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2021-04-16 Santa Clara County, CA YouTube / AlumRock TV transcript source: youtube Board Meeting · passage 1

open up in in our alen Rock Community honor um and with that we'll move on to item 102 discussion and our modifications of the agend we may want to say Pledge of Allegiance board president oh gosh yes and just so that everybody I'm sorry to interrupt JY Chavez is in I didn't hear her say present but she has been she's present marel can you please make sure that she is um joined I just wanted to make sure that to let everybody yeah she's probably in the audience will be she is here okay yes thank you thank you thank you no it's okay um we let's have you Mr uh tripodi um explain that and then we'll do the Pledge of Allegiance thank you Mr tripodi and uh trusty Chavez we do see you thank you I know you were here on time um thank you for your patience we did try between our last meeting and this meeting to uh try something new and have us come directly to the panel um and for some reason that didn't work so know that we are working on it um um so have faith in us as we continue uh in these ways um but I do look forward to being with all of you in person here in the boardroom um with that let's uh go and do our Pledge of Allegiance you can join me if you can standedge of aledge alance to Def United States America to the rep stands oppos you now let's move to item 102 any modifications of the agenda trusty era loera I would like to table item okay so item 601 we'll table that any other changes modifications okay seeing none uh we'll just uh table item 601 and we'll move on to uh special presentations uh item 2011 racial Equity committee presentation I'll pass it over to you Dr Bower thank you and I want to welcome principal Nan and Miss Dalton they are the leaders of our rachal Equity committee and they have an update for the board marel I think they're in the audience and and we need to let them in hello welcome hello good evening board trustees um I believe my wonderful uh co-presenter and Co lead is still out there there she is okay can you hear me good okay great thank you you're coming in clear miss tton all right and um Miss uh Kio do you happen to have the presentation to display or would you like for us to share our presentation can you share your presentation oh sure absolutely thank you we can we can absolutely do that you could just give me a moment okay Dr Bower and board trustees do you see my screen okay yes okay excent I see head nods wonderful all right well um good evening board trustees uh Dr Bower um Madame President Karina Herrera Laura thank you so much for having us this evening and we're so happy to be a set part of the board meeting agenda to be able to discuss our um our conversations our progress and our next steps as the um arusd racial Equity committee um I would like to start first by grounding our group in in our draft Vision as a team uh by the end of the 2022 and 2023 school year we believe and hope that our work will lead to our all of our alen Rock students feeling proud and confident about their personal identity and feel joy and learning due to all of our intentional efforts to engage in anti-racist work including culturally responsive pedagogy decentering whiteness in our organization and essentially um engaging in transformational social emotional learning when we engage as a racial Equity committee we often offer these conversational agreements to support each other with our own growth and be able to develop and Foster psychological safety and as was mentioned in an earlier board meeting we aim to keep our initial pilot year um as closed meetings to allow our group to develop strong relationships amongst one another as one might um perceive you know a retreat setting to be to allow us to engage in these courageous conversations that support us in delivering upon work that we understand is very essential and important to the district that being said I'm going to pass the mic to miss tton who's going to leave lead us in our land acknowledgement thank you Anna and we do open all of our racial Equity committee meetings with this so I want to offer recognition and respect to the MMA aloney people past and present who were skilled hunters and Artisans as District leaders in racial Equity we acknowledge the Eraser of indigenous peoples and honor the presence of the original caretakers of this land upon which we work and live we are committed to standing against systemic oppression and working towards racial reconciliation back to you Anna so the purpose of our presentation this evening is to give folks an idea of what it looks like to be a part of our conversations as a racial Equity committee but we also hope to offer the macro lens of being able to share um General understanding insights that our team has come up with to support us with our next steps and our partnership with the district so that being said there's a typical structure that we align with I apologize I think I hear an echo okay thank you um there's a typical structure that we follow to um that is aligned with um Castle sign practices of incorporating welcoming activities uh engaging activities and optimistic closures to again maximize our team's um social emotional connections and psychological safety and engaging in important conversations and in this particular um meeting that we had last month we focused on analyzing the fall Panorama education survey data and um we understand that the spring data is now available so when we meet again next week we're going to analyze the spring data moving forward uh we want to also reintroduce who is in our racial Equity committee group and I do want to acknowledge all those who are volunteering along with us to serve in this important work in our district I'll acknowledge each of them Aden goldb FL de jacobo Selena Ramirez Catalina Rodriguez Joseph manuco Vanessa Kerr dman MacArthur Milton casturi Basu Winnie sh Danny Sanchez Michael T Jason sorage on the next slide you will find a quote Carousel and these are quotes from two anti-racist Visionaries patina love author of we want to do more than survive and Robin D'Angelo author of white fragility why it's so hard for white people to talk about racism the members of our racial Equity committee examined the statements on the slides and other messaging to determine our own biases and ways to disrupt learn patterns of behavior we acknowledge that it takes work that is uncomfortable at times to dismantle white supremacy next slide please back to you Anna thank you Miss tton as a as a racial Equity committee that is um fairly new and now entering what is going to be our third meeting following in the next week um we wanted to start first in grounding our work in data that that we understand is very important for our stakeholders and our district leaders and our school sites to examine acknowledge and move forward from we have partnered as a district with Panorama education since approximately 20 17 to collect input from staff members students and families regarding perception of school climate and as a racial Equity committee we perceived that it was important for us to work from historical data and be able to collect new segments of data that would be relevant to our work with regards to diversity inclusion as well as cultural awareness and action as a as an entire District team so when we reviewed this data which was um you know thankfully uh disaggregated for us along with um our U Partners in Panorama education and along with um the director of our state and federal department Miss Andra Garcia uh we were able to pull apart data that allowed us to closely examine our students experience and perspectives in relation to sense of belonging and um other areas that we perceive are important for racial equity and inclusion so again um we as a group reviewed the fall 2020 data and the fall 2020 data um involved 29 schools 2,900 students and six topics that are um relevant to our historical examination of Panorama Education data as a racial Equity committee um understanding that there's six categor ories what we focused on specifically were sense of belonging school connectedness because we perceive that our students can um feel at their best and do well and embrace their identity and engage in joyful learning if they feel like they belong in the school whether it's you know physically or through distance learning we also examined diversity inclusion data and cultural awareness and action um the latter being