Santa Barbara County Board of Education Meeting December 12, 2025

001I think we'll go ahead and get started. I want to welcome everyone to the regular meeting of the Santa Barbara County Board of Education on this December 12th, 2025. This marks our final meeting of the calendar year and my final >> use of the gavvel. wanted to remind everyone that live simultaneous Spanish interpretation of meeting is available for anyone viewing online. And now I'd like everyone to rise and join me in the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Thank you. We're ready for roll call. Anna Okay. Mrs. Alvarez Flores >> here. >> Dr. Armistad >> here. >> Mrs. Cardi >> here. Ms. Man >> here. >> Mrs. Frost >>

002here. >> U Mrs. Reed >> here. Mr. Walker >> here. >> Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Anna. Um, I see no changes to the agenda, so we'll start with some comments from the board. Does anyone want to start? there. Uh we had a lovely presentation by the LM Poke uh kids Christmas parade on December 5th. They closed down the streets in Lomboke. Lots of uh all the schools, different organizations marched through town. It was a wonderful experience as it is every year um to everyone who participates in the freight. So it's really great. >> Wonderful. >> Uh several things. Um there's a magic tree elusa um fundraiser for literacy in our in our town of Santa Maria. And one of the main things is that 10 of the elementary schools put up a tree in

003support of it. And you put up the tree and the gifts and everything and then there's a raffle and through the ticket sales they raise thousands of dollars for litter seats and give that to the districts. Um, another thing is I did attend uh our area board meeting and saw the web um organization in action at the junior high level and it's an organization that helps run the school. Their theme is belonging. So, seventh and eighth graders are empowered to get in there and help support the site and its activities. And they were presenting to the board all of the cans that they raised and donating. I think it was to Salvation Army. It was exciting to see that our young ones up there doing a lot. Thank you. >> Well, I had the uh

004honor and of participating in the S the CSVA conference, the annual conference. Both myself and Guy were able to be there and I didn't know until we got there that Ellen was there as well. And that was a nice surprise to see her. But um it was it was really inspiring and uh um just the ability to see all the different um uh board members from the there's different states and districts, the county um all of the department work that they're doing. There were over a hundred sessions um uh and I got to attend um some sessions um uh about AI, about uh federal policy and how that um affects um uh LEAs on the local level. Um also attended a workforce housing um session where I um saw uh Clara Finnen, the superintendent from

005Lampook and got to learn about all the wonderful things that they're doing. So, it was a amazing experience and um yeah, I really enjoyed it and um yeah, happy to report back any other information that anyone's interested in. >> So, so to do uh with Naj's comment that, you know, I've gone to CSBA lots over the years and I really think that it's something that every trustee should go to at least once and probably more than once. Uh, and uh, you know, now you talked about 100 sessions. I think she went to 87 of them. Um, I managed to make it to a couple. And, uh, the benefit to me at this point really is just the whole networking opportunity. you do get a chance to meet a lot of your colleagues across the state,

006get to see the the avenue organization that works on our behalf. It's where policy very often is developed. Uh you know, we we get N and I got a chance to take a tour of the capital and happen to run into Jack Ocon and I know he's coming here soon, right? And so, you know, again, it's those networking opportunities that I think are important. I I did the only thing I sent a little report to Anna that uh could be filed. Uh but observation uh as noted at the outset, the CSBA conference stands as a leading continuing education program for governance teams and school districts and county offices of education. In practice, while some districts recognize and take advantage of the benefits of attending as a team, many do not participate at all. many districts

007don't participate at all. This is especially true for districts operating under the LCFF model uh where budget limitations frequently hinder attendance. Additionally, some districts may not fully understand or appreciate the value of conference. I see this as an opportunity for us to at least think about how we can help be better advocates for local districts. Uh and my recommendation is in alignment with our advocacy efforts for local school district. Uh I propose that we consider offerings funding support uh such as grants to encourage greater district participation in this annual conference. These grants could help offset the cost associated with attendance. Um and you know I think sometimes certainly I don't know how much in California although I know there is some governance is not great in a lot of districts and so it's interesting when

008you go to these things very often one of the central workshops that they have is you know the theme is like so are you struggling with your colleagues on the you know on the on the team or whatever we're blessed that we have we don't have those issues But it is interesting that that is a focus and part of my thought is well people don't know how to govern and they don't take advantage of learning the best practices. So again, something that maybe at some point in the future zoo that we could look at um uh thinking about how can we help encourage those districts to >> I would like to I'm way over here. >> I know when I came in I wasn't sure I was supposed to be here today. Um I just

009wanted to follow up on an event that was a week ago. Is that right? uh the community leaders lunch um that's by the scholarship foundation of Santa Barbara and our own Susan Salceto was the speaker for that day and it's it's just a really wonderful gathering of people from all of Santa Barbara County who support um the scholarship foundation which of course supports kids in education which is clearly something that's very close to my heart. Um, and it's also a great place to meet people that you only see once a year at that event. When you live in North County, that tends to be what happen. So, I did get to see Joe Howell again and and that was wonderful be able to see Joe. He hasn't changed at all. It was great. So, that's

010my report. Thanks for mentioning that, Judy. I I was in attendance there too and it's not only a great way to support the scholarship foundation of Santa Barbara but this particular event was a great reminder of how lucky we are to have the leadership of Dr. Susan Salceto who is a keynote speaker um just makes you proud and the way she represents the entire county um inclusive it's it's just a nod to her expertise and the fact that um I can't imagine anyone else in that seat getting this job. >> Uh it was also a wonderful week for me because I got to do two site visits this week. Um the first at Adilante Charter School, which is a model blue immersion school. We just recognized 25 years of existence, a real benchmark. Yeah. And

011um they're also a California distinguished school. And they can boast some really uh impressive scores. They raised the bar and 52% of their student population either met or exceeded in English language arts. This is a dual immersion school. and 58% of their students uh met or exceeded math standards. So that was fantastic. Um and then I went to Cold Springs for a completely different experience, but it was the winter scene and the Santa Barbara County Performing Arts Teacher of the Year, Sarah Dalvo, led in this particular session. It was TK kindergarten and first grade in a lot of singing movement and I mean just cuteness overload. It was it was just definitely a heart levitator. It was really fun. And um so thank you Susan and I got to do that together. That was wonderful.

012Uh okay. So, seeing no public comments, we'll go to item eight on the agenda, which is a review of the board committee. So, turn to that page and you'll see you'll see what your new charges are. Um, we have the budget committee and Guy Walker is going to chair it. Nadra and Judy will join him. The organization and governance committee, Vita will chair it and Nadra and Judy are on that committee. policy. We have Sarah chairing that and Katcha and I will be with you on that one. Sarah Salary Katcha will be chairing Vita Marie and myself will join you. And then Nadra's chairing community relations with myself and Sarah. And legal, we've got Judy chairing that with Vita and Guy. So that's just an information item. Next item is a reminder of the role

013of the superintendent for the county board of education. In this case, uh Dr. Salceto serves as the excoio secretary and executive officer of board. She doesn't get to vote and she doesn't have to be on committee, but she's just everywhere. Anyway, item 10, look at the schedule of meetings. We do need a vote on this. These are the proposed meetings for 2026, second Thursday of the month, unless otherwise noted, which is um that December Friday meeting, the one we're doing now once a year. Will you need it or not? We meet on a Friday. So, I need a motion to approve this schedule. >> We'll move. >> Thank you, Guy. A second. >> Thank you, Katcha. All in favor? I >> and post passes unanimously. And now we have the election of officers. Um so

014the board organization and governance committee. You want to take this one? I guess I will. I think you should. First of all, thank you to Mary Beninandra for serving as very loyal, very dedicated and very heartfelt leaders. Learned a lot. Being new on the board, you look for leadership right away to guide you. And so, thank you. As we move forward, um the committee recommended the full board consider appointing Miss Nod Nadra, you gentlemen and for president and Miss Petris Flores for vice president. >> Will we accept it or how do we say no thank you even though I read it? >> Okay. is since it's a recommendation from a committee, isn't it just >> it does require a vote? >> Yeah. That's the motion. >> Okay. >> And all in favor? >> I I

