Board of Education Regular Meeting, April 28, 2026

001stream and call the April 28th, 2026 regular meeting of the board of education to order with all trustees present. Uh, Trustee Boso is participating via Zoom teleconference and per the Brown Act, all votes will be taken orally during this meeting. Okay, now for our flag ceremony, the Madison High School Coast Guard JREC Color Guard will present the colors. Please stand for the presentation of colors. Trusty ord would you lead us in the pledge, please? Thank you. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right, Madison. >> All right. Land acknowledgement is a traditional custom that dates back centuries in many native nations and communities. Our land acknowledgement was developed in partnership

002with local Kumi leaders. Students from the San Diego School of Creative and Performing Arts prepared the following video to show our respect for the Kumi people who are the original stewards of the land our school district occupies. We respectfully acknowledge that the Kumi people are the original inhabitants and caretakers of these lands now known as San Diego. Despite the attempted genocide and ongoing impacts of colonization, the Kumi spirit remains unbroken and their traditions continue to thrive as they carry the memories of their ancestors who bravely resisted cultural erasure and fought to protect their land and way of life. In honoring their legacy, we pledge to uphold their cultural heritage and right to safeguard their sacred connection to the land for future generations. >> With gratitude and strength, we stand with the Kumi, embracing the past

003while forging a brighter tomorrow. >> Okay, we will now move to item B, adoption of the agenda. Tonight's agenda includes an update on interim guard rails regarding student motivation and the semiannual report from our community advisory committee for special education. Can we get a motion to adopt today's agenda? Moved by trustee Whitehurst Payne. Seconded by >> So second >> trustee uh Peterson. >> Okay. Um we'll do a roll call vote. Uh trustee Wyn >> I. >> Thank you. Trustee Ord >> I. Trustee Peterson >> I. >> Trusty Whitehurst Payne >> are you. >> Vice President Bazo. >> Hey. >> Trustee Hazen >> I. >> And Barrera I. Okay. >> Miss Stiltz, can you please provide information for public speakers about today's meeting protocols? >> Yes. Today's meeting of the board of education is a business

004meeting that is conducted in public and board members will not engage in dialogue with members of the audience. Board bylaw 1025 sets the time limit for public comment on agenda items at 10 minutes per side pro and con or 20 minutes total. Speakers will be able to provide testimony at the beginning of the appropriate agenda item or at the end of the meeting for non-aggenda comment. Please listen for your name to be called. Speakers are listed and called in the order received. When your name is called, please come to the podium to speak. Speakers participating via Zoom will be asked to unmute when their name is called. If you are unable to unmute yourself, we will call the next speaker. Please follow along with the agenda so that you know when your item is coming

005up for discussion. When you begin speaking, the green light below my name on the dis indicates that the timer has started. When the light turns yellow, you will have one minute remaining. A buzzer will indicate that your time has expired. If you have not yet done so and would like to sign up for in-person public comment, iPads are available in the back of the auditorium and in the lobby. >> Thank you, Miss Stoultz. We will now move to section C. And under item C1, we will hear a report from trustees win and ord. Oh. Oh, no report. But you don't want you want to give some comments or >> Oh, no. >> Oh, okay. There is no student advisory report. Okay, great. Thank you. Okay, we will now consider items C2 and C3. These are

006resolutions recognizing National Teacher Appreciation Week and condemning major combat operations in Iran. Is there a motion to approve items C2 and C3? Uh moved by Trusty Whitehurst Payne, seconded by Trustee or DAS. And do we have public speakers? Yes, we have several speakers on item C3, which is the resolution regarding the war in Iran. Uh we have three in-person speakers. Each person will have three minutes. The first person is Stacy Williams, followed by Arlene Newbart. Hi, I'm Stacy Williams and I rise in support of this resolution because our nation's priorities are backwards. We continue to find billions for war. Yet, we are told there is not enough money to fully fund IDA and provide students with disabilities the services and support they are legally entitled to receive. As an educator, I see the impact every

007day when schools are underst staffed, classrooms lack resources, and students with disabilities are asked to do more with less. Meanwhile, children around the world are losing their lives, their homes, and their education to conflict. War does not create security. It creates trauma, displacement, and generations of suffering. This resolution also matters because military action should never happen without accountability or proper authorization. Our constitution requires checks and balances for a reason. If we can fund bombs, we can fund schools. If we can finance war, we can fully fund IDA, mental health supports, and the services students need to succeed. I urge support for this resolution and for a future that invests in children instead of conflict. Arlene, excuse me, Arlene New. Uh, Michael Bracky. >> Good evening, board members. I'm Michael Brackchney from Hillrest, a member of

008the Peace Resource Center of San Diego. I serve on the board as the president and I speak in favor of the resolution C3, especially because it focuses our attention on the devastating consequences of the war in Iran on our society, particularly at issue here in San Diego and having to do with education through increased inflation and recession and decreased funding for social services including education of course and all as the resolution says quote without meaningfully advancing the interests, values or security of our nation. Those are weighty words. let alone without a congressional declaration of war or authorization of the use of military force or the UN security council authorization the use of force and not even for the even without necessity for self-defense. and also even without the recommendations of our own leading military and

009intelligence officers. That's what I wanted to make sure to say and I want to add a few comments of my own in addition to that. First of all, I really, really thank this board for bringing this resolution forward, the only public agency in San Diego I'm aware of that has done so to date. And I'll make a couple more remarks about how vital I think this is. But I just want to say that I hope other bodies of government in this city heed what I hope this board will be able to do today and treat this resolution as a blueprint of some kind, not necessarily verbatim, for similar actions to come. Our whole society is in great need of this. We're our society is in such danger right now. In fact, the whole world is

010in such danger that um this that war has now become a fifth um a fifth cause of of existential threat to to to life on Earth for not just humanity but all beings as you may know. >> All right. Okay, thank you very much. >> We have four speakers virtual. The first speaker is Dan Pritsker. >> Well, can you hear me? >> Yes. Go ahead. You have three minutes. >> Thank you. So, uh, dear board, I think that I'm here to talk about opposition to this resolution. I think this resolution has nothing to do with the school district. It just polarizes the community for benefit of two of its authors. As a parent, I don't care about your political ambitions, but about students and district financial visibility and we already have a huge hole in

011the budget. This illusion says its purpose to urge Congress to stop the war. Now um who are those Congress members that you addressing it to? All these uh members of Congress who covering the district already voted in support of power act which failed seven times. So what you really trying to achieve here if this member of Congress already on board and voting for it is just example of that this resolution has nothing to do with actual reality. Its purpose is just to promote your personal campaign political campaign and not caring about the district. So from here I call both of you to resign today and leave your place to someone who really care about students and district. Thank you >> Shauna McKenna. >> Thank you. >> Good afternoon, good evening board members. Um I'm Shauna

012McKenna. I am the parent of an amazing San Diego Unified School District graduate of PointLoma High School. Go Pointers. Um, I'm commenting in support of this resolution. It is incredibly difficult to grasp what an increasingly dangerous world my daughter graduated into. Our students have so much to struggle with. They do not need our country engaging casually in hostilities all over the world. Everything about this war makes your mission as educators and the stewards of education harder. While it's morally repugnant to watch the educational infrastructure of another country quite literally blown to bits, it's practically counterproductive to have to factor in yet more squeezes on the resources you need to educate our students as our economy staggers. This is pushing an unsustainable status quo to the point of breaking. I commend the board for docketing this

013resolution and offering a clear position to all the district stakeholders and our members of Congress and look forward to its passage. Thank you, >> Chris MSAS. >> Hello. Uh thank you for this time. I am coming to you as a parent of a wonderful child who attends Barnard uh school in Mission Bay. We actually commute quite a bit all the way from San Marcos down to Mission Bay. And so we are very aware of the consequences of this war. Um specifically gas prices as they seem to be increasing almost daily. Um, but it's not just gas prices is the reason why I'm here. I think it is very good for us to draw a line in the sand and and state that we do not stand for these military actions. They negatively impact our ability

014to have uh the resources needed to run the school. I am here almost every year defending the budget for the school because it's always on the chopping block and I just think wow you know it must be nice to not have to worry about budget concerns uh for for all the bombs and and everything being sent abroad and you know I just like the previous speaker had had mentioned is I believe education should be our primary focus and that is the best way to help set a positive future. Thank you for your time. >> Jonathan Rivera, >> thank you for your time today on this. Uh I did just want to echo the support of the previous two speakers. Uh I am in support of this resolution. Um, I think the the whole Iran war

015venture from our federal government has been a mistake and it's um uh I just think it's it's a horrible situation that we're in that we're uh we're having difficulty paying for our schools and yet we're spending literal billions of dollars on this um I guess imperialistic venture and destroying people's lives uh around the world um and spending all of our money on bombs when uh we we need to be spending it on uh making sure that our kids can get through school and uh they have all the resources they need to grow up safe and sound in uh in San Diego. So, I support uh the board's resolution on this measure and uh I hope to see more uh more resolutions like this um around the country uh and uh in our region as well.

016Thank you. And we'll circle back to Arlene Newbart. I believe she's here now. You have three minutes. Thank you, Marty. I only planned for a minute because I wasn't expecting that much time. Okay. There's a lot of noise right now about your scope. People arguing about geopolitics, people arguing about ideology, people arguing about what makes them uncomfortable. As you know, students in this district are directly impacted by what's happening in the world through their families, their identities, and their safety at school. Your job is not just curriculum and budgets. Your job is students. So, support the students. Acknowledge the world they're living in. You are being told to stay silent because this issue is complex. But complexity is not an excuse to abandon students. Silence here is not neutrality. Silence is a choice. And historically,

017it has never been on the side that protected students. >> That concludes comment on the item. Thank you. Yes, I have comments on both C2 and C3. And I'll start with C3. So, the Iran resolution. I want to start by recognizing that the impacts of this conflict are real for our community. In San Diego Unified, we serve more than 7,000 militaryconnected students. And for these families, this means deployment, disruption, and uncertainty. And with conflict like the war in Iran, it can mean a parent leaving home and the emotional toll that carries for a student. We also know that global instability can contribute to rising costs and economic strain, which we heard about, for families already navigating significant challenges. And those pressures affect student and family wellness and students readiness to learn. These are real concerns

018and they certainly deserve our attention. Where I diverge with this resolution is the role this resolution uh asks our board to play. While the resolution describes issues that impact our students, there are also portions that are more far-reaching, asking our board to take positions on international conflict. There are many federal decisions that more directly shape our students daily experiences and our district's ability to deliver on that mission. That includes sustained advocacy for full funding of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, IDA, so that students with disabilities receive the services they're entitled to. Protecting and expanding impact aid for military connected students, ensuring access to health care and mental health supports that are critical to student wellness, fighting against awful cuts to SNAP benefits that have taken food assistance away from millions of families that desperately

019need it. and defending the resources and protections that allow us to create safe, inclusive, and welcoming schools for all students, including LGBTQIA plus students, immigrant students, and those from historically underserved communities. For me, this is about maintaining clarity of purpose and being thoughtful about the precedents we set. Expanding into broad geopolitical matters risks diluting our impact in the areas where we are uniquely positioned to lead. And I deeply respect the intent of President Barrera and Trustee Patterson in introducing this resolution as I know your desire is to support students and families and ensure the federal government's allocation of resources aligns with our commitment to student wellness and success. But for the reasons I've explained, I'll be voting no on C3. With regard to C2, teacher appreciation week, I'm grateful to join Trustee Whitehurst Payne to

020introduce our resolution recognizing teacher appreciation week. One of the greatest privileges of this role is visiting classrooms and seeing our incredible teachers in action. I also experienced this as a mom of second grader and a seventh grader in our district and as a former teacher. So, I know firsthand the dedication, creativity, and heart this work demands. Teaching is a commitment to possibility. Our educators open doors, nurture curiosity, and help students find their voice and purpose. They show up each day as mentors, role models, and champions for every child. They are a steady presence in our students lives, the spark that ignites a love of learning and belief in themselves, very much connected to what we'll be talking about with our motivation guardrail. And at a time when the needs of our students are more complex

021than ever, our teachers continue to adapt, innovate, and lead with compassion. And it's an honor to serve in a district that does more than simply express gratitude to our educators, but actually operates in true partnership by elevating teacher voice and responding to teacher needs. So on behalf of the district and our community, it's my privilege to support this resolution honoring our extraordinary educators. >> Thank you so much, President Ber. Um, I'm going to take the opportunity to briefly read this resolution as quickly as I can. Forgive the the speed with which I read it. Um, there's been a lot of um, communication in our although there isn't a lot of conversation tonight, there's been a lot of communication on our inboxes, I know um, and online. So, I just want to focus us back on

022the actual argument of this resolution and it's um, and what it commits us to doing. So, with that, I'll read as quickly as I can. Um whereas on February 28th, 2026, the president of the United States initiated major military operations against the Islamic Republic of Iran without congressional declaration of war per article 1 section 8 clause 11 of the US Constitution or authorization of use of force per the 1973 war powers resolution without provocation or necessity of self-defense per article 51 of the UN charter and without authorization of the use of force by the UN security council per per article 42 of the UN charter and and here I'm going to make a very brief um suggestion uh in the context of a lot of conversations with advocates and receiving a lot of emails, the

023one thing I don't want this board to be exposed to is the implication that we somehow support the Iranian regime. So I'm going to suggest um if it's if my co-sponsor President Barrera would agree to it the intercolation here as a second whereas of a of the following and I'll hand it to uh Marty afterwards and that is whereas notwithstanding the insufficiency of the administration's causes belli the Iranian regime and in particular the Islamic revolutionary guard corps IRGC are responsible for grave human rights violations including the detention and murder of protesters ethnic and religious minorities and political opponents. widespread corruption and persistent challenges to regional stability. And so that will go that would be intercolgated there just as an acknowledgement that in opposing this war we are not therefore exonerating u the Iranian regime for

024its crimes against its people. Um and then that will continue then to whereas per count two of the judgment at Nerburgg war is essentially an evil thing. Its consequences are not confined to the belligerent states alone but affect the whole world. To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime, it is the supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes, in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole. And whereas an estimated 24,000 children have been killed, many millions displaced, and millions suffered profound enduring disruption in their education in the conflicts in the Middle East over the last three years. And whereas the failure to distinguish between competence and civilians and between military objectives and civilian objects and to strictly limit attacks to competence and military objectives

025is a clear violation of international humanitarian law per additional protocol 1 1977 of the Geneva Convention articles 48 to 51 and or 54 rather whereas the use of AI in targeting of munitions and the corresponding reduction of human oversight judgment and decision-making in the kill chain has introduced profound and unlegislated risk to civilian populations and in particular children. And whereas the armed conflict in Iran has cost an estimated $60 billion to date in operations and munitions. And the Trump administration plans to request 200 billion from Congress in supplemental funding for ongoing operations in Iran and has proposed a $ 1.5 trillion defense budget for 2027. hand. Whereas the maldistribution of scarce national resources to distant wars of choice diverts funding from infrastructure, health, science, and education, including the $ 38 billion annual shortfall in federal

026funding for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, IDA. And whereas the closure of the straight of Hormuz imposed by Iran in response to the American attacks has dramatically increased inflation and the risk of recession. I'm almost there. Round in the corner here. Uh whereas the rise in inflation has imposed additional economic strains on our students and families nearly twothirds of whom are already economically disadvantaged. And whereas the recession would have devastating consequences not only for our students, staff, and their families and for our graduates post-secondary employment, but also on the district's ability to fund its essential services. And whereas there is a significant wellestablished relationship between war and the erosion of democratic norms and institutions. And whereas the Iran Iranian conflict exposes our district's military affiliated families to overseas deployment, potential injury and fatality, and