also offered um from a staff perspective please note that the last two categories I mentioned are um designated for our Middle School levels given that our students most likely have the more advanced um Consciousness and vocabulary with regards to those categories we do we do want to note that the survey only uh was taken by less than 50% of our population and knowing that over the few months in between the fall on the the spring survey we uh we as I I know that our the principals um staff members worked really hard to get the word out there to ensure that our families and students knew about this opportunity to have their voice heard there we go so um something to note about the survey data so um there there's an interesting um way that we can see this data in which um students what's really unique about this data and I'm sorry the survey overall is that our students get to fully represent their voice from the identity that they um categorize themselves um highlighted in Orange are the ways that students identified themselves um by race and or ethnicity they also got to identify their gender or their sex and so for example Le um there is a category in which students can say I'd rather not say as opposed to often to male or female this differs from our um you know our systems um that are offered through um sorry uh I'm losing the word for that the our Master systems for data collection as a School site and as a district because it allows our students to be able to identify um exactly who they are um through this external resource overall we want to share that this Panorama Education data really matters to us because we get to see how students um we get to see students social emotional learning skills and we get to identify Trends between social emotional learning and attendance we get to also identify Trends between social emotional learning and their outward behavior and we also get to um connect social emotional learning and how they do in their cours workk um it has been identified in multiple studies that have been provided by Panorama education who has initial ties to the Harvard School uh Graduate School of Education that students who have um a higher sense of self-efficacy and sense of belonging are more likely to do well and have better grades and so we we want to see that overall our theory of action as a racial Equity committee is that if students feel like they belong if they feel like their identity is honored if they feel truly connected to the people who work with them and the students who are working alongside them that they will be able to engage in academically rigorous courses and be able to perform to their full potential and now I'm going to pass the mic back to Veronica thank you this slide um again identifies the three categories that we closely look at as a racial Equity committee as principal n has already mentioned and those areas are sense of belonging cultural awareness and action and diversity and inclusion next slide please you'll see the elementary results grades 3 through five and these are students who completed the fall data survey and it yielded the conclusions about their own sense of belonging those who responded did say teachers treat them fairly at school 89% responded with that and finally uh if they felt close to people at school that percentage was 55% now to the Middle School results this slide has data again only for those who responded 81% responded favorably that they are treated fairly at school by their teachers while 52% said they feel close to people at their school these seem to mimic each other from elementary to middle school now cultural awareness and action you may not be able to see the question that's underneath that I will read it how often students learn about discuss and confront issues of race ethnicity and cultur and cultural culture in school excuse me so this data suggests that only 21% of respondents felt that conversations about race occurred the research concluded that 71% of those completing the survey felt that their schools Empower them to speak out Against Racism and I do want to take a point of personal privilege here to acknowledge that all middle school students in our district were given the opportunity to participate this year virtually in the 1619 club which is a black history and Social Justice Collective we've met virtually since September and I'm especially proud of the strong community that our group has built and the leadership potential that students have developed as Club advisor I'm still open to receiving new members and I want to acknowledge its Inception in 2019 by principal Tera bford at Joseph George Middle School where I teach next slide please now for the staff and employees this slide reveals that the employees perspectives on Race ethnicity and culture in our schools is somewhat not as favorable only 14% of respondents describe that that conversations on race and ethnicity occur when uncomfortable and there are many times when it's not comfortable um the survey inquired about the frequency with which colleagues think about the experiences of employees who have a different ethnicity and 43% said they feel that that that is done our committee work is grounded in the belief that we can Empower Alam Rock staff and UL Ely our students with tools and resources to develop these communication skills next slide this one has diversity inclusion uh for middle school students grades 6 through eight and the results were relatively high with the respondents in this category being assessed on how diverse how integrated and fair school is for students from different races ethnicities and cultures you'll see at the two highlighted sections 88% responded favorably that adults at school treat people from different races and ethnicities well and 82% responded that students at the school sites treat people from different races and ethnicities well this are these are positive things and now I will turn it back to press p in thank you misson so we we looked at categories that we feel are important indicators of sense of belonging joy and identity and joy of learning uh we also want to look at the actual ethnic breakdown or racial breakdown of the responses and if I could attempt to describe this as eloquently and succinctly as possible it's my understanding that the gray boxes at the top represent all of the respon respondence um uh all of the respondents responding favorably so all of the respondents Just aggregating all students together regardless of racial groupings um all of the respondents said that 80% of them said that the climate of support regarding academic learning uh was favorable 84% said that they felt like the rules of the school were Fair 72% said they felt safe at school and again the point of um analysis for our group 78% said that they felt connected to the school now when you look at the categories below it identifies what the percentage is for students of a specific racial or ethnic category so if I were to for example look at the Filipino Group which is actually disaggregated from the Asian group it seems as though our our students who are identify as Filipino um would respond 5% above that overall um favorableness so um 78% plus 5% so typically the Filipino subgroup identified that they are um they're 80 83% of them uh feel uh like they're connected to the school and then the uh and then conversely the same is true for um students of a different racial category of say for example the American Indian or the Alaskan natives who identified a minus 14% from what the average States so we see here that there is a uh there is value in disaggregating our students experience by racial or ethnic group because it allows us to um be able to see from their perspective and perhaps further inquire and investigate why that is so we can perhaps learn from the positive experiences and also learn how we can do better for all students involved this one um the previous slide was in relation to elementary school and this slide is in relation to Middle School um again if you just take a moment to look at the specific subcategories we do see um that there are um different levels of experiences that are reported back by our students of different ethnic groups for example if I were to hone in on um the black or African-American student subgroup we see that there is um a plus seven um over 49% on the belief that U black or African-American students perceive that there's cultural awareness an action that's being done by the school site with regards to um social justice