001Chris. >> Yes. >> Uh, three, two, one. >> Hey, good afternoon everybody. Welcome to the Sanita Union School District board meeting. We like to call this meeting to order. Could we please start off with a roll call? >> Mr. Neil Patel, >> present. Miss Elva Ariano >> here. >> Miss Sarah Turner >> here. >> Miss Cindy Lopez present. >> Mr. Jacob Sandaval >> present. >> All trustees are present. >> Okay, let's stand for the pledge of allegiance. >> Ready begins. [clears throat] >> To the flag of the United States of America to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Okay, if we can move on to item 1.3, approval of the board agenda. If I could please get a motion to approve. >> I make
002a motion to approve. >> Can I get a second, please? >> Second. [clears throat] >> All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Okay. Motion passes. Uh, today on close session items, we have item 2.1, public employee performance evaluation. Uh, 2.2, conference labor negotiators in the government code section 54957.6. Six. Is there any public comments regarding close session items? >> There is no public comment. >> Okay. Can I get a motion to adjourn the close session? >> A motion. >> Second. >> Go ahead. >> Okay. Second by Cindy. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Okay. Let's see afterwards. Hey, good afternoon everybody. Welcome back to the center school district board meeting. Uh during close session, there was nothing to report out. Uh let's move on to item 5.1, approval of consent
003agenda. If I can please get a motion to approve. >> Motion to approve. >> Second. >> All those in favor say I. >> I. I. >> Okay. Motion passes. Uh moving on to reports and correspondence. Uh 6.1. Is there any comments from SRTA? >> Um Ashley Trip, SRTA president, did send me a message asking to say happy new year to everyone. She and SRTA are at MCOE at their board meeting tonight representing our teachers. >> Okay. Thank you. Uh CSEA, >> no comments from CSA. Moving on to the superintendent's cabinet, >> director of who's first over there. >> Thank you. I can't see him. Director of nutritional services for the state of the district on the screen. >> Let's press that button. I'll save my report for the state of the district. >> Thank you,
004director of technology and innovation, Krisha Kerpool. I'll also save mine for the state of the district. >> Thank you, Director of Engagement and School Climate, Dr. Summer Prather Smith. >> I'm glad they saved theirs because I have a lot. No. Um um thank you all. So, um there's a couple of handouts that you have in front of you. Um first is our uh flyer for our upcoming town hall. Um that will be at Sanorita Elementary on February 23rd. The focus of the town hall uh for our third town hall will be campus health and safety. Um, we will have several guest presenters similar to last time as well. Um, and then dinner activities for our kiddos. We're going to have a small community resource fair for our families during this event as well. So, um,
005help us get the word out to our community. We'll be sending out flyers and then doing video messaging as well coming up, but wanted to get that on your calendars early. Um, next I have um our safe routes to school becoming a walking school bus volunteer. If you remember at our last town hall, we had the safe routes to school team there. Um they did the crossing guard training and this is the next series of trainings and it just a reminder that that walking um school bus is led by parents. They meet students at a certain spot, walk them to and from school just to have that additional supervision. So that's coming up on January 26th at Santaorita Elementary. Um information has been going out, but we appreciate if the community can share that as
006well. Um, and then just a reminder that we do have our Saturday academy um, program that will begin on January 24th. Our enrollment is low, so we really are encouraging our parents out there to make sure to get your students um, signed up. It'll go January 24th through March 4th. Um, classes are 8:30 to 12:30 with extended care going till 5:00 p.m. if families choose. And then my last item, Gilbert, if you can pull up that video. Um I will be bringing to the board at our next meeting. If you remember as part of our afterchool program we are doing destination imagination which is kind of a a challenge. Um one site we p we're piloting at one site. Um Grant Howon chose to take on two teams for us and so we will be
007going to the uh regional tournament which will take place in Fresno Clovis area on February 28th. That will be an overnight trip. So that's why I'll be bringing it to you guys at the next meeting. Um we're going to be taking 13 students and then it will be myself, Mr. Howton, Dr. Katis, um Amy Chot, our u elopsa, and then either Tina Ramos or Becky Moore, kind of depending as our last. Uh Dr. Katis and I get to be judges, not for our own teams, but we're really excited. Um if any of you have spent any time with Dr. Katiss, you know she's hilarious. So, she's going to get to judge the improv, which is one of the um areas. So, I'm really excited, but I wanted to give you just a brief preview of
008what it looks like for this year. >> Ready to create your own game show or maybe build a superpowered costume? Welcome to the Destination Imagination Challenge Experience, where you are the inventor, performer, scientist, and hero of your own adventure. This season, there are seven all new challenges, and they're all waiting for one thing. You lights, prizes, madness. In this season's technical challenge, win it big, teams will design their own game show with wild reveals, dazzling effects, and a twist that will leave the audience cheering. >> In this season's engineering challenge, Above and Beyond, teams will start their story right in the action, then push their structures to the edge, literally. How far can your design go? In this season's scientific challenge, unforgettable, teams will unlock the mystery of memory with a story full of clues,
009misdirection, and a mindblowing realization. It's science meets storytelling in this mindbending mission. Two paths, one big choice. In Becoming Super, this season's fine arts challenge, teams will create the origin stories of a hero and a villain with stunning stage effects, costume tech, and dramatic flare. In this season's improvisational challenge, casting shadows, teams will use shadows and quick thinking to create an epic skit on the spot. With random themes and settings, anything can happen. In Give and Take, this season's service learning challenge, teams will take on a realworld problem and show how even opposites can team up for good. It's teamwork, storytelling, and impact allin one. In our non-competitive early learning challenge, Helping Hands, preK to second grade students will explore the world of community helpers through storytelling, music, and hands-on creativity, building teamwork, and kindness
010from the very beginning. Your ideas, your team, your solution. Join us at destination.org. So, um, our teams chose both teams will be doing the design challenge. Um, but we're really excited to be able to see what the other competitions look like and hoping to grow into those other areas for next year as well once we have that experience um, of this tournament. So again, we'll be bringing that to you. We'll be going Friday the 27th, competing on February 28th, and then returning that evening. Thank you. >> So that's the first year. This is the first year. >> This is the first year. So, nobody else in Monterey County is doing DI. So, um, several other areas are doing it. So, this is we've been stumbling along. She keeps calling me and saying, "I know this
011is your first year. Did you register your team?" And I'm like, "No, you know, I know this is your first year. Do they have a name? I will get it to you by the end of the day." So, they've been amazing and supportive um of our students being here. Um, so and Mr. Howard did a great job of really picking students who are going to benefit from this experience. So, it's not our most academic student. it's not our most amazingly well- behaved students, a great mix of students that we know that this can really be a life-changing opportunity for them. So, thank you to Mr. Howton for taking this on as a pilot and again, we're excited to grow next year. But yeah, >> any questions or comments from the board? >> Okay, thank you.
