Superintendent's Newsletter
June 3, 2022
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Dear MBUSD Parents and Community,
I hope this letter finds you well. Today’s newsletter highlights Pennekamp Elementary, details on a new digital monitoring system to protect students, and the extended deadline for submitting nominations for the MCHS Distinguished Hall of Fame.
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Spotlight on Pennekamp Elementary (Special thanks to Mrs. Erynne Hart, Mrs. Sandra Rumble, Mrs. Suzanne Tynan, and Principal Sharon Witzansky)
Pennekamp 4th graders have been studying photography through sessions that include integration of visual literacy, history, science, math, and art standards. For students to appreciate this art form and understand the power that photography plays in society, students learned about Native American photographers Edward Curtis and Frank S. Matsura, and about Ansel Adams' impact on our national parks system. They also learned about Lewis Hine's work on Child Labor in the early 1900s, and Dorothea Lange's famous photo "Migrant Mother" and its connection to the Dust Bowl and California History.
Students made a pinhole camera and studied the science of how a photograph is captured. Their own classroom was turned into a camera obscura. Other lessons included the science of the human eye, and photography techniques including composition, shutter speed, and the rule of thirds.
In culmination, students took 23 black and white photos using specific instructions and attention to techniques such as lines, shapes, shadows, narrative essays, photos with poetry, self-portrait, still life, and photographers' choice. See a few of those creations below!
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Shadow Self-Portrait
by Lauren Vaughn
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Portrait by Max Rubenstein |
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MBUSD Spotlight: Christina Giguiere
This week we are excited to feature our Director of Student Services Christina Giguiere. Christina started working for MBUSD in October 2021 and is a vital part of our administrative team. Her team works daily to foster student well-being and continuously grow our strong network of services, resources, and support for our students and their families.
Christina says she pursued a career at MBUSD because of its strong reputation for achievement and its known supportive and engaged community. She wanted to work in a role to provide support and resources to site administrators, staff, and families.
She says her favorite part about her job is being “on call” for staff who need help problem-solving situations. She says, “It is challenging yet rewarding to work collectively with other educators to implement programming and systems to support a safe and positive school climate, attendance and enrollment, mental health, alternative education, counseling, discipline, substance-use prevention, social-emotional learning, and more!”
She is proud of the Student Services team for supporting staff, students, and families with wellness programs, positive behavior interventions, and restorative practices and this year collectively joining efforts to implement MBUSD’s first-ever “SEL Week” across all schools!
We appreciate your dedication and continued support!
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MCHS Gender Sexuality Alliance Celebrates Pride Month
Students hosted a Pride Palooza assembly in the Mustang Mall today. There were outdoor activities and students dressed up in their pride gear to celebrate.
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Congratulations to our 2021-22 Retirees!
At the Board of Trustees meeting this week, we recognized and celebrated the service of our outstanding staff who are retiring. The retirees' combined years of service is 553 years! You can read about their reflections over the years here.
Thank you for your dedication to MBUSD! You will be missed.
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Recognition of Teachers of the Year
We also recognized our Teachers of the Year at the Board of Trustees meeting! Each school site has a Teacher of the Year honoree and through observations, by a designated committee, each site’s nominee is reviewed and then our District Teacher of the Year is chosen.
Mira Costa High School AP Chemistry teacher Teresa Nielsen was selected as MBUSD’s Teacher of the Year and will represent our District in the Los Angeles County Teachers of the Year competition.
We appreciate all of our teachers and everything they do daily to make sure our students excel!
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DEADLINE EXTENDED to Nominate an MCHS Graduate into the Distinguished Hall of Fame!
You can submit a nomination honoring outstanding Mira Costa High School Alumni who have distinguished themselves through their contributions to their careers, life endeavors, and the communities and country they serve.
The deadline to apply is now June 18!
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School Safety
Safety continues to be an ongoing conversation with our staff and students. On this note, we want to remind you about our safety procedures regarding our locked campuses. We would like to emphasize to our families that all school gates across our campuses are and should be locked during school hours daily. Please use the appropriate drop-off and pick-up points for your child(ren) at your school site. These designated areas are open during drop-off and pick-up times and are locked after the morning drop-off time is complete and until school dismissal begins. We appreciate our families’ assistance in supporting these procedures - if gates are closed, please leave them that way, and if you see a gate open that you think should be closed, please contact the school office as soon as possible. Please be aware that we do have an agreement with the City through which our campus playgrounds and fields are open to the public during evening and weekend hours, so you may see open gates in certain circumstances. We appreciate the City staff that facilitates the opening and closing of our facilities during these times.
Safety is of utmost concern to us and we continually work with our school administration to make sure our daily practices continue to comply with our safety protocols. Please know that our school site administrators do everything in their power to ensure our staff and students are protected at all times. If you have any concerns or if you see an open gate please contact the school. As we’ve mentioned before, it is a community effort to keep our community safe and we appreciate your support - in this, as with many other things, if you see something, please share it with school staff.
