housing and services that transform lives and strengthen communities,” said Archuleta. With housing as a platform, she pointed out that Jamboree’s community impact programming focuses on services that contribute to the physical, economic and social well being of residents. “We achieve this by offering meaningful educational and healthy lifestyle support to both our residents and to people who live in the surrounding neighborhoods,” explained Archuleta. ”This partnership with the Buena Park School District and Mabel L. Pendleton Elementary School will serve as a model for advancing our community impact initiative in other communities throughout California.”
As part of the Model Innovation City Initiative, Buena Park School District Superintendent Greg Magnuson said “Classrooms Without Walls” is a free and innovative platform, available in both English and Spanish, for the school district’s digital learning curriculum. The program utilizes such programs as Footsteps2Brilliance™ with access via smartphones, tablets and computers, moving Buena Park’s students and community towards the goal of reading proficiency by third grade. This transformative literacy effort also supports the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence, he noted.
A foundation for the district’s Early Learning Literacy Program, Footsteps2Brilliance™ is the creator of an early learning mobile technology methodology that enables Buena Park to provide libraries of eBooks and educational games free of charge to every family with pre-K through third grade students who reside within the Buena Park zip code and service areas.
Magnuson said Jamboree is the first developer active in Buena Park to step forward to assist the school district in implementing the pilot program. “The timing of Jamboree’s outreach efforts to implement this initiative with us, especially as this early stage, could not be better,” he said. “We appreciate Jamboree’s engagement with the school district and Mabel L. Pendleton Elementary School and we look forward to working together to advance this pioneering learning experience.”
The school district will provide fourth through sixth grade students with some 4,900 iPads that they can take home to replace textbooks and provide access to multiple learning resources. Five hundred of these iPads will be at Mabel L. Pendleton Elementary. K-3 students will have access to IPads in school only.
Renee Jeffrey, principal of Mabel L. Pendleton Elementary, said the “Classrooms Without Walls” at her school will benefit from Jamboree’s partnership by providing additional space to students as well as expanded digital connectivity to augment the school’s facilities. “Clark Commons will provide valuable space for learning and digital tools, as well as other activities that will support our initiative and help elementary students take full advantage of the ‘Classroom without Walls,’” she explained.
Once construction of Clark Commons is completed next year, George Searcy, Jamboree Vice President of Community Impact, said the company will provide multipurpose rooms within the property’s 3,000-square-foot community center for students from Mabel L. Pendleton Elementary and other local schools to use the facility and its Internet and Wi-Fi connections for homework and other learning activities. He said as many as 60 elementary-aged children are expected to live at Clark Commons and attend Pendleton Elementary.
Searcy said the school will have full access to the Clark Commons community center and its iPads and Jamboree will provide after-school tutoring by volunteers from California State University Fullerton, as well as enrichment reading programs, parent education classes, and other supportive services. Along with the education support, Jamboree’s onsite resident services coordinators will provide such programming as resume skills, computer classes, and health and nutrition education.
“We want to do our part to assist the Buena Park School District with its ‘Classrooms Without Walls’ initiative while also establishing deeper roots in the community to share our resident services programming on a larger scale,” explained Searcy. “Our advances here will help to shape and inform our community impact efforts in other cities and counties where we have a presence.”
The second workforce housing property that Jamboree has developed in Buena Park, Clark Commons will include 11 one-bedroom, 37-two bedroom, and 22 three-bedroom apartments in a four-story structure built over a concrete podium deck for parking and a recreation area. The entirely smoke-free property that is designed to achieve a Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED) for Homes Silver rating features the community center, laundry facility, fitness and technology amenities, outdoor dining and play areas, and a neighborhood park.
About Jamboree: Founded in 1990 and celebrating its 25th anniversary, Irvine, CA-headquartered Jamboree Housing Corporation is an award-winning, broad-based nonprofit housing company that develops, acquires, renovates and manages permanently affordable rental and ownership housing throughout California for working families, seniors and people with special needs. A leading community development organization, Jamboree is committed to sustaining excellence with high quality affordable housing that benefits the environment, the economy and local communities. It currently has $300 million in affordable housing projects in its development pipeline and a $1.1 billion asset portfolio that includes the development of and/or ownership interest in more than 7,500 homes in more than 75 California communities. Currently, Jamboree’s Community Impact Group offers resident services that foster learning, health and community building at 35 Jamboree communities with designated staff at each location. For more information, visit jamboreehousing.com.