001I am calling this meeting to order. I would like a shame. Okay, good. Um, I would like to welcome everyone here in the chamber and those watching via live stream and call the May 13, 2025 regular meeting of the board of education to order with uh all we we have a board member who is uh who is with our uh flag ceremony and we have a board member who is attending remotely. That would be Trusty Hazen and Trusty Cruz is is before you in another in another outfit here and uh we'll be seeing him in a moment here. Uh with that, we've got that for the record. We're all present in different forms. Okay. Um we will now have our flag ceremony. Uh the Morris High School Army JOTC color guard will present the colors.
002Please stand for the presentation of the colors. Color attack color order colors. Left face cars cover. Please join us in the pledge of allegiance. Trustee Whitehurst Payne, would you like to lead us? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation The God indivisible with liberty liberty and justice for all. Car ride color forward [Applause] march. Thank you. Please be seated. He is. He was great. We've seen a lot of those and uh our trustee did a great job, I think. All right, with that, we'll move to A3. Land acknowledgement is a traditional custom that dates back centuries in many native nations and communities. Our land acknowledgement was developed in partnership with local Kumi leaders. Students from the San Diego School of
003Creative 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. Roll the tape. 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 while forging a brighter tomorrow. All right, we will
004now move to item B, adoption of the agenda. We have a full docket tonight, including a progress monitoring report on interim guard rail 2.1 and 2.2 related to student motivation. Do I have a motion uh to adopt tonight's agenda? We have a a motion from Trustee Baldis and a second from Trusty Boso. Um, with that we'll move to a vote. Student trustee trustee please vote. All the board members please vote. And how do we obtain a vote for Oh. Um, Trusty Hazen, are you available to cast a vote? Oh, okay. All right. I I would just sticulate wildly, but that would be unbecoming. Um, I just like good. I don't know. This is Okay. Should should we try to get tech to help her to hear us? Okay, we're working on it. Okay. Well, um,
005we have at least four we have a yes, we have all student trustee concurring and all board members who were able to vote voted in favor. So, that motion passes. We now have an agenda. All right. Uh, Miss Douls, can you please provide information for public speakers uh, regarding tonight's meeting protocols? Yes. Today's meeting of the board of education is a business meeting 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
006be 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 up 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 inperson public comment, iPads are available in the back of the auditorium and in the lobby. Thank you, Marty.
007Uh we'll now hear a report from the student advisory board. Trustees Baldis and Cruz. Uh please provide your report. Yes. So, uh, Trusty Cruz was initially going to give our report about mental health. So, I will give the second portion hoping that he arrives in time. So, at last week's student advisory board report, we discussed citizenship grades. Over the course of my high school career, I've always been a little bit iffy, so to say, about citizenship grades. As a district, we transitioned from traditional pointsbased grading to standardsbased grading to ensure equitable grading for all students and to remove any biases or prejudices inside the classroom. But for citizenship grades, nothing has changed. Um, at last week's meeting, we had a plethora of students tell us that citizenship grades have no real structure at their own
008schools. We had one student tell us that they were labeled an inconsistent student, and when they approached their teacher and asked why, the teacher said, "It's because you asked too many questions in class. Now, as a district that is committed to equity, this seems inherently inequitable. It's also important to remember that many schools restrict students from participating in activities at their own schools and their own designated sports based off of their citizenship grades. Now, I met and I spoke with Dr. Beula and Enrique, and we all realized that something needs to change. We don't have the answers right now, but something needs to be done to revise this or abolish this process. Um, beautiful. Uh, Trusty Cruz, I just finished giving the second half which was in relation to citizenship grades. Okay. And so in
009regards to mental health, our student advisory board essentially said that before they open up, they need to ensure that trust goes both ways. um they really advocated for continued uh anonymous responses because truthfully they feel like if what they if there's a name attached to what they say then they feel like they're just going to be targeted in ways that they don't feel like will truly help them. So thank you All right. Um, thank you, Quinton and Joseph. With that, we will move on to items C2 through C8. We have a lot of resolutions on the docket tonight. Uh and um this will be recognizing classified school employee week, Harvey Milk Day, Jewish American Heritage Month, AsianPacific Islander Desi American Heritage Month, Military Appreciation Month, Mental Health Awareness Month, and Women's Health Awareness Month. Uh
010is there a motion to approve items C2 through C8? I have a motion from Trusty Wyers Pain and a second from Trusty Boso. Uh do we have any public speakers on these items? Yes, we do. We have one speaker on C5 that is the AsianPacific Islander Desi American Heritage Month, Joanne Fields. You have three minutes. Thank you. Uh good evening, Superintendent um Dr. Beula and um board trustees, staff. Uh thank you for uh recognizing AsianPacific Islander Desi. um American Heritage Month. Many people don't realize how diverse that umbrella name is that it includes Asians. And when I ask the public who is Asian, I get Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, Lao, Thai, M. Then we also have Southeast Asian, Desi, we have Filipino, which I proudly represent, Native Hawaiian, Chammoro, Samo, and Tongen. So without um May
011being designated a heritage month, many times we overlook our contributions in history, in our accomplish accomplishments on campus and um in the community. So, I want to thank um the school board for continuing to recognize this while other districts, corporations, community groups are removing DEI um from uh being discussed or even celebrated. I want to celebrate you for continuing to embrace our culture, our history. Um I want to share a couple nuggets of information. And I don't know where I am on the timer, but uh if you didn't know, downtown San Diego was founded by William Heath um Davis, also known as Kanaka Davis, who is native Hawaiian. So there was uh a monument erected in his name. There's a bust at Pentoha Park in downtown where you can learn more about him um there
012um at the monument but also at the um Gas Lamp uh Quarter Foundation Museum where you may even see the grid where he named the streets Colombia Broadway Union. So, I think that's a nugget of information uh to share, but there are over half a million AsianPacific Islander Desi residents throughout the county, many of which are your um students. And I'm glad to see Joseph representing there. Um because um many Filipinos came by way of the military, which leads me to July 19th. I need to invite all of you to join us at the fifth annual FilipinoAmerican Friendship Festival at NTC Park. We have participation from Mayor Mesa High School and hopefully Boone Elementary will get to come out again where they had a performance if you didn't know this past week um during this
013week at the educational cultural um center ECC the San Diego continuing college where they celebrated API and performed Filipino technique dances. So a lot going on in the district. Again, thank you for continuing to celebrate culture and history and San Diego Unified. Thank you. We have a speaker on C7, which is the mental health awareness month resolution, Dane Colri. You have three minutes. Good evening, board. Approximately a fifth of US high school students seriously considered suicide in just last year according to the CDC. And we must remember that these aren't just numbers. In fact, I've dealt with depression myself from middle school until my sophomore year. Youth MHFA is an effective tool to help tackle our mental health crisis crisis and helps adults closest to our students affected by this crisis have confidence in their
014ability to help these students. A recent Illinois evaluation from October of last year found that educators who have completed this course had better mental health knowledge and felt much greater confidence that they can truly support students in crisis. I thank Trusty Baldis and Trusty Bazo for bringing this forward. I urge you all to adopt this resolution and to go beyond by setting a goal to confirm that we have at least one youth MHFA certified responder on every campus by next May. students are ready to help turn this month of awareness into year-round readiness. Thank you. And we have three speakers on C8, which is women's health awareness month. Rebecca [Music] Rosen, followed by Judith Bos. You have three minutes. Okay. Hello. Good evening. It's an honor and pleasure to address the board, Dr. Dr. Vagoula
015and honorary board members. Uh my name is Dr. Rebecca Rosen. I'm a practicing family medicine physician here in San Diego and I'm speaking on behalf of myself but also hopefully the board. I would like to highlight the importance of education on health promotion and disease prevention in our schools. We just celebrated Mother's Day. We celebrated all of the women in our lives for all they have done for us and for what they mean to us. And in addition to cards and flowers and coupons for hugs and overpriced brunches, I believe that we all want our mothers and all of the women uh be they young women, older women, those people who identify as female who are in our lives to be healthy and well. And one of the most important aspects that we are trying
016to highlight in this women's health resolution is to highlight the resources that San Diego Unified uh has to offer and it provides their students through a partnership with one of our trusted community health centers. The school district provides comprehensive health education including sexual health education. This comprehensive sexual health education includes information about so many things. I'm going to read them fast to be in my three minutes but not that fast so that you can't understand me. Goes over safety and effectiveness of all FDA approved methods of preventing pregnancy and transmission of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections. It talks about abstinence as well as information about HIV and pregnancy. information on sexual harassment, sexual assault, healthy relationships, we have to talk about those and human trafficking as well as offering local resources for accessing care
017and students rights access to care also involves reproductive health and justice education. Our students are in school to get an education. And this education should absolutely include information about health and well-being so that these students are able to make educated decisions about every aspect of their lives. We want to support them and allow them to thrive while they are students here in our San Diego Unified School District. Thank you, Jenny Kingston. or Judith Voss. They're not here. So, that concludes public comment on section C. All right. Any questions or comments from board members? Oh, let me let me prompt uh let me just real quick reach out and see if Trusty Hazen has any comment just because I can't if I don't say it, I'll I won't it's difficult for it to signal to me
018when you're remote in my experience. Oh, okay. So, some delay or something. Is that characteristic? Okay. Okay. We'll move to to uh other board members. Do any of the board members have comments on this? I I'll just say very briefly in terms of um with regard to the Jewish American Heritage Month. I had a few folks reach out and say that it and this happened last year as well that the it wasn't noted on the online calendar in the way that other um heritage months are not the beginning of it. Um, so if we can make sure that doesn't happen. We had committed last year to it not happening again, but didn't happen again. Um, so, um, I just want to note that that I received some some emails about that. Uh, any additional comments?
