uh and uh I'll show you some pictures of it pictures of it at the end and then what happens is when you come to trolley I call this trolley book Junction I'm not I remember Memorial Drive Junction you hear me talk about it uh because it seems to be a main point where that you can go to downtown by the trolley book Trail or I can go down in the Memorial Drive through voyages Lane through the Ashland State path just the green line on the over there Cold Spring there'll be a boardwalk over here and then you come to Main Street and um and then there's a near thin wall there's a Cold Spring Book there's a there's a pathway that exists and it's kind of overgrown as most of the trail is and uh it look it'll connect to Chestnut Street so I'm going to show you more on the next slide which is a little a little bit larger um so I'm going to leave any any questions on the left hand side because I'm going to I'm going to give you another map from here I'm going to show you from here East but is there any questions from from there left okay everybody okay okay I think we're okay focusing okay thanks for the property okay so now this is a more zoomed up view of from the root for Memorial Drive Junction to Sherman line and basically we really want to this is part of phase one of the trail you know going from Sherman all the way to an MBT access road and then there's there's ways of getting all the way to Hopkinton State Park as shown in the previous map you know okay but that's but it's like a blue route see the blue route over here way up next that's that's this was added after the fact because we want to get we want to connect from Sherman to Hopkinton and this will give us a way without building a lot of those off-road paths we can we can get there because the supper Charles Trail and everybody knows about it it's a it's a five-time regional Loop that you know Holliston that goes to Milford I know if anybody's been on it or seen it and then goes Hopkins and Hopkins is working on it and then they're going to eventually meet us in uh Huffington State Park and then we take over and we go all the way across town to Sherman you know we're going by the dike Trail and all that you know I'll show you more of the uh in detail in a second but what's going to what's good about that is not only will you be able to connect to the um not only will you be able to get Dr apachal's Trail going towards Halston and then back to so from Ashland deck Trail to Sherman along the train tracks are trying to get it with CSX they're trying to negotiate that and it's the Jack Lewis and some of the other ones that are working on it right but what is it yeah okay okay and then also gonna have the East Coast Greenway and all that but now we're going to go um any questions about the map or the route I'll give you I'll give you yeah I think I think we're we're you know being in the school committee I think we're interested in seeing yeah but sort of what you're looking at around the high school building or any of our other buildings so that we can sort of you know get into the the idea of where we where are we involved and how do we move forward so we don't need to discuss we don't need to discuss that then so we can go yeah I don't want to call if anybody else I mean please yeah no and now you'll have this whole thing yeah so this wasn't included I could this wasn't included in the PDF file that I sent you because it was sort of we thought that you didn't need this but this is the uh this is the route that was recommended by author design at the Consultants that we had this is part of the final um I think we've seen this a while ago this was yeah earlier yeah okay but we didn't have it in a slide package but it's more uh an emission so basically this is the preferred route that was as of 2017 right as recommended by Alta the consultant and um I don't know if I have to trace through the property whatever it is but basically I think we understand like yeah most of us have spent more than enough time at the high school yes I mean we know that you're you're coming up on the yeah so one is below one goes below here and it comes right out there's a little spot and then it cuts across the property and um and then it goes down it connects to the uh goes by the baseball field and then it goes to it'll eventually end up in the uh Power Line so what's your opinion of of this particular route I mean your left chance that I just trying to get your initial opinion and we can look at all three options and then we could go back and forth yeah so I I and I bowate um the email that he referred to in the spreadsheet that they sent uh I I forwarded to to everyone during the meeting so that way now is that the one in our packet no no no so they had they had a spreadsheet where they kind of went through the communication things and it referenced an email I sent back in 2017.
Maggie Stevens moves it to the middle of the field number five lucasic giving on a chase balls flipped up in the air settled down off the knee back to Thompson and here we go she passes it up there it is ball is in the foot of Addie Jordan who's using her athleticism her soccer skills her strength making a move gives it a big boot which is blocked balls here it's up Sabina mckechney has it uses some soccer skills passes it back to lucasic puts a foot on it just bobbles it a little bit head ball on top there headed again a little push good call right there Islam Meadow gets a call Maggie Stevens was really in position there to put her head on it west side west side Defender jumped into Maggie Stevens gives East Longmeadow a free kick at the 25 yard line which really means it's about 35 yards to get it to that goal looks like it's going to be put in there we're going to see what happens on this kick it's flipped up it's a really good one whoa a really good opportunity there great pass in Maggie Stevens had it on her foot and she just missed putting that one on goal would have given East Longmeadow a great opportunity the goalie would have had to make a great save the ball was bombed out again Stevens puts her head on it here we go against it's passed back off the head it's coming back again mourinho's doing the right thing here takes it out to the side it's kind of a bumbling ball gets chased down good balls all over the place West side's got it it's headed out again number 11 Maggie Stevens has been really all over the field so far tonight she has been all over the field wherever the ball is bent that's where she is Thompson's got it on the wing she controls it she's got it back to men's men's goes back to the goalie not so sure about that pass right there uh going back to the goalie under those circumstances but goalie does the right thing comes out kicks it out of bounds giving away a corner kick foreign corner kick here for West Side Emerson video and the goal with a good play there stopping an opportunity oh a good ball there right about to the eight a good head ball there by Ava men's gets the ball out up to Addie Jordan over to Ally Thompson she's taking the ball she brings it up down the sidelines West side's kind of got that covered there's three girls back there it was really a one-on-three look to me there that Thompson may have had an opportunity to really carry that for a little bit look at Ava men's fighting through the traffic and getting control of that ball back to mckechny mckechny over here ball comes to Stevens she's carrying the ball again a good through ball got kind of stuck on the back of number five lucasics foot Maggie Stevens again ball up lucasics got it she sends it down the sidelines looks like that might be covered as well West side's gonna get a throw in [Music] head coach Matt Mosher assistant coach Hannah kolatsky assistant coach Kim Schwartz and the JV coach Joel katanzarite all on the sidelines tonight for East Longmeadow some metal had a tough game last week with uh Westfield it was a stormy day in Westfield on the grass Westfield got up to a two-nothing lead and then East Longmeadow with a penalty kick by Addie Jordan was able to get it to 2-1 and then the game was called unfortunately at halftime due to weather um so far this season Addie Jordan top goal scorer for East Longmeadow has two goals both on penalty kicks East Longmeadow yet to score a game a goal other than through a penalty kick throw in now by Kenna Marino lucasics got it it's kicked out of bounds I believe Maybe by lukasik and west side is going to take the ball they've thrown it up it goes off of mourinho's head over Ali Stevens has it brings it up it's settled down in the middle of the field lucasic had it again there just had it taken away Ali Stevens with a a big bomb of a kick it's coming over here Ali Thompson has it she's settling it down kind of just got that got away right there with the right foot but it comes back to her settle it down there there this is a much better play Here by Ali Thompson yeah even though that much better play I mean she might have had that one taken away but I really like the way that she kept the ball there because they're just covering that long pass West Side their Defenders are deep and uh watching out for the speed of East Longmeadow they know that East Longmeadow likes to play the ball over the top or that through ball and they're covering that right now so great play there by Ali Thompson to keep possession as West Side was backing up love the aggressive play Here by Ava men's getting right in on there same thing there by Jillian Stevens using her body to box out and that was a little bit more than a box out so it's going to be a trip there by Ali Stevens on number two from West Side so then again an opportunity here just about it's outside the box a good distance but it's at about the 10 yard line on the football field 32 minutes remaining in the game west side is going to get another opportunity here to put one in we're going to have it looks like we're gonna have a lefty kicker which means it's going to swing from left to right it goes right in on the goal and the goalie comes out punches it out of bounds west side is going to get another opportunity with a corner kick coming from number eight a left footed midfielder unfortunately the West Side sheet with the names that are very very small print so I'm not able to identify with my old eyes the names based on the numbers ball goes in the middle and an opportunity there as well for West Side it goes wide of the goal gonna get a goal kick here by East Longmeadow gets it right out right away Lizzie Roman has it she bombs it up the sidelines but right to a West to a West Side Terrier lucasic on it back again on about can a Merino throwing it in lucasic calling for it as she's running almost a big Collision there [Music] good play there by men's to block that attempted through ball this one's going wide [Music] men's defending two players defending right into the face no reaction there by Ava men's ball is just out of bounds off of Ali Thompson's foot gonna get a West Side throw in number 21 for West Side throwing it in some West Side players moving around gets off the head ball comes to the middle Roman has it kicks to the middle Sabina mckechny has it tries to get it up and does get it up to Jordan it's one on three right now it's gonna probably pass it over nope it looked like she had mckechny kind of cutting down the outside there but she tried a step around move if she had made it she was probably going to be one-on-one with the goalie a really good attempt good play here there's Stevens again all over the Midfield right now Ali Thompson chasing this one down using her speed and leverage passes it over lucasics got it here gonna take her time I like this idea passes it through Thompson's gonna try and Chase that one down goes just over the end line goal kick west side [Music] down [Music] head ball by Ali Stevens Ali Stevens has it right into the head of number three she reaches up but no concussion or anything like that she's under control almost a handball there good stop but West side's got it they Bomb It Up the middle good play there by Ali Stevens to get her head on it and said get islametto a chance to settle in its defense West Side throw in throws it sideways slash backwards being chased ball goes around to the outside it's going to be chased down by west side looks like maybe going to keep that in and does ball ends up out of bounds looks like we're gonna get two substitutes for East Longmeadow looks like Emma Susa number 10 is going to be heading in over on the right hand side and Megan morno coming in and taking the place of Ali Thompson on the left hand side is Sabina McKechnie I believe is on her way to take a little rest ball gets bombed up the middle there and it's chased down there's Susa getting involved oh a good heck good ball through ball there comes again number 11 Stevens has it here it comes it's on morno's foot she's got it I don't know what kind of pass that was she really took her time like she was going to be setting something up but then didn't do anything with it so here we go morno's got it now it's Bach back in the middle being chased to the outside good try on the pass there by number five Caroline lukasik tried to get it out wide to morno but just didn't work West side's got it comes around lukasik using using her speed ball comes back good play there by men's really gonna we're gonna get a field switch here ball goes over to Emma Susa Emma Susa settles the ball down gets it right over here to number 14.
uh so welcome Emily we're very excited of having you here on board are other student board member uh is online uh tonight uh that is uh Mariah Santos Mariah Santos is a student at Sierra High School um Mariah most recently this summer uh spent uh three days uh with board members with staff members with parents um and really lending an awesome voice a student perspective on vision mission values and goals uh she did a a really uh great job of being able to articulate a student point of view when we were talking about uh the vision mission values and goals and so I just want to welcome Maria Santos who will be with us online uh uh the first half and then they'll do a Switcheroo Mariah will come in person and Emily will ship to online thank you [Applause] welcome Emily would you like to say a few words um hi everyone I'd just like to say thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to be here and welcome me into your group thank you so much and Murray is online too Mariah would you like to say a few words to introduce yourself um good evening I'm very excited to be part of this and hope to have a good be a very good advocate for my school so thank you for allowing me this opportunity welcome to both of you [Applause] now moving to item 7.1 public comment on agenda or non-agenda items we have one blue card and is that um Mickey Carpenter hi Mickey how are you good evening Dr Bo members of the Board of Education District staff and members of the community I'm Mickey Carpenter I'm director of Community Resources for the city of Azusa and I'm here tonight to provide an update on the city of Azusa Youth and Family Center which is a project of Azusa all in for Azusa all in for Azusa is a network of organizations facilitated by the Community Resources Department it was the center itself was created with input from residents including teens and opened in the summer of 2020 so we just celebrated our one year anniversary the location is actually at the North Recreation Center at Memorial Park and we took some underutilized rooms and turned them into a team Lounge a workshop room and a private family counseling space but the center is less about the building and more about the Innovative way programs and services are woven together it's an integrative approach for City Recreation we're bringing not only our our usual Sports and recreational activities but we're looking at an integrative approach bringing other programs and services to really be able to serve the whole child the whole family and of course the whole community um in the last year we've served hundreds of families that received services and enjoyed the social health and Workforce Development Services that were provided there this work is possible through the shared vision and generous support of local organizations and our funders I should say that the majority of services there are actually provided free of charge and are in-kind donations from our partner agencies we do know that improving the physical health and emotional well-being of Azusa youth gets them ready for Bright Futures serving entire families in this holistic way actually creates an even more resilient and thriving Azusa and at our one year anniversary I just wanted to give some shout outs and some thanks to some organizations that have been supporting us all year long those include the of course our Azusa Youth and Family Center youth Council the Azusa High interactors the Boys and Girls Club of the Foothills YMCA YWCA of San Gabriel Valley Foothill Family Maryvale Department of Mental Health we now have a peer Resource Center also Azusa Pacific University Community Counseling Center Apu nursing department American job centers San Gabriel valley economic partnership the K-12 Foothill Consortium Colgate Bright Smiles Bright Futures the Apu gardening club chap care El proyecto Clinic City of Hope LA County Public Health veteran peer Access Network the Azusa Renaissance theater and Chi ni who's a Rubik's Cubes Cube master and of course last but certainly not least this is a unified school district we generously appreciate your generous support all year long and we look forward to our continued partnership throughout the school year thank you Mickey now moving to item 8.1 comments reports and requests by the Board of Education Dr Bill yes I'm sorry could we check if there's anybody online that has a hand raised yes Lika are is anyone uh for public comment that is participating virtually we have no hands raised online thank you thank you so much Mr Ortega and now moving to item 8.1 comments reports and requests by the Board of Education we'll start with board vice president Rodriguez Pena uh good evening everyone I just want to um I wanted to thank um Mr Tasha for that beautiful welcoming barbecue that we have but the most important the best part of it all is that I want a gift card and I want to thank Norma Camacho for that she pulled my name so it was very nice because that's when we see everyone come back and you know um enjoying themselves and have a great time and eating ice cream and everything and it's really good when you get together you know with your colleagues and your um well I call them my employees right they're all and you know having a lot of fun and Latasha had some very good gift cards I'll tell you so um I also went to Gladstone Middle School back to school night it was a great turnout you know I spoke to parents and um they had very many positive things to say about Glaston Middle School you know to them it was kind of like oh my God look at this big giant Middle School right they just really love the um the quad especially when they walked in you know some of the parents have never been into the quad and and they in the gym like what there's their position in this place oh wow you know but they were very impressed I had I spoke to one mom that you know she mentioned to me that um it would it impact your very much with all the changes that we've had and I'll just give you a little bit scenario about she has one child that was supposed to go to Ellington but now goes to Valleydale she has a second child that had to go to Center Middle School but now I was at Gladstone Middle School her third child was supposed to go to Gladstone High School ends up at Azusa High and she said it was in Justin for her but you know she said no it it worked out and after the buses and the you know who to go get first and everything and she said that you know the kids are fine and she's fine and and I was very glad to hear that a positive input I went to the Elementary School back to school night and also I went to several elementary schools Full House it's great to see um so many parents coming back you know a lot of the meetings that I go to there's so many parents involved in it it's really great to see that um and the classrooms look beautiful with the beautiful desks and you know the teachers they look so spiffy in there very nice I'm proud to be a board member when I walk in um is this a high school coffee with the principal another great turnout there was almost 50 parents in there I've never seen so many parents at a coffee with the principal and it was great to see parents you know I knew parents from Valleydale and from Paramount and then I seen them at Azusa and then I seen I needed a pairing some sauce in and also from Lee but in terms of these parents don't know each other so I I think it was it was really good um to see them but not only that um the program specialist Laura Clark she held a community Circle and the parents worked together and they answered a few questions and it was good because you know these moms like I said I I guess their kids are all in elementary and now they're all in high school you know and it was it was beautiful and and they didn't know each other but they they started talking to each other and I think it's great to have the Family Circle um more often because they really enjoyed it also um I also went to the Rotary I'm also a rotarian so we had the rotary uh the field of Glory students from Azusa unified they were fabulous they played a big part in this beautiful um political Glory event Brianna if you know her she sang the national anthem uh Azusa High School Orchestra played beautifully I want to thank Mary Turner this is a high school students Audrey she read she was the sa contest winner and she she read what Freedom meant to me and it was beautiful the art contest winners three Elementary School students from Victor Hodge one purse second and third place two high school students from um the middle school I'll just tell you we included this time we included Saint Francis of Rome so in the Middle School all those kids one one two and three and Azusa High School two high school students one came in first and second and also Emily I remember now I remember that you were there that was beautiful you being there we had we had a lot of students from our district and it was proud to see that people were very impressed I mean with the orchestra and with the speeches and everything and I'm glad that they're part of us um I went this morning to Valleydale uh they were recognized for their success no kid hungry program Christian Val was there to present the award I'm not sure if you know who she was I didn't know her by name honestly after Arturo who's that but when I seen her I know exactly who she was and and she was a very nice young lady she stood to take pictures with the um students afterwards and I want to congratulate Mr Trejo Stella the director of nutrition services all the cuff chair employees Laura Davis Bertha Carmona Edna Hicks Linda Valdez Evie Jimenez well deserved she asked the students who was a hero and this one little boy said it was um Spider-Man I guess yeah Spider-Man and then another boy said the cafeteria lady she said that's what I want to hear you know so it is really cute I love to see the students interact but I also at this time since I'm doing thank yous I like to thank oh superintendent or Vega Mrs Camacho Mr Jamal Mr Ellen from the director of MOT and Mr Robert Zamora all the certificated and classified employees and the students and the parents for all the hard work and dedication I know that it was a big change for all of them to come back to you know a different school just like this one parent told me and and not that we had to make change before like come back whatever normal means right after covet so now they're coming back to a new school and and I I'm hoping everything works out for everyone because I want to wish them uh to have a very good year thank you thank you and we'll continue with board member vanity this and go around this way foreign I also attended the barbecue for the staff and it was a very well attended barbecue it was fun it was nice to see the camaraderie between the staff and um you know the cabinet there and it was just a fun event I think it's a way to come back and start the new school year on a positive note um I also attended and and I want to thank the staff for putting that together for for everyone um and I also attended the um Gladstone Middle School back to school and that was my first time and that was really an eye-opener for me it was a great event I took the opportunity to be a parent that night and and really you know kind of do the walk through and experience what the parents experienced on behalf of the students um I learned a lot I went into the classrooms I really appreciate the fact that the teachers go out of their way to you know make a make the classrooms welcoming for the students I thought that to me that was so inspirational uh I you know some put like the extra touch they put lights so they took you know the decor is just incredible what I saw um there was motivational messages and you know things on the wall so it's it's just really encouraging to see that they work really hard to to help the students feel welcome especially now with the mergers I think that was you know they they really went the extra mile and it's really appreciated I also had the opportunity to visit Gladstone Middle School I I want to try to visit the schools since this is my first term and I want to get familiar with the with the grounds at each school so I will be making visits and just kind of get an idea of what's going on with all the new improvements and maintenance that needs to be you know upgrades that need to happen and it's really nice to see that the staff is working hard to to make those improvements and working within the budget to make sure that we can provide for the students and and the community as a whole so I really enjoyed my visit at Gladstone middle school and I you know I I'm encouraging myself to continue to do that with all the other schools because I look forward to that so I'm trying to squeeze that into my schedule I did also attend the uh Azusa High School coffee with the principal and that was the first time I went and it was really there were over 50 parents there it was nice it was nice to see that there were also fathers that were participating at the event I I'm not sure what the attendance was like before I would love to see more parents come out granted I know that we probably have you know two parent households that are working and probably you know can't attend but it was just it was nice to see that you know there was a large group there I did participate in the community circles and I did that because I want to feel that I want them to know that I'm here to support the parents I'm here to support the students I want to know what it what they what they go through and how they feel so that was really important to me and I appreciate um the time there so I can I hope to continue to be a part of that thank you a good friend of mine kind of said something once and it stuck with me I don't know if he's the author of this proverb or he got it from somewhere else but he says uh the the best the best time to plant a tree is 30 years ago the second best time to plant a tree is today and I as I look at the many things that are happening within the district there's there's so much of me that wishes that that in many ways that so much of this would have would have happened a long time ago and it didn't for a variety of reasons um however I'm I'm very grateful for the the fact that as I look around the district and and see all of the things that are happening that that today they are um I want to just kind of give a shout out to my colleagues and also the cabinet because it wasn't that long ago when when we were making some decisions and we were saying okay these are decisions that we have to make and we really only have enough information to make these decisions based off of the next year or so and then we said well what if we were to zoom out and what if instead of making decisions based off of one year of of of imagining and projections what if we really looked out and projected several years out and imagine let's get a demographer and let's let's go through all these these steps and processes and that was a lot of hard work um and on the other side of that hard work was a a many very difficult decisions that were needing to be made and I so I just want to just say thank you to to my colleagues and also to the to the cabinet for your your willingness to to stick with that and make those difficult decisions um and and realize how complex that is and the ways that it affects our community in many many complex ways um but I know that as a result of those decisions I I truly believe that um we are are setting the azus Unified School District off on an incredible trajectory um one kind of picture of that is my daughter who is a seventh grader so so she's in this first class now at Gladstone middle school and I can't describe for you how much she loves her school how much I mean she she was sick one day one morning where and it was like no you can't go to school and she's trying to talk me into letting her go to school on that day when when she's sick um and and that just that just matters it just really it really means something and and I look at some of the students that we've highlighted tonight and and that's that's already the the caliber of student that that is is being produced in the Azusa Unified School District and I just can't wait to look ahead um to see the the future classes that will that will come um that will come after um I also really want to acknowledge that this season of of change has has brought about a lot of difficult uh learnings realizations a number of things that we would have hoped to have had in place and and things fully operational and they've they've not been across the board I've gotten emails and had gotten have had phone calls and have had face-to-face conversations I know that many sitting around this diets have as well and so thank you for continuing to share those concerns um and Reporting the the things that are not working not functioning uh properly um and I just want to say I'm sorry for for that sorry for the the fact that everything is not right where we would like it to be um but but I can say that with with great confidence the the amount of hard work that's being put toward um seeing to it that those items are being addressed um and so thank you for being this iteration of students of families of teachers of of classified employees administrators who are are in the midst of this transition and so because of the the cost that you're paying to be part