"Students improve their performace in many grade levels"

 

Once again, the schools of the El Monte City School District are making steady growth in improving the outcomes District wide as our students improve their performance in many grade levels in English Language Arts and Math. We also saw improvements in the grade levels tested in Science, Social Studies, Writing and Algebra. This reflects the hard work of our teachers, support staff, our students and parents in pursuing excellent results for our boys and girls.

 

The irony of this is that progress is being made despite the devastating budget cuts that have hit all California public schools. Our revenue decrease over the past three years is well over 20 %. We have cut costs, closed schools, reduced staff and, unfortunately, increased class size to help offset these devastating reduction in the monies supplied to educate our children. California now is the 3rd lowest state in providing monies to educate the children that will support its future.

 

How are we able to have our students performing better each year despite this terrible decline in funding?

 

Our teachers and support staff have increased their skills each year. Because of special categorical funding, we have provided our teachers with excellent professional development in math, reading, writing, science and other areas. We have a group of teachers on special assignment (TOSA) also funded through very specialized dollars, who work with teachers to support their increasing skills. The District has also trained all teachers in the formation of Professional Learning Communities to insure that every student’s progress is carefully monitored and academic interventions are used to increase learning results.

Can this progress continue if California continues to short change its students in comparison to the funding provided by other states? Absolutely not. Polls show that residents across the state are in favor of increasing funding for schools. The voters of this school district have voted three times to support the improvement of our school facilities. The California Legislature must understand that to continue to take dollars away from our school will only shortchange all of us in terms of providing a vibrant and well educated work force to lead this state back to excellence in the quality of life and the availability of good jobs to bring a great future to all of us. Education is the proven key to advancing in any society - this has been proven over and over again.

 

Thank you all again for your support of our schools and our students. We must make our support known to everyone possible to insure that our children have excellent support in funding their educations. We can do it together.