012>> I'll call on myself, Becky Moore, assistant superintendent. Um, and the only thing that I want to share is that Dr. Alderman is also at MCOE this evening representing Santaorita at their board meeting which is why I'm here with you tonight in this capacity. Thank you. >> Mr. Ne Patel. >> All right. Um thank you Mr. President. Um I wanted to read into record. I also was concerned with what the MCOE possibly is approving tonight. So I did write a letter uh on behalf of myself as a trustee of Sanorita district. I was hoping I get your >> Yeah, definitely >> okay to read it in the record. All right. Um, >> so this record is uh this letter is to the Monterey County Board of Education. Uh, dear President and members of uh Monterey
013County School Board Association, I'm sorry, uh, Monterey County Board of Education. Uh, my name is Neil Patel and I'm a school board trustee with the Sanorita School District as well as being a teacher in the Selenus Union High School District. I'm writing you to encourage the denial of the Navigator Schools charter petition. My reasons for this are, and I've listed four bullet points. The first one, uh, I am a true believer in equal and equitable public education for all students, especially for those with special needs and require additional support services. charter uh charter schools by their very nature, funding and size do not provide such services at an equitable level as do our school districts in Monterey County. Point number two, school districts across our county are facing a decrease in enrollment which has and
014will result in less ADA funding. With your approval with this petition, you'll be taking away vitally needed dollars from them and thus putting them in an even worsening financial position. This will force districts to reduce services to the special needs community. In essence, you'll be purposely choosing to sacrifice those services for the disadvantaged for the sake of the few advantaged who will benefit from charter schools. This makes no logical or financial sense. Does MCOE have additional dollars to supplement this loss of revenue to make school districts budgets whole due to the potential of approval by this board? Point three, students and parents who want to advocate for a better choice of an educational environment already have an avenue to make this happen through interdist and in and intradistrict transfer processes as well as appealing it
015to you as the ultimate appealing authority for the county. I chose to be and was elected as a school board trustee for over 10 for over a decade now as well as being a public high school teacher for over 25 years. The loss of funding for our districts with your potential approval will have long and wide lasting negative repercussions to our educational community in which thousands of educators have dedicated their lives to improve over the years. I ask you with all due respect, what will your legacy be by approving this guard this charter school petition? Thank you for your time and consideration. Neil Patel, tr school board trustee, Sanorita School District. Um, you know, I wish we were in an environment where we didn't have a situation where you're robbing Peter to pay Paul. But
016unfortunately, that is a situation being created by this petition. When I think of public education, I think of education provided to all with your abilities and disabilities and challenges. But the idea that charter schools can take away students and then provide them an education with tax dollars and yet exclude students and services for those who are the most needy. I find it discriminatory. I find it unfair especially with public dollars. And the idea of these charter schools who most of the students who go there have parents who are very involved in their education and yes they will have higher test scores but when you net and pick and you take the highest performing students and then you show us results you're comparing apples to oranges. You take all the students and then show us your
017results. And so I think it's unfair for any charter school to come and say, "Look at all the great things we do when they don't take everyone in into account. I have family members who are handicapped, who has special needs. I myself needed special services cuz I used to stutter. But the idea that in this day those things that are needed by my family or myself could be not available to me and those tax dollars taken away from an institution who could do it for me. I think it directly discriminatory to the most needy of our community. So, I feel very strongly about opposing this petition for charter schools, especially with the fact that once again, charter schools by their nature, if they're not going to include all, then you are discriminating if you're using
018public funds. Thank you very much. >> Okay. Thank you, Neil. Miano. >> Um Yes. Um thank you, Neil. That was um very well said. Um, I also was sent the petition and I I signed it and sent it off. Um, so, um, I'm just surprised that they're back again cuz they were they were advocating for this like about 10 years ago, maybe nine or 10 years, and and now they're they're back. And hopefully, you know, we don't have to worry about it. Well, we're going to see what the vote is tonight. Um, aside from that, I didn't have any other uh things to report. However, I did want to um mention that uh right prior to the close session, we went to or yeah, right before close session, we went over to take a picture
019of the mural and to look at the mural. And it is a beautiful mural um that represents our community, our school community. And it was just amazing. The colors, the co if anybody gets a chance to go, please go over there and just check it out. It was it was it's just beautiful. That's all I could say. I describing it doesn't do it any justice. You have to see it in person. So, um, and that's my report for tonight. >> Senator, >> um, I don't have anything for report. >> Um, Mr. Tina Lopez, >> I too don't have anything to report. >> Okay, perfect. No, just myself. Happy new year everybody. Just excited for the new year. Uh, thank you staff for coming back. Um, seeing a lot of the innovation that's happening at our
020school district with the murals, with the programs, and looking forward to the spotlight today. Do we have any public comment regarding non-aggenda or agenda items? >> There is no public comment. >> And moving on to school spotlight. Thank you. It's the one down right there. So many of our um staff have heard me say how pleased I am that I've been able to return to educational services where my heart really lies. Um, and one of the highlights of this role is having the ability to work with these amazing academic and literacy coaches who support our teachers at each school site so that they can best serve our students. So, if we can go to the next slide, I'm going to give everyone a chance to introduce themselves. Um, you know me. I'm Becky Moore, assistant
021superintendent of ETH services. And each coach here is going to introduce themselves. Correct. Correct. Okay. Go first. Michelle. >> Um, hi. I'm Michelle Craig and I am at John Guteras Middle School. >> Ginger Kelly, Galvin View. Samantha Reed, New Republic. >> Next slide. >> Thank you. >> Jill Nakamura. I'm at um La Hoya. And I'd like to also introduce my colleague Karen Chubik who couldn't be here tonight. She's at McKinnon. >> [clears throat] >> Hello, I'm Christina Clever. I am the literacy coach at Sanorita. >> Last but not least, I'm Patricia Zuniga. Um, I've been at Sanorita since 1996 and I was out a couple years. So this evening at our presentation we'd like to talk about our work that we've been doing um in the district and we've kind of separated it into five
022parts. We have our impact um supporting teachers our own professional learning and um we're going to provide you with some data in the work that we've done and then also hear from the people we've worked with. So some educator feedback. >> All right. So in our work this year, we've actually narrowed down two of our main coaching goals. A big shift in the district has been to focus on using a scope and sequence for all of the grade levels. Um part a big part of our work as coaches is to work with teachers on that scope and sequence both in the development process as well as in the implementation process. Um throughout that we are also working with the teachers on which assessments they will be using um through the curriculum and through any other
023supplemental sources and how they can best use that data to inform their upcoming instruction and making sure that they're constantly making those shifts that teaching is required. Our second goal is through implementing coaching cycles with all of our new teachers as well as ensuring that we're looping in our veteran teachers as well. Um in order to improve their instructional practices and provide that support for them. Um we do things like observations, giving them feedback, um being able to sit down and chat with them about their personal goals uh so that they can strengthen their own teaching practice. The next part is um about impact cycles. We've been um receiving training from instructional um coaching group and this year we were able to have um one where it focused exclusively on um coaching. and you can
024see us learning. [laughter] Um but the coaching cycle has three parts. It's um identify. So you sit and have a conversation with the teacher. Um you get your um a picture of your the current reality of the class. You can't really see the little lines, but th those are the different steps. You identify a goal. um you identify a strategy and then you go into the learn where um you discuss the strategy, maybe model the strategy um and then you you um go actually execute and then you go into the improve um yeah it's it's been really good. That's a it was an excellent training. >> I get to build on what Patricia was talking about. Um, one of the things that Jim Knight talks about is the difference between traditional coaching or not traditional
