SMUHSD Board Meeting - May 22, 2025

001not accessible. Good evening. I'd like to call the meeting to order. This is a meeting of the Samale Union High School District Board of Trustees. I am calling open session to order. Today is May uh 22nd. It was 7:02. Uh roll call. Trusty Chavez present. Trusty Jacobson not not here yet. Trusty Lan will be absent. Trusty Andradi Zudiga present. Okay. And I'm here. So we have three three board members. Uh tonight we have a team from Hannah interpreting as our Spanish interpreters. For those who would like to attend a meeting virtually in Spanish, that option is available. Hannah interpreting, would you please communicate that for us this evening? Thank you. To use the interpretation feature, please scroll to the bottom of the Zoom screen where the meeting controls are. Click on the interpretation icon, the

002world, and select English as your language. If you are joining through the Zoom mobile app, cell phone, tablet, etc. Please press the ellipses, the three consecutive dots, then interpretation, and then choose your language. Finally, click on mute original audio to not hear the original Spanish low in the background. etc. Gracias. If you wish to view closed captions of this meeting, please view the meeting on uh 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 captions in a variety of other languages if you choose to watch after this meeting has ended. Viewers may request additional accommodations by calling 650-558-2201. That's 650582201. For our deaf and heart of hearing

003community, we have a team from Hannah interpreting services and 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. I would like to ask our student board, welcome student board members. I'd like to ask you to lead us in the pledge of allegiance this evening. Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay. Report of actions taken in closed session. In closed session, upon motion of Trusty Chavez and seconded by Trusty Andradi Zuniga, the board moved to approve an agreement to wave student expulsion hearing and stipulation for expulsion case 24/25-10 with with a vote of 3 to

004zero. In close session, upon motion of Trustee Andradi Zuniga and seconded by Trustee Chavez, the board move to approve an agreement to wave student expulsion hearing and stipulation for expulsion case 24/25-13 with a vote of 3 to zero. Actually, let me go back to the prior one. The votes were as follows. Uh, Trusty Chavez, yes. Trusty Andrea Zuniga, yes. Trusty Griffin, yes. On 24 2513 with the three to zero vote, Trusty Chavez, yes. Trustee Andradi Zeniga, yes. Trusty Griffin, yes. And in close session, upon motion of Trustee Chavez and seconded by Trustee Andradi Zudiga, the board moved to approve an agreement to wave student expulsion hearing and agree to a stay of expulsion recommended recommendation for case 24/25-12 with a vote of 3 to zero. The votes were as follows. Trusty Chavez, yes. Trusty Andrea

005Zuniga, yes. And Trusty Griffin, yes. So we move on to item J, adopt the agenda. The board of trustees may adopt the agenda as pres 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 notice. Are there any questions or comments from the board of trustees or the superintendent with respect to the agenda? President Griffin, I would ask that the uh board vote to remove item W.1.review specific uh board policy update. Okay. So, we're amending we're amending the uh agenda. Uh any questions or comments from the public? There are none. Any no online? There are none. Okay. Uh would a trustee care to make a motion? Make the motion to approve the agenda as amended. I'll second. Okay.

006We have a motion and a second. Um is this going to be roll call all evening? Do you know? Okay. Uh, Trusty Andrea Zeniga, I. Trusty Chavez, hi. I'll vote I. And this is an item for the student board members to vote on. How do you vote? I I. Thank you. So, we've got an agenda. Um, report of the superintendent, K1. Thank you very much. So, a few things to report tonight. First, I just want to say congratulations to Middle College for their graduation uh earlier this week. It was just lovely, delightful. Uh Trustee Andrea Zuna uh gave a great speech. Uh CSM's president also gave a great speech. The student performers uh was all it was just it was wonderful. Very uh community-based, intimate um just to see all the smiles on all the

007kids' faces and representing all the different schools in our district. So, uh, next week all of our other high schools will be graduating. So, we won't have a board meeting before then. So, I want to say congratulations to all of our, uh, seniors. And then also in the middle of June, we'll have our diploma, uh, graduates from the adult school. Uh, so just a really exciting time coming up. Um, our next topic, educator appreciation month. At our April 24th board meeting, uh the board adopted an educator appreciation proclamation uh for the month of May to honor all of our educators. And I think most of you know how I feel about this. All of our uh smooshed employees are educators uh no matter their role. And so we fast forward today and uh we are

008three plus weeks into the month of May and we've celebrated teacher appreciation week May 5th through the 9th and teacher appreciation day on May 14th. This week May 18th through the 24th uh marks California's classified employees week. A little later this evening, I'll share the accomplishments of our talented educators in our spotlight on student learning uh to highlight their accomplishments for the spring semester. Cannot be more grateful or proud uh of our team here at Smooshed and um just really really uh excited and thankful for education appreciation month. Uh this Monday we've got Memorial Day. It's observed on May 26th. It's a federal holiday and a day off for our schools. Memorial Day is the day that calls our country to remember and honor American service members who have died while serving our country. Memorial

009Day was originally called Decoration Day, which was a day intended to honor soldiers who had died in the Civil War. The first celebration took place on May 30th, 1868, Waterlue, New York. And in the late 19th century, the holiday became known as Memorial Day and was expanded to include the deceased veterans of all the wars fought by American forces. It became a federal holiday in 1971. And on a personal note, it's an opportunity for me to uh give remembrance to my dad who served as a captain during World War II and my grandfather who served as a colonel during World War II. and then um uh discharged honorably as a first star general uh in the late60s. Um so I remember them u and we'll spend some time uh Monday. They're both interned at the

010National Cemetery in San Bruno and they do a remarkable service up there if you if you remarkable. Um we have two proclamations for your approval tonight in the on the consent agenda. Uh they are the LGBTQIA+ pride month proclamation and the Junth proclamation. And I just quickly want to share summaries uh of both of you. For those at home and in the audience uh if you want to read the full proclamations they're attached to the agenda. The LGBTQIA+ pride month proclamation. And Pride Month is celebrated in June. It commemorates the 1969 Stonewall uprising, a pivotal moment in the gay liberation movement. The uprising occurred after a police raid on the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in Greenwich Village, sparking six days of protest. The first Pride march was held a year later on June 28th,

0111970 to mark the anniversary of the riots. President Bill Clinton officially recognized Pride Month in 1999, proclaiming June as gay and lesbian Pride Month. And in 2009, President Barack Obama expanded the recognition to include bisexual and transgender individuals and declared June LGBT Pride Month. President Joe Biden further included the words queer and interex in his 2022 proclamation. Uh, our district has a diverse lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, interex, and asexual community along with smooshed allies. Our district is committed to supporting dignity, equity, and visibility for all people in our community. June has historically become a symbolic month in America in which LGBTQIA plus persons and allies come together in various celebrations of pride to support the community's right to live their lives out proud and safe. Many school districts across the United States, including

012Smooshed, recognize and celebrate June as Pride Month. And although advancements have been made with respect to equitable treatment of LGBTQIA plus persons, these persons still face discrimination simply for being who they are. I think discrimination is actually kind of a um light word. Uh I think they face danger. Um uh I have had family members face extreme danger. So it's not just discrimination simply for being who they are. Thus making it essential for all districts and all communities to stand up and show support for all our students, staff, and families. Next we have our Juneenth proclamation. On June 19th, 1865, over two years after President Lincoln declared all enslaved persons free, Union Army troops marched to Galveston, Texas, Texas to enforce the Emancipation Proclamation and free the last enslaved black Americans in Texas. Those who

013were freed from bondage celebrated their long overdue emancipation on June 19th. And today, our nation commemorates Junth as a celebration, as a chance, excuse me, a a chance to celebrate human freedom, reflect on the grievous and ongoing legacy of slavery, and rededicate ourselves to rooting out the systemic racism that continues to plague our society as we strive to deliver the full promise of America to every American. And since 2003, the state of California has celebrated Junth on June 19th as a day to honor and reflect on the significant contributions of black Americans. And we recognize that we as a district, we have made progress. And we must continue to make advancements and actually in fully actualizing the ideals reflected in our equity mission to quote continually disrupt and eliminate institutional biases and barriers to ensure

014that all students have the skills and knowledge to thrive physically, emotionally, and academically. and in our equity vision where quote all students will learn in a safe, inclusive and equitable environment that validates, respects, and honors their unique backgrounds, interests, and identities. And on Junth, we remember our extraordinary capacity to heal, to hope, and to emerge from our worst moments as a stronger, freer, and more just nation. It is also a day to celebrate the power and resilience of black Americans who have endured generations of oppression in the ongoing journey towards equal justice, equal dignity, equal rights, and equal opportunity in America. Uh, thank you very much. Appreciate it. Thank you. Reporter of the District Teachers Association, Representative Good evening. No, there it is. Yeah. Okay, perfect. Not that I really need a microphone. Don't want

015to make your ears bleed. The soccer coach in me is still there. Um, hello, President Griffin, board of trustees, superintendent Booker, and District Cabinet. It's hard to believe that we're already in the last weeks of school. It always amazes me how much our educators accomplish in a year that seems to fly by. Our educators, both classified and certificated, show up daily to love, support, and guide our young humans. They give everything to their quest for freedom through knowledge and education. The end of the year comes quickly, and we always watch in awe as we say goodbye to a set of seniors and prepare for a new set of freshmen. Our educators devote their lives to creating uplifting, equitable, challenging curriculum that is based on high standards and best practices. I am incredibly proud to work

016with some of the best educators anyone can find. Additionally, I'm a proud of our amazing school leaders who sit on our legislative council and bargaining team. They put in countless hours representing members, learning about school policy and practices, listening to members needs and desires, and showing up for all of our members when we need them the most. This year, our association assisted 12 members to move over on the salary schedule with our Schmushta grant program. We hosted site lunch meetings to discuss educators rights, healthc care, learning opportunities, changes in district policy, and many more important topics for our members. We hosted many member engagement events and celebrated our new permanent status educators and our incredible retirees. Last week, many members attended CTA's Fight for Our Schools rally to fight back against the closure of the

017Department of Education, which will negatively affect our most marginalized students and our students in special education. As we close out the year, we look forward to successful negotiations together that center our students and our educators. In collaboration with our district leaders, we worked on understanding district policy and its implication on our educators. Together, we continue to work through the public records requests that take hours and hours away from our jobs. Together, we try to find a way to build deep relationships with our students while under attack by outside forces who call us anti-semitic, Marxist, and harmful to our young people. We stood stood together to fight against the hatred thrown at us to figure out how to navigate the public records request humanely. Together, we strive to find a way to support our multilingual learners

018with the new transition into the standard program. We continue to work through how to ensure students individual needs are met. But we still have a lot of work to do. We have a lot of hope that we can continue to work together to support our multi multilingual learner students and our educators who support them. We still have a lot of work to do to make sure our students feel like they belong. We hope that we continue to work together to figure out a way to make the public records requests manageable and in the protection of our educators and students work and identities. We hope to continue to work together to make this district a place where all educators and students can feel supported, successful, and loved. I would like to end today by honoring this

019year's retirees. It is a testament to our district that so many retirees this year have been here for many decades. They have dedicated their hearts and lives to students of this district for multiple generations. There are no words to describe the gratitude that we owe them for their years of service. We have Sharon Blev from Berlingame with 41 years of service. Juel Wallally from Cappuccino with 31 years of service. Denise Drier from Mills with 35 years of service. Steven Earl at Berling Game with 32 years of service. Cynthia Skelton from Berling game with 29 years of service. Michael Gibbons at Aragon with 26. Christian Balmy at Berlingame with 30. Sally Sibo at Sonteo with 33. And my dear friend Charlie Bissell at Hillsdale with 30. That's incredible. We wish all our retirees a happy endless

020summer and you will be deeply missed. To all of our incredible graduates, congratulations and welcome to the next beautiful step in your journey. Thank you so much. Thank you for that report. Report of the CSEA chapter 519. Representative, I'll be reading for Mr. Brewer. He passed along a message. Okay. Uh he wrote, "This week is school employees week and CSEA recognized it yesterday with our year-end chapter meeting at Samato High School. We celebrated another great school year of camaraderie and commitment with each other and the district we service. As many district employees look to enjoy the summer and their summer vacations, CSEA will still be here. CSEA is all in caps. CSEA never stops. In fact, for many of our departments, this now becomes our busiest time of the year as the classrooms are now

021available. Rooms will be reconfigured and reimagined as the learning environments evolve and CSEA helps to make that happen. The floors get stripped and waxed. Larger repair projects are undertaken. All to ensure that the educational settings in the San Mateo Union High School District remain the best in the Bay Area. So, as you wave farewell to 2425 school year, you can be assured that CSEA is working hard to set up the 2526 school year to be even better. Thank you. Dale Brutder, CSEA 519 president. Thank you. I want to note for the record, Trusty Jacobson is in attendance now. Thank you. Okay. Reporter of Savale Adult School Teachers Association. There's no report this evening. Okay. reporter of the student board representatives. Good evening. Good evening everyone. I'm Dylan Lee. I'm a junior at Cappuccino High School.