027the associated detrimental impacts on their children without meaningfully advancing the interest, values, and security of our nation. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Sandy Unified School Board condemns the major offensive operations in Iran, strongly opposes any further military escalation, and demands immediate cessation of military operations. And be it further resolved that we call on our congressional representatives to bring a to a vote and to deny the authorization of use of force in Iran and furthermore to do everything in their power to bring an immediate end to combat operations in Iran and the negotiation and guarantee of a sustainable peace in the Middle East. So that's the resolution. Um I will just say in terms of um why I why I am bringing this before the body. Um I I' I've heard a lot we've

028heard a lot of comment here. We didn't hear quite so much tonight, but we've heard a lot of comment uh online in our mailboxes. And um we heard from many that we should no pine on something over which we have no power. uh that this resolution will have quote no real world impact and quote will not affect any real change unquote. That is perhaps true. Uh but I want any students listening to know that when people attack they are telling you that even though you may think you have no power and even and especially when they tell you you have no power that they suspect what you are doing is in fact powerful. Powerful enough that it has to be stopped. I appreciate all of the public testimony tonight. Folks care about about their community,

029about this district. And though I suspect that many uh who are objecting to the question of propri the propriety of bringing this item are actually in support of the war of of Iran with Iran and they simply do not want to say that out loud. I nonetheless less appreciate their input. And I want to say in closing that uh this item pertains to not only the war of aggression in against Iran, that is the item before us, but I oppose all wars of aggression. And if the Venezuelan conflict had persist persisted long enough to substantially impact our students in our district and long enough for me to docket a condemnation, I would have done that. And the same goes for any war of aggression in the future against say Greenland or Cuba or Spain. Hopefully

030we will not be forced to dock at that as well. Um, one of the callers suggested this had political motivations. I clearly do not understand electoral politics to think that this could have any effect on on our races. But I will just say that personally uh, as a young man, I marched against the Iraq war and the Afghanistan war. I came of age in the anti-war movement and I saw firsthand what these wars did to our economy, our society, our culture, our democracy. I think in many ways we are still living with the consequences of those forever wars on our democracy. Having lived through the American empire at its apogee, I'm Gen X. We were there right as it crested and began to decline and shared the power powerlessness of all working people to slow

031its decline. It takes egregious errors and extravagant misallocations of resources and effort repeated and extended over decades to squander advantages, power, and wealth as colossal as our country amassed over the course of the 20th century. It seemed as though the wealth and power were inexhaustible, that no amount of stupidity, no amount of improvidence and waste could possibly affect our bottom line. But eventually it does hit your bottom line. And the bottom line for us is the lives we provide for our children. The prosperity and fulfillment and safety and stability and opportunity and education. Wars are not evil only for their consequences, but because they induce otherwise decent people to evil. All of these evils are not incidental to war. They are collateral to war. They are inherent, integral, and fully foreseeable elements of war. A

032wararmonger is therefore intrinsically an advocate for mass destruction, mass deception, mass detention, mass murder, mass rape, mass torture. These are not glitches in war. They are inherent in war. War is interpersonal violence at scale. So, let me just close here by saying that um look, we're human. Uh we've been here before. A human will naturally twist themselves into a pretzel to avoid standing on principle. It's very costly and the incentive to find a way out is powerful. I'm a secular person, but I was raised in the church. And in spite of no longer being a believer, per se, in my mind, God is still watching. You can call it a super ego, you call it a conscience, but for me, God is still watching. I don't want to be here tonight on this dis making

033these decisions. I want to avoid all this. I want to go home and be with my kids. I want to leave it to someone else. I want to leave the war anti-war movement to somebody else. I want a way out to escape accountability to my convictions. But he would see through all the contortions I made to avoid bearing the burden. He would see me twisted in a pathetic pretzel in my attempts to avoid doing my duty to creation and to my children and to your children. Cursed are the wararmongers. Blessed the peacemakers. I encourage my colleagues to vote yes on this tonight. Uh and thank you for bearing with me through that speech there. Um, I want to speak on this resolution from a student perspective because it's a lot different from what my colleagues

034would say sort of. Um, because this issue directly affects our education in our future. As students, we all come to school expecting stability, support, and opportunity. But when resources are pulled away from education and put into things such as war, we all feel the consequences. We see overcrowded classrooms, not enough staff, and fewer opportunities. And the money being spent on war could be used to support our schools, our teachers, and our futures. Um, education is supposed to be our foundation. It's where we learn how to think, how to solve problems, and how to build a better world. But it's really hard to focus on learning when there's so much instability. When families are struggling financially. When some students worry about loved ones. And when global cl conflict creates fear that follows us into classrooms. Students

035every day walk into class worried about being drafted into the war. They fear that their lives they fear for their lives for something that the government can control. And from a student perspective, this isn't distant. It's extremely personal. And that's why I'm here to say this clearly. I will fight for all student education, not pick and choose who gets it. Because we all know that education is not a privilege, it's a divine right. Every student deserves the resources, support, and stability they need to succeed. So, we have to ask ourselves, why are people constantly suffering? Why is war still happening when it takes away from education and from the future we're supposed to be building? We are taught to think critically and speak up. And this is us doing that. So I urge this board

036to support this resolution not as a political statement but as a commitment to students to fairness and to the belief that education should always come first. Thank you. We're trying to find some tissues for her and her. >> We must start bringing tissues to the board meeting. It's kind of interesting that we have the dichotomy here on teachers first resolution second one war and for me I think about how every year I think almost every year I've been on the board in the fall we always do the UN peace rally. We go around to schools and we lobby for peace. We sing the song, let there be peace and let it begin with me. And we talk about it with the children. We advocate for peace. And then for us to get involved in something

037that folks brag about, it hadn't happened in 47 years. Um, and now all of a sudden we're engaged in in this this war. It's kind of senseless. I mean, we have to stop and start seeing people as human beings, whether they're black, brown, yellow, whatever color they are. We h we must see people as human beings. I see those children who were killed, the girls who were killed needlessly. No, they were not white children. They were not black children, but they were children. They were somebody's babies. And we have to see every child. Every child. you, you and all the rest of the children here as our very own as our own children and put every resource we can into that rather than to spend money. And I know there's an argument going now about

038putting it in a ballroom. Let's see human beings. What do human beings need? Do we need health care? Do what do we need? And I I don't care what they're doing in DC in that sense, but we as individuals have to stop and take notice because Cody said it. One day we're going to have to give an account for the decisions we've made. We will have to give account for it. We will have to stand and say, "I made this decision or I didn't make that decision and justify it." And tonight I'm supporting both of these because I believe they're two ends of the same process. We're supporting teachers, but we're supporting human lives. We're supporting people's right to live. And we support seeing children, human beings as people and not focusing on uh only

039animals or whatever, but to see human beings, folks like you and me as human beings and and go to the maximum to try to get the best answer for all concern and not rush hastily into illgotten decisions. I mean, it's it's wrong. It's morally wrong. And tonight, I am voting to support this resolution. Thank you guys for bringing it. >> Vice President Bazo, >> can I Oh, can I speak? >> Yes, please. Yes. >> Yeah. Thank you, um, board members. And I was a I was a bit concerned seeing this resolution similar to some of the concerns that Trusty Hazen has mentioned already. um you know I think it's there's there is a good points on the side of that it is politicizing um you know the institution and it can my concern was around

040community and really um how this could kind of alienate or um you know make our you know we have you know such a um you know we have so many different types of um ethnic groups and focusing on that and make and hoping that it wasn't going to be one more thing that was going to um cause concerns. But I also know that we're in very strange times and you know things that we didn't think could happen what are we in in two years ago are happening every day now. And um I do think it's important to show that solidarity for our students and our communities and our families. And also to be quite quite honest and listening to Alina's testimony really moved me as well. So I will be voting in favor. Thank you.

041>> Thank you Trusty Bosa. >> Did the makers of the motion accept the change? >> Accept the the change. Yeah. Thank you, Miss Toltz. I I've got nothing to add. I mean, the the articulate, thoughtful comments, uh, you know, from the members of this board just, uh, make me proud to be a member of this board. And, um, I >> I'm I'm sorry. I I was saying the, um, articulate, thoughtful comments from our board members make me proud to be a member of this board. And I appreciate uh trustees Hazen and Whitehurst Payne for bringing forward C2 and very much appreciate the leadership of trustee Patterson uh for bringing forward C3. So uh and I intend to support both. And so with that we will do a roll call uh trustee or dos >> I.

042>> Okay. Yeah. Why don't we take C2 first? Um, do we need a separate motion on C2 then? Yeah. Moved by Trusty Hazen, seconded by Trusty Whitehurst Payne. Any further comment on C2? Uh, if not, Trusty Ordas >> I. >> Trusty W >> I. >> Trusty Hazen >> I. >> Vice President Bazo >> I. >> Trustee Person >> I. >> Trustee Whitehurst Payne >> I. >> And Barrera I. So C2 passes unanimously. Now for item C3. Uh, trustee Ordaz >> I. >> Trustee W >> I. >> Trusty Hazen. >> No. >> Uh, Vice President Bazo >> I. >> Trusty White House Payne >> I. >> Trusty Person. >> And Barrera. I. Thank you. Okay. Thank you all. Now move on to uh section D. Thank you. And thank you to the public comment as well.

043Okay. Uh Andre, do we have any uh uh items to report out on? >> No, we don't. >> Thank you. And no administrative assignments and we'll move on to Superintendent Bagula with your information report. >> Thank you. I have a long one, so I'm just warning you. Um, I I want to begin this evening with a topic that I know is on the minds of many in our community, and that's technology use in the classroom. We will hear from public speakers later in the agenda, and this is also a conversation unfolding in the broader public discourse. Um, I always welcome your feedback and your partnership as we continue to build a strong, coherent approach to digital citizenship, media literacy, and purposeful technology use for our students. Um for for more than a decade, our instructional

044technology team has supported teachers in delivering digital citizenship and media literacy instruction. Embedded in that work is guidance for helping students develop healthy habits and balance in their use of technology. An area that has been increasingly important as the role of technology in our lives continues to evolve. Um, but as we engage in this conversation, it is important that we are precise in our language because I've I've had multiple conversations with many different groups here in San Diego, um, including, um, our instructional leadership team. And there was a few things that I I'm even learning myself. So, I'll give you an example. In San Diego Unified, we don't think of term in terms of screen time. We think in terms of screen use. And I've been having to educate myself in that. And there's a

045meaningful difference. So a student who spends 45 minutes creating, collaborating, and demonstrating their learning through a digital tool is having a fundamental different experience than a student who spends 45 minutes passively consuming content. So the time may be the same, but the impact is not. The distinction is reflected in national guidance from the American AC Academy of Pediatrics and organizations like Common Sense Media. All of which emphasize the quality and purpose of technology use matter more than the quantity alone. That is one approach that we've been using in San Diego Unified ensuring that technology is per use is purposeful, active, and aligned to learning. At the same time, and I'm going to say a couple of things here. We recognize that this is a moment that calls for reflection and refinement. Our teams are actively

046examining screen use across grade spans from early learning through secondary to develop a research-based guidance that is developmentally appropriate. I am personally watching a couple of countries that are going analog um with elementary school use um digital screen use. We're also engaging our community. I've met with the student advisory board and we'll continue to elevate student voice. I'm going to be engaging and meeting with some families in a and I I hope in a few weeks and our labor partners also to ensure that educator perspectives are central to this effort. But our next steps are clear. We're going to work collaboratively across the system to establish shared expectations for screen use at each grade level. Expectations that reflect balance, purpose, and the well-being of our students. Um this is more about more than just devices.

047that is about how we prepare students to think and to create and to navigate a digital world with intention. One of the really beautiful things that came from the student advisory group um is they said as we look at all of this and they were looking at research and articles especially the one um there was an article how students actually said the cell phone policy band is not good enough. we have to go further and they said whatever it is that we decide to do can we please make sure that our teachers who spent a lot of time going digital have the time to actually begin to remove it like we have to remember that someone is actually implementing it so I really appreciated that students actually said that they're like whatever we do we

048need to make sure our teachers are prepared and give them that time so again that's actually why I love going out there and speaking to different groups because we're able to understand um the whole thing from multiple perspectives ives but that ultimately create something together. So that's what I'm striving for with this particular very important decision. Um okay now I'm going to shift uh gears. So each year this is about AASD. Thank you. Each year the administrators association of San Diego or AASD solicits nomine nominations to recognize distinguished leaders who are making a meaningful impact in education. And we are proud that to share that for 2526 ASD distinguished leaders will be honored at a special event on May 7th. These recognitions reflect the commitment, leadership, and excellence of educators and staff who are making

049a difference in the lives of students every day. We congratulate this year's honores and thank them for their continued dedication to our school communities. I have a list of names. Is it okay to read them? I want to make sure I honor them. Okay. John Caviola from La Hoya High School as associate principal. Dana Weber, Claremont High School, Associate Principal. Mary Johnson from private schools in Title One who's from central office. Carmen Salgado from Integrated Technology Division. Gloria Mastro from food services. Anthony Jones from Montgomery Middle as a BSS3. Carlos Gaines from Canyon Hills High School. Vince Anthony from Porter Elementary as principal. Jennifer Grond from Chesterton Elementary principal. Jesse North Nord from WGorth Elementary as principal. Brendan Simon, Maryland's Middle Principal Carly Johnstone, Claremont High. We're going to clap for all of them, I

050promise. Principal Elena Dear Rosa from Bethun UTK, principal Samantha Claybal, retired from the retiree network and Sam Mason, retired retiree network. Let's give them a round of applause. Some more celebrations. This year marks the 11th anniversary of the San Diego Unifi's recycling challenge presented by the district recycling office. This challenge has played a vital role in maintaining the district's position as a leader in environmental stewardship. All schools receiving district-f funed trash and recycling services are automatically included in the challenge. Winners are determined based on the highest overall waste diversion, lowest per capita trash generation, and a level of sustainability education and outreach programs implemented on campus. All of this year's winners recycle all of this year's winners recycle nearly 26,000 pounds per month combined. And all of our schools recycle approximately 300,000 pounds per month

051combined. Since we started this challenge in 20 in 20145, our schools have recycled nearly 20.5 million pounds of material. Wow, that's a lot. Okay, the winners of 2526 recycling challenge are in first place for our elementary school, Dingman Elementary School. Um, so congratulations Dingman. They have 682 students with 67% waste diversion. And our runner up is EB Scripts Elementary School with 63% waste diversion. Really good work over there at Dingman and EB Scripts. In our middle school category, our first place is Challenger Middle. They have 960 students with a 60% waste diversion. And runner-up Taff Middle with 397 students with a 67% waste diversion. Again, middle school winners and high school. Our first place winner is Henry High with 2546 students and a 58% waist waste diversion along with our runner-up City High with 1453

