001Good evening. I'd like to call the meeting to order. This is a meeting of the Satell Union High School District Board of Trustees. I am calling open session to order. Today is September 25th and it is 7:00. Roll call. Trusty Chavez, >> present. >> Trusty Jacobson, >> present. >> Trusty Lan, >> here. >> Trusty Andradi Zuniga, >> present. and I am present. Tonight we will have a team from Hannah interpreting as our Spanish interpreters. For those who would like to attend the meeting virtually in Spanish, that option is available. Hannah interpreting, would you please communicate that for us this evening? Thank you. >> Good evening. Voice of the interpreter. In order to provide language access, this meeting will have simultaneous interpretation in English and Spanish. To enable the interpretation, if you are using your laptop
002or desktop, please locate the icon shaped like a globe at the bottom of your screen. Click on language interpretation and then select English. If you are on your phone, iPad, or similar device, then locate the three dot menu in the upper corner of your screen. Click on language interpretation and select English. Do you want me to go ahead and start with Spanish? I need to be on the channel, please. >> Yes, please. >> And she normally announce it on the channel, I guess. Mhm. I think she's in the channel. >> She is. I think >> so. Someone should say something about >> as soon as she gets on. >> No, she isn't. Are you back on the main channel, ma'am? >> Okay. You know, normally, if you can hear if you can hear me, normally
003that Spanish introduction is actually presented on the main channel and then they're instructed to switch over and that's when the translation starts. I don't know if you can come back or not, but Okay. Please, ma'am. Okay. If you wish I'm I'm going to continue. If you wish to view closed captions of this meeting, please view the meeting on the SMUHSD board meeting YouTube channel. The link to the YouTube channel can be found on our website. You may view the captions in English as we live stream our meeting tonight and you may view the cap captions in a variety of other languages if you choose to watch after the meeting has ended. Viewers may request additional accommodations by calling 650-5582201. For our deaf and heart of hearing community, we have a team from Hannah interpreting services
004and they will be interpreting our meeting this evening. We would like to ask everyone to speak at a clear and reasonable pace for our interpreters. Thank you. Uh item H, the pledge of allegiance. Would our will our student board representatives please lead us in the pledge? I stand one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> That was well done. I like that. >> There you go. >> A report of actions taken in close session. There were no actions taken in close session this evening. Item J, uh, adopt the agenda. The board of trustees may either adopt the agenda as presented or make a change to the agenda through a motion, second, and majority vote. The Brown Act prohibits any additions to the agenda without a 72-hour public notice for regularly scheduled
005board meetings. Are there any questions or comments from the board or the superintendent with respect to the agenda? >> No. Are there any questions or comments from the public in person? >> There are none. >> Are there any raised hands? >> There are none. >> Okay. Would a trustee care to make a motion? >> I'll make a motion to approve the agenda as is. >> Second. >> Okay. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? All in favor? >> I. Student board reps. >> I >> Okay, we have an agenda. Um, regular reports A1 report of the superintendent. >> Thank you very much. Uh, good evening everyone. I hope everyone is enjoying their week and having a good Thursday. Uh, just a few things to report. One, it's been uh a real privilege uh
006to be able to visit school sites um each Thursday beginning the school year. Uh I'm at school sites. I try to do two different sites a day and uh it's just been really great. Two Thursdays ago, we visited Berling Game and Peninsula high schools. Trustee Chavez and Trustee Andrade Zuniga uh joined me. Uh and then today uh Mills and Cappuccino, Trustee Jacobson joined me for that one as well. You know, we spend one block period visiting classes and talking to teachers and and watching teaching and learning. Uh and then the second block period we um you know all meet in the staff lounge and welcome uh educators to come and talk ask questions and that's been really fruitful uh really good discussions a lot of feedback uh which has been really really nice. So we're
007going to continue to do that. I know trustees as their schedules avail themselves will continue to join. Uh but I want to thank all the educators at at the various school sites um for being so welcoming and accommodating and encouraging. Uh it's been really fantastic and I I just want to acknowledge just such positive energy at the school sites. Uh the kickoff to the school year has been really great. Um last night I went to the first DAC meeting of the year. I want to thank Joanna Fight and Elsa Pledo uh for facilitating and translating and uh all the parents that uh came out and joined and brought really good food and uh gave a lot of feedback uh to me and the rest of the district. So, uh, I'll be attending the the DACA
008move meetings moving forward. Just really, really great. And, um, I think we're going to have a pretty phenomenal, uh, DAC board study session come later on in the spring. Uh, so gearing up for that. And then, uh, lastly, September is attendance awareness month. Uh, it's really hard for us to teach and for students to learn if students aren't in school. Uh, so we just start there. Um, studies show that regular attendance is crucial for academic uh and life success. And just a couple of tips uh for families, prioritize attendance. Uh, make sure your child is in school every single day. And I I I know when I was in high school, I'll date myself a little bit. You know, that mental health day where you sat home and watched Prices, Right, and >> uh all
009that kind of stuff as a kid. Yeah. See, I remember I would get that. Some people would get that. >> Um, >> get close to that. Uh but we we need kids in school every day. Uh let's work with your child's doctor to address health issues, minimize absences. Um you know, missing a day from school, let alone two or three, is a lot to try to make up. It puts a lot of stress and pressure on our kids, a lot of anxiety buildup. Um and so I just want to encourage that. Stay stay involved and communicate regularly with your child's school. uh talk to your child's teachers, write emails, inquire, go on Canvas, you know, all those kinds of things. Um and make sure you know we're working together. That was a big topic in
010DAC last night was this concept of how do we better work together um to support our students and help them thrive. You can learn more about our attendance uh requirements and resources on our uh website, including who to contact at your school site if you have questions or concerns. So, uh, with that, we want to just continue to encourage, you know, attendance rates in the high 90 percentile. That's what we'd like to see. So, thank you very much. >> Okay. Thank you. Reporter of the District Teachers Association. >> Good evening, President Griffin, members of the board, district cabinet, and the community. Um, first, I'll echo what uh, Superintendent Booker um, or some of the sentiment that Superintendent Booker um, shared about the site visits. Um I've I I attended our site visit um here at
011Hillsdale. Um and I've heard from other representatives at the other school sites um just a ve very positive response. It's really great to see not only Superintendent Booker but also to the trustees out at the campuses and um you know getting a face to face and having a dialogue uh you know goes just a long way in in communicating not only the um uh the good things that are happening at the district in the schools the you know some of the frustrating things but also just putting a a face to a name and and having a real connection and a real relationship and I just want to commend uh the trustees and superintendent Booker for um you know making that a priority. Um the one the only one topic I want to share want to
012talk about tonight is that I'm really pleased to say uh that to share that um we have a fully signed tenative agreement um and our negotiations are concluded other than uh ratification by the membership which we are crossing our fingers hope goes well and of course approval by the board of trustees. um this agreement. I've said this many times before, but I'll channel trustee Lee's Dwire in saying um that no uh any any good agreement uh leaves no one completely happy and that certainly uh doesn't disappoint this time. Um but that said, I do want to recognize the the hard work uh of both teams. Um I really think it's important to recognize um the extra effort that both teams have uh made especially around the area of health benefits. uh not only communicating to
013our members um you know we've been engaged on our side uh in talking to our membership and and our our uh all of our employees um about um you know the changes in health care and ways that we can um you know address the the rising costs and and mitigate some of the exposure that not only employees have but also the district has. So I want to commend the hard work of both teams. Um, but I also want to recognize the idea of uh what this agreement really represents. It it it not only represents um or is an example of a long-standing uh collaborative relationship that we've had uh the association has had with the district administration here. Um but it also really demonstrates commitment. And when I say commitment, I mean commitment to um
014the students, commitment to the schools, commitment to the community, but really a commitment to making the district the best that it can be to serve the community as best we can. um the the effort regardless of the the differences we may have um at the table, regardless of the different positions that we have, uh it's it's very clear um that all parties have a a genuine commitment to the success and of this district and to uh the community that we serve. Um so I just want to recognize that it's more than just a negotiations. It's really a demonstration of um uh effort and commitment to the community. So, I just want to thank you all for the support that that in in that process. Negotiations isn't always easy. Um but it's it's it's a welcome
015process when uh folks are uh uh committed to professionalism on both sides. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. Report of the CSEA Chapter 519. Representative, >> there's no report from CSC. Evening. >> Reporter of the Samale Adult School Teachers Association. Good evening. >> Good evening. Uh, Lynette Garcia, CE Coordinator and Union Vice President. Um, thank you board president Griffin Chavez, board members and superintendent for the opportunity to share. Uh we the CFT and AFT union and staff of Samato adult education are here to share updates and concerns from our campus recent and current events happening at SMACE this month. We welcome Terry Krenshaw, our new workforce development consultant in her six-month pilot contract. Uh given that career education is at the forefront right now with education, her role is to assist with the continued
016development of our career workforce training programs. She has already engaged with the community in several ways and launched and or co-launched a few critical projects. She's hosted meet and greet sessions with four opportunities during the day and evening to break over two days to meet with the staff and the students, gain information, and express workforce needs and wants. She's completed over 30 surveys, join the email distribution list for future events and office hours. um office hours. She's hosted three office hour sessions so far, meeting individually and collectively with several students and groups. This information and meeting are helping to shape the direction of what we hope the employment opportunities will be. Uh resume worksheet forms and sample practice interview questions were also distributed to the students to prepare for job search. Two students were supported
017with online applications, network and employer contacts. Uh Terry attended two outside events to connect with potential employers and community partners along with outreach to renew existing contacts with former connections. This resulted in our first employer spotlight and the ability to initiate and contact database with help from a student ambassador. As you all know, we utilize our student ambassadors um as their as a way to give them some work experience and potential projects. Um she's collaborating with other departments. Marina Katslova uh she's been very proactive in many of the activities providing um volunteers and support for graphic design and marketing materials, real time translation. We do have I believe it's over 18 languages spoken at our school at any given time and along with data entry uh the website enhancements Terry is collaborating with our website
018um dedicated person who is also contains um content and functionality to the website including a job board which I think will be kind of cool uh so that our students can look on our website for jobs that are available uh recruitment events job search as well as consort working with our consortium so that the other adult schools are similar um in similar straits to in growing their workforce development. Um we're hoping that we can all thrive. September 22nd, the school held its first employer spotlight event in the student center. We have upcoming plans to support more employer spotlights this fall as well as a resource fair, a potential career fair in the spring, and there will be job preparation workshops. We'll call them job workshop boot camps to help students with things like continued resume
019writing and practicing interviews. Terry works closely along with Angela and myself to ensure that these activities align with this three-year strategic plan, current policy and funding developments, and labor markets. You might think, why is this important to us? I'm sorry. I think I was speaking really fast and I know you guys were doing the um translation. Career education, workforce development are at the forefront of education because they create greater job and career opportunities for our students, which is key in building a successful community. Thank you. Um, union business. We as a unified body of the school and the union wish to formally lodge a concern regarding the decision to fly the flags at half mass in memory of an individual whose life's work included the vilification of many marginalized groups that our students belong to.
