It was a rainy first day of school for the thousands of students in the Santa Barbara Unified School District on Monday thanks to Tropical Storm Hilary, which brought some rare August rain to the region as it passed to the east. As kids returned to the classroom or arrived for the first time, teachers and administrators around the district began this school year by diving in headfirst, with new approaches and perspectives on learning.
“It’s been a great first day,” said Superintendent Dr. Hilda Maldonado, standing in front of the library at Roosevelt Elementary. “We started at Dos Pueblos, where we got to greet some of the seniors and some of the brand-new high school students. I talked to a young lady on her way in, and she was a little nervous as a 9th grader. But so far, thankfully, all our schools are safe and ready to go.”
Students and teachers are focusing on their ABCs this year. Staff ABCs stand for academics, arts, athletics, belonging, community, and collaboration and were taught through professional development training over the summer.
Maldonado, whose contract with the district was just extended through 2026, emphasized the “B” for belonging, including knowing each student’s name, face, and story to create a supportive learning environment.
“We exist because of our students,” she said. “The rest of it is just ensuring that we work together and that we really focus on why we have our students with us.”
Students and families have, in the past, reported that they don’t feel a sense of belonging in the district. In response, teachers are actively working to build relationships with their students and foster a sense of community. On the first day, teachers gave their students real introductions to get to know them and provided students with opportunities to do the same.
Maldonado highlighted that relationship building, as well as finding opportunities for students to discover and explore their identity, is especially important “post-COVID,” and in the face of discrimination and racism in schools.
“Once you know somebody, it’s a lot harder to disregard them,” she said, “and we need to really know who we are first before we can share ourselves with others.”
Roosevelt Elementary’s principal, Valerie Galindo, greeted students by name as they shuffled past her in single-file lines, and she welcomed their youngest cohort of 4-year-olds ever to transitional kindergarten, “which makes it even more magical,” she said.
Arline Garcia-Martinez, who is starting 4th grade at Roosevelt, said that her 3rd-grade math class helped prepare her for this year, and she’s most excited to learn about the history of the California Gold Rush. She packed a PB&J for lunch. “It has been such a good day,” she said.
“They’re all so happy to be here,” Galindo added. “Our goals this year are to have lots of fun at school, and, of course, to make sure every student has access to the education they deserve.”
The district’s commitment to social-emotional learning aims to foster a safe and connected learning environment for both students and teachers, according to Maldonado.
During administrator meetings, she said, they start with a chosen person of the day to respond to a personal prompt, allowing them to “see each other as really authentic colleagues,” and encouraging principals to take that practice back to their individual school sites.
For a district that’s lost around 32 high-level employees in the past three years — including Santa Barbara High School principal Elise Simmons on August 2 — fostering a sense of belonging among colleagues seems like a step toward lowering district turnover. This year, teachers, administrators, and other district staff will also be receiving a 4 percent pay increase.
La Cumbre principal Bradley Brock, who is beginning his fifth year at the school, said that now, more than ever, “schools need to be different.” His school is implementing an International Baccalaureate (IB) program this year, to fill the gap between IB programs at Harding Elementary and Dos Pueblos High School.
The small middle school, with 456 total students, has been focusing more on students’ well-being and mental health and recently hired a fourth counselor.
“I think all of us want to refrain from using the pandemic as a crutch, but we can’t deny the effect that it’s had on our students in terms of their well-being, their mental health, and, of course, their academics,” Brock continued.
Brock said their goal this year is to meet students where they are. In addition, they’re creating an Equity Council to take the findings from last academic year’s racial climate survey and “start to ask difficult questions.”
Training for staff over the summer included recognizing, responding to, and reporting incidents of racism, as requested by teachers in the racial climate survey. The district provided its staff with tools to approach those conversations based on their students’ age group, according to Maldonado.
Teacher on Special Assignment Katie Pelle, who has taught in the district for 17 years and acts as a liaison between La Cumbre and district admin, said that last school year they were trained in “trauma-informed practices,” and they’re continuing that work this school year.
“I think that’s been the biggest shift for us: understanding that students can’t learn when they don’t feel connected, when they don’t feel safe, when they don’t feel like they can trust the teacher,” Pelle said. “We’re really focusing on building those connections … before hammering the curriculum.”
Hayward Kwit started teaching at La Cumbre four years ago and now works as the school’s site lead for emergent multilingual learners. She teaches foundational English and language arts for newcomers, as well as an English support class for 7th graders.
A few of the books they’ll be reading this year are about the immigration experience, she said, so her students can read stories that may provide a mirror into their own lived experiences.
“I think we recognize that social-emotional learning is not just a curriculum that needs to be taught in the classroom; it’s something that everyone is doing every day,” Kwit said.
“By having our teachers and our staff understand what students might be coming into the classroom with, they can begin to view all behaviors as a form of communication … that’s a way to interact with a student that can get them to that place of learning.”
For elementary school staff, this year’s focus on ABCs also applies to the district’s newly adopted literacy curriculum. Nearly 90 percent of all teachers attended voluntary professional development training over the summer, Maldonado said, including all teachers at Roosevelt Elementary (minus three new hires).
“If you walk into the classroom, you see all the new books set up, teachers are already implementing the first module together,” Principal Galindo said. “They’re getting their hands wet, making the charts, reading through the entire unit, and taking the assessments themselves so they know what their students have to master by the end of the module.”
“I’m feeling really confident because I’m hearing the teachers are confident,” Maldonado added. “It’s really the teacher that makes the difference.… We’re just going to continue to be asking teachers, ‘What else do you need?’”
Donna Sugano’s kindergarten class did fun activities for their first day, including playing with dinosaurs, coloring, and a read-along. | Credit: Oscar Hernandez/Santa Barbara Unified School District
Donna Sugano’s kindergarten classroom at Roosevelt Elementary showcased the excitement of students, as they wore paper crowns proudly stating, “I rocked my first day of kindergarten!” When she asked her class if they’d like her to read one or two books, she got responses of “One hundred!” and even, “One million!”
That’s a big task for one teacher, but luckily, the district’s new approaches to learning don’t include a one-million-book benchmark.