C a r t o g r a p h y ” a n d “Introduction to Geographic Information Systems.” After the completion of these two courses, students can continue their coursework at Mount San Jacinto. After completing two additional courses, stu-dents will be able to obtain a certificate in GIS. This certifi-cate makes them employable within the GIS field. Education can, of course, continue to a four-year degree.

During last year’s fire sea-son, ESRI was a leader in the fire fight. In an article in the San Bernardino Sun it was ac-knowledged that Tom Patter-son, Wildland Fire Specialist, for Redlands-based ESRI, went to the Station Fire in the Ange-les National Forest and the Oak Glen III Fire. Mr. Patter-son gathered information for maps, brought heavy-duty printers, called plotters, and upgraded software for the fire station. The Fire Department uses GIS extensively. This technology provides accurate maps and delivers them to command centers in a timely manner. This assists in keeping firefighters safe. (Continued on page 2)

GIS-Geographic Informa-tion Systems has arrived at Banning High School and Nicolet Middle School. Per the program description from Mount San Jacinto College, “GIS are computer mapping programs that are both analyti-cal tools and research methods for identifying spatial and tem-poral patterns, trends and rela-tionships on maps and in large databases. However, GIS do more than make maps; they are information systems that have the potential to create new knowledge about our world. Statistical GIS models are able to determine the probability of specific events and display them in three-dimensional, animated or vir-tual reality scenarios. Analyti-cal applications of GIS are able to predict and simulate change on Earth, as well as other plan-ets.” There are a wide range of career opportunities for students interested in GIS. The list includes but is not limited to: agricultural planning, aerial photography and remote sensing, archaeology, city plan-ning, civil engineering and sur-veying, community and eco-nomic development, cultural-historic resource management, demography and epidemiology, ecology and environmental studies, emergency response,

health and safety, land man-agement, landscape architec-ture, market analysis, meteor-ology and climatology, real estate brokers and assessors, recreation and open-space planning, resource manage-ment, social and welfare ser-vices, transportation develop-ment, urban and regional sys-tems analysis, utility service planning, and wholesale and retail development.

In July three teachers at-tended a conference spon-sored by ESRI, Environmental Systems Research Institute. This conference demon-strated the different uses of the GIS software and practical applications. Nathan Valdivia and Julie Ferris, Social Studies teachers at Banning High, and April Salas, Social Studies teacher at Nicolet, have all said it was great to see all the uses of the program. They are very excited to teach our students. The GIS program starts with an introductory semester course offered at Nicolet Middle School. Once the students arrive at Banning High they will take two more introductory courses and pro-ceed to two courses that will be articulated with Mount San Jacinto College. The two courses are “Introduction to

October, 2010

Trailblazer

Geographic Information Systems (GIS)

By: Felicia Adkins, Director

Education Services

Felicia Adkins, Director Education Services

Inside this issue:

WE ARE WHAT WE SELL

2

Geographic Information Systems (GIS)

(continued)

2

NO EXCUSES AT TEAM HOFFER!

3

BUDGET: WHAT BUDGET?

4

OCTOBER CALENDAR OF EVENTS

4

How often have you placed a call to a business only to have your first contact be an automated phone answering system prompt-ing you to “Press 1”?

Have we not all experienced going through a never-ending menu of prompts only to be disconnected when you reach your “destination”?

We, in the Banning Unified School Dis-trict Fiscal Services office, never want you to feel “disconnected”.

In spite of the fact that we are not per-ceived by most to be a business, what we “sell” is customer service. When you visit our office you don’t generally leave with a product in your hand, something you can return if you are not satisfied, but with a sense of satisfac-tion that your needs have been met in a cour-teous, pleasant and professional fashion.