022Um recent things that have been happening at Cappuccino. Last Friday um Mr. Castillo um organized a field day for all of our ML um our ML English students. That was fun. Um on this Monday, we had our sports award banquet. uh recognizing our seniors and giving out scholarships. Um and on Wednesday, which was yesterday, we had an IV showcase of um the seniors IAS that they completed um last fall. Um and that is that is the happening at Capina. Um good afternoon. My name is uh Ham of Libdit and things that have been happening at Hillsdale. Uh we had our senior awards night uh earlier this week. Um we also had our goodbye rally for the seniors and um just welcoming like new coming years for the freshman, sophomores, and juniors. Um we recognized uh

023Mr. Bissell who is also be will be retiring this year and um yeah we have CCS for some sports and yeah and I'm looking forward to being at the Hillsdale graduation so should be a great time. Governing board comments. Trusty Andradi Zuniga. Um, yes. Hold up today. Hold on. Let me get to my notes. You're supposed to change. Okay. I wanted to first start with um the land acknowledgement that was written by our cappuccino students a few years ago. Our community acknowledges that all of our campuses lie on the ancestral homeland of the Rometo Shaloni. The Rome Tush 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 the stolen land of the peninsula, we should be

024alongside the Rome Tush remembering and honoring their ancestors and relatives. We thank the first people, the Rome Shaloney, 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 remush aloney so we can work together to protect and preserve the land for future generations. Um I attended the Latino Unidos um graduation awards uh at Hillsdale and Cappuccino. Um it's beautiful there. I what's neat is how much these clubs have grown in the past years that I've been around uh the district. It's been quite a while and I was just so proud of all the students and what's neat is a lot of students are first generation or are new to

025the country and it is just the way that they would acknowledge their parents and acknowledge their educators that helped them get to this point was really beautiful. Um, it just reminds me so much of my own family and our journey and our realities. Um, so it was it was really beautiful. Um, and thank you for everyone that organized it. I'm so grateful that we do this here. Um, I also attended the IB science showcase yesterday at Cappuccino. My goodness. Um, I was like, man, if we had educators like that when I was growing up, oh man, it was really, really interesting. Um, a lot of the projects were really cool, like about plants and the way that they just different types of like types of like crossing of the different species. And um, one person

026also did something on E.coli, which was really interesting, but then we talked about makeup and getting E.coli Ola and not and being safe. So that was a good conversation. Lots of relatable stuff. Um but it was cute. There was another student that did a um project on on brine shrimp and um it it was just really interesting like why they chose these projects and it was nice to get to know the students as people. Um it's hard as board members we are sitting here and we are you know talking about policy and about you know governing decisions but it's it's nice and we can go and see the day-to-day and the actual students and what they're doing. So I'm grateful. I'm grateful. Um I attended the middle college graduation with uh Superintendent Booker. Um it

027was really I've never seen a um some entertainment at the at the graduation. So that wasn't like it was really a nice surprise. Um our students are so talented. But what was the best part I think for me was hearing about the students and where they're going and where they came from and what like what they like to do and like really nice highlights about them. Again, getting to know the students as people. That was really neat. Um, it was kind of full circle because my son graduated from middle college in 2015 and so and it's 2025 and before when I've done the middle college graduation before we were outside but this time we were in the theater so it was kind of nostalgic. It was nice. Um, I attended the DAC meeting yesterday. Um,

028we talked a lot about the changes that they would like to see in communications and um, Miss Chocolley and Miss Hatch do an amazing job. Um, you know, and so it was nice to see parents like comfortable to talk about their experiences and how like what changes they want to see. We talked about how to get more in touch with the board and how to attend the board meetings and the access that they need. also um some we had some conversation about translation and about getting access to enrollment and all of that. Um there were some stories that were a little offputting that they've experienced. So I think there's some growth there that we need to have, but u for the most part those are so important. Um so please encourage more people to join

029um because that's the only way that we're going to know what's going on in the community. Um, educator appreciation month is now and I am so proud of this district. I I know that we're not perfect, right? We have a lot of things that we can change, but we have amazing educators and wonderful people like the ones we're here from today that love our students. Um, thank you to um to I don't know if I should call you um Miss Miss Lauderdale or or use your new name, but um and to also um Superintendent Booker for the things that they were saying about our educators and about our school district. Um people work really hard and the things that have been happening lately the requests it's it it's fine you know to request information but

030it's taking a lot of time away from our students and time away from what we should be doing is educating our kids and so and focusing on that. So, um, LGBT Pride Month, um, June 14th is the cemeter. Um, so it it's nice if we could see everybody there. [Music] Um, just like Superintendent Booker said, our communities are suffering right now. Suffering. um not just our LGBT uh community, but also our community of students whose parents are immigrants, who they are immigrants, um our educators that are immigrants. People are getting picked up off the street, citizens, non-citizens, it doesn't matter. They're just getting swept up. And a lot of us are terrified. I'm scared that my mom one day will be picked up. She's a citizen, but if people that assume things wouldn't know that.

031And so I just want us to be mindful of the things that are happening in our world today. A bill pass that's going to slash a lot of our funding for our social services, which is going to affect our students because a we have a large population of students that are low income. They depend on medical. depend on social services that bring them food, that help with housing. And that's being jeopardized because of people that don't have to know what that feels like. It's disturbing. So, I just wanted to um I wanted to bring light to that because also May 17th was the 71st anniversary of Brown versus Board of Education. That's still in our lifetime, you know, and um to see that we might be going back that way. There was a state that

032that allowed segregation again. Like this is happening again and people should be alarmed. It's really disturbing to me that people aren't more alarmed because our communities are going to suffer. Our world is going to take steps backwards. I'm sick of it. It's disgusting, honestly. May 7th was Ruby Bridg's 70th birthday. Yeah, that is happening again. People screaming at a little girl for going to school because she's black and stopping segregation. So, I'm just really um I'm sad. I'm disturbed. I'm disgusted. So, I just want people to make sure that they're they're informed. Um, pick up your red cards, know your rights, get involved. That's it. Thank you, Trusty Chavez. Thank you for your comments, Trusty Andra. Trusty Chavez, thank you for your comments. Um, I have a couple things uh written down. Um about a

033week ago or two weeks ago, um we had the Mills ribbon cutting ceremony for the facility upgrades. Um trustee Andrade Zuniga was there. That was awesome. And we had two former board members and trustee Andra Zuniga. Please correct me if I'm wrong. I believe it was former board member Peter Hanley and former board member Mark um Freriedman who was there. Yes. Okay, great. Got something right. Got it. Um it was amazing. Uh Mayor Anders Fun was there as well. Mayor, he's mayor of Milbury. He also spoke. Um, a big shout out to Miss Laura Chocolley and um, Miss Jasmine Andrade. Um, they were amazing putting everything together. Um, I thought the funny one of the funny parts was um, Laura wanted to make Miss Chocolate wanted to make sure I got the scissors removed right

034away after we cut the ribbon. They are big. I've never held a pair of scissors ever in my life. They were literally this big. So, I can understand there's a lot of people around. Let's take the scissors. So, that was great. Great celebration. Um, and great band band performance, too. It was great. Um last weekend um I um attended the California School Board Association Delegate Assembly in Sacramento and trustees from all across California attended uh for the two-day conference. Um so um I think I'm I'm um putting together the puzzle pieces because a lot of times we have policies, new policies that we're approving as a board as all school boards do in California. Um and I I always think, "Oh, this is great. These policies make sense and so do the edits." Well, this

035is the team that I a lot of policy um is edited and developed by the delegates um from across the the various regions. So, I'm excited to be part of this group and there's four pillars for for now. Um and I asked to be on the the pillar for um ensuring achievement for all and I'm really that that I mean that really touches um that's really something that I'm really um excited about achievement for all of our students. Um, we had homework to reach out to our districts regarding the achievement gap information and also our LCA our our LCAP plans to address the achievement gap and also looking at state policies that might hinder our district's efforts to close the achievement gap. And I just wanted to say that I reached out to Dr. Julia

036Kempkkey to help me with my homework. And my group has a huge thankout out thank you. Gosh, I can't sorry. My my group has a huge thank you to Dr. Julia Kempkkey because um her detailed for her detailed and thorough responses really helped us and my contribution to our group um that came together to talk about that. Uh they all thought that I had some of the most comprehensive responses and it's because uh Dr. Kemp gives a huge shout out for my entire group. Um so a lot of trustees now want to reach out to you. Um I also wanted to mention um as as well as other folks have already mentioned um May being um appreciation for our certificate and classified. So this week it is uh the classified employees week and um and

037in honor of that I wore my uh transportation shirt. I'm very proud of this shirt. Um, I am proud of our district just like Trusty and Andra Zunika said, everybody is amazing, works really hard and the goal in mind is is the students. Um, so I want to thank everybody and one last thing is congratulations to all the graduates in our district. We know this was a long journey to get to this milestone. So I want to give a a huge uh congratulations to everybody. Thank you for letting me share. Trusty J Trusty Jacobson. Uh I'll just give a brief comment. Um last week I I believe it was last week there was a hearing for in the in the committee about a bill AB715 about strengthening guard rails to help protect um all students

038from dis discrimination. Um it was disturbing to hear many accounts from students and parents about anti-semitism that they have experienced at schools. And as trustee and Andrade Zuniga pointed out there are different communities who are suffering right now. Uh our our Jewish and Israeli students are also um a group that are suffering right now. And just uh last night there was a murder in Washington DC of two staffers from the Israeli embassy by someone who shouted free Palestine and I think that we need to keep politics out of this place. Oh that I was just following your lead. Well I think that would you respect her time please? I I know but this is going to cause a lot more problems. I just wanted to let's let's make your comments please and move forward. Uh

039I just wanted to point out that there are um there are a lot of people suffering in our country right now. There's a lot of division and it's important to recognize um all sides of the issues. Thank you. Okay. Well, you know, I it's probably one of the happiest times of this the school year. You know, when you come back, you're full of enthusiasm every, you know, and and and you get into it, you roll your sleeves up and you kind of get busy and you get to the end of the school year before you knew it. And I really hope that our ceremonies are just joyous celebrations. I uh was talking to uh Principal Fong at Berlingame and I've been writing about depression, adversity, difficulty and you know and I and I I have

040been writing it probably five six years now about how tough things are. But I think hopefully this is a time to celebrate, celebrate the things we have in common, celebrate our students and their academic achievement. Uh get them the recognition, get, you know, get them on their way. So, uh that's and I'm looking forward to speaking at Berlingame and I'm looking forward to speaking at Hillsdale. So, um couple of other quick announcements. the Bay Area Community Health Advisory Council and they're uh they're sponsoring an organizing Black Family Voices. Unfortunately, it's on 529, which is when our graduations are occurring. I think Laura, you have some you have information on it. And um then there's also on June 8th there's a black family hangout sponsored by the same organization and that's actually honoring high school graduates

041and it's encouraging people encouraging students from grades 6 to 12. So I'm going to try to participate in that. Last year uh that same council actually had had a um a back laurette service here in Samontale. So, they're uh they're great people. So, okay, we're going to move on to public comments. If you're joining us in person and wish to make a comment about a agenda item or during our 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. This form should be given to the secretary before the agenda item begins. If you are 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

042called 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. That's boards smuhsd.org. Please note that comments are limited to three minutes. 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 request first. And if if I can follow this, David Kristofferson, you have a public comment on a non-aggendaized item. I'll keep this brief. Last time I tried to speak a mile a minute and couldn't get what I needed to say into the three minutes, so I went ahead and put together this document, which

043I gave several of you copies. I've got a couple extras. If is Melanie Carter going to be here tonight presenting? Okay. Okay. Uh in any event, I I can't possibly raise the issues regarding the physics textbook in a threeminut period. On page four of this document here, there are a series of bullet points that I would like to be able to get answers to. uh tonight if possible if the first four bullet points could be addressed during the presentation or afterwards I'd greatly appreciate that. I I also want to mention that I spent a considerable amount of time between 2018 and 2019 uh addressing problems with the NGSS uh curriculum. That uh was not a criticism of the district. Uh, everybody has mentioned tonight how great the teachers are. And in fact, my reaction to

044that was because we had a presidential awardwinning teacher here at Sonteo High School named Paul Robinson. He put together the textbook uh laboratory manual for the Huitt textbook that used to be used here. The students loved him. Just a few weeks back uh Mr. Childris was speaking and he mentioned Jordan Neri at Aragon High School who inspired him and his other uh uh colleague at Hillsdale to go into physics education. Mr. Neri put together a fantastic set of regular physics problems. I got involved with this when all of a sudden I started seeing my students coming back to me and I explained the details in here with a brand new set of worksheets which were riddled with errors. When I looked further, I found out that the state of California had mandated that the teachers,

045not just in this district, but throughout the state, put together a new curriculum on the fly while they're teaching their class. Now, Melanie Carter, who I was hoping would be here tonight, gave an excellent presentation about what they had done at the time, but basically these excellent programs that we had before were thrown out and people were required by a state mandate. I'm just as disgusted about that as you are about what's going on in Washington DC right now. And I share your opinions completely on that. When I say this kind of stuff has to stop in here, I'm talking about the state mandates. We are doing things right here. We need to continue and not just blindly follow these things. Thank you. Thank you. Ama Gam, is that close? That's very good. Thank you.

046Amma Gom. Yes. Good evening, President Griffin, board of trustees, superintendent Booker and Cabinet. I'm Amy Kakom. I'm with Peninsula Bridge. And in this time of difficulty all around the world, I thought it would be nice to celebrate something very exciting. Peninsula Bridge has been around for 35 years. We've been working with your students very closely over the last 5 years. And I just wanted to give an update because we were only a middle school program. We wanted to have more impact. So, we grew to high school, then we grew to college. And I wanted to share some updates that we have now our Peninsula Bridge board of alumni because for the first time our students who we find in third grade so we work very closely with San Monteo Foster City School District and we're

047down to Mountain View and we identify promising firstgen low-income students who are passionate about learning and maybe feel like at school they don't understand them. and they say I'm built different because they want to be in a space where they can just be their full selves who'd want to talk about college when they're eight years old. And so the other day we had our uh it was our selection day where they took their exams and they did their interviews and they did some STEM challenges. We selected our core. I wish we could have more students, but unfortunately the budget is really tricky, especially since the election. And we took the students we could and now we have 960 firstgen low-income students and about 200 of them are in college. We have our first group of

048alumni board members who graduated. They're the first group of students who did the whole 13 years. And what's so beautiful about them is that they're the first time in their family that they have extra time and extra income. What a luxury to be a college graduate and to suddenly realize my day isn't dictated by an hourly wage. And what they're doing is they're giving back. So you see here our alumni board. The other day we had a college workshop for our parents of students in college. They themselves did not go to college. And 12 of our alumni were there at 7:30 in the morning welcoming their families and the students, getting the cafesito ready and getting everything ready for the day. And these alumni are now handwriting letters to all of our seniors who are

049graduating because some of them are going to St. Olaf in Minnesota. Why not? We have six of them at Lehi University in Pennsylvania because there are so many small liberal arts colleges who want students such as ours and such as yours. And so if you look on the second page, you'll see all of the colleges where our students were accepted. All of these small private schools are offering full rides. You'll see the most important part is why I joined as a staff member after being a principal for 15 years is the career transition. And these are all of our partners. and you'll see all of your students where they are in college now on the last pages. So, thank you for your support and congratulations to all the graduates. Thank you. Thank you. Any communicate

050on under item M? Any communications to the board? Not this evening. Are there any recognitions? Also not this evening. Okay, we're going to move on to the consent agenda. Um, do any of trustees wish to pull an item for discussion? Nope. Okay. If not, is there a motion? I will move to approve the consent agenda as is. I second that. Okay. We have a motion and a second. Um, we were doing roll call earlier. Do we still need to do roll call? Okay, I'm trusting you. I am I'm relying on you. I'll own it if if it's not right, but I'm trusting you. Okay. All in favor? I I student board. Okay. Special reports and appearances. Superintendent Booker. Thank you very much. Uh so this evening I'm really thrilled to present our spotlight on student

