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Honoring Dr. Alex Cherniss, Superintendent
For tremendous accomplishments and for Putting Our Kids First
Opinion
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Since Dr. Cherniss was hired as Superintendent of Placentia Yorba Linda Unified School District (PYLUSD) in May 2023, he has been committed to Putting Kids First, to giving parents a voice, and to making our district better. Below are some of his tremendous accomplishments in less than a year's time.
It is also important to acknowledge our many dedicated teachers, parents and volunteers who work together to empower our children.
1. Facilitated the opening of new preschools (3) in 2023-24 and (3) in 2024-25.
2. Hired a highly skilled and diverse executive team and principals.
3. Reduced declining enrollment projections. To date, new enrollment has doubled in Transitional Kindergarten and Kindergarten vs. last year at this time.
4. Engaged the entire community through the first State of District Event, superintendent round tables, visits to city council meetings, bi-weekly Monday Messages, and visits to and with other local organizations.
5. Uncovered ineffective / illegal employee compensation practices.
6. Negotiated with the City of Anaheim to agree to add a School Resource Officer to Esperanza High School.
7. Established the Orange County School of Computer Science (OCSCS), a computer science charter school for grades 6-8.
8. Highlighted / Identified $43MM in district funding sources previously never presented to the board or public at a meeting or study session, including capital facility funds, developer fees, school cafeteria funding, etc.
9. Created a special education employment program through the Venture Academy and hired three students thus far.
10. Created a new special education diploma bound program (PYLUSD Advance) and graduated 3 students thus far.
11. Developed a free after school intervention program K-12 to focus on bringing thousands of students up to grade level.
12. Developed a Fentanyl Awareness program for all high school students beginning in October 2023.
13. Established an after-school middle school sports programs for thousands of students.
14. Established a free after-school tutoring program in mathematics for thousands of students by paying over one million dollars to highly skilled and amazing teachers to do this work.
15. Established the Universal Sports Institute (USI) as a pathway for independent study students and a training and recovery facility for high school students within our district who otherwise could not afford this sort of athletic support.
16. Passed the district’s first multi- year contract with our employees in many years, thus giving them raises and bonuses, while providing a long term fiscal budget for our board.
17. Increased compensation for special education aides by over 15% to make us more competitive in hiring and to honor their work.
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