The Ventura County Special Education Local Plan Area (SELPA) is proud to announce a special education staff member who has completed all requirements for the Autism Certification Program in March 2010 and is recognized as an expert. For this certification, candidates participate in a variety of professional development events in order to gain skills and expertise for working with children with autism.

The candidate receiving a certificate is Ventura County Office of Education Education Specialist, Sophia Denise Pannell.

For more information on our Autism Certification Program go to our website at www.venturacountyselpa.com and click the “Autism” button. For more information call the SELPA office (805) 437-1560.

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Thanks to the efforts of a group of parents who support the Piru Charter School petition, the quality of education for the children of Piru Elementary is already improving. At the recent January 25th County School Board meeting to decide on the Piru Charter, parents and community members presented the Ventura County Board members and the County Superintendent with a presentation of pictures of the run-down conditions of the play areas, buildings and other facilities of Piru School. The Ventura County Board members and the Superintendent were distressed by what they saw. One of the County Board members, Dean Kunicki of Simi Valley, said in response to these photos that he had visited the campus the weekend before with his family, and that he had never seen a school in worse condition than Piru. He urged parents to use a State law known as the Williams Act, which requires school districts to provide safe and adequate facilities for all students, informed them that they should file officlal ‘Williams Act’ complaints to get the campus fixed, and he turned to the District Superintendent, who was at the meeting, and put the District on notice that the conditions at Piru School were not acceptable and that the District is liable for them. County Superintendent Stan Mantooth personally provided parents from Piru School at the meeting with information on how to obtain the ‘Williams Act’ complaint forms, and since then those parents have filed complaints, and this action, combined with the publicity generated by the charter hearing, is bringing much-needed improvements to the campus. Take a look for yourself.

The Scholarship Committee of the Alumni Association received twenty seven applications from seniors of Fillmore High for the 2010 alumni scholarships. The committee, which consists of Mark Ortega, Kathleen McCreary, Corinna Mozley, Betty Carpenter, Liz Kemp and Dick Mosbarger, scored the applications, which consists of an autobiography, grade point average and involvement in school and community activities, to determine the top applicants. These seventeen will be interviewed by the committee on Wednesday, April 14 to determine the top individuals in this year's class. All applications will then be sent to Mr. John Lemley, class of 1961, who will also score the applications, and will determine the top two applicants who will receive the John and Nit Lemley scholarships, which consists of a $2500 scholarship for two years plus a one time $500 stipend towards a lap top computer. The remaining fifteen applicants will receive alumni scholarships, which will be presented at the awards assembly in June. The seventeen finalists are: Susana Amezcua, Susan Bolanos, Andre Casas, Esteban Casas, Anthony Chavez, Jazmin Galvez, Armanda Hernandez, Mariela Inda-Ramirez, Alejandra Lopez, Megan Louth, Moneh Magdaleno, Kelsey MacDonald, Kellsie McLain, Conchita Meza, Lena Stehly. Rebecca Vassaur and Deanna Villagomez.

The Alumni Association is also working to update the address files for all alumni members, so if you, or anyone you know has recently moved, please notify the alumni office at 805-524-0416, or at: staff@FilmoreHighAlumni.com so we can keep the files current. We are also asking that those alumni members who are not subscribers to the alumni newsletter, Flashbacks, to please consider doing so, as your subscription not only brings you the newsletter, but it also helps keep the association operating and allows us to support the activities that help the high school. This past year the alumni association has re-started the Shasta Daisy project to provide the flowers for the arches for graduation and has purchased two banners for the gym, which provide the words to the alma mater and to the school's fight song. The Board of Directors would especially like to see all former scholarship recipients sign up to receive the newsletter, which is only $20 per year. The Fillmore High Alumni Association is one of a kind and is only as successful as the support obtained from the members, so please help us by becoming a subscriber.