015that's a unanimous yes. >> So I get to >> I can't think of so much. >> All righty. spaces. >> Power is all yours. Amen. >> There we go. >> All righty, guys. Well, thank you. I just want to thank all of you for your vote of confidence. said, um, this is my third year on the board. And in many ways, I'm still learning and just, um, soaking everything in, but I couldn't have a better board to work with and um, support and Dr. Sino, our fearless leader and staff um, just to, you know, move us forward in 2026. So, >> um, with that, I'll go right back into the engine unless there's anything else and I may be it's new. So, be looking to >> to my colleagues for um support of this. >>

016I'd just like to offer congratulations to you both. Looking forward to your leadership though, too. >> How we doing? >> I get it now. Child by fire. It'll be fun. It'll be fun and looking forward to >> Righty. So, um yeah. So, we'll move forward with uh with the agenda. So, um the November 12th is the review of board representation. Sure. Uh so, that is for the um Santa Barbara County School Board Association Executive Committee. So this is a committee that meets um about once a month uh that involves all of the school boards um and the county. Uh generally that is uh attended by uh the president of the board. I'm happy to um assist in that role. And in case there's anyone else that would like to uh step forward and be on

017the executive committee. >> Oh yours there. >> All right. Well, then I will go ahead and uh be the board representative for that. Um and in any case that I'm not able to attend the meeting, I will make arrangements. Okay. >> Um >> I'll I'll call you and then we'll work it out. >> Okay. Perfect. >> Uh and okay, so moving on to uh item 13, board organization and governance committee meeting report. I'll hand this over to our chair to >> Okay, here we go. We did a lot of talking. I have Judy and Nadra um with me. We met in November on November 20th. Um the board officers has already been taken care of so I can move on to the actual board meeting dates, times, and locations. The committee recommended um uh proposed

0182026 board meeting dates, times, and locations for the full board to consider for approval. The list I believe we all have the list. >> Yeah. Can I get there? Everybody see the list? Any questions about it or just making sure that >> I believe we already voted on that, didn't we? >> Okay. We've already approved them. >> Oh, we did, didn't we? That's why done. >> Thank you. >> 2026 board committee assignments. Thank you for reviewing those. Those have all been put into place. Only changes that you and I had traded. >> Yes. >> Okay. >> The next one, the board uh retreat working session idea. The committee discussed the planning idea of having a retreat or a working session focusing on different topics especially um becoming more familiar with many of the possibilities in

019our role and what we do as responsible um county board members onboarding processes usually Susan does it maybe there's something that we want to add to it look at and u maybe adjust in our orientation binder because we did develop an orient orient orientation binder slash handbook so that we had knowledge something interesting to look at as we bring new people aboard. um unpacking sessions because there is a new updated governance handbook also put out um that really has a lot of information and just reviewing it there's lots of vital information that is use very um >> we get top of that >> yes in fact we brought and that's what I was going to say next we brought our binder so that we could update and have that put into our binders so we'll

020all have a copy of that. >> Yes. >> And then um the other part to that was um networking in terms of do we really decide on having some kind of uh sessions? Do we want retreats? Do we want like I paid you to start with what you said so that we could kind of think about it a little more and look at feedback um so that we might want to decide what time frame we might might want to look at uh if we decide to go along with that what days Monday Thursday all day half a day just food for thought in terms of feedback any ideas besides what you mentioned very concrete. I really want to vote on that now. But yes, that's very true. I agree with you. >> Feedback since um

021I was also in the meeting with you and we were discussing this and just to give um a little bit more context, this idea of having some retreat or working work our workshop uh originally started with our last board. Um, and part of that was uh brought up by um board member at the time, Michelle Deard, because she was on the CSVA um uh uh board and she had talked about a mission and vision for the board and having some cohesive um v mission or vision for us to discuss to go through. Um, also as you eloquently stated, Guy, some of your priorities um for lending support for other districts, we may all have our priorities, things that we ran on um in terms of being here in this office. So, how can we share

022that with each other and support each other as board members? So, thinking about all of these things um as we come together and seeing, you know, what does that look like? Is that a two-hour session, three hour? Do we want to take a weekend? Do we want to make it more retreat style? Do in terms of like going to a location or having it here where we usually have our board meetings. So, just wanted to give a little bit more um fill in the the space around that. >> Does it look like it's going to be something we might want to agenda agenda again and >> further? I think that um it's really important when we have that kind of session that there is an outside facilitator so that all of us then so that

023Susan can participate on the same level but we need someone who is not going to come in and start with okay what's your vision okay what's your mission okay what's your strategic plan we need to to look at it a little bit differently um a little bit more actual. I I don't want to create something that goes on a binder and sits on your shelf, you know? I I want us to do something together that when we leave, we've got something we're going to use as a tool >> um for working together and for planning our priorities in the future. >> Sure. Sarah, >> uh sorry, >> that's okay. I had participated in something very similar to this on the district level and it was very helpful with the buyin idea that I think um

024Judy is discussing here. It really helps you take ownership of it so that it's not something that just gets tucked away. Um and we did have an outside um person come in that our superintendent was very close with um and I felt like it really made things a lot clearer kind of brought that that purpose more to life. So I I really appreciate that. I mean, I would just but think what everybody else saying. I think it's a great idea. >> Yeah, I would advocate for not here. Uh, and you know, we certainly should still have a Brown Act. So, obviously public invited, but my experience is I don't know, you know, you get a lot of public wanting to come but hang out for however much time. Um and while I think we get

025a lot of information here, it this format is not great for free flowing ideals and so that would accomplish that. >> I have a question on that. Mhm. >> Since with the Brown Act and since we do live I know transmissions of our board meetings, would we do a live video of a retreat or would it just be archive or any the public? What's the rules on that question? >> Well, I'll give you the typical lawyer answer and that's like I'd need to first it depends and I need to look into it. Um, you're not you're not required to do a live broadcast at any board meeting you decided to do that. So, if you were to do a retreat or something like that, we could agendaize it as a regular board meeting. And as

026you can see, you guys don't get a ton of public participation always. So, uh, that might be one way to do it. Um, I can look into other way. I know a lots of boards do retreats or workshops pretty regularly. Um, and I don't think they're normally attended by the public. So we can we can figure out a way to do that. >> My preference would that be that there would not be a live recording of it. If if we need to for any purposes archive it that fine but I'd rather it >> I'm not sure it needs to be live. >> Good feedback. Thank you. Yeah. Um so um would the board um support us having another meeting um as the committee to work out some of these details in terms of facilitator options,

027locations, times and then bring that back at a later date. >> Suggestion mid county. >> Okay. All right. Oh, >> winery >> for after. Okay, >> the last thing is uh Alex looking at the calendar um external trainings for county school boards and possibly uh coming up with a tentative list of what might be available when dates do come out because I know there's the one you went to >> in Monterey is really interesting to some of us and I thought gee if we had those dates ahead of time >> then we can network carpool and attend a view of them. We think that would be important. So that would be part of the report out and what we discussed and hopefully we'll just continue to network that when we meet >> for a meeting

028to plan out some of these other things. Did I forget anything Judy Madra? >> That was perfect. >> I think it pretty much covered everything then. >> Any other comments or recommendations and questions? We'll look into >> So we'll we'll come back. We'll meet and then come back with some ideas for um the workshop retreat. >> Thank you. Okay. So, moving on to um agenda item 14, the Association of California County Boards of Education membership. So, and um please we have Dr. Yvon chairman will come and speak to um this organization. >> Welcome and thank you. Well, good afternoon, President Erdman Orman >> and past president Carti. See, you just threw me off on my typing right here. Okay, but honorable Santa Barbara County Board and Superintendent Do, my name is Dr. Ivon Chan and

029I serve on the Los Angeles County Board of Education. We call it Leo, >> your southern neighbor, not far. >> Hour and a half I was here. But I'm also very proud to be a trustee of this organization called the Association of California County Boards of Education in short ACC CC. But first of all, I really want to thank you for this great opportunity to come to this community. This community has nurtured many of my high school graduates. >> Yes, I'm a school principal, >> Los Angeles Unified many years, but also my family members and um yeah, they got into UC Santa Barbara. Dr. Armstead, you gave them a chance. you and even my most difficult ones and they graduated and they love this place so much. Guess what? Thank you. Yeah, real white. Trusty

030Frost, they stay, they work, they have families. And of course, you know, I just talked with uh Trusty Flores and my husband and his retired gentleman. They make very regular I think it's every Saturday contributions to your tumar I think they may still be there and tomorrow for sure and so therefore I mean I like to stay too I would like to stay so but today I'm very humbled to be here to introduce ACCBE to you and respond to some of the unanswered question that I believe you might have you know for the last few months and but briefly clarify who we are. Okay, but who we are? Who are we? We are your colleagues. We are county board members right now. Not even 40. When I send you that is 40. Today's 41. >>

