| Superintendent's
Message |
 Welcome
and welcome back! Our first day of school greeted 2,726 students
to our K-8 learning community.
I am very proud or our staff, parents, and community for the
work and love they put into showing all of our students how much
we care about them as they walked through the school house
doors.
As is the case every year, exciting ventures lie ahead
at the District and School levels; within all of our
PTAs; and with our foundation, KIDDO! It
truly is a work of success because we all pull together
for kids.
This also is a year of financial challenges all over
California and in Mill Valley, too. Please
read and continue to follow our District news as we meet
those challenges going forward.
This year is a big year for learning and for the
physical environment within which our students learn.
After two years of research and planning on the part of
our learning community, a 15-year strategic facilities
plan led the Board of Trustees to authorize a Bond
Measure for the November general election. If
approved by voters, Measure C will result in the first
phase of the plan and will touch every school.
It's focus is safety, modernization, and meeting
the increased facilities demands of a District that
has grown by nearly 450 student in five years. Please
get informed and educated about the measure.
Of course, the centerpiece of our District is 'High
Levels of Learning'. We will continue the
implementation of our strategic action plan, using the
leadership and expertise of our entire staff.
Greetings to everyone! Here we go!
Ken Benny
Superintendent
|
| Facilities
News |
I want to give you an update on some
very important work that the District has been doing over the
past two years to address our long-term facilities needs.
First, I want to thank the parents, teachers, administrators
and community leaders who volunteered many, many hours of
their time over those two years to help us with this essential
and necessary planning.
The Facilities Master Plan that they developed through an
exhaustive public process provides the District with a
thoughtful, comprehensive and fiscally responsible blueprint
for ensuring that our schools, buildings and classrooms can
meet our space and educational needs for many years to come.
The type of work that's included in the Facilities Master Plan
goes way beyond the daily maintenance and upkeep of our
buildings and grounds. That routine maintenance helps keep our
schools looking good, but it can't address the larger and more
costly long-term needs of our schools' aging roofs, doors and
windows, fire safety and emergency communications systems, and
electrical and plumbing systems, among other things.
I'm extremely proud of the excellent work our Facilities
Master Plan Committee has done. I encourage you to visit the
District facilities news page at www.mvschools.org/facilities to
read the plan, learn about the process and understand how
important and integral this facilities work is to maintaining
our educational excellence.
|
| Measure
C News |
The Facilities Master Plan that I just
described provides the blueprint for meeting our long-term
facilities needs. How we pay for the work is another question.
Many of you may already be aware that the Board of Trustees
voted unanimously to place a $59.8 million bond measure on the
November 3 ballot to provide funding for getting started with
some of the most immediate and urgent work identified in the
Facilities Master Plan.
Bonds are a standard financing tool that most public school
districts use to generate funding for large building projects.
Bonds are separate from other types of school funding,
including from a parcel tax, that the District uses to pay for
daily operating costs, such as teacher salaries. To ensure the
bond funding is spent according to the Facilities Master Plan,
Measure C has strong public accountability features, including
annual financial audits and monitoring by an independent
oversight committee. All of the money remains in Mill Valley
and none can be used for administrator salaries.
You can learn more about Measure C, how it works and what it
does by visiting the District website at www.mvschools.org/bond.
|
| 2009-10
Budget Impact |
In
late July the Legislature and Governor finally settled on a
budget reduction plan that will have significant impact on K-12
education funding and programs. While not as devastating
an impact as in many other school districts, that impact will be
felt here in Mill Valley. It is important for you to know
that in spite of the significant reductions facing us, the Board
and Leadership Team have maintained a strong commitment to two
extremely significant goals:
- Avoiding layoffs of our excellent teachers and staff
- Maintaining a strong focus on continuing to provide a
comprehensive education of the whole child
Our District has the very best staff anyone could ask for; a
supportive school board; dedicated school foundation and PTAs;
and parents and community members who highly value education.
We have a mission and strategic plan that puts a high premium
on High Levels of Student Learning, Excellent Staff, Sound
Infrastructure, and Communications and Community Inclusion.
