November 21, 2024 Board Meeting

001and our actions better with your presence so please raise your right hand and repeat after me I state your name do can we get a microphone on on Natalie absolutely that way we could would you be comfortable holding a microphone up all right we want to make sure this is recorded for posterity sake there you go start again I Natalie I Natalie Hopkins do solemly swear do solemnly swear that I will support and defend that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States the Constitution of the United States and the constitution of the State of California and the constitution of the State of California against all enemies against all enemies foreign and domestic foreign and domestic that I will bear true faith that I will bear true faith and Allegiance and allegiance

002to the Constitution of the United States to the Constitution of the United States and the constitution of the State of California and the constitution of the State of California that I take this obligation freely that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion or purpose of evasion and that I will well that I will well and Faithfully discharge and Faithfully discharge the duties upon which the duties upon which I'm about to enter I'm about to enter congratulations welcome to the board and thank you for Grandma marcha for joining us please we're gonna ask you to take a see with us we felt you're gonna say student okay welcome Natalie so both your mics are just press the button make sure how exciting thank you okay uh

003now we will move to to the consent agenda do I have a motion for approval we have approval and with gratitude for the um a bunch of little donations that came in yes $0000 small donation very much appreciated is there a second second Rachel okay now student trustees we need your vote so how do you vote okay and Nick you caught that I did indeed president Roth okay uh so the re the rest of the board all those in favor say I I I opposed the motion passes thank you on your first earthshaking uh vote for us uh item number seven correspondence Nick is there anything that has been in we have received no correspondence um after the agenda was published president Ro okay thank thank you number number eight on the agenda is the

004or 8.1 annual report Williams legislation uh status of desile one through three schools Pajaro Valley Unified School District Pacific Elementary School District San Lorenzo Valley School District and Santa Cruz City District yes we are fortunate to have a former deputy superintendent of the County Office of Education Brian Wall uh who has been working with us uh in retirement although I don't think he ever has retired he has been working non-stop supporting uh this County office and supporting me personally for for quite some time one of the tasks that uh that Mr wall is responsible for is the Williams legislation reviews of schools and uh this is uh something that that is required uh for the county Office of Education well all County offices of Education uh across the state and Mr wall is going to

005be providing us a report about the findings of of the Williams study uh visitations uh that for this year thank you Mr wall for being here well thank you Ferris and uh good afternoon uh this is my yearly visit to the board I guess used to be here every time so it's uh good to see all of you um one of the things that's um you know has come up is is that this is this is a fairly old legislation actually it's uh this passed actually in 2004 so this has been going on for quite a while 20 years basically um and it was a it was essentially a lawsuit Williams versus the state of California um it was really for the uh for the students of the State of California to make sure that

006they had you know what they needed to to to learn in their in their classroom so um I wanted to just mention a few things I think I think sue you already mentioned the districts that we've you know that I I visited um I do want to go over just real quickly the schools uh that we visited this year there were 10 um there's a there's a three-year cord uh and then in the third year in the spring we get a new list of of schools the same schools may be on it and then they may add more so uh what we're getting uh for this year just as an update is that we're probably going to Triple our number of schools uh so we'll probably be at about 30 schools next year and the

007visits have to be done in the first 20 days of school so it's going to be quite a chore uh to to fit all that in it's probably going to be you know visiting three schools a day or something like that for those first 20 days of school um so I want to just give you a little bit of a an update as far as uh you know what we're looking for uh for one thing this is just uh for Equitable access for kids um the the things that we're looking for and the reason that people land on this can land on our list uh would be uh insufficient instructional materials uh poor facilities um teacher credentialing people teaching out of their assignments 15% or more teachers teaching out of assignment or their credential area

008and then also uh could be um uh graduation rate uh below a certain standard okay so one of the things that comes up um has come up in the past and it's been a little bit of a glitch for for Williams is that um our the teaching credentialing U component is in the rears every year so uh what we've done Statewide now is we've tightened it up a little bit so that we're more current so one of the things that we do now in the visit is we actually asked the principal at on the day of the visit are there any non-credentialed on your staff today okay and that's made a big difference and then we've verify that with our HR department and the district's HR department so um we're pretty pretty content that we're

009getting good answers on that and what we're finding is that uh people are doing really well on on hiring fully credential teachers in their subject areas I think it's gotten much better um one of the other things that's changed a little bit is the facility instrument uh that we use um we're also looking for um upgrades to agback and things like that because of because of uh Co um so that didn't used to be on the list but now it is so we're we're looking a little bit more at ventilation systems when we go into schools and making sure those are up to date and their filtration systems are up to date um the other thing that that we look for is making sure that the uniform complaint policy is posted in each classroom uh

010one of the one of the issues that we find you know Statewide is that uh this is really a complaint process mostly for parents and uh the issue that we have is that the notice is posted inside the classroom so how many you know parents actually get to see that so we're doing a lot more Outreach letting parents know that that instrument exists okay so we visited schools from August to October we already talked about a little bit about the districts uh that uh we visited uh the schools that we visited this year um were bayw Elementary Calabasas Elementary Delta EA Hall Middle School midy Elementary Pacific Elementary bajaro Valley High School Rolling Hills Middle School s La runzo Valley Middle School and our career ADV advancement Charter so what we found was that um

011everybody's really cooperative for one thing I I think that it's been in the past has been seen as almost uh oppressive and I think now it's it's seen more as a partnership and so uh when we when we go there to look at their facilities one of the district facilities person is usually there and we do a collaborative View and talk about the things that you know need to be taken care of and what I would say is that from last year's visit to this year's visit every one of the schools addressed the things that we were concerned about um there were no glaring problems with their facilities this year everything had been updated and everything had been repaired that we asked to be repaired so that's pretty phenomenal uh that hasn't been that way

012in the past so so this we had a really good year this year um didn't see any teacher misassignments this year in any of the schools and uh I would say that everybody had their uniform complaint policies up in English and Spanish um and uh as far as um sufficient materials everybody had sufficient instructional materials that addressed the core academic standards uh the state standards um a lot of schools now are going with digital but also have take home for the kids so one of the mandates of for Williams is that also uh you have materials to have at home too so that you can access the curriculum from home and school I think that's it okay any questions all right thanks I have oh sure goad if uh student uh it's digital material and

013they do not have a computer at home is that something that's verified that we then give them a a laptop or yeah they have the ability to check out you know a tablet now okay and rather than having to have a in yeah they they could they can be issued a textbook but if it's digital in in the classroom then they'll probably be digital at home but they they're you know they can check out a tablet so if they don't have access to that personally they can get one from the school and uh I don't know where we stand on the internet access on all students a big thing during we didn't really you know we asked about that you know uh each each of the principles you know do they have internet access and

014they've all kind of addressed that in one way shape or form so um we felt pretty pretty solid about that too great have um a comment SL question um so the scores are really amazing you know there's a very you know small Gap I'm just curious to see um is there an established like Benchmark for these facilities I mean there's some that rated 100% which means I'm assuming that means that there were no issues at all found and some that slightly fell below so question is was there a is there a benchmark and what what is the difference between those um school facilities that maybe about 7 96 versus 100 so the lowest percentage we got was 83% and that by the William standard you know facility standard is still a good it's considered a

015good percentage uh we went all the way to 100% because we had three schools that have been completely remodeled this year so that they were 100% I mean there were just no glaring errors whatsoever so that's kind of why you have that rate geez Nick set you up for that one my apologies okay got it all right so that range is um that's really the that's kind of a set Williams range um and so you know there our facilities person that goes with us actually has a check sheet that they they bring with them to evaluate the restrooms you know common areas cafeteria and then 25% of the classrooms does that answer your question yes okay sure anything else how do our students feel oh congratulations by the way on getting sworn into me that's

016awesome do you I know this is a lot if you have any kind of question at all please ask you don't have to I had a question what exactly does it mean for a teacher to be misassigned well it would be that they're they're not properly credential for the subject they're teaching in so for instance if you're in a high school you you're supposed to have a single subject teaching credential so if you're a science teacher let's say biology you're supposed to have a Life Science teaching credential and if you don't have that then that's considered a misassignment that make sense yeah they needed an English teacher and so the biology teacher was called in to teach the English class that would be a right that would be a misassignment um when they have long-term

017Subs that's still a legitimate credential so that doesn't ding them but but the idea is after they have that long-term sub then they need to hire that properly credential person to fill in one of the as as mentioned earlier when Brian began speaking he described that next year we're looking at a what is it a tripling a quadrupling tripling tripling the number of schools this is an unfunded mandate from the state still a required responsibility of the County Office of Education and so we anticipate a much bigger team right now it's it's basically uh Brian and Richard Reed or or Brian and and and uh the other Brian from from our maintenance office who actually do the visits but we're going to have to expand we actually are seeing the largest percentage increase in the

018state you know it's threefold uh not that there are other there are other counties where they're going to have 250 schools and they're going to you know really have to farm out a lot of that and I think the thing that's nice about our County that's small is that people know us coming in and it's not a threatening environment anymore but we'll make sure that whoever we bring on is you know sticks with that kind protocol sorry I'm out Mr why is a triing so the so the the Williams uh process uh the current list was actually when the API was still in still the academic performance index that's how the original list was established when the lawsuit took place or was settled and so that it hasn't been updated since we've been visiting the

019same schools over and over again and so finally after all these years they've re they looked at the at the the process and now they're using more updated uh criteria to qualify schools and that means that they are there's Aus schools that are sticking to the old AP are the criteria academic everything believe it's it's just academic isn't it it's for the most part it's academic not the state view yeah from the state view you know primarily you know it's very unusual to land there for graduation rate or anything like that very unusual for you know teacher Miss assignments um I think everything I mean I've kind of got a glimpse of next year and it looks to me like it was all academic for next year for us in what way AC is criteria

020well it's the state metrics now so the dashboards looking at uh at the the and we're going to be talking about the dashboards today so we'll talk a little bit about the academics because the dashboards actually just got uh came out today and so we'll be taking a look at at how our schools are doing and you'll get a quick overview of that but like I said the original academic was from late 90s they were using criteria from back then so it's it's great that they're updating it um and in some cases I have to say and thanks to to uh Brian and Richard there have been situations where they have found critical issues that needed to be addressed right away like dangerous situation were right then and there they bring it to their attention

