David Aponik
As I begin my 20th year with the Burbank Unified School District, and
my 27th year as an educator, I find myself extremely encouraged and
excited about where we are as a school district and where we are going.
Our district's emphases on: "back to basics" education; early literacy;
individualized learning plans; specialized reading classes; content and
performance standards; traditional math; comprehensive staff development;
school-to-career education; smaller class sizes; enhanced parent
involvement; high expectations for all students; partnerships; renovated
and enhanced work and learning environments; after-school and summer
intervention programs; accountability; and recruitment and retention of
the highest quality of employees, have resulted in higher academic
achievement by our students.
Evidence of our improvement and higher achievement has been
demonstrated by way of multiple indices, including: higher standardized
test scores; the performances of the John Burroughs High School "Odyssey
of the Mind" team (State Champions and second place in world competition)
and the Burbank High School Academic Decathlon team (Northern Los Angeles
County Champions and 12th place in the state); the performances of the
Luther Burbank Middle School "Future Problem Solvers" team (State
Champions and represented California in world competition), the Jordan
Middle School "Academic Rodeo" team (second in the state), and John Muir
Middle School GATE math students (who placed first, second and third in
the Southern California "Math You Can Bank On" competition); multiple
local, State, and national championships by the John Burroughs High
School and Burbank High School vocal and instrumental music programs; and
13 consecutive league championships by the Burbank High School boys'
tennis team. These are but a few of the many accomplishments achieved by
our students and schools during the last school year.
As we look to the 2000-2001 school year and beyond I believe we are in
an excellent position to enhance upon these achievements. Even though the
standardized test scores of our English-only speaking and fluent-English
speaking students are already above both state and national averages, I
am confident that these scores will rise even higher. In addition, as we
intensify our efforts to transition limited English proficient students
to English fluency, the academic performances of our limited English
proficient student population will markedly improve as well.
