AARP Experience Corps tutor Fred Brundage assists third graders Amy Chang, left, and Thiri Than with their reading skills. Brundage, 74, spends 15 hours a week helping Bay Area students. — Photo by Lianne Milton

There's a comfortable sameness to Fred Brundage's arrival around 9 a.m., two days each week, in Christina Harger's third-grade classroom.

The sight of Brundage walking in her Monroe Elementary School door means the handful of children at Table Two "are going to get a little extra attention that day," Harger said.

It's attention they need, and that's why Harger paired them with Brundage, 74, an AARP Experience Corps volunteer.

The white-haired retired chef and former restaurant manager from San Francisco makes his way to Table Two. Within minutes Brundage is quietly reading to the kids, listening to them read or helping them with their written work.

"I wake up and eat, shower, and I go to teach these kids at school," he said. "Retirement's not for me, I guess."

He's one of about 200 Experience Corps members who help pupils with reading in Bay Area schools. Brundage spends 15 hours a week in seven classrooms at Monroe and another San Francisco school.

"I get so much pleasure from working with these kids, especially at the end of the year when you've seen the light go on with some of them. It's really gratifying."

Success hinges on reading

Experience Corps sends retirees like Brundage into disadvantaged schools in 19 cities nationwide.

This year the 17-year-old program came under the umbrella of AARP, which links its members with pupils in kindergarten through third grade.

Research shows that attaining reading proficiency at that age is most critical to future success. Two out of three U.S. children reach fourth grade unable to read proficiently and, as a result, are four times more likely to drop out of school, according to a report by the Annie E. Casey Foundation.

AARP members overwhelmingly express a desire to volunteer, said Barb Quaintance, AARP senior vice president of volunteer and civic engagement. "This gives us a chance to do something significant for the next generation."

It was still a half hour before game time at AT&T Park, but Jason Wong was already scanning the still sparse crowd above right field, a corn dog sign in one hand and a bag of the foil-wrapped product slung over his shoulder.

Up 70 steps. Pause. Down 70 steps.

"Corn dogs!" the 17-year-old yelled. "Corn dogs here!"

The San Francisco Burton High School junior had climbed about 300 steps before he made his first $4.75 sale, the sweat already beading on his brow. Tips are rare, he said, with most customers pocketing the quarter in change from a $5 bill.

He didn't care. He was happy about the sale. And thankful for the job.

Jason and about 125 other high school students in San Francisco are employed by Juma Ventures, a nonprofit that pays them to work at stadium events, hawking corn dogs, ice cream, iced tea and hot chocolate.

The goal is to give the disadvantaged students - many foster children or formerly incarcerated - work experience, financial savvy and a savings account, as well as academic support to get into college.

But more than that, they're getting an edge over many graduates who won't have the demonstrated work ethic and determination it takes to sell corn dogs on a hot spring day. And that can say more about a job candidate than a bachelor's degree, employers said.

Employers will notice

With over half of recent college graduates jobless or underemployed, those hiring are saying Jason's effort won't go unnoticed.

"If you see someone who has had to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, you know they're going to take the job more seriously and not complain about working hard," said attorney Pete Clancy, of Clancy & Diaz, LLP. "If I had to choose between someone who went to Yale who never worked and someone who went to (a local college), I'd probably go with the person who worked."

Juma officials recognized a long time ago that just getting a college degree wouldn't be enough. Instead of simply paying kids to go to college, the organization bought a Ben & Jerry's ice cream franchise in 1993 to employ high school students to get them ready for higher education and the real world that follows.

Jason knows that every corn dog or ice cream sandwich he pulls from his shoulder bag puts him a little closer to a college education and a competitive resume once he has a bachelor's degree in hand. He's considering a future in engineering.

"The best social service program in the world is a job," said Nick Hutchinson, Juma's chief development officer. "When you hire a Juma graduate, you get a young person who has experienced more than the typical range of extracurricular activities. These young people have demonstrated resiliency."

That might come as a wake-up call to those high school students busy pushing for perfect grades and loading their college applications with community service and school clubs to get into top-tier universities.

Their resumes might be missing an important component, employers say: a job.

"When employers are faced with a competitive job process, one of the ways they can distinguish is by having someone who already has that proven work ethic," said Professor Carl Van Horn, Rutgers University professor of public policy.

Juma goes to work

Juma officials embraced that philosophy.

Since 1993, hundreds of students each year have worked for Juma, which now has its young vendors at stadium and sporting events in San Francisco, Oakland, San Diego and New York.

Every dime a Juma student puts into a savings account is tripled by Juma.

At AT&T Park, 14 coffee and ice cream carts are staffed by students, as well as a couple of dozen wandering hawkers.

Juma students generate $1 million in sales each year at Giants games, money that's poured back into services and wages for the students.

In San Francisco, the teenage Juma workers make about $10 per hour, plus any tips. The best sellers also get bonuses and commission.

"We're trying really hard to make it real," said Jeronimo Martin, Juma's enterprise director. "The harder you work, the more money you make."

It's exactly the kind of experience that could help them beat the odds recent college graduates are facing, Van Horn said.