Simply put, our district is focused on what matters most -
creating conditions that ensure kids get the very best
attention our learning community can give them.
|
| August
Board Highlights and September Preview |
|
At the August 26 Board Meeting
- Superintendent Ken Benny gave
an overview of Student Learning initiatives for 2009-10 with
a special emphasis on Character Education.
- Assistant Superintendent
Michele Rollins provided a State budget update and its
impact on the District.
- Superintendent Ken Benny reported
on the soaring enrollment and measures the District has
taken to accommodate growth.
- Director of Maintenance and
Operations Tim Ryan provided information related to bond
project delivery methods.
At the Next Board Meeting
on September 16:
- Teachers attaining permanent status
in the district will be recognized by the Board and
Superintendent Ken Benny.
- Superintendent Ken Benny will
present California Standards Test (CST) results for
school year 2008-09.
- Director of Maintenance and
Operations Tim Ryan will provide a comprehensive review of
this past summer's facilities work.
- Assistant Superintendent Michele
Rollins will review the 2008-09 'Unaudited Actuals', an
overview of the past year's financial books.
- Director of
Technology Terry Kritsepis will present changes to the
District's student data system as part of the newly
launched California Longitudinal Pupil Achievement Data
System (CALPADS).
|
| Soaring Enrollment
Continues to Strain Facilities |
|
K-8 enrollment has grown by over
200 students from last year. We welcomed almost 375
new kindergarten students. Our opening day enrollment
was 2,726 K-8 students, with the bulk of the growth
once again a larger than expected kindergarten population.
Finding ways to use our existing facilities to accomodate
growth is a major challenge; and we have now leased temporary
classrooms each year for the past three years. 2009-10
school by school enrollment details follow.
Implications of Enrollment Growth
The
following chart 'looks back' at Mill Valley enrollment trends
and includes opening day of this year. If we continue to
experience the large entering kindergarten classes we saw this
year, overall enrollment is projected to reach nearly
3,000 students in school year 2011-12. These projections
assume rolling each grade level forward and includes
approximately 370 Kindergarten students each year.
|
| High
Levels of Achievement Continue |
| STAR
Results Published
We
can all be proud of our students and staff as annual
results of the California
Standards Test (CST)
were made public on August 17, 2009.
As has been the case
since 2003, the District has demonstrated continuous
improvement, with the vast majority of our students either
meeting or exceeding state expectations. While this is
but one measure of success for our students, schools, and
District, we can celebrate these accomplishments. It is
important to recognize this accomplishment because a
significant measure of a school's or district's success on a
standards-based assessment is not in what occurs in any one
year, but really what occurs over several years. The
Mill Valley School District has shown consistent, incremental
improvement every year for the past six years. We
are committed to high levels of learning for all students and
we continue to seek ways in which we can continue to get
better and better.
The CST is an assessment given each spring with results
published in August just before the start of the new school
year. CST is administered to students in grades 2
through 8 in our District and tests students according to
the California content standards, considered some of the
most rigorous learning standards in the nation.
|
| New
Classrooms to Accommodate Enrollment Growth |
 Placement
of students to accommodate for 2009-10 enrollment growth was
spread across the District, including new classes at three
of our elementary schools. Tam Valley, Edna Maguire
and Strawberry Point all added classes. The District had
already leased a "double" temporary portable
at Tam Valley in 2008-09 to accommodate last year's growth
and in anticipation of growth this year. This year, a
temporary portable building at Strawberry Point was leased
as that school has now run out of existing classroom space
to accommodate District growth.
|
| Greening
Our Schools |
 Part
of the Mill Valley School District's mission statement is
that we prepare our students to be "wise stewards of
our natural environment." To model this for our
students we are continuing to improve our practice of Green
Cleaning in our schools.
What is Green Cleaning? Cleaning
that protects health without harming the environment.
This summer we have switched three of our major surface
cleaning products, our paper towels, bath tissues, and our
new foam hand soap to Green
Seal™ Certified Products. The
Green Seal™ is based on reduced human and environmental
toxicity and reduced volatile organic compound content.