issues but then there's a minus 7 within the same subgroup with regards to diversity inclusion so minus 7 to 75% um we have 68% so uh again probably worth observing and noting there's also an opportunity for students to share narrative uh feedback and love reading this part of our Panorama education survey data because it allows our students to speak in their most authentic voice around what are two things that the school can improve and what are two things that they they really enjoy about the school so um in this first category of what they feel we could improve these are word clouds so word clouds are for those of us who are newer to word clouds um they essentially pick up the words that are most rep represented in the qualitative data um that's why you might see some interesting contractions there with the apostrophe T's but um but you see here in the elementary school level um our uh third graders to fifth graders um feel like the playground could be improved and the bathrooms could be improved and the swings could be improved I think things that have to do with external facilities it seems and homework I think homework is often a thing that students like to improve or if not eradicate um and then Middle School we do see that um uh you know as one can see rules is something we can improve food people's very general homework um so um in order for us to see what this word cloud really represents what we do is we then look at the the qualitative uh responses um School principles and School staff often look at these responses to see how they can adapt to the student feedback to essentially act on it so something that we really wanted to highlight is um they actually students actually noted um not just what can be improved but what has been improved so in this first response um students noted that as this survey is the first survey that we delivered during distance learning in the middle of the pandemic because the spring survey closed last year before the pandemic hit our our districts um this student noted that we put mental health health first and we provide social emotional support um and they would also like to see us help them think about their future such as with their careers another student noted um that um and and I could read this response aloud because I think this is so powerful it says some students are already on this but maybe for attendance put their pronouns or put their name trans people prefer and not a dead name my friend had a breakdown because he just wanted to stop being called his dead name they are trans I can't think of a second Improvement but otherwise our school is doing pretty well so we see that students are advocating for um for pronouns that that essentially support folks with being able to express their true gender identity um and then this last piece of feedback here um for me probably helping out people with bull like calling parents or finding the source of the bully's Behavior even though I personally never have been bullied as far as I can remember make it easier for people who don't speak English to communicate like putting someone who speaks that language next to them so they can learn for example this students already thinking about how to be a stronger advocate for other people knowing that they already benefit from within the system we can see Within These strong qualitative responses that our students know how to think about other folks which is a wonderful thing again the second form of qualitative responses that students can provide is what should we continue and City year if representatives are out there you got a lot of love from our elementary school students our students absolutely enjoy being supported by you during this time and we want to give you a big Kudos because we know that as one of our after school program providers you have been at the front lines from the get-go with our care pods so thank you to the city your folks out there our students see your work um with regards to um things that folks should continue in Middle School um we see good teachers we actually see homework here too so um and we actually see distance learning somewhere out there too so uh we do uh want to look into what these responses look like um one by one so uh this qualitative response seems to relate to City ear so two things things in the school that does well the first thing is the teachers in the school because they're helping our mind grow and grow every single grade the second thing is City ear because they help you get extra work and play in the playground when it's fun Friday and they let you play with stress toys when you're stressed the second response is the teaching is one of my favorites I love how my teachers try their hardest to help us learn I also like how my my school everybody treats each other with the same rights third response providing for those who go to school with low income they provide a lot for those who can't really provide for themselves communication is also really well I suppose when someone needs to get into contact with the administrators then they just genuinely contact the office and they answer really quickly I think I just want to pause to give a shout out to all of the office staff out there again who have been back in the offices since May and especially our school linked Services coordinators that are attached to our student services department the this response is alluding to the work that our students see is being done behind the scenes and we appreciate you so much and then the fourth response here having an organized schedule it really helps me remember the Stu the schedule easier number two providing resources for students it's really helpful for students that can't afford to go to the store because of the pandemic and again the students see the work that's being done behind the scenes they see that their parents and they are being served by the uh resources that teachers connect them to that office staff connect them to that our schooling Services connect them to and it's wonderful to be able to see this represented through our student voices and I'll pass the mic back to Veronica to speak to our team's conclusions all right thank you um this is um kind of the end and and we want you as community members as school board members as employees as staff parents par students to reflect upon what we shared today what did you notice what did you wonder about the findings with sense of belonging cultural awareness and action and diversity inclusion um I want to highlight three areas that our racial Equity committee identified after the first analysis of the data the impact on students how can we improve wraparound or holistic services to implement and support social emotional learning that was the first secondly the impact on adults how can we engage adults in having uncomfortable conversations even those not surrounding race to reduce the stigma or discomfort and finally considerations the information presented does not really give a complete picture of our students experience es a number of us on the committee work with students who typically experience marginalization that's the truth and knowing that these students may not have completed the survey we want to amplify their voices in a future Town Hall um Anna will share final thoughts thank you Veronica for sharing our thoughts and considerations as a team as an as a racial Equity committee our next steps include one making sure that our work is happening to support the work that our our district leadership is already committing to and is already um is already hitting the ground running with um we we work um with closely with our academic Services team in which Mr Jason sorage is a part of our racial Equity committee as well and we also work closely with Miss Sandra Garcia the director of State and federal who supports us with analyzing and collecting the Panorama education survey data our goal is to continue working with them and also increasing our frequency of working with them to ensure that starting next year we have a solid umbrella plan that allows us to be able to think about one what does it look like for School site leaders to be able to analyze this data and be able to bring back this learning to school staff and what does it mean to bring back uh bring anti-bias and anti-racist professional development to sites uh whether it's through teacher plc's or directly through site principal partnership and collaboration our second step is to meet as a a core group next week to discuss the spring Panorama education