Last week, we partnered with the City of Manhattan Beach and the Manhattan Beach Police Department to release a joint statement on our commitment to keeping our schools safe. Thank you for your continuous support.
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Exposure Notification
We have been made aware that at least one individual with COVID-19 was in attendance at our June 1, 2022, Board meeting while infectious. The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health (LACDPH) allows schools to define a close contact to be anyone who was within 6 feet of a positive case during their infectious period for a cumulative amount of time of 15 minutes or more over a 24 hour period. However, LACDPH requires that any individuals who shared the same indoor airspace with the infected person(s) for 15 minutes or more over a 24-hour period should be notified and provided with the recommended actions to take. We have individually notified those who were within 6 feet of the infected individual(s); however, anyone who was in attendance at the Board meeting should be aware that they were in shared indoor airspace with the individual(s) and that, accordingly, LACDPH strongly recommends, but does not require, that you (1) monitor for symptoms; (2) wear a highly protective mask around others indoors, except when eating or drinking, for 10 days after the last date of exposure (through June 11, 2022); and (3) test with an FDA-authorized viral COVID-19 test (e.g., PCR or Antigen test, including at-home tests) within 3-5 days since the last date of exposure (between June 4, 2022, and June 6, 2022).
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Creating a Culture of Care In-Person and Online in MBUSD
As we continue to focus on the culture of care on our campuses and strive to have our schools be inclusive environments for all students, we are still facing unfortunate hate speech, anti-Semitism, and cyberbullying in our community.
Anyone who has taken part in any type of hate crime will be held accountable for their actions. In our Board and school discipline policies, a variety of actions, up to suspension and the involvement of law enforcement, are consequences a student can face. Specific consequences cannot be shared for legal reasons.
MBUSD is committed to making sure we take the steps we see as necessary to ensure that students and staff on campus feel secure and supported. Through our Social Emotional Learning work, on-campus activities throughout the year that promote inclusion, and the work of our Care Committees at various school sites, are essential in making a difference.
I urge all of us to unite with our students and continue to teach our District values of developing a climate of care. MBUSD is committed to working with our students and our community to stand with our students who may feel targeted by these acts and to ensure that they know they are valued, cared for, and supported. We are hopeful that these unfortunate incidents can lead to positive change within our school community, but this can only happen through fostering conversations at home and on campus.
We must improve our outreach and education. We must use these moments to educate our students on the context behind discriminatory, racist and anti-Semitic actions, and why they are so hurtful.
As part of our work to ensure a culture of care for our students and staff, MBUSD is taking several steps this year and for the launch of the 2022-23 school year:
- A third group of school administrators, staff, and parent leaders attended an in-service at the Museum of Tolerance this week.
- Plans are underway for the 2022-23 school year to involve the Museum of Tolerance and other local resources to combat anti-Semitism and hate in our community, whether on our physical campuses and classrooms or in the virtual environment.
- Adoption of the District’s Equity, Diversity, Social Justice and Inclusion plan.
- The in-person return of events such as International Day, Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month celebration in May, a series of MCHS student club celebrations at Mustang Mall, No Place for Hate activities at various elementary schools, and many others.
- The MCHS library has reviewed and added more than 40 new books focused on educating students about the Holocaust and anti-Semitism.
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MBUSD added Maus as a new core literature selection to our middle school reading list at the June 1 Board of Trustees meeting.
- District and City leadership have visited the Jewish Cultural Club at MCHS, along with visits to a new MBMS Jewish Cultural Club launched earlier this spring.
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The District is preparing to launch Bark, an additional tool to monitor student internet activity as well as a new reporting tool, Sprigeo, which will allow students and parents to easily report tips online.
With regard to social media and the internet, I ask all parents to discuss with your student(s) your family's expectations and rules for student use of social media and online behavior. Let's come together to reinforce responsible activity and how to be good digital citizens. Please review with them that there are consequences for unacceptable behavior, including suspension from school and the involvement of law enforcement. If you see unacceptable social media posts please report those to the app provider. We are asking all parents to sit down with your student(s) and review their google account, email, internet browsing locations, and digital content.
We know students contributing to these incidents are better than this conduct. I know together we can unite to be more welcoming and inclusive, and teach our students how to counter prejudice and racism when it occurs by speaking out.
Thank you for continuing to dialogue with your students on these issues.
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Bark for Schools
Keeping students safer on our school-provided devices and accounts is of paramount importance to us. This is why we are looking forward to implementing a new monitoring system we plan to utilize to assist us in better protecting students at school and at home called Bark for Schools.
Bark is a student support safety tool that will help monitor students' google suites they use through MBUSD google apps accounts. This will include monitoring of texts, email, apps, and social media platforms. It assists in observing school-issued student accounts for signs of digital dangers such as cyberbullying, suicidal ideation, sexual content, and threats of violence to name a few.
When possible dangers arise on school-issued accounts, Bark for Schools sends us alerts so we can address the situation promptly. Digital safety is critically important to the Manhattan Beach Unified School District and we are confident this is another great tool that will help us keep our community safe.
