Nearly one year after she took the helm of the county’s largest school district, Pajaro Valley Unified School District Superintendent Heather Contreras sat down with The Pajaronian to talk about her accomplishments, and the ongoing challenges facing the district.
“It’s been a long year, but an exciting year,” she said.
Contreras, who started on May 1 of last year, began her time with her “Look Listen and Learn” tour. This included speaking with students, teachers, community members, nonprofits and law enforcement officials to get a sense of the state of the district.
“My goal was to get to know the community, and not make any decisions until I knew and was familiar with all the people in our community,” she said. “We really started looking at what the challenges were, but also the celebrations.”
From that, Contreras said she got more than 1,500 suggestions, which she says helped inform her agenda for both administration and for students.
This also informed the district’s newly minted strategic goals, which cover academics, professional development, fiscal responsibility and ways in which to attract and retain employees.
A daunting task
Contreras says she started her position knowing she would have to contend with declining enrollment—officials predict a loss of an estimated 600 students next year, amounting to millions of dollars over the course of a year. This will almost certainly mean belt-tightening for the foreseeable future and likely cuts.
She also knew that decisions by previous administrators—and by the board of trustees—led to spending one-time Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) dollars that came during the Covid-19 pandemic on hiring new employees.
When that money ran out, the district was forced to cut $5 million from the budget.
In addition, the district was bracing for a potential economic recession.
And so one of her tasks, she said, was to address the district’s impending financial problems while maintaining transparen and involving the community.
“I took that really seriously,” she said. “How do you lead through that, and how do you develop a process that is accessible to many?”
Teamwork
That was the impetus for the creation of the Sustainable Budget Team (SBT), a 24-member team that delved into the district budget over the course of a month, seeking ways to address that imminent $5 million loss.
Those meetings—and the facts that came from them—wee educational for the community, evidenced by the increasing viewership of the recorded meetings, she said.
“School finance is really complex,” Contreras said. “There are so many rules that govern how we spend our money. So I think it’s been a real educational tool for people.”
Contreras said that she plans on creating another SBT as the district prepares for additional budget reductions.
A measure of success
She also points to Measure M. The $315 million general obligation bond will fund construction and renovation projects at all of the district’s schools.
District officials had just 70 days to run the campaign after the school board approved it for the ballot that May, Contreras said.
The measure passed with more than 57% of the vote.
That success was more notable, she said, knowing that school employees can neither conduct political campaigns during school hours, nor do so on school grounds.
“It was definitely a dedicated crew,” she said.
Many students who helped garner votes earned their seal of civic engagement, quadrupling the number who earned that achievement that year, she said.
With the first disbursement coming in May, there are many shovel-ready projects that can begin immediately.
But students at Pajaro Valley High will have to wait for their performing arts center and pool, which are among the bond’s most anticipated projects.
While the initial designs are ready, the district still has piles of red tape to wade through. This includes California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) rules, and those of the California Coastal Commission. The Watsonville Pilots’ Association is also likely to lodge complaints.
“That’s a difficult property because of the Coastal Commission,” she said. “There needs to be some steps that need to be taken before we can get to shovel-ready.”
Contreras expects the PVHS projects to start in 2026.
In the meantime, the district plans to bring in a mobile theater, allowing performances to move out of the wrestling room.
And the bad news for PVHS doesn’t stop there.
Contreras said that students’ request for the same 7-period day that Aptos High School has—a proposal they say would allow for more class choices—is not likely to happen.
Such a plan would require 46 additional sections and roughly nine new teachers. Still, the district is looking at different options for the school, Contreras said.
Recent controversy
Citing employee confidentiality, Contreras declined to discuss the recent announcement that Aptos High School Principal Alison Hanks-Sloan will not be returning next year.
The district has said she resigned, but a letter to Hanks-Sloan shared by her father states that she was going to be reassigned.
Many in the Aptos High community are demanding more information, and a petition to reinstate her has garnered more than 800 signatures.
Involving students
Contreras also said she has worked to bolster the way students participate in district governance.
Previously, one student was chosen as student trustee from a pool of 20 qualified applicants, a number that was whittled down to six, who were then interviewed.
But Contreras said she wanted to find a way to include the rest of the applicants.
“How do you tell these students who put themselves out there and want to be a part of this ‘no,’” she said.
That was the formation of what PVUSD calls the Core Six, a group that meets with Contreras before board meetings, goes over the agenda and gives feedback to student trustee Daniel Esqueda about the agendabefore he reports to the Board of Trustees.
The other students who applied helped form the Student Advisory Committee, which, among other things, has determined that students want better training for substitute teachers.
Now, the district is creating a substitute handbook and an additional two days of training, Contreras said.
“That came right from the students,” she said. “The students will get to see the fruition of their involvement.”
Bolstering enrollment
To address the issue of declining enrollment, the district is looking for ways to attract students, and to encourage existing ones to stay.
This includes a plan to expand Mar Vista Elementary School to transitional kindergarten through eighth grade.
“Instead of thinking about closing it, we asked, ‘why don’t we think about growing it? and how we can do that?’” she said.
In addition, the district transformed the recently closed Pacific Coast Charter School to an online-in person hybrid geared to a wider student population.
“Because we’ll actually be able to expand their services, I think that will attract more people into their services too,” she said.
PVUSD is also looking to partner with Cabrillo College to create an early college program that will allow students to earn an associate degree along with their high school diploma.
Concerning student achievement scores
Student achievement has increased 2% since Contreras started, a notable number in a district with more than 17,000 students.
Still, PVUSD academic achievement has not recovered from the learning loss that occurred during the Covid pandemic, with students still lagging behind the rest of the state, particularly in math.
The district is therefore piloting a new math program at three schools, which will likely expand after positive reviews from teachers, she said.
