Making Sure It's Done Well

School began yesterday across the District, but we should also recognize that there were a variety of orientation activities provided at schools across the District on Friday the 26^th.  As an example, I attended King HS that has a celebratory way to bring their freshman on-campus and welcome them to their high school experience.  It was outstanding and was facilitated by many including their Link Crew that will mentor and support their fellow students throughout the school year.

I was also able to attend the opening of the STEM Academy and the initial orientation for those students.  The event was covered by several media sources including a video representation by the Press Enterprise.  It was pretty exciting to see one of our two “new schools” launch on Friday.

Our staff across this District is clearly committed to our students and their success.  It couldn’t have been better represented than to view the activities (both the ones I saw and the ones I didn’t see) that occurred across the District – before school even started.

First Day of School

School begins today and there is obviously lots of excitement for lots of different reasons.  I know I always love the beginning of the new school year with new students, teachers, staff, and opportunities.  Or perhaps it is just a long-standing habitual reaction that I have for this season of the year. 

In any case, we are off and running for a new school year that promises to be a good and interesting one.  There are obviously many new programs along with a multitude of adjustments in programs across the District.  As just a small example we have:

• The new program at Bryant Elementary that focuses on arts and innovation
• The dual language immersion program expands both to additional grade levels as well as from Washington Elementary to an additional site at Castle View Elementary
• Ramona HS is going to a full 1:1 deployment of mobile digital devices
• Most of our middle schools are engaged in something similar to what is happening at Ramona HS

• The Riverside STEM Academy at Central Middle School

Welcome back and have a great year!!

Dollars to help our Student Programs

We have been engaged for some time (as are most school districts) with a federal program we refer to as MAA (i.e., Medi-Cal Administrative Activities).  The dollars “earned” are based on providing on-going surveys and accounting of the activities of many of our employees.  This past year, we believed we were not fully utilizing this resource and therefore increased our efforts.  Our staff did a tremendous job and increased the reporting many times.  That’s the good news.  The bad news is that it takes literally years for the feds to get around to catching up and paying us for what they identified as legitimate costs.

However, as a result of the efforts this year, we are able to release, on a one-time basis, $500,000 back to our almost 50 schools with the intention that the dollars are to support those programs that students and parents used to support with fees (before we changed our policy).  Therefore, there are options at those schools to provide a minor amount of money to support such things as:  6^th grade science camp, fieldtrips, Mock Trial, band, athletics, etc. 

While this is not enough, it is a start in the right direction and we continue to look for strategies to generate revenues to support these important, valued programs.

Marching Forward to the Mid-Year Decision

As part of the state budget scenario (which obviously impacts us in RUSD), the Department of Finance must make a determination of whether the anticipated revenues outlined in the state budget ($4 Billion) has in fact materialized.  The good news is that nationally, consumer spending and therefore revenues were up across the nation in July.  The bad news is that is NOT the case in California, where essentially the first ½ Billion dollars did not show up in July. 

Earlier in the month, the State Controller, John Chiang, in his monthly report indicated the loss.  However, there were other opinions in Sacramento.  This past week, the Department of Finance made a similar statement – indicating that revenue projections were off by 10% in July.  Each month such might occur, makes it much more difficult to get back on target.  Bottom-line, each month something like this occurs begins to ensure that there will, in fact, be a mid-year budget reduction for school districts and others, as outlined in the “trigger language” of the state budget legislation.

We have understood this concern all the way along.  The real issue for us in RUSD, is what will our ultimate funding from the state be and how badly will if effect not only this year but the coming years as well.  I think Sacramento needs to develop a real, accountable budget plan and stick to it -- rather than engaging in on-going smoke and mirror accounting.

Congratulations and Thanks!

I had the occasion to participate in a “Birthday Party” this past weekend at the Marriott Hotel in downtown Riverside.  The subject of the occasion was Dell Roberts who was celebrating his 75^th birthday.  Actually, I always thought Dell was 29, so I was quite surprised to find out that he was 75!!

