Community Comes Together in Support of Pasadena Unified; Officials Herald a ‘Beautiful’ First Day of School Year

Pasadena Unified parents and students darted around Monday morning launching into the first day of the new school year, as community members jumped in to help District staff and faculty with making the day as smooth and as special as possible.

The Pasadena Police and Fire Departments officially joined in as did local professionals, School Board members, Pasadena Education Foundation officials, a group of black male mentors and at least one Pasadena City Council member.

Police Chief Phillip L. Sanchez said “the effort to maintain a safe learning environment for students is a top priority for the Pasadena Police Department.”

“Our safety efforts in the schools, including mentoring, providing instructional programs and assisting students in other ways, are equally important,” said Sanchez, who visited Cleveland Elementary School and McKinley School.

For Pasadena Deputy Fire Chief Eugene Campbell, Jr., the morning meant he got to greet “hundreds and hundreds of students” and noticed how interactive teachers were with the youngsters.

He also noted how good it was for fire department personnel to get to be on hand, too.

“It was a way for us to interact not only with the school district but also with the students and to make it an exciting day for them,” he said.

“The kids were laughing, excited, high fiving, and there was lots of ‘Good morning,’ ‘Welcome back,’ and ‘How are you doing?’ going on.”

He said kids had “beautiful new book bags and beautiful smiles” as grandparents, parents and relatives of the children looked on.

Pasadena Educational Foundation Executive Director Patrick Conyers saw the day as a good sign of a great year ahead.

“There’s something about the excitement of the start of the new school year and the promise of more learning, the kids making friends and the excitement of the projects that you know that they’ll be working on,” said the father of two students in the district, mentioning the mission project his fourth grade son will work on this year.

Conyers also talked about the excitement that was in full evidence at PUSD’s back-to-school event for administrators, faculty and staff held late last week.

“It really feels like everyone’s ready to go with a really good positive year and so it really does feel like there’s a sense of renewal and a fresh start that transcends the students’ experience,” he said.

“It’s really part of the whole educational experience in this community and I think it’s great that we’ve got the stability of [Superintendent] McDonald’s tenure as head of the PUSD continuing. I think that obviously bodes well for this community. The more stability we can have in leadership the better, and especially someone like Dr. McDonald who is so passionate and committed to the learning of every student in the district,” Conyers told Pasadena Now.

Conyers also expressed appreciation for the community’s support of PUSD.

“I feel like there has been a great movement in a positive direction over the past decade in this community, which is about the same amount of time that I’ve been a parent in this district, having first started back in 2003.

“The community is seeing the importance of their participation collectively in our public schools and what that means for the success of our public schools and how important our public schools are to the overall health of our community,” he said.

“It feels like I’m talking to business leaders, civic leaders, parents and, quite frankly, people who don’t have kids or whose kids are grown and gone, parents of kids who might have gone to private school, and there is a growing sense of shared responsibility for our public schools that I’m feeling throughout the community and it’s really an exciting and wonderful thing to be a part of so I do feel like there is a long-term transformation that we’re seeing the results of now people that are are helping pull our community together for the good of our public schools and the 17,000-plus students that are enrolled in PUSD.”

For school board member Scott Phelps, the day meant dropping off his kids at PUSD schools. At Madison Elementary, he got to tour the classrooms and feel the excitement.

“The first day events with teachers are great because they’re getting to know everybody, putting up their birthdays,” he said. “There were a lot of bright young teachers full of energy and they had worked hard on their classrooms to make them welcoming and friendly.”

Amidst the enthusiastic support for the children, local first responders enjoyed the excited children but kept an eye cocked for hazards.

“We had officers dispersed throughout several different campuses within the district to provide safety for the students,” said Lt. Vasken Gourdikian, “[And] safety for the motorists — not just parents dropping off students but also residents.”