021and immediately they bring an electrician and take care of that because it represented a hazard so this is something that is important and we're we're really grateful for your work right yeah well thank you very much and thanks thanks for listening have a good afternoon one other oh okay nosy but if a a school is at the top you know all all green or all blue whatever the highest does that mean that they're not necessarily even though they could have some defining problems if if if they're if if they meet the C you know if they meet the the low performing criteria they would be on the list but if they don't meet that they won't be on the list but one of the things that that Williams also mandates is that we get quarterly

022reports to see if there were any complaints and all the schools have all the school districts have to turn that into me on a quarterly basis it really is either being reported by the school or a student or or a parent that would be yeah in in those particular cases those would be uniform complaints and and what we what we get on a regular basis is they don't have complaints because people are really truly addressing the things they need to address right and and so they're um what they the the original lawsuit was was done by students who um were coming from underrepresented communities and uh saying that there was a correlation between communities of of who are minoritized communities and a lack of good teachers a lack of good facilities and so they're using

023the the academic criteria because that's a fundamental aspect of this IDE that to to disrupt the inequitable practice of of under resourcing schools that are not performing so that's why the academic criteria is so important for thank you okay okay all right thanks a lot take care say something okay well could you hold on we'll get the we'll get the clock sure ready for public comment signal me when it's over please go ahead so uh discussing high technology right we'll we'll restart your clock in just a moment M Garett I apologize for that looks like there an issue connection here it's going to be a little bit sensitive um but if you you don't touch it it should work I have a book called toxic sludge is good for you and the subtitled is lies

024Dam lies and the public relations industry we could change the title to say toxic microwave radiation from all these devices is good for you and those are lies Dam lies in the propaganda industry that is selling this so when you're talking about genuine safety at schools you wouldn't be having all this WiFi Broadband cell towers this is endangering beautiful young people and it's documented it's in a book called The Invisible rainbow a history of electricity and Life by Arthur firstenberg and many other books books here is just a brief paper saying danger radiation radiation from towers and Foams and Tremors is one of the symptoms also causes strokes and heart attacks in young people high blood pressure arrhythmias asthma flu like illness reduced firm count auditory disturbance epilepsy autism attention deficit disorder thyroid disease cataracts

025leukemia and brain cancer furthermore this is a surveillance technology students are being spied upon data is being collected you hear of electronic waste this is part of it education needs to be handson personto person field trips Etc not this microwave radiation laptop and men who put laptops here they develop testicular cancer young women have all their ovaries that are being blasted this is also related this radiation exposure to the infertility and the drop in populations we're hearing all over I have been here many times presented you with evidence and just because something is popular like smoking doesn't mean it's good for you and I call for removing this toxic technology it's much better to have wired technology like ethernet than the pulse microwave radiation I'll end it with a quote from Dr Helen cicott radio

026frequencies emitted from mobile telephone Towers will have deleterious medical effects to people within the near vicinity according to a large large body of scientific literature babies and children will be particularly sensitive to the mutagenic thank you and carcinogenic effects of this radi frequency radio thank you I have enough copy so you can read thanks M thank you for your input did want to um share something about the I forgot to uh I found the criteria that is going to be used for the new for the schools since that was asked so schools are qualify for comprehensive school and Improvement which is a federal designation um and uh the schools eligible for um atsi which is the state designation for academic needing needing academic intervention and if uh if they're found to have 15% or more

027of the school teachers that don't possess the valid or clear preliminary teaching cred thank you uh now we will go to new business action items item number 9.1 resolution 24-42 authorizing participation in proposition 47 grant for school safety initiatives by the Santa Cruz County Office of Education yes thank you so much president Ross um I have the pleasure of speaking to you today about uh a new grant that we received under Prop 47 part of the requirement is for you to approve a resolution for its implementation and uh this is a uh what we are implementing is a countywide diversion program in collaboration with law enforcement and all our uh variety of different partners and um so I'd like to talk to you a little bit about what what diversion means uh what this grant

028intends to accomplish and it is something that I think is very exciting for us to be a part of because it's really giving New Opportunities For Youth who are Justice involved so the grant is a $7.1 million Grant over four years it is we call it project Ascend and which is an acronym for achieving Success Through community education and nurturing development it's modeled after the cam exito program in wats mlpd which is a program that's been in place for several years basically what happens is that when a student is contacted by law enforcement before forwarding the case to the district attorney uh for processing the students are certain in certain cases are given the opportunity to be a part of a diversion program and uh which allows them to participate in positive activities receive Behavioral

029Health Services uh family engagement services and a variety of other uh services and as a result of that they their their file is never forwarded to the district attorney and if they're successful in completing that case the their involvement with the justice system ends there the Camino's program has a 91% success rate meaning that 91% of the participating students uh don't uh offend within six months and even less so after the six months and so it's a very successful model that we are replicating countywide so this is right now it's just one law enforcement agency within the city of of Watsonville we're going to make this a program that exists for all youth under the age of 18 across Santa Cruz County with all law enforcement agencies so we're partnering with Encompass and pvpsa uh

030to provide the the support services we're also of course working with all school districts and all law enforcement agencies that signed on to this to this Grant and are participating and in addition we have other Partnerships with different agencies to provide additional supports for students so what is diversion that that term is used a lot um and there's an offic kind of a a more official definition that's uh so ju Juvenile Diversion redirects youth from formal legal proceedings to supportive interventions aimed at accountability development and preventing future criminal Behavior so that's the official definition through alternative interventions a focus on development reduce recidivism and promoting Equity so the Camino's program just to give you a little bit of insight so um in the last uh 11 years they've uh over 700 students were referred uh

031they accepted 558 and I'll explain why some students are not accepted or or why it's a smaller number um of those 558 469 completed the program and of the number of Youth who re offended within six months was was 42 and the number of community service hours completed by youth was 22490 um they participated in pro-social activities and there was also uh lots of parent components that were part uh that were complet so of the of the 46 and 427 student of the youth um did not reoffend within the first 6 months it's one of the most successful diversion programs in the state of now we are seeing that just in the last year there were 642 referrals to probation for minors under the age of 18 uh we want to make that number zero

032with this program uh 63 students are actively on probation right now um 18 of the referrals um there were gang related charges there was 311 11 bookings into juvenile hall and four youth were sentenced to um to the the Juvenile Justice kind of the the um Department of of of Justice uh camps that they have which are for the most serious offenses those are outside of the county at this point and I'll be talking a little bit about that um a little bit later when I do my superintendent report but I wanted you to see that these numbers may be higher than you expected in terms of how many students are being referred to probation and probation means they've already gone through the courts they've already been convicted they've already been been um they're already

033serving probation right and that doesn't so when we think about the number of of young people that are being impacted and are Justice involved and the likelihood that they'll be unsuccessful in school that they're that they will continue um in the judicial system in in the justice system is is of concern to us and one we want to address through this this program so what the program will will uh the way it will work for any youth under the age of 18 between 12 and 18 is the age range the program uh when they're contacted by law enforcement they could be given um uh there may be charges of a misdemeanor or a non-violent felony um they would be sent to uh work with somebody from the Ascend team to determine if the student qualifies

034and they'll look at what the qualifying uh if the if the if the young person has multiple uh let's say repeat they they've had multiple offenses uh that may disqualify them or the seriousness of the offense could disqualify them but for the most part most offense offenses are would would qualify for them to participate in diversion but then they're presented with a uh an opportunity to to buy to to Really sign in to buy in to to participate in the program so parents and youth have to choose to participate in in the program it is it is a voluntary process they can opt out of it if they want to which would mean that their their case would probably be sent to the district attorney and they would go um and then the youth if

035hopefully will will will opt in um they will participate in the program which will include a variety of services uh case management pro-social activities mentoring community service hours restorative practices Behavioral Health Services uh substance use uh disorder Services uh we would coordinate with the school and provide family engagement services and some of the partners there the key partners are encompassing pvpsa who are going to be providing a lot of these services and and and and also working closely with the school system our goal is that uh as through participating in this program students would complete uh would be successful and then uh the uh the law enforcement agency would would basically you know say destroy the records of of of the the initial contact that they've had but it would not be forwarded over to

036law enforce to the district attorney and students are able to move forward with their lives without having anything on their record and so this model involves all law enforcement agencies the district attorne is also a part of it um the Coe is working with the school partners and then these community- based organizations through relationships resources and referrals really to surround students and give them this opportunity um so that this that the the impact of their their involvement and their their the misdemeanors that they that they are being charged with are are don't actually turn into convictions so uh one of the goals is to increase referrals for diversion um and um expand the model of wats the Watsonville Caminos program across the county and to partner with all the police departments another goal is to

037ensure that our services are culturally competent and that means that the people that are working with with our with with youth are are doing so with training and experience and able to work with with youth from all backgrounds and this is a again across the county um and uh and of course our goal is to reduce recidivism and improve well-being for students helping with healing strategies and Trauma informed care and um and of course our outcomes are that there that the students would not have any additional offenses that lead them for for any justice involvement in the future so this is a complicated process and there's a lot of moving parts to it there's we're we're going to be hiring uh staff a manager who's uh who's would would be responsible for overseeing the program

038there would be youth Specialists that would be the kind of the case managers that would be working directly with students those would be hired by the cbos for the most part and administrative assistants uh and other staff we would provide training we have asked the Watsonville uh Team the Caminos folks to be our trainers uh to be able to Train everybody and they're very excited about that and then to them it's really something that they're very proud of that they have built a model program that is now going to be replicated across the county they're they're really eager to do this uh we would have diff uh monthly meetings of course professional learning opportunities we're going to be putting out a communication plan that Nick is working on that will to let people know what

039we're what we're working on and what this is going to look like and of course we were also thinking about sustainability how do we ensure that these Services continue that grant us for four years but then we don't want to to go away hopefully we'll be able to get the grant again but we want to we want to institutionalize this as part of uh so that it's something that will will continue to to occur and we want to be a model program diversion State um so timeline wise we're looking at a launch uh well we already we just got notified a few weeks ago uh we're starting to put together up teams different types of teams uh partners and and of course key folks who are going to help us Define for example the criteria

040for for who's going to qualify uh make sure that we we get uh support from all the different agencies involved and finalize all of the logistics and the systems the referral systems and um and all the support services by March so that we could launch officially in April and so you'll see um all it's it I it was kind of warms my heart when I see you don't have them here but all the logos of all all our schools are you know all our schools are involved all our law enforcement agencies and of course a bunch of support agencies as well uh it's just very exciting that we have this this program and and uh it's it's something that I think is going to help uh change the trajectory of many many young people's lives

