Denair Elementary Charter Academy offers a vibrant, engaging and safe educational environment for its nearly 600 students. It also features a widely respected Dual Language Immersion, which has been a magnet for parents who want their children to learn English as well as Spanish.

The campus includes students from transitional kindergarten through fifth grade and is overseen by first-year Principal Marilu Canu, an experienced educator whose goal is to create a supportive and consistent academic environment.

“We want to make sure everything matches, that everything is connected,” Cano explained during a presentation about DECA at Thursday night’s monthly meeting of the Denair Unified School District Board of Trustees.

DECA offers many complimentary programs and activities intended to build not just academic skills among students, but social/emotional well-being, a college-going atmosphere and an appreciation for other cultures.

All students – not just those in the DLI program – are regular participants in a language lab, where they are taught Spanish. The Academic Adventures program exposes them to STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) concepts as well as the arts. There are intervention programs in place to quickly identify struggling students and get them extra help in specific areas. Each Wednesday, students wear T-shirts representing their favorite college in an effort to build interest at a young age.

Twice a month, campus-wide assemblies are held featuring presentations and performances by students. In addition, 25 youngsters from all grade levels are honored as VIPs for their good behavior and rewarded with Coyote Cash, which can be spent in the Coyote Cave on fun stuff.

One of the fun daily activities is Coyote Chit Chat, a time for teachers in each classroom to interact with students using a fun toy known as Bug the Butterfly. Five students ranging from third to fifth grade demonstrated the drill Thursday night with DECA learning director Laura Cardenas. 

As each held Bug, Cardenas asked them what qualities they admired most in Bug. A third-grade girl named Harper replied that “he never gives up, he has courage and he always tries his hardest.”

Cardenas also asked the children to rate their day on a scale of 1-5 (5 being the best), an exercise teachers use to find out information that may influence a child’s mood and behavior on a given day, she said. The youngsters also were asked which super power they most wanted to have; they responded with flying, having laser eyes, being fast or being able to teleport themselves to a different place.

Trustees, too, had a chance to hold Bug and respond to the questions. To a member, they all said their days got better thanks to the students’ appearance at the meeting.

“It went from a 4 to a 5 because of this,” Trustee Crystal Sousa told the students. “Thank you.”

A second presentation Thursday night dealt with the district’s efforts to provide a full range of academic and emotional counseling as well as mental health services to students. Mental health clinician Lina Villegas, six other staff members and a student shared stories of how the district’s programs have made an important impact.

The foundation of the district’s efforts is what is known as the Multi-Tier System of Support (MTSS), which provides consistency across all grade levels and ages.

The first level, Tier 1, deals with students’ social skills and behaviors like disengagement from staff, peers or their studies. Responses include involving parents to help their children, encouraging students to become more involved in extracurricular activities and providing additional academic support.

Tier 2 includes concerns about things like vaping, healthy relationships, stress and anxiety, family dynamics and issues of self-esteem. Students could be referred for individual or group counseling, and substance abuse intervention.

The final tier is the most serious and includes students with depression, who have been sexually abused, are suffering from grief and loss, or may have expressed ideas about self-harm or thoughts of suicide. Responses included counseling (including parents) and even referrals to outside agencies.

Board members were impressed by the breadth of mental health services offered in the district.

“I have never seen the whole Denair mental health team together,” said Trustee Kathi Dunham-Filson. “This really provides a perspective on the amount of resources that are available. We serve our kids the best through a team approach.”

Denair offers more comprehensive services than most districts thanks to a long-standing partnership with Legacy Health Endowment. The district began working with LHE to address the mental health needs of students prior to the pandemic and LHE continued to underwrite much of the cost of staff training and support, services for students, and parent education.

The district also partners with La Familia Central Valley, which provides some clinical services for students and staff. The district has also been awarded a CalHope grant and a Mental Health Student Services Act grant.

“We are using these grants to support social emotional learning and mental wellness through staff training opportunities, purchases of instructional materials and resources, and connections with other organizations that will help us continue the work,” Superintendent Terry Metzger said.