San Cayetano is a nationally recognized NASA Explorer School. In 2007 they were chosen through a competitive grant process to earn that title. With that distinction come many opportunities. This year, NASA team member Melanie Chisholm teamed with San Cayetano Principal, Jan Marholin to write a competitive paper about an experiment in micro gravity. Mrs. Chisholm and her students took the lead on developing an experiment that can be flown in reduced gravity and shared that with other team members and their students. The project was chosen as one of 10 in the country for this years flight. The experiment has to do with liquid transfer in reduced gravity. The experiment will be shipped to Houston after the Family Science Night and then the five teachers will follow on April 21st. They will go through astronaut type training in at Johnson Space Center before their flight. Each teacher at their own expense had to be cleared by an Aviation Medical Doctor saying they were ok to fly. We thank Dr. Brian Brantner of Ventura who gave staff a very generous discount. The teachers and the experiment will fly in a C-9 aircraft and do parabolic maneuvers over the Gulf of Mexico. Upon landing and collecting the data from the experiment , the students at San Cayetano will be able to video conference live with them as they get off of the aircraft. These teachers are the first from Ventura , Santa Barbara or San Luis Obispo Counties to be chosen for this project. The Micro Gravity Team will be demonstrating their experiment at San Cayetano’s Family Science Night April 8th. Come and meet the team: Melanie Chisholm, Brandi Walker, Rory Maus, Scott Olson, and Viviana Laureano-Magana.

They will be at the San Cayetano Family Science Night April 8th from 6-7:30PM. This event is FREE for all Fillmore and Piru students. Bring the whole family and experience being put inside of a bubble, hold sea specimens from the Mobile Marine Lab, plant a plant and take it away from the UC Hansen Agricultural Center, try on a spacesuit from the Gull Wings Childrens Museum and much, much more! Also featured with free hands-on science activities will be: Channel Islands National Park, INTELSAT, California Oil Museum, Dept. of Water Resources, California Condor Recovery, United Water Conservation District and Associates Insectary. Try your luck with balloon rockets, paper gliders and impact craters. This free event is being brought to you by The San Cayetano NASA Team and Friends.

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The exterior painting of the District Offices is part of a much larger painting project. The District recognized a couple of years ago that most of our school sites were looking run down. Beginning with San Cayetano, which hadn’t been painted in approximately 30 years, the District hired two painters to paint all of our school sites. After San Cayetano the painters moved to Piru. Third in line for the cosmetic improvement was Sespe Elementary. The District Office building was chosen as the starting place for the Sespe portion because of high visibility of the building. The District has received nothing but positive feedback from the students, staff and community about the new cleaner look the sites are experiencing. After Sespe is complete, the painters will go to Fillmore Middle School then to Fillmore High School to touch up the exterior paint and finally to Mountain Vista the newest school in the District. There is really no specific time frame for completion, each site takes as long as necessary to achieve the professional results expected. I don’t have an exact breakdown of the cost for repainting the individual sites because of several factors that influence labor and material costs unique to each site. I don’t know the percentage from each funding source but funding for the project comes from several sources including our Deferred Maintenance Account, Bond Funds and Developer Fees to name a few.

The only other project scheduled for the District Offices at this time is to replant the beds along the front of the building. The plants will come from the District’s nursery stock grown from seeds, cuttings and donations. The plants are also used to replant distressed areas of all of our school sites. We are continually searching for donations to replenish our nursery stock.

Our long term goal for the District Office building is to revert the building back into a classroom building for the Sespe site. We are communicating with the State to determine what seismic upgrades need to be done and what grants are available to achieve our goal.

Community members and FMS families are ALWAYS WELCOME to the Home of The Bulldogs! Please join staff for our monthly Meet and Greets in our Parent Center, held the last Friday of every month. FMS is hosting its March Meet and Greet this Friday, March 26th at 7:30 a.m. The atmosphere is casual, and provides a great chance to follow coffee, pastries and conversation with a walk through of classrooms with a counselor or administrator.
What is great about FMS will continue to be great…and we will continue to improve each year. We as a staff need our parents and community to help keep us moving forward. Our school’s goals are the same: to maintain open communication among all stakeholders so that we will continuously improve our teaching, the running of a school, and each one of our student’s safety and success. To discuss how to support our students, upcoming events, or any concerns or questions, please call the FMS office at 524-6055 or find us on the web at www.fillmore.k12.ca.us .Call or drop by to make an appointment with Mrs. Godfrey, Mr. Carroll, or any member of our school staff. “Safety, Learning, and Love” are our top three priorities and also how we meet the diverse needs of our middle school students.

