New school representative Melisilei Tonga introduced

ATASCADERO — The Atascadero Unified School District (AUSD) Board of Trustees met for its regularly scheduled meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 3, at 7 p.m. 

The San Luis Obispo County Office of Education Superintendent Dr. James Brescia addressed the trustee board with his annual update. He stated that new teacher hires are up from last year by 20. San Luis Obispo County is also the highest in the state where dual enrollment is concerned.

“CTE and dual enrollment by percentage, we are the highest county in the state, and that has continued for three years now. I really have a few of you to thank for that. When we had the old ROP group formed here, and then I believe it was my first year in office, called me in and said, ‘Would you take this over and transform it,'” Brescia told the board. “Well, it’s grown, and I’m really pleased to say we don’t have the largest number, but we have the percentage of students taking dual enrollment in high school in the state, and that’s been three years running.”

The trustee board was also introduced to its 24/25 school representative, Melisilei Tonga. 

“It’s really nice to be here and to have this position,” Tonga said of being the 24/25 ASB (Associated Student Body) Publicist this year.

Both the minutes from the Aug. 20 meeting and the Consent Agenda passed unanimously. 

Assistant Superintendant of Business Services Jackie Martin presented the board with the 23/24 Unaudited Actuals and 24/25 Revised Budget. The auditors will be arriving at the district on Monday, Sept. 9, to start their audit.

“I’m just going to focus on how we did compared to what we thought we were going to do,” stated Martin. “Our increase in unrestricted carryover, we ended up better by $838,731. We ended up expending over $68 million, so this, I’m going to argue, is pretty close, even though it seems like a lot of money. It’s really close when you’re looking at the millions of dollars that we budget.”

Martin said that AUSD had a positive year. She added that the district will not be doing any budget revisions until the first interim, which the board will see in December of this year.

The item, including the actuals and the revised budget, passed unanimously.

The next regularly scheduled AUSD Board of Trustees meeting will be on Tuesday, Sept. 17, at 7 p.m.