Superintendent Newsletter

☀️📚 Welcome Back, MCSD!

What a wonderful start to the 2026–2027 school year! It has been exciting to see our campuses come alive again with the energy and excitement of our students and staff. I am grateful to everyone who worked throughout the summer to prepare our schools for a strong start.

Student safety and wellbeing remain a top priority. CENTEGIX CrisisAlert is now live across all MCSD campuses, District Office and satellite offices, providing another important tool to support safety. Our Back-to-School Wellness Fair also connected families with valuable resources and community partners to help our students return healthy, supported and ready to learn.

We are also excited to continue our commitment to early and sustained literacy and the Science of Reading. Our educators participated in professional learning throughout the summer and are continuing to strengthen instruction through evidence-based practices, including UDL and UFLI.

Building relationships remains at the heart of our work. As we begin this new year, we look forward to strengthening connections with our students, families, staff and community.

I am also grateful to our Maintenance & Operations team for their hard work preparing our campuses, including fencing improvements at Muir, Fremont and Hoover and new paint at Muir. These improvements, along with our Community Day School and Tenaya Middle School Sports Fields projects, help create welcoming spaces where our students can learn and thrive.

Thank you for making MCSD such a special community. Welcome back, and here’s to a wonderful year ahead!

Warmly,

Mrs. Julianna Stocking
Superintendent
Merced City School District

Our Back-to-School Wellness Fair was a wonderful opportunity to connect hundreds of students and families with resources, services, and community partners to help them start the school year feeling confident, healthy, and ready to learn. Families were able to access a variety of back-to-school supports, including free haircuts, health and wellness resources, basic needs assistance, school supplies, and connections to local community organizations.

The event was a great example of what we can accomplish when our schools and community partners come together to support the whole child and whole family. We are grateful to the many organizations, volunteers, and MCSD staff members who helped make the Wellness Fair possible and continue to invest in the wellbeing and success of our students and families.

While the school hallways stood empty and quiet, summer for the IT team was anything but a vacation.

Between June and August, the team moved at a relentless pace to overhaul the District’s digital backbone. They transformed every 6th-grade classroom from the ground up, unboxing, configuring, and deploying over 1,000 new Chromebooks alongside a massive fleet of more than 400 teacher PCs. Up on the ceilings, they swapped out over 100 aging projectors due for refresh, ensuring teachers would return to crisp, reliable displays.

As grade levels shifted across schools, the team physically relocated, re-cabled, and reconnected entire setups, ensuring no classroom was left behind. On top of the hardware heavy lifting, they provided crucial technical support and set up user accounts for the new Centegix safety rollout, pushed essential OS updates across thousands of devices, and performed vital routine maintenance. To top it all off, they brought technology to the brand-new CDS facility, building out its network infrastructure so the internet and core systems were fully operational the moment students and staff stepped through the doors.

When the school bell rings to start the new year, few will see the countless hours and late afternoons spent preparing for day one. The IT team quietly welcomes back staff and students through reliable internet, ready-to-use devices, seamless application access, and dependable tech services across the entire district.

Of course, none of this heavy lifting happened in isolation. We would be remiss not to mention the Maintenance and Operations team, whose relentless support and partnership were crucial in helping us ready the schools for a successful start to the year.

While students were enjoying their summer break, MCSD staff were busy learning, growing, and preparing for the year ahead! Across the District, employees participated in a wide range of professional development opportunities designed to strengthen their skills, build collaboration, and ensure our teams were ready to support students from day one.

From our Mini-Versity professional development series bringing classified and certificated staff together, to Growing en Comunidad in partnership with UC Merced, educators deepened their instructional practices and explored strategies to support English Learners and multilingual students. Teams across the District also participated in training focused on safety, PBIS, curriculum updates, student support, workplace procedures, and operational practices.

This summer of learning reflects our commitment to investing in our employees and providing meaningful opportunities to grow. By strengthening our staff, we are strengthening our schools, and creating the conditions for every MCSD student to thrive.

MCSD is excited to welcome Keisha Stolte, our new Community Engagement Specialist, to the team. Keisha will be partnering with students and families to bring them resources, encourage meaningful involvement, and to help ensure that every family feels welcomed, heard, and valued. To contact Keisha, email tstolte@mcsd.k12.ca.us or call her at (209) 233-4641.

Construction has finished for some projects during Summer 2026, including classroom renovations at Hoover and Tenaya in preparation for the 6th grade transition back to middle schools. Other work that was done includes roofing at Fremont, Rivera Middle School, and Hoover, as well as fence replacement and upgrades at Muir, Fremont, and Hoover.

Community Day School: This project met the tight deadline and was ready for students on the first day of school. Finishing touches and system calibrations are still being done, but the site is usable and will be completed in upcoming weeks as the final materials are installed. The patience and support of the MCSD team and our community is greatly appreciated.

Did you know??....

MCSD is on social media. Come hang out with us daily as we share exciting photos, videos, and information about current and upcoming events. If you are a parent, you might just see your little one get featured!

Instagram & Facebook: @MercedCitySchoolDistrict