In other action Thursday night, trustees:

• Celebrated outgoing board member Regina Gomes with a plaque, flowers and tributes. “In every decision you made, the kids were always No. 1,” Metzger said to Gomes, who served for five years. Taking her place was new Trustee Billy Myers, who won election in November and was sworn in Thursday.
• Elected Carmen Wilson as board president for the next year. Sousa will serve as clerk. Dunham-Filson was elected to represent Denair on the Stanislaus County Committee on School District Reorganization and also nominated to represent the region as a California Association of School Boards delegate.
• Approved the first interim budget report, which includes actual figures from July 1 through October 31 as well as projections of financial activity through June 30. Daisy Swearingen, the district’s director of fiscal services, said district enrollment sits at 1,300 students, down 11 from expectations. While DECA and Denair Middle School have more students than projected, Denair High is down 11 and Denair Charter Academy has 47 fewer than budgeted. The good news, Swearingen told trustees , is that because DCA’s teaching staff is paid hourly, the district hires fewer teachers and spends less on salaries when enrollment temporarily declines.

Billy Myers, soon to become the newest member of the Denair Unified School District Board of Trustees, has lived in the community his entire life. He graduated in 2010 from Denair High School, where during his junior and senior years he was the student representative on the board at a perilous financial time for the district.

“It was a rough time,” Myers recalled. “I was in board meetings until 1 or 2 in the morning.”

Fortunately, the district survived that difficult period and now finds itself in an era of growing enrollment, a balanced budget with a healthy reserve, and far more stability among staff and administrators.

“I see a lot of positivity. I want to keep that ball rolling,” said Myers, who won election to the board in November and will be formally sworn in at the Dec. 8 meeting. He replaces Regina Gomes, who did not seek re-election after one term.

Myers’ connections to Denair run deep. His parents and grandmother still live in the community. He is a past president of and remains active in the Denair Lions Club. He served on the Municipal Advisory Council for eight years. His younger brother is a student at Denair Charter Academy.

Joining the school board seemed like a natural way to continue his community service.

“The good thing about coming in at this period is that I don’t see anything that’s an immediate issue that needs to change,” Myers said. “There are a lot of good things happening in the district.”

Along with his family, Myers owns Myers Trucking Company in Turlock. He also is the Chief Financial Officer of the California Tow Truck Association. He has a degree in accounting from CSU Stanislaus. That business background gives Myers an appreciation of and an ability to analyze the district’s budget, but he said he doesn’t have any specific goals as he begins his board tenure.

“The biggest think is knowing I serve the people of Denair and their interests,” he said. “I want to keep the lines of communications open. When there is contention, it’s often because people aren’t in the loop and don’t know what’s going on.”

Thursday’s Denair Unified meeting begins at 7 p.m. in the board leadership room.

The 287 students at Denair High School are one busy group of teenagers. In addition to a full range of academically challenging classes, there are sports teams, clubs, music and speech, leadership and other extracurricular activities to fill up their days. Wherever their passions may lie, there is probably an organization and opportunity to nurture it.

The breadth of the offerings at the high school was on full display during a presentation Thursday night by Interim Principal Breanne Aguiar, one of her instructors and three of their students at the monthly meeting of the Denair Unified School District Board of Trustees.

The group began by showing a student-produced video entitled “A Day in the Life of a Coyote,” which portrayed a typical day on the campus. Set to music, it journeyed from the main office through various classroom settings, student assemblies and other popular events, and included testimonials from students about what they like best about the school.

None of the fun stuff, however, is meant to detract from Denair High’s primary mission, which as Aguiar reminded trustees is to prepare students “to achieve college, career and vocational success.”

That only happens with a quality staff and an education structure that teaches not only critical thinking skills and important academic concepts, but also exposes students to a range of possibilities beyond high school. Key in that effort, Aguiar explained, are the six Career Technical Education pathways (ag mechanics, ag science, animal science, criminal science investigation, floral design and patient care) that allow students to take classes that could prepare them for good-paying jobs in the future. In addition, Denair students have access to Career Inspiration Center in Empire run by the Stanislaus County Office of Education.

Aguiar also touched on other key academic components on campus, including targeted support for students who need additional help in math or English, credit recovery programs to help students catch up and a special education program that features Project Life (where special ed students learn key skills through work at six local employers). In addition, there are social and emotional support systems that can address students’ mental health needs.

Students Paige Wilson, Wilder Diaz and Rylee Gonsalves told trustees about the importance of the many extracurricular activities on campus, which includes nearly 20 clubs as well as sports for boys and girls.

Teacher Darrin Allen described the impact of the Committed Coyote program he advises. It includes 30 students from all grades who agree to model positive behaviors and leadership. 

Aguiar also talked about continuing to build a culture of inclusion, diversity and respect at Denair High. Importantly, that includes expanding opportunities for high school students to mentor their younger peers next door at Denair Middle School.

The high school presentation was the first in a series of deeper dives into campus life that will come before trustees. In future months, board members will hear from leaders and students at the middle school, Denair Elementary Charter Academy and Denair Charter Academy.