On average, graduates with a bachelor's degree who find work make about $30,000 a year to start. And employed or not, each typically owes about $20,000 in student loan debt.

That means that 58 percent of them, ages 22 to 25, still need financial support from their parents, according to a 2011 study by the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers.

In hindsight, many of those recent graduates would have done things a little differently.

Half of them polled in the Rutgers study said they would have been more careful about selecting a major and would have done more internships or worked more while in college.

In short, job experience matters as much as a marketable major, they said.

"That (experience) for many employers is an indication that they've learned how to deal with the work environment," Van Horn said. "It doesn't have to be a glamorous job."

Seizing on this opportunity, I met with Rosie Branson Gill last fall to discuss how our organizations (San Francisco Green Schoolyard Alliance and 18 Reasons, respectively) could work together to provide more opportunities for San Francisco students to engage both in school gardens and with the craft of cooking. On February 17 of this year, 13 elementary classroom teachers, garden coordinators, and parents gathered for the launch of Cooking the Common Core: Bringing Educational Standards to Life in the School Garden, a new training series designed to do just that.

Cooking the Common Core offers teachers innovative, interdisciplinary lessons to help them teach the new standards. Rosie and I wanted to design a training that promoted cooking as a way to increase students’ access to and opportunities for learning in the outdoor classroom. We wanted teachers to feel empowered introducing students to the craft of cooking, to fresh ingredients, and to the full garden-to-table experience.

To that end, each lesson in Cooking the Common Core combines freshly harvested produce from the school garden, Common Core standards, and basic cooking skills, while leaving ample room for teachers to use the lessons to explore other classroom topics. Social studies, ecology, and respect for other cultures easily integrate into recipes such as fried rice, summer rolls, handmade pasta, or Brassica slaw.

Read more at Civil Eats

April 12 is San Francisco Bike to School Day, the biggest youth bicycling day of the year. Last year, more than 2,000 San Franciscans participated in the event, including 1,500 youths, county supervisors and representatives from the Board of Education. Biking to school is a great way to spend family time together and keep you and your children healthy and alert.

The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition is offering a series of tips, classes and activities to help parents and caregivers get ready for Bike to School Day, and to help make every day bike to school day. Here are a few simple ways to get your family pedaling to school.

Take a class

The coalition offers free family biking classes throughout the year, with more in the months leading up to Bike to School Day. The four-part series covers a variety of topics, such as biking while pregnant and teaching your child to bike on his or her own. This month, the coalition is offering special on-road skill classes for caregivers and their children at elementary schools citywide. Sign up for one of these free classes at www.sfbike.org/?family_class:

-- 10 a.m.-noon Saturday at Sunset Elementary School, 1920 41st Ave.

-- 10 a.m.-noon March 17 at Buena Vista/Horace Mann, 3351 23rd St.

If you can't make it to the classes, pick up some tips and tricks on biking with your children to school (for kids on your bike, or riding independently) at www.sfbike.org/school.

San Francisco is one of the cities in the United States that operates a public school lottery system. I know there are others (Cambridge, Los Angeles, Champaign, Berkeley, etc.) but this is the one we know best. There is no guaranteed neighborhood assignment. So at that time you toured a bunch of schools, listed up to seven that you liked, and hoped you got one. If you didn’t, you would be assigned to the closest school with openings. This can be intimidating but also offers huge opportunity. There are citywide schools that offer more than the general education curriculum, including foreign language education, K-8 schools, a Montessori school, etc. Most schools are pretty good and some are terrible, but because people hate the lottery system so violently, the perception is that only a few highly-desired schools are acceptable and the rest are hellholes.

For people who appreciate the charms of being underrated, this misperception offers an enormous opportunity to beat the system. We found it surprisingly easy to find schools we liked that none of the other preschool parents we knew had even heard of, let alone toured or listed on their applications.

Read more at Hum of the City (http://humofthecity.com/2012/03/02/san-francisco-destinations-rosa-parks-elementary-school/).

In mid-August, children from all over San Francisco began the school year. Among them were a group of youngsters entering kindergarten at Yick Wo School in San Francisco. Today is the 100th Day of School in the San Francisco Unified School District. For over a month now, 5 and 6 year olds have been working on projects, counting out in groups of tens, and using the words “One hundred” to describe just about everything. If you are the parent or grandparent of a kindergartener, you know what I mean.

For weeks teachers, students, and families have been counting down the days until this year’s celebration.  For grandparents and parents alike, it is a time when we are invited into the schools to enter into the celebration.  For those who are lucky enough to be in town, the celebration is already underway. For those of us grandparents who are at a distance, we still can enjoy the celebration from afar.  What happens during the first 100 days of Kindergarten? What kinds of projects and learning has been taking place? Why may you have heard your kindergarteners using 100 in just about everything they describe lately?  If you didn’t realize how special this day is throughout the City, here is some information to help enlighten you on what’s happening throughout San Francisco today.

By: Amy Crawford | 01/18/12
SF Examiner Staff Writer

The half-dozen teenage boys in a classroom at John O’Connell High School were looking forward to their trip to Yosemite National Park. For most it would be their first time in the wilderness, so they were unsure what to expect.