Superintendent's Message
from Dr. George Mannon
November 01, 2008
October was a busy month for everyone. We held our Area Achievement nights, where parents and community members visited our schools and heard about individual school successes from our principals. I encourage more parents to take advantage of these types of events so they can hear directly from our principals and take the opportunity to ask questions. Also, during October, the Torrance Council of PTAs had their membership drive. We are very fortunate to have such an involved PTA with nearly 22,000 members. The Torrance Council of PTAs, including all of our PTA presidents are a strong advocacy group that lobbies on behalf of our students, and is an influential voice in Sacramento. Earlier in the year, PTA and student representatives delivered thousands of letters to our legislators and spoke out against the devastating budget cuts proposed by the Governor. Though we still had to make difficult reductions, their actions did influence lawmakers to reinstate some funding to school districts.
On the heels of passing a monumentally late State Budget, the Governor is now projecting that the State will still be $3 to $5 billion short in mid-year revenues. Once again, education will be the first on the chopping block. Budget reductions are hard enough to make prior to a school year beginning, making mid-year cuts is a tremendously difficult task. In the coming weeks, we will be meeting with our area legislators and making sure they understand the gravity of making reductions in the middle of the school year. It is important for community members to contact their State representatives and voice their concerns regarding reduced education funding. We cannot fix our State’s budgetary problems on the backs of our children.
Torrance Unified School District is a collection of award-winning schools, with students who epitomize excellence, in academics, sports, and social causes. Our students are National Merit winners, get perfect scores on standardized tests, and go on to prestigious universities. They accomplish these feats because of the highly qualified and committed certificated and classified employees that work everyday, including many nights and weekends, to make sure our students receive not just a good education, but the very best education.
