3RD QUARTER 2018 PROGRESS REPORT
Congratulations to the more than 2,000 members of the SJUSD Class of 2018, as well as their parents, families, mentors, teachers and others who supported the students and helped to make their proud walks across the stage possible!
A very heartfelt thank you also to the 3,000 employees who teach and support our kids; transport & feed them; offer counseling, keep their schools & grounds clean, well maintained and safe; and run this giant operation smoothly and efficiently.
Along with improved outcomes for Latino male students and promoting our school district's strengths to the community, improved Special Education Services has been one of the three areas of emphasis for the board this year. After a long and careful search, Seth Reddy recently was hired as the district's new Director of Special Education (SPED). This hiring signals the district and board's renewed commitment to highly effective, empathetic and efficient delivery of SPED services. In his previous role as an administrator for strategic projects, Mr Reddy had spent much of the past year reviewing and assessing the district's SPED policies and practices, talking with parents, educators and service providers, and creating strategies that will lead to greater success for our students and higher satisfaction for our families. Please join me in welcoming Seth to his new, vital role in our district.
Board of Education meetings now feature an enhanced focus on student achievement through receiving reports on how schools are meeting benchmarks for K-3 literacy, 8th grade math and high school honors courses. We are working to promote an environment in which school principals feel supported in their work and comfortable bringing forth challenges, as well as successes, so that solutions can be collectively identified. We welcome the opportunity to engage with our schools and gain a deeper understanding of the unique issues each individual school must address. This effort will also allow board members to make more informed and effective decisions that will drive greater student success.
District staff is currently developing a spending plan for Measure Y funds in the 2018-2019 school year, in close coordination with our school site staffs and employee bargaining units. Click here to review a preliminary draft of the plan, which has been presented to the Board of Education and the district's Budget Advisory Committee during public meetings. A final spending plan will be submitted for the board's approval at our meeting on June 28, 2018.
Finally, in my continued commitment to engagement and transparency, what follows is my assessment of the developments in the 5 areas that defined my "Quest for Excellence" in my 2014 campaign for this office.
Community is everything! I was proud to be on hand at the grand opening of a new Farmers' Market in the parking lot of Lincoln High School and pleased that I was able to play a small role in facilitating a partnership between the school district, Shasta Hanchett Park Neighborhood Association (SHPNA), West Coast Farmers Market
Association largely under the dominant leadership and persistence of community activist Alex Shoor. Our public school facilities should be used to the greatest extent possible during non school hours and should benefit our communities. Can't think of a better use than one that allows folks to gather on a weekly basis, enjoy healthy foods and support local vendors. Join us Saturdays from 10am - 2pm.
Members of our CSEA bargaining unit (the wonderful clerical workers, secretaries and other staff members who make sure our schools run smoothly every day, greet our families and ensure that everyone feels supported at school) raise funds every year to provide scholarships to students of their members. This year the recipients are both seniors at Leland High School (San Jose, California). A special thank you, Jacquelyn Dreher and Sharon Calhoun, for your lovely presentations! The generosity of CSEA and enthusiastic support for your members' children is inspiring.
Local Kiwanis clubs distributed dozens of $1,000 "Turnaround scholarships" to high school seniors who have overcome significant challenges and are now poised to begin college in the Fall. Students from several San José Unified School District high schools were recognized, including some from Lincoln and the Lincoln Plus Program! All students briefly (and bravely) shared their stories of perseverance as they took the stage to be recognized for their tremendous accomplishments. Listening to their stories was emotional and humbling and I marveled at every one of them for achieving significant goals in the face of tremendous obstacles.
A significant contributing factor to the opportunity gap is the divide between children who have had at least 1 year of preschool prior to kindergarten and those for whom kindergarten is their first formal educational environment. Through legislation passed last fall, the Individualized County Childcare Subsidy Plan now allows counties to determine their own eligibility criteria instead of relying on state criteria. The new county-specific threshold takes into account the exceedingly high cost of living in our region and provides more families with early education. San José Unified is one of ten public school districts participating in a pilot program to expand access to preschool for low income families. I'm proud of the work our district is doing not only to close the opportunity gap but to prevent it from ever taking hold in the first place. Find more information and eligibility criteria here.
Our Coordinated School Health Collaborative has approximately 320,000 dollars from LEA funds, that we can award for use on special projects within our district. Our funding priorities for the next year include additional: education and resources for district staff on student health and mental health, mental health counselors, and behavior support for our students.Approximately 75% of our funds will be used on our top funding priorities, and the remainder of our funds can be used on any project within our district. Past grants that have been awarded include: $209,000 for additional mental health counselors, $67,000 for Family advocacy programs through the Bill Wilson Center and $5,000 for Recess 101 programs at Olinder Elementary and Almaden Elementary Schools.
CHARTER AND NEIGHBORHOOD SCHOOL COLLABORATION
On March 15, our board approved the renewal of Downtown College Prep's El Camino middle school. DCP is working to improve outcomes for their students and support their efforts as they move from middle to high school and then onto college.
In compliance with a court order, district staff is working to present a facilities proposal to Promise Charter School. Promise's charter was approved at the state level with the significant revision that it operate as a K-8 rather than a K-12 school. The high school program was not approved. Staff will work with Promise, as it does with every charter operator, to identify a facility that conforms to the law and meets the same quality standards as any of our own 41 schools. When a lease is signed, I will share that information on my Facebook page.
