What's dirty, oily and clogs up pipes? Probably something that we don't want going down our neighborhood storm drains and into a creek.

To teach young people about urban runoff pollution, the importance of conscientious water use and impacts to our local watershed, city of San Jose park rangers provide outreach presentations for San Jose school students. Two city departments—those of environmental services and of parks, recreation and neighborhood services—have teamed up over the last seven years to finance and implement this program. This service is available to any San Jose school free of charge.

The "Our Neighborhood Creeks" in-class presentation includes a free packet of materials, including the award-winning video It's Wet, It's Wild, It's Water!, a teacher's guide and other goodies. The presentation normally takes 50 to 60 minutes, incorporating three lessons that culminate with a demonstration using an interactive watershed model. Education materials correlate with state curriculum standards and are geared to a sixth-grade level, but are flexible enough to be appropriate for other levels.

Teachers interested in scheduling an appointment should contact the Water Awareness Rangers at Almaden Lake Park at 408.277.5130 or email a request to roger.abe@sanjoseca.gov. The program is only available from autumn to spring.

Committee to hold consolidation forum

Members of a newly formed advisory committee held their first public meeting on Oct. 29 to review enrollment data and criteria for consolidating elementary schools within the San Jose Unified School District.

The advisory committee will continue to meet throughout the fall to discuss school-consolidation scenarios and to review enrollment trends by school site. Following two public input meetings scheduled for January 2004, the committee will submit recommendations to Superintendent Linda Murray, who will present a recommendation to the board of education in February.

The school closings could potentially save the district millions of dollars per year at a time when state education funding has been slashed. Consolidating schools would also address the problem of declining enrollment within the district.

The consolidations would take effect in the 2004­05 school year.

The next advisory committee meeting will take place Nov. 13, 6­8 p.m., at San Jose Unified School District headquarters, 855 Lenzen Ave. At the meeting, members of the public will be invited to submit written comments and questions to be discussed by district staff.

Forum scheduled to discuss budget cuts

The San Jose Unified School District will be holding a community forum on Nov. 12 regarding proposed budget cuts for the 2004­05 school year.

At the forum, district staff will be presenting the results of a survey sent to 32,000 parents earlier this year. The survey had asked parents to rank potential areas for cuts as the district looks at slashing $10 million from its budget in the upcoming school year, and $17 million in 2005­06.

The meeting will take place at 6:30 p.m. at district headquarters at 855 Lenzen Ave. Space is limited; those planning to attend should call the San Jose Unified School District at 408.535.6650.

Bret Harte concert to honor veterans

Marcia Vinyard, a U.S. history teacher at Bret Harte Middle School and a member of the San Jose Metro Band, will combine her two passions at a Nov. 13 concert on the Bret Harte campus.

The Metro Band will play a program of patriotic music in honor of Veterans Day, and students will read anecdotes about family members who have served in the Armed Forces. Vinyard says there's one World War II veteran she'd like to honor in person at the concert: She's hoping that the grandfather of one student will attend and share his experiences as a member of an all-Japanese unit in the U.S. Army that helped liberate a Nazi concentration camp in Poland.

Bret Harte families attending the concert will be asked for a $10 donation at the door; proceeds will be used to defray some of the costs of eighth-grade field trips.

Graystone fares well with book fair

Graystone Elementary School raised $18,560 at this fall's Scholastic Book Fair, an amount principal Jerri Kazmierczak says is "really good." All proceeds will be used to purchase books for Graystone's library, including many of the volumes offered for sale at the book fair. Graystone holds two book fairs each year. In the fall, early Christmas shoppers can choose from a selection of hardbound books appropriate for gift-giving, while the spring book fair features paperbacks intended for summer reading. This year's fall fair also featured a "Build-a-Book" workshop in which folks from Klutz Books showed participants how to self-publish, one volume at a time. Kazmierczak says Graystone hopes to bring this workshop back for the spring book fair.

Simonds to hold a pair of holiday food drives

Simonds Elementary School has begun the first of two holiday food drives to benefit Second Harvest Food Bank. The first food drive is set to run through Nov. 14, the second from Dec. 1­18. Students are sent home with brown paper bags to fill with nonperishable food items such as powdered milk, peanut butter, pasta, tuna, canned foods and fruit juices. The Simonds PTA coordinates with Second Harvest to distribute these items to low-income families in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties. This is the second year the school has collected donations for the food bank; last year Simonds students, staff and families brought in 1,853 pounds of food. Second Harvest collects and distributes more than 26 million pounds of food each year.