Before students return to classrooms on July 31, Stockton Unified School District brought together thousands of teachers, administrators and support staff for its fourth annual staff kickoff on July 27 at Adventist Health Arena.
More than 5,000 district employees attended the hourlong program, which included performances by students, prize giveaways and a speech from Superintendent Michelle Rodriguez outlining priorities for the 2026-27 school year.
Sofia Colón, president of the Stockton Unified School District Board of Trustees, welcomed employees to the district’s annual kickoff event, thanking staff for their work and resilience through recent challenges.
“Even though we have faced challenges in the last few years, we’ve done that together,” Colón said. “We’ve walked through those challenges together, and we’ve achieved some remarkable accomplishments.”
Colón said the district has expanded educational opportunities for students, invested in campus safety, and strengthened services through collaboration and planning.
“Each and every one of you in this room are remarkable,” Colón said before asking attendees to turn to a colleague and tell them, “You are remarkable.”
Rodriguez recognized members of the board of trustees, the superintendent’s cabinet and administrative leadership, along with representatives of employee organizations and labor unions. She also thanked the event’s sponsors before introducing a performance by students in the district’s Summer Arts and Music Institute.
Rodriguez then highlighted accomplishments from the 2025-26 school year across multiple departments, including the California Department of Education’s removal of the district’s high-risk designation, the increase in the number of seniors earning the California State Seal of Civic Engagement from six to 130, the expansion of the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program from two schools to 11 schools, the growth in participation in the Expanded Learning Opportunities Program from 9,891 students to 18,000, and the expansion of English language development training from about 20 educators to approximately 170.
Rodriguez said the district also saved more than $1 million in printing costs by implementing the PageDNA printing system, upgraded network infrastructure at multiple campuses to support additional security cameras, and implemented transportation technology that provides families with real-time school bus location information.
Rodriguez said the district completed more than $124 million in capital improvement projects, including playground replacements, athletic facility improvements at Cesar Chavez High School, and a new swimming pool. She said the district also completed more than 1,800 tuberculosis assessments, provided 54 CPR lessons, completed more than 10,000 emergency action plans, continued student vaccination efforts, provided mental health and behavioral support training and family workshops for more than 4,000 participants, and increased the number of its nationally recognized school counseling programs to 20.
Rodriguez congratulated district departments for their accomplishments and said the work reflects employees’ commitment to students.
Looking ahead to the 2026-27 school year, themed “Greater Things Yet to Come,” Rodriguez said schools must prepare students for a rapidly changing workforce driven by advances in technology and artificial intelligence.
“Two years ago, we were telling all the students to become coders because we thought that was the future,” Rodriguez said. “What did Silicon Valley just do these last couple of months? They laid off thousands of coders, so we can’t just have our students learn what we used to learn.”
Rodriguez said students will need more than academic and intellectual mastery and emphasized the importance of being multiskilled, culturally competent, socially and emotionally prepared, and committed to lifelong learning.
“We’ve been talking these last two years about the modern student because the student of today is not the student of my generation or of most of the generations that you have in the crowd,” Rodriguez said.
Rodriguez said the district will continue emphasizing academic achievement while ensuring students develop the interpersonal skills technology cannot replace.
“AI doesn’t take away the human centeredness that we need,” Rodriguez said. “It’s not going to be able to take away what us as people can do for each other.”
Rodriguez also announced a new employee recognition program called “Heroes of SUSD,” which will allow staff to nominate colleagues who make a difference in students’ lives.
“If you know a teacher, a counselor, a bus driver, a food service worker, a maintenance and operations worker, and they are what SUSD is about, you can nominate them and we will vote,” Rodriguez said. “You are all the ones that make a difference.”
Rodriguez pointed to improvements in student outcomes as evidence of the district’s progress, saying nearly every student subgroup now has a graduation rate above 80%.
Rodriguez also highlighted gains in early literacy, saying only about 6% of second graders were reading at grade level three years ago compared with 51% this year.
“What we know is we still need to continue to move the work forward for our students,” Rodriguez said. “We’re actually getting there.”
Record reporter Hannah Workman covers news in Stockton and San Joaquin County. She can be reached at hworkman@recordnet.com or on Twitter @byhannahworkman. Support local news, subscribe to The Stockton Record at https://www.recordnet.com/subscribenow.
This article originally appeared on The Record: Stockton Unified superintendent highlights gains, future goals at staff kickoff
Reporting by Hannah Workman, The Stockton Record / The Record
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By Hannah Workman, The Stockton Record | USA TODAY Network
