001e e good evening I'd like to welcome everyone to the meeting of the Board of Trustees of the samon tail Union High School District and it's 7:05 for my cell phone he you uh this is a meeting of the SEL Union High School District Board of Trustees I am calling the Open Session to order today is February 27th roll call trustee Chavez present trusty Jacobson present trusty Lan present trusty andr Zuniga present and I am present tonight we will have a team from Hannah interpreting in our as our Spanish interpreters for those who would like to attend the meeting virtually in Spanish that option is available Hannah interpreting would you please communicate that for us this evening thank you of course in order to provide language access this meeting will have simultaneous interpretation in English
002and Spanish to enable the interpretation if you are using your laptop or desktop please locate the icon shaped like a globe at the bottom of your screen click on language interpretation and then select English if you are on your phone iPad or similar device then locate the three do menu on the upper right corner of your screen click on language interpretation and then select English iect the proportion or Spanish gracias thank you if you wish to view Clos caption of this meeting please view the meeting on SMU hsd 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
003after this meeting has ended viewers May request additional accommodations by calling 2201 that's 2201 for our deaf and heart of hearing Community 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 okay next item is the Pledge of Allegiance and I will ask our student board members to lead us please rise United States of America stand thank you report of actions taken in closed session in closed session upon the motion of trusty Lan and seconded by trusty Chavez the board took action to give notice of release reassignment to employee number 4233 with a vote of 5 to zero okay item J adopt the agenda the Board of Trustees May
004either adopt the agenda as presented or make a change to the agenda through a motion second and majority vote the brown act prohibits any additions to the agenda without a 72-hour public notice are there any questions or comments from the Board of Trustees are the superintendent with respect to the agenda um I actually wanted to um change it around I don't know if there's a way that we can have the soccer team go ahead of time yeah and that way um they can go home after that's a motion I second that oh I'm Sor oh you want go Ahad thank you yeah so I move to uh move up the El soccer team up to the top of the agenda and I second great okay great idea are there any questions or comments from the
005public I don't believe on this item okay I think we got all the blue cards and other nothing related to this um all in favor I I so we've adopted the amended agenda uh student board reps how do you vote I I get used to that huh yeah motion carries 5 public comments if you are joining us in person and wish to make a comment about an agenda item or during the public comment section at the beginning of the agenda please fill out a request to address the board form and submit it to the secretary Tristy Griffin um point of order um I think we moved the students up before public oh you're right that's right thank you it's what happens when you read from a script you're fine you're fine like the Morning News
006it's okay no worries okay so you know I I I'm want to make my comment at first because like they came in they're all standing there and I'm thinking boy they're going to stand there for the whole meeting with but anyway superintendent thank you so tonight we have uh Matt Shay who is our ml soccer club coordinator and Sano High School um uh uh fall and spring multilingual learner soccer coach he is here with the fall soccer club championship team for Sano High School join me in giving them a big round of applause is it okay if they're here yeah yeah to the right you that's fine that's fine you go there um so we want to thank um the board for having us here tonight kind of like our thing to come here in
007the spring and present so I I hope we keep on doing it and winning the the fall title so it's nice um we have been very lucky to have this program over the last I want to say I think seven years um the eeld soccer program was started by Samia shman over at Bridge Academy as a way to allow our El uh students to have a program where they could commit to playing in a league that allowed them to experience the game they love um and be able to build community at a school where in many cases it's hard for them to attach to to the school at a program that is as large as and diverse as it is uh having to to learn a new language and learn the culture of the of
008the new um you know City that they're living in so we've been very fortunate to be able to have this it's very special to all of our kids and it's something that every fall and spring despite um you know coming back to school and then you know coming off I coach The Varsity soccer team at San Mato it's always something that energizes me and and makes me happy so um here I have Milton Galvan and I have Thiago uh vivano and they are the two captains of the spring team um Milton is a junior and Thiago is a sophomore uh they also played on the JB soccer team this year for Sano High School Milton is in his first year at Sano high school and Thiago is in his second year uh we've been really
009lucky in the last I think there's been nine recorded Seasons with Co interrupting uh my second year we've been very lucky to capture four titles out of the nine Bridge has three Hillsdale has the inaugural one and South San Francisco who joined the league uh exactly the time last year um has won and we started with four teams cappuccino Hillsdale Sano and Bridge and now we've expanded to six with s sou San Francisco joining in the spring of 2020 4 and then seoa high school starting this spring so um I don't know how many more teams we can we can have joined because it's field limitations and just distance and you know uh referees and expenses but uh we feel very lucky to have this um it's something that has allowed our players from ELD
010to actually during the winter we've had I think eight eight players last three years play Varsity soccer and about 10 played JV so um we've been very fortunate to have it and we hope that uh we continue to have this program for years to come thank you well congratulations and thank you congratulations I would ask how you get a championship sweatshirt but apparently you have to win a championship right I was gonna ask the same question school.com [Laughter] thanks a lot we appreciate you guys showing up this evening team photo will you guys will take a team photo tonight yeah yeah yes okay excellent perfect Fel Fel congratulations thanks for coming thank you for coming okay awesome players right there we're going to move on to public comments if you are joining us in person
011and wish to make a comment about an agenda item or during the public comment section at the beginning of the agenda please fill out a request to address the board form and submit it to the secretary 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 called upon on to make a public comment we will call on you to begin your comment once we have promoted you in the meeting if your camera is not operational please email your comments to the Board of Trustees at board SM smsd.org that's board smmu hsd.org please note that comments are limited to 3 minutes the board president
012may increase or decrease the time allowed for public comment depending upon the topic and the number of persons wishing to be heard I will call on uh in-person comment request first and before we actually call on people I believe the board limits the public comment to 20 minutes and we have more than if you know we have more than 20 minutes at 3 minutes each so I'm going to uh ask that you limit your comments to two minutes each and who's the oh Lisa Wright good evening uh my name is Lisa Wright and I am a parent of a child in this District I'm here tonight because I want to thank truste Jacobson I saw saw her speak at a forum earlier this week and I'm grateful that she shared her insights with us she's
013always willing to engage with the community even though she's often attacked for having differing views that takes a lot of Bravery if our teachers and administrators can't tolerate respectful questions and criticisms about their course content in public meetings I wonder how our students must feel in those same teachers classrooms this is not a criticism of all of the teachers in the district or all of the administrators I've had many productive uh discussions with people including superintendent Booker we often disagree but I always find him very respectful and he's always very willing to engage and listen so I'm thankful to those of you who do that and I hope that you'll continue listening to diverse voices like trusty Jacobson's superintendent Booker um and and emulate superintendent Booker courtesy and and respect so um I just wanted
014to come here to say thank you very much Jennifer we really appreciate what you do thank you Andrew Neola is that close sure Andrew neolo um Neo sorry thank thank you everybody um I'm a Foster City resident I've had a child go through the program here at SEO high school and graduate took the ethnic studies uh course and I'm also a former classroom teacher and um want to thank the board for all that you do um I'm here because my my understanding and I hope I'm wrong is that there's been a um letter of communication from the teachers union to reprimand or in some way um censor uh trusty Jacobson um related to her participation in an ethnic studies um conference I hope that I'm wrong I hope that's not the case but um if
015it is the case um I'll say that trusty Jacobs and I watched the the recording and I thought that your comments were actually a Wonderful class in Civics and in common sense and in fact what I saw in those minutes that you talked at the conference um most recently um it showed somebody who's engaging and modeling using our legal uh Avenues looking helping students understand their rights and and frankly that's um something that would be great here at our our social studies programs uh to the teachers union so for the folks who who if this letter has actually occurred I don't know i't I haven't seen it but if to the teachers who signed off on this I would say um thank you not because I agree with it what I think is the gist
016of it but rather because you've shown a light um if ethnic studies can't stand up to scrutiny um if it's a fragile house of cards that has a weak Foundation um I think that tells us a lot I think it tells us that um this is a uh a topic um that needs more scrutiny and um I was here in 2023 and and in Prior years and I've saw that you know the the um program was looked at but in a very perfunctory way and so my request to the board is to really look closely um as a board your your job is to do things like really have scrutiny on the curriculum not to rubber stamp what the teachers are telling you but to be that check in Balance to ensure that the education
017that our students are getting is teaching them not just um what to think sorry teaching them how to think but not what to think um that it's not ideological in nature so thank you for your time thank you Jessica gash or please correct me oh G yeah um hi I was here at the last board meeting to um ask for a statement in support of our lgbtq Comm community and as somebody with lgbtq loved ones and friends I just really want to say how much I appreciate and just how What happiness I had reading um superintendent Booker statement on Sunday I was really really thrilled um uh I have I I just recently had a conversation with an adult lgbtq um co- volunteer and he was expressing to me the the fear that he sees
018pervasive in the community and how important and um and reassuring it is when they see any sign whether it's a rainbow pin or a policy and that's being actually um enforced it it really just makes makes it so much easier for them to to keep going so um thank you very much and I brought little thank you notes um so Charlene will hopefully get those to you thank you thank you thank you yaa yavon and please feel please correct me I will correct you it's a hard one I'm eone and thank you Bor for uh listening to me today I too I am a parent of a sophomore at San mono high school she's a good student she's a good athlete I would love to see her up here one day with a trophy but
019who knows um but I did come here today to um soort support and actually applaud um one of your board members and that is Trusty Jacobson for demonstrating what um how I wish we would approach the education of all our children and all our teachers um listening internalizing and responding with genuine um genuinely to concerns uh regarding any topic trusty Jacobson as um has been mentioned demonstrating this when she attended a forum on ethnic studies to hear and to speak but to hear also from parents of different backgrounds and their and identities of their concerns regarding the ethnic Pro uh ethnic studies curriculum I've seen trusty Jacobson on this committee on multiple occasions advocating for diversity of voices and um as opposed to imposing a binary lens on our children's education and on our own
020approach to our children's education and she should be applauded and I think her attitude is very consistent with the board's own policies which state that on controversial issues there shall be presented a balanced manner addressing all sides of an issue without bias Prejudice and without promoting any particular point of view so thank you truste Jacobs Jacobson for standing by those principles thank you thank you well it's not this pronunciation it's the handwriting on this one um tals arbell T arel apologies for their handwriting no that's I'm go ahead I'm also here to speak um can you hear me I'm also here to speak in support of trusty Jackson um I don't have a kid in this school but as someone who had uh swastika painted on my door just a few years ago what is
021going on these days terrifies me I hear so many parents whose kids attend schools here and all around the Bay Area and they're getting bullied and this bullying often originates from their teachers and there's nothing they can do about it I hear students who go to these ethnic studies and they come home and they are ashamed and they are being taught these awful lies that just erase our whole stories and the thought that this is not just happening but anyone who's even trying to stand up to it is getting censored and punished for just hearing us out I don't know where this is going I don't think this is what you want to be I truly believe this is not what you are I really ask you to support us and stand with us here
022thank you okay thank you Allison Frozen I too am here in support of truste Jacobson um I heard her speak at the uh ethnic studies presentation and and I was there too I spoke and I said who is that brilliant woman who so articulate so able to represent how a lot of us feel I come from Palo Alto and I told our story where there was black backlash from our brilliant board member who we adore one of the few Chinese board members who we fought so hard to get elected and so we so treasured and and to think that our election would be overturned by just a few statements that someone didn't particularly like I would say that healthy legislative bodies seek diversity of opinion so that they address all concerns and I can tell
