The last of seven town hall meetings that were held at the four comprehensive high schools, as well as three K-8 schools, was held at Stagg Oct. 28. The meeting focused on several issues that have been hot topics within the Stockton Unified School District.

Some key information given out were statistics on the district. The district itself contains approximately 37,000 students, comprised of 43 K-8 schools and 11 high schools. Of those students 58.5 percent are Hispanic, 11.4 percent are African American, percent are English learners, and 86 percent come from a low socioeconomic background.

Exit Exam results were also important to the meeting. “In English we are close to 70 percent of sophomores passing, and 60 percent in Math,” said Steve Smith, SUSD Area 7 board member.“A goal we have is for all sophomores to pass the Exit Exam on the first try by 2014,” said Julie Penn, Assistant Superintendent.

The meeting also brought light to the renovations to schools in the area, including modernization of the Walton Center. The funds for these renovations came from outside normal operations, and were paid for by voter bonds. Other renovations included the new Pacific Law Academy, the completed Pulliam modernization and the Stagg athletic and softball fields.      

Safety was perhaps the biggest issue of the night. With the incident of a shooting near Edison High School two weeks before the first of the town hall meetings began, Safety on campus became a concern for many parents and members of the community. “Last year there were 279 requests for expulsion hearings in the district, and out of that number 191 were expelled,” said Penn. This year there has also been a sizable drop in requests for expulsions, with last year at the end of first quarter 76 requests filed, and this year only 25 requests filed so far.

Truancy was one of the many things causing safety problems in past years, and truant sweeps last year helped drop the truancy rate by 28 percent.  And for a three month period, no crimes were committed at any Stockton Unified high school. Another contributor was bullying, and several training materials have been sent out to schools that they can utilize in teaching students how to interact nonviolently.

Toward the end of the questions and answers period, a question was asked that also  brought to light the challenges of the department. “How do we compare to other school districts like Lodi, Lincoln, Linden, etc.?,” asked one of the attendees.

“It’s a challenge,” Smith said. “Their test scores continue to improve, our test scores continue to improve, but when you compare, you can’t just look at the base numbers.” They went on to discuss the various programs that are both state and nationally recognized and can be found in Stockton Unified.      

By the end of the meeting, a common purpose had been established for the series of town hall meetings. “We’ve been doing (these town hall meetings) because it’s a district wide commitment to get the information out to the community,” Penn said.