Denair High School will host an orientation session on Wed., Feb. 9 for all eighth-graders who will be freshmen in the next school year. The students as well as their parents are strongly encouraged to attend the meeting, which will be held from 5 to 7 p.m. in the Denair High gym.

School officials will explain the various academic and vocational programs and electives that are offered at Denair High. They will go over graduation requirements for the Class of 2026 as well as what is needed to prepare students to apply for four-year state colleges and universities. 

Booths representing Denair High sports teams as well as the many clubs and other organizations on campus will be set up and staffed by people with information.

Incoming freshmen – with their parents’ input and guidance – also will be able to start the process of signing up for their classes in the next school year.

There also will be representatives from various family resources agencies who can offer advice and referrals to health care and other providers.

Dinner will be served to students and their parents. The Coyote Cup of Kindness cart – operated by the special education students at DHS – will be serving drinks.

“Our goals for the evening are to not only inform, but excite our incoming freshman about all that high school has available for them,” explained Brittany Heinsaar, Denair High’s academic counselor. “Transitioning from middle school to high school is a big step, and especially for first-time students, a night like orientation can be very helpful. We want to create a space where families feel welcome, can get answers to any of their questions and to help make the transition easier for them as they embark on this next step.

“We very much hope to have both parents and students present. This is something for parents to enjoy in conjunction with their students.”

Orientation is scheduled for next week for the parents of the second class of Dual Language Immersion students planning to attend Denair Middle School for 2022-23 school year.

The meeting will take place at 5:30 p.m. on Wed., Feb. 2 in the Coyote Center on the DMS campus. Parents of fifth-grade students currently in the DLI program at Denair Elementary Charter Academy are strongly encouraged to attend.

Middle school Principal Gabriela Sarmiento expects most, if not all, of this year’s 25 DLI fifth-graders to continue with the program next year. She said making connections early on with their families is important. Sarmiento and the two Spanish-language teachers at DMS will be at the orientation to explain the program, lay out expectations for students and answer any questions parents may have.

The Denair Unified School District began the Dual Language program – which teaches students in English and Spanish – eight years ago at the kindergarten level. The first group of students now are sixth-graders at DMS.

The middle school Dual Language students have two classes in Spanish – history and Spanish language arts – and the rest in English. Those include English language arts, math, science, physical education and an elective.

The Spanish to English ratio is 90% to 10% as students begin kindergarten, then gradually tapers to 50-50 by fourth grade. The goal, district officials say, is to allow students to become truly bilingual by the time they graduate from high school.

The DLI curriculum mirrors that learned by English-only students at all grade levels. Sarmiento – whose son is in the sixth-grade DLI class on her campus – said the first year of the program at the middle school has gone very well.

“I think the curriculum we have, which is consistent with our English programs, has been working out great,” she said. No changes are planned next year, she added.

Sarmiento said the DLI students “are held to a high standard” and she complimented this year’s sixth-graders on their attitude. “They’re a tight group,” she said. “They all get along so well.”

Anyone with any questions should contact the DMS office at (209) 632-9911.

Sarmiento said a separate orientation meeting for parents of non-DLI students is scheduled for March 14 at 5:30 p.m. in the Coyote Center.

A familiar face who has excelled in her current role soon will be taking on important new duties for the Denair Unified School District.

Daisy Swearingen — who has served as the executive assistant to the superintendent, chief business  official and Board of Trustees the past six years – has been promoted to director of fiscal services, Superintendent Terry Metzger announced Thursday. The move becomes official Feb. 1.

“When I joined the district in 2018, I very quickly saw that Daisy was a valuable asset,” Metzger said. “She is that rare combination of someone who is detail-oriented, yet can keep her eye on the big picture. I am thrilled to have her shift into this new position and am confident that she will do a fantastic job.”

Swearingen has a degree in human resources management and previously worked in operations, finance and management positions for a large supermarket company as well as the City of Manteca before coming to Denair in 2016. In her new role, she will replace Linda Covello, the district’s chief business official. Covello announced last month she will be leaving the district at the end of June to move out of state. The two women will work side by side over the next five months to get Swearingen up to speed on her new responsibilities, an opportunity Swearingen believes will be invaluable.

