#WeAreASJUSD Newsletter March 2025

Dear Parents: Here is my monthly newsletter with a few items of celebration, a look back at some important events, anticipation of some upcoming important occasions, and some key reminders. Have a great Spring!

Barb Dill-Varga, Ed.D

Superintendent

Data Confirmation Dates - Mandatory Enrollment Process

All returning students must complete Data Confirmation in the Aeries Parent Portal to be re-registered for 2025-2026. This is required for each student — please complete it within the window of July 28 through August 12.  If you need assistance, staff is available at sites as follows:  

Anzar - August 5

Aromas - August 6

San Juan School - August 7

Here’s the Flyer 

📢Attention Parents & Guardians!

To ensure a smooth start to the school year, all parents/guardians must complete the required enrollment confirmation process before the first day of school.

  • Deadline: Must be completed before your student can attend class.

  • Why It’s Important: Ensures accurate records, class placement, and access to school resources.

  • Prototype Household Application for Free and Reduced-Price School Meals: As part of data confirmation, you will be asked to complete this application. Even if you don’t think you qualify or don’t wish to participate, submitting this form helps determine important school funding that benefits all students by supporting academic programs, technology, and meal services. Your information remains confidential and is only used for funding purposes.

💡Avoid delays on the first day! Complete this step when data confirmation opens on July 28, 2025, to ensure your student is ready to start school without any interruptions. Thank you for supporting our school community!

Why ANZAR? (the 6th in a series to appear in the Parent Newsletter)

Multiple Pathways to Post-Secondary Success

Anzar focuses on providing opportunities for students to explore and accelerate their journey to their future. More like a private school, we have many personalized opportunities for students!

Advanced Placement:

Many high schools offer a range of advanced placement courses and Anzar is no different.  We have 8 different Advanced Placement courses including: AP English, AP Language, AP Spanish, AP Environmental Science (APES), AP Research, AP Seminar, AP Statistics, AP Calculus. Students who take these rigorous courses must take the end of the course AP exam and usually score a 4 or 5 to receive college credit and that depends on the institution they choose to attend. There is a fee involved to take the AP exam.

Dual Enrollment (Gavilan and Hartnell)


Anzar has built an alternative opportunity  through HAWK ACADEMY.  In partnership with Gavilan College, we offer four different courses a year on our campus, taught by Gavilan professors.  These courses, if completed, offer transferable general education credit (not elective) that will allow many students to start college with 12 hours of credit towards their degree for free. Unlike Advanced Placement exams, this credit is NOT dependent on an end of the year exam. It depends on successful passing and completion of the course.  We also staff the course with an Anzar teacher to provide additional support and oversight for high school students who may be taking their first ever college course.  We want them to be successful and they are!  Some of these courses are: Intro to Psychology, Personal Finance, and Intro to Public Speaking. They take care of high school credits and are transferable general education credit  to UC and CSU schools. We also offer Megatronics (i.e. the robotics of agriculture) with Hartnell and transport students by school van to Hartnell a couple of mornings a week.

Career Tech Education

Anzar has a state of the art woodshop. We have two college and career pathways: A CTE Career Pathway is a sequence of courses in a recognized industry sector aligned with the California Career Technical Education (CTE) Model Curriculum Standards. We offer:  Building and Construction Trades (Cabinetry Millwork and Woodworking) and Manufacturing and Product Design. These are very popular courses.  We also have a state of the art culinary lab.

Annual Career Fair

During Intersession, our grade 6-12 students enjoyed a career fair at which 40 different local companies, trades, and service agencies were represented along with 10-15 colleges and universities. We are expanding career awareness opportunities and curricula in our K-8’s as well as Anzar.

US News Best High School

Celebration

This Spring we celebrate our Employees of the Year!

Anzar:   

Classified: Carole Portrum (Special Education Paraprofessional)

Certificated: David Founds (Career Tech Ed)

Aromas: 

Classified: Araceli Wahl (Front Office Assistant)

Certificated: Logan Shankle (Special Education)

San Juan:

Classified: Leonard Espinoza (Behavioral Specialist)

Certificated: Teri Marshall (3rd Grade Teacher)

District:  Ruben Castaneda (Maintenance)

Looking Back:

Chronic Absenteeism - We continue to work on reducing chronic absenteeism. We know that when students are in attendance, their student achievement increases.

  • Anzar: 94.14%

  • Aromas: 93.57%

  • San Juan: 92.99%         

  • District Average: 93.57%

We are still looking to improve these percentages and we appreciate our parents working with us on these goals. Let’s try for 95%!

  • San Juan Town Hall on February 25 at 6pm

    We hosted a panel of experts at a town hall at San Juan School on February 25.

    Panelists were experts in the field of immigration and related legal issues that have surfaced since January 20.  A recording of the town hall and uploaded resources are available on our district website.


  • ASJUSD STRATEGIC PLANNING

    March 20-22 were the dates about 40 parents, community members and ASJUSD employees worked together on the district’s strategic planning process.  With the facilitating assistance of The National Center, we completed a draft of a new Vision and Mission Statement.  In addition, small groups worked on ranking and providing outcomes and measures for 20 Priority Areas for 2025-2026.  This plan will be brought to the May Board meeting for Board approval and will guide all future work.

  • San Juan School Construction Project Update

    Progress is being made. We anticipate a groundbreaking ceremony on the afternoon of Tuesday, June 3 with some site demo occurring in mid May.  Time and details will be announced in the future. Tentative Phase One ( classrooms) completion for the fall of 2026.  The entire school is expected to be completed for the fall of 2027. Measure O, state matching funds, and a portion of Measure D will fund this project.

Reminders:

Important Dates: Next Regular Board Meeting is April 9, 2025