051learning, our spring 2025 semester highlights. Uh I want to really point the community and our our our board of trustees, our our teachers and educators here uh with us to take a look at the board memo uh as well as this slide deck with some more detail. Tonight I'm going to be going very quickly and for our translators, I'm not going to be speaking very quickly. I'm just going to be pushing the button real quickly because there's a lot to cover. Uh so proud of all the things that we've accomplished at our school sites and in our various departments. We could not do any of this work without our incredible educators um and community partners. Uh really really amazing. So tonight I'm going to give some highlights and let me just say I know I

052miss stuff. So uh this is not all inclusive. This is just the best we could kind of pull together um soliciting information from various departments and school sites. So uh with that we're going to start with curriculum and instruction. Uh we just the professional development uh that we were able to provide throughout the year has been incredible. the instructional lead team and the instructional framework, the new courses, uh really really top-notch and something with which we should all be proud. Our CTE programs have really flourished uh and and just that capstone of of having uh state superintendent Tony Thurman uh come visit Aragon. What a treat that was um uh to participate. our student equity councils uh through through our equity work, the the dehumanizing uh language or as we call it humanizing Aragon campaign

053posters and the work similar work they've done at Cappuccino uh the school site equity visits uh led by Dr. Kempkkey and and principles amazing this year. Our our pride prom uh sustainability last night. It was great. Uh uh Dave Emanuel and I uh were honored by the county office of education because of the green ribbon schools um award that we received. Uh and then our the county office also awarded us with um uh sustainable and climate ready schools challenge leaders. So great work uh that our students are doing and I know this might seem like a really small thing but just that the board adopted through the work of the sustainability committee uh the the ban of plastic water bottles and that's that's actually a very big deal for a school district our size. Uh

054Aragon High School uh just especially lately the the the VAPA and music program specifically just amazing work there. uh the completion of the baseball and flex field robotics uh and and so on and so forth. Just really fantastic uh bridge academy uh working with our new architect to develop their new school building. Um they hosted over 20 volunteers from Kaiser through hands-on Bay Area uh we did a training by immigrant legal defense on immigration support uh and so on and so forth. Really fantastic work. Berlingham High School again, their Iron Robotics team that they they presented here. Uh we honored them, world champions. Um a 12th grader won the 2025 Rita Moreno Lead Actor Award. Um and so on and so forth. Cappuccino High School, 26 young scholars were were celebrated at the annual reclassification

055ceremony. Uh it's just such support for our multilingual learners. Um, we also hosted our uh, meet the Mustangs event with Parkside Middle Schoolers. Um, what's not mentioned on here is the bridge, a summer bridge program that's separate from Bridge Academy, but to help the, um, eighth graders transition into 9th grade. Uh, Hillsdale High School, the empowerment through action grant. Uh, and you're going to hear a lot more about that on June 12th um, at our next board meeting. But the Hillsdale High mock trial team, um, outstanding defense attorney, uh, they got to the state finals. We honored them at an earlier board meeting. Um, literacy, environmental literacy and sustainability, the plastic bottle, we talked about that, and so on and so forth. Um, this is Middle College, a great, again, their their um, ceremony earlier

056this week was fantastic. uh they do so many things to build community uh and build collaboration amongst um students and and educators there. The educators I met with them today as a group and and they talked more about the what they call flattened hierarchy and those aren't just words. You see that in the work they do on campus with students and with one another. They are such an extremely collaborative uh educational team. Uh and you see how that rubs off with students. um more than 185 of them uh visited CSM to preview the campus. Uh we're at the largest we've ever been uh with Middle College uh and just a really successful program. Mills High School, the the uh Dragon team participated in the San Francisco Chinese New Year parade. Um improved GPA, you'll see

057that. uh Mama Mia and and what's really cool is that they held their first dance performance uh because of Prop$28 that they've ever had uh and just a growing dance program. Uh this is Peninsula High School family engagement nights. They do incredible work with family engagement at Peninsula High School. So proud of how they bring that uh community together, especially as you know the students can be transitory uh coming and going from their home schools. Um, but they do a great job there. Um, and we award uh they earned uh students who earned all all A's got to go to a Giants game and they displayed their artwork at the San Francisco Youth Art Exchange Summit on May 3rd. Uh, this is uh Sanonteo Adult and Career Education. Um, they honored Black History Month with

058the celebration, the Coalition on Adult Basic Education Conference, and I think one of the things that I'm most proud is that their new student council uh and just really getting more voice from their adult students on uh how that uh program is working and how they were able to connect with Senator Josh Becker. Uh this is Sonteo High School. Uh they were awarded or selected by the county office as a leader for sustainable and climate ready schools. Um their spring production of Hazestown that's they were nominated for 2025 Rita Mareno award uh lead actress award and the Stanford math tournament. Uh really just uh phenomenal work there. Uh and and these are some of our academic support programs. We had AVID come and and present. That's always a very moving presentation for the board. Um

059uh we piloted our wayfinder as curricular support for self and social empowerment courses. Uh and uh several ethnic studies teachers attended the California Council for Social Sciences held in Berling game. Uh this is district maintenance and operations like Mr. uh as as Dale said from CSEA and they just keep us running. Um but we also uh had 22 student board reps uh from from all of our high schools, many of them here. Uh we we gave us valuable input on artificial intelligence instructional framework. Um the leadership retreat we had with the board and and getting their voices heard u was really fantastic. Um the emergency supplies initiative is uh finally complete. Um I'm really proud of that work. It's not super flashy or anything, but uh if we had a catastro catastrophic event, we would

060be able to uh feed and house um with first aid, food, water, sanitation, uh blankets, all of that all students and all educators across our district for three days as recommended by the Red Cross. Um that took a lot of teamwork. Um and I'm really proud that we were able to achieve that. Uh and then our study sessions with DAC and budget advisory and budget assumptions, all of that. Um communications, our communications department rocks. Uh they have done such fantastic work with whether it's our videos, uh transcreation, um bilingual signage, interpretation, um all of the different announcements when we have emergencies or issues that come up. Uh they are really fantastic. the im immigrant family resource toolkut toolkit there's supports support there and uh how the multilingual communication specialists making visits with family engagement coordinators

061uh and in supporting our Latino parent meetings and such. Uh I think communications uh we have become so used to how awesome they are that we don't realize how awesome they are. Uh they they just do a phenomenal job. We submitted uh for CSBA's uh annual conference a track for our communication department to present as well as our uh student board council to present. So we're hopeful that we'll be selected. Uh student health and wellness um amazing uh team here partnering with uh the Kyle Taylor Foundation and Peninsula Healthc Care District. our athletic trainers uh support that they do 700 uh and more hearing and vision screenings, over 4,900 health office visits. Uh that's a lot and and big thanks to Sarah Deainy and her team. Employment uh employee health and wellness, you know, not

062a lot of districts have a health uh employee health and wellness um uh coordination like we have. Actually, very few. Uh and so to see what they do in support of our uh employees, our educators in in in promoting healthy uh lifestyles and and the different events they do um bike to to work, eco commuting, first aid training and and and such. It's it's really really amazing. Human resources, oh my gosh, Kirk, your department does so much. uh you look at just the data there around all the hiring that we do, the uh entrance interviews, the exit interviews, uh the complaints and working through all of that. Um uh but also all the support that that uh the HR department and their team does uh in support of our uh educators. The teacher induction program

063is amazing. Uh huge thanks to Savvy. Uh and we supported 27 teachers in in the induction program this year uh with six ready for clear credential which is really fantastic. Um there we go. Uh this is uh I can't even read it. Where am I? What? Thank you. Multilingual learner. It's covered there by the thing. Uh we have put a lot of attention, effort um into our multilingual learner program this year especially. Um we know that that some of our most struggling students fall under this category. Um and we have worked hard with our educators, the multilingual learner task force uh board policy that's uh we're recommending for for changes um and and really stretching ourselves to support our multilingual learner students um thrive and graduate. Uh special education uh program also incredible. all the

064IEP team plannings that we do, Special Olympics events, uh, across the district, um, meet I did a meet and greet with the with the advisory committee. Um, really trying to help welcome our special education families into the district and help them feel supported. Uh, student services, this is all the enroll our our huge enrollment team. our student services uh oftentimes are the first face that families and students see when they come to our district. They are they that's the first impression they get is that office right over there and they do a really really great job whether it's our social workers our enrollment people our director of student services uh health and wellness social workers um just amazing support when when you have you know 9,000 students 1500 employees um a lot of issues come

065up and they're always there to help and we'll be hearing from many of them tonight and next our mental health and wellness group um uh the the teams across the district. I mean, 25 years ago, we didn't have these kinds of teams. What do we have 30 plus something like that? 30 plus um uh educators to support our health and wellness teams. Um students are in a lot of need. The world is much more complex and jumbled than it was many, many years ago. And I'm proud of the work that they uh do. technology and information systems. No one really talks about it until something goes wrong. Uh and not a lot goes wrong. So, uh we're really grateful for all the work Simon does in his department across the district. Uh our team here

066tonight helping us with video and sound and and uh all of that. Um really really appreciative and it's and I can speak to this in a smaller district you don't have all these people. You're like Char and I would be scrambling on on all this kind of stuff. So, I'm so grateful for them. Um, this is Capital Facilities. Oh my gosh, so much work, so much construction. We did complete the $86 million sale of Crestmore Yansy and and and and Charlie and their whole teams. Uh, the different gyms, the classroom transformation projects that we'll be starting. Uh, looking at the new bridge academy project, all of that. Uh, it's a tremendous amount of amount of work. transportation, Terry, with your shirt. Um, just big shout out to the drivers. Uh, we took when we took

067our bus to Baker Beach and then and then over to the California Academy of Sciences. I keep telling the story. I don't know what happened. We got had to get turned around or something and the bus driver had to do this three-point turn in this super narrow with cars parked and I'm just like my head is down. I'm like, "Oh no, we are going to take out a whole series of cars." and he was amazing. Like no sweat, three-point turn, this huge bus, and we missed cars by like that much. And he was fantastic. I gave him a big high five at the end of that trip. Uh really really great. But um uh with our new uh electric buses, that big grant that we got, uh that that is a huge huge uh win

068for us. So great job there. Fiscal services department. This is another one that um it doesn't go really noticed until something goes wrong. Uh we are so incredibly lucky for our fiscal services team keeping us on track, keeping the budget afloat, keeping us with positive uh certifications, um a healthy reserve uh and and opportunities um uh to have real earnest conversations in in negotiations. I know a lot of districts that spend half of negotiations fighting over whether or not the the numbers are real. We don't do that and that's because of our fiscal services team and their attention to detail. Oh, let me just go back. Payroll. I just want to acknowledge payroll. No one acknowledges payroll until payroll is screwed up and then payroll gets the all the hate and all the shade. Uh

069our payroll team is amazing. Um they they are unsung heroes. Everyone likes to get paid. Uh and uh we just kind of take that for granted that it's going to direct deposit. It's just going to show up on our account. So, uh I am really grateful for our payroll teams. Very very grateful. Um I can't read the student nutrition. I should just look by the picture. Um the student nutrition, how many meals? We usually over 1 million meals since the beginning of the school year. Oh my gosh. Uh they are amazing. They our student nutrition team really works from a place of love and care for our students. You can see it anytime you walk in uh to any one of the kitchens. Uh I always feel so welcomed. I'm always handed food. Uh they

070always want to take care of people. They always want to show you around. Uh they're so proud of the work that they do. They should be. Um and they're always looking to improve, too. I just I really appreciate them. Uh is that say maintenance? I think that's maintenance. Yeah, maintenance. Linda's team. Oh my gosh, they are just I I I once heard this term from a friend of mine who said, you know, uh you want a maintenance team that works with belts and suspenders. Like they just double duty everything. And they're so good. Um they're such attention to detail. Our campuses look the way they look because of them. And let me tell you, when I went to Berlingham High School way back in the day, our campuses did not look like the way they

071look now. Not at all. I mean, I remember playing soccer in just like a mud field. Mud. I don't think there was a single blade of grass. Um, so the way our campuses look, it's another thing I think we take for granted. We just show up every day and it's a beautiful environment and beautiful facilities and that takes a lot of work for upkeep. Um, we're sometimes really hard on our facilities. So, they do a great job. So, if anyone out there maintenance and facilities is listening, thank you. Uh, operations, same thing. operations team, keeping things clean, up todate, uh working, um safe. That's a big one actually. Just keeping everything really really safe for our students uh and employees. The amount of special events that we have on our campuses um you know, we're

072they're always welcoming uh and and really trying to keep things top-notch. So, I'm I'm uh grateful. I can't read that. What does that say? Is that facilities as well? Thank you. Thank you. Facility use $2.2 million as of March. Um uh 90 uh 90,000s just just distributed to sites based on rentals. Uh we are the prime top-notch primary rental um destination for the peninsula. Uh we continue to upgrade our facilities. Um and and they do really really great work. And the reason why it's not just the facilities, but it's how people are treated when they use our facilities. They want to come back because we're easy to work with. Um we we are attentive. Um and we make sure people's events when they're spending a lot of money renting our facilities that they go without

073a hitch. Uh Golden Apples. Oh my gosh. We got in the habit just a few months ago of during my once a month uh board meetings, I'll report out who our Golden Apple winners uh have been. We've listed them there. We've got some May winners uh that I'll be reporting uh in in our next board meeting. But big thanks to our uh certificated and classified educators who go above and beyond. They are uh amazing and it's a really fun experience to hand out golden apples. And there you go. So, I tried to go as fast as I could. Please, please, please, if you have a moment, read the associated memo with this because there's so much more listed there of the accomplishments of our educators and students. It's really really been a fantastic year. So,

074thank you. Thank you for the presentation. Does the board or the student board members, anyone have any comments, questions? This is a great example of how amazing our district is. Thank you, Trusty Chavez. Find my unmute button up here. I just have a quick comment that this this is an amazing um presentation. That's because all of our staff uh they're amazing and I think it's a great um I think it's a great what's the word? Not I think it's it's great to highlight and showcase every area of the district and the highlights and everybody's amazing and there's not any one area that I can think of that's left out of this and so I think you did a really great job. So thank you Superintendent Booker. I I would be remiss if I didn't thank

075Laura Chocolley and Sarah Hitch for putting that presentation together andounding all of the different departments continuously to get updates uh there. So I big big thanks to them. We already knew who actually did the work. So that uh thank you Mr. Chley. Amazing. Are are there any public comments on this item? There are none. Okay. on on one question comment. Uh, I want to see a sample of this emergency food that we're How long is the shelf life? It's about 20 years. I I would love, you know, I've heard those advertisements for this stuff and I'd like to see it's like a sawdust granola bar. I'm going to be honest. Packed with minerals and vitamins and lots and lots of calories. Okay. Yeah. I no longer want to see it. Emergency happens. So glad. That's

076right. Thank you. I actually really appreciate that. I'll bring I'm going to bring them next board meeting. No, I I I withdrew my request. That was your description was overwhelming. I I was just curious what you know because, you know, you need to have and it's it's important we have emergency supplies, but I was like, how do they keep this stuff? You know, what is in it? So, forever food. Okay, we're gonna move on to the next item. Mental health update. Thank you. Am I introducing April or Joanne or both? Both. Great. So, we have our mental health leaders here tonight, uh, April Torres and Joanne Michaels, who are going to give an intro to our, uh, mental health team and do a presentation of all the amazing Thank you. All the Everyone's running around.