“I’ll really get to dig into the more technical pieces of the job,” Swearingen said.

Covello said the first order of business will be compiling what is known as the second interim budget report, which is due to the state by March 15 each year. The report quantifies where the district is in relation to its $19 million budget for 2021-22 – how much money has been spent from July through January as well as projections for the final five months of the fiscal year that runs through June.

“This will be our first reporting period together and will give Daisy a good overview of each of

the reports she will need to be familiar with,” Covello explained.

The training period also will give Swearingen time to learn the ins and outs of the district’s financial accounting system; the various pots of money, where funding comes from and what it can be used for; and the reporting requirements to state and county business officials.

Swearingen – with Covello’s assistance — also will take the lead in preparing the district’s 2022-23 budget, which is expected to be about $18 million. The difference in comparison to this year’s budget reflects a reduction in state and federal COVID-relief money the district expects to receive in the next budget cycle, Covello said.

“The technical parts of this job are highly complex, so having Linda and Daisy work together for the remainder of the fiscal year will significantly benefit the district and set Daisy up for success,” Metzger said. 

The difference in a director of fiscal services and a chief business official is a matter of experience, training and certification. Even before she applied for her new role, Swearingen already completed a six-month academy on education finances from the Association of California School Administrators. In February, she will begin a yearlong program with the California Association of Business Officials to receive certification as fiscal services director.

Certification as a chief business official requires two more years of training, which Swearingen intends to pursue. Her new duties also include managing three employees in the business department as well as supporting classified managers in food services, maintenance and technology.

Metzger is confident Swearingen’s skill set, experience and reputation within the district make her the ideal choice to lead the business department.

“Daisy is deeply connected to the district and the Denair community as a whole,” Metzger said. “She is constantly thinking about how to support staff, students and families, and all of our programs. She’s well-liked and respected across the district.”

As the omicron variant of COVID continues to sweep across the country, students and staff in the Denair Unified School District have been affected. At one point last week, the number of people on Denair’s four campuses testing positive for the virus nearly doubled in just one day – from 27 to 52.

That has led to a spike in students and staff having to go into quarantine for at least five days. In Denair and most other districts, substitute teachers also have been at a premium. Outside of the classroom, office staff, food service workers, custodians and administrators have had to do double duty while colleagues recovered.

With the virus so pervasive in the community, the need for rapid testing also has risen. On Thursday, the school district distributed almost 450 test kits to families with children in Denair schools. More of the rapid tests were to be given out to families on Friday between 3:15 and 4:30 p.m. The tests were provided by the state.

“I think it’s important for trustees and the public to know that COVID is impacting our community,” Superintendent Terry Metzger said Thursday night at the month school board meeting. “We’ve been very short-staffed. People have been covering for each other. Really, we are doing the best we can to serve our students and families.”

Office staffing has become such an issue that trustees approved a waiver Thursday night allowing the district to temporarily bring back two employees who retired less than six months ago. Typically, retirees have to wait 180 days before they can return for short-term or part-time assignments.

Metzger said state and local health officials predict that the omicron wave could peak in the next week or so, but she expects that COVID will continue to impact daily school for the foreseeable future. Earlier this week, the California Department of Public Health updated its guidance for schools regarding isolation protocols for students and staff who either test positive for COVID or have been exposed to someone who did. Those protocols are available on the Denair Unified website, but still have left many confused.

Meanwhile, Denair trustees sent a letter to state and local health officials as well as elected officials earlier this month asking for more clarity about COVID-related rules, including the specific metrics that would need to be met to relax mandatory mask requirements. The letter also is available on the district’s website.

