The state of our district

By Gary S. De Amaral

What has been accomplished since I joined the North Monterey County Unified School District Board of Trustees

In my first year we settled all active lawsuits in our favor. Then we maximized our assets to enable a large addition to the middle school. We recently performed major emergency surgery on the high school campus and we are currently making huge additions and improvements to our worst campus, Castroville elementary. We put the management and procedures in place within the facilities department to get repairs and improvements done at all the sites in an efficient and cost effective manner.

We hired a new superintendent that does the right things for the right reasons -not to win a popularity contest. An experienced human resources director to organize that department the way it needs to be organized. With the Monterey County Office of Education's considerable expertise and assistance we have rebuilt the district business office leading to numbers we can trust and true financial stability. To facilitate excellence in our greatest responsibility we have completely revamped the curriculum and instruction department to deliver real value to the certificated staff and our students. Teacher training and processes have seen major changes and test scores are on their way up.

I kick started our district's first major participation in the federal e-rate program. This enabled a half million dollar information technology investment at a cost to the district of under $100,000. That's over $5 of technology for every $1 invested.

These are but a few examples of our progress, this district is on its way back from the brink of failure. We are consistently getting more done with less money. Public education will never be the same and the faster people recognize this fact the faster our district will improve. Unfortunately there are still many people that believe the old way of doing things still works. For the good of the children and the community we need true cooperation within the stakeholders, not empty rhetoric and obstructionism.

The people of our district demanded change and I am delivering that change.