California is currently facing as shortage of qualified teachers – including special education teachers – according to an article printed in September on US News on NBCNews.com.

The article cited a report, “Greatness by Design” released by the California Department of Education in September – a report designed to help improve how teachers are recruited, trained and mentored – that states “there are still shortages of qualified teachers in fields such as special education.”

Dr. Pia Wong, department chair for the Department of Teaching Credentials and professor at California State University Sacramento, says one reason for the shortage is teachers retiring without anyone to fill their positions. “When you look at the average age of teachers in special (education) and general education, it’s an aging population,” she explains. “Based on when people typically do retire or can retire, we know in the next 10 years we’re going to see very high numbers of retirement.”

Another reason, says Dr. Wong, is a growth in the population of students who qualify for special education services due to better diagnostic processes. “Because we have better tools for understanding the special needs that students have, there’s more students that are identified and therefore that creates a need for special programs, special classes, specialized teachers,” she says.

So what does this mean for Sacramento?

Inclusion Practice at SCUSD

In Sacramento City Unified School District, Director of Special Education Becky Bryant says there’s not a shortage of special education teachers overall, but there is a shortage in certain types of special education specialties, such as speech and language pathologists and occupational therapists.

Overall, Bryant says the amount of special education teachers they have is cyclical and will depend on the number of retirees they have each year and if there are new teachers coming to replace them. “Because Sacramento is the capitol, we have a lot of people that kind of move in and out because they have to relocate or something,” she adds.

According to Bryant, SCUSD employs 260 special education teachers and serves 88 schools plus charter schools. She says there are resource specialist programs at all school sites, and throughout the district there are special day programs.

Bryant says SCUSD is in the third year of implementation of an Inclusive Practice program at six schools in the district – C.K. McClatchy High School, California Middle School, Sutterville Elementary, Oak Ridge Elementary, Leataata Floyd Elementary, and Caleb Greenwood K-8 School. Through this model, says Bryant, students who would have been in a traditional special day class setting are now in general education, and the general educator and special education teacher co-teach together to provide instruction to all students in the classroom.

According to Bryant, Inclusive Practice helps teach students skills they will need when they become adults and enter into a diverse society, and it allows all students to learn together and be part of a community. “It’s not about singling out students with disabilities and sending them somewhere else,” she adds.

Special Programs & Inclusion at SJUSD

Over at San Juan Unified School District (SJUSD), Dayle Cantrall, program manager for special education, believes that special education is a growing need because there is not always a pool of credentialed teachers at the ready to fill any holes they may have. “When we have credentialed teachers, they usually end up in a job and they stay – they don’t face layoffs like general education teachers do, they’re always in high demand,” she adds.

According to Cantrall, SJUSD currently employs 307 special education teachers, including speech therapists and adaptive PE teachers. She says there is at a minimum a half-time resource teacher at every school site, and some high schools have upwards to nine special education teachers at a school site. And special education students range from those that need speech therapy to specialized programs for severe autism and the deaf and hard-of-hearing.

Cantrall says recent changes in special education programs at SJUSD include specialized programming for severe autism students and a new transition center for kids ages 18-22 this year.

Additionally, there are specialized inclusion programs from elementary through high school on a few campuses in the district, says Cantrall. “We have support built into the particular campuses, including increased number of instructional assistants,” she explains. Plus some campuses also have the capability for a special education student to attend the same school as their brothers and sisters through the support of “roving inclusion teachers” and resources teachers.

What It Takes

To help ensure there are qualified special education teachers for California schools, Dr. Wong says one thing CSUS has done is advocate for an admission cycle for the special education credential program every semester. Additionally, faculty has been active in securing grants from the federal government to help candidates interested in pursuing the special education credential.

For those considering becoming certified to become a special education teacher, Dr. Wong suggests they look into it by doing some research and visiting some classrooms. “I think people may have certain preconceptions about what it means to teach students with special needs,” she explains. “I think if they were to visit some classrooms, they would really see some positive, exciting things happen and maybe find it’s something that attracts them.”

Bryant says they look to hire special education teachers who have a passion for kids in general, and a passion to work with students with disabilities. “(We look for) people who have a clear understanding of how to manage a classroom, how to motivate kids, and who are really willing to work on creating relationships with kids,” she adds.

And Cantrall says if you have a calling to work with at-risk kids, you’re not afraid to collaborate, think outside the box, and do what’s needed to meet the best interests of that child’s needs – go for it. “We need people in special education who are not only dedicated to kids, but dedicated to paving the way so those kids can continue to learn in the least restrictive environment possible,” she says.