020We realize that this is a confusing and trying time for our students, our staff, and I'm sure the district administrators and school board. This action initially, without explanation, served as a painful and deeply concerning reinforcement of the idea that the current federal administration does not have our students population's best interest at heart. The initial email, which merely reported the decision without any context, showed an unfortunate lack of foresight and the care for the students who we look for, the teachers and administrators, for protection and guidance and safety. A student's ability to trust the school, to have their best interests at heart is fundamental to our mission. And this trust is easily damaged when we are silent on violence against our community and somehow chose to honor a public figure known for their racism and anti-immigrant
021rhetoric. It is especially troubling when this honor was bestowed upon an individual who does not meet the criteria typically reserved for flying flags at half mass, such as first responders, soldiers, federal officials, or elected board officials. As school districts are established and regulated by local and state laws which make school boards responsible for the governments and management and the decision is up to us, the district and the school board and to further extent the state as we firmly believe that our actions must always prioritize the well-being and sense of safety of our students above all else. We mourn for the family of the deceased and are horrified at this needless violence and offer our condolences and we believe our actions must always align with our commitment to our student population. I thank you for your
022time with solidarity and grace. Have a great evening. >> Thank you. Reporter of the student board representatives Neil Ambar and Victoria Chun. >> Hello everyone. I'm Neil Lambarge, a sophomore at Santo High School. I'm representing the student board council and it's it's an honor and privilege to meet all of you. So, October 2025 marks the 80th anniversary of National Disability Employment Awareness Month. This year's theme celebrating value and talent highlights the significant contributions of the workers with disabilities to our workplaces and economy. At Samonteo Union High School District, we are deeply committed to fostering an inclusive learning environment where all students, including individuals with disabilities, have meaningful opportunities to grow in confidence, independence, and community involvement. Through strong partnerships with local employers, our students are developing real world skills and actively contributing to our local
023workforce. This success is made possible by the dedication of our educators and the incredible support of this board. National Disability Employment Awareness Month is a time to celebrate the achievements of our students and staff with disabilities and to recognize the efforts of our educators and partners who help make this inclusive employment. October is recognized nationally as Filipino American History Month, commemorating the arrival of the first Filipinos in the continental United States on October 18th, 1587, which is now Mororrow Bay, California. Established by the FilipinoAmerican National Historical Society and officially recognized by Congress in 2009, October honors the many economic, cultural, and civic contributions Filipino Americans have made to US history. Filipino Americans are the third largest Asian-American group nationwide and the second largest in California. In Sanonteo County, there are an estimated 80,000 Filipino residents
024and nearly 4% of SMUHSD students identify as Filipino. This month is also an opportunity to uplift key historical key historical figures like Larry Leyang, a Filipino American labor leader who played a vital role in the fight for farm workers rights and social justice in California. The SMUSD proudly acknowledges the rich heritage of Filipino American community and reaffirms its commitment to educating students and the broader community about its history, diversity, and lasting impact. Thank you for your continued support and opportunity to share this with you. And now I'll let Victoria take it from here to talk about the last September 17th meeting and discussion about um LGBTQIA plus proclamation. >> Thank you, Neil. Hello everyone. My name is Victoria Chun and I'm currently a junior at Capino High School. I'm honored to be here today as
025a student board representative and to have the opportunity to contribute to our district. To briefly introduce myself, I'm a proud Korean-American student and the founder of Cappuccino's first ever Korean culture club. I've served as concert master of our school for the past 3 years and I've been playing the violin for nine. I'm also passionate about giving back to our community, whether that's through my church, volunteering at the local library, or participating in mission trips. At Cappuccino, we've had some ongoing construction projects around campus. The main parking lot is partially closed for the solar canopy project which will last through November. So students have been using the stadium lot instead. Starting next month, campus access will be more limited after first period, and everyone will need to enter through specific monitored entrances like the main office
026or the stadium entrance. These changes are being made to improve safety and upgrade our campus. Last week, the student board council had our second meeting of the year where we learned more about the role we play as student representatives. We went over some important background information, including what LCAP is and how it guides how how it helps guide funding and goals for our schools. We also learned about the historical and political role of school boards. got an overview of the Brown Act, which ensures transparency in public meetings, and we're introduced to Robert's rules of order, which keeps our meetings organized and respectful. As we recognize the month of October, I'd like to highlight the district's proclamation for LGBTQIA plus history month. This month honors the history, struggles, and achievements of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer,
027questioning, inter interex, and asexual individuals. October was chosen in part because of key moments in LGBTQIA plus history, including the first national march on Washington in 1979 and the first coming out day in 1988. This proclamation reminds us of the important roles LGBTQIA plus people have played in shaping our society socially, politically, culturally, and legally. It also reinforces our district's commitment to supporting the rights, safety, and equality of all students, regardless of their identity. The Sanato Union High School District recognizes LGBTQIA plus history month as a powerful opportunity to educate, reflect, and stand against prejudice and discriminate discrimination in our schools and communities. Thank you. >> Thank you for your reports. Hey, governing board, uh, Trusty Chavez. >> Thank you, President Griffin. I just have a couple things I want to mention. Um, I hope
028everyone had a great time at the back to school night. Um, I wish I could have gone to more schools sites. I went to one, I went to Mills, I was there for a couple of hours and it was just amazing. As always, all of our school sites, we have amazing student leaders, student ambassadors. They're at every door of every building at every entrance. I guess that's kind of redundant, every door to every entrance, but I I just want to say that they are everywhere. Our amazing students. Um, I um went to the visual and performing arts classrooms. I saw digital media, music, dance, drama. I didn't know they have a YouTube channel. Maybe all school sites do, but now I kind of want to dig into the YouTube and look for our channels. Um,
029I went to the robotics room and they made me a button. Um, very energetic group of students and I think we we have we certainly have other school sites with robotics. I'm just fascinated by everything our students are doing. I mean, I feel like I want to go back to school, right? because I came from well I don't want to age myself too much but we did not have robotics we didn't have computers we didn't have phones like this right ours were on a cord right so just these students these days have so much um in their hands right there and they're creating robots that they show me the robot I mean it moves they they pack it pack it up and bring it places and it they win contests they show me their awards
030um it's awesome they're so enthusiastic and um I also went to the to talk to some history teachers and ethnic studies teachers I went around to also So, some um uh I believe it was physics. Um I'm not the best at physics, so I kind of wanted to leave that area, right? Um but I just had a great time seeing parents engaged, talking to the teachers, students all around campus helping. And I know it was the same way at every school site. So, I want to give a big shout out to all of our students and staff members who help with all the back to school nights at all of our sites. Um as Superintendent Booker mentioned, we also had school site visits. It's every Thursday. Um I was able to attend the one um
031about a week ago. um visiting um couple of hours at Berlingame High School and a couple of hours at Peninsula High School and it was ve very well uh received. We were on campus looking at different classrooms, different buildings, talking to staff, talking to students and I just felt like that's I get excited and I just want to go back to school. I don't know that just sounds a little crazy, right? Um but I just want to give a big shout out to all of our um students who did an amazing job at back to school night and all of our staff members as well. Thank you. >> Thank you, Trusty Jacobson. Thank you. Um, so on on the day of our last board meeting, September 10th, the nation witnessed the horrific murder of Charlie
032Kirk. I was too shocked to say anything about it at our last meeting, even though I was devastated that such a thing happened. I was shocked even further to learn from my friend's daughter who attends UVU and was there when it happened that some people were laughing or cheering when he got shot. Students from several of our high schools in this district told me that they saw similar reactions of celebration from their classmates at school the day that it happened. And I'm very disturbed by this. For all the talk that we do hear about dehumanizing language, I can't think of much more dehumanizing than watching videos of someone's murder over and over again and expressing joy in his demise. It is truly disgusting to me. I don't expect anyone here to agree with Charlie Kirk
033or to like his politics, but I don't think it's too much to expect people not to take pleasure when a fellow human being is killed or to suggest he deserved it. You can say that he said dehumanizing things and in a few cases you wouldn't be wrong, but two wrongs don't make a right. The truth is most of what he said were standard conservative talking points that some students on our campuses and at least half the country actually agree with. Even Gavin Newsome was eager to host Charlie Kirk when he launched a podcast last spring. They had a civil dialogue face to face. Charlie wasn't so hateful that Newsome wouldn't platform him and Newsome made it a point to say how much his own son admired Charlie. Having a safe and connected community is one
034of our LCAP goals. I have to ask, how safe and connected can our students feel in the presence of classmates who celebrate the death of someone they identify with? Permission structures for violence should not be tolerated in our schools. In America, people do not get the death penalty for wrong speak. At least they shouldn't. I really don't like the idea of living in a society where a significant number of people think violence is justified in such cases. But I'm afraid we do live in that society. The foundation for individual rights and expression tracks free speech on college campuses. In a grim coincidence, fire released their latest findings the day before Charlie was shot, and they were chilling. In 2020, one in five students said violence was acceptable to stop a speaker from speaking on campus.
035In 2025, that number is 1 in three. That's a 79% increase in just 5 years. And this trend is true on both sides of the political spectrum. One in three holds some level of acceptance for using violence to stop a speaker. And we're talking about college students, which means that they were recently high school students and that they were educated well enough to get into college. And yet they believe violence is justified to stop someone from saying words they don't like. This is truly alarming. We've now seen what happens when such violence is carried out under such a permission structure. That line has now been officially crossed and we all know why the killer did it. I had enough of his hatred. He said some hate can't be negotiated out. He said if more and
036more young people believe this, we have a serious problem. This institution must not contribute to the problem. We have to disagree better. We cannot silence one another. We have to be more curious about our fellow humans and not assume the worst of them. We have to create space for all viewpoints, even ones we don't like. And we have to learn how to express those viewpoints civily. We have to believe and teach that violence is never the answer or a means to an end. Two days after the assassination, a presidential order required flags at public buildings to be lowered to half mass in memory of Charlie Kirk. We have a board policy at San Mato Union High School District that we follow such orders. Some teachers protested following our board policy to comply with the order.
037They passed out flyers with misleading information about things Charlie had said to justify their protest. They did so peacefully before school hours and off school grounds, as is their right, and I absolutely support First Amendment rights. But free expression does not mean you are free of consequences. I have certainly learned this as a board member myself. As trustee Andrade Zuniga emphasized at the last meeting, the words we say, and I'll add, the actions we take carry weight with the students. They are watching. I've thought about how students might interpret this teacher protest. While I'm sure some were in agreement, I wonder how comfortable the students who admired Charlie Kirk or who identified with his conservative Christian worldview would feel in these teachers classrooms after seeing their demonstration. I also wonder if these teachers will similarly
038protest next March when we honor Caesar Chavez, who like Charlie Kirk, opposed illegal immigration and said things about undocumented workers that I assume these teachers would consider xenophobic or dehumanizing. He authorized a border control operation to harass and intimidate immigrants attempting to cross the border and report the presence of undocumented farm workers to the authorities. I bring this up only to suggest that many of the people we rever as heroes have flaws and are complex human beings like ourselves acting and operating in a complex world. Flattening people to the worst things they said or did prevents us from acknowledging and honoring their praiseworthy attributes and contributions. Charlie Kirk, like Caesar Chavez, had many, and he wasn't perfect. Two things can be true at once. In closing, I want to call attention to the most beautiful
039thing I've witnessed in the last two weeks and in a very long time. 11 days after her husband was gunned down, leaving her a widow with two young children, Erica Kirk did something extraordinary. With grace and fortitude, she stood in front of a stadium full of a 100,000 people and a million people live streaming. And she forgave her husband's killer. She let go of any bitterness or ill will she may have held towards him. And she was sincere. You could see it and you could feel it. This is liberation. This is answering actual hate with actual love. Two words that seem to have lost their meaning lately. This is to be admired and emulated. Treat all people with respect and human decency. Love your enemies. Bless those who curse you. Do good to them that
040hate you. Pray for those who despitefully use you and persecute you. This is the way forward. Thank you. >> Thank you for your comments, Trusty Lan. So, normally I I don't respond directly to someone's um voice or what they said at the at the podium with their the board comments, but I definitely want to acknowledge what Trustee Jacobson saying. And what comes to mind for me is is uh quotes from Meditation 17 by John Dunn. Um, it's something I remember in from high school actually. Um, you guys know it as for whom the bell tolls, but there's a few things in it that I think is really pertinent here. And I'm just going to say what my heart says to this. Let me see if I can find it. Just a couple of quote quotes.