of the transition it's really again setting things up for for the future generations of uh the azus Unified School District and so thank you for for your willingness um to be that and then last thing I I really want to say is thank you especially to uh Miss Jamal and also Mr Allen for your just just hard work the the list of things to do based off of of these consolidations is is just endless I mean and on on top of the consolidations there's also modernization that modernization that's taking place and and other upgrades there's any number of things and and though the the list is long and it sometimes seems like it keeps growing um I I it's not lost on me personally uh the way that that you uh Mr Maul and also Mr Anna are directly addressing these things head on um the way that that you are just responding to to people with with uh such Grace and humility um and and I just have so much such great confidence that that we will um in in very short amount of time really really see some of these things um get to where they need to be and so just want to say a special thank you to you and your team foreign good evening everyone I would like to welcome you guys back it's students it's been a month teachers staff in the front administrators what a month we're into this transition I I just to kind of echo what my colleague said my son also attends Gladstone Middle School and he was so excited to go first week he goes in he just loves it um loves going to school loves his classes loves to be on the campus and so these are great examples of the students that are attending Gladstone Middle School that it is a great middle school and then and it will continue to be great and to move forward there have been a little hiccups and I personally want to also help our staff for addressing the hiccups that you know there's no doubt when in life you go through transitions that it's gonna run smooth ever so I appreciate the way our staff has responded to every concern and just to Echo again the list you know we can sit here and approach a situation in a very angry and you know no solution and we're just head on and but the way that I have seen our staff Administration face this is with very strategic approach and solution focused and I appreciate that because this transition I'll tell you we're the first district that has close Six schools and people are calling what did you guys do we're still doing it and it's going to take it's going to take a little bit but we will get there and I have faith in our staff in our district I've been here for 45 years in this District not only as a student an employee as a parent now as a school board member and I have never seen a more Dynamic Administration here on the board working with the board so I thank you I thank you for that cabinet all of you and for you guys at the schools the principals wow staff in the front desk coming back to get geared teachers students we have all come together and we're taking our district back because this district is a Souza Unified School District and we make great leaders and tonight is an example right the we had the three girls and we have more success stories we do Walk With Pride because we are a USD and I want to wish you guys a great great year and thank you again for addressing the issues that need to be addressed and being transparent so I think each one of you guys who have reached out to me personally have stopped me at every um time that I go to the grocery store have email text again Asus is here to stay and we're only going to get better thank you colleagues I would just want to briefly Echo um my congratulations for all of the hard work of our students parents staff and administrative team and making this transition go as well as it has um it's a testament to the resilience of everyone here and their commitment to not stopping and not settling um and also to if there's one thing I learned from you Mr Ortega is the theme of continuous Improvement so as we knock out one thing we identify things to keep getting better at and as my colleagues have shared our community is very engaged and they are they feel comfortable coming to us coming to you saying you know we're still working on this issue so I also want to continue to encourage you and the team to address those issues as quickly and as positively as possible we know that there are like whack-a-mole one thing gets resolved and nothing pops up so we just want to continue that positive spirit of improvement knowing that every day if we make a little bit of progress we're better than the day before a special announcement that I'd like to share with you today is that um I have uh the honor of serving on a planning committee for Senator Susan Rubio's Wings empowerment event Wings is a short acronym for women in pi women inspiring the next generation of Sisterhood um this is the second annual event it will be held on Saturday September 30th from 9 to 12 at El Monte High School um it is for uh young women and girls seventh grade through college open to all all community so throughout the San Gabriel Valley the workshops will revolve around four themes financial literacy etiquette healthy relationships and wellness and so I'm happy to share the registration link and the flyer with our staff so that we can have a great group of Azusa unified young women and girls represented there it is free um again it's 9 to 12 on a Saturday at El Monte High School they're about 200 seats available and we're not full yet but we know that as we get closer the seats tend to fill up so I hope that we can get the information out to our counselors and ensure that we can have some representation from Azusa unified at this second annual event thank you so much and now moving to item 9.1 uh Mr Ortega uh thank you Dr Beau I'd like to turn it over to uh Mariah to give her student a board member report good evening board members superintendent Ortega and cabinet my name is Maria Santos and I'm excited to represent Sierra High School as our student board member this year has been off to a great start with lots of improvements we have a few new classes this year at Sierra College studies to help students prepare for life after graduation Spanish 2 which allows us the opportunity to have two years of a foreign language and ROP graphic arts which will grow into a graphic arts multimedia program I'm actually in the college studies class and it is a great opportunity for me and other students to explore careers and how College May support our goals After High School we're also very excited to have a new principal Miss Peterson new counselor miss solisano Mr aquiza who teaches Latino studies and our new health career ROP teacher Ms Gonzalez we also have a new campus security team that engages and interacts with us while keeping us safe in addition we have new improvements at Sierra new classroom and teacher Furniture new AC units which is a live saver especially in the weight room a new roof and new cameras to help with safety on campus I want to thank you the board superintendent and cabinet on behalf of our school for all the new improvements we had our first black football game last Wednesday where we played Doug Sears Learning Center we were ahead most of the game but Ducks years won in the last play by one point overall it was a good game and everyone had fun I also want to share some upcoming events at Sierra our back to school night is on September 28th we have a blood drive on October 5th and we have spirit days every Friday where there's a different theme or activity last Friday was anything but bring anything but a backpack day it was a fun and creative day I brought a shopping cart as my anything but a backpack which I thought was the best Sears officer a great star and I'm looking forward to a great senior year this year thank you Mariah I'd like to turn over to Emily for her student member report okay so Azusa High School would like to welcome parents to our back to school night on September 13th at 6 PM the evening begins with the parent meeting at 5 15 PM in the gym teachers will be ready to show off their new rooms answer questions about grading curriculum and homework we hope to see you all there Azusa High School would also like to congratulate the following students who were rewarded the national Hispanic recognition award by the college board for their outstanding performance on College Board exams such as the SAT PSAT or AP exams special congratulations to Andrea Garcia Brian Ramirez Gonzalez Brian Pacheco Elizabeth aguir Eric Argos Hector Hernandez Aaron Zaragoza Priscilla Ortiz Zamora and Joe Joel Sahara good job Aztecs September is attendance Awareness Month 733 students have missed one or fewer days this year so far we hope to see that all students continue to see the importance of regular attendance in doing well in class every single day Azusa High School Italy is pleased to announce that the partnership with the Western Justice Center in our community schools program have yielded two school-wide Community circles so far this school year and one day of parent Community circles during our last coffee with the principal on September 7th this is all part of our plan to build community and connection at Azusa High School we will continue to use circles with students parents and staff as we build a culture of belonging here at Azusa in Azusa sports news we are excited to announce that the Azusa volleyball team has started the season 11-5 they start league play with an away game against Duarte on September 13th Azusa girls tennis has started the season one to one and is away this week against Montclair Aztec football has started the year 2-2 with our first home win of the Season against mark keppel on September 8th football's next game is on September 14th this Thursday night at Citrus College at 7 pm cross country will start their season on September 28th and the girls flag football will start their season away on September 26th and their first home game will be on October 3rd lastly we want to celebrate our theme for this year at Azusa High School which is Together We rise juntos NOS elevamos by working together we can achieve anything and we look forward to an amazing year thank you thank you Mariah thank you Emily um a couple of things to share number one uh just wow on our students are being honored by the Western Justice Center for The Peacemaker award um definitely a source of Pride right just to to see students uh rise to the occasion rise to the calling and I always say sometimes we we lose sight of this but there was a kindergarten teacher who added value to those students and a custodian or or or a lunch lady or a principal right it's an accumulation of the of the culture uh of the team that that makes that and so just want to uh show my gratitude uh for that um I was also at the Gladstone Middle School back to school night and even though I'm going to piggyback on some of the comments here um spoke to many parents uh but one parent I want to highlight one parent comment um she shared with me how nervous uh she was about this move she wasn't on board with this decision but um kind of like board member Greer uh she said but it's all worth it when I hear my child and how much she loves this school and so I thought that was that was pretty awesome um have had the opportunity to visit Sykes that is a highlight of what I get to do uh speaking to classified staff certificated staff walking into classrooms walking into cafeterias uh saying hello uh and and just being able to witness the amazing things that are happening in our district uh today Valleydale uh we were at Valleydale um and even though we were at Valleydale I just want to again just show my gratitude when we think about wrap around Services I would think about the whole child's approach nutrition is a critical uh component of that um and so to to know that we are being recognized by an outside agency to have a caliber of Kristen Bell aka Anna to my children uh from Frozen um again just what a what a what an awesome right uh tribute to what's happening um yes we have the core program of breakfast and lunch but to know that we're pushing those boundaries for with Second Chance breakfast we're put pushing those boundaries uh with a supper program we're pushing those boundaries uh with with scratch cooking and organic ingredients um again it's just a testament so just want to thank the nutrition services Latasha and her Department um because again it is the whole child and nutrition is such a big component so I just want to give a shout out to Valleydale and everybody that was there but to the whole entire team as well thank you I would also like to begin by just recognizing Althea Ito and Andrea Mendez and Natalie De La Cruz on the recognition that they received from the Western Justice Center um they're really a reminder and a representation of our why and the purpose to the work that we all do here every day so congratulations to them I was able to attend back to school night at Longfellow and at Murray it was wonderful to see all of the families the staff and all of the engagement and participation tomorrow night we have back to school night at Azusa High School and at the Magnolia adult transition um so I too have been able to attend back to school night I um partnered with superintendo Ortega at Gladstone middle school and I've also attended doll tip I got to meet the Bobcat who came all the way down from the mountains according to this position to say hi so I was like howdy but I realized it wasn't a horse I wasn't supposed to say howdy but I just said hello but the point of reflection um um I know what we have in our division is called belt which is the business executive leadership team and on the last couple of Thursdays when we have that meeting we've been having a lot of moments of just self-reflecting like oh my God we thought we're going to achieve this we thought we were going to achieve that but going to the back to school night it just gave us all the realization of how much we did achieve um we did not meet the mark on everything we set our goal on and um one point for myself I remember my year two of starting a school year um and the public comments was AC AC AC AC HVAC h back it's hot it's hot and I remember sitting with Brian the director of Maintenance operations like how can we achieve the goal of this is not the public comment for the upcoming school year and we were grateful when the Board of Education approved the Esser project um when we were slated to have all of our hvacs installed for the start of the school year but beyond our control we had the delays of materials delays of contractors case in point Valley bill was scheduled to get 27 units and as the units were being delivered it was an accident in all 27 units were damaged and the car accident and so now they're starting from scratch so we're we're having instances where we have the goal we have the authority for the Board of Education to make stuff happen but it's literally just things beyond our control that's setting us back we installed the furniture and then we have some of our classrooms where the sizes of the classroom are just not the same on every every campus though we measured the classroom but it came down to when we have additional items in the classroom such as bookshelves and file cabinets it just makes it a tighter fit so we have the goal of just being the best and that's not going to change but we are pivoting to figure out how we can make sure we're the best and making sure we're being compliant with everything I'm still grateful my team is grateful but I also wanted to continue to give them Kudos because sometimes you do get discouraged and just like oh my God the complaints the complaints but we're so proud of what we're doing today being at Valleydale seeing the little kids like can I have some more garlic bread you getting garlic bread at school I mean I mean we gonna talk about we getting garlic bread at school from scratch I mean we didn't make the red but it's fresh butter but we did have we do have pasta we have organic meat I mean our students are having stuff that some kids still don't have we have scratch cooking we hired three cooks that we have that are preparing meals we have um a chef that's on our staff now um it's just more and more that we continue to do that we're going to get better we are going to get better we're going to continue to thrive we have the goals of improving all our meal lines and not all of them were able to be open because of staffy shortage but we have a plan in place to meet and Achieve our goals so I just want to encourage everyone to know that we we do hear you we're going to continue to be resilient we are not going to give up because we are determined to continue to keep a zoos on the map where they are and all of our directors and all of our staff has committed to that and we're going to continue every week we will promise to show Improvement thank you and good evening um I also had an opportunity to attend uh paramounts back to school night last week and at the beginning of the school year I was able to attend uh Sierra High School's uh principal introduction night where she also was able to provide parents uh with an overview of the school and a3g um and just all the awesome stuff that Sierra offers so it was really nice to be a part of that and see uh Miss Peterson at work as our Sierra High School principal I also want to share a brief update on our certificated and classified Staffing we have filled over 70 certificated teacher success coach program specialist and administrator positions over the past spring and summer we still have and we still are continuing to fill on the last few certificated positions at schools and special education and our combo support coaches but it has been a heavy lift for our department to to hire that that many number of certificated positions uh similarly we have filled over 40 classified positions throughout many of our classified our classifications um in in the district also uh csca and management positions some of those positions have been mentioned here already the district also was recently a form that will undergo a stirs audit um stirs is our certificated retirement program for the 2020-2021 and 2021 2022 school years so the auditor requested to review a list of certificated employees and that process is ongoing and lastly the year of service dessert social is this upcoming Monday September 18th at 3 45 pm at Sierra High School's multi-purpose room this is an opportunity to recognize our employees who have achieved those Milestone years of service to the district uh this was this is a a great way to honor um a our employees that have given so much to our district so I hope to see you all there on Monday at 3 45 at Sierra High School thank you thank you so much superintendent and cabinet just before we move on to the consent agenda I wanted to just uh brief Miss Hernandez our student board member on your role here as a student board member who's participating in person so for each of the action items um whoever serving as president will call for um a motion and then a second um there may be discussion and then we'll call for the vote before the board members vote I will look to you and ask for your student preferential vote and so um we need you to make sure they're fully engaged so because when you say yes you're voting yes and if you say no you're voting no and then after that the board will vote and that will be reflected on the screen okay thank you so now moving to item 10.1 approval of the consent agenda I do understand that uh board member Benavides you have an intention to pull an item actually I did want to pull an item but I appreciate the fact that Natasha already gave an update on the HVAC so thank you for that so with that would you like to make a motion no no I don't need to pull the item okay so with uh 10.1 this is an action item approval of the consent agenda is there a motion I make a motion to approve 10.1 through 10.338 [Music] second moved and seconded uh Michigan is the one the one point and this is all just also to remind me sometimes because I go too fast the only agenda item for which we don't have discussion is the consent agenda so now that we've moved and seconded I'll ask for your preferential vote on this item yes thank you and board members I will now call for the vote for 10.1 thank you and motion passes four two one yes it didn't go through sure no to to yes so let the record reflect that item 10.1 passes unanimously um now moving to the next item 12.0 presentation of our community schools program uh Miss weed I was told to speak right into the microphone good evening Dr Beau um members of the board superintendent Ortega and cabinet I'm so happy to be able to be here this morning [Music] all right let's try that I am so excited that I get to be here with you tonight um to share with you all about our community schools initiative that we have been launching here in Azusa um I think we can all agree that a focus on building connections and community at all levels particularly this year is going to be essential as we're merging our school communities and trying to address the increasing violence that we've seen in our city so for me I feel a real sense of urgency and timeliness with this initiative I thought a lot about Martin Luther King Jr's letter from the Birmingham Jail when he talks about time and that time is neither an asset or it's not an ally or an enemy things don't just get better or get worse but it's incumbent upon us to use time creatively to work for justice and that is really what this initiative is all about um so tonight I'm in this presentation I just want to give you a little overview of what it is and why we're doing it and help us to begin to develop a shared understanding of the initiative and the framework where we are right now and where we're going so I hope if you've been out and about you have seen these Banners at the school sites um this is our Azusa Community School logo a lot of thought was put into that I wonder what you see when you look at that image what it might say to you about what community schools are about I hope that you see warmth I think I hope you see the people in the center I hope that you see the heart for caring relationships the graduation hat signifying culturally relevant education and our students reaching their potential leaves to show growth the swirling Circle to be signifying that continuous Improvement that ongoing Improvement that we want to have and then in the word Community you see that we emphasize Unity we've lastly got our three power words for our community schools initiative here in Azusa which are connected joyful and thriving what we're trying to strive for at all of our school sites and then our team collaborated together on a theme for this particular school year and you can see that our theme this year is we build community together as we Foster belonging and Empower all so what is a community school a community school strategy transforms a school into a place where Educators local community members families and students work together to strengthen the conditions for student learning and healthy development as partners they organize in and out of school resources supports and opportunities so that young people can Thrive we've got a short little video that we can share with you to help us all understand what community schools are how to get the most of grammarly free It's Kayla on behalf of grammarly to tell you all about the free version of and about grammar caring for the whole child expanding the horizons of learning building relationships with families working together to realize a shared vision this is the school every student needs this is a community school Community Schools are public schools that partner with stakeholders to create the conditions students need to thrive Community Schools can be found across the United States and their numbers are growing fast but what exactly makes a school a community school they integrate student supports clinics counselors and other services ensure each and every student is ready to learn they expand and enrich learning extended school days summer programs and real world experiences help students reach their full potential they engage families and communities partnering with residents to identify and meet Community needs makes everyone feel safe welcome and involved in school they lead in collaboration inclusive decision making and peer learning builds trust among students Educators families and communities when a school stands on these four pillars it's a community school research supports this four pillar approach but there's no one-size-fits-all model every Community School is different because each Community is different figuring out what it looks like in your community starts by getting actual community members involved that's the full-time job of Community School coordinators they're the human bridge connecting all the partners and stakeholders that make Community Schools possible so that's what makes a school a community school now how do you pay for it startup costs like hiring a full-time coordinator can be raised from foundations or state and local governments tapping into existing funding and partnering with local businesses can bring in service providers sharing resources and staff with Partners can help everyone do more and as a community school becomes more established leaders can advocate for budgets that sustain their impact and new funding to expand it every Community School is different what will yours be like get started at community schools.future4learning.org [Music] so I hope that helps give a little picture one of the things we've really been trying to emphasize and have people understand is that this Community Schools initiative isn't another thing on our plate it is the plate right this is the way that we do school and that all of our other programs and partners and initiatives align with the values and are working not in silos but in concert together to support the whole child through the school which is then kind of the heart and hub of the community that's the goal of a community school so the why behind Community Schools this is a vision from laco our regional lead for Community Schools and the vision statements says that our vision is to lead the way in strengthening School communities to create a more Equitable socially just system where all students families and staff are empowered and thrive and then the mission of Community Schools is to disrupt inequities and to break the cycle of poverty by leveraging assets to transform schools with authentic collaborative leadership at the center We Believe students staff and families and communities are essential Partners to ensure that all are seen valued and supported so you've heard a little bit about the what and the why what it is and why we should do it now I'd like to give you a brief overview of the Community Schools framework to help us all develop the shared understanding the framework of community schools has four fours and the first four is the four pillars of Community Schools the first pillar is integrated student supports and that's really about the whole child approach the research is clear and we all know that if students don't feel safe and connected if their mental health is suffering if their physical needs aren't met and their academic growth is going to be affected the second pillar of Community Schools is expanded learning time and opportunities for this one we think of things like what is available to our students outside of the regular school day think of think together internships clubs Sports Parks and Rec all of those things and also how can we enrich what's happening during the school day the third pillar is active family and Community engagement which is a large part of what our community schools teams will focus on and then the fourth being collaborative leadership structures it's really about shared power shared decision making it is not a top-down approach but a really collaborative process the second four of the Community Schools framework is the four Key conditions for learning you can see number one is a supportive environmental condition that Fosters strong relationships and community the second key condition for learning in a community school is productive instructional strategy strategies that support motivation competence and self-directed learning the third social emotional learning that both Fosters skills habits mindsets that enable academic progress efficacy and productive behavior and lastly system of supports that enable healthy development respond to student needs and address learning barriers and as we stated through our theme number one is really our Focus for this year and what we're going through here in Azusa that supportive environmental conditions that Foster strong relationships and community the third of the four fours is the four Cornerstone commitments of community schooling the first commitment is community schools are assets driven and strength based we talk about that a lot here in Azusa we don't want to view our students our families our neighborhoods through a deficit lens but rather really recognizing and uplifting the richness the wealth of wisdom and culture that's already there the second commitment of Community Schools is that they are racially just and restorative School climates so we could talk about that one for a long time but I'll just highlight here our partnership with Western Justice Center and our work with restorative practices and Community circles and we are working very closely with them to really scale that out into all of our school campuses and classrooms the third commitment of Community Schools is that they have powerful culturally proficient and relevant instruction we're doing a lot of work in that area already if we think about things like our Pathways the seal curriculum our dual immersion program all the work that our ptosis are doing and then lastly as we mentioned before a commitment to Shared decision making and participatory practices again it is not a top-down model none of us get to decide what's going to happen that the answers are going to come from the schools and from the community themselves and then the last of the four fours is there are four proven practices for Effective Community Schools and for the things that need to happen for Community Schools to be effective is number one Community Asset mapping and GAP analysis so this is going to be one of the first big tasks of our program Specialists and Community Liaisons to do this needs and asset assessment at their School site and the second proven practice is that each school has a designated community school coordinator here in Azusa we're calling them program Specialists and we have a few of them here tonight I'm going to be able to introduce you