• Welcome to our board meeting!
• This is my 20th regular board meeting as superintendent. We’ve also met for special board meetings, joint board meetings and board workshops for a total of 31 meeetings! Where does the time go???
• Let’s first start with celebrations, kudos, and accomplishments! I received an invitation by Emma’s mom to attend The First Annual MAP (Mentor Assistance Program) Research Symposium at UCSD this past Friday night. MAP is a mentoring program for high school students. The mentors come from the UCSD Health Sciences Division and the San Diego Supercomputer Center. There was a rigorous application process and 77 high school students across the county were selected to participate. I met two of the four SUHSD students who were selected. Emma’s (a junior ELH) presentation was research she helped conduct on the “Identification of Biomarkers in Neuroblastoma Patients.” I was so impressed with her confidence and knowledge when she shared her research. And, then I met Josselin (a junior at SUHI) who conducted her research on “Pathology of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder: clinical characteristics, genetics, and brain imaging.” This is another example of the amazing and incredibly talented students we have in Sweetwater and their teacher mentors who inspire them to apply to participate is such invaluable experiences. (I saw Mr. Art Lopez there, too)  Congratulations Emma Antoine, Josselin Martinez, Richard Tran (ORH), and Marissa Kachadoorian (ELH)!
• Kudos to MVA teacher Linda Bennett and her bilingual class who are now 2-time national winners of the Read to Succeed contest through Achieve 3000.
• AOJ (Administration of Justice) teacher/coordinator George Sikes coordinated an opportunity for MoH students to participate in San Diego County District Attorney’s Student Mock Trials. AOJ students prepared over a couple of months to present both sides of a “mock” criminal case. Attorneys from both the Public Defender’s Office and the District Attorney’s Office met with MoH students to help prepare them for the case. Thank you Mr. Sikes for providing our students with a true, real-life civic learning experience!
• Educators and students are involved in such essential work and we are fortunate we have extraordinary workers! Thank you all for the positive work you do each day with our students, families, and each other!
• It’s graduation and promotion time! That means our Board of Trustees, district office staff and many of our site staff will attend “commencement ceremonies” or, in other words graduations. Don’t you think it’s somewhat of a paradox we call this event a commencement ceremony? Because commencement means the act or instance of commencing or beginning. And yet, it also means the ceremony of conferring or granting diplomas at the end of the year. It is both the beginning and the end! Most of us remember our high school and college graduation as both the end of a particular period in our lives and the beginning of another chapter. Recently I heard a very inspiring commencement speaker, our own employee Rob Russell who graduated from SDSU with a degree in Public Affairs. He was selected from all the graduates to speak at his commencement ceremony. He was so inspirational when he told his story that it took him 30 years to earn his degree; and yet, he persisted and graduated with his college diploma. In spite of obstacles, working full time, and raising his own family, he finished his degree with honors. His advice to all in the audience was to “never give up” on your dreams! With this board meeting being the last one before graduations and promotions actually happen, I wanted to share a brief compilation of commencement advice. Here are my top 10:
  1. Steve Jobs said, “Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.”
  2. Success is like a mountain that keeps growing ahead of you as you hike.
  3. Always, always, always be thankful!
  4. Be patient, things will get better!
  5. Integrity is everything!
  6. It’s okay to be afraid, but don’t let fear stop you!
  7. Be selective in your battles, sometimes peace is better than being right!
  8. Remember, “If you think you’re too small to make a difference…try sleeping with a mosquito in the room.” Dali Lama
  9. Do what you love and love what you do!

• Keep calm & give back!

• Finally, all year long I have shared lessons I’ve learned from many people. Some are well known, some are close to home here in Sweetwater. One particular lesson I learned was from one of our students, Miguel Aldrete, founder of Kids 4 Our World, when he shared the African Proverb, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” And, I have made an effort to communicate that proverb many times in my first year as superintendent. To close tonight’s message, I want to share another example of how our students have so much wisdom. Last week, several of our high schools participated in a Unified Sports Exhibition where general education students teamed with special education students to participate in a basketball game in jam-packed gymnasiums. It was an overwhelming and total success! I want to close with a small snippet… fox5sandiego.com/2016/05/19/bonita-vista-eastlake-host-special-basketball-game

We are all one!

• In our few days left of the 2015-16 school year, thank you for the opportunity to serve and support all of you!