041All mankind is of one author and no man is an island entire to of itself. every man is a piece of the continent. Um, and I'm just quote paraphrasing because I'm just skipping some of the the quotes, but it's stuff that I it's this this quote has really reminded me of of how I feel. Any man's death diminishes me because I am involved in mankind and therefore never sent to know for whom the bell tolls, it told for thee. And so I just want to say I may not agree with anything but as as John Dunn says in the meditation 17 any death diminishes us all. So with that I'm just going to try to move on to some of the other things. Trusty Chavez talked about back to school night. I was very happy
042to just kind of duck in and duck out because I live right next door to Berlingame High School. Um, I do want to say that a lot of the parents that I bumped into who are my parents at BIS were saying how wonderful it was. Um, they were so amazed on how organized. Um, they they just were in awe of the of of what was going on and they were so proud of what they were part of. Um, and so it was really nice to see uh my parents talking about that at at my middle school that my kids the kids were going on to high school or going into such a great environment. So I thought that was awesome. Um, I did unfortunately Julia I got to miss today's meeting. Um, I was supposed
043to be there but I was the only administrator at the school so my two vi vice principles were out so I could not come and meet but I hear Doncatana went in mystead and he got to hang out with you guys. So, but again, one of the things I want to say is compliment to the district again for working with the partner districts, really talking about things that are important for us, getting us ready for the transition for our students and for our parents. I think it's so crucial that we do that and I really appreciate I got your slide deck and I'm looking at it right now. So, anyway, that's all I have to say for today. >> Okay. Thank you, Trusty Andradi Zuniga. Yes. I want to start with the land acknowledgement that
044was written by our Cabino students a few years ago. Our community acknowledges that all of our campuses lie on the ancestral homeland of the Rome Alone. The Romeous are the original inhabitants of the San Francisco peninsula whose land was stolen from them and whose native language was lost because of Spanish colonization. As settlers on stolen land of the peninsula, we should be alongside the Romeous remembering and honoring their ancestors and relatives. We thank the first people, the Romeous Aloney, for taking care of the land we use now for education and activities. Our responsibility of caring for the earth is unique and personal to each of us, but should be rooted in allyship with the Rome Shalon, so we can work together to protect and preserve the land for future generations. Um, I too attended some
045of the site visits with uh, Superintendent Booker and uh, Trusty Chavez. Um, what I what I do love about those is like Superintendent Booker said is the the conversation. Um, seeing a name with the face and being um, just being in person with people to hear them out. I think that's super important. It's hard when we get emails and stuff like that. That's great, but it there's nothing like human connection and so that's really important. Um, Superintendent Booker and I attended the California Latino Schoolboard Association conference a couple of weeks ago and it's beautiful to me to be around my community. I'm Latina, identify as being Latina, and just focusing on our students, that achievement, um, our math programs, um, how we can serve students that are that are still needing a lot of support.
046Um, we had a few workshops that talked about the serious fears that families have right now um, in the different school districts all over California. There are students that are witnessing their parents being detained in front of them while they're being dropped off at school. um having no one being able to pick them up after school because their parents disappeared and are in detention. These are serious fears. Um I want to say let's not get distracted. I think there's a lot of things that go on that distract us about what's really happening and what how our students are feeling here in our dis here in our own district. I attended a meeting yesterday. I'm part of a Latino public health consortium in the county and we talked about all of the different people that have
047been detained going to their appointments coming here and doing things the quote unquote right way. The right way is not anyway now. And these are students that belong to our districts that will come home without anyone there because their families are gone. that is so devastating. Um, but I also wanted to bring attention, it's Latino Heritage Month and um, one of the one of the most important things in speaking about freedom of speech and first amendment rights is our students are extremely instrumental in organizing and in in in expressing their First Amendment rights. Starting from Mendes versus Westminister in 1947 where the parents of students that were segregated stood up and desegregated the schools. the Chico movement with the walkouts in 1968 protesting inequalities and um segregation and just differences in education which ignited huge
048huge records of students that were Latinos entering college which is great. This is why ethnic studies is so important because it reminds us of our heritage and our influences here in well not only California but all over the nation. But speaking of California, let's remember our history, the folks that came before us here in California, where we're at now, whose land this was first. And why are we saying that people don't have the don't have the same rights to exist as others? Again, I will repeat what we say here has weight and our students are watching us. And right now, being a 14 to 18year-old kid in high school is hard. So, I just wanted to remind everyone just to remember the history and support our ethnic studies programs because they teach that history and
049it gives you the ability to see yourself in education and that will eventually produce college graduates and people doing wonderful things in this society. Thank you. Okay, I um will try to be concise as I told the speakers last last last what two weeks ago. Anyway, I um went to the Satel open house and uh managed to spend an hour and change there and I managed to only talk to four people. So clearly the conversations were were were weighty and uh my first conversation was with our student board rep from the first or second meeting and he was an ambassador and I caught him at the door and I told him that and he apparently had you had called him about that meeting the prior night and to inform him and I told him and
050this is kind of putting bows and ribbons on stuff. I said that we had a meeting that was a could have been a controversial subject with a with differing opinions and it was actually a positive courteous meeting and I think everybody was modeling how good citizenship should look uh until we meandered off the path into uh to something. It was kind of like a personal conversation. And then I did talk to principal Shu and we stood there in the where I've been standing for so many years in the center there. Char, it's the Charles Douglas. I don't know if it's the whatever it is. It's got his name there. And we talked about the school year. Then I ran across a longstanding teacher who remembered me from many years ago talking about how many miles
051I had on my car and well that's not you know I've got one with 296,000. So uh you know and the other one the newer one's got almost 230,000. So I'm I'm holding off till they bring the rebates back. So, and finally I I I cap the evening off talking to the dean and you know and they were all very positive about the school year. Uh looking forward to it. Uh the students was really engaged. I saw a lot of parents there and it was a it was a very very uplifting activity. Now, the one thing I will say, anybody that's ever gone to anything on the Satale campus, there is not enough parking anywhere on that campus. And I, you know, and one of the things the cities require is that when you build
052housing, you figure out parking. And we've got to do a better job of find, you know, because this has to overflow into the neighborhoods. >> And we've got to figure out better solutions, not just at this campus, but particularly at this campus, but at all our campuses, so that we have parking solutions, uh, or encourage biking, busing, or whatever. But but it's really exasperated here at uh at the Satel campus. So anyway, that's it. We're Yes. Sorry. My family would kill me if I didn't say the following. So I just want to acknowledge Trusty Leia uh Zuniga um's comments about Filipino Heritage Month. uh my wife and my daughter would be very unhappy with me and my mother-in-law if I didn't acknowledge um the the Filipino Heritage Month proclamation and the all the elements in
053it because my daughter wants to know her heritage and like with e ethnic studies it does bring that out and when my wife and I went to UCLA the ethnic studies program was so new she got to know her heritage Filipino history based on one of those courses that was at the college level and so I just want to acknowledge that and say thank you trustes for that. >> Okay, we saved your marriage. >> Public comments. If you are joining us in person and wish to make a comment about an agenda item or during the public comment section at the beginning of the agenda, please fill out a request to address the board form and submit it to the secretary. The form should be given to the secretary before the agenda item begins. If you
054are joining us virtually, use the raised hand feature on Zoom to be recognized. When invited to do so, your camera must be on before you are called upon to make a public comment. We will call on you to begin your comment once we have promoted you into the meeting. If your camera is not operational, please email your comments to the board of trustees at boardshd.org. Please note that comments are limited to three minutes. The board pres the board president may increase or decrease the time allowed for public comment depending on the topic and the number of persons wishing to be heard. I will call on in-person comments first uh in the order they were handed to me and you'll have three minutes. Michelle Pascella. >> Yes. >> Sorry. >> Yes. I have a current student
055at Berlingham High School and also a 2019 graduate. Just two days after Charlie Kirk's assassination, some Berlingame High School teachers held a protest in front of the school in which they handed out political literature to students where they called Kirk a hateful bigot and contain it also contained a list of misinformation about his positions on a variety of issues. Teachers should be in the business of teaching and encouraging critical thinking, not trying to indoctrinate students with their political views. The teacher student power imbalance should mean teachers rarely if ever express personal political opinions. How will you as a district ensure conservative students that they are safe at school? Both safe to express opinions that may align with Kirk and physically safe considering the district and the school has made no statement condemning political violence, a
056brutal murder that the kids watched on their phones. Keep in mind, even though we're in a bubble here, 24% of this county actually voted for Trump, and there are many others who share at least some conservative views. So that's actually a lot of kids. It's difficult to be an outspoken adult in this county with views that differ from the progressive orthodoxy. Let me give you an example. When I criticized athletic director of Aragon High School, Steve Cell regarding his position on boys playing girls sports, I received direct targeted harassment from the athletic account, Aragon athletic Twitter account. Uh somehow Steve S convinced both Superintendent Booker and the principal of Aragon that he was not responsible for his own account. But when I later engaged in more activity on this issue, I received more harassment via
057email and I ended up firing a police report. Then there's Jordan Grimes, president of Peninsula Young Democrats, who posted on social media, "Play stupid games, win stupid prizes within an hour of the Kirk shooting." A commenter followed up with, "Next up, all maggots for the Charlie Kirk experience. When a local athletic director harasses a mother for her opinions, a prominent local Democrat justifies a political assassination. And teachers spread lies and protest honoring a man killed for his words on a college campus. Please tell me, what should I say to my son? Is he safe at school to express different opinions? Is his mother safe in this climate?" I and other parents and there are several who I spoke with who are scared to be here because they're scared of repercussions from some of these people
058like the crazy activists who were at the last meeting shouting and booing my comments. We demand a response and we don't want the district and the school to hide behind the position that the teachers were on their own time because they were directly in front of the school and they were handing literature to students. They weren't at Target on a weekend at a neutral location. They were clearly influ trying to influence students. It would be a great lesson to share the true facts about what Charlie Kirk said. Students will learn media literacy and not to believe sound bites on the internet like apparently the teachers did. They also need to hear that action was taken by the district to at least reprimand the teachers involved and assure students with all viewpoints that they are not
059in danger. Thank you. >> Thank you, Katherine Hart. When this district lifted the mask mandates, my friend's daughter, an SMU HSD student, told her her teacher said he would not write recommendations for unmasked students. Another friend's daughter had homework detailing Republicans in a bad light and Democrats as the good guys. It was disappointing to read the flyers circulating, denigrating Charlie Kirk. No one thought to fact check. I encourage you to please save the date, November 10th, 6:30m UC Berkeley. Their turning point speakers will be author Frank Turk and actor and Saturday Night Live comedian Rob Schneider. Rob is a graduate of Terteranova High School. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mitch Conn. >> Thank you. My name is Mitch Con. I'm a parent in the district. I am reading a letter from Kim Roupert, who could
060not be here today. The behavior of several Berlingame High School teachers in the wake of the assassination of Charlie Kirk was beyond reprehensible. As an umpire referee who is involved with youth sports, I am required to do safe sport training every year. Safe Sport is a program committed to ending and preventing emotional, physical, and sexual abuse. The program is designed to make us aware of the dangers and potential abuse perpetrated by those we know and trust. Coaches are able to use this power imbalance and authority to manipulate and groom younger athletes. State sports stresses that the imbalance of power that o it is the imbalance of power that opens the door for abuse. Like coaches, teachers hold considerable power over their students and spend even more time with them. The Berlingame High School teachers revealed
061their true colors as they inappropriately demonstrated outside of the school after the Charlie Kirk assassination. It causes me to seriously wonder what they are teaching their students in class and how much they are using their power over the classroom to bully and manipulate the students young minds. We are required to report a coach if he were to use his position of authority to groom players. And I do not see any difference in what these other teachers might be doing inside the curtains of their classroom. Sincerely, Kim Robert. >> Thank you, Jessica. >> Hi. Um, I'm Jessica. I'm a parent in the district and um I had some other things I thought I might want to say this evening, but I'm going to change that up a little bit. Um I think everyone feels there's a
062lot of tension. It's a really distressing time nationally. Um it's really hard for a lot of groups. I think you all know I'm an LGBTQ um advocate and um a lot of my friends are leaving the country. Um, and I don't know how I would be able to keep them safe here with the way things are going right now, but I'm still hopeful that people come together. And I think of a recent conversation I had with a conservative friend of mine and we took two hours and just sat and talked and shared our views. And I didn't probably bring her all the way to my side and and neither did she to my hers, but we left feeling more community. I I know that I can rely on her if if my kids's in trouble,
063you know, and that's really what I hope for everybody that we can get back to remembering that even though if you don't remember, you don't agree with your neighbor who lives down the street, if you need a cup of sugar, you shouldn't be afraid to knock on the door. So, that's all I want to say tonight. Thank you. >> Thank you. And thank everybody for their comments. Are there any online comments? Any hands? raised. >> There are none. >> Okay. Um we're going to move on to communications to the board of trustees. Are there any communications this evening? >> Just one. Uh we have a letter dated September 15th from the Sanonteo County Office of Education acknowledging and accepting our local control accountability plan and adopted budget for the 2526 school year. uh that not
064only includes Sonteo Union High School District but uh DTEK as well. So, >> okay. Thank you. >> That's an annual report we got. >> Okay. Recognitions? >> None. >> Okay. >> We're moving on the cons to the consent agenda. Do any of the trustees wish to pull an item from consent for discussion? Oh, the staff is requesting to pull 07. This item will be brought to a future agenda. >> Uh, can I move to approve the consent agenda? >> Okay, that's as amended. >> Yes, as amended. >> Okay, got a motion and a second. Are there any public comments online or >> There are none. >> Okay. Any discussion by the board? Uh, how does the board vote? >> I I student board members. >> I >> Thank you. Special reports and appearances. So, this
065evening we have our spotlight on student learning, academic progress. We're going to talk a little bit about the CASP cast 10th graders on track and map assessments. Um we do this annually. Uh and I I I think it's important that we pay a lot of attention to how obviously to how our students are progressing academically. We're seeing some uh incremental gains which are really important. Um, and it's a testament to not only our students and and how seriously they take their education, but obviously our educators and all the support they're giving our students. So, I'm I'm grateful we've got Dr. Kempkkey and Mr. Simmons and uh Mr. Gilbert here uh to give us some background and feedback. So, with that, I'm going to hand it off. >> Good evening. Um, that was a good overview
066of our presentation. So, this is one area of the LCAP that we review each year. This is our ontrack data for our current 11th graders. Um a review of the state testing as well as some discussion of some of our um MAP tests or local tests. Um and we're going to hear a little bit from the school perspective on how we're supporting our students in these different metrics. So just as a reminder, we have three goals in the the LCAP tonight. Um we're going to be focusing on goal two, humanizing education. The metrics under here are on track for graduation. So, um, we're going to look at that data as well as the castin cast. Um, again, here's another view of that on how the different goals are met up with the different metric areas.
