Welcome to the Live Oak Unified School District!

We have much to be proud of at Live Oak Unified. I truly feel that our instructional programs, after school programs, and community service activities are of the highest quality and bring great value to our community.

We owe our successes to the dedication of our classified, certificated and administrative staff, the effort and academic achievement of our students, the caring and generosity of our community partners, and the continual support of our parents.

This past year we had many challenges including staffing transitions, state budget woes, and city growth. In the future we see our biggest challenges as being the fine-tuning of our instructional efforts, the accommodation of our student populations, and the maintenance of our sound fiscal position.

One of the ways we will continue to build on our momentum is through our strategy map. This document will set forth our goals and define the strategies and indicators necessary to achieve our desired future. This plan will be a fluid, ever-changing document that will provide parameters for each of our schools to address, and it will provide the flexibility to allow for creative thinking, innovation, and problem solving at the school sites. Our site leadership teams will begin to use the strategy map to help define how they will address our overall goal and also identify site benchmarks along the way.

Investing in our future is a key concept for Live Oak Unified. Often times, it is very easy to fall into the trap of focusing on immediate needs, but throughout this past year we made significant investments in our schools. First, we invested over one million dollars to upgrade our facilities. Second, we invested money, time, and energy into training our staff. Third, we invested in materials and supplies for our students. And finally, we began the process of upgrading our technology infrastructure to meet future needs. Our future investments will involve modernizing our current campuses, building a new high school, and restructuring our existing school sites.

Yes, addressing all of these needs is a balancing act. Yes, we focus on some areas more than others. And yes, this is more difficult in a time where economic uncertainty seems to be the norm. But, we have talented and dedicated staff, hard-working students, and the support of a wonderful community to help us along the way.

Amidst these challenges, we will continue to concentrate on our focus areas: Developing leaders, Serving our customers, and Creating Organizational Readiness.

I truly believe that Live Oak Unified has made it through the tough times and is now facing an unprecedented period of instructional changes, facilities changes, city changes, and technological changes. But I also believe that we are prepared to address those changes and make them work for the betterment of our students.

       Tom Pritchard, Superintendent