Board of Education Regular Meeting

001welcome everyone watching on ITV and Via live stream and call the April 30th 2024 regular meeting to order with all board members present and before we start our flag ceremony I would like to recognize that today is Dia deos noos and really hope we are all celebrating all of our children today and every day and now we will move on to our flag ceremony the Mission Bay High School Coast Guard jrc Color Guard will present the colors please stand for the presentation of the colors trusty ciano can you please lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance ready begin 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 thank you please be seated we'll

002now move on to item B1 the adoption of the agenda we'll consider a variety of items tonight including a report on special education student outcomes from our community advisory committee and from staff as well as a request to approve the 2526 academic calendar I'm looking for a motion to adopt today's agenda with item D2 administrative assignments to be heard at the end of the meeting is there a motion I have motion from trusty lavender Williams and seconded by truste Whitehurst Payne let's go ahead and vote student trustees and all other trustees the motion passes unanimously with the student board members concurring Miss Suz 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 meeting that is conducted in public and board members

003will not engage in a 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-agenda public 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 up for discussion when you begin speaking

004the green light below my name on the dis indicates that a 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 at this time we'll hear item C1 associated student body president report and I'd like to welcome ASB president Piper Zin from Claremont High School Piper can you please tell us a little about yourself and what you'd like our board to know about what's happening at your school we always find it helpful to understand how the board's policies are impacting students at your school so take it away absolutely good evening

005super superintendent Jackson president Hazen members of The Board District employees and guests I first want to thank you for having me it's an honor being here presenting to you today my name is Piper zbin I'm the current student body president at Claremont High School this year Claremont has been a year of change for both our ASB and the whole school in general our ASB has gone through several changes over the past year starting with the new adviser transformation in our class structure started immediately we went from a class with little organization doing projects as a pop up to having a structured plan for the for the school year consistently adapting to new ideas thrown our way this new way of working has allowed our ASB to provide new opportunities for the future instead of sticking

006to habitual events we've added new activities and Comm community events that appeal to all attendees such as our new Spring Carnival that nears our school year to an end allowing both our students and community members to relish andjoy from our past year we've also started a new class agenda having all students of our immediate class to organize and run an independent project that works to benefit the whole school two projects I want to highlight are that of Abigail carpentero Elana Garcia Vanessa Lee Natalia r as well as separately Junior Melissa Barrera Medina who is currently on the ballot for District student board Representatives Abby Iana Vanessa and Natalia have taken to liveing up our campus through the simple Act of drawing these students have gone classroom to classroom drawing beautiful pieces of window art that

007both staff and students enjoy not only do this does this simple project brighten up our school atmosphere it also allows our students creative juices to flow which is something we care deeply about Claremont the other project I want to highlight from Melissa Barrera Medina is the creation of a student closet she has been collecting and organizing clothes that have been donated by students staff and community members in order to open up a closet for all students to be able to have new clothes either it be professional or casual that way they go through their day feeling their best and not having to worry about anything other than their academics and extracurriculars it is a project that I Relish in the idea of and know will continue to flourish at our school as our ASP adapts

008to new ch changes so does our entire School in general at Claremont we have what are called academies that focus on in on a specific field of study in career path helping our students prepare for college and life beyond High School this year in addition to offering Business Health and Medical sciences and it and game design we interchanged one field of study with another going from engineering Academy to now what is our digital media production Academy this Academy allows our students to explore career paths that have become a little more modern in recent days rather than your typical stem in business focus from journalism to creative direction to social media management the digital media production Academy is allowing our students to prepare for the modern world in front of them all students continue to have

009access to both engineering and automotive technology as elective Pathways and our mentor and internship programs continue to grow Shameless plug CHS is always looking for new mentors and Inter intern supervisors for anyone who'd like to be part of these amazing programs um also at Claremont we have also we have been progressing to create a better relationship between our school and our community in addition to our normal eighth grade Experience day in which we have eighth graders from our feeder Middle School come in and take a picture of what life is like at Claremont we've reached out and added a day like this for seventh graders as well to prepare students for their future Claremont has made a large effort this year reaching out to our feeder schools and other community organizations in order to share

010what our school has to offer even going as far to giving presentations and having our students talk to elementary schools to get them thinking about what is in get them thinking about what store for their students we've also added a open house style experiences called the student showcase at the end of each term our next one being May 30th which you're all invited to of course this past year Claremont has made an effort to deepen our relationship with our students staff and community members throughout the year we've we've been able to do more than we've ever could have imagined and are working to create and improve upon a positive environment that will not not diminish as years goodby I for one enjoyed my time at Claremont and was able to not only grow as a

011student but also as a person and know that through claremont's Everlasting spirit and dedication to knowledge and exploring our students best interest we will continue to prosper as the years continue thank you thank you paper thank you so much for your report and for your leadership at at Claremont and not only of the students there but encouraging younger students to enroll that's great so what are your plans for next year if you'd like to share them I would love to share I plan on going to UC Davis for cellular biology uh to hopefully become a Dermatologist fantastic thank you congratulations yes trusty baso I just wanted to um follow up on Piper's comment about the internship program at Claremont they have an incredible internship program they've had the opportunity to go and see some of

012the students through their presentations um see you know the programs that they go to and uh really want to I've been pushing to model this more at the at across the district because we've talked about that so yes as she mentioned if any of you own a business or have any ways that you want to Mentor um they have fantastic students at well all our schools of course but at clar with the internship program and they um come out and they you know they work side by side and they learn um a lot uh in this program and so I just want to give you a shout out or give Claremont a shout out and and really lift up the the internship program and thank you for being here thank you thank you we will

013now move on to D1 a report on closed session assistant general councel chapen under D1 are there any reportable actions from today's Clos session yes there's one action um the board voted 520 to adopt the alj's opinion in the matter of reduction and force of certain classified employees thank you and now superintendent under item D3 can you please share your information report yes good evening and uh thank you president Hazen I want to first I want to begin uh celebrating you Piper and my alma Moder Go Chief here we go that's okay but I'm gonna actually uh re recognize that I recog I represent all students and all schools so I'm going to lift up Point lomma High School this evening and Madison I know that's a little crazy right now just kidding uh I

014do want to celebrate our students uh from point LMA and Madison for their video submissions uh for students speaking out uh this is a County uh Crim Stoppers campaign and they submitted their Public Service Announcement uh videos and actually this is about uplifting student voices uh this idea of when you see something say something to be able to report it to uh our school administ administrators our our staff parents uh law enforcement so that we can really um advanc this notion of stopping crime on our campuses and uh this year students from point LMA actually took first and third place uh in their submissions and our students from Madison took second place and so we had first second and third places uh by our students congratulations to all of the students yes and uh thank

015you trusty Whitehurst Payne for attending the luncheon uh other duties as assigned uh she says so um uh certainly and we'll make sure that the video is uh shared with all the trustees and I'll talk to uh Marine McGee to make sure that we can get it on our website she says yes thank you Marine um I also want to recognize another board trustee and um you may want to share a little bit but this weekend or this this week uh trusty lavender Williams actually yesterday was yesterday uh she organized a college tour for our students who have historically been marginalized and disadvantaged and I will say she organizes with young and prosperous and um the black student union at uh San Diego State and it was incredible to have students from Crawford um from

016your high school uh Lincoln uh Hoover and Morris and outstanding uh students and uh great I don't know if you want to share a few words um um for me it was just very important to expose these students to higher education and to promote them to having those conversations around admission and financial prep because it's not talked about enough and I've been so blessed to get the exposure to college and financial aid and stuff like that so just exposing my fellow students to that was extremely important to me thank you uh trusty lavender Williams and I committed to her that we're going to double it yes double the size and I'm also going to insert Cal State San Marcos in there as well um because we do have that partnership uh thank you Dr bagula

017um for organizing that and uh we really want to make sure that our students are exposed and have the opportunity uh speaking of colleges and universities uh thank you to Dr bagula uh we have officially joined the Hispanic Association of colleges and universities uh now that we've joined um this is really aimed to become a Hispanic serving institution uh which identifies higher education institutions that have at least 25% of their student population as Latin X and uh as we look to serve our student population I think this is a a huge step forward and uh this is you know we've been knocking on the door and finally Dr beula um knocked hard enough that they open the door and now that the door is open we get an opportunity to walk through that door for

018our students and so I want to lift that opportunity up uh and thank you uh Dr beula and yeah give it up for for our students yes and uh we want to make sure that not only the students who sit on this uh Das but all of our students have the opportunity to attend whatever College University and go into whatever career field that they choose uh lastly I want to thank the the entire board uh for coming together on April 17th uh continuing our work uh as a governance team around student outcomes focused governance and really identifying um very four clear um outcomes of very clear goals and um like to invite you president Hazen if if you'd like to share a few words uh representing the entire board on the way forward and I

019I just think this is a great way forward for us allows us to focus and align our uh single plans uh at our school sites with our lcap with our vision for 20130 and our student outcomes Focus uh goals by the board U so if you'd like to share I would thank you superintendent Jackson so I will provide a brief update on the board's student outcomes focused governance work uh since last July our board it's been that long has been working with the council of great City Schools to develop governance practices and measurable goals that are in alignment with the outcomes are Community desires for our students and I'm sharing this report today for all of you who participated in our listening sessions and we said we're going to come back to you and we're

020going to tell you what we heard and what we're doing and so this is the next step uh in sharing that information with you as a board we recognize that our current governance and accountability practices are not yielding the results we seek as many students still remain far from educational Justice our aim is to create the conditions for improvement in both academic and social emotional outcomes as we know both are critically important to long-term success and are often mutually reinforcing since I last reported on this work here at a board meeting on February 13th the district has conducted a survey and ustes all of our trustees facilitated 10 listening sessions all across our communities with families students community members and partner organizations to get your feedback about what students should know and be able to

021do as a result of a San Diego unified education we also asked what the district should avoid or stop doing we know that there are some things we're doing that are getting in the way of students success so we ask what we should avoid or stop doing to ensure our students are ready for college and for careers of their choice on April 17th the board held a 5H hour public Workshop to review the information gathered from the listening sessions from the community survey and also hear a root cause analysis uh that our staff prepared we use this information to draft specific and measurable five-year student outcome goals that will guide the work of our district starting next school year our draft goals focus on measurably improving communication skills problem solving skills wellness and College and

022Career Readiness for spotlight students the board's next step is to identify specific guard rails which are shaped by the community's stated values these guard rails will inform the superintendent's work to achieve our student outcome goals we're holding a public lcap and student outcomes Focus governance workshop on May 24th all are invited to finalize our goals ensure their alignment with the new elap as superintendent Jackson mentioned and to Begin work on our draft go guard rails we hope that students families and educators will join us at the workshop on the 24th to continue sharing your feedback uh as we continue with this process thank you so much president Hazen and that concludes my report this this evening very good moving right along we'll now hear item E1 the community advisory committee for special education's semiannual report

023and staff report on students receiving special education services you may now introduce thank you president haen I'd like to invite uh Scott sod up uh he is our chairperson of our community advisory committee uh also Dr ni Watkins uh she'll be joining us she is our executive director of special education and they will be presenting the semiannual report along uh with several staff members and I'm going to turn it over to Nicole thank you Dr Jackson I appreciate it um so good evening um we are very excited to have this joint presentation in Partnership um with our Community advisory committee um on some of the goals that we presented earlier this year so if you remember this is actually our second um presentation that we've had this uh to the board this year and so

024we just wanted an opportunity to show our progress um towards the goals that we previously shared so we're first going to talk a little bit about the need to refine our systems and structures um which has been a really big data dive process for us over the past uh six to seven months to identify what are some of the challenges that we're facing in attaining our goals and how do we address those challenges in a way that improves communication with our families our students and our schools um we'll also be talking about the progress that we've made towards goal one graduation rates um our goal around responses to behavior um as well as due process filings and then we do have an update um we had a quarterly report uh due to the state regarding

025our comprehensive coordinating early intervening Services which we call cace for short um that we wanted to just inform the board about tonight so first as I mentioned um it was really imperative as we were engaging in this work throughout the year that we did an in-depth analysis of our special education data and also listened to our educational Partners through empathy interview processes um so we did connect with many different types of Educators both general education and special education as well as families um central office staff and site administrators to identify common themes for improving our systems and structures in order to better support our schools our students and our families and so as we progress through tonight's presentation you'll see some of those common themes appear for each of the goals and how we're using

026um that data analysis to inform our work moving forward so our first goal is really related to increasing our graduation rates for our students with IEPs our current graduation rate is 67% we want to increase that to 70% for the class of 2024 so this data that you see right here is inclusive of semester 1 as well as quarter 1 and quarter 2 grades so for the class of 2024 you can see that we have approximately 634 students that are on track um which is roughly 75% um of the population we have about 115 students that are on the path for a certificate of completion so these are typically our students in the moderate severe program who earn a certificate of completion and then we have about 88 students that are off track so again

027this is on the assumption that all students captured here pass their courses during quarter 3 quarter 4 and semester 2 and so one of the data points and common themes that really came through in our analysis is our educational Partners really believe that there should be different Pathways to a diploma um and in particular how are we providing a general diploma pathway that aligns to State graduation requirements so a focus of a lot of our work this year has actually been on the the implementation of the essential diploma which is a new requirement per the CDE to make sure that there is an alternate diploma for our students who currently qualify to take the California alternative assessment so this is very specific again um to our moderate severe population who qualify to take that assessment

028they can now participate in this essential diploma pathway so we've engaged in a lot of work in devel V oping the courses for the essential diploma pathway um and thinking about what are the needs for professional learning uh not just for our Educators but how are we also educating our parents and our families about the option for this pathway and how are we uh arming our families and our students with information where they can make an informed decision on whether or not they want to go on this pathway because it is an optin so it's not an automatic that our moderate severe students um go on the essential diploma pathway they do have to opt to be part of that pathway and so here you can see uh what we're looking at for our current

029Pathways for diploma which we have our a through G diploma pathway there is still an option two diploma pathway that aligns to the general uh state requirements that our students with IEPs can pursue at Trace Garfield or Twain and then we have our new essential diploma for those students who qualify for the California alternative assessment and we will still have the option of of a certificate of completion for families who do not want to pursue the essential diploma pathway and with that I will turn it over to Mr sod uh thanks very much good evening everybody um yeah I just have a a couple comments based on U what you just talked about so very excited to see that the uh graduation rate is uh increasing um and certainly um the the essential pathway or

030the ESS diplomas a part of that however I I'm not sure where the you know where in that pie chart they're going to take from Mostly I would assume it's going to come from the um uh the certificate of completion uh portion um uh you know that said there's you know I I applaud the district for um rolling out this is certainly a good step and thankful that they're on the Forefront uh but there are still several issues that need to be addressed and worked on um this is available for the class of 2026 um but they may not have had the required credits to uh receive the diploma because the the classes were not offered right they didn't exist so how could they have taken them um so things to look into would be

031uh waivers or see if like this this course that they did take would actually like apply to that uh or alternatively to um since the even with receiving this diploma they can can still continue in education after they turn 18 that the idea would be that they can still walk with their cohort graduating class and and then continue on taking those courses so uh uh certain uh they should not be denied walking at graduation simply because they were not offered the courses to uh make the diploma um the other thing is uh obviously IEP teams and families need to know about it this is going to require a lot of uh education um there's uh still there still a lot a lot of work that needs to be done in order to let people know

032what it exists that it exists what it is how it works uh what it is and is not um and so you know the concern is that adoption would be slow uh I'd be interested to see there's apparently 80 um uh students that are eligible in that class and how many actually receive it right what's the what's the percentage that actually will would uh choose to receive it um and again the I applaud the team for the work that they're doing uh a lot of work to roll it out there are still questions on what the content of the courses is as well as how they are graded um and the other thing to point out is that this is not necessarily a solution for all students in the mo that have moderat severe disabilities