067And we'll be covering all of these different areas throughout the year. Um, unlike some districts, we try to do the LCAP review in several different sessions, kind of going through the the goal areas aligned to each one of the metrics. So, first we're going to look at sophomores on track. This is a little misleading because it's actually we're looking at our current 11th graders and when they started this year, are they on track? And essentially what that means is we want to see them with at least 110 credits at the beginning of their 11th grade year. As you know, we have 22 220 credits that they need for graduation. So, being halfway there at the beginning of your 11th grade year, we consider them on track. So, we're looking at that percentage um for our
068students and this does include students um making up some of the credits over summer school. So, we do wait to take a look to make sure that they're on track from their work in summer school. Um so, here's the data for the last three years and this is by students race and ethnicity. You can see actually um as Superintendent Booker mentioned, we're seeing incremental growth this year. we actually saw an increase um with all of the student groups by race and ethnicity um and continued growth for particular groups, our black, our Latino, and our Pacific Islanders. We know um we continue to figure out ways to disrupt that um dispar you know discrepancy between our Asian and white students but all students saw increase um with um many of the students um above threequarters of
069them being on track. Here's another way to look at the data over the last four years. our selected student groups. Um so looking at students with IEPs, our students who are considered from socioeconomically disadvantaged and our multilingual learners. Um we're also hoping for two of these student groups that um these this data will even be more promising by the time they graduate. We do consider this kind of the leading indicator for graduation rate. um with those two graduation plans that you approved last spring. For some of these students, they have slightly fewer credits that they need to complete by the end of their um four years with us as well. Um so just kind of reiterating what I just said, we see um continued maintenance of over 90% of our students are on track. So
070it is really targeting that 10% of students who are not necessarily passing all of their classes or struggling in some way. Um we do see all of the subgroups showed improvement. We saw an increase overall and an upward trend which is um great high subgroup performance. So both our Asian and white students um have the highest on track rates. And then we saw um what we were happy about is seeing our Pacific Islanders with an improvement trend because that is a particular student group that we've been watching carefully because we are in differentiated assistance for them. Areas of growth um again three groups that we just continue to have to think about ways to um intervene and support them so that they are um meeting those graduation requirements on track. Um, and really we're going
071to talk a little bit about the strategies. These are some of the similar strategies we talked about last year. Um, but I wanted to have um, principal Jeff Gilbert come up and talk a little bit about what they're doing at Hillsdale um, as the lead principal there. Um, we can talk a little bit more about some of these strategies, but he'll talk about from the site perspective really. It's on. >> It's on. >> Yep. >> Excellent. Good evening, members of the board, superintendent, members of the cabinet. Um, thank you for inviting me to come and talk a little bit about the work. I think it's a wonderful slide to kind of outline a lot of the work we're doing to support students to ensure that they're on track to graduate after 10th grade. Uh, I
072I could list a lot more things. I think every principal could could list and describe a number of teachers, a number of initiatives that we have on all of our campuses. Um, I want to make two points before we talk about some of the work. Uh, first of all, the most important strategy is good instruction in the classroom. And I think there are times when we can assume that things are going to go wrong and therefore we need to layer on other supports. we need to put by far our most uh our our resources and our time and our thinking into how do we do the job in the classroom. If we do that well, then we minimize the need to do additional supports. Uh the second thing I wanted to um make a point
073of is that there's no one person and no one action in a in a school that can turn a student uh who is at risk of not graduating. Uh and I think that at times when we when we sort of say this is our goal as um as a school when teachers internalize and say oh it's my job in my little corner of the world to make this difference it can lead to frustration and and even cynicism because that's so much to ask. So the work is not I think as much what are we doing at least right now at Hillsdale because we have programs and we have initiatives. The question is how do we communicate among those resources and supports? How do we create coherence among them and how do we coordinate those? So,
074u I'll try to illustrate that. At Hillsdale, I'm an adviser. I'm an 11th grade adviser. So, I meet with 30 students every day uh and in the 11th grade. And next Tuesday, I'll go into a meeting with uh two teachers. One of them, all of my advises have the same English teacher and the same history teacher. and we'll stay together for two years. The counselor who works with those students will bring a data set in from the first six weeks and we will look as a team at the grade data for those for our shared students. The ed specialist and uh will also be in that meeting with us and we'll we'll drill down to probably in this case maybe two or three students per per advisory maybe maybe three or four who are showing
075signs that they're sort of on the wrong track at six weeks. Now we have to make a decision in that moment. The first decision is can we manage that process at what we would call a tier one level. The supports that we offer to all students. And so that's me, the teachers that share the students, the counselor, the ed specialist. And it might just be look, this student's been out for a week. They were they were sick. They were at a funeral. They missed a test. We need to utilize uh a tutorial period. We need to figure out how to do some one-on-one coaching with student. We need to give them extended time. We at Hillsdale, all 9th and 11th graders lead studentledd conferences in October. Maybe we need to bring this issue up at
076the student led conference and try to help students co-create a plan to to address these issues before the 12 weeks. But there also will be a couple of students maybe in my advisory I can think of one right now who we look at it and say a tier one is not enough. So then we have to think how do we coordinate our work with the tier 2 supports. Again, this is the important part because if it gets fractured and people are all running around and they're not aligning the work, then people fall through the cracks. So, when we'll look and see is this student have a social emotional issue? Is it a is a so socioeconomic issue? Is it an academic issue? So, let's say uh at Hillsdale we determine that u there needs to
077be some some uh social emotional supports, some mentoring, then we would turn to empowerment through action. We may use that as the endpoint for this student. About 10% of our students are in empowerment through action and that's a critical tier 2 support for us. We're looking at mentoring in that case, perhaps uh some tutoring after school. We're looking at uh perhaps getting the student connected in a job or internship. Uh it depends. I think that my point is where's not one sizefits-all. it's utilizing these resources and then aligning the supports for those individual students. Uh I think that another good example uh and just a little more detail on it if we look at our students who are our ML students who are transitioning into the mainstream uh again the work is the coordination between
078the first team and the next team as these students move. Um so for example uh if you're a student who's in is who's an ML student and you are exiting uh the newcomer program into the mainstream the the six weeks before that exit happens you're doing a one-on-one counseling uh meeting you're meeting with a wellness counselor. You are your family is meeting with a transition specialist. You are creating a profile page for your new advisor so they know who you are. and you're doing a shadow day and you're being then paired with a student who's already made that transition. They become your big buddy. In the weeks after you make that transition, you do an adviser to advisor meeting so that the adviser passes on the information that they've learned about the student. Uh you
079have the new adviser doing a parent family outreach. You're doing one-on- ons with the new school counselor every two weeks. uh you're do you we have an ML um multilingual learner specialist who's doing regular grade checks with that student and check-ins and then we have an U ML resource center specially designed for those students to transition into the mainstream along with the classwork that we're supporting them in our CLA classes and other opportunities. So that's that's sort of a a deeper dive into one specific set of students. Um I think in the end uh I would wrap it back to the first example and that for us it's advisory. We have to ensure that at our campus there is an adult who is the advocate and cares for that student on a on a deep
080personal level. Uh and that uh when we make that happen um all sorts of possibilities exist. It is hard work. We have so many things to work on at Hillsdale. I could list a list is at least that long to say we're in the process. Two of the things we are working on are coordination between adviserss and non-advisors and specific uh instructional practices to support our ML learners in the classroom. So two of our initiatives I hope to be able to talk about as we make progress in those areas. So thank you. >> Thank you for sharing that. >> That's not fair. I have to follow that but Um, thank you, Principal Gilbert. Um, as I said, I mean, I really respect the work you all are doing. Um, it's it's yeah, really comp complex
081work and it is about the system and um, I should have we should have said this at the beginning that we have um, we'll be doing some spotlights of the schools as we go throughout the school year. So, this won't be the f the last time you hear from schools about sort of a deep dive into the work they do to support our students. Um so I have the illustrious honor of talking a little bit about the CASP data. Um so as you can see this is sort of pre and post pandemic. Um if you can remember back in those days we didn't actually administer the CASP uh for a couple of years um in the dark days there. Um but in general we're seeing some some um our first set of slides are around
082the English language arts results. Um and as you can see most groups had modest improvements. Um we still have some work to do to get back to sort of where we were overall um in the in the at the at the end of the pandemic. Um but in general we're seeing some positive growth overall. Again that was the racial and ethnic groups and then the next slide is all about um as uh Dr. Kempkkey said the special populations. Um I would say um the data about multilingual multilingual learners stands out most here with only 3% of that group meeting or exceeding the standard in ELA. Um so we definitely have work to do there. I think the work that we're doing um which you'll hear a much more deeper a deeper dive on uh at
083the December meeting. I believe it's a December meeting. We're still talking about when that's going to exactly happen, but um we'll be talking about what's happening in multilingual learner programs with new curriculum um and assessments to give us a better sense of of making sure students are on track earlier. Um so one of the key pieces of sort of the way to think about the CASP which is just distinct from the old California standards test system and maybe the way that people in many places think about um um student uh standardized test data is really understanding the extent to which students are sort of the distance from the standard. Right? What was the what is the distance that our students how far are they from sort of the average student in the state? Right? That's
084an important way to think about it because some it's easy to sort of say, well, this percentage of students was is is meeting or exceeding the standard and this percentage is not. But the question is how far are they from the standard if they're not meeting the standard, right? How far are they? And so that's this concept that the state developed in the in the in in the development of the CASP test uh through the Smarter Balance Assessment Consortium. And so this slide is actually in a display of the percentage of students who met or didn't the standard meet the standards overall. Um and all the students in the top two rows were at or above the standard which was a score of 2858 and above and and and above for the juniors outlined in
085this presentation. Um so what we've done then is sort of broken down by year how how far from the standard we've we've come over the years to give you a sense of you know in general we're doing better. Um, that's one thing I want to say, you know, certainly since the the 22 the 21 22 22 23 uh school year in in language arts, we are we're we're doing better in terms of improving students distance from the standard that we're we're we're improving um the percentage of students who are doing we're doing who who are meeting or exceeding the standard. Uh this is the sort of racial and ethnic chart and if you could see it in color which is a little hard for me. I'm not quite seeing it but there the the green
086numbers are improvements and the red numbers are not improvements. So, it's a little hard for me to see it because I think I had some some red green color blindness. But anyway, um in general, um we we uh on this slide you can see the breakdown of student scores across the scale score ranges. Um and basically, sorry, let's see. Um I've lost track of my slides here. Sorry, I've just got to get back on point. Yeah. Um well, not all groups have shown growth. The majority on this chart have shown improvements over the last few years. I think that's the important thing to see here. Um, and we're going to I'm going to call out at the end of this sort of the the specific subgroups that continue to lag their their counterparts. Um, again,
087we we we sort of always show the data in these two ways, right? Racial and ethnic subgroups and then um our special population students. There's a lot of overlap with those students and we separate them because if we sh showed them all on one chart, there'd be a bunch of duplication. It would be very confusing to you all because many of our our multilingual learners, for example, are Latino, right? So, you would there'd be some confusion. So, that's why we separate these out. Um this this slide shows the distance from standard among our special populations. And while the data shows significant disparities for our multilingual learners, I will slow down. Sorry. Um interpreters. Our students will with disabilities did show some small improvement while our students from socioeconomically background socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds showed their least
088distance from standard even pre- pandemic. And so I I sort of call back to a point that Dr. Kempkkey spoke to earlier where our socioeconomically disadvantaged students were not doing as well as we'd like in the ontrack status. This may be a good sign that we're because there's actually some other data points in math as well about socioeconomically disadvantaged students doing better um in terms of their again they're not at the same level as their counterparts uh um in in some of the racial and ethnic subgroups, but in general their distance from the standard is is as low as it's ever been. you'll see significant um improvement for that group um in the in this among that group over this this last year right from 36.88 to not to to to only below by 9.3
089points. Um so the final slide related to ELA achievement on the CASP gives the breakdown of how our students did in the three areas of the CASP. This is pretty far in the weeds for the average person, but we do give this information to you to give you a sense of what's actually being tested on the test. Right? So, the state of California two years ago, they opted they've they've made the test shorter. Um, so if you have junior students um in your house that the test is actually not very long now. The state went to a short form during COVID and they determined that they could actually just administer that shorter form test. Um but what that meant was that it consolidated the the um writing and research and inquiry areas into one area.