031Okay. Next week we'll have 45 >> Ventura just join you know and basically we uh elected officials like you or uh appointed 41 going to be 45 and I was a CSBA by the way all of us we were CSBA members and I think Montterrey said hm we have a lot of torches and you know firework and we a lot of uh lighouses, the circles, we have trees, we have mountains, we even have vineyards. And they said, "How come we don't have Apple? Apple is teaching and learning, right?" >> Guess what? Your friends down in Ventura just joined said, "You know what? I think Santa Barbara holds the biggest apple >> and you are. I look that's that's your right. Wouldn't that be nice to have an apple in there? But so that means with

032the 45 we represent 90% 90% of the state enrollment. So this is in a way a very very um say powerful group. Do we know how to use that power? Okay. So, together as an organization by county boards and four county boards, I'm not staff coming here to try to vote. I'm your colleague. Okay. And become the statewide organization with that. We our vision really aligns with Santa Barbara's vision. Your vision is very bold. Your vision under the strong leadership of Superintendent Caseto, you said you will create meaningful experiences that support every learner's academic growth, personal well-being, and ability to adapt, navigate, and shape their path forward. All the other colleagues know your vision because it's the vision for all of us and you should be very proud of that and I know that you

033will achieve that. So in a unified voice you can see that together as a group 58 superintendent 3335 of us we can unleash that power of ideas. ideas that we don't have to ask permission to kind of even talk about it. One idea is okay you have halls and camps right well I only has candy it's in trouble too but anyway you have halls and camps well why couldn't they fund by enrollment because these kids are very mobile I know the whole world wants to be but come on we're different county boards we serve students like very differently right why can't we kind of think how are we going to expand that preschool and child there and also how can we really expand that power connection? We are local, we are regional. Down in McDonald,

034you may see your, you know, senator, whomever. We're not Sacramento. We go to, you know, your scholarship uh meeting, your fair, we see legislators and we be able to talk about what the specific regional Santa Barbara is more agricultural too, right? and how we're going to talk about very very county specific needs with that connection and with the partnership. We partner with the PTA here and not the PTA in Sacramento. And how we going to get career tech apprenticeship in the industries as well the agricultural you know uh uh uh regions to make sure that the youth development as well as community wealth and health can be can blossom. So we have to be, you know, regional more. I love all CSDA members. They had the big ocean liner. We need them. Iowa definitely. And

035they take care of the POP 98. They take care of those big achievement gap. They take care of a lot of the other things. We are the tough boats, right? We got to go. We got to find the shoulders and meet exactly what I say faster, quicker, and more reasonable and very inclusive. but also shape that power that power to transform. Now you are a coastal region. Uh St. Louis a visto will be coming in and ventures came in San Mattel Mterrey Ho many are facing a district and we found out oh my god you have excess property tax. You heard about that? >> Anybody dare to talk about it? Anybody dare to even bring it up? >> Well, LA don't say, "Oh, LA, you're urban." You go, "Oh, come on. We have consider we

036got that, too. We're in this together." So that excess property tax should not be just left on that table or they can come to you for your need especially for the kids that are so many of alternative education and the special ed. I don't want to get to that, but there's plenty of work to do. So now, let me go to the next one. Okay, so with those, a lot of people say, well, you know, ACCB, you're brand new. Brand new. Well, look at many of us on the trusty age. We're not brand new. Basically, yes, it was launched in 2025. Yeah. IRS, we have liability insurance, we have lawyers, we have a lot, we have everything and a good organization is supposed to, but we're built on 60 years of legacy 6 because we're

037part of CSBA, part of the section. But yeah, they decided to kind of close it down. And then when we think well you know you have the the Latin board member you the black educator it is better that we form our own organization and can move faster because what the difference is we are independent now tax exam nonprofit. We have our own governance board and we have the autonomy to support bills to take a stand as well as to set our policy um priorities. Now here I'm going to back up a little bit there. when I just first joined Leo. Well, gee, that's great. I joined Leo as a board member. But even my family members and friends said, "Well, Ivonne, exactly what county boards do." Exactly what county boards do. And now I understand

038why after a year, especially when I rotate into the president of Lake, okay? Because after 40 years with Los Angeles Unifi, I'm very familiar with a district way of doing LA Unified. That's big, right? Big and two terms on the California State Board of Education I said was Schwarzenegger or governator. When he was terminated, I thought I was terminated. But Jerry Brown kept me on and I walked side by side with Jet Oonnell. That's yours right here. >> Yeah. and learn a great deal. And I do realize in my county board's impact kind of goes unseen, not as visible and almost unappreciated in a way. Yeah. Yeah. No, look at all the work you do. 7247 volunteer. I know they're going to up our our compensation a little bit. Oh, yeah. You know what Leo

039was going to do? Leo did it already. We do a class one. Okay. So we have to change that. You can see that ACCB members are going to be very confident. We're going to be visible advocate. People got to appreciate us. I'm sorry. They have to. And we got forward thinking. These tough books are going all over and get things done to improve outcomes for students, families, and communities. A healthier and wealthier community. Okay. Now members spend about 10 months say we promise what a bit we promised advocacy connection innovation and trustee excellence and we deliver I'm going to read that to you but basically we delivered for the last 10 months whether it is through 12 trainings to strengthen governance and webinars on innovation such as career tech apprenticeship in you know the small

040rural uh counties even took on that time the the the the school bus thing. Okay. And about youth development, alternate credentiing, local teacher pipeline. We did all of that deep deep deep dive session after session on alternative education and reimagining high school. We also deliver onboarding your new or county new board members. I know re you were there February. We on board you and I think Dr. Armor said you were there. Yeah. No, you know we we did we did we onboard student board members. Do you have student board member? Not yet. Well, we do then we do that. We do all the onboarding networking every month. So, and also we promised advocacy and we hosted several legislative impact forums and we took position on bills. the Williams bill, the credential bill, push back on

041the charter bill and all of this. Many are signed by the governor. Okay. So now it takes money to do all of that, right? Tuck box is still we need little less field. Correct. So the deals and I know that uh Anna you have that you want to kind of give them take a look. Leo pay the most no question about it is okay. So with the moderate deals that used to go to uh CSBA, CCBE, but they don't charge that anymore. So with that deals, how can you do that much? Oh yeah, we try to use very good financial strategies. We are county board members know how to do that. First of all, we leverage, we partner very closely definitely with our superintendent organization with the university to give us all the data we

042want. We need uh researchers, you know, the ed, you know, really uh do the webinars for us. Uh the small uh district organization, etc. and the foundation Irvine foundation for 200 millions in many of these aspects. Second is we maintain communication. Raise your hand. You have received flyers from us every single week. >> Every single week we keep connection and they're high quality. Week one tell you what's up, what's out there, what you like to read, what you should read. Second week is all the PD now Monday we are doing the charter one >> about so many appeals coming LA is dying you know but anyway we have that we have brown act some of the what you mention guess what some of no violation to brown act the beauty is for example I coach

043Fresno on how to do to pla coach and I serve as moderator for sail many and we've helped alpine this single single navigate the difficulty of this superintendency and all of that all of these the tbooks do and it's free I mean we don't we just help each other so you don't violate brown you can talk to mteray we can assign mentors we do and also thirdly fiscal capital we We build human capital me I'm here I'm free I some have teeth what we don't have it's not hire staff that come chase after the we expanded our board very experienced people young folks maybe some of you never know can join us um every county has a ranko has one all the way mono she has one Yeah, every county have a voice. So, it's

044building that particular capacity and we even have a CEO and we have it, we have staff. All right. Now, let me going to end because I know Mar time. So, here is what's next. What's next? I already mentioned some of this. We've talked to the um superintendent organization executive yesterday. We know we are going to go home into the alternative ed arena. We are different. We got to be funded more equitably with a light has go on. I do not know how many kids on the unifi going to put into lake your hall the next day. We got to be go by enrollment. We got to look at this excess property tax. We have to look at apprenticeship. All of this and you have it and that we already laid it out with the calendar.