033uh we heard from um uh one one of our members whose uh child due to their disability can't read so it's just like that they're probably unlikely going even though this is a fabulous option for for some people it's still not going to be for every student in that uh category um back to the graduation rate uh overall the U the meaningful graduation work group led by Dr Jen Roberson has been uh meeting for uh the past two years on um uh reviewing the uh graduation requirements for the district and trying to get uh different Pathways um I'm very hopeful that that work will improve outcomes for all students including students with disabilities uh to um so that everybody has a pathway for uh the um Pathway to a diploma and that the uh the

034Gap from the um those who graduate uh in the in from General Ed the the the the the Gap closes the success Gap closes I apologize being uh not being very clear about that I turn it back over to yeah to me thank you not sure who that's me who goes next good evening I'm Jennifer Huger hiide um I'm going to report on our goal to progress which was to decrease our Behavior Support request by 5% from the 2223 school year which was approximately 30 less referrals um decreasing from 587 to 557 so this slide illustrates the comparison data by grade level from 2022 23 to this year as of March 11th and as you see we have not met that goal um uh because we are already at 20 more than we were last

035year these requests vary in type the requests are aligned by the levels of behavior in the restorative discipline policy so we get many from level one level two and level three U behaviors so from as minimal as of task Behavior to um physical aggression in the three and while the majority of these requests are reactionary in nature our hope is that we can shift those requests into more proactive work so that sites are requesting our Behavior Support resources department to come out and help with those proactive support so that we don't get to these challenging behaviors um as you see uh of the 607 total requests so far this year the highest number continues to be in our utk with about 80 total and this year we actually did see an uptick in our first

036grade as well so our early Learners are experiencing the most challenging behaviors in further analysis of our utk you see a percentage there of 53.3 of those requests in our utk K are for students with IEPs and then 68.9% of those requests in utk andk are for our students who are African-American latinx or multi-ethnicity based on this data we understand that we need to provide some more training as well as coaching for our utk and kindergarten staff support transitioning from our early childhood special education program as well as some of our incoming Learners who do not currently receive IEP supports and this year we focused on professional training specifically for our par Educators who often work the closest to our youngest Scholars so what we're hearing from from our educational Partners is that our parent

037Educators often do not have a strong foundation in behavior management they ask for professional learning opportunities to build a higher level of understanding and skills in behavior management so the graph there shows the number of um participants in those targeted uh Behavior Support strategies that are evidence-based so the deescalation we had 5 80 attendees total that included both teachers and Par Educators and of the 580 113 were our par Educators and then the inclusive practices trainings which could have included things such as positive behavior strategies proactive classroom management supporting students with autism in the general education setting we had 900 participants in those trainings and of those 900 680 were par Educators so after those trainings occurred when collaboration requests came in to our Behavior Support resources department our Behavior Support teams provided side-by-side coaching

038to teachers as well as par Educators and our goal was to increase the paraprofessional participation in these professional learnings by 30% over the um next three years and while we see that participation has significantly improved I think the missing piece is uh focusing on working with both our teachers and Par Educators and collaborating together and coaching them as well through those um strategies that they learned in the training we recognize also that we do have some additional needs with regards to our Early Education you see two additional needs up there the first is our early childhood special education classroom based assessments so our early childhood assessments currently are given Ono one individually to students um and we are shifting that model to assessing each student within a group evaluation setting transitioning to this diagnostic classroom

039model We Believe will enhance the accuracy and comprehensiveness of the evaluations leading to better informed decisions and improve outcomes for our children and their families if we place students in the most appropriate setting based on those evaluations early behavior intervention can be implemented the second additional need that we will be utilizing to support our Early Education is the inclusive Early Education expansion opportunities program Grant otherwise known as the EP Grant with this grant opportunity there will be specific ongoing training for our Behavior Support resources department staff on effective coaching for both our teachers and Par Educators to understand the skills that our students need with regards to behavior supports and with that I'll pass it back over to Scott uh thank you I'm going to start with the um the Early Childhood special education so

040uh Dr bagula has been leading a a work group to um change how our early childhood uh special education uh looks like including assessments and placements uh things like that so um hopefully that will um address a lot of these uh a lot of these concerns and um to to have more uh options available such that uh that more students can receive uh Early Childhood special education um part of the um part of our concern with the implementation is that there's going to be so many various you know places for kids to go different types of classrooms is it a general Ed is a preschool is it a separate setting is it a is it a utk classroom uh that uh parents are going to be lost in this so part of uh the work

041group or part of what we've been advocating for in the work group and uh hope to see it implemented is some some sort of parently aison where they can just talk like what exactly it is what are my options because uh too many times the the parents don't necessarily have uh enough uh information and resources in order to properly make what is the best thing for my child um or even what options are available and and uh in the past I'd say that the IEP teams can sort of just say no we're just GNA do this right and provide not necessarily recommendations but not necessarily give uh all of the pro U you know the things that are available to them um uh as far as the Behavior Uh professional develop training um very happy

042to see that that's happening with a pair of professionals um but one thing I want to tease out though is that the you know the this is for students of all ages uh all ages and inclusion in general education leads to the best outcomes behavior problems cannot be thought of as a special ed problem um and it's it's wonderful that par Educators were getting this training however how is that then implemented in the general Leed classroom is it still the the teachers general education teachers need to have the Buy in that this is also their problem um and it's not just well the perah knows how to deal with it that is not how it's supposed to work um and so I'd very much like to see the teachers uh get more of the training

043than just the par Educators and dealing with the uh behaviors and things like that um thank you Scott good evening board so I'm here to present on our third goal and our third goal was to decrease the number of alternative dispute resolution referrals that result in a due process filing we were hoping to decrease this by three less filings for this school year 2324 so the the data that's being presented currently shows that our alternative dispute resolution team has received about 128 referral re request excuse me of those 128 our team is still working with about 44 sites Andor families 82 of those refer referrals have gone on to resolution meaning the teams were able to work together and bring some type of resolution um with the site team and the families two of those

044cases still resulting in a due process due process filing and this date is as of of March of this year so in listening to our educational Partners what we're hearing is that they're asking that our administrators should be trained in handling the IEP processes that we replace our current alternative dispute resolution with Comprehensive and continuous access to information and professional learning so with these things in mind we're looking at a new process based on our department reorganization for next year this was done in consultation with an industry expert and our goal is to focus on strength in our Partnerships with our families and our sites so next year our ADR processes will reside under our area program manager teams the goal of this reorganization is to like I said strengthen the Partnerships between our families

045and our and our site teams by having our area teams as you can see here work directly with a particular area of schools where they can be side by side with families on a continuous basis side by side with our staff on a continuous basis currently if there's a concern our site teams or our families have to go to someone else outside of the school campus to resolve a situation our goal is to bring that support back to the campus so that our families can have that support immediately so that our teams can have that support and so that we could begin to build back that trust between our site teams and our parents that that's our ultimate goal we're also hoping that through this partnership back at the campus level that as our families

046transition from elementary to Middle from middle to high that because our teams will be aligned per area that same support those relationships that they've built will continue on from middle to high excuse me from elementary to middle and middle to high because it will be the same area teams supporting those families from utk excuse me from exy Early Childhood all the way up to um age 24 our Trace programs and as you can see from the diagram our area teams which um now consist of one person will consist of multiple people who will be supporting a school an area of schools so they will have that direct contact UM instead of having to go outside of the campus to receive that support and and lastly this this additional support I think I mentioned will also

047give us the opportunity to be a little more timely in our responses to our families Scott um it's frustrating that we're using ADR to make a determination of you know where we're at in the in the thing since ADR is not going to be around next year uh it's doubly frustrating because this is ADR program has been a something the CAC has been advocating for for many many many years um I and it's you know as more frustrating that it was implemented using covid funds and so then when the money ran out well just that's what that's what goes um I don't think it really got a chance to really do what it could have been um I my largest concern is that you know I yes I understand all of the implementations how we're

048going to do the same type of work we're just going to do it with through I AP teams I just fear that it's going to lead to more due process cases because families don't have a quote neutral place to go to get their voices heard um I would love to be wrong good evening I am really honored to be able to um share our um implementation progress on the comprehensive coordinated early intervening Services plan this plan um was um developed across the uh District's departments um with input from family as well as students and um additional educational Partners uh just as a quick reminder we were found um significantly disproportionate by the state and had 27 months to go through a um four-stage process of data Discovery prior to um developing the plan and then

049implementing the plan and then moving on to sustainability right now we are currently um serving uh 1,37 students those students um in accordance to the eligibility for receiving Services as determined by the state and federal government had to be students that were impacted so I'll remind you of what the impact was um our significant disproportionality came out of the over representation of African-American students with IEPs in the area of discipline specifically um school out of school suspensions so we know that San Diego unified has engaged in um several um areas of support um and we wanted to ensure that we were expanding that support and that we were partnering outside of the district as well so we've had some great collaborations when principles and school sites that um are participating as ca's focal schools was

050provided with um the strategies and activities that they could engage in the majority chose um restorative justice practices um we also have um additional supports expanded supports is what we like to call that for social emotional learning um culturally affirming activities and practices um partnering with our equity belonging Department um and Equity teams a multi-tiered system of support for both academic and behavioral additional expanded support as well as mental health Wellness along with family and Community engagement currently we are um really excited to see that suspension rates at The Cay focals schools have um seen a decline and we wanted to take a look at um the students the school the we wanted to take a look at um all the students with suspensions at the school to see what that impact currently looks like

051as well as looking at our C's focal students and we noticed the trends for semester two from last school year as um as well as for the 2223 three um moving us into the excuse me 2324 school year that the trends for spring are much higher in suspension rates I think that we all have seen that data um what we are really leaning into is the fact that uh we do have a decline um currently and we want to talk a little bit in the next slide about why we feel um supports to the school sites have helped to um provide that uh data of that decline the academic performance that you see here is based off of the particip participation for students that are ca's focal students that will be taking a look at

052their state assessments from this spring as well as local assessments and when we take a look at attendance as one of our other criteria for monitoring we see that last school year there were a total of 96 to C focal students that were considered chronically absent while we see the trend um still leading in that way with our first semester this year of 400 and I believe that says 92 um we are still incouraged that many of the expanded supports for school connectedness um as well as again the culturally affirming activities um and additional supports to SCH School sites will still show gain one of the reasons why we're leaning into and being so positive is we have experienced um seven educational Partners supporting our restorative practices across 13 Schools they're really supporting what we

053know Works students continue to let us know that when they have caring trusted supportive adults that they feel that they are able to express themselves they are able to ask for the support when they need it and we've heard the same from our Educators and administrators we also know that students um really wanted to have an opportunity to have student-led activities um many students also shared during our focus groups um that they were wanting to have opportunity to seek support for social emotional learning needs um and so what our next um steps are um is to provide a report at the end of the year as to the empathy interview impact as well as um additional data points and we really are looking forward to continuing supporting schools with the family connections we have a

054wonderful video that um illuminates and illustrates these supports that we hope that you will have time to take a look at they show shared wisdom from our young scholars our Educators and administrators and it just gives us a perspective that we don't typically get to see thank you okay um I I don't have much to add to the CC other than to say that to the extent that things are working at these schools then should look at you know rolling it out to other places as well seems obvious but might as well State the obvious um so yeah final thing is a plug for our above and beyond celebration I know uh many of you have joined us in the past it'll be next next week right good uh 6:30 at Wilson Middle School uh

055we've received uh around over I think 130 nominations uh we have 20 winners including one team of 12 people so um it's always a highlight of our year so I invite you all to attend and uh hope to see you there thank you very much thank you thank you thank you all so much uh Miss salz do we have any speakers on this item okay do any trustees have questions or wish to discuss this chy barera thank you president haen yeah my is the question is the simple question that Scott raised so first of all what what makes a school a CIS CIS school what makes a student a cus student and what is it that we're doing there that we're learning about that is um producing positive results that we can be thinking about

056taking to scale for the ca's focal um I'll talk about the C's focal students eligibility the state requires that we take a look at the students who were impacted so that was the our African-American students as well as any other student group that um may be experiencing similar impacts and so that was our latinx community as well we did tend to see um higher rates of um suspensions and over representation and discipline and then when we took a look at multiple ethnicities students that also um were uh considered African-American students with multiple ethnicities also had a higher rate of um receiving suspensions so that was our first layer and then we need to take a look at not only discipline but any other areas that could be um compelling and impacting students which is why

057we were um broadening our scope with um attend attend as well as uh looking at academic performance yes yes we wanted to um ensure that um because our I don't know this year's um enrollment of African-American students but our enrollment of african-amer American students I think um in previous years was around 7% and so when we took a look at um where our students um were attending school that was one of the um determining factors of selecting RCA vocal schools thank you for that question um consistency and so um there's really no big ahas like we have our educational um Partners some are here tonight Educators Cooperative have has been just um tremendous in really supporting staff with um that we don't have um you know any like uh tricks or different things that you

058know you would assume um we just haven't learned yet it's really looking back at what we know works but to provide that layer of um professional development but really the coaching after that professional development listening to our students as they're telling us what their needs are and being receptive of that and then um the what I mentioned about that video it really does show that um students Educators and administrators are expressing that um relationship with the trusted caring adult and I see that um Dr Jackson's like right and and so our support has really just been expanded and we're really wanting to um provide those data points uh the we had 27 months so on September 30th cace will be um completed but not our work of course um and I almost forgot to mention

059the most exciting thing too was we are no longer significantly disproportionate um so we have come we have come out we have come out on the other side but still have much work to do what year are you looking at it's the data that's sorry the data that's reported is is like three years old so it's like I don't think it's 2020 necessarily but you know we're it's getting closer yes thank you Scott it is getting closer than what it used to be because it was like a threeyear span so it is looking at the most recent monitoring that came out of our um 20 22 20 22 23 school year do you want to add anything trusty lavender Williams thank you amazing presentation I just have a quick question of clarification when you were

060speaking of the focus groups of students bringing up how they have social they want to learn social emotional learning and a more Community engagement were the schools that you have listed involved in that process or how did you kind of have that focus group determined with students yes some of those um students were from those same schools as well chusty white her pain I think Richard has learned some of my questions but uh which is a good thing because um trusty lavender Williams just talked about the schools and most of them are my schools of course right District e thank you for that but as I've gone through the support several times it just seems in response to the question that you had just asked and you were applauding yourself on we just need to

061do the job we need to do the job folks are being paid to do the job right Scott that's the idea I agree we need to engage with the students we need to monitor we have to follow up people are assigned to do this it's not happening why isn't it happening why did the state have to give us the money to tell us to do the job on this for the students we have to do a better job with following up right on all of this because the improvements that are coming forward and I I like that I like the fact that we're doing interim reports now we're not waiting just giving us something in the beginning and at the end and there's no opportunity to improve and and I found myself wanting to know

062when you were talking about the training for obviously the the um I call them the babies the et's and the utk and the K's and some people describe them as yes those are those pandemic babies that were going up instead of down but what kind of training are we doing for them I mean what are we doing to help the folks who are required to work with them to do it better so that it's not the numbers are going up and it's at that level which says that we don't have the skills or we're not focusing maybe we need to get some outside doctors or psychologist or somebody to help us to understand what to do to help our children at that level because I mean it's very clear on page nine we've got that

063today it's just going up at that level primarily and you're all nodding because you realize that but you know I I just think that I don't know what you're doing for training but that's where we really have to focus some attention yeah absolutely I think that that's the piece that um Jennifer was narrating about that Early Education implementation Grant the EP Grant it is giving us the opportunity not just to provide professional learning but that side by-side coaching because that's really where we see things go into action right like anyone can attend a professional development session but to actually go out in the field and be side by side with the Educators to show what it looks like in practice practice that's where we're going to really see change and movement and so we've already

064started implementing some of the foundational learning sessions for our Educators and now the next step is that coaching piece in that side by-side model and so we're really excited to see that come in fruition especially in this upcoming school year so that we can start to see that shift also uh I like the notion that you're talking about with the group uh assessments now and interventions rather than oneon-one if you have a child in the adult world and functioning with in that world is different from functioning with other children so uh I'm glad that you're finally focusing on that to do that um someone said that Dr bagula said hopefully it will help address it and I hope that you guys are taking notes because that says experimental to me it says that we're trying