Jim Ford stands with some of his art pieces during one of his recent shows. Photo by Lance Armstrong

Editor’s Note: This is the second article in a two-part series about Land Park native and Ford’s Real Hamburgers founder Jim Ford.

Jim Ford, founder of the recently closed Ford’s Real Hamburgers at 1948 Sutterville Road, sat down last week to discuss one of the greatest loves of his life – art.
This love of art, Ford explained, began when he was about 5 years old.
“My love of art began when I was attending Crocker Elementary School on Vallejo Way, next to California Junior High School (now California Middle School), which I also attended,” Ford said. “I just gravitated naturally toward art, because I liked it, and I excelled in it, because of the deep interest (in art) I developed.”
Ford, who has spent the majority of his life residing in the Land Park area, said that he was not the first artist in his family.
“My father (John Dewey Ford), who was born in Sacramento on March 12, 1898, was a furniture maker and refinisher for Breuner’s department store and later for Scofield’s (department store),” said Ford, who resides in South Land Park with his wife, Karen DeVoe, who he married in 1993.
While attending California Junior High, Ford, whose childhood home was at 1824 3rd Ave., began taking art and mechanical drafting classes.
He excelled in these subjects through his time as a student at C. K. McClatchy High School and Sacramento City College.
And while attending McClatchy, he was in charge of the school’s advertising committee during his sophomore, junior and senior years.

During the late 1960s, Jim Ford was the artist for posters and handbills for 10 Northern California rock concerts. Shown above is his first artistic rock image for a concert at the Governor’s Hall in Sacramento. Photo by Lance Armstrong

In recalling his involvement in this committee, Ford, who was also president of McClatchy’s Art Club during his senior year in 1962, said, “The committee was my favorite non-class. I got to paint signs and banners and it was just a lot of fun.”
One of Ford’s earliest major artistic achievements occurred while he was attending city college in 1963.
A collage piece that he had created for the school’s color and design class was selected for the inside front and back covers of the school’s 1964 Pioneer yearbook.
Ford spent several years in the 1960s moving back and forth between Sacramento and Aspen, Colo.
During this time in Aspen, Ford, who described himself as having been a “ski bum,” held a variety jobs from a waiter, a busboy and a donut cook to a janitor, a maid and a bellman.
Ford became the city draftsman for the city of Aspen in 1964.
A year later, Ford joined the Air Force Reserve, and after spending six weeks in basic training in San Antonio, he transferred to McClellan Air Force Base to serve his six-month term of active duty.
After this service, Ford returned to his draftsman job in Aspen.
In 1966, he was accepted to the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles.
After spending only a few weeks at this prestigious art college, which was established in 1930 and is now located in Pasadena, Ford returned to Sacramento and enrolled at city college.
Ford said that he dropped out of college in 1967 to pursue an artistic venture.
“I coerced my friends, the Schultze brothers, into promoting a concert with three bands at the Governor’s Hall,” Ford said. “I named it Simultaneous Avalanche of Psychedelic Lights. Featured at the show were the local bands, Parish Hall Blues, Working Class and Free Love, and our light show. We drove a 1956 Dodge Town Wagon with a permanent sun deck onto the wooden floor at Governor’s Hall and then projected wild, colorful, psychedelic lighting on three walls from the sun deck platform.”
To promote this May 12, 1967 show, Ford created artistic advertising posters and handbills.
Ford would eventually gain more exposure through his art during this experimental counterculture era of the 1960s, as he left Simultaneous Avalanche to Tom and Rick Schultze and concentrated on creating more concert advertising posters and handbills.
His next concert advertising posters and handbills were for the Grateful Dead/The Creators shows, which were held at Kings Beach, Calif. on Aug. 25-26, 1967.
Altogether, Ford was the artist for 10 images for concert posters and handbills.
These concerts also included the Pop Music Festival featuring Jefferson Airplane at Hughes Stadium on Oct. 15, 1967 and performances by The Jimi Hendrix Experience and The Creators at the Sacramento State men’s gym on Feb. 8, 1968.
Although Ford had created a niche for himself as a concert poster and handbill artist, he eventually left Sacramento to return to Aspen after he was asked to continue his city draftsman position.
Along with his city draftsman position, Ford worked as a freelance graphic artist and photographer.
In 1970, Ford was offered a full-time graphic artist and illustrator position with the Studio Three advertising agency, which was owned by Norm Clasen and later became known as the Norm Clasen and Associates.
After accepting this position, Ford worked for Clasen for nine years.
The most notable of the many projects that Ford created for Studio Three was his series of Aspen ski town art, which was used for the advertising campaign for the Aspen Skiing Corporation for two seasons and became the logo for the city of Aspen for more than a decade.

