With Labor Day looming, it\u2019s back-to-school time for coastal San Diego Unified School District (SDUSD) students as they turn the page on another summer and begin a new academic calendar year starting Tuesday, Sept. 3.
\nPrincipals at Pacific Beach schools like Mission Bay High School (MBHS) say they\u2019re ready for students to return and have lots of great educational developments in store for them in the new year.
\n“The theme for MBHS this year seems to be change, with the biggest change to be the introduction of the Common Core Standards,” said principal Frederick Hilgers. “All summer, our teachers have been collaboratively working on new units of study and incorporating the Common Core Standards.”
\nHilgers said MBHS staff produced over 30 new academic units ranging from art to science.
\n“Students will not only notice the new academic units, but that our school day is longer, dismissal is now 2:14 p.m. and that we have added a couple of more minimum days,” he said. “Those minimum days will allow staff to prepare for our accreditation visit in March.”
\nMBHS\u2019s principal said the accreditation process, better known as “WASC,” is a normal process that high schools go through every three to six years. \u00a0
\n“We have been engaged in a self study related to this process for over a year,” said Hilgers, adding students will finally be seeing some structural changes as a result of that process. \u00a0
\n“Our schedule has been modified to be an eight-period schedule over two days,” he said. \u00a0“Students will attend periods one to four on one day, and then periods five to eight on the next.”
\nHilgers said athletics at MBHS has been moved to after school, following the trend of other SDUSD schools.
\n“We\u2019re really focusing on academic course offerings, and we have increased our elective offerings to include drama, choir and music theory,” said Hilgers.
\nMusic theory \u2014 and practice \u2014 are hallmarks of Crown Point Elementary School, which has a new principal this year, Muriel Bartolini. Bartolini intends to further the high-profile school\u2019s status as a music academy, offering Suzuki violin training for students and parents alike.
\n“I was just appointed here and I\u2019ve been learning the school for the last 30 days,” said Bartolini, noting the K-5 school at 4033 Ingraham St. with about 333 projected students this year takes great pride in its “family connection” with music.
\n“That is unique, we are the only school that offers that,” said Bartolini about Japanese-based Suzuki violin training, which she said is “not just playing a violin. You\u2019re learning how to read music and be part of its development, which goes all through the grade levels starting in kindergarten.”
\nThe departure of Bayview Terrace Elementary School, which has been replaced by Barnard School, a Mandarin Chinese language magnet, has increased Crown Point\u2019s student population.
\n“Bayview\u2019s students have been dispersed to other schools like ours,” Bartolini said, adding her school has become something of a neighborhood magnet.
\nWhat\u2019s new at Crown Point this year?
\n“We have purchased a whole new writing curriculum built around common core standards,” Bartolini said. “We\u2019re going to be using the curriculum to focus in on writing to help our students become better communicators, and to expose them more to that medium.”
\nBartolini said the elementary school\u2019s mission this year will be to “really put ourselves out in the community and show everybody what Crown Point stands for.”
\nScott Barnett, SDUSD board member for Subdistrict C that covers the beaches, said there are still some negatives with the district\u2019s financial picture heading into the new year.
\n“The budget shortfall is close to $90 million and we\u2019re going to have to sell about $60 million of real estate for one-time revenues just to balance the budget this year, and the following year it could be $50 million or more,” he said. “It\u2019s not inconceivable we\u2019ll have to go with the pink-slip scenario again in six months.”
\nBut Barnett said there are some encouraging developments, with the state economy turning around and the governor and legislature committing more money toward schools. There are encouraging signs, too, he said, that the district is fulfilling its educational mission.
\n“I\u2019m confident we\u2019re going to have a much more accountable system in both the academic and business side of this district,” he said. “I\u2019ve seen more change in the attitude and culture in just the 45 days since Ms. [Cindy] Marten has been superintendent than I\u2019ve seen in the last three years as a board member.”
\nBarnett said the watchword along the beachfront with schools this year is “change,” with 40 new principals in the subdistrict.
\nHeading into the school year, Barnett stressed the importance of harnessing technology and using it as an educational tool.
\n“As many as 80 percent of the kids in this district have some kind of device \u2014 iPhones, laptops, iPads, etc. \u2014 that they bring to school and we need to be flexible and integrate those devices with our school technology,” he said. “We want to make it possible for every student to bring something home with them because learning doesn\u2019t stop when school ends.”
\nSDUSD is the second-largest district in the state, serving more than 132,000 students in 223 educational facilities. The district includes 116 elementary schools, 24 middle schools, 26 high schools, 44 charter schools and 14 atypical\/alternative schools. It is also one of the most diverse districts, representing more than 15 ethnic groups and more than 60 languages and dialects.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
With Labor Day looming, it\u2019s back-to-school time for coastal San Diego Unified School District (SDUSD) students as they turn the page on another summer and begin a new academic calendar year starting Tuesday, Sept. 3. Principals at Pacific Beach schools like Mission Bay High School (MBHS) say they\u2019re ready for students to return and have […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":259038,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11559","_seopress_titles_title":"PB students head back to school","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11559],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-259037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beach-bay-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259037\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/259038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}