Lynn Davis - Tustin School Board

March 2012

The good news is that the Tustin Unified School District - serving Tustin, North Tustin, portions of Irvine and Santa Ana - continues to provide our children with excellent educations despite huge reductions in funding from the State of California. 

One-time Federal money has enabled us to add back two days of classroom instruction to this school year. 

Our teachers and staff have made sacrifices to assure our students will be successful despite the financial environment.

As we consider the future of our community and our families, we know now more than ever that our well-being depends upon being competitive not simply within California or within the United States, but on a world class scale.  As Daniel Pink put it in his best-seller "Whole New Mind," Asia, automation and the abundance of cheap labor worldwide will mean that our generation and our children's generation will need to do more and different things to assure our community's economic success in the near future.

Fortunately, the availability of technology tools to both help in this work AND to use in educating ourselves and our children is exploding.  In December 2011, for the first time, the majority of cell phones in the world are SMART cellphones.  We've seen tablets of different formats come forth with wonderous technology - iPads, Nooks, Kindles, etc. 

Taking advantage of this to assure our community's economic future will take new investment in educational technology.  We will need robust wireless networks, industry standard technology tools on which to train future workers, effective on-line educational courses available to students and community members, and make effective use of personal and group technology offerings in our classrooms.

We cannot look to Sacramento or Washington for much help in meeting this challenge.  Nor should we want to, since any help is likely to come with strings attached that hurt rather than help our community and our efficiency and effectiveness in moving our community forward to meet the challenges of the future.

We will need to decide ourselves locally what investments we need and want to make in educational technology to assure the futures of our community, our families and our children. 

If this is something that YOU see as important for all of us and you would like to keep informed and involved as these discussions and decisions move forward, please e-mail me at LynnDavis@LynnDavis.org and ask to be involved in "Technology for TUSD."

Thank you!

Lynn Davis

January 2012

The Center for American Progress study entitled Return on Educational Investment: a district by district evaluation of educational productivity concluded that the Tustin Unified School District (TUSD) was one of only two Orange County school districts and only seventeen in all of California to be in the highest productivity category, an honor won by fewer than 5% of the districts included in the study.

This conclusively and statistically demonstrated what most of us already suspected intuitively: that TUSD produces more academic proficiency and student success per tax dollar entrusted to us than 95% of school districts!

We also congratulate the Tustin Tiller Football team on winning the CIF championship and their coach Myron Miller on being named Football Coach of the Year!

And if you are on Facebook, look up "Tustin Taxpayers for Quality Schools (TTQS)" and join the group for regular updates!

Lynn Davis

September 2011

Every year, most of TUSD's schools see improvements, and the district overall certainly does, in the level of student achievement accomplished by students of various grades in various subjects.  Once in a while, it is quite amazing to look back over a longer period of time to see how far we have climbed in our journey!

For example, since I was elected to the school board nine years ago, the number of 9th grade students - high school freshmen - scoring at the "proficient" or "advanced" level (e.g. on track for the University of California or equivalent four year schools) has GROWN by OVER 650 STUDENTS!

That is more than an entire class of high school freshmen.  Imagine what that means for each of those students and their families!  Imagine what it means for their futures, and for their future families!  It is a blessing that will grow over time touching many thousands of lives!

And that is not all.  Our academic success is increasingly being shared by students of all ethnic groups and social, economic and/or educational characteristics.  To give one example, for the school year in which I was elected, only 12% of our Hispanic/Latino 8th grade students even attempted Algebra I.  Last year, 84% of the same group took Algebra I - a SEVEN FOLD increase.  Because we are consistently the fastest growing district in Orange County, that meant a NINE FOLD increase in the number of Hispanic/Latino 8th graders taking Algebra 1.  And the percentage that scored "proficient" or "advanced" improved over those years from 31% to 42% - a 35% improvement.  The result?

The number of Hispanic/Latino 8th Graders scoring "proficient" or "advanced" in Algebra 1 grew by more than a factor of TWELVE from just 21 in 2002-03 to 278 in 2010-11. 