052students and 53% waste diversion. Again, high schools. And the last category, our most improved category is Montgomery Middle. 354 students from 40 to 50% waste diversion. That's 10% growth. Congratulations, Montgomery Middle. So, winning schools were visited by the district's recycling specialists and presented with an award trophy and certificate. This recognition highlights the collective efforts of students and staff in advancing waste diversion and sustainability initiatives at their school. All right. Told you it was long, but I'm celebrating. I'm keep celebrating. This is all good news. Uh, congratulations to Chris Erenss. He was named Shape America's National Teacher of the Year for Adapted Physical Education. I love that we're celebrating PE. By the way, Shape America is the Society for Health and Physical Educators. The National Recognition. This national recognition celebrates Chris's outstanding leadership and commitment to

053creating inclusive, engaging opportunities for students through adaptive physical education. Chris is one of those teachers you wish every child got to have in his or her life. We are so proud that he is our 2026 National Adapted Physical Education Teacher of the Year. I would also like to take a moment to recognize another outstanding educator in our district. Laura Hopkins, a first grade dual immersion Spanish teacher at Golden Hill dual immersion school, has been named Assembly District 78 teacher of the year. Miss Hopkins brings learning to life through her dynamic and engaging teaching style, creating a classroom where students feel seen, supported, and inspired. Her commitment to meeting the needs of every learner is evident in the strong relationships she builds and the inclusive environment she fosters each day. We are proud to have Miss

054Hopkins as part of the San Diego Unified. So, congratulations to both Chris and Laura. Thank you for the difference you make in students lives every day, and we want to make sure we celebrate you. So, thank you. We also have another and I think we have some winners out there in the audience. I want to make sure we wave. Um, board trustee Sabrina Bazo, Vice President Bazo, who brings a strong background in public health, has been instrumental in leading the voices for change PSA campaign. In partnership with our student trustees and our counseling and guidance department, Trustee Boso helped coordinate this important initiative, which empowers students to raise awareness around issues that impact their well-being in their communities. This campaign is a powerful example of how we're elevating student voice and supporting students as leaders

055and advocates. At this time, I'd like to turn it over to Trusty Boso to announce the winners of the 2526 Voices for Change PSA contest. Oh, there she is. >> Hello. Can you guys hear me? Okay. >> Yes. >> Okay. Excellent. So, I'm trying to get to my notes here. So, I make sure that I recognize everyone properly. So, thank you everyone who was involved this year with our 202526 Voices for Change PSA contest. Um, we had a total I think of 48 submissions this year, up from 28 I think last year, so almost double. Um, just to give a little bit of background, this is an anti-aping campaign and a few years back we received a large fairly large legal settlement from uh the one of the vaping companies, one of the large ones

056and I think it was Juel. And so most of that funding of course, you know, kind of go goes to to help our budget. But I had put forward a request to take some of that funding and turn this it into a education program about about vaping and um have worked with the students on that as well. So that is the background of this program. Um and this is our second year and I'm it's a extremely powerful example of what happens when we elevate our student voice and leadership. At this year, San Diego Unified students from TK through 12th grade created original videos and posters centered on a break free breathe free message focusing on substance use prevention and mental health awareness. We had, as I mentioned, 48 submissions from across the district and students.

057There were some very creative um entries and um they just made me smile because it was so wonderful to see that all the different perspectives um the students perspectives on this issue. Um also lived experiences to speaking directly to their peers about the risks of vaping, drugs and alcohol and but at the same time promoting healthy choices, resilience and overall wellness. The work really reflects our commitment as a district to our student well-being and empowers our young people to be leaders in shaping a healthy, more informed community. And when students lead these conversations, as we know, the message is so so much more authentic, impactful, and lasting. And I want to also thank um Patrick Chen and his boss uh Mariana Gomez, I believe was her name, in the counseling services who have done a

058lot of work on um in the behind the scenes to make this happen. So, congratulations to our contest winners. I'm sorry I couldn't be there with you in person. I had spinal surgery um recently, so still healing from that, but so excited to be able to still recognize you. Um, the first one for the TK through five video winner uh is Zanetta and Tabitha Magdaluyu from Benley Weineberger. They are in grades four and one. And I believe the video is going to play. >> I love it. I love it. I love it. We're going to show your video, too. >> Excellent. >> Sometimes school feels really hard. my high breathe fast and my head feels too full. I feel like that sometimes too. And you might hear kids say that drugs or alcohol can help

059you feel better. But those things don't help. They can hurt your body and make your feelings even bigger and harder to handle. That's not taking care of yourself. When I feel stressed, I take slow, calming, deep breaths. And I use some of my calming tools like quiet time, coloring, and I do things I love. So, I don't need bad sources to feel better. Nope. I can choose what's good for my body and what's good for your mind. I feel better talking to you, Dixie. Say no to drugs and alcohol. Say yes to the healthy choices. >> All right. Thank you to Zanetta and Tabitha. Next up, we have the TK through five poster winner, um, Rohi Ni Nalamutu from Dingan Dingman Elementary, um, grade four and they had specific items that they needed to share

060in their poster trying to make the message clear and but also wonderful visual. So this um so that was our winner for that um category. Next we have middle school video winner Vincent Dong. He's from Lewis Middle Grade 6. But I'm still trying to try this out. >> Whoa, the graphics kind of suck. Wow, >> those organ mods look really ugly. I could care less. I choose that one. >> Hey, you. >> Huh? I challenge YOU TO AN ORGAN BATTLE. >> I'm sorry. Do I know you? >> Nope. I choose my special organ, man. Oh, shoot. Uh uh. Here, Lton. I choose you. >> Yeah. There's nothing in the world that's beating that. Vape, I choose you. Deep. What? What the heck? That's not even in the game. What you going to do? Cry about

061it? >> Yeah. Well, I'm not I'm pretty sure that can't even do that much damage anyways. I'm I'm I'm fine. Wait, you slept. Yo, one question. Do you vape in real life? Yep. And I'm cool for doing it. Dude, you shouldn't vape. It has chemicals inside of it and it could damage your lungs. Yeah, but like I'm addicted. All right, here's a tip. Take your mind and take it somewhere else. I You could do literally anything else as long as it takes your mind away from vaping. Yeah, but like my friends do it. If your friends jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge, would you know? Good point. So, are you going to stop vaping? Yep. Nice. Uh, you're also going to stop hacking, too. Uh, right. No. Vape you slap. Wow, that game sucked. All

062right. Um, so that was our middle school winner. And m mind you, last year we didn't even have anyone from the middle school. So we're excited to have some entries. And middle school poster winner, Stanley Clark Seni Seni Dozu from the San Diego School of Creative and Performing Arts and he is in grade eight. Um again just you know they were graded or not graded but ranked um by how they could get the message across clearly and include you know some of the important topics. Okay. Then we have our high school entries. Let me move down. Okay. First up is Josh and Justin Rickettts Mirram Mesa High Grade 10. >> Hey dude, you all right? >> Just over. Come on, don't be offensive, >> dude. If there's something going on, just let me know, okay?

063Everybody else is doing it. Come on. Just get in. >> Let it happen. >> Just try it. >> Just who you are. >> Why are you running? >> Let it happen. There's no turning back now. Awesome. Thanks, Josh. Josh and Justin. I love the use of like not only your words but um just the whole the creativity of using the light and um all the other um things that you use to uh kind of really be creative in your in your message in that video. Thank you. And then finally, we have Drake Nakaya Nak Nakamya Manuan from Miram Mesa High, grade nine, and he won the poster contest for the high school level. So, there's that. Hopefully, we can find another way to send these out as well or have them in a newsletter or

064something, too, so more people across the district can see those. Um, so that concludes that and I just want to congratulate all of our winners for um, you know, your amazing uh, work and I do have one other announcement I just want to make and this is about um, so my husband who passed away last year started doing physicals for uh, students at very low cost um, at some of the high schools. And this year they're actually going to do the inaugural, so first time ever physical day for all student athletes from across the district, all high school student athletes. It's going to be Saturday, June 13th. It's at Canyon Hills High. And so this is an extension of the work that my husband started. uh he was a sports medicine doctor and and you

065know wanted to make sure that all of our students um had you know were seen by a physician to to make sure they were healthy and and ready to play. But they named the day after him and UCSD is actually partnering with the San Diego Unified and it's only $10 and students can just come get checked out and uh we're going to be advertising that more. But um I'm very um grateful to the athletics department for um me re recognizing my husband and and also putting this program together. >> Thank you. >> I just want to say one final thank you to the families and students that are in the audience that have won. So thank you so much. It was really good to see you and and there's there's lots of things to celebrate

066at our school. So that concludes my report. There are. Thank you. Thank you, President Bara. Tonight's progress monitoring report focuses on the interim guard rail for student motivation. As you may recall, our conversations around how to measure student motivation have been complex, nuanced, and ever evolving. Trying to define what motivates a student to attend school varies from one child to the next. For some, it can be participating in visual and performing arts. For others, it can be athletic competitions or student led clubs that speak to their passions. Regardless of the activity, we know that motivation impacts attendance, sense of belonging, and school connectedness. However, motivation is not built by programs alone. It's built through relationships, clarity of purpose, and whether students feel known and supported. This work is still maturing and throughout the process we

067have seen the overlap of measuring student motivation with the development of our wellness index. When students want to come to school, we see that correlating to higher levels of wellness and body, mind, and the connections we have with family, friends, and the community. We also recognize that answering a survey question does not fully capture what motivates a student to come to school. In tonight's presentation, you will hear directly from a student using the newly piloted impactor tool that moves us from simply collecting data to actually listening and understanding not just what students report, but why that is the shift that is truly needed if we want to understand student motivation. With that, I turn it over to Dr. Roman de Rosario and Dr. Eron Richardson. Thank you, team. >> Thank you and good evening, Superintendent

068Dr. Bugula, President Barrera, Vice President Bazo, and trustees. We're here tonight with the progress report on guard rail 2, student motivation. >> So before, can you hear me? Yeah. Before uh we get into the data, I want to set one frame. When this board adopted guard rail 2, the underlying insight was simple. Students need a reason to come to school. Not just an academic reason, a real one. An art class they're building towards, a team that is depending on them, a club where they belong, a teacher who knows their name. The guardrail itself says it plainly, the superintendent shall not operate without a strategy to ensure student motivation to want to be in school. Want to be in school. These are the words that have guided the work all year. >> I think a a

069piece that's important for us to remember is the context um that we've referenced in every report that we've done talking about um the setup of the student outcome focus governance framework. The design intent was that the goals describe the destinations we want for students and the guard rails describe the conditions the system has to maintain to get there. Tonight, we're going to be honest with you about how that design has held up over the year. Some of it's held up well, and some of it we're going to ask you to think about with us. So last May, we walked you through three survey items that make up our motivation and per purpose composite. Whether students believe their effort leads to results, whether they believe they can improve if they try and whether they can manage

070tasks that feel overwhelming. We administered the survey twice this year, fall and spring, so we could look at change, not just a snapshot. In fall 2025, the composite came in at 65.9, fours and fives, favorable. This spring, uh, it came in at 64.9. This is a 1 percentage point decline. I want to be plain about how I believe to we should read this. It's small. It's within the variation you would expect across two administrations. It's not a victory and it's not an alarm. It's a baseline holding roughly steady which in a year of as much change as this one uh itself is a piece of information. The number on the right is the one I want to address headon. Our spring response rate dropped from 80.4 4 in the fall to it says 64.9 but

071as of uh today it's 66% this spring. So, uh we of course don't like seeing those types of drops but it's still 44,000 students that responded. That's a meaningful sample. But this drop is real. It's a combination of survey fatigue. Uh the student survey was on the heels of the healthy kids survey that we administered in February and the timing is not ideal in that uh we're competing with various assessment windows and uh although this um we own it uh we have a plan to try to improve that in the years to come. So, while Roman spoke to um the graph on the right, I'm going to speak to the one on the left. Um and this is the part that goes back to our time last year where we wanted to ask two questions.

072One of our elementary students, which was, did you do any fun activities at school or after school? and those for our secondary students in middle and high school. Did you participate in athletics, performing arts, clubs, leadership, or afterchool programming? What we're seeing here is exactly what we referenced last year in May. At elementary, activity doesn't mean the same thing. We have campuses where there's 10 different enrichment options run during and after school. We have other campuses where prime time is the only structured option and prime time doesn't uh reach all of our elementary schools. The funding landscape under all of this LCFF, ELOP, afterchool dollars is shifting. Uh until we have a common operational definition of activity across our school sites, this number is a starting picture but not a clean cross system measure. The

073original priority still holds. Our VAPA athletic and structured activities matter and what gets in the way of every student having access to them is what we have to keep working on. So, a survey is a good tool um for measuring attitudes. It's not a complete tool for understanding our students. A five-point scale tells us what a student selected. It does not tell us why they selected it, who they trust, or what they're already doing on their own to stay motivated. The survey answers part of a question. the rest of the answer lives somewhere we haven't historically been able to capture. >> So listening is what we're going to talk about. Uh it's on the right side. This year is the first year that we began rolling out our impactor pathway at so far at 10

074of our pilot schools. I want to be careful with the framing. We're early. This is a first year implementation. We're still scaling. We're not asking you to make any decisions about uh what you hear tonight on the basis of this data. What we are showing you is what becomes possible when you ask students to respond in their own voice, audio, video, or text in any of several languages instead of asking them to rate themselves on a scale. Uh today in this first year we've captured uh 31,469 responses, more than a million words of authentic student speech, roughly 127 hours of listening. The platform is built around eight research-based competencies which are grit, growth mindset, purpose, self-control, gratitude, and a few others. And it scores responses against those competencies in a structured neutral way. The most

075important thing to take from this slide is not the size of the data set. It's the shape of what becomes possible. We can't answer why with the five-point liyker. We can begin to answer why with student voice. That's the direction this work is going in. So, it's my pleasure to um introduce you to Chris. Christopher. I want you to meet Christopher. is an 11th grader at one of our schools. He responded to a prompt about what motivates him to come to school. There's a quote on the side, but I want you to uh get a fuller sense of what he's actually saying. So, listen to the names of his trusted adults, understand Christopher's purpose, and just appreciate the grit in this response. So, if we could play the video, I think what drives me is

076like fear of failing. I've always had this immense fear of like being a failure in life. And I know failure is defined in many different ways and people have their own definitions of how they define failure. But to me, I come from a background of a family who has no people who have graduated college, has a lot of people that are struggling with financial issues and family issues. And when you grow up in that environment, it like forces you to become a better version of yourself. So, every morning I wake up and one of my main motivators is definitely my auntie. She drives me to become a better person. and she she drives me to push myself because she's been through high school. She graduated in honors with honors and um she's told me that

077if she can do it, I can do it. And she we're very much alike. Like if you look at us like side by side, we're pretty much the same person. So she's one of my main motivators and she drives me all the time. She drives me to become an overachiever. Sometimes I even take on tests that I know are too big for me, but I I end up doing anyways because I just want to accomplish something bigger than myself. My main goal in life, I guess, is to be successful and made my family proud. And I know it's it's kind of not a good thing when it comes to like taking care of yourself, but I've always wanted to make my family proud and it's been one of my main goals forever. I've wanted to

078make a name for myself. I've wanted to be someone that people people in my family could name out and they could like they could say, "Yeah, he's he's that person. He's that he's that person that you could look up to." And that's the that's what motivates me every morning to wake up and drive what I want. So, first I just want to notice Christopher didn't open up with I love school or I'm motivated to learn. It was fear of failure and the picture of why first generation family struggling an environment that forces a young person to become a better version of himself. That's a piece of student wellness data that we've never had access to before. The auntie passage, every morning I wake up and one of my main motivators is definitely my auntie. She

