Superintendent highlights professional-learning plan, safety upgrades and new technology; district to roll out apprenticeships and electric buses

Superintendent Dr. Lazinski presented opening-day highlights and district initiatives focused on professional learning, safety and technology. He described the district's theme, "project progress with purpose," and outlined a professional learning plan driven by a CLT (Curriculum Leadership Team) refresh and four cross-curricular strands: use of artificial intelligence in classrooms, authentic assessment, feedback practices and meeting the needs of multilingual and special-education learners. Dr. Lazinski said teachers were encouraged to "apply something new" in classrooms this year with support from instructional coaches and division leaders. On safety and operations, Dr. Lazinski said building door locks have been upgraded to push-button locks that can be secured from inside classrooms, and the district is deploying the Raptor visitor-management system integrated with BluePoint alerts so staff can take attendance and initiate lockdowns from district devices. He also said the district plans to add a third campus safety supervisor to cover lunch and evening activity periods. Technology updates included a district rollout of Lightspeed Classroom (teacher monitoring of student Chromebooks) and Lightspeed Alert (AI-driven monitoring for concerning student activity). The superintendent said the district will receive four electric buses at no cost and will launch a new website using ParentSquare integration. He also noted the district's first certified apprenticeship pathway and that all four district high schools were again ranked by U.S. News & World Report. Dr. Lazinski said the professional-learning videos and materials will be shared with the community and staff, and he credited Lori Ratliff and a large team of district staff for planning the professional-learning work.