023you after that incident um the parents have been texting each other day and night several hundred of us are saying how could this happen how can we be heard so if you censor her you censor your community and all our hopes listen to diversity of opinion thank you thank you Diana Blum I'm a parent in a neighbor neighboring School District um which also repeatedly silenced and continues to silence concerned parents and now that school district is facing multiple lawsuits as a result I drove almost an hour here this evening to come personally thank truste Jacobson I listen to her speak so eloquently at the ethnic studies Forum this week and she spoke to the hearts of so many people who have been suffering for over a year now specifically but it's been actually quite longer
024in both my district um as well as those that have uh adopted um a critical race Theory ethnic studies um curriculum this is not Multicultural education this is disempowering children by boiling them down into immutable characteristics stripping their personal agency Away by labeling them into binary either oppressor or oppressed so I just wanted to come here look you in the face and say thank you thank you for giving the silen a voice um it it should come to Legal battles although I think all of us parents are prepared for that but it we shouldn't have to play whack-a-mole we should have open and honest conversations about what we want for our children and you exemplified that through your moral Clarity and courage this week so thank you again so I get Dr Blum did you
025turn in two cards or do we have two Diana blums here that's okay I'm just checking just checking do we miss aino do we public comment please on Virtual we do I will start I'll promote Basa raviv please start your camera please turn on your camera and begin B Diva Rie please turn on your camera you can begin you're you can unmute please am I okay you're good okay I'm also a calling to support the truste Jennifer Jackson but but I also want to speak about the ethnic studies in California the ethnic studies California has become the Battleground for the controversary with with some group activities using the curriculum to promote anti-semitic narratives while the original intent of ethnic study was to address the historical Injustice certain political groups have exploited it to push anti-israeli
026and anti-semitic rhetoric for example example labeling Israel as a colonist oppressor is far from the truth as if it ignore the fact that most Israeli citizen are dissidents of refugees who fled persecution including the Holocaust additional the majority of the Jews in Israel are not white early draft of the colonist ethnic studies model curriculum esmc included material that portrayed the Israeli Palestinian conflict in one-sided manner demonizing Israel while overlooking terrorism and anti- anti-Semitism in the Middle East despite public backlash some schools district continue to use the original problematic content University protest further demonstrate how the narrative promoted by the E ECMC Foster hostility toward Jewish students particularly those who identify with Israel while ethnic studies has the potential to promote inclusively it misuses by the certain activities group it is intended deepening the division so
027that's my comments thank you next will be ornette Rose you can come to the podium I had you on Zoom well she yeah it looks like she probably next can you hear me hello hello can you hear me yes yes what's your name my name is r Rose go close but not cigar there you go camera okay almost okay good evening uh good evening members of the school board in community I'm here because my camera needs to be on okay I'm turning it on just a moment thank you there you go okay okay okay okay good evening members of the school board in community I'm here because I'm deeply concerned learned about how Jewish and Israeli history will be presented in the proposed ethnic studies curriculum education should be based on facts not political agendas
028yet we have seen ethic studies programs across the country become platforms for bias rather than balanced learning who is writing this curriculum and what is their agenda if the materials are influenced by activists with history of anti-israel or anti-semitic bias it could misinform students and Foster div Vision rather than understanding we have already seen how Mis misinformation about Israel has contributed to a riseing anti-Semitism including in schools if this curriculum portrays Jewish history unfairly it could make Jewish students feel unsafe or targeted Jewish and Israeli history are complex and if they are to be taught they must be presented by credible Scholars not activists pushing on ideology G sense parents and the community deserve transparency about what will be taught and whether it promotes academic inquiry rather than one-sided narrative until we can be assured
029that the Jewish and Israeli topics will be taught fairly and factually I urge the school board to reject their inclusion on ethic studies we must protect our students from bias and ensure that education serves to inform not mislead lead thank you very much thank you president Griffin we are at the 20 minute mark thank you board comments uh trusty land do you think they anything is this governing board comments Gover board comments Gover board sorry I'm I'm gonna pass for now thank you Rusty andr ziga um can I can you come back to me please I need to collect my thoughts okay trusty Jacobson thank you so much um I appreciate all of the people who have come to speak tonight and we welcome all public comments thank you so much um I first wanted
030to congratulate the Hillsdale High School mock trial team for making the state competition and uh overcoming the Menlo school that has reigned the champion so congratulations I also participated in the Hillsdale High School Mock interviews for for the junior class last Thursday um and it was a wonderful opportunity to speak one-on-one it was really a privilege to speak one-on-one with 11th graders about their plans for the future their goals um hear about their skills and assets that they have developed um it was a mock job interview and it was just a really great um experience um as many of the commenters tonight have referenced I recently participated in the California Forum on ethnic studies hosted by the Israeli American Civic Action Network I accepted the invitation to speak at The Forum with the intent to
031share my experiences within this District as a parent and as a trustee The Forum had a variety of speakers including students parents and nonprofit Advocates and I invite everyone to view it for themselves and consider the perspectives that were shared the recording is available on YouTube I welcome this opportunity to further uh explain my actions and reaffirm my commitment to our students and defend my right to engage in open discourse as both a pro private citizen and an elected official first let me say that I deeply respect the work and expertise of our Educators and staff I have spoken many sincere words of praise and admiration for our staff and our programs I have strived to develop respectful relationships with everyone in the district community and my daughters have had many positive experiences with their
032teachers and administrators I ran for this board because I sincerely care about the education we provide to every student in this District my speech at the Forum was not an attack on our teachers or our community but a reflection of my experiences as a parent and a trustee experiences that led me to question certain aspects of our ethnic study's implementation and its broader impact I spoke as an individual exercising My First Amendment right to free speech and as a trustee elected to represent the concerns of my constituents my participation was not un official Act of this board nor did I claim to speak for the district as a whole I identified myself as a trustee to provide context excuse me context for my perspective not to imply that My Views were the district's position some
033may criticize my remarks as divisive and harmful suggesting they undermine the district's Mission and invite adversarial actions I respectfully disagree my speech highlighted legitimate concerns shared by many parents and community members about the sequencing of ethnic studies in 9th grade the potential for ideological bias in its delivery and its influence on other subjects these are not personal attacks but substantive questions about pedagogy curriculum design and student outcomes for example I asked why complex Concepts like systemic oppression and colonization are introduced before students have foundational historical context from world and US history courses I raised the possibility that framing discussions around identity might pressure students to adopt or repeat specific viewpoints rather than encouraging independent thought and expression these are not calls to dismantle e ethnic studies but invitations to refine it to ensure it serves
034all students equitably and fosters true critical thinking anyone who has paid attention to my comments in public board meetings for the past two years would not find my remarks surprising some may take issue with my suggestion that families file formal complaints or pursue external avenues like the office of civil rights when they encounter problematic content or classroom interactions I stand by this guidance not as a threat but as an affirmation of existing processes our District's own board policy 6144 encourages unbiased engagement with controversial topics and our complaint procedures exist to address concerns when dialogue alone isn't enough my own family has used both dialogue with teachers and the formal complaint process successfully and I believe others deserve to know about these channels transparency and accountability strengthen us not weaken us um I also referenced uh
035I made reference to school choice initiatives and my point in doing so was to highlight a broader conversation about educational options a conversation happening across California not just here it's no secret that the teachers union opposes these initiatives or that it's outsized power um or that it has outsized power when it comes to educational discourse school choice is not a threat to public education it is a reflection of public dissatisfaction with the options they have if families are seeking Alternatives it is not because of my words it is because of their lived experiences in schools I also want to point out that my actions align with e efforts to defend public education or um hold on I want to um address any accusations that my actions align with efforts to defund public education or reflect
036an activist agenda against the district nothing could be further from the truth my critique of eth studies stems from a desire to see it succeed to ensure it meets goals of fostering empathy and understanding without sacrificing intellectual diversity historical breath or free inquiry I voted against the new US History course not out of disdain for our teachers but because I saw gaps in St State mandated content that I believe our students deserve to explore and I disagreed with the framing of the courses essential questions finally I reject any potential calls for censure Free Speech even when it's uncomfortable is a Cornerstone of democratic governance last year I attended Hillsdale High School's democracy day where students presented lessons on threats to our democratic system seniors taught underclassmen about the dangers of polarization and media censorship of
037ideas and yet on the panel of locally elected officials there was only one political party represented as a trustee I have a FID fiduciary duty to act in the district's best interest but that Duty does not silence my right or my responsibility to speak out when I see room for improvement the ethnic studies Forum was a public platform to discuss a state adopted curricular mandate and my participation was an exercise in Civic engagement not a betrayal of this board if anything stifling dissent whether in a classroom or a boardroom runs counter to the critical thinking we aim to instill in our students calls to censure or recall an elected official for expressing a widely held perspective set a dangerous precedent if disagreement is met with demands for punishment how can we expect our students to
038learn the value of civil discourse I remain committed to working collaboratively with this board our Educators and our community to ensure that ethnic studies and all of our programs reflect the highest standards of Education I invite dialogue here tonight or anytime because that's how we grow stronger let's move forward in the spirit of open debate mutual respect and a commitment to Excellence in education thank you thank you trusty Chavez I was gon to talk about the soccer team but they're gone um so congratulations to all of our athletes that already left um so and with that I'll just uh say one thing um I want to thank everyone uh that spoke um public comments are always heard and they're always important to me no matter what the topic uh it's important to have respectful dialogue
039and hear opinions from from all of our students staff parents and community members so I'm going to leave it at that but I want to thank everyone who who had the courage to come and speak whether in person um or virtually thank you well I thank you that is the first time you only had one thing to say I know I told you I wasn't feeling well too so he knows that as well anyway I'm going to uh make a comment and actually I'm going to start off with SEL High School still they're playing tonight in uh what was it division 2 playoffs and uh I'm a barcat I'm hopeful it'll continue on and uh too bad for you guys well Burling game's playing tonight too yeah so uh good luck to Burling game um
040the next thing is I am I want to congratulate Hillsdale high school walk trial team um my nephew who lived with me was on that team for years and it really made a difference in his life and now lo and behold he's a lawyer which is just what the world needs but uh anyway he really en he enjoyed law uh when he was in Hillsdale and now he practices law for the federal government and the office of personnel management and I'm sure he could have made a better career choice but that's an editorial comment finally I actually was watching the U California forum and ethnic studies on public schools and I did register um and I don't even know what party I necessarily follow but uh anyway I was looking for Divergent views and I
041I listened it was kind of kind of late for people that get up really early but anyway I appreciated the uh the production I think it uh brought together a lot of people there was stuff there that I hadn't really seen you know I saw it maybe in a different light but uh anyway I'm going to circle back to the trustees who thought they were worthy of passing on comments and getting another chance trusty Lan genuinely was passing for the day I've had a long day and I'm just gonna absorb everybody's knowledge today thank you sir trusty yes I've got my comments um first I want to stand start with the land acknowledgement um our community acknowledges that all of our campuses lie on the ancestral Homeland of the rsh alone the rsh are the
