Dear MTUESD Community,
Let me start with the Big Bike Build coming up this weekend. If your child is signed up for a bike, please make sure that you come to the Mark Twain gym on Sunday morning between 10 and 1 WITH YOUR STUDENT. This is one of the most joyful experiences for a kid to pick a bike and they need to come with you so that we can fit it appropriately. Huge kudos to our partners WeDeliver Wheels, Angels Murphys Rotary, and the local fire departments.
Spring is definitely here. The campuses look so pretty with the cherry trees and blossoms, and we have random bulbs popping up all over. Mother Nature’s beautification! We have started spreading the rattlesnake repellant around the Copper grounds, but please just review with your kids not to pick up snakes. My son had a crazy friend up in Arnold who thought he was a snake charmer, and it got those two into no ends of bites and fits.
Congratulations to our science fair participants. It takes a village to make those projects happen and this village is STRONG. We are strong in partnership in school, and we are strong in partnership in community. You may know that we had a family experience a fire this past week, and I appreciate all of the community members that contributed to their Go Fund Me. This is where our village members demonstrate love and care for one another, and it is appreciated. Thankfully, the family was safe and that is what matters but to create a whole new life all over is hard and thoughts are with them.
I want to take a minute to update you with some construction news.
At Mark Twain, the modular replacement bathroom is in the permit process. This replaces the condemned bathroom that has been unusable for years. It will include a boys/girls/and separate staff bathroom. You never know with the Division of State Architect how long things take to get out of review, but we expect that modular will be installed during Fall of 2026. That will be easy to do because we can fence it off while kids are in session and those things are kind of drop and go when they are in the final phases of installation. There will be some site work for the modular and in the front parking lot that will be a little disruptive related to the state's requirements to install an EV trenches, but we will get there. Someday, the state is going to understand rural schools maybe don’t need EV trenches when we have 30+ kids in a class, but that’s another matter just like the push for electric buses that can’t make the mountain elevation climbs, but don't get me started.
We also have summer bids out for a re-carpeting for rooms at both Copperopolis and Mark Twain. We try really hard to do a certain number of rooms every year because we can’t afford to do all the schools at once. If you do a rotation like this, and we set aside financially, you can usually keep up with it. Our deferred maintenance at these sites is a huge liability, and we just have to chip away at it. We will also be submitting a bid request for painting the interiors of the middle school quad at Mark Twain. We’ll see where that number comes in and some asphalt repair at the deteriorated backside of the middle school. Again, these are all pending receipt of the bids and what we can afford.
In other news, since the FIRST month I got here, I have been working to pursue seismic eligibility for our older school buildings at Mark Twain. This is a state program where you have to document that the building needs a retrofit. I want to stress that the buildings are safe, but they don’t meet the current code which is obvious because they’re 70 years old. When you get a concurrence that they need upgrading, the state steps in next to the district and helps financially support the repair. While I feel that the repair will not be super invasive, it does trigger what we call the fire/life/ safety work and the path of travel work. My goal is to get as much work approved as we can with state funding to at least get some upgrades to the building. This is an ONEROUS and a tedious process. It took 18 months of reports just to get the phase 1 concurrence, and we have two more phases to go. We just gotta walk the walk folks. The portable buildings at both sites are not eligible for this program which is a bummer.
Great to see all the assemblies at school, including the Sky Dome Copperopolis. Nothing like bringing the Heavens to the Earth for kids to learn about astronomy. We thank the Copper PTC for coordinating that. We had some great honor roll assemblies at Mark Twain featuring achievement of students last week and good to see so many families out at both sites supporting kids!
State testing is coming up in April and again we need everyone’s best efforts to support this process. We will make it fun and about growth. All I want to see is the kids move the needle a little bit personally. Test taking is part of life and is an important skill and there’s going to be lots of celebration and participation around the process with T-shirts and prizes and wristbands, so we’ll make it fun for kids. Again, these results are not used for grades. It’s more of a report card for me to see how we’re doing.
We do have a board meeting tonight, and we’ll be honoring some wonderful folks who were voted by their peers as outstanding players on their site. Jessica Bottomley was voted district teacher of the year and Trisha Crawford was voted Copperopolis teacher of the year, Diane Gerhart and Rhiannon Salazar were recognized for outstanding contributions to the Transportation and Maintenance department, and Debbie Richards is the district classified member of the year with Ana Dearling voted the Mark Twain classified person of the year. We are truly grateful to all of our employees for their hard work and care for kids and it is wonderful to recognize these folks by peer vote who went above and beyond.
Eighth grade parents you are almost there! Keep an eye on those grades and partner with your teachers. We want your kids to get over the finish line. Don’t miss that eighth grade Expo appointment. I went last year and I was impressed with all of the information and organization that went into the event. Those registration envelopes are super important. A new course catalog features MANY COOL THINGS AND ENROLL IN DUAL ENROLLMENT. A NO BRAINER IN TODAY’S LANDSCAPE. LET HIGH SCHOOL PAY FOR COLLEGE BY DOING IT AS YOUR HIGH SCHOOL COURSEWORK.
On a final note, I’ll be having some parent meetings related to how the middle school reconfiguration might look for 27/28. This is a conversation that we have to have and I know it’s different and hard, so I want to explain the “why” and get input on how people would like for it to roll out. Some dates will come out soon. One plan is to move all sixth graders to Mark Twain and have a 6/7/8 middle school program in the traditional format that we’re now serving students and another idea is to take reductions in staffing in 7/8 and just keep it as a 7/8. Both are choices that have challenges. The reason we have to do this is as our school system continues to face declining enrollment. We have been taking layoffs, but we have been taking them in the elementary band and we can’t keep doing that without reducing staff or rebalancing caseloads in the middle school. Happy to visit with anyone that has questions about that.
We have a film crew coming out this weekend and also next week. I participated in a long filming session a month ago about rural schools and they are coming out to get a few extra shots for their documentary film.
Great to see the volleyball teams out in full force and action! Take the time to catch a game!
Have a great week ahead! I appreciate your partnership and thank you for helping this district TO DREAM ALL THAT WE CAN BECOME!
Sincerely yours,
Louise Simson
Superintendent
650-996-3290