Schools
Novato Unified School District Superintendent Update - September 11, 2020
At the conclusion of camp, students presented their social campaigns to one-another, to parents, and to NUSD staff.
September 11, 2020
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Dear NUSD Families,
I am so thankful for the way our community has leaned into the difficult work associated with starting the 2020 school year. While we aren’t always in agreement about everything, we are all committed to doing the best we can for our students. I know I sometimes sound like a broken record on this, but it is the truth.
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In this communication, I will focus on:
Celebrating Students Going Above and Beyond
Internet Connectivity
Incidences of Anti-Semitism in Southern Marin High School
And September 11
Celebrating Students Going Above and Beyond
During our two September Board meetings, we are celebrating some great NUSD student successes. Knowing that not everyone closely follows our NUSD Board meetings, I wanted to highlight those successes here.
Izagani Aquino: San Marin High School senior, Izagani Aquino, facilitated a remote summer camp for middle school students focused on current and relevant social campaigns in order to advocate for change.
The week-long camp scheduled morning and afternoon blocks. Morning blocks consisted of camp-wide activities, while afternoon blocks focused on small group discussion. During camp, students learned about topics such as logo design and marketing and the curriculum was designed in conjunction with Stanford University’s design thinking program.
Students heard from guest speakers such as Rick Schramm, Global Marketing Director for Nike, and Cooper Roh, eight-time International History Olympiad Medalist. Students also learned how to leverage the use of social media to spread awareness; guests in this work included the Senior Social Media Manager for the Golden State Warriors and a student from Stanford University.
At the conclusion of camp, students presented their social campaigns to one-another, to parents, and to NUSD staff.
The District is impressed with the leadership skills of student Izagani Aquino and wishes to acknowledge his commitment, contributions, and outreach in making Novato Unified School District a place to Engage. Inspire. Empower.
Trevor Fox: San Marin High School senior, Trevor Fox, created a Minecraft game to simulate the San Marin High School campus for the purpose of helping their Link Crew Leaders assist incoming freshmen to navigate the school virtually during orientation.
Trevor built a 1:1 replica of the San Marin campus in Minecraft during the Spring 2020 Shelter-in-Place. Trevor was inspired by the Blockeley University project at UC Berkeley. Students are able to visit the site for an official self-guided Virtual Orientation of San Marin High School.
Visit https://sanmarinminecraft.weebly.com/ to view Trevor’s work.
The District is impressed with the creativity, ingenuity, and thoughtfulness Trevor demonstrated to ensure that the incoming freshmen received a meaningful virtual tour of the San Marin High School campus during orientation. Trevor demonstrates that Novato Unified School District students Engage. Inspire. Empower.
These two students went above and beyond to better support our students and our communities. We appreciate all they have done! If you know an uncovered gem of a student, please email Ellen Christensen-Denton at ellen@nusd.org and they may be featured at an upcoming board meeting.
Internet Connectivity
During the spring we were able to achieve the goal of 100% connectivity for our students, however, we found that the connectivity was not of sufficient quality to allow for the sort of internet use needed due to the amount of video streaming required. NUSD has expanded its goal of NUSD students having high quality internet access to 100%. Currently, 98% have high quality access and we have a concrete solution for about 100 of the remaining students.
We continue to rely on partnership with Comcast to provide the vast majority of this internet access. We have also used hot spots in partnership with Marin Public Library and the Marin Promise Partnership. Unfortunately, we are finding that there are approximately 50 students for whom neither the hot-spots or Comcast are viable options. We will not stop until we achieve this goal and anticipate solutions soon.
Incidences of Anti-Semitism in Southern Marin High School
Early this week I became aware of anti-Semitic social media posts connected to one of the high schools in Southern Marin. I find it reprehensible that actions like this continue in our society. They are unacceptable and we must come together as a community to ensure that they stop. The superintendents with high schools in Marin County, County Superintendent Burke, and Rabbi Stacy Friedman have worked together on a statement condemning these actions and encouraging our community to come together to stamp out anti-Semitism. You can find that statement here.
About a year ago, we found anti-Semitic flyers on several NUSD campuses. We worked closely with Not In Our Town Novato and the Novato Police Department to strengthen our community’s resolve to eliminate hate in general and anti-Semitism in particular from our community. Our statement from that time can be found here: NOVATO STANDS UP AGAINST HATE – AUGUST 20, 2019.
Novato Unified School District stands for equity and inclusion for every member of the human race. Our students come to us from an infinite range of backgrounds, ethnicities, genders, and religious and political beliefs—and all our students have a fundamental right to feel welcome, safe, and included at our schools. I hope we can come together to eliminate anti-Semitism from our community.
September 11
It is hard to believe that it has been 19 years since that terrible day when our country came under attacks that resulted in almost 3,000 deaths and 25,000 injuries. I want to take a quick minute to honor all of those who were impacted by the attacks on 9/11.
Thank you for your all you are doing to keep our community Sincerely,
Kris Cosca
This press release was produced by the Novato Unified School District. The views expressed here are the author’s own.
