Southern Kern Unified School District
3082 Glendower Street
Rosamond, CA 93560
661-256-1247
visit district website here
Governing Board - Southern Kern Unified School District
Rodney J. Van Norman, Superintendent
rvannorman@skusd.k12.ca.us
Mario Gutierrez
mgutierrez@skusd.k12.ca.us
Ralph Nelson
rnelson@skusd.k12.ca.us
Mike Escalante
mescalante@skusd.k12.ca.us
Scott Starkey
sstarkey@skusd.k12.ca.us
Steven Williams
swilliams@skusd.k12.ca.us
Rosamond Elementary
1981 Rosamond Blvd
K - 5th Grade
visit website
here
256-5050
Tropico Middle School
3180 Mojave-Tropico Road
6th - 8th Grade
visit website
here
256-5040
West Park Elementary
3600 Imperial Avenue
K - 5th Grade
visit website
here
256- 5030
Rosamond High
2925 Rosamond Blvd
9th - 12th Grade
visit website
here
256-5020
Alternative Education Schools
3082 Glendower Street
256-5090
Abraham Lincoln Independent Study
Rare Earth Continuation School
Opportunity School
Home Choice
Adult School
Visit their website here for more
information about these programs
-select 'schools' link on top of page -
West park School to open in Sept. 2006
Landsgaard wants mid-year transition
by by Debby BadilloROSAMOND- West Park Elementary School, with room for about 500 students, will
open in September 2006, a move approved by the Southern Kern Unified School
District board of trustees at its Sept. 7 session.
While most of the board agrees with teachers and principals who say that it's
better to move students into the school at the start of a new school year,
trustee Olaf Landsgaard continues to lobby for a midyear transition for some
students currently attending Rosamond and Hamilton elementary schools.
In remarks published in the September issue of the Rosamond Tribune Landsgaard
says that it's a waste of resources not to open the school in January,
especially when so many parents are keen to see the campus filled with students
as soon as possible.
But Rosamond Teachers Association president and Tropico Middle School teacher
Jim Quellman said it would be too disruptive to uproot students, some as young
as five years old, in the middle of a school year.
State and district officials will likely make a final inspection of the campus,
at 35th Street East and Imperial Avenue, in November, said assistant
superintendent James Johnson.
The board also approved construction of an eight-classroom wing at the school,
bringing the total number of classrooms to 32. Although Webb Brothers
Construction, Lancaster, is building the rest of the school, this part of the
project will be sent out to bid, Johnson said, and it's expected to be completed
and ready for students in September when the rest of the school opens its doors.
Original cost estimates for the wing were at $1.2 million, but recent
construction activity across the nation has brought that number up to between
$1.5 million and $1.6 million. A bond measure approved in 2002 is financing the
$11 million cost of the school.
In other business, the board voted to continue the class size reduction program
for kindergarten through third grade. Class size reduction limits the number of
students per class to 20, giving teachers more time to interact with each
student on a one-to-one basis.
Mojave Desert News - Three elementary schools to serve Rosamond
by Debby BadilloRosamond - Students in grades kindergarten to
fifth will attend one of three elementary schools next fall, according to a
decision by the Kern Unified School District board of trustees on March 2, 2005.
The opening of West Park Elementary School at 3600
Imperial Ave. will cost the district between $123,000 and $443,000, said
superintendent Rodney Van Norman, depending, among other factors, on whether the
district will provide bus transportation to its students at all three elementary
schools or not, and on the number and type of administrators at each elementary
school. Utility costs, which are not included in the above figures, for the new
school are an unknown expense at this time, Van Norman said, but they will
likely be less than the costs at existing schools because the campus, in the
final stages of construction, is more energy efficient.
'Walking school'
If one of the three schools -- Rosamond Elementary,
Hamilton Elementary, and West Park Elementary -- is designated a so-called
"walking school", said the superintendent, then the district will save thousands
of dollars each year. The school with the most students living within walking
distance is Rosamond, followed by Hamilton, and then West Park, although the
superintendent said the most logical choice for a walking school would be
West Park, where 240 students live in the surrounding West Park subdivision.
Parents in other attendance areas would have the option of driving their
children to and from West Park in their own vehicles, Van Norman said.
The district will also have to buy equipment for the new
school, including library books, copiers, computers, and other items, plus
possibly hire more new teachers and other personnel. Part of the Measure H $12
million school bond approved in 2003 will be used to pay for computers and other
technology related costs. The district will also save at least $215,000 because
with three elementary schools it won't have to relocate eight portable classroom
buildings from Hamilton Elementary to other campuses.
A final decision about how many administrators, such as
principles, will be assigned to each school will be made by the school board at
a later date, after it reviews the related costs, along with a decision on
whether students will be bused to each school or not.
