Dear Parents and Staff Members,

When I was a teenager, my mom would often give rides to people she didn’t know. I remember two separate occasions she picked up a woman with a young child at a bus stop and a teenage boy in the middle of the winter.  Picking people up undoubtedly would impact our trip home. She did it not because she thought they were headed in the same direction, but because she understood making sure a neighbor was safe was critical to the vitality of our community.  Those lessons have stood with me ever since.  

I believe there's nowhere like Mountain View. When I first came to this community, I was struck by not only its diversity, but also our collective understanding of the greater good and our willingness to support every single person in our community. This is why I came here, why I am raising my son here, and why I have stayed. 

In 2015, things were not as good as they are now. I remember teachers lining the board room asking for more than a one percent raise. I remember listening to frustrated parents and residents talk about issues that the schools were facing.  I sat in a meeting in which our Measure G construction firm was about to quit.  The Board had censured a member and was in the news for dysfunction. Teacher retention was at an all time low. Some schools were so overcrowded that neighborhood students couldn't attend. And one community had no school. 

We don’t want to go back to those days of divisiveness.  I am grateful for our Board, which has changed many times since I arrived in 2015. They are dedicated to the greater good of the community.  They are dedicated individuals, who not only had the foresight to see we had more in common than not, but have worked extremely hard to reduce conflict. Since 2015, the Board has challenged us to be more than just an educational institution. 

Our schools have always been the center of our community. This is a place where people come not only to trust us with educating their most precious gift  – their children – but to also receive support with parenting, food, and the hardships of life.

Look how far we have come. 

When I first arrived, employees hired after 2012 had to pay for their own families’ health benefits.  I remember one custodian who worked for us full time, solely to cover the cost of insurance for their family.  In the next round of negotiations, the Board responded to my request to return health benefits to all full-time employees.

We collectively forged a new and innovative path to open teacher housing through a public - private partnership, funded by our community.  We're about to open 144 units of affordable staff housing before the end of the calendar year. Your support made it possible for us to create a community where teachers can be stable and secure, living where they work and serve our children every day.

Our literacy team is making huge progress with students’ reading. Literacy is crucial for success in school and life. The team has increased students' reading proficiency scores by 57%. This year, we anticipate even more students will reach this crucial milestone while learning from a new curriculum grounded in the science of reading. 

Our schools have been recognized both regionally and nationally for our environmental initiatives and commitment to student well-being, earning the 2024 California Green Ribbon Schools and 2023 America’s Healthiest Schools awards. We are committed to creating environments that keep students cool, healthy, and safe.

When COVID-19 closed our schools, our Board charged us with figuring out how to provide high speed internet to our students at no cost. We are proud to invest $500,000 annually to create a citywide reliable internet access - a critical component of education -  to all families within our district, ensuring that every student has the resources needed to succeed at school, and at-risk families can connect to the community.

We feed kids and adults in need for free. We serve thousands of free meals during the year - 60,000 in the summer at Rengstorff Park alone. Feeding adults and children is not going to directly help test scores, but we do it because it addresses the very real problem of food insecurity that many of our families face, while reducing the burden on community service organizations, like CSA.

We’ve invested $3.6 million in the expansion of Transitional Kindergarten (TK) so 4-year-olds can start school for free with crucial early-learning experiences.  Our Board understands that there is no greater foundation for learning than what happens in the first years of education.  Our TK expansion and developing full-day options for preschool will have an impact on academics. It additionally helps families find amazing full-day childcare options in a community that is severely lacking adequate options for many.

We partner with the City to share our green space for use by our community residents, recognizing that having a dedicated outside space is not a given for many. As the owner of the largest amount of green space sprinkled throughout most neighborhoods, we know how important it is for mental and physical health, and we are proud to provide this space.

Some will argue that these efforts - food, staff housing, internet, employees’ health insurance, greenspaces, wellness, pre-kindergarten experiences - don’t benefit students directly in their classrooms. I wholeheartedly disagree. While the benefits may be hard to quantify in the long arc of an individual's life, I have no doubt that it makes a positive difference. These services may not always make economic sense in a strictly fiscal analysis, but they are invaluable when we consider the human aspect of our work.

Our successes do not come without a cost. In our roles as educators, administrators, and supporters of education, we are all too familiar with the pressures and demands that come with the work. While we strive to create an environment where students flourish, we often forget that in order for our students to thrive, we must also be well-supported. 

The well-being of our teachers and administrators is not a luxury—it's a necessity. Wellness and stress reduction are critical to maintaining the energy, passion, and dedication that drive our educators. When we neglect our own health and well-being, it’s not just our personal lives that suffer; it’s our ability to perform at our best for our students. Chronic stress and burnout among educators lead to decreased effectiveness in the classroom. Our district has felt the effects of teacher and staff absenteeism and turnover that can destabilize schools. All of this is costly, in terms of both money, and in human terms.

Some in our community argue that in times of tight budgets, wellness and mental health services are less of a priority. When we ensure that our educators and administrators have access to mental health support, we are saying to our educators: "We see you, we value you, and we want you to be at your best." This message is vital, particularly in times when we face unprecedented challenges.

Whether it's the lingering impacts of the pandemic, or managing the complex needs of our students, our teachers and administrators need all the support they can get. The well-being of our educators directly impacts the success of our students. When our teachers and administrators are well, our entire community is well.

We still have a lot of work to do. The achievement gap still persists for many of our students. Families are still in crisis, hungry, and struggling. The world is warming and our children are vulnerable. Political divisiveness and angry rhetoric is trickling down to our kids, making them anxious. Adult behavior, especially online, of shaming others through bullying, racism or doxing is incongruent with our community’s values.   It does not move us forward when individuals call attention to the negative, create conspiracy theories or false narratives, and fixate on divisiveness rather than discourse.

To solve these complicated problems, our entire community has to participate in the solutions. It's become evident to me that as these problems get more complex, our district needs to reach deeper into the community for more input and expertise.  This year our topics of focus will range from Social Emotional Learning to Artificial Intelligence in schools, to improving our volunteering application process, to developing campuses that will serve students well into the future.  Your input and support is crucial. We will be asking you for your engagement and the resources we need to maintain the programs and services that keep us moving forward. 

We will solve issues when we attack the problems, not the people. As I was reminded during the middle school schedule debate, we limit the success of a solution if we don’t take the time to sit down and talk about the issues we are collectively facing. Mountain View is a community that is capable of remaining curious about problems and listening for solutions, rather than fighting to prove points. 

This work is not easy, but it is the right thing to do.  The initiatives that we have taken on over the past nine years are efforts to solve hard problems that have plagued our community for decades. I am hopeful that those individuals who are struggling to find a way to contribute in a solutions-oriented way can step back and look at the totality of what we have accomplished. While we may not all agree on the best solutions, respectful discourse, coupled with the belief in the greater good, will move us all forward.

We achieved a lot over the past nine years, and that is just the tip of the iceberg. Our students are the future of our community, and the decisions we make for our district will have positive impacts for years to come. Our efforts will improve the lives of countless people, who in turn will solve more problems. 

I am grateful for the support we have at MVWSD. I am looking forward to a great year of learning and growing. Thank you for your support of all of us.

Ayindé Rudolph, Ed.D.
Superintendent