District News

With interest in how to ensure their children don’t get too much of a good thing, more than 200 parents, educators and health professionals attended a screening of the documentary film Child, Disrupted. Co-sponsored by School Linked Services and Campbell Union School District, the film presented facts about technology use and child development.

Following the movie, Superintendent Shelly Viramontez moderated a question-answer discussion with panelists Filmmaker Krista Riihmaki, Common Sense Media Regional Manager Jamie Nuñez, Santa Clara County Supervisor Susan Ellenberg, and District Special Education Administrator and Psychologist Stephanie Cima.
The most frequent message from panelists was to seek balance with technology.
Filmmaker Riihimaki shared a personal story about the negative role technology played in her brother’s mental health, and ultimate demise, that motivated her to make Child, Disrupted. The experts in the film emphasized that social interaction and interacting with the physical world is critical to brain development in children, from infants and through their teens.
“Overuse of technology has an impact on physical and mental health,” said Common Sense’s Jamie Nuñez. To reduce excessive use, he suggested first looking at the relationship you have with the child and considering some family rules.”
Supervisor Ellenberg suggested increasing activities that don’t involve technology, such as hiking, and going to the park. She also shared that First 5 has resource centers that provide a range of support services.
For schools, Superintendent Viramontez noted that there have been compelling reasons to increase technology use in schools, among them: providing students with more equity in access to instruction, teaching them how to use technology as a tool for creating rather than passive consuming, and preparing them with the skills they will need in this Information Age.
“Technology is how our children are going to interact with the world," she said. "We would be doing them a disservice if we didn’t engage them in using technology effectively as a tool and not a distraction.”
You can download information on Common Sense Media’s recommended tools, in English and Spanish, on our website.

We’re proud of the success that our elementary and middle school students achieve. Maintaining high-quality teachers and instructional programs with less funding in our pricey Bay Area housing market presents a great challenge to that success.

School districts throughout the Bay Area, including ours, are experiencing declining enrollment. Over the past three years, Campbell Union School District has seen a 6.5 percent decline in enrollment, resulting in a drop in average daily attendance (ADA) funding, the major backbone to State funding for our schools.

Great teachers are at the center of student achievement, especially in core academic and advanced programs, and State funding is critical to keeping teachers hired, class sizes down, and quality instruction for all students. Over the past few years, the district has experienced a high turnover of teachers, due to the cost of living in the Silicon Valley. Dozens of highly-qualified teachers have left for more affordable areas. Without additional funding, our neighborhood elementary and middle schools may continue to lose great teachers.

We need to respond with local solutions.

To protect quality education for the district’s elementary and middle school students, the Campbell Union School District Governing Board is considering placing a parcel tax measure on a future ballot. All of the funds would be locally controlled, would benefit schools in our own district, and could not be taken away by the State or used for other purposes. There also would be an exemption process for senior citizens.

For more information and to participate in a short survey, please visit the “Proposed Measure” page on our district’s website.

"I really enjoyed reading their work, and I was very impressed with their creativity, imagination, and diversity of topics," she added.

The nine student honorees spoke about their award-winning work to an audience of 100 proud parents, family members, teachers, principals and elected officials at the 17th annual awards presentation. After receiving their awards, the Rising Young Authors autographed their books for their fans.

Pictured here, left to right: Board Vice President Richard Nguyen, Jordan, Chloe, Perri, Sofia, Charlotte, Jessica, Yehyun, Marina, Darius, Dr. Viramontez, and Board President Michael Snyder.

The Rising Young Author award includes one professionally produced copy of the student's for home and one for the school library, a gift certificate from the Assistance League of Los Gatos-Saratoga, a personal writer’s journal from Barnes & Noble, and a chance to win a Nook e-reader from School Innovations & Achievement. CSI student Yehyun Hwang was the lucky winner of the Nook drawing.

To read or order books by these student authors, go to bookemon.com.  To view short videos about each Rising Young Author, click on the names below.

Meet the Rising Young Authors of 2019

Launched in 2002, the Rising Young Authors program recognizes a select  group of individual students whose short stories, essays, research papers and poems were among hundreds that teachers submit to the District's annual Writing Faire in May. At the conclusion of the Writing Faire, Rising Young Author judges review qualifying entries for each school — specific categories of writing by individuals in grades 3 through 7 — and choose the two best for their respective school's Accomplished Writer Award. The first place Accomplished Writer is offered the option of participating in the Rising Young Authors program. If declined or ineligible, the offer goes to the second place Accomplished Writer.

Showing up for school has a huge impact on a student’s academic success starting in kindergarten and continuing through high school. Even as children grow older and more independent, families play a key role in making sure students get to school safely every day and understand why attendance is so important for success in school and on the job.

One absence amounts to missing more than 5 hours of classroom instruction and learning. 

DID YOU KNOW?  

• Students can be chronically absent even if they only miss a day or two every few weeks. 

• Attendance is an important life skill that will help your child graduate from college and keep a job. 

• Absences can be a sign that a student is losing interest in school, struggling with school work, dealing with a bully or facing some other potentially serious difficulty. 

• By 6th grade, absenteeism is one of three signs that a student may drop out of high school. 

• By 9th grade, regular and high attendance is a better predictor of graduation rates than 8th grade test scores. 


WHAT CAN YOU DO? These tips can help.