This is our goal. This is what we strive for. Every individual in our Department ap-preciates that we are here to do our part to

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) (Continued from page 1) ESRI is partnering with Banning Unified to make our program successful. ESRI’s donations include Arc Editor Software and the following extensions: Spatial Analyst, 3D Analyst, Network Analyst, Geostatistical Analyst, Publisher, and maintenance. This package carries a "single user list price value" of $19,500 plus annual maintenance of $2,100 after the first year, and the licensed school may copy the materials on any number of instructional computers at school, as well as on teachers' home computers. "Our World GIS Education" series Books 1-4, will be installed on approximately 60 computers at one school and 30 computers at another. The total list price value of this donation is well over $1,000,000.00.

HMC Architects have made in-kind, professional development, and cash donations. HMC will contribute an in-kind donation by providing architectural design services for the design of the GIS Labs at the new two-story building currently under construction at Banning High School. The value for this service is $35,000. Professional development services include but are not necessar-ily limited to, mentoring, job shadowing, summer internships and participation in classroom in-struction related to the application of GIS in the architectural profession. The value for this ser-vice is $55,000. HMC will contribute $2,500 as a cash donation to the GIS program from our Designing Futures Foundation.

With these two partners (ESRI and HMC Architects), Banning Unified School District is looking to creating a strong cadre of students with GIS training. We hope to create a local work-force for Banning and our surrounding communities.

We Are What We Sell!

By: Cathy Bagnara, Supervisor

Fiscal Services

Page 2

Trailblazer

Cathy Bagnara, Supervisor Fiscal Services

support the educational process, whether it’s generating the paychecks of the employees who directly serve the children, paying the invoices for products purchased to enhance the classroom experience, calculating the at-tendance figures which drive the majority of the District’s revenue, preparing and moni-toring the varied reports submitted to State and Federal agencies or, often, just to be the first face-to-face contact for families new to Banning Unified.

Five incredibly conscientious employees, under the watchful eye of me, Supervisor of Fiscal Services, with the direction of Dr. Christine Wallace, Interim Assistant Superin-tendent of Business Services, work hard to maintain the image and reputation of a pleas-ant, helpful place to visit, whatever the need might be. We want no one leaving our office without resolution of their issue, a sense that they are a valued part of the Banning Unified family and a smile on their face.

We are what we sell!

We want no one leaving our office

without reso-lution of their issue, a sense

that they are a valued part of

the Banning Unified family and a smile on

their face.

Welcome to Hoffer Elementary School, Home of the Appaloosas, where we continue to focus on a “College Bound” theme this school year. It is our intent to plant the seed, in each of our students, that they can attend any college they choose. Through powerful symbolism, our staff has done an awesome job of making each of their classrooms a visual display of a four year university, complete with college flags, pennants, pictures and other college paraphernalia which serve as a constant reminder to the students of where they are headed. This year, we are also working to transform other areas of our campus including the library, computer lab, and multipurpose room into areas that excite our students for the opportunities that lie ahead of them after high school. If you come and visit my office, you will find it decorated with the maroon & gray of my alma mater, the University of Redlands. Go Bulldogs! Our teachers and students are hard at work practicing our school cheer:

“WE’RE HOFFER SCHOOL HEAR OUR SOUND

WE ALL KNOW WE’RE COLLEGE BOUND WE’RE HOFFER SCHOOL

AND WE’RE HERE TO SAY WE’RE ALL GOING TO COLLEGE SOMEDAY”

Character Education is a key compo-nent to our educational focus this year. Hoffer School has a new Appaloosa Pledge, created by teacher John Ramirez, to re-mind our students that “Character is do-ing the right thing, even when no one is watching.”

Page 3

No Excuses for TEAM HOFFER!