042original 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 alongside the rush remembering and honoring their ancestors and relatives we thank the first people the rush alonei for taking care of the land we use now for education and activities a responsibility of caring for the Earth Earth is unique and personal to each of us but should be rooted in allyship with a Romeo Shalon so we can work together to protect and preserve the land for future Generations that was written by some students from cappuccino a few years ago um I did also attend the mock interviews at Hillsdale um I was able to meet about five students I went on
043over a couple of days um it's always great to hear the aspirations of the students and give them some advice on how to just navigate the job market and navigate the job world that it it's not um always easy but their perspectives are really refreshing so it's always nice to see them um I also attended the equity advisory committee we had a discussion about hate speech in our um in our schools um we had three different groups and we each got a different topic and we just talked about um whether the students really understand what what they're saying and why they're saying it and who's being affected by it and so it was a really great conversation um about the type of language that we use on campus um I am also the secretary for
044the CIT County School Board Association and we are requesting nominations for officers for um trustees that are part of the association also um and also for area Representatives so if you are a member of the SEO County Schoolboard Association um please uh nominate if you have someone in mind or if you'd like to participate um we're looking to close that soon in the next couple of weeks so please um please get in touch with us um second L I'd like to or not secondly actually have lot of points um right now there are a a lot of folks being targeted um for their immigration status and um there are red cards that have your rights and steps you can take in the event that you get stopped by ice or by any any official that
045is asking for your for your credentials um they are they are um available um either online to the County website or um through different immigrant um Immigration Services throughout the the county so if you're if you're in need of some support it also has some phone numbers to call if you need that assistance I too was very pleased with the message that um that superintendent sent out about our LGBT Q Plus um Community um it's really important that we protect each other and support each other especially right now as there's a lot of language out there starting from the federal government on um who belongs in our communities and who doesn't it's very disturbing so thank you to the parents that always come and speak um to highly appreciated as well as educating yourselves I
046mentioned that the last meeting about the Department of Education and the dismantling of of all of that and the effect of people with disabilities in the community um today um there was word that the administration on community living is being um evaluated by the department of government efficiency Doge if that organization is scrutinized so bad that they lose their funding that organization serves or provides funding to different organizations within the the C the country really um providing services to folks with disabilities so we have to be really mindful about who we're supporting and why we're supporting them because of the of the ramifications that there are in different communities um I I too watch some of the of the Forum or of the uh webinar from the community yesterday um and I'm just really I'm
047I'm honestly disappointed um along with you know asking for dialogue um it it can be it should be a two we Street um what this does what regardless of what the intentions were the way that it sounds and comes across is very untrusting and it continues a a sentiment of division and of again mistrust for our educators I think we do have to stop and think about do we trust our Educators do we trust our district in what we are teaching our students my kids too went through this district and they did take ethnic studies and what was really refreshing about the curriculum was that there were points in the history of our own culture that had never been discussed and had never been acknowledged so for us it made us feel seen and that
048is what it does to a lot of students with some of the things that are being taught in ethnic studies maybe we need to also look at communities that are not our just our communities in our realities and begin to kind of understand what we all experience because it's not the same and I'm also speaking on this as a person of color with a disability as a woman in this community that has been born and raised here it hasn't always been easy having my parents being immigrants from Guatemala being called WebEx and being targeted that they were not they don't look like the people that belong here you don't belong here is always what I've been told that sucks and so ethnic studies is also to understand all of these things that have happened and
049why and how we don't repeat that we stop repeating the same thing and hurting our communities and hurting each other this can also create an exodus of Educators which is really sad because all of our Educators in this District work really hard for what they do and they're extremely educated they also go through lessons and learning new things every year um they also have to keep up with their credentialing so I guess I'll just stop with um no one is trying to silence anyone although voices have been silenced throughout history and throughout the history of this community there's been redlining there's been a lot of things a lot of decisions made that have hurt specific communities and so I think that for all of us I mean yeah you are correct uh trusty Jacobson that
050there has to be a dialogue um but in the way that that was held that's not the answer so thank you like to thank the trustees and now I'm going to call on the student board members and and welcome Athena thank you um my name's Athena Boston May and I'm a junior at Burling game and I'm an avid volunteer in my local community and just to reintroduce myself my name is Emily and I'm from eron currently at Berling game we have a new um assistant principal Barry Tyler and he's made great effort to get to know the entire student body and this week is our cultural celebration week we had a mariachi band at lunch today and yesterday we had a food night and our our model un held its first ever home conference on
051Saturday and the guest speaker was Eric Schultz who was the deputy press secretary to Barack Obama H and that Aragon we've been filming our lip dub which is a video that showcases our school spirit and all of the over 50 clubs on our campus we've also been working we as in students and also staffy have been working together to create cards that we're sending to victims of the LA fires um at our last student board meeting we focused on developing our leadership skills and we did this through leadership simulations in which a problem was presented to us and we discussed how best to overcome it as leaders and Mr huddleson also taught us about objective correlatives which are symbols that leaders can use to heighten the emotional weight of their present ations and their speeches
052and lastly we are both members of the new AI task force and we are both looking forward to the first meeting taking place on March 20th and we'd like to speak a little bit about our two proclamations that will be included in the consent agenda today the first of which is the proclamation for the national developmental disabilities Awareness Month um National developmental disabilities Awareness Month ddam observed throughout March is a nationwide event to raise acceptance for the inclusion of all people with developmental disabilities and to continue to address the barriers that exist recent estimates in the US indicate that 1 in six or about 177% of children aged 3 through 17 have one or more developmental disabilities or 1.3 billion people globally ddam is celebrated to accept the St strs of people with disabilities and
053their rights to full access and participation in environments that value and honor their talents and abilities the San Mato Union High School District acknowledges the intersectionality of disability with all other forms of discrimination and will strive to and to provide instruction in disability history and the disability rights movement to enhance the understanding of disability by incorporating social cultural historical and legal perspectives including the connections between disability and other identities disability is a fact of The Human Experience and not the exception the Sano Union High School District prioritizes the support and education of its 88 students served in the bay Academy at Burling game Hillsdale and Mills High Schools and 81 students served in the bay University programs at Burling game and C cappuccino high schools as well as the bay Quest program at the College
054of Sano to reach their full potential through the National Association of councils on developmental disabilities ND ddam 20125 seeks to highlight the challenges and achievements of people with developmental dis disabilities promoting inclusion and advocacy the nacd has adopted the color orange as the official color of ddam symbolizing energy and positivity the Sano Union High School District Schools will encourage the wearing of orange to spread a positive message of inclusion next is National Women's History Month women's History Month began as a local celebration in Santa Rosa C California for one week the education task force of the Sonoma County Commission on the status of women was first planned and E executed a women's history week celebration in 1978 the organizer selected the week of March 8th to correspond with International women's day American women of every
055race class and ethnic background throughout our history have despite hardship exclusion and discrimination strived and sacrificed for equity and equality in communities across the country and have served as leaders in the Forefront of every major Progressive social change movement suffragists including pivotal leaders like Carrie Chapman cat and Alice Strokes Paul helped pass the 19th Amendment assuring that no American could be denied a vote on the basis of sex nine years earlier in October of 1911 suffrages in California had successfully campaigned for the state to become the sixth in the nation to grant women full voting rights women have continued to advocate for Civil Rights passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and worked towards securing the Equal Rights Amendment originally approved by Congress in 1972 that same year Title Nine of the education amendments was
056enacted to prevent sex-based discrimination and education expanding opportunities for young women in academics and Athletics generations of women continue to lead the fight for social justice from societal Equity to climate Justice the Bay Area was one was the home to many women who have achieved significant first including KLA Harris the first woman elected as vice president Diane Feinstein the first woman elected as California's US senator and Dr Jennifer Duda a Nobel prize winning biochemist known for pioneering crisper Gene editing research to name a few the SMU hsd Workforce is made up of 61% women our student body is made up of 47% women smuhsd and our communities recognize the importance of understanding women's history and sharing it with our students particularly with regard to honoring the significant and long-standing contributions women have made in this
057nation in California and our local community thank you thank you um I always ask who wrote the two proclamations um I helped write some portions of the National Women's History Month one along with Libby who unfortunately couldn't be here today and joy um for the national developmental disabilities awareness month I'm not sure which board members I Believe Miss chuley can share who that was Elijah from cappuccino okay nice I think it's really important that we give them credit because these are really well written they show a lot of thought and uh I think we just you know the message is a good message and certainly there's a lot of effort put into that so thank you Griffin can I say something yes over time you've I I've seen the development of the verbiage in the
058procl and they just keep getting better and better so thank you you all are amazing and I want to thank you for reading reading what you read it's great the summ summarizing awesome thank you I do have a comment about one of the proclamations but I wonder if I should pull it from the consent agenda I think we made comments so I figured if you have a comment might as well do it now yeah well actually I wanted to make a motion to amend one of them so well then then then you pull it so which one is it you'd like to pull item seven okay is there a motion um to adopt it less item seven I move to approve okay can I also pull the the previous one then to the developmental disabilities
059one that's number please okay okay so we're going to need a proper motion now that we've got two of them being pulled I'll move to approve the all of the consent agenda minus uh item nine and 10 no s and Eight Second thank you second I heard it differently sorry no that's okay go ahead you know if we had a PO poar in here they would have to resend you have to resend trusty Jacobson's motion but anyway we we have we have the proper motion on the floor U we have a motion and a second on the consent agenda all in favor I I okay uh let's take up uh seven first I just wanted to mention no women's it's women's Oh I thought it was you're right go ahead s eight is just going
060to take them a numeric sequence it's okay just talk numeric order point of information point of order goe go um I first want to thank those who crafted this thoughtful Proclamation honoring National Women's History Month I am proud to support it as it beautifully captures the remarkable contributions of women across history I'd like to offer one small suggestion as we finalize this and I did make this comment last year and hoped it would be included this year but it was not while the proclamation highlights women's public achievements I think it could be even stronger by explicitly recognizing their foundational role as mothers and primary caregivers a role that's been a treasured part of my own life and I know for many others the miraculous capacity to give life and nurture children is to me the
061Bedrock of so many contributions we celebrate it's not separate from the fight for justice or the advancements in every field it's often what fuels them a simple line acknowledging this could honor that Universal experience and unite Us in celebrating the full scope of women's impact I'd be happy to work with sta on wording I also have a suggestion prepared tonight if you would like to consider it there any discussion I I think one of the only things that is hard about that that not all women can have children and it's pretty sometimes pretty devastating to hear that and so I don't know I don't I don't I don't know my only comment is um this is students putting this together and I don't think they've thought about this quite yet now I'm not saying we