Mariah Perez

Even though it was spring break last week our athletes were still dedicated to their sport. Track had a meet against our rival, Santa Paula Cardinals. JV boys and girls both defeated Santa Paula, as well as our boys varsity; girls varsity however did lose to them. Boys volleyball had a game this week against Nordoff, JV lost 2-1 and varsity lost 3-0. Boys baseball also had games this week. JV and varsity played against Grace Brethren, JV won and varsity lost. They both also played against Nordoff, JV lost 1-0 and varsity had a double header winning both games 5-3 and 8-3. Softball had a game against Santa Paula and both JV and varsity dominated the Cardinals. Coming up is our Centennial Celebration, a dance celebrating 100 years of graduating classes. The event will take place April 10, 2010 from 6-10pm at the Fillmore High School gym. This event is open to the community, those who have graduated from Fillmore over the past 100 years, and of course their date. Tickets will be on sale Saturday, March 27th, in front of the high school. They will also be on sale march 29th-April 9th during school on campus and on weekends. Cost will be $20.00 which includes a t-shirt for the celebration. Also at the celebration seniors will be burying a time capsule. So seniors please come and bring an item to bury. We hope to see many of you there. This Friday, March 26th will be a movie night at the high school quad. Games start at 6pm and the movie that will be playing is “Up”, which will begin at 7pm. We hope to see the community and students get involved and come. Let’s Go Flashes…

Fillmore Unified School District

FILLMORE UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT
SPECIAL MEETING OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION
TUESDAY, MARCH 23, 2010
5:15 P.M. – CLOSED SESSION
6:00 P.M. – SPECIAL BOARD MEETING
627 SESPE AVENUE, FILLMORE, CALIFORNIA

AGENDA
The public may review or request a copy of support materials provided to the Board Members where the word materials appears.
5:15 p.m.
I. CALL TO ORDER AND PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE TO THE FLAG
II. ROLL CALL
III. PUBLIC COMMENT ON CLOSED SESSION AND NONAGENDA ITEMS,
PETITIONS
This is the time and place to address the Board. State law prohibits the Board from acting on issues not included on the agenda; however, requests may be made for discussion of specific topics at subsequent meetings.
IV. CLOSED SESSION
The Board of Education will meet CONTINUED »

This is the second year that San Cayetano has had a team win the championship. This year was extra sweet as they scored higher than any of the secondary schools that entered the competition. There were 21 teams entered. Through San Cayetano’s NASA Explorer Schools Program, San Cayetano was able to purchase LEGO Robotics and have teacher coaches who attended a Summer Robotics workshop at JPL in 2008. Each 4th and 5th grade student receives thirteen sessions in robotics instruction. This year the program is being expanded with simple programming to include 3rd graders. Each January an after school opportunity begins with robotics teams preparing for the championship and out of those students the team members, by secret ballot choose who can best represent them to win. This year San Cayetano’s sponsors were Fillmore Sunrisers Rotary and INTELSAT. T-shirts were purchased through Waterart Designs, a local business owned by Veronica Morris. One last note that makes our San Cayetano Family very proud- they were awarded a certificate for Good Character as they loaned other teams parts who had broken or forgotten parts so that they may still compete. Isn’t that what life skills are all about!

Currently the competition can be viewed on the web at www.ustream.tv/nasajpl

The Tobacco Bus is provided through Ventura County Public Health Tobacco Education to our 6th graders in Ventura County. Carolyn Consoli and Kim O’Neil tireless share the “Horrors” of tobacco to prevent future tragedies such as mouth and throat cancer, lung cancer, emphysema and even death!