025professional development and coaching. And I really appreciated the way he states it. Whereas traditional professional development usually takes place or usually starts with an initiative or a new curriculum or new standards and then um we bring in consultants to train the teachers and then the teachers take that learning into the classroom to the students. Coaching like it's um traditional coaching has its place and its value but coaching flips it. We start with the students and we partner with teachers and we talk about okay where are your students now and then what are your goals and dreams and hopes for your students and then we look a little bit further. Okay, now that we've set a goal, what are some strategies that we can use to help your students reach that goal? And then we research
026and apply and practice. And that's where coaching really comes into play. We get to go in with teachers into their classrooms and help them to practice these strategies, help them to hone these strategies, not for themselves, but to see progress in their students and to see the development of their students. So, it's kind of backwards. We start with the students versus the initiative first. Um, so some ways that we help teachers practice and to hone these skills and to work towards their goals for their students is we may go in and model lessons or model strategies so that they have a visual of what it looks like with their students. What does the strategy look like with their students? Uh, we may co-e a lesson. Um, one of my favorites is mirror teaching where uh
027the coach teaches a strategy to the students and then the teacher themselves quickly does it again either with another group of students or in a different part of the lesson. But that way it's that immediate practice, immediate feedback in the classroom with their students. Um, we may provide strategies or work on classroom management, routines, um, strategies to support students who may have higher needs in in behavior. Um, all to create an environment that's conducive to learning for all students. Uh, we look at data analysis and data chats. Um, we do this individually with teachers on their progress monitoring for their own goals, but also sitewide. Um we've conducted data chats with grade level teams as a whole site working together to um improve the entire site's data score or data. We may video a teacher's
028lesson to facilitate conversation within the impact cycle. This can be daunting for teachers, but it really is about looking at the students because a teacher could be flawless with a strategy, but if the students aren't learning, we need to adjust our strategy. So, um, when we video, it's all about what are the students doing and how are they responding to instruction so that we can figure out what our next step is. Uh, peer observation. One of our most valuable resources is our other teachers in this district. So getting a chance to go in with teachers to focus on a strategy to focus on what's going on in that classroom that we can learn from and then having a conversation on how that will impact our classroom or the next step for the teacher who is
029learning. And then listen and support. Um part of our training as coaches has been in the art of listening. Coaching is teacher directive. That means the teacher is setting the goal. The teacher is sharing their dreams. The teacher is sharing their hopes for their students. If we don't listen, we may miss that and supplant that with our own agenda. We want to make sure that teachers are first and that we are listening to what they need so that we can support them in their in their dream for their students, in their hopes for their students as they develop in their practice. Sorry. >> Hi again. >> Um, something else that's very very important to us is PD and PLC time. Um, we are not in the classroom with students every day. That does not mean
030we are not still teachers at heart. We all got into education because we love to learn. We, you know, want to continue. We want to practice and grow as educators. And so these two are very important to us. PD times. On Monday, we were with the staff and the other teachers participating in that PD day. We actually all got the opportunity to get pick different grade levels and we worked with the teachers and gave them presentations and worked on ways um to better their practice or you know change things. um just continuing growth within the classroom. um being able to bounce ideas off each other. um PLC time on Wednesdays. um you know whether we do middle school or we do the elementary schools um we get to meet with the teachers we are looking
031at data we are looking at test scores we are looking at lessons and um you know what works in your classroom how can we collaborate that and you know benefit other teachers and have them uh help them in their classroom and so and then we also get to participate in our own you know besides just without the teachers our own um growth and our own I know we're doing one next week about I Ready and just learning about um different ways we can better support the teachers. So this is a quick snapshot of some of the data um that we have to present to you. This is only half the school year um because that's where we're sitting right now. Um when we looked at all seven of us um we have six that have
032teachers who have completed a full impact cycle. Um, as of December, um, we have 17 impact cycles in progress, whether that's our new teachers, our interns, um, our veteran teachers, whoever comes to us and wants some help in some area. Um, the PD sessions delivered are kind of what Michelle talked about. Those can be the um, all day PDs that we've had districtwide. Our Wednesdays, every once in a while, we throw a little something into a faculty meeting if it's appropriate. um you know here's something that we need to share with everyone. So collectively we've done that 45 times. Um we have uh five teachers who feel like they have met that goal whether that was through an impact cycle or something that they came in said we want to get to this point and
033we have five teachers that have done that. Um and then our nice big number at the end is our coaching conversations. Those come all the way from that um have to meet with a teacher once a week because of a requirement um to hey my TV won't do this can you come help me out or I need an extra set of hands so that I can do phonics for reading while the rest of the class is on I ready. Um so any of those little things that we've done to help teachers along the way. Um, we kind of call it that in the- moment support. If they they might just need to come in and vent about how their morning was at home or whatever it is. Um, those are all wrapped into our nice
034big 163. So, I um did put out a survey to all of our educators in the district to ask about how instructional coaching has supported their growth this year. You can go to the next slide and this is across all six of our school sites can continue. There were some big themes that emerged. Um so one of those is that instructional growth and classroom management is where teachers felt a great deal of support. They received feedback on instruction. They really appreciated support with classroom routines as was mentioned for classroom management and guidance with new curriculum and technology. Things are ever evolving and so keeping our coaches up at the forefront on their training so that they can go in and support teachers is really crucial and teachers are sharing that that's been effective for them.
035They also has said coaches they also said coaches strengthen our teaching practice through resources and classroom support. They're providing intervention strategies, visuals, and instructional tools, and problem solving support. And sometimes listening to that teacher vent for a few minutes with a timer on it, so it's not like your whole coaching time, but enough so that they can get that thing off of their mind and then focus on what's important now is really critical. And they teachers are very isolated most of the day. They're in a classroom with students and not with other adults for the most part. And so having that person who is a safe person that they can talk to and get support from is really critical and our teachers are saying that that's important to them. Here are some quotes that um
036supported those themes that evolved. This was all analyzed through AI in our um parseek reel. So one person said she has provided resources for visuals and my intervention small groups. She answers my daily questions and helps me problem solve. And a third one is she has been most helpful with my daily instruction and classroom management. And there are many more. I just picked a few out to support these themes. Um, next we asked some questions about what additional supports educators would want to meet student needs. And so some of the big ideas that came forward were support for diverse learners. um we have students who have various needs within every single classroom and meeting all of those various needs is complicated. So those are things we want to continue working on better supporting our teachers
037with. Um our teachers also really appreciate the modeling, observation and feedback and they want more of it is what we heard through this survey. So all of these um pieces of input are driving our next steps in coaching as we continue to train. I think I have another slide with some quotes there. Yep. Um I enjoy when she's able to model something, especially with technology, and her ideas directly benefit both me and my students. So, whenever we're providing a survey, when we're gathering feedback, we're going to take that back. We'll go through it thoroughly as a team. We haven't had a chance to do that yet because we did this right before winter break. Um, but we'll really look at the nuances of it so that we can determine how to best support our educators
