Community Update

Every year, the Great Kindness Challenge takes place during the last week of January to provide a proactive approach to creating a positive school climate amongst students, families, and the community. The element of kindness aligns with our district's core values and is an essential characteristic within our Learner Portrait. This year's theme is "Create Kindness," which emphasizes the need to empower our students to create a culture of kindness. Please join our schools during the week of January 22-26th by promoting a culture of kindness within your home and our community. To get started, visit The Great Kindness Challenge Family Edition for free resources and a Family Kindness Checklist.

VUSD is proud to join more than 1,000 local educational agencies in the state in recognizing the contributions of board members during School Board Recognition Month. As schools work to accelerate learning and support student wellness post-pandemic, board members play a key role in setting the foundation, policies, and priorities to support optimal student outcomes.

The Vista Unified School district board of trustees are:

Martha Alvarado, Julie Kelly, Rena Marrocco, Rosemary Smithfield, Cipriano Vargas

School boards play a crucial and often overlooked role in the support of students and families. VUSD is proud to acknowledge the selfless service of school board members who aim to provide a better, safer, more welcoming learning environment for students in our community each and every day. Thank you, VUSD Board of Trustees for your outstanding work and support of meeting the needs of all VUSD students!

The district has worked across stakeholder groups with a strong emphasis on student voice and has established a set of values. These values and the Framework for the Future 2.0 provide the foundation for the important work underway in the district and will be central in the collection of research-based data from learners (referring to the learner portrait), adults (referring to the adult portrait), and parents and the community (referring to the system portrait), to provide feedback to individual schools and the district through a series of surveys in a partnership effort entitled ‘Better Together.’ In moving towards these core values, the district is taking proactive actions with the Better Together team to collect longitudinal data and objectively review and share results. This confidential annual survey process is conducted by the University of California, San Diego between February and March 2024.

In addition to its neighborhood schools, Vista Unified has five magnet schools throughout the district. Magnet schools are schools of choice with a focused theme that shapes the curriculum and instruction at that school. If a student and their parents are interested in the focused theme offered at a particular magnet school, then a magnet school might be a perfect alternative to the neighborhood school.

To learn more about the five magnet school options or to apply, please visit our Vista Unified Magnet School Webpage. All five schools are holding tours and information sessions through February. We encourage you to attend these events to learn more about each school.

• Casita Center for Science, Technology & Math (Grades K - 5)

• Vista Academy of Visual & Performing Arts (Grades K - 5)

• Vista Magnet Middle School (Grades 6 - 8)

• Vista Innovation & Design Academy (VIDA) (Grades 6 - 8)

• Mission Vista High School (Grades 9 - 12)

If support is needed to complete the application process, in-person and Zoom sessions will take place throughout January-March. Jump in at any time for a single question or to get one-on-one support with the application. We also encourage you to contact your current school directly for quick responses and more information.

Vista Unified School District is taking a significant step promoting bilingualism and biliteracy by expanding our successful Dual Language Immersion (DLI) program to Madison Middle School in the academic year 2024-2025, and to Roosevelt Middle School in 2025-2026. This expansion aims to provide students with a comprehensive dual language immersion program, promoting language proficiency in both Spanish and English within a designated strand at the middle school level.

The DLI strand at Madison and Roosevelt Middle Schools will cover a range of subjects taught in Spanish: Math, Social Studies, and Advisory, while Physical Education (PE), English Language Arts and Science will be taught in English.

Enrollment in the DLI strand is open to various student groups, including those who have previously been enrolled in elementary or middle school dual language immersion programs, students entering Vista from other school districts and charter schools, and students demonstrating proficiency in the target language comparable to students from DLI feeder sites.

By expanding dual language immersion at Madison and Roosevelt Middle Schools, VUSD is not only investing in the academic success of its students but also strengthening connections within the community of Vista.

This promotional video highlights the accomplishments made by Vista towards bilingualism and biliteracy.

We will be holding a series of special board workshops to allow the board members sufficient time to analyze the current challenges as a result of the pending state budget reductions. The board will also use this time to develop a budget consolidation strategy to ensure that our programs and services support the continued focus on our Framework for the Future, with emphasis on fully implementing our equity board policy. The first workshop will be held in the Board Room on January 25, 2024 from 5:00-7:00 focusing on Board Governance and from 7:00-9:00 focusing on Budget Development. The Board may convene for a closed session after 9:00 p.m. to discuss matters related to negotiations. The second workshop will be held on February 28, 2024 from 5:00-9:00 p.m. focusing on Budget and LCAP Development.