065this but we're not sure so that's why we really have to work this so that we're getting this right with our children so we're not experimenting with them um and I like the idea that the adrs are going down I heard you what you said Scott about this was finally working and now we're taking it away please monitor it with your committee to be sure that you're not getting more complaints um okay let you guys help us with that and um let's see I think I've touched on most of my general points here and I'm glad to hear that you have 130 nominations for May 9th thank you all for the report you good job triste korano thank you president Hazen I want to first thank um for such a thorough presentation and I especially

066appreciate the fact um that our community Council and our team are working together on this and I again appreciate the fact that we have interim reports now um my first kind of question is when I see these 88 students that are off track what was the barrier there why so um it could vary I mean it's really down to the individual student right so it's really looking to see what the challenges are for when you do fail a class what opport opportunities are there to gain that knowledge right so whether that's retaking the class during the school year or during summer or maybe the student schedule was very impacted and and it didn't it didn't fit um and so it really there isn't really like a singular reason because you do have to take it

067down to the individual student level to figure out what one of those um barriers are um but I think from the CAC perspective and this is a lot of the work that the meaningful graduation group has been doing are certain courses that have become barriers or challenges Have We Become like so rigid in our requirements that it becomes very specific what track you're on and if you vary even a little bit off that track it's hard to get back on in order to earn a diploma so it is really a lot of different um factors that contribute to that and I know that the meaningful graduation group is continuing to do a lot of work um with our parents and with our students and with our school leaders to identify different ways that folks can

068earn diplomas through different types of coursework I just add on U just a little bit with that Nicole is absolutely right there's not like one specific like you know I'd love to say as one course and then just get but it's unfortunately not um what part of in in in through the meaningful graduation group we did look at uh students with disabilities that we're off track and why right and it really some of them are you know why are they in this class this makes no sense right they're in an applied class versus a you know just an A through G requ required course but and then you look back to it really started in middle school right that they were placed in a class in middle school and then are now off track for

069the rest of the time and so part of the meaningful graduation is to um have that alignment all the way starting well you know all the way through but really start starting in Middle School to be like okay in middle school now and then and then what is your schedule going to look like going to high school and and having those options and uh Choice involved and not just you must take this particular class and that might be the pain point for that particular student and this happens for all students not just students with disabilities got it and then I was also um kind of wondering about specifically um I really appreciate what Scott said about with regards to professional development the idea that these inclusive practices and these deescalation practices are not just for

070par Educators but if we really want to have a skilled staff do you have kind of more disaggregated data about these uh 580 and these 900 numbers about how many you said like two 60% were par Educators do you have kind of more data about that but also how is that reflected in your goal if at all right so um we do have more desegregated data I don't have it here but I can get that for you um there were some general Leed teachers in those trainings as well as education Specialists so but um yes we will get that data for you and then is that reflected in your goal if at all or or is it not well our goal was to increase the professional development for our par Educators but we absolutely want

071to increase our professional development for all but I along with that is that side by-side coaching that got Nicole spoke about as well thank you yeah absolutely and then my sorry my last thing um is that it sounds like uh and I I really appreciate the idea of the um area program manager being a team of experts and Community man managers I really see a lot of a lot of potential there can you kind of outline what the current reality is because you said that it was like one person doing all of this jobs like what's the change here looking like yeah so the current reality is is that we have a program manager that supports about 30 schools um all things special ed and so um our goal is to give them a team

072of Staff underneath them so that they can focus on supporting our principles side by-side coaching of our principles but those team members can as you saw in the slide we have um team members that are BS from BSR Department we also have um um non-public uh staff that are going to be a part of that team we also have additional school psychologist as well as area courts our area courts will be side by side with those teachers and so they can do some of that side by-side coaching they can also address some of those issues that may come up around the IEP process as well as support our families so again current reality is a team of one and now we're saying that uh we need to expand the support for our sites so that

073we can um build back those relationships awesome thank you and trusty Jano those are central office resource teachers sorry she threw an acronym in there but I just yes central office resource teachers I think I have like two two more things so sorry it wasn't the last thing um Scott you mentioned that specifically with alternative dispute resolutions about like I guess what it could have been um do you think that you know what these um area sorry area program managers you talked about like it can be what do you want to see out of this I found that really interesting about like what what could have been sure um sorry I'm laughing because I'm like well if I was you know put in charge and whatever I suppose that's what you're asking me um yeah

074I mean a a completely neutral program that has actual power to do stuff right because like before as as the ADR currently stand the basic system was sort of like a almost like a Consulting thing of trying to like well you know you have this and you have this but like you know if it worked like a true mediation where there was uh and they were truly neutral too because this is still ADR still District staff right so um I don't so yeah if it was uh if it was a truly neutral place to mediate disputes um that would be probably ideal um uh I don't know that that's realistic but you know that that's sort of what I would have uh you know I for those who don't know I am a lawyer so

075I'm used to Med like I've gone to mediation truly neutral place to go and the mediator can say no you're wrong and no you're wrong and so we need to come up with something you know that that actually works right here's what you know if you go to due process this is what it would look like you might not get the result that you want and really have that um because part of it is ADR can provide these consulting services but then if there's not the follow through with the IEP team then you know it it was what's the you know of course the of course the family is going to go to to to to to do process right you know if the if the IEP is not listening to them so I suppose

076that's my ideal State um and and do you think that you know what we have at least in this presentation can really reflect that look I I you know I don't know that it's going to happen um like I I I I am the optimistic side of I don't have an optimistic side never mind um my I only have a cynical one um uh if there was an optimistic side I do understand how the the teams are now expanding to be uh in the various areas and and so it's not just a program manager focusing on one particular issue right and so and also to build that that trust and relationship um throughout the the students career right they're going to be hopefully working with the same team throughout their um their time in the

077district so so that there is more of a trusted relationship um and you know if the if the central office had more authority to you know it's the the the problem becomes with the IEP teams on at the school sites themselves and you know if they're not behaving correctly then you know somebody needs to be able to step in with authority to actually you know uh do what needs to happen that's that's so that's a that's my idea State anyway I'll get off my Soap Box no no I appreciate that I think it painted a really a really detailed picture and I appreciate what you said about you know a long-term connection throughout the entire child School experience the last thing is kind of a side note the the last thing is kind of a

078side note specifically um with the number of students with a suspension between 2022 and 2023 between semester 1 and semester 2 that's what 52 students which is a market ly more than the nine of the Year am I reading the data wrong I am reading the St wrong never mind thank you can you clarify the slide for all of us please just to make sure we're all understanding it the suspensions SL 18 I believe is it yes that's correct the slide's a little funky because of yes if you could break it down again so for um looking at the ca uh focal schools we see a decline in suspensions overall on the left side and on the right side is the decline in suspensions for C uh students that are considered CS focal students thank

079you very much you're welcome vice president pon um yeah first of all thank you very much um it's it's always a little strange when you're an executive officer and you've seen this and there's the response so it's you know I don't want to restate some of that because you you respond to it very effectively so I appreciate that um one thing I want to flag what you flagged in our previous discussion which is that in a way there's some good news sort of in this in that the certificate of completion isn't counted on our graduation rate so really our special education graduation rate the denominator you could either think of it as the denominator should include the COC or you could think about alternatively in relation to your um your if you think about the

080alternative diploma once we get that online then you can actually have a more accurate view of what's happening with our mild tood students does that no not necessarily because um our mild uh to moderate students don't qualify for the essential diploma and also don't qualif the reason why is because the denominator would be clear so in this case the real denominated there there's two separate phenomena going on there's a certificate of completion which is predominantly mod severe students correct and there is the PO portion of your pie chart that is that is mild tood some of whom are on track for graduation some of who aren't so I'm just saying that the alternative diploma would allow you to see distinctively in relation to your mod severe but the real denominator in relation to your mild

081to mod is really your 80 is really your 75.7 plus your 10.5 correct and so the effect of graduation for your mild to mod is actually at this point what 88 88% or something so I'm just saying conceptually it it changes how you think about where we are in in terms of serving that population absolutely and I think in future reports we'll want to disaggregate the data between the two specific populations when we're talking about our moderate severe versus our mild mod especially given this essential diploma because the the students that do choose the essential diploma will count towards our cohort graduation rate and so it will be interesting to see that distinction um between the two groups right and then the so and then just a couple more things so um the the the

082challenge with with reducing BSR referrals as a as a a Target is you could be having a reduction in BSR because you f Ed capacity at site to handle Behavior but you could also have an increase in BSR because your product is so awesome um you know if we were getting a fee for it you'd be like we're increasing BSR rates because everyone loves this this service so I guess my question is um how do we how are you thinking about the effectiveness of your your interventions rather than just the referral rates because the referral rates are they're um equivocal yeah I think one of the um pieces that we also need to disaggregate is the request for proactive versus reactive right and so like how many folks are tapping into BSR for the proactive

083work like hey I'm seeing this behavior and I could use some support in how to address it what does that look like versus hey this has gotten so out of hand and now I don't feel like I can manage it and so it's reactive so that is a data point that we need to um distinguish in future requests so that we can monitor like how many are proactive because ultimately with the professional learning and the coaching we would want to see more proactive requests right because people are asking for that learning and a decrease in reactive so in the future we really want to make sure we make that distinction in the data we just didn't capture it that way this year but it's definitely something we're looking to capture um in the coming year

084and then F then um the on the on the adrs I I'll say as a board member it's shocking when you first get on a board and you due process over and over and over again and you ask dude this can't just be the cost of doing business what's going on here and so when you talk to parents and I get we get calls and emails from lots of not lots I mean numerous parents who have who appear to be I mean I we don't get too involved in the weeds we just get the emails and read them and try to reach out compassionately or whatever but we don't get in the weeds of actually how that gets managed um but one of the things you see repeatedly is there's a sense on the on

085the folks that end up deciding to take that path or are considering that path there's a real frustration that their IEP isn't being served um but then on the flip side we we have staff who clearly want to be aligned I guess one of the things I'm left with and maybe this isn't the the the circumstance to talk about it is I'm I'm really I'm oftentimes left with curiosity about what's actually happening there what is is it a is it a question if our staff going we wish we could provide this but we're not staff to provide it um so maybe that's too large of a question in ter and it maybe goes to what Scott was saying in terms if you had a neutral party maybe they could actually tell you no actually you're

086not serving them or actually this is beyond the capacity of of our staff to do whatever so let me just I'll set that aside because I think it's too large of a question right now and I'll just close with asking this one of the things that jumps out at me with the cace um all the all the different um programs is oh wow there's a lot of programs but the the the and you want to give a lot of autonomy to site leaders but at the same time you're like wow that is not a system that those are a lot of services but my question is what what can we do moving forward to create something systematic so instead of having the list like these are eight different things and different sites are providing it

087what is that what does it look like if you had a system that was a genuine system so um I guess I'd say this uh right president Pon we have some data that those types of one siiz fits-all systems don't work and so when we think about the concentric Circle model and we think about what are the needs of students what are the needs of a of a school the context what works in this school in this situation um is not necessarily going to just you just take that and put it in another school so that's what we're paying attention to to and we want to be able to provide those services that the the community identifies together a cluster as we've talked about um thinking about the students I think that was one of

088the questions that uh trusty lavender Williams asked like where are the student voices in this um because then you get Buy in you get a sense of community uh connectedness so I think there are great practices that we can think about um but we we want to make sure that individual schools based on individual students are identifying what they need so I just want to I don't know if I'm answering I just want to caution us to say hey this is a program that works at this school so now we're going to do it at 171 schools so I think that that's actually a really important insight and I but and I would say additionally that that is a very important principle to maintain but at the same time when I talk about a system

089I think you're totally right we don't want a one siiz fits all but we want some integration so that there's a Continuum of of care so that we're not losing people between like oh they got this program over here and then they fell through the cracks because this program was over here exactly no I I definitely hear you and I think we we'll pay attention to that then that that then that identification of a system makes more sense okay fair enough trusty baso thank you and I want to say thank you to the team um I applaud you on this um I've listened to you know several presentations over the years have been provided and it seems like I mean obviously we have a lot of work to do but we're kind of going in

090the right direction and I'm seeing some like fresh new ideas and plans in place um I guess my question is more from a board member perspective because I'm not an expert on special ed um but when I go to elementary schools probably 95% of the time the biggest complaints at the school is not enough support for special ed and the parking those are the two top so I can almost predict walking in the door that that's what they're going to they're going to talk to me about and um and I know you know it's a it's a big issue and it's a and it's a tough issue as we've been discussing here and I love what Scott was mentioning about how we want to make sure it's inclusive in the past even when my kids

091were in school it seemed like the special classes were always kind of over here and everyone else was over here and there wasn't like really you know they weren't together and I think it it is important that there is more of that inclusiveness um because I think that's going to help all of our students um to you know be more accepting and um so I'm I'm a big um fan I think that that's extremely important and it sounds like we're getting into that a little bit more with the coaching that's going to be provided but I just wanted to dig into that a little bit more because when I go into schools oftentimes a principal is like I'm in the special ed classroom you know a lot more than they should and it might just

092be for one or two students that need the assistance but I guess if you could provide like a little more visual because I'm having a hard time wrapping my my head around it how is that going to look when when that there's you know when there's situations in the classroom and I know you talked about proactive versus reactive um and the principal is usually the one that's getting pushed into the classroom um how will it look different with this um program that we're kind of looking at and I know it's something that needs to evolve it's not going to happen overnight but um so that when we're not getting to the school they're you know desperate and you know like at you know at their wits end and and um you know frustrated so it's

093it's a big job right and the first thing that we need to tackle and what we've actually been looking at is our sites allocated accurately based on the needs of the students at their site and so looking at our Ed specialist allocations and looking at our par educator allocations and really digging into the data around service hours and what does that look like for each campus might be different we actually haven't done an audit of our parent educator support in several years and so we're going through that right now especially because our par Educators you know we just negotiated a 7-hour day and so what does that 7h hour day look like and how are we leveraging that and so that is a very lengthy process that we started like two months ago and it's

094going to take us through the end of the year to get really clear on like are we allocating the correct amount of resources so that's the first thing and then I think the second thing that we've talked about collectively as a team is the importance of goal goal setting and making sure that we're actually exiting students out of some of these additional supports so the additional service hours are not meant to be permanent it's meant to say like this is the need of a student right now and we're going to provide these supports and we're going to work towards reaching these goals and then exit them out of those additional hours so that's something we really need to focus in on and it kind of goes back to what Scott was mentioning and it was

095mentioned up here earlier around that ie team process and what are really appropriate as far as goals and service hours because it's going to be really challenging if we write the same number of service hours for every single child and that just becomes a standard that we do when we're not ever going to have enough Personnel to reach that and so it really goes back to that education and coaching around like what is appropriate but also what are the goals and how are we going to get the student to those goals that's ultimately the main purpose and then also continuing that throughout the year because obviously a student may come in any time during the year that's going to completely change things and I've heard that too so yeah okay thank you very much thank

096you I'm curious so going back to cace is that how we say the acronym uh not fanatic um do those so I'm hearing we're meeting that goal do the dollar continue so I'm hearing we want to continue doing this work we're seeing some promising outcomes how are we going to sustain that so we're working um now actually with schools to identify and help to support building C capacity um the funding does end on September 30th so how much money did we have to do the work um around uh 3 .5 million from 27 months over 27 months and the expectation is that existing staff are going to have the capacity to do $30 million worth of work I'm just trying to get clear not put anybody on the spot but just trying to understand how

097we sustain the work yeah so we actually when we were meeting with our focal um School principles initially to explain the strategies did discuss the sustainability piece so for example there's a lot of schools that wanted to focus on restorative justice practices so we were funding a point for release as a district they decided to use some of the cace funds to make it a full 1.0 knowing that that was only going to be for a year and they would have to identify site based funds to help sustain that so some of our sites are leveraging some of their title dollars some of their lcff dollars some of their site based funding to continue with those strategies because they are seeing impact with those strategies versus maybe some other programs that they were funding that

