17-18 CUSD Year in Review

We have had another successful school year with a great deal to be thankful for in many ways. We are graduating the most graduates (close to 170) we have had at the high school in years, and we are promoting the most students at John Muir (194) we have had in decades!

The high school continues to lead the way in Central California with high percentages of students taking and passing college courses that are offered in the regular high school day. The onsite college offerings have increased from 8 to 15!  Seventy one of our college seniors took college classes with a 98% pass rate.  These classes included English 251, English 1, English 2, American Sign Language 1, American Sign Language 2, Counseling 100, Human Development, Spanish 1, and Communications.

This does not include courses students chose to take in an online only setting. Most of these academics took more than one college course. These seniors were responsible for taking 171 college courses. Many did this while also being involved in clubs, sports and community service. Some did this while working part time jobs or caring for siblings.

Due to the positive environment and the relationships our staff has with our students, student behavior continues to improve dramatically with decreases student suspensions by 36% and expulsions are reduced by 25% from last year. We have had the most number of students place in the County Spelling Bee that we can remember, and Fremont and Mark Twain Schools have won a prestigious National Beacon School Award from Imagine Learning (only 150 schools receive this award nationwide).

Our School Board just recently approved the implementation of The California Cadet Corp at John Muir Middle School, and John Muir is one of only 30 plus schools in the whole nation to be involved in The Student Spaceflight Experiments Program, (one of the few schools that involved experimentation across the whole student body!).

The high school is in its second year of conducting highly successful Senior Exit Interviews and the

athletic program once again boasts of several league championships:

• Girls Cross Country (1st Valley Championship in school history) 
• Boys' Cross Country
• Wrestling
• Boys' and Girls' Track
• Girls' Tennis team earned Back to Back Valley Champions (Division IV and now III) 
  

And, our FFA Program produced two State Finalists and one State Champion for student projects.

We are also seeing positive changes and improvements throughout the District with the purchase of new property, the addition of new buildings and improvements at the Ag Farm, an award of a $3 million Career Technical Education building grant, new classroom furniture, and the District partnered with CAST (Community and Schools Together) for new RAC and baseball field score boards, and a new state of the art batting cage. New playgrounds have been installed at Fremont, Mark Twain and the new playground for Bret Harte preschool is on order.

All of our school buses have new cameras and GPS tracking is on every bus, and our parents and staff have now have access to a new Digital Menu to help track calories and types of foods students are served daily. Speaking of food, this last year was the first year in decades the high school had a closed campus for freshmen. This reduced the number of students tardy for class after lunch and the food service department was able to feed many more students with a greater variety of foods. This is not to mention our campuses were recognized as Apple Distinguished Schools and Gold PBIS Award winners!

Congratulations to every one for an outstanding 2017-18 School Year!