Dell clearly gave a vast part of his work life (38 years) to serving the students of RUSD in a variety of roles.  I realize that I am the new kid – having been here only 2½ years.  However, I can tell you that when I arrived I heard a lot about Dell and his contributions and given time to reflect I can see it was my loss for not having been here to be part of the time Dell spent directly with RUSD.  On the other hand, since I have been here (and Dell has not been employed by RUSD), I have seen Dell everywhere throughout the community – always contributing, encouraging, holding people accountable, and mentoring.  His contributions did not stop because he was no longer employed by our District.  Dell continues to contribute everyday.

My life has been enriched because I have known Dell Roberts and been in Riverside.  Happy Birthday, Dell!!

New Stuff

If you haven’t visited our RUSD website, you should – it’s brand new and quite different than its predecessor!!  Not only does it look different it has much greater functionality.  I would encourage you to take a look – AND explore a bit.  There is a good video explanation of some of the functions that you can find on the tool bar on the right-hand side of the page under Quick Links.

The Calendar also has some interesting functions as it allows you to set up a customized calendar and "see"  a combined calendar that represents your interests.  Also new to the system is the ability to look up and find various employees in our school district along with their email, position title, and site location.

As we have done before, there continues to be Board agendas, etc. along with videos of the meetings, etc.  Also schools are listed separately and can be found with a searchable listing at the top right of the page.  When there is a separate school website, that also is listed for reference on the left side of the page.

I understand that there are more things coming, but we hope you enjoy this change and will find it helpful.

The Invisible

Sometimes as we look about us, we see what we want to see and don’t see some of the realities that face our students.  This past year we had 2,165 students that were categorized by the federal government as “homeless.”  The amazing part is that represents about 5% of our school population.  These are not students and families that we see on the freeway entry and exit ramps, but rather they tend to be invisible throughout the community – constantly on the move looking for both food and shelter for TONIGHT.  Those are the ones we know about, there are others where we know less about that in this difficult economic time have had are reversal of fortune and have similar issues though not the same categorization.  All these students and families tend to be “invisible.”

So here is the problem, when we don’t have school there is no school lunch or breakfast (provided through federal funds targeted for that purpose), where and how do these students eat?  We do have community organizations such as the Assistance League and others that help bridge that gap.  But then there is the case of the summer (which is obviously a much larger problem than a mere weekend).

This is where our great Nutrition Services group has stepped in by partnering with the City of Riverside (Parks and Recreation) to provide through a federal program food (lunch) in the parks for many of our students and more.  Last year, we served 145, 679 meals to those young people.  Applying the lessons we learned from last year, we will serve 280,000 much-needed meals by the end of summer.  In the view of the Nutrition Services group, "hunger doesn't take a vacation, and neither do we."  I appreciate the intervention provided by the Nutrition Services group in partnership with the City and personally feel blessed to live in such a community and be able to work with such caring, compassionate people.

School Starts Again

Sorry for my absence during July, but is has been a seriously crazy month with LOTS going on. Of course, that all culminated for all of us with a week of furloughs. For me, I went to the Sierra’s for a backpacking trip – the room rent is cheap, you know.

We were able to have a great trip, but with LOTS of snow and serious water crossings that are unlike what is “normal” for this time of year – but we were all fine and enjoyed the entire week. We exited short of our goal and therefore needed to figure out how to get back to our car, etc. Fortunately, we were saved by our trail angel, Joe, who gave us a ride back to our car. We met Joe on Glen Pass (11,987’) and traveled with him for a day. He was a great young man from Orange County, with whom we enjoyed visiting and chatting.

So what did you do during the furlough time?

Getting back to reality, school starts for students on Monday, August 29th – which is not far away. At the same time there is LOTS going on in Sacramento and locally. It will be a good year, as we have the opportunity to assist our students with their learning and maturation.