098they're not seeing those impacts with so that is something that we've been working side by side with our leaders on like these are these strategies are working we can see results how do you want to leverage some site-based funding to sustain those strategies moving forward if that's something that your site would like to continue that's great thank you and I think to the extent that there is a gap make a quick clarification Point um I'm by far an expert in this but uh the money doesn't come from the state it comes from the district itself it it's if you are in non-compliance then basically I think it's like 15% of the special Le budget has to then you know fund the program so like that's where the money came from so it's not like an

099outside source of anything but it's thank you I appreciate the clarification um but we are no longer going to be spending those dollars for the same purposes that we had been um I think irrespective of the source and I guess the question for me is um and obviously these are tight budget times I think for us to continue thinking about what are the ongoing needs how do we advocate for the dollars we need to continue doing this work that we know makes a difference um and then I have some questions so around the um data on the Behavior Support referrals um I think it's always you know helpful for us to be able to see year-over-year when we're looking at are we achieving our goal compared to last year um but I think moving moving

100forward would be great also to see cohort level data right when we look at the kindergarteners last year um and or that group and then the referral is you know made again to the same students now that they're in first grade and I know trusty Whitehurst Payne said Co babies I think it would be very helpful for us to be able to track cohorts and really understand um the unique needs potentially related to the pandemic because I don't think we talk enough about that and really understand the unique needs of that population uh so just a request for moving forward um and then uh around the graduation rate I'm wondering if you can speak more to what we're doing differently and better um sort of why you know the if the goal was 70% we're

101actually at 75% um and if you can we spoke earlier about the need to disaggregate I think it's really challenging when we see this is how all students with disabilities are doing as if all students with disabilities are a monolith they're not so I think if you could break down um for which population of students with disabilities um are students in certain clusters or certain schools are we seeing increased graduation rate um but helping us understand um that a little better yeah we can definitely work alongside our partners in the office of graduation to dis agregate that data I do just want to caution us again like I mentioned the um projected graduation is based off of semester one um which is inclusive of quarter one and Quarter Two we still have a whole another

102semester and two quarters to go I would say to trusty white Hurst pains point if everybody's doing their job and we are so close let's like let's get all the way there I hear what you're saying I just want to make sure that we're we're not you know celebrating quite yet because we still have a ways to go to to get to the final day of school and being the parent of two high schoolers right now it is a challenge um to just get them up and get them going uh on occasion so so you know it is looking promising and we will need to dig into that um a little bit more once we have a clearer picture of what that will look like so I guess then maybe again so going to the

103point of data that's presented to us would be helpful then to see at this point last year how are we doing um if it's not helpful to look at this 75% as pretty close to achieving the goal um and then Scott mentioned you posed a question but I don't know that it got answered around are we on track to support these and I think Scott you said it was 80 eligible students in the class of 20 26 um to earn their essential diploma do we think that that will happen are are we going to be ready to go by 2026 so there's a couple factors here the first is just the timing of when this came out as a state requirement um so this is the this is the first year that we've needed to

104meet with parents I believe last spring was when the announcement was made and so the initial um requirement was to meet with families talk about the options see who was interested now we'll be implementing um the courses starting next year and I think to what SC was mentioning we still need to do a lot of work with our partners at the state as well as our legal team to explore what options there are for next year's Juniors um to potentially whether it's through a waiver process or um grandfathering in courses that they've already taken in order to meet those requirements just because there is an impacted time frame so there is still some work that we need to do alongside the state to get clarity on that but we do want to make sure that

105we're offering as many options as possible for next year's Juniors to engage in that coursework in both their Junior and Senior year um and so we already do have those course codes and course descriptions um that were actually board approved a few weeks ago to start implementing those in the fall so that our current uh sophomores and our current freshmen can start engaging in those courses next year great thank you thank you very much the entire team te for the presentation for the work and for answering all of our questions really appreciate [Applause] you we'll now consider items E2 Alba instructional minutes modification and E3 Mo approval move appr second I don't think there's a a vote oh did I skip it on E1 there's no vote on E1 that the special ed report I

106didn't even finish explaining what the item was we're doing E2 and E3 together so we're g to consider E2 Alba instructional minutes modification and E3 the proposed 2025 26 academic calendar so I heard that we have a motion from trusty white Hurst pay and a second from truste lavender Williams and Miss Suz do we have any speakers on E2 or E3 all right do any Tres have any questions or wish to discuss these items truste korano we're to go so I'll be really quick I just want to highlight that for the first time and I want to thank trusty BOS with my support on this um for the first time indigenous people's day is being celebrated by our students on October 13th so thank you to our um our team for making that happen thank

107you uh I have a question on E2 um and apologize for not asking it earlier but I'm so it's the recommendation um makes perfect sense to me uh in terms of providing minimum days at Alba uh because the number of instructional minutes uh will be the same as it is currently um I guess I'm wondering so the request is to approve this and then request a waiver from this State um because Community Day schools different from traditional I guess middle and high schools aren't allowed to have minimum days with fewer than I think it's 360 minutes so if someone can is there something if is there a reason um that's not reflected in the item that explains why the Ed code requires different daily minute requirements um or is the Assumption simply that it's an

108oversight of the state what's different from between Alba and different high schools when it comes to the minimum days I can get the board the Ed code that distinguishes those well no I've looked at so I guess the question is why does the Ed code so the recommendation is that we should offer minimum that Alba staff should be able to have minimum days which makes sense to me but I'm wondering is there something I'm missing about why Ed code says Alba different than other schools who serve the same grades uh should not be eligible for a minimum Day schedule while other high schools should and I'm not understanding yeah I I don't know that specific piece so I'll have to look into that I don't know okay thank you and all right so we have

109a motion and a second for these items and let's go ahead and vote student trustees if you could please vote okay and all other trustees thank you the motion passes unanimously with our student board members concurring we'll now consider items F1 through F6 collective bargaining Personnel matters and student discipline is there a motion on these items thank you trusty Paso and a second from trusty white Hurst Payne are there any speakers on F1 through F6 yes we have two speakers on item F6 Katherine pette and Kyle [Music] weberg are you available Katherine and Kyle on F6 you each have three minutes and how much time do they have three minutes okay hi there my name is Katherine M and I'm an SLP in the district I've been in District 10 years and I wanted to

110speak on F6 which is the proposal to move the XC assessment teams from an 11-month calendar to a 10-month calendar um also included in that proposal is moving them from full-time to 6 so 60% of a full-time staff and which is even less if you consider that's a 10 months calendar um I want to talk about the impact of this um on our students with special needs as well as our school sites that serve special needs this um proposed calendar change and allocation change is a significant and deliberate Staffing to these teams already this year with our teams at our staff they are behind on the XE assessments the assessments that have been made by parents um are not going to be completed through the summer they're going to be pushed to school sites in

111the fall they're going to be overdue um this is not so it's not going to get done through the legal timeline and the result is that IEPs are not going to be in place and it could be that these students are not in the right placement um it's a burden on sites it's unfair to these students um historically in my ten years in the district the XC assessment teams have been behind and they've only recently caught up when they were behind there were hundreds of Assessments behind it took up and sometimes more than nine months for these students to get assessed and I may have mentioned before 60 days is the legal timeline for that um it was chaotic I witnessed the effects of that it's had it started with upset parents parents with lawyers

112heading to Due Process before they even step foot on a school campus um and then most importantly it deprived these students of getting the critical early intervention services they needed um so recently in the last couple of years uh assessment teams have been able to catch up on these assessments I've been really happy efforts of management efforts of um the assessment teams organizing and SDA I've been really proud of that and I don't want to lose that and go back to where we were before because it was bad um this proposal also reports that the Gap would between what the assessment teams can't do and that log would be done during nights and weekends this is not a good solution um these assessment teams are specialized assignments that require an interview so why would we

113fill that gap of Assessments that aren't done with people volunteers who have not worked together who have not had the training in Early Child special um at assessment that's a fine emergency procceed uh reaction that's a fine better than nothing solution um but it's it's it's just not adequate um our students deserve better than nothing especially these young students and I would urge the board to um not accept this proposal to work with um management and I'm work with stakeholders to find another solution to St save money not at the expense of three-year-olds thank you Kyle Weinberg president San Diego Education Association mild moderate education specialist and also in the same Union as the XE assessment teams which is Early Childhood special education um like Catherine shared we have this backlog with our XE assessments

114for our highest need youngest Learners moving contracts from 11 Monon to 10-month contracts is not going to help with the backlog it's going to make it worse relying on volunteers to do Assessments in the evenings and weekends is not a reliable solution we've tried that with other issues special education and it hasn't helped to solve those issues also moving the job responsibilities of the members of the XC assessment teams from focusing on assessments to providing Direct Services is going to require hiring more staff in these hard to fill positions and is going to detract from the goal of filling of clearing that backlog of the XE assessments um we want to help design better Solutions for the issues in special education including clearing the XC assessment backlog the Educators that are part of the XC

115assessment teams were not consulted on the decision to bring this to the board today and we need to be included moving forward there are more effective and Holistic Solutions to clear the XE assessment backlog and calling on the board to vote against this proposal so that we can develop a better solution and get our highest need Young Learners um the assessments and the services that they [Applause] need do any trustees have any questions or wish to discuss this truste white her pay I understand that um for the summer time we were receiving fewer wasn't at the same rate as we were during the year because parents still weren't responding so although folks were hired it didn't necessarily result in uh the optimum solution that we wanted to get this backload uh I mean during the

116year some parents want to come after school they want to come other times and so the question is how do you meet that need they don't want to be bothered during the summer with this so talk to us a little bit about what you all have said we're only going on what you said yeah I'd love to uh have Dr Watkins join me um so the idea here um is to make sure that we're meeting the needs of our families uh so that we can meet them if if they are uh needing to be uh come in on the weekends and nights we need to make sure that we are available for that and uh you know as we think about um you know volunteerism uh we have noticed that uh folks are volunteering to

117to be a part of Assessments but one of the biggest pieces is to make sure that we can do Assessments in the classroom settings that that's a critical piece and so Dr Watkins I'm not sure if you want to talk about specifics as you all have thought about this but those are two of the the the biggest components and I just want to make sure that we understand that we are not reducing staff to uh part-time positions that's that's not what we do um but in thinking about the services that they're providing wrting um I think that's critical so um niss you want to jump in but Sarah also um I know that uh we spoke and you shared some information so you may want to clarify uh what I've just done to uh provide

118an overview of how we're rethinking this can you push the button yeah thank you Dr Jackson that's why I asked um um Miss Thomas to come up because she's been leading that work so I figured it would be better for her to sh here that works thank you yes hi thank you so much so as we've discussed before um you're right the summer months were not as successful um as we've found during the school year and while we were discussing um I think what was discussed was the part-time piece so the teams um are transitioning from a full 1.0 position to a point6 position and therefore we will have 10 teams supporting students within EXE ments so the part-time piece came as part of our workg group discussion and the data that we have um

119seen is that um a lot of these team members have been on the assessment teams for a very long time in this position and it was stated that um we feel that they may have lost a little bit of touch with um reality based on the data that we've seen on the placements and the requests that have been made and so part of that is to reestablish themselves on a site to then participate with the school sites in those assignments um so we we see what's going on in the daily activities of those classrooms so the uh placements can get a little bit more efficient and assessments can um be more um more precise on what a child can and cannot do in the classroom what those goals are appropriate um for the classroom environment

120what it looks like today um and so the part-time piece has been adjusted and so that's where that change came in it's not um that we're decreasing that we're just changing their allocation in um to 10 teams from s to 10 but the um point six piece is three days a week on an assessment team and two days a week supporting a School site so just clarification ft it's one FTE but it's yeah just want to make sure that we that and that's why I said we're not reducing the full-time equivalent it's just their work and how it's distributed correct that that needs to be clear because if WECT start yes suggesting that we've moved from one ft to to 6 that's a whole no the entire allocation is remaining it's just changing the way

121what it looks like so to be clear so it seems as though there is some potential that that current members of the team will not be comfortable with that 6040 and they may not choose to be in that role any longer correct why which is why the job posting assignment description is different and therefore they will if they so choose to reinie for this position and then conduct the work accordingly as stated and the whole process is based on how we support our students sorry the whole process is based on reimagining how we support our youngest students can I ask one um clarification of Staff um we heard from commentary about um the potential for there being volunteer assessors to what extent do volunteers do you anticip volunteers playing a role yeah so absolutely so

122one of the concerns was that as we transition this work there will be additional assessments needed and so part of that decision on how could we catch up how could we do this if we get behind is to offer those after hour assessments for families to ensure that we are still getting done the amount of Assessments needed um so we will see if that need is there and if it is there then that's when we will open up after our assessments to support families with additional time frames to be assessed and just just to be clear they can volunteer and they get paid for that I just want to yes yeah we're we're we're saying some general statements are fulltime people who may also get paid to do additional work in the evenings and weekends

123if they so choose yes thank you yes correct and I I do just want to highlight that this isn't a new approach um we have offered um hourly support for additional assessments this year and have seen some success in the amount of Assessments that have been accomplished um through our weekend assessments that we currently have in place for folks that would like to come in and provide those assessments and be paid hourly for that support have we considered the notion of changing folks' hours if they'd like to if they'd like to come in at 10: and work to 6 or whatever the equivalent is I mean it's just we need to stop thinking about just uh back in The Agrarian day so so I appreciate that I think what what we're trying to accomplish right

124now is the first step in the process is just getting very clear um on what the job duties are um for this particular assignment and and what the opportunities are for you know additional hourly rates for after uh school and weekend assessments and we still are very open to collaborating um with those Educators to determine like what exactly that may look like and what that entail um once we're able to establish the folks that are on those teams thank you trusty barera yeah thank you president haen yeah I appreciate Nicole what you just said because I I think probably the biggest thing that we're grappling with right now is process um because I'm not hearing that this is a budget savings uh strategy I'm hearing this is a kind of a change in approach to

125assessment so so I would say um what we're doing is any funds that are not being leveraged for that 11th month is being reinvested back into the XE program so will allow us to do more um after hour weekend assessments and potentially open more classrooms okay um with with the savings of not having uh the 11 month okay so I think what's important is what you just said which is as as we go through this you know redesign we want to make sure that we're doing it in Partnership um and we don't want the sense that the Educators don't feel like that that we're hitting them out of nowhere and that they weren't included in the design so that's just a request that that the process is thank yeah just making sure I look left

126and right because I think I I tend to look left I got you over there all right uh I guess also because what's being proposed is very different from what we've been doing another request uh is if we can receive regular updates beginning in the fall um around assessment numbers much more regularly than we currently get them to ensure that we aren't falling significantly behind and that this new model uh is working yes absolutely Absol absolutely yes thank you all right uh we have a motion a second and and we are ready to vote all right uh and trustees please go ahead and vote all right the motion passes unanimously we'll now consider section g the board consent agenda which includes resolutions recognizing school lunch Heroes Teacher Appreciation Week School nurses law enforcement Asian-American native

127Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Jewish American Heritage members of the military mental health awareness and Women's Health Awareness May is a busy month is there a motion on all of the these items thank you and is there a second thank you all right we have a motion and a second are there any speakers on G1 through 11 yes we have quite a few speakers I'll call them by U item number G4 we have uh miles timson G4 is the resolution on day of the teacher and can you remind everybody in terms of time since we have so many speakers each speaker will have two minutes hello my name is Miles timson I'm a teacher here at San Diego Unified School District I'd like to thank the board for issuing this resolution supporting teachers I appreciate

128the commentary regarding the different responsibilities teachers take on some would say teachers are superheroes I know I considered many of my teachers to be superheroes and I hope my students view me the same way there's been some talk recently of the district's goals Dr WHUR Payne completed some rich research in the area of educational goals and the conclusions she came to are still valid today namely that goals work well in highly structured courses such as math I've been teaching math for a while and I've observed that a lot of the content not useful for students and there are a lot of important topics we're not teaching I think we should teach Personal Finance in our schools how to make a budget how to buy a house how to fire our taxes credit cards student loans

