In May, PAUSD identified the following PAUSD Promise priority areas for the 2023-24 school year: Innovation, Serve and Celebrate Others, Mental Health and Wellness, Early Literacy, and Equity and Excellence. The result of detailed reflection on annual reports and feedback from community members, the Promise defines the district’s strategic plans to achieve identified goals and key performance indicators to measure progress in each area.

Although most of the priority areas carried over from last year, Innovation replaced Healthy Attendance in this year’s Promise following more consistent attendance and increased interest in new artificial intelligence tools. Key subgoals include incorporating technology into curriculum and instruction, increasing students’ access to postsecondary opportunities. Because these goals are recent and constantly evolving, PAUSD Board Member Shana Segal explained the importance of engaging students. “We’ve been hearing that it’s hard for students to attend after-school committee meetings, so we’re trying to hold more meetings during lunch and use the feedback to guide teaching practices and improve learning experiences,” she said. “As a board member, I’m very appreciative of students who come and speak because I take the words of every student into account and find it very meaningful.”

Serve and Celebrate Others, defined in the 2022-23 annual report as “building people up through positive interactions and acknowledging those who invest in others,” has been a long-standing priority of the district. Still, Board President Jennifer DiBrienza noted that it continues to adopt new meanings. “We have a long history of expecting kids to do community service and then putting it on their transcript,” she said. “But we’re trying to move from doing it for credit to doing it because it’s a worthwhile thing to do. There are so many amazing things our staff does — we’re trying to recognize those.” Examples of this recognition include the traveling builder helmet, awarded to employees who are positively impacting their communities, and the State Seal of Civic Engagement, awarded to civically active high schoolers.

Post-pandemic, Mental Health and Wellness has been another district priority, and it is one that DiBrienza expects will remain in future Promises.

In addition to providing tiered levels of support based on student needs and expanding the Social Emotional Learning curriculum, the district is also working to bolster staff mental health support, according to Principal Wendy Stratton. “We now have a therapist for staff that anyone can reach out to, and I’ve already heard from some Gunn staff who said they’ve reached out,” she said. “I think it’s so important that staff are supported because they’re on the front lines of working with our students.”

The goals of Early Literacy and Equity and Excellence were also renewed from last year’s Promise. Data from the iReady Assessment, Smarter Balanced Assessment and Panorama Survey indicate that the district has made strides in supporting the academic achievement of underrepresented groups and the development of a more diverse and inclusive curriculum.

Stratton hopes that Gunn will continue to progress in both areas this year by maximizing resources and opportunities in equitable ways. “To interrupt predictable patterns of performance for target groups’ students, we know that you have to look at many areas, like school climate, curriculum and instruction, and community engagement,” she said. “We’re working hard at Gunn with the SLAM (Student Leaders Anti-Racist Movement) program, the Student Leaders for Equity and the diversity commissioners on SEC to have more events that celebrate all of our different students and make them feel seen and special for who they are.”