038in the second semester. And that is our presentation on coaching and sanorita. Do you have any questions for our coaches or for me? >> No, thank you for the presentation. Um, I appreciate it quite a bit because I helps me kind of understand not only teachers but I guess your roles as as well. You know the complexities. I know you mentioned sometimes teacher might need to vent. I mean that we're humans at the end of the day. So sometimes if we're focused on something else, it's going to impact student learning because they can't get past that and they're still it's impacting whatever they're going trying to teach and stuff. So I do appreciate that. Um I know you guys had mentioned you guys there's different cycles. How do you determine is it I know one
039aspect might be if a teacher reaches out, right? And then um one is obviously if they're forced to be there if something kind of come up. Um do you guys also kind of you guys mentioned you guys cycle older teachers as well and kind of do innovation and stuff? Can you guys kind of elaborate a little bit about that? >> Yeah, I actually had a teacher um came to me and said, "How do I like release responsibility?" Like, how do I get the kids doing more of it? And so that kind of became a you know, do we start with what you were working on last year or is this a new thing that you want to try this year? Um a lot a lot of it was discussions. How do we get, you know,
040seventh graders talking about the the curriculum? Um, so definitely, um, we get it coming from coming from all directions. >> I'd also like to add on, I feel like we're pretty proactive about reaching out to teachers and saying, "Hey, we've got this new thing that we're trying out. If you need more information, I'm here. Like, I'm available to help out." Um, I know I've personally had when we started exploring more on DK levels, right, for questioning. I did have a veteran teacher approach me and say, "Hey, I've got this lesson coming up. I'd really love to pick your brain on like how I could frame that." Um and it was great to sit down uh with a veteran teacher as well as with newcomer teachers and really hone out what what they are working on
041um with regards to new initiatives. >> Yeah. Thank you. And I think another key word that stood out for me was safe space because I think it's also letting our teachers know it's okay if you don't know what to do or what the next step is like reach out. You know there's not going to be judgment because obviously we want them to reach out so that way it doesn't impact the student learning because that's obviously our priority and stuff. So, so thank you. Um, any comments, questions from the board that you want to move, Mr. Patel? >> First of all, thank you for an excellent presentation. I am just um overwhelmingly supportive of what you have done. Um, as a teacher myself, I'm I got to be honest, I'm very apprehensive about new strategies, new
042teaching curriculum, people who might not know much about the classroom. You know, my question is always, when was the last time you were in a classroom? when is the last time you want to be in my classroom and but I based on your presentation a lot of my concerns have been addressed and number one you know modeling lessons but then coming in and co-eing a lesson with my students you know so you know what I'm going through and the challenges I'm facing um being there as a as a co um classroom embedded coaching so you're there as I'm going through provide a support um it seems like um every week or every semester we have new curriculum or new technology ology. I know we got the view boards and the idea that we have expert
043teachers who know how to use it that come from within are coming to support us and you know having your own peers you know supporting each other. I think that's a a great uh winning combination. I think it's a great educational combination and support for our teachers. I I look forward to uh more cycles. I look forward to more growth. But um once again you've addressed all my concerns regarding you know how do we implement uh new things into the classroom without uh you know being apprehensively as I am and I'm sure there's a lot of teachers are out there as well. So continue the great work. >> Thank you for um being there for teachers and for kids. Um, it's come a long ways since I was because I was a coach, a reading
044coach. And I'll tell you, you have the best guidelines right now because when I was a reading coach, I think the teachers felt intimidated by us. And that's when we first started when you started to hear about reading coaches. And um it just it's just so nice to see that teachers are receptive and kids are receptive and that's what we want. We want that team building with teachers and with the the kids. So um I commend you all. Um I think you guys are all doing a great job, all of you. And um Becky, thank you for facilitating this. So thank you very much. Thank you for your hard work. Um, we all know that it's hard to be in education now. It's hard and um the the support of your colleagues can make all
045the difference. And we want our schools to be safe for our children and warm and welcoming places. And we want them to be safe for our staff and warm and welcoming welcoming places. So, thank you for all your hard work in accomplishing that. going off of what um the trustees say, you know, this side over here, they're the ones that are in education. They know it. Me and and um Jacob are not. But hearing like how Mr. Rattell said, you know, it's very different when you're behind the wheel, right? And then a passenger. And you guys are doing that. You guys are Yes. you're going to be the driver, be the passenger, but we're switching over. And most importantly, like how Jake had said, you know, or um for the teachers to trust and know
046like, hey, it's okay to come and ask, but also what I liked and stood out to me was like how the kids, right, cuz all the kids learn different, right? So everybody, a teacher could be like, "Nope, I know this and this." No, you know, for some reason, you know, she's not do no. Like knowing that that's the direction like that stood out to me because each student learns differently and what, you know, a group of kids could pick up in five minutes, it could take another one, you know, a longer time. So, that really stood up to me and I think you guys are doing a great job. So, thank you for that. >> I do have another question. How are the the ratio because each of you is at a different school site
047as far as like the number of teachers to to coaches that are that are there? >> It's about even. >> Yeah. Um our enrollment has really become much more balanced this year, which means our teaching staff is more balanced. Um, Santaita does have the benefit of also having a literacy coach because they are part of the state's literacy coach um, grant. And so that's brought us Christina and we're so fortunate for that. They also are the school who needs the most support. So we're happy that they're the ones who have that additional support for teachers and students. Okay. >> So the rest of the school sites are pretty. Okay. Just want to share. Okay. Awesome. Well, thank you for your presentation. Thank you for coming today. Do you guys mind if we all take a
048picture together? Yeah. We'll give everybody a few minutes in case you want to get home to Will you pull that door? >> Let me just get some water. Yes. >> Have a copy. >> Yes. Um I wrote on We have office. >> I can do them. >> We's office. >> I'll print it and have Amy bring it. >> There's No, there's extras in there. I think those are the older ones because I only made a training close session. I left a stack in there. >> Let me text. >> I'll text. >> I'll grab it. I'll grab it. >> You got it. Okay. >> We will make sure you have one to take home. Okay, we're going to move on to 9.1 and memor recognition. The board will receive a presentation honoring current and former Sanorita
049School District employees who have passed away during the prior calendar year. The new annual recognition will be presented each January and is intended to formally acknowledge lasting contributions, service, and legacy of colleagues who have helped shape our schools in our community. >> So, as um Mr. Sandival just said, we are um bringing in this new tradition of having an annual memoriam and recognition of staff um and members of our school community who have made a difference for the lives of our students here. and thank you for being here to be a part of that with us this this year as we have our first um opportunity to share this new tradition. >> Today marks the beginning of an annual tradition honoring members of the Sanorita Union School District family past and present who are no
050longer with us. This tradition serves as a powerful reminder Sanorita is more than just its physical structures and programs. It is a rich tapestry woven from relationships, dedication and shared purpose that spans generations. C celebrating the lives of service. Each individual we were today brought unique gifts to our community. Some dedicated decades to educating children while others served behind the scenes to ensure our schools ran smoothly. Some were recent members of our family. Others were pillars of districts for generations. One pillar's years of dedication. Many gave the majority of their career to Sanorita students. Families shaping countless lives to the daily acts of care and excellence. enduring relationships. They build connections that extend beyond classrooms, mentoring colleagues, supporting families, and fostering a spirit of calibration, commitment to excellence. Their high standards and dedication, continuous improvement