062shouldn't put it in I'm just saying it's coming from students who are coming from P their perspective and I think that's what it kind of I don't think students have been um Engineers or um elected officials yet either and they've thought about that I guess they're looking outwards and you know I think it was an oversight more than anything else that's all what I was saying and that's fine that's why I'm offering it as an amendment at this time but you know the next time I call I wish they'd wait for for for me before we get this conversation going um you know we we've got a a good discussion here and I do remember you brought this up uh at the LA you know last year when it came up um and regardless of
063if women can have children every every single one of us has been born from a woman and we can honor that okay well do you want to mention trusty through the chair is it okay yes please we'll get back to our parliamentarian asked to speak um trust Jacobson what did you have in mind was there a couple of sentences that you wanted to add or yes it's as follows where as women's historic and ongoing role as mothers and primary caregivers has nurtured Generations providing the foundation for countless advancements in Justice culture and Society any any further discussion I'm looking to the student board members um I think it's really well worded um I appreciate all the facets to the discussion that we've been hearing um I think perhaps in a way to honor the role
064that um women have in raising children without trying to exclude people who can't give birth we can find a way to highlight more of the caregiving role as everyone is able to do that and we can recognize that aspect Emily you know you I was going to comment on the fact that you know what I what I we went through the introduction she kind of went like you know oh I'm back again but you know that was really well spoken and uh I'll I'll agree with that if we can get the board to to agree to no keep going you want to step in this too oh he used to read the the so I mean I think we can live with that Amendment if somebody can capture it and the only thing I would
065say in the future because we had I think this was part of the package if we can get these comments we can save some I don't you know it's not the process it's the time at this point yeah the only suggestion that I would oh did I cut you off trusty Jacobson sorry no go ahead the only suggestion I would make is um miss aino when is the next student board rep meeting um mid-march March the 20th it's too late um I would say let's see maybe if we can grab the comments from tonight we'll have the video from tonight have the student board uh Council watch the video listen to the dialogue back and forth uh this would be a great exercise for them a teaching moment for them to I like that uh
066review it discuss it and then bring back to us what's the second board meeting in March what's the date March 27th bring it back on March 27th for revision and review by the board and I think in that way it honors the um Suggestions by trusty Jacobson as well as uh the efforts and work by our student board Representatives exactly that would be my suggestion I agree I think that's a great idea that's a great idea okay every every suggestion gets better than the last so that's why you go last we're tabling item seven to come back so thank you item item eight eight National development disabilities Awareness Month Proclamation yeah I just wanted to uh say thank you for including bayquest and including the programs that we have here in the district um they're
067really important um however I wanted to see if maybe we could I guess provide the in reading the proclamation like we did last year um some students from uh the from the bay Academy or from um the different places that or the different schools that have um students that are willing to to read it I think that's a great idea we did that last year I believe we did that last year but I think we did it through a video if I'm remembering so let me let me work with Dr Hooks and see if I mean I would suggest you pass it tonight but that doesn't preclude us from working with our special education department to see if they can put either a similar video together or in in person I don't want to put
068that on the spot on them but see because that can sometimes take a tremendous amount of effort um and comfortableness if that's a word but let let me see what I can do I think it's a good suggestion okay so is there a motion I motion to approve the proclamation of dis National developmental disabilities awareness mon second okay we have a motion in a second all in favor I I board I mean this student board I thank you well you know I forgive me I'm exhausted this is just like we haven't started the meeting yet so welcome uh regular reports report of the superintendent I'll be quick uh thank you very much Bor um so this evening uh I want to discuss uh supporting Muslim staff and students during Ramadan Ramadan is anticipated to begin
069the evening of Friday February 28th Muslim staff and students in our class rooms will be fasting uh from dawn to Sunset starting the evening of f Friday February 28th through Friday March 28th with the celebr celebratory days of Eid alider anticipated to be observed at sunset on March 29th or March 30th uh depending on the phase of the moon um we encourage our Educators to talk to our students about Ramadan to help them understand and appreciate the diversity that exists in our world and at our schools understanding groups of people who've been historically uh who've been othered is the first step to humanizing each other and building appreciation through knowledge and as I've been doing lately I want to acknowledge and uh congratulate our February Golden Apple award winner this month we awarded one Golden
070Apple to a deserving employe employee who goes above and beyond to show exemplary service dedication and resourcefulness among so many other amazing qualities our golden apple recipient in February was Armondo guilo student data analysis uh analist at Burlingame High School Armando has been with the district for 11 years and he was nominated by several of his colleagues uh just a couple I just pulled out uh to to acknowledge assistant principal Amy Malcolm wrote Armondo is BR brilliant and helpful and insightful and goes above and beyond to support students and staff uh his support and expertise is invaluable big exclamation point he's also very collaborative and willing to support others in their professional learning so congratulations to Armando on being our February Golden Apple recipient and I'll come back in March toward the end of March
071with our our March winners so thank you very much your microphone sorry uh report of the district Teachers Association representative Mr tias good evening uh president Griffin members of the board and District cabinet um first of all I'll just piggyback on some of the recognitions um if you haven't been out to see an ml soccer game um I would just strongly encourage it I'm a huge soccer fan and um the the kids and the students involved and even the adults involved are it's it's a it's a great time and I really want to congratulate the the Champions this year um but overall the program is is a a huge asset that we should be proud of in our district um also want to recognize as trusty Jacobson and others have uh mentioned the Hillsdale mock
072trial team I've been going to the mock trial competitions for over 30 years and um Hillsdale has always been a a a stronghold uh um for the peninsula um they've done well in the past and uh this year is no exception uh it's it's it's exciting it's fun if you again if you've never been to a mock trial match uh you should definitely um try to see one obviously you know the ones available are going to be next year now but um you should really do it um and then uh trusty Griffin Bob uh Antonio that kid um and uh office of uh OPM sorry hopefully hopefully he's okay um uh I I I I remember seeing him in the courthouse uh acting as an attorney uh I think I think he was a witness
073early on in his career as mock trial but um a great kid and a testament to uh you know your guidance and and uh support of him as a student um I'll take a point of personal privilege um to I I I recognize the retirees occasionally um and I just want to uh say a few words about uh one of my best friends Charlie Bissell he's his his retirement is announced in the board board minutes tonight uh I've worked uh I've known Charlie since uh the early 80s uh we went to high school together um we uh we both uh were inspired ired by the same physics teacher at Aragon I'll drop a name but nobody's probably knows him Jordan ner um to uh get into Science Education uh we both taught Charlie and I
074both taught uh in other districts uh prior to coming um coming home so to speak to the San High School District um and for the last 31 years uh we've been uh teaching Partners uh partners in crime so to speak um teaching Partners uh shepherding kids through physics uh at Hillsdale High School um but more than that um objectively I just want to say that that uh Charlie's contribution to both Hillsdale and the district um really can't be overstated uh he's been an asset um as a as an educator um as someone who is uh passionate about science he served as the science curricul ulum coordinator uh for the district um and served on so many committees he's been a part of the the Teachers Association and uh I'm not sure uh how my life
075is going to be different after he leaves for the next few years that I'm that I have left uh so I just want to congratulate him and hope hopefully recognize him as a uh instrumental member of the district um in response to I I really want to also respect the speakers tonight and I think it's really important to uh recognize the importance of civil discourse and appreciate the uh I think Miss Wright mentioned uh thoughtful criticism um and I think it's really important to hear all voices uh I think there's some confusion over and I'm sorry I apologize Andrew I didn't catch your last name um about the the letter that I wrote to the board uh I'll read that later in a few moments and I want to read it into the record um
076but uh you know the the letter and the concern over uh trusty Jacobson's uh presence and presentation at the uh Forum uh had little to do with um ethnic studies um or her opinions U personal opinions in fact as I as I read the letter you'll you will see that protected speech is is something that I'm very passionate about um that said I also think that there may be uh a a a need to trust but verify um you know when people talk about censoring silencing um you know uh disparaging remarks about uh silencing someone you know find the facts first um there's a difference between the word censor and censure and if you need to look it up you can but censure specifically means to make a statement that is condemning something that has
077occurred that is contrary to the mission of an organization or an entity or an agent that um is all agreed upon the word censure is different from censor so with that I'll go ahead and read the letter into the record because I think it's important for everyone to understand what the concerns uh are and the primary focus of of the concern um so earlier today I I sent a letter to the the board uh I shared uh the 10-minute segment of the Forum in which trustee Jacobson spoke um this is not a personal attack this is this is a a comment and concern over trusty Jacobson's role as a trustee for the District of the S Union High School District and the community that she represents I'm truly disgusted in 32 years of service I
078have never observed a more overtly subversive and destructive act by any s Union High School District official than what was presented during that that time I'm sure some of you have seen the presentation by trusty Jacobson at the California Forum on ethnic studies by the anti- by the Israeli American Civic Action Network streamed live earlier this week is very telling that the moderators of the Forum invited all California legislators and none chose to participate trusty Jacobson chose to participate as a representative of the Sano unit High School District board while the purported focus of the Forum was a concern over the California adopted curriculum for ethnic studies the focus of trustee Jacobson's message was one of divisiveness distrust disdain and blame trusty Jacobson did nothing to support the district Mission nothing to support the District
079staff did nothing to support the district teachers and did nothing to support the S un High School District community at large instead dead trusty Jacobson's message seemingly was essentially a call for action against the S un High School District Community we as an association support all of our teachers we of course support our ethnic studies teachers we support the process of curriculum development and we support the board's Fair process and actions to implement the ethnic studies in our district just as we do any program it is clear that one of our elected trustees does not share the same supportive position of the district process truste Jacobson stated unequivocally that her sole reason for her run for the position of trustee was to quote push back on the trend to incorporate a particular state adopted curriculum
080trusty Jacobson listed exactly one data point to support her ini initiative she claimed that she was concerned about her child's description of various class discussions within District classrooms arguably something that every parent has a right to be concerned about however this time it was ethnic studies and there was seems to be a focus on ethnic studies what class is going to be next while as a parent and certainly as a trustee in both contexts Jacobson has every right to question Andor critique any curriculum administered in the S Union High School District truste Jacobson has no logical basis to conflate one teenagers feelings with the Sano Union High School District's Mission adoption or acceptance of a particular curriculum in fact it is the trustees duty to act in good faith to ensure that the schools follow
081the law regulations and the missions and policies of the school board in Sano Union High School District again the the curriculum in question is board approved and state adopted truste Jacobson went on to disparage both teachers and staff suggesting that some activist teachers are responsible for the nature of the state adopted curriculum she went on to suggest that these activist teachers are also somehow in control of the schools and are developing gender questioning intellectually deficient activists graduates rather than critical thinkers the nature of her remarks seem to indicate that she has become the activist in an effort to harm our district in one particularly aggressive rant trusty Jacobson also suggested support for a bogus school choice know also known as a voucher initiative that would put the teachers union on notice I truly have no
082idea what this means or where she could have learned this phrase it belies ignorance on the issue school choice is a simple-minded Trope it's a straw man the choice in the school Choice Movement belongs to the private schools which can refuse anyone it does not to wish wish to educate no one is guaranteed admission to any choice quote Choice School even if every non-public school was willing to accept every voucher student in the state of California it still does doesn't add up where are the schools no truly where are the schools they're certainly not on the overcrowded Peninsula or in the rural communities in Central Valley or any other area in the in the state of California to to Shepherd and support this the students of this state the only families who are truly guaranteed
