In a few short days we will be welcoming back our students to the 2023-2024 School Year! I hope the summer has been relaxing for you and your families!  We have been very busy here in Aromas-San Juan Unified working on summer projects and making plans for the fall, but the truth is we are eagerly awaiting the return of our students and the teachers who love them and work with them every day!  Schools are about people and we can’t wait for them to return!

I want to share with you that we have six strategic goals focused on teaching, learning, and social emotional training and the related support necessary for our staff to provide that to all of our students. We also realize that we need a transportation system that is robust and dependable as well as upgrades to our learning spaces and facilities. These are large goals, but ones which we find inspiring and attainable over time.  I am also keeping in mind issues around Equity, Engagement, Multiple Measures that link to our values, and the need to develop Signature Programs as we become the county’s destination district of choice. Yes, we want to improve our test scores in math and reading, but we have bigger dreams as well. We are a small, rural district with a small family feeling. That is a huge advantage.  We can flex and adapt and work together to meet the multi-faceted needs of our students.  Thank you for partnering with us as we continue to grow in our capacity to reach our goal to be one of the best school districts in the Bay Area.

 In gratitude,

Dr. Barb Dill-Varga
Superintendent of ASJUSD

Our Goal is to Hire and Support Highly Qualified Employees who Love Our Students

We are continuing to Build Our Team and have been busy recruiting and hiring new staff at all three sites. We have added some remarkable staff who exude positive energy. The following list are individuals we have hired in recent weeks!

Our Goal is to Support our Employees with Quality Professional Development                   

Jivan Dhaliwal is our new Director of Curriculum and Instruction and has been hard at work since July designing quality professional development for all of our employees. We ran a New Teacher Academy last week for our new hires and on August 7, we welcomed back both classified and certificated employees to a full day of professional development. Many of our staff attended workshops this summer in a variety of academy areas.  Math will be one of our focal points.

Our Goal is to Build Enrichment Opportunities for all Students

This Past Summer

This summer we launched ASJ+ at San Juan School in coordination with CAMP CASA from Youth Alliance. Almost 80 students had opportunities to take part in all or part of  9-hours a day worth of free activities, field trips, and academically enriching activities. This was funded by our Expanded Learning Opportunity Program that ran for 30 days, from mid June to the end of July.

During that time just some of the activities students enjoyed were trips to Horseplay Youth to experience working with horses and all that goes into ranch life; digital photography from the Weston Collective; Fibery Fun working with a local artisan who spins her own wool; Credo Studio for gardening, dance, and music, Building a Ukulele in the Anzar HS woodshop with beginning lessons from Guitars not Guns organization. We are planning a larger ASJ+ for next summer and will alert parents earlier in the spring about what’s to come for Summer 2024.

After School

Youth Alliance provided After School Enrichment at San Juan School last school year. We are planning with them currently to continue this for San Juan School and to find ways to expand our after school care at Aromas. What we love about this partnership is the rich curricular connections that emerge from working with this organization.  This is in the works, so stay tuned!

Bruce Woolpert Algebra Academy at Graniterock - August

Eleven 8th graders from San Juan and Aromas Schools attended the week-long Wolpert Algebra Academy at Graniterock Headquarters in Watsonville, alongside peers from other area middle schools.  In addition to working through a rigorous algebra curriculum taught by professors from CSUMB and UCSC, students also participated in math enrichment activities and listened to local guest speakers who came to talk about the importance of math and encouraged students to go to college and come back and work in their communities.

Some of our own Anzar high school students were hired to be assistants and mentors for their younger peers. This program runs every summer through the generosity of Graniterock!

Our Goal is to Upgrade our Facilities

Aromas

Finishing touches are being put on the new mural created by our promoting 8th Grade class and artists working with the San Benito Arts Council. This was a project that was expected to be completed in the spring of 2020, so we are very excited to be able to bring this project to its beautiful conclusion.

 Blacktop Areas at all sites and heat mitigation

All blacktop areas were resurfaced during the summer.  Aromas parents will be happy to know that the drainage project in the main parking lot was completed. By the end of August, the Aromas gym will be equipped with an HVAC unit, so that we will be able to provide a cooling center for students and staff during extreme heat. We are still actively working on HVAC for other buildings but await approvals from various state agencies on the project. We are hoping that will be in place for the fall of 2024. Meanwhile at San Juan School, ceiling fans have been installed to help with air circulation in rooms while we wait on plans for rehabbing or modernization of all sites.

 Other summer construction projects

Athletic Upgrades at Anzar: New football scoreboard, new shot clock in the gym for Basketball, new scoreboard for baseball; new athletic lockers. We are in process with a project to redo the track around the football field.

Hawk Academy: renovation of a portable to house our new Hawk Academy. By end of September we will have new flooring and furniture to support these college credit bearing courses taught by Gavilan professors. Intro to Psychology is the first one this fall, followed by Intro to Personal Finance.