Jim Ford was the artist for this well-known Aspen, Colo. ski town scene, which he drew and colored in 1972. Photo by Lance Armstrong

During this same time, Ford also worked as the public announcer for many major sporting and in-town events, one of which was the Nations World Series of Skiing with the notable sportscaster Brent Musberger.
In 1977 through 1981, Ford designed and built homes in the Aspen area, after which time he returned to Sacramento and continued acquiring graphic design work.
Ford moved to Sloughhouse in 1983 and became involved in a major project of drawing scenes of 13 different areas of Sacramento and other parts of Northern California.
These drawings received much press and his limited edition prints of these scenes were purchased by Weinstock’s and Macy’s department stores in Sacramento.
Ford was once again residing in Aspen in 1985 and 1986.
A year later, as presented in the first article of this series, Ford, who was then residing in Sacramento, founded Ford’s Real Hamburgers.
After selling his restaurant in 1991, Ford continued to design logos, draw architectural plans and pursue his dream of manufacturing a removable rack for pickup trucks.
It was also during that time that he owned a 1962 Piper Cherokee 160 airplane and enjoyed flying to various small airports around the Sacramento Valley.
In 2004, Ford was the facilitator and project manager of a $5 million water treatment plant in Marysville.
Most recently, he has devoted much of his time to creating welded metal art featuring fish and birds and exhibiting his works at fine art festivals and fairs.
Ford said that he has enjoyed the many artistic-related activities of his life and that he looks forward to his future endeavors as an artist.
“My life has been full of wonderful achievements and projects and I look forward to new challenges in the art and design world, wherever they may fall,” Ford said.

California Middle School was the recipient of a generous gift over the winter holidays.

CAL MIDDLE SCHOOL Athletic Director David Carson with the school’s new lockers. The boy’s locker room in the school gym had not been refurbished for over 50 years. / Valley Community Newspapers photo, Stuart King

While students and staff had two weeks off, the boy’s gym locker room received a $13,000 facelift in honor of John Peyton Spurlock, who attended Cal Middle School in 1952.

It has been twenty years since John Spurlock passed away and his children; Katie, Bob and Dave wanted to remember their father’s warm and generous spirit with a gift to the school. John’s two grandsons also attended Cal Middle School.

“My dad was not enthusiastic academically but was passionate about sports, particularly baseball,” Katie Spurlock said. “He thought there was nothing better than the experience of being on a team where everybody encouraged each other to do their best and have fun.”

Bob said the idea of the gift came up in a discussion last October – the 20th anniversary of their father’s passing. They all agreed their dad took great joy in being around young people and their activities. As they discussed the idea of a gift, Bob said certain things bubbled up immediately.

“Our dad was generous, giving, liked kids, really rooted for them,” Bob said. “If he knew you, he was rooting for you.”

Dave remembers his dad helping a friend out who was a student at UC Davis and needed money. John gave the money to Dave’s friend and didn’t want to be paid back, he was happy he could help. Dave said his dad always took pleasure in the success of others.

“I made a personal decision to be more like my father to keep his spirit alive,” Dave said. “We all wanted to honor our dad with a permanent gift.”

John Spurlock grew up in Land Park on 10th Avenue. His parents were long-term Land Park residents who had their home built in 1940 and they remained there until 1989. John attended Cal Middle School and McClatchy High School. He played baseball while attending UC Davis and went on to receive an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business

NEW LOCKERS adorn the boys’ gym locker room at California Middle School. The lockers were donated in memory of late Land Park resident John Peyton Spurlock. Students can now store their items safely. / Valley Community Newspapers photo, Stuart King

Bob said after he and his siblings decided they wanted to donate money to Cal Middle School he discussed how the money should be spent with Principal Elizabeth Vigil.

Vigil said when she was told the Spurlock family wanted to honor their father with a gift to the school; she thought it would be nice to have something permanent put in place.

“The boy’s locker room was in horrible disrepair,” Vigil said. “ I thought this would be a good way to honor him.”

Athletic Director David Carson said the locker room had not been renovated in over 50 years. The lockers were rusty and broken. The kids would change their clothes and then take everything with them outside during P.E. because they had nowhere safe to store them. The school hired a contractor who worked with Bob to better organize the placement of the lockers. The renovation included removing half the old lockers and replacing them with brand new lockers, and repairing and painting the other half. Cal Middle School now has 124 new dress lockers, 114 new box lockers and 280 refurbished box lockers.