090That's why you see there's a collapse of those in 23 24 and 24 25. But in general this is just giving you a sense of you know how students are doing across the different sort of dimensions of the assessment. Um and you can see that overall students improved in in in the in the areas overall but we still have work to do to have all students meeting or exceeding the standard. I'm now going to move us on to mathematics. Um, and basically this is this takes us from the spring of 2019 up until the the current uh school the the the last school last spring. Um, the good news here is that overall we see we see maintenance of performance I I I guess and and and a bit of increase across a few of
091the key uh racial and ethnic subgroups. Again, depending upon the size of the subgroups. So, African-American students you may notice are not here. We normally uh chart them. the particular cohort of juniors last year of African-American students was too small to to report. Um, and so, uh, yeah, but in general, you'll you're seeing sort of a general sort of, uh, maintenance and a little bit of increase in a couple of different subgroups. I always remind folks about Pacific the Pacific Islander student population is about normally in any particular grade level is about 40 students. So, you you're one or two students can make significant uh impact on the on the line there. Um, and then this is the the stu the special populations. And as I noted earlier, um um the the low-income students show
092a significant increase in in those who met or exceeded the standards. And I think that's that's just something for us to pay attention to and actually to sort of dig into like why do we think that might have happened um as we go forward this school year. Um similarly to the previous uh discussion, this is the distance from standard um ranges. Um and again you see in general um you know some improvements. Um this is the chart that sort of this is the sort of generic chart. Um and so in general you're you're seeing kind of and this is again giving you the specific scores that students scored and what percentage uh or what um which of that which of those scores meant uh you were in the meeting or exceeding standard level three or
093level four. Um, so again, similar to the chart in ELA, um, we've got a, um, a a breakdown here by racial and ethnic subgroup. Um, and in general, um, yeah, it refers to the number of scale score points a student is above or below the prof the proficiency threshold. I think I said this already, um, but basically it's how close they are to meeting or exceeding the grade level standards. Again, by sort of different ethnic and and um, racial groups. uh again the same sort of chart with our uh special populations. Now we don't see the same dimmunition that I had spoken to with socioeconomically disadvantaged students in math. Uh and that's why math is of a particular focus for us um as a district. Um again this is and this is the final um
094element of it which is sort of the breakdown across the three broad areas of the um of the CASP uh math test. It's concepts and procedures. So that's really the sort of like can you do the math um problem solving and modeling data an analysis. So those are the more like word problem sorts of um questions that students would encounter and then there's some there's some articulation of reasoning right sort of logic that students are tested on u and you can see that's sort of the lowest area across across all the school years. Um the other thing that we do um we we've taken to doing the last couple of years is to sort of distinguish between um and this is really tracking our the ongoing evolution or or of course taking among students in
095the in the region. Um as many of you know we have um lots of acceleration and compacting of math courses that happens even before high school. Um and so um so we we try to pull the data out for sort of what classes are students in when they take the CASP and what percentage of the students in those classes are passing uh the assessment and passing is is meeting or exceeding the standard. And so as you see we've got juniors in a variety of classes. This is the first um the first slide there two slides of this is also just speaks to the diversity of courses that we offer to 11th graders. There are literally I think nine classes I think on this um on this sheet and and you can see that our students
096in our lowest uh so students to be on grade level you should be in algebra 2 as a junior right that should that's the sort of standard program now we've got students who on the next page who are far beyond algebra 2 but these are the students who are sort of on on on grade level in the specific class pathway to statistics was a class that we offered last year um and data science and so um those were classes that were also on grade level. So you'll see that across these particular classes um students were not were not did not fare as well as the students on this slide. Right? So these are our high performing students and lo and behold they do well um on the standardized test. Um that's good news for us
097and them because that's we we would we'd expect that. I think the key the key piece of the puzzle is making sure that our students in algebra 2 were are performing and only only a little over a quarter of those students are performing are meeting or exceeding the standard and that you know I think we we continue to to do work to to ensure that students um take the test seriously. We we always have a question about the extent to which these are valid um measures of student performance because as you know students only take this test one time in high school. It has no real bearing on their futures. Um, it does allow some students and we tell students this all the time that it can help them with some of the prerequisites at
098the at the UCCCSU systems, but students, you know, they sort of that's one of those things that some sometimes can be in one year and out the other. So, anyway, it uh these are the core these are the these are the outcomes by course. Uh, we did want to give you some quick uh data about our um our new map assessment and sort of what we're seeing in terms of outcomes for our map. And I did move these slides around a little bit. So you may have to jump to the end because I wanted it's it was more relevant to this particular piece of the of the presentation. Um but this is uh basically the the fall. So we just administered the map. Um I think we're actually ending we've we've extended the week extended
099it to through this week. Um but these are the sort of early returns on our on our MAP assessment. And in general what you're seeing here is that students in general about 70% of our students um are scoring uh above the average. And so anything from the yellow to the to the right uh is sort of average and above um for for performance. And so this is good news both in language arts and mathematics for our students. And I could go into more details about exactly what these percentages mean, but the point is I think in general we're seeing some early signs because we administered these tests to our our um English one and English 2 classes in in ELA and our um uh algebra 1 uh and geometry and math 1 and math 2
100at cappuccino classes. So I think this is good news that I we're seeing some early signs of of students doing a little bit better than they are on the CASP. It may speak a little bit also to that because these are administered by their teachers in their classes that these tests may have bit have a bit more currency for the students. Um um and then in general this is the overall distribution of in math about 67 60 68% of students were uh above or were at average or above and 75% in ELA. And I do think these over time we'll see but I'm I'm thinking this may be a more valid measure of what of what our students really do know or not know. Um then the last assessment that's uh in your packet uh
101and it's the it's the the third of the three assess the state assessments is the California science test. Um in general we're seeing um similar uh trends to what we've seen in years past. Um so I want to remind us all that this this test is administered in the 12th grade um in you know April of 12th grade. Just as a quick, uh, students take this test in the fifth grade, the eighth grade, and and then at the end of the three course sequence. We've opted to have students take the test as seniors instead of as juniors. Most of our students actually do finish the three course sequence in their junior year, but we just felt like it was too many tests to add the science test to the math and ELA and whatever AP
102test that they happen to be taking. So, just a this is a this is a little bit of inside baseball, but it's important to know that, you know, unfortunately the state and the state doesn't allow us to administer the test in the fall. That would make the most sense for us to administer in the fall of their senior year, but we're not allowed to do that until the end of this year. So, um the assessment it it assesses the skills and concepts of the next generation science standards uh that run across the three three core courses of biology, chemistry, and physics. uh and since our juniors are and so anyway, the point being uh it's kind of a comprehensive assessment of the skills of science that students need by the time they graduate. So I
103in general we're seeing a little bit of growth. I mean again African-American students there must have been enough senior African-American students so they could pop up on this particular chart but there were not enough junior African-American students. Uh and then in general you're seeing you know pretty flat uh overall a little you know moderate growth among a couple of the special populations there. Uh and again our highest performing group of the special populations are our socioeconomically disadvantaged students. And again just to be really explicit there's a ton of overlap with this with these three groups of students right there are students who are in each of those lines essentially because they are low income multilingual learner and have might have an IEP right so there's a lot of the same students in those lines. Um
104so just to final just to finish up um in summary you can see some strong ELA outcomes. Uh math continues to I think rebound a bit uh and some distance from standard gains overall. Uh we continue to show the same persistent gaps among Latino Pacific Islander SED MML and students uh with with disabilities. Um just to outline quickly some of the things we're doing in mathematics. Um we continue to uh and some of this we talked about last spring um when you approved the new course first we're implementing and learning from the MAP growth assessment and and we'll report on the growth uh that students showed this year at the end of the school year. We plan on administering it during the the CASP window in the spring. Um second, we've already begun we've done
105begun a book study among our department chairs in mathematics uh around this concept of the building thinking classrooms framework and it's really a student- centered math framework that sparks deep reasoning through a lot of collaboration. Um and if you've been in math classrooms at at uh at Berlingame or Cappuccino, you might have seen it. Uh lots of kids up on the whiteboard doing lots of math. Um and then finally, as we discussed last spring, we're also piloting the new algebra 2 with financial applications class and look to report on how that is going by the end of the school year. Um lastly, um you know, in general, I would say we continue to implement these broad uh district-wide strategies outlined here. Many of the things that um principal Gilbert spoke to around, you know, implementing
106this common instructional framework, um and having our new STEM and humanities coaches out in our PLC's, that work has begun. uh continued math pathway innovation um at Hillsdale, you know, with the geometry first uh approach um as well as um the tier 2 academic supports that empower San Mateo. I mean, we've got lots of different kinds of activities happening. Um you know, we continue to implement our reading and literacy strategies and interventions. And lastly, we have new instructional materials in the science area in biology and physics. So, we look to see hopefully some adoption and implementation of those of those new resources for folks. And with that, we'll answer any questions. Boy, oh boy, was a lot. Okay, I'm gonna ask the blur to uh see Rusty, I think it's is it Chavez, you have
107any questions? Try to try to, you know, I know everybody has got a ton of questions and including Trusty Lan. >> Wait a minute. I'm going to pass. I mean, you know, this is one of those topics that everybody is really going to want a a bite of the apple. We got a we got a basket full of apples, and I'm sure by the time I get them, I'll be nothing but apple cores left. So, let's let's be respectful. Um, as as we said last week, be as succinct and get to your what you think your key issue is, and if we have time left, we'll we'll come back around. So, Trusty Chavez, >> I want to thank uh both of you for the presentation. Uh I think it's very very informative. I like I
108love the data. All of us like to look at the data. We like to see progress. So, I want to I want to thank you for also putting in um slides about what we're currently doing to help to help all of our students. I'm always concerned about that. I love graphs and they really seeing it visually helps right because um for those that I love data but it also helps just to see the graph. So, I'm always concerned about the outliers or the, you know, how we can provide more support to the students that aren't that, you know, they're on the the the chart right there and they're towards their their graph is, you know, it's linear, but can we get it to trend upward? But I know our staff is amazing. Just wondering what
109more we could do, but it sounds like we already have some measures measures in place. Um, and I'd like to see how it's going um I guess by the next semester, right? I guess I know we we do receive updates and so thank you for those as well. That's I mean that's kind of my only comments is I wish that um we could provide as much support as needed for every student and I know that's our goal. Thank you. It wasn't really a question. I guess it's more of a comment. >> I was I was going to say was there a question embedded in there? >> It's sort of like what can we do more but I know staff is already doing a lot and I know that you know so thank you for also
110saying what we're working on currently. Yeah. To add go ahead. >> Thank you Trusty Jacobson. We've been through this presentation before. Yeah, that's it. Thank you, >> Dr. Jacob. >> Okay. Thanks. Um, I just want to thank you for the the presentation and thank you uh, Principal Gilbert for showing up and and highlighting those uh, efforts at Hillsdale. And I just I do have to make the comment that the advisory um teachers are so incredible with how they uh just individually know the students and where they're at and not just the tier two and three students but the tier ones like every student feels really seen and valued and known and I just think it's really great. So I want to say that um gosh okay what question should I ask? So about the um