051raised the bar for everyone around them. While individual names and roles may vary, the common thread is clear. Each person we honor tonight believe deeply in the power of education and the importance of community. They showed up day after day, year after year because they understood the work that mattered. And even as a former Sanita student myself, I always appreciated the staff president and substitute teacher. You had 16 years service board members. years as substitute teacher. He believed deeply in education community. She served as a trustee for the Santaita school board for 16 years. During her tenure as board president, she oversaw the construction of Gavalan View Middle School, a testament to her leadership and dedication to the community. She later worked as a volunteer and substitute teacher at Gavalan View where she formed lasting
052friendships and made a meaningful impact on students and staff alike. I also want to add that K I remember her for graduation she would come around and she would you know help set up. She would ask um teachers what what do you guys need? She was always there. Um she uh was just uh uh very joyful, always smiling, um always there to to interact with with um teachers and staff and she just became a real family member to the Santaita school district. Um wonderful lady. Love her. Thank you for being for giving her to us. She was truly a a pillar in this community. >> Love the school. >> She sure did, Mr. Delbono. She sure did. And um I'm just proud to have known her and um I will remember her always. But thank
053you. Yes, >> I just wanted to add it was really kind of add some humor. So, when we were getting ready to do the immemoriam and we were talking about Kay and we were looking up the years of service and Becky said she was a substitute teacher and I said she wasn't like she was there all the time like she was she was she was the teacher like she was there and Becky said no I'm looking it says I said no she w like I was arguing with them to the end and she said summer I'm looking at it and I said but I'm telling you I lived there like that's not the case and then I reached out to a few of our other friends who were like you know they like um uh
054um some of the other staff that they were and they were like no she was and I was like I would have never like she like the family lived there we you know so yes I echo that thank you for giving her to us >> you have a substitute teacher that meant we were going to watch a movie that day >> yes >> teachers would ask for her >> yes yes exactly yeah >> even if she wasn't in a classroom she was there >> was schools. I asked her to help in my classroom. I wanted her to be a leader. Foster's classroom. >> Yes, I remember Mrs. Foster. [laughter] >> She was She seemed like she was always was always there. She loved it. >> She sure did. And she was very active in everything
055that she did. And um I'll tell you, she was a great board member. I remember coming before I became a board member. I remember coming to the to the boardroom and um she she was she was on it and um she was a excellent excellent and dedicated person. So Yeah. Yeah. >> Yeah. Yes, John Trap. Oh, sorry. Um, just wanted to say um my condolences. Sorry for your loss. She was very loved and um glad to know that she was part of our district. John Trapy, teacher, Gavalan View Middle School. Years of service, 40 plus. John Trap made a lasting impact on his school community. As a dedicated science teacher and active member of the SRTA union, his passion for teaching left a deep impression. Many of his former students, now adults, still fondly recall
056his science class and continue to share stories of Mrs. Trapy's enthusiasm, curiosity, and care for his students. Even in retirement, John remained committed to giving back, generously volunteering with various organizations outside of his service to others. He found joy in collecting vinyl records and spending time driving and working on his beloved 1967 Ford Mustang. Um, I just want to say like for me as a student to this district, um, I'm sorry if I get emotional. It's an honor to be able to be here for us to start this. Um I remember being in his class in science and dissecting a frog like you know and he was so like no girls like this you know so so good but um he was such a good teacher but going back to Mr. Soon, you know, just
057knowing that I'm able to be here as a past student. Um, and you know, seeing what the families that come, the teachers that come that they stay in our district and they make such an impact, you know, some of these teachers make such an impact on one student. So, thank you. >> And, you know, um, Sure. Of course. Yeah. >> We have a tree in my house. We got a owl up there. And the mousy little mice, they swallow them home >> and then they regurgitate the nice [laughter] in the fur. >> Went outside and I found all these little fur balls laying on the ground and I gave him the trap. [laughter] And I think Jennifer, you were his his student. >> But his science class was so much fun. Um, and I remember
058he brought his wife. He brought his wife. [laughter] >> Yeah. >> A little scared. That was great. >> After his retirement, he would come to our board meetings and just make sure that all the budget was done and you know, he was a big um he he was just a mathematician and he just knew exactly what what we spent and what we didn't spend. Um he also had two of my kids, Brian, but he didn't like Brian. [laughter] Brian didn't really care for him either. But then my other um u Veronica, he loved her and they were just, you know, till this till the before he he passed, he had written a a letter of recommendation to to her for her um to the nursing program. So, you know, he he was he was a
059he was different, but he was a good man and very dedicated. Although you made me I wasn't going to say it, but um after John passed, a group of us were talking and he had me and my daughter um and on my daughter's report card on one of them she was showing me because she's at home now. She was showing me he wrote um did not inherit under like the satisfactory behavior did not inherit mother's talking gene. [laughter] >> So I was like thanks John. He was also my science teacher as well and I think he was one of the teachers I enjoyed the most because he was always very animated and very you know stuff. So I definitely remember him a lot. So >> I mean even it's still tough I mean to think
060that he's not you know cuz he would always come around and when I first got on the board and as a board member as teacher I still saw him like as my teacher like you know like you know he's kind of like like an elder in a way of like yeah you know sense of of respect and stuff. Just a quick comment. Um, you know, I didn't know John as well as you did over the years, but I just remember him when I uh first got on the board. He was the first person that called me. He's all, you know, he's like telling me about his role in the union. And um, you know, a couple of things that really stuck to me was how much he still fought for the unions once he did
061retire. And he emphasized to me two critical things. And that was always pay teachers what they're worth, pay the staff what they're worth, and make sure they have good working environment, you know, and he would constantly, like you said, go over the numbers, and um, you know, he was the one that actually proposed this idea. Why don't you compare our teachers to the other districts and make sure we're, you know, in line with all the other districts and be on on on the leading edge of that. And I think that has driven our district since then. And the other thing was working condition is u, you know, we have too many students. And I remember when I first came on, we really worked on that hard in terms of reducing class size. And even today,
062today, you know, he's not here, but the idea of being involved with the union and protecting the rights of our teachers and staff, you know, it's it's still deeply ingrained in me. And um, you know, it just reaffirms uh our commitment to our staff. But the fact that he continued to do that after retirement says everything about him, you know, while others go off onto the sunset or do whatever, he was like, "No, I'm going to be here. I'm going to look at the numbers. I'm going to take care of those who haven't retired yet." So that's what I really appreciated about him. Thank you. >> Are you meeting us? All right, the next person is Rhonda Fzen Valz. She was a health aid and prayer professional at McKinnon and Gavlin View and Sanorita with
063uh 20 plus years of service. Rhonda was a cherished member of the Sanorita Union School District family. Having dedicated over 20 years of service to our students and staff, Rhonda made an undeniable difference into the lives that she touched. She will be fondly remembered for her gentile and genuine care as well as her warm, friendly personality with everyone she encountered. She truly was a sweetheart to all of us. Um, just some fond memories of Rhonda. Um, you know, my kids grew up in this district and they went to New Republic, but New Republic would have a fall festival every year and Rhonda and her husband will bring their reptile collection with the snakes. That's true. >> And at first, I still remember, you know, with that beautiful smile, come over. You know, my kids were
064very apprehensive. And my daughter just I don't know what happened, but next thing I know, she had a snake wrapped around her her her arm and she's like, "Dad, come here. Look." And I just felt so much joy in the sense that my daughter had conquered a fear that, you know, I I I didn't think she could. And I think part of Rhonda's magic was the fact that, you know, she she did things that necessarily you wouldn't understand right away, but her kindness and wanting to help people overcome fears and overcome, you know, whether their health issue or, you know, they're getting injured or being a paraprofessional, you know, it was just giving spirit in many different ways. But to this day, I still remember the the reptile presentation her and her husband would do.
