Santa Cruz
City Schools

It is my honor to continue to serve as your Superintendent. As a learning organization, one of the shared commitments that inspires our professional collaboration is the goal to continually improve our services and supports for students and families, and it is in this spirit that I want to share our district’s ongoing and future work. 

Through our Local Control and Accountability planning process, we established strategic areas to inform our continuous improvement efforts as a school district. Built with input from students, parents, staff and community partners, these areas include:

• Academic Literacy 
• Mathematics
• English Learner Progress
• School Connectedness

An executive summary of the 2019-20 Local Control Accountability Plan (LCAP) can be found in Quick Links on our website, which includes our planned expenditures of our state and federal supplemental resources. During the summer months, before school begins, our site leaders and teacher leadership teams are hard at work planning to put the LCAP goals into action at each school site and address the needs of each individual learning community.  

Also, to support the implementation of our LCAP, our teachers, counselors and school leaders have spent a significant amount of time together throughout the year, participating in professional development and collaboration to support students’ success. This year's professional learning includes training to support math achievement, implementation of the Next Generation Science Standards, elementary literacy, refining counseling programs, improving outcomes for English Learners, and building academic literacy. 

This year, we are excited to implement new grants. The first is a new TK-8 National Science Foundation Computer Science for All grant, which is in partnership with the Santa Cruz Education Foundation and Education Training and Research (ETR). Over the past two years, our computer science teacher leadership team developed plans and piloted curriculum for K-8 computer science. This effort also supports access to the computer science pathways available in all three of our comprehensive high schools. In addition to Computer Science, we are implementing two Career Technical Education grants for our high schools, allowing us to expand career pathway offerings, career counseling, and work-based learning services for our students.

Visiting our campuses, one cannot miss the many construction projects in progress. These projects are made possible by Measures A & B, which were generously supported by Santa Cruz voters. Construction, repairs, and modernization planning has been underway at each of our school sites. You can find updates for each of our campuses on the Bond page link above.

Our community's generous support for our students goes far beyond facilities. Local parcel taxes provide essential programs for our students, providing small class sizes in elementary schools, library services, counseling programs, art and music programs, life labs, career technical education in our high schools, after school athletics and enrichment, and much more. As the state is 41st in the nation in per pupil funding for education, our community's local investment allows us to provide a rich learning environment for students.

As a school district, we recognize the heightened awareness surrounding student safety. Santa Cruz will continue to focus on the social emotional health of our students, and we prioritize student safety. Under our LCAP focus on “Student Connectedness”, we have planned new supports for our students through staff who will provide direct services inside and outside the classroom. We are committed to ensure that each student’s heart and mind is known well, so that we can support each individual’s needs and keep our campuses welcoming and safe for all students and families.

We know that partnership with families and our community is essential to student success. Please don't hesitate to reach out with questions, ideas, or needs. Have a wonderful school year!