Find my SchoolCollecting information, familiarizing ourselves with the district, and establishing the goals and schedules were the primary tasks we embarked upon in this discovery period. An overview of the reasons for developing this Facilities Master Plan are outlined in the Superintendent’s Message provided below.
DLR Group began this Master Planning process by extensive review of the following district materials:
We assembled a Core Planning Group (CPG) consisting of a cross section of district and community representatives. This group provided guidance throughout the process for the master planning team to provide the types of information that the district was anticipating. We met on a bi-weekly basis throughout the entire planning effort.
We have added a tool to the demographics portion that can assist with what the term “Assessed Evaluation” means regarding the tax implications of a potential local General Obligation Bond. Please click on the link and find any property within the district. Enlarge the map enough to allow you to click on the property of interest and the assessed evaluation information will appear.
Hello, my name is Dr. Luis A. Rankins-Ibarra Superintendent of the Escondido Union School District. I'd like to thank you for visiting our new Facilities Master Plan website, created in part by DLR Group. You will find our current facility assessments, including areas like health and safety, maintenance costs, and ADA compliance. There is also an eye to the future, a vision of what may be, created by our students, parents, teachers, administrators, and general community members.
Thank you for engaging in a process to positively guide our community into the future.
Discovery
This phase includes extensive research of district archives and records to gather background information to assist in overall knowledge of the district and schools, including demographics, site and building plans, and recent projects. This research provides the foundation to develop the assessment process, as well as the overall organization of the process tasks and schedule. Of importance in this initial phase is the selection and establishment of the District’s Core Planning Group for the development of this master plan.
Planning
The Master Plan for each campus is a diagram of needs, priorities and quantities. Each Master Plan is developed from the information gathered from the outreach efforts, facilities assessments, and the EUSD educational vision. The goal of each Master Plan is to quantify these priorities and their associated cost. Master Plan diagrams should not be interpreted as a “design solution” for each campus. Rather, all locations, adjacencies, and program suggestions within the buildings are presented to show they are recognizable and accounted for. As each Master Plan is implemented, each project will begin with a programming phase, and the design team will work with each school to assess the details and implications of each priority identified in the campus master plan.
Assessments
A team of trained field assessors visits every site within the District to review, photograph, and note physical condition deficiencies related to predetermined major review categories. The assessments are categorized in terms of immediate, short-term, mid-term, and long-term needs. These repair items help to establish timelines for projects while project costs are developed. The sums of the expected costs are then weighed against the replacement value of each school to determine the Replacement Cost Index (RCI). This value is important when considering whether a facility should be improved or replaced.
Summary
The Summary Phase is intended to present the results of the Master Planning efforts. These results are intended to assist with the prioritization process. The data presented can be sorted and viewed in a variety of ways to illustrate the costs and types of proposed projects at each site, group of sites or District wide. The results of the outreach survey efforts will be added to the summary page upon completion. The final step in the Summary Phase will result with the establishment of the District’s Facilities Master Plan priorities. Once agreed to, these priorities will be published as well.
Escondido Union School District: A Caring Community of Innovative Educators and Learners
Escondido Union School District (EUSD) has been a proud member of the community for more than 135 years – well before Escondido became a city in 1888. EUSD has been educating, nurturing, and empowering the children of Escondido since the 1880s, giving the district a strong sense of community and commitment.
EUSD is hardly stuck in the past, however. Serving nearly 16,000 children from preschool through 8th grade, the district is a forward-thinking community that believes in educating and caring for the whole child – preparing them for success in our neighboring Escondido Union High School District, in college, and beyond.
From the district’s humble beginnings, at the Little Rock Springs School, to our newest school community, at Quantum Academy, EUSD has grown and changed with the times.
Had a visitor from the future told Elizabeth Judson, Escondido’s only teacher in the 1880s, what was to come for the community’s schools a century later and beyond, she likely would have thought it the stuff of science fiction: Children building robots, writing computer code, designing presentations on handheld electronic devices, taking instantly view-able photographs, and making movies.
But much of the work that today's Escondido students produce also would be recognizable to 19th-century teachers. It’s just on a much bigger scale. EUSD children grow fruits and vegetables in large school gardens. They study the local environment. They create art and make music. They conduct science experiments. They exercise and compete in sports. They write stories, poems, and essays. They add, subtract, multiply, and divide – albeit in a much more thought-provoking manner than a century ago.
