[Originally appeared December 11, 2013 in Edhat Santa Barbara article.]
During the week of December 9th, 2013, the Passport to Santa Barbara will be distributed to 18,500 K-6 public school students in Santa Barbara County. The Passport program provides a passport booklet to children in grades K-6 who, with one adult, are given free admission to Santa Barbara Educator’s Roundtable (SBERT) member institutions, where children participate in specially-designed educational activities found outside of the classroom within the community and receive a stamp in their Passport.
This year’s program is sponsored by LogicMonitor, a local Santa Barbara-based technology company, and the Williams-Corbett Foundation. The Foundation has supported the program for a number of years, but LogicMonitor is a new sponsor.”As a local company interested in supporting our community, we are pleased to be a sponsor of the Passport program this year. Our employees have children that benefit from the Passport program, and as a high-tech company, we depend on the local area having both a great educational system, and a great community. The Passport program contributes to both.” said Kevin McGibben, CEO, LogicMonitor.
The Passport program is a project of SBERT, which is a collaborative network of 24 local museums, agencies, and nonprofit organizations that work together to encourage lifelong learning in natural science, history, technology, culture, and art in the Santa Barbara area. The SBERT consortium fosters free educational opportunities for children and families in our local community and Passport to Santa Barbara is the primary annual outreach effort of the group. Each child who earns eight stamps will receive a T-shirt, distributed in June through the Santa Barbara Public Library System. The Passport program runs from mid-December to mid-April.
Children in our community benefit from educational opportunities outside schools which reinforce learning across all disciplines. As public school funds become increasingly tight, programs that include field trips to local institutions offering educational programs outside of the classroom may be reduced or cut from the school day. The Passport provides a much-needed, no-cost educational experience for families in the Santa Barbara and Santa Ynez Valley areas to visit SBERT partner institutions, many of which have education programs that support the new Common Core Educational Standards.
The LogicMonitor team also wanted to contribute some time to assist the Passport Program by stuffing envelopes and mailing the Passports out to the local Santa Barbara schools. We are proud to be a part of the Passport Program and assist the community by encouraging the Santa Barbara County students and their families to experience a variety of educational experiences found outside the classroom.