Dear Staff,

Welcome back, District family, and Happy New Year!

It’s great to be able to enjoy some vacation time, but it is also great to come back and reconnect with colleagues and with our amazing students. We are beginning a new calendar year, but we are also in the middle of a school year, with many days of instruction and many events and activities to look forward to. As a District, I believe that we are fundamentally strong, and we are seeing many programs, departments, grade levels, and school sites make the jump to the next level of performance and achievement. As a recent example, this is a good place to once again congratulate Morningside School for officially receiving the California Distinguished School Award!

Looking ahead, I think the phrase that best describes my thoughts about the District right now would be “Anticipate and Innovate.” DUSD has made significant progress: we have met the challenges of the recent past, and we are increasingly characterized by excellence as we work to meet the challenges of the present.

The future will bring new challenges, and we need to anticipate and innovate so that we are never behind the curve in meeting the needs of our students and families. While we can take pride in what we are accomplishing, in education the journey never ends, because we always have new students coming to us, and we always have new requirements, new expectations, and new circumstances impacting the work that we do.

I want us to be an increasingly forward-looking and forward-thinking district, less concerned with where we have been and more concerned with where we are going. I want DUSD to be animated by a new spirit of innovation, and by that I mean that we anticipate what is coming, no change will catch us unprepared, and we live on the cutting edge of educational progress. With this mindset, we can continue to meet the needs of our students and families in the months and years ahead, and continue to be a district where we define our professional success in terms of the success of our students.

Once again, welcome back, District family, and thank you for your dedication and hard work on behalf of our students.

Blessings to all of you in the New Year!

Rosalina Rivera