PSUSD superintendent talks expanding digital and Spanish immersion learning
The Palm Springs Unified School District is kicking off yet another year with a renewed focus on the digital and diverse future of education.
“This is my favorite time of year because there are very few endeavors that you do professionally that you get to start fresh every year,” Superintendent Dr. Sandra Lyon said.
It’s now four years on the job for Dr. Lyon, overseeing than 24,000 students. It’s the second-largest district in the Coachella Valley, making sure they’re set up for success.
{“url”:”https://twitter.com/JeremyChenKESQ/status/1159185626069164032″,”author_name”:”Jeremy Chen”,”author_url”:”https://twitter.com/JeremyChenKESQ”,”html”:”&#lt;blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”&#gt;&#lt;p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”&#gt;I spoke with &#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/PSUSD?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”&#gt;@PSUSD&#lt;/a&#gt; superintendent, Dr. Sandra Lyon, on her vision and goals for the new school year as the school district kicks off its first day of classes. That story is coming up tonight at 6 on &#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/KESQ?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”&#gt;@KESQ&#lt;/a&#gt;. &#lt;a href=”https://t.co/oK8ls8PMvM”&#gt;pic.twitter.com/oK8ls8PMvM&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/p&#gt;– Jeremy Chen (@JeremyChenKESQ) &#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/JeremyChenKESQ/status/1159185626069164032?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”&#gt;August 7, 2019&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/blockquote&#gt;n&#lt;script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″&#gt;&#lt;/script&#gt;n”,”width”:550,”height”:null,”type”:”rich”,”cache_age”:”3153600000″,”provider_name”:”Twitter”,”provider_url”:”https://twitter.com”,”version”:”1.0″}
“You’re ready to say, okay I’m an adult. What am I going to do with my life? My schooling has prepared me. I know what these options are,” Dr. Lyon said.
New options for the new year include a focus on digital and technology-driven education.
“Riverside County in 2030, hard to say that, will have a lot of job opportunities and a lot of them will be in that technological field,” she said.
This year, all high schools will offer computer science courses, so students can learn about coding and digital storytelling. Statewide, only 39 percent of high schools offer such courses.
“We know our kids are really hungry for that kind of technological experience so that we know that will be a great opportunity for them as well,” Dr. Lyon said.
There will also be an expansion of Spanish language immersion programs for middle schools.
“We’re a 77 percent Latino school district. 34 percent of our students are English learners and the predominant majority of those speak Spanish,” Dr. Lyon said.
She says the programs have proven quite popular for high schoolers and want to reassure Spanish-speaking parents there’s room to learn two languages.
“To be able to speak both languages is something that will give your child a leg up in the future, and we want to help him or her do that,” she said.
On things to improve, Dr. Lyon wanted to address what she called a chronic absenteeism problem.
According to the California Department of Education, chronic absenteeism rose at PSUSD by about two and a half percent between the 2016-2017 school year and the 2017-18 school year.
“The more your student misses the less likely he or she is to be at grade level, and I know parents want that. They want their students to achieve. So, we want them to see the connections between getting your students on time every day,” she said.
That includes strengthening relationships between parents and teachers. Dr. Lyon says the initiatives all go back to reinforcing the mission of the district by creating successful students.
“We really want to make sure, we’ve prepped you, we’ve given you exposure and you know what’s out there,” she said.