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Peachjar Coming Soon
We are also excited to announce that by the end of the month we will be launching the Peachjar platform in our District. This new platform will enable us to send important school and community flyers to parents digitally, saving our schools time, money, and paper.
School-approved digital flyers will be sent to your email inbox where you can easily click to sign up for events and programs. You will be able to go to your school website and click on the Peachjar icon to find all school and District events. We will be updating you with more details next week.
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MBUSD Teams Compete in the Odyssey of the Minds World Finals
Three Manhattan Beach teams representing Pacific Elementary, MBMS, and Mira Costa tied for first among all cities in Division I - III placements at the recent Odyssey of the Minds World Finals competition in Ames, Iowa. They were among 683 teams and 10,000 attendees from around the world who competed in designated “problem categories”. The competition provides problem-solving opportunities for students from kindergarten through college. It’s all about creativity and students are rewarded for how they apply their knowledge, skills, and talents during the event.
We are very proud of our teams who placed in the competition 2 years in a row. The Pacific and MCHS teams finished first place in 2021 and 2022! Congratulations.
Special thanks to MBX and MB Odyssey Coaches Michelle Lautanen and Brian Fan.
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Pacific Elementary:
Division 1, 1st Place
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MBMS:
Division 2, 3rd Place
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MCHS:
Division 3, 1st Place
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MCHS Bands' Last Performance of the Year!
I attended the Mira Costa Bands' 2022 POPS Concert performance and was extremely impressed by our students. They performed hand chosen selections from Hercules, Star Wars, Spiderman, and Earth Wind and Fire! It was the first time students were able to have the POPS Concert back in the auditorium in three years.
Congratulations to all of our students in Concert Bands, Jazz Bands, Marching Band, Colorguard, Winterguard, Indoor Drumline, and the Parade team. You should be very proud of all of your accomplishments this year.
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On June 30, there will be a special concert at the Walt Disney Concert Hall! It will feature Mira Costa Orchestras and guest ensembles from MBMS Orchestras. It’s an opportunity to celebrate our award-winning MBUSD music programs! You can learn more about the concert here.
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Budget Corner
Like all California school districts, MBUSD is developing its 2022-23 budget during the months of May and June.
The annual District budget approval process involves a series of steps and is highly dependent upon the actions of the California State Legislature and Governor.
At our Board Budget Workshop meeting on May 26, staff provided a presentation about recent legislative developments in Sacramento that will inform the development of our 2022-23 MBUSD budget. Parents, staff, and community members were able to provide input on the development of next year’s budget, which included the potential impact of the additional revenue that the passage of the Measure A parcel tax on the June 7 ballot would bring to MBUSD.
Specific potential priorities for use of Measure A funds include:
- Hiring qualified and experienced teachers to help maintain manageable class sizes and provide individualized instruction for students
- Expanding course offerings, especially in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM)
- Keeping textbooks and other instructional materials, including digital resources and library collections, up-to-date
- Providing additional mental health counseling and support for students
- Providing professional development and collaboration time for all staff
During our June 1 Board meeting, we continued the budget conversation. Our 2022-23 MBUSD budget is scheduled for review and adoption at our June 22 and June 23 Board meetings - I hope you can tune in to all of these meetings!
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2022 Summer Expanded Learning Opportunities Interest Forms NOW Open
ELO Enrichment Interest Forms are open for grades TK-11. These are enriching courses taught by MBUSD teachers and staff on topics of their choice and interest. They are designed to spark students' excitement for learning and moving up to the next grade level.
Dates: June 27-July 21, 2022 | Monday-Thursday
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MBUSD’s Transitional Kindergarten (TK) program promotes the joy of learning in a positive and nurturing environment. TK programming creates critical thinkers, effective oral communicators, and life-long learners. The classroom environment includes many opportunities for fine and gross motor activities, oral language development, and social-emotional learning. Our program prioritizes intentional teaching that is hands-on and child-centered, purposeful structured play, and small-group instruction.
All children who will be five years old as of September 1, 2022, are eligible to enroll in Kindergarten, and all children who will be five years old as of February 2, 2023, are eligible to enroll in Transitional Kindergarten.
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Respond to Four MBUSD Questions
I have been asking students, staff, and MBUSD families the four questions below to learn more about our community. Thank you to those who have submitted responses. Your insights and ideas have been very informative!
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The next Superintendent Newsletter will be published on Friday, June 10.
Thank you again for your continued support and collaboration as we head into the final stretch of the school year. It has been amazing to see the recent student achievements across our District. As I continue to visit school sites, I see our staff stay committed to developing new and innovative ways to engage every student and foster a positive learning environment for our students to grow.
Together we continue to improve every day. I appreciate all of our staff, students, and families for helping keep our community safe and healthy.
I wish everyone a great weekend!
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John Bowes, Ed.D.
MBUSD Superintendent
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Manhattan Beach Unified School District
325 S. Peck Avenue
Manhattan Beach, CA 90266
310.318.7345
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