019I just want to say I'm so grateful that we have all these resolutions coming forth. I really do want to highlight um, our mental health awareness resolution. Now, one of the privileges of being a student board member is you get to see all the candidates who are running for student board member and you get to see what their priorities are at their own schools and amongst the student population. Say for the past two years, I can personally testify that almost every single candidate has said mental health is one of their priorities. They've seen their friends struggling with this problem. They've seen their constituents and they want to fix this. I really hope that after this resolution gets passed that this isn't the end of this and that as a district after Joseph and I move
020on and graduate that we are committed to mental health and that we're doing everything everything that we can to support our students. Thank you, Trusty Baldes. Trusty Bazo. Thank you, President Person. I just wanted to thank all of the speakers that came this evening. Um I know it was a a co-sponsor. I got a little carried away this month. They had a whole whole bunch of resolutions, but they're all very important and I'm so glad that we had um speakers to highlight some of that. Um I especially wanted to say thank you to Dr. Rosen for rushing down here after seeing patients all day um to to come join us. This is um a very important to me resolution um after being a public health working in the public health field for god almost 30
021years now in San Diego. Um, and I know there's just so much chaos right now going swirling around us, but um I don't want us to lose sight of how important uh reproductive rights and the the the uh the war um you know that's being caused over you know and trying to support our students in all of this. um it's facing the most aggressive attacks to say to to uh save legal access to abortions and it since 1973 and it's just has s had such serious implications for all of our communities. But not only that, it's really those that don't have as the voice um to to push back and just the social determinants of health um the underlying chronic health conditions. Um, you know, black women are three times more likely to die in
022a pregnancy related cause, three times more likely than white women. Um, you know, there's there's so many this the like implicit bias just all the uh you know uh fair opportunities for positive and economic, physical, and emotional health outcomes. They we can't lose that in all of these discussions that we're having over everything that's that's happening at the federal level as well as the state level. So, I just wanted to as much as I can keep that um top of mind and how that impacts our students as well as just making sure that they know they have the resources, the the safety and effectiveness of the uh programs that are available because more times than not when I've talked to to students in high school, a lot of them aren't aware of all the resources
023that we do have. And I just feel like we need to do a better job of providing those information on those resources and making sure that all of our students have that information. um and including our LGBT students as well um because again they are kind of part of that group that's has a higher level of health disparities as well. So um thanks to all of our speakers and uh thank you for letting me say a few words about this particular resolution. Thank you Trusty Boso. Seeing no further comment, we will move to a vote. Uh student trustees, please vote. All other board members, please vote. Should we try this again? Or is the delay a fatal problem? Okay, I see. Okay. Is there any way we can improve that? Is there another way to
024Okay. All right. Um Okay. So, uh, that means that all board members present, uh, voted in favor and student trustees concurred. Uh, that motion passes unanimously or as unanimously as we were able to technically achieve. Um, now on to D1. Uh, Deputy General Counsel Ames, under D1, are there any reportable actions from close session? There are not. All right. Thank you very much. Uh as uh there are no uh management appointments to announce under item D2, we will now move to item D3. Dr. Bula, please provide your information report. Yes, thank you Dr. Person. Uh May is a time for us to recognize the accomplishments of our students. Whether a student is moving to middle school or entering high school or walking across the graduation stage, this moment is worthy of celebration. These transitions represent
025more than academic milestones. They are moments where dreams take flight and futures begin to form. And behind every student accomplishment, there's a circle of support. The loving encouragement of their families, the daily care of their educators, and the strength of our school communities. The class of 2025 will see thousands of students graduate. And later this month, schools will hold end ofear celebrations and fun activities to honor their students. Whether a graduate is heading to a traditional four-year college, a trade program, community college, or straight into the workforce, we know they are ready. They carry not only knowledge but also their ability to adapt, lead, and lift others. And we are so proud of them. Earlier this month, we launched a social media campaign to honor some of our graduates called College Ready, Career Ready, Future
026Ready San Diego Unified Grads. Let's take a quick video look at Cameron McCoy. My name is Cameron McCoy and I'm a senior from Lincoln High School. Definitely the options of classes that I had um like AP classes and being able to take dual enrollment courses. I feel like that really set me up for my future. And first scholars, it's just been a help throughout my college application process and I've met some of my best friends there. One impact that I hope to make is to give underserved communities the help that they deserve, like black communities and also lowincome ones. So, as like a lawyer or a politician, um, I'll be able to give people the help they need. Thanks to San Diego Unified, I'm ready for my future. College ready, career ready, future ready. San
027Diego Unified grads. This was a fun campaign to take part of and I know we have many other examples there that we're going to continue to uphold. Um, but also college, career, technical education is one of the many ways that we're preparing our students for their future. I want to make sure to extend an invitation for everyone to experience the terrific work firsthand at the CCT Innovation Showcase at Wilson Elementary from 3:30 to 6:30. The address is 3838 Orange Avenue, San Diego, California 92105. And I'm actually wondering if I said the date. Uh, this is a free family-friendly event that is open to the public. During this time, there's going to be hands-on demonstrations. Students will showcase their solutions to real world problems in fields like robotics, healthcare, digital media, and culinary arts, and environmental
028science. It's a great way to start to take a look at the college and career pathways that we're um making sure that all of the opportunities are coming down to middle schools as well. Um I also want to celebrate 300 rockets on Fiesta Island. Our Taft Middle School students abilities in the areas of science and technology were on full display last Friday when they launched 300 rockets into the air on Fiesta Island. Students from grades six through eight designed, built, and branded their own model rockets which soared as high as a thousand feet. This engaging project combines science, engineering, art, and teamwork, giving students a real world application of classroom concepts with an emphasis on aerospace engineering and a cutting edge field of rocketry. I now want to show you a a video of that
029uh rocket launch. It's been a long time in the making. We wanted to bring academic equity to all the kids at TAF. We learned that San Diego is on the cutting edge of aerospace and especially [Music] rocketry. Our community partner brought us under his wing, taught us how to do rockets, taught our kids how to do rockets. Those kids taught other kids how to do rocket. Here in at Mission Bay though, they launch um they're by size. A B CDE E FG. I believe there's a couple G motors going up in the [Music] sky. My favorite part is seeing the rocket launch because I feel like I accomplished something. It was honestly super cool and I honestly astonished that it even worked. Um, but it was like super fun and really [Music] exciting. It'll teach
030me things that other students won't have possibly like determination and knowledge of like that space and other stuff. Come on. [Music] So, those are the kind of really great programs um that we have at our school. I'm about to cash. Um, before we get a commercial here, I want to make sure to um reinvite you to the CCT innovation showcase at Wilson Elementary School tomorrow from 3:30 to 6:30. And you'll see really great things like this, like the rocket launch there at Wilson. Um, lastly, or also later this week, possibly as soon as tomorrow, and I believe it is tomorrow, we will receive an update from our governor. As you may recall, we have been to Sacramento a few times advocating for appropriate funding for transitional kindergarten and special education and we're looking forward to
031what um learning more about the decisions that were that the governor is making at um in Sacramento. Once that information comes out, our team will pour through it to learn how his decisions were will impact our district and identify any adjustments we need to make ahead of our final budget presentation in June. That concludes my superintendence report. Thank you. Thank you. Do Dr. Boo. That reminded me of rocket tri. Did anyone take gateways back in the day? That was like a San Diego tradition, but I guess it's not. Yeah, that was great. Um, thank you so much. We will now hear item E1, progress monitoring report on interim guardrail 2.1 and 2.2, student motivation. Dr. Bula, can you please introduce the item? Yes. Thank you, President Person. Tonight's presentation represents a milestone in our district's