045So read our step our flyers and you can see and the resource hub for members will be expanded. You talk about the handbook. Yes, there's not two sets of handbook. We're good. CSBA has that rules and regulation and you should have that. Many of our members write it and review it. But ACC put out the application part not the law cost in our life especially deal with expulsion when and and charter some have nuances right when you get your special air for sale kit. So take those laws and regulations and apply into some nuances case studies by your qualifying board members and then you have something call us. We assign a mentor and we have a section there. You ask a question, we'll give you an answer. Okay. Now, what does that cost? All right.

046We're all CSB member and absolute value in limiting it. You have a basic fee. I don't go into that, but ACCDE and I think superintendent already mentioned you already have it in your budget. >> That's for the whole year. But since been tour, St. Louis A of Bispo Yuba all your friends up and down the coast ask for parade because if you join it's December >> sure would like to hear for the money it's just family we got to build this this tough boat to get things done so you can choose parade it that's less and anything else is no other fees now you ask this question if you don't have any more this question about our relationship with CSB VA there's so much work to get so much work to be done we supplement

047and we complement each other okay so we're there in the mate too but we're also here we will be having regional small one that will be one real closer here and you all can come it's not $700 the most is $99 include food I mean tough folks are very different course I'm not going to serve you by at least you know but that's having the regional focus because you know group view with LA doesn't make sense okay we have Chester County I try to bring Chester County to Riverside come on right but we still going to have an annual one too okay this is the end if you have any questions um you can post that but I'm also that I want you to know that um as we move into the new year, we

048want to invite your ideas on how ACCD can best serve Santa Barbara County and also group have you come together to look at your similar dilemma and do something about it. It may take years but somebody got to speak up but can you imagine we represent 90% and 50 county come in front of Sacramento and we don't ask permission we don't to wait for our turns we don't have to be somebody big priority we have our priority we got go so thank you for your leadership and your belief in the have we are heroes we're great we're hard and we work together we can shape a hopeful and joyful and prosperous future for all kids. Thank you. >> Questions? Questions? >> Does anyone have any questions? >> And coaching that you need. You are a

049great boy. I can see you walking. I know. But many are not. >> I we have a I saw Dr. uh Linda um >> Linda Diamond. She darling session for us. Yeah. Uh >> what kind of work does she do for that? >> Well, she is the president of the California State Board of Ed, >> but meanwhile she is the leading research professor in Stanford. >> Okay, that's what I wanted to hear. Thank you. So she has she talked about this re-imagine high school and guess what out of ACCBE we scout around and we have two county come up which is uh YOLO and I believe is Riverside they're going to do the redesign >> on behalf of us. >> Thank you. >> Anything else? >> Are there any other questions? >> This isn't really

050a question. Uh are we going to have comments also now >> amongst ourselves? Okay. So, I don't you don't need me. >> Well, am I okay? >> I like to stand anyways. Teacher, stand. >> I know. >> As one of the two board members that were on the board when CSEA dissolved the county school board region and put it into region 14. Um, I was very, very disappointed when that happened because we lost our advocacy. CSBA does not advocate just on the county. >> Yeah, they have >> emphasis. Um, CCP >> E without the A before is without the A. All right. CCBAe um solely is about county school boards and they will their plan is to advocate for county school board issues and we know that county school board has way different issues than

051local districts do. So while you could say that CSBA could provide us the basics of the legal part in you know the guidance and the handbooks and the training everything they can't provide us a unified voice when it comes to Sacramento. So, um, and even amongst other county boards that we could all work together and understand what our problems are because we're unified in that organization. I also have very much um appreciated the fact that so many of your trainings have been online >> and if you can't watch it when it's first shown, you can catch it later at your own convenience. Yes, it's there. >> That's really great for those of us that just can't be there at noon or one o'clock to see uh a session. So, um, there's a couple of things

052that I I definitely find, uh, plus with this consider with us making this consideration right now. Um, I think that's it. >> Thank you. >> Well, thank you so much, Dr. Yavon Chan. I had >> Oh, God. I didn't say >> um, great presentation. >> Good teacher. If I had an opening, I'd hire you. >> I I teach special ed and bilingual Spanish and Mandarin, so do for you. >> Um, so yeah, really good presentation. I I think I'm trying to make sure I understand CCBE, I think I heard you say, was a part of CSBA. >> Correct. >> ACCBE is not technically a part of CSBA. Is that >> right? Because CCBE is a section within it. It does not have identification. It does not have an IRS number. Right? >> It is not

053incorporated and therefore it is not autonomous. It cannot propose bills. It cannot support have to go to CSBA. Another example is before under CCBE is if we want to talk to the superintendent organization I have to go and talk to CSBA the SBA couple months we'll talk to the superintendent organization and come back and wait a minute I sit right next to my superintendent >> so ACCV incorporated IRS exam with the state number we can get grants If you get grants from get grants from also we support bills. >> Dr. Great presentation. Uh so I got it. Uh ACBE is not a part of CLBIA. You are a 501c3. You are not a 501c4. >> No. >> Uh is there a plan to add a 501c4? >> Possibly. lady, you can join. >> Now he's

054getting the job. >> Absolutely. >> He knows what he's talking about. >> It's a membership driven. Okay. So, right now in 10 months, we brought in 45,000 boards and nobody thought that we could have done it. >> Okay. >> But we work together with CSB though. We're meeting next week. >> Okay. >> What they cannot do, we do and we do faster. And if we are successful for example with alternative enrollment different credential for then CSB was oh we'll do it for the >> okay well thank you so much I think um that was very informative energizing like guy said you're hired >> um uh so uh they definitely had the right person for the for the job come to speak to us and thank you for all of that information and I think It's

055now time unless there are there are any questions or comments um we can um make a motion to join the Association of California County Boards of Education in >> I'd like to move to approve >> I'll second and then >> questions >> all those questions all those in >> I'm okay with it but is it agenda is that this is going to be an action item >> yes it's number 14 Perfect. >> We have second and >> Okay. All in favor? >> Sold. >> And thank you for the goodies. >> Yes. >> Thank you. >> Thanks again. >> Yeah. >> All righty. show. We're going to go ahead and move on to presentation. We're full of energy now. >> All right. And presentation by superintendent and provide a presentation on English. >> Okay. No tugboats

056though. So, try and keep it try and keep it as lively. Thank you so much for the opportunity to talk today about the English language arts state assessments that you may have heard about um as the dashboard was released just a few weeks ago. So in today's session I'm going to talk about four things. First what is actually tested on the test itself the content. I'll talk about the public reporting, offer another perspective on the data that we've been looking at, and then a brief quick overview of some of the state and our local supports for ELA in those areas. So, to get us started, the first question is, what does the Smarter Balanced ELA assessment actually test? So, I'm going to pause for a moment without you looking ahead and say when you hear

057x% of our students are meeting the standard in ELA or literacy, what does that mean to you? What do you think about when you're asked to do that? I'll give you a second just to get that in your head. And if you want to shout out, this is a group presentation. It's a participation. Any thoughts anyone wants to put out? What's the standard? >> The standard. Great question. What else comes to mind? What are you thinking about when you hear that? >> The students ability to to read. >> Yeah. >> Comprehension. >> Absolutely. You're wondering what is that standard that defines reading? And is it just reading? Um, and usually when people think about reading, they're thinking about the foundational skills of fluency and comprehension, but wondering what exactly is that? Well, that's why I'm

058here. And so when we look at the smarter balanced assessment, which is the assessment that most of our students take if they um aren't part of the 1% that takes an alternative assessment, when our students take the smarter balance, it's based on this claim or this idea that for grade 11, it's that students can demonstrate college and career readiness in ling English language arts and literacy. grades three through eight, it's that students are demonstrating progress toward that readiness. But also, the test in addition to having that overall claim has four strands. Reading, writing, speaking and listening, and research and inquiry. And all four of those pieces make up that test. And so I want to contrast that with perhaps standardized testing that you may have been familiar with here in California or even in your

059own experience. So we have the current and the former and I'd like to talk about not only the instrument that we use but the content. So the current test, the Smarter Balanced Summitive Assessment for Literacy, we've had since 2015 and it tests grades 3 through 8 and 11. The content of that is the Common Core State Standards for Literacy that were passed in 2010. Our former tests, the ones that I'm going to just kind of review for a moment, they came from the 1998 California ELA standards. And the two tests that most people remember are the California High School Exit Exam or the Casey as well as the California Standards Test for ELA. And I've got some dates and years up there. So to take a look at those, the former test, the old Casey

