Commemorating Atatürk, and reflecting on his legacy...

oday we are remembering the founder of Modern Turkey, Atatürk, and the great legacy he left behind. At the Berkeley Turkish School we believe that secular and democratic education ensures public sovereignty and rationality. In our curriculum and in our school's diverse activities we celebrate Atatürk, and his legacy in meaningful ways that connect our children to their Turkish history. On this day, while you commemorate this great leader’s achievements, consider making a donation online in his name to directly support our school’s operations so we can connect our past with our future.

Thank you,
Basak Altan & Basak Cakici
http://www.berkeleyturkishschool.org/contribute/

A Great Mindfulness Seminar

Thank you Irem Radzik for a great workshop on mindfulness meditation... Here are two quotes that stood out from the many valuable resources and insights Irem shared.

" Between stimulus and response, there is a space in that space lies our freedom and power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and freedom." - Victor Frankl, Man's Search of Meaning

"Only the present moment contains life.  If we are not fully ourselves truly in the present moment we are missing everything. "- Thich Nhat Hanh

A Day filled with color, music and some sweets

There was a so much excitement and energy preparing for the celebrations ofRepublic Day for next week. Here are some images of yesterday's activities.

Fantastic Seminar

First Sunday of every month Berkeley Turkish School hosts a parent seminar. Today's topic was presented by Suna Yalaz Angell on college savings. Over 20 parents attended this very informative session. It was a fantastic overview of the possibilities to consider when investing in our children's future. Thank you Suna. 

We also hosted a luncheon to say many thanks to our teachers and volunteer coordinators without whom this school will not exist. Here are some images of our day. Thank you everyone for making today a special one!

College Savings Seminar this coming Sunday

Hello & Merhabalar!

We are very excited to let you know that currently we have over 40 children registered at Berkeley Turkish School for the Fall Semester, and we still have new ones that are in the process of registering.

• Please set up your tuition payments to be automated: Both Basak Cakici and I wanted to remind you that we are volunteering our time because we believe in the mission our school and love our growing community. We both would like to spend more of our time on strategic initiatives, and less on chasing monthly invoices of tuition payments. So if you haven’t set up your tuition billing to be automated, please do so before this Sunday. This will save you the hassle of remembering, and us the very valuable time that we in turn can spend on meaningful efforts. If you have any questions about how to do this, please ask Deniz Barın when you sign your children this Sunday.
• College Savings Seminar this Sunday: We are delighted to have the opportunity to serve our community with a great parent seminar on college savings this Sunday. Suna Yalaz Angell who is currently a Financial Advisor at Merrill Lynch Wealth Management in San Francisco, and a BTS Parent will be conducting the workshop. We are very lucky to have had her professional opinion from day one on this journey of starting our nonprofit school and are looking forward to her expertise in this topic as well. This is an event that is open to you and your guests. So if you have friends, and would like to invite them, please feel free to do so. Make sure to sign up on the document link here. A donation of $20 or more in sliding scale will go to BTS Fundraising efforts

• Need Your Help in: 
  • Leading/organizing the Potluck for October 29-Cumhuriyet Bayramı
  • Organizing Art Supplies & Boxes: We will be consolidating some of our storage boxes during Sunday. If you are not attending the seminar, and will be in the garden, Deniz Barın and our teachers would appreciate your help in sorting out the art materials into categories, so they can re-group and place them back into the boxes with labels at the end of the day. If you are interested in helping out please contact Deniz at denizbc.bts@gmail.com

Thank you and looking forward to seeing you this weekend!

On behalf of the Berkeley Turkish School,

Basak Altan

Could you nominate The Berkeley Turkish School to your company's employee giving program?

Hello & Merhabalar, 

As you all mostly know, The Berkeley Turkish School is a 501 (c) (3) public charity, and we rely on donations from our extended community. Tuition alone is not sufficient to cover our operations. If you or someone you know works for a mid to large size company (ie Google, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon etc.) and they have an employee giving program, please consider to add us to their list before the year's end. Your meaningful contribution will be put to a great cause directly going towards our operations. Should you like to set this up immediately, or will meet up with a friend who may know people below are some details that you may need to proceed:

Mission Statement:
The mission of the Berkeley Turkish School is to inspire the children of the Turkish American community and their ability to understand, speak, read, and write Turkish. In addition, the students learn about their cultural heritage through creative play, songs, traditions, geography, history, and literature.

Our intent is to create an environment where our school enhances our students' self-confidence and provides a setting that encourages forming of new friendships with other Turkish speaking children.