in a moment um the third proven practice of Community Schools is that there are site-based as well as a district-based advisory Council so we are in the process of developing those councils so that we lift up all voices and then lastly Community Schools work on integrating and aligning with other relevant programs so again that concept that this is the plate and mtss and PBIS and seal and Avid and pathways are all aligned and a part of the values of Community Schools this graphic was kind of helpful to me and I don't know if if I can see it in detail or if you can either but if with the legend you can see in the center is why we do this work and it's so that all students can Thrive and reach their credential and then who does the work is around that um that's the school staff and the Community Schools um team as well as the students and families and the Community Partners all together what are the enabling conditions that need to happen the key practices some of which we've touched on and then supportive infrastructure and governance around the side so all of those things working together to make an effective Community School so where we are right now um we have hired our director that's me one one thing down check right and we have hired most of our community school staff we are our grant initiative is over nine of our schools all of our schools except for Sierra and Longfellow were able to be included in the grant so we have our our plan is to have a program specialist and a community liaison team for Community Schools at each of those schools we have all nine of our program Specialists hired and six of our nine Community Liaisons already hired so I'd like to take just a moment to introduce a few members of our team that were able to come here tonight we have Michelle de Rosas from Hodge go ahead and stand up Michelle she's our program specialist at Hodge um we have Mr Eddie Lotts from Magnolia um Miss Jessica Estrada is our program specialist at Valleydale and Lorena Ellis is our program specialist at Gladstone Middle School and I am not going to forget my wonderful Community School secretary Sandra arkenberg who is also here with us tonight so we've got an excellent excellent team um our Community Schools staff has been trained in the community schools framework and values we had a couple weeks before school started to really dive deep so we could get a really good shared understanding of what it's all about they've also been trained in community circles and restorative practices um they have been assigned to their school sites and are getting to know their principles and the culture of each of their school sites of course we've created our logo as I shared with you and developed our theme for the year and I hope you all heard about our district-wide community circles day that we had you heard Mr Fernandez talk about that they've done this at Azusa High and we thought well why can't we do it at every school and so we got all the schools on board through the work of our community schools team and on Friday August 25th I believe it was we had a district-wide community Circle day and so all of our students TK through 12th grade and all the staffs at those School sites as well as over 50 staff from the district office participated in community building circles that day around the theme of what does a community of care look like and it was just a really beautiful day of connecting all across the district so where we're going um we've already obviously helped provide with the first day welcome but our teams are really there to provide a welcoming Embrace every day at the school sites we are working right now on sharing the Community School vision with all stakeholders so I'm doing it tonight but our program Specialists have been doing it all over the place said coffee with the principal and classified staff meetings and their staff meetings at schools and TK and Kinder orientation and the word is getting out all around the district what are Community Schools about um our community schools team has trained their school staffs in the framework and values and Community circles and restorative practices and that is ongoing and they're they're continuing to do that throughout the year um we're all working right now to completely um to develop our advisory councils at the district level and at the school site level and once all those councils are developed we'll be really laying out the protocol and criteria for how we're going to do this needs and assets assessment here in um in our district how we're going to look at that data and then the teams will administer that assessment and then develop a plan for each School site which will look unique and different at each School site because each School site is different so I hope you can see we're kind of in the starting blocks ready to take off with this Community Schools I shared with the principals at our leadership seminar at the beginning of the year that it's kind of like they have a new Chief of Staff right not an assistant principal but a chief of staff alongside them to really help in building a relationship-centered racially just strengths-based restorative School culture where everyone is valued and everyone has a voice that's really that's what their full-time job is is to implement that that Vision um we're using the tool of community circles as one of our primary tools to really help build those connections and relationships throughout the district I'd like to end tonight with a little story um the story comes from Africa from the Maasai tribe and I think it's really relevant to our work here in Azusa at with Community Schools it's called and how are the children among the most accomplished and fabled tribes in Africa no tribe was considered to have Warriors more fearsome or more intelligent than the mighty Messiah it is perhaps surprising then to learn that the traditional greeting that passed between Messiah Warriors was kassarian inguera one would always say to another and it means how are the children it is still the traditional greeting among the Messiah acknowledging the high value that the Messiah always place on their children's well-being even warriors with no children of their own would always give the traditional answer all the children are well meaning of course that peace and safety Prevail that the priorities of protecting the young the powerless are in place that the Messiah Society had not forgotten its reason for being its proper functions and responsibilities all the children are well means that life is good it means that the daily struggles for existence do not preclude proper caring for the Young I wonder how it might affect our Consciousness and our own Children's Welfare in our own culture if we took to greeting each other with that daily question and how are the children I wonder if we heard that question and passed it along to each other a dozen times a day if it would begin to make a difference in the reality of how children are thought about or cared for in our own community I wonder if every adult Among Us parent and non-parent alike felt an equal weight for the daily care and protection of all the children in our community I wonder if we could truly say without any hesitation the children are well yes all the children are well so that is our vision with Community Schools here in Azusa I'm so happy that I was able to share with you this evening um so thank you so much and I'm available if you have any questions thank you so much Miss weeby colleagues if you have questions or comments I mean I just I feel speechless on a number of uh topics this is this is just incredible incredible work thank you for for leading the charge and and for the team that's here uh just very exciting stuff wow that's all I can say I think this is a long time coming for our students right kind of what Mickey our partner for from Parks and Recreation has seen the child the whole child and being able to provide all this with the help of Western Justice Center and addressing right empowering them I I just can't wait thank you me too I'm so excited I'm so excited to meet some of the um the program specialist and seeing them knowing a few of them in the classroom and how they've empowered a lot of children in our district I just can't wait to see you know the fruitness the fruitfulness of this program so thank you hi yes you know first of all I love your newsletter will we be getting one of these every month you sure will you sure will I'll be expecting it and also I wanted to mention so how is your um is your advice reward selected by School site what is the process so um slightly different at the school sites than at the district level we decided at the district level that we really want the advisory Council to mirror the four fours and so um we are inviting four students four parents for community members and four District staff so that it's really balanced in perspective and um makeup at the school sites it's a little different um we also want it to be balanced and that for families to have just as much of a weight in the in the process um as staff but a lot of our school sites have put out um Flyers to parents um to show their are they interested um um you know they put it out of back to school night and um they got you know they're really smart they do like QR codes and all that stuff that people can do so um you know drawing interest talking to people around seeing who's interested they're really looking for their Community Partners they're looking for our partners that are really connected to their school site um and already where at the district level we were looking for partners that are broad across the whole District so our big Partners like Western Justice like think together like our city um Youth and Family so I'm trying to get partners that really are working with all of our schools at the school site um and then that at the schools at the district level and then at the school sites more specific to their sites but how many parents will be selected by school and how are they selected so the parents at the school sites are teams have mostly like I said put out a a call to see what I know but what I'm saying is are they going to select three parents five parents ten parents how many parents will be um selected so like this right to work purses so they don't have an exact number um we do for the district level like I said because we were going to do the 4x4 but it's it's varying slightly like I know at Azusa High since they have a bigger school and more participation they just we just said we want to make sure that our parents and students because we have students on the council at the secondary level are there's many of those as there are staff so I think as many staff as they have interested in wanting to participate they're just balancing that with parents and students does that make sense um I'm not quite answering your question I can't tell I'll take it I'll call you later okay call me later clarification but it's okay um in my second my other third question is actually so your calendar would your calendar of events will be on the on the school's calendar General are you having a separate one so no so are the that and I'm glad you asked that because we actually had one parent ask one of our program directors where is this community school and she said it's us so um whatever we're doing through Community Schools at the sites will be advertised through their sites through their School site website their School site calendar um if they're you know if they're Community School advisory meeting that would be on the hot the Hodge Community School advisory meeting would be on the Hodge calendar The Gladstones would be on the Gladstone okay very well thank you very much you're welcome and thank you for participating in our community Circle thank you for um the work that you're doing and uh I look forward to you know updates the newsletter on the continuous work that you will be doing um I guess because board member um you'll end up in your brought it up but I want to make sure that I'm understanding it as well so that means that you're going to have four parents for the entire District or on the district level advisory Council yes and only four people that work for the district on the district level advisory Council as well and for students and for Community Partners would it be possible to have like four parents represent each School site is that something that we can explore to to have say can you ask that again we'll have four four counts for parents as I don't know if you call you're calling them advisory Council uh that's it so we have four for the entire District I'm saying four for each School site since each School site maybe it has different needs or different concerns so well one of the things one of the things about the advisory Council although we're trying very hard to give a broad representation on the advisory Council um it's they're going to be gathering data from all of the schools so for example the district level advisory Council when our school sites are doing their needs and assets assessments they're not just discussing it with their advisory Council but they'll be doing probably focus groups you know with students with staff with parents surveys school-wide data that they'll bring to the committee so the committee will look at all that so more voices are heard and drawn in than just those that sit on the council I mean we could look into possibilities of maybe having a representative from each School site present or we can we can talk about it a little bit more I mean we want to make the council you know a working group that um that works well together but we can explore that a little bit and Ms weeby just to be clear each school is going to have their own Council yes and that council at that school will have staff community and parents from that particular School Community correct correct so every school has their own advisory Council and and I think many school sites will have more than four parents depending on the amount of parents that are interested and you know that they can draw into that group and then the district level advisory Council will give will get input from them but then we'll also give them guidance in how we want to do the needs and assets assessment district-wide what kind of data points we think are the most important for us to track and follow to see our progress and will those some of those parents that become selected or did you already select those parents or are we going to be outreaching to Spanish-speaking parents 100 let me just clarify that I I did invite the parents for the district by doing a lot of collaboration and asking questions because I really wanted it to be a a good diverse representation I wanted to make sure that we had parents that represented elementary middle and high school students I wanted to make sure we had parents of English Learners that we had parents of special ed students that we had parents that live on the south side of the city as well as the north side of the city so really tried to get a in that small group representation for all of those different areas okay I I think I I think what concerns me is that um I I know that a lot of the parents in Azusa primarily those that are Spanish-speaking and maybe there's a two-parent household I mean I don't know the stats or the data on it but I would think that most of them work so what what time are you hosting the com the or what time are you meeting with the parents and the advisory committee well our school advisory committees are after after the school day and the district level advisory committee is once a month on a Friday in the afternoon it is lunch to 12 I think 12 30 to 2 30.
all right I make a motion that we approve resolution 2406. second okay okay roll call vote hi and I okay all right this was a little less now for the um approving of the Oak Creek Intermediate freezer and cooler replacement bid contract so the um oci site is where our Central Kitchen is and that's where we prepare all the meals and then they're delivered to OES misuma to be served for breakfast at lunch the walk-in fridge and freezer there which is two separate rooms um is over 30 years old and every year if you look back on warrants we've had repairs through strategic mechanical we've been kind of limping it along as long as we could luckily this last year actually 21 22 22 23 we received they're called kit funds they're kitchen infrastructure and this is great because it's exactly what they should be used for we worked with Kurt Pollock who is our former board member who still helps us as a fiscal advisor and that was illegal contracts even it asked about a previous meeting where the um the lawyer was able to drop because you have to follow specific requirements when you're putting a bid out you put a notice in the paper and then Robert and I um sat and waited when the bid was closing and we had to you know stamp any documents you received and then you don't open the bids until after that it's really the whole process I'm glad that we had Kurt's help as well as that legal department a legal company to help us and we the lowest bidder we had was Valley air and they're going to do the work I think the main goal is over December uh over Christmas break but um in the meantime they have to demolish the old unit so we're going to rent Kurt uh located at um portable outdoor fridge freezer that we can use because we have to have somewhere to put all our food we can't do the same lunches the first six months or whatever so renting that will be demolishing it and then Valley air will be doing the work actually their bid was really the lowest and it's a great bid um and we're using the kitchen infrastructure funds for all of it which are all part of fun you know part of fund one but they're specifically for cafeteria and Child Nutrition so that will impact our budget because it's uh those funds you have to use by the end of this year and they're just specifically for any kind of infrastructure and upgrades so I also attached their bid packet um that's the formal packet that we had posted online and in the paper um the link to it so they have to provide all that as well as have a bond say they have insurance and all those requirements because of the cost of the project being over the bid threshold that's when you have to go through this whole process but we're excited to get that and I know the cat the cafeteria staff's really excited too with the other fridge and freezer going out and having all the issues it's had leaking and such interesting to see the specs that's a big one yeah I think basically like two rooms if you ever wanted to visit in oci and see yeah and figure enough uh food for a week's worth of um 800 students well not everybody so let's say yeah so is this just for the installation of a new one no it's the equipment the labor the electrical the refrigeration coolant ultimate we'll have that rented unit temporarily on site and we will probably put out a parent's square if they can't complete it all uh through the two weeks of the holiday break um you know maybe we would have to do some sack lunches and use the um the outdoor refrigeration unit until it's completely up and running but they they guesstimate that they can finish it within that time frame all right remove approval of the Oak Creek Intermediate free circular replacement s all right um any further discussion and I okay oops the optional board policies okay sorry adoption of foreign policies this is uh uh these were first reads last month and now they're up for uh adoption so [Music] you want anything reading I've only got through about half of them so I liked it votes [Music] I will commend my motion too you know so you can get her questions answers [Music] yeah is there a second to that motion which ones are you want to know a second to have a discussion oh all right well just a second have I ended this guy okay so we have a motion a second announcements opportunities yeah I just want to take an opportunity to read these more in depth before we approve them because they're all brand new okay we realize we're gonna have another batch coming the October batch is usually the largest of the year so you know okay all right so you have negotiate it in a second any further discussion and then you have to take a look I think we should have a vote so what are we going on um restate your motion restate your emotional that you amended well I hold my motion so that she could have your questions you can't pull emotion well we've said you are going to amend it so what is that that answers Denise's question I don't know the words you're like are you admitting your motion to delay vote until next month yeah let's do that okay and that's your second edition to delay okay there's your motion on your second any further discussion so that gives her time to answer her answered questions now no is everyone in agreement let's vote on that on Denise and I'll go with the i think [Music] all right okay all right so then they are moving to the unordered the actuals so there's a cover sheet there um which behind it it has fund one which is usually what I will give you my highlighted the revenue and expenses as well as our ending balance I'm not going to go in a great deal detail on the cover sheet and the time one attachment because my presentation will cover the highlights of that um there's also the full unaudited actuals attached which is the entire incident 85-page document all the fun forms and all the financial forms it's also posted on our website as well if um someone isn't accessing the agenda but wanted to read it and on our website we have a section called Financial reports under the business office um so if you want to go to the presentation I will go through that now and then if you have questions um if you can hold your questions till the end so that I can get through my presentation I hope that it works yeah thank you okay so this is the 22-23 unaudited actuals this is all all year um you'll see me report initially on the budget then the first and second interim and then this is the like the fourth quarter this is the final saying where we ended up the year at and um the Otters will be finishing up their audit in these next few months so I started making these tables the last week presentation so you can see the difference so here you can see uh the 2223 original budget so we're talking about what was passed in June of um and then to what we ended the year at um and through the first interim and second interim there were also changes so it looks like a bigger difference on the on the far right column but if you follow along with each quarter you'll see um it's it's more gradual but you can see there our beginning balance had changed um after the previous fiscal year was closed and money was rolled over um our lcff Revenue went up slightly due to the taxes um and um federal and state revenues fluctuated due to different uh coveted funds or after school learning so our overall revenues were up and then the expenses um you can see there uh compared to what we budgeted where we ended up with the salaries and benefits obviously that's from raising costs that big increase you see there and then other operating expense expenses um that's any kind of services utilities um leases anything like that and then Capital outlay um that's where we did a lot of our covid fund projects so the clocks and locks and other uh HVAC other improvements to our sites which I've presented at previous meetings so we ended the year with a higher ending balance which I'm going to break down on a future slide but if you look down at the bottom in bed there most of that is restricted and I've gone over that before in other presentations where it's specific programs like the art music Grant and learning loss and Esther coveted funds things like that so that ending balance that's restricted is just for those specific programs our River um but we with 655 000 but we only have a little bit above that um left because most of it is restricted so here you can see the breakdown of the revenues and the expenses made uh part of our revenue is the lcff which is the property taxes that we receive and then state and local you can see state and federal are a good chunk of that too because of like e-lock the after-school Grant which is State and then the covet funds which are federal as well as Title One and other Federal programs and then expenses you can see the majority there the budget is the salary and benefits I think it's uh somewhere in I think about 72 of the expenses and then all the other projects with what I mentioned on the previous slide with the services and capital Outlet problems so this next slide is our enrollment Ada history so you can see uh back um about nine uh eight nine years ago where we had 855 students fast forward five years before the pandemic and we had 8.91 and then you'll see later on my enrollment report we're now we're at 800.
our load is too overwhelming um caring for 150 students Max is enough also having 36 students in one class with diverse needs is crazy to get a true sense of our struggles board members and other leaders leadership roles who have not had at least two years of teaching experience should be expected to teach for one month out of the year this might help you understand why we need our pay increase to be consistent with inflation even with that we can't afford housing another member from Summerdale class size reduce k-3 class size to 20 to 1. that's what it was when I started um from 24 to 1. with fewer students teachers can provide more individualized teaching to at-risk students fewer children in class also promotes fewer distractions for students to make it easier for students to focus on the teacher and what they are learning last one um from laneview I am a veteran teacher who is unable to live in the area where I work I can't even afford to live in my own place and therefore live at home I travel a minimum of 10 hours a week just to get to work it is insulting that this is the reality especially when District administrators are the only people who can afford to live in the area off their salary teachers should be paid the most because we are the ones who work with and actually care about our students daily District leadership continues to show that they only care about themselves the fact that they bought themselves a building during the peak of a global pandemic instead of making School sites safer for students and School site staff proves that this is true I do not feel like my safety or the safety of our students is taken into consideration I am in the high risk category regarding complications of covid and the fact that District Personnel who are the furthest from the front line bought themselves a building with was a disgraceful act that will stay in the district's reputation in perpetuity furthermore it is absurd that the district leadership feels that it's appropriate to hire assistance if anyone should have assistance it should be teachers District Personnel have exorbitant salaries and should not be in their position if they are unable to fulfill their job responsibilities our workload is increasing without other items being taken off our plates the care Solace program is a joke as someone who periodically struggles with depression I want to know that there are legitimate resources that I can turn to with that being said even if those resources were made available District leadership has proven that they cannot be trusted thank you for your time thanks for those comments or final comments for the closest closed session items will come from Miss Perdue Bala thank you that's actually Rada Bala a preschool specialist teacher Toyon Elementary I'm here to read um some uh that's the end of the day I can't talk I'm just reading I'm just here to read something there we go um so this is from brooktree teachers third grade it's too expensive to live in the Bay Area on a teacher's salary and we need to lower grade teachers lower grade teachers need a prep period and I know a lot of the stuff I'm going to say is really repetitive but I just wanted to make known that it is repetitive and that is extremely crucial if it's being said over and over um and I do value that your time and thank you for giving me this time Brook Tree teacher SDC students need more one-on-one support in mainstream classes cherry wood every year M1 kindergarten classes have a class size of 26.
second all in favor aye aye motion carries five to zero uh 8.2 discussion consideration of approval of retention stipend this was part of the budget discussion that said we'd go ahead and use uh the Esters dollars to to provide a stipend for those people that came back that were with us at the end of the last school year and so this is just this dollar amount I have in the motion uh a motion that says you'll approve it plus if if there's any minor changes if we miss somebody or with a dollar amount was changed that we can correct it um I will give you just a little bit Julie just talked to me a little bit today with the change in leadership down at the state department the interpretation of some of the things within a uh essers is not necessarily the same as what the interpretation of essers was from the previous administration and so there may be some things going forward that we may not be able to that we were able to do before and it's uh it's really a political change but I just give you a heads up because there are certain things that we've been talking about for two or three years now which uh based on on the new administration's interpretation uh we we may not have the same latitude we've had in the past so we're working through it Julie's working on that revision of that budget but uh we're getting some different uh stuff that was approved before may not be approved now so just as a heads up okay any questions no all right I'll take a motion I moved to approve a one-time retention stipend for all eligible staff and allow Administration to correct minor errors and Emissions as presented second all in favor aye aye motion carries five to zero um 8.3 um don't say oh dear this is the second reading uh change in policy advisory coming out of asba and some clarification on board authorized and should it be board authorized it's a minor change it impacts a number of different uh policies um this you approved the changes initially and then some attorneys came back to asba and thought that the languages was not quite as clear as it could be so they're recommending these minor changes and so it's just a language semantics issue so I'd recommend approval as presented any questions all right I'll take a motion somebody else can do it all right I moved to approve oh hold on there you go I moved to approve the changes to the asba policy recommendations through 744 through 742nd 7.