060exam that was the high school exit exam that every high schooler had to take was first given in soph to every sophomore and they had to pass it in order to graduate. It was a graduation requirement. Again, it was based on the 1998 eighth grade and 10th grade standards. It had 80 multiplechoice questions and one to two essays. And the reading passages were pretty brief. They were mostly 250 to 800 words, multiple choice, four responses, A, B, C, and D. Not even none of the above. Um, and there's no penalty for guessing. So students were scored on the number they got right, but no penalty for any that they got wrong. No subtraction. like like on the SAT if you've taken that >> you know in the past couple years. I'm just kidding. And passing

061meant that students got 60% of those 80 questions and the essay right and so you know by 2010 about 81% of 10th graders were passing on the first try. Okay. It was suspended in 2015. And here's just an example. So, you see, the students read a short passage and then they're asked questions like this that ask them to identify the genre or what's the main conflict of the plot or what's a character trait that they can identify kind of basic basic comprehension. And this was that high school exit exam. At that same time, the old reading, the third grade, we'll take a look at third grade because we're going to look at that in just a minute on the new test. So, compare and contrast, get the compare and contrast going in your brain. Um,

062this was an old sample and so you see there's a short piece of text and the students have several questions. They are once again multiplechoice A, B, C, and D. Um, and they cover basic comprehension. So then you ask yourself, okay, that was the old test. What is the new test? And as I said, the new test has reading, writing, speaking, listening, and research and inquiry. And when you we say literacy and reading, they're primarily in the reading sections and in the research and inquiry session sections. So, I'm going to show you an example of a third grade research and inquiry. This is a sample item from the Smarterbalanced website. Um, there are multiple sample items there under reading, language arts, and literacy. And this is what it will look like for students. All of

063the testing is on the computer. So, the children will get a split screen. On the left you'll see the instructions and then they have to read two separate articles on the same topic. This one has to be happens to be about astronauts and space. And then on the right side is where all of the instructions for the tasks and all the tasks that they have to do after the reading based upon uh those reading in those directions. And so, for example, in this one, I I'm not going to take you through it and make you read the third grade about about astronauts and space and life in space and wearing the outfit that is like a scuba helmet. But some of the elements that I'll lift up for you for our third graders, our eight

064and nineyear-olds is first of all in this particular example, the length of the passage is over a thousand words. The sentence complexity has not only simple sentences but compound and complex with subordinate clauses. the reading level. Um, I put it into flesh concaid because the Lexiles have changed with the common core and so on the flesh concaid plus because it's free. Um, it came out as a 4.5 reading level and there's quite a bit of background knowledge. It talks about gravity, scuba diving, circulation of the blood and body systems, which students don't actually learn until fifth grade. So there's a lot of background knowledge that's necessary for part of this comprehension and there are significant language demands in the instructions. Also it requires a shift of point of view because it says imagine your teacher

065told you to do this and now you have to do this. Um there's quite a bit of computer scrolling and then when they get to the actual task you can see in the top one they have to match the concepts from thisformational text and say which source it came from number one or number two and there's 27 possibilities there. Then there's a generate and site evidence part of why it's hard to be an astronaut giving reasons citing from evidence. And then there's a narrative performance task which means the students just read informational t text. Now they have to translate it to narrative text. So this is not the cat sat on a mat and why did the squirrel feel sad? You know, this is some significant aspirational thinking which is what the common core standards

066are all about. And so when we take a look at the public reporting, I think it's really helpful to have seen just that example from third grade from one little part of that computer test. Okay. So public reporting when the students take these ELA tests, you're like there seems to be data coming out multiple times. You are not wrong when you recognize that. So the learning of the test results, the data that we're looking at is from the 2425 school year and the students took the test in the spring of 2025. Then the assessments are released twice and I'll show you what those two ways are. The public score release is first at achievement levels and that came out in September. And then the dashboard is released not only with test scores but other things

067like suspension, chronic absenteeism and other indicators. And that's what you saw at the middle of November. Next year the dashboard will rel be released at the end of October. So these two things will come out closer and closer together. So we talked about those that idea of claims. The smarter balance balance is used to make claims and somehow those quantitative scores need to be translated into qualitative descriptors of performance and achievement. So the oops did I go the wrong way? Okay. And those are your your subcores and again those are the reading, writing, speaking, listening. So when we talk about assessment and we talk about this idea of claims you know Judy was like what's the standard you know what's the content what is the instrument how is it quantified and then how is the

068performance described so for the smarter balance the content as we talked about for ELA and literacy is reading writing speaking listening language is embedded research and inquiry the instrument smarter balance grades three through 8 and 11. And then each child is given a quantitative score. It's called a scale score. And the scales are different at each grade level. That will matter in a in a moment when I talk about the second release. And then for those scale scores that every child gets, and by the way, the families get the student scale score and their performance descriptor, which is one of four levels. So in September, it comes out as these performance descriptors. There's a four, a three, a two, and a one. And we have, even though there are 12 states that use this test

069and those cuts are the exact same across all the states, every state gets to name their performance descriptors. And so R4 in California has been called standard exceeded, but they're changing the name now to advanced starting with the 26 test, the test that the kids will take this year. So I put up both for you. And a three is proficient or standard met. In general, people believe that the combination of those two are all the students who meet and exceed all the grade level standards. and then two developing and one minimal or standard nearly met. It's close there and one not met. Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium put out this graphic this year to say really two, three, and four are a continuum of grade level, you know, performing on grade level even though we tend

070to look at three and four. So, California still uses the three and four data often to describe the percentage of students who are meeting or exceeding standard. But just know when you look at that third grade performance test, level two is probably pretty good as well. You know, make making progress. And so this is what the um the September release looked like for each of those performance levels or what they call achievement levels. And so you can see the blue is the standard exceeded, green standard met, the yellow is the standard nearly met or developing, and then the reddish orange is the standard not met or level one. and that's the county and the state. So that's the first release and then the scores are released again in a different form. Same content, same test,

071same scale scores but in the dashboard we do something a little bit different. The performance descriptor is called average distance from standard. Okay, so remember that part where I said remember that each scale score each grade level is a different scale score. So it would be easier if they all had the same scale. Then we would just say what's the average scale score. But in each scale, you know, there's a cut off for what's the lowest four, what's the lowest three, and what's the lowest two. And so if we accept the lowest three, you know, so here's three and here's four. This is the standard. And for each child, then it's calculated how many points above that number or how many points below that number. Okay? So then they average all of those together for

072a district, a school, a student group, whatever the population of reporting is. It's the average of how much above or below that level three threshold did the students perform. And so just putting those two side by side, the performance descriptor or the one of four achievement levels and the percent in each in September looks like that. And the purpose is results for analysis. So our school districts and the public can look at those in every which way. Every single descriptor of a child, you can look at all of those groups. >> That's for the state. >> It's for the state. Great question. For the state, those are released at the state level, for any student group or together, at the county level, at the district level, at the school level. And in any of those,

073you can do it as race, ethnicity, um, students with disabilities, male, female, economic, every single student descriptor within those as well. >> That partic I'm sorry, >> that that picture right there, >> that's state. >> Yeah, that's the one from the last one >> For the state. Yes. >> Yeah. Yeah. And then when we look at the November again it's distance from standard. So that average of the plus or minus above or below and then it's reported in a different way. You've seen the dashboard that has these gauges where each indicator is ascribed to color from blue being the best to red being the most concerning. So like a heat map and that is determined. Oh, and the purpose is for accountability. So the color reflects a combination of the status and the change. And

074so those two numbers right below the gauge give you the average distance. So in this case it's 8.1 points below standard. That's the you know state average. And then the change from the previous year is it went up 5.1 points if I see the arrow correctly from this this distance you know. And so those two things together are what gave it a yellow. And there's matrices that show how each of the colors are determined. So that side by side again, it's the exact same test and the exact same scores and it's just looking at it multiple ways. And both of those can be excuse me, thank you. And both of those can be like uh searched out, researched down to the same male, female, ethnic. >> No, great question. the left one. >> So the

075left one is, you know, is at state, county, district, school. And then within all of those four, >> every single thing >> in the um dashboard, there's only 14 student groups that are included in the dashboard. Also in the dashboard, because it's accountability, it's state, district, and school. it isn't reported per county because we aren't a unit of accountability and so um you know it's a different kind of sampling in that way. >> So that isn't done for the students that are in the county school programs the dashboard sites. >> Great clarification. I I should have been clearer. So, because the kids who are in our county schools are a local education agency, a district just like it would for a charter. It's the stu we do have dashboard for our our county school students