129retirement accounts creating a separate course in personal finance would not be use impactful in the current environment there a requirement to teach ethnic studies increased funding for the Arts the district's experiencing decline in enrollment consistent with Sharon's research I think a good approach would be to include personal finance in our math courses I'd like to formally request that sabatical leave for the 2425 school year to complete some research and curriculum development in the area of personal finance and our math courses on behalf of the school district think we need to have continued cultural conversations around better treatment of teachers and frankly on the other side of the situation improving the quality of Education we provide I see sabatical Le is addressing both factors I want to be clear sabatical leave is an existing policy in

130the contract doesn't require new legislation or changing the rules you could Grant 25 sabatical leaves if you'd like maybe next year it's just one for me since I'm the only one bringing this issue to your attention the only one asking for sabatical leave to work on it the only teacher credential in math business and economics so I'm qualified to teach financial and mathematical topics at the secondary level if any if you have any interest in teaching uh in personal finance I'd be willing to work on any of you with this issue alter also I could work with central office staff any curriculum development would be standed the line placed in the One-Stop shop for all district teachers so there's a guaranteed and viable curriculum for all secondary students in the district Dr Jackson with due

131respect the teaching contract is clear that the board of education is in charge of sabatical leaves Dr wer Spain do uh trusty W Spain trusty berrera trusty trusty thank you very much item G7 we have the is just two minutes thank you7 is the Asian-American native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month resolution Brian batugo is Brian available you have two minutes good evening good evening trustees good evening superintendent Jackson good evening board staff um my name is Brian batugo ethnic studies resource teacher here at the central office I'd like to thank the board for supporting the Asian-American native Hawaiian Pacific Islander Heritage Month uh board resolution um and I'd also like to take this opportunity to shine a light on the district's first aapi studies class at Morse High School taught by Arlene benedicto um

132this is a course where students study the histories of struggle cultural wealth and solidarity of the Asian-American Pacific iser communities in the United States um I've had the honor of observing and guest teaching with her students um this semester and I'm pleased to report that students are engaged and empowered um and really appreciating an opportunity to learn about themselves in the classroom and their personal and familial Collective histories here in San Diego um secondly I'd like to invite all of you to our first Asian Pacific Islander Desi American Heritage Month celebration here at the central office it's this Friday on May 3rd 10 a.m. I hope to see all of you there trusty korano I sent you an email about it I hope to hear from you um and yeah thank you so much item

133G8 which is the Jewish American Heritage Month resolution we have four speakers in person David Engle Kathy Swift giovana adelon and Rachel Beck come forward you have two minutes all right I'm Dave angel I'm gonna go first since you said my name first um so I'm here to uh I'm generally in agre agreement with a Jewish American heritage month I'm Jewish myself I'm with Jewish Voice or peace I'm the vice president of the of the point limit Democratic Club um and I'm generally in agreement especially a time of rising anti-Semitism I think a Jewish American Heritage um uh month is is a great thing my objection here is the month of May and the reason for that objection is is that I don't think it's I don't think we want to conflate Jewish American heritage

134month with the establishment of Israel and I think you know especially now with all the unrest on college campuses and all the divisive um activity that's going on now I think it would be best to separate Jewish American heritage month from the establishment of Israel I mean it's a time when a lot of Palestinians are mourning and I join my Palestinian friends in that Mourning from the nakba where over 700,000 people were uh were booted from their houses and not allowed to there's no right of return for them and we're at a point now where there's 5.9 million Palestinians who are refugees recognized by the United Nations so I think separating Jewish American Heritage from the establishment of Israel is really you know need should be done I mean I think it's a great idea

135idea I just don't think May is the month for [Applause] it hello my name is Kathy Swift and I'm here to support of course I'm an educator so I support diversity equity and inclusion and education that's been a big issue for me right along in my educational career um and most especially in these times of strife so I would like to applaud the school board's recent recognition of arab-american Heritage mon month as well as Jewish American heritage month I think those are both important communities in the United States and they've greatly contributed to American culture however the latter Jewish American Jewish American heritage month is slated for May which is also the month that saw the mass eviction of Palestinians from their homes in order to make room for the creation of is Israel in

1361948 Israel's ethnic cleansing of Palestinians has continued ever since most recently it has genocided Palestinians in Gaza and has called for war with Iran Israel's aggressions in the Middle East threatens to drag in the US and other major superpowers and engulf the planet in World War so I find the month of May suspect for um celebrating Jewish American heritage month and like the last gentleman I urge the board to consider choosing another month thank [Applause] you hi my name is Rachel Beck and I am here also on behalf of Jewish voice for peace and I want to Echo what the last um two speakers said I am also here as a third generation San diean I graduated from day Elementary persing Middle School and Patrick Henry High School I am the daughter of a parent

137who worked for San Diego Unified School District for 43 years I uh attended San Diego State graduated in 2016 with a degree focused on war and I specialized in the occupation of Palestine I went on to work for the United Nations and designed projects for the UN um on the prevention of violent extremism in the east African region I also worked for Amnesty International identifying human rights abuses by government forces abroad and I have my master's degree from Cambridge University also focused on colonization War and the occupation of Palestine um I am here because San Diego unified has something called no place for hate it is an ADL the Anti-Defamation League's partnership program with San Diego Unified School District that according to your website quote supports K through2 students and schools and maintaining a climate

138where students of all identities feel safe respected and have a sense of belonging however the ADL directly supported my doxing in 2015 15 when they published with um in collaboration with the D David Horwitz Foundation a documented islamophobic extremist group my name along with the names of six others all over San Diego's campus saying that we were anti-semitic because I held public debates talking about the potential for genocide in Palestine 10 years ago and I want to say that if you have may you will also potentially have the ADL who creates very unsafe spaces for students and weaponizes uh anti-Semitism to shut down our voices which are very legitimate and anti-genocide thank you we have four virtual speakers on this item Heidi gantor are you available Heidi please unmute yourself Heidi if you're available yes

139can you hear me yes go ahead please you have two minutes thank you H hi I'm the president and the CEO of Jewish Federation of San Diego and I'm speaking today in favor of this resolution to recognize may as Jewish American heritage month thanks to trustees bazo and pet Peterson for putting forth this resolution San Diego is home to a thriving and extremely diverse Jewish community of more than a 100,000 people 100 ,000 Jewish people and for nearly 200 years Jewish Americans have called San Diego home and contributed to the institutions that make this America's Finest City the recent and alarming rise in anti-Semitism has made many Jews especially young Jews feel unsafe and isolated in the city that we call home that there anyone registered to speak against this resolution which aims to recognize

140and celebrate the contributions Jews have made to our city and our country is a sign of the troubling times in which we are living today May is the month that has been set across the country for this acknowledgement long before this year and it is completely appropriate for the district to recognize this month here this year we hope you PA this and move forward by recognizing in our schools the numerous remarkable Jewish Americans who have contributed to the Arts culture science journalism business and so much more throughout the United States doing so without any political agenda will make Jewish students in our schools feel recognized and valued and will help dispel some of the resurgent anti-semitic stereotypes and disinformation about Jews running rampant right now online and in our schools and our universities Jewish Federation

141and other major Jewish organizations are happy to help with resources to support this resolution and to support this education I thank you all for your support the next virtual speaker is Naomi Harris Naomi are are you available yes can you hear me yes please go ahead you have two minutes great um good evening members of the school board and superintendent Jackson I want to thank you for recognizing Jewish American heritage month I was at last year's meeting when you recognized it for the first time and I'm so pleased that you're doing it again however this year's resolution is different than last year's and includes people that are not on typical lists of notable Jewish Americans in fact the presence of activists named in this year's resol ution suggests an attempt to promote some sort of

142political agenda I request that the board ensure that the ethnic studies department or whoever was consulted in creating this year's resolution not be allowed to use the listed activists as teaching resources to promote an anti-israel agenda I urge you to remove the one sentence that lists all the national figures it wasn't in there last year and it really matters these things get memorialized and it makes a difference somebody is slipping a poli political agenda in under the guise of Jewish American Heritage Month it made its way into this resolution but it cannot make its way into the classroom and it will happen if it's sitting in this resolution again I really appreciate you bringing it forward this resolution the Jewish Community is always grateful to be recognized and celebrated and we thank you so much

143for your support the next virtual speaker is Robert Leon is Robert Leighton available can you hear me yes it's Robin Leighton oh Robin please go ahead thank you for recognizing uh Jewish American heritage month with the rise in anti-Semitism around the world and at home within San Diego Unified School District now more than ever we need allies and Educators to share truthful and factual educational resources about Jewish americ Americans and the historical ties of the Jewish people to the land of Israel and uh unfortunately based on the inperson testimony today that we just heard opposing this resolution we just heard firsthand what we're talking about with anti-Semitism and I would like to ditto Heidi and Naomi thank you and our final virtual speaker is Natan Cranford Nat Cranford hello this is Natan can you hear

144me yes go ahead you have two minutes great I'm also speaking in favor of this resolution I um reiterate what HEI Naomi and Robin said I am in full support of May being the appropriate month this is about Jewish Americans and our vibrant Heritage so I please implore you to pass it just as you did last year thank you very much we have 10 we have four speakers on item G10 which is the resolution recognizing Mental Health Awareness Month uh we have four in person [Music] terara doovic I'm sorry if I said your name wrong DJ o d j VI I Sydney hegler Nathan green Schneider and Kinsley Stevens you each have two minutes hi my name is Kinsley Stevens and I'm the communication Legion within swear student wellness education and resources committee and I'm

145here in support of making May mental health awareness month today I'm here to emphasize the importance of mental health trainings which our resolution has proposed I personally have struggled imentally with my mental health and within school this has been a major obstacle many days I lacked the motivation to get out of bed do homework and make it through the standard school day often when opening up about my mental health to teachers it was disregarded and told I was told that it wasn't an excuse however there was one teacher who had taken mental health trainings after embarking on his own Journey or after embarking on his own mental health journey and quite frankly was the only teacher whoever made me feel comfortable and understood in my struggles he opened up to me about his own panic

146attacks and how that led him to understand his students more after he engaged in this Mental Health Training um having a teacher like this on campus was overwhelmingly beneficial to me as school became less stressful my attendance became regular and I began to enjoy being on campus again all it can take is one adult to ease a student stress and this is why I believe these trainings are crucial for teachers a lack of understanding leads to disconnect and the only way way to bridge this gap between students and teachers is through proper training on Mental Health thank you [Applause] hi my name is Nathan green Schneider and I'm a swe committee Communications lien I support this resolution to recognize may as mental health month mental health is an extremely important topic on campuses Across America

147including San Diego as oneth of Youth have has a diagnosed mental health disorder as reported by the Centers for Disease Control and prevention and this is before considering non-diagnosed youth according to the American Psychiatric ass assciation half of all people with mental illness began noticing it around the age of 14 when students are around middle or High School according to the American college Health Association two- fifths of students reported feeling intense anxiety within the past year 42% of students reported feeling persistently sad or hopeless and 29% reported experiencing poor mental health finally 22% of students seriously considered attempting suicide and 10% of students attempted suicide according to the Centers for Disease Control and prevention I believe that training sessions for teachers and interested students students are vital on all campuses in the San Diego Unified

148School District due to personal experiences that both of my friend that both my friends and I have as Witnesses with teachers unfair biases and lack of knowledge with on mental health issues have been present when discussing these topics in classrooms causing incorrect diagnoses or getting no help or redirection whatsoever I believe that passing this resolution would prevent that issue from occurring to other students in the future and increasing overall Awareness on the topic thank you [Applause] hello my name is Sydney Haggler and I'm a swear member and I support recognizing May's mental health month I myself as well as many other students students within the district have struggled with their mental health or have recently been diagnosed with a mental health disorder although they have supportive parents or trusted adult to talk to in their

149lives it can be easy for students to lack comfortability when mentioning their mental health struggles to teachers and staff on their campuses this can be due to the lack of Education or resources teachers and staff have when it comes to the mental health and wellbeing of adolescence within their schools I strongly believe that these training sess sessions would be very beneficial to teachers and staff throughout the district because it would provide students with empathetic and trustworthy individuals that are open to hearing about their personal struggles thank [Applause] you hello my name is tar and I'm the current Vice chair with ins I support recognizing may as mental health awareness month as well as encouraging youth Mental Health First a train training to all certificated staff members in San Diego unified our committee is collaborating with

150Mental Health America San Diego to offer free youth youth Mental Health First a trainings to San Diego unified staff families and students to celebrate and recognize May's mental health matters month we are also hosting and sponsoring a youth Mental Health First Aid training for students and another for families we hope to hold a separate event for staff members in August before the beginning of the 2024 to 2025 school year in order to encourage San Diego un unified staff members to become certified and use Mental Health First Aid training and become a part of the necessary change that is lacking on campuses across our district we would like the board support in our mission to have safe entrusted adults on campuses across our district which would posit positively impact all students whether they are struggling with

151a mental health concern know of someone struggling with the mental health concern or need someone on campus to talk to when they're in need we would love to set up a separate time to meet and discuss our campaign and encourage all certificated San Diego unified staff who engage with students 12 and up to become certified in youth mental health first aate train thank [Applause] you that concludes public comment on section g thank you and do any trustees have questions or wish to discuss any of these items trusty baso we're on all the G's all the resolutions correct and thank you to everyone who's commented um I did want to share um my just a few comments on one that that we didn't comment on my computer and that's the um Women's Health resolution and uh

152just the importance of that that because that is uh that's also this month as well um it's been almost two years since roie Wade was overturned and I would like to thank San unified for continuing to support our students by allowing them to make their own reproductive choices and ensuring access to Accurate age appropriate information on health education and providing sexual health education lessons in our middle and high schools within our biology classes and to our district sexual health education department which maintains a comprehensive website this website contains vetted links to information and local Clinical Services discrimination violence and stigma along with other social determinants of Health significantly affect the physical mental and Behavioral Health of women as well as transgender people at a much higher rate than in men and women have a much

153higher rate number of Health disparities across the board compared to cisgender male populations and uh therefore I I am very proud to be about part of San Diego unified who's continuing to hold up and uh support our students um with regard to health disparities supporting from a Health Equity lens and um supporting our their their Reproductive Rights thank you thank you vice president Pon um thank you I want to thank everyone turned out today to speak on this item or called in online on all all these items I just want to say um specifically about this the the Jewish American Heritage Month item uh I the risk of sort of waiting in um you know I what I want to say clearly we have um we have a thriving Jewish community in San Diego it's

154an integral part of San Diego it's been a I will spare the board and and and president hayen the list of all the the Jews who have been Central in my life my my community is I may not be Jewish but the Jewish people are my people I mean that's who I was raised amongst and um and so what I want to acknowledge is we we have seen a rise in um anti-Semitism and I know that's concerning to the Jewish Community it's concerning to all of us but I want to name something else that you know you're always trying to think a little bit meta about what's happening to step back on what's Happening it is a very hard time to be Jewish not just because of anti-Semitism but because many of you wherever you

155are on this spectrum of this broad thriving community that that that has the whole Spectrum um within it it's a you wake up at night if you're if you're somebody on the the end of the spectrum for whom Israel is a very fundamental part of your identity you wake up thinking about Israel you w wake up thinking about October 7th you wake up thinking about your family in Israel um and if you're on the side of the spectrum that um that is critical of Zionism and and I identified with the struggle of uh the Palestinians particularly in Gaza right now you wake up thinking about that so with in relation to not just the people spoke tonight but the Jewish Community broadly I just want to recognize it is a hard time psychologically intellectually ideologically

156spiritually to be Jewish and I want to recognize that as someone who's not Jewish but who shares who also wakes up every night thinking about this um I want to recognize how how how hard it is right now for for the community to be wrestling with that and um and I hope that there's very soon there's some resolution um that um that brings peace to all all of you some measure of peace and to all of us who identify um and so that's it just um I I don't know that we're going to we're absolutely not going to get resolution about all of that tonight um but I want to recognize that that's that's happening right now so that's all thank you and thank you uh to trusty Patterson and baso for introducing the Jewish

157American Heritage Month resolution and uh really appreciate uh the comments and sentiments you just shared uh vice president Pon uh I also want to mention there were a couple other items um on the on this section g uh that weren't touched on uh one is a new code of conduct um that encompasses both elected uh uh appointed and committee members within the district and I'm really glad that we're considering this code of conduct uh to ensure that all of us um elected and appointed are promoting civility mutual respect and positive Communications and I'm wondering if it would be possible uh assuming this is approved uh if we can get an update maybe in the fall of when all committees um are in compliance with with that new code of conduct yes thank you and then