uh so I just sent that I just sent the actual uh email thread to everyone um yeah so so now we're referring to it I sent it out didn't send it out before for obvious reasons but uh just from my perspective I I voiced a lot of concerns back there about bisecting the property with the trail um and I think a lot of the responses were uh we we would need to in order to try to address those concerns would need uh the consultant come on and see what could be done uh I honestly I can't see myself personally supporting one that bisects the uh the property I think some of your other options I think addressed the address that and uh I would be more in favor of those just because we do need to control the property right there's certainly circumstances in general we don't want random the random public being part of our campus during school hours right and then there's events whether it be a fire drill or any kind of other event where we need control over that and I I think it's just it's ad even if we could figure out a way to shut down the trail it's just one more logistical thing to deal with at a time when we should not want to be wanting to add things to people's plates because something's going on right so uh so from my perspective I don't think I could personally support something that bisects the property but I think some of your other options are okay come come you know address that I think still think get us right to you know right to the property and maybe there's even a way to even if you come up on top to then have a little offshoot that makes my my daughter I live in the neighborhood behind high school and my daughter walks and it's not a great she does it she enjoys it but there are some kind of iffy sections to get down so but we could address that whether or not with an offshoot or something like that so as far as the the proposed route I wouldn't be in favor over it because I I think it presents too many logistical challenges and it may be something I couldn't even foresee um so so I I like to you know personally I'd like to more explore the other options I'm going to go back and forth anyway so you can see all three and then we go back and forth any way you want yeah I'd love to see all of them oh this is my first and it sounds like this is a conversation that originally originated before my time on the school committee so you guys have had conversations but before I'm curious to see all of the options so that I can have a more well-rounded feedback thank you I'm very thankful that Kelly's here because you know we've we had a lot of meetings with not a lot of meetings but we she was very concerned and interested and supportive and no so she's coming out to share what she knows about it you know and I should have said that I'm fully in support of the trail I I you know I live in the neighborhood where I know you got a lot of pushback from some I'd be happy with being behind my house so it's not it's not nothing about that it's uh so I I fully support the trail and want to see it uh so I see it in place is Tony I mean I think you're looking to get our reactions to different Pathways why don't you put up the other options sure and then we can talk about them all at once I think we've had an opportunity to view at least something that was circulated in advance to the meeting yeah so we have a sense of what those are but well this isn't this was in your packet right right High School Trail option number one basically it comes out it'll come up from one activity five you know from the cemetery it'll eventually go to 135 and then it will come back through that there's some DCI property and then the the staff and property and then eventually come up behind the uh uh softball field now every time I watch that it's like a jungle in there I mean it's it's like my question you needed a machete in other words yeah right yeah if you're illustrating so I think what Tina's asking is along the football field Tina yeah so like from the base yeah there's a paved path that goes in the same road as the blue line but so are you talking about that using that paved path or is it up there's like a big brick wall that then there's Woods up there oh that's that's option b i mean option two right now that there's a stone dust path that goes along where that blue blue line is and this would be that's the bleaches you know there's some overhangs that's behind the bleaches in between the Big Stone yeah but the stone death path right on the other side of that fence is where that blue line is right now right roughly down at the bottom part is what you're talking about right Paul not the pave part which is up by the football this is the this is the fence that's the hope of the woods yeah that's in the woods the other one I think is the yeah yeah thanks I walk both options with Tony I would encourage that maybe we could do a walk and then you can really see it be out in the field what I loved about option two was if you're up and you're imagining you're on the trail on a bike on a bike or walking you see all the beautiful fields in front of you it was such a great View and then I can just imagine the children playing there I mean it was really something so just think about that in terms of what you would see that's sort of like the premium seating for the football games but it's it's it's close to the school but it's not real close to the school yeah this this is I think a better variation for Paul's concerns which I share yeah no and yeah and I think it also then can leverage so I'm in the community obviously that behind there and as you bring it closer it's going to be easier connection uh for for walkers from our our neighborhood and even you know to the other side of that you you connect other side we also have uh the condos uh uh that are right basically backed up VR so it really is it's more of a connection than it looks like there because of of all that one question I have about these two um and maybe uh I believe that they're looking at expanding uh the cemetery into isn't there an expansion yeah isn't it going that and I just wanted to wanted to make sure that that's cool this is coordinated and still a viable option with whatever plans are going on um whether it's coordinated yet I couldn't say but um sounds like that I can assure you we will people are well aware of the proposed roots and so you know that's a good point I'll make sure that that yeah and more just get get it on the radar so that if we really love this option it remains an option and that there's those two plans good point does anybody else have immediate reactions to so the two options we'd look at one which effectively is much closer to the fields runs kind of along the field boundary as to one that what's the distance into the woods is that 50 feet into the woods 100 feet um you've done that second Loop just for ballpark I mean is that where because we currently have a trail there's a trail that goes to the top of the that goes to the the cemetery is that kind of roughly where that option two is at that that trail that's there it's like this see this here come up here see this Pat it's like a path somehow I might be over the ground more now but when you come back here this takes you to the stone dust where this one here goes up into the woods okay so so the so the first the the first one really was right behind there yeah I guess option two I would yeah my fruit media reaction is that's too close to the fields right yeah okay um because you're going to have whenever we have things going on now you're introducing bikes that are coming by and people just coming out of the bridge it's too busy it seems it seems like it's not going to be good for either the bikers or anybody using the trail or the people at whatever event any sort of idea this would be multi-purpose right you're gonna have conflicts there with people doing different things it would be nice to get permission to do a little engineer and in that certain spot to represent it to you you know without even designing so that's yeah I mean I think we're a ways away from that point but from what I understand I mean we're not we're just going to try to get to an idea here tonight where we say okay this is the presentation how does the committee want to have his voice heard in this process which might be by having a subcommittee it might be asking missing her to take out one more thing on her plate um or or what have you um but we're not like we're not getting into the wheat no punting the weeds of of this process I don't think tonight right okay so do you want to see either one you want to see three options are you back again or you want to talk any further about that I mean okay yeah so so it was it was the preferred route and then these option one option two are the three options um with what they are I mean to understand them yes yeah and I'm just going to pause I don't know um Lori is wants to say anything just because she's on the screen somewhere behind the image here she is did you want to chime in at all um well I I really am needing this refresher because it has been so long since we we've talked about it um I mean I will just say I I don't have an opinion yet um without really digging deeper into this and of course I would want to talk more um either in some kind of committee form or with Jim and or Kelly um I think generally speaking along the lines of what what Paul said I mean in general um using school property for anything other than School purposes that's going to you know draw people too near and people who you know were not inviting um and have no control over um or property that we may want to use in another way at some other time I I think those are the the overriding concerns so I would want to you know really hear more about the other options and why they may or may not be uh you know doable so I'm I'm not ready to say for sure you know which way I would go on this but I certainly would prefer to have an option that doesn't interfere with with the use of of school property thanks Laurie um I mean do we want to move into the discussion I don't know if you had more stuff you wanted to to share have us consider I don't want to jump ahead of you but um I was going to open the conversation up to sort of how does the committee want to move forward and in terms of its voice and as well subcommittee or are the Liaisons to others but I don't want to jump there and if you've got other you want to share okay um so so just real quick uh one question as it relates to of the property boundaries it is option two on school property or is yes okay so it is I can show your interactive map if you want yeah so no do you simply yes or no it's fine I just want to confirm that it's still on school property this is one spot that gets close to order and so maybe um the other thing I would I would ask is anytime we're going to do something on school property and it's pushing it closer to uh essentially my neighbors uh in there so the people on catarit I would reach out to them uh just to make sure that they're even if they have a concern I want to make sure they're they're heard right so you you know obviously it looks like we're coming pretty close to that house now that house is also right where we enter currently so I don't know that it is a drastic change but it is a change and we're in potentially introducing um you know more people that that close uh I don't think it's a noise concern because I can tell you even from where I am which is just down uh off the off the screen there is uh I can hear the I can hear the football games oh wow so uh so I don't think it's a noise concern but I I would really like to make sure that whatever process includes communication with them particularly if we're saying if we're going to endorse something um whether we invite them to one of our meetings or ensure that that they've been heard through through you and you get their feedback that's what I would also be a good neighbor yeah I heard that the Riverwalk there's some similar scenarios there and they really did a nice job landscaping and fencing It Whatever It Is Enough so we could we in other words whatever we need to do it's worth spending the money to keep that particular person happy you know that was gonna be my line of questioning around the fencing piece and whether it would be similar to what's at Mill Pond and the I think it's nine foot you know Green stockade fencing and and whether the pitch of you know if we're thinking that little walkway that's behind this Stadium in the pitch there if there's any security concerns of being up at such a high angle yeah but I yeah I I appreciate you bringing all of these options in front of us I would not want anything um like the one that's in front of me on paper bisecting the field and the school the traffic way there is too busy already and so I don't believe that adding bikes to the situation would be um the right move and also you know there's school safety issues that we usually talk about in a subcommittee that's not televised that we need to be considerate of the environment we're raising our children in now and as others have said the you know you go into any of the buildings you have to sign in and the closer they are and to our buildings without having a sign in without being their cameras Etc that's all a concern I was going to take a little video of the option at two and bring it but ran out of time and the weather didn't cooperate but I mean whoever wants to see that trail yeah I'll be glad to take them you know and uh I'm in the same neighborhood that abuts that and I do walk up there and I I heard somebody say earlier I mean it is a beautiful walk up there to be able to look down and see all the fields and certainly when I'm walking there it doesn't feel like it's you know too close to school property um and certainly I think the concern the further up you move it is uh as I think it was Paul who mentioned is just the neighbors and making sure that it would be done in a respectful way that doesn't bring you know unwarranted noise or light or more traffic than you know they would anticipate so but I I certainly would agree that it's a it's it's a nice walk up there thank you so um I want to come back I want to give you a chance to kind of wrap up your your comments if there's anything else you wanted us to to hear tonight but if you're all set then I would look to the committee members for some discussion input from Mr Adams um missing car as to sort of how do we as a committee want to be engaged in this process moving forward if I have about two more minutes sure two more minutes I'll finish my slides Yeah so basically on what I like about what I like about option two is basically after you get past the you know we would try to keep as far as away from the softball field as we could but when you when you go up this uh this hill you know the the split you could either for ADA Compliant because in other words because you want to try to have to Trail as much ADA Compliant as it's possible so basically what we could do is most of the trail would go uphill like the Walkers and all that and bikers would go up go up the hill but if we had we could make a thing like no we could have a sign of that Junction you know Ada or whatever whatever it said so people know that it's all it's set up for Ada and just have no bikes on it we could do all kinds of science to make it you know work and we'll also have signs that say you know respect school property and all that um so so are you just to clarify would you be suggesting that the regular path kind of go up the hill um towards option two which you were just talking about but also have it open as an option for to have a more compliant like ADA Compliant or more accessible on school property yes yeah and personally on the bleachers yeah I mean I'd certainly support that I mean I think we have an obligation a more obligation legal one too to make sure it's ADA Compliant um you know I my mind goes to the details a little bit about you know how do you really make sure that people are going the way they should go but I think that's that's a weed for you know down the road and there is still a grade on that path too right I mean if you if over the same distance you need to get to the same point you know why is one better than the other and how are you going to make 188 compliant and you know if it's got to meet up back to the trail at some point um how are you making 188 compliance right yeah so uh so again Devil's into details and I think uh you know so I think those are all all the future conversations of like hey you know once it sounds like the consensus is hey let's let's have you start to explore option two with whatever input and involvement we're going to discuss right so I like what I hear from you in everything else and you know I want to thank you for your time on that but I have a couple of pictures of the trolley book Trail I can show you who hasn't been on it has ever been I don't think I have been yeah well from when we leave in the Middle School just crosses the austrated across the street and just walk down and go down to mcgonquin to the state park and all that so we have a bridge over over the Little Brook in this part of the trail and then we have the toilet portrayal is heading up towards Memorial Drive okay the fields are basically oh right over the trees on the right hand see how the trees went down a little bit on that previous picture this is kind of in my backyard and I don't use it yeah I understand right down the hill so this picture I took yesterday and basically you can see it you can see the crosswalk the trail comes out on the right and the this is the side path that's on the Memorial Drive and you can see in the distance your middle school and it it's it's like field goals on TV you look further than they really are I'm like you know so but that's where your middle school is so that'll kind of excited about that I can't wait to have another slide which was with pave Pavements or whatever it is with something on School uh that's failure thank you there you go all right thanks Tony thank you all for uh forget the desired outcomes I was going to have desired outcomes but so why don't we um turn it I'll just look to the committee members here first and Lori if you want to jump in please do or I'll come back to you and ask at the end but um thoughts about how you want to proceed how involved you want to be you know do we want this to sort of be an administrative driven kind of process Kelly give me the like no um you know yes I mean so from my perspective as it's not necessarily going it's not going to affect the operations I mean I don't think we need to put more on on their plate I would I would I would keep it on our one of our plates to to engage just because uh it's really now about the the peripheral land use and that's kind of us and and not them it's not an operational thing if this was you know if this was going between say the the ball fields and and these football fields we are allowing that bisection I'd be like okay now we want to make sure that Kelly or John or or or or Jim or somebody was but this and and feel the theater chime in Jim and and Kelly I don't see it being something we should add to their to their list but that's just my two cents no I would agree I mean I think it it's it I agree with you obviously with the appropriate input um you know from from the administration Lori anything you want to add in there no sorry no I had nothing to add other than you know I guess I'd be looking I don't know what we would be talking about until we have more details about you know what it what it would look like who's maintaining it how the neighbors feel that sort of thing so um I think people who can give that kind of input should be involved yes I think a couple thoughts one is the maintenance one is and sort of who's going to be responsible for for maintenance um I assume this is a separate exercise it's going to be a I guess a town owned pathway the town will be taking control of what it is um obviously at least one of these models sort of overlaps with property that we take care of now but I think yeah go ahead Rob so you've got the same issue here that the whole Trail has and so the town would be responsible for maintenance I don't think you're going to put that right enforce right yeah you're going to have it you're going to have a written agreement at some you know should this go forward there's going to be you know this will they'll be you know a written agreement I don't think we're going to be keeping things informal as we actually are doing something we'll have agreements with all the landowners as well right aways and who's doing what and all the liability so you'll have the same kind of these are the same kind of issues we're gonna have to solve anywhere on property sounds like you're keeping this Mead fairly busy with that yes yeah well um hopefully in the future yeah that's and the other question I guess I have for you is sort of the structural we're talking about how do we how do we voice our input is yeah what is the most effective way from the way this project is being approached sort of bigger picture for us to be talking about this one little piece do we sell subcommittee you know that's my suggestion as a working group that would include these folks probably Tony and Judy or other people from the committee to work directly with whoever you're choosing I would think about maybe the facilities manager you know that someone who's got some our other principle I don't want to well I can't volunteer people but you know uh somebody with some technical administrative expertise or resources to work with maybe a few members of the of the school committee you can't do more than two I would think because the open media my recommendation would be only one so I former subcommittee yeah that would be my thought too I don't know that we need a full subcommittee but having continued conversations and being involved in the pieces of the conversation that would impact this part of the trail I don't think we necessarily need a full subcommittee um to do that I I don't know what the format looks like if it's you know potentially a member being invited to to one of your meetings when these issues are being discussed well I think we could I see it is on right it rolls right I see it's taken this is a separate so you'll have a committee meeting I think separately from the rest of the upper Charles Trail or of course and coming back with the with a root recommendation first to you folks so you can get all the all your questions and concerns out of the way of saying well we can agree to something that generally looks like this and then we can get into the kind of nitty-gritty to how to make that happen and you know the other thing is you start looking at these you'll see the pros and cons and the weaknesses and the problems with each one so you know it is a very difficult process because we don't have an abandoned rail line like most other people do we're trying to do this you see it winds and we have all sorts of issues there's one there there is one over by Olive Street but oh is there that's interesting yeah well the trolley Brook Trail actually that was the trolley line and it goes the Old Trolley line goes towards the middle school so anyway so that's my suggestion yeah sure yeah that was a Hopkins and Railroad and a lot of that railroad right away was built on and so we lost a lot of that stuff even across the Memorial Drive that's well that's kind of wet or whatever it is but there's a lot of stuff going towards Hopkinton so it goes right behind the Skilled Nursing Facility oh yeah that's there yeah and we we have an implementation team that was consistent at the time management assistant time manager uh plant the town plant on the system Town planner Joel and me and Rob do I miss anybody that's good so I don't know if if you want to have that person join the implementation team because Mike says that's that's not a bad name implementation team for the trail I think are interesting that was going to be my question I'm asking how y'all are organized now whether you're in some type of regular me meeting process where you know a member could be invited into your process to hear about the part of it that pertains to us so that that member could then come back and make recommendations to the school committee on the implementation team when if that person joins that that team we would make sure that so we won't waste the person's time we would try to schedule school stuff first and then enjoy the day and we'll just continue yeah and they can see if they want yeah I mean from my perspective what this really sounds like is we would you know creates the wrong word but we would just designate somebody as a liaison to this and whatever at whatever point in time there's conversations that's the person that's your point person for this group they would attend we do this for other groups she's for ashpack our uh our special education uh Coalition and so we do the same thing here and whoever that is attends your meetings provides the feedback bring it back here and then can coordinate all right they're ready for coming back with the route and by that point it should be I need not that this has been a hard conversation but it should be easier conversation because we've we've had that liaison and and that communication back and forth the only thing I would add whoever if you're selecting one member I mean you're prepared for I think some underground work where you're actually walking there and trying to answer you know trying to determine different things so that's why I was thinking maybe you want a kind of a larger group to kind of share that but that's uh if that's what you're prepared for I think these folks would be happy to work with whoever that is and kind of work through those issues I'm always Larry forming subcommittees because it's it's just more complicated um so I think I'm hearing consensus for identifying a liaison type person um which would I guess be like the liaison to the upper Charles River Trail committee and then we'll figure out what that means as Paul's saying as it goes or that person well is there anybody who is not comfortable with that approach okay so if not somebody wants to be that person I can be I've obviously I know you're almost done with that building I'm not sure I'm almost done with it yet um I mean I've had I've had the most dialogue with them about it and so and I'm probably the biker in the group as well yeah okay at least for I will be again sometimes at some point so this this wasn't formally on our agenda but um you know it wasn't something we recently anticipated coming up so if someone wants to make a motion nominate Paul to be the upper Charles River Trail committee liaison accept that motion I'd move so moved all right so Tina's moved Aaron seconded um roll call vote because Laurie is remote Paul hi do you know aye Aaron aye Laurie I and I for me thank you everybody for coming in uh it's an exciting project today thank you for all the work you guys appreciate your interests you see Rob's disappointment by the way I knew it was going to be all right thank you thanks for coming in guys all right next item on the agenda thanks Kelly um is policy ke public complaints and this is a recommendation I'll speak to it I know Lori might want to add a little bit but just um you know the one in the room so we had a recommendation from our Council to amend policy ke public complaints by adding a paragraph that addressed a better addressed Anonymous complaints in a particular um amended it to recognize that there as much as our policy is that we don't act on Anonymous complaints there are some circumstances as required by law where we we really have to um and I wasn't part of those conversations but I would say that as we represent school districts I often render the same advice which is to say look so it makes complaint for example sexual harassment it's Anonymous you may not be able to go very far with it because you can't get details if the complaining party isn't there but do what you can to investigate it because you have legal obligation too right and so I think this is the type of scenario the paragraph is intended to address Lori anything you want to add to that because I think you you or Jim either one of you because I'm not sure who was in touch with our Council on it it was me Mark and and I I guess that just flows into the next part of the conversation we do have a policy subcommittee and the only reason why and I'm on it but so the only reason why I did not bring this to the policy subcommittee first is because normally that would be where we would you know spend some time drafting policy to bring back to you for your recommendation but our attorney already had the recommended language and to facilitate a speedier process I thought we would just come directly to the whole board if for some reason anybody thinks it needs to be entertained first it's subcommittee um and it just didn't seem necessary to drag that process out any longer than it needs to be thanks Lori to any plot Jim anything you wanted it okay um so any discussion on the topic any concern about the policy yeah I mean so uh I agree with Lori that I think expediency let's let's we have a clear uh Gap or risk in the policy let's address that I guess one thing with the policy uh I wonder whether it makes sense at some point in the future to look at it to it says we will not right but I'd I'd also like to be able to to the extent we can if something is brought to our attention even anonymously if we were able to also investigate and find out you know what I mean so for me at some point it might be making sense to say we you know May you know it's it's our discret and our discretion we could do it because uh keep the keep the stuff by law but it seems very restrictive that if we get some serious allegation anonymously that it seems our policy is telling us we can't even see if there's an objective way to get more information on there which you know and and I look to you to see if there's a if there's a reason we shouldn't start to look to to add that or not um but I just it strikes me as very right it's very limiting saying we will not do this and I'm like well what if it's a serious allegation that might be true and we have a way to look at it that yeah so I my my reaction to that is I think most of the time if you're really talking about a serious allegation you're probably talking something about something that does require action by law I struggle to think about sort of what could be serious that wouldn't be covered by that um I would say more generally if that really did come up um we always have the right to set aside our own policies I vote um and I think the third Point sort of thinking about just the general world and how things come up and and the reason for having a firm policy um is that if if we have the May there it does compel us potentially to evaluate it even if we go into an executive session to say we're not going to do anything and I am seeing a lot of clients dealing with um disruption in their community that they're people who are being targeted whether school committee members or administrators or what have you and there's this demand for they just shoot things out from the keyboard from a random email address they make up and are expecting action and I think it has been beneficial in many cases to say we don't handle Anonymous complaints like that and so I think it does in some ways create a important barrier protection and more often than like the five of us were elected official they can vote us out right but for Jim for Mike for Chris for building principles um I think if somebody's going to accuse them something they ought to be prepared to stand behind it and if we have those circumstances where it implicates a legal obligation then the policy allows for that so that'd be my thought Paul yeah and I think you you saying that you're hard-pressed to find one where it wouldn't be legally obligated and that's that's where I Look to for your expertise on you know because I read that I'm like okay so what not knowing what the what that list would be sounds like for the most part there's there's not there's not the Gap that I'm that a layperson looking at that might right yeah I mean just to give some examples of things I think about um you could have a complete sexual harassment you could have a Title IX complaint a title six complete which is is typically racer religious discrimination deadline being gender those all have some statutory regulatory background in them that really compels you to act because we're protecting all our kids or we're protecting our staff um and acting on any of those takes a good deal of information so you can't do it on a hunch right and it creates a liability for the district if we don't at least investigate those are the kind of things I think about typically people like well I'm just going to shoot this off the ones that are kind of like you know the stratum shouldn't have done that or Kelly shouldn't have done like you know those those are typically complaints their opinions framed as complaints and and um we're better off saying you're entitled to your opinion now um so that's that's my opinion on it yeah I don't know I think you're convinced me okay I'm just so was this did this come up as because our Council noticed a gap in our policies like is this part of just a regular review or yeah Laurie do you want to speak to sort of what precipitated this I just had to call our attorney about a circumstance that I became aware of and in that process we determined together that uh as a matter of fact masc had already uh updated parts of this policy and somehow we that didn't make it through our process but in any event the attorney had additional language that she wanted to add anyway so drafted something that would really put us in the situation pretty much as Mark described where it would cover the most serious things where you know you would feel like um you know you weren't doing your job if you didn't have an opportunity to follow up on a serious allegation what we don't want I think in response to your question Paul is sort of that slippery slope where we're now in the position of determining like what's important or what's serious enough to be further investigated everybody who writes to us I'm sure thinks their situation is is important and serious and I'm not saying that it's not but uh it does put the burden on the school committee then to be the judge of that and I don't think that's where we want to be and I think also policy in general that you know part of the purpose is to encourage behavior and I think the behavior that we want to encourage is for people to openly address their concerns with us and that gives us a a public way of handling it and a process that is transparent and I think if we if it's too loosey-goosey that's where we run into why did you explore this but you didn't explore that and how do we know that you didn't take our city you know I just don't see I I was concerned um enough to make sure that our policy allowed us to investigate those situations that really do need to be investigated and I'm not saying there's something that might fall out of that category but to Mark's Point um there are other ways that we could deal with that if if a unique process is needed okay anything else a solution instead of resolution is that like just a legal because that's what the attorney chose to use for words it's not a yeah it's no it's not legally significant in my mind okay all right is there a motion I moved to accept policy ke as presented second and roll call vote Paul aye Tina aye Aaron aye Lori aye and I for me thank you all right um next item is approval of minutes from the summer Retreat let's just take them one at a time July 17 2023 minutes anybody have anything on those motion to approve so moved hi Paul Katina Aaron Lori aye and I for me uh July 25th anything on those motion a second slipping their team I'm all about keeping consistency though aye Aaron hi Lori I and I for me all right warrant approvals Paul all right hold on one second just did these between July 1st 2023 and September 13 2023 I Paul Kendall authorized by my signature payables in the amount of 480 177.46 this includes general fund expenses of 400 566 dollars and 30 cents revolving expenses of 68 996 dollars and eight cents in Grant expenses of ten thousand six hundred fifteen dollars and eight cents we haven't yet heard from Mr Adams or Mr Kyra tonight which is unusual Mike you have anything for us we had a great opening uh really been a successful opening and I'm sure that Mr roundings will talk about the new Mendes school and his update so I won't steal his Thunder there um but in terms of some of the work that's been done over the course of the summer uh since we've last met publicly uh 36 summer curriculum projects took place um this this summer ranging from pittaway all the way to the high school I believe every subject matter was covered as well so really happy with the work that was done by our teaching staff over the summer to just improve our our curriculum instruction for our students new hire orientation took place thank you to a few of you who came to to meet our new staff at that day we had 22 new teachers with us led by Jane geine and I uh also Jen Cutler I had a great presentation to share with them and now our our first year program goes on all year long our first meeting our first monthly meeting with that crew is going to be next Wednesday and we're also continuing to partner with menden Upton Regional as well as Milford for our year two three program and that will start next month um our first three days the staff was great lots of PD happening one of the highlights I think in terms of the administrative level was that we we had a traveling Road show we called it Christy Arnold Jen Cutler and myself visited all the different schools to present a variety of topics to our our staff ranging from obviously SEI strategies and SEL to talking about some of the goals for ours that that are within our strategic plan that we've been talking about as well as making folks aware and more aware of the bcap responsibilities and Decap responsibilities District curriculum accommodation plans and building curriculum curriculum accommodation plans to ensure that all students are getting what they need all the time and finally we've got several new curriculum programs that are up and running already at at Warren uh there's a program called ST Math which I think I talked to you about briefly but teachers are using that with our students and we were trained on a little bit this summer that's really to help all students but more most significantly will really be great for our El Learners um I ready K to eight is going to be instituted now for Math and dla from K through 8 to make sure we have great assessments Tool uh and information that will allow us to again serve students where they are we have implemented now investigating history at Mendez for all grade five it's a new history program that's deci approved and there's been some significant training that's happened for our grade 5 staff ultimately we'd like to see that grow Beyond grade five but this year we are only using it at grade five amplify science is a new program at the middle school which you're very excited about and also based on some conversations with some Middle School Math teachers we have um determined that we want to Pilot what's called IXL at the middle school which is again another wonderful online program that allows teachers to present not only enrichment students but also some remediation for students in all areas actually we're piloting mainly in math but IXL has provided us the opportunity to to utilize it for all subject areas throughout the Middle School thanks Mike any questions for Mike Jim thanks and actually I can speak to the IXL just as a personal experience my son used it as remediation and additional supports and it was really a powerful tool for him so which was was really happy to hear that the Middle School's doing this so opening went well uh with the exception of we finally got summer last last week and uh leaving tonight it may be leaving this evening but um it was certainly was um challenging in some of the buildings to find cool areas and uh you know I thank the staff faculty staff the students and for uh no pun intended weathering the storm here or pun intended I guess um the grand opening of of Mendez uh on Saturday was was excellent well attended uh thank you to everyone who showed up I bet we had 1500 community members to go through that building I know there were what six of us giving tours from about 12 15 through 4 30.