041and you'll see that Rishi Rishi L is uh the director school safety he's the one who actually uh championed this Grant and uh and worked with our grant writer to to secure it it is the biggest Grant one single Grant we've ever gotten 7 million 7.1 million uh and uh so we're very excited about that he rishie is actually a Washington DC with uh the Caminos team they're working on uh D National diversion models and so he's at a conference right now and why he's not here to present this to you uh he's uh there's other part there as well and so I'll be happy to take any questions o a few um first of all this does sound fabulous and congratulations so um I guess the first question is the program can you describe

042a little bit about how long that's been there kind of picturing that it probably took them some time to get it ramped up to the full program I want to hear about that but it relates to that how do we ramp up this thing so so I believe they've been they've been the program has been in place for 12 years I believe um it started as a grant that they received and then they uh rece there was a measure maybe W measure U no measure U I think I'm sure it was a Watsonville measure that um institutionalized it so now it's a permanent part of the Watsonville PD program so they contract out with pvpsa and they have two full-time staff members that are hired by the Caminos uh program and they're fully integrated as

043part of the team in in Watsonville PD and yeah their their system for referrals and and the fors and the the the the waivers they get or you know the releases for for parents uh and all the systems that they have in place um they've they've been very successful and at the same time I think there's opportunities for improvement uh to be able to to uh to secure additional services and and be able to you know when we scale it I think we'll be able to bring in um like having a um a I think they're still using Excel spreadsheets and you know those kinds of things and so we're looking at creating bringing a secure system that would allow for us to for for folks to be able to to document the plan that

044students have and and um make uh make uh secure referrals to people as opposed to using emails and those kinds of things and so those that's going to be something that I think is going to bring a level of of of improvement for them as well as this new program across so it seems like the commos then is a really good model that we build from but to launch the whole thing by March and April that seems very ambitious not great but you expect to bring it in in phases or actually you want to go countywide by April um so the the the folks that are going to be we're really working with two agencies so which is for the staffing so we're going to have our own manager which will be hired by the

045Coe and then all the support service folks will be from Encompass and pvpsa and they'll be embedded so we'll actually uh so we have between now and April to hire and train the team so it may not be fully robust by April but it'll be launch and so um I think that uh you know the the sheriff's office will have at least like two people working with them for example but the other agencies have a much smaller amount of of interaction with youth BEC just because of smaller departments and so we we're planning on splitting uh Staffing with between like Scots Valley and Capa and so on so there's not going to be a huge number of staff that are going to be hired U but we think that that we'll uh will be able

046to to uh you know start pretty effectively by by April I think rant is to not only kind of do the work to set it up and get it going operated long as the money have yes yes yeah well congratulations Rachel thank you um I'm really excited for this program particularly since um through inside education we had a visit to the jenile Hall see a lot of the students um in their classrooms um my question around this is I have no doubt that this will be an effective and successful program especially after having a great model that's been in place for for 12 years um so looking at sort of the sustainability of it you know there's always a um a hope that you get that Grant the second time but um I think our

047world might look a little differently in four years and so what thoughts are being planned for to make sure that this continues because it does take a while for programs like this to not just ramp up but also to um run seamlessly and just well I mean I think you know there's really only two options right there's uh Government funding I mean generally speaking government funding and grants raising the community which we usually don't get involved and uh and so I do think that this is a a program that is going to be the investment that the state is putting into these kinds of program is actually increasing and we don't think that that's going to go away but I also do feel like it's important for uh in the same way that the city

048of Watsonville decided to prioritize this program I think there may be an opportunity for us to show the cities smaller cities that they need to prioritize well so if grant funding looks like it's not getting to be available that they would consider uh integrating this as part of their budgets because the amount of money I mean just looking at it from a money point of view we're looking at improving the well-being of students lives but the amount of it's an investment in that the cost for probation incarceration all those kinds of things are just astronomical right and so it's it is not only uh the right thing to do for ethical reasons and in the best interest of Children and Youth it's also the right thing to do as an investment and so we're hoping

049that if we are able to demonstrate the success of this program as the comminus programs has demonstrated that it'll be it'll be something we'll we be able to secure funding for future make it sustainable a big part of that will be ensuring that we are Communications front get the word out to the public this is what's happening these are the successes so that we're not asking you know at the fourth year okay well we need a measure we need your money now and there's you know yet another tax on you so yeah would that count also yes thank you yeah of course so the city the county of Santa Cruz which supports the Sheriff's Office might be this might be a a great source for them to consider um and then the cities for some

050of the other departments I think this would be I mean I could see this being a multi- agency Edward yeah so um the numbers that we were shown that was for Watsonville right of the the Caminos program yes do we know how many countywide uh students total are going to be affected by this you know how many are getting you know uh referred to the DA countywide so the da we didn't get the da number um but we did get the number the probation this is countywide data uh so the 600 so it isn't it's a little awkward because you look at the dates it's not one year it's almost a year and a half so it's kind of a weird so it's like got to take two-thirds of that number but there are 642

051referrals to probation um in that just that year and a half okay that tells you maybe it's about 500 let's say students that are that that we think are are getting to probation we think that the number is bigger than that because in some cases if it's a misdemeanor they won't end up on probation uh we did look at at some other reports and um we we think that um the the number of Justice involved students acted who have who would probably fit this category is is probably closer to um and my second question was about um how much flexibility does the program have or is it um really like delineate uh delineated on like what charges are and are not eligible for the program is there some um wiggle room with that because my

052concern about that is just personal bias and things like that and just making sure that the policies and procedures on that are very clear um you know so there's not favoritism or anything like that when uh referring people into the program or saying that they're not eligible I I I share your concern and and I think that that's uh part of the it it does require agreement from the district attorney for the criteria because we couldn't say let's say a very serious case oh we're going to divert that right that's not something that we would have the choice to do and so we would have to make sure that uh that law enforcement and the district attorney would would be comfortable with with who were who's who's being diverted and um and also make sure

053that that criteria is objective as you're describing so that it's not you know based on you know some a person's an individual's opinion about what what you know who should be who should have the opportunity for diversion follow up on that there's a judgment that's made at that point so right that moment it's the into this there yeah I mean I think there's there's you're right in every step of the way there's going to be human beings that are going to be you know uh participating in in in that but but the way they they what we're seeing in and you know we have uh strong champions in the Caminos program who are really you know they sit down in the meetings with with the law enforcement officers and we have one of the things

054that we did is we met with all the Chiefs from and the and the sheriffs from all the different organizations so this is both coming in from from kind of uh the the law enforcement officers who are on the street but also um the bosses right and so our idea is is to ensure that everybody has buyin um you know and that so that to minimize the likelihood that somebody said we're not going to give this opportunity to this young person U but I do think that that part of that you know making building that training and also having checks and balances will be part of that um if we if if our if the staff who are working in those law enforcement agencies are you know they're not if they're looking at the lists

055of people who are arrested or list of people who are being uh whose cases are being sent to at district attorney and if they're seeing that they're they're not actually having the opportunity to to try to divert those cases and we would work with them to Advocate to change that practice so I think that again this is not not an outside these are not outside agencies telling you know law enforcement you're not doing your job this is people who are actually going to be working in those offices working with law enforcement in collaboration with them and and and the law enforcement agencies are all very excited about this they think it's right thing to do and they also recognize this is going to minimize the likelihood that these young people are going to be committing

056offenses in the future as adults just to follow one more thing it does seem to me that this is going to have a very period of gaining understanding and acceptance outside of think about my got to put them in jail you say to that person no actually we've got this great diversion program and we're gonna help that Su that person with stuff and that angry person is not happy at that to be a great Point yeah and and part of the program is restorative um so restorative that taking responsibility in accountability for for their actions and also if they've done harm for them to recognize and also participate in restorative practices that may be more effective and impactful for those for those young people than just punishing them and so but I agree I think

057that this this is this is there there could be folks who may see this as as um you know um making it easy and not not t on crime and you know it's also I think philosophically we we're you know we'll we'll take the heat if we have to but I do agree that I think I think the success of it too is is really important is for people to say well so you didn't you know give them you know time in jail or you know juvenile hall or whatever and that young person is less likely to do something else as a result of being a part of this program and so I think it is but restorative adjustment is also a new thing that is not right and and we recognize that you know

058there's uh kind of push back to some of some of that that approach currently in I think the issue is when there is re um repeat Behavior right when there isn't change and I feel like the purpose of this program is to prent to have that change uh first and foremost I want to congratulate the cand Cruz County Coe just because we I'm looking at the state website and I think we're well based on the list that I see here we're the only uh Unified School District or office education that actually received fund I think that says a lot about us I also did notice that the Santa Cruz County Health Services Agency also received uh Grant talked about potentially partnering with the community any um possibility of or talks and partnering with them or

059would it be different Focus so no so their focus is adults it's 100% adults and that's why when we looked we started looking into the Grant and we we reached out to folks who say is anybody else applying to this they said yes we are and so we talk to them and their their focus is is working with adults so they're kind of complimentary programs but one one for youth but uh Behavioral Health definitely uh who are the the or the Services Agency recipient so we definitely partner with them uh when it comes what we call Specialty Behavioral Health Services so psychiatric and um although both compass and pvpsa now are getting into that but they are definitely one of our partners so if if um the young person is needing specialty care we would

060I too I I'm so excited about this I think this is this is so important to start with we can help them excuse me avoid going down the pathway of isn't very successful we're doing a great thing my question is if a student is not within or not enrolled anywhere or within a private it will we will they be able to come yeah so the the the this this process um begins with uh this process begins with law enforcement and so that's where so it doesn't matter where they're going to school schools would be partner in this process not in school then in school or in a private school for any young person 12 and are they at the table not necessarily the students that aren't in school uh but the private schools they aware

061of what we are doing so we uh we just met with them yesterday and uh gave them a presentation wondering if our if our student trustees would be have any questions we're all talkie talkie over here so I have two just really quick questions so one you mentioned the 99 I mean 91% success rate in terms of repeat crimes is there a control figure for that of like people that haven't gone through the program what that rate would be you know what I um I don't have it but I can get it um so because we have they track uh uh you know they have young people and we uh we have the numbers of students it's generally speaking it's about 50% um so it's very high and um and so that is re what

