birthplace of pioneers. hello, and welcome to "asian pacific america." i'm robert handa, your host for the show on nbc bay area and cozi-tv. we focus on one of our biggest and highest achieving communities within the communities. kuper tuno and the school district. characteristic of cupertino well known in the community, but maybe not otherwise is cupertino is 63% asian american and pacific islander, so we'll look at the school district and several programs we feel are worth highlighting. having grown up in neighboring sunnyvale and having had family members living and working in cupertino, i fouloed the evolution closely before apple made the city so famous, and one

of the things many people in the bay area know, cupertino schools are top notch. joining me now is the superintendant of the school district, wendy. welcome to the show. >> thank you. >> we were talking earlier. of course, when a school district has so much success, it's always sort of a result of the whole community working togetherering right? >> absolutely. it takes -- you can't do as well as we do without the partnerships we have with our parents, our community, and our excellent staff. we have a great deal, a great support system, a foundation that supports the music program, and you can see a little bit of that later. >> one of the things that just growing up in the area, even when i told people we were going to do the show and cupertino was on it, nobody blinked because they know the asian community is so strong there. i should point out, as you would say, too, cupertino is a very diverse community. not just the asian american and pacific islander communities that make it, but the show is called "asian pacific america," that's why we're doing this.

but why do you think, though, that there's such -- so many families ended up in cupertino? >> we're a destination district. so the families that come to cupertino are coming for our schools. and that's there for the high cost of living in the area that we're in. families will do just about anything to get into our schools. due to the great programs we offer, and choice for our families. so we're not a school district where everyone goes to the neighborhood school and that's the only choice they have. we offer four alternative programs and allowparen parents choose any school as long as there's an opening. >> how do you maintain the quality from school to school in the district? that's so difficult for many areas. >> it is with a district as large as ours. as i said, when your parent community is as strong as ours is, definitely committed to our schools, their students love learning. and are committed to school. we have a very stable staff.

so that overall environment and culture of our district really is conducing to people wanting to be there and staying. >> one thing we're featuring in the show, the different programs that are there that help students kind of focus and tailor their interests. that's something cupertino has that a lot of other school districts don't. >> we do offer the alternative programs so we have alternative schools. within our schools, we're a district, really proud of the fact over the years even in the recession when many districts cut, we continue to provide students the great enriching opportunities. the music program, like i said, help with the community. we offer our students the technology. we afford them those opportunities. we also offer our students full elective programs. art, music, s.t.e.m. >> one benefit, too, is there's such an emphasis on doing things for the community. when the community helps the school so much, naturally, the

skunlt and student have that attitude toward the community. >> absolutely. >> one thing, though. i know a lot of people personally who moved to sunnyvale and cupertino to go to those schools. rather than go to private school. does that cause a problem for the district in terms of so many people trying to get into the schools? >> not really. right now, for many years we weren't increasing our enrollment. we peaked in 2013 at just over 19,000 students. at that point, yes, and we had to do shuffling, add classrooms in certain schools. right now, we'rane slight decline. that's happening all over the county. the one thing we will see is we will see much less of a decline than many other districts. that decline is do a lot to birth rate. not due to people not wanting to come in. >> i haven't heard of too many people not wanting to come. thank you for being here. >> thank you. >> one of the courses that make the cupertino union school district so special, the search class. that's next.

welcome back. it's one thing to learn science. it's important in this day and age, but how do you apply it to the real world and make a positive contribution to the community? the course titled science enrichment and research, or search, aims to do it. here on the show are participants in the search class. karen is the teacher at the search class, and we have two students in the class. welcome, all of you, to the show. >> thank you. >> give us a quick overview in terms of search and what it's designed to do. what is its mission? >> search is an attempt to merge science with business to teach entrepreneurship and innovation. so in creating student start-up companies. students get to explore their own ideas to bring an idea to fruition, and we have basically