number 14 has it gets it over morno settles that one and doesn't settle it quite enough and gets it taken away on the sidelines there number five lucasic is on it Nissan Meadow kind of maintaining possession there good settled ball there by Emma Sousa back to number 11 Stevens again now morno's got it again settling it down back to Ava men's good possessions here by East Longmeadow maintaining possession good to see little touches back and forth ball over again uh good play there by Jillian Stevens Addie Jordan chasing it down two players in the middle all right Ball's going up looks like it's going to be the goalie that might end up getting that one looks like it's going to go over the end line good possessions there by East Longmeadow over the last five minutes they were really able to keep possession of the ball on the offensive zone until that one just kind of rolled its way down the end we're gonna get the boot here by Jillian Stevens off the head of more now more now heads it again looks like it's gonna go and now it's more now again settling it down using her body all right good play there another great head ball by I think it was Jillian Stevens again all right Ball's kind of making its way down you see Sousa trying to run it down West side's kind of covering it here ball comes back up gets covered Caroline lukasik on it Stevens near this one gets taken it around her a little bit back again good play there kind of Marino on a throw in goes down the line Susie using her and really really top level speed play there you ever seen East Longmeadow has really kind of settled down from their first two games I think that you're seeing a lot better passing a little bit longer possessions moving the ball from side to side moving it from player to player as opposed to the kick and run really think a good job there number number 11 giving Stevens it's a little rest he's really been a stalwart this game so far for the East Longmeadow Spartans as number 18 stepped in the game to give a little substitute Anna Roman giving Stevens a little rest she's gonna go over there and get some water chase down right there really good play right there very aggressive I like that and look at Sousa on the ball a really good pass there number five lukasik has it she's moving up the field she's got it oh and it just kind of snuck through but they've got it again it's getting booted up let's see if morno can settle this one another one a little bit of a hard touch there by morno gets it there good move gots it got it to Sousa Susa to number 18 number 18 has it gets it back to Susa Susa settling the ball down probably one of the best ball handlers on an East longmeadows team just really skilled with her foot you know never usually never gets away from her on it on a trap a good attempt there on a kick goalie's gotta make come out and make a little bit of a play on it good play Anna Roman giving that a shot right to Roman again she's got it sends it over here morno and men's are going to double team number four looks like that's going to be an East Longmeadow throw I believe [Music] it is Caroline lucasic getting a little rest along with Addie Jordan after playing 20 great minutes for East Longmeadow ball is now looks like it might be heading in the other direction not really sure what quite happened there but uh Jillian Stevens using her skill and her height and her strength to put yet another head on that ball this one's going to make its way through goalie comes out makes a save with a West Side Terrier running in good one there balls up almost a handball there actually pretty close Here Comes Ava men's has got it she flips it up number another flip and a flip and here we go that's gonna be a penalty there on number 15.
okay thank you you're welcome are there any further questions or comments by the board thank you so much you're welcome thank you now moving to item 13.1 approval of vision mission values and goals Mr Ortega uh thank you Dr Bo um we recently had a governance meeting where we were able to have a full discussion around some work uh that we had uh done over the summer with a diverse group of students staff and parents and board members and we brought those that work here to the board of education at that governance meeting uh the governance I'm sorry the board of education further um worked on the vision mission values and goals and all of that work that happened at the governance uh meeting uh was captured and so tonight uh they are here uh for approval and they they reflect the changes of that conversation of of the governance uh meeting thank you and 13.1 is an action item is there a motion move to approve 13.1 second moved and seconded is there any discussion MS benavidez so um I want to start by thanking everyone for their hard work and their part and and their hard work and who participated and played a role in the thought exchange survey and to those who helped create the draft vision mission core values goals statement being presented here this evening because we live in a very because we live in a time where freedom of expression can ignite controversy I am often reminded of and remind myself of the importance of respecting the opinions the values and points of view of other individuals again I value everyone's opinion and point of views and hope that you will do the same at the last board meeting I express my concern about one of the core values found in the draft vision mission values and goal statement we have before us this evening my concern focused primarily on the core value of diversity equity and inclusion tonight my concern grows stronger and I will explain why it is my understanding that the thought exchange survey which was conducted by the school district during the months of April through June 2023 was used as a framework by which a selected group developed the draft vision mission core values and goals which was presented at the ward governance meeting held on August 22nd let's be reminded that April through June happens to be one of the busiest times of the school year as students parents and teachers are busy with testing graduation preparation cap and gowns pictures Awards ceremonies and you know the rest in the recent week I had a chance to analyze the thought exchange questions and survey responses myself this is what I found the survey went out to 15 000 individuals made up of students parents and staff the survey questions were placed into four buckets vision mission values and goals the survey was administered administered based on the timeline as follows vision and and you could correct me if I'm wrong the vision portion of the statement went on April 27th with a reminder of May 1st mission part of the statement went out May 8th with the reminder on May 14th values went out on May 21st with a reminder on May 27th and the goals June 3rd with a reminder on June 7th just a quick reminder that 15 000 surveys went out the results of the surveys were as follows 2300 School staff were surveyed 269 responded that's 12 percent 5500 in students fourth grade to 12th grade and right there I have difficult time understanding how fourth graders fifth graders and how do they Define Dei we're survey 349 respondents responded that's 6.5 percent 7 400 parents were surveyed that's 643 responded that's nine percent this brings the collective total to 1 261 responses which is 8.5 of 15 000 survey the values data bucket reflected the following and this is only the values data safety ranked the highest for 12 responses denoted in the category followed by accountability eight improving education four transparency three Integrity two respect two nutrition and cleanliness one Equity one and collaboration one to this day and with no end in sight Dei continues to be at the Forefront of many controversial conversations at almost every school board throughout our communities States and our country Dei is now entangled in the culture wars of racism gender ideology and taking away and the taking away of parent rights and much more understandably this is not a partisan issue in this discussion and most of us if not all of us would agree that Azusa Unified School District always has is and continues to embrace students of all cultures races social economic status student and a social economic status student and individuals of all walks of life and believes in equality which defined by Google means equal especially equal which defined by Google means equal especially especially in status in status rights and opportunities for all based on these facts it is notable that Dei does not line up with the responses by students parents and staffs denoted in the values bucket an entire survey in general further di remains at the center of controversy and should be enough cause for additional scrutiny incorporating Dei as it stands today into the core values at Azusa Unified School District is not representative of the community we serve and it does not give a voice to everyone who participated or should have participated in the survey most importantly my commitment and respect to the residents and parents of Azusa which I am so humbly grateful for who elected me to this position and their voice will not be overlooked I would recommend that if you haven't looked at the thought exchange survey and responses take a look at it because safety was the primary concern if you take all the buckets I just focused on the value bucket but I did uh itemize or categorize the entire survey and I don't know if the survey is is available on on the webpage but I would encourage that if it isn't we get it on on the web page and that you look at it yourself thank you any further discussion I think I would I'm I'm moved to to just add to this meeting something that came up in let our governance meeting when we were having this conversation uh which is that it's understandable that Dei as a as a phrase as an inclusive phrase um has I I would say unfortunately uh become um in entangled in in controversy um in ways that I don't think it should be if we if we examine the the three words and the definitions of those three words uh that make up the acronym um with with that said what came up in our last meeting in our governance meeting is that it would be wise for us as the Azusa Unified School District to not fall into the Trap of what um whatever Talking Heads on on either side of this issue uh may have to say or or contribute to what they believe Dei diversity equity and inclusion means but that it's important for us as the as the Azusa Unified School District um to Define what does it mean for us to Value diversity equity and inclusion and and again when we break down each of those three components um diversity I mean the the simple fact that that we would uh that we that we value um and appreciate representation across the board which means um representation of those who have varying um viewpoints even on this issue um that those were being uh invited to to the to the table and be represented um again equity separate apart from equality which which just are are two distinct different words but Equity recognizing that um now everybody doesn't need the same things but in order to thrive it's important for us to to have mechanisms to to know our students to know our communities to be able to provide what is needed for them to be thriving students and thriving um in individuals um which is much more complex than just kind of giving everyone something that that's equal um equal is not always Equitable um and then uh third again the idea of inclusion um which which goes you know even back to the concept of diversity which means um different voices different perspectives are are welcome to the table um that that we wouldn't exclude a perspective just because it's it's different from from our own um and so the the the mere fact that not everybody would would agree with um not everybody would would support their understanding of Dei um and yet are included in the conversation I think is a representation of of Dei um and so I'm I'm well aware I'm I'm personally well aware of the the ways that this has become a buzzword but I I look forward to us continuing to um dive deeper into this and defining what it means for us what does it mean for us to be and and for us to value and recognize diversity equity and inclusion within the Azusa Unified School District I think that there's a lot of work that we have done um and I think that uh there's a lot more work to be done I you know and I I can say that as um a black male that grew up within this city and growing up within this city looking like me the age that I grew up in in this city it was a much more difficult time um for for those who looked like me back then than it is now significantly different and I and I think there's been a lot of work around Dei that has made it more safe for those who look like me though I am what would be um a minority amongst those my uh peers within the school district but but but to to be seen to be valued um and to be included I think is significant and I think it's incumbent on us as a board cabinet as a district to to continue to to do that work um to not only be mindful of the of the majority um within our district but but to care just as much uh for those that are are representative of the minority so I in true kind of diversity Equity inclusion fashion where there could be differing views and opinions just want to restate that um I am I'm extremely grateful I'm extremely proud of of our um district and our community for for um for this being on the the list and I couldn't I couldn't foresee I couldn't foresee the exclusion of this value on on our list of of values that that we're focusing in on thank you colleagues I'll add just a brief comment and then Mr Hernandez I'll be calling on you for any comments um that you may have us on this issue and that'll be asking you for your preferential vote um and hearing this Rich discussion and remember this is to set our Mission Vision Values and goals for the next at least several years um this breadth and depth of discussion is warranted um so I appreciate all of the input and all the time and thought and work it took to get us to this point um one of the things that I hold dear in this work and in being an educator is that our work is to push forward the value and ideal of centering the marginalized and I think when I reflect on this phrase of diversity Equity inclusion to me that's a marker of how we can look at our students and staff and community members that are on historically and currently on the margins in whatever way we Define that how do we begin to Center them so that we are all part of the Center focus of our work and our attention and our resources um and I again I appreciate all the discussion and I think again I agree with you that this is a reflection of that value of including and giving air time and space to can be wildly different perspectives and our commitment to do the work day by day and move and move us collectively forward Miss Hernandez your any comments you'd like to add and then I will ask for your student preferential vote on this action item um I would just like to say that I value both of your opinions and ideas but um I have to say that I do agree with Mr Greer I just say about how different students need different things and I know that in a district that is full of mainly Latino students it is important to acknowledge um the three of Dei um and so my preferential vote would be I yes thank you so much Miss Hernandez so just to review our process the item has been moved seconded we've had discussion among the trustees we've asked for student preferential uh student comments and preferential vote and so now I will call for president um well I'd like to say make another comment so I want to make sure that everybody understands that I'm Hispanic and I come from a single parent household we had to work hard you know I have a I have a degree but I also have to remember that when I sit up here I'm also representing the community of Azusa the parents and the students and I agree with a lot of the things you said Mr Greer board member Greer but I also have to take into account that it's important that we don't leave those who put us up here out of the conversation because I'm their voice so that's important to me as well and I'm a minority myself but I also have to remember that why I'm sitting here and I embraced all cultures and all Races and all social economic status because I've lived through that I've walked that life but I reiterate I'm a voice for those that I was hearing their concerns while I was walking and campaigning to be elected thank you last call for any final discussion thank you so much colleagues I will now call for the vote on item 13.1 the item passes four to one thank you very much moving now to item 14.1 this is an info action item Mr Mall thank you right good evening Dr Beau a fellow board members and members of cabinet and audience members tonight I'm going to present the 22-23 Isuzu Unified School District Anatomy actuals so here is our budget cycle where we outline we're here now in September we're presenting the unaudited actuals to the board of education for approval next we'll be in front of the board education in December we talk about our unathered actuals I mean I'm our first interim um but on audio actuals is our work of meeting our department fiscal Services where we're closing out the 22-23 um fiscal year so this is our work that will be presented to board education that hence goes to the county office education um and then we receive our report card in December when our Auditors come to say yes we did a great job or no we made a mistake or here's an audit finding so what are unaudited actuals so we are required to do the another actual report according to Education Code 42 100.
um in the past where you can see in the middle bars usually the Ada which is the average daily attendance is about 40 or 50 less than our enrollment but then after covid it's been more substantial and it's 70 or 80 less just due to more absences maybe more people keeping their kids home you know if they're sick and they're not sure if they have co-lit or they have other things going on health issues and such so that's why the projection for 2324 shows us that the 800 students which is our current enrollment report and then the APA is a little lower based on the trends of the past few years with the absences but hopefully those absences will start to lessen them you know as um maybe if these command systems and health gets better or maybe they make school a big priority so these are contributions to other programs routine restricted maintenance you're required to contribute three percent of your expenses so that was just a slight change from the budget to the actual and that's just um if they call it routine maintenance because it's maintenance for all your facilities it could be anything from Paving rooms and windows and they have amount set aside each year because a lot of the buildings and Facilities you know are older and so there's always projects related to that that the mot team comes up with each year so they make sure that they take care and Robert presents it different meetings about that so they make sure they take care of the priorities in terms of things that need to be fixed or replaced and then special education you can see there that went up quite a bit that's the biggest part of the change where we budgeted the total down there of 1 million two hundred fifteen thousand six hundred fifteen dollars and then the actuals was one million 794 685 with a difference of five hundred and seventy nine thousand seventy dollars and you may say do you know what the heck is that and I made a list here so there's the county Transportation Bill back uh but each district in the county pays a portion of special ed Transportation because they transport some students at each district of special programs and they bought some new buses a few years ago so they've been spreading out that cost over the districts that was around 200 000 more we contracted speech services which is around 195 000.
this is way too many and it's really hard for us to address everyone's needs please make our A1 for a whole day it will benefit all Learners Heritage speakers and non-heritage speakers something in the back sorry care Solace is not very helpful we currently have no prep K3 this is not good proper prep time is the foundation of oh my God high quality teaching our pay is too low compared to our neighbors busd students and staff deserve more again this is from Cherrywood M1 program school we need the district office to support us more in the following areas Specialists to support students with behavior needs PE and music schedules meet the M1 switch needs larger classrooms are that makes no sense longer classrooms are more facilitation two more from Sierra Vermont there are these are the biggest class sizes I've ever had I have 34 students in each class and I have 30 students in my ELD class which is way more than twice the normal ELD class size these outrageous class sizes are a direct contradiction to our District's mission to adequately serve our students especially our English learning population we deserve Cola because teachers are working hard to inspire the Next Generation Sierra Middle School thank you so much thank you thank you there's a little comments uh we actually have one final comment uh from Miss Betty Chen [Applause] hello good evening um I'm here to represent a colleague of mine um this is from Krista Leisure a second grade teacher at Cherrywood Elementary School this is regarding class size and combo classes I want to thank the board for your time I'm a second grade teacher at Cherrywood and would like to express my concern about the Mandarin immersion program here at Cherrywood for the past two years the district has chosen to divert from the original program model promoted to parents the community the understanding of us teachers of a one Ela class with a one Mandarin immersion class currently we are in our third year of the bubble of low enrollment putting us in a position of one Ela class with two Mandarin immersion classes this situation has put a huge burden on our ELA teachers as they have three classes to teach which for me makes 70 students to not only teach individually assess at the second grade level four times a year for the district assess weekly on their writing spelling Etc and give report cards which comes out to be about 700 grades per grading period comments and comments and give report card comments three times a year in second grade we are expected to switch with our Mandarin immersion class for 90 minutes per day with the three-way switch that puts me without my home room students for three hours of instructional time per day we have come up with some agreements with our grade level and principle to allow my english-only students an opportunity to be with their teacher for a little longer and not compromise the expectations for instruction of the M Mandarin immersion students the day before school started our principal was told that we were to open a G3 combo class excuse me and now puts the second and third grades in the same position the way I see it if the district could dissolve this combo class and give us a slightly smaller homeroom class size to honor the program model promote it to the community and the model we believed we were in agreement with we would not be in this position and we don't even have prep dissolving the combo class would give us a still larger class size than all other Elementary colleague colleagues but a more manageable class size of 40 to 45 combined english-only and Mandarin immersion students I have a many I have many concerns about this three-way switch model first of all this puts myself in the third grade ELA teacher in a position similar to that of a middle school teacher as we mostly teach one subject we don't have the time to build the solid Community with our students which is very important for both the student and the teacher in the Elementary grades it also creates a situation that many of our students are not developmentally ready for for or capable of being successful with with regard of now having three teachers to get to know remember expectations for and learn from it concerns me for their development access to curriculum and future s-back testing parents have also shared their concerns for the future State Testing as well the students I have this year started in kindergarten with this three-way switch so far I have observed deficits in their knowledge and core subjects their Social Development and their behavior among each other there's been no way to split students up who do not do well in the same classroom as they would be if we had one to one switch models we had had since this program started with exception of this bubble it also puts us in a position of doing two-thirds more work than our other second and third grade colleagues with the same deadlines as everyone else before we were doing twice the work of our colleagues with the same deadlines not ideal but more manageable often the amount of work is overwhelming and frustrating for example I'm in the process of individually testing all 70 of my students with running record reading tests it is an overwhelming task and I have already had two sub-out days and have a been put a small dent in this task I feel discouraged as I have not met the district deadline to turn in my results and feel as though I will finish this testing and then have to turn around and start over the next cycle with Little Instruction in between each student takes anywhere from 10 to 25 minutes to test our school has brought this issue to the attention of the board superintendent and Union since the beginning and I feel as though it is overlooked I feel as though the district is showing the community how wonderful this program is for our district and being the people we are we are going to work hard to make it work however this isn't working and hasn't been working since this three-way switch began I know for myself and many of my colleagues that we are frustrated exhausted unhappy and looking for other options of employment I would have been here myself however I have significant family obligations which don't allow me to stay after my working hours thank you for your time and hearing my concerns Krista leisure and and just have a quick card that says we should not have a combo class because it is extremely hard for both teachers and students and um teaching in a at Cherrywood this year and in I am in the minor management model in the program I can attest that even with just the switching I'm on a 50 50.
