Superintendent's Update

In just a few days, we will see our schools come to life filled with students, staff and community members as we welcome the 2023-24 school year. On behalf of the Centennial School District Board of Directors it is my sincere pleasure to welcome all our students and their families to Centennial School District. Remember, the first day of school is Wednesday, Sept. 6 for students and staff at Centennial and with a staggered start for our youngest learners in kindergarten for the rest of that week. For reference, our 2023-24 school year calendars can be found at the following link.

As an employee and alumni of Centennial, back-to-school season is always nostalgic to me. This season brings back great memories of how I would spend the last few summer moments with friends riding bikes or playing basketball and how I would get ready for school by shopping for new outfits with my mom then laying out my new school clothes on my bed the night before my first day of school in anxious anticipation. For me, my late August birthday has always served as a transition between summer and the school year ahead. These memories help me connect with the excitement you are likely feeling as school days soon begin bringing with them opportunities for Centennial students to learn and connect with friends both old and new.

Summer at Centennial School District was quite busy for our District. Throughout the summer months:

• Summer learning took place across the district bringing together hundreds of students in grades K – 12, providing them with rich academic and fun learning opportunities.

• Capital construction projects were in full swing with Bond, non-Bond, and ESSER work throughout the District. I want to take this opportunity to highlight a few of them:

• Stadium Complex Improvements - Phase I (non-bond funded except track resurfacing)

• All-weather turf field

• Seismic and safety improvements to the stadium

• Parking and sidewalk improvements

• Upgrades to the public restrooms and team rooms

• Bus parking relocation

• Track resurfacing (bond funded)

• CHS Cafeteria Improvements

• Elementary Gyms (Meadows, Parklane, Patrick Lynch and Powell Butte Elementary)

Yesterday, Centennial Middle School and Oliver Middle School welcomed sixth grade students to their campuses for their school orientation. Meanwhile, Centennial High School welcomed all incoming 9th graders to the school during their school orientation. Each orientation was a success providing useful school information to the hundreds of students in attendance and more importantly how things will look different from their elementary and middle school experience.

Summer 2023 also marked the end of our 5-year strategic plan, Destination 2023. With the sunsetting of Destination 2023, we simultaneously undertook a comprehensive strategic planning process in the 2022-2023 school year. The primary aim of our strategic plan is to align all stakeholders in a shared vision, common goals, and unified direction for our District’s educational efforts for the next four years.

Community-wide engagement has been vital to the Strategic Planning process. Therefore, we designed the process in ways that embraced the diverse voices and perspectives of our students, parents, staff, and community members, capturing their vision, hopes, and dreams for students in Centennial. This included multiple engagement sessions with our district community, inviting their feedback and uniting around our values, identifying our priorities, and collaborating on the best strategies to achieve the outcomes we desire for our students.

As an accompanying part of the process, the District commissioned a comprehensive Equity Audit at the District, department, and school level to assess the extent of equitable access, opportunity, and outcomes for our students to remove barriers and plan for improvement. The audit involved surveying students, families, and staff, reviewing data, and two-day school site visits conducted by the National Center for Urban School Transformation at San Diego State University that included observation of student learning and staff work sessions, as well as facilitation of student, parent, and family focus groups. The tremendous input that each of these groups provided played a pivotal role in the development of our plan. This defined Centennial’s long-term priorities, goals, and objectives in developing Roadmap ‘27 as we aligned to advance the performance and academic success of our students’ experience in Centennial schools.

As you can see, there’s much happening in our district, and we continue to keep our community updated about our District’s progress in our Superintendent’s Update Newsletter, website, and social media. We look forward to our continued engagement with you!

Finally, I want to express my gratitude to our staff, our partnerships with families, and the commitment of our community that makes Centennial School District a great place for our students to learn and grow. I invite you to join us in providing additional possibilities for our students and supporting them in their academic success.

Let’s continue to work together and foster a welcoming school community that serves all our students.

Sincerely,

Superintendent James Owens

We heard feedback focused on the effort to navigate multiple communication channels for your student(s). We are pleased to inform you we have addressed this communication concern thanks to our new Centennial School District Communications vendor partnership with ParentSquare and their website platform SmartSites - a streamlined parent communication platform.

ParentSquare will replace BlackBoard Communications, School Messenger, Class Dojo and many other channels through which you may previously have received information. The platform is also set to replace Remind which is scheduled to sunset in November 2023.

ParentSquare offers greater parent/guardian involvement, more robust engagement features, an app for mobile users, two-way language translation, and more! Best of all, the platform syncs with our current Student Information System (SIS) and is preloaded with student contact information.

1. Visit www.parentsquare.com/signin or install the ParentSquare mobile app and follow the prompts to sign up.

2. Use Google single sign-on, your email, or your phone number to set up your account. Your email/phone number must match contact details in the school's database for this to work.

3. If your contact details aren't recognized, contact your school’s office to get them added. After they update your information in their database, the new contact details will appear in ParentSquare after the next daily sync, and you will be able to create an account.

Note: After you are added to ParentSquare, you will receive school communications even if you have not registered your account. However, you need to register your account to participate in two-way communications and access confidential student-specific documents or forms.

Use the camera on your phone to scan these QR codes - it takes you directly to the iOS App (left) or Google Play store (right).

If you would like to learn more about ParentSquare and make use of its full functionality, you may find these videos helpful. These include instructions on choosing how often you receive messages, how you can interact with communications, and many other tools.

Parent Training Video: (15 min)

Self-directed Training Modules:

Parent 101 (approx. 20 min.)

Padre 101 (approx. 20 min.)

Pre-recorded Parent Trainings: link here

Parent Overview

Overview for Parents: English & Spanish

ParentSquare App - English & Spanish

Parents, guardians, and community members: Learn about what makes Centennial School District a great place to work! We offer rewarding career opportunities such as a Teacher, Education Assistant, School Secretary, School Bus Driver, Dining Services Technician, and more!

Visit our careers page to see our position openings: www.csd28j.org/careers!