School Beat: Welcome Back to SchoolLisa Schiffbyline‚ Aug. 30‚ 2007If ever the first week of school felt like a fresh start, this was it. On Monday our children entered new classrooms and our district’s new superintendent of schools, Carlos Garcia, had his real first day on the job with the wheels of the school district fully in motion. Now the real work has begun and it’s safe to say we are all hopeful, eagerly watching, and ready to join in. The challenges facing our district this year are once again familiar and large—the achievement gap between African-American and Latino students on the one hand and Caucasian and Asian-American students on the other, insufficient funding, and declining enrollment, to name some of the top contenders. But what’s different now is the climate, which in contrast to the daunting issues before us has an optimistic and energized feel to it. Some of that is no doubt attributable to the presence of a new top administrator. But fortunately there is more to it than that, both in terms of Garcia himself and in terms of where the entire community of public school supporters is positioned. |