Chrissy Schieferle (right), principal of San Cayetano Elementary, and Maryellen Garcia (left) give a report on San Cayetano School. Schieferle also announced that Friday will be her last day. She has taken a job with Ventura County Education Department.

The first Fillmore Unified School District (FUSD) Board Meeting of 2013 presented a snapshot of what teachers and administrators expect to achieve this year along with the State level changes to the student assessment system. Also, three District schools presented each of their restructuring plans to address what the California Board of Education calls Program Improvement (PI) which applies to all of FUSD and a suggestion of new names for Fillmore High School (FHS) Sports Arenas.

Assistant Superintendent Michael Johnson reiterated the need to move forward with implementing the Common Core Standards Curriculum into the classroom as soon as possible stating that FUSD is about six months behind. Superintendent Dr. Alan Nishino commented, “If we wait too long we’ll be at the back of the pack, not in front.” Johnson also informed the Board that the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Tom Torlakson, has recommended shifting the focus of standardized testing to requiring student to think critically, solve problems and show a greater depth of knowledge. Torlakson is recommending changing testing with computerized assessments instead of the multiple-choice scantron fill in the bubble tests. The conclusion the State Educators came up with was that there was too much testing in California schools. Starting in the 2013-2014 school year many of the tests/assessments that students have regularly taken, including the California Standards Test, will be suspended.

Chrissy Schieferle, principal of San Cayetano Elementary, and Maryellen Garcia were the first school to address the Board with their report. San Cayetano teaches kindergarten through fifth grade with 430 students and demographics of 85% Hispanic, 13% White, 50% English learners and is in its sixth year as a PI school and, as a result, at the end of the last school year half of the staff was replaced. The restructuring seems to have helped and based on test results from the 2011-2012 Standard Testing And Reporting (STAR) assessment San Cayetano met all state and federal targets to meet what is called Safe Harbor and has improved its Academic Performance Index (API) Score by 34 points. At the end of the presentation it was announced that Friday will be Schieferle’s last day at San Cayetano as she has taken a job with the Ventura County Education Department.

The next school to present their report was the principal of Mountain Vista Elementary, John Wilber. Mountain Vista is the newest of the four elementary schools in the district with construction having been completed in spring of 2008 and employs 20 full-time teachers, serving approximately 600 students. Mountain Vista did not meet its grown target for English Language Learners for 2011-2012 decreasing from 31.3% proficient to 30.6 and English Language Arts also dropped from 43.3% to 41.2%. This resulted in the school not meeting its Annual Yearly Performance (AYP) goal. School wide the decrease was from 50.8 to 48.8 proficient.

The final presentation by Piru Elementary Principal Diana Vides had mixed results. Piru Elementary is the small campus with nine teachers. Students come from predominantly working class families in which 90% are socio-economically disadvantaged with 52% designated Limited English Proficient and 10% eligible for migrant services. Piru Elementary did not meet all its growth targets for 2011-2012 and remains in PI for 5 plus years. The Safe Harbor target for English Learner students was met, but Math fell behind dropping from 53.5% in 2010-2011 to 50.8% in 2011-2012.

Sespe School Principal Scott Carroll was ill and will be presenting his report at the next board meeting on February 5, 2013.

Joe Woods, Chairman of the Fillmore High Schools Hall of Fame spoke to the Board about the possibility of honoring past students and coaches by giving their names to FHS’s Football Stadium and other areas along with retirement of certain numbers and names. Arena names suggested are; Football Stadium-Eugene “Red” Kennedy Stadium ( Ventura County Hall of Fame and FHS Sports Hall of Fame as a Coach); Football Field-Don “The Blade” Burroughs Field (Class of 1949 is in Ventura County Hall of Fame and FHS Sports Hall of Fame. He played Pro Football for the L.A. Rams and the Philadelphia Eagles and a member of the 1960 N.F.L. Champion Eagles Team); Gymnasium-Richard “Toolie” Palmer Gymnasium (Fillmore Class of 1933 is in the Ventura County Hall of Fame, FHS Sports Hall of Fame as a player and a coach). Suggested numbers and names to retire are; Football- Coach’s Eugene “Red” Kennedy, Bruce Dempsey and players William “Bill” Pearson class of 1942, Don “The Blade” Burroughs class of 1949; Basketball- Coach’s Richard “Toolie” Palmer, Jim Fauver and players Mike LaRoche class of 1964, Rosa Aparicio class of 1977, Jamie Arundell-Latshaw class of 1993; Baseball-Coach Tom Ecklund and players Rick Stewar class of 1977, Kevin Gross class of 1979; Track and Field and Cross Country- Coach Epigmenio L. Epi Torres and players Leroy J. Goodenough class of 1920, Sammy Johnson class of 1939, Loni Larson class of 1988, and Maribella Aparicio-Hernandez class of 1993.

Sammy Martinez, substituting as Speaker of the House, informed the Board that last Saturday was Winter Formal and it went very well. He also said the Associated Student Body continues to collaborate with the Middle School to help them with many of their functions and that Pennies for Patients is starting January 28th through February 15th.

There was an action to approve a change of venue for the FHS Prom. Last year’s Junior Class did not raise enough money to fund a prom location in Ventura County as required by the FUSD rules. The cheapest location in Ventura County was $20,000 with highs of $40,000 in areas like Ojai. So the prom committee looked into other locations outside of the county and found that Valencia Country Club could be allocated for around $7,000 and the Valencia Hyatt around $8,750. Nishino suggested there be a change from requiring the prom the held in Ventura County to a mileage radius of 25 miles which would allow the students to take advantage of areas with lower rates.