111the map assessments coming back to what you said Brian about you think that this might be even a better measure than the CASP itself. Yeah. For for some reasons. Um I think we're going to be administering this more than once a year. Is that right? um are we going to be seeing those results throughout the year and a comparison? And also along with that question about the the MAP assessments is how do you take that information and apply it to the instructional uh strategy? >> Yeah. So we're, you know, we're we're easing into it, if you will. So we're going to administer it two times this year. teachers have the option to administer in the middle of the year at the end of the semester. Uh it's it's available to them at that time as
112well, but our sort of mandated next administration will be in the spring. Um so both uh through just um so the platform itself has really robust analytics to tell teachers. So what it and I've done training with the teachers around um how to how to leverage the data around so what it'll do is it'll give you clusters of students visually and sort of say this group of students did is doing well here and not so well here so you could work on this as a as a teacher because you've got a bunch of them clustered in these particular areas and so that's sort of the the and then it gives you spec like very specific strategy ideas again but also we have like great teachers we've got the the PLC coaches that are happening so
113there's a lot of there's a lot of places for ideas about what to do uh to address the needs. But certainly the platform has one set of resources to support folks around what they should do next uh and what specific skills are needed to do well on this particular standard, right? That's really what it's helping them to understand in the progression because in many ways English is the same class four times just more depth, right? That's really what learning learning to read and write is really all about is is sort of yeah it's the same thing just multiple times in more depth and more rigor and so that so the idea is that there's this progression of the standards that's are that's articulated in this map. I'm sort of I'm using my hands because I'm
114thinking in my head about what it looks like on the screen and there's literally this this uh chart that you that the teachers use to understand like where the students are in the standards and again the nice thing is it's either individualized like you can you can and each individual student gets a score report. One of the things we're promoting this fall is really encouraging teachers to to do goal setting with students now that we have this measure because I think a big piece of our assessment like building our assessment muscles is getting our students to be as invested in this as we are right getting them to own growth so that so this isn't just about us like weighing them every you know 6 months and seeing how they're how they're doing right it's
115really about having them set some targets for themselves and so >> the great thing about the platform is it gives us a lot of that stuff sort of automatically it gives us a report on individual student growth and what your growth should be. That information can go home. It'll be put in it's actually in your Aries parent portal so you can see it about your respective student as a parent. So again, this these kinds of tools are used more robustly usually in the in the elementary and middle grades, but there's absolutely no reason we shouldn't be using them. >> Okay, great. Am I allowed one more question? >> One more. Go for it. >> One more. Um, so you talked about how students aren't really incentivized to take this test seriously. Um, have you strategized
116or come up with anything to help incentivize them to take it seriously? >> You're talking about CASP. >> Yes. >> Yeah. I mean, I think we, you know, and I think each school is taking different approaches to this. I think there's certainly we do we absolutely um encourage students and I'd be curious if the student uh the students over there have experienced any of this. Are you seniors? Are you juniors? sophomores. >> Oh, sophomores. You're not even there yet. All right. Sorry. Well, you she hasn't done it yet. So, but I would say um so we do encourage tell students about the EOP, the early opportunity program elements so that when they're applying to height to to colleges, there isn't if you do well, you can actually get yourself out of some of the requirements
117of um college, but you know, students do and do or don't care about those particular things depending upon what their plan is. Um and then we also like we've got participation sort of um uh uh activities for pizzas and things like that that people have done to try to get students engaged. I will say uh Aragon in particular I'll call out. I mean that's a school that stands out in my mind in terms of of um participation and really making sure stu because we even have students who just don't go at all, right? They just don't they they we try to track them down all spring and they just don't take the test at all. and so or they've been opted out by their family. And so I think part there's a lot of sort
118of dimensions to this. And so it's you know we've we've also done some campaigns into the community about we send an an annual letter out to our families explaining the importance of this in some ways similar to our our letters that that like our attendance letters about the importance of coming to school, the importance of taking these tests and the practice of even whether it was even worth something to you or not. The practice of sort of taking this test is a good thing for you to sort of stretch your muscles in that regard, your your brain muscles. So, I think, you know, we're doing what we can to try and encourage and incentivize it. It would be great if there were some accountability to it all at the end of the day because I
119think it's funny because in many ways there's there's no accountability in the in the elementary and middle grades, but it's taken incredibly more seriously um by the students. Uh and partly I think it's because there aren't other highstakes assessments that exist, right? We've got AP tests. We've got other tests that seem more important to students, right? That's part of the challenge. There's sort of competing solutions that we're also sort of working with. Yeah, I hear you. It's just Yeah, it's it's just one of those it's the one of these few data points that we have. I know. So, yeah. Thank you. >> Thank you, Trusty Land. >> So, I only have one question. 32 parts. Just kidding. I saw that in a movie somewhere. Anyway, no, no, thank you very much for the presentation. Um,
120I really appreciated um, Principal Gilbert's comments about connectedness. um really when you have interventions and you're not connecting it to the tier one and what's happening in the classroom, it's not as successful. So I mean the insight there was critical at this point I think. So I really appreciated that. Um, you know, one of the one of the questions that came up that wasn't part of my original comments was, you know, using the map assessment and having that breakdown. Is there an element to AI? Because in some programs now, there are programs that have here's your assessment, here's what here's the diagnostic, this is what you need to do, and actually have an AI component to say and this is what you got to do. B. Um, that is the newest thing that's happening lately.
121And I'm wondering if that has an element to it or not. >> So we can plug the data into a few of our our our um our U technology partner tools. Uh KIGO is maybe the one you're thinking about. So KIGO has a formal partnership with NWA and they actually can create sort of they do this for SAT as well. When students take the PSAT, they can get this sort of self-paced tutoring um process. What what we found with the technology- based tools and I'm certainly defer to my uh colleague Dr. Kempy on this too that I think we're we we've yet to find technology tools that that that address the motivational challenges that students who are struggling often face that it usually takes a human. I we've had we've spent lots of resources on
122tutor.com and other kinds of virtual tutoring resources that were very targeted at students but because there was this screen between the the student and the and the and the teacher if you will the virtual teacher students didn't take to it. So I think that's so yes can we um there's a couple specific um I Ready is one that we can plug it into and we have in our in our in our um special education spaces a lot of use of I Ready um as not I Ready I'm sorry um uh it's a different platform it's not I Ready it's a different one we have already also that we're that we're assessing our multilingual learners in but there's another platform I'm just can't remember the name of it because we only have 225 unique platforms uh
123in the literally 225 um but there's but there's a few that And so I think I think that's the that's the one downside. I I think we should keep continuing to like dig into the possibility >> still new and yeah I mean I I wasn't even thinking of KIGO. We have and again you said it yourself there's elementary and middle school grades doing things with like KIGO but we have something called a mirror which is something that's more elementary like hey it's almost reading diagnostics and responding. >> Um so it's kind of interesting. Um, so there's potential. I just don't think it's fleshed out yet, but keep on it. I mean, check it out. Um, going back to other things. Oh, one last question on the map assessment. Subgroups. You don't see the same breakdown
124in subgroups. You have the overall, but it would be interesting to see the cast comparisons to what do the specialized populations look like and our subgroups look like in that assessment because then you're doing comparisons. >> So, it'd be interesting to see what that >> we can we can get that to you via via week. >> That'd be great. That'd be great. Um, just getting to the bulk of of the questions that I really did have and I'm apologizing to, you know, getting to that, but one of the things that I keep seeing and you've already pointed it out in the strengths and the weaknesses were still I was really amazed at how low multilinger scores went down. It remarkably went down. Uh, and and it and it's like we're failing the kids right now
125with the multilingual. I don't see an increase. I see an absolute decrease in both math and language arts and in the um just the sophomore tracking where we're at. So I think we're doing a miserable job there. And I think what can we do differently is the question is it going to be rhetorical at this point because I think we've done a lot of elements of what do we want to try to do? There's I heard you know I heard about all the I love the geometry first. I would love to hear what's going on with that. um you know the reading interventions and the interventions that are taking place you know the the program at Hillsdale EPA I mean there are some great things I think we're doing and I don't want to say
126let's not keep doing them and not expand but the test scores themselves and just the data that we're looking at multilingual learners are losing at this point and we've got to do something radically different and I'm going to go back to our goal disruption you know and the idea of disruption is if we keep doing the same old same nothing's going to change. We're going to expect the same results. In fact, what we're doing is we're expecting we're getting worse results. And I'm almost worried about what are how come our multilingual learners are going down in their scores, not up. If you look at, you know, the graphing, the graph has a complete downward slant for five years, you know, and that to me is just very upsetting and concerning. Um, you know, I I
127was in looking at the ontrack ones, I was impressed with the IEP scores, the the tracking that went up to almost 86% in when you looked at the on track for sophomores. So, I mean, we're doing something right in IEP students with IEPs and we're not doing something with multilingual learners. I mean, what are we missing here? What's the what's the disconnect? So, that's something I'm hoping that we can look at a little bit more. I was very impressed with the socioeconomic disadvantage. I mean, we're like you said, we're closing the gap. We're still in the negative, but we're changing the the the scores overall for for socioeconomic. That is huge. That says that things are doable. We need we just need to start looking at, I think, dissecting the problem or diagnosing the problem
128a little bit more with the multilingual learners. Um, uh, where else was I going to go? um Latinos, Pacific Islanders, you also pointed it out. I just need to kind of reiterate it like those are our students of, you know, selected ethnicities that we really are not doing a good we are doing a disservice to. Um I just want to reiterate those those comments because I think just looking at all sets of the data, it said the same thing. I mean, I didn't get to see the map scores, but um that to me was just sad, unfortunate. Um, looking at math, yeah, I I can see overall I have a question, not an answer. And I don't know what the right answer is. And I don't even know if I want to say it, but
129hey, do we differentiate or should we come more homogeneous with math? Are we are p math pathways are math pathways so extreme? So because you look at the second you you said it yourself, the second slide. Wow, look at how great this is. And you have all the students who are in the highest forms and they're doing wonderful. And then you have all the students who are s, you know, who are behind and not doing it. And what are we doing wrong here? It's a question, not an answer because I'm very conflicted with this. I believe in differentiation at both ends. I mean, there's a TED talk on it. You know, it's just like you want to you want to design to the edges, not to the middle. I love that TED talk and I
130think that's my belief, but I keep questioning what's the right answer here. >> All right, I talked a lot. >> I think I think the answer, Greg, is they need to take algebra in middle school and >> just had to throw it out there. >> Take al anyway. >> Trusty Andradi Zuniga. >> Sorry. >> Yes. Um what's interesting so with the data like it you know it does say Latinos and Pacific Islanders aren't doing so well but you know within all of the different uh data points like the different like communities that you're that we're testing how many of them identify in different areas so like IEPs and then multilingual learners like it's not just one community and so I would like to see the sub That would be very interesting. But if you could
131speak to like how does that how does that look? >> So this is you're talking about across the students who are multiple affiliates if you will. >> No, we can't say that all Latinos or all Pacific like how or all IEP students or you know what what are the different groups that are that are um representing those groups? >> So I'm not sure so I understand the question. Go ahead. Where are the students duplicated? So, >> oh, I see. >> How many what percentage of our multilingual students are also socioeconomically disadvantaged? So, >> or >> yeah, how many of our multilingual students are also Latino or Pacific Islander? So, >> I think we also need to break out what do we mean by ML? There's lots of different classifications of ML, >> which is Latinos.