062we consider recidivism within six months but I could get that number for youth because the students who are not listed here we they're still being tracked and and so we could get that number to see what that looks like and I think that's a great way of looking at it goal group and an experiment and then uh one more thing if somebody goes through the program and then they repeat another crime are they elgible again for the program so that's a that's a great question so currently under the Camino's program it's only for first time uh for the first time offense and so they don't allow for a person to do it the second time but that's something that we we're going to have to determine uh when working with our with our groups to

063determine if what what what the exact criteria is going to be to be implemented and um and so it could be that depending on the seriousness of it or you know that but but at this point the comminus program does not allow for folks who are uh who have who already have uh been convicted of a crime thank you I had a quick question going off of that um so just trying to make sure that uh we have some room for folks who offended prior to the introduction of this uh program would probably be important but they didn't have the opportunity to participate this in this and you know maybe did reoffend and just keeping that in mind uh and also I want to ask so once it gets to the level of the district

064attorney is there an opportunity for the district attorney to say uh I think this is actually a pro you know appropriate for the program would they be able to kick it back down uh and they could enter the program or is it just at the police level they no they do that and that actually uh in the Caminos program The District Attorneys sometimes does send it back to the to to for them and uh in In fairness as well I I'd like to share that the probation department is also working on their own diversion program that is for those once they already have been convicted and are sent to probation that they're trying to but we think that that uh we wouldn't call that diversion because that seems to be go against the definition of

065it but it's the same concept of Trying to minimize their their continuation in the justice system yeah some other some other yeah thank you for for that and that's you bring up an interesting point about having getting an opportunity to participate in the program there programs could be uh do you wish to speak yes could you uh give your name for our minutes G but to identify that you're speaking to uh item 9 yes just what you're discussing here I was looking at this I'm too shaky to write oh okay okay so it sounds good it's a lot of money but have word your questions too why are these people why are these students around what's the context the part that was on the screen that made sense to me it said focus on the

066community and poverty something like that what are the conditions that are causing these problems and we live in a society where there's more and more poverty I'm flashing back now to when you run the school board in Valley schools and I T there in the 80s 90s and I made a home visit to this child's home and he lived in a traa and it was very messy and he was a difficult child who school was missing school and I thought this poor kids horrible poverty conditions and there's more and more and more in the po valley where I attend school board meetings these days and some of these meetings I've attend the parents and students have complained about the security officer on campus singling out students of color and charging with things there was a

067lot of discontent I have based on a lot of facts not a great deal of trust in the police agencies um other thing I'm thinking of is just Tuesday the Board of Supervisors meeting maybe some of you followed up had quite an item on community services and all these programs like grave Bears um multitude of programs that need to be supported financially over 300 applications and gee there's not enough money so it's like fighting over the crowns of what's left after the military budget gets about half of our tax dollar that are going to kill people and Destroy schools in palestin 11 H Etc and I'm just thinking there's going to be more and more discontent as people are desperate by the poverty the lack of food housing and job opportunity so I think that's

068the key I like to see this money go into making a more bable society and providing for the wellbeing of students then be the police and thank you thank you thank you for speaking so uh this requires a uh vote on resolution 24-42 and uh so Nick if you would do a roll call vote I I'll move the resolution oh I'm sorry I'm going it's so good it doesn't need a you know motion anyway Bruce uh you're the motion maker second by Rachel so now nick uh going uh forward with our students first of course student trustee Hopkins student trustee Marcus hi truste Estrada yes truste Nichols truste Sanchez yes trusty Van Allen trusty Williams yes president Roth yes so the motion passes for the resolution next uh 9.2 approval of Santa Cruz County Office

069of Education strategic plan for 2025 through 2029 Dr SW yes uh so we has presented to you a draft of the plan at a previous uh meeting and and also um I believe that we shared the plan with you uh via email and so um you have a printed copy of the draft in your for your approval um in the blue folder and this is not the official printout this is just a a current print out before we we get it for you to review and approve it um I would like to walk you through the current plan and hopefully you've had a chance to look at it we have gotten a a few uh small changes that we've received uh from you uh that we're going to continue to make uh you'll see that

070we the design is is uh uh includes our own students from our our graduation on the front and that the plan is from 2025 to 2029 uh looking at our agenda you'll see that uh there's a letter there's a overview of our commitment to equity and also uh some information about the the the Santa Cruz Coe and um and then our planning process and the the the details of what our strategic road map looks like have to add one more yes and so you'll notice that under the board of directors uh we have uh student trustee the wrong name of the student trustee because when we gave this originally to our designer uh was before uh Ruben had joined us and now of course we have Natalie who's joined us as well and so we're

071going to be adding the names of our of our student trustees to this list and um so and uh so um you'll there's a letter from from uh from myself in there and then we start talking about this concept of Building Bridges to idea of uh you know we I have a I think I'm not the only one but if you look at our our logo um which is before behind you now uh you'll see that there's a bridge in our in our logo right it's a bridge connecting things as well connecting Our Youth and our our children to our future um also creating these Pathways that lead to to uh uh you know give opportunities for for folks and also the idea of connecting each other uh different agencies different people different community members

072parents children um you know you know uh other other Guardians and and and support services um we start with our with our focus on early childhood education and talk about U the need for availability of child care in our community uh we move into talk about student well-being and safety and school connectedness and and other uh data that shows that there is uh a lot of a lot of work for us to do in terms of in in terms of building those those connections for for our youth um also some information from our uh California healthy kids survey on page five moving on to page six we talk about attendance and school discipline and academic achievement and we'll be talking a little bit more about that when I we go over the dashboard in just

073a moment and you'll see that when you look at that bar chart you it just it it's quickly you could see that different groups of students have very different levels of performance and success in our schools and that we we struggle with our uh our our students of color to be successful in our schools many cases um moving on to uh third grade math I think the first one is language arts and then moving into uh each s uh we talk about third grade math as well as um 8th grade and 11th grade math and high school graduation and then we talk about the importance of biliteracy in our County and then is where we start on the next page we talk about building bridges and um and the different aspects of belonging relationships Innovation

074data growth excellence and sustainability and that's the acronym bridge where the acronym bridges come from multi-leveled connection to Bridges and then we talk about our uh about the Santa Cruz County Office of educ ation our mission our core values uh our vision uh the different roles we play and and they're similar to the the roles of of uh before so this is I'm now on page nine fostering collaboration and systems Improvement uh providing support and oversight for Education partners and providing services and support for Learners families and communities so the idea is that we bring people together we provide support for those who are supporting others and then we provide Direct Services as well three different roles and um then we talk about some of the the strengths challenges opportunities and big issues uh included

075in there is the political landscape which has created a great deal of uncertainty and then in our strategic road map we prioritize support safety and wellness um we Empower Equitable achievement and build sustainable system systems those are the three priority areas that we've identified and um so for the first one creating safety and wellness to create the conditions of foster safety inclusion belonging joy and well-being for all Learners and I'm I'm looking at the middle of page 11 and under priority number two um ensuring all Learners have the opportuni skills and supports they need to be engag and successful in their education careers and their communities and finally uh with building sustainable system to co-create and sustain an educational system that is cohesive effective and Equitable and then we break down each of those priority

076areas um and talk about how those connect to the roles we play so how does uh supporting safety and wellness relate to our role our three roles and um and so we talk about that on uh page 12 and 13 then when we move into page 14 we talk about priority number two and how priority two applies to when you look at the different strategies that we've identified that are going to be guiding our work for the next and um and that goes on to page 15 and then our last priority was sustainability uh it's also broken down by the 16 and um and then we uh talk about our plan forward and some endnotes so I'd love to open it up for any comments and questions Ed yeah I had a quick question number

077or page number seven at the bottom the Seal of by literacy I was a bit confused about the the the bar chart 88% white uh what but uh 59% Hispanic or Latina the similar question the paragraph above it referenced 36% so I think there might be an error there okay 36 versus 88 be 36% okay got it yes thank you for that I was a bit confused I was wondering if I was reading it wrong um well made a comment last meeting about um being careful about avoiding cliches and yes bureaucratic euphemisms um so and I think you did a good job um I think it's it's real and meaningful although anything in this field and at this level of abstraction could be ripped apart by somebody with a attitude towards it but there's another

078aspect of this that I want to acknowledge which is that and it really comes across in the goal first priority priority support safety and wellness and I want to acknowledge that this is actually a really huge change in and not that it started today or this week or with this with this um strategic plan but it's ongoing of really altering the culture of Education in a really fundamental way and I as a man in our society grew up with a very different um approach being imposed on me which was based on punishment and being tough that is none of this stuff about feelings and you know belonging belonging and all that kind of stuff it was all well if you're having a hard time toughen up you know up Bruce you know don't let it

079get to you and I have struggled against that kind of um narrow picture of masculinity and of being a human being all my life because it's really oppressive and really narrowing of what somebody can be about in their own personal life and with their community so the fact that we're now doing this in the school right at a moment when our national picture is really trying to reinforce the opposite view you at the national level right now the election um I think this is really important that we be totally worri out front and declarative about about what we're doing here because this is a big change you don't get big change unless people know it you know work on it so anyway I just really just from that standpoint really appreciate here um now I

080do have a couple um detail things um uh the in the healthy kids survey how many how many were survey do we know that was that like is it hundreds or thousands um hundreds it depends on which question so it the the at each correct there there and it's and schools can decide not to include certain parts of the survey so it it could vary so there are certain questions that are only but but I would say that that generally speaking then we only would look at it if there was a statistical and usually it's over 100 respondents um well one thing I really like about this plan is that in each of your sections the priority sections you have um the key indicators of progress and for me as someone who deals in data

081all the time what that means is measurable right so what I'm hoping is that over the course of implementing the Strategic plan we get reports that look at what's our progress on these including if there isn't any progress because we need to know that as well as being happy when there is progress so what I'm hoping for is something that turns this set of indicators into kind of dashboard so that any I appreciate that and and I did want to share that um there's another layer here which is not part of the Strategic plan which all every every uh Department had to put together a list of actions related to those strategies that align their work to that and so and each of those also have measurable outcomes so even at a smaller level um

