On Oct. 21, the Grand Pacific Palisades resort hosted the community’s first ever State of the District event. Students from Carlsbad High and Sage Creek were invited to participate to help bring a unique element and authentic voice to the occasion.

Members of the Sage Creek orchestra played at the entrance, welcoming representatives of various organizations within Carlsbad.

“We really wanted a diverse group of people, from the business community to the PTA’s; we wanted a broad reach of people in the community who really support us and help us get the message out,” board member Ann Tanner said.

These community leaders were then given a chance to converse with students from the Superintendent Advisory Council, a group of select students from Sage Creek and Carlsbad High that meet with the superintendent to discuss issues within the community and school.

After everyone was seated, senior Michael Ricci, who serves on the advisory board and also acts as the student representative of the board of education, delivered the opening speech.

“It was a good opportunity for me to practice my speaking skills,” Ricci said.  “It was also cool to help kick off this event for Dr. Lovely and the district and to represent both my school and Carlsbad Unified School District.”

The brains behind this event, district superintendent Dr. Lovely, planned an exciting agenda that gave members of the community insight to the current conditions of Carlsbad’s schools and goals for the future. She emphasized the importance of students playing a major role in the presentation.

“Adults sometimes are the only ones that are story tellers, even when they are telling student stories, so we wanted students to be a part of the storytelling,” Lovely said.

As much as students are central to education, the main message that Dr. Lovely and the board of education wanted to make clear was that “Education is everyone’s business,” and every citizen has the responsibility of being invested and aware of their city’s education systems.

“We all need to care about education and good schools whether we have children in the schools or not — that’s a message,” Lovely said. “The second message is that our students are doing remarkably great things — and not just when they are with us, but after they leave as well.”

Attendees at the event listened to a speech from Ann Tanner, a slideshow of data by Dr. Lovely, a video produced by Mr. Green of the CHSTV broadcasting program and even a live performance from vocalists of CHS choral department. Dr. Lovely discussed areas in need of improvement, but overall, focused primarily on the positive accomplishments of Carlsbad schools in areas ranging from sports to test scores to unique programs offered.

“I think there is a lot of good news that we want the community to know about, like how the children and students are progressing, how far we’ve come and the vision of where we are going,” Tanner said.