Andrew Bailey is  Executive Director of Anova Center for Education , which has campuses in Santa Rosa, San Rafael and American Canyon in Napa County. Anova was founded in 200o.

SONOMA COUNTY'S 1ST ANNUAL AUTISM COMMUNITY SYMPOSIUM

When:             Tuesday, October 21st, 3:30pm-6:30 pm

Where:            The Anova Center for Education 

                         3033 Cleveland Avenue, Santa Rosa, CA

Cost:                FREE to participants and attendees

For more information or to reserve your seat, contact Anova at: (707) 527-7032

Anova will be hosting the Autism Community Team (ACT!) of Sonoma County in the First Annual Autism Community Symposium, "Meeting Challenges and Creating Opportunities". This forum brings together parents, public schools, regional centers and private providers to increase understanding of what services are currently available to those impacted by autism, and to discuss all that remains to be accomplished.

As autism spectrum diagnoses become more frequent among local students, Andrew Bailey says it is increasingly important for schools to implement cost-effective approaches to meeting their needs.

 For a visiting group of educators from Ukraine, seeing American school classrooms in action was a learning experience.

  To read about the mission and design for the Open World Leadership Center, click here .

The Open World exchange program was established to increase partnership and sharing of economic and democratic practices between the two nations.  Sonoma County is one participant in the education program of having Ukraine educators visit for two weeks.

 To find out more about the US-Ukraine non profit organization, click here .

The Solar Sonoma County program, which got its official kick-off last night, may make our area a model for other rural regions that want to expand their use of solar power.

Click here to see a detailed 2-page fact sheet on Solar Sonoma County. (pdf)

John Lushetsky from the federal Department of Energy, where he is the manager of the Solar Energy Technologies Program. As more and more solar panels collect electricity, there will be increasing demand for batteries to store and save that power. John Lushetshy says his agency will soon turn its attention to that aspect of energy independence as well.

Ives Pool in Sebastopol is an example of a local public facility that has installed solar panels to hold down energy costs.

As gang-related activities increase in the Sonoma Valley, new prevention efforts are being launched to help parents redirect affected kids.

For details about the upcoming seminar series, click here . You can hear Jill Royce describe the full series in this audio clip:

To view the services provided by LifeWorks, click here .

  David Sanchez, a Kindergarten teacher from Santa Maria  is president of the 340,000 member California Teachers Association.