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Home :: Discover EGUSD :: Superintendent :: Superintendent's Message
With cooler mornings and shorter days, it is beginning to feel that fall has arrived. This season brings harvest festivals, fall sports and plays.
As the new season begins, we reflect on some of our students’ academic success with the release of California’s 2009 Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR) Program results. The results demonstrated that Elk Grove Unified students outperformed the state and Sacramento County in both English language arts and mathematics while narrowing the academic achievement gap among the district’s four largest subgroups.
It takes hard work and dedication on the part of our staff and students to achieve continued academic performance on all measures, including standardized tests. I would like to thank our students and teachers for all their hard work.
I’d also like to extend congratulations to our teachers of the year Criss Brandes, a third grade teacher at Robert J. Fite Elementary School, and JoEllen Shanks, a second grade teacher at Stone Lake Elementary School. Mrs. Shanks also has the distinction of being recognized as one of two Sacramento County teachers of the year. Our teachers of the year are wonderful representatives of our profession.
As the flu season begins, I want to urge everyone to take care of themselves and follow the recommendations of Public Health. We continue to learn of new cases of H1N1 in our community. While the cases continue to be mild we want to encourage our students and staff to stay home if they have flu like symptoms until they are symptom-free for a minimum of 24 hours. We also ask that everyone follows proper hand washing and upper respiratory etiquette. At the direction of the Sacramento County Division of Public Health we continue to monitor the number of students out absent with flu-like symptoms.
Recently, I have been visiting school sites to talk to staff about the $40 to $42 million in budget cuts that the district will have to make to have a balanced budget for the 2010-2011 school year. I have also begun to present the information to the public at four community meetings. We must strive not only to address the grim budget reality from the state, but also to rally support for adequate funding for public education in California.
I know none of us like the cuts we are faced with. I can personally make an argument in support of every item on the budget reductions list. The list of proposed cuts demonstrates the severity and a sense of loss of programs, people and services that we face when forced to make budget cuts year after year.
We continue to seek ways to augment our funds through creative ideas and grants. We have begun an energy management effort that could annually save the district hundreds of thousands of dollars. We just received information that EGUSD’s appeal for a denied grant application was successful, resulting in an additional $1.6 million for a Tobacco-Use Prevention Education grant. We have also already invested the $26 million in federal stimulus funding into our 2009-2010 budget in order to save jobs for the current school year.
Current information suggests that EGUSD enrollment numbers will be slightly up this year. Last year we experienced the first decline in our 50 year history. The increased enrollment means about $600,000 in additional revenue to the district that will help us as we move through budget cuts.
These are tough times. However, know that we will stay focused on doing our best for the children of this community.
Steven M. Ladd, Ed.D.
Superintendent
Superintendent's Archived
Messages
Welcome to the newly
redesigned website for the Elk Grove
Unified School District.
PSAT For All
Safety is one of our top priorities
Winter Break Message
Achievement Gap
Governor Schwarzenegger’s proposed budget
California’s fiscal crisis and its potential affect on public education funding
“EGUSD Goes Gold – Celebrating 50 Years of Educational Excellence.”
As the state of California continues to wrestle with the budget...
The autumn months are a wonderful time at our high schools...
As we move through the 2008-2009 school year it is quickly becoming clear...
The State of California’s budget crisis needs to be addressed quickly...
At the March 3, 2009, Board of Education meeting...
Springtime in Elk Grove Unified means plays, standardized testing...
Welcome back to a new year...
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