076but unlike where you can take all of that data and make the population all county students not just count not our county program students that side you can get all county students all together that side you can't but our our County, our county school students do have a dashboard. Got great clarifications. Thank you. And when they're taking the test, we talked about it being a split screen. When they're answering the questions, do they also still see? >> Yes. Okay. Yes. >> So, they can search and find, but it's a timed test. >> It's not a timed test. >> It's not. No, it's not a time test. And there are um universal supports and accommodations and um or universal tools, designated supports and accommodations for students as well. Um but it is not a timed test

077for anyone. Students can take the time they need. Oh, >> okay. So the last thing we're going to talk about or the second to last thing we're going to talk about is analyzing, interpreting, and using the assessment result. And because there is so much data, I just wanted to give a quick snapshot of some of the data tools, supports, and displays that we create for our districts and charter schools. So through the use of Tableau and PowerBI and Excel, we make custom dynamic search and display tools for all of our LEAS. So the one on the left takes all of that data at the achievement levels and helps the districts get it all in one place. So they don't have to do 8,000 clicks to find all their data. on the right. That's just one

078of the displays that we do with the dashboard that will help the districts do the same thing with some of that other data as well. On top of that, we provide a lot of tools and in-person support for analysis and action around all the data that they get, including with their LCAPS. So you can see on the right is an analysis tool and on the left the dashboard there's so many things to know. So we make digests of all the information and where all the data comes from. And so that's one way to look at our ELA or two ways to look at our ELA and literacy data. And in in the spirit of meaning making and putting things into context, I wanted to share with you something that we've shared with our districts recently

079and it's about looking at data from the perspective of correlation and identifying some bright spots. Um there is a publication called the 74 which is short for the 74 million. And I'm sure most of you are familiar with EdSource that reports on everything California. The 74 does that on a national level. So 74 million refers to there are 74 million Americans who are educators. It is the number one uh profession in the US is being an educator. And in this article that just came out in November, it was a followup to an article they did last year in September. Um, and they've created a data tool that looks at the correlation between poverty and literacy in schools. They didn't just do this in California. They did this across the US. and 10,000 districts, 42,000 schools,

080and over 3 million kids because they focused on third grade. That's why it's only 3 million kids. >> And so, um, this is your seventh grade math lesson about scatter plots. So, when you take a look at the scatter plot that >> we're going to see in just a moment, >> the x axis that you'll see has percentage of families in poverty. So it goes from zero to 100 on the x axis. Poverty is increasing as you go to the right. The y ais has the percentage of third graders um reading at grade level or meeting reading proficiency. Now they did this across states and every state has their own measure. So you can't compare stateto state if you will. And so if you were to just imagine if you were to scatter each of

081those um indicators where you where you plot percent of poverty at a school and percent of students um meeting third grade, you probably have a picture in your head of whether as poverty increases, do you think that reading scores are going to increase >> decrease or just be spread out all over the place. >> Decreased. And so that's what you see when they plot that. Now, this is the plot of just the California schools that you're looking at. And you can see that red line, which is the correlation coefficient that is almost a one or negative one, I should say. that shows that as poverty increases along the bottom, the test scores or the percentage of students reading at whatever the state's standard is is decreasing. But notice it's not an exact. I mean, you've

082got things all over the place. Um and what this helps us do is say okay this is you know within the United States this is a probability measure not a theoretical probability but an actual probability and then we can look at individual schools visav what their predicted literacy rate is versus their actual literacy rate. So, taking a look closer up, as I said, each state has its own measure and um I Donald and I practiced this in just and so we'll do it in just a moment just so you can see it, but you've got access to it if you want to do this yourself. Um you'll see that it's already California. So any school below the line did a little bit worse than the predicted probability by that red line of the correlation between

083poverty and literacy. And any school above the line did better than predicted. And then see all of those gold dots. Those are the bright spots, the positive outliers, the the schools that are beating the odds and that are have like really just out, you know, out hit their weight. Is that what it's called? I I don't know. I don't know the the right analogy. Okay. So, Donald's going to click on it just so we can take a look and then he'll just scroll down just a bit because you have a little bit of intro. Okay, there it is. Notice it's already on California as the default. So, every single school district is listed as long as there's 30 third graders. We have a few of our districts that aren't listed because they don't have 30

084third graders. Why don't we try carpia unified since it's near the top of the of the alphabet and so carp carp carp we can all there it is and notice what will happen is you've got two schools in karp and when I hover on that one because we have a gold dot in carpia and so a liso school as you can see and I have to I have to make it a a little bit bigger. Um, based upon their poverty level of 70, somebody with better eyes, >> 79%. Um, their expected late Yeah. rate is 33, but their actual is 70% of their third graders are meeting or exceeding standards on that test you just looked at. >> So, that's an incredible bright spot. And we can do that. go back. And in fact, we

085can see that we had three schools in our county that were bright spots. Now, this was from the spring of 24 data. >> If they were to do the spring of 25, Adilante would be in there, too. Um, and a few others as well. Um, and so you can see Washington Elementary, Aliso Elementary, and Franklin Elementary. One is a high a higher wealth school, >> Washington. And yet they're still beating the odds. >> And same with Franklin. You know, Franklin's expected is 27%, but they're actually almost half of their third graders are meeting and exceeding. Um, as I said, there was an earlier study that the 74 did on districts last September, and on that one, Hope Elementary School District came up as a bright spot. So, there's access to that as well. >> Can

086you speak to how do they uh when we talk about expected? >> Yes. >> How is what's the metric? How >> is that calculated? >> Yeah. when we had that picture right there. >> You see that red line? >> Yeah. >> That red line is the um the correlation coefficient. >> Mhm. >> And so what that does is takes the poverty level like if everybody was right in line because it is a scatter plot. And so it's saying if we followed that line based upon the school's um poverty percentage along the bottom and you went straight up to where that is on the line. That's the number. So everybody above the line did better than predicted. Everyone below the line a little bit below. >> Yeah, we I might dig in as >> we should.

087The data is in there. Yes. What I would say is like intuitively I would think less affluent lower score, >> right? >> But that's intuitive. I think I'm asking for something different. Uh what are the indicators that would prove out? >> Uh it's not necessarily because you're poor obviously. >> That's right. >> Listen. Uh so there there there's something in that formula that says if you're poor, you don't have access to resources. If you're right, >> I'm I guess I'm wanting to know what are those >> What are all those factors that created >> that scattering? Because this is the actual scattering. >> Yeah. >> You know, it's not determinant. It just says this is the system that we currently work in nationwide. You know, this is California, but every single state and the whole

088piece looks like that. I think you're asking about what are the system factors that might contribute to that in general and then what are the system factors that contribute to the bright spots. >> Yeah. And those are a lot of things. Um, you took a you took a look at the test tests themselves, you know, background knowledge, the number of words that a student has been exposed to by the time they come to school. This is third grade, which is, you know, 8 years old. But there's all other kinds of factors at the school level, at the district level, and these change from year to year as well. So, there are a lot of factors and that's the million-dollar question. >> Yeah, I would say this and then we could move on. Part of what

089strikes me about this the the and you know, again, to me, this seems like the type of work and conversation that at the county board level and that retreat maybe we could be having. Uh that's a choice in part that we are making. So less affluent means I can't afford to buy a computer. But that's a community choice to say we're not going to make computer available to that child. You follow what I'm saying? >> I'm following what you're saying. >> Uh you know, access to language. Well, in the old days when people went to libraries more, uh there may not be a library in my neighborhood. So I don't have access that some other kid might have. But that's a choice that we as a community are making to not make sure that that

090child has access to that. And so I guess I'm often just wondering do we have an appetite in our communities to try to help rectify >> right >> school district. >> Yeah. I I I really appreciate the way that you're thinking about that on the community level and at the county level and at the state level. And this is something that everyone's thinking about what is in our control, >> what is not in our control, and how do we um impact the things that we do have control over. >> Right? And thank you for that beautiful segue into the last thing that I just want to show which is a samp >> which is a sampling of just some of the local and state investments in literacy starting at the state level. There is a