077Okay. uh all the amazing work uh they've done on behalf of our students and I would say our educators as well. Uh it's not I I think sometimes we forget that uh oftentimes our educators will need a shoulder to cry on or someone to talk to and um our our well wellness therapists provide that. Um uh so I I I just want to acknowledge that and say how much I appreciate that. So it's all yours. We we cry on shoulders too but Good evening, President Griffin, board of trustees, uh our district, and our student uh board. Uh we're really excited to be here tonight. I have to take a breath. Um I'm I was a little late. My son just graduated from CSM, so I'm really excited. I got to take little wins with this

078one. Trust me. Um and um you had uh ended the presentation with a um golden apple from uh Lily Garcia who's my former student. Um and tonight when my son graduated, a former student also graduated with him that I was able to take to dinner or early dinner. And um it's just really nice to see that. It's it's warms my heart. So, um I don't want to take up too much time. I want to introduce uh Joanne Michaels, our um associate manager, who's going to get us kicked off with our program this evening. So, as April is graduating her college graduate, I'm graduating my preschooler. So, we're on opposite ends of the spectrum, but we have something to me uh something to celebrate together. Um my name is Joanne Michaels and I'm the associate manager.

079It's my honor to serve in the last eight years. Our program embodies the 1061 mission and vision, educating the whole person by providing school-based mental health services because healthy kids learn better. This year, we're embracing Superintendent Booker's big picture shift from either or to both and. We've seen that we can provide both compassion and accountability, academics and well-being, structure and flexibility. This theme will appear in tonight's presentation. In January, I found myself having what I thought would be a regular conversation. I was at the state admin conference in San Diego, and naturally, I was talking about our 35 therapists and social workers. As I spoke, I noticed something. Jaws were dropping, eyes were getting lit up, and I stopped mid-sentence, too. The conversations turned from what we were doing to how we were scaling at

080this level. That's when it hit me. We've built more than a program. It's a model for comprehensive student well-being. While many districts rely on much smaller teams and contracted work, we've created something different. The real power of our program lives in the stories of impact. Now you'll hear from the professionals creating the success stories that school leaders across California dream of. Hello, my name is Elena and I've worked at Sonto High School for almost 10 years. The RO mental health and wellness team provides comprehensive school-based services that support the emotional well-being and and academic success of our students. We offer individual counseling, peer support groups, family consultation, case management, and mentorship to help students navigate personal and academic challenges. Our therapists lead innovative group initiatives that build connection, resilience, and trust. We also provide specialized

081culturally responsive services to our multilingual learners through dedicated therapists and social workers. In close collaboration with school staff, we identify and support at risk students through a multidisciplinary approach while our strong community partnerships ensure students and families have access to resources beyond the school walls. Together, this work reflects our commitment to the whole child care rooted in both clinical expertise and meaningful relationships building. And there is so much more we do. We warmly invite the board of trustees to visit our school sites and see the incredible, incredibly meaningful and impactful work in action. Hi, my name is Diana Duzman. I'm the lead wellness counselor at Sonteo High School. I've served this district in many different ways for the last 18 years. This year um our mental health team provided comprehensive training and that was a

082priority for us. In fact, our lead mental health therapists and district social workers participated in Daretole training which focused on building courageous leadership, emotional resilience, and trustbased collaboration. This foundational work aligns with our district's both and approach, cultivating both strong clinical leaders and deeply connected teams. The training helped participants strengthen skills in both courage and vulnerability, clarity and compassion, and individual accountability and team collaboration. As a result, we've seen stronger cross-sight communication, increased confidence and leadership, and a more unified equity centered vision for supporting students and staff across all sites. And I would like to say that I really appreciated the dare to lead training and I think it really helped me as a lead wellness counselor really come into myself as a leader. This year we also prioritize a comprehensive training for our mental

083health staff to deepen both clinical knowledge and school-based collaboration. Topics included the emotional and legal complexities impacting newly arrived immigrant youth and mixed status families delivered in partner partnership with immigrant legal defense attorney and the Stanford immigrant child health program as well as best practice for collaborative and intersectionality. We also partner with the Stanford Psychiatry Eating Disorder Clinic to strain our team's ability to recognize and support students experiencing disordered eating. These trainings reflect our commitment to a both and approach clinical depth and integrated school-based support. It's me again. In addition to district-led training, all mental health therapists and school social workers complete ongoing professional development to meet California Board of Behavioral Sciences lensure requirements. These trainings on topics like trauma, cultural humility, ethics, and suicide prevention ensure that our team provides legally compliant, relevant, and

084responsive care. Associate level staff and interns must also receive weekly clinical supervision, both group and individual, as mandated by the BBS. In light of the ongoing challenges and unprecedented precedented times our youth continue to face, consistent and highquality clinical supervision is critical. Our current clinical supervisor plays a vital role in offering timely responsive guidance during crises and provides expert support for complex cases as well as the ability to debrief which helps to reduce staff burnout. The clinical services supervisor also offers opportunities for case consultation to all staff, both licensed and associates. Our current model for supervision is both convenient and efficient to help us better serve our students. Hello, I'm Adriana Gomez and I have served this district for 10 years in a couple of different capacities. Um, and I'm going to speak to you

085about uh some of the academic success and emotional well-being and how that goes handinand. Academic success and emotional wellbeing go hand in hand. And our district's mental health and wellness program is embedded across multiple uh settings to reflect this both and commitment. Our therapeutic elective class is a program um that collaborates with our special education department to serve our most anxious, most depressed, high suicidal um students. And it it is in these classrooms that we are able to support their mental health and their access to their education. Our self-social empowerment classrooms offer integrated social emotional learning and mental health services with therapists working closely with teachers to support both student growth and teacher capacity. At Middle College, the integration is embraced uh at middle sorry the the integration of academics and therapeutic support whether in

086or outside of the classroom is embraced by the whole staff. Um whether in or outside of the classroom. I'm sorry I keep getting lost in this. I apologize. Creating um I got lost. I apologize. At Bridge, our newcomer uh school, a dedicated mental health therapist provides culturally and responsive care and outreach supporting student adjustment and holistic success in their language. Good evening. Excuse me. My name is Havana. I'm a bilingual licensed marriage and family therapist and wellness counselor at Peninsula High School. At Peninsula, mental wellness is the foundation of the academic model with individualized support helping students access learning and navigate personal challenges. Across these programs, mental health is not separate from academics. It's a core part of how we help students thrive. Examples of this um include the B Street Boxing Group that we've

087had for a second year in a row. um thanks to the partnership um with Eddie Croft, excuse me, and his staff. Our two um art workshops led by Valeria Olin and Austin Bo who taught our students from screen printing to painting still life. Our drumming circle led by Marcos Chaon Jr. which provided social connection and a sense of belonging for our students. um our and our bi-weekly workshops with al cove covering a variety of topics ranging from vision boards to coping skills. We also partnered with the Stanford Health fan staff who provided a health workshop to students after looking at some of the health concerns that were prevalent within our school community. These partnerships reflect our both and approach offering students both therapeutic supports often in their native tongue. Um meaningful community- based experiences at

088no cost thanks to the generosity of our local partners. Thank you. Me again. Sorry. Um, so this year we were fortunate to have three talented clinical interns contributing ma meaningfully to our mental health and wellness work across the district. And I just got to put a plug in. I am one of the products of the internship here and it has been a pleasure and an honor and a blessing to be able to serve and be like budding baby therapist and growing in our district. Um, Alisa, who is already a part-time employee, is completing her internship with us, bringing a valuable dual perspective as both a staff member, current staff member, and intern. Asha was placed at Bridge, and she integrates her training in art therapy to provide culturally responsive and creative support to our newcomer

089students, helping them navigate trauma, adjustment, and identity in a safe and expressive space. Roxanna, who you'll hear from in a moment. No, she's not here. Okay. uh who served as our intern at Cappuccino and will be joining the Cappuccino family this fall as a foot full-time Mustang. Um Roxanna's hiring exemplifies the success of our investment in building a robust internship program, one that not only strengthens current capacity, but also creates a direct pipeline for future employment, ensuring new hires are already trained in our district systems and systems, cultures, and values. And I just have to say it couldn't be done without our current clinical supervisor who supervises over 20 and that's not normal, but she's a rock star. Um, in addition, we've expanded our partnerships with local agencies. This reflects our both and commitment providing

090both inschool support and deeper community integration to meet the layered needs of our students and families. Hi, good evening. I'm Lucero Go. the lead mental health therapist at uh Cappuccino High School. So this year the district continued to prioritize evening workshops and family engagement efforts to support the whole student by also supporting the family unit through our parent connect series which is offered in both English and Spanish and creates a safe space for parents and caregivers to come together to learn and support one another. Topics include childhood development, the adolescent brain, communication strategies, and navigating family dynamics. All aimed at strengthening the parent, caregiver, and student relationship and providing psycho education through a culturally responsive lens. The workshop not only builds knowledge but fosters connection and empowerment among among families navigating similar challenges. Could introduce

091my colleague Doggo and one of our um parents who participated in our English series of parent connect. Good evening. My name is Aguerto Spinosa. I'm a district social worker. This is my third year and I will be yielding my time to a parent uh that participated in parent connect. This is Yuki Yuki Suzuki. Hello. Um my name is Yuki Suzuki. Let me share the journey of my daughter Karen who struggles with her challenge. My daughter Karen's attendance issue began when she was in 8th grade. At the time I was devastated and felt completely lost. I didn't know where to turn or what to do next. Then I saw an invitation to the parent connect group facilitated by Miss Chen and I decided to show up and try anything that might help us move forward. Uh

092I first met Miss Chen at the welcoming event in August 2024 last year. I remember talking to her in person and I just burst into tears. It was the first time I felt I might finally receive support that I could help change our situation. Since then, Karen has joined the student student support group and I've been attending the in-person parent connect meetings regularly. Through this, I learned p practical effective parenting strategies that have helped us make real progress. We also received additional support from school counselors which led to Karen being placed on a 504 plan. Karen now has regular care through the ch uh children's psychiatry department including talk therapy and medication. and I also see therapist myself. Out of all the support systems we've engaged with, Parent Connect has been the most impactful. Um,

093I've not only learned how to better support Karen and she improved her attendance issue, but I've connected with other parents facing similar su uh challenges. That sense of community of not being alone has give given me strength. The support that M chain provides through parent connect and related activities should be available at every school. It empowers families, strengthens students and ensures that every child has a real chance to access their right to learn and thrive. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. These offerings reflect our both and commitment providing both in-person connection and virtual access, both prevention and intervention, and both education and emotional support for our families. Now, I'll introduce to you Oh, sorry, me again. Um, my colleague Nancy Yans Chavez, who is the lead wellness counselor over at Mills, was not

094able to come today. Um, but we did ask our parents and our Spanish group if they wanted to just give us a little summary of what their experience was like. We actually had our final session out of um it was supposed to be a one-parter and it turned into part one and part two. So we actually had um parents joining us and we went over a series of 14 weeks um in a all Spanish class. So um this is just a little something I want to read. So parents in our Spanish speaking group have shared the meaningful impact the group has had on their lives. Many have expressed that having access to tools and strategies to better connect with their teens has made a significant difference. They feel more confident, better equipped to navigate challenges,

095and more capable of building stronger, healthier relationships with their children. I mean, I would like to introduce my colleague, district social worker Chelsea Chen. Good evening. Um, as dis district social workers, our primary focus um in our work is on improving student attendance. Uh through a consortia grant, we have been able to work closely with our partner middle schools um to both build their SART built out their SAT and SART process and streamline a more seamless uh system of delivering prevention and early intervention services to our incoming 9th grade students. We serve as an integral link between home, school, and community with the goal of strengthening our collaborative efforts to support our most vulnerable student population. We help facilitate access and linkage to internal resources within our district as well as external resources in the

096community to ensure that the basic needs of our students and families are met. We are incredibly proud tonight to share with you some of the highlights of our work. Uh we hosted a first annual welcoming event for incoming ninth grade students identified as having risk factors. Uh we facilitated a student support uh many actually student support groups focusing on increasing motivation and attendance. We have completed close to 600 SART meetings this year and approximately 10% of these students were moved to SARB. Um as such we have refined the attendance tracking and support system through innovative strategies and have set a new standard of accountability and excellence for promoting student attendance and well-being. We were invited to speak at the CASSA conference to showcase our exemplary SART SAR process and share our expertise um insight and

097passion in serving students with attendance issues. And now I will introduce my colleague Molina who will share our sustainability plan. Hi. As our district sun as our grant sunsets at the end of this calendar year, the district has committed to sustaining our social work positions for another school year. So, thank you. Our plan will focus on expanding the integration of interventions across tier 1, 2, and three. So, at the tier one level, we're going to be embedding in the truency one letter um a link of a pre-recorded webinar for parents and students to equip them with tools, resources, and information to address attendance in hopes of preventing further escalation of absences. at the tier 2 level which includes our starts. We will continue to host our student support groups focusing on psychoeducation and skills building

098on topics of increasing motivation, accountability, self-esteem, stress, and time management skills. And then at the tier three level, we will um if the student goes through the SAR process, we will be providing four follow-up support sessions for continuity of care by conducting family meetings to create a plan to monitor progress, explore additional strategies to approve attendance and fulfill their SAR contract. Finally, this reflects our both and approach. ensuring compliance and centering students well-being, responding to immediate needs, and building long-term systems. Moving forward, we will continue to expand this work while building out culturally relevant, equitydriven systems that support student engagement, family part partnership, and sustainable sitebased practices. And now I will introduce to you my colleague, Dr. Jesse Katigan. Hello. Uh, I think last year we promised that we would do a song, both a

099song and a dance, but we didn't quite get there this year. Uh, maybe next year. So, I'm Dr. Destiny Katigan. I'm a licensed clinical psychologist and I've been your tobacco use prevention, education, mental health therapist for seven years. Our tube restorative support pathways or alternative to suspension programs embody the both and approach by providing both restorative practices and empathic support both witnessing students authentic li lived experiences and providing social emotional education. This year we received 378 referrals avoiding 329 days of suspension and one expulsion which is my highest of highlights. Wow. Um I have to tell you one story because it's never happened before. I went to meet with a student. She we met again. We had we made goals. I came back and I said, "How's it going?" And she said, "I I quit."

