CHS hosted a Gold Ribbon committee for the application of the California Gold Ribbon award. Despite great efforts, CHS was not awarded the title and will be appealing. Eligibility for the award depends on the increasing success of implementing State Board policies and their Local Control Accountability Plan (LCAP), accountability systems, and certification of a higher percentage than the average statewide in students that had met or exceeded standards on the ELA and Math Smarter Balanced Assessment for the 2015-16 testing cycle. Schools meeting these requirements were invited to apply for the award, which would be followed by an in-school assessment. The school was invited to apply, and the optional portion of the application was also filled out, both describing programs the school believes to be exemplary, which was noted in the iPad program and the fine arts program including theater, visual arts, and choir. CHS has been unofficially denied as of the day of assessment, on the basis that the assessment committee felt that the school’s original application should not have been accepted to begin with. They believed the application misrepresented the actual iPad program as they believed it to be a district program rather than a site program, along with that it did not affect enough students; despite the disclosure in the original application that stated the number of classrooms and individual students impacted.

“That [the visiting committee’s assessment] was surprising to us because our application was accepted as being very good and that this team was just going to come out to see if our application was true. Well, this committee didn’t do that; they came out and they had questions about should the application have been recognized in the first place,” Dr. O’ Connor said. “I expressed my displeasure to them by saying their job is to validate what we wrote, is it true or not true, not whether they think the application should have been accepted and granted the next step.”

Due to this, CHS is appealing to the California State Department of Education, for it is in the shared opinion of the administration that the visiting committee did not perform their assigned tasks, consequently not recommending the school for a Gold Ribbon Award.

CHS was assessed on March 27, where a presentation was given by CUSD teachers Ryan Easton, Jennifer Gomez, James Mitchell, and Cheryl Fiello (head of technology in the district), in which they specifically emphasized the school’s iPad program and its standards that are extremely exemplary of the award’s requirements. CHS teachers Barbara Bilderback, Erin Fowler, Gomez, Gail Kusano, Aide Suarez, Kimberly Watkins, and Easton were also a part of a staff panel that addressed any of the assessors’ questions. In addition were students who were randomly selected for questioning on the programs that the school chose to highlight in particular.

“I don’t have a computer at home, so having an iPad at school has been extremely helpful. I use it for pretty much everything at school; I can take notes, write papers, do projects and many other things,” AVID student Marlee Anderson said. “I would definitely recommend it and I hope it will be available for more students next year.”

The appeal will be made once the written report from the visiting committee is received, at the request of superintendent James Elasser, and all of CHS staff will receive notice of the results once it has taken place. The announcement of which schools will receive the Gold Ribbon mark will be made by the end of April.