082let's say training and for the safety component training schools in the new protocol for safety that we have um they are able to measure a percentage of which schools have been trained annually in that so each of those is in there and I and I I was hoping to make a comment and I also want to make sure students get a chance to um that uh when it comes to this concept of Wellness you know even before the pandemic we were recognizing that our schools have to be places where we not only focus on learning in the career and college and career goals and after the pandemic you know with the Staggering amount of Behavioral Health needs that our our young people are showing we recognize that we you know those pieces of belonging and

083safety and allowing students to bring their whol Sal to school is as important as important Edward yeah I wanted to yeah talk about uh the key indicators of progress um really highlighting the family engagement levels and School attendance chronic absenteeism um and I also want to speak to the public comment you know that uh about poverty and the its effects on students um you know I was a student living in poverty living in a trailer home uh you know and the effects of that and uh speaking also about our change away from punitive punishments on that I remember being afraid of school officials and uh my chronics my chronic absenteeism you know and the effects of that affecting our benefits of affecting um the meager $500 a month we were getting uh to live off

084of uh so it was you know I I I I I love the work that the Coe is doing to address chronic absenteeism in a discussion with families talking about poverty talking about uh what families need uh I think that the work that we're doing is really good I love that that's in uh key indicators of progress I think we're doing a great job uh I you know just wanted to kind of speak to that we're doing great work it's really good to see this in here supporting safe safety and wellness definitely starts you know at home when students you know can be in a situation where they Thrive that their families are thriving so kind of want to that just to add on to that I think you're right I'm really proud that a

085significant part of the plan is the health and wellness of our students it's staggering still to see the numbers of students who are um experiencing sad sadness hopelessness thoughts of self harm and these numbers are still too high and reality is is that our students can't learn and Thrive if they're feeling these things but I'm also very hopeful because some of the the numbers show that they feel like that there is caring people that they can reach out to in school or outside so hopefully we can you know increase that number and decrease the other um and I wanted to ask a question I'm not sure of the discussion of sort of the language used but there was um when we're talking about non-binary students um when we're referring to how they identify I noticed

086it um a couple times it was a term used non-binary or something else and that kind of affected me a little negatively like it we were talking about a thing versus a person so just to kind of throw it out there maybe we're you know another phrase could be you know um or SE Other Self identifying or other non-conforming individuals so that it's more of a personable so I don't know if that was a discussion and I may be you know have missed that conversation that happens happened at the staff level so on that but you may have more but I also I read that I went what because it says non-binary or something else and then it says or male or female so if the or male or female had had come before the

087or something else it would have made a little more sense although I think the order actually important to acknowledge called the or something else so um I think you I think we need a different phrase yeah and not thing not something for for pointing that out um and I'm really excited to see on a going back to a lot of the positives I'm really happy to see that the despite you know coming out of a pandemic we're still seeing graduation rates going it's on an or not so much going down or plateauing so that's also very nice to see think overall I'm I I think it's a a lot of great great work that Coe has done the staff um it's very feels very optimistic it feels like there is a clear purpose there's a

088commitment to collaboration with you know our community and our partners and staff and parents um and a real focus on Equity um amongst students which is um something incredibly important to bring our community together um and I'm just bar proud of the work everyone has done see the progress um and um like fellow truste here said I'd love to see those goals and maybe I know a lot of our typical goals will have a quantitative like you want to raise you know participation in after school programs by the 60% and so for me its numbers is rather than see just kind of the qualita improved but I figured that was probably in the weeds like you said like that is behind the scenes and I'm I'm happy to hear that that's already considered and I

089think that uh you know with your support with the board support we would want to identify some key performance indicators you know some really because there would be hundreds of of of things that we we we would be able to look at but but uh but we would identify ones that that we want to are connected to a variety of different and I do think that you know as you mentioned Equity I you know in my mind and I just spoke to this the folks that are working on their administrative to who are working on clearing their and in my mind what I shared with them was that Equity is really about us taking not only for ACT providing access in the results to say that if our students are are have very high numbers

090of quic caps inm like a third of our students are that is our that's on us we have to figure out how to reach our communi and um and that I think I I'm hoping that that is fa here that this is not about this is really about us making a commitment and wanting to commit to or really embracing our responsibility to change the the of our see ourselves as partners with our community with our students Andra yes well I love this love this uh roer you presented for us and I can't wait to be in an atmosphere where I can actually read every word but I my eyes have focused on uh some some very important words to me um because uh under let's see on page um 15 I'm I'm just glancing at

091key uh indicators of progress and one of them is multilingual student data and behind that in parentheses it says English learner reclassification and state seal of biliteracy I um I talked uh with a number of Staff members here and maybe some trustees about instituting the the Seal of bil literacy and I was very involved with doing that in Paro and uh I don't think we I don't think we're gonna I'd like us to be infected with the germ of loving bilingualism because it just opens so many more doors uh with what you can do with your with your jobs um being being a bilingual person myself I don't claim to be perfectly bilingual and I don't claim to speak and and uh understand Spanish uh perfectly uh but I but I do I do embrace

092the concept of bilingualism and my two grandchildren are both in the bilingual dual language immersion program at at de la V School remember when I when I announced here at the board meeting that I was getting a grandchild I got two they aren't they aren't twins they're darling children and the girl the girl is now 10 and she can she speaks in in Spanish sentences if she wants to it's that she loves it I embrace that concept and I I don't know who I approached uh about the Seal of bilingualism and whether whether the county office should should embrace that and and get it out there for people people should know about that and um I give you a little short story about it was graduation day at Watsonville high school and and for some

093reason I was walking in the streets of wat Watsonville and that the children were coming out of the school with their diplomas they had had their re uh their um program their graduation and and three girls were walking along and I said did you know about the Seal of finally of my literacy and and they said they knew about that and and I said are you one of the uh hardworking people to to get that and uh I and she said she got it and and I said I want to see it on your diploma because she had her diploma right there and I said I just want to see what it looks like on the diploma and congratulations you're going to have a good time with that when you start looking for work because

094if you speak in two language languages you get the job unless there are other bilingual candidates you've got a big um big skill to that can't be eased I mean you got to take at least five years imagine now if we were a program something that sound so different like for example Asian uh languages would be a great deal more difficult a second congratulations to all the bilingual [Laughter] people thank you for your well I got a lot of nose got a lot of yes but it's on it's now onas it's a big deal I remember when it came in it's cool meeting in I do have a question both are new and this incorpor would it be more or to hear the question and then if it hasn't been answered would that you know

095which I think it helps to hear the questions of the board first just don't want you you know I I'm the same way I'd rather listen to all or have um I would just like pass over but um I know I suffer a lot from not being bilingual and uh especially here on this board where we represent uh a lot of Spanish speaking and when I have had to go and speak I so I I think it's very very important U and uh also um I'm going to pass it over to the students so so uh I had one thought so I really like the the optimism of it I I agree that's a really good uh like framework and one thing I specifically resonated with was the growth mindset like I think that's a

096super important way of teaching a super important mission of education and uh I also really appreciate the key indicators of progress so I'm wondering if there's any specific key indicators of progress that could measure a growth mindset potentially like surveys measuring motivation or career or future prospects of students um I you know I think it would be it's a great question I think that when it comes to I don't I think it would be difficult to measure uh kind of whether somebody has a growth mindset is that is that what your question is how would we measure the I think that what we use a lot in in our in the for for example the California healthy kids survey is we look at indicators that are correlated with measures of success and so um uh

097trusty Williams mentioned that if somebody uh has a connection with a with an adult on on campus that one is in in research has found a high correlation with success as measured by graduation College grades going to college and so on um generally if you want something like uh when they do research about growth mindset those are usually more qualitative type studies where they're it's more of a kind of having conversations and and um really kind of diving deep into trying to understand kind of the mindset of optimism and you know what is your view of the future tell me about what your your plans are and so um and and qualitative you know information is useful but it's it's harder also to put together and use it in a in a report like this

098this is we usually rely on on kind of quicker quantitative measures um but I do think though that the idea of the importance of the growth mindset and having that adaptability that that idea that we're always learning we're always Learners were always um is is is such an important part of of what we believe is one of those uh necessary kind of components of of success in in school and and approach that everybody parent staff um have need to have that mindset so that we don't we don't limit ourselves by by by U by thinking that we're you know we're stuck we have a static approach I just want say somebody put your microphones on so someone who has struggled with mental health in the past it's really exciting for me to see this on

099here and I just really appreciate that it's being looked at as a very important thing in education very much further president Roth I believe we're gonna have a public comment but if if I may make one brief comment before I wanted to highlight to the board something that um that I'm very proud of um and and I think the board May um may already know but but may um is not necessarily typical for these reports which is that every photo in this report is of a Santa Cruz County student and of a Coe program um there is no stock art in this entire report many most of these photos were taken by our by Ronaldo baros are talented digital media producer or some of our other staff so we're very proud of that snake about

100the Strategic about our Str yes it it sounds good and um Equity of course we want to have the realistic question is how do you have that in a society that is so inequitable and the poverty growing I'm thinking back to Tuesday's Board of Supervisors meeting and you referred to child care and how important that is that's part of what's being slashed in the budget all these services that support some semblance of equity though it isn't a child growing up in poverty and one growing up in a household where they're fairly well off that's how do you make that Equitable did you know that Franklin delanor Roosevelt had an economic Bill of Rights we think of the other Bill of Rights with the first amendment I should bring it and read it but it had

101to do um the right to education the right to Health Care the right to a decent job that would support a family the right to a healthy environment was a whole less but the economic interests of the time didn't allow for this economic Bill of Rights to pass so we are in a situation the staff person at the Board of Supervisors who did the presentation on the Community funding he referred to it looking like things were it was his word like going into chaos that things were getting so bad and that we needed to look at the structure of the society that's causing these problems and I think that is absolutely essential and keep talking about safety and I think of the this Wireless microwave radiation it's like being in a microwave oven how do

102you expect people to thrive and be healthy in a microwave oven that is known to cause so many adverse effects students your age did some interesting experiments they fed some plants water that had been microwaved and they fed plants other water that hadn't been microwaved the plants with the microwaved water died that was an interesting student experiment in like biology class another one was they took samples of student blood before and after exposure to radiation the blood clumped when Expos thank you welcome it's great to be back and I'll see you next month as well I think um I'm Greg Larson trusty elect for trustee Area 3 and I just uh wanted to speak briefly to this item as uh superintend superintendent Dr Saban knows since retiring as Town manager of losgatos over the last