079drives me to become a better person. And in the end, the line that makes us sit up. Sometimes I even take tests that I know are too big for me, but I end up doing them anyway because I just want to accomplish something bigger than myself. My main goal in life is to be successful and make my family proud. I wanted to make a name for myself. Last May when we were on the DAS, we asked for versions of the same question. We asked, "How do we know our students have a trusted adult? How do we know they feel a sense of purpose? How do we know they have grit?" In two minutes, in his own voice, Christopher answered all three. He named his trusted adult. He named his purpose. He named his grit. We

080did not ask him to rate any of them on a scale of one to five. We asked him to talk. And in talking, he told us things our survey instrument was not designed to capture, including the harder, more complicated truth that some of his motivation comes from fear and love. There's no analytics that turn one student into a system. But Christopher tells us something important about the what the system needs to be able to hear. We have a wellness goal that talks about belonging and we have a guardrail that talks about motivation. Those two things are not two things. They are the same thing told from two perspectives. So here's probably a natural question that I know I would ask myself. That's a beautiful story about one student, but we serve 92,000 students. You know,

081how do we how do we scale this? The answer is that not that every one of the 31,469 responses that we've captured this year is scored against the same competency rubric. a rubric grounded in research and validated across districts as different from each other as Klexico, South Central Los Angeles, Irvine, rural Sacramento, and us. The model behind it has been trained in a diverse student population, which means a multilingual learner in City Heights and a student in La Hoya can express purpose in their own way without one being penalt penalized against the other. That is what scales not the individual story but the structure underneath it. Another call out where things are going. Um where we take it in the next next is back to the data work that this district has already began to

082do. We're intentionally pairing what we hear in our uh pathways with our existing student survey dashboard and a focus on spotlight students. the students with the greatest need where we cannot afford to be wrong about what motivates them. >> So, I want to name something that the board's been hearing in different forms throughout the year. As we presented the wellness goal, goal one, we talk about belonging, connectedness, trusted adults, and a sense of purpose. When we present on guard rail two, we talk about motivation, engagement, activity, participation, and a sense of purpose. Those frames overlap. The board's original instinct in adopting this guardrail was correct. The challenge is that in practice, the guardrail has become a goal. Measured the way a goal is measured, reported the way a goal is reported with the same metrics

083and wellness goal uses. Tonight, we're asking you to think with us about whether motivation is more usefully monitored as a strand within the wellness school alongside belonging, alongside the wellness index, work in development than as a separate guard rail. The work doesn't go away. The reporting consolidates as we look to next steps. We continue the year one roll out of impactor pathways and bring you a more complete picture in the summer. We will also explore how pathways data integrates with the broader wellness goal not as a parallel system but as one of several signals that taken together give a more robust picture of our student well-being. Second, we'll disagregate the data of the spring survey um that we gave and the responses by student group, by race, ethnicity, English learner status, special education, our spotlight

084students and we'll structure these data protocols at the school site level. That means we are not handing spreadsheets to our schools but guiding them through a process to un identify their own strengths and areas of growth so that it can live in their school site plans. Third, we'll analyze whether activity participation, the new questions we added for the spring, has any meaningful relationships with academic outcomes. This is the hypothesis that started the guard rail in the first place. The students are connected and have something on campus to learn more and persist more. We now have for the first time a cleaner way to test it. And under all three of those, we'll come back to this and review with a recommendation about whether motivation should be continued to be monitored as a guardrail or or

085fold into the wellness goal. So with that, we'll take questions. >> Okay. I I do want to add a couple things. First, thank you for the analysis and presentation team. Thank you so much for representing this. When we first adopted this, I remember specifically, I think it was from you that said without a survey. And I jokingly said, "We're going to have to hire an anthropologist to follow kids around then to like do this because how do we do this?" This is the closest tool that we've gotten to that. Um my biggest concerns is twofold. Um if we think about scale, we definitely need a parent campaign because as a parent, I would want to know the type of information that we're collecting and I would even want to hear what my child has to

086say in order to be able to support that learning. So that's one. Um the second piece is I always think about yes and then what do I do with this data and I've said that from the very beginning. If we ask the children how they're doing and they tell us then we must do something about it. And so that's actually the part that I'm I'm listening to. I love the grit of I'm going to do the harder test then how are we building those opportunities to stretch this child because he responds to that. So those are the two things that I categorize in my own mind when I think about this tool like what what is the parent role in the parent campaign and then what are we really going to do with this but

087I think this is all in that exploration space of what are we going to do together so thank you for the opportunity to help us think about this and I do agree that motivation is an arm of wellness so thank you team questions >> we have a speaker >> yes we have one speaker on E1 Naen Allen You have three minutes. >> Hi, I'm Naen Allen and I'm the parent of a DHH kid. And when we talk about this, it um I want to bring to life what this looks like from the from the standpoint of a disabled kid. So, right out of the gates, I hear this all the time. I'm in meetings all the time where I hear um a sense of belonging, needing to, you know, needing to make connections, relationships, all

088those same kind of things. We we used that when we talked about neighborhood schools and I want to say from the standpoint looking at this through the lens of a disability. I want to bring up what I see from where I'm sitting. So first of all um my daughter would never be included as a spotlight student because she doesn't meet the criteria even though I would argue she is in the lowest 10% of of what we would call the vulnerable students or however we're describing them. So, one, we have to look at how we're identifying the students whose voices are being echoed. Um, and I can get into a lot more, but I'd say her grades are elevated. She doesn't take the reading tests that they use to identify. And I assume that that's probably

089true of other disabilities, not just my daughters. So, then second, I want to talk about just practices that we put in place. We know this to be true. And yet, we we move our kids. We put them on buses for two and a half hours a day. And that, you know, when you talk about how can this kid be included, and I'm going to use our example. Four years ago, the district did a study for us at the CAC and they identified that um where the deaf kids lived that were utilizing the services at Madison High School, one out of 123 students lived in that area. And then when I looked at the map, the vast majority of them were south of the eight or east of the 15. If you think about the traffic

090patterns, you could not have picked a worse location to centralize those services. And on top of that, you start looking at these kids. My daughter's out of school. If she wants to play sports, guess what? I have to sit in rush hour traffic for an hour and I have to drive my car, use my gas, and secondly, she's not going to be participating with friends in her neighborhood because we're not in our neighborhood, right? So the social emotional impact that that practice has has been horrendous for us. And I can tell you across the board it impacts more than that. And I challenge any of you to go to Madison High School and get the attendance records of the DHH kids in that program. And I would tell you it's probably atrocious because guess what?

091Our kids have more doctor's appointments than most. Right? when they have a doctor's appointment, if you're a working adult, you're probably not bringing them back to school or you're probably keeping them home to get to the doctor. I don't do that. My daughter is super motivated to be there, but I can tell you it's been a very expensive prospect for me to try to give her any kind of involvement. I think finally, like she wants to play sports, she's deaf. This is the deaf cluster. Think about sports that are inviting to a deaf person that would, you know, would not put you at a disadvantage. My son was a swimmer. we had to choice him in a school to swim. Guess what? I can't choice my daughter into a school to swim. So, I encourage

092you to look at it through that lens as you guys are finding these guard rails. Thank you. >> Okay, board members questions, comments, trusty or >> um yeah, I just wanted to say a quick comment and thank you so much for the presentation. I think this is really important. What we just heard from that student Christopher say is really valuable. Failure is a thing that a lot of us students feel. I mean, especially in high school, you're trying to get to college. You're trying to get the right grade. And that's why students retake tests because they failed the first time. And the fear of failure is it's such a strong emotion. No student can explain to you how bad it is. Um, and I think it's really important when we start looking at this data,

093like what we heard from um, the person who publicly speak is like which groups are we looking at? Because there's also the students that maybe they're motivated to go to the school because they can't be at home. They don't like their situation whether they they don't have, you know, single family household or maybe they're struggling at home. So, I think that's really important, too, because not all all kids are driven by, oh, like I have sports after school. some kids like just don't want to be at home because their home life isn't as happy. So, I think it's important like for the future and I know you guys were saying that this is like your your first year, which I think you guys are doing a great job for just starting this up, but for

094the future like yeah, like the kids that maybe, you know, have to take care of a sibling right after school or before school, they wake up at like 5 in the morning to get on a bus for 2 hours. Like stuff like that I think is really important just because motivation is such a big word like it's it's a huge word and like everyone here is motivated by different things the reason why they go to work and for students specifically I think there's different parts that we really have to look at and I think it's really important to have students from different areas and also comparing there's a big difference between the motivation of a kid who's in elementary versus a kids in high So I think and also middle school. So that's that's a

095few of the things that I was thinking about, but you guys are doing an amazing job. So thank you. >> Thank you. Trusty or Trusty Patterson. >> Yeah, I don't really have a question. I I just um I'm I'm actually very emotional about this. I mean, I am the John Boehner of this board, so I get choked up a lot. But um but I I am particularly emotional about it because I um this team has done incredible work. I mean I just always go back to what three years ago when we started this process and our consultant said hey yeah you really shouldn't do this no one in the country is doing this we don't have metrics yet and we dove in and you have risen to the challenge of doing this thing and I

096remember one of the things that we talked about a lot of the time was our consultant said well we need to measure what students can do or know know or can do and we kept coming back like well we also want to know what they what they I mean, for lack of a better term, what they be in is um I think a lot of us as as as parents or as human beings recognize that the vast majority of your outcome is governed by how you feel on campus, whether you enjoy being there, whether you have build strong relationships, where you feel like you matter. Um, and so I'm really very but but at the same time and and not to go back to a military having just voted against military intervention, not to go

097to back to a military analogy, but there's this thing called uh fee was it FEA remember what's the name was always talking about forward edge of the battle area where it's like when you have people that are you are in the trenches right now right at that forward edge where I can see I can see how challenging it is. You you want to collect the data you want to get as granular data as possible. There's a lot of concerns about protecting student data. There's lots of lots of concerns about um I'm obviously it's going to use large and when I even when I hear the word AI I the hair on the back of my neck stands up. But you're processing that much data you're going to be having to use some large language model

098or some something to process it. Um and you're trying to tie I mean how awesome then that's like a holy grail to tie it back into data. Like so I um more than anything I just want to and and oh god now I'm going to get this religious thing again. It's of the the spiritual like religiousness without spirituality. I I keep thinking of this thing Julian Norwich has this weird phrase which is all shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well. And I keep thinking about that what you are you are creating the tools to hold ourselves accountable to creating this space of wellness. And I can't just watching our campuses when I go to our campuses and I talk to teachers and I hear principles talking

099to their students. I I hope I hope this it ends up showing in the data and I hope that it ends up having a collateral consequence on on on performance because it feels like I can I can feel it spreading through our campuses. So, I really I'm very moved by the work you're doing. I'm very impressed. >> Thank you. You're on the right path. When I think about how we're in 2026 and uh if sometimes I feel like people want to stay in the 1900s and it's time for us to move on, but you're taking us there. when you talk, you know, I've always said that we should have an IEP for every child, not just for special education because we tend to look deeper into the child and not uh we don't just say,

100well, a C student and move them on or like the cipher in the snow just kind of the child can sit there and die and no one even knows that the child was even there versus at least when the government forced forces us to do something about special education students. Might be a modicum, just a minimum, but to at least stop and take a look at the child to see what it is he or she is saying. And I've always been an advocate that they need to be on their IEP teams. Let's hear the child's voice. What What are your aspirations? What where do you want to go? What do you want to be? What do you want to do? And how do we help you to get there? And to hear that child say

101that about what he's interested in and what who would have ever come up with that motivation for him. We couldn't do it just sitting there. We would have just passed him on and said, "Oh, he doesn't disturb anybody. He's just sitting there." But by doing that, you've forced us now to acknowledge him and to say, "What can we do to help him get to where he wants to be and to help him to be successful?" That's where education has to go. We need to stop just thinking only about test scores and meaningless things. We need to get to the bottom line of how can we help each and every child achieve his or her goals so that they are productive citizens, thinking citizens, knowing how to access all the opportunities out there for them. So

102I I want to say thank you. Yes, you're wrestling with some issues, but so are we. And everyone should be. If we're not, then something's wrong with us. If we just accept it wholeheartedly and oh the test data and that's it then there's something wrong with us but we have to bring in this dimension of motivation and what how can we help children to be successful. Graduation is coming up. We're already assigning who's going to grad who's going to work with and uh for those students out there if you hear me talking now I'm going to shake your hand. If I'm standing up, I'm going to shake your hand and ask you what are you going to do? Wh what you spent 13 years with us? Where are you going? What are you going to

103do? And I'm thinking about it in terms of that school. How has that school prepared you and the other schools prepared you so that you're ready to go forward? Excuse me. Thank you. Thank you, Trusty Wersp. Vice President Bazo. >> Thank you, President Barrera. And um yeah, I remember when we started this process and I was also concerned because I I mean I love the idea, but uh you know, as Trusty Patterson was mentioning, it was like getting down to like really being able to you know, have like tangible measurements. And so this is super exciting work and I'm congratulations to the team. This is amazing and I'm very excited about um the data that you that we've started to get and we'll continue to collect um because it just tells such a story. It's

104not really just about student motivation. I mean, we can utilize this for our um neighborhood schools like what are you know what are our students motivate mo to motivated by could strengthen you know the programs that we're offering not just throwing out different programs that maybe the principal might be thinking are good but like what are what's good for the community what's good for the school is we're you know seeing that information um right here in front of us and this is not happening other places So, we're really on the cutting edge and um and it's I think it's going to just make a huge impact. I did want to point out that um you know the VAPA program it has music arts 23.6%. I don't know if that included theater because I saw theater

105was in a separate um category but it's almost a quarter of the kids mentioned music and arts. So, I say that because as you all know, I'm very um strong supporter of our VAPA Vapa um department and oftent times, and I think our district's done better, but oftent times traditionally that's the first place that we cut and I'm so proud of our district for not just making that move and really looking this is if this is motivating one out of four of our students to come to school, we need to work on ways to strengthen that. um not um decrease that program in particular is what I'd like to speak to. Thank you. >> Thank you, Vice President Boso. Trusty Hazen, >> thank you. And I just want to echo all of the feedback and

106gratitude to the team for really grappling with, you know, so many of the questions we posed two years ago. Um, and I felt like a little bit of deja vu um around the can we merge, should we merge um wellness and motivation and because I'm a nerd, I guess I'm looking back at my notes and found, you know, back in August of 24 when that was exactly what we had talked about, right? We had talked about the fact that a survey isn't sufficient. um and that we I think at the time really did believe that motivation was part of wellness and that both of those things were essential and are essential uh to academic achievement and college and career preparedness. So, I'm glad that we've come back around and it feels like your recommendation is

107to merge those two things. Um, I also appreciate um and again looking back at at my notes that you in August 2024 I was asking how do we measure things like perseverance, self-regulation, self-efficacy, social awareness and it seems um through impactor um that we're able to do that in a meaningful way and so I think it's exciting um that that's now a possibility um and then of course the work becomes what do we do with the data? What do we do once we've heard from students? Um, I do want to point out because I do think process matters. I think um the commitments we've made to student outcome focused governance and how we measure is important. Um, and even though I agree, we all agree that surveys aren't the end all and beall um we