second all in favor aye aye motion carries five to zero 8.4 discussion um discussion and consideration of approval of modifications to the valuation professional staff members we have done this in the past as part of the covert process but State Statute allows uh for those teachers that have been evaluated in previous years highly effective uh normally what has to happen in an evaluation process you would do a an observation observation two observations 60 days apart and then a summative evaluation do formal observations and a summative if you're highly effective the year before and highly effective in the first observation this year the statute allows you to go ahead and waive the second observation it allows and the reason I'm bringing this forward is as you know we we have a number of new teachers evaluations are time consuming and this would allow us more time to work with those teachers that are randomly the professional or need more help and not take the teacher that's a master teacher and and have them go through the through the observations twice to get to the same results because they're good teach so I think it's just a good use of of our administrator's time to go ahead and work with those teachers that need more additional support we're in compliance with the law we're in compliance with the evaluation instruments and and what ad requires so I recommend the approval as presented any questions no nope all right you want to make a motion okay that'd be great thank you no problem a motion to approve the governing board to waive the requirement of second classroom observation for continuing teachers whose teacher performance last year and on the first classroom observation places to teach on the top highest performance classification High effective highly effective unless the teacher requests a second observation perfect my second all in favor aye aye motion carries five to zero okay um discussion and consideration for approval of the 2324 District salary schedules so there's some changes this is actually related to what Bob was talking about with some of the changes within within Financial stuff that was passed uh through the usfrs and through the legislature and we just have to report out the information on what gets paid where when and how a little bit different than the past so the only changes that you're seeing on these on these salary schedules is you'll see an asterisk under initial base salary and then when you get down the side into our experience uh that which we give for experience at which we give for a welcome to calms that which we give for certifications if appropriate prop 301 a couple other things they just have the asterisk to represent that those are given to the teachers or or the employee after the initial base salary is determined so so you start at the base of like with the teachers of 52070 and then you'll add that other stuff and that just becomes critical because we have to break it out for reporting purposes and it was not reflective in the um in the salary schedules before so there's no change to the numbers there's just an explanation of that because of new reporting requirements so recommend approval as presented okay I'll take a motion I motion to approve the changes to the 23 24 District salary schedules as presented um I second all right all in favor hi hi I'm motion carries five to zero good job guys okay so now we're at our um informational and discussion items so we have a 9.1 discussion information on student achievement the September report all right we never get to go this early in the agenda it feels special tonight so should we take a break no yeah keep it moving so uh we have a couple of updates for you tonight to Madam president members of the board Dr Lyman and Miss Wagner we're happy to share just a couple of updates from the curriculum and instruction Department um first of all I'm going to bring up Nancy Scott Nancy's going to share with you some information one of our big goals as a team this year was to really rethink how we're supporting new teachers so we made some revisions to our new employee induction and how we're supporting teachers who are new to the Combs they knew the profession so Nancy's going to share with you a little bit about that and then I will come back up and share our preliminary assessment data with you and those will be our two reports for tonight foreign president members of the board Dr Wyman and fabulous community members the Combs induction program is a Cornerstone of our District's commitment to Excellence in education it plays a vital role in ensuring that our new teachers feel supported and empowered to excel in their roles this program incorporates a multifaceted approach including mentorship professional learning communities instructional and content coaching online resources and a collaborative platform all designed to provide wrap-around services in a comprehensive system of support with these initiatives in place our new teachers have an access to a wealth of resources and tools allowing them to refine their teaching skills and collaborate with experienced colleagues and receive ongoing guidance by investing in this program we are not only nurturing the professional growth of our Educators but also strengthening our District's ability to attract and retain top talent ultimately benefiting our students and the entire educational community we currently have 18 new teachers to the profession here in our Combs District and each of these new teachers have been teamed with a mentor teacher every new teacher benefits immensely from having a mentor for several reasons first a mentor provides invaluable guidance and support helping new teachers navigate the complexities of the classroom and the educational system they offer a practical practical insights share teaching strategies and help newcomers adapt to the unique culture and dynamics of our schools secondly our mentors offer that emotional support acting as a trusted Confidant and Advocate during the overwhelming initial first years of teaching this emotional support can help new teachers cope with the stress and challenges reducing burnout rates and promoting their overall well-being furthermore Mentor helps bridge that gap between theory and practice helping our new teachers translate what their Education and Training into effective classroom strategies as part of the district level and on-site support for new teachers including this includes one-to-one meetings with mentees and mentors walkthroughs modeling content coaching and curriculum support all play a vital role in nurturing the growth and success of our teachers through regular one-on-one meetings our new teachers have received personal guidance personalized guidance and constructive feedback addressing their unique needs and concerns for example I recently just met with a new teacher and we discussed different ways that for example this teacher taught dance that they're not dressing out but yet wanting to participate in class and so we walk through different scenarios and role played of different ways that she can address the situation within her classroom we conduct individual walkthroughs with instructional coaches and content coaches and provide feedback that builds that teacher efficacy our instructional and content coaches provide additional support through modeling sessions offering practical demonstrations and observations that allow teachers to witness effective teaching strategies in action and our content coaches provide that specialized expertise and assistance in curriculum development and ensuring that our teachers are well equipped with the content knowledge and resources necessary to provide a high quality education for our students further enhancing our professional development these comprehensive supports not only Empower our new teachers to excel in the classroom but also to contribute to the overall Improvement of teaching quality we have oh let me go back here professional learning seminars have been created from the dates above September 18th October 23rd and January 22nd and these come specifically from that needs assessment that I had talked about when we first talked about our induction program these seminars offer a platform for an in-depth exploration of critical areas such as classroom management educator wellness support and effective instructional strategies the classroom management piece is the Bedrock of effective teaching in our this seminar will provide new teachers with essential tools to create a conducive and orderly learning environment including or creating our vision code and Sops educator Wellness will provide that support to acknowledge that emotional mental demands of teaching helping our teachers build resilience and maintain their well-being and lastly our instructional strategies will offer insights into Innovative and evidence-based teaching methods enabling our teachers to become engaged to our teachers to engage students and enhance their learning outcomes our team provides wraparound services to new teachers through comprehensive observations instructional rounds and feedback from various stakeholders including coaches District teams and Mentor teachers to provide opportunities to highlight effective teaching practices and provide opportunities for discussion on refinement in a non-evaluative and safe setting these multi-faceted supports are instrumental in ensuring the success and the development of our teachers during their crucial formative years our district and instructional coaches bring expertise in a broader educational context offering insights into best practices in the latest pedagogical developments they can identify areas of improvement and recommend professional development opportunities to that are specifically tailored to our teacher needs collectively these wraparound Services support provide a supportive ecosystem that empowers our new teachers to grow adapt and Excel in their roles while promoting that continuous professional development so we can reduce teacher turnover rates and ultimately enhance the quality for of education for our students thank you so much great question before you leave absolutely I'm looking at I'm looking at this slide and I noticed it says International teachers yes and I know we've brought some International teachers on this year we have I'd like to know what we're doing to support them and how they're doing so far absolutely we have two of them that have landed we have one that actually just landed and is going to be starting up here shortly just by Carson issues that arise and in terms of the ones that are here so far how are they performing so they're doing they're doing well they have mentors within their departments also they're being provided that support with our instructional coaches our content coaches and ourselves and then they are also invited to all of our professional learning just as our new teachers are even though they might not be new to the profession because they've been teaching um in from whichever country they're coming from but we are incorporating them and embracing them into our mentorship programs so that they have the same sort of supports great thank you absolutely um when you say we have 18 new teachers are they they new to teaching or just new to us new to teacher and teaching completely straight out of the class that so those one-on-one meetings how often do you have them so it with for me personally I have right now I've had one set with each of them and then my plan is to continue that throughout the year as on an as needed basis I also go into the classrooms and do observations and walkthroughs with them and give provide them some of that immediate feedback so then you say they have a mentor teacher there so how often do they meet with that that one there they meet with them on a weekly basis for a minimum of a half hour within our Google classroom they have a checklist of information that they go through with each of our new teachers that is based off of some of those specific needs that they're wanting that within that checklist and so they meet a minimum of a half hour every week thank you absolutely foreign piggyback one tiny more piece on that that I just want to emphasize and that's that job embedded piece the mascot has been working on um yes we have a few days throughout the year that we invite those folks to the district office for some professional learning but our goal is really to meet them in the classroom and to have regular check-ins with them so that they are supported on a day-to-day basis I think this might have been shared at the last meeting but it was another example in the days before school started the content coaches with some of the curriculum instruction team went and visited all the teachers classrooms just to say what do you need do you have all the supplies you need you have the curriculum you need so we're really trying not to have them come to us but more for us to come to them so just trying to shift that approach a little bit all right there you go best part of my day right there get Mark to help me out all right so as the interim assessment coordinator is going to share some beginning of the year data with you um starting with our fast bridge data in English language arts uh just a reminder fast Bridge is a screener that we use this screener instrument is intended to provide us a sense of students Readiness to learn you're going to see on the screen that I have projected here these are the 2023 scores I Believe In the initial report that was shared with you while I included the 2022 scores as well I'm just giving them for the presentation tonight but you can see kind of across the board how our students are performing again this is a a variety of Assessments a battery of Assessments that look at some of the foundational skills involved in reading so things like print awareness in other words do students know to read left to right or do they know what the top to bottom of the pages foundational skills in phonics and phonemic awareness some of those types of pieces and then that Auto Reading piece you see on the far right that starts with those upper grades starts to put that all together and kind of gets into that idea of fluency within the reading we typically see these scores kind of in this range they're not expected to be 100 at the start of the year so that's to be expected I always want to know of course how we're doing year to year I did provide for you some same grade level data that's not my preference to look at because obviously same grade level data is looking at a different group of kids so for example when we look at this data up on the projector here we can see that a plus 13 percent in early reading for our Kinder students that suggests to us that this group of Kinder students is coming in more ready than last year's Kinder students but it's a completely different group of kids so we take that a little bit with a grain of salt but it helps us know kind of where we're launching the year at and whether or not students are are those Co how those cohorts are moving to the system I prefer to look at the cohort data and so I that's up for you right now to look at and you can see that pretty much across the board with the exception of that fifth grade band um we are seeing positive increases across the board looking at the same group of students year to year so that plus 11 in first grade is representative of the difference in scoring proficiency from last year at the start of the year with our Kinder students to this year's first grade students and that's what we want to see we want to see those positive marks again a couple areas in there to address specifically that fifth grade group is one that we are focusing on we also utilize the screener up through ninth grade last year we did use it through 12th grade so if you have if you're looking at that slide you'll see that 10 11 and 12 are not included this year because of the nature of the assessment we just didn't feel like it was bringing value to those upper grades so we did not put it in place for this year some similar data points there with some positive growth year to year looking at same grade level and then cohort data as well so kind of interesting here where we see that big drop in 10th Grade excuse me in eighth grade Auto reading so again that's that fluency piece so that's a target for us to look at but super positive results in our students coming out of the Middle School into the high school those are much better numbers than we've seen the last couple years so those interventions and supports are starting to work for those students in terms of their foundational skills fast Bridge math assesses some similar pieces then obviously on the math side of the equation here there's your 2023 data and this is the percentage of students who would be scoring proficient in those areas at the start of the year same grade level data again I take that with a grain of salt because it's a different group of kids so I won't go through that in too much detail but if you look at the cohort data lots of positives there a couple of areas to focus on particularly we are concerned when we see again with this fifth grade group when we have multiple areas that are showing a decline so it's not just as you can see the amath and the CBM math which assess two different things but overall those math skills are showing less Readiness to perform at grade level standards so that's a group that we have to hit hard less concerned when you see as you do with fourth grade a math and CBM math kind of having a little bit of disparity there so that a math refers to some of those foundational skills that CBM math is referring to putting some of that information together so they're doing okay when they're putting it together there's probably some gaps in the foundations that we need to address Tim when you're talking about the fifth grade and having multiple areas where they need assessment when I think about they were second graders when covet hit so uh could we be seeing some long-term effect of the lack of being up to grade level because of covet and why is it if that's so then why is it only for the fifth graders enough for the fourth graders and sixth graders um I would say I think it's I think it's less covid carryover because you're right we would see that with a lot of other groups more so that it can be just the specific cohort of students that's typical in any educational setting you'll have groups that move through that are that struggle more than others you also typically when we get to that that third fourth rate is also kind of a magical threshold just like that eighth ninth grade is kind of a magical threshold when students move into between fourth and fifth grade we start to see some of the complexity of the work rise and so sometimes we see a little bit of a dip there but it is concerning with that specific group that we're seeing it in multiple areas and that we're seeing it in ela and math so that's got to be a focus group for us throughout the course of this year where we talk about how we're targeting our intervention groups and what types of supports we're providing to them what can you when you say we're going to hit them hard how do I mean as give me some examples of what you guys are going to do um so part of that I actually have to share with you at the next board meeting and that some of our supplemental supports that we have in place so things like Lexia and DreamBox which are two of our supplemental support programs but this also ties hand in hand with the work we're doing for targeted interventions so one of the big areas of focus for the October professional learning session is centered around we call Mini lessons or small group lessons so really thinking about those pieces with these types of groups because what we know is when we see students with these types of deficiencies we have a tendency to try to attack that as a whole group and what we really need to do is dive into the data to get skill specific so it's taking the information that we have in fast Bridge you're going to see the aasa the mouthful always mimic data come up next so taking the fast bridge data which again talks to us about our students Readiness to learn our mimic data which gives us some indication of how they're performing at grade level standards and projects how they would perform at the end of the here and dissecting that a little bit to look specifically at what exactly is the deficiency so again if we go back to this example of fourth grade just a little bit of a different one and we look at that a math versus that CBM we would dive into that data a little bit and say what are the specific skills that they're missing because that's what's indicated under that a math and we would work with those teachers to provide some supplemental instruction related to that so that they're not moving forward one of the pieces that we really try hard to emphasize with teachers and I know many of you if not all of you have either taught or have experience in teaching it's an age-old problem we really really really try to emphasize that the scope and sequence is there as a guide it's not the end-all be-all and a lot of times we have teachers feeling like they have to get through the curriculum I have to finish the material and really I think this is a great example of how we need to emphasize the depth and complexity towards proficiency and the goal really should be to get kids to proficiency so if we get through the year and we say we only got through eighty percent of the material we got our kids to 90 proficiency we're in a much better Boat Moving Forward because we've built those foundational skills so it's some of those things and really working in targeted ways with that we've been working on instructional rounds so that's Nancy and myself along with the instructional coach Dr Wyman's joined us for some of those and so really specifically then targeting some of these classrooms to get those you know eyes on what's happening in there what does that look like um we have a session coming up that we're emphasizing on the use of data that has not been a strength of US I think as a district so we're really going through some Basics with our teachers on how to use data and how to analyze the data that's there for them part of that is the edu climber piece which was introduced I think last year which is part of this fast Bridge Suite so there's lots and lots of different pieces in there putting them all together just to help those very very targeted laser focused supports I feel like that was a very long answer I know it's fine I have a question now I know we really struggled with fifth grade teachers last year we had a lot of turnover so could that be part of that those numbers also I think anytime we look at teacher turnover it's going to impact kids fifth grade and otherwise so certainly that can be a piece of the equation um and then of course you look at the question and and this was asked earlier about the 18 teachers so and there's the question of when we talk about teacher turnover is it teachers who are just new to Combs but have experience in teaching is it teachers who are completely new to teaching altogether I know we have at least I can think of at least three off the top of my head who are new to us in Combs but not new to education but they're new to Arizona so you know they're coming to teach perhaps in Arizona maybe a couple of them at a different grade level so even with teaching experience it's different it's different curriculum it's different standards so um yes obviously that's going to impact things in part of that process and again that's why we're really trying to be intensive on our focus and getting into classrooms and really working with teachers in that moment data is great but data is always delayed you know and so having eyes on the instruction that's happening and giving those modifications and adjustments in the moment is far more powerful than saying hey we have some data that says how your kids perform three weeks ago let's talk about what you're going to do two weeks from now it's a little late so those are some of the pieces any other questions I love them keep them coming all right um so fast Bridge math for 7th through 12th grade again these are some some pretty positive numbers if you look at our historical data things are looking much stronger still working obviously in those upper grades with some of those pieces it's a common struggle there sorry to mean to switch sides there and we've talked a lot about it and working with the high school on some of those that algebra geometry transfer and we're looking at some of our practices there about what we do when students struggle in algebra and whether or not we move them on to Geometry so sometimes for our students right now if they don't if they're not successful in algebra they move on to geometry and then they try to remediate algebra simultaneously sometimes through some concurrent courses or through our edu point uh Edgenuity excuse me system so just trying to look at some of those pieces to make sure what we're doing is in the best interest of students and helping them meet those levels of proficiency helps a little bit that we have a new curriculum in place um the quality of the curriculum that's in place is much stronger than what we had in the past particularly when we look at the elements of rigor that are contained within the standards um and then we're obviously simultaneously working through a higher quality curriculum that's more aligned to the standards with what's typically considered to be an implementation dip right we're asking teachers to do something new and that's some work for them and some time to get used to so it'll be a year or two before we see the the best fruits of that I know we've had some conversations about that component of curriculum it's always a double-edged sword right we want to provide materials to teachers we also are conscious of the fact that that means teachers have to learn something new and so we had a science adoption last year we've had a math adoption come in this year that's a lot if you remember back from our previous curriculum adoption slides we've adjusted that moving forward so that it's every other year so next year we're looking at funding funding pending on some of our ancillary pieces our special areas and stuff like that but for our core classroom teachers there's nothing thing new to learn for next year so they get some time to work into these materials look at that grade level data you can see again mixed bag there for grade level data but when we look at our cohort data see a really strong improvement with CBM math at 8th grade which is great again that's the application of the information less of growth there with our ninth grade kind of a mixed bag there where they're doing well with it same thing there that I said with the fifth graders there's some skill deficits that we need to look a little bit deeper into and address those with our ninth grade students the other piece to share with you this evening is our our Benchmark data the we utilize the aasa mimic this is through the same the same Suite of of Assessments that we utilize for the fast Bridge piece this is part of the same parent company but these assessments are intended to look at how students are predicted to perform at the end of the year these numbers are always low at the start of the year we always have a little bit of that panic when we see them because this is measuring students who would would test proficient as of today and then we expect to see that grow over time so this is the initial starting point with those mimic benchmarks I provided you the same information as the others in fast bridge this is grade level data but I really want to emphasize taking a look at our year-to-year data plus 13 in fourth and fifth grade ELA that's pretty huge when we look at cohort data that's that's solid that's really giving us a good indication that what's happening in those classrooms for those students who are moving a grade level higher is working we do see another bubble here and here with our seventh grade students uh similar to what we saw with the fifth grade students we talk about our Benchmark not uncommon to see a dip when kids transition from sixth to seventh grade it's a little bit of a different environment but we have to address that we have to be conscious of that and put some supports in place at the middle school so any questions on that um back to the international teachers I'm I'm really concerned about the language barrier there I know I've talked to quite a few students who have been struggling with that I just would encourage maybe some extra support for those students I would hate for their grade point average to go down because of that language barrier especially with more coming in I think we need to keep an eye on that absolutely and um I haven't been involved with the international teachers as Dr diplysis so but I know that we obviously we have some supports in place within our team as well and I've talked to Miss Loftus about it and and she's you know aware of it and so I think she's you know gonna try and stay on top of it but with so many more coming I that's a concern for me thank you thank you okay so we have discussion on student enrollment numbers oh yeah I guess you can do that again Madam president members of the board members of the audience in the community today we're going to talk about the bond Capital plan okay you know I love to coat rags okay ASR 15 481 and 491 require districts to provide information between September 1st and October 31st in regards to any bond expenditures we ended last year that would be the 22-23 school year and we had 1 million seven hundred and eighty seven thousand dollars that we needed to spend in the in the last physical year we had to satisfy that for our bond requirement which we left 1.6 million in renovations and just over a hundred fifty thousand dollars for technology furniture and fixtures we met that requirement every site received some portion of the remaining bond funds the largest portion was applied to the security cameras and the Bell System upgrades drainage issues were corrected at the Jack Harmon Elementary and Catherine Sue Simington Elementary locations other expenditures included painting Marquee repairs technology cabling cooling tower repairs and also weight room equipment to name a few as of June 30 2023 we have satisfied all requirements for bond series 2017-2018 and 2019 in the proposed pamphlet criteria this will be the last Bond report that I will give you on these and I would be remiss if I didn't stop and say thank you this thank you actually goes out to our property owners and our community members they are the ones who approve this Bond and they are the ones that allowed us to build the storage facility at CHS that comes Performing Arts Center the maintenance and transportation building the district Services building upgraded marquee signs put Bell systems in our schools increased our security cameras helped us with HVAC work helped us in food service areas gave us Renovations and improvements and put furniture and equipment in this District so we can't and thank them well on buses and yes I forgot our buses we did get buses as well so on behalf of the Combs District I do want to thank the members of the community for passing that Bond and I will take any questions in regards to the bond series if there are any from the board or members thank you very much thank you okay 9.3 discussion information on the 23-24 District student enrollment numbers so this is just an agenda item that was asked for there's no presentation so it's just an open discussion if there's any issues you guys will receive the the update for August 1 to September one on Monday uh again we'll give you that report uh the Monday before every board meeting but it will reflect first to First just so there's consistency so next next months will be September 1 to October 1 so I think the administration still principals are still learning that so I think in one of the one of the schools they they talked about between the first and now they've gotten more students in well those will be reflective in the next month because we have to we have to pick a date and and run some numbers and so we've just chosen to make it easier first to first so I just throw it open for discussion and and we'll go from there in general how do we compare at the start of the school year to the end of the last school year in terms of total number of students we're definitely down end of last year to start this year I think we're down let me get um down about um from May 22 to August excuse me I'm on the wrong one uh down 150 from May 23 to August 23 which is the top half district-wide I can go to each individual that's on page one the top uh the top table we can go into each of the schools obviously it varies depending on the schools in terms of August 1 and September 1 we actually stayed quote unquote flat in terms of if we had kids moving out kids moving in but the overall number relatively speaking was was flat there are some issues as we're working through some of the different reports and so the numbers don't quite uh line up exactly the way we want but we're working on that but I would say relatively speaking we're down about 150 kids based on that do we have any data on how ala is doing or Queen Creek or Apache Junction right I I have uh we have conversation we've had several conversations and so I don't in some cases don't have specific but I can give you some generalities what I can tell you is essentially across I'll just say Maricopa the majority of districts are down when I say districts I'm talking about public school districts uh mesa's Down 2 000 kids Chandler's down one thousand kids Gilbert's down 600 kids it's got sale down 600 kids kyrenees down they wouldn't give us a number but they're down they said they were down kids Tempe unions down 400 kids Tempe yells down uh 300 kids and so they're I think uh Apache Junction's down but I haven't had a chance to talk to Bob to see what what they're doing and so a lot of districts are are down part of that rationale and part of the reason as we've done some research and this was presented in our demographic study by Rick Brown from two years ago we'll be bringing you another recommended action item in the next couple months to do another study but he also got the same thing in his report to Chandler it was in an article in one of the papers the decrease in birth rate is starting to impact schools not just in this state but across the country I've talked to several people that the east coast is really seeing a hit by the decrease in in birth rates and so that's impacting uh some of it there's probably depending on the district you're in some lost to vouchers ironically what I just heard yesterday when I was talking to some people is some of the schools that are getting hurt worse with the voucher issue are actually the charter schools and the and the rationale behind that is many parents were looking for something akin to private school which they couldn't afford so I know but but but I'm just saying the the notion is that they couldn't afford a private school but they still want a choice so they went to a charter school now that a voucher is available some of those same people because they already have a tendency to to have left a system now have the ability to go to um a private school because they have a voucher and so the person that was having the conversation works with the charter schools and a number of the charter schools around the city are indicating that they are seeing less numbers than they anticipated so the combination of of uh birth rate and the vouch impact may be impacting Charter Schools differently than it's impacting us does Scottsdale lose kids to Charters excuse me to vouchers yes but some of the other districts not necessarily to the same extent so that's what I'm hearing around you know around this the state QC Steve window numbers I think they're they're obviously up there running at 10 up uh what we're understanding and again uh Stephen may know better than I but what we've been told is that they missed projections on kindergarten first grade again that doesn't mean they didn't have growth but they thought they'd have a little bit higher growth but again because of the birth rate issue you're not necessarily getting the the growth rates that that you're anticipating and it's not unique to to Combs it's it's happening uh around the country when I think about the people at possibly at Charters now which of course they don't have to pay for going to a private school from the reading I've done a voucher's worth approximately 7 200.
