RUNNING HEADER: DESCRIPTION OF CURRENT GOVERNANCE STRUCTURE 1

Description of Current Governance Structure

Jessica Buckle

EDUC 705

Fall 2019

Instructor: Hannah Kivalahula-Uddin, Ph.D.

California State University, San Bernardino

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Description of Current Governance Structure

The Brooks School District was formed in 1886, with the first school being built in 1888.

In 1891, because of the massive growth of the area, the Rialto School District was formed from

part of the Brooks District. In 1907, an eight-room schoolhouse was put into use and by 1920,

students in the area grade first through eight were attending the Rialto Elementary School

District. On July 21, 1964 the district officially unified and Eisenhower High School was

incorporated into the district. Since 1960, sixteen more schools were added to the district. In

1999 the school I am at now, Wilmer Amina Carter High School, opened its doors. On

September 21, 2017 Rialto Unified School District celebrated its one hundred and twenty-fifth

anniversary.

District Boundaries and Population

School district boundaries are determined by the Boundary Advisory Committee. They

meet and discuss demographic information and determine the district’s boundary. Our district

encompasses Rialto, parts of Colton, San Bernardino, Fontana, Bloomington, and Lytle Creek

(See Figure 1). We are a TK-12 school district. There are nineteen elementary schools that

provide TK-5 education, five middle schools, three comprehensive high schools, one alternative

high school, and one independent student high school. There are also preschool programs and

adult education programs. There are approximately twenty-six thousand students district wide.

The student population is eighty-two percent Latino, eleven percent African American, four

percent Caucasian, and three percent other groups. We also have almost three thousand students

with special needs according to the California Department of Education. The district is the forty-

second largest in the state of California. At Wilmer Amina Carter we have approximately twenty
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four hundred students; 72.6% Latino, 16.4% African American; 6.2% Caucasian, and 4.8% made

up by other groups (see Table 1).

Figure 1: School district boundary for Rialto Unified School District from RUSD website

Table 1
2017-2018 Student Enrollment by Grade Level and Group

Note. From Wilmer Amina Carter High School 2017-18 School Accountability Report Card
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Employees

According to the district webpage, there are more than two thousand seven hundred

employees in the Rialto Unified School District, making it the largest employer in the city of

Rialto. According to the Personnel Office, we currently have almost twelve hundred classified

staff members and almost fourteen hundred certificated staff members. At school sites there is a

principal, assistant principals (the number of which is determined by the size of the school),

TOSAs (teachers on special assignments- math coach, EL coach, ELA coach, a dean of

students). Following these are counselors, other classified staff, and certificated staff working in

and out of classrooms. At Wilmer Amina Carter High School, Dr. Greg Anderson is the new

principal. Dr. Eric Schessler, Ricardo Garcia, and Natasha Harris-Dawson are assistant

principals. Kurt Walsh is the Dean of Students. Dr. Acquillahs Muteti is the math coach, Alma

Avalos is the EL coach, and Nikki Wilson is the ELA coach.

At the district level, there is a superintendent, four assistant superintendents, six directors

(classified and certificated), agents, and TOSAs (teachers on special assignment). Dr. Cuahtemoc

Avila is the current superintendent, Dr. Darren McDuffie is the Lead Strategic Agent: Strategics,

Congruence & Social Justice. Kelly Bruce is the Lead Innovation Agent: Educational Services

Elementary Instruction. Jasmin Valenzuela is the Lead Academic Agent: Liberal Arts and

Literacry/Intervention. Dr. Edward D’Souza is the Lead Academic Agent: Math/Science and

College/Career Pathways. Rhonda Kramer is the Lead Academic: Technology Agent. Rhea

McIver Gibbs is the Lead Personnel Agent. Mohammad Z. Islam is the Associate Superintendent

and Syeda Jafri is the Agent of Communications and Media Services. The current

superintendent dismantled the hierarchy structure however and has changed the titles. The

directors are called lead agents and the agents are called coordinators. His goal in doing this was
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to create a flat organization as he believed all employees are here to serve students and should

not be focused on titles. However, this has created some ambiguity as to who is doing what and

who is in charge of whom.

Areas of Focus

The Local Control Accountability Plan and Annual Update (LCAP) offers insight into the

major areas of focus for the district. Some of the major foci include providing technology

support to help students and teachers better utilize technology and prepare for the future,

providing accessibility for PSAT and SAT, implementing Dual Language Immersion programs,

and promoting literacy and STEM initiatives. The district has increased the number of Visual

and Performing Arts teachers at elementary schools to ensure accessibility to the arts and

interventions and credit recovery programs are being strengthened at high schools across the

district to ensure students are graduating from high school. The district is also focused on PBIS

implementation district wide in an effort to improve the suspension and expulsion rates of

underserved students, including African American students, foster youth, English Language

Learners, and students with special needs.