100I said, "Why? How? That wasn't the plan." and she said, "Well, you gave me those handouts and I read them and it's really bad for you." And I thought, "Oh, it can only always be that easy." Um, but it really happened. The trends this year um for me were the basics were incredibly supportive to the students, especially in groups. We worked on co-regulation in order to invite calm and focused more on their stories and building relationships which I think is one of the reasons why I had many students ask for additional support on their own to quit or cut down and I am working on current currently working with students this year for over the summer and then to begin again next year on cut down and quit plans more than than ever before. Each

101group was an opportunity to listen to their authentic lived experience. Listen to our students listening to our students stories with curiosity and shining a light on their multitude of strengths by thickening the thread of their preferred identities. As I said last year, they are not the problem. The problem is the problem. And we rightsize the problems together as a team. Looking ahead, my hope and dream for next year is to avoid even more days of suspension because we already know suspension is not the answer. The answer is support and we have that here. We have alternative to suspension. And like Joanne said, when I talk about our programs and any tupe meeting or any any SMCE throughout California, their their eyes get big and they're like, "Wow, you know, like how did you start? How

102did how did you get where you are today? It has been an honor and a blessing to build community with our students, their families, and supportive staff again this year. Thank you so much. And now, here comes Joanne. There are over 2,000 stories like the ones you've heard tonight. The numbers on this slide demonstrate sustainability and impact despite declining enrollment. We consistently serve around 2,000 students annually across individual, group, and drop-in counseling. These consistent numbers reflect something very powerful. Students know where to find us, trust us, and feel safe coming back. Our senior survey is the feed forward. We value looking back just enough to prepare us for the future growth. Our graduating class tells us that they are satisfied with their services. The best part, their peers and their families are referring them. The

103ultimate vote of confidence. Here's what's inspiring. We've developed a big life skill. Making referrals to people you trust. Because the word of mouth is a powerful and destigmatizing for teens. Here's what our seniors are asking for, and we are listening. expanded counseling and wellness centers. Innovation like therapy dogs and art therapy and enhanced support for neurode divergence looking ahead. So looking ahead um but before we look ahead I want to look to to these incredible people that I get the opportunity to work with every day and say thank you. you guys are amazing. Um, we often don't take time to go, "Wow, we did all this work. We're pretty darn good." Um, and the kids we serve are pretty darn amazing. So, um, with that, we do look ahead. We want to continue to build

104sustainability. We want to strengthen partnerships within our community. That's something um that uh we um are going to be working on in our advisory committees. uh our advisory committee uh much like um our ML um uh social workers did this past I think it was May 8th they put on a community resource fair which was amazing. uh they had over 30 vendors and we're looking uh to partner to do something similar not just for newcomers but for for all uh of our families expanding social emotional uh learning in the classrooms. So, we want to really uh take some time and equip our uh staff, our our teachers, our IAS um with curriculum and not just um not just a oneandone, but more of a school culture. Um we want to ensure a sustainability sustainability of

105this program. That's very important. Uh in order to do that, you heard a little bit about our interns that we have this year. Uh we want to continue to build that out. I think you've heard that uh the last couple years. We are doing that and we will continue to do that. Uh we also want to expand our wellness centers. We have a few centers at a couple of our sites. We need money to be able to continue that uh work. Um so we'd like to see um strong wellness centers where students can go and go this is this is that space. Um so um just little heads up. Um okay and um we also need continued support. We need continued support from our district office uh people. We need continued support for from our

106board, from our families, from our students. Um, we really want to thank you from the bottom of our hearts because we know that if you don't believe in us and the work that we're doing with our students and our families, then this program would not be here. So, we thank you. I thank everybody that I have the opportunity to work with, but I also thank Randall, Kirk, Julia, Yansancy, Rochelle. I mean, the list goes on and on. Um, but I don't want to bore you with every name. Um, so we wanted to just say thank you for for just giving us the opportunity and believing in us. And of course, we have to end with one famous quote. I've learned that people will forget what you said. People will forget what you did, but people

107will never forget how you made them feel. Thank you so much. And we're open for any questions. Miss board, student board members have questions. Do any of you have any questions? You guys want Well, I will call on Trusty Jacobson. I think she might have beat you by a half a finger. You beat me. Um, that was a great presentation. It's uh it's really overwhelming almost to know how much uh services and resources we have in our district. And I'm happy to learn that you're also partnering and leveraging the resources out in the community and creating those partnerships. Um, you mentioned uh eating disorders and kind of screening and being on the lookout for that. That's that stuck out to me because that's something that's affected our family. Um, with the bridge program and and

108making sure that those students also have access in their own language, that's really important. Uh, the TEC class, I know, um, one of our family friends has had such really really uh, positive experiences in that class. So, a lot of good things happening. Oh, and the parent connect um that story that was uh the parent that I don't see her. Maybe she's Oh, there you are in the back. Really just a really great um experience. I want to thank you for sharing that. Um and it's really important to me that we do offer support for the families and the parents because everything that's where everything starts. Um I did have one question. Um maybe Superintendent Booker has the answer. I'm not sure. But with the all the resources with the SART meetings and attendance, um

109I feel like we had some data supporting that um this year about outcomes from that. Can anybody remind me could you anybody remind me what what we've what progress we've seen from that? I think so. Have that. So part part of it was that there was a 75% increase in attendance following a start meeting for yeah in our in our program. So after a start meeting the attendance increases by 75% on for that student. Excellent. Great. Yeah. We did that in a presentation to the board back in October. Yeah. I thought that's what I thought. I just wanted to be reminded because I think it's important to to point out the outcomes. Thanks Jennifer. I appreciate that you said that and we uh we will also have a report to follow in June uh the

110yearly report with numbers and that will be as well. Fantastic. Thank you so much Trusty Chavez. Thank you. I want to thank everybody for presenting. I think this is so important for all of our students. Is this on? Yeah. This is so important. So I want to thank each and every one of you for coming to speak. Um, I wanted to mention that that's one of my favorite quotes and I use that at two of the graduations last year. So, you remember I I love it. Um, I also want to mention that I agree that we need more funding. Yansy, thank you. Trusty Andradi Zeniga. Yes, that was that was excellent. Um, I have a soft spot for the stuff because it helped my son a lot when he was at Hillsdale. So, I really

111thank you. And I also, um, have called April before about stuff like when my nephew passed away. And there's just been a lot of stuff like some of you too. I've talked to you about other things that you all are so just so what is it in Pacic and like so loving. um or students need love and compassion. Um one of the things that Jessine had said was that the this the problem is the problem that the student isn't the problem. And in the disabled community, we talk a lot about how the person isn't the problem. It's the abbleist culture and the lack of access. And so it just really resonates with me that yeah, it's not the it's not the student like they they should not internalize that they are a problem, right? They

112have the problem. It's a problem, but we can get through the problem. Um I really appreciated that. Um there's one person that it's been like almost 20 years that I've worked with Hilda. I used to work with her at juvenile probation and she's amazing. So yeah, I'm glad that you're part of the team now. That's excellent. and just all of y'all, you know, thank you. Um the partnerships with the families especially or um or families that don't speak English um or that are from different cultures. Um it's important to be culturally responsive and have that connection. Um because different cultures will address certain things differently and there needs to be like even not just language spoken but like culture you know and understanding that it's important. Um I have a couple questions though. Um summer

113school what happens with summer school? So like right now it's pretty robust and every school's got you know has people and but what happens during summer school? Um I'll start but we do have some of our summer staff here. So we do have wellness over summer. We have two uh wellness counselors for for uh for the general uh population all students and then for our TEC it's called extended summer extended school year uh we have two therapists also to make sure that we're supporting their needs and their IEP needs and then um we have uh this in the past we've had um a bilingual uh therapist for our uh bridge program or newcomers. This year they're going to have the ML social workers. Great. So Adriana has done that for a couple years in TECA.

114Yeah, Elena has done it. Nancy so yeah so we definitely have the support over the summer. That's great. What happens during the breaks? Like if you are consistently working with a student like summer break or Christmas holiday break is probably the longer one, right? Because the only one is spring break. Um what happens like how does that continue? What's the continuence of care with the student? Sure, I can answer that. Um we make sure to resource students and families over breaks, especially if they're students that, you know, that are complex cases um that we're monitoring and navigating. And so we like their safety plan, there's resources, their crisis hotlines, you know, whether they're going back into their community and seeing their providers, we're making sure that we're contacting them and letting them know, hey, we're

115probably not going to see them during the break. You know, make sure that you're checking in and continuing that service. And then when they come back, we definitely touch base with, you know, those students. Great. Great. We also have um really good partnerships with Sanonteo County Office of Education and our Sanonteo PD uh Mil all all of um our police departments and they will call either myself or Val and if something's happening so that we can reach out and say hey have our little tree and then you know call home. Yeah, we have protocols in place, crisis protocols in place that we've trained teachers and staff on who to contact. We also have outgoing messages that have all the crisis resources on should That's great. Thank you. Last question. Who takes care of you? What

116do you do? like how do you cuz you know you're you're bringing that you know that's very emotional like really impactful uh situations and so how do you unpack like how do you not bring it home you know what happens I don't think we get that a lot I know but we don't but I think uh for those of us who are on my sense the supervision that we receive I have individual with April and then I have with Stephanie and having the space to debrief from heavy cases. Um, and really having leaders who are competent and have history here and really know this district um, and know us and know our schools and know our students. Having that kind of leadership is a helps me keep coming back. Yeah, that's great. And just later,

117if you can I don't know if you can show me some like data on on the different like how students have changed over time. I don't know if you have any information on that. I would love to see that. Just I think our model here is is really strong. Um we could definitely teach others. So I'm I'm so proud of y'all. You can teach others. They know us a lot. Yeah. Good. Yeah. Um, I've been doing this work for over 20 years. Um, and I I rely on a lot of these these amazing individuals. So, I think if it wasn't for that, I found it be really difficult, too. And yeah, I am licensed, but I'm always trying to learn and keeping an open mind, being humble about what I don't know is really important.

118But I have these wonderful colleagues, so that also helps. I I will piggy back on my Chelsea, you got to get over there, girl. Okay, I will pick you back on what Adriana said. I think supervision is so critical. Um, it gives us a a moment to you really consult about our cases that are, you know, complicated and everchanging and ongoing and um that's really the space where we can be vulnerable and talk about things but also, you know, be able to provide the best care for our students. Um, I I don't think that I would have been in this district as long as I've been, which is 18 years, and done this work without amazing supervision. Um I think that my students are the better for the supervision that I get because that allows

119me the space to not only serve the students with interventions um you know clinical expertise but also so I have a space to not carry that like you said and bring it home so that I can come back tomorrow and do it all over again because I will tell you every day will be different and whatever hits my door I have to be prepared for and sometimes you know that moment can be life or death. Um I know I emailed all of you a little story that I you know want to share. I I worked with a student last year who shared with me all four years I worked with her and she said I don't think I would have graduated I don't think I would have been alive like she never expected that she

120she never saw that for herself and I worked with her from freshman year to senior year and she's in college she's doing all the things and I think you know we we do the best work that we can every year I have students who email me and tell me you were the safe space you were the adult you were the consistency And I don't think I could have done that that really heavy heavy work without supervision. That's great. Um I just want to add that I too have been a mental health professional for over 25 years. Um in addition to what's been said, I I think you know through formal training and clinical experience, you learn over time that healthy boundaries are so important. Um we tell everybody um I run the parent connect group.