uh non-stop none of us took a break it was uh and these are about 15 18 minute tours and you just come back and grab more no longer than that mine weren't I just I had groups of a hundred you said blue wall yellow walls yeah right blue yellow um certainly we're still continuing to work with mushroots um you know it's always I've always said we need about a month to get schools underway so we can figure it out there's still a lot of construction in town there's certainly when you know lightning strikes and and things happen um you know everything happened thank Pete uh he did a really nice job of communicating uh for the Warren buses last week it was it was a challenge for sure um next meeting I'll give an update on enrollment just a brief preview we're up about close to 40 students from the end of last year but that was sort of expected with a graduating class of about 175.
good play getting keeping your body in the right position there Bella White good play Jillian Stevens gonna use her Bigfoot to try to boot it up there as far as she can and she does it gets up it gets through the ball is moving and grooving everybody number seven in the middle Emma Stevens right now up front you've got Emma Stevens in the middle Emma Sousa oh on the side Megan morno is over there on the left wing being chased right there by Kenna Marino ball comes to the middle it's moving Lizzie Roman one of the great Defenders for Eastland Meadow defends that one uses her head gets it out of bounds good play there moving in the right direction that one bounces over okay that one's gonna go to the goalie too a little nice save there comes on out make sure that the West Side Terrier doesn't get close enough to the goalie gives that one a boot goes over morno gets kicked to the middle not sure there we go Jillian Stevens has it Jillian Stevens has it now it's coming now it's back this way I will say West side's really getting back it looks like they're really getting back on defense quickly they're doing a good job of that good good ball movement here gets it to the other side I like that play getting it I really like that play they're getting it over to Emma Susa I like this aggressive play in the middle Seuss has got it she's gonna fire it off the foot good try there by Susa that's a handball there don't think the referee was able to quite see that one Kenna Marino chasing this one down the sidelines using her incredible speed and then Roman sends it or gives it a good ride Emma Stevens in the middle sends it over morno has it she's going to send it here coming back coming on here we go covering that it's coming back here to Ava men's I like this play a little possession ball morno has it thank you there's a good one there right to the middle Emma Stevens has it Seuss is chasing it down staying right on it being aggressive that looks like it's going to be a corner kick here for East Longmeadow an opportunity is coming looks like Anna Roman is gonna take the corner kick number 14 Bella white getting a break a big boot there off of a couple of heads oh [Applause] [Music] [Applause] the fans are cheering the defense there by Kenna Marino and Ava men's they were the only two players back as that ball was being carried out by number three with an incredible amount of speed coming out from the defensive end it's being shielded right now it's gonna be a goal kick good play there by Jillian Stevens to Shield that ball until it made its way out of bounds giving East Longmeadow a goal kick [Music] not sure about that particular play right there that's not going to get rave reviews from the coach just kind of booted that one down to the end line nobody was even relatively close to that one looked like some players were open on the right side of the field in particular have to check that one out on replay goal kick west side gets sent to the sidelines west side gains control Sousa with I'll call it a back check what a great play on the back check there it's able to get the ball and get it off of a West Side player so that Eastlawn Meadow could get the throw in look at that control there by Sousa look at this ball right there oh so close comes to the middle chase down it's getting kind of tossed around right here that's offsides there was going to be offsides but quite honestly the referee was not in position really there to call that offsides would have been tough if it went all the way across the other side penalty on West Side gonna be a free kick here it's like Lizzie Roman to kind of give it a ride we've got somebody here open in the middle looks like it's going to come on the ground they're going to get it over here to morno she's going to take it she's taking it down the sidelines just gonna go all the way down the end and line here and I'm not sure I think that was an attempted pass good moves down there attempted to pass it just kind of got stuck on her foot good oh double just no communication right yeah being held oh little cat fight there in the middle of the field between number eight and number three penalty on number eight Lizzie Roman defense heads its way back west side is going to get a a free kick here from about the middle of the field foreign ball goes right up goes to the middle right in there good play guess we're gonna get a handball maybe maybe a handball call there as the player tried to trap it in her foot it looked like it may have come up and controlled a little bit by her hand gonna be now a free kick for East Longmeadow ball gonna be kicked up by Lizzie Roman comes right up the middle good saving play there gets it tries to get it over to Sousa who comes back maintains control turns it around gets it in tried to get it over there in the middle to number 15 another great play there by Sousa on the defensive offensive side of the ball kicked out of bounds by West Side throw in Kenna Marino East Longmeadow [Music] foreign oh good stop there it's gonna be a Chase here to the sidelines looks like ball is going to head out of bounds and it's going to be a East Longmeadow throw in Ava men's to throw it in looks like she's gonna throw it in got gets it up there to number 15 which says no but he decides to cover a ball comes right in the middle now we've got something working here if we can get this thing moving we are ahead of Sabina mckechny is really moving but ballg just gets kind of stuck there chasing it down Sousa was trying to back check ball gets kicked out of bounds it's going to be East Longmeadow throw in Sabina McKechnie was moving down the middle of the field someone just kind of caught up to her there a little bit at the end and she tried to get a through ball to morno and a West Side Defender was able to block that pass and then get it out the sidelines great effort there by Islam metal players as they get arrest number 15.
we also have to present this in front of the board education on before September 15th as well as have it into the Los Angeles County Office of Education hands prior to on or before September 15th so we're going to talk about our general fund on general fund revenues so here we outline our general fund where we close out the 22-23 fiscal year our largest revenue Source continues to be our lcff Revenue that comes from the state our second largest funding source is our state revenues as followed by our federal revenues at 10.25 percent and our local revenues um being at two point 3.7 I apologize so here's our general fund expenditures this is the show um our largest population I receive our expenditures our employees um we average 75 70 of our expenditures goes to our employees um followed by our contracts and services we also have our employee benefits we also have our Capital outlay which are expenditures over five thousand dollars so this we're going to go over our revenue and expenditures so our total revenue um for the fiscal year for the 22-23 fiscal year was 178 million dollars our actual expenditures that we close out with was 139 million dollars um that has the ending balance of carryover of 38.7 million dollars majority over 90 percent of that carryover is our restrictive funds for programs such as our community schools grants our Esser fund dollars that are being carried over Mr moff I could just ask a clarifying question with that those the carryover of 38 million and you said about 90 is um restricted funds or are those also one-time funds that are also restricted yes ma'am yes ma'am thank you so here we're going to provide a breakdown of our components of any fund balance so we have both unrestricted and restricted components of any fund balance so we have our restricted our unrestricted components of any fund balance we have 9.7 million dollars which is committed for our supplemental and concentration carryover of unspent the reason why we have a large amount of unspent funds is because we have a lot of one-time funds that have a current expiration date and we've been able to identify qualified expenditures to utilize those one-time funds are going to expire so the funds that we have not spent that's NRL cap is being committed and that is 9.7 million dollars we also have our fund 14 transfer where every year the district could miss a million dollars to go to fund 14 for deferred maintenance we also have our concentration add-on Grant which is 4.9 million and that is additional grant that we received for the last two years where we have to increase our improved certificate of services so we cannot surplant but we have to actually show an increase and we also have our transitional kindergarten where we have only 13 000 left of what we spent to maintain the class sizes required as well as the um staff and student ratio and here is our largest part of our 80 fund balance which is our restrictive fund so we have 14 million dollars a set aside that's assigned for our community schools Grant we also have our educator Effectiveness Grant we also have our elop grant our learning block recovery Grant we also have our site donation accounts where they actually receive funds we keep those funds set aside as well and we have our education learning Opportunity Grant as well and with that I would open it up for any questions [Music] Natasha I have a question on the Deferred maintenance can you just give us some examples please yes so um I'm very excited um the district you're prior to my appointments I'm not going to take credit you know um but the district passed action where every year they will commit a million dollars of the general fund to deferred maintenance and what that does is that set funds and fund 14 that helps for like roof leaks or if we need to repaint a school or if we need to upgrade our carpet it allows for anything that um that we would not normally be able to afford in our regular general fund is set aside to assist us with deferred maintenance do we ever increase that portion of the the budget we have not it has maintained at a million dollars but we can always bring that in front of the board education for consideration to increase that contribution but in addition to that I don't want it to come across that we only contribute um one million dollars but that's on top of the required three percent that were required to set aside for routine restricted maintenance so this is the district always like we always do we go over and Beyond the minimum so we're only require three percent but in addition to the three percent we also contribute a million dollars to fund 14.
um other specialist we added additional SEC teacher and the aides that go with that we also had our special ed coordinator last year was the teacher on the salary schedule in the previous year it was a retired stirs member so their cap is about half horse so when we had it switched to a coordinator that cost went up we had one on one aids for specific students who had that in their IEP which is very important and then parent mileage which some of you had mentioned that past meetings on the warrants because we had two or three different students being transported to County programs and because we don't have an extra bus or extra staff to transport you're legally required to transport special ed students not regular but special ed because it's part of them their IEP and then getting to school so if you don't have a way to transport them and we tried even coordinating with other districts in the county then the parent gets the mileage reimbursement which we saw on the warrant so that was actually a pretty big cost and then also Yosemite did transport one student for us that they had going to a similar program but they charge us a portion of that just like you saw at the music program and that was around 50 000.
that has been a challenge of continuous planning with my colleagues in order to make that a successful program and I know that it is a very successful program and the the schools enjoy it the parents enjoy it the the the teachers we do see benefits of this program however this model that missed laser is speaking of is not the model we agree to thank you very much okay once again thank you to all the comments that were provided so at this time the board will now adjourn to closed session and we'll return in approximately eight o'clock maybe sooner thank you again thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you Google foreign thank you very much thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you okay somebody else we can beat that to open session at 8 14 p.m um trustee srinivasan can you lead us in the fly salute uh repeat after me I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic foreign thank you for that and uh trustee boy can you lead us in the district mission statement Berryessa Union School Street provides all students the skills to become lifelong Learners and success for 21st century Global Citizens thank you and trustee Jimenez can you lead us in the Norms of the Board of Trustees at all times [Music] thank you for that and during closed session the board took action on two items Dr Puentes can you report these actions items out yes for item number [Music] 7162-9729 the governing board approved the settlement agreement with a vote of Einstein regarding special education services provided to the district for Educational Services against the district in addition um the second playing item number two number two zero six zero the governing board approved the settlement agreement based on their own for Educational Services to adopt the agenda move to conduct five seconds okay it's been moved and segment all in favor say aye aye motion passes five to zero uh we'll now move on to the consent calendar is there a motion to uh adopt a consent calendar I move to adopt the calendar I'll second move to Second and all in favor say aye sand calendar has been adopted five to zero we will now move on to agenda item nine comments from the public on non-agen items uh we have one uh I'll invite um shiko Habibi to the front for her comments hello as you all know me I'm the advocate for a special ed a special needs I am as a parent as a para educator as a mother of the special need um I had a visit to one of our school and I observe the classroom with the 12 students with a spectrum of the mild moderate there was only one teacher and one parent educator five hours I just asked you a question maybe you can answer me and I don't know how they do it and this five hours pair of one working there what happens to the rest of the hour the teacher is there the kids are there for at least six hours what happens for the rest if one Pera can cover for 12 hours I mean 12 students with a teacher with with when the parent leaves what happens to the teacher how do you think the teacher is going to deal with that just it's so hard the teacher is I'm not here for the teacher but I'm thinking of the students some students got picked up by parents and other students uh would be picked up by the bus so this teacher with 12 kids how do you can you imagine how hard it would be for the teacher to handle all these 12 kids to drop them some to the bus some to the parent so how this will happen and I felt so bad for the teacher but teacher has Advocate to defend but for my para and she's been asked to cover for the lunch time and then do one-on-one under lunch time and then another student is clinging on her so um but after all I'm thinking about those kids these kids are capable to you know go to the next level they can learn they are smart enough and they are just mild moderate why can't we have another support for that teacher in that classroom to make this classroom more calm and this is so much stress on both teach and Emperor and so the the kids and the family I don't know if the family know the teacher are getting I mean the kids are getting enough support in the classroom so we I wanted to make you know uh for the student better every day we want to a student to go home by learning something every day so that that environment is not a good environment to teach or foreign and then she's giving the teacher support but as a special ed but it's a special ed Department doing anything for that so it's a special ed is aware of that and I'm sure there is another classroom I am going to visit tomorrow and I heard it has the similar issues and I want I really I am asking the the board to do something about that and for our students really they are our future they can accomplish in future they can be someone and we want them to be a good citizen and I want you to I don't know maybe you don't want to answer me but District I'm just giving this you know information to you and then you are the one who have the power you are the one making decision and I want the special ed to do something about it thank you those comments uh we'll now move on to our presentations Dr Fuentes can you introduce the first one for summer school Hernandez Marta Jindal are also going to be speaking and sharing the majority of our three programs that they focused a lot of energy on over the summer so I'm going to hand it off to Janet and the group well thank you that and then I would like to thank you for your attention and your time thank you thank you for your hard work [Laughter] sorry I definitely want to just express my thanks I had the opportunity to visit the different programs this summer and the children were so engaged and having so much fun especially during their summer time that you know they enjoy it still being with their friends but also we're just you know actively learning more which was great um also looking at a labels program right at school program you know they also I saw were making a lot of efforts to try to continue to reinforce some of the student standards to to help them also move forward um but you know I wanted to compliment the three of you on your leadership in running all of those programs every summer the number of students participating in summer learning has increased we're almost at a thousand which is great and our expanded learning opportunity program funds have been able to give us that opportunity to do that and uh you know I want to share with you that as I was visiting the classrooms this staff also were so complementary to all three of you in terms of you know feeling supported and feeling that they could go to you to help get what they needed uh you know for the children and Janet the field day for um Mark was so special and truly it's understated how wonderful his family felt and how surprised they were that that memory was being put in place you know for for their very special beloved family member and uh and they just you know they were very teary just and and one thing that resonated with me that they said was they said you know if he were still alive this is exactly the kind of event he would have done and put together for the children too and they just really felt his Spirit there that day so thank you so much for coordinating that uh it meant a lot to them so thank you thank you for the presentation [Applause] all right uh Dr Fuentes would like to introduce the next presentation from MLT yes thank you I'd like to invite our director um Dan Norris who will talk about all the teamwork that happened across mot to ensure with all the additional students and programs being offered it it gets more challenging too to do the deeper cleaning and everything that we need to address so happy to hear all the work that was accomplished good thank you good evening everyone so every September board meeting I have the pleasure of showcasing the mot family of teams accomplishments from the last summer period and this meeting is no different temperatures to where it would kill the weeds so the weeds just kept growing more smiles oh I just want to say uh I just thank you for the presentation I wanted to also note that as a student I played with that ball wall and so I understand what I laughed when I saw the more and after so thank you to you Marla and your entire team for taking the summer and really making our schools beautiful thank you thank you a presentation we'll move on to the bond update now Dr Fuentes can you introduce this yes I invite Tony conistob to provide the board with his monthly update oh Mr Norris is there one more thing you'd like to say I saw that uh reaction wanted to end by saying which Mr canister have a happy birthday today don't worry Daniel get yours when it comes thank you Dan I'm still waiting for my lunch but that's okay foreign okay so we're ready for the there we go again this is the bond update this is the latest I think I took this picture I asked I want to say we met with them last Thursday we meet with them again every Thursday it's when's the mechanical unit coming and they're saying they haven't told us anything I don't know if that's actually a good thing or a bad thing to be honest so we can just I mean again we're just on the um we're just waiting for the subcontractor to you know deliver it we did tell them that we are going to charge them liquidated damages because everything we hear is people are stepping up in front of everybody and Sam will give you money to do this so we said great if you're 30 days late that's sixty thousand dollars so that's your incentive to get it on time so or at least only 30 days late put it that way anything else great thank you thank you Tony at a question first of all happy birthday thank you roof replacement for the old district office will be replacing the entire roof or just the flat roof so the shingles we don't need to replace yet just the flat roof okay and the hatchback so and basically the HVAC there's a lot of duct work on the roof yeah so we're going to replace all that and we're going to place there's one new unit and I think there's five other old ones we're going to replace those okay for the uh Jim you mentioned the you can put the tint on the on the Windows because correct is there any scope of adding like uh rolling Shades yeah something like that we talked about that a lot during design and usually what happens is either they end up getting broken and I think similar to and Dan you can back me up on this byc is the same way they have Shades and they just always break so it's just if it's up there then yep and it's just a matter of time things wear out and it's just hard to replace okay we looked at the angle of the sun related exactly and that's yeah that's exactly why I was in there a couple nights just to see how it was at about 5 36 just to see where it was playing the sports for the most part it should be okay volleyball it could be a little iffy if excuse me where Sunset is but if you're actually sitting in the stands that's where it's going to get you that that's what that's what I'm thinking it'll hit the yep The Spectators and their eyes right so okay so the thing should help yes okay good to know thank you all right great thanks all right thank you um Dr Fuentes would like to share your report yes thank you um I just wanted to share uh in terms of our student enrollment we continue to monitor our progress there uh now that we've had about a month into a little over a month into the school year we are noticing uh enrollment starting to stabilize uh we continue to see growth in TK so we are looking at TK and looking at adding again another additional classroom to be able to balance those numbers out and also to be able to still continue to offer that opportunity for early learning uh to our community in addition last time I shared with you that the county had verbally expressed our conditional approval of our budget since then I have received the official notice of that um of their requested requirements so I did receive approval of our lcab and then as well as the conditional approval of our budget with the County's expectations from us in terms of an October 9th deadline so for October 9th by that time they want to ensure that we provide them three things one any increases or decreases to our fund balance as a result of 2022-23 end of year closing the second item is the budget advisory committee's fiscal stabilization plan that provides for reserve for economic uncertainty that exceeds the three percent minimum requirement for all three fiscal years of the multi-year projection and then a third a multi-year projection incorporating uh said changes as a result of the year-end closing balances and the recommendations that will be provided by the budget advisory committee um and so we have that to provide to them in by October 9th and then of course they'll be reviewing our first interim budget report that we do in December I also want to share uh with the first month of school our school sites have launched their back to school events last week was middle school so thank you to all of you for being in attendance I think this year each year we see more and more engagement and participation with our families so it's really nice to see those numbers out there and seeing our families engage with our staff understanding you know the student expectations for this next school year having that opportunity to ask questions all three middle schools did a phenomenal job in hosting those opportunities I do want to give a shout out to Piedmont Middle School they did something very different with their back to school night this year having a community resource fair for the first hour that included um all their Community Partners it included a dinner for their families as well as student entertainment so it was a very welcoming way to kick off the new year and bring their families in tomorrow we'll be celebrating our Elementary School uh back to school nights so those will all be running at different times tomorrow evening so we look forward to seeing our families there and having another opportunity for them to engage with their their new classroom teacher and get to see their students new friends uh finally I do want to share today I had quite an experience I was out in at Walden West we have two schools there this week we have Northwood as well as Ruskin and it was just incredible to see our fifth graders out there they have beautiful weather in Saratoga right now and I didn't know this when I said yeah I want to come along that I was on one of the most treacherous hiking trails feature shared with me that they couldn't go on last year because there had been so much rain and water so there was a little too much risk um and uh I have to admit I didn't make it all the way to the top of the mountain I cut out two-thirds in but uh the kids are you know there was so much that they saw during that hike I was glad that I I did challenge myself to join them because