091report that was put out this spring called the Golden State Literacy Plan and it details all of the actions, the systems, the actions, the grants um that our state has taken on since just before the pandemic through now and going into the future around trying to make an impact on student literacy and not just assuming that um demographics are destiny. This is uh just a little timeline and I have what are grant funds, what are learning resources and what are teaching resources that are coming from this year through the next five years available to our districts. So, the top one is only for six of our schools, those that have more than 95% unduplicated pupils. The next one is a discretionary block grant that was given this year to all districts. Um, and then you

092see some of these others. On the next page, it starts to move into some of the professional learning as well. This is all state initiatives. And then I gave you a listing of just some of the SBCEO universal supports that we provide from our language education network to supporting the reading difficulty screeners all the way through our UPK community and within our educator development. So, we covered what is tested, how is it reported, what's another way to look at it, and I gave you just a quick checklist of some of the ways that we're working on it. And so, I'll take any questions or remarks. The the charts you showed that uh Oh my gosh. Let me get a picture of them. Um I wasn't sure if I understood that we prepare those. >> Yes,

093the CNI division creates that. We have a new um educational data analyst who is able to take these really large state files and then we create all the different displays we want and he does all of the programming and >> wow >> all of that work >> so that all the districts get it and it's all the done the same way for all the districts and they're all >> the same they have access to it and each year we add some new displays based upon the work that we do through differentiated assistance and we create something we say, "Oh, everybody would like that version for theirs." And so we create those >> and from the time that the information is released to the from the state to when the districts are able to access that

094information about what's the lag. >> Yeah. So they get their data immediately and they actually get a preview before it becomes public. few days before that so they have full access to their data. >> But as soon as we get that preview, we start it and we've been building it. So it's just programming. So it's ready within a week. >> Um and then we distribute it and take people through it in our curriculum council. Susan gives it to the superintendants in the superintendent council in our language networks etc. >> So for me there's multiple parts to your presentation. One of them is that getting the data getting it dispersed and tremendous work by your department outstanding because it's one thing to get data and it's another thing to get information and I see what you

095do is turning that data raw data into what can be used truly as informative and job well done for sure. The second part of it is do you go out to each district and give this presentation so that they understand as well as we now do what this is all about. So our distribution channels um are multiffold. One is as we said we have these existing networks where all of the curriculum leads from all the charters and all the districts. >> So we had that last Friday you know so we walk through that there and then make ourselves available to come to their boards or to come to and we provide them all all the slides I use I give to them. So we provide it through that meth means that method but we also

096have the pasque the cask the tip. So through our credential programs we also distribute it through that and then all of our directors that work in all the different areas they have they're deeply engaged in it so they use it in their work with the individual districts as well. >> The first part as I said was getting the raw data and information. The second is to get that information out and understood. And well done. >> Very well done. I I couldn't repeat this, but I get the gist of what this is. >> Thank you. >> And it's frightening. >> The results are truly frightening. It It's Yeah. Okay. just, you know, again, uh really appreciate the presentation. Uh I got way too many questions I got to formulate in my head, but I've had conversations

097with Susan and other folk about, you know, it's almost criminal to me that in the state of California, we're ranked number 47 or something or and I'm often not sure what that means. Uh uh I do have a sense that uh if central coast if Santa Barbara County was its own state I I want to feel like we're doing pretty well but I don't have any sense of like what that is and I can see how powerful all this information is but it's not altogether clear to me how it sort of where Judy is going like where how is this filtering down uh But great information and I can see that clearly we're thinking about how do we improve the outcomes for students. Uh you know so maybe a future report can have almost another

098separate thing about here's how we look relative to the state of California relative to the United States. But yeah well done. I also um want to extend just job well done as well in terms of the presentation in terms of all the work that you and your team are doing on this front. And I did have one question going back to the correlation between poverty and literacy in schools. And it kind it kind of veers towards um the point that Trustee Walker was making in terms of the assumptions here and and and and talking about these bright spots and the positive outliers with the work that is coming down the pipeline in terms of increasing scores. Is there any engagement with these bright spots with the organizations and the LEAs that are bucking the trend

099of the expectation um between poverty and literacy and what can we learn from them to raise raise the the tide of all boats so to speak. I know I ruined that >> analogy but you know what I mean. >> Yeah, that is definitely happening. um you know, Superintendent Riby for example, she can tell you exactly what is making the difference at Aliso and there within the Santa Barbara Unified School District. people know about Franklin and go to visit Franklin and find out about, you know, what are those elements that they're doing as we, you know, there's researchers that look at so many elements of this from teacher turnover to principal turnover to all kinds of things. So I think that um your I love that your curiosity is okay how do we take a look

100and get knowledgeable people to look at not just surface features of what's happening there but what is making the difference >> all right well thank you so much really appreciate it >> all right well now we're ready for the superintendence Let's see if you wanted to take any sort of stretch break at all. Yeah, a five minute. Okay. Uh let's take a five minute stretch break and come back at 3:48. >> So we'll uh begin with the superintendent report. >> Thank you so much. First of all, a um thank you so much for having these two incredible presentations. Very educational and informative both. And um want to appreciate Ellen. Thank you so much for the the presentation there. Um I want to greet you all with a happy holiday and yes happy holidays and um

101thinking about gosh this year in review so much has happened um in the year and thinking um to December of last year several of you were sworn in and it became a new board and I I want to say um for for all seven of you how tremendously grateful I um for how you serve. Um the fact that you're thinking always about students, always about support. How might we support? How might we do better in our support? I it it comes through and and I'm just tremendously grateful for each and every one of you. We put together a little bit of a just a brief year in review in photos. I wanted to share that with you and uh Donald is going to share that now. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. round of applause for

102all of you. >> Thank you for all that you do. Yeah. Many, many things. Um, in addition to what I shared with you in your report, I wanted to add a few uh additional pieces of information. One is Moren Donner uh retiring after 38 years in the single district having taught there, principal there, superintendent there, is now retiring at the end of this month. Um, so just a phenomenal leader in the valley and an anchor for so many of us, tremendous individual. So we I know we all send her the best well wishes. Ian uh Tjo is coming in as superintendent in college school district. Um Ian is currently in the San Louis Abyspo uh in a district in St. Louis Abyispo has worked in Santa Barbara County before and will be begin towards the

103end of January at the college school district. Wanted to share with you also that capital advisors is a group that um is lobbies um it works with us and we contract with them. We are uh a group of superintendants and capital adviserss are meeting when we have our annual uh superintendence conference uh coming up here in January. The reason for that meeting has to do around advocacy for the property taxes to remain with county offices. So, I share that with you because I'd like to share it with you um after we return. But for now, we'll I'll participate in that meeting and see where we can go, see if there's any traction there related to those funds that we now uh hand back to the state for uh superior courts. And then the last piece

104uh good news is the student advisory council um the countywide student advisory council that is now on in its fourth year. applications just concluded and we're starting to announce uh to students who have been accepted. We've got a record number of applicants. Um really excited individuals from all around the county and I'm excited to share with you the names of those individuals coming soon. But we're putting out those acceptances. They're going to let us know that they're they're in and and now we'll begin. So I'm really really excited. I get so much just as you do out of meeting with students and actually hearing from them. To me, it feels very very about being authentic in our leadership and knowing asking them >> how are we doing? So, it's it's really exciting. So, let me

105stop there and see if you have any questions about anything that were that was in the report for you. >> Okay, I'll hand it back to you. Thank you very much. So now we'll go to the consent agenda and at this time the board will consider all of the items for those together. Um, and this includes the meeting minutes, uh, registration of credentials, acceptance of donations, declaration of surplus, rules and regulations governing the purchase of school supplies, and the issuance of the high school graduation diploma. Do I have a motion to approve? >> I move to approve. >> Do I? >> I'll second. >> All those in favor? >> I believe that's unanimous. So, we'll move on to the action items. Uh so item number 23 is the recommended approval uh of the first interim

106report. Um so this will be presented by the board budget committee for approval as part of the budget monitoring process. That would be me. >> All righty. Take it away. Um >> the other members of the committee included Nadra who was not able to join us uh for this particular meeting and Guy and then of course the staff um Steve and Nicole and Dr. Salo were there as well. Um we had as you might remember there's three meetings of the budget committee and we have one of them where we do the approved budget one of them at first interrum and one of them at second interim. This was the first interim and the most significant factor in this one is what was shown as the beginning balances now has been adjusted for the audit report

