Our Children Are Our Future - Marin Scope - By -Diana Lynne Turner

Our Children Are Our Future

by
Diana Lynne Turner



We all know how important the future of our children are to the viability of our community. But often we forget that, during those precious years that they receive their primary education, decisions can be made and experiences gained that will have a dramatic result on their future.

Today, my youngest child, Chauncy, is taking on the challenge of the first grade. My hope for his success is bolstered by the fact that the Sausalito Marin City School District provided him with an excellent foundation for his future: first at the age of four, as a part of the Head Start program; then at age five, as a kindergarten student at Bayside Elementary.

Not too many years from now, Chauncy and his fellow first grade class of 2005 will be the graduates of our middle school at Martin Luther King Academy. We should be confident that the class of 2012 will begin high school fully prepared to compete with students from any other school in Marin. After all, the best measure of our success is their success.

We are now engaged as a community in studying the benefits of a bond measure that will allow our district to build a new middle school at the site of the old North Bay School in Marin City. It will transform this old facility, which currently serves as King Academy, from three classrooms and a group of portables into a fully functioning middle school, complete with a science lab, gymnasium, and auditorium.

For the first time in the history of our school district we will offer our students with a facility that is on a par with middle schools in Mill Valley, Tiburon, Corte Madera and Kentfield.

Bayside will also benefit by getting a new kindergarten facility that will allow us to take our youngest children out of the portable classrooms, which have been in use since 1968. Additionally, there will be a variety of safety and structural upgrades that will have a positive impact on all of Bayside and our charter school, Willow Creek Academy.

I initially became involved with our public schools as a parent volunteer because I have always believed that involved parents and community citizens are important to the success of our schools. It has been a delight for me to be able to serve and an honor to be appointed to the district’s board of trustees. It’s no secret that for many years, our school’s academic performance has lagged behind those of our neighbors. We have improved dramatically, however, in the last two years, and we have boldly set a new goal to place our test scores in the top five percent of schools throughout California.

There have always been those who don’t believe that we can succeed. But don’t tell that to Chauncey or his fellow first graders. And don’t tell that to the parents of these children as well. Their future is as bright and filled with as much promise as the future of any other child in any other school in Marin.

The ability to successfully educate our children is the most important measure of a great society. We will succeed because we must succeed. With the commitment of our community to make the essential physical improvements to our schools, I know that we can succeed.


Over the past two years, Diana, a resident of Marin City, has been active as a PTA President in both the Marin Head Start program and Bayside Elementary School. In 2003, she was appointed to a seat on the Board of Trustees of the Sausalito Marin City School District. She works as a Laboratory Technician at Kaiser’s Medical Campus in San Rafael.

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