We’re especially looking for paraprofessionals to work one-on-one or in small groups with students needing extra support, custodians to maintain the cleanliness of our facilities, food service workers to prepare for and serve breakfasts and lunches to students and gardeners to tend to our outside areas. Depending on the job, these are either part-time (two to five daily hours) or full-time positions (eight hours a day).

In addition to the opportunity to contribute to the well-being of students and staff, all of these positions provide benefits (including a pension) and a wonderfully short commute. For more information about AUSD’s open positions, please see our job opportunities webpage (bit.ly/alaschooljobs).

Happening soon: We also have several events coming up that are of interest to our community. On Jan. 18-19, we’ll hold our Transitional Kindergarten and Kindergarten Information Nights, respectively. Both will be held via Zoom at 6:30 p.m.

The TK Information Night Zoom link will be posted this week to our enrollment page (bit.ly/AUSDenrollment). The Kindergarten Information Night Zoom links will be published by each elementary school. Online enrollment begins Jan. 23, when the link will open at 8 a.m.

Several community members are interested in reconvening the Jewish Roundtable to expand support for the Jewish community within the AUSD. Jewish parents/guardians, students, teachers and community members are invited to attend the first meeting at 7 p.m. Jan. 25. For more information, contact Rabbi Cynthia Minster at rabbi@templeisraelalameda.org.

Finally, our first Board of Education meeting in 2023 happened this week on Tuesday. Subsequent meetings will be held Jan. 24, Feb. 14 and Feb. 28.

Susan Davis is the Alameda Unified School District’s senior manager for community affairs. Reach her at 510-337-7175 or SDavis@alamedaunified.org.

Lincoln Middle School held a canned food drive for Meals on Wheels and also asked students to write short letters to be delivered to families in need around the Island.

Encinal Junior and Senior High School served as a drop site for Toys for Tots (345 toys were collected!), One Warm Coat and canned foods. To inspire students to give as much as they can, EHS Leadership sponsored a holiday competition among classes to see who could donate the most.

At Love Elementary School, the Dad’s Club collected food items for the food bank. Alameda High School also held a fundraiser for the food bank, with the reminder that every dollar donated secures $7 worth of food.

Paden Elementary School created a confidential form for families in financial stress and then asked other families to donate gift cards to grocery stores and local businesses to be distributed to those families. The school also asked for donations of clothing, school supplies and toys to be directly distributed to Paden families in need.

Edison Elementary School made a similar offer to its families, also with a promise of confidentiality, and Island High School partnered with the Alameda Food Bank to provide a “mini-pantry” to students needing food support at Thanksgiving. The school will provide it again next week.

The Franklin Falcons collected three large bins of toys for Alameda’s All Good Living store, which will distribute them to families across the Island.

And last month, Camp Edmo, an afterschool care program at Ruby Bridges Elementary School, held a Thanksgiving food drive for families needing support at that school.

Finally, the AUSD’s Business Services Department donated 1,000 COVID-19 rapid tests to the Alameda Food Bank and 200 rapid tests to the Alameda Point Collaborative so that they can offer them to their clients. These were tests that the AUSD would not be able to use before they expire, and we were very happy to find a home for them with our community partners!

We’d like to wish our Island community a warm, safe and spirited holiday season, and we thank you, as always, for the many ways you continue supporting AUSD students, staff and families.

Susan Davis is the Alameda Unified School District’s senior manager for community affairs. Reach her at 510-337-7175 or SDavis@alamedaunified.org.

As noted in the original column, AUSD Board of Education members had expressed interest in naming the school after Ardella Dailey, the former WCDC director who also worked as an AUSD principal, administrator, superintendent and board trustee, due to her experience in special education; her passion for equity and social justice; and her deep commitment to the students, staff and families in our community.

After a period of family and staff engagement — including meetings, a call for new name suggestions and a vote on the names suggested — the AUSD superintendent at the Oct. 11 Board of Education meeting recommended that the child development center be named the “Alameda Child Development Center” and the preschool be named the “Dr. Ardella Dailey Preschool Program.”

A public comment period on this proposal has been open since Oct. 12 and will close Dec. 10. The public is welcome to contact the board with their comments (board email addresses are available online at alamedaunified.org/board/board-of-education).

The Board of Education will vote on the new names at its Dec. 13 public meeting, and the agenda for that meeting will be posted to the AUSD website on Dec. 7. A timeline, board presentations and more details are available on AUSD’s WCDC renaming webpage at bayareane.ws/WCDCrenaming.

