June 3, 2022
To the Le Grand Union High School District Community,
I think we can all agree that living through the pandemic these past two years has pushed everyone to their limits.
But I know that, while facing that huge challenge, our district family also found energy and resilience we didn’t know we had.
So many of our students struggled with the isolation of virtual school and many suffer from depression as a result. Our new mental health care advocates and the rest of our classified staff were so busy. Our faculty worried every day about how to give students the learning they needed and might be missing. Our custodial staff worked doggedly for months on end to keep campus as safe as possible.
We could all hardly take an emotional break, much less a physical one, for fear we would miss something, someone would fall through the cracks or someone would get sick. We were all exhausted.
Still, 27 months after having to close campus in March 2020, I am relieved to share that we are all looking at a much clearer road. I am reaching out on the eve of the 112th Commencement of Le Grand High School because I believe we all need to remind ourselves that our future together is a bright one.
It’s bright because we did the hard work helping each other survive a difficult time. We can now put energy into helping each other thrive.
For example, did you know that the District just spent the last of the $4.2 million in bond money you gave us in 2014? Your tax dollars through Measure N paid for the remodeling of the gymnasium, and building the new football stadium and the newly completed bus barn. We built the animal shed on our ag campus using monies from both the Elmo Giampaoli Trust and Measure N.
We are already moving quickly to spend the $6 million you promised to the district in November 2020 by passing Measure S. With the help of a $3-million infrastructure grant we qualified for last year, we’re going to start construction on a new medical academy building and begin remodeling our ag mechanics shop this summer.
That construction signals our commitment to career technical education, a commitment that all of you, our community partners, insisted we make. Le Grand High will lead the effort to nurture qualified medical personnel for a county that desperately needs qualified medical personnel. We will help train professionals in all aspects of agri-business for a state that needs the best ag leaders it can find. We’re also currently developing a new master plan that will inform how we best use the rest of our Measure S money in the years ahead.
We have succeeded in other areas in 2021-22. After having to cancel so many seasons and events in 2020 and 2021, our volleyball, boys basketball, baseball and softball teams all advanced to the CIF section playoffs in 2022, while our football team won the 2021 CIF Sac-Joaquin Section Division 7 title.
I could go on and on about our students doing great things in FFA, academic decathlon, student government, our campus credit union. (We started an eSports gaming team this year!) But it amounts to the same thing: We are all so proud of our students. We watched so many of them come back to campus after the major disruption of the pandemic, worried for their mental and academic health, only to see them attack their education with a vengeance.
Our senior class alone will see 62 of 104 graduates wearing white gowns during the June 3 graduation ceremony. A white gown means they finished high school with a grade point average above 3.0. Forty-four of those 104 students will have diplomas featuring an additional seal of academic excellence from the State of California called the “Golden Seal Merit Diploma.”
Fifteen of those 104 can also brag that their diplomas include a Seal of Biliteracy after they passed rigorous tests of their second language abilities.
Also, 8 of 35 Granada High graduates were juniors when they transitioned to Granada this academic year. They could have worked more deliberately and reached the same destination after this year and a full senior year. They worked faster and better instead. They wanted to rush towards their futures in college and trade schools or work, so they did.
Finally, for the first time, an LGHS student will graduate with both a high school diploma and an associate of arts degree from a community college.
Do you know which high school is considered the best in Merced County by a national publication? Le Grand High. For the 6th year in a row, and for seven of the past eight, U.S. News & World Reports tapped LGHS with that honor. We thank our teachers and staff for helping our students and school achieve this significant recognition.
As your superintendent, on behalf of the entire district, I promise any of our students who are still struggling: We will never stop supporting you. We see you.
As we take stock of the 2021-22 academic year, I am proud of every single Bulldog and Granada Knight—students, faculty and staff—in the Le Grand Union High School District.
We are still here. We are still together. And those are the best signs of success any of us could ask for.
Congratulations to the Class of 2022!
Sincerely,
Donna Alley, Superintendent
Le Grand Union HS District