032continued effort to monitor student motivation through guardrail 2, ensuring that every student wants to be in school. This work stems from earlier questions raised by our board, especially around our investments in visual and performing arts. But over time, this conversation has evolved into something more global and more fundamental. What are the conditions that truly motivate student learning? How do we create environments where students feel connected, engaged, and purposeful? The data you'll see today begins to answer that. While there are many meaningful connections we can make to our other goals and guard rails, I want to emphasize that this is a new data set for our student survey administered for the very first time this year. That means we're in the early stages of interpreting and acting on what students are telling us about belonging, trusted
033adults, effort, and motivation. As you will see, we've begun using student surveys in more intentional ways, and we've added new questions to better capture participation in both traditional and informal activities across all grade spans. And I also very clearly heard your testimony from the student advisory board. Um, we're also working on refining how we define extracurriculars, especially for our elementary schools, where engagement opportunities might look more like embedded school activities such as run clubs or safety patrol. And I have to admit when that question was posed as my prior experience as as school principal at elementary school I was actually troubled by I don't think I could have thought about the extracurriculars as extracurricular. So I do think that this is a paradigm we have to shift. What's clear is this student motivation is not
034just about activities or programs. It's actually about school culture. It's about relationships adult relationships with students and also student voice and agency. We're beginning to see early signals of what works. The bright spots we're identifying show that student motivation is built through intentional culture, relationships, and connections, not just programs. And I know we have a couple of schools here that will tell us about their intentional work. And I'm really happy that Dave Porto is here representing. With that, I'll turn it over to Deputy Superintendent Nicole Dit and area superintendent Dr. Steve Dorsy and Michelle Urban who will guide us through the presentation and data. Thank you. Thank you so much, Dr. Bugula. And so I'm going to start by asking for a little bit of grace because normally uh Ramand Del Rossario, who is our
035executive director of data insights, would be here um doing the data dive for the student survey, but he is actually attending a data conference right now um on the east coast. So I am stepping in for him tonight. So hopefully I'll be able to answer questions um but if not, I will definitely make sure to take those back to him and we'll make sure to respond at a later time. And I will note that we'll make time because one of our trustees isn't able to ask questions. So we'll make sure to follow up with Trusty Hazen for any questions she might have um considering the technology of difficulties. We're trying to Okay, great. So as Dr. Bugula mentioned, um guardrail 2 that was adopted by the board is centered around student motivation. And so you'll
036see up on the screen that the guardrail specifically states that the superintendent shall not operate without a strategy to ensure student motivation to want to be in school. So I think that's the most important piece there, wanting to be in school. And so as uh she also mentioned, we did struggle a little bit um in the interim guard rail 2.1 language of trying to pinpoint participation in extracurriculars. Um what we found is that we are still inconsistent in our practices for recording extracurricular participation. Um, we do keep rosters for athletic teams and we do keep rosters for students that are involved in clubs at both the middle and high school level, but it's not as consistent at the elementary level. And also what Dr. Bealoo was stating is that a lot of times the way
037that students are feeling connection at the elementary level is actually in those embedded activities that are happening during the school day. Um, so for example, uh, Dr. Whitehurst Payne and I got to go on a visit to Webster Elementary uh not too long ago and the principal there was sharing how she has embedded clubs into their lunchtime and that students are rotating through these clubs and participating at regular intervals. And so that's actually embedded within the school day. And so what we wanted to focus on then for measuring interim guardrail 2.1 is actually leveraging our student survey um that was developed by our data insights team in partnership with our leaders and specifically looking at the two questions around belonging and connection um because we do know that when students are participating in activities regularly
038they tend to feel a stronger sense of belonging and connection. And so we were focusing on the two questions um here in the survey about I have a trusted adult on campus I can communicate with if I need help and also how much do you feel you belong in the school community. So on the next slide, what you'll see here is you'll actually see a graph that represents students who said either they agree, which is a rating of four, or strongly agree, which is a rating of five, to that stated question across our grade levels. The blue line indicates results for all students, and the red line indicates results for our identified spotlight students. So as you can see there is a significant dip when we look at uh the eighth and ninth grade levels.
039Um we do know that that is a pivotal transition year um for students and so they're also still figuring out who they are as people um and their own identities. Um so that could be a reason why we see a dip there. Um, but we wanted to make sure that we really focused in on not just having an a trusted adult, but also that feeling of a sense of belonging. So, if you look at the next slide, um, again, the blue indicates all students and the red indicate spotlight students. And what's very interesting is you see a different pattern formed here on this slide where in the previous slide we saw more of a curve where we see higher levels of having a trusted adult in early elementary and late high school. But in this
040slide here where we see a sense of belonging there is a steady decline. And so it's very interesting to note that just because you have a trusted adult on campus, you may still not feel that sense of belonging as indicated in the results here. So what we would like to suggest moving forward is actually making a revision um to the interim goal language and instead of saying extracurricular activities, we actually would just like to use the term activities. Um so that way it encompasses both activities that happen before and after the school day but also embedded within the school day. Um we still want to focus on those two student survey questions of belonging and connection but we are actually uh administering our spring survey with two additional questions. And these two additional questions are
041different for elementary and secondary. and they're actually asking students to identify the activities that they participated in. Um so there will be a checklist where they can actually select more than one activity. So they can select as many activities that they've participated in and then also the frequency of their participation. Did they participate weekly? Did they participate monthly? Was it only like once during the school year that they participated? So that way we have a better way to track participation. um since there is an inconsistency right now in that tracking. So, we did add those two additional questions to our spring survey administration. And then interim guardrail 2.2 really focuses on motivation and purpose. Um and so our goal was to have a student survey um that would be able to ask those questions. So
042again, this all goes back to the student survey that was developed in partnership with our school site administrators. And the questions that correlate very closely with motivation and purpose are the three that you see here. So the first indicates how often do you believe you can improve if you try. So do you believe that if you try you can actually see improvement? Um that goes a lot to motivation. How often do you feel that your efforts leads to positive results? Um, so again indicating motivation there. And then the last one, how well do you manage tasks when they seem overwhelming. So all of these relate to things like growth mindset, grit, resiliency, which again influence and impact a student's motivation and purpose. So you'll see on the next few slides similar graphs. Again, the blue
043line represents all students and the red line represents spotlight students across grade levels. So it's very interesting in all these data sets and drilling down to individual questions, you see different data trends for each question. It's not a similar data trend for each one. Um so here you see at the beginning of elementary it plateaus a bit and then dips slightly and then starts to increase um through the middle and high school years about believing that you can improve if you try. And then the next question about believing uh that your efforts lead to positive results. Um it's pretty stable throughout the grade levels, but you can see that widening of the gap between all students and spotlight students uh for the percentages that say they agree and strongly agree. And then finally, the last
044one, I find this one personally the most interesting is how well do you manage tasks when they seem overwhelming? It's a lot higher at the beginning. um of our students careers and it definitely dips down lower and lower. Um so I find that very interesting and I think that goes back to our student board trustees comments around the importance of mental health, right? And and tending to our mental health and wellness needs um because things do tend to get a bit more overwhelming um as we continue on to our academic journey. So I think that is very much reflected in the data here. So, with that, I'm actually going to turn it over to Dr. Dorsy. Um, what we did for our spotlight schools is we actually looked at the results across all five questions
