By Kathleen Acuff
Wynne Satterwhite will become principal of Los Altos High School July 1, the superintendent of the Mountain View-Los Altos Union High School District announced Dec. 15. Satterwhite has been an assistant principal at the school since 1993. George Perez, the current principal, is resigning for health reasons.
“Wynne will continue the fine work that George has put into place,” Superintendent Rich Fischer told the board and the audience of parents, students and educators. “It’s really a pleasure to make this announcement.”
The district trustees at the evening meeting elected board officers for 2004. Susan Sweeley, formerly president, became the board’s new clerk. Judy Hanneman is now president, and David Williams is vice president.
The board unanimously adopted the first interim financial report for this school year. According to the statement presented to the board and the public at the meeting, the district will be able to meet its financial obligations this year and in the next two years while maintaining the 3 percent reserve required by the state.
Teachers to vote
on calendar proposal
The District Teachers Association will vote on proposed changes to the school calendar Jan. 20. If they approve the proposal, the MVLA board will vote on it Jan. 26. Fischer said that for the past three years, the DTA has suggested beginning and ending the school year one week earlier and that this year he is finally convinced it is a good idea.
One of the benefits of the revised calendar would be six uninterrupted weeks of instruction before the February break, he pointed out. Another is that Advanced Placement teachers will be able to teach more of the material on which their students will be tested.
Several Los Altos High School students addressed the board to say that they are pleased to be taking final exams before holiday break and that, despite the shortness of the semester, they feel better prepared for them this year. Fischer authorized that change to their exam schedule at the end of the last school year.
The students told the board that they also want the extra week of instructional time in the first semester that an earlier start to the school year would give them.
Catherine Vonnegut, president of the Mountain View High School PTSA, said that students in marching band and choir use the holidays to catch up on the schoolwork they fall behind on during performance season. A parent with children in MVHS, Blach Intermediate School and Oak Elementary School, said that it will be hard to balance the start and end dates for all the schools. She also said that her high school-age children use the holidays to catch up on schoolwork.
Adult ed report heard
Laura Stefanski, director of the district’s adult education program, presented her report for the 2002-2003 school year. Altogether, the adult school programs, taught by a staff of 155, serve 11,000 students.
Although funding for the English as a Second Language program has decreased in recent years, it continues to get the lion’s share of the adult ed budget at 45 percent. The district teaches ESL to 5,000 students at four sites.
Funding for programs serving 220 adults with disabilities received the second largest share of the budget at 21 percent. The adult school won the Innovation Award in 2002-2003 from Hope Services.
The high school diploma/GED program, which received 8 percent of the adult ed budget, served 743 students. A delighted Stefanski said, “I was amazed when I saw that number.”
Fischer said, “It’s a real point of pride having such a great adult school in our district. … (The) superior level of cooperation between the adult school and the comprehensive high school is seldom found.”
