Sausalito Marin City School District

About Us

Over the summer several of our local partners came together to provide an array of programs for the children of Marin City. The District contributed to The Hannah Project to provide Freedom School for the ninth year running. Play Marin, the Marin City Library, Bridge the Gap College Prep and Sound Waves Music also operated summer programs. Programs served children ranging in age from Kindergarten through eighth grade for five weeks of the summer.

Panther PRIDE at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Academy

At Dr. MLK Jr. Academy, the focus for the school year is on culture and climate and enhanced instruction. School climate speaks to creating positive relationships and engagement throughout the school campus and beyond. MLK students are demonstrating PRIDE - Pride, Respect, Integrity, Determination and Excellence and the MLK Way!

Community School Development

MLK is a Community School. Community Schools are uniquely designed to serve their communities. Community Schools are both a framework and a philosophy for interacting with the world. A Community School is both a place and a set of integrated partnerships between the school and other community resources. It's integrated focus on academics, services, supports, and opportunitieis leads to improved student learning, stronger families, and healthier communities. The District’s Local Control and Accountability Plan names the Community School model, and community school development as one of its four goals and at Bayside MLK, the Community Advisory Committee is charged with furthering the development of the Community School. In the coming months, the Community School development process will provide greater alignment between our community partners and our individual learning plans for students. These learning plans will be designed to encompass everything from academics and cultural relevancy to social and emotional supports for students and families. We are excited that Jahmeer Reynolds M. Ed. our Community School Director will continue in his role, where he is instrumental in the further development of our Community School Model. I am also excited to continue to develop tools to measure the needs of our community and the impact of our partnerships as a critical pathway forward to developing a nationally recognized community school.

Culture and Climate

We are looking forward to a robust implementation of Positive Behavior Intervention Systems (PBIS) that will allow us to align and collaboratively agree on our positive behavior expectations for all of our students and create a system of positive behavior incentives. These systems of support are designed to enable our students to build upon a strong sense of pride in themselves, their school, their community and their culture. This year we will consistently use the PBIS School Wide Information System so that we will be able to provide accurate and real time school climate data and make data driven behavior management decisions as well as how to allocate our resources and our staff to improve behavior outcomes.We expect to see a significant reduction in suspensions and behavioral referrals and increased sense of safety at our schol amongst students, staff, and parents. We are excited that we will now be able to regularly report to staff and our community finer grained details far beyond suspensions, about our school culture and climate. We are also excited to continue our work with the Center for Cutlurally Responsive Teaching and Learning and Dr. Sharroky Hollie, Dr. Lori A. Watson to deepen our Race Matters Conversations, and to begin to develop systemic restorative practices with Circle Up an organization that will train all school and district staff to implement Restorative Justice and Restorative Practices.

Student and Family Supports

Through Prevention and Early Intervention funding provided by the County of Marin, the school district is collaborating with Performing Stars/Phoenix Project. This partnership provides additional staff support and community collaboration to develop a shared vision for services that includes cultural competence by building the capacity of caregivers, administrators and teachers to respond to the social-emotional needs of their students through trainings, participation in coordination of services, and linkage to resources. Our community school manager, school based mental health clinicians, special education team, and our Student Success Coaches will all be integral resources in providing supports for students and families in order to systemically remove barriers to education and opportunity. All of our community school programs are accessible online at www.marincountycooperationteam.net

Instruction and Academic Achievment

The school is also receiving funding from the Marin Community Foundation through a countywide P3 grant designed to address the achievement and opportunity gap, but also to ensure a successful pathway to college and other postsecondary opportunities. Key elements of the P3 grant include: shared vision, climate/cultural proficiency, high quality teaching and learning, instructional alignment, family engagement, and extended learning opportunities. Bayside MLK is receiving an instructional coach to increase high quality teaching and learning and instructional alignment from class to class and grade to grade. Our commitment is to enhancing student engagement and improving student learning across the board through evidence-based instructional strategies and data-driven instruction. We have added to additional coaching intervention teachers to support academic instructiona and achievement. We will continue our partnerships with CalEd Partners in Math, and Partners in School Innovationi to support and develop our instructional leadership team and Professional Learning Communities to guide them through cycles of continuous academic improvement

school library enhancements

Through a partnership with the Marin County Library through the Marin City Library, the school’s library has received a fresh new look with culturally relevant library books and materials. A book drive by the Mill Valley Outdoor Art Club will help expand the collection in the Nevada St. Library.

Visual and Performing Arts Education

We will continue to implement the Sausalito Marin City School Board approved strategic Arts Education Five Year Plan for MLK students. The Arts Education Plan was developed through a collaboration with community partners and is reflected in our LCAP and by the hiring of two Art teachers. The Strategic Arts Education Five Year Plan aligns with the district’s Local Control and Accountability Plan by laying out goals, strategies, and budgetary targets for providing BMLK students with arts education and tools intended to also spark excellence in the other core academic areas and, ultimately, instill a passion that will motivate students through high school and beyond. For the 2022-23 school year we are in the third year of the restoration plan and have made great progress!

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Academy

Recognizing that schools are strengthened when they work together to share best practices, Bayside-Martin Luther King Jr. and Willow Creek Academies unified and have become one school on two campuses. The school is now called Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Academy

Bond Oversight Committee / Advisory Board

Our Community Advisory Board (CAB) is hard at work setting goals, developing process, and setting ways of working. The CAB. is to provide expertise and advice to the elected board and will be able to participate in Board Meetings but have no vote.

We successfully passed Measure P our school construction Bond! We need some community members to serve on the Bond Oversight Committee. The application is here https://www.smcsd.org/documents/BOC%20Application%20for%20Independent%20CBOC%20due%2030Apr2021.pdf

Board of Trustees

The Sausalito Marin City School District School Board consists of five trustees who are elected at large. Bonnie Hough is our current President. Lisa Bennett is our Vice President, Alena Maunder is our clerk, Caroline Tiziani, and Lauren Walters make a board of five amazing people who are dedicating significant time and energy to making our school district the best it can be.!