001good afternoon uh this is paula vieskas board president i call the meeting of the san juan unified school district board of education to order at this time we will move into closed session to discuss one personnel matter superintendent's goals for the school year 2020 2021 thank you president viazquez the board is now going to go into closed session they will return for public session at approximately 6 30 pm thank you good afternoon and welcome i call the meeting of the san juan unified school district board of education back to order due to the executive orders issued by governor newsome due to the cove 19 outbreak tonight's meeting is being conducted via the zoom platform and is also being streamed to youtube the meeting is being audio and video recorded and the recording may capture sounds
002and images of those attending this meeting the recording will be posted on the district website we thank you for joining us and ask your patients as we use this format in an effort to maximize access and participation during this time of social distancing and other restrictions please stand and join me in the pledge of allegiance 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 good evening and welcome i am paula viesca's board president joining me tonight is dr michael mckibben board vice president mrs zema kriesen board clerk miss pam costa and mr saw hernandez board members superintendent kern and other staff members are also in attendance before we begin i'd like to review
003the two methods that are available to submit public comments for tonight's meeting the first option is to submit a public comment online using the comment form located on the district website at www.sanjuan.edu august 25th if you wish to submit a public comment on more than one agenda item please submit a separate form for each item on which you are commenting comments received by 6 pm today have already been shared with all board members comments received after 6 pm tonight including those submitted during the meeting may be read during the meeting depending on time restrictions comments may only be submitted on an agenda item up until the time that agenda item has been taken up for discussion the second option is on the zoom platform where you may use the raise your hand function when you
004are called on you may share a comment via audio during the meeting please note that all public comments are subject to a two-minute limit or approximately 1500 characters with that we are at item d approval of the minutes are there any corrections to the minutes for august 11th seeing none is there a motion to approve the minutes for august 11th so moved second it's been moved by ms costa and seconded by dr mckibben all those in favor please indicate by saying aye aye that was unanimous we are now at items e1 through e4 mr allen do we have any reports from staff board appointed district committees employee organizations or other district organizations at this time we do not president vyasas thank you mr allen we are now at item e5 and there are no closed
005session actions to report at this time with that we are at item f visitor comments mr allen will you please give instructions to those in attendance via zoom on how they can raise their hand if they have a public comment at this time if you've joined us via the zoom meeting today and would like to give a public comment at this time now would be the appropriate time to offer a comment on something that is not on tonight's agenda we would ask that if you have a comment on one of tonight's agenda items that you hold your comment until that agenda item is called again if you have a comment for an item that is not on tonight's agenda now would be the time to offer that comment you may do so by raising your
006hand in zoom at the bottom of your screen you should have that raised hand icon you can click that or if you've dialed into the zoom call tonight you can press star 9 on your telephone keypad mr allen do we have any general visitor comments at this time we do not have any hands raised at this time and i am verifying that we have had no further written submissions and we have not oh we do have one hand raised president vasquez okay i would like to remind the public that comments are limited to two minutes under the ralph m brown act the board is not allowed to comment on items that are not on the agenda so we are not ignoring your comments we just can't respond to any individual comments the superintendent can and
007will refer items to appropriate staff members who will follow up with you i see a hand raised from mike laird mike please begin when you are ready and you'll have two minutes upon commenting oh hi i'm not mike laird i'm laurie quarter hi sorry that's the username indicated there but welcome lori sorry that's okay i'm i sent a letter in to the board and i'm hoping to make sure that you follow the guidelines that you've expressed in your strategic plan to utilize your shared beliefs your missions and objectives and i'm concerned that your flyers for the project for barrett modernization has been sent only to a select few houses i believe that cost justification is sending out the postage to throughout the community is well well needed and the concerns need to be represented throughout
008the community and i think that the project cost justification needs to include environmental factors that will be impacted and shared those impacted things with the community like the loss of a green belt and the water levels that may be in danger for the district water supply that has the well on the property i'm concerned in the parking lot structure i'm concerned with the traffic structure and the picture that depicts modernization does not show the barrett street does not show the houses around it and is not showing much more parking concerned about the facilities usage the use of both facilities and the fields and the gym at the same time is overload again on the community concern that the parking no matter how much parking you put in is unless you balance those concerns will not
009be enough to overload the parking in the community i'm concerned that i've been misrepresented by your communication specialist that the project was put on hold in february where in fact that it was uh letters uh from people in december to put bids on the project and i was told that there was no architectural plans when in march you were putting in design coordination meetings so i'm concerned about being truthful you very much lori for for joining us this evening at this moment i see no other individuals wishing to give public comment mr allen can you just confirm that you have not received any other emails as well then is confirmed we have not received any other emails okay seeing no other individuals who have not already spoken with their hand raised at this time we
010um will now be moving to item g the consent calendar mr allen do we have any public comments for items that are on the consent calendar we have not had any public comments submitted for the consent calendar if you are with us on the zoom call tonight and would like to offer a comment on an item that is on the consent calendar now would be the time to do so again you may do that by raising your hand clicking the raise hand button at the bottom of your screen or if you've joined via telephone pressing star nine on your telephone keypad okay at the moment i do see one ray's hand it's um lori who joined us for visitor comments as well username mike laird i'm sorry lori i've forgotten your your last name um
011but if you had public comment on consent calendar items now would be the time to commence your public comment remarks hi i'm actually um mike laird's wife not this isn't lori we're both here on the zoom call together so i would like to make a comment my name is kathleen allen okay is this regarding consent calendar items this is regarding um the map that was put out for barrett's uh remodel i didn't give a call i did not get a chance to talk okay uh please begin two minutes and that was due to my um my misunderstanding i just i saw the same username and so um i didn't realize that another person wanted to also speak so please go ahead and begin your two minutes at this time okay thank you um when i
012saw the map that was put out to me personally it i live right behind the school and that map looks like it's really hard to tell from there what is what is on the borders where the homes are and i feel like that's really deceptive because it doesn't show where it backs up to the home it's actually cut off on the side so you can't even see uh it was hard to even figure out we had to basically figure out from the dome on the front building that that was barrett and and i really feel like that was a deceptive measure by not being able to know where the the homes were and the fences were backing up um it just you know it looks it looks great it looks really nice but there's nothing
013there that that determines where the homes are and to me that's um important and uh i i moved in here a year ago i had no idea that any of this was going on and i never received a map until um i got one from recently uh regarding what was going on and it will definitely affect we we're right up to that parking lot and you know we're concerned about the light that's going to be shining in our backyards um i hear that there may be aau basketball courts that are going to be going in um and the lights on those the sound of the basketball hitting all the time uh you know i realized we did buy homes right next to a school but um i really think that there should be more done
014to include the community and that's all i have to say thank you very much and again um apologies and thanks for the accommodation that's been our first um multi multiple individuals in one household and so um at this point i don't think there are any other individuals from that household who wish to speak and the raised hand function has gone away so um seeing no other public comment um for either visitor comment or the consent calendar at this time do any board members wish to remove any items from the consent calendar seeing um none i am requesting that we move remove item g2 the purchasing report be pulled is there a motion to approve item g1 and items g3 through g7 so i'll second it's been moved by dr mckibben and seconded by miss creason
015all those in favor please please indicate by saying aye aye that was unanimous um at this point we are at item h the continuation of the consent calendar item g2 was pulled from the consent calendar um dr calvin will you please address item g2 um when you are ready you don't see dr calvin here there we go hi thanks for joining us please begin when you're ready uh thank you president velazquez we are requesting that the board pull the vista child therapy center line item from page one of the report we would like to bring this back for approval on the september 8th board meeting i'm sorry president i didn't catch that i got to the page can you repeat that please what are we pulling the vista child therapy center line item from page
016one of the report thank you so we're pulling that item members of the board as um we found today the figures were off a little bit we're gonna bring that back with the appropriate allocation at the next board meeting but all the other items that would be on g2 we would be taking action on the any other questions or clarifications on that item seeing that at this time is there a motion to approve item g2 as amended so moved been moved by ms costa is there a second one so i could have it if i had the last one i'll give this one to song it's been seconded by mr hernandez all those in favor please indicate by saying aye was unanimous we are now at business items we will begin with our first business
017item item 2020 2021 start of school update superintendent kern please begin when you're ready thank you president vyasquez members of the board and our community that are joining us tonight um we are going to thank you deputy bassinelli for pulling that up um we are going to have a number of folks from the various divisions share tonight each year we come forward to the board and we share some information about the start of school and to say that this is a unique start of the school year would be an understatement much like how we ended the last year was different and challenging we absolutely faced some unique challenges in terms of how we're educating our students day to day unlike any time that we ever have previously we will be sharing kind of each division
018and then some other information and then at the end be able to answer any questions melissa if you go to that second slide you're going to continue to see these themes throughout the course of the year i think mrs basinelli has shared this probably in the last two presentations and i think you'll probably be seeing this come back again and again that really these are the themes and the areas that are our focus is in terms of our strategic priorities for this year i did before we move into the presentations by each division just wanted to share with the board and then the public as well each year we do have a what we call as our smooth start president viazquez and myself had the opportunity to address all of our new teachers that we
