Davis public schools calendar 2011-12

First day of school: Aug. 23

Labor Day: Sept. 5

Elementary student holiday (K-6): Nov. 4

Veterans Day: Nov. 11

Thanksgiving break: Nov. 21-25

Winter break: Dec. 19-Jan. 2

Martin Luther King Day: Jan. 16

Secondary student holiday (7-12): Jan. 23

Lincoln’s birthday: Feb. 13

Presidents Day: Feb. 20

Spring break: April 9-13

Memorial Day: May 28

Last day of school: June 7

The 2010-11 school year wasn’t exactly the easiest time to serve as a school district superintendent — much less a first-time superintendent like Winfred Roberson, who was hired last summer to lead the Davis school district.

Like all California school districts, Davis experienced significant cuts in state funding in 2010 due to the state budget crisis, as well as state-authorized deferrals of millions more in funding from Sacramento.

And like many California school districts, Davis sent layoff notices to dozens of teachers and other employees in the spring, as a result of those cuts.

But unlike other districts across the state, Davis was able to counterbalance a portion of those reductions and rescind many, though not all, of the layoff notices. How? Last spring, local voters approved Measure A, a two-year parcel tax that charges single-family homeowners $200 per year and apartment dwellers $20 per year. Additionally, two other parcel taxes that benefit the schools are already in place.

So perhaps it is understandable that Roberson, promoted after only a year as principal of Davis High School, emphasized the positive when interviewed by The Enterprise in late July to discuss his first year as superintendent, and the academic year ahead.

“This was a great first year for me as superintendent, and an even greater year for our school district,” Roberson said, “especially considering the challenges we had to deal with economically. I’m proud of what we accomplished. We still maintained an appropriately challenging academic program for the students in our district.”

In a year when many school districts laid off teachers by the dozens due to state budget cuts, that is no small statement.

“We are seeing a continual raising of academic standards,” Roberson said. “And at the same time, our achievement gap (between different demographic groups of students) is steadily closing. Our governance team has grown closer, too.

“I have the greatest staff. Our cabinet people put in a lot of extra hours. I’m proud of our working relationship.”

Goals charted

Looking ahead to the upcoming academic year, Roberson cited several goals that the school board has set, and he intends to carry out.

“We want to continue our emphasis and focus on academic excellence. We want to improve our instruction, we want to improve student learning. That is the bedrock of what we do,” Roberson said.

“We’re looking to create inclusive and equitable learning environments. We want to have students who are accelerated learners — as well as students who struggle academically for whatever reason, background or lack of means — have their social and academic needs met.

“We also want to maintain positive budget certification (from the Yolo County Office of Education),” Roberson said, adding, “That will be challenging.”

He was referring indirectly to the Woodland school district, which recently received a less desirable “qualified” budget certification, as have about 130 other school districts around the state, meaning they are in danger of not being able to meet their financial obligations in the next three years.

About a dozen more school districts have received a “negative” budget rating from their county office of education, and been placed under the management of a state trustee as a result.

Focus on Montgomery

“We also want to bring Marguerite Montgomery Elementary out of (federal) ‘program improvement,’ ” Roberson said.

Montgomery slipped into that category under the much-criticized Bush-era No Child Left Behind requirements, because not all of the South Davis school’s demographic subgroups were able to meet all of the steeply rising benchmarks. The law expects 100 percent of students to be proficient in English and math skills by 2014.

“We’re going to provide Montgomery Elementary with the staff and support and resources that they need to be successful with their students,” Roberson said. “The district is like a family, and you don’t have a family member struggle and not provide them support.

“Montgomery Elementary is a great school; any other district would be pleased to have a school with the academic successes that Montgomery is having,” Roberson said, noting that the campus has scored over 800 on the state’s Academic Performance Index, and been ranked as a “high performing school” as a result for several years in a row.

“Yet the formulas in NCLB have thrown Montgomery Elementary into program improvement,” Roberson continued. “We want to make sure every one of those students … gets out of program improvement, and we will provide academic support, and professional development for the teachers, so they can be successful.

Another of the district’s goals is continued professional development for the teaching staff, Roberson said.

“It is imperative that we continually improve the quality of our work. It takes the form of keeping ourselves up-to-date with instructional practices that are the best practices.”

Parcel tax renewal

Without missing a beat, Roberson added that “another one of our goals is that we have set a time in the spring for a parcel tax election.”

Two of the parcel taxes — Measure Q ($200 per year per single-family home) and Measure W ($120 per year per single-family home) — expire in June. The school board has indicated that it will ask local voters for some kind of renewal in a special mail-only election with ballots due on March 6.

The amount that voters will be asked to approve, the duration of the parcel tax, the title of the ballot measure, and other details have yet to be determined.

Another issue on the horizon for the Davis school district is “trigger cuts” that would be enacted in mid-December if state revenues do not meet expectations outlined in the state budget approved in June.

“The trigger cuts will be very tricky for us to navigate, if we have to do it,” Roberson said.

Teachers are already under contract, and no school district likes to break up classrooms and reassign students partway through the academic year.

“If those triggers come into play, our governance team will come together and make some very crucial decisions,” the superintendent said. “We will either increase revenue or decrease expenditures. If the triggers are put in place, those are our two options.

“Hopefully, the state’s economy will continue to move forward, and state revenues will do better …  because none of us want those trigger cuts to take place.”

Much will depend on how high-technology companies in Silicon Valley — like Apple, Google and Facebook — fare. These companies are growing, and their rising tax revenue could lead the state out of financial crisis and head off further cuts.

Bringing MPR back

There is also a very local concern: the Davis High School multipurpose room, an aging structure from the 1960s that was abruptly closed last October due to long-standing problems with a leaky roof.

Roberson was frank on the future of the building: “We do not have the facilities resources to rebuild the Davis High MPR, or put a new roof on it, without hardship money from the state. But the building is vital to our students, and it is one of our priorities to seek the necessary funding to get that building up and running.

“Our students need it, our students rely on it. Our students eat there. It hosts after-school clubs and activities, and parent groups have relied upon it for meetings. It is important to have that building operable as soon as possible.”

— Reach Jeff Hudson at [email protected] or (530) 747-8055.

Comments

comments