Board members will also choose the committees on which they want to serve and their schedule of meetings in 2023, and the assistant superintendent of business services will also present the first interim budget report for 2022-23.

The AUSD board’s meetings, which are held on the second and fourth Tuesdays of each month, continue to be held via Zoom (and live-streamed on Facebook). The Zoom information is included in the agendas, which are posted online at alamedaunified.org/board/agendas-minutes.

Susan Davis is the Alameda Unified School District’s senior manager for community affairs. Reach her at 510-337-7175 or SDavis@alamedaunified.org.

You can read the full letter on our website at www.alamedaunified.org.

Enrollment season for new students is just around the corner, so we want to make sure everyone in the community knows when the most important dates are. “Open enrollment” — which is for schools that take applicants from all across Alameda, not just their local neighborhoods — opened last week and will continue through Jan. 20.

The AUSD’s open enrollment schools are ASTI, Bay Farm School’s grades sixth through eight, Encinal Junior & Senior High School (for students who live outside the school’s zone) and Wood Middle School (also for people who live outside the school zone). Maya Lin School’s open enrollment period is from Jan. 23 to March 17.

Kindergarten and transitional kindergarten (TK) enrollment begins in January. TK Information Night will take place via Zoom at 6:30 p.m. Jan. 18. Kindergarten Information Night will take place via Zoom at 6:30 p.m. Jan. 19. Maya Lin’s Kindergarten Information Night, however, will be on Jan. 26. Online enrollment opens on Jan. 23.

More information, including applications and instructions are available online on our enrollment webpage at bayareane.ws/AUSD2023-24enrollment.

We also want to be sure everyone knows about our new kindergarten schedule. As noted in our Nov. 11 column, AUSD officials this fall have been considering a potential expansion of our kindergarten day.

At its public meeting Nov. 8, the AUSD board voted to implement a modified full-day kindergarten next school year (2023-24). Under that program, kindergarten students will get out at 2 p.m. on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, and slightly earlier on Wednesdays, when teachers will have collaboration time.

Research has found that full-day kindergarten confers significant social, emotional and academic benefits to all kindergartners. Most districts in Alameda County offer a modified full-day program. This change would also ease some of the scheduling challenges that our current program poses for families. The board also voted to start planning for a full-day kindergarten program (meaning the same length that students have in first through sixth grades) for the following year (2024-25).

We’d like to wish all of the Alameda community a Thanksgiving weekend filled with comfort and connection. We’re deeply grateful for the many ways the community steps forward to support AUSD staff, students and families.

Susan Davis is the Alameda Unified School District’s senior manager for community affairs. Reach her at 510-337-7175 or SDavis@alamedaunified.org.

Research has found that full-day kindergarten confers significant social, emotional and academic benefits to all kindergartners; most districts in Alameda County offer a modified full-day program. This change would also ease some of the scheduling challenges our current program poses for families. We will have more details after the AUSD Board’s vote and after staff work out the details of next year’s program.

Looking for background on this topic? The board discussed a potential expansion of the current kindergarten program at its Oct. 25 meeting public meeting; you can see the PowerPoint presentation and video of the presentation online at tinyurl.com/AUSD-BoE-10252022. This week’s materials are available at tinyurl.com/AUSD-BoE-11082022.

A second area of potential change is creating common start and end times for our schools. This fall, the AUSD and Alameda Education Association negotiated a new three-year contract that includes provisions for school sites to schedule collaboration time to plan, problem-solve and participate in educational inquiry together.

To provide for that time, which will be laser-focused on students and instructional practices, school schedules will need to be adjusted slightly and made consistent across school sites (so that all staff — and therefore all students — benefit from this collaboration time). We’ll provide more details once the schedules are worked out. For now we believe the primary change will affect Wednesdays.

Reminder: The public comment period for the renaming of Woodstock Child Development Center remains open until Dec. 13. On that day, the AUSD Board will vote on whether or not to change the name to the Alameda Child Development Center, with a Dr. Ardella Dailey Preschool Program. Community members who wish to voice their opinion on this name change can speak at the Dec. 13 meeting (the agenda will be available at alameda.novusagenda.com/agendapublic) or send emails to AUSD Board members (contact information is available at www.alamedaunified.org/board/board-of-education). Background on the renaming process is available at bayareane.ws/WCDCrenaming.

Susan Davis is the Alameda Unified School District’s senior manager for community affairs. Reach her at 510-337-7175 or SDavis@alamedaunified.org.