survey data and I understand that Miss Sandra Garcia will be giving us a sneak peek of that through her lcap presentation later on today and once we get to analyze it as a group we'll be able to present our findings and our considerations uh to board meetings from now and lastly um coming back to what Veronica stated um we we understand that surveying 49% of the students is not all of our students and it's most likely surveying the students who we know will will be able to complete the survey within um a set environment such as their teachers morning meetings and we know that there's a number of students that opted out of taking the survey and we want to be able to hold a town hall that allows us to consider the multitude of voices of our student population across the district and we aim to hold this town hall on May 18th um from 6:30 to 7:30 in which we will hold this hold a panel for these students and ask them questions in relation to uh the data that we collected overall we aim to attach narratives to this quantitative data and hear their voices Elevate them and help us think about this work in relation to and for them and that concludes our presentation as a racial Equity committee thank you so much board Trustees for your time um Dr Bower and audience members we appreciate you listening in um and please let us know if you have any questions thank you so much for such wonderful presentation um Dr bow was there something you were going to add before we um okay just want to double check I saw your mic uh come on um so at this time what I'll do is open it up for public comment and then we'll go to the trustees for any questions and comments um I see Mr Moran on here um Mr Moran do we have anybody that's raised their hand this time hello good evening board president uh we do have one person we have Dan D Ambrosio great welcome Danielle as soon as you begin speaking our timer will begin no um I'm I apologize I I wanted to speak about a different matter did that I I thought lower hand meant like my hand was lowered okay thank you for clarifying yeah um so just to um let you know right now we are on this item um if the item that you are here to speak on is on our agenda then um you can wait till that item and if it's not on the agenda you are able to speak on the um right it I apologize I thought my hand on my screen said lower hand I apologize no problem welcome thank you so much uh Mr Moran anybody else that might have raised their hand at this time I see no other uh members from the public okay great thank you um at this time I'll open it up to trustees any questions comments uh Mr Beano I don't know if I should direct my attention to you here or right over there I see you probably be a combo as I get used to this but so thank you um first of all thank you to the team for the really the thoughtfulness of of the work that's going on it's what I like about it is that it's not really just like a um you know cookie cutter boiler plate approach I like that you know it's very clear to me that there's a lot of introspection and strategic thoughtfulness going into this so so first of all I just want to acknowledge and and thank the team for that um the second comment that I wanted to make is just that um I'm encouraged all by the the comments that were made about the the staff and kind of in the future I think I heard um discussion of how we'll facilitate some of those courageous conversations and and how we can get people to engage and so I'm looking forward I'm just based on what I see I'm confident that yourselves and the team um Miss D and Miss Talton will will will do this but I think it's going to be really important to to nurture and and create a a safe space for those who may not agree I think we're in a time um culturally politically where whatever you want to call it where many people kind of feel like it's black or white like you believe this or you believe this and there's nothing in the middle and I think that that is what sometimes can create a sense of people who may have questions or may want to understand more don't want to speak out and and say something because there's consequences for that so it's a difficult task but I'm I'm like I said I'm confident from with what I see and then the last one that I had is just a question back on the the comparison slides and so um you know we talked about some of the kind of like the um the more what's the word not distinct but the numbers that were kind of more of outliers for particular groups um native Hawaiian other Pacific Islander um American Indian Alaskan native and so I was wondering do we know I guess it would be try to think what the denominator is for those how can the way I explain the most clearly I think is that the numbers that appear to be more um have more variance from the mean or from that all respondents number appear to kind of be those populations with less of an N less of a total population so I'm wondering if part of or maybe some of that is just because the numbers are smaller than any change in any direction makes a big bigger um you know impact on that total number so I'm a just wondering if if that has been thought about and and if not if it's something that could be kind of fleshed out a little bit as you continue to work with that but it's very helpful like I like the the way the data is presented so that's the question I'm not sure um am I allowed to respond to board member okay yeah um trusty Bano you bring up a very solid point and I think the way that Miss tton and I want to operationalize racial equity and Justice is regardless of the group size we want to take into consideration that um you know with those smaller subgroups that we understand are dispersed across the multiple School sites we acknowledge that their experience might be largely different from others and we hope to create an environment with we students within those subgroups in which they feel more marginalized hopefully feel more included in the in whether it's instructional programming or the culture of the school um I agree um trusty Bano it's worth investigating and it's worth acknowledging it's our hope that that town hall can help us bring some of those voices to light to help us learn more may I add really quickly that we do hope to have every racial ethnic group represented in that town hall and um we are still accepting students so if you have any uh teachers principls we do have a Google form and we would love to get their information so thank you very much thank you both thank you um I do see uh vice president gto's hand up um if you w to make your comment or question and U just uh wanted to thank you for you and the committee for the excellent work that you did uh on my and then the excellent presentation very much appreciate the the uh quality data that you've provided us and I know it's going to help us as we uh go ahead and make decisions uh on behalf of the students staff and everybody here at the district thank you very much thank you uh trusty fan uh yes so I I too would like to commend principal n and Miss uh tton for presenting tonight uh uh I know you you you guys have done a lot of work on this already and there's still work to be done and I do look forward to your final presentation to board meetings from now uh the one other thing I'd like like to say is that I am very pleasantly surprised at the level of of how articul some of the student respondents uh you know their responses to the question then uh trust me I I don't think that I don't think if I were kid in elementary school or even in middle school I would have thought thought of those things in that way so I'm uh you know very pleased that you know our our students are maturing uh a lot you know progressing on that a lot faster than you know I've encountered and I certainly thought so I am very hopeful that uh this work will lead to a a much better learning environment for all our students so thank you very much thank you trusty Chavez anything you would like to comment or ask before I give my comments thank you um so just to re iterate thank you so much for such detailed presentation which means that you did a lot of work you know and we can see um with getting the surveys out and um I'm really excited to hear the student Town Hall about student Town Hall um opposite to Mr Fam I'm not surprised about the answers because I have a 12-year-old at home that is a student in our district so I get to hear her every day and I'm like wow right and um so I look forward to encouraging her to attend and um speak there