| Enrollment Numbers Signal Strong Support
Hope Abounds for the Best Year Ever as CUSD Completes First Week of 14-15 School Year
Students reported back to school last week as teachers prepared in various ways for the new school year. Many students and parents found the paperwork process easier as the district entered its second year of online registration. Most agreed that lots of new students will probably mean that class sizes will find no relief.
"We still need to delete some students from our database who neglected to tell us they have moved," said Jenny Moore, Principal of Coronado High School. "But overall our school is filled with lots of new students."
Every school and department in the district treated the first week of school differently. Here is a summary of the happenings from several places across the district:
Coronado Middle School
The CMS Team welcomed some new and returning staff to the family and all were eager to engage and get prepared for the school year. Several orientations were held prior to the school commencing with families, particularly those of 6th graders and new students to Coronado with over 112 new families entering our school. The faculty and staff consistently use HAIKU and other methods to communicate with students and parents. The CMS website, Facebook, Twitter and mass emailing features are utilized daily so students and parents can monitor progress and all of the great happenings at CMS to celebrate our incredible school culture. (Dr. Jay Marquand, Principal)
Village Elementary School
Village Elementary is pleased to announce a smooth and seamless opening to the 2014-15 school year. With improvements to the registration process, newly implemented teacher meet and greet, and our morning open campus, students and families arrived the first morning at ease, excited, and ready to go. Teachers, front office staff, instructional assistants, cafeteria staff, and custodial staff spent countless hours ensuring the campus environment was inviting and welcoming to students and families. As we begin this new year of teaching and learning at Village, we expect every student to reach their maximum learning potential and succeed at learning and growing. Additionally, site administration held grade level assemblies the first week of school, to reinforce the school-wide Character Education incentive plan. We are looking forward to another exceptional year at Village Elementary. (Whitney DeSantis, Principal)
Coronado High School
It was a groundbreaking first day of school for CHS, whose senior class will be the 100th to graduate this June. The CHS ASB, with representatives from all classes, designed a day of activities around the themes of TRIBE (Teamwork, Respect, Integrity, Bonding, and Excellence). At the opening staff meeting prior to students' first day, our students and staff flipped traditional roles, as student leaders oriented and trained teachers to implement the lessons they planned for each period. Islanders were treated to a non-traditional first day of school, with teachers and students participating in games which acquainted them with one another; engaging in discussions about social media, respect for all community members, and ethical dilemmas; and writing letters to themselves with goals and dreams for the year, which will be saved by teachers and returned in June. CHS Islanders celebrated pride and class unity with a pep rally featuring cheerleaders, the NJROTC marksmanship team, and class competitions. Students returned to school on Friday to begin their academic journeys with their teachers, and we capped off the first week of school with the first patio dance on the quad. We will continue to emphasize student involvement and the themes of TRIBE throughout the year. Go Islanders! (Jenny Moore, Principal)
Brian Bent Memorial Aquatics Complex
The BBMAC's Fall schedule is underway with all youth teams back in the facility. CNSA started their fall schedule and is conducting tryouts every Tuesday at 4:15pm for any interested swimmers. CAC encourages players to try practicing with the team to see if water polo might be the sport for them. The CHS Boy's Water Polo has their first scrimmage at the BBMAC today (8/29). Fall Swimming lessons are still available. We are getting additional contracts for fall through the Olympic Water Polo Development program. We should likely see a couple of Grommet water polo league tournaments as well. We have 12 days of Aquatics PE available for this school year. PE teachers for CMS and CHS are confirming the dates for Aquatics PE. We are gearing up for an exceptionally busy Winter Training Season. (Carrie Fisher-Fernan, Aquatics Director)
Human Resources Department
Staffing within the Coronado Unified School District continues to be a priority as site administrators evaluate student enrollment and class sizes. At this time there are six vacant certificated positions both part time and full time. In addition, as new students' needs are realized paraprofessional classified positions are posted as well. Paraprofessionals are Instructional Assistants and Instructional Health Care Assistants. These individuals work closely with teachers in the general and special education classrooms supporting students to achieve individual goals. CUSD is also searching for specialists in the area of counseling/social work. These specialists are called School Counselor/Clinical Social Workers. Vacant positions are advertised on EdJoin.org. (Dr. Rebekah Barakos-Cartwright, Senior Director)
Business Services
We have been hard at work throughout the summer, and through the first few days of school. We have worked with:
* Giving sites and departments information they need to track their site-based budgets
* Working hard to get our new financial system, PeopleSoft, up and running
* Processing hundreds of personnel requisitions for proper budgeting
* Processing hundreds of purchase orders to buy the supplies and books
* View enrollment info to insure sufficient classroom teachers for our students
* Inputting the transactions necessary to close our books for 2013-14
* Supervising summer repair and maintenance work, including rekeying the district.
Business Services is dedicated to our students, and our district! (Dr. Keith Butler, Assistant Superintendent)
Food Services & Child Nutrition Department
Veteran staff has welcomed 4 new employees to our department. Our wonderful start was complemented by job training for our new School Nutrition Professionals. As we continually look for ways to improve our meal program, data shows that we have a 24% increase in participation over the same period last year. We are excited to see the variety of fruits and vegetables our students place on their trays each day. It is great to be able to offer such a variety of healthy, delicious meals and we look forward to a great year of service to the community! (Trieste Chiquette, Director)
Maintenance & Operations and Transportation
A custodial rotation/reassignment of duties was made to cope with the loss of a full time custodial position due to budget cuts. We have also switched to a new maintenance work order system called "SchoolDude." This new program simplifies the issuance of services and the monitoring of work progress, allowing the department to offer faster and more efficient service. Security has been vastly improved through the updating of the District's key and lock system. Our old keyway's patent had expired and was no longer protected by illegal duplication. Our new patented keyway provides protection through May 2027. We also improved the key management system with new key procedures and policies to insure the security and safety of all District property. (Harrold Wigg, M&O Director)
| 
