MVUSD Superintendent Receives Award from TCOE

At the Mountain Valley Unified School District school board meeting on April 14 at Hayfork High, MVUSD Superintendent and Hayfork High Principal Annmarie Swanstrom received an award from Trinity County Office of Education (TCOE) for her efforts during the pandemic.

Deputy Superintendent Fabio Robles presented the plaque to Swanstrom, which reads: “Our children called and you answered. You dealt with unprecedented circumstances and rose to the occasion as an essential leader to our most precious resource: our children.” This award was also given to four other Superintendents in Trinity County: Christine Camara of Junction City Schools, Jaime Green of Trinity Alps Unified, Mary Thoreson of Lewiston Elementary School District, and Shannon Ross of Douglas City.

School events were also highlighted at the board meeting with some still coming up like the 9th grade orientation at the high school on May 13. The 8th grade etiquette dinner has been revived, which occurred on April 29, in which the senior class also learned proper etiquette in serving.

Hayfork High Sports Awards are scheduled for May 24 in the HHS gymnasium and will be followed that same week by the Hayfork High Scholastic Awards Night on May 26 at the HHS Stage. State CAASPP testing is scheduled for HES and HHS for the first few weeks of May.

Swanstrom also announced that all schools will have to come to school for the three emergency school days, due to the Monument Fire, which means coming to school June 13-15, but they will be minimum days. The HES graduation will remain on June 9 and the HHS graduation on June 10.

Morgan Rourke gave a report about FFA and the new shop at the high school. They are still currently moving into the new building and setting up the new machines. Rourke said the Ag Mechanics team is ranked at 10th place and the state final competition is May 5-6 at Cal Poly SLO. The current team is Trenton Haight, Jessy Wolfe, Matt Sampson, and Braden Stanley.

Rourke also mentioned that at this year's fair the auction starts at 10 a.m. for junior livestock due to tentatively having anywhere from 75-100 additional animals than last year. Rourke added that from Hayfork FFA, 18 students will have 36 pens this year.

To end the meeting, MVUSD Business Manager Courtney Bayley gave a quick financial report highlighting that, “we had to double our credit limit at the gas station.” Bayley included that most increases came from gas, food, and items like cups for cereal. But, she added that the district did apply for “supply chain disruption funds.”

Current enrollment numbers, at the time of the meeting, are 223 students at Hayfork Elementary, 83 at Hayfork High, and three at Valley High School for 309 in total for the district.