Mission Oak Will House Health Careers Center

By Rick Elkins

Tulare - The Tulare Joint Union High School District has received nearly $560,000 in grants to help create a state-of-the-art health careers center at Mission Oak High School and bolster its partnership with College of the Sequoias.

The $277,000 state Department of Education grant will enable the district to move the existing Health Careers Center from cramped quarters at Tulare Tech Prep to Mission Oak High School, which is set to open in August.

The money came from Prop. 1D passed by voters a few years ago. The state announced the first allocation of that money last week. The district is matching the $277,000, mainly by the construction of the classrooms.

The second grant—a $280,000 award from the James Irvine Foundation—will allow more Tulare high school students to take classes at COS.

The district will match the state technical education grant with construction funds earmarked for the new campus under construction on Bardsley Avenue at Oakmore Street.

“We applied and we had the highest score in the state, so we knew we were going to be funded,” said Ross Gentry, a retired district administrator who continues to work for the district as a consultant and grant writer.

Because they knew the money was coming, the district has been able to allocate space at the new high school for the program, which prepares students for a health-related career.

“We've been able to customize two classrooms,” Gentry said. The health careers will be located in the wing that also houses the band room, business classes and student store.

The technical training for the 300 students enrolled in the program is now done in a 950-square-foot portable classroom at Tech Prep. The move to the new school will more than triple the space, allowing the district to enroll more students into the program, Gentry said.

Steve Holdridge, director of the health careers program, is looking forward to the improvement.

“Oh, jeez. I'm really excited,” he said of what the grant money will do for the program.

He said the money will allow them to move up to 3,500 square feet of space and be able to add 100 students to the program next year and grow to 500 students by 2010.

State-of-the-Art Beds

The grant will provide three state-of-the-art hospital beds in a curtained area and each will have heart monitors and other equipment “to make it much like a hospital setting, so the students will be able to do what nurses do,” he said.

The money will also help set up a science lab with sinks and running water, things that are not available at the Tech Prep site. “We'll probably have the most modern facility of anyone,” Gentry said.

Holdridge said they have only one hospital bed right now and must rely on the hospital and other health facilities for donations of equipment.

Gentry reported the health careers program has grown by leaps and bounds—from fewer than 50 students to about 300—in the eight years it has existed, and more than 40 students are graduating each year with a Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) degree.

The demand for CNAs is so great the district has had no problem in finding jobs for graduates, Gentry said.

In addition, the program offers courses needed for students to continue their health career education and to become a registered nurse.

“We're finally starting to see LVNs and RNs produced through the program,” said Holdridge.

Introductory courses are offered for freshmen and sophomores at each campus in the district, Gentry said.

“One benefit of the introductory courses on home campus is it lets the kids try out the program without having to be transported,” he explained. For the advanced courses students from other campus will be bused to Mission Oak.

Gentry said the health careers program will be Mission Oak's magnet program, much like advanced auto shop is at Tulare Union and electronics is at Tulare Western.

COS Partnership

The district received word of the Irvine Foundation grant just last week.

“We will be increasing the number of students taking classes at COS,” Gentry said.
Under the agreement with COS, the Tulare district pays for the textbooks and COS waives fees, allowing students to take college courses for free. Classes are offered by COS in both Visalia and in Tulare. Students can take health and general education courses and receive both college and high school credits.

The district competed with 53 other applicants and was one of only eight to receive grant from the foundation, Gentry said.

The district is also applying for Prop. 1D funds to enhance programs at the school farm and should hear results from the state in the next few months.

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St. Aloysius Principal to Retire after 23 Years

Tulare - Sister Kay O'Brien, credited with taking St. Aloysius Parochial School from the brink of closing to the healthy existence it enjoys today and with shoring up its Catholic identity, is retiring after 23 years as principal.

O'Brien, 72, informed the school board and parents last week that she was retiring for health reasons.

“I just didn't know what to say, when she told us,” school board member Eric Nunes said. “I just went up to her and gave her a hug.”

O'Brien, a Dominican nun for nearly 53 years, said she has enjoyed her 23 years as principal.

“I've never had an unhappy day here,” she said. “I loved the work I was doing. The children are my life—God's little ones.”

