March 1, 2021
Dear Vallecito Community,
As you have probably heard Louise Simson has been selected as the new Superintendent of the Anderson Valley Unified School District. This is a well-earned career advancement and an excellent professional opportunity for Louise. I cannot thank her enough for the excellent service she has provided for all the students, staff and parents of VUSD. Her accomplishments are too long to list, and her passion for students and dedication to the District will be missed. The Anderson Valley Unified Community will certainly benefit from her dedication and leadership.
The projects funded from Measure E have essentially been completed with just a few warranty items to be addressed. I cannot express enough my gratitude for our community’s support for this bond. The new individual air and heat units that we were able to install at both elementary sites and the new gym unit at Avery proved essential to our opening school for in-person learning by providing rapid circulation and filtration of the air in our learning environments. This along with the wearing of masks, increased sanitation efforts, social distancing as well as notifications and contact tracing have resulted in a successful reopening to this point. Thursday, March 4th the VUSD Staff will receive their second round of vaccinations which should further promote safety in our school environment. I want to thank parents for your patience in having Friday, March 5th be a choice board day for home learning. Out of an abundance of caution we were worried that if teachers and other staff had temporary negative reaction to the vaccine that we would not have enough substitutes to safely hold classes. As we have seen a rapid drop in COVID-19 cases in our county we are starting discussions with our School Board about having some after school physical activity allowed for students. Although there will still be tight restrictions on what can be allowed it is exciting that students may be able to enjoy some organized physical activity. Slowly it seems that we are working back to a more normal life.
Recently we have received our Measure I money and work on those projects will start very soon. The Avery track and field project will start March 15th with an estimated completion date of June 15th. We have just received our pricing for shade structures at all three schools and will soon be working on rehabilitating our deterioration asphalt, addressing some exterior painting needs and the Kinder playground at Michelson. It is so wonderful that we have the resources to tackle these needed projects.
In closing, as I hear on television and read in the news all the controversy and emotion nation-wide surrounding the opening of our public schools, I feel very proud that we are one of the very few districts anywhere that are serving all our students every day. However, this achievement did not happen by accident. It took the hard work and cooperation of our entire community to make it happen. I cannot thank enough our parents for their input and cooperation, our employee groups for their partnership in this venture, our Board for their leadership, Nurse Robin for her hard work and guidance and our students for their cooperation in successfully working in a more structured and rule-based environment. The lesson learned from this is that by working together we can accomplish what others find impossible.
Jim Frost,
Superintendent