083to benefit from the so-called Voucher Program are those who have already abandoned the public education community and are already paying for a cloistered private education any Voucher Program would simply reward with a government subsidy and I know how some people don't like that that the the abandonment of public education and truly steal from the students of our community everything I've shared thus far pales in comparison to my major concern over the trustees presentation truste Jacobson summed up her comments at The Forum with suggested actions or guidance for students families community members Etc with so called concerns about District Operations rather than provide productive guidance on District policies and protocols which are available for all for constructive and collaborated inquiry and criticism trusty Jacobson suggested that filing formal complaints lawsuits office of Civil Right complaints um
084Etc to compel the district to respond she did not suggest productive path forward trusty Jacobson did not establish protocols in process for the district change instead instead trusty Jacobson championed and advocated for derogatory actions that would undoubtedly harm the district actions that would unnecessarily divert resources both personnel and funding away from the classroom what happened to her duty to support the defend and defend the students and families of this District what happened to her fiduciary responsibility to put the district's interests before her own to ensure that the district follows its policies protocols and to handle District affairs with the same level of care as she would her own to act in good faith in the best interest of the district and its Community all of Trustees Jacobson suggested actions are adversarial and will necessarily result
085in an encroachment on the district's general fund but it's not just about money trans uh trusty Jacobson specifically championed the OCR process office of civil rights in addition to being an impediment to The District Operations it includes a potential for withdrawal of federal funding it is as if the trustee is advocating for Extreme Measures and actions to further a personal agenda agenda rather than a attack that aligns with District board and board policies and serves and protects all students as I watched trusty Jacobson's presentation her statements and calls for Action reminded me of one of the recent executive orders signed by the US president that particular order condemned American public Ed education as quote indoctrination and seeks to defund all but patrio curricula indeed the moderator of the for also stated that despite the refusal
086by all California legislators to participate in the said Forum um quote our friends at the federal level in both the legislative and executive branches have taken a keen interest in this issue truste Jacobson was introduced as an elected member of the SEL Union High School District board she acknowledged her title and role as a trustee and spoke contextually as a trustee while all trustees are entitled to their own opinion and speech as an individual is protected it is almost unbelievable that a sitting trustee would act in such a way to invite harm on the district and community that she represents it is unconscionable it is a dereliction of Duty it is a failure to represent the true wishes of her area constituents I strongly urge the board to take decisive action to address trustee Jacobson's
087harmful acts against the Sano Union High School District a formal recall effort would take some time in the interim the board should feel obligated to formally censure trusty Jacobson as a demonstration of solidarity and support for the families and Educators and students of the selia Union High School District Community thank you thank you for your report and you know Antonio has two children of his own now so he's got responsibilities Greg that's remarkable time flies yeah there you go P3 report of CSEA Chapter 59 apparently there's no report tonight correct okay report of the samil adult school Teachers Association good evening one moment please everybody um good evening um thank you board president Griffin vice president uh Terry Chavez board members and superintendent Booker for the opportunity to speak this evening my name is Kelly
088Underwood rosmus and I am an ESL teacher and the secretary of the Sano Adult School Federation of teachers um we the AF CFT Union and staff of the Sano adult and Career Education campus are here to share some updates from our school first we are thrilled to share the remarkable achievements of our student leaders our first schoolwide student council meeting was a res resounding success with impressive attendance and enthusiastic student leadership participation demonstrating a strong commitment to student voice and Leadership within our adult education Community um our student council had been excuse me everybody for uh the lighting situation in my home one moment I see that okay thank you um our student council had been um temporarily um inactive during um the pandemic and it has taken us a few years to get it
089going again um but with the addition of um a staff member we were able to get our student council going again and um as I said it was a resounding success uh with very impressive attendance and enthusiasm um and recently um at a California Council for adult education Bay section conference this past Saturday February 22nd 12 of our outstanding student leaders um from student council and our student ambassadors program represented our school um at the the uh conference and seven of these students participated in a powerful panel discussion sharing their personal stories and emphasizing The crucial role of school provided volunteering opportunities um in fostering Community integration Workforce Readiness and overall well-being for immigrant students their contributions to this important dialogue were truly impactful and you may have heard um in previous um reports that
090our student leaders are really known throughout the state they've been highlighted in state conferences as well as national conferences our school is known Nationwide for our student leadership programs um I would also like to take this opportunity to recognize one of our outstanding um alumni um we are incredibly proud to announce that Alexander Clemente a dedic a dedicated former student and current volunteer was in was awarded um the California California Council for adult education Bas section scholarship this well-deserved recogn recognition will support Alexander in achieving his educational goals at the University of California Santa Cruz and I have to give a special shout out to Alexander because he was one of my students and what we call our literacy level class when Alexander came to my class he did not know uh the alphabet in
091English and he is current and that was in 2019 so six years ago he is now in his second or third year at the at UC Santa Cruz so we're incredibly proud of um his achievements and um and he's an excellent example of um what our uh adult student Adult School students can go on to do um next we would like to recognize um excellence in our adult and career education faculty and staff um Miss Mary Wang one of our um ESL and um active adult program instructors she currently teaches Spanish in that program um she was um recognized for her excellence in instruction and Cheryl Torres Stubblefield was recognized for her outstanding performance and support as our instructional assistant um we'd also like to extend our gratitude to Marina kova Elena babit and Kathy
092Gardia who were our student leader support team and to our um Adult School team Stephanie Wright carlat Zuniga Monica Suarez Anthony Torres and and Anthony Torres um for organizing the California Council of adult education Bas SEC Bas section conference event so it was our school um who who organized this event for the Bay Area area um another item our Union would like to address um at this uh meeting is the plan to install two portable classrooms for the Bridge Academy on the adult and Career educa Education campus um this coming May currently the adult campus is housing The Bridge Academy in six of our classrooms and now two more portable classrooms will be placed in our Courtyard for a total of eight classrooms um on our small campus we have a total of 18 classrooms
093and the Bridge Academy is now using six of those leaving us with 12 classrooms in the morning our morning program has about 350 to 400 students who attend every school day we house those 350 to 400 students in 12 classrooms The Bridge Academy currently has six classrooms for 60 for a 60 student population and is adding two more portable classrooms our union doesn't understand why the Bridge Academy has been given permission to add two more classrooms with this addition bridge will have eight classrooms to house from around 60 to 80 students while our school will have 12 classrooms to house 350 to 400 students in our morning program we are concerned about this plan since our adult ESL program is currently Turning Away students because we don't have enough classrooms to house them in the
094morning we are also concerned about the installation of these Portables during our instruction time and the distraction that this will cause as the plan is to place them near our current classrooms secondly our Union is concerned about parking availability for our students with the placement of two portable units in our Courtyard with the upcoming construction of the New Bridge Academy in the current part parking lot in our adult school current parking lot on popler Avenue we were told by the superintendent and Mr Hawkins that our parking lot would be transferred to our Courtyard area if the two portables are placed in this area we wonder where our students will park especially since our current parking lot is not big enough to accommodate our needs as we share our parking lots with the transportation department and
095Sano High School teachers we look forward to hearing from Mr Hawkins when he visits our campus next week to speak about this issue with our faculty and staff our final thoughts this evening are about immigration policy in our country with the current Administration there have been changes in Immigration policy that have far-reaching consequences that extend beyond undocumented individuals while those without legal documentation face the highest risk of deportation under revised Federal directives individuals with um limited immigration statuses such as the temporary protected status are also experiencing heightened anxiety the revocation of the temporary protected status for Haitian Nationals exemplifies the precarious nature of these protections which despite offering temporary relief from deportation and work authorization do not provide a path to citizenship this climate of uncertainty generates widespread fear within affected communities impacting even us-born
096students who witness the absence of their peers and experience a diminished sense of security the removal of community members through immigration enforcement disrupts the social fabric of both educational and broader Civic environments underscoring the systemic effects of immigration policies recognizing the profound impact these policies have on our communities and especially our adult school Community we here at Sano adult and Career Education are committed to providing a safe haven in which our students can learn grow and Thrive we understand the importance of fostering an inclusive and supportive environment particularly for those facing uncertainty due to shifting immigration Landscapes with solidarity and Grace we thank you thank you for your report okay we're going to move on to q1 Spotlight on learning good evening um we're excited to provide details about the professional learning programs for our
097certificated teachers and staff uh this is our annual presentation about professional learning that is going to provide an overview of the different programs and their impact on certificated staff um this presentation will not dive into specifics on topics covered during our PD sessions or how those topics are determined or reviewed um with that I'm very happy to introduce doc Dr savy Hopkins and Mr Marlo Bon turn on that red lights on good evening members of the board and cabinet Marlo and I are really excited to present to you tonight um an overview of our professional learning programs and normally at this time of year we do kind of highlights of our one District professional development day um and we're really proud to share with you what we do throughout the year to support the teachers
098in Sano Union High School District I want to start out by saying teaching is an incredibly complex profession and teachers need to be Adept at a wide variety of skills in the profession to do their job well in addition to that as true with any organization we have to think about what the needs are of employees at every stage of their we call it cycle in the profession whether they're new to the profession or they've been an experienced teacher they require different forms of professional learning support additionally we need to ensure teachers engage with ongoing professional learning in order to stay current with education research and you know to stay sharp in the classroom and meeting students needs I think the clicker died was that me or was that tech support okay thank you so
099um we'll just say next next one we're ready so the way this presentation is organized is we're going to be talking about the professional learning we provide in terms of the stage of an employees career uh but also with the context of their teaching assignment next slide did it was that me okay I'm GNA go with that was me so the Journey of being a teacher actually begins um with teacher induction teach teacher induction is part of the California two-tiered credentialing system when a teacher finishes their preparation program they have a preliminary teaching credential and they're required to enroll an induction program in order to clear that credential we're proud to offer our own in-house teacher induction program where we've been supporting on average 27 teachers a year for over the past three years where
100they receive 2 years of job embedded support and mentorship in order to grow their practice in alignment with the California standards for the teaching profession we measure program impact for Teacher induction on a wide variety of measure measures and I just want to highlight these two as being particularly impactful so the top graph shows how mentees or or teacher candidates experience their coaches ability to facilitate what we call the plan teach reflect cycle of learning over the past 3 years you can see that our induction candidates rate their mentors as highly effective in this practice underneath that another important measure of induction program efficacy has to do with how mentors are able to support new teachers in what we call Just in Time support what are the Urgent upcoming almost emergency issues that every new
101teacher faces and how Adept and flexible is the mentor at doing that and again you can see that our mentors are perceived as incredibly highly effective in the program I'm going to pass this over to Marlo who's going to talk about the newly hired teacher program greetings everyone W the cabinet superintendent and board uh student board reps in the community at large um I'm here to talk about the new hired teacher program which I help coordinate for the past three years so who does this impact impacts um anybody new to the district but anybody also new to teaching and so what this program entails is an orientation at the beginning of the year with an average of 47 participants um or new hires and four new teacher program workshops aligned to the principles of the