It was time to retire, she said, adding her Dominican community, based in Tacoma, Wash., “wants me to rest and become healthier.” Her community has given her permission to stay in Tulare and she said she would like to help the parish and school any way she can.

Msgr. Richard Urizalqui, pastor at St. Aloysius Catholic Church and her boss, said O'Brien has been a blessing to the school.

“She's really done a magnificent job as principal,” Urizalqui said. “She brought the school back from almost closing. Enrollment was very low.”

The school is now in “great financial shape” with a healthy enrollment, in large part because of O'Brien's work to make sure teachers got credentialed and to get the school accredited by both the Western Association of Schools and Colleges and the Western Catholic Educators Association, he said.

“It was very important to be on top of our game,” O'Brien said, explaining why the school sought accreditation.

Urizalqui and others also noted the school also got a central library, a computer center and internet access in the classrooms under O'Brien's tenure, he added
Bolstering the school's Catholic identity is another major contribution, Urizalqui said. In addition to attending Mass on Fridays together, the students pray the rosary during the months of May and learn about the saints, including St. Patrick, who has a special place in the heart of the very Irish O'Brien.

She even managed to convince the bishop to give him permission to wear green vestments while celebrating Mass on St. Patrick's Day one year when the feast fell during Lent, a time when purple is required, Urizalqui said.

'Special Connection'

Marmie Fidler had children enrolled at St. Aloysius for most of O'Brien's tenure and worked closely with her as a parent-volunteer and more recently as a part-time classroom aide.

“I think she had a really special connection to the kids,” Fidler said, noting how especially the younger children like to give her hugs.

Nunes, who was a seventh grader at the school when O'Brien became principal, recalls noting how happy the new principal was.

“As a student it was like, 'here comes Sister Kay and she has a smile on her face,'” he said.

The children at St. Aloysius are not afraid of their principal, but that does not mean O'Brien did not discipline when necessary—a fact to which Nunes said he can personally attest.

“She did discipline me and others, but not in a way that she would yell at you and make you feel like a 5-year-old,” he said, explaining the feeling was that she was disciplining you because she cared.

Nunes said O'Brien had a good working relationship with both her teachers and with Urizalqui, which was good for the school.

“Monsignor has been a fantastic person to work with,” O'Brien said. “I've worked with him for 21 years and we've never had a disagreement.”

O'Brien gives a lot of the credit for the school's success to Urizalqui, her dedicated staff and parents who shared the same goals. “You don't do it alone, you know.”

O'Brien is a native of Limerick, Ireland. She came to the U.S. at age 18 as a Dominican candidate for admission to the order and studied theology at Seattle University, where she later received a degree in education with minors in theology and music. Her master's degree in education administration is from what is now Loyola-Marymount University in Los Angeles.

She served as principal at Assumption School in Bellingham, Wash., Garces Memorial High School in Bakersfield and St. Ann's in Ridgecrest before coming to Tulare as a parish nun in 1981.

During her first four years in Tulare, O'Brien visited patients at Tulare District Hospital and the convalescent hospitals and worked with children and teenagers in religious education programs.

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High School District Considers Ways to Trim Budget

Tulare - A suggestion to increase the average high school class size from 22 to 23 students for a projected $504,600 savings is “on the table” should the state adopt the Governor's recommended school revenue cuts, but contracting with a private firm for bus transportation for an estimated $558,000 savings is not—at least for now.

Tulare Joint Union High School trustees went down a list of 34 suggested budget cuts—totaling $2.5 million—line by line on April 1, telling Superintendent Howard Berger which ones they could support and which they could not.

He will take the list and work with his staff to prioritize those suggestions that remain “on the table,” Berger said.

“None of these cuts are easy and none are we advocating, but since we don't know what the state budget is going to look like, what we're looking at right now is the worst case scenario,” Berger said prior to the meeting.

He emphasized the district's proposed $43.6 million 2008-09 budget is already a “tight” budget and a 10.9 percent cut in state revenues would hurt. “We're beyond cutting the fat,” Berger said. “We're down to the bone right now.”