along with the you know rest of our students um for me it's important to hear directly from them um since you know we do our best as adults around them to make sure that you know they're learning and thriving and um feeling good about being in school and of course it's important to um feel good and feel connected in order to learn the rest of the things right that they that they get to learn um while uh attending the classes um and listening to their teachers so thank you for your work very important work um and I look forward to continuing to support um and I just have one question and more on the personal side you know um I am familiar with a little bit about your stories and um the background and the work that you've been doing prior to this um but was there anything that surprised you you know I know um there was some passion right to be where you're at um but after doing you know where you were at in the beginning before we set this uh committee to now is there any surprises um that you've had either one or both I haven't had any really um but I look forward to learning more about racial equity and allowing the students as I mentioned to be empowered and be the change agents and you know inspiring adults who may be less inclined to talk about uncomfortable conversations and I feel that the children children can they have the capacity to do that thank you yeah I I think speaking to what I'm surprised by um I was surprised about the adult data that was available I think I think you know post um you know post a killing of George Floyd I think a number of team members cross the district um I felt were very vocal and on on board with black lives matter um there was a movement in in which we all joined together for racial Sol uh for solidarity on behalf of racial Justice and it it was surprising me to me to see that folks still felt as though we we did not yet have the tools to engage in those conversations in a professional setting and so I I it I think it further ignited the fire for our work knowing that the hearts there the passions there I think it's just about fear of you know stepping on people's Toes or fear of saying the wrong thing I don't perceive that Folks at all especially working here at the district I perceive everybody here is deeply committed to Justice and serving our students well I think in terms of our our training and our pedagogy and understanding how to speak about racial Justice in a way that our students can comprehend and in a way that demonstrates the collectivity and solidarity that um I understand um you know this whole board is committed to um I I understand that we have some work to do thank you and before I give my last comment I want to give trusty Chavez the opportunity I see your hand up trusty Chavez uh yes I did have a question um uh one of them mentioned that they wanted to hear about positive feedback and can we also ask the students about if there is any negative feedback if we can also hear from that side because I think to be well informed want to listen to both sides that's it thank you thank you trusty Chavez and the last thing I'll say is that uh I am very glad and thank you so much for um I know Miss Talton you mentioned that you opened up all your meetings with the honoring of the First Nations people the moek Melone um and you know I I am personally agree 100% you know and that um there was a time where they were tried to um the you know they were they were they tried to erase them um the tribe and so um being indigenous myself is important to continue to honor um the indigenous people especially of this land um and also my daughter right when she hears that like you know that she asks questions and you know then her friends want to learn more and so um yes I I just wanted to um mention that point thank you again for doing that um and if there's no other questions or comments um trusty Chavis I don't know I see your hand up I'm not sure if it was already from the comment that you mentioned earlier or if you still have another questions no okay thank you so much uh for presenting and being here tonight we'll go ahead and move on to uh item 202 local control accountability plan um the initial findings of the presentation uh Dr Bower GNA ask Sandra Garcia to present this to the board welcome Miss Garcia and I'm assuming we have the presentation up and ready to go let me screen there we go all right board president Lera and um Board of Trustees Dr superintendent Boward um my name is Shandra Garcia I'm director state federal programs I'm here this evening to provide an update on our progress on the local control accountability plan and this evening I will share some initial findings with all of you uh my objectives for the presentation are to share some information on stakeholder input some of the trends and findings um that came through in um through the forums uh and the input sessions that we had and some survey information tied to the elap goals I know you already heard some some survey information that were more related to um Anna and Veronica's presentation mine will be more uh related to the lcap goals in um in general uh and then share the next steps from the elap adoption process just a reminder of the timeline um our goal is to uh approve to have a public Hearing in June um and approve the um the lcap for 2021 2022 so just a little bit of background on the type of stakeholder input that we gather um the stakeholders That We Gather input from are the parents and and community members um the our staff members arusd staff members um our students uh our Union groups and our management team and the Way That We Gather the input is through a variety of of methods we um hold our annual um forums um with our community which we did have this year uh in March we um have Advisory Group meetings with our daak our deac and our elcap advisory committee um we have school site input sessions where every school um has an input session with um their community and their staff and and students and they also are able to provide input um a site basis then we have our surveys in which our parents staff and students participating um I thought it was important as I was looking through um the various um comments in our um survey as you saw earlier Anna and Veronica mentioned um that we do provide parents and students an opportunity uh to answer two questions at the end of the survey and they're open-ended questions and um I just saw some really nice things um coming through in those comments and I just thought it was important to point some things out especially during this challenging time of pandemic and everything that we've been through um you know just for people to hear that they are appreciated by our family and our students and just some of the things I heard were you know that we did a great job in addressing the technology this year the Hub of resources was very helpful to people um uh parents and students appreciated the the staff and teacher check-ins with their students every day and to see how they're doing they felt that that was really important and these are comments that weren't just mentioned one time and that that's the reason I chose them was because it was a variet you know know a variety of parents and students that that made these comments or something close to it and so um one in Spanish you know just appreciation of all of the support that we've given their families and their students during these difficult times and then you're doing an excellent job so I just want you know sometimes we don't feel like um we hear these things and I thought it was important for all of us to to know that these things are appreciated and the effort is so I'm going to move into um some of the Middle School um input um want to thank imy Alazan Dr imy Alazan from um state and federal she um was able to hold input sessions with our middle school students and um we able to go through the different comments and and input that they provided and um connecting them to the four goals from our elcap and in general I mean the the students um as someone mentioned earlier you know they're able to articulate what they need and what they feel is important and I did highlight in in white you know some of the the common things that that came across you know during these input sessions and in the notes that were provided from them and you know they were around the the various educational apps and the tutoring support and and type of support that they feel is important for their learning you know providing support to our