Last year, the district achieved the greatest amount of progress in the area of English

Language Learner reclassification and graduation rates. For the 2017-2018 school year, the

district saw an 8.3% increase in the re-designation rate. In total since 2016, there has been a

15.7% increase in the re-designation rate. The students identified as Long Term English

Language Learners also decreased by 2% during the 2017-2018 school year. There was also a

3.8% increase in the graduation rate for a total of a graduation rate of 90.2% for the district. The

major area of focus for improved graduation rate is that of foster youth, which was the only

group that saw a decrease in their graduation rate.

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Unions

For our district there are two unions, one for certificated staff and one for classified staff.

Rialto Education Association (REA) represents approximately one thousand three hundred

teachers, counselors, speech therapists, and nurses working in the Rialto Unified School District.

Classified employees of the Rialto Unified School District belong to the California School

Employee Association union. REA does have a political action committee for the sole purpose of

supporting school board candidates for Rialto. A law was passed that said union dues could not

be mandatory in school districts. If you were already an employee when this law passed, you had

to opt out of paying union dues. For new employees, they have new hire orientation at which

employees can choose if they want to sign up or opt out of being a member of the union and

having to pay union dues.

District Funds

Allocation of funds is based on enrollment. Title I money is given to meet the needs of

the minority population. Discretionary funding is tied to a local controlled funding formula and

is based on school enrollment and needs (See Table 2, Table 3, and Figure 2). Each school

receives a discretionary budget for the operations of the school. The allocation is based on the

number of schools enrolled at the school and the size of the campus. The school site also receives

categorical funds for specific programs based on student counts of targeted students. This is

different as of ten years ago when the state restructured the ways they gave money. For the 2018-

19 school year, fifty six percent of the district’s money went directly to instructional/ in the

classroom expenses, including salaries.

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Table 2
Budget Summary per 2017-2020 LCAP

Note. From Rialto Unified School District LCAP 2017-2020

Table 3
Total General Expenditures per 2017-2020 LCAP

Note. From Rialto Unified School District LCAP 2017-2020

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Figure 2: Budget overview for the 2019-2020 LCAP Year from RUSD LCAP Budget Overview

for Parents

School Board

Our school board is comprised of five adults and one student member. Edgar Montes is

the current president. He has lived in the community his entire life and is a big advocate for

students. He has been on the school board since 2010 and has three children that go to school in

our district. Nancy O’Kelley is the vice president. She is a former teacher and retired

administrator who worked at Eisenhower High School. She has lived in Rialto since 1990 and

has served on the Rialto Board of Education since 2012. Dina Walker is the board clerk and has

served on the board since 2014. She is also the president and CEO of the the BLU Educational

Foundation where she uses her passion for student advocacy to help minority students have
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access to college. Joseph Martinez is the longest serving member, serving on the Board since

2008. He is a retired woodshop and CTE teacher and is active in the Rialto Kiwanis chapter and

a strong advocate for technology and STEM education in schools. Joseph Ayala is serving his

fourth term on the Board and is a retired math teacher who lives in the community, who is also

married to a retired teacher. Avionc’ Douglas is a senior at Wilmer Amina Carter High School

and is serving on the board as its student member. None are up for re-election this year but

Nancy O’Kelley, Joseph Martinez, and Joseph Ayala are up for election December 2020.

Members are elected at-large by qualified voters of the District and they serve four year terms.

The student member is an appointed position. They serve a one year term and they are chosen

based on a majority vote of their school’s student body. They cast a recorded non-tallied vote on

issues with the exception of employer-employee items and student expulsions and they do not

participate in closed sessions. The election issues in board elections are the primary foci of the

district which tend to revolve around how to best serve our minority and lower-socioeconomic

population, STEM and CTE pathways in schools, and using innovation and technology in

schools. They also determine general policies and governing decisions including personnel

matters, budget allocations, and educational programs.

School board policies are seen as laws whereas administrative regulations are common

practices determined by administrators on a site by site basis. Administrative regulations are less

black and white; less set in stone, and again is dependent on the particular administrator. When

that administrator leaves and a new one comes in they might keep up previous administrative

regulations or they might implement their own, school board policies however, are mandated

district wide.
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References

Bruce, K. (2018-2019). Local Control Accountability Plan and Annual Update. Retrieved

October 8, 2019, from https://rialto-ca.schoolloop.com/.

California Department of Education. (December 1, 2018). Special Education Enrollment by Age

and Disability- Rialto Unified. Retrieved October 10, 2019, from

https://data1.cde.ca.gov/dataquest/.

Chavez, P. (2017-2018). 2017-18 School Accountability Report Card. Retrieved October 8,

2019, from https://rialto-ca.schoolloop.com/.

Rialto Unified School District. (2108). Rialto Unified School District. Retrieved October 8,

2019, from https://rialto-ca.schoolloop.com/.