Dear Friends,

As we look toward summer, I marvel at the progress we have seen in our students in the past ten months. Teachers are sharing stories of student achievement, and their growth is inspiring. District staff is more committed than ever to ensuring high levels of academic, social-emotional, and behavioral growth for every student. 

I am happy to report on our District’s significant progress this year. Our focus has been on several key initiatives to improve learning for all students. We also saw strong family involvement, which enables us to work in partnership for student success. 

We continue to develop our caring school climates, building culturally responsive, anti-racist, and trauma-informed teaching methods that lead to improved outcomes for students. For example: 

• our teachers have been trained to recognize signs of a student needing additional support beyond instruction.
• our leadership team has engaged in professional development focused on unconscious bias, and leaders have each committed to recognizing and changing practices that have disadvantaged groups of students.
• our schools acknowledge and celebrate the diversity of our students and their families by including representation of different cultures in our lessons, classrooms, and events. 

Most importantly, we are better supporting principals as instructional leaders, so that every student is exposed to effective, culturally responsive teaching practices every day. We deepened our equity work while renewing our commitment to ensuring that every student thrives.

Like our students, we still have plenty of learning to do, but — also like our students — we will continue to build on the great progress we have made this year.  Our work is critical to the success of our children and of our families, and we commit ourselves to fulfill our responsibility to the Sunnyvale community.

I am grateful to our outstanding teachers and staff, district families, community partners, and neighbors who support our work for children. I wish you all a peaceful and happy summer and look forward to a wonderful new academic year.

Sincerely,

Michael Gallagher

Superintendent