CUSD Update
August 26, 2016
News from The Superintendent
Wow, what a great opening day CUSD had! I was able to spend a little time at Chapman, Fair View, Bidwell Junior, Chico Junior, Pleasant Valley High and Chico High—and the atmosphere at each was incredibly positive. Students were upbeat and there was fantastic learning happening in every classroom I visited. I cannot thank our staff enough for the hard work that went into preparing for today as that preparation paid off in a positive and smooth opening to the 2016-2017 school year. THANK YOU all, from our teachers and administrators to our bus drivers, nutrition services staff, office staff, custodial staff, information technology staff, district staff, classroom aides, facilities crew, not to mention the M&O staff that was kept hopping with several HVAC units that decided to call in sick today.
I was able to watch Fair View Principal Andrew Moll take a whole body approach to welcoming new students to Alternative Ed. In addition to going over schoolwide expectations, he caught my attention when he taught a group of almost 40 students—not all there by their own choice--relaxing breathing techniques to utilize when they start feeling stressed. What a great tool! Thank you Andy and the ever patient and positive Fair View team!
Bidwell Jr. High was literally buzzing and also close to bursting at the seams with both students and energy. I was able to visit almost every classroom and found students actively engaged—including many classes working on building spaghetti towers, paper bridges, and self-standing construction paper towers. Talk about engaging students from day one! And while the sixth graders might have been nervous at 8am, but by 10:30 they were definitely smiling and well, loud…in a good way! Kudos to new principal Leonard Lopez and the awesome staff at Bidwell Junior!
Chico Junior High had an amazing student assembly led not by some out of town speaker, but by the supportive and caring staff at Chico Junior. Several staff members shared stories about times in their lives when something did not go quite as well as they had hoped and how they rebounded with support from their school family. It was a powerful assembly with all students not only in attendance but engaged. Great job Pedro Caldera and the CJHS staff—you never cease to amaze me!
I caught Pleasant Valley High School during their lunch where students were not only positive in their interactions with staff and other students, they were waiting patiently for the lights at the crosswalks and even headed back on campus well before the bell rang at the end of lunch. As I drove past Safeway, I did not see a single student in the parking lot. I am not sure what principal John Shepherd and his staff did to get this type of positive behavior both on and off campus, but wow, it sure worked. Thank you PV…and I will be back in the upcoming weeks to visit classes.
Chico High was equally abuzz with smiling, friendly student faces. The staff members were all dressed in matching red and gold t-shirts and standing at their doors greeting students at the beginning of the period. Thank you Mark Beebe and the entire Panther staff…Chico High looked and felt more like a college campus than a high school today.
My favorite mental picture of the day comes from Chapman. New principal Mike Allen is well over 6 feet tall, but I found him in the cafeteria high-fiving kindergarten students with a loud, laughing voice—and the kids were loving it! Their laughter was audible from the parking lot—and there’s nothing quite like the sound of loudly happy primary grade students! Thank you Mike and the caring, creative and ever positive staff at Chapman.
I plan to visit all schools and as many classes as I can in the next few weeks. Thank you for welcoming me into your schools, but more importantly, thank you for caring so deeply about our students—it shows and they notice. I am so fortunate to be able to work with such amazing people.
Again, thank you for all you do—you make CUSD what it is, and it is truly a great place to be. --Kelly
News from the Assistant Superintendent, HR
REALLY proud to be a part of Chico Unified with all that is happening in our district. Over this past week it was easy to see how incredibly well everyone works together to make this a great district for our students! On Monday, many of us from the district office visited sites all over the district to look at the work done by John Carver and the Maintenance & Operations team (playgrounds, painting schools, replacing old carpets, blacktop, etc.). It was also an incredible sight to see the new buildings and facilities at Marsh Junior, Chico Junior and the two high schools! The efforts of Julie Kistle, Lalanya Rothenberger and Maria Campos are amazing! We could see that the efforts of these two departments are steadily transforming our district, lifting the morale of all our staff and making our schools attractive to students and families.
The Ed Services team put on a masterful professional development workshop (CUE Rock Star) for all our teachers and administrators! Wow…what a logistical piece of work (Mike Morris was amazing)! It was awesome to see the Information Technology team (thank you John Vincent and your department!) make this an incredible success. As I visited with the teachers, I heard only glowing remarks about the quality of the workshops. As we utilize and teach technology in the classroom we better prepare our students for the world we all live in.
HUGE kudos to Vince Enserro, Crystal O’Rear and the Nutrition Services team. Wow did we eat good! From the Administrator Training to Teacher CUE Rock Star training the food was amazing! By providing a quality lunch on site our staff had valuable time to gather and talk about what they had learned.
None of this could have happened without the amazing support of Phil Morgan who made all the facilities work for everything that was going on! Phil was tireless in getting all the rooms and buildings scheduled, organized and available. Awesome job!
Let’s keep working together and keep doing amazing things!
Jim Hanlon
Assistant Superintendent
Human Resources
News from the Assistant Superintendent, Business Services
Assistant Superintendent Bultema says the construction and renovation under way since spring semester 2015 total $38 million. He and Julie Kistle, Facilities and Construction Director, rattled off projects that included deferred maintenance work: carpeting, painting seven elementary schools, repairing heating and air-conditioning units, and patching asphalt and roofs. Most notable were gilding touches to the crowning achievements: large-scale improvements at all three middle schools. CUSD also enhanced athletic fields at Pleasant Valley and Chico high schools.
