SUSD Set To Host 19th Annual Noche de las Estrellas

The Sunnyside Unified School District is finalizing the details involved with hosting its 19th Annual Noche de las Estrellas or “Night of the Stars”.  The event, set to take place April 30 and May 15 is a celebration of 200 years of culture and traidition, according the the media release from the district and focuses on the music and entertainment originating in the country.  The event featureas mariachi and folklorico groups from all the district’s schools – from elementary to high school – in addition to a beauty pageant and a concert by Sergio Antonio and Mariachi “Herencio de Cuco del Cid”.

Members of Sunnyside High Schools Mariachi Los Diablitos practice before a performance. The group is just one of many local talents you will see over the course of the event. (Photo Courtesy of Monique Soria)

The event is hosted in an effort to educate and encourage cultural identity ties to mariachi and ballet folklórico.  The goal is to showcase the talented singers and dancers in the area and to share the Mexican culture through the community, according to the release.

The first portion of the event takes place April 30 at Sunnyside High School with the Reina y Rey de las Estrellas or  the “Queen and King of the the Stars”.  The event is essentially a beauty pageant but essentially works like your typical prom king and queen crowning.   The event will last for 6 to 9 p.m. and take place at the school’s auditorium.

The second and primary event is the mariachi and folklorico shopcase which will happen May 15.  Talents groups from all the district’s will perform at Ava Amphitheatre at Casino Del Sol, 5655 W. Valencia Road.  This event last from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. and will also involve traditionaal Mexican food and drinks and carnival games. 

Sergio Antonio, a graduate of Pueblo High School, will be the featured performer at the event. (Photo Courtesy of Pueblo High School)

The event will wrap up with the featured concert performance of Sergio Antonio and Herencia de Cuco del Cid.  Antonio was a 2004 graduate of Pueblo High School and has become an accomplished local musician over the years.  Tickets to the performance at $10 and the event kicks off at 7 p.m.

Doing the Right Thing Despite the Hard Times

With all the talk about what’s going to go with all the budget cuts in the future, it’s nice to see that some of the important things are still remaining intact. The Sunnyside Unified School District was awarded a $30,000 grant from the Quest Foundation Spirit of Serivce in order to purchase and fill backpacks with healthy snacks for the McKinney-Vento students in the district. The project opened up April 9 and will continue providing for these students until May 25.

A host of backpacks to be filled with nutritious sacks for McKinney-Vento Homeless students. (Photo Courtesy of Sunnyside Unified School District)

For those curious as to what the McKinney-Vento project is all about, here is a general overview of what it entails. Essentially, McKinney-Vento students are kids without a home that aren’t offered the luxaries that other more fortunate students have available. To see that there are people out there willing to put aside the other issues and take care of something that seems just slightly more important gives one faith that there are still minds out there that don’t see the dollar signs in erverything.

Superintendent Dr. Manuel Isquierdo (second from left) is presented with a $30,000 check to make this project happen. (Photo Courtest of Sunnyside Unified School District)

According to Andrea Foster, the school’s homeless student contact, the district enrolls approximately 900 homeless students – many of whom are living in places ranging from hotels to group homes.  The Qwest Foundation‘s grants often go to community-based programs in the K-12 are of education.  Members of the foundation in addition to administrators, parents and other volunteers will continue stuffing the backpacks over the next month an a half.  The packs contains food such as canned tuna and chicken, applesauce, trail mix, granola bars, juices and water bottles.

Budget Crisis Meeting Schedule for SUSD

The Sunnyside Unified School District Governing Board hosted special meeting Mondayto deal with the bidget crisis that has slowly arisen in the district of late, according to a recent release from the district. The district, whose large amount of donors had made life a little easier fir everyone, is now on page with so many other districts across the country. The meeting heard from the Associated Education Association, the Sunnyside Classified Employees Association and the Sunnyside Administrators Association regarding the issue and what can be done about it.

Each group was given 30 minutes to address their budgetary concerns before the Superintendent’s Cabinet presented its budget savings recommendations. What will be interesting to see here is how any changes would affect the more than 2600 persons employed by the district or how it will impact Project Graduation – the district’s strongly proactive approach to increasing graduation numbers. The program, while effective, has required a very large amount of funds and will require even more to continue rolling out the future implementations.

The three groups offered two plans that could help the situations. One was not really a plan of action but rather just a hope that voter pass the 1 cent sales tax increase offered by Prop 100. The other, more serious offer, was cutting middling school sports programs and elementary and middle school music programs. While no one seemed keen on the latter, it was pretty clear that the general manner of thinking was what could be done to save jobs.

I personally think that more thought needs to go into this. SUSD a large amount of underpriveledged students who can’t afford to play organized sports anywhere else except for school. There are no real music programs offered for that age group around town either. We are talking about limiting the productions of the two primary extracurricular activities to these young kids and some of the only things keeping them out of trouble and giving them a release from the stress of school. Limiting these programs would be a short term fix to certain teacher’s pay rates but it’s a long term issue to the students it would affect.