Rooted in the Community
EUSD’s roots in the community are deep, and it’s been a generous, give-and-take relationship from the beginning. Residents in 1894 rallied to rebuild a fire-stricken Oak Glen School into what would become Orange Glen School – thanks to the donation of orange trees from orchard owner B.F. Dixon. In the 1930s and 1940s, the small neighboring districts of Oakdale, Richland, and Rincon needed help educating their children, and they were added to the Escondido district. In 2014, residents overwhelmingly supported the district with the passage of a $182 million bond that today is providing much-needed modernization upgrades to our campuses.
Community partnerships give Escondido students access to extraordinary enrichment experiences. Today, EUSD is fortunate to call more than two dozen organizations true community partners in the education and care of our students. These include – but are far from limited to – a state university, a technology company, a museum, an orchestra, health agencies, environmental organizations, charitable foundations, youth agencies, local government, and much more.
These partners aim to get our students out in the field learning to protect our watershed. They work to shade our kindergartens from the bright Southern California sun. They raise funds for innovative classroom projects like a hydroponic garden. They enrich our students’ musical education experience. They support our families with an extra layer of social-emotional resources. These are parents and taxpayers who support multi-million dollar bonds to modernize our campuses. These are professional artists from Monart School of Art providing hands-on creativity. These are professional musicians from the Civic Youth Orchestra introducing our students to the beauty of strings.
EUSD families want their children to have opportunities that enrich their lives and are relevant to the things they're learning and the world of work. EUSD students have opportunities that go beyond reading, writing, and arithmetic. The district achieves this by creating enrichment programs with partners in the local community. These programs provide hands-on experiences in and outside the classroom that would expose students to real-world applications of the lessons they are learning in science, math, art, music, and more.
In 2019, one of these programs was awarded an Honorable Mention Inspire Award in the Classroom of the Future Foundation's annual Innovation in Education Awards. That program, “Protecting Our Watershed: Inquiry to Action,” was spearheaded by an EUSD science educator, who brought together The Escondido Creek Conservancy, San Elijo Lagoon Conservancy, and San Diego Zoo to give every 3rd-, 4th-,and 5th-grader hands-on field work experience.
EUSD’s partnership with Escondido’s own San Diego Children’s Discovery Museum supports our youngest learners and their families, with field-work visits to the museum and complimentary museum memberships so students can return with their parents. The Summer Scholars program with the Palomar Family YMCA combines academic work with enrichment activities. In addition to extra academic support, students had the chance to learn to swim, and try gymnastics and other sports. The bonus: The young people who work at the YMCA were equally engaged and inspired, with some eyeing joining the education field.
These partnerships support our children and families beyond academics, and focus on health and well being to ensure that students are ready to learn when they arrive in class every day. With school social workers, family liaisons, and counselors in every school, backed by a stellar intervention and Integrated Student Supports team, our students and families are well assisted.
The district’s community collaborative partnership program, borne as the award-winning CARE Youth Project, has made a tremendous impact on our students and schools. This project earned a prestigious Golden Bell Award from the California School Boards Association, and a Public Health Champion Award from the County of San Diego Health and Human Services Agency. In 2015, EUSD was one of just 11 school districts in California to be designated as a model of attendance improvement by the State School Attendance Review Board.
These are just a fraction of the dozens community partnerships of which we are proud to be involved.
Educating for the Future
EUSD programs are admired and modeled near and far. The Technology and Innovation team’s work is just one example. Its iREAD program has been modeled around the world, with educators from Japan and New Zealand making repeat visits to EUSD to learn more and replicate the program’s success. Our technology initiatives continue to grow, with one-to-one iPads rolling out across all grade levels, accompanied by the highest level of professional training for all teachers in order to maximize the potential of this education tool. This technology enhances the learning experience for students, giving a boost to communication, collaboration, creativity, and critical thinking. It comes as no surprise, then, that EUSD is a three-time recipient of the Apple Distinguished Program award that recognizes innovation, leadership, and educational excellence.
Today, EUSD educators and support staff are committed to opening the doors to the unlimited potential for every student through award-winning academic, arts, technology, and family engagement programs. In EUSD, all means all when preparing our students for the 21st century. The sky is the limit for our students.
It’s no wonder that so many of our students, parents, teachers, and staff members are second-, third-, or even fourth-generation EUSD families. One of EUSD’s award-winning educators teaches in the very classroom where she sat years ago as a 1st-grader.
The Escondido Union School District is dedicated to providing a high-quality, enriching educational experience for all students. It is a school district that is constantly moving forward in an upward trajectory.
The sky is the limit for EUSD students, and they are ready to tackle the world. See for yourself:
We encourage community members to set up a visit to one of our beautiful campuses or attend one of our festive events.