121We tell parents all the time, you have to take care of yourself first before you can take care of others, right? So for me, self-care means really um honoring um healthy boundaries. And you know that may look different for for individuals but at the end of the day um I feel that it really it's a mindset and we talked about this at our um CASMA conference. Um finding your why. What is your northstar? Why do you do what you do? What is your purpose? How do you show up every day? Um for me it really is a privilege to be able to serve. And when I see that I am making a positive impact on people's lives, um like the parent that just shared um it brings me tremendous joy. It asks adds to my

122mental well-being and I go home with a sense of gratitude every day and it just that's my why and and I you know I get that question all the time like how come you don't get burned out? What how do you really to me it's that it's that uh positive mindset. Yeah. Beautiful. Thank you. Thank you. You know, the the case was really compelling and I all I know that the problem is the problem and not the not the people. Um and you know the other thing and we all we try talk about every student should connect with an adult. But this referrals to people that that you know you trust I think is is really important as part of the the consistent thread here. And I guess the final thing and I do appreciate

123the presentation. What are you trying to get out of Yansy? Is there a specific ask? Because I'm I'm really interested. So if you have some materials or information because it it always helps to get a specific ask as opposed to because everybody can always use more money, more funding, more but I would be particularly interested in I'm going to jump in real quickly as you know my heart bleeds green and gold. Um, go Mustangs. And as one of the schools who, you know, just as a as a community in San Bruno, we're, you know, the members of our community are hardworking families. And there's not necessarily this pot of wealth in our in our um growth fund. And so I'm one of the few schools, I think I'm one of three that has an actual

124wellness center. And if you guys came to visit to my well my came to visit my wellness center, you will see that my cups that I provide for the student are for the students are Gatorade cups that I go down to the athletic trainer to say, "Chris, do you have cups to spare for me because I don't have a budget to buy something as simple as, you know, cups." And he's like, "Yeah, here's your cups." Mom, what mugs don't you need? Because I need mugs to provide the students. you know, we get a small budget for us to buy, but the funding for my center and and I always laugh. Everything I have there from furniture to games is stuff that I've gotten for free.99 through my friends through um you know, somebody's moving at

125one of the sites and I'm like, what's there that I could take? So, the need is there. Um the students utilize that space and they utilize it a lot. And so if we had just the basic needs and I don't have to go into my pocket to say here's my box of cup noodles because the students don't have food but they know the wellness center has a kettle. They know that we have popcorn and that we have those basic necessities and self-care is is meeting that. So if we had those things that would be amazing. And I think um two things. One I want to say actually really supported us with continuing with the social workers for next year and that is huge. So he does help us tremendously. I joke with him all the

126time. Him and Bryson he's back there. [Music] But uh true wellness centers where kids go and actually have a space not you know next to the u the principal's office right but a a space where they can walk in and go and all of the principles want this but you know space and uh so making that maybe a priority would be helpful. Well, certainly we have a budget we're going to have to talk about and wrestle with and uh we ought to really investigate that, you know, in terms of value and return. I think that really would help the program. I mean, you're working real hard and doing a great job um in any ways we can help. So, having support from the site. I mean, I got to give a shout out to my

127principal, Jose Gomez, because he really has invested in our in our program at the site and just said, "Hey, what are your thoughts if I move you guys into this old classroom, you know, but we can put some paint here and there, we can do a couple things." And I think once we were able to do that and he saw the kids come in, there was a little bit of extra money to say, "Hey, maybe we can convert three offices in here to house the whole wellness team." And now the wellness team has a space. But I think that also comes because our admin really believes in us and they believe in the work that we do. Um, and that I think makes us feel important and seen on campus. Builds did the same thing

128and uh gave the leadership Oh, sorry. I always hear my voice travels, but okay. No. Okay. Um, so also at Mills, Pam, uh, I think was it last year or the year before, I can't remember. They all kind of run together. The leadership room, uh, they were moving and they have three offices and a huge space and she was able to say, "That's what we're that's where we're going to put the wellness center." Um and then Aragon actually um my the first year we started the program we worked um with the principal there and came up with the space and within three years that was built. So and all of the principles do their very very best. They need space too to do it. So we also did uh I helped with crisis response for

129neighboring uh school districts. One thing that I did notice was the therapy dog. It was it it was magic. Uh there's three dogs there for that response and the kids really warm up to that. You know, I don't have to get to the statistics that if you pet a dog, your heart rate drops, it's better for you. So, I volunteer myself to be the keeper of the therapy dog. A I wonder if we could partner with K9 Companions. My little guys come and visit my classroom every so often to just put a smile, just a treat for my TEC students. But I did want to say that um in contrast to Cappuccino um I work at Berling game, one of the wealthiest probably the population that we serve in our district and there is little

130to no effort on it feels like from our team's perspective in terms of building a wellness space it is so so sorely needed at this time. The closest thing we have to a wellness space is the therapeutic elective classroom and we can only allow other students in there during breaks, during lunch and then during our class periods they have to they can't access the space and that's really unfortunate because we are able to build so many really close relationships with our students and other students. I mean I can't tell you how many times I have a student coming to me who I don't see at all. I have a very small case load and they'll ask me, um, how many classes do I need to graduate? Like, we're case managing kids that aren't ours. And

131it's amazing because we get to serve these kids. We had, um, we had a student uh, pass away from suicide in December. And because we have that space, the friends who are not in our classroom, we're able to we were able to deliver that news to them in a space where they were already comfortable with the room and the staff. And I think that that is so important. We really do need to make a bigger effort to help our kids with that. Chavez, you have a question. Thanks. Thanks. Thank you for sharing that. Um I was uh my question is kind of along the lines of what you shared. I was wondering if every school site has the same level of wellness center or if some school sites don't have any wellness centers. So some

132yeah some of us don't have any wellness centers and some of us have therapeutic elective classrooms and some don't. So it's really it's it's it's tough but it's rewarding work and we really enjoy having that space for our students. I know myself I want to be I'm definitely supportive. Well come visit our classroom. It's probably about the size of this. Okay. And there's pillows and it's great and we welcome it. I visited some wellness centers. I know the one for cappuccino, of course. Um now, Miss Terry, you have to come. It's very different. Yeah. You should I invite you to come? I'm going to come. Yes. And I I saw the Mills Wellness Center on an open house and I want to see them all. Thank you. Trusty Jacobson, the last question of the evening

133on this item. Um, I was just curious, you mentioned that the only time that students can come to the wellness or that your classroom as a wellness center is at lunch or between classes. So, when do do students typically visit the wellness center? I'm wondering if they do they leave class um for Cappuccino. Um, so the wellness center was in existence. It was just not run under the wellness team. And so this year was the first year that myself and my team took over and we totally changed the structure. We um are open period we're open three periods a day. So depending on what the schedule is so we'll be open third, fifth and sixth or uh fourth and sixth and it depends but it's open at least two or more periods every day. Um

134and we also have what's called wellness leaders. So they are the students that check in the students that come in So like that the the space can remain open and next year we're getting more of them so that the space can remain pretty much open all school day. we're in the space, but while we're in sessions, the students are overseeing, they're the ones that are checking the passes. Um, at CAP, they get a 15-minute break to use, you know, whether it's to color, to sit down. Um, and really, it's it's a collaborative effort between the students and us as the wellness counselor counselors to run the space so that it is utilized. And so, yeah. So, the nature of my question is, are the students missing instructional time to visit the wellness center? sometimes. Yeah.

135But they can only come with teacher permission. They can't show up just because cuz I want to come. You have to have a pass. You have to have a pass from your teacher. Not like I was in the hallway and then I just showed up or I finished my last session with my school counselor and she gave me a pass to class, but now I want another 15 minutes. No, it has to be signed by your teacher releasing you from their class. Yeah. And we do our best to not in you know interrupt instructional time like we'll work with the students say which which is your least impacted class if they have to be pulled out of an instructional class you know we talked to we'll tell teachers when is it convenient right so not

136before you take a test that you're coming to us you take the test and then you come um you know obviously if a student's struggling in that class we will not pull them out of that class so there's a lot of ways that we can make sure that it's not you know adding more stress to their academ mics. We want to make sure that you know obviously there's a balance of being a successful student and also you know um meeting your mental health needs and I think what she mean in terms of like taking breaks sometimes students just need a space to ground themselves and utilize the coping skills that they've learned with us and we've also seen that that helps with attendance too because a lot of the times students will avoid class and

137wander or go to bathroom or hide away but if they know there's a safe space that they're accountable for and they know that they're safe adults there, they will come to us. Thank you. Well, thank you for your presentation. We appreciate your uh all your efforts. They're, you know, they're great. So, thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you. Okay, we're going to move on. Are any items for construction? Not this evening. Thank you. Okay, we're going to move on to R, Division of Human Resources, the personnel consent agenda. Yes, we have um seven we have seven items on consent agenda, the personal actions. Uh, we also have ethnic studies coordinator, the non-graduating senior credit recovery instructor job description, revised content leader job description, Latinos for education agreement, American Fidelity non-discrimination testing service

138agreement for 2526 and the Young Athlete AC Academy Program. Those are all consent items. Yes, I would like to pull item two. Okay, that's the ethnic studies coordinator. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Is there a motion on the balance of the consent agenda? I'll move to approve the rest of the consent agenda. I'll second that. Okay. We have a motion and a second on the uh all the items except R2. All in favor? I I I Yeah. So I would just like um to understand if you can help me understand why we need a separate uh position just to coordinate ethnic studies when we already have a social science content lead. Um this is you know from what I understand it oversees one class that's a semester class. Um, and it's under the social science umbrella and

139it this position gets paid more and has five release days than you know the other content lead positions that uh oversee a whole department's worth of classes. So, it just seems to me like there's a disperate amount of resources put towards this class and I want to understand why and if if we can um just roll that under the social science department content lead. Uh I'm happy to address that. So, the district received specific money for the implementation of a new course like ethnic studies. So this position um is to support the teachers in implementing a new course. It also um the money that we were provided by the state is specific to ethnic studies. So um that includes providing professional learning, development of course content, supporting teachers in instructional strategies. So unlike the other

140content areas, we have specific money um towards this. So it was part of the budget of 21 I think and we've have we still have monies left. So um that was one of the reasons that we're specifically having a coordinator for ethnic studies. Additionally, we've had a hard time having um a specific professional learning contract. So we're providing the professional learning internally. Uh does Yansy know how much money we've received and how much has been spent and what the balance is for that uh specific money that Miss Kempy, Dr. Kempky, you mentioned? I can I can pull that and and send it to the board. But I think it was about 200,000 and I think we spent about half of it at this point. Maybe a little bit more, maybe 70,000 or something like that.

141We could pull the specific numbers but okay well uh the other question that I had is um under the job description I don't see anything about processing the P request that we have with regard to this class and maybe that could be included to help offload that labor. um as part of the job description, we could definitely add it as a specific um job duty. Um the gathering and kind of support around the courses of studies are going to support the you know if we do continue to get more public records requests. Certainly the the individuals could help because one of their duties right now would be to support gathering and updating courses of study. So it would fall in there. If we wanted as a specific one, we could update the job descriptions to

142show that, but we would rely on these individuals to support with those if we continue to get them. So just another question about uh the funding for this. Was this funding from the state specific for ethnic studies? Yes. It's like section 132. So, I mean, I can give you the specific details about this funding, but it was specific to ethnic studies and it was specific to the implementation of the new graduation requirement. Um, it wasn't a lot of money per district for 200 for implementing a whole course. Getting $200,000 is not a lot of money for a graduation requirement, but yeah, I guess that's why I'm I'm curious why we haven't spent it down yet. we had an unlimited amount of time to spend it. Um, and we had trouble with some of the professional

143learning contracts that we've um had in the past. So, we didn't have a contract that this year um for any specific organization and that's what we've used it for in the past. So, this year we really didn't spend that much money. But that's what the majority of districts is spending it for and what the actual funding is directed towards is mostly professional learning supporting teachers and implementing the class. Well, we had cancelceled some contracts, right? Correct. Yeah, we discontinued some contracts. So, we didn't have any specific professional learning this year for teachers. They some of them I think you saw it in the updates attended um the social science council um meeting for California for teachers but other than that we don't have any we didn't have any of that. That's usually what districts would

144use this money for. So instead of contracting out we have teachers that have been teaching it for a good amount of time now and we feel like they have enough expertise to support any new teachers that are on boarding to the course. I have a question on that. The you know that the state would would give us money that has like our forever food. We have forever money. Um you know that that and that you know in the scheme of the state budget that's not a lot of money. in our scheme. It's a little money, but it just seems like, you know, that that money, you know, from a, you know, from a state accountability standpoint, you got 10 years, you got some point, you know, that, you know, the the money is due back

145to the state. And it's not anybody's fault in this room. Um, and I guess I'm trying to figure out is there ways we can effectively spend that money to really get those program, you know, get the ethnic studies classes to be more cohesive, really work more on development, you know, uh, professional development areas or do something with it. I I think that's the point of this job description and this role. You know, there aren't a lot two things I want to mention. one, there aren't a lot of professional learning opportunities out there for ethnic students. There are a couple organizations and that's about it. Um, and we made a decision last year or the end of the year before last uh not to engage last year not to engage and to try to do some

146homegrown. Um, that needs to be coordinated one. And then secondly, let's not confuse these dollars, and I'm not saying you are. This is more so for the public. Let's not confuse these dollars with recent headlines about the governor not funding ethnic studies ongoing. So, this was an earlier grant slated primarily for professional development. Um, maybe some curricular resources, but I would say mostly professional development. Um, and it's one-time funding. What's not in the governor's budget that's gaining headlines is ongoing funding uh for this course. So, two separate buckets entirely. Thank you for addressing that. Yeah. And the only other thing I would say is that the amount that we have left would be usually the amount that you would spend with a lot of PD contractors. So I would anticipate that the money um we

147we'll see this money spent down in the next two years. I think that's generally the plan. Okay. So, but the state has I mean it is interesting because usually when they give you grant money there is an end point in it and this money they do not have it. They do I think probably because the actual graduation requirement it doesn't go into effect until 2930. So I think they're providing districts that timeline if people don't spend it by that time I think there would probably be questions but there wasn't something specific to this grant money that you had to spend it down by a certain point. So that graduation requirement na may never go into effect given given the climate around here and the difficulties we're all struggling with. Yeah, it's unfortunate. So at the

148state level. Yes. Anyway, I think that uh thank you for the responses. So I have a comment. Yes. So but even it is a small amount of money and you are making it stretch. I mean, we did, you know, I believe that we had asked you all to cancel some contracts so then we can use that money for other things. So, I think that it's prudent what you're doing and stretching it out. So, yeah, I think it's Well, I I do think it's important, not just with ethnic studies, any of our programs, any of our curricular fields that we continue to work through professional learning. If we don't, we become stagnant and um innovations pass us by and it's kind of like a corporation having R&D. You're not a success successful corporation if you don't

149have R&D, right? Uh because there are innovations. We do get new teachers. They do need to be onboarded. And if there isn't good support, we're not going to have teachers who want to teach the class. Um, I I I liken it to back in the day when I was principal trying to recruit teachers to teach AP, especially new teachers who've never taught AP and they're like, uh, what kind of support am I going to get? I've never taught this class. Um, there's specific curricular requirements. We get audited. How do I do it? And I was at a district where we didn't have any money for any of that. It was kind of like, good luck. Uh, and trying to get teachers to do it. They were like, no thanks. It's really hard. And I think

150I would just make one other point on one of the intentions of having a coordinator for the the course is to create some consistency and coherence across the district. And I think that was one of the things Trustee Jacobson brought up is just ensuring that the class does share the same outcome standards across the district and that there's not a lot of variance across the schools. And that does take a lot of coordination and work and it you know having some um teacher support and doing that will be really helpful. Okay. Thank you. Is there a motion on R2? I move to approve R2. There's a second. I'll second that. Okay. We have a motion and a second. All in favor? I opposed. Okay. Thank you. Uh, Division of Human Resources. First item is the

151personal actions addendum. We recommend approval. Any discussion? Any comments? Any public input? There a motion? I move to approve. If there is no discussion, is there a second? I'll second. Okay, we have a motion and a second. All in favor? I I. Item two, girls wrestling coach stipen. Yes, we uh we've seen a growth in female sports in a lot of levels and one in one area in our district has been girls wrestling. Currently, the district provides a one varsity coach and one JV coach for both boys and girls um teams. What we'd like to do is try a pilot program um for schools that have at least six girls in the program and have a so we'd have a in those schools would have a boys head coach, a girls head coach, and then

