Don’t miss the incredible Spring Sing tonight at Copperopolis. Nothing better than seeing a bunch of kids shining brightly and proud of themselves for a musical effort. We appreciate all the staff members’ hard work to stage this event.

I hope your family had a good time at Frog Jump. Over the break, we were able to install a new water heater into the Mark Twain kitchen and tighten up the landscaping at both sites. We just chip away at all this deferred maintenance a little bit by little bit. Thank you to our maintenance and landscaping partner staff for that work.

Lots of fabulous events this past week including our academic awards night for eighth grade. It was an evening to remember not just for two or three children, but for many children as we recognize not just academic excellence but character excellence. There are a lot of things that take you far in life, but if you aren’t a person of integrity, it doesn’t matter what skill set you have. It was a very nice evening. It was followed the next evening by the Mark Twain open house.  The Copper 6th Graders had a great trip under the direction of Mr. Rosen.

I want to thank both schools' sites for their love and effort in creating the volunteer teas. Copperopolis volunteers were honored with a sneak peek song performance and amazingly lovely treats on Thursday, and Mark Twain’s is the following week.

It really is remarkable the number of people that give service to our school children. We are so grateful for your kindness, dedication, and participation. It truly does take a village, and our village is strong. We have partnerships with individuals, Rotary, Vine and Branch, and other organizations. It is fantastic.

Summer school is still available! Sign up today!

The Sierra K-16 tutors also celebrated their end of school year with the kids they work with. We want to recognize the hard work of these dedicated students from Bret Harte and thank them for the impact that they have made on our youngsters. This was a generous grant funded by Sierra K 16.

As we wrap up the year, we got some relatively good news from the state that our funding will be fairly stable and maybe a bit enhanced for the coming year. The COLA (Cost of Living Adjustment) that they offered is large, but it’s also to fund on-going 26 weeks of paid pregnancy leave, so we need to keep that in mind. We continue to work hard to figure out how to best serve all our kids with our resources.

Thank you to the families that returned the middle school survey. We will be getting in touch regarding a meeting when the craziness of school has died down.

The film we participated in about rural school is progressing through production, and they hope to have that out for release in summer or fall. More news on that as it comes out. My hope is that it really shines the light on all the good things about rural schools and also the challenges that we face particularly with unstable funding.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend ahead and enjoy the Memorial Day Holiday.  We pay tribute to those that served and sacrificed.

Sincerely yours,

Louise Simson
Superintendent
(650) 996-3290