We are a volunteer based 501 (c) (3) nonprofit public charity. 
EIN Number: 47-4053354
http://www.berkeleyturkishschool.org/

On behalf of the Berkeley Turkish School, Thank you for your time.

A Sunny September Morning

On this beautiful September morning there was quite a bit of activity in the garden as much as inside the classrooms. We kicked off our BTS library's book lending spree for the semester. We enjoyed lovely conversations over coffee and had some delicious Gumushane style helva offering in memoriam of Murat Altan, Sema Hanim's father and Basak Altan's grandfather under the Oak tree. We thank our volunteer coordinator Deniz for our smooth transition of signing in and out our students. Here are some pictures from our day.

Our Second Weekend At Berkeley Turkish School

The Fall semester at the Berkeley Turkish School began in an exciting way. The buzz over coffee at the school was the fantastic Nostalgia Night Fundraiser event that was hosted by Nurdan Civi in San Ramon where over 100 guests attended. We thank our teachers Gulten, Sema and Fatos who helped us at the gate with ticketing. We also thank Mark Schirmer for being the keeper of the bar. In addition many thanks go to all who attended, or couldn't attend but donated to support our school's mission. What a meaningful way of getting our extended community together. Thank you Nurdan and Ester for the lovely songs. 

This morning we also had quite a busy morning with all four classrooms getting in the swing of the year.  Here are some photos from our weekend's activities.  Looking forward to seeing all of you next weekend!

Below are photos from our second weekend at our school. 

We Started our Fall 2017 Semester with a warm welcome!

Berkeley Turkish School opened its doors today welcoming 27 families, and 35 students. There was a lot to cheer for: 

• We now have a beautiful new location- thanks to Jefferson Elementary.
• A new and improved curriculum that incorporates music,theater and mathematics to our  classes.
• An expanding lovely teaching team
• Mostly a growing student and family community.

Here are some lovely photos from the day that were taken by our teacher Hande. We are looking forward to celebrating many Sundays together!

Our Partnership with the Industrial Design Department at California College Of Arts

Today was the first day our school was open post our festival. While our students were in class, the parents over Yildiray Bey's delicious suboregi reflected on the great results our community achieved at our festival fundraiser.

Basak Altan's CCA Industrial Design Students visited BTS and presented their final projects and educational products as a conclusion of their ID Semester program with the Engage Program. This year is our second year of collaboration with CCA.  Our own students and teachers were directly involved with the design process by testing and providing essential feedback to the industrial design students, so there was quite a bit of excitement about seeing the end result.

Since it is May, we are opening the season of camping in the Bay Area. Thank you Ezerhan for showing the little ones how you set up a tent... and put it back together.

Here are some images of this fun day including one of our parent Irem Radzik's mindfulness workshop for the Elma Agaci classroom... Happy May and see you all next weekend!

International Children's Day Festival

Over 300 guests attended our International Children's Day Festival today... Here are some images that show the passion and the energy of our day. We thank our amazing community for helping us put this meaningful event together to celebrate our children, and the value of democracy and the richness diversity brings to our lives.  Ulusal Egemenlik ve Cocuk Bayraminiz kutlu olsun!

Hepimizden sevgiler...

We would like to send our our sincere gratitude to the following organizations and persons for donating their services and products as a part of our fundraising for the Berkeley Turkish School:

·         Bay Area Discovery Museum in Marin, Two Family Visit Passes

·         Bay Area Discovery Museum in Marin, Two Guest Passes for Two

·        Irem Radzik Mindfulness for Families Workshop

·         Tara Firma Farms in Petaluma, Tour and Tasting for 40 at

·         Trader Joe’s in Berkeley, Gift Bag from

·         Troya Restaurant in San Francisco, $40 Gift Card to

·         Alegio Chocolate Tasting for Six in Berkeley or Palo Alto

·         Visual Expressions Optometry in Danville $250 Gift Card

·         Walt Disney Family Museum in SF, Four General Admission Tickets

·       Evolve Executive Car Service, One-Way SFO or OAK Airport Luxury Transportation from

·         Upcider Cider House-Gastropub in San Francisco, Two $50 Gift Certificate

·         Meritaj, Four Bottles of Turkish Wine

·         Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Two Tickets

·         Berkeley Symphony, Two Tickets

·         California Shakespeare Theater in Berkeley, Two Tickets

·         Freight & Salvage Coffeehouse in Berkeley, two Tickets to a Performance at