152a JV for both. Uh that would help as you saw earlier this year, we had a a Berling game student win the state, you know, in wrestling. And um they have the girls meets are different locations than the boys and the JV. So they have all different locations. And right now with our two coaches, that means that we don't have the third coach at the the girls wrestling. Uh and that's one thing, but also um it's hard to, you know, have a cohesive team when you don't really have a coach and the girls travel together and that's the team. So, uh given the growth in the sport, uh we'd like to at least pilot for one year girls wrestling coach stipen and hope hope to continue it if the numbers continue as they are or

153grow. Okay. Any discussion? Any any public comment? Okay. Is there a motion? I'll approve I move to approve the uh coach's stipen. I second that. Okay. All in favor? I I move on to uh additional coach stipen. Okay. So, we have some large teams. some of this um we we've always had large teams in some sports, but with the uh in inuction or in the um initiation of the 10th grade athletic PE, which is where the P 10th graders can go u to study hall if they're in athletics. that's impacted some of our teams. And um we get to the point where we we we cite track when there's 90 students or more, cross country when there's 50 students or more, football where there's 90 students or more. You get to a point where the

154the the coaching a lotment we have now is um not ideal for supervision and for uh proper instruction and uh safety even. So, we propose that when teams get over the numbers that we have listed here that the AD has an option to add another coach, either another assistant coach or a JB coach, wherever the the students are, like if there's a lot of 10th graders, maybe be a JV coach. Um, but whatever the the AD thinks they need for these large number of students, uh, they would have permission to add another stipen to that sport. Is there any discussion? Any comments? If there's no discussion, I will move to approve the additional stipen. Is there a second? I'll second. Yeah, we got a motion second. No public comment. Okay. All in favor? I I

155Okay. Approval ofou between this is the last item and we've actually approved this before. It might maybe it would have been better on consent. Um, but it's part of the partnership that the mental health therapists uh kind of referenced tonight and it's at no cost to the district. It's um a division of the Peninsula Health Care District and they work in collaboration with our mental health therapists to provide um services to mental health and student wellness outside of school like they I think they had a picture of actually of them going to field trip that was this. So we just wanted to get another MU this for the continuing the program or the partnership. Okay. If there's no discussion, I'll move to approve. I think this is a very important partnership. Um so yeah. Okay.

156Is there a second? A second. Okay. We have a motion and a second. Any public comment? Okay. All in favor? I I Thank you. student services division. I love the these are so we had uh 19 appeals for our uh intericent transfers. Um five were approved and 14 were denied and we uh recommend board action for the 14 denials. Okay. Any discussion? Is there a motion? I move to approve the denial of interd district student transfers requests. Is there a second? I'll make the second. Okay. Um, any public comment? Okay. All in favor? I I division instructional services. Okay. We're supposed to have a public hearing. Yes. So, we also just have a short presentation on the instructional materials that we're going to hold a public hearing for. I don't know which one's first on

157the agenda. Okay. So, maybe in advance of the public hearing, we'll share a little bit about the process for the the adoption. So, here tonight with um Mr. Simmons and we're making recommendation for some textbooks for adoption. We'll hold the public hearing for these items. It's a biology and a physics textbook. Um Mr. Simmons will be joined by one teacher. We did have one of our um biology teacher ended up not being able to join us who has been part of the process but um Mr. Simmons will be able to cover that part of the presentation. So um we'll have Janice Valetta who's a cappuccino teacher who will talk about the physics um textbook and I think you can see her there virtually with us. So welcoming her staying up with us late during the

158the last week of school here almost. Yeah. Well, she also said she's got she has a 7 7:15 or 7:30 appointment with her students tomorrow to take AP physics test with donuts or something. So, she's we're not going to we're not going to detain her too long. Okay. So, we'll move on to the next slide. Um, as I mentioned, we'll cover why we need the new textbooks. Um, provide an overview of the process, share why our teachers are recommending the texts that they are, and then answer any questions that might have um come up. And I'll hand it off to Miss Chimmans to take it from there. Uh good evening uh everyone. Uh in light of the board and community's interest in understanding outcomes in each of the areas that we review when I come

159to you often I come to you with data. So I want to start there tonight just to quickly kind of give you an update on where our students are since we haven't had really a chance to talk about science data this school year. Uh it should be noted here that our science programs have a general progression where students take biology then chemistry and then finally physics. Although at at Cappuccino where Janice is a teacher they they put physics first. So physics is the default nth grade class uh at cappuccino only. Otherwise it's biology, chemistry, physics generally in that order. Um I I will say that as part of this process, one of the things I've that I actually myself had not really absorbed is that at about three of our schools, we have more students

160taking AP physics than CP physics. um you know, so like when we were looking to actually buy the textbooks, we were looking at the class sections and we could actually see that there are in fact more AP physics sections than there are um uh college prep physics, which was an interesting finding for me that that's kind of what's what's happened to our programs over the years as as more and more students are taking physics and also as more and more students are looking to um to to take AP classes. And so um you'll see here on this slide uh that starting at the top of the circle you can see that uh the C minus or better passing rate among students in their first attempt at taking biochem and physics. So that's sort of along

161the right hand side there. Again that's the first time that they take the class. It also is only college prep physics. So it doesn't include our students who take AP physics or AP chemistry. Um uh at the bottom you can see that about 50% of our students and I shared this data way back in September. um they passed the uh California science test. So our again that's the one time a student takes a science test in high school is at the end of their senior year around April. Uh that was the state's uh idea about when we should diminish that test. Probably not the best idea. Um because it also competes at the same time with with other assessments that are going on at the same time. Quick question about that. On the CAST test,

162does it cover all three of those Yeah. topics? Yes. So students because I know my daughters never took physics at all because they went into AP uh chemistry and AP bio. So it's really assessing the in the next generation science standards there's really a set of like crosscutting themes and and um science and engineering practices. So it's really actually kind of assessing science skill across the content areas. It's actually fairly content agnostic that actual assessment. Okay. So it's really not like you would be fine if you if you had like you knew how to do a how to do a procedure or you knew how to how to analyze data like really about that. It's much less which in many ways is what we want citizens to be able to do at the end of

163the day. Whether they can remember you know Newton's third law or whatever may not be that big of a deal. Understood. Thank you. Okay. I can't believe I pulled that one out right there. Um so um you may be wondering like why adopt new textbooks? um and and why aren't we doing this in chemistry? Um so, broadly speaking, um you know, it's taken taken the publishing industry quite a while to catch up to the the next generation science standards when we first started looking at at at standards or sorry at new texts back in the late 201. Um we really were finding that the publishers were basically slapping NGSS align on the front of a book that they already had on the shelves uh in the warehouse. And so we basically have been waiting for

164for decent textbooks for the last uh you know 20 years really uh that reflect well certainly the last 10 years since the NGSS was adopted in 2014. Um we definitely need resources that are relevant um and engaging for students and that certainly is an area where we found we you know our teachers were really using a rubric to assess the the the texts that they looked at. Obviously, we also we we're ever uh in the search for resources that help us support our historically underserved students, whether they're are multilingual learners or other students who struggle with reading, for example, when content can be pretty pretty dense in in science texts. So, we were looking for for some resources that uh would that were accessible to students. Um, we also obviously wanted to al to make

165sure that our text that our new text uh was integr was able to be integrated with Canvas, our learning management system, and so that you know and and afforded teachers some of the the grade passback and some of the other tools that teachers have with contemporary textbooks. And then lastly, we wanted to make sure that whoever the the the provider was that they had, you know, decent uh good uh professional learning that went alongside the textbook. Um, as for why we're not adopting in chemistry, uh, the answer is that teachers have not yet found materials that reflect the full breadth of the NGSS in chemistry. So, we're really still sort of on the hunt for a for a good text in chemistry. And that the teachers, our chemistry teachers, when we when we uh surveyed

166them this fall, they basically said, "We're not we don't we don't need a text or we don't we don't see a text that's helpful to us, and so we're not ready to to to to adopt one." Um, this is the the broad strokes of the of the process that we engaged in this this year. um starting in the fall, you can see the physics folks actually started doing some training on some of the potential materials. Uh and then and then both of the then we had two teams. So Janice Valetta uh a physics teacher at Cappuccino who's up there on the screen is going to speak in just a second. She convened and facilitated the process this spring. She's our our physics curriculum development lead for the district. And then Anthony uh Delmi was the

167other person who led the process in biology and he um was able to and and he facilitated a a sort of parallel process. Again uh we had two pilots that happened. So the the books were were winnowed down from a group of about five or six in each area uh to two that were then piloted uh for a month. Uh one in February, sorry. Yeah, one in one in March and one in one in April. Um so books students had digital copies of the full textbook and our teachers had full teachers editions of the full textbook uh for those for those pilots. Um and then in in early May uh the first for physics and the seventh for for um biology the team of teachers came together and we had representation from all the school

168sites. We had we had more teachers from school some schools than others but we had representation from all the school sites uh on the team. Um and and ultimately we we landed on on this on on the on the the recommendations tonight. And with that, I'll just quickly say that um uh Anthony uh did a great job of of of of shephering the process in biology. Um you know, they came across they came together across the sites. Um, I will say that the texts were used in the real classrooms and and and the teachers gathered input not just from their own personal input, but they also solicited from students through through some of their own personal surveys um with students sort of what they liked, what they didn't like, what they what they and what

169they appreciated and and and found challenging about the text. I would say that broadly speaking uh the clarity and depth of the content stood out in this particular uh Savas uh text. Um there was strong alignment that the teachers felt like that in the in the materials themselves. um and it really gave them a good examples of the conceptual ideas of the of the NGSS. Um that students tended to sort of like these these two books as well. Uh this book in particular in biology um the best of the so there was sort of convergence of both teachers and students. That's not always the case with these textbook adoptions. Sometimes there can be a con a divergence around what students like and what teachers like. Um the the canvas uh integration was strongest with this

170particular text. And I will say that, you know, in in 2025, that has to be an essential piece of the puzzle because we we want our teachers to be able to leverage the the power of Canvas and and how it helps uh to disseminate the curriculum, but also give students opportunities for practice and things like that. Um, you know, there's a there was, you know, both a strong use of the the physical text, but also the hybrid format that's that's that's available with the text. And then lastly, uh, and this will be true in both texts, but there was there was there was good, uh, multilingual and ELD supports, meaning, you know, there's some some instances where the the language can be adjusted in the text, um, or there's actually supplemental materials for for f

171students to learn, you know, uh, specific vocabulary and things like that. Um, with that, I'm going to hand it off to Janice uh to to give a little story about the the physics um, uh, decision. Thanks, Brian. Okay. So, I think that he's very well touched on why we wanted the new textbook. Excuse me. I'm sorry. I'm a little horse. It's been a lot of days of talking lately, especially for review sessions. Um, so the physics textbooks, we originally when NGSS was adopted by California, we actually looked at the textbooks. We were very eager to do it and we were disappointed in the lack of depth that most of the textbooks have. And GSS is like Brian said really meant to give students science skills and so we're not looking at a breadth of topics

172as much as a depth so they can develop their school their skills excuse me. This year we came back to it. So between those years when we couldn't find a textbook and we were really eager to adopt NGSS principles in our classrooms including doing science and experimental practices. We then adopted a system where after school teachers would get together and develop curriculum and um I was definitely one of the curriculum leads. During that time we developed 12 CLES common learning experiences and they're being widely used in the district but we were struggling with good reading materials for the students. The Huitt textbook is very good at breadth of knowledge. It's very good at um things like math and problem sets, but it doesn't have the NGS in inquiry basis that we were looking for. So,

173at the beginning of the year, we decided we would re-examine textbooks seeing that a number of new ones had come on the market and we were very encouraged in October when we got trained on a couple that there were good textbooks available to us. So during this year we had one classroom set at every school in the district and six of the seven teachers actively met and implemented the curriculum. We met them at the end of the season. We tried two textbooks in earnest and came to a conclusion that the SAS textbook really supported our students. Our students loved it. I actually had students when we were doing the second textbook ask me but I like the other textbook. can I read the chapter from it? Which is really encouraging. Um, we had other stakeholders

174like the sped department and the ML department take a look at it, make sure that they felt that their students were well supported by the materials. Um, definitely interviewed the students as well as the teachers and it was really uh teachers felt like it gave them a lot of support to develop a storyline that would engage your students while supporting all the materials that we had already developed. So, we came back with our recommendations to us and we're really hoping that we can move forward with it. We do recognize it'll be very important for teachers who were not involved in the pilot program to get trained on the materials because the integration with Canvas is extremely important, but also um every year you get new teachers that come into the district and onboarding is super

175important. So, we'll continue to have these afterchool meetings to develop curriculum as physics teachers. Um anyhow and uh we're excited we're very excited to adopt this book. Thanks so much Janice. And that concludes our presentation and we're happy to answer questions. Board have any questions? Um I have a question. Yes. How do you on board the new teachers that are coming on? And um you know I guess depending on whether they're brand new teachers or if they've been teaching somewhere else um you know how does that change? Yeah. Go ahead. Sorry. I'll go quickly Janice then you can fill in for physics in particular in general. We have as you may remember a three-day uh training for teachers when they when they first start with us uh in in the summer in August. Uh and

176that's really focused on kind of the broad program of the district. So, so, so there's a there's a day of really learning kind of the big ideas of the instructional framework, then really digging into technology and our technology platforms. Then there's time at the school sites uh to go and sort of learn about the specific, you know, place they're going to be. Uh, but in physics, Janice, you want to say a little bit more? Well, I think I not just in physics, but in the science disciplines, there a lot of interconnectivity. We have good email lists where you can reach out to other um teachers in the district to ask them how they're approaching a problem or how they're approaching a unit. Um definitely the physics teachers share folders and we bring them in and

177we'll let them look at a demo lesson. So there's a lot of support for teachers who come in. Good. Good. Thank you. Yeah. And and as just to quickly say like the s the scale of the teacher communities are really different, right? So physics is the smallest, biology is huge. Uh it's like 30 people, I think. So it's a it's also a much more diverse group of people in terms of skill and knowledge and all that. So it's a it's a little complicated, but in general, we have a a general course for all teachers. And then obviously uh they and their PLC's are their are their are their best friends over the course of the school year. And I'm glad that there's a community that they can go to. Yeah. Thank you. Any other Yes,