019hired this year even through these unique challenges we hired over 50 new instructional staff this year so they went through that smooth start training and then we always like to share our enrollment information at the start of this year we were projected to be at uh 39 000 just a little under 300 we're just a little un over 39 000 so less than a 300 decline which considering all the challenges and the choices that people have made we're feeling pretty good about we are going to continue to track pardon me we're going to continue to track those families who are still in our san juan community we will continue to communicate with those folks throughout the course of the year and we will be reaching out to them probably shortly in the next month or
020two and then again prior to our open enrollment period we'll be reaching out back to them with with new information as we have that so our principals did an outstanding job of really identifying those members of their community that are still in their community but may not be in the school and and we'll continue to engage with those families throughout the course this year so at this time i'm going to turn it over to assistant superintendent rick messer and he's going to share some information around our our high schools good evening president viaska superintendent kern members of the board of miss cunningham you know superintendent kern said it this year has probably been a very challenging start of the school year but it's also led to some incredible creativity on how to reach out and
021welcome our kids back to school tonight i just want to share a number of the activities that our schools reached into deeply to try to find ways to connect with our kids and bring them back so our high schools had numerous welcoming activities for their students and staff in this new virtual environment for our freshmen there were many virtual link crew activities and freshman orientations across the district both juniors and senior students and staff from bella vista mesa verde del campo and others supported the ninth graders with zoom activities that included breakout sessions and connecting activities uh to really encourage and support and build those bridges to you know make those ninth graders feel uh welcome to their new schools as you can see at the bottom of the screen uh our link crew advisor
022from mesa verde high school miss nicole gussini gets the award for being the most spirited lean crew advisor and again they videotaped their presentations they had many students link crew juniors and seniors giving messages to the kids which you can find on on their websites many of our high schools also hosted virtual freshman orientation activities using zoom and youtube to introduce students and schools uh to the staff and you can see at the top left hand are are welcome to encina preparatory and you can see the it's in different languages and it was a way to bring as many different uh community and parents into these meetings and making them feel welcome and a part of this process all of the high schools in some fashion created welcome back videos that included their principals and
023staff leaving messages for the students you can see the two students to the left of the screen from bella vista they have a whole slideshow of their seniors providing welcoming messages to those incoming freshmen and the students coming and you can also see at the bottom left and bottom right that the schools created tours for their their students and their families and you can see to the bottom right you know ram pride the new student center at casserole high school so the schools did many many activities they also reached out to the parents and the students and provided live zoom meetings and orientations for parents and at san juan high school in cena high schools they had meetings in english as well as spanish and other languages on different nights to promote as well as
024offering special ed families opportunities to meet with their staff beforehand really trying to as best as possible connecting with these folks before uh you know they're sending their students to our schools but there's one highlight i want to share with you in the upright upper right hand corner of the screen this is a student from mira loma high school and the the international baccalaureat parent organization paid for yard signs for every incoming freshman at mira loma high school and the administration and classified staff hand-delivered them to every freshman's home before the start of the school year and i would like to share with you an email from the ninth grader in that picture her name is ileana fuentes that she had sent to principal tracy and it says hello miss tracy my name is ileana
025fuentes and i wasn't too able to thank you the other day when you stopped by to give us our lawn sign i wanted to say thank you and that i'm very excited to start high school at mira loma i plan on doing my best in the face of these unprecedented times especially as a new fledged freshman go matadors kindly ileana and it's things like this that we see across our district of our our staff going far beyond what we probably would have done in the past to welcome our kids so again many many activities and welcoming our students thank you uh good evening this is jim schumacher i'm here to present our information on our middle schools our theme for august 2020 really was about establishing culture and climate and our big wondering was how
026are we going to do that in a virtual setting um we decided the answer that question was being very intentional with our actions so specifically um what we embarked upon was we made personal phone calls to every new middle school student to welcome them to their middle school and to assess their readiness and their needs related to technology navigating our platforms meals and operation find our kids and as will rogers middle school principal aaron wercher commented every member on our staff is now a personal detective uh this is a picture you can see on this slide of principal uh sylvan principal kirk bibo and arlington heights principal rafael martinez who coincidentally were out doing the same thing which was looking for kids that were not participating in school and they came across each other at
027the same exact house and i'm happy to report that they were successful in this visit and connecting a middle school special ed kid and an elementary sibling back to school so that's exciting melissa do you mind moving us to the next slide thank you additionally our sites hosted virtual orientations for new students rallies and dress-up days as rick indicated we have a robust web program where everyone belongs um where we rolled out those as well and the staff really took it upon themselves to create a welcoming environment by introducing themselves to their students with fun videos you can go on instagram and most of our school's websites to watch those videos if you're interested and lastly on that theme of intentionality i'm before the start of the school year to learn and experiment with how
028to create climate and culture in new ways our site leaders met twice a week since school closed in march and a standing agenda item was really about sharing out best practices and lessons learned and those formed our august professional development day with staff at that point reflecting on lessons learned best practices and um implementing those during our pd so that teachers had a toolkit related to climate and culture options that could be used once we started school on that very first day i'm gonna end our middle school presentation and kick it over to our senior director amber lee thanks mr shoemaker good evening everyone this is amber lee townsend i'm the senior director of elementary and k-8 schools and we wanted to share with you how we opened up school this year elementary and k-8s
029opened the year in ways to really show our families that we continue to be about making connections and building relationships to support our kids in their learning throughout the year site principles and vps alongside their staff are working very hard to ensure that every student and family feels welcomed feels like they have a place to be and knows that they're supported in this journey together and we really want to thank them all some examples of that work include doubling down on reaching out and building relationships with our earliest learners our kids who are entering school for the very first time where one school site in particular did um the delivery of what they called jitter glitter and ready get ready confetti which was delivered to the front doorsteps of kids to place under their pillows
030at night to help them get rid of those first day jitters and get ready for the first day of school with us many elementary teams held get ready zooms before the first day of school to let families know what it might look like in class we made phone calls home we made home visits we visited child care centers we went out and visited our community partners to get the word out that school was starting and we were excited to welcome them we hosted classroom supply delivery and deployment and we also hosted chromebook pickup to make sure that families were ready to go that first day of school ms besnelli if you could forward the slide thank you some schools did socially distance masks on drive-through welcome parades principals planned welcoming activities for their staffs to
031cheer them on and make sure they too felt welcome in this environment overall our pre-opening of school and opening day activities were about energizing our communities to bring them along with us on this journey and these positive moments were truly cherished all of these reach outs were also used as moments to pre-determine who and possibly where some of the safety nets that we would need to deploy immediately were within our distance learning future i'm now going to pass the presentation to dr calvin who will share more with you about special education thank you for your time thank you miss townsend good evening and i'd like to tell you more about our special education centers and cade homeschool and the number of activities that they embarked on in preparation for the new school year laura rough
032transitional school prepared for the 2021 school opening by providing professional development for the staff that focused on utilizing the advanced features of zoom and synchronous instruction the team also received training on unique learning system which is a comprehensive online curriculum that covers a broad range of skills but the focus for the team was on the life management unit virtual parent nights were held on august 5th and 10th and many staff members are on hand to meet and greet students during the chromebook distribution prior to the start of the school year the focus for the year is rough which stands for relationships understanding friendships and future next slide ms bassinelli the staff of la vista center gathered in early august for collaboration time and trainings in google classroom for teachers they also establish a new online
033reward system for students and plan for the eventual return of in-person learning staff were on hand during chromebook distribution and made a point of trying to connect with students during this informal meet and greet opportunity the first day of school began with a zoom scavenger hunt and a virtual back to school night was held on august 20th ralph richardson sent staff a welcome letter to all families at the end of july and engaged in professional development that focused on virtual learning strategies families were given the option of ipads or chromebooks during the distribution of technology and staff ron had to meet families and answer questions families also received emails calls and text messages from teachers in which they shared information about distance learning and explain class schedules next slide kate homeschool the program that we've
034recently expanded has proven to be an appealing alternative to our families and enrollment has grown from 50 students in 1920 school year to 761 students as of this morning the homeschool team spent four days this month meeting with families and distributing introductory work packets and literature to students each homeschool advisory teacher reached out by phone or email to their homeschool families to begin the steps of guiding parents and guardians through the homeschooling process program manager sandra targ also sent out numerous blackboard updates to families next slide meal service is provided daily at 44 school sites each morning and we are currently distributing an average of 300 meals per day to san juan's students we all also have staff on hand who continue to explore ways to increase our meal distribution and now i believe i'm
035handing this back to amber lee thank you dr calvin we wanted to leave you all with a poem that was written by one of our san juan parents her name is shannon wilson and she wrote this poem as she was thinking about entering this school year and was kind enough to share it with us and give us permission to read it here tonight and i believe she's here with us in the zoom as well so we want to share a special special thank you to her for inspiring us truly with her words and the title of the poem is back to school in a new way going back to school this year sure has a different feel nobody could have predicted this it sure feels surreal teachers students and parents have all had to adapt