Our next Family Bike Edu night is on Wednesday, January 31st 6-7pm, doors open at 5:30. This event is located at Roosevelt Middle School and is presented by the San Diego County Bike Coalition (SDCBC). Students who ride a bike to school will be required to attend a Bike Safety Meeting, which gives them a “permit” to ride their bike/e-bike to school. If you haven’t attended one yet, here is your chance. These events teach the rules of the road and safety tips about bikes and e-bikes. Click here to RSVP. #webikevista

Vista Unified and the City of Vista are hosting a Town Hall discussion on Human Trafficking and its current and potential impact on our community on Thursday, February 8th from 6:00-7:30 pm at Vista Civic Center. Join us as we hear from District Attorney Summer Stephan, Supervisor Jim Desmond and Keelin Washington, a survivor of the Human Trafficking Trade. While we understand this may be a sensitive topic, it is an important reminder of the power of knowledge and the need for action. We hope you can join us.

The Vista Unified School District is committed to providing students with access to high quality athletic programs to support their academic, social, and emotional development. The theme for our high school athletics program this year is Character. Our high schools have partnered with the Positive Coaching Alliance to bring leadership and character development events and experiences to our student-athletes and coaches to ensure future success on and off the field of play.

The Winter season of sport is off to a tremendous start! At Mission Vista High School, Wrestling is the newest sport on campus and has been extremely successful with tournament placings and league wins. Rugby is off to a great start with wins over very tough competition. Both Girls and Boys soccer is off and running with both teams displaying camaraderie and coming together with true team spirit. On the hardwood, the Girls and Boys Basketball teams are taking care of business with high expectations both on the court and in the classroom.

At Rancho Buena Vista High School the Boys Basketball team has been highly successful with a great run in the UA Winter Classic Basketball Tournament. The Girls Basketball Team has played one of the toughest schedules in the NCC and won their Holiday Classic Tournament. Boys and girls wrestling have had great success in their invitationals and won both of their dual matches. Boys Soccer has played consistently throughout the preseason with some big wins. The Girls Soccer team had huge early wins and are well prepared for league play. In the pool, the Girls Water Polo Team has had some big wins against formidable opponents and continue to improve through a challenging schedule.

The Vista High School Panthers Girls Water Polo team just completed an undefeated run in their division at the prestigious Five Counties Water Polo tournament. The Girls Basketball team is on fire as a top tier team and Coach Moramarco just recorded a landmark 400th career victory! The Boys Basketball team has their eye on a CIF crown as they are currently ranked third in the county in their division. In Girls Soccer, the Panthers are off to a great start and looking to make an impact in the playoffs. The Boys Soccer team is also off to a tremendous start and currently tied for first in league play.

It is that time again - Vista’s Big Give is here! We have the amazing opportunity to come together as a district and grant the wishes of two North County Wish Kids. For those of you who may not know, this is a district initiative that was started in the fall of 2008 when one teacher wanted to bring together all the schools in the district and the community to raise money for the Make-A-Wish Foundation, San Diego. Since then we have worked together to grant over 15 wishes and raised over $225,000.

Vista’s Big Give has become one of the largest fundraising events for the Make-A-Wish Foundation and ranks with the Disney Corporation for support in San Diego.

Vista’s Big Give is so much more than fundraising as we have adopted local wishes. This year 16 year old Leana and 5 year old Madeleine, have been chosen as our Wish Kid Ambassadors. Leana has a nervous system disorder and wishes to attend Fashion Week in New York and Madeleine has leukemia and wishes to travel to Disney Aulani Resort.

Our goal is to unite ALL VUSD sites and the community in a combined effort to grant their wishes. Vista’s Big Give provides priceless opportunities for student leadership, teamwork and empathy building.

Be on the lookout for events at each school site as well as big events in the community.

If you are capable of helping with Vista’s Big Give 2024 in any capacity including, but not limited to donating items or services for raffles or hosting an event please click here.

If you would like to donate online click here.

Please follow us on instagram @Vistas_Big_Giv

STEM Fest is on Wednesday, March 27th from 5:30-7:00 pm at VIDA (Gym). We have created a TK-12 Challenge called the Humpty Dumpty Challenge. This is the final reminder to sign up for this challenge. The sign up form will close on Wednesday, January 31st! Click here to sign up.

We have a new section on our website which features a news article each week. We created this section to keep the community and staff informed about what is happening around the district. A few examples include the Monte Vista Bike Giveaway, The Vista Elks Lodge Special Ed Holiday Show and much more. Click here to check out the news articles. Circle back each week to see what is new and follow us on instagram and facebook for updates as well @vistaunified.

Email: webmaster@vistausd.org
Website: vistausd.org
Location: 1234 Arcadia Avenue, Vista, CA, USA
Phone: (760) 726-2170
Twitter: @VistaBlueprint