Dear MTUESD Community,
We are solidly in the fall season as the first weeks of school have passed, and we are into learning new materials and content. The kids are really doing great!
I want to talk with you a little bit about academics and being involved in your students' assignments. We are introducing something called i-Ready assessments. These are assessments that inform instruction with the teachers. It's kind of like that old analogy from NASA’s Apollo 13 when upon monitoring the increasing carbon monoxide levels, Commander Jim Lovell uttered the historic phrase, “Houston, we have a problem….” That's why assessments are so important. It's a way for teachers to see what students are being successful with and where we need to target our areas of growth. Everybody learns at their own pace and what we are looking for is growth. Bottom line–Are we moving students over to the right? Assessment is part of working smart and that data and how we USE IT is important. We look forward to sharing it with you.
I also urge you to be involved in your students' assignments by looking at their progress and keeping up on the Infinite Campus gradebook. Kids that have some parent involvement looking at their assignments,
I don't mean doing their assignments, but looking at them, do better. Kids are kids. If they know someone's keeping an eye on them, that's the best. We also have sports eligibility requirements, so catching kids early on in any areas where they're struggling is super important so we can support them to be successful and maintain eligibility. If you need support on how to login and look at that, reach out to your students' teacher and we can make that happen.
My mom always had a saying of “Just do your best”. She never told me you have to get an A or B but she always just said “Do your best”. Sometimes that standard of doing your best seemed a little bit harder than a goal for an actual grade. The more you can stay connected to your students' education, the more successful they will be. This includes family time reading with your kids every night or listening to them read, playing Scrabble, playing games like Monopoly, etc. Learning isn't just what happens on pencil and paper or on the computer. It's about how we play and think every single day.
The response to the sites’ new looks has been very positive. We thank the staff and students for bearing with us during this process and their willingness to work with us on that.
Mark your calendar please for the Copperopolis Parent Club meeting on September 9 at 6:00 p.m. and the district-wide ELAC meeting at Mark Twain on Thursday, September 10 at 5:30 p.m. The MT Parent Club meeting is at Round Table on September 11 at 6:00-7:30 p.m. These are great opportunities to engage and create a positive school culture. We are also continuing to look for Bond Oversight Committee members. Our first committee meeting will be September 17, at the Mark Twain library at 5:15. Interested members from across the district are WELCOME as we spend down these existing bond funds.
I would appreciate your taking a moment to talk with your student about respecting property and not engaging in vandalism. Things like spit wads, while are fairly harmless, create a culture of disrespectful behavior and also eat up some custodial time as we clean it up. We had a good strong start, but we've had a little bit of an uptick in vandalism at Mark Twain. I know this is just one or two kids that are changing the tone for everyone else, and I am sure their parents would never tolerate a spit wad at home. Staff and students really don't want that negative tone on campus. Take a minute to talk to your kid, and please tell them if it is not them that’s doing it and they know who it is–it's OK if “you see something, to say something”. It doesn't need to be a public conversation, but saying the right thing to a trusted adult when nobody else says it is an important life skill.
One of my goals with these messages is to give a little bit of budget information weekly. As you know, we receive funds from the state and the feds. Annually, the state gives us what's called the cost of living adjustment (COLA). In the past few years these were very large bordering on obscene, but school districts, especially underfunded ones like us, really felt the transformation of being appropriately funded, especially combined with the Covid money. It is important to know that the COLA does not apply to all funding categories, so it's not a straight across the board increase but only on certain segments of funds. With the recent financial troubles in the state and the ending of the Covid funds, the COLA projections for 2024/25 were reduced and school districts across the state had to cut their projections about what they thought the 24/25 COLA would be. The COLA is meant to cover things like routine increases in energy and operating costs. The COLA is often lower than inflation, thus the cost of expenses rises more quickly than revenue. We monitor very closely our budget and keep a firm pulse on where we are with our spending. I appreciate Cat Eastburn’s steady hand on our finances. It is important for me to relate to you again that facilities funding is separate from programmatic funding. The improvements that you see being made on the buildings are out of funds that cannot be used for student education. I know it's a head shift to think about school finance, but the best way to think about it is all those buckets of different money and you can pour that bucket of precious water into the sand to make the sandcastle only when it meets the restricted requirements for a certain kind of project.
I want to thank all parents and partners who have taken the time to reach out to us at the sites and let us know how we can support their students. Education is a partnership. Looking forward to a great week ahead.
Sincerely yours,
Louise Simson
Superintendent