036to the unprecedented and challenging distance learning format materials distribution was quite an interesting task full of signs lines and arrows and everyone wearing a mask but behind the masks and protocols were smiles love and spirit it was a beautiful reminder that together we are in it this pandemic and our distance does not change the fact that we are still mustangs and we are stronger as a pack creativity and gratitude are at an all-time high and social connection is still possible thank goodness for wi-fi so let's say a positive and let's stay positive and strong and show up for each other and please please stay patient with the fathers and the mothers let's saddle up to chromebooks in a quiet and inspiring room and don't forget your password because you have to log into your classroom
037our incredible teachers and staff have been working harder than ever to ensure that their students stay healthy bright and clever clever although what the year will look like isn't exactly clear we know we'll make the best out of the 2021 school year and i just wanted to share that with you as a parting note and a thank you to everyone for supporting us and president vyaskas we would like to now turn it over to you for any questions that you may have thank you very much for the whole team for that presentation it's truly a team effort um before i turn it to board member questions and comments i want to first make a quick check and see mr allen do we have any visitor comments at this time we have not had any visitor
038comments submitted for this item however if you have joined us here on the zoom call and would like to offer a comment on this item now would be the time to do so again you can do that by raising your hand clicking that raise hand icon at the bottom of your screen or if you've dialed into the zoom meeting tonight star 9 on your telephone keypad to raise your hand with that i'm just going to take a short pause while folks perhaps might be working their way to the raise their hand function okay while you're waiting oh yeah i could just share this i i ran into um our senior director of technology mr scubitsky today while i was out at one of the school sites and he was delivering some more devices and at
039the time i think he had told me we had distributed just short of 26 000 devices this year which was much more than we had in the spring and we've we've also handed out significantly more hot spots than we have to families in the spring and and if our community still needs those we have those and so we want to make sure that everybody has the tools that they need this year as well so i just thought i'd add that thank you superintendent curran and they're still um are no public comments at this time on the zoom feature so i will turn it to my colleagues mr hernandez thank you i just want to uh it's reports like reports like this that makes me very proud of this district i'm actually touched by the the
040manner which our students went out of their way to welcome new students to their school and you could clearly see their effort in a time that is so unique and so rare to see the type of effort and i just applaud these schools our teachers our administrators and staff for their effort and uh just appreciate all of them and tell let everybody know we're gonna get through this and thank you so much thank you mr hernandez miss costa i too would like to say a sincere thank you to staff to the school staffs that worked so hard and it was evident in the report it was also evident in parents and grandparents who called me and said that they had been concerned and as they actually participated in start of school they felt so good
041about it and it was a different feeling from spring of the year of last year so we're off to a great start and that's because we have such a fantastic staff i had a couple of questions um one of them had to do with homeless students mckinney-vento students and technology are we was reported to be by someone that they saw a family in a parking lot of business um in san juan and they assumed that the family obviously the family was living in their car and they were trying to use the wi-fi of that business if are there ways that we could reach out to families that might be living in their cars and provide any sort of services to them for technology i'll take that one we are providing hot spots for our homeless
042families and we do have a team of staff on hand who reach out to them and offer support so we can find out who they are then yes we can provide support and services to that family that's wonderful and then finally knowing that the authentication process will happen on august 28th what safety nets are we putting in place in case a family is not able to do that i'm happy to tackle that if if no one else is jumping in uh at the middle school level i think it's reflective of what's going on at all of our divisions um sites have notified families that this is pending it's posted on many of our schools websites i know we had our principals meeting today and they were asked to re-remind parents that they should take a
043little bit extra time logging on in the morning just to make sure that that gets up and running and each school site has um really all hands on deck that morning to field phone calls i know also that our admin assistants here at the district office whatever anything goes down are uh inundated with phone calls there they know to be ready for this as well it's really like i said an all hands on deck moment but we feel like we've got the messaging out it's just i think there's going to be a a few folks that are scrambling at the very last minute because they didn't log on early but we'll get past it if i could add for elementary school also really quickly our school offices are open and they are ready to support
044the families as they need recognizing that some may struggle with the authentication process but as jim said we're all hands on deck and ready for it great miss costa i confirmed that as well i mean we're going to be set up that morning with everybody prepared to just support and and put mines at ease hopefully if there is stress coming so i know there are people who are stressed they've called me about the stress so i'll keep saying call your school office so hopefully everyone gets on and and learning keeps on thank you so much thank you miss costa miss creason thank you i just want to say it's going so well it's just a completely different feel from the end of the year until now or end of last year until now and i've
045said it once and i'm going to say it again um it takes mountains to build online systems and what was able to be done in just a short amount of time without adequate funding to build these systems it's just amazing and to be applauded and i know in our home uh many folks know i do have an eighth grader now it's really working for him um we'll see how authentication goes he said he did what he had to do i will see um but you know we'll be patient we'll make sure it gets done and you know i thought it was kind of cool on the first couple days of school you know during their lunch breaks he was teaming up with friends he has at a bunch of different schools and they were like
046sitting together at lunch playing games but electronically and remotely and i just thought that was so cool that you know even though they can't be with each other they were figuring out a way to be with each other which um really just warmed my heart and so i wanted to ask a couple of questions first i want to acknowledge too i'm so thankful for everything that's going right but do you want to acknowledge that you know there's some families that are receiving special education services especially in the mod severe range that are struggling and i just want you to know you are being heard and there's a lot of people within the district and on the board that are you know doing everything that we can um to get things where they need to be
047so i just want to acknowledge that you're heard and you have a lot of people working hard to meet your needs um i wanted to also just note that i reached out to the superintendent prior to the meeting to talk about tech access as well um not only do folks have technology well the question i had is do we have any students that can't connect that don't have the tech to connect and that whether whether that be uh the actual device or broadband it's my understanding to our knowledge that's no and so i'm really proud of that you know i mean i'm really excited that there's a way you know that we are making an effort to connect with folks we haven't connected with um to ensure that everyone does have what they need to
048connect um so really close the digital divide um that was huge just a couple of months ago and you know i have one more question too i know that there's several students including uh students experiencing homelessness and others that are just you know experiencing the struggle struggle that really depended on school for personal care items um you know we're talking about shampoo deodorant feminine care products and i know that you know that's an above and beyond service but i'm wondering if there's anything set up so those products and services could still be provided for folks in need or if that's something that could be explored i do know that we have our support staff on hand to reach out to families to see if they need any help or assistance and they do connect them
049with resources that's it for me and miss creason i would say as well um i i appreciate that question and maybe we can gather a little bit more information because i know there are a lot of things going on specifically at school sites um but i think in hearing your question as well maybe i can challenge each of the folks that that head up the divisions to kind of gather that information because if there is a gap there then we need to figure out how we can fill that gap and and potentially provide those supports whether it would be through san juan central or some other instrument um so i think that's that's an important thing to think about during these times thank you in any way i could be supportive too you know a
050broken record again i'm going to say it you know not everything is on the school district and i think public health has a lot to do with some of this stuff in any way that i could be helpful to make you know make that happen for our kids happy to do that thank you ms creason dr mckibben uh i was looking at the uh lunch uh the meals number at 1300 per day and uh was wondering if that uh that seems low uh do we expect that to go up uh is there any particular kind of strategy that we have if that is that is the case and uh but uh and and uh what is the plan i guess well i'll stop there i'll take that so it is low we've actually been reaching
051out to other districts and and folks across the region are seeing a much lower participation than we did in the spring we're talking about a couple of ideas we're actually looking at could we adjust schedules i know mr stevens was working with his team about could we do it some sites morning at other sites maybe in the afternoon evening we're looking at what other schools are are doing you know because we have a set schedule it it's harder for kids to maybe get there in the middle of the day but are we missing some kids if school's starting at a certain time and kids aren't getting up as early so we're looking at all those factors the other piece of it right now is there's a lot of restrictions at the federal level that are
052limiting us in terms of how we were able to distribute food in the spring but we had a conversation in cabinet yesterday that that i was speaking to uh if if we identify a certain amount of one-time funds and we can find creative ways to utilize those one-time funds to potentially feed as many kids as we can we need to figure that out because food insecurity i know is something that this board and and and our the leaders in this district are very concerned about and again i don't want to commit to this but we were talking are there certain neighborhoods where we could utilize distribution via buses at certain areas now the challenge again there is with currently we might have to do that and not get reimbursed for those meals that we historically
053would have been reimbursed for what we're trying to figure out at this point we may do that just anyways i mean there's some real challenges that are coming into play that i can share with the board as well even around meal distribution uh you know we the meal apps and folks filling out the meal apps is a huge um issue and concern that we have because we're funded not only for title one funds supplementary funds we became even even e-rate dollars but our concentration dollars are based on that and we're seeing people not having the incentive to do that so i can share with the board i had a conversation yesterday with a couple local lobbyists uh kevin gordon as well as the suburban school district and and again today on my conversation with the
054county superintendents chris hoffman and myself that it would the best case scenario for us is if we could get some kind of legislation where we were held harmless this year because that could have a tremendous impact as we go forward in terms of loss of revenue at our neediest schools for title one so that's a real challenge that we're faced with i actually had a good idea from a principal today as i was visiting with school i need to follow up with trent on that one um but we're working through all those things so i appreciate that that question dr mckibben yeah food insecurity we know from previous years that in many cases we we provide the primary meal you know for as much as a quarter of our our students uh uh so so
