This fall MHUSD will be launching its district Family and Community Engagement Center

 

 

By Dr. Carmen Garcia

Dr. Carmen Garcia

School is back in session in the Morgan Hill Unified School District. We successfully launched the 2022-23 school year Aug. 16 as teachers, staff, and administrators welcomed students and families back to campus amid a buzz of excitement and enthusiasm for the year ahead.

This new year brings a renewed focus on teaching and learning along with increased momentum on district-wide initiatives. You’ll find that as a school district in pursuit of increasingly robust student opportunities, our decisions and day-to-day functions are aligned to and in support of our Local Control Accountability Plan goals. In short, these goals set out to ensure all students are achieving at high levels and are college and career ready; establish and promote strong family and community engagement with our parents/guardians/families to impact student achievement and well-being; enhance student engagement, social emotional learning; and increase positive school climate so that our school community feels supported and secure in our schools and classrooms.

With our goals in mind, we have exciting changes in our schedules this year that allow for our elementary students to experience greater enrichment and support during the school day with rotations of music, art, and PE, among others, our middle school students now have embedded support time during the school day for social emotional learning and other topics crucial to their success, and high school students have an additional period in their schedule to take an elective or advanced course, retake a class, or accelerate as needed.

These new schedules have also allowed our teachers to have built-in preparation time during the school day that facilitates our district-wide approach to Professional Learning Communities that focuses on learning, collaboration, and achievement. This is our district’s vehicle to curriculum alignment and positive student outcomes for each and every MHUSD student.

Nevertheless, we know wholeheartedly we cannot be successful without the support of our parents, guardians, families, and community partners. Very soon we will unveil a bolstered before and after school program that will provide both academic and enrichment options for students as we continue to look for ways to support our working parents, guardians, and families.

Further, this fall we will be launching our own district Family and Community Engagement Center that will serve as a hub for district parent activities and for our community partners to hold a space where they can continue to serve students and families. Ultimately, this center will complement the many parent and family engagement efforts of our individual school sites. We plan to continue to reach out for more suggestions on parent university courses, classes, and other services that MHUSD families would like to see and experience as we expand our programming.

Looking ahead, as we continue to ideate and collaborate closely with our employee groups and partners, the possibilities for new opportunities and initiatives for students are endless. A small sampling of these may include expanded partnerships with local colleges and universities to bring dual enrollment college courses to our high school campuses, more robust academic acceleration and support/intervention, expanded Universal Transitional Kindergarten programming, a new dual immersion Spanish/English elementary program, new and expanded Career Technical Education pathways that allow students to learn and explore careers and graduate with certifications in computer science, sports medicine, culinary arts, agriculture sciences and horticulture, welding and mechanics, woodworking and construction, and much more.

We’re incredibly excited for what’s to come this school year and the important work our 850 dedicated teachers, staff, and administrators are undertaking in our ongoing pursuit of supporting all 8,100 students in our district. I look forward to seeing you at my monthly coffee and living room chats as well as out and about in our schools and community events. Together, we can ensure the academic success, social emotional well-being, and college and career readiness of each and every MHUSD student.

Dr. Carmen Garcia is the superintendent of the Morgan Hill Unified School District. She wrote this column for Morgan Hill Life.