Ruth Acty Elementary

At Ruth Acty, our school staff and parent/guardian partnership is our strength. Working together we make Ruth Acty a school that meets the needs of our diverse community. Each school family becomes part of the larger Ruth Acty community, which is one of our strongest features. In 2010 Ruth Acty was named a “California Distinguished School” for our excellence in raising achievement for all of our students. In 2011 we were awarded the Title One Award for Academic Achievement. We truly believe that all students have tremendous potential and creativity and our goal is to help every student to succeed.

Every day is special at Ruth Acty Elementary School. From the classroom to the yard, we offer a school program that engages our students, recognizes personal culture and learning styles and fosters creativity and academic success. Bi-Monthly morning assemblies are a Ruth Acty tradition. Our students and staff come together to sing, perform for one another, and enjoy guest performers. Assemblies begin with music and song. We recite our school chant “Our School ROCKS” which stands for Respect, Open Hearts and Minds, Courage and Kindness. Ruth Acty’s goal is to acknowledge every child for their many accomplishments. We strive to acknowledge the positive. We believe that students learn best when we take the time to truly honor and value them and the many ways that they shine.

After school there are many options. The Ruth Acty Afterschool Zone (JAZ) program provides care until 6:00pm, with a wide variety of activities that are fun and exciting as well as academic support. The PTA organizes an array of classes including Chess, Book Arts, Photography, Spanish, Mandarin, Mad Science, Ceramics and more. The East Bay Center for the Performing Arts brings quality, inexpensive individualized music instruction to school every Wednesday afternoon. Ruth Acty teachers coordinate and teach in the Afterschool Learning Program (ALP), which is an academic support program. Other mentoring programs include BUILD, a 1-1 literacy tutoring program, and SAGE Mentors which is a partnership program with CAL that brings over 40 CAL students to our school to work in classrooms every week. In addition we have after-school sports in partnership with the City of Berkeley and we even have coed football and basketball teams!

Our motto at Ruth Acty is that “Working together makes learning better!” Our entire school community, from staff and parents to the larger Berkeley community collaborate to help make Ruth Acty the best public elementary school possible.