055we've got i think i agree with you we've got to be way more creative this time and thank you for thinking through those sort of things and thanks for the whole staff i mean and and particularly thanks for the parents your numbers that if we have you know fewer than 300 that didn't stay with us that says a lot about our community too and so i think we are we need to thank them too for sticking with us and for for our staff for being as flexible and and thinking through these things uh in ways that none of us ever anticipated thank you very much you know i know that um dr calvin mentioned how many students were in home school but between our home school and our independent study program which i had the
056chance to visit today we're getting close to 1200 kids in those two programs and i think just having opportunities for students in these unique times the principal at meraki was telling me that one of the families that just transitioned over there for independent study they have five children and four of them are in elementary school but the the high school student is really caring for the other students so kind of the the synchronous instruction that was happening at the school that older sibling is there to support those younger siblings and then they can do the independent study when they need to so there are a lot of real challenges that are going out there and again we need to find as many ways as we can to support families but also when you think about
057the challenges that that young lady is facing in supporting her brothers and sisters creates a whole other level for that for that person thank you dr mckinnon and thank you superintendent current i want to echo my my thanks to the whole team um the first day of school i sent a a note um of banks you know we said it a couple times but um normally we're starting the first or second inning of a long game and for most of our team we're actually in i'm actually i shouldn't have gone with a sports metaphor so you'll all have to forgive me but like the 12th 13th inning i know baseball um and the point is we didn't get that reprieve that we usually get um and yet people are still showing up and giving giving
058their all and giving their best so i truly appreciate it um and i do think though that our strength isn't necessarily like i think to expect perfection is just an impossible and i'm not sure any of us really um expected that but i i think our strength is not imperfection but really just in being responsive and and turning the tide as quickly as possible and so um again super grateful for all the work that's also that's already been covered but did want to just kind of um add a voice to some of the pieces that were a little bit rocky at the beginning um mostly to say that at the end we actually course corrected really quickly and i'm proud of that and i think it's that spirit and that attitude of of course correcting
059and meeting the needs of our students and our families as we go along that's going to be absolutely critical to maintain moving forward as um we potentially move in and out of different instructions or even as we maintain the existing kind of zoom life that that we're on and so i know even kind of at the um some of the distribution points that there was temporarily a device shortage that we were not entire we've discussed it before uh not entirely within our control but we were able to almost immediately get devices to all the families that needed needed them and so really proud of that quick turnaround and then on the first day of school we had a very slight mr kearns laughing because we had a very i want to give voice to our
060our server issue at the very beginning i think for two hours at the beginning of school some of our families may have experienced some difficulties logging in and it certainly it wasn't um why it wasn't across the entire district but it did affect some of our families but we got that up and running um in a very short few hours and um i just want our community know that it was superintendent kearns and the team's top priority to get it up and running that morning um but we were excited to see it and get it fixed and um the other thing i want to kind of just lend a voice to is we've already seen a couple of incidences of covid on our school sites that have occurred and our families likely saw it both
061through social media or through the individual site postings but we are kind of continuing to navigate and iron out that consistent communication protocol so that our families are aware of what's going on and are operating and as much light as possible that we can shine on i think a lot of things we might not have full awareness about but as soon as we do we we share it out so continue to just ask for your patience and know that we are working very quickly to to respond and i don't think at this point any of that's over there was a zoom outage that was like worldwide that we just we don't have control control over there's just so many things that are out of our control and i think particularly for um [Music] a infrastructure
062as big as a school district we like to have complete control over things as much as possible and we and we just don't and so i know a lot of us are struggling with that but please know that that we're doing we will continue to communicate and we will continue to do our absolute best and mr curran i want to invite you to respond to any of that if you wish if not we can uh move on no i i appreciate those comments and i did apprec i was probably more panicked that first day than anybody um you know you want you want to get things off on the right foot but i appreciated peter and his team and the responsiveness and and i i think you know dr mckibben you hit it when we
063need to thank our community because they really are showing us a lot of patience um i will agree with miss crease and that we're going to continue to see what we can do with our you know our students who provide have special services provided to them because you know we need to we need to meet the needs of all of our students and so we're challenging our special ed team every day to say what is it that we're not doing are there outside providers we can tap into anything that we can do to help support those students we need to access those those opportunities and and we'll continue to do so in the coming weeks and hopefully months actually before we move on there was one a topic that a couple of board members also
064hit but we also heard about it in the presentation and it was operation find the children um can you speak a little bit to the efforts that we've one just maybe expand about on that i want to not like create a necessary concern but i think there's been an extraordinary effort to kind of um find all of our kids that um you know showed up in the first week or didn't show up yeah i think um you know i'm a little bit fanatical when i look at enrollment and numbers and i think on day three we got some information that we just had there seemed to be a fair amount of students and families that might not have connected yet for whatever reasons you know we have communities that they may be new to the
065area if you just move to our district and you're not used to schooling school starting this time there are times where people don't know that school's starting until maybe they see the yellow buses driving or they see kids walking to school and that happens in all our communities if if you're not aware and so i think we saw a lower level of possibly attendance and and folks engage those first three days and so i really challenge the the folks that support our schools as well as our principals to identify every student that was on their roster and and and spend as much time and so there are there are literally spreadsheets by every single school that say the name of the students we've got their id numbers and some of them said contacts up to
066eight times i mean they were because a lot of times folks don't answer their phones you know so what was it how could we you know continue to push and push till we got information there were times we'd have someone else that would answer the phone and say they moved so we know who moved out of our community we know who's still in our community we ask questions do you plan to return um if we were to go you know hybrid yes or no if we're to return full-time yes or no because we want to be able to support those families going forward and i think the picture when you see both a middle school site leader and an elementary site leader going out into their communities really showed the level of commitment that our
067staff had and i think when ms creason asked me you know we're not having anybody saying we're not we don't have devices but what i would say to you is if there's a community member who's saying i haven't been able to let us know because we want to reach out to them i think what i can assure you is that that the school sites have made every effort to make contact with every single student that they were aware of that was on their roster and we're going to continue to follow those students to see if they do need the support regardless of whether or not they're in our schools and with that i just want to issue one last thanks and that is to our our community um please keep emailing things that come up
068please keep letting us know we really do seek to be responsive and we do we hear you we know really quickly when a server has gone down or when something else is not quite right i know we'll all be well aware on the authentication day and hopefully moving forward that'll um hopefully we won't have too many of those in our in our future but um thank you for all that you continue to do this has got none of this gets easier and you know and now we've also had to pivot just slightly with the smoke and the poor air quality you know we do still have we do have staff that are performing you know essential and vital functions at our sites and so it's just it's a consistently moving target and so um we
069promise to be responsive we might not be perfect but we will respond to your needs and and try to address them as quickly as possible miss fiasco let me share one quick thing i love when we have these virtual meetings i get information a little bit the first day attendance was 93 by day seven it was 97 and four percent is a difference of 1600 kids so right there you can already see that the efforts that the sites did to get to where our attendance was 97 or 97 percent i want to say thank you to all our site leaders i know i have a lot of them on this zoom tonight because that doesn't get done people in our communities are first and foremost responsive to their local schools and that's why we've said
070they're such a priority for them to be the ones communicating with our families as well so i just wanted to share that before we moved on thank you and again on behalf of the board thanks to the whole team and to the community we'll we'll figure this out together um with that seeing no other outstanding questions or comments from my colleagues we are at item i two equity update part one dr calvin please begin when you're ready thank you and once again good evening president of velazquez members of the board superintendent curran and miss cunningham the purpose of this presentation is to share the journey to san juan unified's eight point commitment to educational justice do you see the powerpoint yet we do not quite yet okay that's okay i will let you know when
071it's up there we go okay it's up and running okay so i'm gonna start again the purpose of this presentation is to share the journey to san juan unified's eight-point commitment to educational justice to provide an overview of the eight commitments to hear about one site's equity journey and to review district-wide actions for the 2021 school year next slide ms marshall thank you in march of 2020 we had to close all schools as a result of the pandemic and while we face challenges throughout our infrastructure the pandemic coupled with national social unrest brought persistent gaps within our educational organization to the forefront the ongoing challenges in regards to access and opportunity prompted many within our community to reach out to the district and offer their support in our quest for more just and equitable outcomes
072for all students we were encouraged by the outpouring and responded by engaging the community in a series of listening sessions students staff parents and community members all came together and were charged with the task of not only identifying the barriers within our system but to establish ideas for change tonight director of equity and student achievement diana marshall program coordinator for equity and student achievement lori vine king principal greta schultes and star king teacher amber tretheway will discuss the current work within our community at the site and district level and will share next steps and with that i want to begin with miss vine or introduce ms wein who will provide more details in regards to the listening sessions and the eight commitments thank you dr calvin over the summer following the tragic death of george
073floyd as well as the civil unrest that has occurred in our community due to many other examples of social injustice our district felt the responsibility to offer an opportunity for healing reflection and ultimately action through a series of listening sessions we heard requests from our community to create a space where we could break down the barriers that currently exist in our system as well as offer support and healing for the harm that so many are feeling these sessions were co-created and co-facilitated by staff site and district administrators our district's equity liaisons and community partners these listening sessions incorporated our families our staff and our students and we're a powerful opportunity for a variety of lived experiences to be shared in our youth sessions we had students join us from all across the school district and