065And that was the number one place where all the students would want to go first, you know, and touch and feel. And I'm like, "Wow, this is a great way to introduce science, introduce species, overcoming fear, creating an understanding and love of things you might not know or understand. You know, her presence and her ability to do that, you know, transcended uh many other areas that, you know, we try to do in education. So for that I I I say thank you very much Rhonda for everything you did. >> I was going to say I always appreciated her positive energy you know like whatever the day was and she'd be like she was like hey Mr. Shandle and it just like you just felt you felt good you know just that energy that she would
066always bring. I always appreciate that about her. Yeah, I appreciate it. I was wearing when we were going for the bond meeting with CSA leadership, which she was part of the leadership team at that point and them saying like, "Hey, how can we help you?" And they had ideas. They came forward and said, you know, we're going to take this piece, we're going to go do this for you. And [clears throat] um so I think you know every new classroom, every you know new facility that we're able to have for the children, she's part of that because that leadership team was one of the people that made it happen. >> Um I'll add that when I first came to this district working in HR, Rhonda is one of the CSEA representatives um that worked with
067me and supported employees when we were having disciplinary types of conversations. And I always appreciated how Rhonda could make an employee feel more comfortable and be able to explain things in ways that employees who had different backgrounds could understand. Um, you don't always think that as district administrators, we rely so much on our partnerships with our our labor reps, but she was well trained in how to be a shop steward and represent her employees, and that made a big difference um for the employees and for our relationships with those employees. So, I'm really grateful to her for that. >> And I wanted to add also um just her impact with students as well. Um I know when my fun my son first attended Gavlin View, she was one of the first people he got to
068meet on campus and they just had this connection and so um and she would call me when she was a health page. She's like, "Oh, I have I don't know." And sometimes I'm like, "Is he there just to visit you or >> so yeah just a very caring heart very much. No, no, of course not. Okay. Okay. Thank you for coming. We appreciate you guys. Okay. Bye. Thank you. Thank you. [laughter] Jesus Jesse Rico headed custodian Sanorita and McKinnon Elementary 30 plus years of service. Jesse Rico was dedicated to his job both where he started at Sanorita Elementary School and when he retired at McKinnon Elementary School. Jesse trained and instilled in those that replaced him in the same dedication to their job as he did. Jesse always made sure McKinnon school looked immac im
069immaculate and presentable. Jesse Rico is missed dearly and will always be a McKinnon's shining star. >> I remember Jesse not from McKinnon from Santaorita when I was there and he was the favorite custodian of all of us. He was so nice. Would always be like, "Hey, pick up your trash." She had that stern voice that we would have to listen to the man, but yet he was so nice and like made sure that each kid was like, "Nope, treated right. Treated nice." So, I remember him. Um, he rest in peace. This is the one that's um emotional for me. I mean, they all are, but um Jesse was family for sure. Um Jesse, we started of course Sanorita and then he opened Mckennon with us. And Jesse was far more than any title you could
070give to him. Um he was our caretaker. He made sure that everybody was taken care of from an immaculate classroom to pulling out his grill and grilling lunch to make sure that we all had something to eat. Um he, you know, supported my children. He supported us. He didn't take his work as a job. He like Mckennon was his home as well. He was an enormous Raiders fan. If any of you him would know, die hard, no matter how they did. Um, his office was covered floor to ceiling. Um, and one of the gifts we gave him, um, one year it was a barbecue grill, a customized Raiders barbecue grill that he could pull behind his truck. and he was so grateful that whenever he had an opportunity, he pulled that out and out of
071his own pocket would buy meat and whatever everybody needed for him. And um I miss him so much just for who he was and what he brought. And so may he rest in peace as well. [snorts] Jesse had had [clears throat] a great heart, a big heart, big heart. Anna, his wife, and I are very good friends. And um when he passed, I was I think sick with CO. And um when they finally when I finally found out that he had passed, I I was just devastated. He was he his family was the Santaorita school district and especially McKinnon. Um I I'm hoping Anna might have gotten a um Did she? >> Yeah, we spoke to her. >> Okay, good. >> I was called and met with her, let her know. um that we're going
072to be doing this and we share with her as well. >> Okay, good. Yeah. And his daughter is also a Facebook friend. So, um if we could send it out to her this thing. Okay, thank you. Okay, next up um is one of our great employees, Debbie Vijovich. Um she was a yard duty and a pair professional. She served for four years in the Sanorita school district. Here's were some comments from a fellow uh new teacher. It is Debbie was one of our first crossing guards at Sanorita. She was a great pair professional and had a great sense of humor. Always smiling and making sure students were on task or behaving well. I appreciate her friendship as I started teaching a couple of years ago. you know um I asked to be to choose Debbie
073u to speak for her because my wife is also a paraprofessional and you know to me it's not the number of years but the quality of years and your dedication to this district whether it be one year four year 20 years 40 years the the thing is you made a commitment and for her to protect our students crossing the street you know making sure they get to uh our schools in a safe manner you know It's part of the village that we always talk about on how to, you know, create a great educational system. So whether it's a board member all the way down to a paraprofessional, healthc care, everyone is equal, you know. So I really wanted to emphasize that and I want to say thank you to her family and thank you to
074her um for your service. >> I submitted this one. This is Denise Pollock. Um Denise Pollock was a teacher in Monterey County, but her specific role in terms of s serving our Sanorita Union School District was that she was a board member of of RIFF and Selenusville area reading is fund. So for over 25 years, she provided hours and hours and hours of service so that uh books for all of our TK kinder first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth grade students. She was involved in countless other community service areas across um Monterey County going back to supervising me when I was a Girl Scout back in the day. Um I also had the honor of teaching across the hall from her when I was a young teacher. And um as I said, Denise dedicated her
075life to ensuring a love of literacy for all children and brought joy wherever she went. Um she was happy in the didn't matter the circumstances. Um she loved kids and loved our community. And um it I think about all those kids who got to be a reader, got to love a book because she spent those hours and hours and hours making that possible for them. Um, when she passed, I was reading on Facebook all of these people. She was my favorite teacher. She's my favorite teacher. She's my, you know, just over and over. So, there's just there's hundreds of students that were special to her and there's thousands of kids that got books because of all the hours that she put in to do that. Their legacy lives on. Forever part of the Sanorita family.
076The impact of those we remember tonight extends far beyond their years of service. Students they taught have become teachers themselves. Programs they started continue to thrive. Values they modeled remain embedded in our district culture. Their legacy is visible in every classroom where a teacher goes the extra mile. In every office where staff members support one another and in every decision we make that puts students first. They taught us what it means to be part of a community dedicated to excellence and care. We invite you to join us in a moment of silence in honor of those we remember tonight. In this quiet pause, we hold space for reflection, for memories of laughter in hallways, wisdom shared in meetings, kindness shown in difficult moments, and the countless small acts that build our community. We remember not
077only their professional contributions, but also their humanity, their humor, their warmth, their perseverance through challenges, and their celebration of students successes as if they were their own. Thank you everybody for um in in kind of our conversation and I don't know how appropriate it is if you we can ask the families but I know there'd be a lot of people in the community who would probably want to know I'm not sure if it's possible um to do like a slideshow on social media um maybe with the presentation obviously fixing uh Rhonda's um >> yeah it's just because it when it's PDF yeah yeah but I think it's because I was just thinking a lot of students would have that reflection and then also maybe comments and Hey, I remember I had them. You know, they
078were they were a big pillar because I think it also kind of helps them have reflection on their own lives and how important people are sometimes. So, >> and I I would just want to say thank you um to the district office who um has they've started this beginning. It's the beginning of the memorial or memoriam. Um, I think it's just a a great thing to add to our agenda. Every January, I think we're going to do it. Um, I I just know that when Jennifer called me and told me if it was okay, you know, if we can have a memorial uh for her mom, I I just, you know, I just wanted it to get on board. And but thanks to you all that um you you you came through with it and