·         San Francisco Ballet, Two Tickets

·        California Academy of Sciences in SF, Four Tickets

·         Chabot Space & Science Center in Oakland, Four Tickets

·         deYoung Museum or Legion of Honor in SF, Four Tickets

·         Gilroy Gardens, wo Tickets

·         Happy Hollow Park & Zoo in San Jose, Four Tickets

·          Lawrence Hall of Science in Berkeley,  Family Guest Pass

·         Lindsay Wildlife Experience in Walnut Creek, Four Guest Passes

·         Pier 39 Family Fun Pack ($313 Value)

·         Kate Truka-Tartuk in SF, Integrative Medicine and Consultation and Treatment

·         The Dailey Method in Berkeley or Piedmont (New Clients Only), Unlimited One Month Pass

·         Athletic Playground in Emeryville, Summer Camp Pass or Drop-In Pass

·         Children’s Creativity Museum in SF, Two Tickets

·          Galileo Camps in the Bay Area, $200 Off One Week of Camp at

·         Burke Williams Spa Gift Basket ($435 Value)

·         Chuck Smith Handmade Redwood Furniture: Kids’ Picnic Table (30L x 36W x 18H)

·         Chuck Smith Handmade Redwood Furniture: Garden Bridge

·         Chuck Smith Handmade Redwood Furniture: Birdhouse

·        Mr. McGroovy’s Rivets, Building Supplies and a Book of Plans

·         Books, Inc.$20 Gift Card to

·         Children’s Fairyland in Oakland, Four Passes to

·         Oakland Zoo, One Day Family Pass to the

·         Keller Williams Real Estate, Elif Top 150 for rental tables

·        Sports Basement, $25 Gift Card

Serious Fun at Çınar Classroom

Aysegul Hanim's class has some serious fun!

Çınar Ağacı classroom curriculum focuses on learning how to read and write in Turkish while having fun. Seeing these images makes us all smile. J is for Jet!

A GREAT SEMINAR BY ROXANNA DRADDY ON PURSUING EXCELLENCE

Thank you Roxanna, for an enlighting parent seminar on pursuing excellence. It was a luxury to take a break from the daily parenting tasks to reflect about the different stages of executive coaching and development. Here are some photos from our workshop. We would love to have you over again Roxanna! For those of you missed this seminar, below is Roxanna's link.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/roxanna-draddy-176481125

A FANTASTIC KIDPOWER WORKSHOP

One way of us reaching out beyond the Berkeley Turkish School Community is hosting parent seminars and inviting other schools. This Sunday, BTS hosted a fantastic workshop with Kid Power. Over 42 participants attended this seminar where both parents and children learned and practiced about safety plans. Check out our events page for more seminars to attend at our school.

On this busy day we also celebrated our fabulous co-founder Başak Çakıcı Adams's birthday. We are so lucky to have her and her lovely family as a part of our community. Cheers to many years together Basak'cim!

Here are some photos from our day.

Ending of the workshop

Spring is in the Air!

This past Sunday, Spring was in the air at the Berkeley Turkish School. Here are some images from Elma Agaci classroom...

STARTING OUR FIRST DAY WITH GREAT ENERGY

After two months of break we started our Spring Semester today with great energy and momentum both inside the classrooms as well as outside.

During turbulant times like these, we are reminded of how important it is to belong to a larger community that values diversity and peace. While our little global citizens joined their classmates with their teachers in their classrooms, we the Berkeley Turkish School Parents brainstormed together over coffee about what this community school means for each of us. We elaborated on what and how each one of us could help to achieve these goals as a community school. Out of this very valuable brainstorming session came out some great insights, and information. We realize this is just the begining and it takes diligence, commitment and time to deliver on these.  However we are confident that they are attainable, because we all witnessed the level of commitment and energy behind all of our parents who participated.  We are very excited to report that we now have key parents leading certain tasks to grow our community school.

Thank you for being a part of this meaningful community. We couldn't do without your support and dedication.

As we receive photos from our first day we will be posting to our blog.  See you all next Sunday!

TEACHER LEADERSHIP WORKSHOP

Our teachers and directors just completed a fruitful and productive leadership workshop last week, conducted by Roxanna Draddy, a professional executive career coach. Roxanna will also visit our school in March to hold a seminar for parents. Irem Radzik also introduced our teachers to mindfulness practice to help in their teachingand she will be visiting our classrooms for numerous activities/exercices with our children. This was a great opportunity for our team to get to know each other better, and strengthen the foundations of our core team.

Here are some photos from our event.