Clovis Unified gears up for new school year

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- Clovis Unified School District administrators, teachers and support staff are saying goodbye to summer and gearing up to kick off the new school year.

Clovis Unified employees became one team at the Selland Arena on Thursday as Superintendent Dr. Janet Young and her special guest "Ron Burgundy" got them energized for the students' arrival back to school on Monday.

"Thank you all for standing together, to meet these challenges and turn them into opportunities for our students, our team and our community," said Young.

Clovis Unified is starting the 2014-2015 school year with 41,000 students and nearly 200 new teachers added to their staff. David Castro is starting his first year with the district at Pinedale Elementary. He says he is looking forward to the healthy culture found in the school district.

"I appreciate the idea of being in it for kids, and doing what's right for kids," said Castro.

But with a new school year come some changes. This will be the first year that Common Core -- the new teaching standards for the state of California -- will be implemented. Clovis Unified is also adding a new program of its own -- providing at-risk students with guidance as they transition from elementary school to middle school and high school.

"We really want to focus on the students who need some extra support sometimes, which are those English learners that are new to the country or are new to learning English, our foster youth, who sometimes they don't really have as much support," said Transitional Student Relations Liaison Chris Salone.

The program will focus keeping them engaged and involved through extracurricular activities.

"Another thing we are doing with our program is getting them geared and focused toward at least thinking about something they want to do in the future," said Salone.

Clovis Unified teachers, administrators and staff will be ready to welcome kids to their very first day of school on Monday.