074almost all grade levels were represented we even had students as young as first grade participating the virtual environment provided us a platform to hear from many more of our community than than we may have heard from in an in-person meeting we had several hundred people in these sessions and we will we were excuse me we were able to honor the unique voices and perspective through the use of a digital jam board one of which you can see an example of here on the screen the following video shows some additional thoughts and ideas about these sessions as expressed by a parent a community partner and two students i i think i didn't share right as a parent i was really excited to hear that the district was putting on listening sessions they were held really well
075i really appreciated the community partners and the staff that guided the listening sessions they created an open environment so that all the parents and families could speak and share their thoughts there were several iterations of how it all started we started just having conversations about you know should we just listen to what what's happening in the community and get like a pulse of how people are feeling versus how do we actually move to action i learned a lot in that process i think all the co-facilitators were really moved the listening session was a great experience everyone shared their thoughts about social injustice what's going on in the world and uh how the district can change their schools individually it was just nice also to know that there were adults out here who wanted to hear
076us they wanted to know how can we do better during the youth voice session there were a lot of kids who stated that some teachers didn't listen to their concerns or problems that administration and staff didn't consider some problems that they had faced because of their race to be serious issues that they were kind of dismissed or excused or that they were listened to and nothing happened so i think that it's important that um teachers staff and administration are more responsive when students come to them with issues and that they are listened to that it's not just marked or marked off as oh you're sensitive or it was just a joke that it's taken care of i think it had a great impact right like i'm an african-american woman who grew up in an education
077system that like wasn't built for me so like some of the things we were talking about i think i personally experienced like in the 80s i actually realized a couple days ago that i hadn't had a teacher of color for the first 10 years of my educational experience feel like we have to have more people of color and positions of authority at school it's a lot more comfortable to share your experiences with the person of color who really understands it i hope this moves the district to have more conversations i don't think we necessarily have to think about what is the goal and what change do we want to see i think change starts with having conversations and continuing to bring things to the surface and continuing to dialogue about what you could do differently
078[Music] so many amazing things came out of those listening sessions we probably had 80 or so jam boards full of lived experience a variety of voice and perspective and a team was then assembled to synthesize the data that came from those sessions and those jam boards and it was very clear that there were themes emerging one of those themes was that we as a system need to do a better job of integrating social justice and an anti-bias lens into our teaching as well as into our policies and procedures the major themes and action steps were then compiled into an eight-point commitment document highlighting areas where we have made progress as a district as well as areas where we need to do better the draft document was then shared with a large group of stakeholders including
079teachers site and district administrators community partners and this group then co-created the eight-point commitment to educational justice plan that you see before you as you can see the eight points clearly include a call to enhance climate and culture expand and elevate family and student voice call out the need for anti-racist anti-bias instruction within our curriculum and overall dedicate ourselves to making our school district more equitable and just for all of its stakeholders as you review these eight points please note that some of these areas we've been working on for years but until the data reflects more significant gains there is still a great deal of work to be done now at this time i would like to introduce greta schultz principal of star king k-8 who is here to share her site's equity journey good
080evening star king has been on an equity journey over the last six years and have now begun to align our work with eight commitments we begin our journey with building a strong learning support team where we analyze and strategize around students barriers to learning we are also part of the community schools grant where our work focuses on fostering respectful equitable collaborative and reflective school culture to ensure academic success and social emotional well-being for each of our students as an lst team and a community schools team we looked at several data points to get a better understanding of who our students are how they are achieving how they are engaging and how they are feeling as an entire team we committed to focusing on our school culture and climate all staff were trained in restorative practices
081and trauma-informed practices and all teachers grades k-8 implemented community circles mindfulness practices restorative practices and social skills curriculum in their classrooms we provided students opportunities to engage in our black student union gay straight alliance peer mentoring safe schools ambassadors project optimism and a diversity of extracurricular opportunities including sports club theater arts music and more as part of our community schools grant work we facilitated listening sessions at our site for students families and staff and looked for common themes while we opened up the parent listening sessions to all families we personally invited many families in order to get a broad representation of all voices on our campus the listening sessions were an opportunity for students and parents to have voice and share actions they wanted to see to address any concerns or inequities it is from
082these listening sessions where we created action items to lead and strengthen our equity work to address our achievement gaps the starking team engaged in data-driven dialogue and focused on providing small group instruction and targeted intervention to meet the needs of all students in order to empower our families with the tools needed to support learning at home our team was trained in the west ed model academic parent teacher team and we implemented aptt meetings three times per year where we looked at student data with families and provided the tools and resources needed to support the learning at home over the last several years our team has engaged in various book studies and trainings to strengthen our ability to serve our diversity of students and families including two learning trips to the museum of tolerance as a
083team we engaged in professional learning around plcs and have begun to shift our work to a plc model we have committed to being a by any means necessary school looking at individual students to determine where they are and what is needed in order for them to be successful academically and social emotionally we have looked at our achievement gaps and strategized around how to best support all students for the past six years we have been committed to hiring practices to bring diversity to our team and to provide new staff onboarding and continued support as with our students and families we work to create a collaborative and warm culture and climate with our team and we feel we are a school family star king is working to connect our equity work with distance learning teachers are committed
084to building relationships in their classrooms beginning each day with a zoom community circle and closing with a community circle we will soon be starting our bsu and gsa back up on zoom and creating opportunities for students to express themselves through the visual and performing arts we will continue to engage in professional learning to increase our cultural competencies and implement social justice standards across all grade levels and all content areas continue to engage our families through a modified academic parent teacher team model and weekly parent zooms continue opportunities to listen to students and families and continue to support new teachers at starking with me is amber treathaway reading intervention teacher and learning support team and community schools grant coordinator to briefly discuss our plan to provide universal access time across all grade levels in order to
085support the diverse needs of our students thank you greta in order to meet each student where they are and close the achievement gap we have scheduled a universal access block for kinder through sixth grade specifically for reading right now we have many support staff working interdependently with classroom teachers during these blocks to assess using dibbles as a screener then we have created diagnostic assessments on a digital platform so we can assess remotely to drill down to the skill level for students who have not mastered foundational skills we will also be using iready as an asynchronous data source when we finish assessing we will collaborate around data in grade level cohorts each specialist support staff and classroom teacher will instruct a group four to five days a week to ensure we fill gaps or provide enrichment
086for all students we will use progress monitoring and use flexible grouping to accelerate learning at starking we are dedicated to continuing our equity work during distance learning to ensure all students including english english language learners and marginalized groups receive on-grade level instruction as well as targeted supports with intervention and extension while we know distance learning is challenging for our students and families we feel this model will provide all students the opportunity to be successful dianna marshall is now going to share with you the district level actions of the eight point commitments thank you amber good evening so as a district our goal will be to be focused on taking actions in all eight areas with varying levels of implementation it is important to note that the actions will not be implemented sequentially by commitment number
087and will be based on the opportunity presented to move forward in a changing complex system as many of you know equity is a journey and we need to meet this system where it is and then move forward it requires us to have a plan but be able to be responsive as opportunities and or situations occur so with that being said the actions that will be shared tonight are divided into three seasons a summer fall and spring we committed to the participants in june to maintain transparent communication and with that in the area of commitment three we have shared the eight-point commitment to the entire employee organization we have updated the web page to include our eight-point commitment along with the equity pledge we have sent personal emails out to those who participated in june and
088social media posts will be are scheduled for next week as you know the district has been engaged in equity work for years this work has been has set the foundation in moving the eight point commitment quickly into action with some movement as early as this summer for example in the area of commitment 4 thanks to the relationships with sjta we are providing 9 hours of professional learning to all sjta members with a focus on equity with commitment 5 we embedded the social justice standards into the development of the social the essential standard lessons this summer we offered a mini training with the teachers and asked them to integrate the social justice standards into the lessons that they wrote and then commitment seven we are continuing to expand our onboarding process to for all of our
089new employees through a virtual platform to continue to improve our levels of retention so some actions that are planned already that are planned are ready to implement in the fall during the august 11th professional learning it was recommended to staff to focus this year on commitment 1 2 and 5. depending on the expertise of the staff the needs of the students this is allowing for differentiation in choice then the staff spent time integrating their new learning into lessons that support relationship building with their students while on zoom wrapped up into one complex action the professional development plan for this year through the department of equity is aligned to commitment for with option with our options being differentiated and staff having choice in these selections the plan is designed again to focus on commitments one two