132>> Yeah. Spanish speaking. >> Well, how long they've been here. >> Yeah. We and we've gotten very sophisticated in our diff differentiation of the ML population and and so I so we'll do I'll I'll do some some digging into kind of giving you these duplicated student populations. Uh it's complicated. Uh that's partly why we try to disting we separate them out so we don't duplicate them. But I think it's right there are students who as I said earlier there are students who are literally four categories right um at the same time. And so um >> it may also I think be helpful to um trustee Lan's point is taking a look at how the multilingual students are doing by their language level. So distinguishing that. So how are >> newcomers doing versus our long-term um
133students? Yep. >> That we we can pull some of that data >> and then taking a look at that compared to MAP. um because CASSP is one of it's one of the harder data points for us to >> really make strategies from. Um so I think that's some of what we're hearing is to kind of nuance the data a little bit so we can make some better inferences from >> and and another significant reminder to all of us as a multi-racial person myself, we don't so all multi-racial students are actually excluded from the respective charts. If you don't identify as one thing, you're actually two or more races. So you're actually so we don't in that data you don't actually really know the full breadth of multi-racial student and they're actually one of the highest
134performing groups. >> Yeah. >> Um and so it is it's a bit of like this is the true for the African-American population in this district in particular. There are about 75 African-American students who only singularly affiliate that way. And then there but there are actually 225 students that have that as one of their markers. Um, so if you counted the 225, they perform better than just the sort of singular African-American group. So it is a and there's a lot of examples of that. I use that one is just because it's personal, but yeah. >> Well, that's what I was going to kind of get at too because >> in the equity advisory, I mean, that's something that we had talked about was that there were groups that were not represented. Um I think my other
135my other point too is being that it's attendance you know attendance month whatever superintendent Booker was saying um in in attendance like how is that related and then why though like what are the reasons why the students are not are not uh are not um >> participating or not >> and we have actually during COVID we did a lot of attendance-based um reporting and we found that of course if you were coming whatever coming meant in those days in terms of the Zoom school or whatever, but you were tending to pass. And that's true still. The data is pretty clear. If you come to school with not chronically absent, you know, you you tend to pass um your classes um A to G eligibility, not necessarily, but you certainly pass your classes. So, it is
136coming to school is a big deal and it and it and there's clearly we know that that chronic absenteeism problem is has all of the unintended effects. It's why we're doing lots of things to try to get kids to come to school um through independent study, easing them in all kinds of different things. So, >> well, you know, with just, you know, immigration and stuff, I mean, >> yeah, it's challenging. >> These students aren't going to aren't coming to school. Yeah, >> I know that it's, you know, right, I I think the only thing that comes to mind right now is the adult school, but >> um just with the you know, with the younger students, um like again, that's why I want to know why aren't they not coming to school? >> Yeah. That
137was rhetorical, right? I'm assuming. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> I got a couple of uh hopefully closing questions and you know there some of them are high level and some of them are kind of like the advisory and the supports and I appreciated your your report uh Jeff or Principal Gilbert. Um, is are those pretty much consistent cuz you you know you got smaller learning communities which is more tailored and more connected anyway. Is is is that pretty much what's going on at the comp the other comprehensive high schools or even the non you know the other schools. >> So I think I think where schools uh so there is an advisory there isn't an advisory obviously at the other school sites uh with FTE devoted to it right. So there what
138what we do know is that we've got pretty robust tier 2 systems at all the schools. So when kids pop up in these what I mean by tier 2 is sort of short-term interventions. Jeff described some of the some examples of that where it's mentoring or um um attendance. You know there may be a social emotional connection. So schools are like literally probably Monday uh going to start those tier 2 interventions because the first grading first marking period is the is the first moment when we really dig into that information. Although I actually know that some of the groups have already started because kids were not showing up to school uh in the first month of school or so. And so the point being that's the way the other schools are sort of addressing is
139that they're identifying those students through their intervention process and they sort of identif so students who got a certain number of absences, certain number of D's and Fs looking at their Canvas. Um we can we identify those students and and reach out and and and and intervene that way. So, it's less of a schoolwide effort catching kids on in an individual kind of relationship based basis, but it's but it's using the data that we have about absenteeism to help. So, I would say, you know, it's not it's not as it's not as robust a system as what they have at at Hillsdale, but it's but it's good. >> You know, the it was a good presentation. I enjoyed it. But, you know, you and maybe it's only me. I studied the slides this afternoon. I
140was on on chat GTP5. I had to upgrade, you know, because it was it wasn't giving me the answers fast enough. Um, you know, there's a lot of slides and a lot of material and we were flipping pages almost. You know, a lot of times you have a a slide, you have one key concept on that slide, maybe you want to drill down on that one, and you move on. And boy, we I think we move pretty fast this afternoon. I mean, this evening. And I'm not saying that uh you know your stuff. I don't know that I need to know your stuff as well as you need to know it. But, you know, I think sometimes there's like if there's 20 points, you know, we're we're mainly concerned about achievement and science, English language
141arts, and math performance. Who's ready? Who's not ready? you know, there was a lot of data and I know we're we're a data, you know, we love data, but I think sometimes we're just sitting in piles of data and not understanding or not really focusing on where we're going. And you know, one of the things that I I kind of thought about, okay, we got five years worth of data, okay, and some years it goes up, performance goes up, and some years it goes down. Do we understand? Do we have any idea what variables are driving the success for those years? I mean, we've got, you know, you've got your curriculum, you got materials, instructional materials, you've got the the instructor or the instruction, and then you've got the supports. I mean, when we're changing
142stuff, are do we really do we have an idea what's going on? How are we tweaking this? What are we going to do? >> I mean, yes. And I would say the the the first and biggest variable in all of this is that it's different students every year. >> Yeah. >> Well, yeah. No, >> it's not the same control group. >> Yeah. >> So, when you don't have the same control group, >> Yeah. >> and students have >> a variety of needs, >> right? We have to look at, and this goes back to what Principal Gilbert talked about historically, fundamentally, what systems of supports do we know either by our own experience or by research work? And those are the ones we want to make sure we're investing more of our resources into so that
143regardless of the variable which is the different students every year we know which resources work. >> You know to your point I think in the future we just need to have an executive summary at the beginning. The executive summary to this presentation is we're making in incremental gains and we still have work to do in math specifically and we still have work to do with multilingual learners. >> End of presentation, >> right? A little bit like that's the exact >> kind of sounds like the summary I just said earlier, but >> it does mention that the graphs are good because it gives you the trend. And to your point, I I think and why we asked principal Gilbert and we could have asked every principal to come and give somewhat of the same presentation. What
144is vital is what are we doing about it? And what you're seeing is we're doing a whole host of things because we know there's a whole host of things that work for a whole host of different students because their issues of why they're not succeeding are all differing. It might be a lack of language. It might be a home condition. It might be a learning disability. It might be. It might be. It might be. So, we have to make sure that we have a variety of interventions that we're employing right there. There isn't just one magic intervention that does it. >> Uh, and those are the things we continue to explore. And when we find good ones, ones where the data is showing that they work, like ETA bringing you that last year because the
145data shows >> that that is a significant intervention that is working across the board. Boy, we're going to pile our resources into that. >> So, I I'd love to connect more with board members around what would make this presentation more valuable to you? What information do you really want? Like we added the map data late. >> That was just a couple days ago because I'm like ding ding ding. We've got a common assessment we're doing. We better put that in there. >> Uh and what I'm hearing from the group, sorry, last thing is that we need to break even that data down into better subcategories. Fair. >> And it and it can be over over time, too. I mean, this is a part one. Maybe the part two goes in a little bit deeper in
146the certain areas that we need help with or that we're working on. But again, one of the things I'll counter with is, you know, I look at this and I see it and I I'm I'm sorry. This is what I do. So, you know, just like you do accounting, you can look at a numbers and go whatever. I look at this and go, "Oh, I know exactly what they're talking about because boom, boom, boom, boom, boom." So, I like this. >> This is good homework for me. I got this and I can read it in two seconds. >> But what I will say to going to what Dr. Um, Superintendent Booker is talking about is there's trends >> and yeah, this is all faulty data. This is all relative. Who's going to but if you
147see trends you so you know >> what I see is you're closing the gap on a lot of things. We're we're taking some negative numbers and making those numbers a lot smaller. That is a success over time. >> Yes, >> you see that >> we see positive going more positive. That's success over time. >> Yes, they're totally different kids. Yes, they're totally but you're looking at relative trends. >> You look at the trends and that's why the graphs are exactly those graphs are telling you something. >> That's why I like the graphs. >> It's heading this way. It's heading this way. It's difficult to say because you never know with each thing. It's like what's working for that particular group. That goes back to what Principal Gilbert was saying is like the connectedness. Hey, whatever
148interventions are, let's see what it's actually doing in the classroom and what's, you know, the connected conversations with the advisory like, hey, how's life going? What's going on? How how you doing on these tests? What's going on in math versus physics versus language arts and English? I mean, that personal note, that's the deep that's the deep data. And that's what teachers do in the the PLC's and they talk about how the kids are doing in in very granular levels. At our level, we're talking about big numbers. We're talking about general trends. I would love to see the school breakdown. We didn't even do that. You know, we didn't talk about what how which schools are doing better than others and what the trends are. Again, PLC work at a school level. You know, how's this
149school versus doing this school? Maybe EPA. Is it EPA or ETA? I keep that. ET ET, sorry. ETA is doing for the two schools that are doing it. And, you know, compare is that is that something we need at Cappuccino? Is that something we we want in another school? Anyway, these are I mean I'm very passionate about this because I think you did a great job. I think we are it's a lot of work here that you put into this. We do need to break it down. This is something that we can revisit on smaller levels. You just this was a fire hose. You know, let's let's take a sprinkler next time and and and go a little deeper and stuff. But, you know, I think it was very good. >> I think I and
150I just want to reiterate that I love the >> call on you. Oops. Sorry, we were we were popcorning there. Sorry. >> Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead. >> No, I was just going to say that >> I like the data and I and I do like the graphs because you will see a trend trending up trending down and and I and I do agree with Superintendent Booker that is it's different cohorts, but we'd have to get the students from the fifth grade every time they took the test to see that. But just to Trusty Lance's point, you know, it's the trends that you've seen. And I also want to say that the strategies to address overall needs certainly identifying it per per um school site would would help. I know you you've you've definitely identified, you
151know, some school sites there that are part of that um strategy. So, thank you. I know we have other hands up. Thanks. >> Yes, ma'am. >> So, I'm this is more of a comment, but I do have a question and this is specifically about the math. So, I do go to Cappuccino. I'm a junior at CAP and I'm right now I'm taking IBSL2 and the building thinking classrooms curriculum I found is not positive because we get into class and I don't know a single student that wants to go up on the boards because we think of it as okay this teacher is giving us these problems throwing it up at the board giving giving us no guidance whatsoever and we are expected to solve it and I feel like it's not like from not even
