Focus offers look at CVSD activities

Residents inside the Central Valley School District’s boundaries should have received copies of the district’s new and improved newsletter in their mailbox this week.

The district mailed out 29,000 copies of the Focus, a 12-page section with information about issues, initiatives, and resources and activities in Central Valley schools.

“It’s a really important communication tool between us and the community,” said Melanie Rose, district spokeswoman. “There a lot of people who live in our district who don’t have children in the schools, and this is the best way to communicate with them.”

The newsletter is published three times a year. It’s been on hiatus for more than a year, Rose said.

“It’s been languishing and I don’t really know why,” she said.

The new edition will have four more pages than the previous newsletter. The last four pages will be filled with a section called “In Our Schools,” with a paragraph about what’s going on in each of the district’s 22 schools.

For the parents of Central Valley school children, the majority of the schools already publish newsletters to communicate their own school information, Rose said.

“We’re not looking at replacing that, but enhancing it with this letter,” she said.

Some topics in this week’s letter include WASL scores, and the district’s proposed facilities concept.

The district has proposed building two new schools over the next six to eight years. It is meeting with community members to discuss the proposal. The board will decide whether to move forward with a bond issue sometime in March, after gathering input from the community.

The community meeting times are also listed in the Focus.

For more information about the newsletter, or how to get a copy, call 228-5405 or e-mail mrose@cvsd.org.