District to hold quarterly town halls; ELOP Saturdays to include free swim lessons for elementary students

The Santa Maria Union School District told the board it will begin quarterly community town halls and expand its after-school and Saturday programming this school year, including a pilot of free swim lessons for elementary students.

Dr. Somer Prather Smith said the board had requested quarterly town halls and the district worked with the community organizer Building Healthy Communities (BHC) to plan facilitated events at multiple sites. “We really wanted to be there as participants and listeners and not the ones facilitating it so that, our community felt like they could have open and honest dialogue,” Dr. Prather Smith said. The district plans town halls in September, November, February, late April and May, with experienced facilitators co-creating agendas and using small group work to surface follow-up actions.

Nut graf: The town halls are intended to boost parent and student voice and transparency, and to connect community input to district accountability. Staff said community partners will help with outreach and logistics to broaden participation.

On expanded learning, Dr. Prather Smith reported that Saturday sessions previously funded from learning-recovery funds will now be covered by the Expanded Learning Opportunities Program (ELOP). Because ELOP requires 9-hour program days, the Saturday schedule will provide a morning program and a 12:30–5:30 p.m. afternoon block to create a full day of services. “That means that those are 9 hour days because in order to use the LP funding, it has to be 9 hours,” Dr. Prather Smith said.

The district has arranged swim lessons at the Salinas Aquatic Center and initially booked 50 slots; staff said they held back 10 slots to ensure equitable distribution across sites, creating a total of 60 slots targeted to third- through fifth-graders. Dr. Prather Smith said the 50 initial slots were claimed within four minutes of opening registration and noted the district is negotiating facility scheduling to prioritize student lessons during that time.

District leaders said partners such as Centro and Building Healthy Communities will assist outreach for the town halls and that the sessions are intended to be collaborative—not limited to complaints but to joint problem-solving. Board members encouraged broad outreach; one said they were willing to help door-to-door outreach if that would increase attendance.

Ending: Staff said they will share town-hall schedules and site locations as they finalize dates; expanded-learning Saturday sessions and the swim-lesson pilot will begin this fall. Outreach will involve community partners to promote attendance and participation.