In other action Thursday night, trustees:

• Heard a report about the district’s special education program, which includes 137 students across all grade levels. The district has a psychologist, five teachers, two resource specialists, two speech and language pathologists, and 10 special ed paraprofessionals to work with those students. Denair also has taken back early assessments of potential special ed students from the Stanislaus County Office of Education (SCOE), allowing the district to better get to know those students and their families earlier as well as saving Denair money.
• Voted 3-0 to amend an agreement with the SCOE to spend an additional $11,500 this year to train teachers. Trustees Kathi Dunham-Filson and Regina Gomes were absent.
• Approved an overnight gathering — pending COVID conditions at the time – on Jan. 28-29 at Denair Middle School for the Denair FFA Discovery Leadership Conference. The meeting will target the leadership development of middle school FFA Members. Workshops will include team development, agriculture advocation and future middle school event planning.

R.J. Henderson was disappointed but not devastated by Denair’s 55-52 home loss Tuesday night to Mariposa in a matchup of the Southern League’s top two boys basketball teams.

The Coyotes’ coach knows that Denair (12-3) and Mariposa (9-3) clearly are the class of the league, which doesn’t have another team with a record over .500 right now. Henderson assumes that when the two schools next meet Jan. 25 in Mariposa, they likely will be playing to determine whether they share the league title or the Grizzlies keep it all to themselves.

“I still like where we’re at,” said Henderson, whose senior-laden team has won the last two SL championships. “We shot 5-for-16 from the free throw line last night, 5-for-20 on three-pointers and 16-for-43 on two-point shots; we’ve been shooting about 55% on two-pointers. To miss all those shots and still only lose by three? Yeah, the kids are disappointed, but we’ll be all right.”

The loss snapped a 10-game winning streak for Denair, which Henderson said outperformed his expectations during an intentionally grueling pre-season schedule. The Coyotes won the Argonaut Tournament last month, which included a 63-49 victory over a tall and talented Ripon Christian team in the finals. Denair also posted an impressive 57-56 road victory over Bradshaw Christian – a perennial playoff team – and defeated larger schools like McLane of Fresno and Lathrop.

“Bradshaw Christian was big. That kind of set the tone,” said Henderson, adding he would have been satisfied with a 9-5 or even an 8-6 record during preseason. Instead, the Coyotes went 12-2, relying almost exclusively on their “core four” – seniors Mario Plasencia, Cooper Feldman, Connor Leonard and Jack Henderson (the coach’s nephew).

Those four players have played basketball together since junior high and are the primary reason Denair is coming off its first back-to-back Southern League titles in 30 years. The fifth starter is junior Izaihs Plasencia (Mario’s brother). It’s no secret that the Coyotes will go as far as that group takes them this season.

“Those five guys have scored like 95% of our points,” Henderson said. “Long term, I don’t know if that’s a recipe for success, but it’s where we’re at.”

Though the league season has begun, Denair still has two more tough non-conference road games on its schedule the next two Saturdays.

The first is this week at 2 p.m. at Ripon Christian (7-6), which Denair knows will be out for revenge having lost to the Coyotes last month. The next comes a week later at Central Catholic (6-5), another game against a larger school in a hostile environment.

“We treat these non-conference games like a playoff setting,” Henderson explained. “I prefer to play these upper-echelon teams on the road. It will help prepare us for what want to do later.”

The Coyotes’ goals haven’t changed, especially with the success of the past two seasons:

• Win the league championship.
• Earn a high Division V playoff seeding with at least one home game and, possibly, a first-round bye. That’s the reason to play a tough non-conference schedule. Beating teams like Bradshaw Christian and Ripon Christian counts when the seeding committee meets.
• Play a game in March. The only way to do that is to qualify for the NorCal tournament, as Denair two years ago (there were no playoffs last year because of COVID). 

First things first for Denair. Despite Tuesday night’s loss, the Coyotes still are poised to earn a share of the SL crown – if they can return the favor during the rematch at Mariposa in three weeks.

“The effort was there last night,” Henderson said. “Mariposa is almost a mirror image of us. We know their team in and out and they know us. It has developed into a fun rivalry over the last few years. There’s a lot of emotion, but it doesn’t cross over the line. Our kids really want to beat Mariposa.”