108didn't see or receive a report on results on interim guardrail 2.1 um or 2.2. to um which I expect in a monitoring report, right? Typically we see this is the target. This is how we performed against the target. Um and I didn't see a graph that charted that. So I'm wondering is that included and if not if that can be provided. Yeah, we we did um provide an attachment with a comprehensive breakdown of >> questions, but not not specifically aligned to those interm guard rails. >> And you all know I mean I'm a broken record on this, but I think you know we've gotten to a really good point about or place where we're able to consistently across all reports um share data in the same way um report after report. And so my request

109is the same as it always is, is can we continue to see how we're performing against targets even though it sounds like that target may shift, right? And when we come back together in the summer and we discuss potential changes to interim goals that that maybe that target shifts, but since the survey is the best we have and that's the guardrail we've adopted for now, be helpful to see that moving forward. Um, and I see you're about to jump in. >> And this one was just tricky all around. it has been tricky uh to navigate through and so we just chose not to do it because it was not going to give us any of the pieces like that. So, I know that I I should have communicated that piece, but it was one of

110those like let's move forward with this piece and then talk about this at length at our SOFG um workshop that we're going to have in a couple of weeks because one of the things that I also remember um is with our consultant is they actually recommended that guardrails don't have these interim pieces um these interim monitoring goals and because it does get tricky to monitor. So that's another suggestion that we're going to come come back with to the board um to say for these particular pieces like communication it doesn't make sense to have monitoring throughout. So this one was just tricky. >> Yeah, I think you know shifts happen and we course correct but I think being intentional and transparent about when those decisions are made um would be helpful. And then I do have

111a series of strategic questions about the survey results and the attachment which I based on what I read I believe to be valid. And so I guess the question is are those valid and is it worthwhile for me to ask questions about those results or do you think those results are worthless and not worth discussing? It's a sincere question. No, like like I um shared, I mean I I think 44,000 responses and these are all >> questions that have been evaluated for reliability and validity. >> Um and there are so many ways that we can do the cross tabs. Um and I I know um in terms of insight related to those questions that's really um what the approach we've taken is having that conversation be facilitated at the school site uh around their because

112the sites receive um not just their spring but their fall survey. Um and we've uh really encouraged them given them the tools and stood by them as uh they tried to dig deep into what types of questions what are the trends they're seeing at the aggregate level. So none of the data is presented to the school sites at the student level but it's aggregated at the group level. >> Great. Okay. Then I will ask my three questions about the survey because I'm hearing it's valid. it's meaningful even though it's not as insightful as um some of the other information that you shared earlier. So I guess the first question is that while we're seeing encouraging gains overall, the data is clear that not all students are experiencing that progress equally, particularly black and African-American students,

113English learners, and some of our Hispanic and Latino students. Um, and I see in my subd district B, we're seeing consistent declines across every domain for black and African-American students, including belonging and self-efficacy. And I'm wondering if you can speak to the work that's happening at school sites that you are leading and doing with schools um around targeted culturally responsive supports that are going to be implemented next school year to ensure our strategies are designed with and for students who aren't yet experiencing the rate of motivation and wellness all students deserve. Um, and the second half of that is, um, do you believe that the budget we're going to be adopting in a in about a month aligns with the strategies we need to invest in to better support our black and AfricanAmerican students um,

114so that our schools can can do the work that's essential to really boost those levels of motivation and wellness. And I have two others. >> I appreciate that question and I kept thinking as you were asking it that there's like five different departments that need to weigh in. So, if if possible, I'd like to actually hold that question and come back because even the the budget question that you posed, I know the budget review team that meets every week. We always take a look at what are the ways that we're going to continue to invest, especially in our board goals before we make any other decisions. So, I know that is a consideration, but yeah, I mean, honestly, I was hearing you going, okay, we need to bring this department in, this department, and this

115department in um to in order to be able to fully answer that question. So, we can hold that. >> Thank you. So yeah, I think before um we were asked to approve the final budget, knowing about that and I do want to um I guess put in a plug for uh what uh Vice President Baso shared about VAPA also making sure we're cons continuing to invest in those things since we see how meaningful it is um for so many students. Um my next question is um specific to subd district B middle schools where it looks like we're seeing some of the strongest gains across the system including significant improvements in belonging safety, grit, and self-management. Um, and I'm wondering if we're seeing these consistent gains across the area or if certain schools are really hitting

116it out of the park and if you can speak to um what specifically is driving progress in our middle grades um and how we'll share and scale those practices across other schools. I imagine you've dug into the data. have some insights and ideas. Um, and I'm particularly interested at at the high school level as well where um where trends seem to be more mixed. And again, the same question um pertains to aligning budgets with the strategies we know are working to improve outcomes um in middle grades and what we think we need to be doing in high school. What I can share is um init uh just more uh logistically with this survey. Uh last year we administered the first survey in January. It took us a while to get it off the ground and

117then so we called it a midyear survey and then we had what in May and we got an earful about a survey in the last three weeks of school is no bueno. uh and at the same time uh we had shared with our school sites that you know we feel we could do better than the healthy kids survey and we were going to move away from the healthy kids survey and that was the expectation with our site leaders. So, we had got input from our site leaders and we ended up administering the fall survey uh roughly around at the six week mark and the window officially for the spring survey was the two weeks leading into spring break. But as this year went on, we found out because of various commitments we had through grants

118that we had to give the healthy kids. So we gave the healthy kids survey in February and we got another earful about how can we give the student survey. We just gave the healthy kids survey. So we extended the window after spring break and actually there's still principles saying can I have just another week? So we've been given a lot of grace and uh you know that's a long-winded way of saying that the analysis needs to happen and it's still forthcoming with the results. I guess I would just ask and I I hear that and appreciate that by the time we come together I guess I don't know if you know in July when we're thinking about and recalibrating um around goals and guard rails. I'd be really interested to understand what's happening in in

119the middle schools in subd district B. Why are we seeing improvements? How are we planning to scale those things? How is that reflected in the budget? Um because I'm hoping there are insights there. And I guess I would just add um per the sort of initial feedback I had about um standard reports, it would have been great to see a bright spot here, right? So if we're seeing data about positive results um in middle schools in subdist B, might we be able to see one and understand what's happening in the same way we heard from Pacific leadership last time, which I thought was incredibly insightful. I always like c celebrating schools too, but we we kind of wanted to um so I want to have the questions and I actually want to make them public

120for anyone that's here and curious and wants to follow the journey. I want to be transparent with the answers. So those will be posted for everyone to see um as a follow-up to your questions. But um I'm going to say we kind of wanted to um take us by the collar and shake us a little bit on this one. uh we wanted to actually say like there's a totally different way of looking at this um that we haven't been really thinking about. So how might we look at students differently? So that's why you see the difference in this presentation. That's why you don't see the cadence of the same sort of data sets or anything. Um and I've I've used that term before with other educators because sometimes when we see the data reports, we

121get complacent. Um, like I I've actually said, "Show me a zip code and I can tell you your data results without even looking because we're so complacent with the results." And so it's our way of of grabbing us by the lapel and waking us up. So that's really what I want what we wanted to do with this presentation of saying, "Yes, I understand we want to pursue this. We want to understand motivation and students and let's shake us up a little bit and wake us up to a different way of seeing." So that's why you see the different flavor in this presentation. >> Thank you. And then my last question is around the results we see with um teacher student relationships. Um because it looks like we're seeing declines in this category. Just 60% of

122students report having trusting relationships with teachers or adults on campus. And I'm wondering what our plan is. What are we how are we working to cultivate safe, stable, nurturing relationships with trusted adults, which the research tells us is foundational to student um well-being. If we know that's not where we want it, what are we planning to do? Um and the other thing I'm wondering specific to teacher student relationships is we see a similar trend um with the academic results we see from elementary to middle school where we see declines um from elementary to middle similarly in teacher student relationships. And so I'm wondering if we think um that might be a causal relationship and that that data point might offer some insights into the academic achievement we're seeing. >> Yeah, I tend to see things

123through the lens of uh site principle. the many years I was a principal and I I what we've tried to share at least in our areas is that often the answers to those questions are best answered by those that are closest to the problem. Mhm. >> And what this instrument gives us the ability to do um is to facilitate that conversation and hold the mirror and say, you know, we had say for instance it was 55% of students at the school that said they have a trusted adult, but there's 45% that didn't give it a four or five or then you drill down to the various groups. And what typically happens is there has to be a process where they have a theory of action based on the data available to them. And it has

124to be more than just anecdotes because everyone probably thinks that what they're doing is in the best interest of students. But if the students are saying something that's real, you know, that's really the the process that we're trying to cultivate is what are you doing about this and let's get that into your site plan and let's target an improvement and let's come back and see if if things are getting better because um we're not going to have increases in students reporting uh having a trusting adult by asking them, you know, why don't you trust us, you know, it's really about having a theory of what that means and how do we make connections with students and how do we then operationalize that plan and let's come back and measure that in a very objective systemic

125way. So that's really the the approach that we've been working in terms of just continuous improvement. >> So is that what's happening now as these results are coming out that site leaders and staff are coming together and planning for next year around these things? >> Absolutely. Yeah. >> Great. Thank you. >> Sorry, Trusty Wersp. Yeah, >> I just want to comment on that on that point. Um, there are a lot of different ways of looking at these uh data and issues. Um, for example, music. If you went to the honors concert >> and you looked and you saw the audience and you think, you know, how many uh African-Americans, Latinx, uh, other students are there? It it it's not just only here on these data. There are different ways to to get a snapshot. And

126it's something that I used to really talk to our previous director about all the time that you need to push it out systemwide. It's not just all on the on the principles. They need some resources coming from us to help encourage music across the board. And it may be that like at Bell's Bell, they have the Amariachis. Um, and that's not the traditional band or whatever that you would see maybe in La Hoya or at uh Mission Bay High School. So, there are nuances, but it's still music. And I was tapping my toe, too, at um a presentation by the Bell students. So, you've got to look at a bigger picture than just cold data because you don't know what the nuances are for for each school. Yeah. No, I so there's a lot of

127fundamental questions that I think you're asking us to think about tonight and I appreciate that. And one is um is the is the issue of student motivation best is the work best done under the wellness goal rather than a separate guard rail. uh or maybe the way to phrase that is is the work that we're doing monitoring our progress around student motivation better done within the wellness goal rather than in this guard rail and I think absolutely I mean I've got a it's been a just something that has um been a challenge for me this whole time u monitoring progress on guard rails because I think when we start monitoring progress on guard rails we are setting a goal. So I think incorporating this into the wellness goal certainly makes a lot of sense and

128I think it um it it helps focus you know focus our work. So that's I think you know one question that we're being asked to consider. I I think the work that we all you know very much appreciate you doing is if we say that for instance student motivation is something that is important to us and we want to know how we're doing as a system um that we need better tools than the California healthy kids survey right and and so you are going through a process of creating those tools that as everybody up here is has said is um is really a breakthrough. And and this tool that um that you're demonstrating now that allows us to listen to our students and really get better data and a be and better answer, you know,

129to that question of motivation than the surveys is really great. and and it's and it just it just demonstrates um you know the innovative work that you're taking on. And one of the things that I just would say, you know, as a member of the board, um, is when we're doing something as important as the work that you're doing now, and when we know how complicated this is, to take a tool that allows us to listen to students and then to and then to sort of get data out of that that can be aggregated and measured, you know, as a system that is really hard complicated work that we're just at the beginning of learning about and we have to I think as a system commit ourselves to doing this over the long term. This

130cannot be one of these projects that, you know, we try it for a while and then we get distracted or or we say, "Oh, that's, you know, we're we're more worried about our test scores or whatever it is." And so we abandon this project. this work that you're doing now only is u makes sense for us to commit ourselves to as as a system if we're actually doing it over the long term and we're learning from it and we're and we're getting better. Um and then what what I think about and here's an example of this. So, um I talked to a a a student, an elementary school student this morning at the LaCassa Service Club's breakfast and um and she was and she's a leader in her club at her school. Um and also

131just an outstanding, you know, student uh in terms of academics. And she said that Yeah, sounds familiar, right? Um she not not this one. This is an elementary school student. Um she's she said that she was worried about coming to the breakfast this morning because her school is doing testing and she felt like oh my god if I'm not there to do the testing and the testing is important to my school and and knowing that she was going to do well and it was going to help you know her schools over all those and the principal told her we need you to come to the breakfast and the principal was there at the breakfast and to me it's like those points, those kind of really, you know, those decision points that we might not think

132about at scale, but what are we saying is most important? You know, um, this student is highly motivated by being a leader in her club. And um and thankfully her principal recognized that and said, "We'll figure out your testing, but we're not going to sacrifice your participation in this." Um that's motivating to you um so that you can, you know, do you do your test at at at the point that you're supposed to be doing it. And what that makes me really, you know, think about is um while we're doing this incredibly complicated work of having a tool that allows us to listen to our students and then trying to, you know, sort of take data out of those, you know, uh out of what we hear from our students and and scale that up

133to a level that as a system we can measure this. the idea that we're actually just knowing our students and listening to our students, that feels more like the guard rail and and that can be done right now. And in the case of the principal at this school, that was done, you know, in this in this uh situation. And really maybe one of the things that is most exciting about this tool is I would bet that the more our educators especially like you're saying Raman at the you know at the at the school level the more that they hear this the more that they hear Chris the more motivated our educators are going to be to just want to listen to their students. And the question for us again as a system is are we

134going to create that space that we're saying it's okay to our educators and people at our schools to take the time to listen to your students because when you know we get to you know Fab's question of yeah but what do we do with this data? How do we act on the data? Well, that's a big question. Again, a big complicated question for us as a system. But what's kind of simple is if I'm encouraged to take the time to listen to my students, I will act on that. you know, I'm gonna develop, you know, whoever is working with Chris. We can guarantee that they are developing uh, you know, a a program, a strategy around, hey, we just heard from this student that they want to challenge themselves. So now we're going to challenge,

135you know, Chris, we're gonna So I mean, I think that's immediately actionable if we're creating a culture, which is really what I think the guard rail is supposed to be around listening to our students and and listening, you know, intentionally, you know, around things that we would define as um motivation. So I think it's a big complicated project that is going to you know take time for us to get to scale and for the and for it to become clear how we act on the data that comes out of this project and it's and it's going to be something that we've got to st stick with and and sustain. And at the same time, if we're sending a message through the system that we want to listen to our students intentionally and then act on

136what we hear, that's something that I think can be happening, you know, while we're going through this, you know, big complicated project. So, those would be some thoughts. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, thank you so much again. Thank you. Thank you, Erin and Ramon. really great work. Okay, we'll now move to item E2 and that's our community advisory committee for special education, our sem semiannual update to the board. >> Superintendent. >> Thank you, President Vera. Tonight's presentation sits at the intersection of our commitments and our accountability. I'm going to actually say that one more time. Tonight's presentation sits at the intersection of our commitments and our accountability. It's my pleasure to introduce Miss Sarah Kefir, chairperson of our community advisory committee for special education, along with members of our special education department to share areas

137where cycles of continuous improvement are needed. The CAC is not simply an advisory body. It is a critical partner that helps ensure our system is experienced by students and families the way we intend it to be. As you will hear this evening, the conversation is evolving to include our families, labor partners, and leadership team in the formation of a special education collaborative and development of a multi-year strategic plan. Changing outcomes for our students with IEPs requires whole system change. And I mean that it's like the whole system needs it. It is not something only owned by our special education department, but in fact requires a deep analysis of the systemic barriers that impedes impedes students from learning alongside their peers and a commitment to addressing those barriers with consistency, fidelity, and transparency. I would personally

