Teachers fortunate enough to be hired by the Los Al Unified School District were given the traditional welcome tour this week by Supt. Andrew Pulver, Ed.D., as the new hires prepare to welcome back approximately 10,000 students throughout the system.
School at Weaver Elementary began last week as the first full day for the entire district begins Aug. 14.
At its most recent board meeting this week, the Los Alamitos Unified School District Board got a report about new employee orientation and also voted to raise its pay rates for substitute teachers, making the district among the Top 5 in Orange County.
“One of the many things I love about our profession,” said Pulver, “is that every year we get to start fresh.”
As part of that fresh start, Pulver said the district held new employee orientation activities. “What I love about this district is that we’re small enough to really make it personal.”
In what Pulver called somewhat of a “rite of passage,” that predates his tenure as Superintendent, the new teachers are loaded up onto a school bus and visit all of nine school campuses, where principals and staff are there to welcome the new hires with pom poms, cheers, and at one campus, “taught the teachers how to do the ‘roller coaster.’”
The Los Alamitos Unified School District remains one of the premier districts in Orange County, and Assistant Supt. Ondrea Reed has told the board in the past of prospective teachers lining up hours long before interviews begin just to try to get a foot into the door of the system.
Supt. Andrew Pulver, Ed.D. waves on the school bus carrying the Los Al Unified “new hire” teachers across the district. Principals and administrators had special events prepared for the new teachers which Pulver said has become somewhat of a “rite of passage” for incoming teachers.
The 21 new teachers fortunate enough to be hired this year were given a royal welcome actross the district, said Pulver, including a luncheon held in their honor.
“Our principals roll out the red carpet for them,” he said.
Dr. Ryan Weiss-Wright, a former principal of McAuliffe Middle School, who has become Assistant Supt. for Human Resources and Director of Classified Personnel, was welcomed to the dais by Los Al Unified Board President Chris Forehan.
Weiss-Wright recommended increases in pay rates for substitute teachers that will place the district in among the Top five districts in terms of substitute pay in Orange County which he suggested will help the district compete for hard-to-find subs.
“I’m recommending a rate of $175 per day, a long term rate of $205 per day, and a specialized rate which would require higher approval of $225 per day,” Weiss-Wright told the board. “The new rates would put us in the top five in the county for daily and long-term rates,” he said.
Board member Marlys Davidson urged approval of the new rates, noting that “since COVID, every district has struggled for substitutes.”
The Board did unanimously approve the new rates.
In addition, the Board also approved a data-sharing agreement with the state’s Foundation of California Community Colleges that after learning the data shared will support the systems created to combat learning loss since COVID.
Davidson said more institutions are interested in Los Al Unified data, especially since last year’s feat of graduating every single student in their approximately 800 student class.
“People want to know how we graduated every single senior this past June,” she said. “That is a monumental achievement in education especially when you have a class our size which diversity in terms of background.”
“It was really a united effort of the great cabinet the board most of all the educators and counselors and people on the campuses that made it happen,” she said.
The board on Tuesday also approved its Governance Handbook, which Board member Diana Hill said was truly an accomplishment for the district.
“We come together and review it,” said Hill, noting that “it would be very easy to say ‘we’re doing fine, we don’t need to do that.’ ”
But she said to come together as a district to “come to a mutual agreement on our core values, I think, is really powerful and extremely healthy” for the district.
In other action, the board:
• Approved a negative environmental declaration for a new campus gymnasium complex which means all documented environmental concerns will be fully mitigated.
• Approved two retirement resolutions presented by Dr. Weiss-Wright.