103nine years I've worked with about 25 cities and Special Districts to devel their own strategic plans so I read this one with great interest about gee how does it match to the ones I've done and my clients have ranged from East paloalto with seven years of work to Roseville for five years so I've done a a fair amount in this space and I love the document I love the graphics I was particularly impressed with what's going to be this 3x3 Matrix of the priorities and the roles and just creating a real tangible tool to track progress and what we all are going to be doing collectively um most important for all the work I've done and I was so pleased to see it addressed here at the end is the next steps and the followup

104how do you keep a strategic plan from just being a beautiful document that everybody forgets and it's that annual coming back to it seeing the data seeing the priorities and strategies to implement it so I just wanted to say Kudos and I look forward to working on this over the next four years next month yeah so are we ready to uh present a motion second well resolution 20 oh no actually doesn't have a number no we're just approving the item so that motion and uh since this is a resolution of course student trustee Hopkins student trustee marus trusty Estrada yes truste Nichols yes truste Sanchez yes trusty Van Allen trusty Williams yes president Rob the motion passes and thank you else everything's the superintendent report oh I miss special education I'm not okay so moving

105on to 9.3 resolution 2443 recognizing special education day yes thank you so uh December 2nd is National special education day and uh you know when we think about uh Equity diversity and inclusion inclusion in many ways it's not all always but one of the one of the components of inclusion is ensuring that our community of students and adults with disabilities are off offer the same opportunities to belong and participate and succeed in our in our schools and in our community and uh and so a growing number of students in our schools qualify for special education meaning that they have an indiv individualized educational plan and uh and it is our responsibility to provide a free and public education that is appropriate and that is the least restrictive possible and so um we work hard to

106be able to provide uh the the the the for the needs of of our students and to help them be successful in our programs we're very proud of our students in our own special education program uh you've been to our graduations and you've seen how amazing they are and how what a joy it is to be able to to to serve them and and help them in in in their in their in their processes to become uh successful and to and plans beyond beyond our schooling system and so uh we hope that you will consider this resolution uh to honor our our students and to uh really uplift them brce well i' I'd like to make the motion and um uh this the provision of special education is it's it's touched my life in a

107couple different ways and it it's got to be along with alternative Ed the thing that caught my attention first about how good this back I years or something but how seriously this office is anyway I strongly recommend support this and I'd like to move resolution 2443 speci educ there a second I'll second but uh also were there any students do you have any any comments or questions made the motion to get the discussion any comment by the board I don't have any specific comments but uh I think special education is one of the big positives of our community and I I think it's worth recognizing it as a de I would just like to say law went into 192 and today I feel it is going to be very I think about several other areas

108also but I think we have done a good job here and we continue um since this again is a resol president Roth I Believe Miss Garrett would like to make a a comment before the takes action on this item thank you N Miss Garrett did you wish to make a public comment on this item yeah oh maybe you got a balance sir please go ahead this is a fine resolution what I think we need to look at is what are some of the causes of disabilities that have been increasing over the years in the Paro Valley we have the toxic pesticide exposure I'm thinking of a child who is in my class whose Vision was horrific and the methyl bromide toxic ological profiles that damages lungs eyes kidneys skin known to cause reproductive harm how

109do we remove toxic various toxic exposures when I was teaching I didn't see autism in the class now what is it one in 30 I don't know it's huge part of the cause of autism is vaccines and there's a book out by Leon canot called the unfortunate truth about vaccines exposing the vaccine Orthodoxy Leon worked as a school psychologist in head and upper levels of Education in the 1990s and I think you should have a presentation by him he started seeing in the children what he had never seen before was K es of autism and he and others started doing some research when when did this occur what was happening it had to do with the increase in vaccines that children were getting in the United States children get many more vaccines than in other

110countries another book and it's it's well documented is called muscle truth and it's how the CDC disre rejected covid treatments and vaccine health risk warnings by Ron Owens who worked with the California Department of Public Health and that's another book that shows the cover up of the harm that was being done from these shots a very recent book is my Naomi Wolf's book the fiser papers Biser wanted to hide for 75 years their records of chests with these vaccines fortunately there was a court hearing that said no you have to release these documents thousands and thousands of pages showing they the harm and they up and proceeded thank you okay back to vote student trusty Hopkins hi student trusty Marcus hi trusty Estrada yes trusty Nichols yes trusty Sanchez yes trusty Van Allen trusty Williams

111president Rob yes thank you the motion passes now to report I feel like I am been speaking a lot this is the most I've uh spoken to this board ever I think uh three backtack reports to you well this one gives me great joy to uh to provide this report report uh this is a photo from the uh Ruby Bridges walk to school day that took place uh last week at py high school I got to join with uh with Miss uh Brooker who's in the front to the right there and uh and hundreds of students or maybe dozens I should say of students and parents and staff that were that joined us and uh this was not the only uh event that took place it uh it also occurred not only a PV high

112school but at soel high school at Santa Cruz High School and also at soel I think New Brighton um also had an event as well and uh I want to give a huge shout out to andrees Ortiz who is our our student leadership and engagement coordinator who happens to be in the audience today he worked with um the different School sites to and the the black student unions at many of this those at three of those the three high schools to promote the site and uh help them get connected with the foundation that provides all the cool stuff that you see there uh we're wearing uh you know all kinds of waving flags and and Banners and and um and the students were absolutely uh so engaged and if if you you you I'm sure

113you know the story Ruby Bridges in 1960 was one of the first children to walk to school uh surrounded by US Marshals to desegregate uh School in Louisiana when she was 6 years old and she is uh still alive and still represents such an icon of this of civil rights and for students to be to be so engaged and excited about this just brought so much joy uh to me and we needed it um uh right now more than ever you know to to uh have all that positivity and optimism and excitement and also recognizing that that six-year-old uh girl changed the world and these young people are going to continue to change the world and make it better is than than it is right now still alive she is she is look at the

114way they've taken the picture of the little girl holding I don't know what she's holding in her hand but if you see the word walk that child is can't really see it very well that's yes let me let me that's how that is is that is that is kind of the symbol I'm going to I'm going to go ahead and and make it a little bigger for you to see that is an icon for the walk to school day that is Ruby Bridges as a kind of a and she's holding a book and in the picture uh which I I'm sure I could find for you uh the famous picture is she's surrounded by US Marshals and there's all there mobs of people who are you know ring insults and at at at her and

115she's courageously took those those little steps to to uh into into school children were their parents refused to them in right very very small group wanted to know her so they started infiltrating great story isn't it yeah it's a wonderful story had a lot about Ruby Bridges and um and then students spoke um among imano who's in the front right there he spoke at PV high school and in his speech he talked about that what inspired him to join the BSU at PV high school with Miss brooker's class was uh his anger at hearing the n-word being used so much and he joined the black student union because he wanted to be a part of of eliminating that from from from his his school and uh and it is it was really an inspiring event

116you'll see also Dr Heather Contreras in that picture and both those students um iel and maximiliano who are on the front holding the banner were two students in our Student truste Academy this and so it was great to see them there um so wonderful event I um you probably are well aware of the letter that uh we worked with the county our County Partners and the press conference that took place in support of our immigrant community and our lgbtq community as well um we're working with our our partners in anticipation of potential action that may impact our our our communities here thinking about different possibilities um we also recognize that uh that the that the action that that could could manifest itself locally um is going to be accompanied by a great deal of fear

117as it is right now from our community and paralyzing fear that that we saw in 2016 when when uh families did not send their children to school they did not go to the doctor they did not want to access service they were afraid that this was going to impact their their ability to secure status in this country and um and we recognize the schools are an important part of the of being safe places for our families and we want to make sure that that stays that way and so um so we're working with our partners uh Community Action board is really taking the lead yesterday I met with uh um assembly member uh rias's office and other partners to talk about things we can do pro actively uh to support our community continue to stand

118up and uplift and protect our community to the best of our abilities um want to share some election results several uh of our bonds School bonds look like they're passing at this point fingers crossed and I don't want to jinx anything uh Bonnie Dune pvsd Scots Valley and soel all are currently passing um there are still some votes that are are coming in so we we're um and live o is is pretty much guaranteed not to pass point and so um so those for for those yeah for those uh four uh it is good news and at the state Bond also passed and so overall good news and and uh you know always wanting good facilities and uh for our for our our students um I did want to talk to you a little bit

119about Senate Bill 823 which is a uh part of the the the Govern governers uh effort to realign uh the justice system realignment really is about getting rid of state-based uh institutions and really putting the ownness on counties and local communities to uh to or to to provide kind of the Justice uh carceration in some cases and and as well as support and services and treatment and um this is important because even though we have a very small number of young people who are in DJJ uh placements we have four actually two right now I think um but I think we we recently had four so it's a it's a relatively small number uh the fact that they are um they are going to be um receiving Services here in Santa Cruz County which means

120that the probation department is responsible for creating a secure youth treatment facility and they're going to be they've uh applied with the state to make that in our juvenile hall which means that these young people who have the most serious and violent offenses who normally have been sent away to other locations very far away from their families are now going to be here uh in our community in our in our in our juvenile hall and we'll be able to and we'll be Prov we're responsible for providing them education and services and so um we're partnering with uh with the probation office and as well as other and but there is there is some controversy in terms of what that's going to look like and how those programs are going to be put in place and

121so there's a lot of discussion we're listening to a lot of different Community Partners about what is the best way to support these young people who are going to be in in facilities and the lock facilities for a long time um I'd wanted to share with you that we continue our efforts to uh talk to to to share uh bring awareness about fentanyl in our in our in our in our community and and we are today I heard from the sheriff's office that there has been a reduction this year in the number of overdoses and deaths compared to last year and that's really comforting to hear that it's things are getting better uh we've done two four more film screenings of fentanyl High which is a movie by Kyle Santoro uh and uh one at

122Santa CR at Scotts Valley high school and one at Aptos High School last night and um and that's uh we continue to to partner with safe RX and many other partners to to uh we table a different events we have a our tupe which is our tobacco use and uh program which is uh also with a focus on vaping and as well as other kinds of risks that exists in our community we're partnering with uh with the Watsonville Film Festival pahar Valley prevention and Student Assistance and and uh and working with a group of of Youth who are going to be developing their own film locally and so we're excited about that uh we've been working on addressing hate in in our schools as I mentioned earlier the n-word and other kinds of hate um