178Jacobson. Yeah. Can you just um tell us how the textbook how you're planning to use the textbook um and incorporate it into your teaching and and how the students will be using it? Yeah, that's an excellent question. So um the textbook is used in the classroom as material that supplements a project or a topic that we're talking about. NGSS really starts with a phenomenonbased inquiry. So you might show students something and ask them what did they see? What did they wonder? What do you think we would need to learn to understand what that phenomenon is? The textbook is written material that supports activities done in the classroom. It allows a second, third, and even fourth way for a student to absorb the material. So uh a physical textbook and actually I have my teacher edition

179with me here because I really do love it would be used by the students in the classroom maybe as a you know 15 minute like hey you need to learn do you know this definition do you understand how it might be used can you spend 10 or 15 minutes with your partner looking at this concept taking some notes and then we're going to go to a lab station and we're going to investigate it and then we might then give them a news article to go with it. So, it's definitely one of many layers that a student would interact with. The nice thing about this book, which wasn't true for the Huitt book that we've been using, and I don't mean to put that book down because it's actually a lovely book, but this book allows

180students to have an ebook at home with an audio reader that can read to them, which is important for students that have difficulty reading complex text. Um, it does come in Spanish, so for my ML students, there's a little extra supplement for them. But it also has some online movies that go with it. So, while I might play a phenomena movie in my class and ask us to discuss it and maybe do a demo with it or have students try to investigate it on a small little mini lab, there are supplemental online modules that students can also interact with either in the classroom at home. So I think it's going to be kind of a 360 use of the material. Great. Thank you for that. Um, also does it have uh materials that um or

181are there materials for conducting labs that come with the textbook? Um, you know, you can purchase them separately and we did investigate that as a group. We felt that I don't think that this isn't going to just supplement them or supplant the materials that we're already doing. A lot of us have very robust uh programs developed and what we were lacking was the story lines and the reading that go with the NGSS. The labs wouldn't shift as much. Yeah. Does that make sense? Yeah, that totally. I will say we are going to purchase the lab kits for peninsula just because of the there's less there's less uh robust programs there less programs stuff it's also one teacher who teaches both biology and physics so just know that is the one place we're going to purchase

182the lab kits okay and uh will we see the cost for this oh it'll be here yeah next on June 12th yeah at our next meeting once once we move forward with the that's the purchase and it's it's about just to be transparent it's about uh $350,000 uh I believe is the amount for the biology text and it'll be about a hundred I think about $200,000 for we're still haggling over the number of books we're buying but it's about $200,000 for the physics text. How does that convert to per unit? I mean you know like I don't remember but or per pounds to be like yeah so we're only buying this is a new practice that we have you may remember we buy physical textbooks for the classrooms and then we buy a digital copy

183for every student. Uh, and so that so it's really a license and it's an eight-year license. I mean, this is like this is a new era, right? So the and it tracks with the traditional kind of eight-year recycle of of of textbooks. So that's what we're buying is an 8-year digital license and then obviously in perpetuity until the book is destroyed, a copy of the book about a 35 set a set of 35 for every teacher. You know, I have a question. Um um in terms of the next generation science standards and the guidance, it's you know, when we were talking just a minute ago about how we use the textbook, it sounds like the textbook is kind of a a supplement and the teachers really driving the course and the course structure and the

184outline with a variety of other of other materials. And I'm kind of like how do we know we're on the right path? Um, which is aside from the textbook issue. So that first gen. Yeah, I think so. I think it's I mean from a physics standpoint of view and I think it's an excellent question that the the strength of the textbook that we're talking about has some really robust study storylines that have um NGSS driven phenomenon to really drive why students would want to study this as far as knowing for sure if you're if you just don't use the textbook as your complete Bible that teachers are on the right path. is that the state has actually published NGSS standards and we go to those guidelines to know what's expected for our students to learn

185so that we know that they're going to perform well on the test. And I'll just add that we have courses of study that have been approved by this board. Those are the those are our codification of the standards, right? Are our courses of study. So those were those were written I believe about eight years ago, nine years ago. Who knows now that we know post it was pre-COVID so who knows when it was but um uh but we have those courses of study and those what those are what drove the um the the u common learning experiences that that Janice was referring to earlier and those common learning experiences exist in every uh all three of our courses. So why is it taken so long to chemist for chemistry text? I don't know honestly I

186think it is that it is the NGSS is really complicated. the first unit in chemistry is is plate tectonics. So that's not the chemistry you or I took. Um and so it's really different. I just have a general question too about the CLES. Is that unique to physics or is that true across your science class? All three all three courses have them. Okay. And you're saying that the textbooks that you're selecting support those that you already have developed. And I think this is I mean part of the challenge right is that we've been for 20 plus years without a textbook. So without a textbook that really reflected the standards, right? Maybe not 20 years 10 years without a textbook that reflected the current standards. So I think we're in a process of like reintegrating a

187textbook with our homegrown stuff. Like we've been in a in a bit of an unmed sort of situation except that we had the standards in our courses of study. So I think now we're in this we're kind of it's sort of backward, right? Normally you'd sort buy a textbook and then you'd start to use that and then supplement it. But because we were without anything, it's actually going to be the other way around. So you know, we've had next generation NGSS for a long long time. How long what's the shelf life on that before we come up with a whole new curriculum? I mean, you know, seriously, 10 years is is in many cases the lifespan. It's not maybe it's not even 10 years particularly on something that's continually evolving moving you know it's it's

188also why we need digital texts because those digital texts can obviously be updated just like any piece of software unlike our physical textbooks. So it's it's why I actually am I I think we're all agreed that we should buy as few books as we really have to because they're as old they're they're old by the time they get published. Wow. Especially in the current context when when sci when I mean if you talk to the science folks they'll say all three of these subjects could all be taught as one subject and in fact there is another way another way of teaching this science which is that you teach it all integrated so the integrated pathway but that's another day another conversation for another day. Okay well we're on our way to another day if we

189don't get this thing on the put in high gear. Okay we any other board uh comments? Okay, we're going to have a public actually I guess I will open the hearing and boy I missed the computer. Yeah, I came came that close to whacking the district computer. So, I'll be careful next time. Um, we actually have a a speaker, David Kristofferson. You wanna Okay. Can I ask a quick question of Janice? Uh, in terms of the CLA's, uh, you said there's 12 now for physics. Uh, how much of the year does that cover? Is the new textbook going to be adding things that your current cl? Um, not no. that in a short answer um they're not going to add more they're going to add a different depth to them. Okay. does that a and

190while I say we have 12 that are codified um we recently starting last year started to also do oneday CLE so smaller learning experiences on a short topic to encourage other teachers who were finding the one week CL a little bit hard to fit into their curriculum and so you know if you were to take the the broad view we probably have 18 common learning experiences. Excuse me, I'm quite horse. Um, they really fit very nicely into the five story lines in the experience physics. And it's not that they didn't fit into Huitt. I do not want you to think that I don't love Huitt. Paul Huitt was fabulous. Um, but they had a different emphasis. The skills that that book emphasized were a lot of content and a lot of um using mathematics to

191model a lot of things and it really isn't where NGS has gone for what they're looking for and so it wasn't supporting my students in the way that we wanted. We will still have access to it though. Okay. No, that's fine. I'm I'm not that worried about Huitt and the rest. It's just when I when I came and I talked about NGSS seven or eight years ago, there was no curriculum and over over the course of a year, they put together six CLE that no idea of how much of this curriculum was completed at that time. Now we're up to 12. So I'm still basically what I'm asking is do you still have a lot of CL development that needs to be done to complete the NGSS curriculum? Yeah, it's a fabulous question. I think

192I'm gonna say that I feel like what we need is some professional development to help us effectively use the CLES with our new textbook and that we have reached out to our physics teachers to encourage them to sign up for summer work and for fall work to do exactly that. The two of them really integrate very nicely together and we're looking to make certain that that is effectively meshed so that our students have a full experience. Okay. Does that answer you? Does that answer your question? Yeah, these were excellent. I'm glad to hear the presentation. I would be happy to volunteer my time as I have been a professional scientist and the rest to help with some of that. And the last the last thing that I would like to make is just a comment

193in general specifically to Superintendent Booker about public comment on this thing. I spent hours and hours and hours between 2018 and 2019 because it was clear that the science curriculum was being trashed that year. I saw it in my students. The parents were aware of what was going on and the rest. And I understand why the shift is being made. It's not because I'm an old guy who doesn't want to change anything, but the quality took a horrendous hit. And the fact that 10 years later from the adoption of the standards, they're still not having textbooks put together, that indicates to me that this method has been excessively complex. So, in terms of public comment, we have citizen oversight committees for the major construction uh projects and the rest. Part of what I wrote in

194here was I would like to be able to volunteer my time and you have all these retired teachers who we mentioned uh before who are also available. It is a burden to put con curriculum construction on teachers that are trying to teach a class. It's a burden to put the textbook evaluation on these teachers when you are living in one of the most scientifically and technically adept areas of the United States. Please utilize the expertise that is available to you. You don't have to wind up taking our advice, but at least let us give some feedback ahead of time instead of giving us three days before the board meeting when all of a sudden after working on this for years, I get a message saying, "Oh, we're going to be adopting this thing. Here's your

195public comment thing." And when I looked at that textbook that they made available to the public, you know, my impression was completely different from what I'm hearing today. But that's enough for tonight. There will be another meeting on the 12th. I look forward to that. Thank you very much. Thank you. That was a a unique public comment that turned into uh I don't know if it was an extension of the present. It was a good dialogue, but it was not the public comment that I'm here. I came I commented and I thank you. So anyway, appreciate you. Okay, we're going to move on. Point of order. Yes. Close the public hearing. President, yes, close the public hearing. Uh we're going to move on to um you two and uh board administrative regulation for and I

196uh before we get there, we've got uh you two to deal with and we've got the the uh governor's budget. Are these items that are essential and must be talked about tonight? I would recommend that we approve the board policy 6174 tonight. Yes. Okay. It was agendaized at the last meeting pushed to this meeting. I uh I I think it should my recommendation is that it's passed. I don't think we've had a lot of opportunity for comment. I've spoken to board members, almost all of you, individually about this policy. We don't have a presentation tonight on it. Um, you promise? I I know for a fact presentation. I would be remiss because uh, you know, we're getting up to the Yeah. to the to the magic hour. I can do it quickly. Yes. Okay. There's

197not a lot that impacts us. Okay. Let's let's forge ahead. Uh you two board administrative rigs policy for multi- lingual learners. As we shared at the last board meeting here the board policy 61744 approval. I move to approve the board policy if there's no discussion. Is there a second? I'll second. Okay. We got a motion and a second. Uh any public comment or input? Okay. All in favor? I I'm going to abstain. Okay, we have um three three eyes and one abstension. Thank you. Division of Business Services, the governor's budget. Thank you. Uh last week the governor put out uh the May revision to his January 2526 budget. Um I'll go over just a couple of quick notes. Uh I second what Superintendent Booker noted. There's not a significant amount that impacts us. Uh on

198a high level, uh over the three years that they update the budget, there are about $4.8 8 billion less than the January budget over the same term. Um it's important to note uh and that's the prior year, the current year and the 2526 budget. Uh that includes an increase actually in the current year but a relatively significant decrease in the 2526 budget year. So 5 billion still a lot of money but not huge for a shift between January and May. Uh but there is a bigger shift in the outlook in the um in the future years. Uh one thing that's important to note uh the governor's budget proposes to suspend Prop 98. They've got a new term for it, just so that you know, is that they are going to under um appropriate uh Prop

19998, but that's a suspension of Proposition 98, meaning that the state will give districts an an IOU for the money. Um, also good to note or bad to note that the Prop 98 rainy day fund um his governor's budget proposes to use the remainder of the Prop 98 uh rainy day fund uh by June 30th, 2026. Uh specifically the programs that impact us. Uh in the governor's January budget, uh he proposed a student support and disc uh PD discretionary block grant. That block grant was proposed at $1.8 billion in January. It has been slightly decreased to about 1.7. Uh but we do expect that we will uh get some uh pretty discretionary one-time uh funding. Um uh but we'll see how that goes uh in the negotiations. Uh also uh although he was silent on

200it uh the governor continues to propose the learning recovery a and a small allocation of learning recovery block grant which is a grant we received a couple of years ago. Um this is uh pretty pretty specific to the settlement of a lawsuit at the state level. Um and it's about $378 million at the state level. Uh but probably a much smaller uh chunk uh for our district. It won't be allocated on a per ADA basis. Uh the last thing I would note is this is not on the state budget. Uh but we are getting more clarity into the bud the federal budget uh proposal. Um the good news is that it looks like title one and IDA um have been relatively spared from reductions. Uh but the proposal uh uh propo the proposal includes the

201elimination of title three um which is uh the funding for multilingual learners to the tune of about $200,000 to our school district obviously much more districtwide um and an elimination of uh a majority if not all of the adult education funding. So that will impact our adult education uh program significantly if implemented uh by Congress and signed by the president. With that uh I'm happy to open it up to any questions. Is that part of the current appropriate the current tax re the big correct big bill? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Those were the um the recommended reductions from the Department of Education uh as as part of the reductions goal. uh set uh by uh uh um Congress. Any other questions? I apologize. Can you repeat what uh those figures are that will affect our district

202from that reconciliation bill? So, and the and these are the initial numbers. These are the recommendations. So, they have not been uh passed by anything but um the the House of Representatives right now. Um but it is the impact. Yeah. Uh so I can give you the impact to title three um which is a general fund program. It's broken up into two uh programs but uh title 3 total is about $200,000 uh to SMUHSD that supports that supports multilingual learners. Um and then uh we're still looking at the detail of what of the adult education funding. Adult education funding comes from various um departments. Some of it comes from uh uh the department um of labor. Some of it comes from the department of education. So we're not clear right now. Uh although the Department

203of Education has noted of an elimination of all uh adult education funding, we don't know um if that goes over to the Department of Labor funding um which we specifically uh receive uh money from now. So hopefully in the next couple of weeks or in the next month or so we will get more clarity on that and we can bring that to the either the June 12th or the June 26 meeting uh when we uh are proposing the 2526 budget. Yes. Okay. Thank you so much. You know one quick comment. They've been underappropriating Prop 98 for years now. They just figured, you know, okay, what are we going to call it? Well, we're going to call it what we've been doing to you guys. Yeah, those years. Yeah, they just come up with a new

204name every couple of years to not give school districts money. So, yeah, it's unfortunate. Okay, let's see. I We don't have We pulled item W uh in its entirety. Anybody have anything to add to future board agenda items? Okay. Meeting adjourned.