Fillmore Unified School District

The Fillmore Unified School District and Governing Board appreciate the opportunity provided by the Fillmore Gazette to address questions and share some exciting news with the community.

We have received inquiries regarding the condition of the Fillmore Middle School roofs, particularly the gymnasium. For the past several years our Maintenance and Facilities departments have worked diligently to maintain and repair roofs at the middle school and throughout the district. However the middle school gymnasium roof is now at the point where it needs to be completely replaced, which we plan to do no later than this summer. We are also evaluating the other roofs at the middle school as those roofs have been problematic as well. In the interim, the district has and will continue to take all necessary steps to ensure a safe and healthy environment for our students and staff. Those steps include minimizing the roof leaks by patching and repairing where possible, ongoing testing of water damaged areas, removal of loose wall or ceiling tiles and treating any areas where we suspect any type of mold or fungus may be present. The district sincerely appreciates the dedication of our maintenance and facility professionals and our middle school faculty and staff working together to ensure a safe school environment.

There is nothing more important to all of us then providing a safe and secure environment for our students and staff. We want the community to know that our schools are very proactive in planning and practicing for emergencies of various types including natural disaster, fire, lock down, etc. The district also works closely with law enforcement officials on an ongoing basis. The district is very fortunate in having a full-time school resource officer (SRO). In addition to our SRO, Fillmore Police Department patrol officers stop by our elementary schools on a daily basis to interact with our faculty, staff and students.

In order to help ensure a safe and secure environment on our school buses, the district will have cameras installed in all our buses by March 31, 2013. The cameras for our buses are being funded with safety credits through our insurance Joint Power Authority and as such, will not impact our General Fund which funds operations of our schools and district on a daily basis.

As a further safety measure, the district is also evaluating GPS student tracking systems for our school buses. If we do choose to move forward with the GPS systems, the target date for implementation would be the opening of school in August, 2013. The funding for the GPS system would also be from our insurance safety credit fund.

The district was very thankful of our community’s support for Proposition 30 which was approved by California voters in November 2012. While Proposition 30 does not guarantee any new funding for schools, it did allow California school districts to avoid having to make further cuts in their 2012-13 budget. Since the district had set aside the funds for the budget reduction if Proposition 30 had not passed, Proposition 30’s passage has allowed the district to reduce the furlough days from 10 days to 5 days for all faculty and staff on a one-time basis for 2012-13. This change will not impact the 2012-13 school calendar since the added days will be used for professional development and planning purposes.

The district has recently received inquiries regarding the Superintendent and Assistant Superintendent of Educational Services employment contracts. The district is very fortunate to have these two seasoned professionals with over 75 years of combined professional experience come out of retirement to serve our district. The 2012-13 compensation (Salary plus District Paid Tax Sheltered Annuity) of $140,012 for the Superintendent and $90,012 for the Assistant Superintendent is less than the Ventura County average for their positions and significantly less than they were earning at the time of their retirement. Furthermore, all management staff has taken salary reductions through furlough days for the past 3 years as have our faculty and staff.

We also received an inquiry regarding the Superintendent being provided a district van. As is customary, Superintendents’ contracts include either an automobile allowance or a District vehicle. In past years, the District elected to provide an automobile allowance to the Superintendent. This year, the District acquired a district van and asked the superintendent to use the van instead of providing an auto allowance. The purchase of a district van is to the district’s advantage in that it is a district asset that will continue to serve the district for many years to come.

The district is very pleased with the academic progress our schools have made - as was evidenced in the presentations of our school plans at our two most recent Board meetings. The academic progress is a tribute to our dedicated teachers in the classroom working corroboratively with their colleagues and Principals and the Assistant Superintendent of Educational Services office to improve our curriculum and instruction. We also want to recognize our middle school faculty and principal in their leadership in introducing Algebra I at the 7th and 8th grade level resulting in 361 students being enrolled in Algebra I this year.

As a part of the districts’ plan to expand our curriculum and provide more options to students, the district is very excited to introduce “University of Fillmore”, which will allow high school students to take courses that will provide both high school graduation credit and college credit as well as opportunities for credit recovery. The course offerings and the opportunity to take these courses, both on-line and in the traditional classroom setting, outside the school day, and with classrooms both on the Fillmore High School campus as well as other locations, will provide a great opportunity for our students to excel academically.

The district is also exploring possible sources to fund a “Technology Endowment Fund” for which the earning would provide the ongoing revenue source for technology to support a Wide Area Network and “smart classrooms” at all our school sites. We will continue to update the community as we move forward with technology funding.

The district and the governing board are deeply appreciative of the community’s support of our schools in so many ways as is demonstrated by the generous donations both in time and money to make our schools and community a better place for all of us.