123seem to have increased significantly this year and schools are doing a lot of great work uh doing presentations classroom to classroom uh as well as uh trainings for staff we are looking to develop a um uh a bystander training for that we would we're going to be developing in partnership with our school districts and um to be able to to provide presentations and also maybe engage young people to help present co-present with us um just again to to bring more awareness to the harm that's being done and and and the need to be able to create a culture of respect in our classrooms um I did want to share with you that a young person um Mason I believe is is The Young Person's name presented at San Lorenzo Valley Unified School District uh he

124is a a a member from our youth for environmental action and he presented a survey of uh the perceptions of students when it comes to the environment and how well the school was schools were doing and how optimistic they were for the future and to the San Lorenzo Valley un High School District uh board and I was wondering if you would consider and maybe we could put this on agenda committee um having a countywide presentation of the data for the whole County because it's really an impressive impressive work that the students do they gather data every year and they're tracking how what what systems are being put in place across the county how students feel about them how and so possibly if if that would be something the agenda committee will would consider I think

125the students would love to come here and what they are seeing is that the the the implementation of these sustainable systems are actually affecting students um optimism for the future of us sustainability the fact that they're seeing these things in place is actually making them more optimistic and more likely to participate so we see this as something that we think the you know young people being the champions of that would be would be wonderful so uh possibly something you'd like to uh like to consider um also just wanted to share that uh the differentiated assistance is the is something that the County Office of Education is responsible for supporting school districts that are not performing well on a variety of different measures and uh every year a new list of districts are identified for differentiated

126assistance and we provide support to those school districts and uh we'll soon be uh receiving I think we were supposed to receive it before today but I think we're getting that that notification tomorrow which school districts receiving that so we would be able to report to you the services that we're going to be offering to those districts and of course um you may know that I am the co- captain of the holiday food and fun drive this year and so we would love your support uh to get the word out uh about Second Harvest Food Bank over 65,000 people use the food bank every month and food insecurity is growing in our community and especially among young people and so it is something that that we feel strongly about we have our own campaign and

127we'd uh love it for you to support the campaign but also share it with your uh your friends and neighbors and and uh you can add it to your signature you can add that QR Cod code and so that people can can donate when and some upcoming events we're having a computer science playground at Watsonville high school and at the mall where uh young people and an adults get to play with everything computer science from coding to robots to just lots of it's a really fun event to promote uh the computer science and so it would be great if you could join us and uh you should have received an invitation to the January budget Workshop by Capital Advisors it should be an interesting time we're hearing that um though the budget is looking pretty

128good and taxes incoming taxes are looking pretty good um that the uh the colas are actually going to be less than anticipated so it's interesting uh so hopefully by then we'll have more information and we'll have the the uh the the governor's uh preliminary budget at that point and then uh you you have uh are aware that uh as a result of a requirement you're required to participate in an Ethics training by school and college doesn't well you don't have to participate in this training specifically but you do have to participate in in an official ethics training we're offering it inperson uh on February 18th as that you you're able to partip we're hoping you you're already signed up for that and um and then lots of uh new events that we'll be telling you

129about that will be occurring in the winter and spring poetry out loud spelling be steam Expo and a variety of other exciting activities you know how busy gets lots of events for you to to I wanted to share with you that the California dashboards are up and um there uh this is the the system that California has developed to tell us how well schools are doing in a variety of different areas specifically and so they use these gauges these um that from Red um to Blue in a variety of different areas and I know that's hard to see on the screen but you'll see The Chronic absenteeism which is when students Miss 10% or more of their schooling is one measure suspensions English language learner progress graduation rates College and Career Readiness and then how

130they perform on the Casp tests which are the state Assessments in language arts and math and so you'll see that for example in this case The Chronic absenteeism is yellow suspension rate is orange it says orange here English language is orange graduation rate is green this is for PVD College and Career Readiness is orange and then their performance on the in the red for and so um they when you look at this they they're looking for two things they're looking at how well uh schools are doing the the and you could look at it for individual districts for the whole District or for individual schools you could um and what they look at is if you are kind of doing well or not so well compared to other other districts but they also look at

131whether you've grown or or have have you improved or or decreased in that area and so if you get R it means you're not doing well overall and it means that you're you've increased and so it's a combination both of a kind of an objective number and also a relative number to how well you've done in the past and so um a couple of changes this year they've added the long-term English Learners category which is uh this is another student group that they've added and that's for students who've been um who have not obtained AED English language proficiency for seven years so they were they've been in our system for at least seven years and they're still language Lear um they've added the science uh academic performance indicator is based on the cast test or

132the CAA test for 5ifth eth in high school and then also um College College and Career Readiness um has col rating now overall chronic absenteeism has decreased significantly across the county uh we've seen big drops in in several in in most districts and looking at for example pbsd dropped almost I think 18% their chronic absenteeism and the students are starting are coming back to school uh this is the first time we're seeing that Improvement since the pandemic and so this is something that is that is definitely good news um academic performance overall is not has is is continuing to look low and um for most of the many of our districts the we did not see they were either flat or Dr and um and then as a result of adding the long-term English learner

133performance as a new student group it's going to qualify many of the districts for or differentiated assistance not only here but across the state and so um I if you want to go to the website on your own time it's California schoolboard.org and you can type in the name of any uh school or district and click on it and I encourage you to um spend some time discovering uh your own uh kind of checking it out it was just released today so this is very fresh news and you'll probably be hearing we'll be uh probably sharing some information about this uh with our community and I'm sure the districts will also be wanting to celebrate some things and maybe Identify some areas of growth and that is it for my report i' open it up

134for any questions um actually a question um going back to one of your first um about um sort of the the environment that some of our our students will be living [Music] in maybe absences because fears that they might have so my question is is how are we preparing or training school officials to address if some were to come on campus ask questions or to students who might have those fears what resources are available bring my daughter has had friends come to her and they've just had conversations and they have fear because maybe isn't you know documented but they are here legally and I basically passed on you know ABAB um you know Frontline people well one of the I appreciate the question so one of the one of the things that we uh wanted

135to assure folks is most of the school dists I believe all of them but but we'll have to verify we have it as well there is a uh a board policy that restricts our ability to one collect immigration status and two also with migration enforcement so that is something that we're talking about in the superintendent's Council about what would we do if if let's say somebody were to come onto the campus student out for examp um so I think that that that's something we're working on and I'll be happy to share more about develop them in addition uh one of the things that we are working on with cab support and um ana rodino who that created the emergency plans forou years ago is to also bring awareness to families is what things that they

136can do to prepare if enforcement were to take place and in many cases and most most of our students do have born in the US and and um it's their parents that don't have their status that is at risk and so the idea of of them being separated is mortifying to as you can imagine to anybody and so uh working with families to be able to to plan and also for them to know the rights and also uh looking at what kind of advocacy we could do in California and this is not something we're only worried about here it's something that Su man Reas the governor and and lots of folks are what are the kinds of things that we could realistically do um if you know if the the the rhetoric of of the

137in thank you for co-chairing the second harest Food Bank it's been something that um I think it holds near and dear to a lot of us and I've been participating volunteering and doing things for like the last 25 years so thank you and I would challenge our trustees you know it'd be great if we could say that we are 100% participants in the program even if it's a dollar because a dollar they can make a dollar go a long way so I challenge to all participate and my last question and kind of comment is for our student Tres um I've seen fentol high and I I think it's in very impactful film and it's something that and I'm curious have you heard about it have you seen it and so how think that that affects

138the students who maybe have seen doesn't more just curious to hear more from you so I haven't personally seen it but I've heard a lot about it and I definitely want to see it it seems like it's it's a very impactful movie uh you get uh fentanyl is seems like a big problem in our community so I think we could uh like work on efforts just have more schools showing the movie be very effective yeah I was gonna kind of say the same thing I saw like the first 15 minutes of it last night at appos high and just like the beginning was very impactful and I personally know somebody who has overdose s all so I think that more schools definitely should be showing it if I mean if it's possible like every school

139should be sh so there is no cost but Kyle Santoro does uh reserve the right to get permission every time screen it but he's been very supportive he's over he's away in college at at this point G uh but so there is a process that we go through to to register folks and to keep creative control over the process but again he's been very supportive and we are seeing a lot more schools that are I think that's a great idea especially if okay um any other questions of Dr Spa student uh truste reports um I don't have any but I'm excited to attend the upcoming events and just looking forward to be more involved in the community your question just did really agree with yeah I want to uh just touch on the Ruby brid's

140walk to school I speaking on behalf of students it seemed like a very engaging event like students were uh really excited about it I know uh soel the school I go to is a really big hit and uh also soel had this uh kindness week recently which was a a some more like uplifting uh motivating initiative and it seems like in general uh Student Response on these like uh these supportive engaging initiatives is generally positive and uh they seem like effective ways of uh promoting the coe's mission of belonging in inclusion Sandra any report of your last you need to come in December but yeah this is your last full meeting we'll be we'll be talking about that we're gonna change it to the most likely to the eight well um I haven't I I

141didn't um I don't really have a full report today um I'm I'm trying to keep healthy I'm I'm uh trying to get exercise every day by setting off the morning in the morning at 8:30 for a 2hour walk and uh I uh do a lot of thinking in the process and I that's that would be the only thing I think of to add to my report I'm very busy going to doctors too I told I told you all last time that I I had so many doctor appointments on my list but I'm getting ready to not take any medicine anymore on December second I'm so excited it says stop and I'm not going to say the name of the medicine but uh I I've been taking it for I will have been taking it it's

142good it's happy medicine yeah Edward I attended the press conference uh that we had uh it's great to see so uh representatives from different Community Partners agen uh in the county uh going to be important for us to protect our students and their well-being and their families um as we go into the next four years uh so uh you know regularly immigrant and LGBT students um and we have already seen uh the US Congress uh restricting uh access to restrooms based on biolog iCal sex and so the threat of that is uh very very serious um and the fact that ultimately what a lot of uh legislators want is um genital checks for students uh you know so that's that's that's the enforcement mechanism that would um ensure that only biological Sexes are able to