045and looked for schools that had really high response rates for strong uh strongly agree and agree in all five areas. So, Dr. Dorsu, we'll talk a little bit about Uklid. So, one of the bright spots for sure is the pride of the Northeast City Heights, which is the Uklid Eagles led by Jose Valdez. A and really the environment that they are creating on the school site is by design and and they are purposefully making sure that their students have that sense of belonging. uh the the connection that they create with the families. There are over 30 different languages spoken at Uclit Elementary and having that ability to connect with all of those different families and languages and make them feel like they are a part of something special I is what Jose has done. And
046it is his entire staff from his BSS to the ESA to the nutrition services ladies. When you walk through that school site, you belong at Uklid. Even as a guest, they manage to pull you in. And the students are so effective in being self- advocates. But again, that is all by design, right? Uh Dr. Susie Weiss, design for belonging. When you actually take those steps and you think about it purposefully, you drive that sense. When you look at some of these numbers, belonging 100% improve if you try 100%. The grit that the students have and they understand that if they get something wrong that it's okay because now we're going to learn something and we can move on. Uh the ownership that they take. Uh Mr. Mr. Valdez said that really uh a lot of
047this is due to the efforts that they are taking with the leader in me uh the seven habits and their second step curriculum that the teachers are doing with fidelity and and that drive. When you go to the campus it it's amazing when I walk across and it's nutrition and the kids are running up and they're not talking to me about recess and lunch. they're talking to me about the math that they were just doing in their classroom or the story that they were just reading. And that's when you know you have something special. Uh and it is pervasive across the campus and and really the kids know that if I am trying something I can succeed. Uh I may not get it the first time, I may not get it the second but the
048more I try the better I will be at it. Uh and and so it is really a salute to all the Eagles out there. Uh and I am sure they are on watching online. Hello Eagles. We love you. Continue what you do. Jose, congratulations. This is great data for you and your school and it's something again that we will go on and improve on. Thank you, Steve. and I'll ask Michelle Irwin to speak about uh one of our secondary schools that saw also high rates of agree and strongly agree. Well, good afternoon everyone and I'm joined by some of our Dera Panthers in the audience today. Um, as you know, secondary, moving from elementary to secondary is always such a transition. And as middle school colleagues and middle schools, we are always constantly looking at
049how we can make sure that our students feel that sense of connection, that sense of belonging, and then that motivation to do well. And so again, I want to congratulate our Derollola staff and um their community that they have created because as you can see with the data, they um definitely surpass uh the other uh the other middle schools in our district right now. Some of the things that I know that our Dera staff do for the sense of belonging and connection is the idea of culture of listening. Um every uh they have structured circles that they work meet with our students and allow that that um that our students voice come through and our staff is very uh uh responsive to that. Uh they also have a fresh start uh for each day. We
050know that middle schoolers can make uh some uh decisions that may not be in the best interest of themselves or others, but we want to make sure that they always are uh welcome back and without um without penalty. And so that is the idea of the fresh start because we want our students to um they know that they made a mistake but that's okay. We still love them and and want to connect with them. And then with a motivation and purpose, I find that this is um actually uh the really uh an important piece because it definitely follows the research from Edward DC and Daniel Pink about autonomy, mastery, and purpose. And with the full implementation of standardsbased grading, our students do feel that they can do better when they are given that extra chance.
051Um and so with standardsbased b grading, there is the rubric. um our staff has uh definitely implemented it. But again with that rubric, with that four-point scale, there is consistency with that. There's a high expectations and then the sense of we can try again if I don't make that um that particular score. And I know sometimes standardsbased grading uh gets a bad name and and it's not been implemented well, but Tula definitely has. And then along with that, there's lots of different opportunities for extra support throughout the day um and after school. And so I truly believe that with all the um efforts that the Derilla staff and community has done, they have really created the uh community where students do feel that agency, they do feel a sense of belonging and connection and they
052have that sense that they can do anything that they so choose. So um congratulations to our Dera staff. Awesome. Thank you so much. So, um in conclusion, uh here are our next steps. We are actually um in the midst of our spring survey administration. Um so, the administration window starts on May 12th and goes through the 23rd. It will include the 17 questions from the fall. So, the five that we presented on today will be included again in the spring administration. But there are some additional questions. Um there's three additional questions related to sexual harassment. Um that's in alignment with our office of civil rights compliance. Um so we did need to make sure that we put questions in there to understand if uh students know who they can go to um if they need
053assistance with this type of issue. And then the two additional questions that we spoke about earlier asking students um which activities that they've participated in and the frequency of those activities. So that survey administration is going on currently. Um we should have results um relatively soon afterwards that we can share with our schools and our communities so that way they can see areas of strength and areas of growth. Thank you so much Nicole Michelle Stephen. Um Miss are there any uh public comment on this? Yes, we have one speaker Jamie Jerem and company and company. You have three minutes coming up. Yeah. Okay. Hi, I'm Jamie Harmo and I'm the principal at Dertola and I just wanted to share that we have worked with intention at Daytona to really be an inclusive environment to our
054staff, our parents. I started as a parent there, then I became the principal and um and our students. And so that that's a big piece. Every adult on our campus is respected and valued and that easily translates to the students. And so they um they they can they can feel it and the energy that we have as a staff where we um we genuinely like each other, all of us. And and um and I think that you'll you'll see that. And um I think that tells kids that they can always identify a trusted adult no matter what happens because they know that we all take care of them at every turn because we take care of each other and we take care of the kids. Hello, I'm Erica and I'm an English teacher at Dayullah.
055And um Jamie trusted me to have both of her own sons in my classroom. So that's kind of cool. You know, building rapport at Dayola just didn't happen overnight. It took a lot of years of reading and really questioning our own mindsets and going back and, you know, talking to each other about what we're doing in our classrooms and trying on new ideas. And all of our staff at Daytona has been very open and eager to learning new ways to, you know, try on all the RJP strategies that we've learned and all the SEAL strategies that we've learned. And then even if the coolest part is even if um, you know, it's a strategy that maybe challenges something that we've done traditionally at our school, we've been open to trying it on. And I think
056that's what the secret is is just knowing that we always have room to grow and we're going to continue to do that. I'm Lori Davis and I'm a PIFF and we have a really great team of PIFFs and co-teers and we all collaborate together really well and but most of all we really care about our students well-being both inside and outside of the classroom. Go Panthers. Roar. I'm Lindsay and I'm one of the counselors and we're definitely a team here and um we're just very visible to our students and that's something that we take a lot of pride in. Um we're in the classrooms as much as we can doing that RJP work and circles and just showing our kids that we care. Um, that's one thing like in middle school like we heard they're
057going to make mistakes and it's how we rebound from those mistakes that we learn and we grow and we we make ourselves better people and that's what we do as counselors and as a staff and a community and how we make those mistakes and make better people and better citizens in our community. So, thank you for listening to our our roar today. Yeah. And I um I just want to say we're not afraid to do the hard work. And when we implemented standardsbased grading um it was hard and I was relatively new as an administrator there and I was like no I think we have to do this because it's a board policy and um and um and through the support that um central office gave us in implementing that it took some time and
058the teachers got on board and the parents actually learned what um that you could see a 50% in powers school and that was a C and that made sense that took a lot of work but and then um and we work really hard with um our restorative practices and that the front office is a place of problem solving and not a place of punishment. And so we really take pride in that and um we just we have a lot of fun and we love what we get to do every day and um we're going to keep coming back. So thank you very much. [Applause] Thank you. Oh that was great. Um okay so we will now move to trustee comment. I see uh Trusty White's pain with her hand up right out of the gates.