138like to thank the CAC for your partnership, your cander, and your insistence that we make these changes real for our students and our families and look forward to the work ahead. With that, I'll turn it over to the team. >> Thank you, Dr. Beula, President Barrera, and board members. Tonight's presentation reflects the strong partnership between our community advisory committee for special education and the district's ongoing commitment to improving outcomes for students with disabilities. This collaboration is closely aligned with our broader board priorities and is a regular part of our ongoing discussions with the superintendent, ensuring that CAC input is directly connected to the district's planning and decision-making. As part of our regular monthly meetings with Dr. Bagula and CAC leadership, we have worked to ensure that the voices of students, families, and community partners are

139not only heard, but actively informing our district's strategic direction. This work is deeply aligned in our district goals around inclusive practices, meaningful access, family partnership, and stronger systems of accountability. This evening's presentation will take a slightly different approach than our typical special education update. You will first hear from our community advisory committee whose pers whose perspective helps ground this work in the lived experiences of our students and their families to ensure that implementation efforts remain connected to the realities in our schools and communities. Following their presentation, I will share how we are responding to that feedback and the actions already underway to move this work forward through stronger alignment, cross department collaboration, and the development of of a more coherenti student centered system. Now, it is my pleasure to introduce Miss Sarah Kefir, the CAC

140chairperson. Uh, good evening. I am Sarah Kefir, chairperson of the community advisor committee for special education. I want to begin by being honest. A lot of this process has been deeply discouraging. I consider myself a pretty savvy parent. I spend an enormous amount of time in this work. My team and I have put in a tremendous amount of effort trying to understand systems, track decisions, and make sense of where things are headed. And even with all of that, I still find myself blindsided by changes, cuts, and shifting frameworks. So, if this can happen to me, then I think we need to be much more honest about what families are actually being asked to navigate. When I talk tonight about family clarity, meaningful access, and whether support is actually showing up, that is not abstract for

141me. It is coming from the reality that even highly engaged families are still being asked to navigate too much with too little clarity. With that, what I want to do tonight is bring this back to real life. The district has named important commitments around inclusion, access, transition data, and shared responsibility that matters. But families do not experience those things as goals or frameworks. They experience them through whether support actually shows up, whether communication makes sense, whether behavior is handled in a way that protects dignity, and whether their child can access learning in a meaningful way. So, I'm not here tonight to create a separate vision. I'm here to ask whether the direction that has already been named is showing up in a way that students and families can actually feel. Oh, uh, actually it was

142the one before. Yep. I'm going to stay focused on five things, which was really difficult to do. Um, the CC's been very busy this year. First, district-wide collaboration, what's already happening and what needs to happen because students experience one system. Second, how students and families should actually experience this work if it's meaningful. Third, how we will know whether this is changing anything and not just sounding better on paper. Fourth, why family understanding of the system and the data matters. And this piece matters to me a lot because families are often being asked to trust systems that are still being refined while the stakes for their child are immediate. So clarity and follow-through matter now, not just later. And finally, what CAC wants to see moving forward. This is one of the biggest things I want

143to say tonight. Students with disabilities do not experience a district in separate departments. They do not experience one office for academics, another for behavior, another for communication, another for pathways. They experience the combined result of all of it. That is why district-wide district-wide collaboration matters not as a buzzword as a as a condition for whether these commitments can actually hold together in practice. The district has already named important goals around inclusive practices, transitions, access, better data, and shared responsibility across general and special education. They have begun a collaborative a collaborative process for a strategic plan that spans over seven years. CAC's role is to help make sure that those commitments are experienced by students and families in practice with fidelity because then those pieces because when those pieces do not connect, families feel it immediately.

144They feel it in conflicting answers, uneven implementation, and supports that depend too much on who happens to be in the room. This slide is really the heart of the presentation for me because it moves the conversation out of abstract language and into lived experience. If we say meaningful access, that has to mean real access to learning, support, participation, and belonging. Not just placement, not just physical presence. If we say better support, then goal two should show up as stronger behavior support, more consistent classroom response, and less lost instructional time. Families need to be able to feel that difference, not just hear that a structure exists. If we say family clarity, then families should understand what services and supports may be considered, what data would support it, and how decisions are made. Not because every support

145is right for every student, but because families cannot participate meaningfully in a process they are expected to decode in real time. And if we say real pathways, then transition planning should prepare students early and often through clear pathways, clear communication, and meaningful support. It should not just move them through. So for me, this is the test. What should this actually feel like for a student and a family? This is where I want to be very plain. A plan can sound good. A structure can sound good. A process can sound good. But families still need to know whether any of it is changing anything that actually matters. From the family side, are people seeing clearer processes, stronger support, fewer barriers to participation, and a system that makes more sense? From the student side, are students actually

146experiencing more access, fewer disruptions to learning, stronger supports, and clearer pathways? Because a cleaner Because cleaner numbers do not automatically mean stronger support. Fewer referrals do not automatically mean students are safer or better served. That is why data and family experience have to be in conversation with each other. One without the other can make us feel more certain than we should be. This part matters to me a lot. Families do not need every support presented as a guarantee. But they do need enough clarity to participate in a grounded way. That means understanding what may be considered, what data would support it, how decisions are made, and where the process is headed. And honestly, when the framework framework keeps evolving, clarity becomes even more important. Families cannot be asked to carry the burden of making the

147system legible while also trying to navigate it. That is where the process starts to feel unreasonable for parents because while systems are being refined, families are still making real decisions in real time for a real child. So, this is not about overpromising. It's about giving families enough clarity to participate honestly and meaningfully. I want to be clear that the CAC is not naming concerns just for the sake of naming concerns. We are trying to say what still has to be true if this work is going to mean something. Meaningful access has to be measured through student experience, not just placement. Family understanding has to be built into implementation. Because participation will always be uneven if the process only makes sense to people who already know how to decode it. Goal two has to show up

148as real support, not just clean numbers. And guidance, oversight, and policy have to be strong enough to make it this last. And the last point matters because families have seen too many things depend on personality, site culture, or who happens to be interpreting the issue that day. If this work is going to be real, it has to be durable. And this is a line that I want to end on. If inclusion depends on individual goodwill, it is not a system. And what I mean by that is this. If support depends on who your principal is, who your teacher or education specialist is, how well a parent can advocate, or whether a family already understands a district's internal language, then the burden is still falling in the wrong place. The district has named the right direction.

149The question is whether students and families will actually experience that direction in practice. That is the standard I think we should hold on to. And my last one's for anybody um viewing outside of this moment. We have a companion memo that has fuller context. >> Thank you Sarah for your partnership and advoc advocacy for our students and our families. I want to start by acknowledging that. >> Thank you. I'm going to start over. Thank you, Sarah, for your partnership and advocacy for our students and our families. I want to start by acknowledging that what we've heard from CAC and families is consistent. Students and families experience one system, not separate departments. And that means our work must feel aligned, consistent, and predictable across every school. We've heard clearly that families need more clarity. Clarity about

150what options may be considered, what data informs decisions, and how path pathways unfold. We've also heard the need for more consistent implementation. Strong practices do exist, but they are not yet experienced uniformally. Our focus is on strengthening guidance, building site capacity, and ensuring shared accountability ability so access and support are not dependent on where a student attends school. CAC also pushes us to think differently about how we measure success. It's not just about placement or compliance. It's about the student experience. Are students accessing instruction? Are supports timely? Are disruptions decreasing? That is how we will know if this work is making a difference. What could this look like? This will look like consistent implementation of inclusive practices across sites, clear and user-friendly communication of options and data during IEP processes, aligned behavior supports that reduced

151lost instructional time, and proactive transition planning beginning in earlier grades. It also includes building staff capacity across both general and special education to share responsibility for all students. Success will be measured not only by improved data, but by whether student experience greater access and belonging and whether families find the system easier to understand and navigate. In response, we are in the infancy stages of developing the strategic plan to ensure more consistent and meaningful implementation across our system. Under inclusive practices, we are expanding access to general education environments while strengthening multi-tered systems of support frameworks, particularly in tier one and tier two supports so that students receive support earlier, more consistently, and within the core of instruction. Alongside this, we are investing in supporting school teams to create stronger proactive behavior systems and classroom supports to

152reduce loss instructional time and improve overall student outcomes. In the area of family partnership and communication, our focus will be on making the system more understandable and navigable for families through parent trainings, clear processes, and better communication strategies that help families engage in a more informed and meaningful way. At the same time, we are prioritizing alignment by engaging in cross-dep departmental strategic planning to asssure that general education, special education, and student services are operating from a shared framework rather than in silos. We are also strengthening site leadership capacity by using data more intentionally to monitor both implementation and student outcomes. Altogether moving forward these efforts will create a shift from isolated improvements to a more coherent aligned and sustainable system. This next slide reflects the core of our strategic plan. Building one coherent system of

153support for students. A key priority is ensuring that family understanding is built into the implementation from the beginning so families can engage meaningfully in decision-making. We are reinforcing shared responsibility where inclusive practices and student success are owned across all educators and leaders not just in one department. We are also focusing on the full student journey, ensuring alignment from early learning through transition, including post-secary planning. This work is grounded in a commitment to alignment, coherence, and consistency so that students experiences do not vary widely from school to school. Ultimately, our goal is to deliver on our commitments in a way that is predictable and equitable for all students and families. To move this work forward, we are using a collaborative approach to system design, which is a key strategy within our plan. We are incorporating both

154site and district leadership input to ensure that we design that we excuse me to ensure that what we design is practicable, practical, and sustainable. We are also strengthening family partnership by working with CAC and families as co-designers, not just participants. In addition, we are collaborating with labor partners to support clarity and alignment and long-term stability in implementation. From the feedback and input of these educational partners, we will be forming smaller work groups to ensure that all voices are represented. Most importantly, we are centering on students and their outcomes, using their experience to guide how we improve supports. This work is focused on continuous improvement, building systems that can adapt while maintaining clarity and consistency. As I close, I want to emphasize that this work depends on strong and ongoing partnerships. The voice of CAC in

155our community continues to ground us and keep us focused on keep us focused on where it belongs on the day-to-day experiences of our students and their families. Moving forward, our responsibility is not to just plan well, but to follow through with discipline and clarity so that progress is visible and felt across every school. We are committed to staying focused, monitoring our impact, and adjusting as needed to work, excuse me, to adjusting as needed to ensure that this work leads to meaningful, long-lasting improvement for our students. Thank you. >> Thank you so much. And we have uh some speakers. >> Yes, we have three speakers on E2. Jill F You have three minutes. I got to find it first. Why not? Okay. Okay. Um, I'm a member of the CAC and an early childhood special education

156teacher at Hawthorne Elementary. For many families of children with disabilities, their first introduction to Sandy Unified is through the infant program or ECSE program um before they TK age. So this provides the district and the CAC with an opportunity to form really strong relationships that will last until these children have reached high school and trace. With Sarah's leadership at the CAC, she's reinforced the need to strengthen these relationships. We as a community of parents, families, district employees, and administrators and board members should be working together to identify problems and then come up with concrete solutions that will improve outcomes for the most vulnerable children in our society. The CAC provides an opportunity for families to rise to challenges they are facing, provide real solutions to problems, and create systemic change that supports children. And with

157the collaboration of the special education directors, we can achieve the set goals and more. Finally, I believe we need to see each other at all of us as the district. The district is not the board. It's not the superintendent or just executive directors. It's all of us together. That's you guys, the CAC, family members, students, teachers, district staff, and community members. And I think we the district then can make a difference in the lives of the most vulnerable children. side. Let's do it. >> Naen Allen. So, I'm back again and and I want to again try to bring this to reality for all of us. But, um, let me just start by saying I I'm also on the CAC and I'm a co-chair for um the subcommittee for graduation and pathways. And obviously graduation, you've

158heard me talk about this before, I'm sure. Um, so I just want to talk a little bit about like the lack of data and the things that we're wrestling with. Um, one of the things I did was I went around in the uh CDE website and took real data that we know, right? And I'm talked about what we know as individual parents. So when we talk about transparency, so when I looked at the data, it would show me how many students with disability graduated. How many students with disabilities graduated with an A to G diploma for 2000 for 2025? My understanding was you got an A to G or you had an essential diploma or whatever we're calling that now. Correct. And if I look at if I look at the website and I do

159the math, the math says there's 279 students with disabilities that graduated that didn't um qualify for an A to G and that weren't qualified to get a central diploma. So, as a parent who's looking towards forward to graduation, what is the other pathway? I'm I'm not aware of what that is. And it's concerning because I'm a year away. I might have been on one of those pathways had I known it existed. So, that's a big concern. And now I want to bring it home to my daughter. So, my daughter's in 11th grade. She's at Madison High School. She um every time I've talked to you, I've told you ice cubes chance in hell of graduating, I think, was my exact term the last time. So, I just found out a few weeks ago that my

160daughter will be graduating. Now, think about this for a minute. My daughter is reading at about a third grade level. She's probably not functional academically across the board. She's taken her very first two academic general ed classes and I've been told that she's going to qualify for for an A to G diploma and with her inflated grade she's going to have about a 3.7 GPA. I would ask you I hope you're alarmed because I am. And this doesn't just isn't talking about my daughter. This is talking about all of her deaf peers in that class that are at similar levels. You know, it's concerning like we're pushing for a graduation pathway, but meaningful is the key word. And think about the implications of this going further because not only is my daughter going to graduate

161with this A to G diploma and low skills, she's going to lose her four years of transition because she has a diploma. That's wrong. That's wrong. I try to be part of the discussion. I saw this coming down the road. I have escalated. I have talked to people at every turn. I've sent emails. I don't think there's many people that can say they haven't heard from me about this in the past. Was I invited into that decision? No. It was told to me that my daughter's going to be qualifying for a diploma. So, the choices are pretty, you know, obviously not great. I understand the other pathways, but they've waved so much to get her into this diploma that they're not waving for any of the other pathways. So, alarming. Thank you, >> Stacy Williams.

162Good evening. My name is Stacy Williams and I'm speaking as a special ed teacher and an active participant in a community advisory committee. I'm currently a trace teacher for Mild Mod. Uh, one of our greatest strengths at the of the CAC is that it brings families, educators, administrators, and community members together with one shared purpose, improving outcomes for students with disabilities. As a teacher, I see every day that students do not experience our system in separate departments. They experience the combined results of communication, services, instruction, transition planning, and support working together. That is why collaboration through the CIC matters so much. It gives families a voice. It gives educators the opportunity to share real classroom experiences and helps the district hear directly from the people closest to the work. Tonight, my ask of the districts

163to continue investing in pathways that truly prepare students for life after high school. That means ensuring students have access to meaningful diplomas, strong reading instruction at multiple grade levels. Um, in Trace, we just recently lost our learning centers and people keep saying that, oh, it's going to be covered. Well, it's been working for 19 years. We've been teaching students that were adults how to read. They come into trace at second, third grade levels and now they dismantled them and I'm trying to get them back but I haven't heard anything about that and they keep saying well the students will just have less services. We had our SGT to plan for it and they're just like well the students are just going to get less. We'll we'll figure it out. But it hasn't been planned yet.

