Beloved Longtime Pasadena Unified Teacher, Volunteer to Give 42nd Straight State of the School Address Tonight

For the 42nd year in a row, a celebrated longtime Pasadena Unified School District teacher who continues to devote his time to the district after retirement will deliver the State of the Schools Address to the Pasadena Unified School District Board of Education on Thursday.

Chuck Malouf retired from his position at John Muir High School in 2005, ending a 38-year teaching career.

But he wasn’t nearly done contributing to the education of Pasadena-area kids. He’s continued volunteering 400 to 500 hours at Muir High each year ever since.

And in a district tradition dating back to 1976, he will be on hand at Thursday’s PUSD Board meeting. “I’ll be giving my 42nd talk,” he said.

“Those kids that were seniors in high school the first year I taught at (Pasadena High School) this year, they’re going to turn 70,” Malouf said.

“When I started teaching at Pasadena High in ‘67, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was still alive and preaching,” he said. “That’s how far back I go.”

Pasadena Unified Board Member Scott Phelps said he’s looking forward to Malouf’s address.

“Chuck was a beloved longtime teacher at Muir and before that at other PUSD schools,” he said. “His annual address to us is a tradition he has kept up for many years. We enjoy hearing his perspective on the district.”

Malouf taught 38 different courses in the Pasadena Unified School District, in addition to teaching at colleges and coaching basketball.

Drawing on his experience and institutional knowledge, Malouf’s address discusses both encouraging and discouraging trends in the district.

“There’s finally some salary increases and all of that kind of a thing that’s starting to happen, but I think we still have a lot to do and the budgeting is a problem. The State doesn’t have necessarily the money that we should have.”

Other encouraging trends Malouf outline include preventing the closure of the popular “Muir Ranch” urban farming program at Muir High, bargained class size averages, new collaborations with Pasadena City College and improvements in working conditions for teachers.

Among the discouraging trends, Malouf will discuss issues including the districts severe budget crisis — which he says threatens student success, delays in construction projects and the sub-par ranking of California’s educational system as a whole.

The John Muir High School Alumni Association honored Malouf in 2012.

“Although he is not a graduate of Muir, he has adopted the school as if it were his own,” the group said in a written statement while presenting him with the Jim Brownfield Service Award. “He is a Muir ‘icon’ and truly a Mustang at heart.”

The Pasadena School Board meets tonight at for its public session at 5:30 p.m. in the Elbie J. Hickambottom Board Room at 351 South Hudson Avenue in Pasadena.