Three elementary schools will bring the average campus size
down from more than 700 students to about 450 or 500 students. This will make
the schools more of a close-knit community, said the superintendent, with
stronger Parent Teacher Associations, fewer discipline problems, and an
environment where administrators, teachers, and parents know each other on a
one-to-one basis.
Interdistrict Transfer Policy
An updated draft of the interdistrict transfer
policy can be reviewed at the district's
website. The policy
spells out the conditions in which students will be allowed to attend schools
outside the district. A little more than 300 students, or 11 percent of the
district's total student population, attend schools in neighboring districts,
mostly because parents want their children to attend school near their workplace
or near after school child care locations. Some attend outside schools to
participate in special programs like ROTC.
The school board is reviewing its policy with an eye
toward keeping more of the district's students in local schools. Students who
are already approved to attend other schools, as well as those set to graduate,
can continue at the other schools, as well as those in grades kindergarten to
six who attend after school child care outside the district. Special needs,
either emotional or medical, approved by a doctor or other health care
professional, will also allow a student to continue in programs outside the
district.
A final policy will likely be approved by the school
board on March 16. An appeals process will be part of the final policy.
Several parents, most of whom live in Rosamond but work at Edwards Air Force
Base, have addressed the board in recent weeks, saying they want to keep their
students close to them at the schools on base.
"I'm not saying the schools (in Rosamond) are not good
schools," said father Chris Silva, but his daughter is only 10 miles away if she
attends school on base, and she would be 25 miles away if she went to school in
town. If she got sick at school, Silva said, he would have to drive 25 miles to
pick her up, and then drive back to the base clinic.
Other parents have said they prefer schools on base or
in the Antelope Valley because they say the schools perform better academically.
Fourteen-year Tropico Middle School teacher Jim
Quellman, who is president of the Rosamond Teachers Association, disputes this
claim. "In all my years of teaching I have never had one student come in from
another district that was ahead of the class, "Quellman said. "I usually have to
bring them up to speed."
Quellman, who lives in Lancaster, has two children
attending school in the Southern Kern district because "of the quality of the
education." Parents in the audience said that's what they want to do, take their
children to school near where they work.
Mojave Desert News - Ground broken for Rosamond school
by Terri DoyleROSAMOND - A groundbreaking ceremony here last week marked the beginning of construction of the long awaited West Park elementary school across the street from the housing tract where many of its future students live. The site is on Imperial Avenue and 35th Street West.
School and community officials, parents and construction personnel were on hand to celebrate the occasion as trustees for Southern Unified School District turned the first shovels full of dirt.
District Superintendent Rodney Van Norman addressed the gathering and said, "After years of tireless hard work by board members, both past and present, parents, staff and the community of Rosamond, we are excited to begin construction of a new school." This is the first new school to be built in the community that serves more than 6000 students in nearly 30 years. Many of the community's elementary school students are housed in portable classrooms at two schools - Rosamond Elementary and Hamilton Elementary.
The new $7.6 million school is being built with funds from a $12 million school bond passed by voters and state matching funds of 82 percent. "The bond was the first step to get where we are today," said board member Bob Vincelette. The district will also receive additional money from the state for modernization projects that are underway on other district campuses.
SKUSD received an added bonus recently when they learned the winning bid on the contract to build the school was $1.2 million under the amount budgeted. Webb Bros. Construction, a Lancaster firm, has two projects simultaneously under construction in the community - West Park school and the new Rosamond Community Services District administration, and maintenance and operations facilities on the opposite side of Rosamond Boulevard on 35th Street West near the town's library.
Mike Webb, one of three brothers working on the two Rosamond projects said, "This is a great community and we are very happy to be here." Van Norman said Webb Bros. Construction firm is a "no nonsense well-oiled machine." When construction is completed in 14 to 16 months, about 600 students will occupy the 25 new classrooms. The campus will also have a cafetorium with a stage, a full kitchen, library, resource center and administrative offices. Van Norman said recently that the savings on construction will allow for landscaping, furniture and books for the library. An oversight committee is charged with tracking how bond money used to build the school and other projects is spent. Several committee members attended the groundbreaking as did former board member Dennis Youngblood.
NEW SCHOOL
Members of Southern Kern Unified School District donned hard hats to turn dirt at the site of the first new school to built in Rosamond since 1964. The school is on Imperial Avenue off 35th Street West across from the West Park development.
Pictured, from left, are Ralph Nelson, Bob Vincelette, Superintendent Rod Van Norman, Olaf Landsgaard, district project manager Jim Johnson and construction superintendent Mike Webb of Webb Bros. Construction.