This home-stretch bustling culminated years of work funded by two significant bond allocations: Measure A for $39 million, approved in 1998 to build a third high school but instead (with $11 million in additional state funding) applied to the two current campuses, plus Fair View (Alternative Ed) and Inspire (Charter); and Measure E for $78 million, approved in 2012. Of that Measure E amount, $15 million in bonds have been sold; the rest of the $38 million spent has come from developer fees and state matching funds, and was applied as advertised to maintenance and middle schools.
“It has been amazing the things we have been able to accomplish with those dollars—really nice,” said Kistle, seated at a picnic table with Bultema on the patio of Marsh Junior High’s new multipurpose building, which serves as a student union.
If Chicoans agree, work will continue. CUSD has another bond request on the ballot. Measure K, which will go before voters in the November 8 election, totals $152 million: $130 million for district schools and $22 million for charter schools within district boundaries. This money primarily would fund improvements on elementary campuses; CUSD’s Facilities Master Plan (or FMP) also calls for additional work on high school athletic facilities.
“If we are lucky enough to have our bond pass,” Kistle said, “we are ready to pounce on getting those [projects’ architectural plans] done.”
All told, the FMP comprises $400 million worth of what Bultema calls “identified need,” which he described as what’s required to give schools across the district equivalent facilities. “It’s not gold-plating,” he added. “It isn’t even taking them to a higher standard that we’d love to see.”
Meanwhile, Kistle and her team have focused on the tasks at hand, which have been multiple and varied. Each middle school—starting this year the “junior high” campuses enroll sixth- through eighth-graders (rather than just seventh- and eighth-graders), to alleviate crowding at elementary schools—received significant attention.
One commonality is high-speed Internet infrastructure. The three campuses got 10G wiring plus high-capacity wireless hot spots sandwiched by classrooms. “If that’s the only thing we did to improve student learning,” Kistle said, “that’s huge…. Teachers actually can utilize their technology so much better now.”
Every school in the district got safety and security upgrades, most notably for “code red” lockdowns. Fencing and security cameras also were installed where needed. The middle schools also are more accessible under the Americans with Disabilities Act and have improved facilities for special education.
News from the Director of Special Ed and Student Services
Eric Snedeker and Classified Human Resources joined forces to provide a unique training opportunity to CUSD employees that currently hold positions working with our Special Education students. Instructional Aides, Paraprofessionals, LVNs, Health Assistants, Transportation Special Education Aides and Bus Drivers were all invited to attend. The training, held Friday, August 12 at PVHS’s Performing Arts Center, covered such topics as Managing Behaviors in School Environments, Supporting Students with Emotional Disabilities, and Behavior Teaching Strategies, and were presented by Josh Kuersten of Tehama County Dept. of Education. Afternoon sessions presented by Eric Lucero and Tim Hall of Keenan and Associates covered Blood Borne Pathogens and Safe Lifting/Transfer demonstrations. More than 120 attendees took part, which also included employees from Thermalito Union Elementary School District, Manzanita School District, and Oroville Union High School District. Our thanks go out to Nutrition Services for its excellent catering services in providing food and drink for attendees and to Phil Morgan for recording the event for future use. We look forward to providing similar trainings in the future and encourage all employees to submit suggestions for future training session topics.
Pleasant Valley High Field - Grand Opening
A Special Thank You from a Student!
Dear Modern Building Company - My name is Abigail Longway I am a sixth grader this year at Marsh Junior High. I would first like to say thank you to you guys for the work you did on the Cafeteria and Science Lab it looks great!!! The second thing I would like to say is that you guys put a lot of work into them and I appreciate that. I cannot wait until we get to sit in there!!! Thank you again. Sincerely, Abigail Longway, 6th Grade Student at Marsh Junior High School
John Wulff with Modern Building Inc. sent a special Thank you back to Abigail:
Dear Abigail - Thank you so much for your e-mail. I’m John Wulff the project superintendent that did the Marsh Jr High Projects. It really means a lot to me that you took the time to thank us. I hope you have a very pleasant time at Marsh. I know you will really like Jay, your principal. He is a great man and will be there for you if or when you need him. Thank you again.
Congratulations to Marysol De la Torre!
Inspire teacher Marysol De la Torre has been appointed to the Commission on Teacher Credentialing. This is both an honor and a huge responsibility. I have absolutely no doubt that Marysol is up for the challenge and will be an excellent representative of not only Chico but all California educators. Congratulations Marysol!
Congratulations to Beth Burton!
For the second straight year, Beth Burton is on top of the world at the Scottish Highland Games. The Pleasant Valley High School teacher defended her world championship in the Masters division on Sunday in Buffalo, NY. Burton defeated other women between the ages of 40-44 in nine traditional Scottish events to win the world title.
Superintendent's Awards
1. & 2. CITIZENS LES HERINGER and PETER MILBURY (not present) for their work on the Citizen's Bond Oversight Committee - presented by Assistant Superintendent Kevin Bultema
Special Thanks to The Chico Mall
The Chico Mall hosted its third back-to-school supply drive. Several mall businesses were drop off points: DeVons Jewelers, Carl’s Jr., and the mall management office next to Sears. They collected the following items: Regular and colored pencils, markers, erasers, lined paper, glue sticks, construction paper, copy paper, tissues and rulers and delivered them to CUSD.