059Absolutely. I I'm just fascinated um with the schools and you know, it's a report that I want to really now go out and see for myself. Maybe I'm a Dton Thomas, but it sounds really good what they're doing. Um, having been at a middle school, junior high, I should be honest, a junior high school, which is a little bit different from the middle school. Um, it sounds like you guys have pulled some things together. As at Knox, they've really made some changes there. Maybe the middle school child is better than the U junior high school. Can anybody vouch for that? No. Okay. Um, but I hope I have an invitation to come out and see what's happening at your school and we'll make it over to Uklid also and see what's going on. Because as
060I look at these questions, uh, I don't know, maybe we should have an item that says uh, not only manage when overwhelmed, but manage when beyond overwhelmed. I heard there's a category that says beyond overwhelmed, which means that they've gone so far. Yes, I'm overwhelmed, but now I'm beyond that. Um, I had an adult tell me that once and I was kind of like, overwhelmed is the limit, but no, they said beyond overwhelmed. And looking at how low those scores are for uh for the district or definitely for our spotlight students. That's an area where we really need to focus uh our attention on how we're going to get these students so that they can at least cope uh when they're overwhelmed because that's reality. That's life. You'll get to that point and you have
061to figure out a way how to get out of that almost like depression or whatever we want to call it. So, I'm sure you guys are looking at that. I really am looking forward to seeing how we eventually correlate things with uh what's happening with them academically because it would be my expectation and perhaps others that if they're feeling good about themselves and they're they find support that eventually that will show up um in test scores and whatever. metric that we're saying, you know, the rising um boat as the water rises, everything rises with it. And so, um I'm hoping that eventually we will begin to see that kind of correlation and hopefully you're planning. I know that Raman is not here, but that hopefully he's beginning to think about how we can tie those
062together and look at what's going on because uh as I say almost every every board meeting uh when I look at a school like Lincoln that went from eight students to 150 students in band and this past Friday was at FA school and um there were students there from Lincoln doing the dance and then there were students from Hoover who played the instruments. They had their whole marriiacha band there and they had never performed together but they were so brave that they were willing to try to play. They said we can do this. We're going to play for the Lincoln students and this is brand new right on the spot. And I thought that's really you know they're gaining self-confidence. they're willing to work together as schools and uh to show the elementary students how
063excited they were about just sharing and performing. So eventually all of that will rub off and even on Saturday night when we went to the concert we saw students just performing on the stage like professionals and uh I know if we keep that going that it has to pay off in um in performance because that's what it's about for all of us. Thank you. Absolutely. We've already talked um with our data insights department. So in future data analysis, we will have that overlay of the student survey with um both math um ELA and college and career readiness. I think one of the gaps that we're hoping to close in the spring survey administration is really uh understanding like which activities are we seeing that probably have the most impact on those outcomes because uh in
064the fall administration we didn't really have a mechanism to determine that. Um so with the spring administration and the addition of those two questions we'll actually be able to pinpoint um which activity and involvement has uh the biggest impact on those academic outcomes. Thank you, Trusty Bazo. Yeah, I think just following up on what Dr. Whitehurst Payne mentioned and um and what you're saying about I think it's really important. I think it's fantastic. We're looking at extracurricular and looking at how that's impacting our students or whatever. We don't want to call it that now. It's more um something that might have be more meaningful. I guess we were looking at instead of the extracurricular name, but looking at how that's impacting Yeah. and their um literacy, their math scores. I mean, obviously there's research showing
065um that things like learning music that's supposed to actually like correspond with like math, you know, because it is math in a lot of ways. Um, so but really being able to see that I think that would really also help in our with our LCAP and all you know align with what we're doing because if we're looking at making budget cuts in certain areas and we're but we're seeing that there's corresponding success in a extracurricular maybe it's chess club I don't know I mean I don't think chess club costs a lot of money but um if there's certain activities that are really standing out that are aligning with our literacy and math I think we could really use that and if we're applying for grants or you know whatever it is we we would have
066that much more of a strong I guess um you know sense of what is working and maybe what's not and also you know looking at different programs that we apply for for extracurricular what are working kids using and what's most successful and focusing on those and maybe expanding those and maybe you know getting rid of some of this the programs that aren't working as well. Um but really try being able to see those trends I think will be important um and how they're actually impact impacting literacy and math and where specifically that's happening so that we can really kind of target and focus on those specific um programs whatever they may be. Thank you Trusty Bazo. I see Trusty Hazen's hands across the country raised. I think we got our audio sorted out. So close.
067You're still muted. Oh yeah, she's not muted. Gosh, we're so close. Oh, wait. I got that little bit. Are those someone else? Okay, I'm gonna try some. This is crazy, man. I'm going to try to do this. Why don't I call you and then you can speak into my microphone. Look at this, man. We are This is This is the future right here, folks. Um, I don't know how this works with uh the the Brown Act never considered this possibility, but we're going to give it a try. Trusty Hazen. Yes. All right. Thank you for your flexibility. I appreciate it. And I was say across the country, but like many times ahead, but glad to be participating. Um, I guess I have a couple questions. I'm wondering if there's any preliminary hypotheses about what we
068might expect to see in terms of correlation between academic outcomes and college and career readiness outcomes and and what we're seeing with motivation. I'm wondering if the team has thought about that or anecdotally has seen anything that given them some ideas about that. Um, we can take that back to our data insights team. Um, like I said, there were just some gaps in our data collection that we needed to resolve in the spring administration so we can get more specific on what we're seeing for those trends. So hopefully after the spring um administration, we can develop we can see some trends and we can make some hypotheses on what those impacts are. Terrific. And then and my audio is going in and out. So you may have addressed this already, but I'm wondering um in
069terms of the increase that we see with the belief in ability to improve with effort, what do you attribute that to? Like seventh grade up to 12. I'm sorry, I was having a little bit of trouble hearing. So are you talking about how often do you feel that your effort leads to positive results? That question the belief in ability to improve with effort is that I'm seeing that in my slides. Okay. Um so one of the things that um the data team was looking at is that it one thing that may influence it is just the structure of secondary schools and just the access to elective um offerings um that are based off of student interest. Um, as well as, you know, typically when you enter middle school, there are a lot of activities that
070you're doing around goal setting and thinking about your future and planning ahead. Um, so that could be something that influences those results. Trusty Hazel. Um, and then lastly, um, I'm wondering, so we heard mention of leader and me at Uclid. Um, I think Dr. Dorsy shared that and I'm wondering if they're using supplemental site funds, title one funds to to fund that or if that's supported by the district. And I'm curious if it if we believe that that intervention um is particularly efficacious if we have funding to support that or or other supplemental um activities at at the elementary level. So we have provided all of our elementary counselors with the second step curriculum. Um so that was made possible um through some grant funding a few years back. Um so I believe that Dr.
