Happy classified employees week! I hope you’ve given lots of love to your classified staff, such as classroom aides, food servers, bus drivers, and custodians. We celebrated our district classified employees of the year at our last board meeting:

• Pamela Filstrup, Clerical and Administrative Services
• Patrick Reed, Custodial Services
• Loretta Hurlbut, Paraprofessional
• Jay Morrow, Technical Services 
• Ronald Rivett, Transportation Services

Kudos to Morrow and Rivett who were also chosen as County Classified Employees of the year!

Performing Arts Abound

This time of year is such a joy, as students at every school perform in music, drama, and dance. 

Our student board member Anahi Nava Flores emceed the Mt Diablo High School Multicultural Rally, which was a beautiful display of students expressing cultures, dances, and music from all around the world. The audience of students cheered enthusiastically for every single group, small or large.

I was blown away by the talent of our Northgate jazz bands who performed at Yoshi’s in Oakland last week. The place sold out, as it did for Concord High Jazz bands the following week as well. Northgate orchestra, winds, and concert band also were fortunate to play at the Lesher Center for Performing Arts. 

Thank you to Mt Diablo Music Education Foundation for sponsoring Music in the Park at Todos Santos for all MDUSD instrumental and choral music students, and thank you to our passionate music teachers!

Black Excellence

I'm so proud of our district for hosting our first annual Black Excellence Awards to celebrate students and staff.

May 10th School Board Meeting Highlights

We recognized June as PRIDE month, encouraging all school sites to fly the rainbow flag and proudly show their support for and inclusion of LGBTQIA+ students. 

Appointments: 

At the recommendation of the student advisory committee, we were pleased to vote to appoint Susana Barrios from YVHS as the Student School Board member for 2023-24!  We also voted in:

• Leah Dubinsky and Leif Utler as an Elementary Principals for the 2023-24 school year, with the sites to be determined at a later date. 
•  Raquel “Rocky” Chiasson as a District Wide Social Emotional Educational Collaborative Program Administrator 
•  Kimberly Vaiana as a Director of Human Resources. 

Reports: 

• Students presented on the Concord HS proposed mascot change, 
• Growing Healthy Kids shared photos and results of their program, and 
• Parents presented on the very real dangers of fentanyl and how to prevent them. (these parents here in our community were each affected personally, either with a child who died from fentanyl or who was saved by Nalaxone). I highly encourage everyone to view their presentation (here at 2:55:30) and share the following resources from them:
  • May 9, 2023 was Fentanyl Awareness Day.  Fentanyl deaths have increased at an alarming trajectory across the state and nation.  It is now reported to be involved in 80% of drug related deaths for people under 21 and it impacts youth from all racial, ethnic, socio-economic, religious and other backgrounds.  
  • Education and prevention programs are  effective in reducing the number of deaths related to fentanyl.  Naloxone is readily available to community members and will save lives of those overdosing on fentanyl if administered in time.

• key links: 
  1. https://www.cdc.gov/stopoverdose/fentanyl/index.html
  2. https://www.rand.org/blog/rand-review/2020/01/fentanyl-the-most-dangerous-illegal-drug-in-america.html
  3. https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2022/09/16/2517859/0/en/Fentanyl-is-Now-the-Leading-Cause-of-Death-for-American-Adults-The-Detox-Center-of-Los-Angeles-is-on-the-Front-Lines.html
  4. How to administer Narcan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkWXX5DPmpg

Adopted Curriculum: 

We approved Standards Aligned History-Social Science Materials for Elementary History-Social Science Instruction, which included Spanish materials for dual language schools and emerging bilingual students. This completes our curriculum adoptions TK-12 for History-Social Science, which has been a goal of mine for many years. Look for these textbooks and online materials this fall when school begins!

The complete meeting agenda is here. 

Next School Board meeting 

The next school board meeting is Wednesday, June 14, 2023. We welcome your input via email or in person! See details at mdusd.org/boardmeetings