a semester long course that helps students explore that. >> when did that start? >> three years ago. >> okay. why did it start three years ago? >> so, i really wanted to get at teaching innovation in math. the way i figured i would be able to do that as a science teacher is to incorporate the business perspective. >> we're seeing video of the class, some of the projects. woe brought some of the projects in here. give us a brief sdrpg of what we have on the table as well as the projects associated with the students here. >> sure. over here, we have a challenge in the first six weeks of the class. students are learning their engineering programs to eventually help them to develop their ideas, and 3d modeling is one of them. so as a way to show me that they're proficient in the 3d modeling, they have to re-create their favorite pokemon in 3d modeling space and we print out

our favorite designers. >> what about their projects? >> culminating projects. we have a corporate called tri-wheels. cynthia was part of that. they were there to design an altering wheelchair that was able to climb stairs as well. and then quick brush developed by pinaz and his company was there to tackle dental hygiene during lunch time. >> give me an idea, you told me about you developed the need, seeing a need for it. what was your involvement in it and what did you do on the project? >> my involvement in this project was building the 3d model of the wheelchair. so we used a program and i was able to use the different shapes and other aspects of it to create the wheelchair. >> how do you hope to use this kind of skill in the future? >> i hope to use this skill to help myself be able to maybe

start a start-up. >> let me know if i can be an investor. >> of course. >> and give me an idea in terms of your oral hygiene product there. how did it start, how did it evolve? >> first, when we started it, we were thinking about creating a product that can make your brush faster because we have a problem when school started because this idea was created then that we were getting late and we have to brush. it was time consuming. we wanted a product you can put on your mouth on the go. it will dissolve. later, we targeted lover. now our product is now targeting dental hygiene at lunch. we found out this is a market that is very open that we can succeed in. >> that's interesting because you not only came up with the idea of the product but also how to market it. what do you hope to do in the putscher? how does this help you? >> in the future, if i think of an idea, that i can use what search has taught me here in my start-up experience here and use it to create a start-up of my own. >> i know a lot of news people

who would use that product. cynthia, how about for you? how special is this program? how has it helped you kind of look at school districtly or look at your approach to education differently? >> this project helped me see how different aspects of the school can be changed or how the world can even be changed, such as there are like little problems such as people who cannot climb upstairs. >> wow. you have that same feeling? that sort of connection to the community? >> yeah. >> all right. is that kind of an important part? i was talking to you earlier about how impressed i was that was an element to all of the programs? >> it is, because one of the goalicize to provide a way for students to make a positive contribution to their communities. they go and seek out those problems that they would like to solve. and we crowdsource those ideas. we vote on those ideas. so i don't come up with any of these ideas. >> very interesting. how do you discern, then, make the final decision?

>> i don't make the final decision. we put up for a vote in the class, and the top nine ideas per class, whoever the original idea generator is, they become ceo. and then we hire into our groups and then we hit the road running. >> quickly, how does somebody get into this program? >> it is open to all seventh and eighth grade students at miller. that's also very important. another mission of mine to make sure this type of coursework is open to anybody. >> someone as smart as me, i could still get in. thank you all for being here. a very impressive group. good luck in the future. >> thank you. >> thank you. well, coming up, a program that has some similar goals in terms of its use of technology. the see-saw program. stay with us for that.

the see-saw program is one way the cupertino union school district looks to use technology

to educate. joining us to talk about see-saw are jennifer, a teacher at the montclair elementary school in los altos and the other program participant is teacher kelly galante. thank you both for being here. for people who don't know what it is, give us a quick overview in terms of what's being used here. >> so, see-saw is a portfolio, which means it allows students to capture work they're doing in the classroom on their ipad. and that work is sent through see-saw to their parents and their parents have an account that they can access on their phones, their ipads, their computers at home. so it's a way for parents to see what's happening in the classroom without waiting until the end of the week, until papers come home, and to see what activities are going on in the classroom, such as presentations or conversations that can't be captured on a sheet of paper. >> then they have the portfolio, too. what kind of problems does this

