Wisdom-Sharing Falls to Fiscal Ax

Bernd Simon is on the run again, racing from school to school to testify to the horrors of war and evils of the Nazi empire.

Just last week, the 83-year-old Holocaust survivor swept into a classroom at Somis School north of Camarillo to recount his terrifying train ride to a Nazi concentration camp. Days later, he escorted Thousand Oaks-area high school students to the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles to supplement their studies with his own front-line view.

There is an urgency to his actions, a drive to educate as many youngsters as possible about the Holocaust as the pool of survivors shrinks each year and time silences the voices Hitler could not.

“Don’t let anyone tell you that the Holocaust didn’t happen, because it did -- I was there,” the Ventura resident told youngsters at Somis School. “You are the future of America. My message to you is listen to the news, take an interest in politics and become involved in what’s happening around you.”

It’s a message at risk of being intercepted, however, as state budget cuts threaten to end school programs that send senior citizens into classrooms to share their experiences and expertise with younger generations.

For more than two decades, the California Department of Education has provided money for such programs, producing a ready army of senior volunteers to mentor youngsters and provide one-on-one tutoring for those struggling to keep pace with their coursework. In many cases, the seniors also have served as human history texts, breathing life into world-shaping events that most students only read about in books.

Statewide, those efforts cost $171,000 a year, money used to coordinate about 1,600 volunteers who work with more than 35,000 students in dozens of school districts.

But the money dried up last summer amid cuts to public education, causing many of the programs to close and others to scramble to stay afloat.

The cutbacks spelled the end of state-funded senior mentors in Claremont, Sacramento and Berkeley. Other programs in Ventura County -- where Simon participates -- and San Jose are limping along this school year, and coordinators worry that the programs could be on their last legs.

“It wasn’t a lot of money but it was good money,” said Arnold Bloom, who oversaw a defunct senior volunteer program in the Claremont Unified School District.

For more than 20 years, the program put about 30 seniors to work throughout the 6,500-student district in eastern Los Angeles County. The volunteers worked primarily with physically disabled children, running Scout troops, overseeing library services and helping teachers in the classroom.

“We had some really neat things going on,” Bloom said. “I think the program helped the seniors as much as it helped the kids.”

In San Jose, program coordinator Kay Banchero was able to patch together enough money to keep senior mentors in place on a limited basis this school year. But she said that unless other funding is found, the program probably won’t survive.

“It’s a real tragedy,” Banchero said. “The last four years alone, we served close to 300 students. Those relationships are so valuable, you really can’t put a price on them.”

So valuable, in fact, that officials with the Los Angeles Unified School District have managed to keep their senior volunteer program running despite the state cuts. A private, nonprofit foundation raises about $400,000 a year for volunteer services in the nation’s second-largest school system.

When state funding ran out at the end of last fiscal year for the district’s network of more than 1,000 senior citizen mentors, foundation dollars were used to keep the program going. But it hasn’t been easy.

“The heart is still there; we are just trying to keep the arteries open,” said Joan Suter, president of the fundraising group. “For some reason, the senior citizen volunteers have the patience, the interest and the enthusiasm to help children achieve. I just feel it’s the ingredient a lot of these children need.”

For more than two decades, educators have used that ingredient to feed students’ appetite for knowledge in Ventura County, where a senior citizens speakers’ bureau has served about 10,000 youngsters a year.

The program started informally at the Camarillo retirement community of Leisure Village, where senior citizens would play host to high school groups to discuss educational issues. The effort was formalized in 1983 with the first year of state funding, and now about 60 speakers take part, providing presentations on everything from art and music to genealogy and scientific exploration.

All of the talks are provided at no charge and conform to state curriculum standards.

But the loss last year of a $17,000 state grant has curbed the classroom visits, and there’s no guarantee that the program will continue next school year.

“It was kind of a last-minute gift that allowed us to go on this year,” said program coordinator Alice Sweetland, who volunteered to run the speakers’ bureau for free but was told that would be a violation of labor law. “I’ve written for grants; I’ve just had no luck,” she said. “Somewhere there’s some money, but I just don’t know how to find it.”

The Ventura County superintendent of schools office, which administers the program, provided $10,000 to keep seniors in the classroom this school year. But the funding reduction means seniors are no longer paid mileage for school visits and that the program no longer provides teaching aids.

The biggest blow, however, has come in the marketing of the program. Sweetland said she used to send out 5,000 brochures at the start of each school year to teachers countywide.

This year, she only was able to send 1,500 single-page letters directing teachers to the program’s website. An e-mail campaign to nearly 200 teachers drew only five responses.

Supt. Charles Weis said the program will be evaluated at the end of the school year to determine how much it’s being used and whether it should continue.

Funding or no funding, Bernd Simon plans to be back in the classroom next year and the one after that. In many ways, the retired language teacher is on a mission, knowing that this generation of students will be the last to hear these stories firsthand.

So he shows up whenever he’s called, recounting again and again his life in a Jewish ghetto and his hellish ride to the Dachau concentration camp, with its electrified fences and machine-gun towers.

He has told thousands of students over the years about the human savagery and suffering that washed over Germany more than half a century ago, resulting in the mass extermination of Jews and other minorities.

Simon was among the first Jews rounded up as the Holocaust began, imprisoned for about three months before escaping by using a letter forged by his mother, promising that an exit visa was waiting for him at a foreign embassy.

“By the grace of my blessed mother, I survived,” Simon told the youngsters at Somis School, who listened intently and peppered him with questions when he was done.

“How can this be prevented from happening again?” asked Siddharth Mehrotra, 13.

“Unlike Nazi Germany, here you can give your opinions,” Simon responded. “Talk to your leaders, become involved. As long as we can vote, that’s our weapon.”