Trustees made it clear they did not want to make cuts that would adversely impact instruction or jeopardize safety. “I don't think we're here to change our vision,” board Chairman Craig Hamilton said. “We're on a course.”

So when it came time to discuss increasing the average class size, trustees agreed they could live with bumping the number up by one to 23 students, but appeared reluctant to go higher, even though the savings would be greater.

To increase the average to 24 students, for example, could result in a $966,600 savings and going up to 27 could save $2.1 million, according to district calculations.

An option to reduce non-instructional and other cost allocations received a mixed reaction from trustees, who agreed travel could be reduced to essential trips only but were opposed to a $99,000 reduction for programs that put probation, police and security officers on campus.

As for the suggestion to contract with a private transportation company, trustees decided the idea needed more investigation before they considered it. Trustees also took off the table a suggestion to cancel the late run buses, which would have saved $16,000.

Among the suggestions remaining on the table are those that would:

• Reduce the athletics budget by $18,000—a 10 percent cut—and sports travel by $11,000, again a 10 percent reduction.

• Not extend two consulting contracts for a $55,880 savings.

• Reduce the amount put into technology by $60,000, a 20 percent cut.

• Reduce the amount spent on books and other materials and supplies by $83,200, a 20 percent cut.

• Suspend the replacement of non-essential equipment for the school year for a $70,000 savings.

• A $79,740 cut in state categorical spending, which would reduce opportunities for professional development for teachers and reduce money spent on student support services, tutoring programs and supplemental materials.

• Save $75,831 by not replacing the district's attendance officer, who is retiring.
Berger said he is optimistic the state cuts will not be as deep as the governor has proposed, in part because a recent poll showed the public does not want severe cuts in education and is willing to pay additional taxes to prevent this from happening.

But if the deep cuts do happen, the district can handle it for one year by cutting expenses and dipping into its $15 million reserve, he said.

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Simoes Brothers Attribute Success to God, Parents

Tulare - Twins Mario and Joe Simoes, who will share the Noon Kiwanis Club's Farmers of the Year award, were just shy of 16 in June 1951, when their parents made the monumental decision to move them and nine younger siblings from the Azores to Tipton in search of a better life.

“Those people had more courage than I can hardly believe,” Joe Simoes said.
Their father, who was 42 years old, and the four oldest boys soon went to work for the Manuel Faria family dairy.

“The only school we had was in Manuel Faria's barn and it wasn't a bad one,” Joe Simoes said.

Indeed it was not. What they learned in that barn led them to start their own dairy in 1970. The brothers eventually acquired several others in Tipton and Tulare and a feed lot. Between them they have 10,000 cows and employ about 100 people.

They will accept the Farmers of the Year award at noon Friday, April 25, at the Heritage Complex at the International Agri-Center. Rep. Jim Costa, D-California, will be the guest speaker. He represents the 20th Congressional District, which includes all of Kings and part of Fresno and Kern counties.

Although they have enjoyed success as dairy farmers, the Kiwanis Club's Farmers of the Year award acknowledges their steadfast support and generosity to their community.

“We try to get involved in everything we can,” Mario Simoes said.

'Very, Very Surprised'

Even though the 72-year-old brothers have supported youth activities, their church, and especially events and organizations that celebrate and promote Portuguese culture and traditions, they did not expect the award.

“It's an honor to get this,” Joe Simoes said. “I was so surprised. I was really, really surprised.” They previously were honored as Dairymen of the Year by the Society of Portuguese American Students, an organization in the Tulare Joint Union High School District.

While the brothers operate their dairies separately, they remain very close and consult with each other daily. They even drive the same model GMC pickup truck.
Mario and his wife, Gloria, have five children who are all involved in the business. Sons Mario Jr., Melvin and Mark oversee dairy operations and daughters Leanne and Leselene work in the office.

Joe and his wife, Inez, have three children: Marie Pinto, director of the Tulare Adult School, Elaine Ribeiro, a dental hygienist and instructor, and Joey Simoes, who farms with his father.

The brothers seemed genuinely happy with their lives and proud of their families.

“We owe all of this to God's help and to our folks, who went through all they did to bring 11 kids to a land of opportunity,” Mario Simoes said.

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