102instructional framework some uh some of the titles of these workshops are like the Universal Design for Learning um supported AC supported literacy in the academic content area humanizing pedagogy and creating safe or student- centered communities and classrooms and so all of these sessions are designed so that any discipline or any content area teacher can basically enhance their their teaching practices and so why this is important well it started back in 2015 and I actually um joined the district in 2016 so the second year of the new teacher program and we know that it actually lends itself to retention rates I'm here and I'm actually leading the program and I'm actually very happy and proud to do that because this group of this program really Fosters a community of like-minded individuals especially new to the district
103that could be scary to start a new district and not know anybody so this program really builds that capacity um and that Community almost like a mini PLC but just if you're new to the district and I still actually remember who I was sitting with in that program and I never Tau with them at the same site so it's a good opportunity to meet and develop relationships um across the district um when we look at the program impact um this is the three-year data that we have and as you could see the graph we consistently have high ratings of relevance and helpfulness to teacher practice um above 80% with ratings of four5 um but more recently we're tring at the 89% which is something to largely celebrate because it's just showing the growth and advancement
104of the program itself based on the regular feedback that we collect from participants and always trying to think with a growth mindset to enhance even though we've been doing well how do we do better right and so um based on one of our participant our participants comments this really summarizes the program really well there were so many successful pieces to this it's hard to single out any I really appreciate the over structure of each day and the mixx of community thinking dis discussion and action the focus on applying everything to our own practice often with help helpful prompts towards specificity made it even uh made it so that even content I've seen before felt useful and with that I will pass it on to Samy so we have a really great problem and that is
105that we do such a good job at retaining teachers that we have a really big group of very experienced teachers working in Sano Union High School District which means that we need to have a way of meeting their professional learning needs and several years ago uh we piloted and we finally adopted the instructional coaching program in which we have trained instructional coaches work with teachers who are on full evaluation once every four years where they specifically engage in uh cycles of inquiry focused on professional smart goals that are anchored in the California standards for the teaching profession and this program has it's important because the most effective form of professional learning that you can provide an experienced teacher is a knowledgeable peer to help prompt and guide reflection on practice and to find entry points
106into thinking what is it about my instruction that I could be doing even better which students can I continue to meet to need meet their needs I picked two different indicators and again we evaluate the program on a bunch of measures and these are just two highlights the top right these this represents three years of actually certificated evaluation system data and what I want to point out here is if you look in the 23 24 school year um we see an increase in the number of our teachers who are achieving accomplished or exceeds on their evaluation ratings and that's has something that has been steadily increasing over those three program years the other indicator that I think is really valuable to share is this comes from a this is a a feedback survey where we
107ask them to tell us you know how well was your instructional coach able to facilitate learning focused discussions and 88% of the respondents gave their instructional coaches of five on that which means they really value having this peer one-on-one form of professional learning uh to help them dive into practice on the right hand side that pgp stands for proessional growth plan and I want to be really specific that we do have teachers who do uh not work with an instructional coach they might be pursuing some other form of professional learning or certification at that time um and this is feedback on their administrators that is really high rating as well our administrators are also providing uh learning focused conversations with teachers reason why I want to point out these two particular bars is there is
108a value ad when a teacher is working with a knowledgeable peer on improving their instructional practice and I think that this quote really sums up just about everything an instructional coach can do my coach helped gather really meaningful student data about specific student parti participation while she observed my teaching she had good ideas for how to adapt my rubric after I ran into some problems with it she helped me identify that I was most interested in promoting and measuring Equitable whole class discussions is my main focus and she provided excellent questions and Reflections during our coaching cycles that helped me to grow as an educator she was an awesome thought partner and Coach during my evaluation cycle this year I am now going to pass it over to Marlo so professional learning is a huge
109umbrella and so when we think about um professional learning by context we have to Define that based and situated based on the relevance to the context of our Educators so that could be like your site that could be your content your role and even the changing context overall so we're going to start with site professional learning and a lot of site professional Learning Happens within the context of a PLC collaboration for example or embedded professional afternoons or learning learning in the afternoons at least once um a month on a Wednesday but some some of our sites actually engage with it more regularly even bi-weekly um but for the purposes of this particular presentation we're going to focus on the site professional development dat days which happened in August October and just recently January after our
110large event so who is in charge of this and who is developing the professional learning input and relevance uh meaningful content for our Educators well I want to uplift our wonderful and phenomenal tosas that look that is our mtss coordinators our PD coordinators and their respective teams because a lot of them work with their team uh administrative teams to develop these professional learning moments at sites and so what do they do well they have to identify their key areas aligned with their Cycles often times this is aligned to the W goals and so it's data driven um also using student academic data social emotional data and behavioral data so I could look like a variety of different professional learning all across the district because we all have unique sites and demographics that live um at
111our respective sites um but why is this important it's we have to be willing to be adaptable and support the education of all of our students and the learner reality situated which we have very different communities um in all the the 10 or the 10 schools that we represent um when we look at my next slide um this is the program impact so this is a celebratory slide and while we look at the graph on the left and we could see very consistently high ratings of our Educators um saying that there's relevance and effectiveness at their site professional development days I do think it's actually minimizing the amount of emotional creative labor that it takes to develop these very meaningful um professional learning days to fill the buckets of all of our Educators and all
112the contents that they represent um so over the past three years um they've been really courageous and intentional on inviting the their Learners reality um and really trying to augment and offset that predictable outcomes that we all that we see over and over but the past three years what's been very very specific and intentional is how do we invite student voices and their Humanity to help Drive these professional learning days so that looks like student panels student narratives student feedback and artifacts all different ways it's wonderful to witness and if you've ever been to a site PD day it's just like you can't now look at um a demographic of students a number you see them in their full humanity and we see the courage and the expertise that's it's taking to do that and
113to create meaningful um U meaningful experiences at site and so I'll just read the top comment um to as a participant at sites they would say it was really good to review the learner's reality and the instructional framework especially within the context of our neurodiverse students and the experience of our children of staff that is really remarkable to be that specific they can understand site data and then pair it with actual learning that could impact directly the students in classrooms so lots to celebrate there and with that pass it back to savy so we also offer uh professional learning within context uh from the district office across the district and these kind of broadly fall into we have the Thematic cross content District PD days um that many of you are able to attend in
114January we also are able to offer content area or role specific P throughout the year and and also what I like to call responsive professional learning or professional learning that is in response to an emerging or urgent need of our Educators so I'm going to start with our January 27th PD Day this year our theme was humanizing pedagogy the framework for our path forward and humanizing pedagogy is an approach that centers the whole child in the education experience this approach values the learner's identity their lived experience their cultures and it sees those things as assets to the learning process additionally it anchors the learning experience in the dignity and authentic experience of each individual and really works to make sure students are seen valued and heard as part of the education process so we start
115our January 27th PD day um with a wonderful uh for those of you were there uh a wonderful opening event hosted by our instructional lead team members and really wanted to uplift the dreams of our students and Educators uh that we all share and have in common around our work with the frame work when we put the professional development day together we want to provide it's conference Styles kind of like what you experienced at csba we want to provide our Educators and administrators with options around the types of workshops they would like to attend and sometimes an educator or administrator will pick a workshop on a topic that is brand new to them they like I this is an area where I need to learn and other times they're going to pick topic they're like
116you know what this is something I haven't had a chance to dive into or it's been a while and I need to refresh and sometimes they pick a workshop because they want to reinforce an important practice on the left hand side we have a graph that shows the proportion of external and internally LED Workshop sessions over the past three years and in response to uh the board request during our last two PD presentations we have worked really hard to find a balance of our internal and external presenters the advantage of an internal presenter is that these are teachers and administrators who are close to the problem of practice they know the students they often know the School site context and they can help build collaborative conversations and discourse and structures with other teachers who have
117shared or similar problems so they offer insight into the context that you can't get within an external presenter however external presenters are able to provide us with fresh ideas new ideas emerging academic research and they're important to include as part of the process because they help us they help to prevent this kind of myopic lens around what we think good instruction should be on the right hand ins side you can see that all of our sessions were well-rated whether they were internally LED or externally LED participants um 90% gave them a four or five out of five additionally our participants they appreciated the variety that was available to them they also appreciated having what I would call supported collaboration time in the afternoon to meet with colleagues and and PLC members to talk about what
118they had learned during the day and how they can apply it we also have responsive professional learning and I think probably the example that you are most familiar with was during covid-19 when we had to figure out how to get all of our teachers ready to address distance learning in a very short period of time that is what responsive professional learning is it needs to Pivot it needs to be flexible and I think our current example of that is our multilingual learner support support cohorts where we have offered four different cohorts of Universal Design for Learning and secondary constructing meaning in order to help our teachers better meet the needs of multilingual Learners in their classroom and as you can see our program we've have 75 teachers who have now gone through these cohorts and
11992% of them are providing these work shops four or five out of five in terms of effect Effectiveness and I think the top quote summarize is their experience well I appreciated the humanizing approach it helped frame language as a bridge rather than a barrier special shout out to our facilitators modeling how to engage in a non-limiting way to this framework we do also provide content area specific professional learning but this varies greatly year by year uh and it can look like a whole bunch of different things everything from textbook selection and adoption to um the workshop sessions that we do offer during our district PD days the line to different content areas I'm going to pass it over to Marlo to share celebrations so there is lots to celebrate I when we look at professional
120learning across the entire District um we do want to think about whether you're a new teacher you're an experienced teacher with a coach you just got here to the district you're going to a district event or you're going to a site event the impact data across all the board is is really just affirming the structures that we put in place to continue to be flexible to continue to um produce uh relevant and meaningful learning for our Educators so that's something to be really celebratory about and just wow I love it because it's actually like uplifting our toas our leaders just really being intentional on how we're pouring in and investing our teacher leadership and our teachers in general um the second bullet is just also highlighting just the the growth and investment in our internal
