Mario Contini Conejo Valley Unified School District (CVUSD) opened its doors this week to 22,000 energized students and a highly talented staff. In spite of two years of catastrophic budget cuts, the quality of education in our district remains high.

The fiscal challenges of last year will be with us again this year. Unfortunately, the state Legislature passed a budget with smoke and mirrors—a set of deferrals, shifts and accounting maneuvers that will come back to haunt the state in the next few months. In addition, the federal stimulus money used to offset lost revenue this year will not be reallocated in 201011, and the temporary state sales tax increase will expire in 2011-12. As a result, another $8-billion deficit in the state budget looms ahead, further jeopardizing the education California owes its children.

In spite of these dire circumstances, our school district has done a remarkable job keeping the needs of our students as priority one. Employees are absorbing salary reductions and health benefit cost increases in order to protect programs our students need. Administrators, teachers and support staff are taking on an increased workload to offset staffing reductions at all levels. Parents and the Conejo Schools Foundation have stepped in with donations and volunteer support to help maintain programs.

There are many examples of the good things that have resulted due to these sacrifices and efforts of many:

1. Through attrition and the federal stimulus funding, “all” probationary and permanent teachers who received final layoff notices were rehired if they chose to return. Unfortunately, we will still have a net loss of 50 teachers over the previous year due to declining enrollment and class size changes.

2. Student performance increased again as seen in last week’s release of the state test scores. Teachers didn’t let the budget cuts or their own impending layoffs distract them from putting the needs of students first.

3. This week the Board of Education officially opened the district’s second magnet school, EARThS, with an exciting science and technology curriculum. It replaces the former Manzanita Elementary School in Newbury Park.

4. During the summer a fiber optic network was installed at all of our schools. It will be activated in November and support stateoftheart instructional technologies at speeds and capacities never before available in our district.

5. The district child care offices moved to the former University Elementary School campus as the first phase in establishing the Early Childhood Development Center there. These successes were achieved without using funds needed for teachers or programs.

The budget crisis has bruised our school district and other districts across California. However, as you can see by the above examples, even in these dire fiscal times, our district still stands tall in its commitment to the best education available anywhere. At CVUSD, every child matters!

Thank you, and welcome back.

Mario Contini is superinten dent of Conejo Valley Unified School District.