071Dorsey had also mentioned that Uklid was using second step in addition to leader and me. So there is a combination of efforts there um in addressing the social emotional needs. So I think we would have to figure out how to track the impact of each program um in a way that shows like you know if just singularly leader and me is used versus leader and me and a combination of a different curriculum what's the impact so I think that's something that we can potentially look at and address as well through um the development of our wellness index um and the impact that social emotional learning and curriculum has on that. Thank you. Ryan, I'm hanging up. Our text so good. Why even attend the meeting? I mean, it's just so fluid. Fluid. Do we have
072any other Oh. Uh, yes. Trusty Cruz. Thank you, President Peterson, and thank you, Nicole, Michelle, Steve, for this amazing presentation. So, we have the what and we have the why. But what about the how? How are we as a district going to roll this out to every single school with the budget and resources we have? How can we still ensure that we can bring these efforts on a district scale? We have Deeper with us here tonight. So, how about we get that how by continuing the collaboration between Spotlight Schools and leadership past the data reports to foster that expansion. Thank you. Thank you, Trustee. Trusty Baldis. So, as we talk about mental health, I think we really have to hone into the question of do you have a trusted adult on campus? And seeing the
073stark drop in the middle school level is very surprising and it is very alarming because that is a very transformative time for our students. Do we have any data or insights into why students have Yeah, one of the things um that we know when you're in elementary school, you typically are with uh the same adult all day. Um you may have a VAPA educator coming in at some point in time or a specialist coming in at some point in time, but you still have that consistent singular adult that you're having daily interaction with. And so I it is a big transition to going from having that singular adult to now managing and trying to build relationships with several different adults, right? And those adults can even change at the semester depending on what your class
074schedule is. And so I think that is one of the things that we see influence those results, Quinton, is that it really is a big transition going from building a relationship with your elementary classroom teacher to going to build relationships with five, six, maybe even seven different middle school educators. Can I linger on that on that particular data set because what concerned me the most um when I saw that is third, fourth, and fifth graders that that they have one singular teacher yet some of them don't feel like they have a trusted adult. Like I I'm actually really just honing in on that age group because we're talking you're what 7 8 9 10. So that age range with one singular teacher still at what 76% 71% that that's actually I would have expected a
075lot higher. Um so that's actually the data set that worried me. No definitely that is also very alarming too. So with that being recognized the transition from elementary to middle school do we have any plans to combat this going forward or are we still working on this? So um since coming back from the pandemic, we have been working alongside both our um middle school and high school leaders to develop um summer bridging programs. So programs during the summer that just help to welcome students onto the campus, get them familiar with the campus and the community prior to that first day of school to start building those connections early. Um I do think moving forward future thinking um the focus on that TK12 cluster alignment and really having our school leaders within a cluster work very
076closely together um to ensure that stu that that experience for families is very like consistent um throughout the journey I think will be really important as well and I also want to add that this is the beginning of this data set right and I know I shared the example from La Hoya High school I believe because I I the teacher saying now that I have this data set it's making me look at students with more compassion and so I'm I would be curious of like seeing this data set if I was at I'm going to go back to my elementary school point and I would see that 30% of my children don't feel like they have a trusted adult I would want to dig in more and what does that mean and how do we
077forge relationships and how do we make sure that they feel trusted like all of those things are going to start to emerge just from having the data set alone um Now, of course, there has to be intentional work as we're learning from Deorola. It doesn't happen by accident. Um, but I first think it's the attention we're going to have to pay to the data and then the intention to change it. So, there's some work that we have to do. This is very new information. And then to your point earlier, at some point, we have to say if when this child disengages, we see a decrease in their literacy and ma mathematics. However, we know that this particular topic engages them. So how can we continue to design with that in mind? That's the big vision
078behind having all of this for all of the data sets that we're getting to coales and be coherent. So I completely agree with you on the point that if this is shared with teachers that they'll feel more compassion towards their students. Are we planning on sending this data set out to school sites for them to share with their teachers? Yes. So, as soon as the results were available in the fall, um there were data dashboards that our data insights team um created as well as a protocol for how to analyze the data and how to use that data to make goals within their SPSASs. Um so, that was something that was made available. So, after this next administration in the spring, they'll update um those data dashboards and reshare those out with leaders. Vice President
079Barrera. Thank you, President Peterson. Um, yeah, really, uh, terrific work and congratulations to De Barto and to Uklid for the work that you're doing. Um, a couple of thoughts. One, I very much appreciate not labeling um, activities that are fun and engaging as extracurricular. Um, I think that should be part of, you know, what we're trying to build into, you know, uh, the the entire school day. So, I I I I like that and I like the rephrasing of the question. Um, and then what I'm thinking about because I know we've got, you know, some ability in developing our own survey when it comes to the question of purpose. I'm wondering if we can build something in there about the degree to which students feel like they're contributing to their community. Um, and it could
080be that they're helping their friends. It could be that they're making their school better, their community better, but trying to define purpose as more than just your own uh ability to succeed, but what you do to help other people in your community. It's great, great work. Thank you. All right, I have a couple of questions here. Um, one I want to flag a sort of tension that came up the in the end of last meeting and that emerged again in the student testimony which is around um I think the students were very uh concerned about the data being anonymous which is understandable. Uh on the other hands, the ability of certain levels of administration and other staff to have access to to lessen anonymous data. And there's a there's a paradox where you want to
081address wellness, but then the students don't want you to know whether they're well or not individually. And um so so and that's a genuine like something we have to figure out the balance on because I I definitely hear that concern. So um it would be great to convene student and sta students and staff and this is a Roman question and the the other Irwin question um and uh about figuring out what kinds of questions students are all right or actually want teachers on their staff to know at various levels. um uh I you know I can maybe belonging is something that's like actually I I want you to know I don't feel like there's a trusted adult or I I I don't feel like I belong. Maybe I'm okay knowing that but then I want
082to answer honestly about drug use but I'm scared if I answer an honestly drug about drug use I'm there's going to be consequences. you know, maybe that there but but that's like a very sensitive qu conversation about what we need to know as educators and as administrators um and and and as people in a certain sense social sciences or researchers trying to understand what's happening and then what students want us to know and what they're concerned about us not being able to to identify specifically. So I think that's come up and I just want to flag that as a Yeah, absolutely. So, um, in working towards developing our wellness index, um, I know Scott Irwin has engaged with, um, students as well as parents around an more individualized survey with questions that could drill down
083to the student themselves that they would feel comfortable asking. Um, the other piece of all of this is that when you do drill down to individual results, you have to get active consent. When we're talking about the student survey we um just reviewed, that does not require active consent because we're not drilling down to individual student level data, but just school uh level data. And so there will so students would have to actively consent, their parents would have to actively consent to participate um in a survey that gives individual student data. But we are working with both students and families to determine what those questions could be and hope to pilot that in the fall at several school sites, gain some more feed feedback before we uh would roll it out districtwide. Well, and and
084toward that end, thank you. Toward that end, there are there are a lot of questions where you don't necessarily need to know the exact student identity, but it's useful to understand the various categories they fall into. Um, and so it's blinded in in a way, but that and and my example of this having attended Loy High School back in the day, which was unfortunately in many ways a sort of cast system and you your VEP students and your, you know, various different and you can imagine that some of this data about belonging, especially at the high school level, it's a question of are they resident students that they feel like they belong versus is is the campus doing a good job of of h making deep students feel welcome? of having choice students feel welcome.