Carson said the students appreciate that there are enough dress lockers for each student to use during P.E. to safely store their clothes and personal belongings such as cellphones and wallets.

“This gift is exactly what we needed,” Carson said. “It came at the right time.”

JOHN PEYTON SPURLOCK attended California Middle School in 1952. An enthusiastic supporter of young people, he died 20 years ago. His family donated $13,000 to renovate the boy’s gym lockers in his memory. / Photo courtesy, Roger Ele

The goal for the Spurlock family was to provide a gift that benefits the students, so renovating the lockers made sense and in keeping with their father’s spirit.

The Spurlock family is having a plaque placed near the entrance of the doorway to the boy’s gym. In their father’s memory it states:

“In honor of his joy for young people and enthusiastic support of their activities.”

sally@valcomnews.com

Editor’s Note: This is part two of a two-part series regarding the history of East Sacramento’s former New Helvetia Cemetery.

It has been nearly 162 years since Captain John A. Sutter set aside 10 acres for his establishment’s first formal burial ground, the now nonexistent New Helvetia Cemetery.

The cemetery, which was eventually doubled in size, served the community for many years before evolving into a public park, which was known as Helvetia Park.

The old cemetery grounds, with the exception of a tombstone-like marker presenting information about the former cemetery, are no longer distinguishable. The land is presently the site of Sutter Middle School at 3150 I St.

In the process of creating Helvetia Park, the old cemetery, which actually adjoined East Park (today’s McKinley Park), had its headstones removed and replaced with flat gravesite identifying markers.

Unfortunately, various decisions and actions connected to the processes of creating the park and removing the cemetery in its entirety resulted in many missing tombstones and markers and even unidentified graves.

Other gravesites were presumably left unidentified in earlier times due to such possible causes as the deterioration of wooden markers and flooding that carried away wooden markers. Because of recurrent flooding in the area, there were no burials at the cemetery from 1850 to 1857.

A classic example related to the old cemetery’s missing markers was presented in the Aug. 11, 1989 edition of The Sacramento Bee, as a story was related in which a lecture about Sacramento cemeteries at California Middle School was interrupted by a boy who raised his hand and said, “We have some of those stones in our yard.”

In a meeting with the East Sacramento News last week, Dr. Bob LaPerriere, co-chair of the Sacramento County Cemetery Advisory Commission, discussed the topic of missing tombstones and other markers from the New Helvetia Cemetery.

“When they removed the bodies in the 1950s, we’re not sure exactly what happened, but some people recall that these concrete markers were kind of stacked up along the street,” LaPerriere said. “A couple years ago, we located – just between two homes behind Sutter Middle School – over 70 of these flat, concrete markers. They were used for stepping stones and kind of to widen the driveway.”

LaPerriere said that a unique event occurred following the discovery of these markers, as the stones were transported from Sutter Middle School to East Lawn Memorial Park at Folsom Boulevard and 43rd Street via a horse-drawn wagon.

The decision to deliver these markers to East Lawn Memorial Park was a simple one, considering that the city had purchased property at the cemetery for a mass, unmarked burial site, where 4,691 unidentified human remains from the New Helvetia Cemetery were reinterred.

Unfortunately, this large number of “unknowns,” as these unidentified remains are often referred to, account for the majority of the remains from the New Helvetia Cemetery.

The Sacramento Historic City Cemetery at 1000 Broadway is the site of the remains of about 400 additional people who were once buried at the New Helvetia Cemetery.

However, these remains are individually identified and are located in three separate areas at the Broadway cemetery, west of Riverside Boulevard.

Other individually identified remains from the New Helvetia Cemetery were reinterred at the following Sacramento city and county cemeteries: East Lawn, Masonic Lawn Cemetery at 2700 Riverside Blvd., Odd Fellows Lawn Cemetery at 2720 Riverside Blvd., St. Joseph’s Cemetery at 2615 21st^t St., St. Mary’s Cemetery at 6700 21st St., Sacramento Memorial Lawn at 6100 Stockton Blvd., Elk Grove Cemetery at 8540 Elk Grove Blvd. in Elk Grove and the Sylvan Cemetery at 7401 Auburn Blvd. in Citrus Heights.

Despite this long list of other cemeteries, LaPerriere notes that a relatively low number of remains from the New Helvetia Cemetery were relocated to these cemeteries.