121capacity to offer more internal expertise and and actually Foster collaboration and trusting and meaningful relationships among each other collegial relationships um and then the final one is really seeing how the instructional framework is taking shape at our sites by our toses and by their planning teams that's a real Testament to student voice and that intentionality point that I was saying like when you invite students to the table it really changes everything and it really helps us reenter our focus and what they want and what they need in classrooms and I love I love being able to say that so those are some celebrations and surprises as always take feedback and growth and opportunities for reflection and improving our program very very seriously one of the areas we know that we need to continue to support
122with is school sites implementation of the instructional framework Sano Union High School District like many districts across the state the United States continues to look for ways to close the opportunity gaps for historically and currently underserved student groups and we are trying to do this through tier one instructional practices the instruction the principles of the instructional framework provide research based guidance and specific examples of what it looks like to help close that Gap the most Salient example I can think of or most specific would be we often see in student Panorama data that students sense of belonging and connectedness to school is not where we want it to be we also know that that is one of the biggest indicators for a student's academic behavioral and social emotional success the principle of trusting and caring
123relationships is a way in for teachers to see what specific strategies or practices could I use as an educator to help build relationships with my students to help build a classroom community so that they feel like they belong at school and in doing so we can improve their academic social emotional and behavioral outcomes and we know that we need to continue to support our School site professional learning teams in realizing what that looks like at their School site based on their student and Community context the second area that we know we continue to grow need to grow is to we have to continue to build teacher leader capacity we want our PD tosas our mtss tosas our and coordinators to have improved self-confidence and Effectiveness around their instructional leadership because we know this will lead
124to Stronger professional learning outcomes higher rate rates of retention of teachers leadership positions and really big impacts on school climate and culture this means we need to make sure that they have a whole another set of skills in addition to being amazing classroom teachers what does it look like to be able to lead large and small group facilitation how do I design learning for adults it's distinctly different than designing learning for for adolesence and what kind of instructional leadership development do they need so that they understand how to navigate spaces and change at their school sites and finally we also need to explore structures that are going to best support our content and role alike teachers in implementing the instructional framework we see frequently in the feedback and more increasingly requests for more specific examples
125that are rooted in content the most practical example I can give you right now is that Math teachers are frequently asking what does relevant and meaningful content look like in my algebra 1 class what does it look like in my precalculus class the instructional framework provides guidance on how to build relevant and meaningful learning experiences for students in the classroom we need to both look at what does it mean to develop the capacity and EXP expertise of Math teachers and math teacher leaders to do that and in other content areas but we also need to take a hard look at our organization and identify gaps where we might need to fill with some external expertise that are those are our areas for growth and celebrations and we really appreciate you taking the time we are
126happy to answer any questions where to have any comments any questions trusty Lan so first of all thank you for the presentation um I just want to compliment this your division your group for the vision and investment that you have I mean this has been ongoing and I've really been like a fan of what you do and the investment that we've done and as a district I want to support it because I really feel like we're putting money into things that I think are very worthwhile and when we talk about budget cuts I hate when we even think about this area because it's what I really loved about the presentation is you talked about the life of a educator you know the different forms because we're not all alike we're you're either one stage or
127another of of PD and it very looks very different and so you know talking about the peer coaching and the coaching methods that we've been using over the years with the evaluation process is to me such forward thinking that now I think it's becoming the norm for people to really look at but years ago we were The Visionaries to say let's do this and you have really developed it deeply over years um now getting into student panels and getting the students at the center of the PD is just amazing I think the more we do that I think discussions about curriculum and should we teach X versus Y and listening to the the the comments earlier what it really is is the kids are the center the students are the center and how do we
128make that relevant to them and and part of their experience to really enrich their learning you know I I really commend what what you guys are doing with the PD um I also want to take a little nod to the udl I think you know I think this is the way to go Universal Design for Learning has to be the way to really think of lesson planning from now on you know we're really looking at things in a very different way and this is the way to capture it and I I can see that you're really trying to get that either not just at the site level but across the district um I like your ideas of growth because that my my one question before we got to the end was what's next what's our
129Evolution because nothing should be static it's like what's the next big thing and you know I like how you touched on you know the capacity of leaders um but I really want to focus on number three for a second because I really think and and this is a hard question that I have you know in my own school you know for Middle School we want to we want some sort of collaboration and connectedness in our school so that all the humity teachers are all the math teachers are kind of on the same page you know they don't have to be exactly on line in in ver chapter and verse but in the same context what's going on and what's the expectation because I hate the difference of you know I want teacher X because teacher
130y doesn't do dot do dot do Dot and and it's a hard it's a hard thing to deal with because you want to have Independence and you want to have you know creativity but by the same token you want to have similarity and connectedness and collaboration so how I I see number three is that struggle in some ways so can you talk a little bit about that what are your thoughts I think that would be number four okay and maybe that's the the longer term work um I I think that you have a partner and many maybe many partners in this room and trying to understand what is the best approach um to supporting that uh community of practice collaboration and work and I 100% agree with you there is this tension between how do
131we honor and respect the individual teachers and autonomy and yet at the same time how do we create a structure that can allow teams of teachers to engage in discourse and learn from one another so that ultimately they're all leveraging each other's best practices like that's gold standard yeah for sure um but it is a work in progress for us and I think if we were to take an honest assessment we also have those collaborative communities at very different points in the in the Spectrum um and sometimes you know you can have a PLC that has Decades of experience in it and sometimes it's very new so when we figure it out we will let you know well thank you very much really any other comments questions student board members um I just wanted to
132share a quick comment to again like trusty land thank you because at my experience I go to Aragon and I've personally loved every single teacher I have and I think at some level that's a reflection of the work that you're doing and also I want to Echo trusty land's comment about sort of standardized curriculum between teachers um from a student perspective it can be a little bit weird or even sometimes frustrating for students if they're the same class as someone else but for example one teacher gives a lot more coursework or one teacher's curriculum focuses more heavily on one subject than the other and we also recognize that's how teachers are able to express themselves that's their creativity but again moving forward if there's a way that we can sort of balance out the two
133I think students would really appreciate that thank you yeah trusty Jacobson hi yeah I I also wanted to thank you for the presentation and I think you guys saw me there at the PD day so um I wanted to share my positive comments that um I also really appreciate the conference style format I think the teachers really appreciate having that variety and choice and um agency and there was a variety I think there was something for everyone and I know that in the past I think teachers have hesitated to come to PD day maybe if it was kind of a one-size fits-all type program and and I think everyone was able to find something that was relevant to their needs so good job um I also really appreciated the opportunity myself to interface directly with
134teachers and hear about the struggles that they're having in the classroom um and I was really moved to hear how personally they talk about and think about each student and how they care about the success of their students um and this was especially true in the workshop that I attended about supporting ml Learners in the standard classrooms um this I want to compliment Adam Faber for his thoughtful presentation and his ongoing support for teachers in this regard he included a recorded interview like you were saying about the the students being at the center it was a recorded interview with a student who was new to the standard program um and it was really eye openening to see his learner reality so thank you for that um I also attended a session on critical Consciousness since
135this is the segment of the instructional framework that I have the most questions and maybe concerns about which probably doesn't surprise you but um the workshop I attended confirmed my concerns which mirror the concerns that I have about ethnic studies in the way that it's rooted in the ideological framework of Paulo fer and I think I've kind of expressed these concerns before when the instructional framework was initially presented but I don't really feel that the board has had an opportunity to engage in those disc questions um I know it never came we we approved the instructional leadership team to create this framework and I don't know that it's standard practice for the board to approve something like that but it it never did come to our approval and we've gone forward with it but I'm
136it might be just speaking alone I don't know how my other board members feel about it but I have some still have some questions and concerns and discomfort with um certain aspects of the instructional framework I'm not sure the best way to move forward with those if I could just jump in on future board agenda items we're bringing instructional framework back for discussion with the board on May 8th uh so that's that's been in future agenda items for for uh further discussion okay thank you I have some comments um I really like over the years how PD days have evolved um I did like the centering it more around humanizing the lesson plans and humanizing what the students are teaching excuse me learning and things like that um I did uh I think I was
137in the same class with Randall the also the umal Consciousness one and I actually really enjoyed it because in talking about historical context it was really interesting to see how each of us have a different experience yet you know we can agree that there are certain things that we have to pay more attention to um I also really liked um that we did we did connect the lessons to um specific like a specific uh literature from um Pablo FY um it in it's important because even some of the that literature um we've read before and in um just in school and it just like seeing it modeled in that form is really interesting to me but I don't know um I guess my question is in terms of approving certain uh lessons like how how
138do we do that without being in operations like do are we able to approve certain curriculum or certain types of um uh PD I guess lessons and things like that I don't know I we haven't explored that yet so it's it's absolutely within the board's purview to approve curriculum yes yes yes just and textbook adoptions and things like that when it when it comes to lesson planning and instructional practices not typically uh especially because there is no one siiz fits-all when it comes instructional practices as discussed described commented on commented on um and and in some respects we're trying to bring to the table or bring to uh teachers best practices researched best practices uh what we're seeing from our colleagues not just here in s Mato Union but also uh in neighboring districts and
139or Andor districts where they're seeing a lot of success uh that's important too um so it's not typical uh that boards or or trustees would approve instructional practices we I think part of the point of of this and bringing instructional frame to the board for discussion is to have more eyes and ears and feedback and to help the board have a better understanding uh of those instructional practices that are happening across the district and what we as a leadership team are trying to do or proceed with uh in order to move the needle uh of better academic success for our students and I think one of the things that sabii brought up was um this I idea of students feeling connected and included um it's so important uh yeah because it then connects to attendance
140it then connects to uh connection with teachers and paying attention and engagement and you know it just flows on and on uh and um you know I think we can all probably as adults speak to times when we didn't feel connected to our schools or our teachers and how challenging that was for our own learning and that's one of the things we're trying to combat so yeah no thank you and I and with that said about the students connecting I wrote down a quote that they had said in the in the um in the workshop we went to it's anything uh it says we read the word to read the world and so that definitely makes me understand how to better connect with each other and then with the students because if we understand some
141of the things that they're experiencing then we'll be able to teach them a little bit better right and so yeah that's what I did enjoy about that um there was another um another class with someone that's sitting back there but um um that was really great we talked about um like sometimes we don't know what we don't know um there was a um there was a I'm sorry today I'm really tired it's been a long long day um we there was a a a picture of like a fishbowl and the fish doesn't always know they're throw a fish right that they're living in water and so it's like things the way that things were explained was really um it was really easy to explain if you had thought about things like that before and so
