Region 24 hosts Billy for whirlwind visit
CSBA’s executive director sees exemplary educational programs
Published: April 30, 2012
CSBA Executive Director Vernon M. Billy has said he sometimes moves “at about 100 miles per hour.” He had to during a recent visit to the densely populated Region 24, encompassing much of the area east of Los Angeles.
Between his 9:30 a.m. arrival at Los Angeles International Airport and his 6:40 p.m. flight home, Billy visited five school districts and multiple school sites, including elementary, middle and high school classrooms and after-school programs.
“It’s the event I can’t stop talking about,” Billy told CSBA’s Board of Directors at its March meeting. The career and technical education programs in the Downey Unified School District’s Earl Warren High School were a particular standout, including both civil engineering and construction classes and a culinary arts program that served lunch to Billy and his companions.
“In one part of the room they were building robots. In another part of the room they were testing airplane wings they’d built—they had their own wind tunnel,” Billy marveled. When he went to school, “You had a hammer and some nails and that was wood shop,” he laughed.
One student in particular embodied the promise of the CTE programs Billy observed. As the tour proceeded from an engineering class to a construction technology class, Region 24 Delegate Donald E. LaPlante, a 32-year board member in the Downey Unified School District who organized the visit, noticed “this kid walking in with a tool belt on.” LaPlante recognized him from the engineering class and asked him why his studies had ventured across two such rigorous disciplines.
“If I’m going to be an engineer, I need to know how this stuff works,” student Javier Vazquez responded, LaPlante said.
Telling the story to CSBA’s board, Billy said, “I hope when my sons turn 17 that they are like this young man,” who’s now an intern in Downey’s municipal engineering department.
Other standouts from the tour included Whittier Union High School District, where Billy met with Region 24 Delegate Leighton Anderson and Superintendent Sandra Thorstenson—the Association of California School Administrators’ superintendent of the year; Compton Unified School District and Lawndale Elementary School District, which both boast exemplary after-school programs; and Region 24 Director Sharon Stys’ South Whittier Elementary School District, where Billy observed innovative approaches to integrating arts into the classroom.
“We tried to squeeze as much into the day as possible,” said Stys, who’s served on the South Whittier board for 22 years.
“He’s going take different things away from every place,” she said of Billy. “I think it’s important that he sees the differences from one end of the state to the other.”