158uh the other thing um so item G2 which is um appointment of Representative to the cic um and I guess this is for both this but for all um recommendations around committee members it's really important to me that we have bios for all of them um that wasn't included here um and I think it's really difficult to vote on an appointment without the background of the people who are being considered and we want to make sure that we are appointing people whose backgrounds we understand um I'm sure uh the person you I looked at the person who is being recommended um will be a great addition to the CAC but in general um it would be really helpful to have that information um so we can make informed decisions and now oh sorry yes please

159I always want us to and I've always said this the committee should represent communities um we can't we have to have parents if the special education report focused on African-Americans then we should have African-Americans on that committee so that they're making recommendations they understand they're given input they respect it Etc so when we talk about the con consitency be sure that's a factor absolutely thank you and that's critically important really hear in community voice and and parent voice so we have a motion a second we have discussed uh let's go ahead and vote student trustees please vote and all other trustees the motion passes unan unanimously with the student board members concurring we'll now consider item H1 which is Declaration of a school police vehicle to be of insufficient value is there a motion on

160H1 thank you trusty Barrera is there a second trusty baso all right any speakers on this item there are not any questions or discussion from trustees all right student trustees please vote let do we need to do it again all right hold on all right student trustees please vote and all others please vote thank you all right the motion passes unanimously with the student board members concurring we'll now move on to H2 environmental impact report and Associated actions for the George Walker Smith education center is there a motion on this item thank you trusty Barrera is there a second thank you trusty korano any speakers on H2 all right any trustees wish to discuss this item thank you trusty barera uh thank you president Hazen I I just wanted to uh point out that there

161are uh several benefits to this district and this community uh as we move this project forward um it's certainly going to be a great space uh that I think we can be proud of uh for our district but it also consolidates um several different District Operations that are kind of scattered you know around the city which is good for efficiency good for you know bringing the team together but also frees up property and including this property normal street uh and and potentially several other properties around the district that opens up possibility uh for us to move forward with an aggressive program around quality affordable housing for District employees um and so by moving forward with the new Ed Center we're also moving forward with that vision and uh so we're very very excited about this

162thank you anyone else trusty whiters pan please look at the pictures I'm proud of it really proud we've been working on that so thank you vice president Pon yeah I just want to say um that I am very excited about this project I'm excited to move forward with it I'm excited as as truste barera alluded to that it will open up this site for uh hopefully education Workforce housing uh and uh I to be honest don't think there's really impacts that need to be overridden but that said to the extent there are I I believe that the we have substantial um uh overriding considerations so I'm very enthusiastic about this thank you trusty baso yes uh to Echo my colleagues I'm I'm excited about this project as well also from a staff perspective I mean

163as board members were not here um nearly as much as our our staff are and I know just to get this meeting running up that it's the the the the equipment is so Antiquated that it takes them forever to you know there's always something breaking down in in the fact that there's no air conditioning you know I mean that's kind of like in this day and age with climate change and um I guess one like little more humorous and or um um anecdote uh one of my first meetings when we were still on on Zoom but we were up in the offices and I'm on my computer and there's no air conditioning so I'm opening the windows and trusty whiters pain came in and she's like oh don't open the windows at night the rats

164will come in so that kind of gives you an indication so that was a little alarming so um yes so I'm very excited for this not only for us I hope you know to be able to to see this before the end of the next term um but also very much for our staff who work very hard and deserve to have a building that's comfortable and um that they can work in safely thank you trusty korano uh I just really want to really highlight um I know the the packet that we all got was a beast um but one of the things that uh I actually spent a good time looking at was the transit reports and what exactly that looks like and I found it really fascinating especially as we think about you know

165two-thirds of our carbon emissions as a school district come from Transportation how non-transit friendly that area is so just something to be cogniz it about I took um I was up there a lot for Honor Band activities having to Lug around my humongous saxophone on the bus every day um and so just think about that and so I appreciate the really climate focused policy that we have specifically around the building itself um but also the role that public transportation can play in that thank you all right thank you everyone oh is that a hand up no she's excited but not that excited and I want to Echo uh what multiple of my colleagues have shared about my excitement around this new Ed Center um that it will be more energy efficient that there will be

166charging stations there for electric vehicles uh that there will be solar there that it will free up this space and other spaces for more affordable housing uh I think it's going to be great for all of the people who are utilizing the space um as well as for the surrounding community in KY Mesa who may want to use uh some of the community rooms and spaces there um there are lots of nonprofits in that area as well who I think will benefit so really excited to have this continuing to move forward um and that that brand new space is is going to be here I think sooner sooner than we know and I think we all cannot wait for that so with that uh we can go ahead and vote uh student trustees please go

167ahead all right and all other trustees okay the motion passes unanimously with student trustees concurring we will now consider item H3 this is the second reading and action on the Clay Elementary School renaming trustees weit Hurst Payne and brera have led this work since the first reading of the item so if you could please present the item for us thank you president hean this has been a very long and controversial issue I think the only thing that everyone agreed to was the fact that Lee as I mean um back to Le huh clay that too needed to go and so I'm glad that we had some agreement there from that point it has been we own up to it as trustees that the process has been messy and I'll let uh my colleagues speak to

168that later but I want to say that when we left the last time we agreed that we would work together he and I would work together to figure out what needed to happen and we went out and visited the school met with folks there who were staff members but also uh parents in the community community members Etc the issue was whether or not we would name the school bell hooks or Roland Hills or there was a list that was submitted which included uh Dr Bertha Pendleton on the list and I had to go back and ask for some wisdom from Solomon or some wisdom from somebody and we came to the conclusion after we disced discussed it that we would go with a local person um Dr Pendleton is someone who was the superintendent a

169leader here in this District uh a leader in the state of California the first African-American female superintendent that we would we wanted to bring Unity back to the community so by not siding with either side we're you can blame me and then Richard secondly um we'll we'll take the black on this one we decided that um Dr Bera Pendleton represents the things that we want to see in our children and in our schools she started out in Alabama and if you know the era when she came through back in the 30s um it was segregated it was bad was in Virginia but she was I wasn't at the same time as she was but um she was more in my mother's era but they went through some hard times in the South she managed to

170get out of that she went to school in Knoxville Tennessee which was also a difficult place I visited that campus once and was difficult and then she came to San Diego but there's one important thing that I want to note I want all of you to know is that she was a scientist she majored in Biology and so for those folks who are interested in Steam and acknowledging leaders who were steam majors and who worked in that field she again was a leader and finally she came to San Diego and uh became a teacher math teacher science teacher um and there are folks who still come to me now and say she was my teacher they're older people but still that's what they tell me and this was all before this discussion came about uh

171she moved on became a counselor I believe in the district was I mean at every step and then finally she was promoted to the superintendent the superintendent of San Diego UniFi which is the second largest District in the state of California so if you're talking about a leader in order to bring Community together she's a leader her her name who she represents all of us she represented San Diego effectively as superintendent so when Richard and I discussed it we decided this was the best name for everybody to come together and he said at the meeting whatever we decide to name we need to move forward two years we need to move forward and we can work on the process and all the things that I'll let Richard talk about but she is the name that

172we're bringing forward today you guys can do what you want with it but I'm tossing it out there this is my choice and whatever okay Richard thank yeah thank you trusty White Horse pain I I just think it um speaks to I think all of us were very wise a couple of weeks ago when we said we were gonna look to Dr White her pay uh to lead this process um I do think that there are issues and you know we've acknowledge them with the uh District's process I I think primarily um the district had a board appointed names committee that was an open meeting Brown act uh committee um and I think we need to re um you know ignite that committee um and bring uh names forward uh to to put on that

173committee um because this is likely not going to be the last time uh you know that we take up um uh an issue of of of a school name um and we'll do that going forward and I know the superintendent will bring that forward I I think what's important tonight is first of all um we need to thank the the Clay Community for getting organized and in a very unified and clear way saying um you know people might have not paid attention to to that name you know for years and years but that name is not a name that we're proud to have our kids uh attend and you came forward with a clear petition and you said we need to change the name and you were clear about why um and you know as

174the superintendent said last time uh look even with the best of all processes it doesn't mean that there's going to be consensus or agreement you know within the school community and we understand that and that's been common that's been typical uh when we consider uh school names but I think we really do need to thank this uh this uh Community for bringing forward this discussion because what you're seeing tonight is that as uh Dr wher's pain has has focused on the name of Dr Bertha Pendleton you're seeing that people from Beyond just the school Community are excited and inspired and coming forward and say that's something that we can be proud of that's a person that we can be proud of as a community and that we um would feel is worthy of a name

175of a SP school that our kids attend every every day and the opportunity now is uh to teach our kids about the history that Dr wherst Payne just started to talk about what Dr Pendleton uh overcame uh growing up in the South an incredibly brilliant uh you know young person weren't enough books in the her segregated Library uh you know to satisfy her curiosity and so she demanded you know that there would be more books and more access uh for young people in a in a in a community that uh that was was under uh hateful segregation um and she Rose to make a decision that um although she was a scientist um she also wanted to be an educator and she wanted to you know bring her love of learning uh to to new

176generations of young people and became teacher and a leader and of course then um a superintendent in this District first African-American superintendent first woman's superintendant uh in this the second largest uh School District in California so it's a great story I know that the the Educators at the school are eager uh to start uh telling the story and helping uh uh students engage and celebrating this this name I know parents are going to be eager in having discussions with their kids about the name Dr Bertha Pendleton the history of Dr Pendleton um what it means what it represents but also what it means to say we're not just going to Simply stand by uh and allow another generation of kids uh to go to a school named after somebody that we don't uh uh believe

177in and and when we believe the change needs to be made we're not going to wait for somebody else to do that for us we're going to step up and we're going to organize that change and that's a great story as well uh that I hope future generations of students at the Dr birth of Pendleton Elementary School learn your activism your leadership made this happen and now you're bringing uh the broader San Diego Community in into a celebration and a partnership with you so thank you for your work thank you trustees WHUR Payne and barera appreciate your leadership and helping us get to this point today is there a motion on this item thank thank you all right we have a motion and a second are there I'm not going to ask are there I

178know we have a lot of speakers on this item and we are happy to have you here miss stz would you like to call our speakers yes we have quite a few speakers we'll start with our two virtual speakers Cara veter and how much time do and each person will have one minute is Cara veret available on zoom and I think while we wait for her just to reiterate to everyone we are really happy to have you here we have a lot of speakers and so please stick to your one minute hello can you hear me hello my name is Cara verer and I am a parent of two students of clay thank you to everyone here for meeting to discuss and approve of a much needed name change well is not the name preferred

179by many of our community stakeholders that being Bel hooks Elementary I am here to express my pleasure the name has been selected long last so thank you to everyone who has worked with us to get us this far I won't retread the issues of the past however I would impress upon the board and District staff to not only clearly Define what future renaming processes should be but to also collaborate with the previous communities who've gone through reaming on how to make a new process that is Equitable and fair for everyone a process based in restorative justice practices is what is needed and what I really hope for the future so in the spirit of B hooks who said when we only name the problem when we State complaint without our constructive Focus or resolution we

180take hope away in this way critique can become merely an expression of profound cynicism which then Works to sustain Dominator culture I say please continue to dream with us hope with us and work with us to ensure that cynicism is not allowed to take root that critique can turn into positive action and that a path to a brighter Collective future can be paved in true partnership together thank you all everyone and I'm looking forward to having this new name announced publicly very soon the next virtual speaker is Michael Young is Michael available on Zoom yes go ahead you have one minute hello uh I'm a homeowner and resident of Rolando and I support the board's approval of a change of name for our neighborhood elementary school thank you thank you all right we we have

181over 30 folks who have signed up to speak in person so if you would all please remember the one minute Rule and also if you could hold your applause um until the end after everyone has spoken I'll call the first six names to come and line up and make your statement Deborah Maxie Jared Tucker Eric Anderson Brian Jenkins Sadie Tucker and Jean Jenkins this paper out this out minute good evening I'm Deborah Maxi retired administrator San Diego Unified School District I begin by stating my unwavering support of the renaming of Clay Elementary to the Dr Bertha Pendleton Elementary School uh I crossed her path in two personal occasions one where she personally shephered me as a new councelor at Keeler middle school and then again when we uh organization and I'm a part of a

182organization for African-American women in the field of Education we pinned her as an honorary member of the national sorority of f Delta Kappa Incorporated so we are sisters by career not by colors or uh handshakes uh she came from humble beginnings as you have heard uh all the way as a counselor vice principal principal district coordinator assistant superintendent Deputy superintendent before becoming our first female and first African-American superintendent for San Diego Unified School District District each year I oversee a scholarship that has been in her name for the last year since she has retired can I do a statement from our secretary of state I spoke with the Secretary of State the honorary Secretary of State Dr Shirley Weber before coming into the auditorium because she could not be here tonight and she says she

183overwhelmingly supports the renaming and I know she has called many of you or if not she will um after the vote also uh Dr Pendleton's son wants to express to the board that the family would truly be honored by this recognition let's give her her flowers while she can still smell them thank you thank [Applause] you members of the board superintendent great to be before you again uh thank you for thoughtfully engaging in this process you could have very easily just rubber stamped the names of committee's uh recommendation for Rolling Hills and uh without analyzing how it got there but you didn't you had a a funny feeling and so you dug a little deeper and uh I commend you for that over these past few weeks to see Bell Hooks and Dr Pendleton emerge

184as the best candidates is incredible progress and it shows the board's commitment to creating a restorative district for all children I urge you to keep on this path with future renamings some say that building should not be named after people at all but as we stand in the Eugene Brooker Auditorium I think that uh that argument doesn't hold a lot of water there are people that deserve honor and they also only make this argument when a certain type of person is being considered please don't fall for this Dr Pendleton dedicated her life to advancing her own education against incredible odds and to improving the outcomes for all the students that she served there is no argument against that I enthusiastically support this motion and I encourage you all to vote in favor thank you hello

185my name is BR Brian Jenkins and I'm a parent of two Henry Clay lumni and one current student tonight I speak in the spirit of B hooks uh to express my excitement for uh our school to be renamed after birth of Pendleton um I'm GNA throw my speech away I do want to address what I see as some revisionist history happening here um to start I keep hearing these sentiments echoed that there is unanimous support around renaming Henry Clay Elementary I'd like to call attention to the fact that his name is still on the side of this building and it has been two years since we brought this concern to the district so so that is disheartening um I'd also like to note on the record that when the trustees visited our school last uh

186last week nobody from our not okay with Clay group was invited to attend that session and so I'm not sure who spoke at that but that is news to us today but thank you for your time and um again I want to celebrate birth of Pendle because she's a wonderful person she deserves to be on this building and thank you all hi my name is stie I am 9 years old in a third grader at Clay Elementary I was disappointed when I learned that our school was named after a slave owner I thought that Bell hooks would be a great person for our school name because she was an activist who fought for love and equal equality and I think our school represents that Dr Bertha Pendleton also fought for many things including students she

187is an amazing leader she was the first black woman to be a superintendent in the San Diego Unified School District I would be equally proud to go to Dr Bertha Pendleton Elementary School I would like to thank my dad and the community for making this happen thank [Applause] [Music] you good evening board I'm Eric Anderson Campus neighbor I was prepared to speak against this motion when it heard heard it when I heard it wasn't going to be B hooks but after talking with my fellow organiz it not okay with Clay I changed my position to support the most important thing is to get Henry Clay's name off of the building as soon as possible I started the petition to rename the Andrew Jackson Post Office across the street from clay Park which is next to

188Clay Elementary say SAR Sarah Jacobs went all the way through both houses and the president of the United States and they passed public bill 17-31 14 and changed it but now almost 500 Days Later the Andrew Jackson signage still stands please pass item H3 and please pledge to remove every last trace of that despicable slave track trafficker Henry Clay I also remember the discussion you had at the first reading of this motion you pledged to create a better process for renaming schools in the future I will hope I hope you will consider Bill hooks again some other [Applause] time hi I'm Jeanie Jenkins I'm the grandmother of a current clay student as well as two clay graduates I came tonight to ask you to select B hooks as the school's new name I learned today

