Superintendent's NewsBytes 10/19/2011

October 16, 2011

Contents

Community Meeting Concerning Ladera School Site

Survey Results

Dear Parents and Staff,

Just a quick "Byte" to bring you up to date on a few items. Take a look and contact me or a Trustee if you have further questions. The Ladera lease project is being carried out by me, with Trustees John Macdonald and Maria Doktorczyk provided valuable assistance. I was aided by Trustees Rich Ginn and Maria Doktorczyk with the surbey project.

Sincerely,

Eric Hartwig, Superintendent

Las Lomitas Elem School District

650-854-6311

1011 Altschul Ave

Menlo Park, CA 94025

http://www.llesd.k12.ca.us

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Community Meeting Regarding Ladera School Site

Monday, October 24 at 7:00 pm at the Ladera Recreation Center, 150 Andeta Way, Portola Valley, CA 94028
I am sure that many of you have been following the discussions about the future of the Ladera School site, which is currently being leased by Woodland School through June 2013. In the past few years we have conducted two studies concerning the site, one which concluded that it wouldn't be needed for educating LLESD students, and another which made the determination that the property should (again) be declared surplus and be made available for private school use.

The District is now engaged in determining the exact process for leasing the site beyond June 2013, with a goal of entering into a long-term lease that is compatible with community interests while providing maximum benefits to our District and our students. Although this meeting is of special interest to residents of the Ladera neighborhood, there are implications for all LLESD families, and all LLESD parents are invited to attend.

For more detailed information about this important meeting, please click here to read a letter that I sent to residents of Ladera last week.

Farewell to a Valued Colleague

Jason Picetti: A Celebration of His Life, Saturday, October 22 at 3:00 at the La Entrada Gymnasium

I first met Jason Picetti when he was a student and I was a vice principa at Capuchino High School. I didn't get to know him well then (whatever trouble he got into wasn't known to me), but he was the kind of student you noticed -- he was interested in sports, rock-and-roll, school activities, and he always had a coterie of somewhat zany friends. He took school seriously while at the same time managing to have fun and be a presence on campus.

Fast forward almost twenty years when I arrived in the our District as the new superintendent, and you can imagine my surprise and pleasure when I saw Jason's name on the faculty list at La Entrada. It's always a proud moment when an educator gets to reconnect with a former student and share in his or her accomplishments, and I got a real kick out seeing Jason work his magic as a teacher. He had an ideal blend of attributes: he loved math, he cared personally about his students, and he shared his other interests and enthusiasms with his students...while still maintaining his status and authority as a teacher.

But it is his untimely diagnosis of ALS and how he dealt with that rotten news that I will forever remember. Through every inexorable stage, Jason brought clarity, perspective, humor, and grace. As a lifetime lover of literature, I am most profoundly moved when a Faulkner or a Shakespeare or a Stegner can scratch out and burnish a crystalline truth of life. Jason, in his final years, showed us some of these truths in real time, up close, and very personal. I will miss him.

Please join me as we celebrate Jason's life this Saturday afternoon in the La Entrada gym.

Survey Results Discussed

Last spring, the District conducted a survey of staff and parents, and on October 14 a synopsis of the results was presented to the Governing Board.

At the last meeting of the Governing Board, I presented a synopsis of last spring's survey. The major findings are extremely encouraging: our employees love working in our district, and our parents are very satisfied with our programs. But buried in the large amount of data that the surveys generated are some definite indications that we could improve in some areas. For more information and a copy of the report itself, click here and scroll to bottom of page until you reach "Surveys."