090and five these include several dates of compassionate dialogue the a virtual platform of the museum of tolerance the integration of the social justice standards cultural relevancy diversity equity and inclusion series we'll we'll be looking at institutionalized bias and u.s racism we will offer a variety of book studies facilitated by the equity liaisons and online series with 18 options of one hour trainings so as we move into spring and looking at next steps it was apparent that some of the actions in the eight point commitment will need some planning and collaboration before we get to implementation we will be inviting stakeholders to form working groups to be a part of the design in each of the following areas in commitment one the equity liaisons administrators community partners and staff will be first defining the identity safe
091zones on campus and then co-creating protocols to help support that that goal the clear there was a clear message that came out of the student listening sessions that they wanted that students want to talk about race racism and anti-racist practices the idea of student-led social justice for forums has begun to emerge and will be co-created with a team of community partners teachers who have been part of the social justice collaborative and our bsu advisors and this will be an action in commitment 3. in the area of commitment 6 equity liaisons in partnership with epic education and site teams will develop equity walks and develop supports for sites to assess the data to turn and to help them determine the needs and next steps as the site moves along their own equity journey human resources along
092with hiring managers will be working together to determine next steps in building that capacity in the area of retention for commitment 7 around workforce diversity in addition we will will continue to explore ways to consistently monitor our progress in this area the network improvement community looking at access and opportunity and commitment as well as the development of the success indicators and commitment to will include all stakeholders and we will begin co-creating actions as early as september we have we have begun to send out invitations to be a part of all of these sessions and we have scheduled our fall stakeholder equity forum on october 29th where plans will be shared and we will be asking for feedback we continue to develop next steps and find ways to go deeper on to go deeper based on
093the needs of the community and the feedback that we receive at this time this concludes our update and we are now available for any questions president diaz thank you very much to dr calvin miss marshall and the whole team um at this point i will check in with mr allen to see if we have any public comment on on this item and we'll also make a call for our participants who might wish to participate via zoom to raise their their hand at this time president vyasas we have not had any uh written comments submitted for this item at this time however if you have joined us on the zoom call we would remind you and you would like to comment on this item now would be the time you can do that by raising your
094hand by clicking that raise hand button at the bottom of your screen or if you've dialed into the meeting tonight star 9 on your telephone keypad thank you very much mr allen we do have one raised hand at this time um username identified by the initials j s um i cannot see your full name so i apologize but j s you currently have your hand raised please um begin your two minutes uh when you're ready hi i just have a quick question um from what you're saying about all the equity um it sounds like you have adopted the teaching tolerance curriculums that they have and so i am wondering um you know how balanced that is and if that's going to be shared out with all the parents that's it thank you very much for
095your public comment on this item see no other hands raised at this time i will turn it over to my colleagues do any board members have questions or comments at this time we will begin with mr hernandez uh thank you miss fiascoes i don't have a question i just have a statement and uh as as we know many districts in the state and the country are just now beginning to work on equity issues and i'm very proud to say that san juan we actually started our equity department five years ago am i right on that five years ago is that right kent yeah five years ago yes yes and and as a result um i i would you know as a result we are where we are today with these eight commitment points that will
096help us as a district uh to continue to get better and to be able to address this very important issue and and i'm very proud of that to say that uh we are actually i i feel we're ahead of the game that's that's it thank you thank you mr hernandez miss costa i too am very proud of the work that's been done uh in the last five years actually over many years but in the last five years i think we have really begun a system-wide change and i think that's what will eventually pay off for our district um but the work from june until now it has been extraordinary and the involvement has been extraordinary and i really want to thank everybody who's participated both our district team our site teams and our students and
097parents who have contributed so much i did have i participated in the from listening to action plan every one of the meetings and at each of the meetings there was great interest in every member of the district team participating in equity training and i wanted to know i know that on august 11th we had social justice professional development training i wanted to know if our classified staff our teamsters our district office staff were able to participate in that training as well as the school site staffs and in the school site staffs again we're classified staff members allowed to participate i i can start with that and then kent maybe you can help follow up where i leave gaps so i know that several sites actually offered additional pay for their classified staff to attend as
098well um that was not yet a work day for many of our classified staff in addition that we have had additional we had an ed services professional development training and and that this last week because um hh uh the in the home the home school teachers needed to focus on getting homeschool ready so we gave them a little space to do that and then we invited all of our ed services classified district central level classified employees to that training and then we are scheduling a meeting with ecc ece to also do another training around that um my understanding and i please correct me um is that we are looking at we were working through negotiations to complete the csea and the teamsters conversation did you want to add to that mr kern no i i
099think she covered it um i yeah we're still working with those other groups yeah i'd like to put my pitch in that i think that the way this work will continue to flourish is if every employee from every group has the opportunity for the training and for professional development so any way that that we can do that and i would say the board needs to participate our district office staff i know they have been participating with administrators in training for the last three years uh but i think as much as we can as a whole system participate in the training the stronger we'll be and the stronger our program will be and i want to thank you mrs marshall for responding i had probably two pages of questions and you responded to them and i
100look forward to working with you in the future i think this is work that is really important for our district for our students for our families and i salute all that you're doing and offer any support that i can thanks thank you pam thank you miss costa miss creason thank you i just want to say i love everything that the district is doing and i echo the sentiments that you know we've been starting this work and doing this work for a really long time and i just feel that it gets more and more and more robust um i gotta acknowledge you know we have a lot of work to do and i'm just so happy that we have everyone on deck to do that work i mean some terrible things do happen on our campuses
101and i hope that the youth and the families that have gone through really hard stuff as it comes when it comes to racism know how much is going into making things better um and so that just warms my heart so a couple of things um i'm also really happy that we're bridging in community partners into this work and that we're you know standing with community acknowledging maybe we don't know everything and bringing in partners so that we can do the absolute best job that we can to me that makes this work way more genuine than sitting alone in a silo trying to do this work so i'm really excited about that i'm really happy that this plan really sets forth um a way to continue the conversation it's not a one and done it's a
102real it's a journey and we acknowledge that and we keep going it's not just a one-time thing so i'm really excited about that it's not going to be quick you know it's a huge big time and i'm excited that we're investing in that way um i did want to say as a parent i mean of course i'm aware of a lot of this great work that we're doing as a board member as a parent i'm not sure that i'm so aware and i'm wondering what can be done and maybe this is part of the plan so that um more folks that are maybe more engaged at the school site level than the district level just get be aware of the work that's happening and can be engaged in the work or invited to be you
103know to be a part of the process when it makes sense and maybe that's more communication straight from the school site level um i don't know that i have all the answers on how to do that but that is something i think about that i think some parents some people families and students that need to know what's going on maybe don't know um so that's a thought that i had and also i just want to acknowledge i appreciate saying i'm seeing the hard language on the slides in the you know in the presentations the things that people don't feel comfortable saying we're saying and that's the only way that we can really address what needs to be addressed so that we can move into a place of anti-racism so i'm just really happy about everything
104that we're doing and i'm excited excited to see our work grow and our kids supported uh further thank you so much kristen just to i agree with you around the parent communication and i think with the the way we were starting school we uh we were strategically thinking that that the start of we would lose the message at the beginning of school and that's why we're going to start our social media this week and into next week and we will continue to work on that parent communication piece so i'm i'm in agreement with you that has not happened yet thank you and i'm sorry i just kind of kept talking and didn't give you a chance to get involved so thank you for that and i'm wondering on that no um will school sites be
105asked to also share on their channels um not just that i i that hasn't come to my mind so that's a great idea thank you for sharing that well thank you dr mckibben uh thank you very much uh congratulations uh i i must say that i i was at several the sessions during the june june period and onward and i was so impressed with the willingness to tackle the kinds of tough conversations that need to be had some of you know that my work in education has spanned over 50 years and i must say that over that 50 years i have seen these issues before uh from from my days of sitting on on a a stool in annapolis maryland when my friend jim uh dawson wasn't being served to the day and and frankly
106what we've done to this point is in some cases the easier part of it i want to address my remarks to three different areas one of them and and note that indeed uh what we are doing is what many places that have attempted this have not been doing that we've included the questions of accountability and this sort of thing that's so what how and how are we going to demonstrate that we have made a difference in the lives of our students and our families uh and and and so indeed i want to ask i'm going to ask a couple questions and i'm going to continue to talk and then let you talk at the end i'm interested in what the accountability teams uh how they're going to be constituted and what kinds of things they're
107going to be looked at i'm very impressed with the the notions of connecting with more community uh partners going back to the accountability thing i'm interested on page seven you talked about the indicators for success i'm interested in some examples of what you see as the indicators of success and and then finally the uh the notion of of connections one of the things when we do this kind of thing is sometimes we forget what we have already done and don't connect to those sort of things for example one of the most important parts of equity in our system is what we have done in terms of connecting our high school students to advanced placement courses at places like encina and so forth and have made some fairly significant advancements in that but if we don't
108see the curriculum as part and parcel of our quest for educational justice then we miss an enormously important opportunity the whole idea of what we have gone through in the last couple years in terms of putting faces the faces of our students into our curriculum is a very much a part of what we're talking about when we're talking about issues of justice and equity and continuing to do that and indeed to do the tough things of saying are we really doing that and how well are we doing that is very much a part of the kind of efforts that we need to make uh again congratulations to to all the work that we've been doing but this is just the beginning we've got a whole lot of work to do and and and indeed trying