By: Sonya Balingit, Principal Hoffer Elementary School

This past summer, our incredible staff attended various trainings focused on our new English/Language Arts adop-tion, SRA Imagine It!, and learned amaz-ing strategies from trainer, Jo Robinson, “Getting More Out of Your Core Read-ing Program.” Hoffer teachers made a commitment to implement various schoolwide campaigns focusing on aca-demic vocabulary, student engagement, math fluency, 6 + 1 Traits Writing, SMART Goals, and data analysis. Each “Smart Wednesday,” you will find our teachers collaborating on any one of the above topics with the end goal to increase student achievement and raise both our AYP and API next Spring. As we continue on our journey to score 800, we have set our API goal this year to move from 734 to 756! No Excuses! We believe working as TEAM HOFFER (teachers, parents and stu-dents) we can make this goal a reality! Here at Hoffer, we are also excited to continue with our AAA (Awesome Appaloosa Award) Assemblies each quarter. These assemblies provide teachers the opportunity to celebrate student success across all grade levels in the areas of attendance, behavior, citi-zenship, reading, math, and writing. We invite you to stop by our school for our first assembly of the year in October and witness the amazing students and staff of Hoffer Elementary School!

Sonya Balingit, Principal Hoffer Elementary School

“COLLEGE READINESS IS THE IDEA

THAT EVERY STUDENT DESERVES THE

OPPORTUNITY TO BE EDUCATED IN A WAY

THAT PREPARES HIM OR HER FOR COLLEGE

IF HE OR SHE CHOOSES TO ATTEND.”

~Damen Lopez

No Excuses University

Most news agencies have been reporting over the weekend that legislative lead-ers and the governor have agreed on a framework of a budget and that a budget vote is being scheduled for this coming weekend, October 3. While most of that is true, there are not a lot of details being released about the framework. For education, legislators and staff are staying tight-lipped about the funding level or whether or not the final vote will include a vote to suspend or manipulate Proposition 98. What is known is that the two-house budget conference committee was scheduled to convene on Thursday, September 30, to adopt the plan. Leaders were telling their members to ex-pect to vote on the budget either this Friday, Saturday or Monday. Now the news is that the conference commit-tee and the budget vote have been pushed into next week. What can be counted on is that budget negotiations are continuing and no agreement

Budget: What Budget?

By: Christine Wallace, Ed.D. Interim Assistant Superintendent,

Business Services

Calendar of Events October 2010

CALIFORNIA SCHOOL BUS SAFETY AWARENESS MONTH CHARACTER EDUCATION MONTH

HISPANIC HERITAGE MONTH

3-9 National 4-H Week

3-9 National Fire Prevention Week (U.S. Flag to be displayed at half-staff from sunrise to sunset)

4 National Child Health Day 5 UNESCO World Teacher Day 16 World Food Day

17-23 America's Safe Schools Week 17-23 National School Bus Safety Week

23 “Make a Difference” Day 23-31 National Red Ribbon Week

24 United Nations Day

CRIME PREVENTION MONTH FILIPINO AMERICAN HISTORY MONTH

NATIONAL ENERGY AWARENESS MONTH

EDUCATION JOBS FUND AND MEDICAID ASSISTANCE ACT

OF 2010 THE DISTRICT IS TO RECEIVE AN ES-TIMATED $846,575 FROM THE EDU-CATION JOBS FUND AND MEDICAID ASSISTANCE ACT OF 2010. NINETY PERCENT OF THE MONEY, $761,918, WAS DEPOSITED IN THE DISTRICT’S ACCOUNT ON MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2010. NO PLANS HAVE BEEN MADE, AS YET, AS TO HOW THE FUNDS WILL BE USED BY THE DIS-TRICT.

Christine Wallace, Ed.. Interim Assistant Superintendent

Business Services

has been reached on a handful of big issues, including pension and state budget reform. Bloomberg News reported yesterday that the Proposition 98 fund-ing level will be in the $49 billion range which, if true, is about where the gover-nor’s May Revision funded schools. Whether that figure includes the $1.2 billion in federal jobs money or not is also unknown. Either way, Democrats appear to have abandoned their demand to fund Proposition 98 $3 billion to $4 billion more than the gov-ernor. Suspension and manipulation of the Proposition 98 guarantee becomes necessary to fund schools at the ru-mored amount. We will know more over the next week.