The Sunnyside Unified School District invites families to visit our schools the week of February 11-15th to register for the 2019-20 school year.  Home to nationally board-certified and award-winning teachers, world-class CTE programs, fine arts and athletics, Sunnyside has been developing human potential since 1921. Our mission: To help students develop a strong sense of identity, purpose and agency to become effective learners who act with purpose to achieve the conditions they desire in their own and others’ lives.  When: February 11-15 Locations:   Craycroft Elementary School (5455 W. Littletown Rd) Family Information Night: Feb. 11th 5:00-6:00 p.m. Registration: 9:00-11:00 a.m. M-F.   Drexel Elementary School (801 E. Drexel Rd.) Kindergarten Roundup, Tuesday, February 12th, 5:00-6:00 p.m.   Elvira Elementary School (250 W. Elvira Rd.) Registration and School Tours: M-F 9:00 a.m.-4:00 p.m. Informational meeting and classroom tours: Tuesday, February 12th: 5:00-6:00 p.m. (Elvira Library)    Esperanza Elementary School (2353 E. Bantam Rd.) Kindergarten Registration: Mon.-Fri.: 8:30 A.M.-3:30 P.M. Evening Registration: Feb. 13,  4:00-7:00 P.M. Kindergarten Round-up informational sessions: Feb. 11-15, 8:30 A.M.-10:00.   Gallego Primary Fine Arts Magnet School (6200 S. Hemisphere Pl.) TBA Lauffer Middle School (5385 E. Littletown Rd.)  Kindergarten Round-up/Open Enrollment night: Tue, Feb. 12th: 5:00-6:00 p.m.    ​Liberty Elementary School (5495 S. Liberty Ave) Class Visits: M, Tue, Th., Fri: 8:15-9:00 a.m.  Registration: M, Tue, Th., Fri: Afternoon Registration 3:00-4:00 p.m.   Los Amigos Tech Academy (2200 E. Drexel Rd.) Parent meeting: Feb. 11th, 4:30-5:30 p.m.  Registration: Mon: 8:30-5:00 p.m.; Tue-Friday, 8:30 a.m.-2:00 p.m.    Los Niños Elementary School (5445 S. Alvernon Way) Late Afternoon registration: Wednesday, Feb. 13th 3:00-5:00 p.m.   Mission Manor Elementary School (600 W. Santa Rosa St.) Kindergarten Round-up: Tuesday, Feb. 12th: 5:30-7:00 p.m. (Cafeteria)   Ocotillo Early Learning Center (5702 S. Campbell Ave.) Kindergarten Roundup/Literacy Event: February 13th 3:00-5:00 p.m. Rivera Elementary School (5102 S. Cherry Ave.) Open House: Tuesday, Feb. 12th: 5:00-7:00 p.m. Drop-in Registration: Feb 11-15th   Santa Clara Elementary School (6910 S. Santa Clara Ave) "Meet Your Kindergarten Teacher Night": Tuesday, Feb. 12th, 5:00-6:00 p.m. Kindergarten registration: Mon-Fri, 9:00 a.m.-4:00 p.m.   Summit View Elementary School (1900 E. Summit St.) Family information night: February 12th: 5:00-7:00 p.m.

The Sunnyside Unified School District welcomes new Governing Board Member, Ms. Consuelo Hernandez as well as returning Governing Board Member, Ms. Eva Dong. The two members of the Governing Board were officially sworn in at last Tuesday's meeting. For information about upcoming Governing Board meetings, agendas, and livestream, please visit https://www.susd12.org/Admin/governing-board and click on the resources link at the bottom of your web browser or mobile device. 