109to make sure that we do have indicators of success that we do can put our finger on and and say this is the place that we made a difference not a year from now but a year from now five years from now and again and again because this is this is a marathon we've got to stay with it i agree dr mckibben um so a question around the to answer first around the accountability to the the there's two parts to the accountability one the the first part that we really want to look at is how how do we develop um systems to help support each other in interrupting both implicit and in explicit biases and or racial injustices and looking at san diego state university as as an example they've actually created a a platform
110where people can use like what we know as tell someone to report a racial injustice that it has occurred to them and i think the details that we really need to work through is is then how do we respond to that so that team that's going to help support that will be from human resources from legal from the face department and the equity team we will include community members and members of of our bargaining units to help us determine how how it because it's not about a gotcha it's about how do we truly change um behavior and culture that that these racial injustices that occur whether implicit or explicit are not something that we tolerate here as a district so um that that's going to be our first area of accountability that you asked about
111and then the developer that developing the indicators of success i'm really hoping that this team creates one at a minimum of one if not multiple indicators of success in each one of these commitment areas and that we continually use it as our equity dashboard to see if we're truly moving the needle i i think your example of looking at curriculum or how are we infusing um equity and diversity into curriculum are are we truly are are students picking up books where the heroes and the protagonists are are people of color are are they truly seeing themselves in in a positive light are they exposed to other perspectives in their history classes that are not part of the dominant narrative right all of these things will be we'll need to really co-create how we start to
112look at those as successes and then how do we measure that to see if we're moving the needle um i so i think i answered those two questions and around the connection question i wasn't sure what where the question was in that do you did you have a more specific question around making the connections uh you know that you you had talked a little bit about community community partners and and and connecting to things like the museum of tolerance and so forth how how much do you expect that that kind those kinds of connections become a part and parcel of what we do uh or uh you know one of the things and and i i plead absolute guilt on this is that that all together too often this has become the flavor of the
113month and and one of the things that i'm uh i want to make sure that that we have is that this is this becomes part of our culture yeah is having those partners and and how how connected we stay with them and and again you know looking back on on the whole uh you know what we did related to and i've lost the term uh uh the groups we were working with a few years ago that we're working on these access kinds of questions and making sure that those don't get lost as we move to this next thing was what i was talking about in terms of connections hey i i i'm gonna speak for lori vine as as well as myself i think the work i'm gonna use our work that we developed here
114in june around the listening sessions i think there was a real shift in in um that we didn't we didn't walk into a zoo meeting or into a meeting saying hey this is what we're going to do and that that that a single singularly as a department had had all the plans worked out we laurie and i really walked into those planning sessions with the idea of like here's our goal and let's co-create that and so what i i think that shifts ahead that has a real shift in in the collaboration when we work with our community partners with our equity liaisons our staff and in other leaders across our district it really we're all invested in it because we've all had a part in creating creating that and i think that's where um i
115i think one of my biggest ah has in this work it through june what was that that that moving from collaboration to really moving to co-creation and and how that truly builds that sustainability that i think you're looking for at dr mckeben i think yeah indeed sustainability is is the right word and and indeed uh and that's why i think it's so important uh in terms of you know making sure that things like our advanced placement courses like our curriculum and that sort of thing uh this doesn't become a one-off or a specialized kind of thing it becomes part of what we are exactly thank you very much dr mckibben and thank you um thank you to the whole team both for the presentation but for this ongoing work um i think probably in um
116early spring or even into the summer it it would have been really easy for us to just say look we've got too much going on kovit is taking up everything we have a ton of priorities let's put this work on pause um but we didn't um because i a lot of this work is in recognition that we don't have time to wait there's just not there's there's no room for pausing this work um there's no room for using the otherwise very valuable time of now to have these discussions and build these communi and build this um build this expectation and this strength and skill set within our community both within our um practitioners but within our students and within our entire community so i just am extraordinarily thankful to the team and also for my
117colleagues for making this an ongoing point of commitment and and work um i think as has been acknowledged by the continuation and just it's just work that can't wait so i my questions of my colleagues have been inclusive of all of my questions already i don't have any other questions and just want to echo or just say thank you um again to the team um and invite mr crane did you have any other uh final words he did not any um final remarks from my colleagues before we move on okay well i i would just i would like to thank the board because i think it it's very clear that this board has made this a priority um you know from the time that all of you have been on the board miss cost you
118go back to this work for many many years before you were even in these roles and so i think it i want to reiterate reiterate again we are committed to to having those hard conversations and um continuing this work to move forward so thanks to all your comments as board members thank you very much with that we are now at item i3 education technology joint powers authority mr skibitski please begin when you are betty thank you uh president vlasquez uh distinguished members of the board superintendent current miss cunningham i bring before you tonight the superintendent's recommendation uh to discuss and adopt resolution 3000 two authorizing the san juan unified district to join the edtech jpa as one of its seven founding members as outlined in the jpa's bylaws included in your board packet with that
119said if you have any questions i'd be more than welcome to answer those for you thank you very much mr skibitski mr allen do we have any public comment um items on on this item do we have any public individuals wishing to give public comment on this item we have not received any written comment on this item if you are with us on the zoom meeting tonight and would like to offer a comment on this item now would be the time to do so you may do that by clicking the raise hand icon at the bottom of your screen or if you've dialed into the meeting tonight you may press star 9 on your telephone keypad thank you very much mr allen at this time i do not see any individuals using the raise your
120hand function enzo we'll give it one more pause okay with that do any of my colleagues have comments or questions on this item we'll start with you mr hernandez no questions uh move the item when my colleagues are ready okay thank you sir miss costa i just want to say congratulations to the staff on this item this is really exciting what an honor for our district and it sounds like it will have long-term implications for us both financially and in terms of work that we'll be able to do with other districts that are similar in size to ours and i can't wait to find out who the other district is that is the mystery district that isn't listed so thanks so much for the work and i will second mr hernandez when we get to
121that point okay very enthusiastic on this item uh miss creason i just want to say i love a good jpa and this is a great way to manage costs especially when we know what we're about to go into with a statewide nationwide recession so i was really excited i went through um the contract and i like you know how things are written about getting out if it's not working i'm really excited about it and i think it's a great move so fully support it thank you miss kristen dr mckibben yeah uh yes i i i uh too would like to know uh a little bit more about the uh uh the sixth member and and uh i understand that uh uh both ms costa and i were driven slightly crazy thinking that we couldn't count
122uh when when all the time there were six people there and they were talking about seven also i'd like to know uh what is the expected timeline of when this uh this might be finalized and we might be moving forward as far as the the number of founding members uh that is outlined in the jpa bylaws that they will have a minimum of two and up to seven and so an invite was put out to the district uh to uh take part in that and so we thought it was a great opportunity to do so uh in regards to an additional district uh there all we can say at this time is there's been an invite uh offered to another district and so we would be speaking out of turn if we were to uh
123acknowledge uh who that might be in regards to the timeline uh for uh our participation uh there is a jpa board meeting uh this thursday in which uh it is scheduled uh to take action if the board so far approves our ability to uh participate thank you dr mckibben sing no further questions um thanks to the team for bringing this forward i also enjoy a good jpa uh we're very nerdy group of governing board members which is a good thing um i have one question and that's just can you speak a little bit to kind of the current status of irvine usd and perhaps um to the extent possible some of their kind of just their um their state right now and kind of fiscal capacity i assume that's all been vetted but i just
124want to flag that they are the fiscal agent of the gpa so um i just wanted to know if you could speak a little bit to that and make sure that i have full confidence in all of our partners but wanted to make sure that was taking a look at um president vasquez uh this is kent stevens uh i'm the one who wrote her on this and brought this to the board i'm the one who received the invitation from the recruiter um they uh just to give you a little bit more background uh the recruiter said that the founding members the current founding members of which there are five uh we're looking uh specifically for districts in northern california as you can tell the original founders are in orange county and they are looking for
125districts that have exceptional leadership in both business and technology i can speak highly of the leadership at irvine unified school district i think that their business financial staff is probably one of the uh most highly regarded in the state uh their district is a slightly smaller than our district uh they are growing and i would say growing fairly rapidly and i think peter could probably speak just as highly of their technology staff in terms of the the the uh i guess confusion around who is the number six district and seventh district not sure it matters too much uh there were five and uh we know that there were two additional districts of which we were one that were invited about a month ago i i think that we were actually the sixth district called um
126but since we had to uh we thought this item might have been delayed a little bit we thought we might actually be the seventh member to join but i believe we will be the sixth and again that meeting will be held on thursday i will be representing the district on the governing board uh mr skibitsky will be up my alternate but again i have full confidence in the business and financial staff at unified irvine unified from orange county and again they're one of the original founding members back in 2018. fantastic thank you very much i appreciate that context it's very valuable and thank you mr stevens for all of your work in in making this possible as well um are there any further questions at this time from my colleagues okay seeing none um this