079and now it's going to be part of our legacy. >> Okay. Um state of the district or am I at 9.2? Uh 9.2 it's informationational item in state of the district. Thank you. Once we have that up, there we go. Um, this is our state of the district for Sanorita for our third quarter in the school district. Looking um at where we are now and where we're headed for the third quarter of this school year. We're going to talk about um these topics. Academic engagement, human resources, attendance, student discipline and intervention, technology and innovation, facilities and nutrition. >> I need to move my microphone. These pages are very large. um for um academic engagement. I will be bringing to you our state data and some of the data that's measured in our LCAP um at
080our first meeting in February when we do our midyear report. So I decided instead to focus on our newest set of local data which is Mclass Dibbles. That is our newly implemented reading difficulty screener for grades K through six. Um, this is our first year implementing this program, this reading screener. Um, and we now have beginning of year and hot off the press middle ofear data. Um, and so I chose just a couple of highlights there to show you how this data works, what we're um, doing in our reflection on that data as we move forward through this quarter and then what our next steps will be with it. Okay. So the first measure that I pulled out for us to look at a little bit more deeply is phmic awareness. Um this is one
081of the early literacy skills for students in K and one. Um and you can see on the benchmark performance that we have for beginning of year. Um let's see does this laser work? It does right there. Um this is the beginning of year data for that particular measure for K&1 and just below it is the middle of year. Um, and what you'll notice is that the well below benchmark actually increased instead of decreased. Um, our yellow decreased where you see in the second row, I'm trying not to hit somebody's computer where it's 11% but next to it you see these white and green lines. That's a small segment of students who um have now tested out of that altogether. They met that proficiency. Um and we have the students who are above. And I'm not
082I need to dig in deeper about like what's the difference between I tested out and I'm above. So I have a meeting coming up with our um consultants from MClass. They're also going to be coming to work with our principles and really help us understand that. But I thought that that was interesting to look at. >> [snorts] >> Um when we look down below, we can see that broken down by kindergarten and first grade the same um data. But you can see for kindergarten is where we're seeing that increase in students who are below standard. Um in grade one, our students are actually making better progress. >> Decreasing. Is that due to an expanded load? on that apples. >> It's an applesto apples comparison. So we would anticipate that students would make progress and not
083regress. Um when I spoke to a couple of principles, they were unsure about um the assessment practices and how those might have impacted because we had training right before we did the initial assessment at the beginning of year and that training is now a few months back. So maybe we needed to revisit the assessment protocols. So those are things that we're going to be exploring together. Um, continuing for phmic awareness, we are now looking at it by school site. Um, and I'll just let you take a quick glance at that. There's nothing much different here, but there is some variance from school site to school site in the student performance. the deliverance of the assessment. Uh potentially it is the only other and we'll we'll have to talk to the people with the assessments. The
084only other thing I've experienced this as a primary teacher in terms of the children when they have more potential answers sometimes you get more wrong answers. In other words, like you only had one sound for the letter A, then you've learned more about A and realize A has three or four different other sounds that it could make, but the right answer is still a on the test and you're giving another sound that could potentially be correct. So I used to experience this as a first grade teacher when they actually their scores went down because they were looking for an easier answer and the children were were providing were giving it something that was true but not the answer that they were looking for. >> Yeah, that makes sense. That's an helpful insight. >> Yeah, I
085I'd be curious I don't know if like a presentation on the type of assessment how it's done and stuff. I know um my my daughter just started going to what would be called she's two years old. what kind of school preschool or or >> whatever the case. And um they did an assessment on her and they said, "Oh, she doesn't know how this stuff. She doesn't see too." I'm like, "Yeah, she does. >> She has all the time at at home, >> you know." But they gave me that impression initially and then I was kind of interested more about how assessments are done. >> U because the way they kind of portrayed it was like they said, "Oh, she can't say three words together." And I'm like, "Yeah, she does. She says that all the
086time, you know, like." So, I'd be curious. Um I mean, those are not good. I really want to know more about what's going on systematically, but I also curious to know how that kind of happens. >> Same. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Um for our next set of data, um this is a measure that's given in grades 1 through six and it's oral reading fluency. So again, we have by grade um what those scores look like as well as the district overall at this top space. And we can see here that we did have students who moved from at grade level to above. We have some students in this below potentially a couple who moved into at and a couple who moved into below. So that's something that we're going to continue to investigate in the
087next few weeks. Um, this is that same data again but by school site. on the next page of your presentation. John Gutierrez does stand out for having um higher scores than the other school sites, fewer students who are below and more students who are at and above benchmark. So, you mentioned that you're going to be meeting with the consultants to kind of >> the consultants and Okay. Yeah. >> And they're going to come in and work with our principles as well. >> Yeah. And it'd be good if we can do like a follow-up just to >> Yeah, absolutely. >> Because it is obviously concerning to see the >> direction. >> Yeah. I was hesitant to share this, but I thought, you know, it's hot off the press. Let's Let's start talking about it, right? >>
088I'd rather talk about it. Yeah. rather talk about it than than >> I think like K you guys are saying right we need to know how they're we're getting these but looking at them not by school but by grades I mean ideally you would think okay a child starts school how much do they really know right and as they progress we would be expecting um those numbers to get better right >> and I feel like we kind of do see that pattern and then fifth and sixth grade you kind of were kind of back but then my process of thinking is like well at that level things start to get again kind of um more complex >> more complex right so that's how I am kind of seeing it and um like we don't you
089know hopefully get more >> clarity of how they come but I mean >> yeah it it's numbers that I think any of us are kind of like whoa where where are we? >> And whenever we look just at the numbers, we're only looking at like the cover of the book, right? >> Um, and so I'm showing you the cover and teasing you because now it's time for us to dig in and see what's on all of those pages inside and what that story is really telling us about um our assessment practices, our instruction, um our interventions for students who are below grade level. Um, and I'm eager to learn more about that and then be able to bring it back and share it. >> Neil, your microphone. >> Well, when I'm looking at it, I'm
090it seems to just reaffirm the the impact, the socioeconomic conditions that feed into these schools. You know, when I look at New Republic, I look at McKinnon, I look at John Gutierrez, >> you know, I I there's a clear difference between that and the other feeding program >> up from Sanorita La Hoya up to Gab uh to Gablin View. >> Um but once again, I think that helps us identify where the needs are, you know. Um, I don't necessarily think that one school is any better than the other, but I just think the input coming in and where they're at in terms of students's English levels, reading levels, math levels before they come to us, it's a dramatic impact >> for sure. >> And so I think this does help us identify where obviously there's
091more need and there's more work to do. >> But I don't think, you know, we can compare apples to oranges here either, >> you know. So I I think that's informative in that in that way. Thank you. Um, okay. We looked at this one by school site. So, this is um what if I were a teacher and I wanted to look at my student report under the instruction tab, which tells me these are some next steps that I can do with my students in response to this data. So, this is a teacher's classroom, a first grade teacher at Sanorita. I put happy faces on top of student names. So that's why you see happy faces there. It was protecting student privacy. Um but the platform broke down her student results, her students into three groups
092based on their middleofyear performance on this assessment. So it said that she has 16 students who need um work in phmic awareness. She has two students who will benefit from reading words with more complex patterns and two students who will benefit from some comprehension work. And so if I was a teacher looking at this data of my class, I would think 16 out of 20 students, we're going to be doing phenemic awareness whole class. Nobody's going to be hurt by it. The majority of our students need it. So, I'm going to make sure I'm I'm drilling in on that daily as part of my core instruction. I'll also be looking at those students for some small group pull out to give them additional practice with the skills where they have some deficits. But those other
093two groups, um, the two students who need to work on more complex patterns, students who need to work on comprehension, I'm also going to make sure I'm providing specialized pull out time with them with them as small groups to help them to um, compensate for those difficulties that they have. And what we have in this platform, you have a handout. I'm going to use yours, Jacob. It looks like this. And I just screen printed. I pulled it up and said, "Hit print." And so it printed kind of funny. I covered up names for privacy. But the student names, the activities are all active links. So a teacher can look at um the fact that a student needs support oops, sorry, in reading. Um, so I think this was for group two, the students who needed