Based on these conversations, at the Sept. 9 board meeting, the AUSD superintendent recommended moving to the second step: initiating the renaming process. During this phase:

• a renaming committee was convened;
• community meetings were organized to solicit and review potential names;
• a survey translated into four languages was sent to the WCDC community so that they could submit potential new names;
• and two names were suggested: the Alameda Child Development Center and the Dr. Ardella Dailey Development Center.

WCDC families, staff and neighbors, as well as elementary-age students enrolled in WCDC’s afterschool programs, were then given the opportunity to vote on the names. Based on the survey’s results, the WCDC Renaming Committee recommended naming WCDC the “Alameda Child Development Center” and naming the special education preschool program there the “Dr. Ardella Dailey Preschool Program.” The superintendent recommended that same name to the board at its Oct. 11 meeting.

The next step is the current holding of a public comment period for 60 days (through Dec. 10). During this time, the public is encouraged to submit comments on the new names via email or during the public comment period of AUSD Board of Education meetings. The Board will vote on the name at its Dec. 13 meeting.

A timeline, Board of Education presentations and more details are available on the district’s WCDC renaming webpage at bayareane.ws/WCDCrenaming. The community is welcome to contact me at my email address below with any questions about it.

Susan Davis is the Alameda Unified School District’s senior manager for community affairs. Reach her at 510-337-7175 or SDavis@alamedaunified.org.

Alameda County’s Safe Routes to Schools program, which is run by the county Transportation Commission, organizes the day and provides incentives such as bike lights, pencils and snacks to participating schools and students.

Walking and rolling to school has multiple benefits, including providing opportunities for exercise and community building, avoiding emissions of carbon dioxide emissions (a primary contributor to climate change) and local pollutants, reducing traffic and letting middle and high school students build and exercise their much-needed autonomy.

The AUSD strongly supports safe pedestrian and bicycle routes in Alameda and is grateful for the continued support of Safe Routes to Schools, which also does assessments of our campuses to identify traffic safety issues, creates “Safe Routes to Schools” maps for each campus, sends a BikeMobile specialist to visit schools for bike repairs and provides walking and cycling safety lessons to teachers and full school assemblies. You can find the Safe Routes to AUSD campuses online at bayareane.ws/AUSDsaferoutes.

We also want to be sure the community knows that the city has released its draft Active Transportation Plan with pedestrian improvements and an all-ages and all-abilities bicycle network that could directly impact students, staff, and families. The city is in the midst of a three-week public engagement period (through Oct. 23) that includes events, a survey, presentations to boards and commissions and more.

Mark your calendars for the in-person open house this Sunday and a special meeting of the Transportation Commission on Oct. 20. In addition, the city this month is seeking feedback in meetings on draft concepts for two projects that will affect AUSD families and staff: the Clement Extension/Tilden Way (Tuesday and Thursday this week) and the Lincoln/Marshall/Pacific Improvements (Oct. 25 and 27). Details about these meetings and the Active Transportation Plan are available online at ActiveAlameda.org.

Susan Davis is the Alameda Unified School District’s senior manager for community affairs. Reach her at 510-337-7175 or SDavis@alamedaunified.org.

• Moderna COVID shots for ages 6 months and older;
• Pfizer boosters for all who are eligible;
• and the new bivalent omicron booster for all who are eligible.

Walk-ins are welcome, but appointments are highly encouraged as they will ensure you get seen. Please schedule your appointment online at home.color.com/vaccine/register/woodmiddleschool.

National Labs continues to provide COVID testing at its drive-through site in the Lum Elementary parking lot. Those hours are from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Registration is required and can be completed at tinyurl.com/AUSD-NL-testregistration.

We remain extremely grateful for the community’s support of our Measure B facilities bond, which voters approved on June 7. As you may recall, this $298 million bond will go toward modernizing classrooms at Wood and Lincoln middle schools (as well as providing them with full-sized gymnasiums) and updating athletic and performing arts facilities for Encinal Junior & Senior and Alameda high schools.

Wood Middle will also get a new classroom building. While all of our elementary schools received improvements under Measure I (the bond that was passed in 2014), only Otis Elementary School will get a new classroom building as well.

Which projects will commence first depends on several factors, including the physical condition of each facility, compliance issues (i.e., how difficult keeping a facility in compliance with county and/or state regulations is), seismic needs, capacity constraints, the need for temporary housing while work is going on and ventilation needs.