Considering the importance of Algebra I in math, science, engineering - the very areas our region and our nation need to make gains in - this is an amazing jump in a short period of time.  And it is not just 8th grade students or 8th grade teachers that played a role to accomplish this.  No, it took preparation: Students had to learn just enough more in 1st grade, so that they could learn just enough more in 2nd grade, and so on to the point that they could take Algebra 1 successfully in 8th grade and be prepared for even more advanced mathematics, science and technology in high school, and later in college. 

Our entire TUSD student body, teaching team and staff deserve credit for this amazing improvement over time - as does our TUSD community, which has twice demonstrated its strong support for high quality education here in our neighborhoods.  And it is paying off in more success for our students, their families, and also their future families and generations yet to come!

I thank EVERYBODY who plays a part in these successes by doing their part to support our educational process as parents, students, tutors, teachers, aides, librarians, principals, school secretaries, nurses, custodians and everyone else at TUSD, as well as each and every member of our community who has taken the time and effort to SUPPORT TUSD SCHOOLS over the past decade!

Lynn Davis

2011 President, Tustin Unified School Board

P.S.  I do regret you inform you that Mayor Jerry Amante led the Tustin City Council last month in filing yet another lawsuit against TUSD and your local schools, continuing their waste of hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayer money.  This was compounded by sending out a political mailer at taxpayer expense to certain Tustin neighborhoods containing misleading photographs and false claims about TUSD. 

Meanwhile, TUSD has still never received a single response to its settlement proposal sent to the City officials last April.  Requests for settlement negotiation meetings seem to have fallen on deaf ears.  City policy seems to have fallen victim to the political needs of Jerry Amante and his henchmen, rather than being conducted in the best interests of City residents and taxpayers. 

TUSD stands prepared to discuss settlement of these costly lawsuits whenever the City is ready.

February 23, 2011

GREAT NEWS!  The Center for American Progress recently published a study of the "Return On Investment" of various school districts across America.  Because Tustin Unified receives far less than the average revenue per student while consistently producing among the best educational results, whether measured by test scores, graduation rates, or success of students in college, Tustin Unified School District was named one of the 17 HIGHEST RETURN ON INVESTMENT SCHOOL DISTRICTS in California!  

Considering that there are about 1,000 school districts in our state, that is quite an accomplishment!

The Tustin Unified School District has long been regarded as one of California's best managed school districts. Student achievement is very high.  Tustin Unified is one of the fastest growing districts in Orange County each and every year.  These facts contribute greatly to excellent property values in our community.

TUSD has a great team of people including our teachers, support staff, principals and administrators, parents, volunteers, homeowners, and community all working together in support of all of our students.

For eight years as a school board member, I have successfully advocated for fundamentals – quality phonics-based reading instruction, strong professional development, basic skills instruction, rigorous standards, clear accountability, prudent budget decisions, needed facilities improvements and quality new schools to meet the needs of our fast growing district. We opened Beckman High, Hicks Canyon and Orchard Hills schools, and will have three new science centers. 

The result is even more excellent schools contributing to strong neighborhoods.  Students achieve steadily improving test scores and admission to respected colleges. 

We have had 17 California Distinguished Schools in the past five years.  Nearly half of our elementary schools score in the 900’s - almost twice the county average.  Every middle and high school earned a “9” or “10” statewide or against similar schools.  Our high school seniors have a 99% passage rate on the California High School Exit Exam.  90%+ of graduates pursue higher education.

I am a former corporate chief financial officer.  Auditors and examiners give TUSD the highest ratings for prudent fiscal management. 

We work hard to protect taxpayers, maintain safe schools and support increasing excellence in our school district.

Thank you for your support!

Lynn Davis

FIVE FACTS ABOUT TUSTIN UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT:

TUSD is:

1. FASTEST GROWING among school districts in Orange County.

2. MOST EFFICIENT in providing outstanding education at moderate costs.

3. SERVING OVER 23,000 STUDENTS in Tustin, North Tustin, Santa Ana & Irvine.

4. OPERATING some of the OLDEST facilities in O.C. which we are working to modernize.

5. SENDING 90% of its graduates on to college!