In other action Thursday night, trustees:

• Voted 5-0 to approve the School Plans for Student Achievement at the high school and middle school. They lay out specific goals and objectives and ways to achieve them at each campus.
• Heard a short report from Superintendent Terry Metzger on the VIA heart health screenings held Nov. 6 at the middle school. The Bay Area group saw 128 people ages 12 to 25 and identified eight cases that required follow-up, including one that may have been life-threatening, Metzger said. The screenings took about 40 minutes. They were paid for by the EMC Health Foundation of Turlock.

It wasn’t the season Anthony Armas and his Denair High football players were hoping for when practice began many months ago in the heat of the summer, but it ended on a high note Friday night when the Coyotes played their best game of the year to knock off Waterford 52-39.

The victory allowed the team – and especially its eight seniors – to enjoy a hard-earned road victory over a regional rival while snapping a seven-game losing streak. The Coyotes finished the year 2-8 overall and 1-6 in the Southern League.

After all the hard work and sweat and bruises that are part playing football, winning the final game will be an enjoyable memory to savor.

“I joked with one of the kids after the game that I didn’t think we had scored 50 points in all our Southern League games combined,” said Armas. “I looked it up and it was exactly 52. It was a great way to end the season.”

What was the difference Friday?

“We didn’t make mistakes,” said Armas. “We only had one turnover. We executed our offense. The defense made some big plays and created some timely turnovers.

“I don’t think we ever felt during the game we were going to lose.  I’m not sure our kids felt that most of the year. We were feeling pretty good after the game. I think we needed that.”

As usual, Denair endured low numbers this fall. The Coyotes suited up just 16 players Friday night and that dropped by one with senior captain and team leader Anthony Pineda, who plays outside linebacker OLB and RB, suffered a broken collarbone.

“He’s just one of those kids who works his tail off,” praised Armas. “He’s been a big part of our program for four years.”

It was Pineda and the seven other seniors on the team that Armas was thinking of when he addressed the team after the game Friday night.

“I thanked our seniors for everything they did for us. They laid a foundation,” he said. “The seniors, we didn’t have a lot of them, but they went through a lot with the pandemic. This was the first normal year they had. The record’s not what they wanted or we wanted, but given what they went through, we did well.”

Even as players checked in their equipment on Monday, Armas already was optimistically looking ahead to next year.

“Our JV team was 5-5 and we had five sophomores already on the varsity,” he said. “Our numbers might be a little low, but I think we’ll be pretty good pretty soon. I think our program is on the upswing.”

Sunday, Nov. 6 — Denair Middle School

While few parents think of heart issues as something that could affect children, an estimated 1 in 300 school-aged children suffer from an undiagnosed heart defect, many of which could lead to cardiac arrest and death.  The risk of complications can be higher for students who are active in sports, gymnastics, dance or other strenuous activities, and the first warning sign is often death. 

To help find these hidden abnormalities, the Via Heart Project will conduct a free heart screening open to children 12 and older as well as adults up to age 25.  It will take place Sunday, Nov. 6 from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. at Denair Middle School.

The event is sponsored by EMC Health Foundation, the Denair Unified School District and Gable Heart Beats.

The screening is conducted by volunteer Bay Area health professionals, including cardiologists, sonographers and nurses. It includes a health history review, EKG test and a focused echocardiogram. The entire process takes about 60-90 minutes and is non-invasive — there are no needles or X-ray exposure. Each teen’s confidentiality, privacy and individual modesty is respected throughout. Participants also will have the option to learn cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and automated external defibrillator (AED) skills during the screening.

This screening is important because some 7,000 to 10,000 school-aged children nationwide die each year from sudden cardiac arrest, often from conditions that could have been detected in advance. Yet neither EKG nor cardiac ultrasound is included in the typical annual physical.  Via Heart Project’s screening is supplementary to — but does not replace — a child’s annual exam or school sports physical. 

“Any parent who has lost a child to a preventable health issue knows the pain of wondering what could have been done before it was too late. If we can prevent even one family from going through that pain, then what we have done is worth it,” said Liz Lazar-Johnson, Executive Director of Via Heart Project.

To participate, go to http://viaheartproject.org/screenings to register. Registration is open until noon on Friday, Nov. 4, 2022, and is limited to 500 people.

Contact:

Liz Lazar-Johnson, Executive Director

Via Heart Project

liz@viaheartproject.org

(650) 861-2376

FREE YOUTH SCREENING

Sunday, Nov. 6, 2022

9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.

Location:

Denair Middle School
3701 Lester Road, Denair, CA 95316