Principal's Message
2025-26 Principal's Message
Hello Spartan Family,
We want to welcome you to Schurr’s safe, positive learning culture. Schurr’s staff and students critically think and collaborate to improve the empowering education we create on the hill. We continuously improve on our mission to empower students to achieve academic excellence as model citizens.
A foundational component for learning is a safe and secure learning environment. In terms of safety, with the collaboration of MUSD’s Board of Education, we have added seven more security cameras to the 39 we had last year. These cameras aid in the supervision of our campus. We will strive to add more security cameras. We collaborate with Schurr’s supportive full-time School Resource Officer (SRO) to support safety on campus. These developments increase the safety of our students and staff so that we can continue to create a positive learning culture. Our students’ and staff’s safety is essential for us to thrive.
Schurr’s shared values of Support, Courage, Hard work, Uplifting, Responsibility, and Respect enable us to create a positive learning culture integrating a Positive Behavioral Intervention System (PBIS). We continue to thrive together through our uplifting Spartan Spirit. We work hard to recognize students exhibiting these values and expectations, and uplift their positive behavior through Schurr’s Spartan Bucks. Schurr’s staff responsibly integrates social and emotional learning daily. We continue to utilize one of our periods to create Spartan Meets that emphasize and celebrate our shared values. This enables our students to connect with one another and their supportive teachers. Our hard work as students and staff enabled Schurr to receive accolades from LACOE for our PBIS implementation, as well as receiving a PBIS Bronze in 2024 and a PBIS Silver medal in 2025. We will work hard to continuously improve. Our values create a positive learning culture where students can thrive interpersonally and academically.
Our hardworking students and staff continue to create a learning culture that emphasizes Montebello’s graduate profile, the 4Cs: Critical Thinker, Collaborator, Communicator, and Creator. We continue to develop innovative ways to learn and achieve academic excellence, whether through our Pathways, AVID or multiple extracurricular activities. Our students thrive in uplifting “blended learning” environments that allow them to critically think through content, collaborate and communicate safely, and create knowledge in multiple formats. Indeed, since 2023, 67 percent more students are choosing to take Advanced Placement (AP) tests, which earned Schurr the distinction as an AP Honor Roll high school. Furthermore, from the 2024-25 academic year, students who work hard to attain a 2.6 GPA, or higher, get an Extended 4th Period (25 minutes) that they can use at their leisure. We notice our students working harder with this incentive as they take more challenging coursework. These efforts show Schurr’s academic progress continuously improving on the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP). Indeed, our students achieve above California’s State Average in Reading by over 10% points, and our Math scores improved in 2025 by 13% and our Science scores by 16%. We are proud of our students and staff who continuously improve and thrive together.
Schurr’s vision integrates our PBIS behavioral expectations Support, Courage, Hard work, Uplifting, Responsibility, and Respect and our academic expectations, the 4Cs: Critical Thinker, Collaborator, Communicator, and Creator. By integrating these expectations, we are able to strive to attain our mission to empower our students to achieve academic excellence as model citizens.
We are deeply appreciative of our staff--cafeteria workers, campus safety, clerical, coaches, counselors, custodians, instructional assistants, school psychologists, and our teachers--for their collaborative support, their courageous communication, their hard work and critical thinking as they continuously improve and create our safe, positive learning culture. We are thankful to our students for the respectful, responsible manner they partner with our staff to create an uplifting culture on campus and in our community. Last but not least, we thank MUSD’s Board of Education for supporting Schurr’s safe, positive learning culture. We are grateful for their support of Schurr of how we empower our students to achieve academic excellence as model citizens.
Your partner in continuously improving our safe, positive learning culture,
Larry McKiernan Gonzalez