085So that's the kind of data where you'd actually you don't necessarily know student name but you need to have an understanding broadly speaking of what categories they fall into because it could be relevant to the data. Um you could have very high levels of belonging in certain groups and and and not those high levels of belonging in other groups. Um yeah. Oh right. Yeah. I mean there's something called institutional research. I I just remember as I Yeah. Whenever you're going to do research that there's a federal standard. Yeah. That you have to meet and and follow those guidelines. Yeah. Um and then um I you know one of the things that pops out is um in the two in the in the the distinction between sense of belonging and uh and and trusted adult. I
086mean that you noted the trusted adults is basically what is it parabolic or something. It's you know and um and then the then the belonging just trails off sort of um and there's probably developmental elements to this this thing and then structural elements about how we deliver the education in in in periods versus you know same instructor all that stuff. But one of the things I find interesting is that your spotlight students clearly I'm actually surprised this is in a certain sense good data that even spotlight students who are in who who who have fallen under the spotlight category by by various factors um um but they we we still appear to be doing a pretty good job in terms of um relatively good job in terms of providing a trusted adult. There's not a
087huge delta between those two lines. However, on the belonging, you do see that delta. And I think part of that, again, this is just common sense basically. I don't know if it's true or not, but it'd be interesting to look at it. Is the thing with having a trusted adult is it's very proximate to our locus of control. We can tell our staff to treat students in a particular way. We can structure classrooms. We can structure structure, you know, uh sports or what whatever we're doing. We have a we can actually address it. But so much of belonging is the responsibility of peers. And so it's somewhat beyond our, you know what I'm saying? You could have very good staff, but they're not effectively getting a peer the the the student body as a whole
088to to create foster within itself a a sense of mutual belonging. And so I guess my question is and and related to that, this is very noisy data. I mean, there's so much going into it. It's just noisy, you know, it's and they're not covariing. So it's like you're doing trusted adults but then belonging they're not it's so what what I would say is my question and this is a certain sense to deport because they appear to be doing something something very much right which is to say one of the things we do to how do you create belonging sense of belonging oh well let's start by doing what's in our control let's create or or or prioritize relationships with trusted adults and you do it and then some campuses it kind of moves with
089that and some it's just like boom Boom. Got yeah great we got a trusted adult but the sense of belonging still in the tank. So I guess my question for you is and maybe it's not available right now but this is to me the core question I think some of the questions people the how that trusty Cruz spoke about what are our sort of top three strategies and again this can be later we can come back to it but for moving beyond trusted adult is clearly one of our strategies but how do we get at a really campus culture or that gets at belonging because it clearly is not it's not perfectly susceptible to trusted adult being being able to move it. You know, it it may move in some cases, but it's not a
090silver bullet. So, what are what are the things that we're doing to leverage out from what is within our locus of control to what is the sort of like chaos of a student body that you have to in some way? I think one of the things and this was one of the gaps that I was talking about is we don't have consistent um ways to monitor like which schools are hosting which activities like the frequency and the quantity of those activities. And so that's also something that we need to um look at strengthening um because I'm sure there's probably a correlation. you would assume that the amount of other activities that are happening on campus and the amount of students who are participating in those activities may impact um that sense of belonging. So, we
091do need to figure out um a more consistent way of quantifying uh the amount of activities. I'm also going to go back to what the student board members shared earlier today is we also need to look at our policies and practices that create barriers for students to participate um in activities because some of these things are not required by ed code but are just policies and procedures that we've chosen to put into place and um I think that we're in a very different spot uh right now the students that we have today and our classrooms lived through something that we as adults had have never experienced before. And so I do think that necessitates us taking a look at what are some of the barriers um to having students participate in some of these activities,
092talking to some of those spotlight students and asking them like if you're not participating in anything like why is that? Is that because there's just not something on campus that you're interested in or is there another barrier that's maybe present uh uh making it challenging for you to participate in something that you would really like to be a part of? Um, so when I was looking at this guard rail, all I kept thinking about was why is this not wellness? This is wellness to me. Yeah. And so, um, I and then I thought, well, I understand like kind of split splintering it off to understand the parts of wellness, but especially related to your question on belonging. That's actually why I love that the definition of wellness includes community because part of being well is
093also how well I treat you and how well I treat my peers. Um, right? Like a bully is not well. And so how do how does how do we think about belonging? I'm actually thinking this is where it's going to be a coherent sort of system. And I think that that's actually where these data points are going to have to merge at a certain point. Just like wellness, motivation, and academics are going to merge. I actually think this will probably be the first merge of how we understand students motivation also has to do with how well they are feeling about themselves, about their body, about their mind. I hope I have the four categories right, but about a community. Um because community really is it's it's if I don't feel like I I belong, it's
094also my responsibility to figure out like how do I also foster belonging? And I've seen that in children. And I love it. Like I have there's little strategies, right? Like the the the bench that people put out during recess. If someone doesn't feel like they have a friend, they go sit on that bench. And I've seen other kids then go to that bench and become friends. So that's something that's taught, but it can but I think at a certain point it has to merge. So that's actually why I appreciated community being in the wellness definition. I think Trusty Hayes hand is back up. Is that accurate? Okay. I don't Can you hear me? Oh, oh, she lives. Yes, we can hear you. Oh, amazing. I just wanted to touch on what uh Superintendent Beula shared
095because I too was having trouble sort of reconciling motivation versus wellness. And I I wonder in looking at at the questions we asked, they do feel much more like wellness. And I wonder are there other questions we might think about asking next year um that might get closer to motivation because I think the intent of the board when we, you know, went with this motivation guardrail was motivation to be in school, right? And so is are there some other items that might help us better understand are you excited to show up in school? And I see I think Trusty Barrett nodding his head because I remember when we went through this the whole idea behind motivation was we don't want to be so focused on academic achievement and compromise motivation that we want kids to
096be excited about their learning. Um and I don't know if these items quite get at that. So maybe we can take a second look at it because I do think we meant it to be distinct um from wellness and I think when the community provided feedback when we were doing our listening they meant for it to be distinct also. Yeah, as I recall the genesis of this, you have to go back to the YouTubetubes here, but um the genesis was initially a conversation about VAPA and not eliminating that, not not reducing VAPA. And that was then it kind of create it it grew into a conversation about all of those sorts of elements of a that are not that not are not not extracurricular but are beyond your narrow conceptualization of academic as whatever ELA
097and and mathematics or something. So yeah I think that that's a valid point that trust all right with Fidel. Yes. Right. Okay. Yeah. If I could just quickly um also share as well, part of tracking student motivation is attendance. Yes. Right. So like what other data points are we looking at? So I'm very excited to say that we just ended our Padres's attendance incentive campaign. Um and our first place school is Hamilton Elementary. Um and our first place middle school is Knox. So, congratulations to Hamilton and Knox for their efforts during our Padre attendance incentive campaign. They will be getting a special um recognition on Thursday for their efforts. Are you able to share like what what does that mean what they won? Like what what was their percentage or was it like they went
098from a lower percentage and or like you know as far as most improved as well as so can you share a little bit more? Yes. So, it was looking at their um attendance, their average daily attendance. And so, it was improving. I believe Hamilton improved more than 1% um over the course of the campaign, which is a significant amount of uh ADA recovery there. Um and Knox was pretty uh close to that as well. So, just really want to congratulate them on that. They will be receiving some tickets to attend um a Padre game as well as some other um prizes. I'd love to see if we can see like the numbers to see what that is. just a little more specific to, you know, because I I I'm excited. I'm happy for them to
099win, but I'd like to see what it looked like, what what the, you know, what the We can send that information. Um Roman developed a leaderboard uh that the um schools could view every week, so we can definitely share that information with you. Looks like Vice President Bur is about to spike a football on this thing. Well, yeah. No, but we remember Hamilton being recognized and presented as a spotlight school on literacy uh in u improvement. And we remember that one of the strategies that um was pointed out was the spotlight students had almost all been defined as chronically absent. And so the effort to bring those students back to school contributed then to increases in literacy. So, it's not it's not surprising, but good for Hamilton. Yeah. All right. With that, thank you so
100much to all of you. All right. Okay. Uh, that brings us to item F1, student discipline. Uh, is there a motion on this item? I I think we should probably take a motion from Since you can't vote on it, I think we should probably take the motions from uh I have Trustee Boso and Trustee Whitehurst Payne. Uh I have a motion in a second. Miss Staltz, are there any speakers on this item? All right. Uh do any of the trustees have questions or wish to discuss this item? Seeing now move to a vote. Um uh board members, please vote. And I will I will talk to her. Okay. Uh, Trustee Hazen, I Okay, that motion passes unanimously. All right. Uh that will get us to item F2, public hearing regarding the initial proposals from the
101California School Employees Association, chapter 788, CSEATBS, to bargain a successor agreement in accordance with section 3547 of the California Government Code and section 1031 of the bylaws of the board of education. The public hearing is now open. Miss Doulson, any speakers on this item? All right. Seeing none, we can open this item for board discussion. Do any trustees have any questions or wish to discuss this item. All right. Um I don't think we need to move an item on this one, but I could be wrong. I think this is just this the the it's a hearing. Um okay. So, uh I seeing that there are no uh additional comments from the board. Um we will now close this hearing. All right. Hearing's closed. Um okay. We will now consider board consent agenda item G1. Authorization
102to excuse board member absence. Is there a motion on this item? I have you. I'm not taking you. Um do I have a motion? Trusty Wyers Payne. Trusty Barrera. All right. Um, we have a motion and a second on this item. Uh, student trustees, please vote. You can excuse yourself. All other board members, please vote. Trusty Hazen, please vote. I. All right. Thank you. That motion passes unanimously with student trustees concurring. All right. We will now consider board consent agenda item H1, emergency waiver for a transformer failure at Hancock Elementary. Is there a motion on this item? All right, Trusty Bazo and a second from trust trustee I'll take Baldis on this one. A second from Trusty Baldis. We have a motion and a second. Uh this is a consent agenda item, so it will
103be brought in on consent without discussion. Uh student trustees, please vote. All remaining board members, please vote. Trusty Barrera. Trusty Hayen, please vote. I. All right. I I That motion passes unanimously with student trustees concurring. All right. Get those transformers fixed. Okay. We will now consider items I through I37. The superintendent's consent agenda. Consent agenda items are considered to be routine and will be enacted by one motion followed by a vote. There will be no separate discussion of these items unless the board, member of the public, or staff requests specific items be removed from the consent agenda for separate discussion and action. Any agenda item removed will be voted upon following the motion to approve the consent agenda. Does the board have any items they would like to have pulled from the consent agenda item
104for discussion? Trusty Cruz. I37. Okay. Trusty Cruz has pulled I37, I believe. Um, there there's some student Trusty Hazen and I'd like to pull I13, please. I13. Okay, I'm taking orders here. Trust Marty, I think we have some public comments on this. Is that correct? The ones that pre-signed up that they're not present anymore. Oh, okay. All right. All right, then. Well, oh, great. Excellent. So uh what we will do now is we will I will entertain a motion on all items I 1 through I36 uh excluding I13 and I37 which is included in I3. Yeah, we got it. We're we are now voting on all items on this consent agenda item consent agenda except for I13 and I37. Do I have a mo motion? Trusty, Vice President Barrera, rather. Do I have a second?