along the way we saw banana slugs we saw you know ladybugs in their natural habitat we saw salamander coming down through the creek uh so it was just really wonderful and the um the campus guides there are fantastic you know they really um are just building that vocabulary for our students and letting them know about the importance of taking care of the environment that we have around us and the the kids are just engaged from start to finish they are so busy and I was chatting with them and um you know some of them expressed that they're starting to feel a little homesick because they've been there since Monday but then you know their friends are like oh we only have two more nights left and then you'll be home uh they had huge accolades for the meals and I got to have lunch with them today and uh you know and it was it was quite quite good and all the students have jobs and they help set up for lunch and they serve everything family style and and I met the director and several of their team members who really committed to the Walden West program and have been there for 20 plus years uh coordinating that so I'm just really glad our students continue to have that opportunity and it was just fun to be out there with them today no I did not see snakes I missed the morning session where they did have they had snakes and they had um a tarantula and they had some other interesting animals there were lots of pictures I got to see with the kids holding all of that so I'm glad I missed the snake interaction both my daughters this is a fun fact nothing uh what my daughter's uh volunteered for this summer summer program at Walden West and they had nothing they had a lot of fun they had nothing but good things to say but yeah it's a great opportunity for for us I I got to visit uh Walden West every day is to drive up and down and I got to see the trails and that they saw deer and all that stuff it's it's a great great opportunity for the for us I'm glad we had that partnership uh you know hope to continue that the future yeah and I was glad to you know I've seen our our fifth grade teachers I I've attended many of their parent information nights and I know sometimes our families are concerned about this is sometimes the first time their child you know goes away and of course stays the night um but you know it's such a well-structured program very well supervised the high schoolers that are involved are very mature and excited to you know be there and kind of be in a mentor position with the students so yeah it definitely has a lot of value all right thank you for your report adopt sequences are there any comments or announcements from the board I have something I just wanted to put a placeholder on this I'm not I don't have all the data and I know we're running out of time tonight but I wanted to revisit our Environmental Policy we did have um there's something put together a few years ago uh I was not on the board at the time but I just want to revisit some of those points to see uh how we can prioritize some of those uh things that we agreed on um that there was I just learned today there was a there was a resolution or or a bill or I forgot where it was uh called zero waste from the state of California that uh zero food waste or something like that um where it's each lease expected to um not you know to try to try to not waste educate their students to not waste food or uh so I want to see how we can expand that you know on our in our sites I'm interested in uh looking at um uh you know paperwork reduction uh admin paper production uh to see what we can do how we can achieve those things uh so if you uh can think of ideas please let's try to bring those things back um the easiest thing I think would be uh to replace some of our aging equipment uh you know some of the uh during some of the site visits I saw we have aging gas powered equipment that we can replace with batteries uh you know you know if we have that as part of the bond program maybe bring it up right in the priority list uh so in the next couple of meetings I'll probably bring up more of those things uh review some of the past agreements that we have if my colleagues have ideas please bring that forward also thank you oh yeah just to add on to that I really appreciate that I really love climate advocacy at our school districts I did bring up earlier this year the low flow toilet initiative the valley water does give them out for free we did do an inventory but then I think kind of just like fell through the cracks which is okay but like you know that might be something that we could do or look into so um that's also something that I would love to see and also our Gardens at our school district or other school sites I know that individual teachers usually take ownership of that but you know if there is some sort of curricula that involves gardening I'm a gardener so I would always support that so just an idea thank you okay any other comments from the board all right we'll move on to uh review in action uh Dr Puentes can you introduce A1 yes uh A1 is board policy 1113 district and school websites uh for first reading this is related to a new law ab2273 uh it doesn't necessarily apply to leas but it requires it applies to a general business with any kind of online service product or application that a business may use making sure we have safeguards for uh online um Online safety or is there a motion or any discussion from the board move to approve board policy 1113 okay it's been moved executive all in favor say aye aye I guess five to zero motion passes uh Dr Fuentes can you introduce A2 it amended the Board review and approved board exhibit 113e size 4 first reading uh this is also regarding uh recent um legislation requirements for items that need to be posted on our website there are three uh one is a covid-19 testing plan what is in place for every school district for testing accessibility the second one is going to be an upcoming requirement in after December a learning recovery emergency funds how districts have used those dollars needs to be posted on the website and then the third one is a new um requirement that went into place this school year and that's the requirement of a digitized mental health poster if you have students in grades 6 through 12 so for us six through eight making sure our middle school students know that there's mental health support how do you um understand the signs that you might need some mental health support and where you can do Outreach this is the expectation that these um resources be on the on the home page or somewhere just within the district website okay so for example the mental health poster is under our health and wellness page within our website is there I mean and then the same thing like our covid-19 testing plan that's on our covid related page within our website trying to figure the easy way I mean I'm trying to think is there a priority if there is a priority placed on these items there should be an easier way for for someone seeking that information to get there which is why I asked whether it'll be on the phone sure well just say just so you know um usually it's not the home page because these are the newest three many other s like our El Cap like our Title IX plans so these are the newest three that are being added to the existing list of required documents to be posted on the website thank you you're welcome I will move to approve for exhibit one one one three e one okay so it's been moved in seconded all right so um is there a motion on I'm sorry all in favor of this motion say aye aye aye okay that's five to zero motion passes we'll move on to uh A3 now Dr Fuentes can you introduce this it is recommended the Board review and approve board bylaw 9322 agenda meeting materials for first reading uh this one is also reflecting a new law AB 2449 just ensuring that uh for public meetings if there is an individual with a disability that we're able to accommodate that disability uh for their participation in uh in our board meeting and that we can swiftly make that possible for them that's the the language is swiftly in the legislation is there a motion or discussion on this item all right it's been moved in second all in favor of this motion say aye aye okay this is five to zero passes we'll move on to B1 now Dr Fuentes any questions all right all right thank you all right thank you for that presentation um there's no questions is there a motion in this item s okay that's um been moved in second um all in favor say aye aye okay motion passes five to zero uh we'll now move on to uh B2 can you introduce this item yes it is recommended the board conduct a public hearing on the Gan Appropriations limit calculation summary and adopt resolution number 2301 to establish a revised Gan limit for the 2022-23 fiscal year and a projected Gan limit for the 2324 fiscal year okay so with that said uh we'll Now open up to a public hearing for any comments from the public regarding the Gan limit uh seeing no comments we'll go ahead and close the public hearing now um now is there a motion to adopt resolution number 23-01 move to a doctor okay it's been moved in second and this will be a roll call uh Kim can you call it I um okay so that's a five to zero resolution has been uh adopted uh we'll move on to um B3 Dr Fuentes can introduce this it is recommended the board approved the insurance archeology group retainer agreement to research the district's historical liability insurance records uh specifically we're seeking if the district had a liability insurance prior to the mid-1980s okay is there any discussion uh or motions on this item move to move to adopt uh approve the agreement yeah okay it's been moved in segment all in favor say aye aye okay motion passes five zero we'll move on to C1 now Dr Fuentes can you introduce this it is recommended to declare a public hearing and accept the Teamsters Local 150 2023 2024 reopeners proposal and 2023-2024 initial successor proposal for negotiations okay so with that said um we'll go ahead open uh another public hearing on this item for any public comments okay seeing and hearing none we'll go ahead and close the public hearing is there a motionless item from the board second it has been moved and seconded on favor of this motion say aye aye I think I heard five so that's uh motion passes five to zero we'll move on to C2 it is recommended the board conduct a public hearing and accept the district's initial proposal for negotiations with the Teamsters Union Local 150.
private schools cost a lot more than that so if a parent can't afford to send their kid to a private school now adding in another 7200 isn't going to might affect some of them right but there are still many that are not going to be able to afford it so so there's still some kids that are missing from this equation right I'd like to know where they're going right well I mean they're they're going a number of different places uh uh the average but not to contradict but the average voucher is eleven thousand not seven thousand the the starting base is seven thousand the actual average is eleven thousand um but you also have Micro schools you have some of the homeschool if I was thinking about homeschooling um I have to register with the county but you don't tell me where you're going with that why would I go to the home school well if if I'm gonna if I have three kids and I'm getting 10 grand a kid I just made thirty thousand dollars there's absolutely no um oversight of how you spend that money in any way shape or form so there could be a number of different places going our our principals have been talking to the people if they as they leave us or as they come back we're starting to see uh just within this month again it's you're seeing in and out at a much higher rate it's not all out it's in and out so you do a plus three you say well we only gained three but you may have turned over 60 kids 30 out and 30 in type thing and so you're still seeing this movement uh if if we have a situation where you do some discipline someone doesn't like discipline I can go ahead and take my kid to another school very very quickly so this movement is is much greater than it's been before um uh that that we're seeing um but but in the report the the principals are talking about some of the strategies they're starting to do uh or watching the numbers like Hawk we're having conversations at all of our meetings trying to determine what it what it is we can do to uh to mitigate uh the loss one of the things I've seen on the positive side is um in Facebook a lot of the schools posting activities that they're having the first month of school and welcoming the community to join in on those activities and I think more of that kind of thing is a very good way to approach it at least one you know one part of the of the issue so what's the biggest concern that arises with that loss of students well I mean I think the initial concern hate to put it down in this way but obviously with the loss of those students is is we're running a loss out of our budget we built the budget on four thousand and fifty two ATM we're lower 150 lower than that so you're depending on how and it's get a little more complex because if we have 200 preschool kids and I know we don't count preschool kids in our numbers but if you have 200 preschool kids we're actually only getting funded for about 25 or 26 with your kindergarten kids even if you have a good class or a bad class you're still only getting 50 funding with your aois you're not getting you get 85 or 95 percent so when you calculate that whole piece our issue will be that we'll have to address a financial issue of probably about a million dollars we are already working on that issue and we will have a solution to that problem uh we're going to just tackle it head on and not and not play around with it that's part of the reason why the Esco that we're supposed to talk about today is is not on the agenda because that's going to be one of the ways to resolve the issue that being comes the immediacy that impacts everybody obviously then just overall bringing kids in so that you can have more opportunities for kids that that would be a secondary piece to it okay I do have um I want a couple things I guess so I noticed on Facebook as well as he did I know Harmon's like blowing it up like I think probably something every day um I noticed some Facebook ads and I want to say Simington and ranch so sue Pascal and Sue Cruz are you guys here no okay so can anybody else tell me like what went into that how did you do it like are we doing more with other schools like what's because I think that was like a huge positive I saw that I was like oh because like it was really honing in on the positive of what that school has to offer so I thought it was pretty good for all of them and they're a product of those strategy meetings that we have with each of the schools prior to the start of the Year where we essentially look at all of the metrics the enrollment data we 've content calendar as we build the marketing strategy for this year so they were triaged for want in order of the Sesame by the need of enrollment so before that have launched our CTA Ranch signing 10 and CCX and then the rest are slated to continue and that'll all be outlined in that marketing strategy document that I'll share with you when it's done we have one school left to meet with next week and then when that's done that will outline the year to come so the last presentation I gave you was essentially the year in review this will outline what that looks like this year based on the conversations with the principals those marketing activities the challenges we need to overcome that also includes the subdivisions where we're targeting and what that spend looks like so all of that would be shared so I see that it goes on our Facebook page where else does it go does it go anywhere else so it's built to all targeted based on different meaning on if it's keyword searches if it's geofence for certain subdivisions so it's all built based on the target audience identified by the principal which is net investor who is we leaving myself empowered oh and then and the principal and the principalities respected as well all right and in addition to that Kayla and I have been working um we have dedicated funding out of our um out of our rooftop fees that is targeted for additional videos that are going to update the the school videos that we had from a couple years ago they're going to update the district video we're going to go ahead and then have five thirty second pieces that address a number of different issues some will be used for recruiting some will be used to talk about what's happening with hashtag Ford and so that's a that's a targeted dollar amount that's going to go to outside Source we've already received bids from vendors so that Klan her Department continue to work on what she was just talking about but that we'd also be going ahead and and bringing more information out we would hope to have those the the target time is to have those during this semester so that they can start hitting with with some new ones obviously some of the school ones as an example we have teachers in there that don't work for us anymore you know we've changed our principles and stuff so so that's happening in conjunction with what Kayla was just talking about I'm sorry if I didn't see the others I just saw those two but I thought it was it was great a positive note I think that was that really is I think that some of those things will capture some some community catch some community members eyes so good job anything else so then we have our handbook discussion and information on the 2324 J O Combs governance team handbook um we don't have to have a long conversation on this one I just want to show for you what that has in there I know we talked at The Retreat Bob had had some pieces in there that an additional additional page that we put in yes thank you for adding that right I saw that and then the other piece that was in there since you guys approved the um uh approve this uh strategic plan the Strategic plans in there so it was just there's not a ton of updating but uh we're not voting on it or anything like that but I just wanted to make sure I'm here to answer any questions you may have but it it's pretty much I'd say 95 exactly the same as it was before with those minor edits but because we have a new strategic plan I wanted to make sure you have the new portion of that so what you have is a whole packet that you can just go home take it out of the binder that you have and put the new one in and then that would be reflective of what's going on this year a relative to uh the handbook so open to any questions but it's it's just uh making sure you have the latest greatest version okay all right so then our next is executive session really need to vote to go in executive session yes yes okay I'm going to make a motion to to go into executive session second all in favor aye aye motion carries five to zero you guys don't have to stay you can leave that thing
uh kindergarten class is at 220 now that first grade class that we thought was going to be a you know where are all those kids it's still in that 170 to 180 range it's not they're not showing up um so I feel pretty comfortable now at least thinking that that is stabilized but the kindergarten numbers are up significantly the registration office and transportation office it's still constant it's everyone's coming in um you know daily to get a bus or to register for school and it's uh hopefully we'll settle down in the next week or so so I would say those are really the highlights of the beginning of the year I think staff feels a little more normal for some reason this year it's been it felt more normal than it has in the past three to four years um and and I very positive I actually had a kindergarten and a first grade teacher say to me when we were walking the building uh you know yesterday or the day before these kids seem more prepared than they were two years ago right so that's a that's a nice sign it was a good um comment to hear from a teacher like this this group is already further ahead than last year's so which is great thanks Jim um welcome to member updates so to start the end of the table Paul yeah I mean if we opened the building uh it was successful I think our biggest push right now is getting that playground done before the weather makes it prohibitive because we can't pour the rubber surface when it gets cold so that's the that's the push now uh we did what's up no I want to comment on that someone asked me about that earlier if you remember the push we had um for the high school field right to open it for Thanksgiving day we had we this is a real concern with the with the rubberized surface we had to redo the track right the the following year because we pushed them so hard that the weather was not conducive to actually the drying process and and um so I I totally understand when they were talking about it the other day in our meeting that this is critically important to make sure the weather is perfect for this or otherwise it's not gonna it's not going to settle properly but what's the like low temperature you can't go below is that I I don't know the details of it I know that the time is tight uh and hopefully you know September was hotter in the beginning of September was hotter than the summer had been so maybe uh maybe October or November will be mild and and we'll be out and the weather will cooperate it's not cooperating with us right now getting some of the but the structures are going in right now the first structures are are the polls are in and getting installed so and uh even despite our all our weather it was nice and cool and Mendez all week my daughter you know oh I'm sure I'm sure we all heard about it yeah yeah what was you know when I told her what's going on she wasn't too happy with me so my daughter apparently was given a tour by Mr Adams and said why does the high school have air conditioning it just doesn't she wasn't happy Tina yeah no I mean you know the my only update was also attending the the opening and I don't have anything additional to add other than well done it's a phenomenal building and I think the opening went incredible uh it was it was a really a great day for the whole Community not just the school system and it was really nice to see okay um yeah the opening I got to see my principal from fourth to seventh grade he was in attendance and that I got a selfie with Mr apachella which was awesome um no very well done uh the only other comment I had was I loved the change in transportation and getting the bus routes via email and that was a I think a great Improvement okay thanks um Lori anything great opening day great day for the community so I'll just um elaborate first I want to you know express my appreciation for everybody who's involved in setting up the opening day it was nice to see Paul finally being uncomfortable with people publicly thanking him for his efforts as much as we've tried and I hope that was more effective but I thought the the whole day was was really well set up the except for the mic cutting out um and I thought just I'll finish the story on that after that um so that was one the other thing I was gonna say and Lori skipped over this but Lori and I both went to sort of the first orientation day for the new staff so some of these people look familiar to me and yeah I just thought I wanted to commit Mike and Jim for the small part that I saw at the beginning just their introductions and really setting positive tone and sort of welcoming them to the community um engaging them as people without without immediately getting into whatever else the logistics were that had followed about where you could try debadge and all this kind of stuff and it was neat to be a part of that and then to really just see people on their first day and then um on the first sort of full staff meeting that again you know Jim just did a really nice job setting the tone welcoming everybody back full Auditorium I think it was all staff right I mean every everybody who works the district and Lori you know said a few words as well so it was just it was it's a really exciting time of the year I think for everybody involved and it was it was fun to share that and to see them in the fact that's all I have so if nobody else has anything else we have a motion to adjourn so moved second well all right Tina hi Erin aye Lori hi and I for me we are adjourned have a good night everybody good night thank you Mark thanks
Stevens comes out looks like keckney's gonna take a little break in a minute here looks like [Music] ball goes through they let it go it goes out of bounds it's going to be a West Side throw in well sorry West Side goal kick looks like Emma Seuss is going to get a little break she's really had a great game so far Susa really good control the ball good back checking on good back checking and I'll call it the offense defense was really able to help I think Eastlawn metal maintain a lot of possessions right there in the offensive zone it's like coach is talking to her giving some probably Caesar that she really can be a Difference Maker in this game and kind of talking her up ball goes through there here it comes looks like West side's got it kicks it back looks like Thompson's got it oh so close right there so close user speed really closed in almost got that one from West Side lucasic having a great game also in the middle of field that one there goes off of her foot out of bounds west side is going to get the throw in gets the high toss-up number four kind of bonded at it here we go here lukasik has it gets it to Jordan Jordan gets it taken away from her West side's got it Jillian Stevens puts a head on it being chased down here ball comes around men's this could be got it this one kind of swings through the middle and it goes in the goal right there great swinging Ball by number 13 all the way across the middle made its way through in a really good play there by the West Side left Winger to just get her right foot on it and sneak that one past the goalie really good play 11 minutes remaining in the first half West Side Terriers with the first strike one nothing [Music] gotta give credit there on the cross goalie came out tried to get it but the terrier just was able to get her foot on it there and snuck around snuck around men snuck around Mourinho the entire defense good good offensive play not much really the goalie could do there scoring for West Side number 10 Angelina Robinson assisted by number 13 Amelia Smith [Applause] could chase down there by Thompson as Jordan tried to control that ball in the Middle Field went a little hard off of her foot as she tried to get it over to Thompson on the turf the ball just kind of went out of bounds [Music] it's like the terriers have been have been attacking down the right hand side primarily a little push there by number two knock down Ava men's gonna get a kick here by Stevens ball goes all the way across Kenna Marino has lots of space right here she's taking the space moves it up it's kind of a bit of a bomb Ball but it goes off of a terrier and out of bounds it's going to be East Longmeadow with a throw in Ava men's making her way down the sideline gonna take that throw in that's a handball there but it doesn't get called I don't know if because it was inadvertent or what the deal was but foreign drag out fight there in the middle of the field number 17.