An Interview With Rialto Unified Superintendent Dr. Avila

About a year ago we had the opportunity to sit down with the new leader of Rialto Unified School District and in our first interview Dr. Avila laid out a plan that sounded great. Well to see where this plan led us we decided to watch the plan move through the process and look for the results. Dr Avila took the initiative to make sure we had time to revisit the previous interview and go over where we were a year later.

As it looks things are progressing pretty well, there were a few bumps in the road but all in all I’m not sure another School District in the area can boast a leader with a clear vision that is producing results and allows to explore other avenues along the journey to the plans end. One of my favorite parts of the long range strategic plan is the fact that it allows for deviation from the plan to explore side avenues that might offer benefits.

Question 1. You eased yourself into the district slowly implementing your plan. How has that gone?

Question 2. Last interview you spoke about your Random Act of Kindness imitative how has that gone and what have you done in your 2nd year as Superintendent of RUSD?

Question 3. In our 1st interview you highlighted awards the schools were getting for excellence. What awards have schools or administrators obtained in the last year or so that we haven’t covered?

Question 4. Last interview you spoke about up coming literacy programs a lot has happened since our last interview in this area. How has the Literacy launch gone and what programs are we working with?

Question 5. Last time we spoke about streamlining STEAM programs k-12 how has that gone.

Question 6. How can we offer more classes that prepare kids for skilled labor jobs? Currently when staff retire from these classes the classes are lost. Is there a plan to address this?

Question 7. Last interview you spoke about your desire to have school principles reach out to the community to work on bringing in a more diverse learning environment into the schools. Have you seen movement in this area?

Question 8. The district not only went through its own strategic planning and each site had their own stab at creating plans how has that gone and what was learned from this process?

Question 9. We spoke about the issues with communication at RUSD. How has the communication issue progressed as you have come on board? What worked? What sounded good but didn’t produce the required results?

Question 10. Rialto has had a long history of issues within the Special Education Program. What are your plans to begin making strides in this program to a better place?