This program supports our youth making positive/healthy choices in their lives and how to use this information to help their family members as well, even if they have already started using and are addicted to the nicotine. There are over 4,000 chemicals in a cigarette. Some of those chemicals are poisons such as arsenic, insecticides, formaldehyde and of course the by-product of smoke, carbon monoxide.

Here are three important phone numbers that are shared during the Tobacco Bus tour:
· 1-800-5ASK-4-ID, If someone sees a store clerk selling to a minor, they can make an anonymous call to report the illegal sale of tobacco (cigarettes, cigars, chewing tobacco).

· 1-800-NO-BUTTS, This is the California Smokers Help Line which is a free service to help people quit smoking.

· 201-STOP, The Ventura County Public Health offers free classes to anyone in Ventura County to help them stop smoking. They also provide “free” nicotine patches to help those going through withdrawals.

Fillmore Unified School District

I wanted to let you know that I have made some personnel changes that will affect Fillmore Middle School. I have promoted Mr. Todd Schieferle to work in the District Office. Mr. Schieferle will be in charge of Human Resources. Mr. Schieferle has been a counselor, a dean, and the principal at FMS and will be missed by all.

To replace Mr. Schieferle, I have asked Mrs. Tricia Godfrey to move from her position as assistant principal to become principal. Mrs. Godfrey and Mr. Schieferle have worked in partnership for two years as leaders at the school. Having Mrs. Godfrey as principal will ensure that the great progress the school has made will not be derailed with this change.

To replace Mrs. Godfrey, I have asked Mr. Scott Carroll to become the school’s assistant principal. Mr. Carroll is an excellent FMS sixth grade teacher who I know will become an outstanding assistant principal. He has been the school’s AVID and advisory coordinator this year. And, he has been the administrative designee for the past two years.

The school has made great strides under the leadership of Mr. Schieferle and Mrs. Godfrey. I know the school will continue to improve under the direction of Mrs. Godfrey and Mr. Carroll. All three will begin their transition to their new positions after our spring break. I look forward to seeing each assume their new job responsibilities and witnessing great things in the future.

Sincerely,

Jeff Sweeney, Superintendent

SPANISH:
Estimados Padres de Estudiantes de la Escuela Intermedia:

Quiero darles a saber CONTINUED »

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On Monday, March 8, 2010, San Cayetano School recognized good citizenship and character at their Peacebuilder Assembly for the month of March. Mr. Todd Schieferle, principle of Fillmore Middle School, came to speak to the students about what a good citizen is and how being a good citizen can help not only the students, but others around them in their community. Joe Jiunta and Christina De La Mora, the San Cayetano ASB President and Vice-President assisted Mr.Schieferle in handing out the Peacebuilder certificates. The Peacebuilders for March are: Leo Barajas,Kayla Cervantez, Miranda Magana, Jasmine Vega, Ramces Salazar, Jessica Nava, Marissa Luna, Caceandra Hearne, Daniela Chavez, Hannah Ransom-Fairall, Fatima Zamora, Andrea Magana, Briana Lopez, Jordyn Rolfe, Clarissa Alcozar, Veronica Valdivia, Cali Wyand, Brandon Nava, Samantha Cabral, and Kiana Velenzuela . At the upper grade assembly, Joe then announced to the students that the Rainbow Foundation is sponsoring the San Cayetano Character Counts Award of a $100.00 savings bond. Sandra Chavez was chosen by the fourth grade teachers as a model of outstanding behavior, responsibility, and kindness to the other students. She was recognized with a certificate and the savings bond. To conclude the assembly, Christina reminded the students to turn in their Perfect Attendance tickets. Each month all students who come to school, each day, on time, are given an orange raffle ticket. The students place their tickets in a box and one ticket is drawn. The student whose ticket is drawn is given a backpack full of supplies. Each month, the tickets will be put into a larger box that will be kept until the end of the year. In June, Mrs. Marholin, the principal, will draw from the tickets to give away two new bicycles. Robert Gonzalez from room 5 won the Perfect Attendance Award for March.