107because when we did our adopted budget, we didn't have the final numbers for the ending. So, we now have updated those. Um, I hope you've all had a chance to look at Steve. Is he here? He's not >> Oh, is here. Okay. um Steve's letter concerning the budget on a top level or the interim report on the top level and the besides the beginning balances changing the income was affected by the property taxes income being higher than in the adopted budget. But then most of that all of that is passed through. So it has the same effect on our expenses and our expenses likewise were more than the adopted budget because of the excessive or the property taxes being higher. So Nicole, would you like to come forward? Uh so um Miss Frost did a

108great job giving a very high um level overview. Um but basically yes the first interim report is our first major revision to the budget since the adopted adopted budget was um brought to you back in June. Um and as she mentioned the major changes are that the beginning fund balances have been updated since we closed the books in 2425. Um along with the updates to the known revenues which she mentioned um we had quite a significant change in property taxes um which was across the county in general. Um but again those turned right back around and then back to the state. Um and then again was reviewed by the board budget committee which um they again recommended that brought back for um your review and approval. It was unanimously moved and approved that we bring

109this forward to the board for their acceptance as our first intim report. Um, excuse me. So, I guess that's a motion. All I >> Funny how it turned out. >> I just need a second, please. >> Second. Okay. >> Okay. Okay. And then all those in favor I >> passes. Um, another piece this went out to all members the vendor list as well. >> No. Okay. Well, just to let the rest of you know, um, we did ask to get a list of the 20 top vendors dollar-wise for the year before last and last year. just to I think Guy was the one who requested this and we did get that list and now having looked at it we mentioned some things that we want to refine in it before we share it with the

110board in the future. Um, it's it's very informative from a standpoint of where our large expense dollars really go and it's not like we have a lot of discretion over them. A lot of them have to do with staffing and um districts dist distributions to districts and things like that. So, we will look forward to a little bit of a refined report on that in the future. Did anyone have any question on the Sachs report? They got fat. >> Yeah. I think the one thing I'd like to point out on that and it's kind of hard for you to figure out what page it is, but there is a page there is a key down at the bottom of the pages. If you after a few years, you'll learn it and you'll be able to

111figure out what it is. But uh when it talks about ADA, >> it's referring to on the counting report the ADA for the juvenile court school and special ed. And then the third category is the county operations which is all county. So um it's important that when you >> it looks like this. >> Yes. >> Yeah. it down at the bottom left corner of the page. It is SACSV14 and it's page one and it's towards the last. It's the only one with the ADA on it. And the top two categories are the juvenile court school and special ed. And then this one is labeled county operations and that's all county. Okay. Every every time learn a little bit more. >> Thank you, Nicole. >> Okay. Thank you, Trusty Frost. Now we will um move on

112to the board policy and second adop second second reading and adoption um for EP5117.1 interd district attendance appeals. So this is have been has been revised. Um we spoke about it in a previous meeting and so looking for an adoption um of this fourth policy. Any questions? Um >> um no questions per say if somebody could just highlight cuz this is where we're recommending some changes but yeah uh maybe just I don't know Susan if you could highlight what the changes are. Most of the changes actually I will say are going to be in our process frankly mo most in our process of of of the warm handoff um both when we receive an interd district transfer appeal to when a family then goes to another school. It was be it was a little bit

113less of the board policy changes and more of our practices. Yeah. And then the board policy did change because there were uh paragraphs in different orders. We wanted to make we wanted the flow to make a little bit more sense. Um we kept our the board kept its own board specificity. >> Um that both is specific but also is open-ended too. And that's the tricky part with these IDTs. But we did formalize in it that there will be notification for the district of resident the district that the student will be going into. We formalized that process. So as a as uh to be more um transparent but also it's really hold their hands. Yeah. Supportive of the families during during these processes. So I would say that's the highlevel um overview of of these. >>

114It seems to me and I I'm looking at also because it seems like one of the questions we put on the table guy table. It seemed to me that when we went through that entire process, the thing that was sort of making folks the most anxious was this whole thing with Orchid uh you know sending notices out in August and I had suggested that while we can't tell them what to do with their policy that the the county could adopt a position that says grounds for denying the district uh could be connected to you issuing that notice too late or or issuing the notice late. Uh and so certainly it seems like also is going to look into whether or not there was ground or a basis for us to do that. >> Right. I

115think Dr. Simmons actually brought it up um in the last meeting which was that they're actually allowed to um inform those families. I think it's 14 days into the start of the year >> for a state >> that's an ed code. >> Okay. >> And so because of that, if we were to incorporate that into your policy as grounds for denial, you'd be in conflict with the education codes. There's really not anything we can do about that. um other than you know in our policies encouraging them to get that done a little faster when they can foresee the kind of issues that orchid had this year with being impacted. >> So >> yeah, I think when we were looking at the policy there wasn't really there wasn't much for us to change. >> Um but

116it was yeah us recommending recommending pay attention if this is coming up >> start working with the family sooner than later. Mhm. >> And all we could do is look at the policy and um where can we improve just to make sure the advocacy and and the support for the families is there. >> All right. Thank you. And just to add on that really quickly, that is part of the policy, but part of the practice if we have an ID and it comes to where we feel like the um parents weren't notified in enough time and that is causing undue stress or it fits the um bounds of a um a hardship, then that would be our determination to decide whether we would um you know uh voice a different vote for that appeal. So

117that's that's another >> thing to think about. >> Sure. >> Um okay. So um you have a motion and a second. >> I move to approve the updated policy. >> Have a favor. I >> it passes. >> And >> so now we have um item number 25 which is our information item uh just to um review the certificated and classified personnel reports that are presented um and our board book. And uh now we will have our close sess close session. So, okay, we just uh finished our closed session and now we're opening to item number 27, action item, and this is for a motion to ratify um the purchase of real property. Um, the real property negotiator for the Santa Barbara County Education Office entered into a purchase and sell agreement with seller Air Park

118LLC on SBCEO's behalf for the purchase of a property located at 2811 Air Park Drive in Santa Maria, California. uh the uh purchase agreement was fully executed in October 8th and SPCO performed all due diligence investigations for the property. So now the superintendent superintendent recommends the adoption of resolution number 2607 finding that it is in the best interest of the Santa Barbara County Education Office to acquire Air Park property ratifying and approving the purchase agreement and real property purchase and oper authorizing the real property negotiator to execute a certificate of acceptance of the grant deed for the property. And this is a roll call vote. Do we have a motion? >> I move to approve. I second. >> Okay. And now I will call vote. >> Okay. Uh, Mrs. Alvarez, Flores, >> I. >> Dr.

119Armistad, >> I. >> Mrs. Cardi, >> I. >> Miss Man, >> I, >> Mrs. Frost, >> I, >> Mrs. Reed, >> I, >> Mr. Walker, >> thank you. Motion passes. >> All right. >> Perfect. Yay. All right. So, moving on to future agenda items. Does anyone have any future agenda items they'd like to bring forth? We had uh discussed bringing um Adalante Charter School to share the successes and the challenges of their 25 years. >> Yeah. >> Anyone else? Okay. Okay. Well, then >> are there any other >> Yeah. Any future items like to add? >> I think about my recommendation about how support local I'm happy to put that on now. Let's have a conversation and then >> I like to um make sure that at some point we do get a feedback report

120from um Ellen on our bright spots of hope >> and what they're finding >> as being the factors. Um and even following that to then how is the district's um interpreting those factors and to what extent can they replicate them within the district because it's all about results and I want to follow up on it >> and I don't know who English. They need to be >> I we're from my understanding the committee is going to meet and we're going to come up with some um ideas and timelines and add it back to the agenda. Yeah, >> that is the board. >> It's you Good question. >> I just had a question. Can we schedule something where a special ed was going to come and give us a presentation or is that the back of

121my head? I was thinking about it. Just in terms of >> special education, we can add we do have um uh sex trafficking, human trafficking coming in February. Did you >> I just said in terms of >> what is going on? Yes. >> What are those programs working on? Again, I just I wonder if we could have an update. Great. and and have a little more concrete idea as to what what districts are doing emerging, which ones are doing, you know, self-contained. I have no idea anymore. Okay, thank you. >> I have one um question. Might ACCBE be a resource for a facilitator for the board retreat. >> Are you thinking of any of our chairs? >> They'll be really I mean baked goods involved. Yeah, for sure. All right. Well, um I think we're

122ready for the adjournment of the meeting. Do I have a motion to adjurnn? I'll move. >> I move. I second. >> All right. All in favor? >> I meeting adjourned. >> Thank you all. That's