105Trusty Boso, we have a motion and a second. Student trustees, please vote. All other board members, please vote. Trusty Hazen, please vote. I. That motion passes unanimously with all student trustees concurring. We will now move to consider I13 and I37 in their numerical order. All right. I13 uh which was pulled by trustee Hazen. Would you like to make a comment on this? Yeah, just quickly. So, this item uh is about a DODA grant uh that's using uh tutoring uh to support students um I believe in math. and looks like there's going to be an evaluation of this and I'm really interested um to see the impact of this. So I'm hoping that this will the outcome of this intervention will be shared uh with trustees. I think for a while we were talking about tutoring
106and high dosage tutoring and it sort of went away. Um, but I still think and there continues to be research showing um that it can be impactful. And so I think this is an opportunity at the end of this grant term for us to really see the difference it makes um and then determine whether we want to uh roll this out more widely. I I believe in high do tutoring. I high do tutoed my daughter all through elementary school and now she thinks I'm stupid in math and doesn't need my help. So I'm a believer. Um do we have any other board comments on I13? Oh, wait a second. You introduced it. Are you willing to make a motion on this? Yeah, I move to Trusty Hazen with the motion and trusty Bosa with the
107second. Um we have a motion and a second and I believe we still we've lost a vote, but I think we'll be able to move forward. There's not a lot of controversy on this one. Do we have any other comment from the board on item I13? Seeing no further comment, we will move to a vote. Uh, student trustees, please vote on I13. All the board members, please vote on I13. You good with this, Richard? I13. Okay. At Trusty Hazen, I. All right. That motion passes unanimously with student trustees concurring. We will now move to I37. Um, I didn't do this. Well, I'll let you I'll let I guess I should actually get a motion on this thing before before even the puller makes any comments on it. So, do I have a motion on I37?
108Okay, Trusty Cruz uh and Trusty Baldis with a motion and a second. Uh, we will now move to uh board do we have any public comment on this item? We will now move to board comment. Trusty Cruz, would you like to comment? Yeah, thank you, President Peterson. So, among these field trips we're approving today, I'd like to quickly highlight the one from Morse. Out of 26,000 essay submissions, Morse High School's very own Victor Martinez will be has been chosen to represent JerryC's eighth brigade spanning the entire West region and will be playing flying out to Washington DC over the summer to compete against the seven other region representatives. Victor, you're a smart cookie and I have no doubt that you will make Morris and San Diego Unified proud. Go Tigers. Right on. Well, I wouldn't
109have pulled the item for this, but I did see La Hoya High Water Polo. So, those are that's my old team. So, uh, go Vikes. Um, so we have a motion and a second. Is there any additional comment from the board? Seeing none, we'll move to a vote. Student trustees, please vote. All other board members, please vote. Trustee Hazen, please vote. I. All right, that motion passes unanimously with student trustes concurring. [Laughter] curve here. Unless I'm very much incorrect, I think we're on to public comment. Uh, we will now receive public testimony on non-aggenda items. Miss Stoultz, have we received any requests for non-aggenda comment? Yes, we have two speakers. Valerie Traina, she's preparing here. I can see her. You have three minutes. I'm Valerie Triena of District E with a special message tonight as
110a representative of Defense of Democracy, a nonprofit national organization dedicated to protecting inclusive public schools. Defense of Democracy has partnered this month with a social media influencer, Mrs. Frazzled, on a teacher thankathon. I usually thank this board for its tireless work on providing a safe and inclusive learning environment for students in San Diego. Tonight, my focus is on the gratitude I have for our public school teachers. Throughout the years, you have been the welcoming face to hundreds of students regardless of their economic status, their gender, their race, their color, their religion, their abilities or disabilities. You have been there to guide them. You've dried their tears, broke up fights, taught them lessons of tolerance and kindness, modeled loving and appropriate behavior. All in addition to instructing them in math, reading, science, writing, social studies, and
111every other mandated subject. In recent years, you've come under attack by religious extremists who falsely claimed that you were grooming students and pedalling pornography in the classroom and in school libraries. You have been chasened by arrogant, ignorant federal administrators because you dared tell your students the truth about American history or because you offered a frightened child a book featuring a character who represented them. Teachers and librarians, please know that millions of parents and childless people alike value you and are grateful beyond measure for your every effort to relate lessons on human relations and various subject matter to their daily lives. In short, you rock. and Arlene Newark. You have three minutes. Good evening. Over the last five months, I have CCd the board on every relevant email and document related to my EEOC complaints. I've
112submitted detailed evidencebased proposals on policy failures and my ideas to solve them as well as multiple ideas on how to better serve our students. I didn't only complain or rant, I offered solutions. And you know what I got back? Nothing. Not even an acknowledgement of receipt. Your current board response policy does not work. I'm here to say very clearly, silence is not accountability. If someone takes the time to write in with a concern, solution, or policy idea, you should have a clear, transparent process for reviewing and answering it. Your current bylaws don't require that intentionally in my opinion because they are actively protecting dysfunction. I suggest three business days to acknowledge the message or concern, 15 business days for initial response, 30 business days for final action or an explanation of what you plan to
113do with the information presented. If it's outside your jurisdiction, say that, redirect it, own it. I understand that the amount you are paid for the time you put into your positions is not equal. and you're also a public board. Maybe let's see that reflected in your policies. On testimony that was tonight, I would like to say that regarding uh the singular teacher and no uh trusted adult for a three to five grade level. Um I didn't even give that time uh to my kids in kindergarten because I wasn't allowed to. Absolutely. There is no way your three to five year five grade three to fifth grade teachers are being allowed to develop appropriate relationships with their students to be that person. Additionally, uh teachers are people and they only have the skills that they themselves
114have been taught or lucked into learning out of finding out that they have necessity. My strength-based leadership and communication training suggestions would be beneficial to the entire district. Please don't ignore people that have valid suggestions to improve services for our students. That concludes an agenda comment. All right. Thank you, Marty. Well, thank you to everybody for their um for their comments tonight. We appreciate them. And um speaking of of teachers drawing tears, we had our teacher of the year last last week and it definitely there was laughter, there was tears, and we deeply appreciate our teachers. And uh next week we will have a special meeting recognize our classified employees of the year and that will be held on May 20th, 2025. Uh and the next regular meeting will be held on May 27th, 2025.
115And with that, this meeting is now adjourned. [Music]