189that Bertha Pendleton was now the choice uh in the name being proposed and I also support this name to replace Henry Clay thank you the next group of speakers Jackie baras baras Sabrina young Denisha Jenkins Mary Castleberry Jennifer coast and Emily Tucker I'm a tiny bit emotional after hearing STI speak I'm Sabrina young and I was saad's kindergarten teacher and TK teacher and I want to say a few things really quickly I'm sorry I went over the buzzer last time I spoke um at the last meeting Dr Whitehurst Payne you open the conversation with this has a funny feel to it you hit the nail on the head and then all the board members including students who weighed in hit the nail on the head again and again and again thank you for listening and

190speaking your mind thank you to Shan ELO Rivera and his staff for also listening and speaking and supporting a restorative choice for our elementary school thank you for not rushing to votee to approve Rolling Hills a year ago our not okay with Clay Grassroots group submitted a list with several restorative names that we thought would celebrate our community and Dr Pendleton's name was put on that list and nominated by gerro Tucker our PTA president to all of the board members I'd like everyone to stand who is in support of Dr Bertha Pendleton as the name for Clay Elementary thank you for voting to rename Henry Clay Bertha Pendleton Elementary School Dr Whitehurst Payne this doesn't feel funny it feels very right thank [Applause] you Denisha Jenkins please approve the amazing birth of Pendleton Elementary given

191how the district and principal navigated this process and how we have been treated throughout many asked me why we did not Rally today to protest Dr Pendleton was a name we proposed from day one Bel hooks would never protest not having her name on a building the pedagogy of Love community and anti-racism brought us together and will sustain us through what is just the beginning of building a school that our children deserve Bel hooks's name will live in the gardens we plant how we how we care for each other what we teach our children and how we hold ourselves this school and this District accountable to ending the overtly racist homophobic and oppressive behavior that has been deemed acceptable we will not tolerate one more child being harmed we are seeing something and we are

192saying something we hope that we might now at least receive responses to our phone calls and emails from our school leadership because we are not going away and we will not stop until all of our children at our school feel the safety love and community community that is possible if we decide to make it so thank you thank you hello my name is Emily Tucker and I'm a parent of a utk and third grade student at Clay Elementary as well as a community member in the Rolando neighborhood I like many of us here had no idea who Henry Clay was before this information was brought forward his history does not represent our school or the amazing kids that go there my girls our children should be proud of where they go every day to learn

193I love our school I love the families that attend there and live in our community I am 100% in support of this name change and to bring forward a meaningful restorative replacement for it our schools should be teaching our kids about love inclusivity and Justice and who who it's named after should hold those values as well I cannot begin to describe how in I am of this group that has put in Endless volunteer hours over the past year and a half half to get to this point they kept pushing through every roadblock no matter the frustration today is a win having either of these incredible names Bell hooks or Dr Bertha Pendleton on our school I couldn't be more proud of my husband my girls of their dad and the other members that have fought

194so hard for something that is so obviously right thank [Applause] you good evening my name is Mary Castleberry I am a retired administrator from San Diego Unified School District having worked in the district for 32 years I had the opportunity to serve with Dr penlon as both a site administrator and also as a district administrator I'd just like to say a couple things about about Dr Pendleton she came to this District in 1957 she was recruited to come to San Diego Unified School District when she came to San Diego Unified School District the number of African-American teachers you could count on one hand she was a tra a Trailblazer in that sense that she came not knowing anything about San Diego she came from chattan Nuka uh Tennessee she was recruited by a recruiter and

195she came and she was a ongoing icon in this district for 41 years in all of her assignments and you've heard about all the differ assignments her um her energy was always on Equitable and uh opportunities for all students regarding of race race race uh social status um thank you so much I I have a whole two pages but thank you so [Applause] much if you'd like to turn in your remarks please feel free to bring them up that's fine um thank you uh board members I just want to say that I'm a Community member in Rolando and I'm a longtime public educator having work for our Community College District for 28 years now um I'm inspired by your leadership and your decision to go with Dr berther Pendleton Elementary School name change thank you

196for your vision this restorative change means so much the next group of speakers are Troy Owens Helen Griffith Jennifer storm Cherry flowers Sophia Mor and Laura chel hello my name is Sophia Maran I'm here today to raise my voice and to support changing the name of Clay Elementary not only do I live in this neighborhood but stie Tucker is my girl scout sister one of our girl scout principl go is to stand up in unity against injustices to make the world a better place whether the name is Miss spell hooks or Dr Bertha Pendleton this change is important as it symbolizes the progressive thinking of our community thank you for [Applause] listening hi My Name Is Sheree flowers and I'm the descendant of slaves and so are my daughters who are students at Clay Elementary

197School I just wanted to say that I'm asking you to write a wrong that has been inflicted on our Rolando Community to not only take down a slave holder's name but to carry out restorative justice by renaming our School Bel hooks an unapologetically black civil rights Advocate now that might feel feel uncomfortable to you because you may be familiar most with MLK but it's music to our ears what better way to write a wrong and to do good by slaves than to rename that same building after the descendants of one now you may be thinking Bertha Pendleton is a perfectly good name and has strong ties to San Diego but we previously told you you know how you could write this wrong so this just feels like another Act of censorship to me we're asking

198you to employ radical acceptance um and that's that's it thank [Applause] you hello I'm Dr Helen Griffith the proud product of San Diego UniFi I'd like to ask you tonight what's in a name it said that a name represents one's character attributes and nature therefore as we name a school we want our Scholars to embrace the character attributes the nature of the name upon reviewing that beautiful website at clay I saw a mural that said I am clay I'm assuming it's the intention for our Scholars to take pride in our schools therefore it's the hope that we can change the name today to Pendleton Elementary as she represents all we want our Scholars to embrace as a valedictorian of our high school a scholar a professional who worked her way up a leader in our

199community service organization Alpha Capa Alpha sorority Incorporated and the first black female superintendent tonight Bertha Pendleton is the exact representation of what we want our Scholars to ascribe to we want to see the new mural that says I am Pendleton therefore please vote tonight to change the name from clay to Pendleton Elementary and we thank you we support you [Applause] good evening um my name is Jennifer storm and I am uh the aunt to a number of clay uh Stu current one current student and two graduates um I am relatively new to the San Diego area within the last three years I spent uh the last 10 years living and working in Washington DC and one of the reasons I was excited to move to San Diego and move out of Washington DC um was

200really to be back closer to the issues and the communities um and see a community working together to make change um and so while I might be new to this community um and I have the chance to support my nieces and nephews and their families and making this change I am excited to see the board taking such an active interest uh in these conversations and continuing um to to improve the process and also to make this change of the name itself this is where the work of our country happens of our community happens and it's so important to uh be engaged so I just want to celebrate um the work that everyone has done here to make this name change the chance that we get to name this school after an incredible individual and thank

201you all for considering this proposal hi everyone good evening my name is Laura chatel and I am Mom to Bryce who is a student at Clay Elementary she's in utk um I'm also an advanced practice nurse I'm also a member of the supposed only six families that support this initiative an initiative that has been diminished from the start as only only two dads and at the last board meeting as 10 speakers I am here today to support the changing of Clay Elementary to the restorative name of Bera Pendleton Elementary School a name put put forth by the community that started this initiative while we are happy to see this day where a vote will be taken and we can move forward this process was a stark reminder that racism remains pervasive in our schools I

202can't help but question why this process went the way it did and why some Educators came out after two years of Silence in the 11th hour to exert their influence over a community striving to create an inclusive and welcom environment for students and families please know there is no amount of hate and oppression political navigating and influence that will deter us from doing the right thing to this board thank you for joining us we hope you will continue to do so as we work to bring the message of bell hooks throughout San Diego unified a message of Love community and [Applause] Justice my name is Troy Owens than thank you for the opportunity to come to speak with you we've heard a lot about Dr Pendleton my suggestion and support would be for that wonderful

203Legend of education and that trophy of Pride for the city and the county of San Diego I've had the privilege to work with her under her policies as a saningo police officer of juvenile services and creating a a safe environment a learning environment in the schools that I was assigned to but to simplify tonight I would just encourage everyone to remember SSS as a decision maker sad said so the next group of speakers Karen troes T R A ux John B burgest Chris Bono Louise chel magenta Johnson and Carrick Hamden hi my name is Louise chatel and I am the grandmother of a student at CL Elementary I am here to support the changing of Henry Clay Elementary to birth of Pendleton Elementary School I will leave you with a quote from Bell hooks to

204build Community requires VI Vigilant a awareness of the work we must continually do to undermine all the socialization that has led us to behave in ways that perpetuate domination thank [Applause] you hi my name is Chris Bana um also here as a community member and my father my it was my little daughter up here that was playing with the microphone um she wanted to make sure she was heard um and our her parents are very proud of her for that um it's important that you're actually listening right now uh I know this has been a long process I I know a lot of us have been frustrated throughout it um but it's nice to see that we're finally coming to a conclusion and I'm very happy with the Dr Bera Pendleton name I hope we

205can all move forward with that and thank you for for considering thank you the next group of speakers Gabriela Sano David Johnson Rebecca McCrae Kylie Bellinger and Katie NES Santana no I wasn't first but is we'll keep it going we'll keep it going good evening Mr superintendent and Schoolboard members I am Rebeca McCrae and I'm here again tonight on behalf of myself and nearly all of the amazing staff at Clay Elementary School that staff including nursing cafeteria nutrition services all of the everyone that's available on campus to help our kids every day I stand Here representing that staff filled with gratitude and appreciation and so much hope the the process of renaming our school has been a long one with many learning curves along the way when I spoke here two weeks ago we were

206frustrated with the timeline and concerned about our school Community moving moving forward we really needed this board to make a decision so that together we could move forward as a school Community you heard us not only did you hear us about making a decision you really did the work to make an informed decision we are so excited about the choice you made to name our school after Dr birtha Penal thank you to our district for listening to our community thank you to our superintendent for trusting this community and this whole process and thank you to our board members for doing the work needed to help our community grow together the next group of speakers Norma Todd Scarlet Jenkins Jesse Mills Terry early Amanda Gio vanetti sorry this required some serious revisions um I am the

207parent of three boys who have been or are currently attending clay I'm also a professor of English and a long-term student of B hooks I want to thank all of the board members for your work I thank you for acknowledging the problems that occurred during this process and I hope future Mis future processes will benefit from those missteps I came here to voice my my support in favor of renaming our school bell hooks but I appreciate that a resolution has been made and I will be proud that my boys will be attending a school named after Dr pend Pendleton a truly strong remarkable honorable leader in educator I'm in awe of my friends and neighbors who have fought tirelessly to make this a reality you all have set the best possible example for our students

208and I'm honored to Stand By Your Side I believe B hooks would wholeheartedly see this as progress hooks believed in education as helping students to quote learn to open their minds to engage in rigorous study and to think critically end quote I believe this is the work that our teachers and staff do every day at our elementary school and I hope we can honor them Dr Pendleton and B hooks hi good evening hi my name is nor matad and I'm here as a community member in full support of changing the name from Henry Clay to um Bel hooks or Bera Pendleton um as you deliberate your decision um reflect on the profound impact that you're making um in the community to see of these names in our Educational Systems it's not merely about the name

209or choosing a name it's about reflecting the values and the histories of our community and the aspirations of our society with that said whether you choose to honor the legacy of bell hooks uh with encompasses love and Community or the leadership of Bera Pendleton you are sending a powerful message to the community of empowerment respect and uh inclusivity thank you and thank you thank you to the board and thank you to the committee members that made this happen good evening Board of Education my name is Terry Wilson early and I come to you as a 36-year retiree of San Diego City Schools I currently sub at Clay Elementary and I'm a proud member of Alpac Cappa Alpha sorority Incorporated Epsilon Z Omega chapter of San Diego California but what I want to talk to you

210about is what it was like to work under Bera I was a teacher a a race ation facilitator a coordinator of a school Community safety Network Grant vice principal principal and then a Ed specialist when we worked with her it was a United familial environment that educated children in a caring nurturing fashion I worked in all five areas of the school district and we know how diverse we are if you come to Clay you see diversity like you would never believe um I recently talked with a young man that was um uh um a native um indigenous student who had just transferred there and I told him how he should be so excited to be a part of an environment that nurtures children thank you hi my name is Amanda I'm the mother of a

211student in San Diego Unified School District I am overwhelmingly here in support uh for the change of Henry Clay Elementary I am here in the support of Dr Bertha Pendleton as well as Bell hooks both women motivational and empowered Educators spreading the message of love and community and better reflect the values we as parents want our children to hold and strive for I urge you to continue on this path for restorative change thank you Nel our last three speakers Joe natch Ellen Nash Cheryl mclen hello my name is Joe and I'm a parent of a San Diego unified student I came here to uh support changing the name away from Henry Clay Elementary clearly after these other speakers I don't need to remind you of the problematic perspectives that clay represents it would be better

212for the name of the school to reflect a positive empowering figure of recent history such as Bertha Pendleton who herself is a leading and empowering figure from this District's history or Bell hooks an enlightened educator whose Legacy speaks to the ideals and goals as we as a that we as a syst Society are aiming to embody changing the name of the school should not be done just to brush over a blighted time in our nation's history but to take an affirming step forward towards achieving the mission of this school of this school district as listed in statement thank [Applause] you last but not least my name is Sherl mlen and I am a former member of the San dieo Unified School District I gave 38 and a half years to this very great District I'm

213also a member of the National sorority of fi Delta Kappa is an education sorority in which Dr Pendleton is an honorary member I also serve as the Far West Regional director and I am pleased that you are doing this our regional theme States uh striving for excellence Mission possible this mission is possible thank you thank you that concludes public comment thank you and thank you to everybody who joined us to share your feedback your support and for all of your work to get us to this point do any trustees have questions or wish to discuss this trusty baso I'd also like to thank all of you for being here tonight and for all the work that this group has put in over the last two years I'm I'm still not sure why it took two

214years just like you um to to to get to to this point and I know um we went through a a pretty steep learning curve here and hopefully this will help with uh because I know this is not going to be the last name change that we're going to go through so um hopefully we can take what we learned from here and um smooth out the process uh for next time and I also feel like I learned a lot about this community I'm kind of jealous I think I want to be part of this school Community this is you guys are amazing so um I but I I think we're very fortunate to have such amazing parents such an amazing Community as part of San San Diego unified and um also want to again thank

215U um trusty Barrera and uh Dr whiters Payne for coming to um such a a great solution and I just want to lift up Dr wher's pain for a minute because she's not one to brag about herself but but this woman has more energy than anyone I know and she is out at every single one of her schools all the time if you have a problem she is there um she's amazing and she um is very such a strong voice for her community and uh um so I I want to thank her personally for for leading us through this process and uh you don't have a couldn't have a better person in your corner um in in your District uh District e than than Dr whiter paint vice president Pon um I apologize Sharon I

216I may choke up here a little bit um uh I uh no tears yes she's got a thing with that um so this is a very moving evening obviously and um I'm I I uh for some reason I the person I keep thinking of is Frederick Douglas tonight and uh I was a strange little white kid uh in Middle School who had went through a Frederick Douglas phase I don't quite know I'm thankful I did but I don't know quite how that happened and uh so before I knew anything about the Compromise of 1850 and Henry Clay I knew that freder Frederick Douglas thought herry clay was garbage and uh and so um and one thing that um I go back to this Frederick Frederick gugl is very happy tonight wherever he is he he

217had to wait 130 years for it but um but the name is is gone and um or will be gone soon and I I go back to something that he said power concedes nothing and so I want to center tonight the organizers who conceded who recognized the power concede nothing and organized for the last two three years recognized there is no possible way in particular of black child should have to go to a school called Henry Clay it's completely Preposterous and we're a sweater that says or whatever you know what I mean it's just like completely unacceptable and so I really want to congratulate in particular everybody who spent so many thousands of hours organizing around this who saw something that was completely unacceptable to them and did not concede to it and did whatever