solve? why did you feel the need to have this kind of thing going? >> it evolved with our parent group was looking to fund us for ipads in the classroom. and jen and i were piloting them and quickly realizing, how are we going to make it look to parents where this is what they're doing. they're not on a toy. they're actually using this device to create work and student engagement and learning. so we needed a way for our parent community to see that. and see-saw was a very easy way for students to upload their work throughout the day. have that immediate conversation at home with their parent about their work instead of having it wait until friday. >> see-saw fit perfectly into what you're saying you ended up doing. was that always the idea? did you try other devices? what was the general intent at the beginning? >> for the first several years that we had ipads, there was no

program like see-saw. there were protects. we initially started out with something that then shut down and transported to something that was designed for family reunions, for families who wanted to communicate with each other in maybe more private a setting than facebook and wanted to share articles and photos. we tweaked it a little built for our purposes. we were really excited when see-saw came along probably about a year and a half to two years ago because it specifically designed for the classroom. >> if it's anything like technology with my children, they take it and they go in directions that i don't even realize it's supposed to go. what have the students kind of taken -- how have they taken the program and made it theirs? >> there's just an overall excitement in their work and that they can learn from each other. you're having these projects created and students can go and look at other students' work. say that's really cool, how did

you do that? can you show me? it opens up that line of communication in the classroom, at home. throughout the school, really. >> how do students get involved? can anybody participate? or how do they get involved? >> see-saw is -- can be used by independent classrooms and then you can also have school accounts, so we have a school account. so the advantage of having a school account is the work can be transferred from year to year. one teacher can see what their students did the previous year and the administrator also has access to see kind of globally what's happening across the school. and so once you sign up, the teacher creates accounts for each of their students, and it's literally with the tap of a button, students can put their work into see-saw and instantly share it with their families. >> it creates a bigger scope, then, for the students as well. >> and it really helps to have qr codes, so in a shared

environment, one teacher can have the ipads earlier in the day, and with a simple sign-out and qr code, you're back to your classroom. students can use the ipads in multiple classrooms and we don't have problems with sharing devices. >> sounds like a great idea. something the students appreciate. thank you very much for being here. >> thank you. >> well, live music is coming up with a group from the cupertino union school district. don't miss it.

now we get a chance to talk about the music program in cupertino. here with the cupertino middle school woodwind quintet, and the music teacher jeff jaeger. thanks for being here. who are they? >> this is a group of middle school students in seventh and eighth grade. each year, we take members of the advanced band and put them in small ensembles so they work on their musician ship in a small environment. it forces them to listen to each other and extend their musicianship.

we have here ellen on flute, joshua on oboe. nicole on bassoon. benjamin on the french horn, and jacob on the clarinet. >> all right. we'll get a chance to hear them. the cupertino middle school woodwind quintet. enjoy. ♪ ♪ ♪

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[ applause ] >> that was outstanding. thank you very much. as an old saxophone player, i can appreciate good woodwind skills and i envy the program that you guys get to participate in. thank you very much. we're going to hear more from you, right? as we close the show. okay, thank you. again, we like to spotlight the artistic and cultural contributions in our community, and this group certainly fulfills that. our thanks to all our guests and the cupertino union school district. you can get information on all the programs on nbcbayarea.com as well as on twitter and facebook. that's it for our show today. please join us next week and

every week here on "asian pacific america." thanks for watching. and again, we go out now with the cupertino middle school woodwind quintet. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

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♪ how many more children have to die before russia cares? >> targeted on the airfield. ♪ ♪ >> i'd like the public to know i was along with them. ♪ ♪ ♪ good morning, and welcome to "sunday today." i am willie geist. we are waking up to another morning of breaking news. bombings in two churches in egypt, dozens dead on this palm sunday. we'll have a report in just a moment. days after syrian air strikes, tensions rising around the world a russian war ship moves into the mediterranean and now the u.s. sending an aircraft carrier to the korean