152just me all of my friends all my classmates from taking these IB IB math classes are saying I'm heavily depending on my classmates because the teacher can only do so much when everyone's on the whiteboards because whenever we're on the whiteboards our math teachers walk around to see if anyone needs help. And that's usually like 2 minutes per whiteboard group. And so by the time he's my teacher's already left me, it's going to be another like 10 minutes before he gets back to our group again. And we're kind of standing there clueless. And it's like I'm heavily dependent on my friends who are especially good at math. And I feel like I when I have a question, I go to them. I don't go to my teacher because my my teacher is already so busy
153helping everyone else. And I think this is not very positive for students who are not who don't learn well independently. And it's kind of like you're putting us in a situation where okay, if you can't learn on your own, then you're kind of screwed. And a lot a lot of students in my class reflect that. And I just feel like my question for you is, have you gotten student feedback about this certain curriculum? >> So, we haven't at the district level. I know that I think stu I think teachers are hopefully doing some some feedback protocols, but I think it's a great it's a great suggestion to understand certainly at the schools like Cappuccino and Berlingame where they're using this strategy already like what is student experience? I will say I think there's a part
154of this that's countercultural to the way you probably were taught math in kind kindergarten through 8th grade. So you've had a lot of years of learning math and the way that you learned it where did you go to Parkside and the other schools in San Bruno. So yeah, so I think I think that's part of it is that you you know we're sort of working on a a method of teaching math that's quite different from the way that it's done traditionally with everybody in a row and everybody doing their math set problem sets and stuff like that. So, but I hear your feedback and I appreciate it and I think we will take it into consideration the need to really engage with students around what makes this work because the lit the the research is
155pretty clear that when we get students really understanding the why of the math and really wrestling with problem solving, they do do better because they actually understand why they're why the algorithm or the problem that they're solving is solved the way that it's solved. But um because too often we knew students they they knew they knew they knew how to how to do the procedure but they didn't actually understand why the math worked that way. So that's the thinking behind building thinking classrooms but we don't want your experience to be like you feel like you're you're lost and no one's helping you. So I think that's certainly feedback that we can take and and work with our teachers around. >> I don't know if you want to add anything. >> No, I think we should
156survey the students to see what their experiences in the classroom. So thank you for that feedback. We appreciate it. You know one thing and um when I started saying that I knew it I mean this was hard this was a good presentation it was you worked hard on the presentation and the timing and everything um you know my conclusion after I thought of all the variables was is a very difficult topic. Now, the other thing, if you're doing incremental and you're going up and you're going down, how are we ever going to get that big think out the box, close the gap deal, you know, cuz we're we're kind of inch, you know, many ways we're inching along and we're looking kind of at what works and kind of a little bit over here, but
157then we're saying the expectation is, boy, we just put an intensive program together and you know, and extra hours, extra supports and stuff. Um, and I don't know how we reconcile those two, but that's rhetorical because like so many academic subjects, we've we've actually jumped into them into this with both feet. And you know and maybe um I think Greg was talking about this of maybe different piece different parts of it deserve a deeper dive you know during different years depending on what might be interesting where the results might have moved one direction or the other we can come back and revisit it in you know in in a little more detail. Any more questions? I thank everybody for their participation. Okay. Uh, that was for information only. I got to get back to to
158the agenda at the >> Okay, we're going to move on. Uh, construction. Any items in construction? >> Not tonight. >> Okay. Division of human resources consent agenda. >> Yes. Consent agenda. We recommend approval. >> I move to approve the consent agenda. >> Second. >> Okay. Okay, we got a motion and a second on the consent agenda. All in favor? >> I Were there any questions or comments? >> Trusty uh Griffin, um do we have to take comments? >> Yeah, we have >> No, that's why I was just >> There are none. There we go. >> Thank you. >> The train started moving. >> Yeah. Yeah, we'll slow the train down a bit. Get my online agenda back up. Okay. Division of human resources. Yes sir. We have the personnel action addendum. If uh we do
159have a recognition Lori Durham, the health aid at Mills High School has submitted her retirement effect at the end of the day, December 29th. Lori Durham has been with the district for 26 years and four months. We recommend approval of the addendum. >> Okay. Are there any questions? Any any comments online? >> There are none >> in person. Nope. Okay. Is there a motion? >> I move to approve the personnel actions addendum. >> Second. >> Okay. We have a motion and a second. All in favor? >> I division of student services. >> No, excuse me. Uh >> approval. >> Yeah.Uou approval ofou. >> Yeah. Approval ofou with the rape uh trauma services to formalize uh campus based supports. Theou covers counseling referrals from district personnel when needed. And the services include crisis intervention, student support,
160and raising awareness. >> I move to approve theou. These are great programs. >> I'll second them. >> Okay. Are there any comments? Any online comments? >> There are none. >> Okay. Um, we have a motion and a second. All in favor? >> I >> uh T, the Division of Student Services T1. >> Yeah, this is a district is recommending a denial of interd district transfers. >> Okay. Is there a motion? >> There's two of them. Sorry. uh IDT25-26-1612526-162. >> Okay. >> Any comments? >> There are none. >> Is there a motion and a second? >> Um Oh, I I move to approve. >> Okay, it's a second. >> Second. >> Okay, we have a motion and a second. All in favor? >> I Sorry, that's what you were saying. I couldn't understand. >> I I'd
161like to make a comment. Um um I'm going to um abstain. I'd like to explain why. I think it's important for me to explain why I ab I'm abstaining because when the board received information um I knew I knew uh who one of the um how do I say this? >> students I knew one of I knew who I'm aware of who one of the families are so I'd rather abstain. So that'd be I'm neither voting yes nor no. So thanks. I'm sorry I'm just tongue twisted. Sorry about that. Okay. So, we got four eyes and uh abstension. >> Great. >> Thank you. >> I'm sorry. You should have >> Sorry. >> pul pulled my sleeve. I heard mumbling over there. >> Candy at you and said, >> I'm not sure if we voted. >>
162We did. We had four four of us with eyes. >> Okay. Uh, Division of Instructional Services. That's okay. You won. >> This is a public hearing um that we're holding for um determining that we have sufficient instructional materials in each subject area and there's a resolution that we'll then adopt after we hold the public hearing. Okay, >> I got to catch up with the uh Okay, I'm going to open the hearing. Are there any comments? >> There are none. >> Okay, I'll close the public hearing and that's for information only. >> Yes. And the next item is for the adoption of the resolution for the certification of textbooks and instructional materials um that you can see in that attachment. So, those are all of the ones that were purchased over July 2025 to September 2025
163for this school year to ensure that we have sufficient instructional materials. >> I move to approve the adoption resolution. >> Second. >> Okay, we have a motion and a second. Are there any public comments? >> There are none. >> Okay. Um, all in favor? I >> I >> passes 5 Z. >> Division of business services. >> None. >> Board operations. >> We're asking that the board uh approves the district's response to the 2024 2025 grand jury report entitled, "Who you going to call? is career tech education preparing high school students to fill the skilled trade gap. Uh you'll see our response as attached to the board agenda. I do want to call out a couple of things. One, we have a due date of October 6th to respond back to the grand jury. And then
164secondly, as you read the response, please, this is for the board. I know the board already knows this, but more more so for the public. There is a very specific template and very specific language that the grand jury requires in how we respond. So if you read it, it comes across very legally ease. There's repetitive language. That's all part of their outline instructing us in how to respond. Now we get to answer the questions the way we want them. But in the sense of the formatting and the it's kind of formal language or odd language that is a requirement um by the part of the grand jury. So I don't want you I don't want the board to think that's how I normally write. It's not. >> I have one comment I just share right
165now. We used we used generally speaking a lot. There were lots of comments to generally speaking this that and the other thing um which is standard boiler plate. I mean is there are I don't know what we were trying to say for the most part are the majority are with exception uh or is generally speaking the words that should absolutely be there because they count they sound like weasel words to me. >> Well, I don't know how else to say that. I kind of agree and I kind of disagree, but generally speaking, so on and so forth, >> trusty land. >> Well, generally speaking, no, just my concern is I wonder and I again I've been in I've been in elected office for over 20 years and I' I've Yeah, I'm old. I know. No,
166no, no. Anyway, my concern is I understand I' I've seen in the past with other issues things have come up through the grand jury. I just wonder what implications why does a grand jury have anything to do with CTE and education? And it really got me to think thinking how relevant and concerning this is. I don't even know the purview of of the grand jury. Why why would this be even coming up is the question I ask. One might argue uh that the reason the grand jury addresses this particular issue is because career technical education and career technical employment is a societal issue. And we've seen it over the last 20 years, 30 years kind of the pendulum swinging one way to another. If you think 15 years ago, school districts were abolishing career tech,
167moving much more toward um AP. Yeah. uh the humanities, things like that. And then the P pendulum has now been swinging, I think, back to career tech in a variety of kinds of ways. >> I think my only response is maybe we should all stay in our own lanes. >> Well, that is my opinion. I >> I guess my response in this report is that there are some suggestions that they are making that are good, sound, we're either doing them or looking to tackle them. We have spoken as a governance team quite a bit last year and we will continue this year to talk about our career technical education program. But some of the things that they're requesting or recommending that we do are either too short of a timeline, not realistic in kind of
168how education works and or not understanding that some of the things they're asking for are either massive budget implications or massive negotiation implications. I can't just wave a >> thus proved my point. >> Yeah. >> So, but I don't want to say that everything that they've recommended >> we disagree with. That's not true. >> Well, in a broad sense, in general or generally speaking, >> yes, they're making some good points, but that is at a philosophical and very general level. And that's the point that I think we can get out of that. >> Yeah. And also, I'm I'm remiss to say this, this is not a focus simply on Sano Union High School District. This is across the county. I I >> totally understand. Yeah. >> Yes. >> Trust Jacobson. >> Oh, I do have
169a question about aren't there some other places where they have like a county CTE uh I don't know building or something so that everybody >> Yeah. so that everybody can they can pull the resources um so more people can access it and is that something that the county is looking at do you know >> I don't know I mean your first question is yes there there are some counties have those and then back in the day when it was RO regional occupation program share students so let's say Sequoia had a phenomenal auto body shop well we could if they were part of the RO consortium we could send students to Sequoia for that particular class and if we had a great wood shop, they could send them to us. That was something that was done
170back in the day. It's not done as much anymore. Uh I think to your point, counties, some counties have taken over those kinds of programs, but I don't know that Santo Union that's a super note, Sanonteo County, I don't know if that's so robust, but I can ask the question. >> Well, I don't No, I don't think it's robust right now. I'm saying it has there been any talk of >> not >> that as a strategy in conjunction with this >> I totally remember that in my high school we it was called scrock which is Southern California occupational blah blah blah blah blah >> yeah and I know they have they have a similar thing in Utah where my nieces and nephews get CTE um training so it it just seems like a good >>
171it's it's interesting to look into >> okay there any com comments comments or questions beside generally speaking. >> Okay. >> So, this is an action item. We're looking >> This is Yeah, we're >> No. Well, you know, we're looking for approval. So, we need a an action on something. >> So moved. >> We got a motion. >> Second. >> Got a motion and a second. Are there any comments from the public? >> There are none. >> Okay. Uh any further discussion? All in favor? I >> I >> Okay, so future I think we're down to future board items. Okay, going once, going twice. Meeting adjourned.