It has been a little more than two years since Barbara Dill-Varga was appointed superintendent of the San Juan Aromas Unified School District, and a town hall meeting on Oct. 17 gave her a chance to recap the challenges she has faced and the improvements made to Anzar High, San Juan and Aromas schools in that time.
“I am very conscious,” she said, “that a group of people founded the schools with a pretty captivating and exciting vision. We are on the edge of many things we promised to do and are delivering on, with more possibilities for all the schools.”
Dill-Varga said that the district has the advantage of being small enough to be flexible and easily adopt new ideas.
“We’re not like a big ocean liner, where you have to get all the gears going and change is very slow,” she said. “We’re nimble enough to react, change, and cut through layers of bureaucracy much more easily.”
Dill-Varga said Anzar is the top high school in the area by almost every metric, ranking higher than San Benito, Gilroy, Watsonville, Salinas, Seaside and Monterey High Schools while maintaining the feel and quality of a private school.
“We have wonderfully small class sizes at Anzar with an average 19:1 student-to-teacher ratio,” she said. “We wrap around our kids with a lot of adult connections so that they have an important adult on campus that they can turn to no matter what.”
Dill-Varga said that the $4.2 million provided to the district through Measure M, passed in 2020, has been spent primarily on maintenance, repair, safety, and campus upgrades. The most critical problem that was addressed related to the first crisis she faced when accepting the position: inadequate heat mitigation in the schools during a late summer/early fall heat wave.
Since then, heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems have been installed at Anzar High and Aromas schools, partly using money from the general fund. Since San Juan School is set to be rebuilt, ceiling fans alone were installed as an intermediate solution.
Measure M funds also went to demolishing old portables at San Juan School, repainting all three school sites, improving Anzar’s sports facilities and repairing the roof of the Anzar gym. All three campuses were re-keyed for security, and cameras were added or upgraded.
Dill Varga said that, following the decision to rebuild the San Juan School due to seismic issues, the $30.5 million the district received through 2020’s Measure O had been earmarked for that project. So far, $3 million has been spent on environmental studies, planning and architectural designs.
The project will start next spring by demolishing old classrooms and constructing new modular classrooms. Afterward, the administration building, the multiuse room, and the library will be demolished and replaced. The project is set for completion in Fall 2027.
Funds have also been used to modernize classrooms on all three campuses. Thirteen have been completed so far, and another four are scheduled for renovation over the winter break. Staffing has also been increased with the hiring of a Spanish translator, an art teacher, an English language learner teacher, a social worker, two behavorists and an industrial arts teacher. An improved bus system allowed students to go on 100 field trips during the 2023-24 school year.
Dill-Varga said that one reason the district proposed the new $44 million bond measure, Measure D, is to help with the rebuilding and various school improvement projects that are seeing a shortfall of funds due to inflation and unexpected costs. Many of the projects were intended to be funded by previous bond measures preempted by the need to rebuild San Juan School completely.
“We conducted a survey,” she said. “And we are targeting things people said they cared about.”
She listed those concerns as upgrading fire and alarm systems, repairing leaky pipes, expanding workshops and providing improved student counseling and mental health services.
The town hall also included a review by educational designer David Jakes of conceptual drawings for what is being described as a “ study hub ” that would be incorporated into the existing library and administrative building.
Should the bond measure pass in this election, Dill-Varga said, the district would hold more town hall meetings and work groups to help set priorities for improving facilities and curriculum across all three schools.
Immediate priorities would include repairing flooring, increasing student counseling and mental health facilities, updating the computer network, creating greater accessibility, and updating fire alarms, among other projects.
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