Welcome to the 2025-26 school year!

I hope this email finds you all enjoying the last weeks of a fabulous summer break! As we celebrate the 30th Anniversary of our school, I am looking forward to our continued work together toward our mission of “ensuring that students reach their highest potential through engaging, rigorous curriculum, a safe, caring environment, and a supportive partnership between staff, parents, and students. Through this shared commitment, we uphold the Heritage tradition of academic excellence and strong character.”

Last year was very successful for our Eagles as they continued to make gains by increasing our state test scores by an average of 3%. 60% of our English Learners reclassified as Proficient in English, and based on all of our data, we achieved the CA Distinguished School Award for the first time in Heritage history! We earned both of the Newsweek’s “Best Of” for Elementary and Middle Schools for 2025, are a Kindness Certified School, and also achieved the highest Platinum status from the CA PBIS Recognition Program. Our student enrollment is at an all-time high with a robust waiting list. This success is clearly a team effort between our students, staff, and families and we are grateful for your partnership.

I'm excited to share that school will start on Thursday, August 14th at 8:00am and our office will be open beginning today, Aug. 1st. To assist families with school shopping, grade level school supply list requests and the dress code are posted on our website. Please remember that supplies are “requested”, not mandatory, and students have a couple of days of school before they will need to have them. Back To School Night will be August 13th from 4:30pm to 6:30pm. Once students have been assigned a teacher/class, you’ll be able to view it in your Aeries Parent Portal. We won’t be posting class lists publicly on our windows as in years past. We are working on more efficient and confidential ways to inform parents of class/teacher assignments, so watch for more information to come.

Our VIPA Board is gearing up for the year by providing a free Pizza dinner to all of our families at Back to School Night! A smoothie/dessert truck will be there for purchase of beverages/sweets and proceeds will support VIPA! VIPA will also have a table for membership so please plan to support our kids by joining VIPA. They will not be selling disaster packs this year and we’ll share more information on that once we’re back.

Finally, I am excited to share that there have been several work crews here all summer installing new cameras, fire alarm systems, roofs, ramps, painting, and doing blacktop repair. We’ve installed a message board for the middle school, a trophy case in the office, and school banners (for safety and esthetics) on some fencing. A couple of new smart boards went in kinder and sped classrooms as well. Our custodial staff has worked hard this summer to get classrooms and common areas clean and ready and we are grateful for their hard work.

It is my goal to keep the entire Heritage Community as informed as possible throughout the year through emails like this, monthly newsletters, phone calls, and our website and facebook page. Please stay tuned and be assured that more information about the start of school, new staff members, VIPA events, and drop off/pick up procedures will be coming soon. We look forward to seeing you all at Back to School Night!

 

In partnership,

Debbie Arbizu

Principal, The Heritage School