Superintendent Reflects on School Year

As I sat on stage at the Masuda Middle School Promotion Exercises, I looked out over the nearly 300 students dressed in their royal blue promotion gowns and the smiling parents and loved ones who surrounded them to cheer yet another accomplishment for their son or daughter, and reflected as we often do on how quickly time passes. Thirty years prior as principal of this same school, I prepared my address to the students at this very same promotion ceremony. The students who I addressed however are the parents today of the students who are now being promoted out of 8th grade and into high school.

Time passes so quickly indeed and as such I feel it is only appropriate before the sands of time bury these memories, to highlight some of the exciting events of this past year in the Fountain Valley School District. We began, if you recall, with a technology bond campaign in which we made a valiant effort to secure a super majority from our electorate. Although falling a bit short, we were successful in gaining a majority of support for the initiative from our voters and we highlighted a need that raised awareness of an important principle: the best investment is one that benefits our children, our future.

We expanded our all day kindergarten program to five district schools and in 2013-14 we will have an all day kindergarten program at every one. We began our first phase of a new differentiated instructional small group initiative in which teachers focus their efforts in our elementary schools on small group instruction with rotations to allow the instructor time to meet with each of the instructional groups. We began a program at the middle schools called Learning Walks where teachers are released from class to visit other classrooms and observe the varied instructional strategies and techniques employed by other professionals.

We were thrilled to find out that Fountain Valley again was the highest performing elementary school district in the county on the California Standards Test and among the top three total districts countywide. Plavan School became our first ever National Blue Ribbon Nominee and we await word as to whether or not Plavan is able to secure this prestigious award and win the right to travel to Washington D.C. to be awarded the Blue Ribbon by President Obama. We were thrilled to see Fulton Middle School win another California Distinguished School Honor this year as well.

The district won another Energy Star Award for our excellent ratings in saving energy through the Energy Education Program and we will begin this summer work on the installation of solar panels as part of our Chevron Energy Project which will save the district $600,000 annually in energy costs, link our district to green technology and bring a new STEM-based energy instructional component to our science classrooms.

We begin next year entering a new age of school funding where our local board will have far more discretion on the use of state funds and we will receive additional resources for those students who are economically impacted or who are English learners. We are pleased that for the time being the cuts to our budget have ceased and we can begin working to reduce the number of furlough days which numbered five during the year we just completed.

It certainly has been a busy year and next year promises the same. Time continues to pass quickly and as I wish each of you a safe and restful summer, I urge you as well to recognize the beautiful minds we continue to nourish and the importance of enjoying the present as we prepare for the future. Happy Summer!

-Marc Ecker

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