Hercules' School District Cites Successes in Annual Report

By focusing on teachers, expanding Internet communication, and prudent budgeting amid declining revenue, the West Contra Costa school district has fostered improvements in education and preserved key programs and resources despite sizable losses of revenue, according to the district's recently released 2010-11 Annual Report.

The 8-page, large-format document begins with Superintendent Bruce Harter's short summary of key successes. Selecting, retaining and training skilled teachers is a top priority, Harter said, adding, "For the first time in many years, we started school fully staffed with teachers in all our classrooms."

"We believe that our students are successful because of their teachers," Harter, who presented on the State of Schools at the most recent Hercules City Council meeting, said.

By making curriculum standards and other teacher resources easily accessible online, teachers were able to more effectively monitor students' progress, improve classroom activities and identify special problems and solutions, he said.

Harter also cited involving parents as "the final and vitally important key to improving student learning."

"For the first time, parents of middle and high school students were able to use the Internet to monitor their children’s grades and attendance," he said.

"As a result of all these activities," he concluded, "learning continued to improve in our school district."

A separate summary from the five-member school board said that the board's careful stewardship and use of taxpayer funds amid economic recession have paid large dividends.

"We’ve kept our promises to our parents and community members by updating and building new schools, maintaining school safety, continuing our adult education program, and managing class size," the board said.

The successes have been realized despite a drop of nearly 20 percent in the district's assessed property valuation since the recession of 2008 and loss of more than $40 million in revenue over the last five years, according to the board's summary.

The board's prudent fiscal policies and oversight of bonds to overhaul aging schools resulted in the district's bond rating being upgraded twice in the past year, the board said.

School safety has been improved through upgrading the training and capacity of school safety officers, maintaining the number of police officers assigned to campuses and adding surveillance cameras in some middle and high schools, the board said.

Core offerings in adult education – including English as a Second Language, high school completion, adult basic education, and courses for adults with disabilities – have been preserved, the board said.

"Most of all," the summary said, "we’re delighted that we’ve kept our elementary class sizes lower than nearly every district in Contra Costa and the surrounding counties."

The bulk of the bilingual English-Spanish report is filled by profiles of five  individuals: four students and one teacher. None of the profile subjects are from Hercules schools, but Hercules students have often been top performers in the district.

Also included is a brief report on the bond program for rebuilding schools, a graph showing marked improvement in the district's Academic Performance Index over the past decade, and pie-chart showing the diversity of the district's 29,215 students, whose families collectively speak more than 80 languages.