English Learners making sure that you know um we provide seal time they I mean that came out through almost all of these um these goals and the input sessions is how important that social emotional learning learning time was for them um this past year and I think I saw that more this year than I did last year and I think it's because we did focus on that a lot more this year and and they're they're appreciating that and they're wanting more of that so um I wanted to highlight that and um the fact that they really liked the teacher office hours um I think they felt that they were very supported during those office hours and had the opportunity to to really connect with their teachers during that time and then the advisory class you know keep the advisory class is what was said you know it really they felt that it was a good time for students to connect with one another um in a way that is non-academic so um I thought there was some really good comments and input by our middle school students um some of the trends and findings from our forums um it's very similar very similar to what the students are feeling and needing but again um I saw some important themes coming through uh with our our parents um talking about things that we did during um distance learning that they really like and they really felt were supportive to our students and so I just feel it's important to point that out as we move forward and make plans for the future on you know keeping some of these things or considering um keeping some of these things so the student platforms I mean that was something that was mentioned over and over again how important that was for their students and their learning this year and their success um the morning meeting people loved the morning meeting they thought that was a really important part of the day and the way that it was um connected to social emotional learning uh they feel that professional development as well as training for parents is important in the use of technology and the platforms um uh and that came through over and over again and um the big one was the the mental health and uh counseling services um mentioned many times throughout the forums and even the surveys you'll see that as well um and as well as training for parents in that area both areas of social emotional learning and mental health um one of the things I saw a lot too uh was uh how people appreciated Zoom and comments about how they really want to see if we could keep that platform as a way of um providing access for families who cannot make it to the school sites even when we're back full-time um on site you know can we keep that as an option uh for for meetings in the future and also how important parent Square was to them in terms of communication so really important and good information from families now here I just broke it up it's the same information you just saw so I'm not going to go over it again but it's broken down by goal and how it connects to the goals and I just shared this information with you now I'm going to jump into some some survey information and again this is um in relation to um the lcap the four lcap goals um and I put here the information on who took the survey and um comparison from last spring when we were full on into the pandemic and I think um we we took the survey maybe a week before I think it ended maybe a week before we um or maybe during the time when we um shut down and went into distance learning and then this year um still distance learning but we were still able to get um not everybody of course to participate but we're still working on that piece and and trying to find ways to get more um involvement from people in the surveys um this is some overall information [Music] um for the different stakeholders and um I think overall I think the staff and and parents are in a little more agreement in terms of um some of the the results um you know and safety and um sense of belonging you know being a little bit lower but then you look at the student and I think you heard that in the last presentation um when it comes to safety and sense of belonging you know we have some work to do in that area and I have some other information in future slides that um when you really drill down into the the data I believe that it's not that students don't feel safe in the physical environment I just think there are other things that we do need to work on um to help them feel more connected and safe among their peers in terms of maybe some bullying that might be going on or um teasing or or not being accepted by others and so I think that that is where that's coming from just in me drilling down and looking more into into the data but overall um these are the the results from the spring data um and I again I connected it to the main buckets of the lcap um and so I selected some different um snapshots uh from the survey to connect to support for academic learning in this slide um again you know when it comes to academic learning it seems that you know staff and parents really believe that we um do have a positive learning environment for our students that we have high expectations for them and quality of instruction is there and students still have very um uh good remarks about the academic learning environment um but I'm going to share something interesting with you and you're going to see it in the next slides as well is that it's not necessarily that kids are our students are um saying that this is not happening I think a lot of them are very neutral in in their responses and this I'm going to share the next slide with you so that you see what I'm talking about um again in safety staff and parents you you know they have higher um marks you know 80 high 80s to 90% in terms of um student safety and how students feel um on campus and if they feel students are safe and then when we go to the students in elementary it's 77% and middle school 73% what I want to point out here is that that's the amount those are the students that feel very safe or safe and then we have about 8% in elementary and 6% in middle that say they feel unsafe or very unsafe but there's this middle area here and I think that's where uh we need to drill down a little more and figure out you know they say they neither feel safe or unsafe so they're just not taking they're not taking a stand on how they feel they maybe they're not sure how they feel um so that I think it's really important to point that out that it's not that kids aren't I don't want to say that they're not feeling unsafe they're feeling unsafe I just want to say that there is that middle area of students that um we need to do a little more investigation on okay um oh School connectedness similar to what I said mentioned before in terms of staff and parents feeling like um you know Staff feel connected to their work environment and parents feel that they're treated with respect that they're welcomed at school and you know very High marks for that and then you go back to students again and you have that middle that middle group of students that yeah yes some of the time I feel that way but then when you go to no never it it's it is I mean it's significant that's 93 students but it's not as high as 880 that do feel part of the school all over the time so again I think we need to drill down into these little these mid areas these NE more neutral areas and see um a little more of what's going on in those areas so um back to those um questions that are asked at the end of the survey the open-ended questions I did pull out some things that I thought were just important to point out that um really um support what I was saying earlier about the mental health and the um the extra support that students and parents want for their kids the the apps and um technology um you know just this first comment final ideas about how to improve this school and a parent said please bring more Mental Health Services my daughters are struggling with anxiety and need support before making the transition back so I thought that was really important and then you know you had some parents saying you know please continue to provide online classes While others were saying let's get the schools opened in a safe way um and then uh um the students you know what should we improve again you know that more awareness of mental health and support really good ideas from students about having support groups at school you know for students to attend you know on on a drop in basis and when they're feeling that they need that support um diversity and Equity