127has already been moved by mr hernandez and seconded by miss costa i think i got that right all those in favor uh please indicate by saying aye aye that was unanimous with that we are item i4 intent to convey an easement at san juan high school mr camarda please begin when you're ready thank you uh good evening uh president viasquez members of the board superintendent curran and miss cunningham uh tonight's facilities item is an action item citrus heights water district is seeking a construction and permanent easement to construct a decorative concrete masonry wall between san juan high school and the citrus heights water department facility yard in your packet in exhibit b there is a google map with the delineation of where that will be constructed the superintendent is recommending that the board adopt resolution
1283006 declaring the intent to convey a permanent easement at san juan high school to citrus heights water district and to call a public hearing to be held on september 8th at the next ford meeting 2020 i'm available for any questions that the board may have about the easement thank you very much mr camarda um for the presentation mr allen uh do we have any public comments on this item we've now received any written comment on this item and again if you are with us on the zoom call and would like to offer a comment on this specific item raise hand button at the bottom of your screen or if you've dialed in star 9 on your telephone keypad i see no public comment at this time um i will turn it to my colleagues do
129any board members have any questions um or comments on this item dr mckibben uh uh mr camara in terms of this wall and and now i'm still a bit confused the wall is not there right now it's being constructed what is the purpose of of the wall you mentioned that it was decorative but is there any is there any other purpose for this wall than being decorative and big well according to the citrus ice water department they have constructed a similar type wall uh on their property they're getting that uh this is a uh also a security feature but it's also a decorative feature uh for their uh proposed location it is mostly for the construction of the security of their of their yard and their property as well thank you you're welcome any further
130questions from my colleagues seeing none this is an action item is there a motion to adopt resolution number 3006 declaring the intent to convey a permanent easement at san juan high school to the citrus heights water district and to call public hearing on september 8th i have a it's been moved by ms creason and seconded by ms costa all those in favor please indicate by saying hi i that was unanimous thank you board members thank you mr camarda and thank you to your team as well we are now at item i five declaration of need for fully qualified educators mr or apollo please begin when you are ready good evening president vazquez board member superintendent current mrs cunningham i'm here tonight to present the superintendent's recommendation of the governing board approved the adoption of declaration
131for need for fully qualified educators the 201 school year human resources has followed the policies and procedures for hiring fully credentialed teachers and staff schools for 2021 while this search has been conducted hr may need to assign certain teachers on the basis of an emergency authorization this is an action item and i'm here to answer any questions that you may have at this time you mr or apollo mr allen are there any public comments on this item we have not received any written comments on this item and again if you're with us on the meeting tonight on zoom and would like to offer a comment the raise hand button at the bottom of your screen or star 9 on your telephone keypad if you have dialed in thank you mr allen i am monitoring our
132attendee lists to see if anybody has raised their hand and at this moment there have been none in the meantime i will turn it to my colleagues for any comments or questions on this item i see a universal head shaking and the negative so with that this is an action item is there a motion to adopt the declaration of need for fully qualified educators for the 2020 2021 school year so moved second it's been moved by dr mckibben and seconded by mr hernandez all those in favor please indicate by saying aye aye aye that was unanimous we are at item i-6 exemption to the separation from service requirement mr apollo please begin when you are ready thank you president vasquez i'm here tonight to present the superintendent's recommendation at the governing board adapt adopt resolution
1333005 for exemption for separation from service requirements pursuant to california education code 242-145 or 26812 and i'm here to answer any questions you have on this item and it is an action item thank you very much mr apollo mr allen do we have any public comments on this item we have not had any written public comments submitted and again if you're with us on the call the raise hand button at the bottom of your screen or star 9 on your telephone keypad i'm just going to do a quick glance at our attendee list and look for any raised hands seeing none i will turn it to my colleagues are there any comments or questions on this item seeing none this is an action item is there a motion to adopt resolution 3005 exemption to the
134separation from service requirement so moved second it's been moved by ms costa and seconded by ms creason all those in favor please indicate by saying aye aye aye that was unanimous we're at item i7 presentation of the district proposal with csca for successor contract for this 2020-2021 school year mr schumache please begin when you are ready good evening president vazquez board members superintendent kern and miss cunningham i'm here tonight to present the district's bargaining interest with the california school employees association chapter 127 for 2020 2021 reopeners at this time i can answer any questions if needed thank you very much mr shumake mr allen are there any public comments on this item again we have not received any written public comment and if you are with us on the zoom call tonight and would like
135to offer a public comment the raise hand button at the bottom of your screen or star 9 on your telephone keypad seeing no public comment at this time do any board members have questions or comments public comment and action is scheduled for september 8th on this item we are now at item i8 sacramento county treasury oversight committee so colleagues you might remember at the june 23rd meeting we voted unanimously to submit a nominee from our community to represent the school and community college districts on the sacramento county treasury oversight committee that was miss mary beth barber barber who accepted the nomination um so that was first our nomination to have her on the ballot now every school district in the region has to vote affirmatively in favor of her to be the representative and she's
136both who we nominated but also the only person on the ballot um so we will be adopting taking this up because our september meetings are quite busy so at this time mr allen do we have any visitor comments on this item no written comments have been submitted and if you are with us on the zoom that raise hand button at the bottom of the screen or star 9 on your telephone keypad if you would like to offer a comment thank you very much mr allen i see no public comment on our zoom platform at this time do any of my colleagues have questions or comments okay uh this is an action item is there a motion to cast a vote for mary bath barber for the school and community community district representative for the sacramento
137county treasury oversight committee it's been moved by dr mckibben is there a second second it's been seconded by ms creason is who i heard so all those in favor please indicate by saying aye aye that was unanimous we are at item j board reports are there any board reports at this time mr hernandez oh i see him passing miss costa nancy she will also take a pass miss creason i'll just quickly say i appreciate all the families that have been reaching out just to talk about how things are going everyone's having a different individual experience based on grades and schools and you know for the most part things are going well but where you know there's need for improvement folks are willing to be involved and be a part of that improvement so just want
138to say thanks so much stakeholders that are taking the time to talk to me about what's going on thank you miss creason dr mckibben i just wanted to report that we had a voluntary meeting of the alcap committee and we had actually had a nice uh uh uh representation i believe around 20 or so of the people were there and and we're asking very good questions and so our next our first regular meeting uh will be this thursday and uh uh thank you thanks to the board we'll have 19 of our 20 members hopefully there and and so forth and you will be getting an another recommendation at our next board meeting to fill out our full slate of alcap members and uh that and the other thing i want to mention was that i
139attended the orangeville community council member and they were very interested in the start of school and how it was going and so forth and i think it's really indicative of how interested and how interested in helping our community partners are in terms of as we go through what we're going through thank you very much thank you dr mckibben for the report i don't have a board report for this meeting so we are now at item k future agenda items do any of my colleagues wish to add an item to future agendas okay seeing then we are at item l visitor comments mr allen are there any visitor comments at this time we have not had any written comments submitted and this is our final opportunity for public comment tonight this does not have to be
140on an agenda item it can be on any topic if you have a public comment you would like to offer at this time and you're with us on the zoom meeting please click the raise hand feature at the bottom of your screen or star 9 on your telephone keypad thank you very much mr allen and i'll ask my colleagues to patiently give us a few moments so that individuals can indicate if they would like to speak at this time do we have any attendees that would like to offer public comment at this time we do have two individuals we have they raise their hands simultaneously we've got user js followed by carol york i would like to remind the public that comments are limited to two minutes under the ralph and brown act the board
141is not allowed to comment on items that are not on the agenda so we are not ignoring your comments we just can't respond to any individual comments the superintendent can refer um the items to appropriate staff members who can then follow up with you um first we have username js um followed by carol york js please begin when you are ready and i'm sorry i didn't catch your name the first time you offered public comments so i can only refer to you as user js please begin with your two minutes when you're ready thank you that's fine um i know that it has been mentioned in past board meetings and i want to bring it up again it is difficult i mean you had 124 pages of board agenda items it was very time consuming
142to flip through them um and then you come to the meetings and i think your assumption is as board members and as presenters that the general public understands all your acronyms understands the full idea of what you're speaking of um no money is ever mentioned um when things are put out on the agenda and discussed i would like more transparency i have no idea what you were talking about for many of the items tonight and i just don't think it's right i don't think it's transparent so i would like to see a serious increase in revealing how much money is being spent and in just sharing out what those acronyms are and what the topic is instead of reading uh you know the numbers for whatever it was um that's what i'm requesting again so
143i would appreciate more transparency in the future thank you thank you very much for your public comment and for joining us next up we have carol york carol please begin when you're ready okay sorry okay i just have something for you to think about with the parents that are doing technology distance learning with their children um it makes it difficult for them when they have more than one child to go to help them with their distance learning and to pick up their lunches or breakfast at the schools at the same time i was wondering if you could work on that because some of them are working families some of them have are working at home but some of them are working at home and in the office and we need to make sure our children
144are fed sorry i get emotional but we need to make sure that we fit their lunches their meals in somehow where the parents are able to pick them up or maybe somebody could volunteer to deliver them i don't know but maybe you could think about that and that would be very happy make me very happy thank you thank you miss york for joining us and for your public comment okay at this time i see no other um participants who joined us this evening wishing um to uh participate at visitor comment so with that we do not need to return to closed session and we are adjourned thank you very much colleagues thank you for joining us tonight the next meeting of the board of education is scheduled for tuesday september 8th public session is anticipated
145to start at approximately 6 30 p.m we do anticipate being on the zoom platform as well as streaming to youtube as well links will be posted approximately 15 minutes prior to the start of the meeting at www.sanjuan.edu september 8th thank you again for joining us tonight you