Priorities — LindaHenigin.com

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Linda’s Top Priorities

Excellence for All

All our students deserve excellence at every level throughout their education. Excellence demands strong academic teaching and learning that develops critical thinking, problem solving, innovation, teamwork, leadership, and resilience. It also demands finding and developing the passions that motivate students. Our students need all of this to prepare them for whatever the future holds.

We deliver excellence to all of our students when all of this is woven into every class. Our high schools need AP, Honors, Advanced, and College Prep classes as well as career technical, arts, athletics, and special education programs. Pre-K through middle schools must develop a love of learning alongside strong foundational skills with challenging material for all. Excellent teaching and learning prepares students from all demographic groups and backgrounds to succeed in advanced courses.

We will measure our progress as we close our opportunity gap, increase diversity in advanced course enrollments, increase student attendance, and foster higher student engagement and innovation in our classrooms.

Together, we can provide every student with an excellent education.

Strengthen Belonging

All our students deserve learning environments where they are safe, respected, and supported in all aspects of their identities. Only then can students fully share their thoughts, observations and creativity with their classmates, teachers, and our entire community. PAUSD is stronger when every child is fully seen and valued.

We strengthen belonging by listening carefully and engaging respectfully with each other throughout our community.

We will measure our progress as we reduce incidents of bullying and increase student reports of positive mental health and belonging.

Together, we can strengthen belonging throughout our community.

Rebuild Community Trust

Trust is essential to delivering excellence. It allows us to listen to one another, tackle challenges together, innovate, and grow. Mutual trust is the foundation for growth for our students, staff, and community.

We build trust through transparency, objective facts, respectful dialogue, fair and consistent processes, and by keeping students at the center of every decision.

We will measure our progress as we reduce the number of disputes that escalate into lawsuits brought against the district and increase constructive engagement among community members, the board, and district staff.

Together, we can rebuild community trust in our schools.

Key Issues

District Finances & Fiscal Responsibility: PAUSD is entering a period of fiscal uncertainty. District expenses are projected to exceed our revenues until 2030. Our second interim budget report on December 15 will show us a clearer picture. With that, we can determine our best course of action to protect the educational integrity of our classrooms.
Mental Health and Wellbeing: Many students tell us that they do not have the strong sense of wellbeing and belonging that they need in order to thrive. We have invested in professional staff on our sites; now we need to invest in our students' peer support systems and advisory classes (like SELF).
We must continuously ask students and families whether our reforms are making mental health support services accessible and helpful. When they are not, we must identify and eliminate any barriers.
We can also limit the amount of screen time assigned on school devices, and use digital learning platforms selectively, which can help improve students' physical and mental health.
Special Education Reform: Families don't currently have a meaningful way to advocate for our system to meet their children's needs from pre-K to post-secondary.
We need to shift our Special Education system from an adversarial model to a collaborative one, deliver supports written into IEPs, remove unnecessary barriers to services, and partner with families to support student learning.