Community Update

August 2, 2023

Get Ready For School!

First Day is August 16, 2023

We are very excited to get students and staff back on campus this school year, with the first day of school on August 16, 2023. Our theme this year is finding and bringing JOY to students, the classroom, and work environment. What this means is that each of us, as students, families, and staff live and learn best when we are in a productive state of flow and feel a sense of joy. We will continue to scale up our focus on the elements of the Learner Portrait to create a sense of belonging, connection, and engagement for all students.

Summer Has Been Great In Vista Unified!

I hope you have had as great a summer as we have had in Vista Unified. It was so gratifying to see literally hundreds of students on campuses across the district having fun with learning. Our Splash Into Summer theme at the elementary level was a great success, with over 400 students on four campuses. We had a great group of multilingual students from our DLI programs continuing their efforts learning both Spanish and English. Our students with special needs had extended learning opportunities with their teachers and support staff. We had some great learning camps for middle school students that involved fun activities and exploration of a variety of learning topics. Our high school students were able to make great progress on credit recovery and extension activities. All in all, we have over 2000 students engaged in Summer Learning across all grade levels.

While our students were on campuses engaging in fun learning activities, we also had our maintenance, grounds, and operations teams engaged in making strategic improvements across the District. In fact, this summer our teams have more than doubled the number of facility improvements made to schools when compared to last year, and over eight times the amount of the years before. This has included new carpets, playgrounds, parking lot asphalt, refreshed painting, and upgraded landscaping. The team has also been working on a plan to invest nearly nine million dollars in air conditioning units to be installed next year.

Check Out the New Website - vistausd.org

After an entire year of planning and preparation, we have made the move to a new web hosting platform called Finalsite. This change includes the district and every school in the district. Our community provided feedback last year that the websites were not as useful for them as they could be. We listened. We are confident that you will find the new websites more simple to navigate, more easy to read, and more responsive to the community. We also worked to improve the experience on mobile devices. As with any new website, it will take a few months to work out details here and there related to broken links and sub webpage content. We are in the process of creating a community feedback link so that we can continue to refine our new website.

To navigate the main pages of our website, select the “three lines” (sometimes known as a hamburger navigation) to reveal our menu. Also, you may change the website language by selecting the language options on the bottom right corner.

Dress For Success

Dress and grooming affect the attitude of the students in their work and study habits and contribute to productive learning and a safe environment. All staff members are responsible for enforcing standards of dress. Principals and designees may establish additional local school regulations as they become necessary and appropriate. As families start to get ready for school and prepare clothing for the first few weeks of school, please review the dress code guidelines for all regular school activities. Click here for the Guidelines.

Kinder Jumpstart

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Transitioning to Kindergarten can be a big adjustment for both students and parents/guardians and VUSD is dedicated to smoothing that transition through our Kindergarten Jumpstart offerings! Our elementary schools have designed opportunities for our incoming Kindergarten students and parents/guardians to come to their school, meet the staff, meet other students and parents/guardians, and learn about services and programs available. Many schools have planned extended opportunities for incoming Kindergarten students to learn routines while teachers are learning about each students’ strengths, interests and needs. Parents/guardians are encouraged to reach out to their school office staff if they have questions or need more information about what is available at their school!

Heat Advisory Plan

This summer many parts of the US are experiencing record heat and California is no exception. As we prepare for the start of the 2023-2024 school year, we would like to use this opportunity to remind our Vista Community how to stay safe—and to ensure that those most vulnerable to the heat take extra precautions. Here are some tips for batting the heat:

Wear Dress Code Appropriate Clothing: Choose lightweight, loose-fitting clothing.
Stay Cool Indoors: Stay in an air-conditioned place as much as possible. Electric fans also provide comfort from the high temperatures. Use stoves and ovens less to maintain a cooler temperature in your home.
Schedule Outdoor Activities Carefully: Try to limit outdoor activity to when it’s coolest, like morning and evening hours. Rest often in shady areas.
Pace Yourself: Cut down on exercise during the heat. If exertion in the heat makes your heart pound and leaves you gasping for breath, STOP all activity. Get into a cool area or into the shade, and rest, especially if you become lightheaded, confused, weak, or faint.
Wear Sunscreen: Sunburn affects your body’s ability to cool down and can make you dehydrated. If you must go outdoors, protect yourself from the sun by wearing a wide-brimmed hat, sunglasses, and by putting on sunscreen of SPF 15 or higher 30 minutes prior to going out. Continue to reapply it according to the package directions.
Do Not Leave Children and Pets in Cars: Cars can quickly heat up to dangerous temperatures, even with a window cracked open. While anyone left in a parked car is at risk, children are especially at risk of getting a heat stroke or dying.
Drink Plenty of Fluids: Drink more fluids, regardless of how active you are. Don’t wait until you’re thirsty to drink.

The National Weather Service (NWS) has created tools to assist communities identify potential levels of heart risk for a specific location. The NWS website provides a location map with a seven-day forecast and uses the following chart to determine risk levels.

When extreme temperatures arise, Vista Unified will evaluate the continuation of outdoor activities such as physical education, recess and sports when extreme heat conditions occur. Current procedures and practices around planning for alternative activities are being reviewed with site administrators, teachers, and coaches so proactive measures can quickly and easily be implemented to keep our students safe from the heat.

Bike Education

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Our Bike Education program is committed to bringing awareness and encouraging bicycle/e-bike safety across the district. Last year we were able to provide two Family Bike Education Nights to families and this school year we are planning to provide three! Each night will be at a different location and are planned for September/October, January/February and April/May. In addition to those events we are working with San Diego County Bike Coalition (SDCBC) to provide assemblies to students across the district. This school year we have some elementary schools who are beginning the All Kids Bike program. This is a TK/Kindergarten program that teaches students how to balance and ride a bike during their Physical Education (PE) time. Our main focus is safety and we encourage our students and staff to sign the pledge to: wear a helmet correctly, follow the rules of the road, and encourage their friends to pledge and ride safely. Just remember if you’re on an e-bike, you’re driving a bike!