Dear Parents,

The Superintendent's September newsletter includes a Look Back at some important celebrations, anticipates some key events Coming Up, and provides reminders of important calendar dates!

Sincerely,
            Barbara Dill-Varga, Ed.D
            Superintendent, Aromas-San Juan Bautista USD

Education Foundation GALA on September 7th

The annual community foundation for the school district held a very successful barbecue and silent and live auction on September 7, 2024.  Approximately $17,000 was raised for Anzar High School scholarships and to award teacher mini-grant proposals.

About 125 individuals attended from Aromas and San Juan Bautista. Thanks to all who participated!

Anzar’s 30th Anniversary was celebrated on September 21, 2024 at a Harvest Fair on Anzar’s campus. Over 150 Alumni and supporters of the school attended from 11-5pm and enjoyed 3 food trucks, 3 bands including an alumni band called Clava and a range of activities for all family members. Individual booths showcased future ideas for Anzar’s renovation and memorabilia from Anzar’s 30 years of success. We have also started an Alumni Directory and invite you, if you are a graduate, to enter your information. A link is found on our website.

ELACs - One of our goals is to increase participation of our parents on our ELAC committees and we have made great progress this year.   Our new TOSA who focuses on English Language Acquisition (ELAC) has been working in partnership with our Director of Curriculum and Instruction to grow participation. We have also hired a parent to provide Spanish translation and attend all ELAC/DELAC meetings.  This year at San Juan School, 25 parents attended. At Anzar we had about 20 parents in attendance. Aromas’s ELAC meeting had 35 parents in attendance!

P3CC Focus on Math  - We are focusing on math achievement in our district. It starts with making an investment in teachers, especially at the preschool through grade three level where foundational concepts are taught and reinforced. We are in year two of our partnership with CalEd partners which connects our teacher teams with a network of districts and teachers across the state. This year, we expanded the teacher team in addition to our district office and site administrators. The team spent two days in Burbank recently to learn and plan next steps.  Team membership is:

• Jivan Dhaliwal, Director of Curriculum and Instruction

• Ethan Stocks, San Juan School Principal

• Heather Howell, Aromas School Principal

• Margarita Carrillo-Gaitan, Preschool Director

• San Juan teachers: Cristal Avila, Tanya Good, Lisa Vance

• Aromas School teachers: Wendy Gurnee, Bridget Juul, Adrienne Salamida, Caitlin Tungate

• Sara Perez(ELD TOSA)

Chronic Absenteeism - We continue to work on reducing chronic absenteeism. We know that when students are in attendance, their student achievement increases. To date this year, our efforts have paid off as we have accomplished the following milestones:

• Anzar’s Attendance Rate so far this year: 95.89%

• Aromas Attendance Rate so far this year: 95.49%

• San Juan School Attendance Rate so far this year:95.30%

 While this represents progress, we hope you work with us to raise our rates even higher. Please know that we will continue to bring families with troubling attendance and tardiness records to the Student Attendance Review Board (SARB) at the county level.

This process may involve some interventions from the County District Attorney and result in legal actions. It is very important, therefore, to make sure you are working with us to improve student attendance.

 New Computer Lab at Anzar - Early this fall, we replaced the computer lab at Anzar that supports art curriculum, specifically photoshop. This state of the art lab will also support future AI, tech curriculum, and potentially with  E-Sports capabilities. The lab now has 21 computers with 2 backups.

Theatre Arts is becoming a signature at San Juan. As you may know, San Juan Bautista is the home of El Teatro Campesino. Cristal Avila, kinder teacher, is a member of that organization. and we also have Principal Ethan Stocks who majored in theater in college.  This year, Ms. Avila is directing Between Mundos. The new San Juan School design also will have a performance space that supports theatrical performances for outdoor audiences, too. We hope this is a space El Teatro may use as they work with us in partnership.

Measure D on the November 5, 2024 Ballot.

ASJUSD’s school board has placed a question on the ballot to seek $44 million in bond funding to 1) complete phase 3 of the construction of San Juan School, 2) make needed improvements at Aromas school and 3) improve the facilities of Anzar High School as we address future needs for our students. To that end, the district hired our Learning Spaces consultant (David Jakes) to propose some initial CONCEPT designs that may inspire future work at the high school. His September Board presentation can be viewed at this link.  If the bond passes, we will be seeking stakeholder input to finetune ideas that support program needs in the future

• Next Regular Board Meeting is October 9, 2024.

• Town Hall meeting in Anzar High School’s library on October 17, 2024, 5:30-8pm