143access certain restrooms um so it's a very scary time for a lot of LGBT folks um uh but I you know also uh very inspiring that we have the first transgender uh openly transgender uh member of Congress uh and which spurred the change in rules which I know will not only affect her but will also affect lots of transgender staff uh at the capital so lots of work we must do I do like her response yeah sorry that she had to do that yeah which I I will also uplift some other uh transgender voices who have said you know uh opposing opinions on what she has said um that some some say that she has just capitulated to uh Republican extremists um so uh and that there are I I also want to uplift that

144there are many transgender staff members in the US capital that will also be affected by that because it's not just legislators it's staff members and visitors to the capital um which includes students transgender students who might be visiting uh who will be affected by that so o I also attend Ed the uh press conference on immigration status and it was very important to me that education was so well represented there and of course Ferris gave the he turned it up to 11 which is good in his speech um gave most hard-hitting and and I thought it articulate um of all the speeches but it was a good thing and to me that was part of the the beginning of our our communities our Cy's response to the situation which is we're going to make sure

145people know that around here at least most of us are going to stand up and protect our friends and neighbors family members from separation so that was really important I was really glad I heard about it the time to get there that was good um uh I get I until a couple weeks ago we totally occupied with elections because I helped a number of local campaigns as I think most of you know um and uh it was very gratifying to see so many of our school Finance measures pass they were not all looking that good right after the vote in fact Scott Valley only tipped above 55% two days ago it was news to me yeah and so you know it's not final I tomorrow might be almost conclusive tomorrow's counts in the county but

146it won't be certified for another couple weeks probably but um what a relief that that that the taxpayers saw that the voters saw the reason support education um that's pretty much all I have and I wanted I just I so pleased to have both of you here um to our our student trustees and um one of the things that I realized just in the course of this meeting today is that our world of education is just full of uh special uses of seemingly normal words um acronyms abbreviations all kinds of stuff and if you if you hear us present something or talk about something and you go what did that what's DJJ you know Department of Juvenile Justice you know I didn't know that the first time I saw I heard that that acronym you

147know so anyway feel free to just go what you know who what does that mean you know just like you have license to understand you so you have to ask sometimes that you welcome it so anyway I'm just really pleased you're here and look forward to our service together um I didn't get a chance to attend um the press conference in person but I got an opportunity to watch it and shared it um and it's inspiring to know that we live in a county where leaders protect the most vulnerable and um it's a proud Community to be a part of I um attended with the county Coe um the diversity Gala which was amazing very fun event um I got to sit next to Edward here we had a great time um and a wonderful

148cause um I also attended empty bowls funraising at apos high school that benefited Second Harvest Food Bank and they put on a presentation the choir sang and had great Manu and some no wait ble and another soup I can't remember that but um there it was all put on by their students um the bowls were ceramic made by the ceramic students the food was made by The Culinary department and it was just a wonderful event and I was happy to um and then um our inside education group um this month attended the San Lorenzo Valley Middle School and also visited the Hartman school at the Juvenile Hall and the things that they've done there at the Juvenile Hall to make it feel you know more of less more punitive and more of a learning environment

149is very inspiring and um listening to um individuals there hear about how they are learning and excelling there is also a great staff there and they have great hearts and just want to do good by the students and so that was really nice to see and I'm really um excited to see how um the program as send will be you know affecting you know that hopefully and it's more about students um in the diversion program versus is ending up in the system and cailing that so all right I um want to start by uh apologizing for not being able to attend the meeting last month I was uh traveling for work and I just couldn't make it in time but I definitely missed you it was a weird it was was a weird feeling knowing

150that the board meeting was running and I wasn't there but I'm glad that there was a quum and that business continues as usual we uh had a uh committee meeting with h PCS that I think I'll talk to a little bit more later but uh soon and I attended that on October 29th uh and we also had a site visit so we were there in the school and talk uh to the to a couple of uh staff members as well on that date and um that's what I have listed that's my report I attended the diversity Gala I'm always excited when I got a couple of all glitter dresses I got to wear another one uh keep them alive uh I attended the agenda committee and then also uh the PCS site do that a

151little bit um the what I would like to say is that I have some deep reservations over what our future holds I I don't look at at four years but two years where perhaps some changes can be made in the US but one of the things and you may not all may not agree with me but I I say I the one thing I can do is commit to De here especially but far as I can go but one of the things and this is with some of myces who don't necessarily the same way I do they are totally turned off and confused by how uh say gender is referred and having worked up at UCSC and all the different classifications which identify with uh have turned off a certain segment segment of our I

152don't know what we can do about but um I think if a person doesn't understand it or it's too hard to figure it out they say so um and I didn't make the where you were the star or half steps I was thought it was at 4:00 and like I checked found out been earlier so okay any other statements watched Ferris on uh speak up for the County Office of Education on TV a couple of times I told Ferris I I had seen him on TV and I I like the way uh your your face and your voice get around and uh well the community needs to know who you are it's good good thank you and I have to I have to give kudos to to Nick uh who's really been so just taking

153us to the next level with our communication yes and uh he was one of the key people that worked with uh for all your hard work oh and I just found out before I came that uh I'm on the board of the Girl Scouts post and just announced today that all very aquarium group of girls from our Council made a film don't know haven't seen it don't know but it's of okay now uh to the our standing committees and I believe oh it is you're right right you are right there's not okay so it's been a while but uh we got together with PCS now that we have a new uh school year just to check in with them and see how that School site is doing um we were able to meet withano which

154is a head of schools to meet with uh board members got to meet with Aaliyah as well who is helping lead the Dei there a couple of points that I do want to mention is um we looked at the enrollment numbers you notice that there is um they mentioned uh concerns and challenges with uh attrition you know making sure that the students remain in the school site they say that they're U then there was graphs that I'm sure that they'll repres one of the meetings one of the reasons why we got together was so that they we can ask questions we can provide guidance in terms of what they will present to us I believe it's next month is when they scheduled to that's correct they're um going to provide you the report by November

15530th and they will come to the board meeting at the December board meeting okay so we'll definitely have time to take a look at that and and ask questions there as well what was described was just the friendships uh students tend to make friends in school and once your friend leaves then other friends kind of follow and and do the same thing that's what they mentioned but they also talked about the challenge of not requiring uh meeting to to to attend an information session prior to uh enrolling or putting your name on the lottery they said that that might have been a reason why and that's because uh some students might role and they don't necessarily know the rigorous academic expectation so once the school does start they can get that realization and they decide

156not to not to continue so they talked about that and we're asking about what potentially could help um with that uh retention so we we talked a little bit brainstormed on what we can do there in terms of the demographics again I'm sure they'll talk in a little bit more detail they are making progress It's a little bit slow I think it's slower than they would like but uh it is trending uh to be a little bit more diverse but again it's it's uh it's very slow and they also talked about uh recruitment challenges with their uh teachers you know just the cost of living how how how challenging it is in um retaining teachers and having a diverse representation uh from teachers right if you see a teacher that represents a community that represents

157you then it's easier to feel safe it's easier to to to feel at home and uh to feel accepted so that's definitely something that they are uh looking at and not so not only teachers but also the their board right having a diverse board making decisions for for that school and uh we talked about their curriculum and and about their performance and how uh they're just really doing a good job in terms of uh math and and English uh that school has always done a great job you know definitely uh Pride itself on on preparing students for for college and and the the testing results definitely definitely show that that's that's that's it that's what I that's my report the other uh what I thought was interesting at the end of the meeting the president

158of their board uh asked about the EI and uh what kind of as guard rails or responsibilities or laws or whatever to ensure that they continue down this road and she speaks as a person of color and I thought that for me it was very exciting uh to see that this is being embraced uh fully and and that she's concerned that continue just to clarify that I I don't think that was the president I thought she was okay I I missed that just that it was PCS we are the the authorizing Agency for that Charter School the charter schools have to be authorized by somebody usually it's a school district like po valley or sanre city but we are the ones who authorize which then gives us an oversight kind of a supervising role and

159if they want to continue eventually they have to come back to us and apply for extension of their Charter so we have a certain amount of Leverage or ability to to push them on things that are important to us and one of the things that probably hear me say more than once I've said it here many a time is that they offer such a high quality education they have such a high level of students being accepted into um top universities um that if they're not actively working against the racist inequal inequal status quo then they're just reinforcing it so that's that's my pitch on them is that if they're not doing Dei um then they're not deserving of our support because they're just going to keep the rich white people getting all the Privileges I

160mean to put it a little bit too Darkly but um anyway so that's that's our thing but they are doing actually in the last several years quite a serious job of addressing those concerns and making the school safe and inclusive for all various different people that might want to go there so um in general I have gone from being a pretty negative skeptic to being a supporter but I still want to hold their feet to the P to keep improving so anyway that's just my background context I'm sure you help from other people too how we work with it they'll be here next month was that thank you Bruce sorry for the speak there are two uh charter school that we it's our own that we started H that's our own that we yeah started

161that and I did want to share just a that um we part of our process is to meet with uh the student trustees I missed my orientation uh with a new new student but uh so we'll be meeting with students so we'll be able to provide some prior to the board meeting because there's there are a lot there's a lot of moving parts and and also um for students to identify the areas that they want to be a part of the conversation and questions and and share their opinions working with them not only at the board meeting but outside okay uh so we're into item 14 schedule of meeting and upcoming event and uh we had changed our meeting to December 12th but under I believe it's Education Code re so it looks like we

162if we want to stay on a Thursday at 4:00 the next appropriate meeting would be on the 19th of December and this is uh giv you all the election results is there any yes yes we just need a motion to change it I'll make a motion to change December meeting to the 19th motion by Rachel with a second by Bruce 4 4M and this will be Sandra's Sandra's last meeting be welcoming I know so uh I don't I think this can be voice so do we have is it a resolution but our student over so are you in favor of this function changing yes the rest of the board all those in favor say I I I so the motion passes and then we are ctively set to have a board governance retreat which would

163include all of us and it this point most everyone can make it on Saturday January 25th from 9 to 10:30 um is that is there a motion I'll move okay I'll move to schedule the board governance Retreat for Saturday January 25th 9:00 am30 p.m certainly hope it it's your calendar where we it's an open public meeting uh but it gives us the opportunity to get to know each other better but also discuss make Chang or so uh your V yes yes yes and uh the rest of the board all those in favor say I I I I hope we will be there everyone very valuable and we will have a facilitator who is from and um any okay our next meeting uh will be what we just voted on December 19th at 4 o'clock so

164meeting