I am pleased to announce that our district continues to receive recognition for the success that we experience with children. The American School Board Journal in association with the National Magna Awards recognized the Encinitas Union School District Board of Trustees for the Esprit de Corps Partnership - A Service Learning Program. Our board and district will be recognized and honored at the April National School Board Conference.

As you can imagine, success like this and others we have experienced over the past few years does not just happen. Excellence, whether professional or personal, is the result of hard work, planning, and preparation. We are fortunate to have a visionary strategic plan and a very dedicated and talented staff of teachers, classified support and administrators to actualize our vision for children into a reality at each of our schools.

It is because of this quality and success of our educational programs that our district continues to grow. It is true that success does breed success. However, this success along with the bold move to implement class size reduction for grades kindergarten through third has brought about a need to review our attendance boundary structure. A new elementary school, El Camino Creek, is scheduled to open in the fall of 2000. In anticipation of the new school and continued growth in our district, I have established a District Boundary Advisory Committee to study future attendance boundary options. The committee is composed of a parent representative appointed by each school site council, district staff and community members.

The committee will review the attendance boundaries for all of our schools and the new school. They will use the results of a recent demographic study completed by Davis Demographics to help them project future growth. To provide guidance to the Boundary Advisory Committee, there are three public community hearings scheduled for the community at large for input. The first was held on February 22, at Olivenhain Pioneer. The committee received information from parents of children attending all of our schools and has already started to work with all available data. It is the mission of this committee to recommend boundary options to the Board of Trustees by the end of June. Two more meetings have been scheduled for 6:30 p.m. on May 10 and June 14 at the Encinitas Boys and Girls Club.

Growth and class size reduction does bring about changes. To accommodate the classroom needs for your child's quality education, changes will be necessary. I know that the thought of boundary changes can be unsettling, but the process being put in place will provide you the opportunity to receive reports from the committee and to provide input via our public meetings. I urge you to attend the public meetings, site council meetings and watch for information that may be sent home with your child. If you hear rumors or have questions, please contact your principal for clarification.