LaPerriere provided the following numbers regarding the relocations of these remains: 410 sent to Broadway cemetery, 84 to East Lawn, 32 to Odd Fellows, six to Sacramento Memorial Lawn, three to St. Joseph’s, three to Elk Grove, two to St. Mary’s and one to Masonic.

In regard to the many flat markers from the New Helvetia Cemetery site that are still missing today, LaPerriere mentioned that he would not be surprised if some of these markers are presently located on residential properties within the nearby vicinity of this former East Sacramento cemetery.

Although the aforementioned mass burial at East Lawn Memorial Park is recognized as consisting of “unknowns” or unidentified remains, this does not mean that there are no records of any of the names of the deceased people from the New Helvetia Cemetery who were reburied there.

To the contrary, records exist for many people who were buried at the New Helvetia Cemetery and it is by deduction from the names of those who were reinterred in other local cemeteries that a list of assumed names was created for the mass burial site at East Lawn Memorial Park.

LaPerriere said that East Lawn Memorial Park, although it was not obligated to do so, greatly contributed to the cemetery’s mass burial site.

“The city never put up a marker or anything (at the mass burial site), absolutely nothing,” LaPerriere said. “It took John Bettencourt (the late cemetery historian and preservationist who was vital in the formation of the Old City Cemetery Committee) and I working with East Lawn, quite a few years ago, to get the area memorialized. East Lawn, of course, had no responsibility to do it. The city bought the area, buried the people and the city should have taken care of things. But East Lawn, being very community minded, worked with us and they put four (right angle) corner walls in around the area to demarcate the area and they put a nice monument in the center memorializing those who were moved from New Helvetia (Cemetery).”

In addition to this burial site’s corner markers, most of the perimeter of the site is outlined with the flat, concrete markers that had been retrieved from the residential yards near Sutter Middle School.

As of about two years ago, the whereabouts of only one verified original tombstone from the New Helvetia Cemetery was known.

But fortunately, it was discovered that another original New Helvetia Cemetery tombstone – that of members of the Asch family – was located in Auburn.

About a month ago, the stone was relocated to Sacramento and it will soon be placed in the Sacramento Historic City Cemetery’s already existing Asch plot.

LaPerriere said that anyone with information regarding missing headstones or markers from the New Helvetia Cemetery is encouraged to call the Sacramento County Cemetery Advisory Commission at (916) 874-9103 or write to the e-mail address: cemeterycommission@saccounty.net.

Anyone with information regarding missing headstones or markers from the New Helvetia Cemetery is encouraged to call the Sacramento County Cemetery Advisory Commission at (916) 874-9103 or write to the e-mail address: cemeterycommission@sac

county.net

The softball field at California Middle School is undergoing much-needed renovations. More funds are needed to complete the project. / Photo courtesy

On Thanksgiving weekend 2010, a group of parent volunteers broke ground on what will be a much-needed update to the softball field at California Middle School. The timing is no accident – in the last three years, softball in Land Park has gone from nearly nonexistent to become the largest softball program in Little League District 7. When the makeover is complete, the field will be home not only to the Cal Middle School girls’ softball team, but to the McClatchy Junior Varsity and Land Park Pacific Little League teams as well.

To date, the field has been skinned, the sprinklers moved, and “infield mix” soil has been delivered and leveled. Though much has been accomplished, funds are still needed to pay for equipment, dugouts, and fencing, and there’s more work to be done to ready the field for play in the spring.

Cal parents Dan Maloney, who will coach both the Cal and Land Park majors softball teams this year, and Lori Brock, who spearheaded the fundraising campaign, went to Cal principal Elizabeth Vigil back in June with the idea of making the field upgrade a community effort. With Vigil’s approval, Maloney, Brock, and several other dedicated parents began arranging fundraisers and approaching businesses and elected officials for donations. County Supervisor Jimmy Yee and Cook Realty stepped up with the seed money, which got the momentum going. Then, at a fundraiser at the Riverside Clubhouse on Dec. 7, Councilman Rob Fong presented the parents with a check that clearly made the project a “go” for this softball season. Many local businesses and families have also contributed money and time to give Land Park kids a top-notch softball field.

Maintenance staff from the Sacramento City Unified School District also came out in November to lend an invaluable hand, skinning the field and moving the sprinkler heads.

Donations are still being gratefully accepted; checks can be written out to “Cal PTSA” (with “Softball” in the memo area) and mailed to:

California Middle School

1600 Vallejo Way

Sacramento, CA 95818

Don’t forget to check out the Cal “Thank You” billboard on Broadway at 15th Street, donated by another Land Parker, Jim Lyons.