South Whittier School District held their monthly board meeting Tuesday, December 10, at the district office. There were four presentations that took place. The first presentation was by Graves Middle School students that attended the Adelante Young Men’s Conference, the second was a presentation then a performance by Dual Language Immersion students, third was about the new data from the recently released California Dashboard, and finally a presentation of the first interim report.
Graves Middle School Students Attend Adelante Young Men’s Conference
Graves Middle School principal, Dr. Trena Salcedo-Gonzalez introduced the young men who attended this year’s Adelante Young Men’s Conference. There were 15 young men that were invited to attend the conference.
The conference is held at Pasadena City College and offers a variety of workshops by Latino professionals on a variety of topics. Some topics include education, careers, and professional development. Speakers share about their own personal experiences and journeys.
Student, Victor Mendez, who was an attendee spoke and shared about his experience. He stated, “Hearing from people who grew up in a place like me, it made me think I could do it too.”
Graves Middle School plans on attending the Adelante Young Men’s Conference again next year and hopes to be able to take more students.
Dual Language Immersion Presentation & Performance
South Whittier’s Associate Superintendent of Educational Services, Martha Mestanza-Rojas, gave a brief presentation about the new Dual Language Immersion program that has come to the district this year.
Rojas shared that the program’s goal is that students will achieve bilingual proficiency in both English and Spanish. The program will allow students to reach high levels of academic achievement in both languages, and they will become cross-cultural ambassadors for our school, community and society. The presentation also included information about the 90/10 model and all the Dual Language Immersion Team including principals, teachers, and instructional coaches were recognized.
After the presentation each Dual Language class performed either a song or poem. Performing from Los Altos was Ms. Mata’s Transitional Kindergarten class, Ms. Moreno Velasco’s Kindergarten class, and Ms. Morales’ Kindergarten class. From McKibben was Ms. Gonzalez’s Kindergarten class.
California School Dashboard Presentation
The Director of Assessment, Accountability, and Parent Engagement, Dr. Stacy Ayers, presented to the school board a report of South Whittier School District’s California School Dashboard.
Dr. Ayers talked about the purpose of the Dashboard which requires school districts to write Local Control Accountability Plans (LCAP) addressing eight state priorities. The eight priorities fall under three categories: Conditions for Learning, Engagement, and Pupil Outcomes.
The presentation gave an overview of the district’s performance as well as dove deeply into the data of each state priority. The data showed the performance levels of each school which are calculated using percentiles that combine Status and Change using a five-by-five colored table that produced 25 results represented by five colors. Status explained where the school is right now and change showed if the school improved, declined, or stayed the same.
The full report can be accessed on the California School Dashboard website:
https://www.caschooldashboard.org
First Interim Financial Report 2019-2020
The first interim financial report was presented to the school board and administration by South Whittier’s Chief Business Officer, Mark Keriakous.
In his presentation Mr. Keriakous went over assumptions, the budget year financial status, multi-year projections, budget stabilization measures, and the budget calendar and next steps.
In detail both the revenue and expenditure assumptions were presented as well as the financial status of the Unrestricted General Fund projected revenue and projected expenditures. The multi-year projection was then presented which went over changes in enrollment, funding, pers and strs, benefits, and Special Education funding. From there the board was able to see the General Fund multi-year projection summary.
After the projection summary, Mr. Keriakous shared the budget stabilization measures and the calendar for the second interim financial report, estimated actuals, and the when the district will have their financial audit.