142I did like the um almost like the patience there was around helping people understand um but yeah no this is it I enjoyed it I thought it was great so thank you trusty Chavez trusty Griffin I want to thank both of you for your presentation um I think it's great and I wanted to apologize that I I couldn't attend the one on January 27th but um in a funny way I absolutely knew that was PD day because a couple of parents texted me because they wanted to check in they thought their kids were just joking that there was no school so I said yes uh the website on all of our school sites tells you about PD day but you know so I thought that was that was funny when that happened but I did
143attend the one in the fall and I absolutely love the fact that our staff has a multitude of topics to go to here like like you said it's like a conference sort of like our csba a we have various uh topics we can go uh depending upon what we're interested in um so I think that's that's I think that's great and I'm I'm really happy to see that and we've talked about this before we have internal and external presenters so I don't forget we talked about this is it about 5050 would you say it's about 50% internal or in external or more so on the internal because I think that's awesome more so on the internal yes as you could see from three years ago it was 100% external external right and then it like
144slly by intention yes on ramped and we invested in our internal capacity and right now it's more like 50/50 that's great that's awesome yeah thank you and I look forward to uh what trusty Lyn uh was leading to about the about the item number four so we'll see how that goes I'm excited it's excited this is exciting sorry more work also more than just PD day like you said all year long there's professional development so thank thank you for that slide 18 I was going to ask about it the mix okay you know the the thing and I think the board had a concern years ago about the uh the amount of external Consultants we hired in the budget and it's good to see that we've kind of gone away from 100% um you know
145I'm wondering have we maxed out or do do we see a point where we max out in terms of uh staff you know where we can rely on staff to to support professional development and elimination of you are continuing to reduce the use of outside Consultants I really think that depends on that's sort of the responsive professional learning piece when you see the 100% external presenters that was the first PD day we had had since the pandemic and so if we were to go back into a time machine we have done a lot of different things with combinations of external and internal presenters in the past but the pandemic kind of put us in this place where we needed to to reset um and a lot of Educators were kind of I'm they're and maybe
146even still like coming back to what is the reality of teaching and learning and for a couple of years you know they were trying to figure out how do we support kids who have not been socialized for over a year in classrooms and so it wasn't even building the while flying it was building the plane while flying and realizing what you needed was a helicopter um and so like I just want to point that out like it hasn't we haven't always been there and I don't think that there is a A Perfect Blend I think it depends on what it is that we are trying like what our objectives and goals are if it's really very new and we don't have a lot of internal expertise we do need to bring in external experts but
147as we increase our internal expertise we rely on the external experts less and less over time can I just I just want to say something as an educator I find our board how we do things like you talk then you talk then you talk very difficult I know it's supposed to be formal and parliamentarian but what Randall said earlier about connectedness and about how it's so important to know after the covid experience how things have changed not only for students but for teachers and if you connect the two conversations we are really different than what we were before I've been in education many years and it turned us over and under and all over the place and it questions who we are as as as a an entity and as a system and I think
148that's good and bad in some ways but I think you're really both bringing up some very important points which I think is strong in our district is we have to work on student connection we have to think about the teachers and how it's going to impact their future and what they believe in and where we need to go so I just want to compliment both both groups and try to retie it together a little bit thank you any more comments no thank you for your presentation thank you thank you he construction not this evening okay of Human Resources consent agenda uh we have the consent agenda of personal actions and anou for a internship program in our Nutrition department this summer I make a motion to accept the uh consent agenda for HR I second
149that okay we have a motion and a second uh all in favor I I okay then we'll move on to Personnel actions uh we have the personel actions addendum and one recognition mentioned earlier Charles Bell our teacher at hillo high school submitted the his retirement after 30 years exactly in the district effective at the end of the school year recommend approval of the actions any questions or comments I make a motion to approve the addendum I'll second okay we a motion and second it's public comment my apologies president Griffin we do have have two hands up I'm not sure if it was a comment to the presentation or not they they were up and I'm just not clear if that's what they're for so if you want to finish this item and then I can
150bring them in and see finish it we can finish with the motion and the vote then I can bring them in okay um all in favor I I uh bringing in rabid is the name okay uh rabbit if you can please turn on your camera and unmute and my apologies if you can let me know what your comment was in regards to hello um my comment was in regards to um trusty Jacobson but I didn't get a chance to speak before oh I'm sorry that we had I'm so sorry we had finished that comment and we had already finished our 20 minutes I thought you were for the presentation I see I'm so sorry okay thank you so much thank you okay stepen Ma even M you accept the invitation we can go on President
151they not accepting the invitation okay we're the we did the consent agenda we actually we did the addendum run T2 okay uh okay the second item yeah it's the recommend two recommendations for revision to the 2425 administrator manager salary schedule uh I'll uh summarize the recommendations the first uh revision would be to the individual salary level of the director of budget and fiscal services on August 11th 2022 the board approved a temporary individual salary level for this position because the incumbent was earning a higher salary than the maximum on the salary level at that time this higher salary was based on the district's prior superintendent recommen recommendation of a salary in excess of the maximum salary level this disparity has continued simply because the position has received the same annual raise percentage as all other
152District positions however this school year 2425 should be the last year for this Arrangement due to the upcoming retirement of our current director of budget and fiscal Services the district recommends that this maximum salary uh the maximum salary change to salary schedule level 10 in order to comply with the Cowper's salary schedule requirements of publicly osted salary schedules that's the first revision the second revision is based on the work date of our combined position the bridge principal and the manager for academic support programs this is our only combined management position and each of those positions has different work days 1 214 and 1 221 so her combin the combined position equates to 28 workday calendar and we have to have for calers we need to have the exact work dayss on the salary schedule so
153to in order to avoid a potential calers issue for this person the district recommend the addition of a new salary level level eight for the combined position of bridge principal and academic support programs manager of 218 work days okay I'll make a motion we got a motion we have a second I'll second that we have a motion and a second all in favor I I approval of the revised 2425 classified salary schedule yes so the last board meeting the board approved the annual classified reclassification committee's recommendations and this salary schedule just um incorporates those approved changes any discussion by the board any questions is there a motion Ive to approve second okay we have a motion and a second all in favor I I thank you the the last issue is the um uh non-
154Reemployment resolution each year the district thoroughly reviews the performance and conduct of all probationary teachers and makes a determination as to whether or not the employment relationship will continue into the following school year the the decision not to continue an employment relationship is called a non- reelect and after a multifaceted in-depth examination this year the district has one non- reelect probationary teacher so the officials step in this process is a non- Reemployment resolution uh so the dist District recommends the approval of this resolution of non- Reemployment for one probationary teacher any discussion if not is there a motion in a second I'll move to approve second okay we have a motion in a second all in favor I I thank you uh division U no we'll move on to board operations thank you division V
155going to x no thank you no not tonight thank you okay well I'm just good keep going going the alphabet pretty quickly yeah board operations board operations so these are the legislative updates that are uh recommended by the csba they would be um for your consideration and move to consent next meeting anybody have any comments at this point questions I I have a question Jacobs um in the guide sheet under board bylaw 9240 on board training it says that governing board members have to complete ethics training is that something that we would do together as a board or individually or is that is there a specific course we'd take I I uh I suppose there's a variety of ways you can do that but we'll have a course this summer through our usual training modules
156for the board to take the ethics training um so we contract out with Target Solutions and they're a Statewide um company that has all the trainings and they'll have this with this new law okay so I let me just make an additional comment to that because I think it's a really good question we you as a board have choices on how you want to engage in that training the training is required now you can do it through what Dr Black just described which is which is individual online training or the board could direct District staff to develop to bring a trainer in in person as a group it just has to be done and there's certain modules that have to be covered as part of the law so right now the way we're operating is
157almost like the simplest which is working through our consult to develop the online modules but if the board wants to think about that or discuss it and come back to District staff uh in a different way or want the training done differently just let us know okay thank you um with that I will move to approve the we just move it to it just moveed to consent right oh that's right thank you you know I just finished renewing my CPA license and I had to take ethic and every time you review your license you take ethics and it's an online course I have to take eight courses every year for all the M mandated reporting don't even get me started no I didn't you know HR department knows I course every quarter I take with
158my employer ethics and compliance is one of them as well I got 110 hours of professional development over the last two years right so anyway does anybody will go on to why future items we've got one more we uh admin regulation 33 111.1 sorry it's okay uniform public construction cost accounting I found that fascinating I'm sure you did cons for next time right yeah the same thing yes so for approval it looks like this is the every fiveyear update to the amounts under the uniform cost accounting which the district has uh approved uh many years ago uh but every five years we come to update the amounts that are allowable under the uniform cost accounting act this is admin regs these are correct admins so does this similarly go to consent or do we vote
159on it separately that's what I was wondering yeah it says review and discuss consent it consent okay because admin regs and board policy do the same yeah I'm sorry sorry maybe the language should have been a little different on the agenda okay yeah I I would suggest we move this to consent okay um so in case the board because it's late and if the board wants to have any additional questions we could always talk about it at our next meeting before approval yeah thanks so what were those thresholds increased by Cola or something because they just moved everything on the bidding and the uh yeah every five every five years uh similarly to devel developer fees every two years every five years the cupka thresholds um were included they actually were uh um uh we
160approved in 2019 was that were 20120 was the last time we did it of the 2019 amounts thank you okay now why any future board items hurry I I do so considering what most of our meeting went started at the beginning and I until today I wasn't aware of it I think um the words of our PE our Union president were very damning um I Heard lots of comments from the from from constituents and people who participated in the um conference on ethnic studies so keeping an open mind and look into um a interesting dialogue I would like to pursue um an investigation of what was accused and I'd like us to talk to our attorneys um regarding this issue and if there should be censure or um there should not or is it relevant
161or is it not so I want to open this dialogue as a conversation I'd like that on on one of our agenda items either in Clos session or an open session depending on what the attorney say it probably cannot be in closed session okay then an open session whatever yep I'm not you know I'm just thinking of it's not a speciic I didn't know again I'm keeping it open and again I want a dialogue that's open and then we can and look into this because yeah any other items I just want to remind the board that we have a board study session on April 17th on our deac presentation it's just a reminder is that a Thursday um I don't know yes yes yes thank you that's just a reminder that's all okay thanks appreciate
162it and the other thing um I think we were uh fine-tuning uh the vice president and I were on the phone with our our consultant to do our 360 and our board self- evaluation and we figured out that we really should look at the self- evalu ation of the board governance after the end of the school year uh just because the stuff we need to do before the end of the school year up to an including goals you know we need to work on that and then we will Circle back sometime probably after school starts to actually work on our self- evaluation yep so you can change that okay we will