to ensure that everyone feels welcome no matter your ethnic background or sexual orientation some really um good and um thoughtful responses from from students and parents so brings me to my uh second to the last slide overall consideration so if I have to think of all of the data that I poured through and looked at and um and and really thought about you know I come down to some of these considerations um that um summarize what what families and students are and staff are um thinking about um and continuing to explore different ways that we could provide intervention for students um the integration of Technology the apps and the learning tools and then of course comes with that all of the training um seal programs you know that was one that was talked about a lot by all three stakeholder groups um and then expansion of summer program offerings and then in terms of safety again uh uh social emotional learning was mentioned a lot in um in the survey and the forums um look into anti-bullying programs so you know that that might be something that we could um I know that we do that in a lot of the different work that we do you know with um with um social emotional learning and with um uh what do you call the the school climate and culture programs but maybe looking a little more into um targeting that area as a as a goal uh school connectedness is building capacity for parents again in in the area of social student mental health and wellness um maintaining Zoom for Access for parent meetings um and then intentional professional development again in um technology and platforms for parents so the next steps in this process are um to present uh a draft to the Board of Trustees um and with the advisory groups in June we'll have a public hearing um to hear comments from the public on the plan and then in late June is when we will um send the um bring the elcap to the Board of Trustees for for adoption um the lcap needs to be approved by July 1st thank you so much Miss Garcia a very very important information um so great to get it summarized um I know there is so much more that you all heard but thank you for uh providing uh that overview for us here tonight so at this time I'd like to open it up for public comments and then we'll go to trusty questions comments um Mr Moran do we have anybody on from our public who would like to address the board at this time board president at this time we have no one uh actually we have one now Adrian vain all right welcome Adrien as soon as you begin speaking the timer will begin hello um my name is Adrien Vain and I am a teacher at George middle school and I would like to say I'm glad that we reached an agreement regarding online learning um I'm not happy with the way that it was done I think it was done very last minute and that was very upsetting and Adrian I'm sorry to to cut you off I just want to confirm are you here to speak on the LC cap or on something I will get to that one of the things with the elap is that we did like everybody saying they loved the morning meeting that's something that if we want to continue that that has to be um uh negotiated with our contract and right now we don't have a contract so that's something to please keep in mind is that if we want to plan accordingly we need to start planning now not last minute thank you thank you aan do we have anybody else Mr monan from the public wishing to address a more uh yes we have Brenda sendas welcome Miss sendas as soon as you begin speaking the timer will begin is this for public comment I just want to make sure I'm speaking on the right one yes this is public comment for the lcap the presentation that we all just saw Miss Garcia present on yeah I just want to thank her for all her work I think that um hearing the Imp of not only staff and students but getting a more clarity on what our school needs and what we have been doing and improving as a parent it makes me feel more at ease that these studies are being done and that as a staff and team we are working together to create Solutions and I just wanted to thank Sandra and the whole team for doing this I truly appreciate that thank you thank you Mr Manan we have Sean SS welcome Sean as soon as you begin speaking the timer will begin Mr swis if you could please unmute yourself sound like one of my kids um I'm I'm really pleased with the comments or the information that Mrs Garcia uh presented to the school about how well on the L Capal how well the parents and the students value US teachers it's really good to see how important we are in this District to their learning um I would I appreciate everything that she pointed out I think those are great ideas and I hope we can find the budget and the for that and incorporate those things into our school learning when we're back in school thank you thank you Mr monan do we have anybody else at this time we have no further comment great thank you so much does did somebody want to say something I'm sorry did I hear somebody no okay so at this time I'm gonna go ahead and open it up to the trustees um for any questions or comments I do see trusty Chavez raising your hand uh I just want to ask a quick question for now who was the last speaker please what was his name Shan last last speaker was Shan swis thank you any comments or questions for Miss Sandra uh for Miss Garcia okay I do see Mr fam andano and's so we'll goad and go in that order trusty fam uh oh unmute okay am I unmuted yes I am uh first of all thank you Sandra for your presentation I I think that you know this is a great service that you've done for the entire District uh let me just say that you know in light of the previous Co you know comments uh this is kind of like a progress report for our district you know it it tells us you know uh what we're doing right and you know the things that we ought to improve upon so I I certainly think you know and I look forward to uh the May presentation when we have a better picture and you know as well as the adoption in late June after the the town hall for the lcap because uh at the end of the day we serve students and their families and if we're you and it is incumbent upon us to address their needs uh you albe it within a manner that that fits within the resources we have at our disposal so uh I you know I again thank you for for contributing to uh uh a better understanding of what we've done right so far and the challenges that we will need to work on in the days and months ahead so thank you so much Sandra thank you trusty H famam uh let's go with trusty Beano thank you and as always thank you Miss Garcia for your report um I think one of the things that I appreciate that you do and have done this month is you know give us a little more context about some of the the responses that we see and and I appreciate this month the the what you shared with regards to this um our students and and bullying and and that whole idea it's something that we've been talking about for a long time now um and I I want to also encourage us this concept or this reality of of bullying cyber bullying is is you know obviously very complex and there's a lot of research on the topic and we also research about um the assets the developmental assets that our children have in in our community um and so the part that I want to maybe encourage us to to look into and and further develop in our programming in kind of conjunction with the um anti-bullying and kind of creating those safe environments and and that piece of it is the other part of it which is the building resilience in in Youth and I know that's a huge very broad area and topic but I think specific to the the idea of bullying and cyber bullying um I have a good article that I found um that I'll forward to to the team after um the meeting but I think one of the things that is being recognized is that we want to teach anti-bullying and create those environments but we also know that in the world a reality is is that there will be um situations where children youth adults will be put into situations that are difficult and and you know if we haven't done our job to prepare them to deal with those in addition to trying to do anti-bullying then you know we may not have done our job in in in helping them to be resilient to those situations so I'm looking forward to us as we try to bolster our anti-bullying efforts to also um maybe get a little more uh a little deeper into some of the resilience building and and match those two together so that we have an environment where bullying is not um accepted but we also acknowledge