San Juan and Aromas: Maintenance items and deep cleaning at both schools, especially painting/weatherproofing the gym at San Juan which received air conditioning last year. 

San Juan Rehabilitation/Modernization Project

We continue to wait for the final word from the state, but it is likely that a large portion of the campus will be rebuilt, including the multi-purpose room. Untouched will be the gymnasium and classrooms nearest to it. We have had stakeholder meetings to get preliminary sketch ideas for placement of certain buildings to provide our architectural team with rough ideas for initial drawings. We are moving forward with initial plans to take care of site assessment details and to secure the necessary contractors so when we get the final state decision, we are ready to move. We are hopeful that sometime next summer we can begin the project. 

 Furniture Pilot Program

Nine  teachers, representing all three sites (Aromas, San Juan, Anzar) and grades Kindergarten through grade 12, have volunteered to be teachers who pilot different learning spaces that will include new furniture.  The district has had some set aside reserve funds for furniture replacement and we want to intelligently spend it to begin upgrading our classrooms. These  teachers have been working with David Jakes on these plans and on August 17-18 will finalize them.  Over Christmas break, their classrooms will be emptied, cleaned, painted, new flooring installed, and new furniture delivered. They will learn how to flexibly arrange furniture for different instructional needs of the class. Throughout the second semester, we will collect feedback from the teachers, from students and others who may use the room, to understand which designs and which furniture choices/room arrangements work best or provide the most flexibility. We will use this data to inform our purchases going forward. Slowly but surely, we will work to modernize our classrooms in support of the innovative instructional practices we hope to embrace.

Our Goal is  Build  Engagement Opportunities with our Stakeholder Groups

 Aromas

The Back-to-School Night event at Aromas will be held on Thursday, August 24th, 4-5:30 pm for Dinner and 5:30-6:30 pm for Teacher Presentations. Families are invited to come early and enjoy a dinner prepared by Driscoll's, the funds of which will support our 6th Grade students going to Science Camp in October. District employees will also be on site to assist parents with logging into the Aeries Parent Portal and ParentSquare communication system. Parents who would like to volunteer in the classroom and chaperone field trips will have the opportunity to get their fingerprints taken to get the process started.

 San Juan

San Juan School will host an ice cream social from 3:30-5:00 PM on Wednesday, August 9. Families are invited to enjoy some ice cream, tour the campus, and buy some Padre apparel. District employees will also be on site to assist parents with logging into the Aeries Parent Portal and ParentSquare communication system. Parents who would like to volunteer in the classroom and chaperone field trips will have the opportunity to get their fingerprints taken to get the process started.Additionally, San Juan’s  Back-to-School Night event will be held on Thursday, August 31 from 5:30-7:00 PM.

Anzar

On the first day of school at Anzar, all 9th graders and link crew leaders will participate all morning in a student-led 9th grade orientation. At noon the entire school eats lunch together, then spends the afternoon in an all-school ice breaker outside to get to know each other through play. The 5-star student program is new this year. It is an app platform to be used to support Positive Behavior Intervention Supports (PBIS) to track positive behaviors giving students points for participating in sports, clubs, activities, and for positive behaviors on campus and at school events. Students can trade in points for prizes. We will also use it to track when students leave the classroom (as a hall pass) to help us better support students that might be having a hard time and feeling the need to leave class.  Anzar also will have an ice cream social in the Library for 9th graders and parents Wednesday, August 9, at 5:30pm. 9th graders will report to Anzar for Link Crew at 8:15am on Thursday. 10-12th graders will report to Anzar at 12:15pm. Senior family info night is scheduled for August 15 at 6pm in the Library and 9th grade family info night is scheduled for August 22 at 6pm in the Library. 10th and 11th grade info nights are scheduled for later in the year. Please see the important dates sent home this summer. Back-to-School Night will be held on Thursday, September 7 at 6:15pm.

District Office

As Superintendent, I will be meeting with parents monthly at each site as part of the “coffee with the principal/superintendent” meetings. I also hope to organize some other forums, town halls, advisory groups to increase our engagement with our families and community.  As a member of the San Juan Rotary, I hope to grow those connections with our community groups, too.  I welcome fresh ideas and as I am able, I welcome opportunities to dialogue with you during this school year!  As always, my door is open to you.  My school email is: bdillvarga@asjusd.org.

One added note!  We now offer fingerprinting service at the district office to facilitate processing our new hires and volunteers.  It is also available for a small fee as a service to the community.

 School Board

Our School Board Meetings are now live streamed on VIMEO. We would love for you to attend in person or to watch from a remote location.  If you wish to offer comments in person, please fill out a comment card when you come at 7pm or if you will attend remotely, send in comments by 11 am the day of the Board meeting to be read aloud during the meeting. (3 minute maximum). A link to the live stream is on the agenda we send out and which gets posted on our website.  While it is not the practice of the Board to respond at that moment to questions and comments, they do listen carefully to them and consider them as they do their work. Our next regular board meeting is August 16, 2023.