CVUSD Superintendent sits down with KESQ to spell out her plans for bringing student success

Dr. Francis Esparza, the Coachella Valley Unified School District's new Superintendent, has some big plans as her leadership at the district begins in earnest.

News Channel 3's Jeff Stahl sat down with Dr. Esparza saying she's a teacher first, but also has union experience she's hoping to use to reach new deals with teachers and employees while making sure the district's 16,000 students become stronger learners in school and life.

Esparza says she's looking to right-size the organization and create new accountability initiatives to improve academic and graduation rates. She is already digging into the data to see where students can improve their scores.

In right-sizing the district, Esparza says a new strategic plan will ensure every department, even facilities maintenance, is fully staffed with people focused on supporting students and achievement. One already-identified plan involves some students walking to school to free up buses for more distant students and field trips.

Esparza said, "They're coming from very far distances sometimes and even a 5-10 minutes being late to school means a lot... There are a lot of benefits. Freeing up field trip time, freeing up the long distance time especially coming from Salton City, and making sure our bus drivers aren't always in a rush."

Last year, Coachella Valley Unified had a 78.6% percent graduation rate, down 9.6% from the previous year, according to the State's Education Dashboard.

Jeff asked her what her plan is to turn that number around.

"It's really creating an initiative and making sure leadership staff hold themselves accountable," Esparza said, adding they've learned that students in cohorts and academies focused on college and career readiness get better grades.

"We found in our analysis this year those students do better than most high school students," Esparza said, "So it's about creating those families, cohorts, and academies."

Esparza says they've also added literacy and math coaches to every elementary school and have been digging into the data on where students can improve.

"And then really looking at our curriculum and seeing where is it told to teach this and if it's not, how do we interject and add this to our curriculum," Esparza said.

Security has been a concern. The most recent district scare was in May. Esparza was present and on the scene when KESQ News Channel 3 brought you breaking news on a bomb scare that evacuated Coachella Valley High School.

Esparza now says she wants to hire a dedicated security and media communications specialist to oversee all emergency communications with the community, see the district use better systems, have more training opportunities, and have more meetings with administrators.

"And that they're not just having a meeting-- one meeting about it," Esparza said, "but consistently talking about it, meeting about it and are working to improve their plan."

On budgets, Esparza says the district is in a financial crunch and anticipates many opportunities to agree to disagree during upcoming contract talks.

"Will everybody be happy? I hope so, but probably not," Esparza said adding, "We have to make sure at the end of the day, our union contracts are wrapped around excellent work conditions for our employees and student achievement. That's key. Student achievement is key."

She's earned degrees from Pepperdine University, The University of Southern California, and Harvard University where she says she worked with top business leaders in learning how to uplift an organization.

Esparza says she's planning to bring Harvard to the district to help with strategic planning, case studies, and analysis.

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