164You just made this decision to cut them and it's still it's still just not going to work and we're not going to be able to teach these students how to read. Um, so basically I'm just going to we know literacy is the foundation for independence and transition planning should begin early and be built with purpose year after year. Transition is something that we are very much lacking at our high schools and I just hope that we can work together and plan for how we can add maybe extend our trade services to those students to make sure that they have that because that is what's going to help make the diploma meaningful. A diploma should open doors and reflect real readiness for the future. Our students deserve more than good intentions. They deserve coordinated systems where

165families feel heard, staff feel supported, and students are set up for success. Thank you. >> Okay. Thank you. Uh board member questions, comments. Trusty White face is saying I'm perplexed. Um, first of all, let me just say that we appreciate your honesty and I I think that as I sit here, two things can be true. One, you're experiencing um I don't want to say hell, but trying to get through and navigate through the system. Um, it's not a fun experience. And on the other hand, I can see the director where she is. It's almost like we have people here at the top. We have the children and in between the layers are not they're not on board. It's not it's not all coordinated. So, you're frustrated at the top because you're trying to get things

166down and you're frustrated here with the children trying to get things through the system and it's not coming together. Because it's troubling that the outcome is that there are some folks who don't want to work with your children. Did I say that right? I mean, it's the reality that if you we just have folks who don't want to work with your student to help it to be seamless. If you're seeing things at the top that need to be done and you can't get them through your lived experience, not guessing, lived experience. this is what you're encountering on a regular basis and we want to ignore it and say no it's it's the parent it's the child it's the this or the that lived experience of your child and of you working with that child is

167not good we have to do something about this and I know I'm probably preaching to the choir at this on this das but We just have to do something with the system. It is system because if a child comes in and every child from the moment they step off the bus or get on the bus, they should know that the system cares. That from one person we pass the child on to the next person that it's caring at this level, at that level. And I don't know if it's because of our size or what. I used to talk about my grand nephew all the time and the fact that he was, you know, all the way on the other end of the spectrum. He can tell you how to drive from Richmond, Virginia to Warrington,

168Virginia and know turn left here, right? every truck, bus, car going by. What it is, two, three, four years old, but he was having some hearing issues and and he has disability. So, but when he gets on the bus, he has a friend. He tells you about his friend, the bus driver, and Miss whoever she is, the aid. And at every stage, there are friends. He's loved. He wants to go to school. He gets up in the morning, he knows he wants to go to school. He's learning something. His parents, if they miss something, got to go to school. Teacher says blah blah blah. That's the way I want every child to be. Whether you're general ed, special ed, advanced, whatever, everybody should know that this adult, this person I'm talking to, you care about

169me. You're concerned about me. So, how do we get that in the system so that your child, your experience is not like, I've got to figure out this system to go where this person likes me or wants to help me or is doing the best for my child. We as a system, we have to get better. And the burden is not all all on her. It's everybody. Every principal, you're trying to push it down to the site level. Some of the principles are feeling like I'm I'm pushing on the teach teachers, teachers union, aids, whoever you are. If you're in the San Diego Unified School District, then you need to recognize that even the special ed children are our children. And we're going to do what we can to help that child, not just leave

170the parents to flounder around and to wander through the system. Yes, I'm preaching tonight as usual. I have to get a sermon in every night. >> Got it. >> But >> we need to work on that. >> Trusty Hazer. >> Yes. Well, I'm glad you're preaching because I couldn't agree more. I think it's really critical that you acknowledge what what we're seeing and the concerns you have. I share. Um I'm going back to um what you shared around if inclusion depends on individual goodwill, it is not a system. Um and we heard that we are working to build a system that reflects best practices and ensures all children um can thrive within it. But the thing that doesn't make sense to me and I'm hoping we can get some insight into is we see this

171special education strategic plan timeline that's saying in the next six years >> we will have a system that is supporting all children. Six years is too long. Our kids don't have six years to wait. Um so I guess What can we do to accelerate this timeline? It this doesn't make sense to me that we're okay with it taking six years. I think about my own children. Um, right. I think about a seven-year-old six years from now to wait until we can say as a district that we're going to care for her and love her and support her and provide her with everything she needs to thrive. That's not acceptable. So, can we hear about this timeline um and what we're going to do, what we can do to make it faster? Are there shifts that

172have to happen? Again, I'm going back to budget questions I was asking earlier. What's getting in the way and what can we do about it? I don't know who who can answer that question. >> I I understand the complexity between that because I I I mean, I wish I could just give directives with all of this. Um, I'm going to say that. Um, but I whenever I look at this, I take a look at the whole system and that's why I made my comments very purposeful in the beginning. Over the last few years, we've paid three different organizations. I actually would love to see how much we've paid um to for them to tell us the problems. And when I look at the three reports, they're the same thing. And so I keep going, okay,

173so we keep admiring this problem. We say we're going to do work and there hasn't been like a very meaningful sort of way of engagement. And what I'm concerned about is actually doing systemic change that's so deeply rooted that it's not going to be reliant on NI or Sarah or again the same point that Sarah made about a person. Um and so that's why we brought together every system to your point Dr. Whitehurst pain of everyone in between between um sorry I'm just going to call you Ni between Ni and Sarah like all of those people to to bring back and uh it's rooted it's really uncomfortable to say six years I understand that it's rooted in how organizations change it's rooted in funding it's rooted in training it's rooted in the belief system chain

174I I I made a list of everything the data systems that don't exist the mechanisms for parents to understand the appropriate supports across across every grade level and I haven't even started talking about budget. So whenever I think about San Diego Unified as a whole organization and I think about the changes that are very necessary, special education is is one of the first ones that I think about and I think about the to-do list and it's long. So my hope is of course for acceleration. I never want to take three years. I'm actually very concerned about Naen's uh comments and and and I'm hoping that my theory about what you described isn't accurate and I'm I'm going to name it and I hope no one takes this as offense. Um when we said and I

175believe that that was the first draft of the uh special education um strategic plan when we say that our outcome was to lower uh referrals I know I pushed to the team because I'm like if our outcome if if we're seeking to lower referrals there's so many bad stuff that can happen because what we should be talking about is increase supports in tier one instruction not this and when we give directives like that like actually I'll you know I'll throw uh one around suspension when I was principal we're going to lower suspensions what I saw was u a manipulation of not actually saying well it's in school suspensions instead of out school suspensions and then we're not going to keep track of it. >> So my hope um is that we're not saying we're going

176to offer graduation to more um students and then offer it when they're not when it's not a meaningful diploma. And that's why I'm hesitant to to to say it's a it's it's it's going to take time if we do it systemically with the belief systems with everyone agreeing to this. Otherwise, we're going to start getting those kinds of thing. That's what I'm afraid of. I'm afraid of giving some sort of directive and then getting faulty data because people want to do that and then it's not a sustainable change. I'm trying to enga engage everyone so that the change actually lasts and is like believed in at every school and that we move forward. That's why I that's that's why the timeline if we can expedite this fantastic. Um, but I also know the level of

177belief systems that we're going to have to um engage in, the level of professional learning that we're going to have to engage in. And I and CAC has heard me say this, but I don't have a mechanism to know how many students actually met their yearly goals and whether the quality of those goals are something that is triangulated with not only their results but also their disability. And so there's a few questions that I have about this. So that's the only reason why it's the link. I would love to expedite it. I'm just looking at the very real systemic change that needs to happen um and how large we are. Um and that's the only reason for that. Otherwise, I would I would you know I and I appreciate that and I know that change

178and the kind of change we want to see takes time. Six years just feels too long. And it feels to me that we can achieve meaningful change sooner. And I do have questions um to the points that you brought up. I don't know if anyone's prepared to answer the questions around inflated uh completion of A throughG diploma requirements, which was extremely troubling for me to hear if that's true. That is very concerning. Um so if we can speak to what is happening um with the students we heard about who are being offered an A throughG diploma um without actually completing requirements hearing about what sounded like inflated grades um is there someone who can speak to that or at least come back to us with that um before the end of the year >> I'll

179look into it personally because I also gasped when I heard that so I agree >> shocking and troubling um and then lastly Um, if we could also hear about the um about potential cuts to literacy supports for trace students um and if if that's accurate as well. >> I know there are cuts to the trace program, but we would have to come back also with that. Uh, Vice President Bazo. >> Thank you, uh, President Barrera, and, um, thank you for this presentation. I just wanted to start out by saying I'm actually so impressed and happy to see the the community, you know, the parent from the community and our uh special education um district leadership working together. And I think what you're talking about and the concerns from a parent perspective or legal guardian or

180grandmother or whoever it is on that side, I think that that's not just true in special education. I think it's true just across the board. And I'm not saying that our district isn't doing trying to do a great job with communication, but I just think a lot of times I when I hear, you know, I try to think of my, you know, well, I am a parent, but um how I would perceive some of the information. A lot of times there's just a lot of jargon like you said, a lot of bureaucracy. I think Dr. White pain um spoke to that and I think we need to do be better with just breaking down and it's not that the parents you know are ignorant in any way but it's it's complicated this is really complicated

181information and it's not going to come easy as uh it's not going to it's going to take time as Dr. Um, Belula was saying, but we really need to make sure our parents are understanding cuz, you know, I have a graduate degree and helping my kids get through school, you know, was, you know, there were a lot of things that I didn't know I that I always had to run down and get details on and um, you know, and if I so if I'm having problems with getting that information, I feel like maybe parents that aren't as engaged are having more problems that way. And so I think we need to really look at it from a more district perspective of what we're communing. Yes, we're communicating information, but I don't think a lot of

182times parents understand it. I'm just going to be completely honest because I didn't as a parent. And so I think we need to do a better job. I think we're doing well and I love that we're coming together as partners. Um and I think we should do that with other departments when we're having presentations. Why not have a parent there or someone from the community with you? Um, but I think what I'm trying to say here is that this is more of a bigger problem than just special education in terms of communicating to our parents. And so I think we need to look at that and we need to do better. Thank you. There there's something Sabrina that you just said um there's a story that I carry with me um about this because during

183the student study team which is a a mechanism when students are struggling and there's a meeting with all of these people and I'll never forget um the amount of people at the table and a and a family walked in and the look of um I'm going to say shock and fear >> on their face. Um, and I I remember after we left, I said, "Who's commit this this family? Did they know that they were going to see the counselor and the psychologist and the teacher and the principal and the vice principal and a notetaker?" Like, that's really intimidating to walk into. Um, and then they freeze because it's intimidating. And so, I'm like, this whole thing is supposed to be a conversation about student strengths and what we might do together to to do this.

184And so even that even that mechanism needs parent support, belief systems, strategies, like all of those bits. So to your point, yes, uh there's a lot of work to be done and a lot of work to be able to say um what what how can we communicate this process a little bit easier and then actually engage in a really healthy way so it's not fear fear-based because I just remember I I will always remember the look of that family's face when they walked into the room. Yeah, I so I think there's uh some parallels in uh this presentation and the presentation that we just had and um and and first I I just want to echo everybody's Sarah, I really appreciate you just coming direct and challenging the system and saying if it's not working

185for the family and for the student then it's not working and it doesn't matter what you know what we're saying. we're we're doing as a system. And Ni, I appreciate your response, you know, to to Sarah and saying that's that's what we're trying to build a system around, you know, of of um you know, the focus on on the family and the student experience. So, I I really appreciate the the way that this presentation has come forward. Um, and you know, I obviously I think everybody here agrees with, you know, Trusty Hazen's uh, frustration. And I think it's not that we don't I mean, I think we all appreciate that to change a system takes time. And there's, you know, there's key elements that have to be built, but that doesn't mean while we're changing

186the system, we're not changing the system, right? and and you know so Naen coming and thank you so much you know for for sharing that story because we had a big conversation you know uh with this board about creating the alternative diploma and here you're coming to us and you're saying your student is still on this A to G track and it's and it's not working and it's not real and and that's that's the reality of the student and the family you know experience that's bringing to life your point you Sarah, so I think what we probably are are wanting to, you know, to push ourselves is it's not about until we create the plan, you know, we can't focus on the values, you know, that we're basing the plan around and actually change the

187experience of students and families. Feels like the strategic planning should be strategic practice that you know that we should be seeing this type of change and and you know the the experience of students and families it should be getting better while we're creating the plan you know to to build the system and I think that's again similar to what we were just talking about in the last presentation big you know challenging effort to to change the system, but we we shouldn't be waiting, you know, for that big change to be made to open up space where we're listening to our students and and hearing from, you know, the experiences of, you know, Chris and and the prior presentation. So I think it's um and and I don't think any of us ever really trust this

188you know notion of a we go through and spend a lot of time creating a plan and then the plan gets implemented and things change. I mean I don't think that's ever been true in any of our experience you know with any system. it's got to change, you know, while we're building, you know, the the system that um that that uh we want we want to see. So, yeah, I I think um you know, Sarah and Naen, you know, you continuing to bring this challenge to us, which is saying here's what here's what families are actually experiencing. Here's what students are actually experiencing. uh is the only way we're going to get better while we are going through the process of of building the building the plan. Yeah. All right. Well, thank thanks so much

189again for for your presentation tonight. Yeah. You Okay. Well, now can we get a motion on items F1 and F2? And uh moved by Trustee Hazen, second by Trustee Ord. Uh our student board members do not vote on these uh two items. So we'll do a roll call. Vice President Boso >> I. >> Trusty Hazen >> I. >> Trustee Whitehurst Payne >> and Barrera's I. All right. Okay. And can we get a motion on the item G the board consent agenda items G1 through G3? So moved by trustee Whitehurst Payne. Do we have a second? Seconded by trustee Wyn. Uh Trustee Wyn >> I. >> Trustee Ordas >> I. >> Trustee White Payne. >> Trustee Hazen >> I. >> And Vice President Boso >> I. >> And Barrera I. Great. Okay. We will now move

190to um items H1 and H2. Can we get a motion on uh the district operational matters? >> Uh moved by Trustee White Payne by Trustee Hazen, seconded by Trustee Whitehurst Payne. Uh any board discussion on any either of these two items? Yes, Trusty Hazen. >> Thank you. I have a question about H1 um which is um the board policy on electric vehicle charging and it says there's no fiscal impact related to the policy um but I have to imagine that there's a cost to our installation and maintenance of electrical vehicle charging infrastructure and so I'm wondering um if we can hear more about why no fiscal impact is noted and what we're expecting. >> Thank you for the question Trusty Hazen. Um we don't have the contracts in place yet so we don't know the

191exact fiscal impact but these policies establish uh the parameters around how we would establish contracts. um they're it will likely be um costneutral or s generating slightly some revenue, but the idea is that the um vendors would install the charging stations at no cost to the district and then we would recover cost. the the district will recover costs for the electricity that's vended um through the charging stations and and there may be some profit that we would capture that would go back into the general fund but it wouldn't be a substantial amount and we we don't have those numbers yet because these are the policies establish the framework first. >> So your best guess is there's no expense associated with this. If anything we might generate some revenue. >> That's correct. no expense and some

192potential profit but not not a lot. >> Thank you. >> All right. No further questions or comments on this item. Trusty Ordaz >> I. >> Trusty W >> I. >> Vice President Bazo >> I. >> Trusty Hazen >> I. >> Trusty Whitehurst Payne >> I. >> And Barrera I. Okay. We will now move to the consent agenda. Uh moved by trustee Whitehurst Payne, seconded by Trustee Ord. No public comment. Okay. Any board questions or comments? Do you want to pull? Okay. Uh vice pre Oh, sorry. Trustee W >> I. >> Trusty Ordog. >> I >> Trusty Whitehurst Payne >> I. >> Trusty Hazen >> I. >> Vice President Bazo. >> That was an I. >> Yes. Hi. >> And uh and Barrera I Okay, we will now move to uh non uh non-aggenda public testimony.