that things like that will occur and we will build students who have the the assets and the abilities to handle those situations so um so that's kind of what I had to say about that but I think that I do agree that's a a big piece and ties into a lot of what we're trying to do in terms of getting students to a place where they can perform academically because some of these other factors have been addressed so thank you again miss Garcia thank you trustan board vice president kto uh I just want to thank you for the work uh that you did on this report you team so thank you very much for that I appreciate you making note of the area is or there's some deficiencies or where there's uh more to be uh investigated and so looking forward to that digging down deeper and finding out where those uh students are that don't necessarily have a a um a position on a given issue so thank you for that thank you um and I just have a couple of um questions and comments uh I think you know sometimes we highlight on the negative right like some of us like to highlight on the ne negative so I want to highlight you know especially that one slide where you um let us know how our parents are feeling how our students are feeling in regards to safety um so it continues to you know make me um proud of the staff that we have out there of the adults um that create these safe spaces and I'm not surprised you know that they feel safe or that most feel safe um and then obviously too right um as you also mentioned it's important to see those that didn't have either way you know and where they're at and then also whether it's one or 90 you know in this case I think I saw seven for example that didn't feel safe and so I'm wondering if in the survey and I and I'm sure I filled it out I just don't remember right now but if there was a part where they could say why if they wanted to not not in this survey because we have to add those questions at the end but it's something that we could add as a question as a follow-up question we definitely could add that yeah and I think you know maybe it might be answered and maybe not but I think it would be good to provide that opportunity um and then trusty chavz I see your hand up in trusty witho I'll go back to you um as soon as I'm done here and then also in regards to the I I also remember the comment from the parent right and similar uh where she says about her daughter feeling anxious and anxiety and um some of the support services um and so I'm I'm wondering too if there's an opportunity um for the support to her to go beyond that survey at that time um so you know kind of similar to the question I was asking to provide that opportunity for the few parents you know maybe that um need additional support if there's a way you know to put a comment and so we as staff or the staff can follow up I'll definitely look into that sure thank you and then um one last thing I just to I think highlight what Mr um trusty was saying about the uh bullying right on campus and then all the additional I also heard the students say they want support groups um and I think it could be combined right um the support groups to deal with a lot of these things that uh our children face dayto day and um I also heard the teacher right speak and I you know I I do think we put a lot on our teachers and so um Dr Bower you know just an opportunity for in the future to look at um you know we have several partners that you know already do this work so we don't have to add it to our teacher um who are already doing so much for our children and so I look forward to discussing um more opportunities um and ensuring that our children have access to support groups thank you and we'll go ahead to go to trusty Chavez and then trusty uh Sandra once again you did excellent work and I appreciate everything you do and I did want to ask that kind of um saying something close to what uh Bina just finished saying that to to get both the pros and the cons because I think it's very important to listen to both sides and the why why do they feel that you know they had a negative experience and more importantly do the followup on all of the on the noes and you know the one on that don't feel comfortable we could learn a lot from from the reasons why they aren't and maybe improve on that thank you yeah I actually wanted to just um Echo quickly the comments of Trustee of President erera um in terms of of the overwhelmingly um positive numbers that we see from from our overall Community I think unfortunately sometimes it's human nature and anything that you know the negative gets more focused um and so you know we see in the media our district with negative things we see on social media people you know pointing out a lot of things and that's that's good we need to know that stuff too otherwise we'll never know what to improve on but it's good to know that the overwhelming empirical data demonstrates that that our um families are are very happy with our work work and and I mean that's clear to me but I'm just glad to see that narrative and I want to also raise that up because there's a lot out there that is constantly negative um and it's very often in my estimation a false narrative that is created about our district so so thank you again for pointing that out thank you trano and with that if I don't see any other hands up um we'll go ahead thank you uh Mrs Garcia for that uh presentation um and we'll go ahead and move on to um item 301 and this is uh for public comment um public members who wish to address the board on any item that's not on our agenda tonight um so go ahead and um please raise your hand if you're here for this item um and Mr Moran if you can uh before we open it to the first person if you can let me know um how many we have right now now total yes board president at this time we have three speakers okay okay so um if we can go ahead and start with with our first one the first speaker is Michael poing welcome Michael as soon as you begin speaking the timer will Mr poing please unmute yourself yes I I saw the uh good evening um I teach a Joseph George uh as Miss vain said earlier I too I'm happy uh that we uh have met uh and finally reached an agreement to go forward uh with the instruction of some students in uh in person I am concerned that we are in uh we inaccurately res presenting what uh we are doing with the students I I'm not sure that the parents truly know what the junior high students uh learning situation will be in that afternoon block and I would like that to be U made more clear to the parents I'd also like to as Miss B pointed out there are a number of things that are quite positive that we've learned through this distance learning like the morning meeting uh advisory as we call it in the Junior it's a time where I've gotten closer to a lot of students than I ever have before and that uh it is is a good resource that we should continue but again like Miss vain said if we're GNA carry something over like that into the future we need to we need to plan for it and to plan for it we need to work cooperatively with the board with superintendent hararia Dr Bower and uh and to get things planned in advance for once please let's do something without having it you know almost literally come to the midnight hour we were some of us even with medical uh you know seeking medical exemptions we didn't know we had medical exemptions until maybe 12 hours before we were expected to report to school and that's just not acceptable thank you thank you Mr monan yes next next speaker is Danielle de Ambrosio welcome Danielle as soon as you begin speaking the timer will begin hello my name Daniel we accidentally are got muted thank you okay um my name is Danielle I've been a teacher in Alam Rock for 20 years also um on the area bargaining team I would like the board to know that we could have reached an agreement much sooner if the compensation hadn't repeatedly come back to area as zero you would have had a lot more teachers volunteering to come back a lot sooner than you did as of about 6:30 p.m last night to be exact hopefully moving forward board members and Dr Bower when we negotiate for summer school reopening in the fall and our next three-year contract we can only hope that you have learned from this what not to do last minute agreements cause anxiety mistrust taking the joy out of important events um like for me example for today I was so excited to go back but I mean really not negotiating a contract until 6:30 p.m.

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