Superintendent's Newsletter
September 2019
Dear MUSD Community,
Hopefully, the recent three-day weekend provided just the right time to catch your breath after a fantastic start to the school year! Thanks to all our staff, students, and parents who contributed to making it such a wonderful start to the 2019-2020 school year. I enjoyed spending time at Back to School Nights for AHS, MJHS, and John Swett Elementary. Our other District level administrators enjoyed spending time at Las Juntas, Morello Park, and John Muir. Let's keep the positive momentum going as we move into September.
Three great donations from our local community certainly contributed to the positive start to our school year as well. First, States Coffee donated $4000 to MUSD from their proceeds on the first day of school. We look forward to sharing with States and our community on how that money is supporting our students and staff. Second, the incredible Martinez Music Forum donated $6500 to our music programs across MUSD. This money goes directly to the music programs at each site and provides such a tremendous benefit to our music programs. Lastly, we were so thankful to accept a donation of books from the Martinez Rotary group. Each week when the Rotary club has a guest speaker, the club donates a book to our schools in the name of the guest speaker. MUSD is such a great place to be for students and staff thanks to the generosity of our community. Together, we make a difference!
Our community also cares greatly for environment and the health and safety of our MUSD students. In past years, MUSD has been looking at how we can reduce and/or eliminate the use of harmful chemicals. I am pleased to share with you that the MUSD Board of Education recently reviewed a draft resolution to eliminate the purchase or use of herbicide products that contain the chemical Glyphosate (used in Roundup). The Board will take action on this resolution during the September 9, 2019 Board of Education Meeting.
We've got some amazing students in MUSD working on "Green Teams" at some of our schools to help reduce waste. We are grateful for the support of the City of Martinez and Republic Services in this work. These students are helping their school communities to reduce waste, recycle, and reuse whenever possible. You can also help us in these efforts by practicing good recycling habits at home and talking with your student(s) about how much waste is produced by lunches. Here are five ways to pack a zero-waste lunch:
1. Bring a reusable water bottle and lunch bag.
2. Pack real silverware.
3. Pack local fresh fruit and buy snacks in bulk.
4. Use reusable containers for your sandwich or snacks, not Ziploc bags.
5. Have fun with a colorful cloth napkin.
This newsletter is packed full of great info and important announcements. Please be sure to check out all the details.
Sincerely,
CJ Cammack
Superintendent of Schools
Community support for Measure R is changing the landscape in MUSD
Without your community support for Measure R, we would not be able to renovate and rebuild our schools. We started construction on the new John Muir Elementary campus this summer and things are moving along well. Over the summer we were able to renovate and remodel the boys and girls locker rooms at MJHS for greater safety, flow of student traffic and increased space. This fall we'll continue meeting with our established sub-committees from John Swett and Morello Park to discuss and review plans for their campus renovations under Measure R.
Additionally, I am very pleased to share with you that we are in the process of putting this approved design out to bid for the Las Juntas Elementary reconstruction. Our Board of Education recently approved this plan design, and pending the successful bid completion process, including receiving bids that match our estimated budgets, we will begin this exciting Measure R project. Based on the collective input from our Las Juntas sub-committee, we were able to design a plan that allows students to stay in their current classrooms buildings/school facility while the new construction is being completed. We will certainly keep our Las Juntas families updated, as well as larger community, as things develop for this project. Check out the picture below to see the design up close.
Shell/MEF Run for Education
Upcoming Dates And Events
Upcoming Events:
September 20th - AHS Homecoming Parade
September 24th - Minimum Day for All Schools
September 29th - Shell MEF Run for Education
(Please check your school site newsletter and website for additional information)
Martinez Unified School District
Website: martinezusd.net
Location: 921 Susana Street, Martinez, CA, USA
Phone: 925-335-5800
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MartinezUnified/
Twitter: @CJMUSD