Incoming Fine Arts Academy principal was introduced to the board

ATASCADERO — The Atascadero Unified School District (AUSD) Board of Trustees met for its regularly scheduled meeting on Tuesday, May 21, at 7 p.m. 

At the end of his Superintendent Report, Tom Butler introduced the board to Tristan Shorba, the incoming principal of the Atascadero Fine Arts Academy. 

“Thanks for having me. My name’s Tristan Shorba, if we haven’t got a chance to meet yet,” he said. “I’ve been serving the Atascadero community for the last four years as assistant principal at the high school. I’m just so excited for the opportunity to join the Fine Arts family next year as the principal there.”

He went on to add that he’s been working on getting to know the rest of the Fine Arts team that’s already working at the school. He will start as principal in the 2024-25 school year.

Assistant Superintendant of Educational Services E.J. Rossi presented the board with an LCAP Update.

“We are near the end of our annual LCAP journey. Tonight, what I’ll be discussing is some of the changes in the LCAP process or in the LCAP template and how that has impacted the plan that you’ll see,” said Rossi. “The next steps in our process, after tonight, is an update on what will be in the plan at our next board meeting will be a final draft of that plan.”

The next version of the plan will combine Academic Achievement and College Career Readiness into one broad goal called Academic Achievement. The Culture and Climate Goal will remain the same. Both are the district’s broad goals and the most important ones within the LCAP. There is now also a Maintenance Goal which falls around professional development. The district will also have two Focus Goals, which are for schools that have equity multiplier funds. 

“There was a new legislation that said if you have schools where you have high mobility, not for students that are migrant and following work, but other types of high mobility, you would need additional resources, and those are identified as equity multiplier,” added Rossi. “So we had two schools that qualified. Carrisa Plains is a very small school. If you have one or two families move and you lose three students, you just lost 12 percent of your population. So, that is seen at the state level as a high level of mobility. Even though it might be one family that moved, but they said, ‘Hey, you have an equity multiplier, you get $50,000,’ and we said, ‘thank you.'”

Paloma Creek also qualified. Since it is an alternative education high school, students graduate out at a higher rate. They will receive $140,000.

The new Focus Goals are specific to Carrisa Plains and Paloma Creek.

The LCAP will be brought back in its next draft at the June 4 meeting before returning on June 11 in its final form. It will then be presented to the trustee board for final approval.  

The next regularly scheduled AUSD Board of Trustees meeting will be on Tuesday, June 4, at 7 p.m.