Our Vision: Every child... College, Career and Community Ready. Our Mission: Our mission is to develop students with a strong sense of identity, purpose and agency, so that they leave our system as effective learners who act with purpose to achieve the conditions they desire in their own and others’ lives. Since the release of the 1983 report “A Nation at Risk” our public school systems have been challenged with the task of improving public perception regarding how we prepare students for the future. This issue of a quality of education was compounded with the accountability requirements under the No Child Left Behind of 2001, which focused primarily on one assessment.  This narrow focus on one metric as the definitive measure of school quality misrepresents the complexity of educating students and diminishes the great work of educators across this nation who make a difference in the lives of students every day, in every classroom. And though aggregate performance is a key variable for measuring success, it simply fails to tell a bigger picture of what our students have and will be able to do in the future.  For this reason we felt it critical to recast our PROFILE OF A GRADUATE within a broader narrative of student success. This new framework provides an unparalleled level of clarity that aligns our mission, vision, and the work.  This new iteration of our graduate profile picks up where our Strategic Plan left off in 2015 and drives the work forward through five competencies, key to each student’s journey towards graduation: 1). Knowledge for Learning, 2). Knowledge for Impact, 3). Creative Confidence, 4). Critical Consciousness, and 5). Self and Systems Awareness.  In addition to college and career readiness, Community Ready was added to this iteration of the work thanks to feedback we received from community members, as well as industry and higher education professionals who expressed certain intangibles that Sunnyside students brought to their organizations. Attributing to our students traits like, “community-minded”, “a sense of social justice”, “respectfulness” we felt strongly that Community Ready also provided us with a framework to bridge the gap between knowledge and agency. This framework allows our District to capture the summative experiences that mark each child’s learning journey so that personalizing the classroom is less about technology, and more about each student’s ecology.  Thank you for being a part of our journey.      COMPETENCY #1: KNOWLEDGE FOR LEARNING Our students are knowledge creators. We look to them to not only master the content, but also to transfer knowledge across disciplines: From science to the humanities, from mathematics to the social sciences—Sunnyside students are deep thinkers and well-rounded learners with a strong sense of academic identity.  We trust our students as knowledge co-creators who share their expertise with peers and teachers as part of an intentional process of collaboration. Sunnyside students understand that learning is a social and shared responsibility. By listening respectfully, students value learning from one another as they begin to develop transferable skills like responding positively and constructively, which are important skills to employers as they are assembling their teams.   COMPETENCY #2: KNOWLEDGE FOR IMPACT When Hurricane Harvey crippled the Texas coast in 2018, Sunnyside students in our JTED Construction program rolled up their sleeves, gave up their spring break, and traveled across the country to rebuild homes. When faced with the opportunity to speak at the state capitol demanding an increase in teacher pay, one Sunnyside student took to the microphone, took a deep breath and pumped up a crowd of tens of thousands.    Our students are engaged participants in their future, not merely bystanders. Equipped with deep knowledge of history and a sense of what is fair, our students are adept at using social media and student organizations to drive change. Sunnyside students are aware of community issues and possess real-world knowledge gained from internships and other experiences that put global issues into a local context.   COMPETENCY #3: CREATIVE CONFIDENCE All students are creative, and it’s our responsibility to nurture that creativity. Borrowing from the work of Tom and David Kelley (IDEO, Stanford d.School) we define creative confidence as the natural human ability to come up with great ideas and the courage to act on those ideas.  Sunnyside students take part in human-centric experiences that use empathy, systems thinking, and design thinking to unlock their creativity. Through building prototypes, using causal loops, challenging assumptions, and acknowledging that all ideas are worthy, our students learn how to take risks. More importantly, creative confidence relies on human collaboration, which is embodied in the performing arts. Sunnyside's tradition of excellence in the fine arts provides a first point of entry for students into a world of creativity that gives them opportunities to gain confidence and succeed.    COMPETENCY #4: CRITICAL CONSCIOUSNESS Workplaces, schools and colleges, and other social environments are defined by internal cultures and norms that are not always visible from the outside. Some environments are built to nurture and empower, while other systems have internal cultures that hinder upward mobility. This is why we give students the tools to identify systems that perpetuate inequality so they’re prepared to take action.  In collaboration with League of Women Voters of Greater Tucson and the YWCA Southern Arizona we host workshops that help high school students learn about running for office while deconstructing issues such as racism, discrimination, and LGBTQ rights. Fostering critical consciousness through debate empowers our students to keep up with important issues and to demand a seat at the table.    COMPETENCY #5: SELF AND SOCIAL AWARENESS Students who are self-aware have strong intrapersonal skills such as self-regulation, which develops in the early years and aids in problem solving and supports volitional behavior. Social awareness (or social intelligence) is part of an important skill set that, later in life, is what sets a transformational leader apart from an everyday boss. This profile of a graduate takes into account our students’ social and emotional development and values traits such as assertiveness, conflict resolution, positive self-talk (to name a few)—as important indicators—of self- and social awareness, which is key to our students’ ability to thrive after high school.   NEXT STEPS 1. Create a graphic representation of the Graduate Profile 2. Introduce the Graduate Profile at the 2018 Administrative Summit 3. Develop indicators for each of the Graduate Profile competency areas 4. Establish a continuum or rubrics by grade band for each indicator that will be used to support internal accountability metrics with the desired outcome of establishing our own school label system    

Lauffer Middle School hosted a small gathering on January 28th between members of the Sunnyside Foundation and representatives from Bayer Crop Science: Marana Greenhouse—who donated a $10,000 gift to the foundation to support the Robotics program at Lauffer. The gift is intended to elevate the school’s existing STEM lineup. Dr. Matt Lingard is the Site Lead for Bayer Crop Science's Marana Greenhouse. He spoke about the role of STEM in public education as a key driver of talent for companies such as Bayer. The 7-acre greenhouse project in Marana is anticipated to employ between 40 and 60 people in positions ranging from HVAC engineers to plant biologists.  The Robotics program at Lauffer Middle School gives students the opportunity to learn coding skills and build autonomous Lego® robots that can be used in community storytelling projects. To that end the school intends on using the funds awarded by Bayer's Monsanto Fund to strengthen the bond between Lauffer Middle School and the local community in an effort to provide robust learning experiences for students in this niche of STEM education. Sunnyside Foundation President, Naomi Proaño listens to a group of students in Justin Powell's Robotics course explain how the software interfaces with a robotic arm. The gift is also aimed at building a seamless pipeline between Craycroft Elementary—who received a similar gift from Amazon this year to jumpstart its school’s robotics program—and to emphasize a path into Desert View High School’s Precision Manufacturing program; considered one of the best in the country, providing students with industry certification in NIMS and SolidWorks. This Early College program, provides dual enrollment and is aligned with Pima Community College and its CNC Certificate and Associate’s degree program. The school plans on acquiring more 3D printers such as this one to produce parts for Future Cities, an adjacent course offered as part of Lauffer's STEM lineup.  Following a brief meet and greet at the school’s Learning Resource Center, members from Bayer’s executive team and members of the Sunnyside Foundation joined the Superintendent and members of the Governing Board as they tour the school’s robotics classroom and learn more about Lauffer’s existing STEM programs.