Based on that criteria, work has now begun on renovating the Emma Hood swimming pool at Alameda High, the cost of which will be split with the city of Alameda. We expect community input sessions to take place this fall. Community meetings will also be held this fall about the next best steps for Alameda High’s Kofman Theater, which is also on the list of Measure B plans.

At the same time, the district is finishing up several Measure I projects, including a new classroom building at Bay Farm School, installing new locks across AUSD campuses and providing a new HVAC system for Woodstock Child Development Center and Island High (at the Longfellow campus).

We will keep a list of upcoming community meetings on the Measure B page on our website, and we can encourage our community to get involved during the design and planning stages.

Susan Davis is the Alameda Unified School District’s senior manager for community affairs. Reach her at 510-337-7175 or SDavis@alamedaunified.org.

We are now including air conditioning in our new construction (for instance, both of the renovated buildings at Historic Alameda High School and the new classroom building at Encinal Junior and Senior High School have air conditioning). Unfortunately, however, it would be prohibitively expensive to install AC in our older facilities ($7 to $8 million for the 200 building at Encinal Junior and Senior High alone and $6 million for the main classroom building at Edison Elementary). This is especially true given that over the last 20 years temperatures in Alameda have gone above 80 degrees an average of only 10 days per year.

In response to the heat, the AUSD does send fans to as many hot classrooms as possible and stays in in touch with site administrators, the Alameda County Office of Education and the county Public Health Department about best practices for modifying activities during high temperatures. In recognition that average temperatures will likely rise over the coming years, we are also looking into alternative cooling solutions.

Renaming Woodstock: At its Aug. 23 meeting, the AUSD Board of Education directed district staff to review the name of Woodstock Child Development Center. The board has expressed interest in renaming the facility after Ardella Dailey, the former WCDC director who also worked as an AUSD principal, administrator, superintendent and board member.

The AUSD has a policy that clearly sets out the steps needed to ensure that all voices are heard and all options considered during a renaming process — including reviewing the current name, creating a renaming committee, soliciting new names and surveying the community on which name they like best.

We will keep the community at large up to date on this process throughout the fall. You can also visit our WCDC Renaming webpage at bayareane.ws/renamingwoodstock.

Susan Davis is the Alameda Unified School District’s senior manager for community affairs. Reach her at 510-337-7175 or SDavis@alamedaunified.org.

This return to normality also means “an increasing share of our time and energy can be returned to creating or refining learning experiences and opportunity structures for students,” AUSD Superintendent Pasquale Scuderi wrote in his “welcome back” message to families and staff, “experiences and opportunities that engage, enrich, empower and hopefully stimulate curiosity, imagination and a genuine appreciation for learning.”

The AUSD will roll out a new student-centered Strategic Plan over the next month or so, and we’ll have lots more information about that over the coming weeks. As part of this refocus on student experience, however, the AUSD this year is updating its homework policies and practices.

The updates, which have been under development since 2017 but were delayed by the pandemic, are a result of stakeholder concern about the quantity of total homework and consistency across classrooms and school sites. They set out the district’s and school board’s foundational values about homework (including that parents, guardians and teachers need to be mindful of the need for students to live balanced lives; that homework should have a positive impact on learning, achievement, self-esteem and development of the whole student; and that homework assignments should not be punitive).

The updated guidelines also define the purpose and types of homework; the maximum amount of homework time allowed; weekend and holiday assignment policies; and the need for ongoing teacher training on designing and grading relevant homework assignments.

“A homework policy can take a long time to develop, as it requires deep research into the kinds of homework that are most beneficial for students, consistent stakeholder engagement and nuanced implementation strategies” says Dr. Vernon Walton, the AUSD’s director of secondary education. “We’re looking forward to seeing more pedagogically sound and compassionate homework practices rolled out this year.”

We also want to let the community know that National Labs has opened its second PCR testing site in the parking lot of Lum Elementary School. This drive-through testing site is open to all community members Monday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Preregistration is required and can be done online at bayareane.ws/COVIDtestingAUSD.

Want to learn more about AUSD? You can visit our website (www.alamedaunified.org), follow us on Twitter (@AUSDNews), Facebook (facebook.com/AlamedaUnified) and Instagram (alamedaunified) or subscribe to our newsletter (email sdavis@alamedaunified.org). We have lots to share!

Susan Davis is the Alameda Unified School District’s senior manager for community affairs. Reach her at 510-337-7175 or SDavis@alamedaunified.org.