The District is also providing one of these Green Seal™
general purpose cleaners for every staff member to use in
their classroom or office as needed. We anticipate that
this new vendor will reduce custodial supply costs this year.
|
| Character
Matters In Mill Valley |
| One
of the things that makes this District so great is its
commitment to a comprehensive education that goes far beyond
high levels of academic learning. In partnership with
parents, we hold to the strong belief in the whole child and the
teaching, learning and modeling of good character and
citizenship. Our individual schools use many programs and
strategies to accomplish goals around character education.
This year we will launch a District-wide framework for Character
Education to include six important character traits:
1. Building a sense of community
and belonging at school
2. Respect and tolerance for
others
3. Trustworthiness, honesty, and
integrity
4. Responsibility
5. Kindness, compassion, and
caring
6. Social responsibility and
commitment to community service
Building common language and expectations at school around
these traits will occur throughout the year with added
emphasis to each trait at specified times of the year.
Research has shown that school discipline and student
conflict diminishes; school and classroom climate is enhanced;
and students become more engaged in the learning process.
Our commitment is to make sure parents also know
when these character traits are emphasized so they can
reinforce them with their children. As we go through the
school year, parents will see recurring themes presented
through newsletters both at the school and District level,
information from school counselors and Principals, emphasis on
school marquees, and integration of these traits into the
daily teaching and learning routines of the school.
Character education is not a single course, a quick-fix
program, or a slogan posted on the wall; it is an integral
part of school life. The school must become a community of
virtue in which responsibility, hard work, honesty, and
kindness are modeled, taught, expected, celebrated, and
continually practiced. We strongly affirm parents as the
primary moral educators of their children and believe schools
should build a partnership with the home.
|
| Technology
Update: Refresh, Renew, Recycle |
 Our
Technology team had another busy summer preparing computers
and the network for another great school year of learning,
including the renewal of the Teacher Laptop Program. As
part of our hardware replacement strategy; and recognizing
laptops purchased four years ago no longer met the increased
demands of our teachers, the District renewed the lease
and rolled out more than 150 teacher laptops this
summer. In August, the District technology team held nine
training sessions for teachers to complete the transfer of
old laptops for new ones.
As part of the District's 'Refresh, Renew, Recycle
Computer' program, all laptops turned in by teachers will
now have maintenance conducted on them and will be added
to our student computer inventory for continued use
at the school and classroom level.
|
| School
Messenger - Our Emergency Notification System |
| We
have launched School Messenger this school year. In doing
so, we will be able to notify parents and staff regarding
emergencies. We have run two tests of the system in an
effort to make sure our database is as accurate as possible.
If you did not receive a test message from Superintendent Ken
Benny at the end of June; or in mid-August, it could mean your contact
information is not current. As part of Back-To-School,
please make sure all of your contact information is up to date
at your school.
Eventually, School Messenger will also be
offered at each school site so that Principals can contact
parents and staff as well. School Messenger is a
strategy we are deploying as one of our four overarching
strategic plan goals: "Communication and Community
Inclusion". |
| H1N1
Swine Flu Update |
We are taking steps to reduce the
spread of flu in our schools and community. We want to keep
schools open to students and functioning in a normal manner
during this flu season. We need your help to do this. Please
take a moment to read the Letter
to Parents: Swine Flu with tips on how
you can help prevent the spread of Swine Flu.
|
| City Pedestrian
Safety Projects Near Old Mill and Edna Maguire |
The
City of Mill Valley is doing some safety
improvement projects adjacent to Old Mill and Edna Maguire
Elementary Schools. This work includes installation of
curb extensions to improve pedestrian safety and access at Old
Mill Street and Throckmorton Avenue, Lovell Avenue at Old Mill
Street and Summit Avenue, and on Lomita Avenue at Edna Maguire
School.
The work could start as soon as Monday, August 31, 2009 and will
continue until September 18, 2009. Heavy equipment use
will be scheduled after school hours, and the city assures us
the contractor will take all steps needed to ensure our school
community has access to the schools during construction.
We recommend you allow extra time in the morning and afternoon
for pick-up and drop-off of students as construction can
potentially cause a slowdown.
This is not a Mill Valley School District project, if
you have any questions please contact Julie McClure at the City
of Mill Valley Department of Public Works at (415)
388-4033 ext 118.
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