Diablo 3 Page 52

[Katrine Freggiaro]

TheMt. Diablo Unified School District is pleased to announce that the Governing Board has extended Superintendent Dr. Adam Clark's employment contract for three more years after he received a positive evaluation.

The Board unanimously approved the new contract on June 26th. It extends from July 1, 2024 - June 30, 2027 and includes a 7% salary increase instead of the 9% raise that District employees are receiving on July 1st.

Dr. Clark was named as a "2022 Superintendent to Watch" by the National School Public Relations Association (NSPRA) and is currently President of the California Association of African American Administrators and Superintendents Association (CAAASA).

He began his education career in 1994 as an elementary teacher in the West Contra Costa Unified school district. From there, he transitioned to school leadership in Contra Costa County, serving as a middle school vice principal, elementary school principal, middle school principal, and high school principal. He then moved into district office roles, serving as the Assistant Superintendent of Administrative Student Services in the Liberty Union High School District and as the Associate Superintendent of Educational Services in Antioch Unified. Before being appointed to lead Mt. Diablo Unified in 2020, Dr. Clark served as superintendent for three years in the Vallejo City Unified School District.

At its June 26th meeting, the MDUSD Board approved the appointments of the following MDUSD District and school administrators for the 2024-25 school year. Click on the name of each administrator for more information.

In addition, the Board extended the contracts of Superintendent Dr. Adam Clark and Chief Business Officer Adrian Vargas through June 30, 2027. The Board also granted Superintendent Clark the authority to make additional administrative appointments before the next Board meeting on August 14th.

The report shows that the District's Career Pathways team provided more than 200 meaningful work based learning experiences to our students. These experiences ranged from guest speakers to informational interviews to summer internships.

Northgate HS student Mark Burenko's "If I could change the world" project was so successful when he was a sophomore that he continued it last summer and during his junior year in 2023-24 - and is now recruiting teens to start it up again on July 1st, with a goal of ending in mid-August. However, those interested can also sign up after July 1st and participate on a rolling basis. The project connects local teens to others in Ukraine via Zoom, helping Ukrainian students learn to speak in English and giving American students the chance to socialize with their counterparts in a war-torn country, while talking about things they have in common, as well as their differences.

"We refer to it as a 'speaking club,'" Mark said. He began the project with the idea that he would try to help Ukrainian students get better access to education, after moving to Walnut Creek four years ago from Ukraine at the beginning of the pandemic, when he was finishing up 7th grade. Mark was already in the United States when Russia started the war in Ukraine, but he visited last summer and experienced what it was like to go into a basement during an air raid, while visiting one of his childhood friends.

"I started the project because there is in fact a lot of trouble with access to education in Ukraine right now," Mark said. "The war destroyed a lot of schools, and even in the schools that are still there, students either have to work online because they don't have a bomb shelter or have to frequently interrupt classes to hide during air raid warnings. In general, learning English is very important for Ukrainians right now, since that is what's used to communicate internationally."

Although life for his peers in Ukraine is stressful, Mark said they enjoy talking about music, movies or books, which helps reduce their stress and relax them. He compares life in Ukraine to being stuck inside during the pandemic. "Everything feels very small and you don't feel like there's a lot of people outside your tiny place," he said. "But you get to speak to people somewhere else and know what the weather is like in California while you're in a village in Ukraine and it makes them feel the world is big and there's a lot of interesting things in it."

Since Mark still has family and friends in Ukraine, he initially contacted his old school and spoke to his former English teacher, who helped to put him in touch with some students he could speak to so they could practice their English. "It was really nice to see how excited they were to have something like this," Mark said. During the second semester of his sophomore year, more students from his class got involved and he reached out to a tutoring center director, who helped coordinate students in Ukraine to speak to the Northgate students. The woman who helped coordinate the talks advised the Northgate students not to speak about the war at first, but by the end of the second semester, some Ukrainian students became more comfortable talking about it, Mark said. For the "I could change the world" fair at the end of the second semester, Mark and other Northgate students who participated painted Ukrainian flags on their cheeks and made a Ukrainian wreath to bring attention to their project.

To continue the project last summer, Mark contacted the coordinator of the Junior Academy of Sciences in Ukraine and she helped to sign up 780 Ukrainian students interested in speaking with American students. Of those, about 500 showed up regularly for Zoom chats with about 20 local teens that Mark recruited to speak with them from July 16-August 28, 2023. Each local teen spoke to a group of 10-20 Ukrainian students, with Zoom meetings happening two to three times a day, Mark said.

This year, Mark rekindled the project from January 13-March 23. And now, he's recruiting again for students interested in participating in his project this summer. He encourages those who are interested to download the Remind app and enter the code @spclua. Those who join via Remind will receive a message with details about participating. He invites anyone with questions to contact him at mbur...@yahoo.com.

A year after graduating from Mt. Diablo HS with a prestigious Gates Scholarship and heading to their dream school USC to study math with a goal of becoming a teacher, Solaris Umaa Almarz is still charting their own path and continuing to advocate for themself and other students who come from low-income, Latinx backgrounds and Title I schools. Known as "Tori" when they attended Mt. Diablo HS, Solaris (who goes by the pronouns "they" and them") changed their name at the beginning of their Freshman year. "I changed my name because I no longer want to be associated with my birth name as I am transgender," Solaris said. "I started going by Solaris/Sol when I started going to USC and told my parents officially at the end of the fall semester."

After speaking at their own graduation from Mt. Diablo HS in 2023, Solaris said they were very impressed when they attended this year's graduation and heard the Class of 2024 speakers, including their former classmate Josemit Rodriguez, who earned a Gates Scholarship this year and is headed to UC Berkeley. Solaris hopes to meet up with Josemit during the Gates Scholar Conference in Arizona at the end of June, where they will be a "squad leader" for the new Gates Scholars such as Josemit.

Like Josemit, Solaris encourages other MDUSD students to consider applying for the Gates Scholarship as well as other scholarship opportunities and to not wait until the last minute to submit college applications. Solaris applied to 19 colleges and universities, including "reach" schools, but narrowed down their list by researching and visiting campuses, then weighing their pros and cons based on their own personal preferences and goals. Solaris also highly recommends talking to high school counselors and college and career advisors to ask questions about the application process, scholarship options and ask them to read application essays and give feedback. In addition, Solaris recommends taking AP or dual enrollment classes to earn college credits while in high school, and exploring career pathway options to help figure out what interests you and what you're good at. "The more college credit you get now, the less actual college you have to do, so there's less debt," they said. Solaris is happy that the Gates Scholarship pays for tuition and room and board, but said other expenses must be reimbursed, which means they have to pay out of pocket for some things such as transportation. Time management is a skill Solaris is still working on, but says it really starts in high school. Once you get into college, nobody reminds you about assignment deadlines or test dates. "Now, you're free, but that means you have to start taking care of yourself more," they said, adding that this is especially true if you move away from home because you can't rely on your parents as much as you do when you live with them.

Although Solaris has not left the state, they said Southern California still feels far away and they enjoyed becoming more independent, while also having opportunities to come home during breaks, or to invite their parents to visit during Family Weekend. So far, Solaris said they are sticking to their goal of becoming a math teacher, but they are also open to exploring other options, which they said is like being open to trying new things in life, such as foods. "I'd rather do something I'm good at, but not amazing at, but that I love, than to do something I'm amazing at but I hate," Solaris said, adding that it's important to prioritize yourself. Solaris said they are good at math and want to be a teacher to help others who fear it, but they also sometimes struggle and have found that studying with other students and sharing ideas and challenges can help to overcome obstacles.

3a8082e126