Bonita Unified Rival Football Teams to Vie for Smudge Pot Victory
San Dimas and Bonita high schools will seek ultimate bragging rights – and an unusual trophy – in the 51st annual Smudge Pot football game, set for 7 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 9 at the Citrus College Stadium, 1000 W. Foothill Blvd., Glendora. The friendly rivalry, which began in 1972, has become a beloved District tradition and display of school spirit, athletic prowess, and awe-inspiring halftime shows performed by cheer, dance and marching band students. The teams will compete for an iconic silver Smudge Pot, an oil-burning tool used to shield fruit trees from frost and a symbol of the cities’ roots in the region’s citrus industry.
Bonita Unified students returned to campuses for the 2023-24 school year on Aug. 21, full of excitement and undeterred by rainy weather as they renewed old friendships, reviewed class schedules and met their new teachers. The District has welcomed four new campus administrators for the new school year, as well as a new senior director of secondary curriculum and instruction. Bonita Unified will also seek to expand its career technical education program by building partnerships with more industry professionals and introducing additional work-based learning opportunities.
Bonita High School Auto Shop students looking to expand their skill set and gain more experience under the hood of a car participated in the Citrus College High School Summer Academy, a four-day seminar that gave them an opportunity to work with Citrus Automotive Technology professors, and explore its Medium and Heavy Diesel Truck Tech program. More than a dozen Bonita High students attended the academy, offered for the first time this summer. Students received advanced instruction, watched demonstrations, then got hands-on lab experience with cars and trucks as they worked towards Summer Academy certificates of completion issued by Citrus professors. Among the highlights were crankshaft balancer and engine dynamometer demonstrations, and two days working exclusively with diesel trucks.
Bonita Unified to Launch 2023-24 School Year Aug. 21
Bonita Unified School District will begin the 2023-24 school year on Monday, Aug. 21, welcoming students from transitional kindergarten to 12th grade back to campuses for another year of learning. Bonita Unified will seek to build on the growth and academic excellence it experienced in the previous year, which included a No. 1 ranking on the California Reading Report Card, a National Blue Ribbon School award and more. Bonita Unified School District’s 14 schools serve the communities of San Dimas, La Verne and part of Glendora.
Both new and familiar faces will step into leadership positions throughout Bonita Unified School District ahead of the 2023-24 school year, bringing years of experience and dedication to supporting academic excellence and fostering equity in education. Sean Casey will lead Chaparral-Vista High School as their principal, Nikole Burgess will serve as an assistant principal at Bonita High School, Kendra Lewis will join Chaparral-Vista High School as its new dean of student services and Dr. Kim Lawe will join the District as the new Senior Director of Secondary Curriculum and Instruction.
Bonita Unified School District has been recognized by the California Early Childhood Special Education (CalECSE) Network for its BLAST Preschool Program, which provides a comprehensive early education experience for children ages three to five. The CalECSE Network, a project funded by the California Department of Education, supports school districts, special education local plan areas (SELPAs), county offices of special education and other agency partners in addressing and eliminating barriers for California’s youngest children with disabilities throughout the state. BLAST, which stands for "Building Lifelong Academic Skills Together," serves both children who are typical learners and children with special needs. The program, offered at Grace Miller and Shull elementary schools, provides a research-based curriculum taught by an early childhood special education teacher with the support of two instructional aides.
Bonita Unified has been recognized as the San Gabriel Valley’s Favorite School District and San Dimas High School was voted Favorite Public High School in the Inland Valley, according to the Southern California News Group’s 2023 Readers Choice Awards. This is the second consecutive year Bonita Unified has been recognized in the annual readers’ poll. The 2022-23 school year brought many accolades and memorable moments throughout Bonita Unified, including National Blue Ribbon School and California Distinguished School awards, a No. 1 ranking on the California Reading Coalition’s California Reading Report Card, Bonita High’s first-ever Edison and National Merit scholarship recipients and more.
San Dimas High School Tech Innovation students can not only take a computer apart, identify what needs to be repaired, replace the worn parts and put it back together as good as new; they can look inside the operating system, find vulnerabilities that enable hackers to access the hard drive, and patch up the holes so that users can feel confident that their computer files are safe and secure. In an international cybersecurity “Capture the Flag” challenge hosted by Carnegie Mellon University this spring, San Dimas cyber-sleuths displayed their considerable skills, with three teams finishing in the top 10%, including a team of all freshmen, and one team of senior girls that finished in the top 8%. The competition is open to a large range of participants, from middle and high school to college students.
The idea for a fast-casual restaurant that invites customers to satisfy their guilty pleasures by indulging in artisan-crafted comfort food brought national attention to the San Dimas High School ProStart culinary arts program, when judges bestowed the creators of the fictitious “Cheat Day” business proposal a third-place finish at the 2023 National ProStart Invitational, held in Washington D.C. this spring. This is the first year that a Bonita Unified school has participated in the ProStart Nationals, and the highest finish for a California team in 10 years. Of more than 1,800 ProStart schools located in 50 states, San Dimas High ranks third in the country in restaurant management.
Under dramatic theater lights and skies filled with cascading streamers, nearly 750 graduates turned their tassels and tossed their caps into the air during commencement ceremonies that celebrated the triumphs achieved, challenges experienced and memories made by Bonita Unified’s Class of 2023. The ceremonies showcased the graduates’ excellence in their academic, athletic, artistic and extracurricular endeavors, from state awards for leadership and CIF championships to prestigious scholarships and nationally recognized culinary programs. Bonita Unified’s Class of 2023 features high-achieving graduates who will continue their education at institutions such as UCLA, UC Berkeley and Purdue University, as well as those who will enlist in armed forces or enter the workforce.
