Renaissance in Rio and Oxnard

Recently we have engaged in a series of visits of community members and staff to Rio School District classrooms and Oxnard High School District Classrooms. These visits have brought visitors from the business community, school community, city government and recently city government officials and educators from Kuanianen, Finland. It was great to host Jarkko and Anders on multiple days of visits, discussion, and planning. In these last few days it has become ever more present that Rio and the city of Oxnard are in a true Renaissance. A cultural rebirth. Visits to Rio classrooms, ACE Charter High School Classrooms, Rio Mesa High School classrooms, the Mexican Consulate, along with great partnership discussions with software designers, the Ventura County Office of Education, retired educators, and the city of Oxnard recreation department evidenced that the Oxnard plain is experiencing a great period of growth and innovation. Each of these experiences was rich in evidence of 21st century learning combined with deep commitment to children, family, community at hyper-local and hyper-global scales.

We want to thank all those who were part of this amazing few days of partnership development and learning and invite others from within our community and around the world to engage with our city, community and set of school Districts that are leading, innovating, and doing amazing things that aim at what Anders came all the way from Finland to learn about, and that is creating a City wide learning program or a “Smart City.” I realized, in the last few minutes of our world wind visit, that Oxnard is a smart city in a renaissance, rebirth, aimed at getting smarter and better in the 21st century. Match that with the beautiful weather, geography, and wonderfully diverse and beautiful people that live and come here, and the city that was born from agriculture more than 100 years ago is poised to shape its next 100 years through a process of hard work and learning that place its schools-from preschools to Universities at the center of an amazingly creative and dynamic human energy.