World Carnival To Be Hosted This Month

The Sunnyside Unified School District announced Friday the rebirth of their World Carnival idea to be hosted March 26 at Desert View High School. This decision comes a year after the 2009 carnival was cancelled due to a general lack of participation. 

This year’s carnival will feature schools and clubs from all of the Sunnyside district as they host booths with themes from Israel/Palestine, Samoa, Honduras, Holland, and Australia, among others.  The idea arose last year among members of the SUSD student committee but plans fell through when not enough support could be garnered.  It might be interesting to note that one portion of the distroct’s Digital Advantage program that awards free laptops to outstanding students includes a portion that says they must be active in the community.  I imagine that this event earned at least a couple more supportors due to this.

Students will host the booths which will have an assortment of culturally related activities to partake in as well at food from all the respresented countries.  The aim of the event is to “bring school, families and the community” together according to the release by the district.

One interesting feature of this year’s event will be the Israel/Palenstine Peace Booth hosted by students from the STAR Academic Center.  Students have spent the past several months studying conflict in the Middle East, including visits to The University of Arizona Department of Middle Eastern Studies to gain a new respect for not just the struggles of foreign countries but in their own neighborhoods.  The booth will hope to show people the parallels of these conflicts in addition to helping people in the community that we have more in common than we do differences.  It’s some really mature stuff for the students in the district to be covering and something I’m not entirely sure they could have acheived over the past couple years as the school’s struggled just keeping kids in class, let alone learning about such intense subject matter.

Events will kick off next Friday at 5 p.m. and continue through 9 p.m.  Admission is free and open to the public.

SUSD Superintendent Earns National Recognition

Dr. Manuel Isquierdo has been named as one ofn the 10 most “tech-savvy” superintedents in the country by eSchool News according to a recent release from the Sunnyside Unified School District.

The Tech-Savvy Superintedent Award program began in 2001 and honors the top dogs in K-12 school districts for displaying “exemplary vision in the use of technology to further the goals of educating today’s students and equip them with 21st century skills”, according to the eSN website.

The award, given annually by the publication, recognizes superintedents from across the nation who demonstrate the 10 qualities of their “Hallmarks of Excellence”:

SUSD’s Digital Advantage Program Continues to Make Strides

The Sunnyside Unified School District revealed this past Friday that about 500 freshman in the district will be rewarded with a free laptop thanks to satisfying the requirements necessary as part of the district’s Digital Advantage program.

Just a little background on the topic – Digital Advantage is part of the district’s Project Graduation.  Project Graduation aims to prevent dropouts and increase graduation rates in the district through providing certain incentives for student’s to stay in school and apply themselves a bit more.

The Digital Advantage is the brainchild of Superintendent Dr. Manuel Isquierdo that rewards students for achieving the ‘four A’s’: Academics, Attendence, Activity and Attitude.  Students who meet a minimum set of requirements in those four categories are eligible for a free laptop.  The requirements are as follows, according to the SUSD website:

• A 95% or better attendence rate
• No more than four absences, no unexcused absences and attendence on the first day of class
• Maintain a 2.5 GPA or higher
• Participate in at one least extracurricular activity
• Good citizenship as seen by having no out-of-school-suspensions.

More details on the program can be found on the SUSD website.

The project arose after a study conducted by John Hopkins University labeled the district as a graduation factory due to it’s dismal 63% graduation rate in 2007.  Research from such studies has shown that the freshman year is the most important as far as keeping young students on track, hence the projects focus on rewarding incoming or established freshmen.

This year alone, the project has given out 1,005 laptops to freshmen and 339 to upperclassmen for a total of 1,344 for the 2009-10 school year. 

Now, I’m not one to rely on non sequitors, but since the program’s inception in 2008 the numbers almost speak for themselves. 

SUSD is the home to most students South Tucson, housing a 87% Hispanic demographic, of which about 33% are ESL learners.  The district’s program is serving not just to up the ante as far as graduation numbers, but to bridge a gap in the digital divide between the computer savvy Americans and the often less-than-fortunate minorities who would otherwise not get a chance like this.

• SUSD set a goal to have the 556 seniors who were on track to graduate in the fall of 2007 graduate in May 2008. In fact, 598 students graduated. Through credit recovery courses, students who were not classified as seniors were able to gain the needed credits to graduate.

 

• Single-period absences for freshmen in spring 2008 were reduced by 67 percent as compared to the second semester of the previous year.

 

• Approximately 20 percent of students in grades 10, 11, and 12 – 456 of 2,863 – earned a 3.5 GPA or higher in 2008-09, which represents a 17 percent increase from the previous year.

 

• SUSD had a record-size graduating class of 715 in 2009, up from 598 graduates in 2008.

 

Not only is the program giving these laptops, but they are creating a network for which to utilize them on campuses, integrating online study halls, wireless internet access on campus, etc.  I wish I had such luxaries during my high school years.

Kudos to the district and Dr. Isquierdo for nipping this in the butt and providing one of the most impressive turnarounds I have heard of from a school district in some time.