The "S" Club of Fillmore High School is having their Spring Retreat Empower Yourself with Knowledge Tues. March 16, 2010 at Fillmore High School. The retreat is open to all students, parents and any one interested in attending this all day fun-filled, educational and informative retreat. Retreat fee is $12.00 per person. For questions and/or to register for the retreat please contact Mrs. Herrera. Must register by Sat. March 13, 2010. 805-524-4326 or magnoliares@sbcglobal.net.

Kindergarten registration will be held on March 22– April 1, 2009, at San Cayetano School, 524-6040, Sespe School, 524-6161, Mountain Vista, 524-8302 and Piru School, 521-1709. Piru residents may register at Piru School. Parents are to register at the school site within their boundaries.

In order to complete registration, parents must have birth certificate, verification of adequate immunization for their children, verification of address (such as utility bill or driver’s license).

Parents must provide documentation that their child has completed a Physical Examination; (physical need to be dated after March 1st, 2010), and Dental/Oral Examination. All four elementary schools have a supply of the physical examination forms and forms for the dentist.

Immunizations: Required doses of Polio, DPT, MMR, Hepatitis B and Varicella vaccines.

For additional questions, contact the elementary school sites, or M. E. Romero, R.N., District Health Coordinator at 524-6029.

All around town, people are asking, “So what happened to the Piru Charter Plan? Is it over? Is it gone?” The answer is no. The Piru Charter Petition is just where the petitioners expected it to be…awaiting review by the California Advisory Commission on Charter Schools, before heading to the State Board of Education for the authorization process. The Petition will be heard on April 6 before the Advisory Commission, and in May before the State Board of Education.

Will it be authorized? The petitioners do not know. What they do know is that all nine petitioners and former Principal Richard Durborow, working with dedicated parents and community members, have given their best this year to create a school that will make life better for the children of Piru and the surrounding areas. The Piru Charter Plan offers the community smaller class sizes for their children, local control of elementary learning, and an opportunity to have one of the most beautiful and highest achieving schools in Ventura County. Many in Piru hope the state chooses to authorize it!

There is a flier going around Piru that states CONTINUED »

1. There is no mandatory volunteer work.
2. There is no tuition to be paid.
3. Charters schools are eligible to receive all Federal and State funds that the District receives (such as Migrant Program, School Lunch Program, and the After School Program).
4. A temporary Board of Directors will be appointed.
5. The majority of the Board will consist of parents, community members and business owners.
6. Parents will not be responsible for cleaning restrooms, classrooms or maintaining the campus.
7. Transportation will be provided.
8. Teachers will not lose their jobs.

**Take action to improve your school. **

If you have any questions or concerns please call us at (805) 428-9473.
We will be more than happy to answer any questions you may have.

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Padres de Piru Charter School

1. No es CONTINUED »

The California State Board of Education will soon decide on whether to approve the Piru Charter School petition, converting Piru Elementary into an independent school of choice. This exciting change will bring much-needed educational reform to our community. Now is the time to express your support for the right of parents to choose where they send their children to school. We are asking you to take just a few minutes of your time and write a letter or email urging the State Board of Education to approve Piru Charter School.

Please send all messages of support to our mailing address or email address by Wednesday, March 17th.

By mail:
PCS
P.O. Box 555
Piru, CA 93040

Email:
pirucharterschool@earthlink.net

For questions, email us or contact the Piru Charter School Petitioning Group at:
Phone: 805 428-9473
Email: pirucharterschool@earthlink.net

We would like to invite you to a meeting. A group of Parents went to the Charter School Conference in Sacramento on Tuesday March 2, 2010. We would like to share with every parent all the great information we learned about what it is to be a Charter School. Please join us to learn more about how this could be a great opportunity for Piru School. If you have any concerns, questions, or issues you would like to address, this would be a great opportunity to have those answered.

Open your mind and heart to a new kind of education.

When: Monday March 15, 2010
Where: Piru Community Center
Time: 6:45 p.m. (Presentation starting @ 7:00p.m.)

Padres Apoyando Piru Charter School

Queremos invitarlos a una junta. Un CONTINUED »