As a trustee, I am committed to ensuring that students who live in our district boundaries have high quality options for public education. This is one of the reasons our district is, in fact, a "district of choice" and parents may request to send their children to schools other than their own neighborhood schools when they desire particular options that aren't available at their "home schools" - for example (a non-exhaustive list of examples):
Horace Mann, Peter Burnett and San Jose High School offer the globally prestigious International Baccalaureate program
Hacienda offers an Environmental Science specialty program
Hammer Montessori offers a unique developmental program
RIver Glen offers a 2 way bilingual program for every student in grades K-8 (plus 10 school offer 2 way bilingual program strands for students who choose that option)
Trace, Hoover and Lincoln offer a nationally recognized visual and performing arts strand
Gunderson High School has a strong visual & applied arts program
Leland High School offers a nationally recognized and award winning speech and debate program
Pioneer High School exposes students to service learning through a strong sophomore year program
A number of high schools offer mock trial programs
9 of our elementary schools offer an ALA (academic language acquisition) program for native Spanish speakers
12 of our elementary schools house preschool programs for eligible students
San Jose High School offers Project Lead the Way, a four-year program designed to prepare students for engineering and design careers through a hands-on project and problem-based approach, adding rigor to traditional technical programs and relevance to traditional academics
All of our high schools partner with Strive San Jose, which provides year round job shadow and summer paid internship opportunities
Broadway High School offers a program with high quality child care for students who are also parents
Liberty High School offers flexible learning schedules for students for whom the typical comprehensive high school schedule isn't an option
Homelessness is one of the most urgent crises in our community. In our district alone, more than 200 students report being homeless or unstably housed (which includes living in cars, sleeping on friends' couches and sharing apartment units with multiple families). I am deeply appreciative of the strong partnership between the Bill Wilson Center and San José Unified School District. In the past school year, BWC helped to house 70 students and their ongoing dedication to supporting our students and their families is invaluable. Students can't thrive or even think about academic success if they don't know where they will do homework, eat or sleep that evening. I will continue to strengthen our partnership and advocate for affordable housing solutions for our community.
Check out SJUSDs dedicated Immigration Services page
See here for important Teen Dating Violence resources
Kids of all ages are swiping and scrolling, totally transfixed by screens of all sizes. Welcome to the new frontier of parenting. If you have questions on how to take control of, or at least keep up with, the technology in your kids' lives, check out Common Sense Media.
Our 41 schools celebrated the best of the best at the SJUSD Employees of the Year Ceremony and Reception in May. Congratulations to the employees and teachers of the year from Trustee Area 2 schools:
Lincoln High School Rashada Melendez, teacher; Moramay Cortez, Instructional Aide
Burnett Middle School Jelani Canser, Teacher; Kari Barton, School Secretary
Hoover Middle School Mark Hartung, Teacher; Steffany Carrabino, School Secretary
Bachrodt Elementary School Nydia Arauz, Teacher; George Valenzuela, Custodian
Grant Elementary School Elizabeth Rotolo, Teacher; Gina Romeo, Clerical Office Assistant
Horace Mann Elementary School Clare Maeda, Instructional Coach; Hortencia Martin, School Secretary
Trace Elementary School Amber Stagi, Teacher; Reina Baca De Silva, Campus Supervisor
I was happy to attend a dinner celebration for our classified employees at the Old Spaghetti Factory. It was an awesome opportunity to recognize and show appreciation to the many, many folks who keep our schools running every day!
We are always hiring! Contact our Human Resources Department and job portal here.
Many of my personal efforts serve to inform my role as a trustee, build relationships, and think strategically about how best to improve outcomes for all SJUSD students. I am actively participating in a number of projects related to education policy and social justice:
As many of you know, I declared my candidacy for Santa Clara County Supervisor in 2017. I am very pleased to share that I was the top vote getter in the June 5, 2018 primary, thus securing a spot in the top two finishers who will move on to the general election this November. It is the poignancy of the economic divide in our community which led me to seek the Supervisor seat. I see so many kids in our district who are struggling, not because of academic challenges, teacher quality or even class size, but because they are unstably housed, inadequately nourished, have not received consistent health care services, did not have access to high quality early childhood education programs and more. While SJUSD places an extraordinary amount of time and resources in partnership with organizations that do address these challenges, we are at the heart an educational system and can't fully address the roots of these socio-economic challenges. Those levers are at the County level and, should I be successful in November, I will continue to focus at that level on the needs of struggling children and families. When we invest in those populations, outcomes are better for everyone: we see safer neighborhoods, a better educated workforce and a more stable economy.
My move to the general election does mean that I will conclude my time as a school board member when my term concludes in December, 2018. It has been an absolute privilege to have a hand in this important work for four years and I do believe that we are stronger than we were in 2014: our graduation rates are higher, more students are meeting key performance measures, programs have expanded, we've secured additional funding, improved communication, built new partnerships, and our district has become a model to school districts throughout the state in several areas, including our progressive maternity/family leave policy, our teacher evaluation system, our implementation of the LCAP. We are actively lobbying at the state level for increased funding and greater equity. We are exploring options for teacher housing. There is so much more work to do, but we've accomplished a great deal in the past four years and I look forward to supporting whatever new trustee is installed next winter.
If you are interested in learning more about my campaign for County Supervisor, please visit my website www.susanellenberg.com or follow my campaign on facebook.