218it took to finally come to this evening and I'll be honest after the last meeting I was familiar with B Hook's um poetry but I'd never I hadn't really engaged with the writing so I got um All About Love on Audible and I was listening to it so I have to say I was a little bit I was definitely leaning in that direction and excited about Bell hooks um however when and I didn't see this board item until the board item dropped and I I I have to congratulate my colleagues um Sharon and Richard for selecting um a an option that I think both confirms the vision and values of the the um the organizing committee that brought that is bringing an end to to to this the Henry Clay name while also finding a

219way forward to Foster Unity I think it's a you brought up Solomon it's is that a gordian knot type thing I think it's a cut the baby is that cut I don't know yes that's what it is okay um and so I want to congratulate them but more than anything I want to um congratulate all the organizers who brought this and and ensured that in particular no black child will ever have to be in a school called Henry Clay and no child of any race color creed will ever have to be in a school um named after Henry Clay so uh congratulations to you and I Echo the sentiments of all of my fellow trustees and really want to thank again trustees Whitehurst Payne Ember for going back to the community making sure that you

220were heard thank you for holding us accountable I am sorry it took us this long it should not it will not moving forward and I am just grateful that we have gotten to this place and that we will have a restorative name on the school that we know our children deserve so we have all oh I was going to say we've said enough we have not said enough superintendent Jack thank you and I I said this before I want to thank the community uh and thank the broader Community I I too want to apologize I am the superintendent I am the leader of this district and I want to thank our principal I I know that uh some people may say you know what there's some tension and and all of these things I want

221to say this one of the teachers said it best we need to move forward and we need to come together and so I'm going to say um you can you can lean on me because it's my responsibility to create the conditions the processes um and we will be better I I commit to that we will be better um but I want to make sure that we hold true to that notion of restoration um because we need to do that as a community it was said by a teacher I believe in this community um that's going to be very important so I I would be remiss if I did not share that um the committee was acting on behalf of myself as a leader on behalf of the board and uh this is not a a

222place for us to point fingers and blame this is a time to come together um because that's what Dr Bertha Pendleton uh would want us to do in the spirit of love in the spirit of our students and so we need to find love um we need to find that place of space with an open heart uh to move forward uh as a community as a Dr Bertha Pendleton Community um so I I want to say that to the board we are going to be better um and to the entire Community uh you not only represent the community where your students go but you are laying the path for the rest of our district um so I ask that I ask that please please please sit down together restore sure we can have different opinions

223but we should all focus on our children and those who support our children that means our families and our adults our our Educators our nurses our counselors our custodial crew um and our leaders so I I ask that from me to all of you thank you thank you superintendent Jackson all right well we have a motion and a second to rename Clay Elementary Dr Bertha Pendleton Elementary School Let's uh student trustees if you could please vote thank you and all other trustees the the motion passes [Applause] and officially for the record the motion passes unanimously coming soon to the Rolando Community Bertha Pendleton Elementary [Applause] [Music] all right we are now moving on to the superintendent's consent agenda we will consider items i1 through I64 the following items were previously withdrawn by staff they i7

224I8 i12 and i62 Dr jackon can you please give us a quick update on the highlights from the consent agenda thank you president Hazen I have uh just uh the first item is i21 I want to share with the board this item uh is recognized we had a resolution um for mental health awareness uh this item focuses mental health um needs of our middle school students uh as we heard one of our students speak earlier uh the need for those supports and this agreement is a partnership with the San Diego County um which continues mental health screening and the tiered Mental Health Services and so very excited about uh this initiative screening to care for our students and the second item is i21 um and this is I know you know many of us have

225moved on but this is uh recognizing the need for hotel vouchers for our families who are still experiencing challenges um because of the storms in January and so uh this amendment will add additional funds project rest program $100,000 so we can continue to to do our part um every little bit uh matters so thank you very much thank you Dr Jackson do we have any speakers on oh we don't have a thank you we don't have a motion thank you we have a motion from vice president Pon and I am looking for a second second from uh truste lavender Williams all right now are there any speakers on Section I okay any questions or discussion from trustees trusty barera yeah thanks president Hazen just very quickly I I just want to um thank uh and

226appreciate our office of uh uh Youth and transition and chrisy Drake in particular you know that first couple of days after the big Reigns on January 22nd chrisy and our Educators who were out there going uh you know making home visits um that was the support network you know that existed in in our community and um and I know they were working day night weekends uh to make sure that somebody was there to provide some support and including you know the motel vouchers when nobody else was doing that so I just want to thank our our team yes I agree I'm really proud of that team for doing the right thing and grateful to the county for recognizing that stepping up providing an additional $100,000 so that we can continue to serve homeless students and

227families who are depending on us for hotel vouchers so all the way around lots of appreciation also on item i5 five it was really great to see it is great to see literacy professional development that is researched inform formed um and focused on the science of reading so excited to learn more about that work and and hear about the impacts uh once that happens we have a motion and a second student trustees if you could please vote thank you and all other trustees the most passes unanimously with our student board members concurring we will now go back to item D2 which was moved from the beginning of the meeting GNA give superintendent Jackson a second to get there it's been a long night I saw somebody in the back had ordered a pizza we're we're

228all right there with you uh but we're we're at D D2 do you have any any management appointments for us I do uh thank you very much and with the approval of these positions it is my honor and pleasure to uh say that the board did vote uh to approve the appointment of our executive director of Data Insights and system support Dr Ran De Rosario congratulations and also this evening uh with the approval of this position uh happy to appoint our senior director instructional support assigned to the Data Insights and system support Dr E Moreno congratulations we're looking for great things and quiet the crowd thank you thank you uh we will now receive public testimony on non-agenda items if anyone is left in the auditorium Miss stz have we received any requests for non-agenda

229comment yes we have about 13 requests we'll see who's who's still here our first um speaker we'll call our virtual speaker Melissa Huff if she's available each person will have two minutes I'm here online all right go for it all right hi my name thank you for listening to my comments and concern my name is Melissa huff and I'm parent to two San Diego Unified School District students um so our journey had been wonderful um going to both benchley and puring and this was until my oldest son started going to Patrick Henry High School in spite of and not because of administration there are phenomenal faculty at Patrick Henry including kalal Medina Clark dickan Lan and councelor Glazier they have showed empathy support and exhibited expertise despite being kept from important information needed to support

230the whole student my son's freshman year he has experienced extreme bullying um he's had his hat taken off his head thrown between students um while the kids are making fun of him on March 12th he had three students intimidate him threatened to take him to the parking lot shove and push him towards the parking lot they put him in a headlock punched him stole his backpack and threw his backpack on the roof he has had hate speech carved into his locker twice and the response we got from Officer Skinner was I personally removed it um I'm here to discuss administration's response or lack thereof and the restorative justice system it took 10 days for one of his attackers to be removed from his PE class we were encouraged not to file a police report by

231officers Skinner and VP Miller it took a month to have a restorative justice meeting restorative justice can be effective if is done in a timely manner there are only a couple restorative justice officers to cover the entire San Diego Unified School District we were told multiple things by multiple people about who could attend the meeting AP Jennifer pakowski has no place for hate on our email and yet no place for a hate has done nothing to promote a hatefree campus at Patrick Henry in your years teachers are not informed of what is going on the very people who spend the most amount of time with our children thank you the thank you we have several speakers in person Jenna tesner Zoe ordones Jovin Herrera tamon Sanders and Angelica talson you each have two minutes my

232name is Jenna tesner and I'm a of Aspen challenge SCPA SCPA is a unique Arts Magnet School that serves students from over 90 zip codes this creates Transportation challenges 40% of our chronically absent students lack District provided busing the guidelines that deem the F mile radius around our school walkable simply don't work for us our students most affected by these guidelines are students who live in the Lincoln and Morris cluster the distance is too far especially for our musicians this lack of Transportation creates it's a barrier to education the solution a dedicated bus for the Lincoln and Morris cluster please consider our requests to help make school more accessible for all thank you thank you hi I'm Angelica twon and I am also a part of the Aspen challenge here at scspa a friend of

233mine is an art major she experienced getting to school and she says as someone who carries canvases that are taller than me imagine walking from the the highest hills of honey drive which is 2 miles away from school with heavy canvases and instruments I believe that this is UN unequitable another friend of mine I pick up on my way to school when she has walked up a steep Mile Long Hill not just her but we are talking about countless of other students who go to school every day no student should have the distress of getting to school every day SCPA is only asking for two buses in the Morse and Lincoln cluster ERS this act will change the lives of young students from 6th grade to 12th grade thank you thank you to this board

234I would also like to introduce myself my name is Jovan Herrera I'm a participant of the Aspen challenge for sdsa personally I am from the mors cluster and to Tech and uh through technicality this means buses don't service me cuz I am deemed too close to school and from experience it takes me 40 minutes to go to and from school per day now imagine me with a heavy backpack or an instrument case if I had to walk to school in those conditions I wouldn't really want to go to school if I didn't have parents who are well committed to my school attendance then I would probably be absent chronically absent myself I want people on this board to understand that some people aren't as fortunate as I am and buses should in fact service the

2355 miles from school that they currently do not we ask this board to support the in of adding two more buses to Ser of those under under represented clusters as they make up a notice noticeable portion of our demographic our bright Minds should be in the classroom As Leaders we should not Rob them of this opportunity thank you thank you our next group of speakers Mary Susan Doyle aouri Bon Court lazono Max langenderfer hello good evening trustees president hazan superintendent Jackson student board members staff and San Diego unified Community my name is Mary Doyle I came here a few months ago I'm a Community member retired Sweetwater Union High School teacher and former School Board member of South Bay Union in Imperial Beach and I'm also a doting ant of three San Diego unified students

236and I'm here to thank you for passing the resolution last month March 26 titled resolution in the matter of recognizing an environmental crisis affecting San Diego County and forwarding this resolution to President Biden Governor Nome and representative Peters I wasn't able to attend as it was spring break for my family and we have taken a trip but I do so appreciate this board joining into the collective voice lifted to seek resolution and funding to resolve and fix the infrastructural sewage treatment plant on the TJ Tijuana River and stop the resulting raw sewage pouring by the millions of gallons daily into the Pacific Ocean you join a huge group of community organizations politicians and regular citizens asking for this fix it's important the last two Sundays the Border sewage issue has been the on the San

237Diego paper front page article this one was about our lifeguards you also join with five other local school boards who have pass resolutions or proclamations in time for Earth Day South Bay Union Sweetwater Union San Cedro Elementary t l Vista Elementary National City City Elementary all have passed resolutions before Earth Day so thank you most districts are sending these resolutions along to President Biden and Governor Nome um with these approved resolutions in hand passed by the six San Diego school districts it's my hope that school communities will be inspired to write letters contact their government representatives and ask for this F fix relaying their own personal experiences and of living and learning on the shores of this devastating disaster our lives and I have thank you the Ripple effects of your resolution will travel far

238I have as because I'm a former teacher thank you cards and stickers for all oh thank you and if our next speakers would like to come down please go ahead hello pre prestigious board members my my name is zi benor I am the representative for the Aspen challenge at San Diego High School the Aspen challenge is a great opportunity that was introduced to us in which a team of eight students were able to choose from a selection of five challenges and try to find a solution for them when my team sat down and talked about which challenge we wanted to pick from the main topic we talked about was mental health it was something that many teenagers struggle with and many don't have access to help so with this we found that being able to

239trust someone to talk to about their mental health issue was a big factor why some can't find help with this we were able to create a club on campus called trust which stands for teens reaching us starting today we started by collecting data to help us understand what students on campus would struggle with and if they have someone on campus who they can trust and talk to we saw that many students feel very stressed and overwhelmed as well as not having someone to talk to this with this we were able to to get a partnership from our local TR Joe's for donations of flowers and sell them at a very low cost we raised over $600 and Ed that money to create conversation cards um to engage in peer-to-peer discussions one of them being directing

240students in need to a wellness center on campus our ask is that you help us get every High School a wus center with access to a counselor as my time is running out I ask that you take this step into helping us for future San Diego unified students thank you thank you thank [Applause] you hello I am Max Lang anderer and I am a sixth grade student at the school de Porta currently our school start time is 9:00 a.m. and has been for the last 10 or so years but our school start time for the next year has been changed and has been moved back an hour to eight this change was made suddenly with short notice after a school tried to reduce instructional minutes and said the start time will not change they did

241change it despite the fact that 60% of families said to keep it the same I created a petition to maintain her school start time at 9:00 and in just a short week almost a 100 people had signed it there are many reasons why an earlier start time is unacceptable middle schoolers and teens have a hard time falling asleep earlier this will result in loss of sleep according to the American Academy of Pediatrics Teenagers Who start school too early are at risk for chronic sleep deprivation the AAP recommends that middle and high school should start at 8:3 :0 a.m. or later to better align with students Natural Body rhythms which our current schedule aligns with some kids will lose even more sleep because they will be on a bus as early as 6:30 a.m. those with

242Elementary and or high school students may have close drop off times resulting in tardiness students participating in Middle School sports may have to wait around for hours before coaches and volunteers can arrive as practices typically start at 4m. changing our score start time will have serious consequences on our academic performance and overall health we need to prioritize student well-being over other considerations when making such decisions thank you thank you for your leadership and our last two speakers carara tesner and Javier Chavez good evening I'm one of the Aspen coaches for sdscpa um Team the Aspen team that we're going to be presenting tomorrow and our students chose chronic absenteeism we met with our Bo we met with all of the students who are chronically absent and we found that they are absent because of lack

243of transportation and mental health the biggest portion of our chronic absentee is our is our students who do not have transportation which is in our linol Lincoln and Morris cluster and as a counselor and I've been a counselor in this district for well over 20 years um every time I call home and to speak to a family to find out why that they can't come to school at SCP a that I've been this is my seventh year there it is always more so than not a lack of transportation and sadly it hurts my heart and I have to hold back tears as I hear mothers cry because they cannot afford gas to put in their car with the current state of of inflation that we are in they cannot afford to get to their kids

244to school they have to choose whether or not to get to work or to get their kids to school they can't do both they can't afford their car repairs historically Lincoln and Morris are are are social disadvantaged um students at our school we do serve over 90 zip codes at SCPA and I want to do better for our students and trying to get another bus for our Lincoln and our moris students just as our students said they have to carry um instruments they dance for several hours Etc and they're tired and for them to have to walk five miles each way it's a hardship on them also we met with transportation and they said that sadly I know we all know that we're having a huge budget deficit and that they the transportation department said

245that their um their funds were being cut and I'm begging you to please not cut from the Transportation because we do need not only to get students to SCPA but we need to get students to every school in San Diego unified we need to help our lower and our middle class families who are desperately suffering from the the economic status that we are in right now in this country to help them get their kids to school thank you so much thank you good evening board members superintendent Jackson thank you guys for being here and giving us this time my name is Javier Chavez I'm an educator parent and coach of the Aspen challenge team you see behind me I could talk tonight about all the wonderful things that happen on our campus but today we

246are here talking about and highlighting uh chronic absenteeism I'm here because our campus our campuses are sanctuaries for our students they are communities where students find belonging and create identity they grow and become strong members within our society all because they were present they made it to school but for too many of our students that's not the reality one way we com we can combat chronic absenteeism is by securing buses and transportation resources so that more students can access the outstanding instruction that Sanu unified has to offer I know that this isn't a fancy cause it's not a cause that's going to make the front page of the paper but our schools change lives and unfortunately sometimes getting to school is the hardest part so I ask that we work together to secure more buses

247and transportation resources to help combat this issue thank you for your time thank [Applause] you thank you all for taking the time to provide your comments to the board especially those of you that have stayed late to share your feedback we appreciate your input and please know that your perspectives help us to better serve our students parents and the community and to our Aspen team I know that many of us will hear from you and see you tomorrow and look forward to hearing more this concludes the agendized business of the board we will be holding a special meeting uh to continue our student outcomes focused goal setting work and the next regular meeting of the board will be held on May 14th 2024 this meeting is now adjourned for e