The Ventura Unified School District (VUSD) Board accepted a letter of retirement from Superintendent Dr. Roger Rice, effective September 3, 2022.
As the Superintendent who led the District through incredible gains and the pandemic, Dr. Rice worked to prioritize student achievement, innovation, access, and sound financial stewardship during his tenure.
“The last two years have been exceptionally challenging for educators across the State. Yet, throughout the pandemic, Dr. Rice never wavered in his commitment to our community’s children, their bright futures, and safety. Often working around the clock to problem solve in an ever-changing landscape, he led our District with honor, passion, and dedication,” stated Board President Sabrena Rodriguez. “We will forever be grateful for his time as our Superintendent. We wish him all the best in his retirement.”
Under Dr. Rice’s leadership, the District has focused its attention on implementing systems and processes to ensure every student succeeds in the Ventura Unified School District. In addition, the District has focused on equity, alternative educational options, improving educational services, technology, facilities, fiscal responsibility, communications, and professional development during his tenure.
Since Dr. Rice joined the VUSD team in 2019, VUSD has focused on equity and access by transitioning the District to becoming technology-driven, providing each student with a device and Wi-Fi when needed, and implementing the CANVAS content delivery system. In addition, new technology platforms were purchased.
Always a proponent of “access for everyone,” Dr. Rice came in and started the Special Education District Advisory Committee, the African American Parent Advisory Committee, increased
diversity in school and District leadership personnel, and adopted culturally responsible curriculum and instructional materials.
In addition, he focused his attention on providing innovative programs for all students and ensured that all Career Technical Education courses would be A-G compliant. In addition, he envisioned and broke ground on a one-of-a-kind organic farm housed at Pacific High School, Sa’Aliyas Ranch, that will allow students to see all aspects of a successful agricultural farm, including the technology, finance, and marketing that goes along with running it. Finally, under his leadership, VUSD built a Business Advisory Board to ensure CTE courses utilized updated equipment and methodologies and created a pipeline for students into careers upon graduation.
Through attrition, Dr. Rice led Human Resources on a project to reevaluate every open position to determine if it was needed or if the resources may be needed in other areas. In addition, he led the 7-11 Committee process that declared several District properties surplus, allowing the District the freedom to consider renting, repurposing, or selling properties not currently being used for student learning. He also worked to support and pass the Parcel Tax Ballot initiative.
Under Dr. Rice’s leadership, the District opened up all schools to the Schools of Choice process, which now allows all families to put in for a lottery drawing for any school in VUSD they feel is the best choice for their child. This year, the District increased its K-8 offerings by opening Lemon Grove School and expanding ATLAS Elementary to K-8 for Fall 2022. In addition, he implemented the new FLEX program that allowed multi-site attendance and distance plus live classroom attendance for each student in the program.
Dr. Rice’s leadership, professional development opportunities grew exponentially. He saw talent within the District and began an Aspiring Administrators Academy that allowed current staff to learn from, be mentored by, and shadow the District’s most exceptional administrators. He also implemented the VUSD Gratitude Awards recognizing employee, student, volunteer, and administrator excellence.
In addition to all of the above, Dr. Rice navigated the District through the COVID-19 crisis. He advocated ensuring that the State considered how decisions would impact students at the state level. He led the Ventura Unified staff to be the first District to return to full-time, in-person learning and offered multiple options for families who were not ready to return in person.
Driven to educate and innovate, he was honored in 2022 with the Superintendent of the Year Award for Region 13 by the Association of California School Administrators.