193Miss Staltz. >> Yes, we have about 14 speakers. Excuse me. So, each speaker will have two minutes and we'll start with our virtual speaker. There is one virtual Lauren Lee. Lauren can go ahead and unmute. I see her there. Hello. >> Yes, you have two minutes. >> Thank you, superintendent, on bringing up this topic today that I wanted to share. This is a quote from you. Middle school is such a pivotal development stage and our students deserve learning environments and school experiences that reflect that reality academically, socially, and emotionally. Superintendent Dr. Fabiola Fagula and SDUSD leadership. My name is Lauren Lee and I'm sharing concerns about my child's Alexander Lee and his experience as a sixth grade student at Pacific Beach Middle School and to respectfully request broader consideration at the district level regarding current

194policies on technology use and other enga and student engagement. And I know you had brought this up earlier so I'm grateful for that. Our child's schoolisssued Chromebook is being used heavily for non-educational purposes outside of structured classroom activities. It has primarily become a platform for video games and browsing non-educational content often of an inappropriate nature. Our child has interacted with strangers through platforms such as Minecraft, including receiving phone numbers and being encouraged to make contact outside the school environment. This raises not only questions about an appropriate use, but also about student safety and supervision in a digital environment that is difficult for families to fully monitor. Our child ended up text messaging a stranger using one of our phones thinking that it was another child from a phone number that was relayed during a Minecraft

195session during school hours. As parents hoping to protect our child from predators, it is unsettling to think that this exchange occurred during school hours using a schoolisssued Chromebook. There is a growing body of research showing that extensive access to personal laptops in the middle school level does confer no academic benefit and more commonly introduce harms. These opportunities for deep focused learning. Many educators and researchers question whether ubiquitous device access at this developmentally stage is aligned with how children learn best. It is not reasonable to expect 11 and 12year-old children to consistently limit their devices purposes. >> Okay. Thanks. >> Even adults struggle to maintain focus in a screenbased environment filled with constant distraction. We'll go to our in-person speakers. Elizabeth Johnson, followed by Carmen Richard Martinez. >> Yes. >> You let me know when to

196begin. >> Okay, cool. Hi, my name is Elizabeth Johnson. I'm a psychologist with specialized training and learning systems in adolescent cognitive development. I'm joined tonight by Amanda, Dr. Amanda Dappen, Dr. Amelia Simpson, Dr. Ree Garmin, Dr. Sebastian Mazada, and Dr. Nate Dappen. We're here tonight to voice our concerns about the use of laptop learning in our district's classroom. I'd like to use my two minutes to make one point. The way human learning and retention actually works best, biologically speaking, is via paper and pencil, not on screens. The the reason for this is because the brain processes physical and digital materials differently. For instance, writing and solving math problems by hand requires what's called synthesis and processing information, which produces higher levels of electrical activity in the brain than when reading and doing mathematics on a

197laptop. When a student underlines a sentence or jotss down a note in the margin of a physical text, they're creating a mental map, a visual visual placeholders that results in better long-term memory and better conceptual understanding than reading on a screen. This is because digital text is uniform. It has no fixed location when scrolling and it disappears when you close the app. So, we lose these important visual placeholders and have a more difficult time making the mental map which makes learning acquisition and retention difficult. Yes, you can highlight words. You can type digital notes on a computer, but you're not committing information to long-term memory to the same degree. These schoolisssued Chromebooks are undeniably inferior to physical materials and more so for younger learners who are learning foundational skills. As you've likely heard from news

198reports, it's widely accepted now that screenbased learning correlates with lower scores in mathematics, science, and reading. The longitudinal data, however, provides a much more chilling portrait with screenbased learning correlated with decreased cognitive functioning, including lower memory, lower focus, and lower overall IQ. Based upon these exact research findings, 16 states have already proposed legislation to allow parents to opt their children out of using digital devices for learning. I'm here to advocate on the group uh excuse me, advocate for a group of 251 concerned families whose children are currently enrolled in the San Diego school district. We are concerned, we are reasonable, and we are asking you tonight for a clear pathway to opt out of laptop learning. Our group, School Beyond Screens, is not anti-technology. We are just four teaching methods that align with how human

199learning actually takes place. Thank you. Carmen Richard Martinez, Southa Davies, Angelica Oliver. Hi, I'm Angelica Oliver. I'm a mom of three of students attending our neighborhood school. I'm going to speak fast so I can get my three minutes into two minutes. I'm an administrative law judge for the department of social services and prior to that I represented foster youth in the dependency court in San Diego County. My husband's a public school teacher. So I speak on behalf as career public servants um on behalf of our family, our community, but also on marginal on behalf of marginalized students uh within our neighborhood school. Many families have jumped on boards to agree we're not going to give our kids cell phones. They're not going to play on tablets during playdates. We're not going to have video games

200in our home. But the school district giving our children devices with access to the internet just goes in direct opposition of what we're trying to promote within our own home. My kids are attending school, of course, to get an education. A big part of that in elementary school is socialization. When they're staring at screens, wearing headphones, they're missing out on a crucial part of their development. They're not having eye contact with other students. They're missing out on those interpersonal interactions that teaches how to relate to one another. Now that there's growing research showing that kids do not learn any better on screens and are having poor outcomes, it's imperative we do something now so we have changes at the start of next school year. And I'm a little bit concerned because we're here at the

201end of April and there's no resolution that any board member has put forward yet. Y'all are aware that LA Unified has done this last two weeks ago. Now, we can do the same. If LA can do it, absolutely San Diego can do it. Um the the Chromebooks became a matter of equity during the pandemic. Let's make sure kids have access to online education. Now that equity issue is reversed when our marginalized students are the ones spending the most time on the internet and devices. Monitoring students activity on devices is a luxury that many parents and caregivers don't have the time or energy for. Every morning you can come to my school's cafeteria and you can see students huddled around their Chromebooks playing video games. This is what our tax dollars are going for. Please, one

202of you introduce a resolution and let's bring change here in San Diego. THANK YOU. PATTON JOHNSON. Good evening. Uh my name is Patton Johnson. I'm an attorney. Um I want to uh raise uh some uh issues um that have already been raised uh by um advocates um you know against uh screen use in the classrooms. Um but I do want to point out to some alarming issues that I learned um from my children. Um, one is, you know, utkers taking uh Chromebooks back to their to their um are assigned Chromebooks. And this is an age when they're just supposed to be learning ABCs. There's really no reason for that. Um, how much money is being spent on giving these kids laptops um that could be going into programs like Vapa or um other sort of

203um more um face-to-face learning experiences. Um there's math games and I didn't think it was that big of a problem, but I understood that the district was actually pushing the schools to play these games. Um that was very alarming. Um my kids also um have told me recently that in order to learn uh typing on the computer, they're shown commercials in class, sitting in class uh playing um you know these games um typing but then being shown commercials. There's no reason for that. That needs to be monitored and um excised from the uh school um learning environment. Um I think what um one thing that the district really needs to be aware of and as they uh look into these issues is what type of programs are being used. Um we heard earlier that one

204of the main issues uh that that that the district is concerned about is a decline in the relationship between students and teachers. Uh one of the programs that is being used is this program called Seessaw. It creates a digital um teacher classroom. Why do we need a digital classroom? It just introduces more distance with kids and um and not only that but but the the type of information the people who are running these programs it's Google it's it's um these large tech companies they are collecting this data and using it to make our kids addicted to technology we should not be part of that at all. Thank you, >> Robin Nton. Uh, good evening board members. My name is Robin Nton. I'm a parent and local business owner uh with two kids in the San

205Diego public school system, one in kindergarten and one in third grade. A friend recently asked me what drew me to this cause and honestly there's a lot of things, but what feels most promising to me is this. Schools are only a few years into this expanded tech use and that means there's still time to change course. Uh I want to start by saying I'm not against technology. I know it will be a significant part of my children's lives and I want them to be prepared for that world. Uh what I'm here to ask for tonight is something I think we can all agree on. Thoughtfulness. Uh not necessarily how do we use tech in the classroom, but when does it actually help and when does it get in the way? Um I wanted to share

206something that happened today actually in my son's kindergarten class because I think it illustrates this perfectly. His class took an assessment on I Ready on a computer. Uh, but here's the thing. Not all kindergarteners can actually read and very few can confidently navigate a laptop. So, when a child doesn't know how to click or read the button that says next, we aren't measuring what they know. We're measuring whether they can navigate a software interface. And the answer to that problem is not to spend precious time teaching 5-year-olds how to use a computer program. The lesson is simpler. Computers are not right for kindergarteners. There's certainly not a reliable way to assess what our younger learners actually know. Uh I'm not asking this board to eliminate technology. I'm asking you to protect and respect in particular

207the years between kindergarten and fifth grade because they're unlike any other in a child's life. These are the years when they learn to love reading or they don't. When they build confidence with numbers or they don't. When they discover what it feels like to be curious, to create. to figure something out with their own two hands or with their classmates. These foundational years happen once. We don't get them back. And I think we owe it to every child in this district to make sure we are not trading those irreplaceable experiences for a screen. Thank you. Adria Bogart. Nathan Dappen. >> Hi everyone. My name is Nate Dappen and uh I'm a father of three daughters, an 8-year-old and two 5-year-olds uh who all go to Sunset View Elementary. Uh professionally, I have a PhD in

208biology and I run a production company that specializes in documentaries about science, nature, and society. We make films for television, for the web, for museums, and for classrooms. We've made dozens of films for classrooms that have been viewed millions of times across the country. Um, and for the last 15 years, I've also been involved in research studying how media and screens affect communication, engagement, engagement, and learning. Um, so I I'm not anti-screens. I'm not anti-dia. Screens are central to what I do professionally, and I know how powerful they can be as tools. But based on everything I've learned in my career, media has a really specific role. It's excellent for sparking curiosity, emotional engagement, and showing students things that they could never see otherwise. But it should not become the default mode of instruction, especially

209where other methods are much more effective, healthier, and healthier for students. Um, and that clearly is not just my opinion. There's a lot of empirical data that supports my point of view. And I'm alarmed by how much screen time is being um used by my kids. Um, uh, our teachers tell us that they're on screens for 15 to 10 to 15 minutes a day. Every kid I talk to, including my own kids, say they're on it for a really long time. and I walk into the afterare programs and I see my kids, this happened today when I picked them up. I see them watching YouTube videos on the screens. So, um I I love my kids schools and I really respect their teachers. They have a hard job and they have a really important one.

210And I know that they care deeply about our kids' education, their emotional health, and their well-being. But screens are very pervas pervasive. They creep into our lives gradually. And there's no question in my mind that they're replacing valuable time. time that would otherwise be spent engaging them with real humans, reading, writing, playing, problem solving, and learning ways uh and and learning ways that build stronger core skills and healthier social and emot emotional development. So, let's let's figure out how to let's figure out how to have them use less of it. Okay, Genevie Z. We need policy to include medical consequences of force retention of bodily waste with in yearly mandated reported training. Training a child to reject their brain's waste secretion bodily signaling disregulates the developing prefrontal cortex and gut brain access, forcing children to

211suffer brain damage and permanent gastrointestinal neurogenital disability into adulthood. Gastroenterologists have offered to testify in court to explain this to you. A healthy child will drink these liquids and require emergency access to a toilet within 20 minutes to an hour. California health and safety codes require unrestricted toilet accesses and establishments serving food. This now includes school. In 2024, I started a student rights Instagram called Herban to communicate crime report info for other busy but affected moms. I shared an image of a stop sign knocked over with a caption, quote, "This is how you handle a child abuse cover up." Quote, I shared safety and medical education, ed codes, hygiene laws, police department contacts, ethics point, reporting less district and child abuse investigator contacts, cure codes to reporting websites to spread awareness of extreme medical danger

212to protect neighbors from permanent organ damage. 11724. The teacher who caused my child's anus to bleed filed a retaliatory slap suit to my child abuse crime report. She lied in court, claiming I was following her, stalking her, and she cried she feared that I would run her over with a car, falsely citing my post said, quote, "This is how you handle child abuse." End quote. Frame me as a scary person. She claimed I had to be escorted from school by police. had never been escorted from school by police and had never seen or tried to see Miss Anne outside of school. We found out restraining orders do not require evidence. The teacher who injured my child's genitals successfully gained a gag order. We were glad taus went both ways. After my kid and I left

213the courtroom, we called the district attorney's office to report the perjury. 5:1725, my kid's 9th birthday party weekend. I was at our favorite park on a kids play morning with friends. I couldn't hang out past lunch as I had to bake cupcakes, prep good bags, and leave work by 4. We parents were planning to leave the park and take the kids to get Luigi's pizza. That is when police unexpectedly rushed me into handcuffs. The birthday girl, the one who I would admire tortured, started crying. The teacher and principal were apparently at the community center and both spoke to police before my arrest. Police have been told I was yelling at the teacher refusing to leave disturbing the peace, but none of that happened. I was booked into Lasina's jail work. The district attorney's office rejected

214Miss An's charges against me. This was not the first time the district attorney blocked Miss Anne from trying to press charges against me for unknown or fabricated reasons. I later found out Miss did not even claim that I interacted with her at the park. But the police did speak to the principal right before deciding to put me in the police car. And that was my first and only arrest. That was not the first time the principal lied to police about my behavior to frame harassment. Our policies on retaliatory staff conduct enforceable even when parents don't sue. Principal Julie Martinez has broken the alarm. Requires immediate termination for repeated child endangerment. This is tax funding criminal derelict of duty while booked in jail. I was informed I had the right to restrict to toilet access. I

215started crying. Why did my third grade accelerated learner have fewer rights in elementary school than I did in jail? Thank you. Jesse O Sullivan, Isabelle K Renee Catalano Gusman. >> Hi, my name is Renie. Um, I want to thank you Dr. Beagula for the close session update on edtech. Um, and to the board for prioritizing this um, and taking parent, teacher, and um, student considerations into account as you're considering reform. Um, I wanted to share some considerations in response to this update um, for you to consider while you're working on your reforms. Um, I applaud you for focusing on use um, over time. Specifically, I'd like to request that you pri prioritize transformative use. This is a fundamental cultural shift in how we are currently thinking about device use. Transformative learning creates a unique outcome

216or delivers a highle skill that is otherwise not possible. Consider advanced photo, digital or music editing. Anything that supports special educational access, robotics, tech labs. This is much different than the current classroom use that parents currently understand. Gamified math apps, reading on screens. This is not transformative learning. I would like to recommend a source called the edte triangle that is a researchbacked tool on how to implement a a um a class tech to pardon me um how to a researchback tool for implementing healthy tech in the classroom. My second comment is around digital citizenship. This is very important and it can be transformative but it does not limit access. Currently well-intended students are accessing harmful and inappropriate content on issued devices at home and at school through YouTube. The district must take responsibility beginning to

217end when giving children access to devices. Please consider blocking YouTube on all devices. My third comment is around edtech waste and fiscal responsibility. I'll follow up in an email. Thank you. >> That concludes the non-aggenda comment. >> Thank you so much for uh all the non-aggenda comment tonight. It's actually ve very very helpful. Appreciate that. Okay, we are adjourned. And when's our next meeting? May 12th. Okay, thank you everyone.