094to work on more complex sounds, more complex patterns. Um, it's telling me what they can do, what intervention or what observed patterns are noticed and providing me with several activities. Um, each of those links under activities where it has a little page and says introduce VCE rule long a you can click on that and there's a mini lesson that pops up for you. So, we have tools available to help us that are at the ready as soon as the students complete the assessment, which is a really nice feature of this platform. Um, and something that we'll be working with the teachers on making sure they know how to access. They've had the training, but it's been since October now since they had this part. So, making sure they know how to access that and how
095to utilize that um resource. So with that, Becky, so on um this these links are on their I Ready. >> They're on their MC class. >> Oh, okay. Okay. >> But it's within their um curriculum platform. >> So when they pull up their report for this assessment, they can go to a tab that says instruction and this is what they'll see and have access to. >> It's not like I already >> Yeah, they would direct. Yeah, sorry. That's Thank you. It won't be on a computer for the students. It would be something that a teacher or a parah would do with the students like at a small table. >> Okay. Thanks. >> Thank you. >> So what's most important here are the next steps. Um this assessment was taken by students in December and so
096they finished just as teachers went to winter break. And so now that we're back, we're starting to dig into that data. Students are also taking I Ready right now. So, they probably haven't had a lot of time to dive into it yet. Um, but the principles are beginning to review and reflect on this data. I'm working with MClass to bring um one of their trainers here. That's part of the package we purchased for the year of implementation um to show our admin how to access the reports and then what to do with them and how to understand them at a deeper level. Um, so we're scheduling time for that in late January, early February. And then we'll be looking at targeted interventions for our students using the resources that are here, but as well as
097our increased monitoring of tier one instruction, that's the day-to-day instruction for our students. We have um adopted UFly and Heggerty, which address the skills that are assessed in these um assessments. And so we want to make sure that those are being um taught with fidelity so that they're making an impact on student learning. Um and we're also going to be looking at specific students who regressed or who made no progress and making sure that we we are referring those students to our cost teams coordination of services so that we can recommend implement um interventions and make sure those are implemented. Um and finally, ongoing assessment is going to provide more data to us. And so we have I Ready happening now. There are also additional progress monitoring tools within McLass that we can use so
098that we can be sure that we're staying on top of students um learning and making sure that they are making gains. Before we go to that one, um I guess once you guys find out more about like what students are regressing, um obviously this data is not good, but um we're here to support. So obviously we need to figure out what it is and then um I guess give us an up follow-up update and see what what is happen next, which I guess the direction you guys are going. I just need >> I will definitely make sure that I keep you apprised. >> Yeah. Yeah. Because I'm also curious to know um what potentially is is causing regression. Um because um obviously they're they're going to school, you know, and that what what exactly is
099doing that? Is there any other comments to the board? >> I I don't know. I'm Sarah, maybe you can help me out with this, Ela. Maybe you two can. To me it's like at what point do our early learners kindergarten first and second are we doing too much in terms of diagnostic testing this that do we need to go back to a simpler model in terms of let's focus in on three four things and be consistent with it and yes do some diagnostic but I don't know maybe it's me but sometimes I feel that there can be a point and I hate saying But sometimes newer, different might not be better. And I just want to ask that question. I'm not saying I'm against any of this. But what I'm saying is in the overall
100process of things, especially in early education, you know, sometimes I have this belief that too much can be too much. So I, you know, I I understand we're assessing. I know we have new modalities, new teaching, new interventions, and I believe in that. I really do. you know, but at an early stage, you know, are we are we really focusing our valuable time this limited of that with the interactions with our students? I mean, I it's I don't know where to draw the line. >> So, I just need I mean, you guys are experienced in in this grade level. I'm not >> I I'm going to be honest and say it it would bother me as an educator to have to deal with I Ready and and and the dibbles. I I feel like I
101would rather have the district say the word because they're both really complicated and I'd rather know one thing well than two things badly and and not use them. So, we are required to to um do one of the screeners, but um my personal experience with Dibbles was very negative. So, that that was many years ago. Um, so I I think it's worthwhile at at the end of this year going back to our teachers and saying, "Is this helping you? Do you feel like you're going forward?" Because um it I I have a tendency to agree with you in terms of um absolutely we need to be doing small small group intervention. Um but I'd rather do one thing well than 12 things badly. Ela >> um you know being on curriculum council and the learning
102walks those have been very valuable to me and I'm [clears throat] you know hopefully maybe some of you can go but uh I I haven't seen the assessment part you know or I haven't taken part or even looked or observed, I guess that's the word, observed assessments. But as a former teacher, um sometimes it is overwhelming the testing. I know that um teachers get overwhelmed with too much testing. Um I I'm not sure what the answer is or how to solve it. I just know as a former teacher it was very difficult to implement. See we were doing three assessments >> and that was tough. that was really of course one of them was just computer >> but still you know it was not um I don't know I I'm not sure whether you know
103we should just go back to one >> assessment >> yeah but >> and and then they have the state test >> also so but I don't I don't take too much value in the state testing but I I'm not sure >> so be honest >> for for M class, we're not required to do it K6, but it is required that we do the reading screener for the primary grades um as of new state law for this school year. >> Yeah. >> Um and it does address absolutely just the literacy skills. Um I Ready is more comprehensive looking at the overall language arts and math. Um, so if we were to give that up as the one that's, you know, optional for our district, we would be losing out on the broader picture, which is I
104I was not advocating for getting rid of I Ready. I think I I was honestly, if I if I had to choose, I'd get rid of the doubles. Um, and that goes back to a many years ago having really negative experiences with it. Um but B oral fluency while it's tied to comprehension is not always indicative of comprehension. Um you can there are many there are people who can read something beautifully and have no understanding of what they read. It also um for ELL's who need more time and are doing, you know, more mental translation. Um fluency is not an indicator that I'd be particularly interested in. Um, it also if you want good fluency scores, you have to practice fluency. And in other words, you're you have to have people reading aloud a lot.
105>> Um, I'm not against that, but there might be something more profitable that you could be doing with that time. Um, when I started teaching more than 20 years ago, there was a huge emphasis on fluency and then we've really gotten away from it for the for the things that I just mentioned and now it's sort of passing into into vogue again. Um, I'd be more interested in in talking about, you know, what's the writing like? What's the conversations that are happening in in the classroom? I mean, there there's just a lot of more higher bang for your buck >> um pieces of information that we could be looking at. Um and I, you know, if we want to explore this later, that's fine. But yeah, in in terms of I'd be really curious going
106back to the teachers, like is is this piece of information helping you or or not? um in terms of um what what you're really looking at um in terms of if you have a child who can read fluently uh in in terms of they could read a passage to you and explain what it's for and they have a really low fluency score, who cares? >> Yeah. And we do have the um comprehension assessment as well. I chose two out of the eight indicators just as a sampling because eight was too many to look through tonight. Um but we do have more information um to look at that we will be exploring as principles and then with the school sites and teachers and coaches as well. And I was just going to add, I know you
107didn't ask me Neil, but um as a longtime kindergarten teacher and a resource specialist, I think that one part of what there also the other piece of this is we have to change somewhat of the mentality around assessment. Assessment is just a piece of information. So I as a teacher get this information, I look at it, and then I take into account all the things that Sarah just said. Neil had a really rough day. We took this. I've seen him read fluently other places. um I've already provided those supports and interventions, but for me, especially in my role as a resource teacher when I did that for most of my career, what this data did is gave me pieces to look at. I could look at Neil at that snapshot from that piece and start
108to put together like all of those parts together. No assessment should define a student ever. And I think that's such a key piece. um we don't want to overassess and I felt like that as a resource teacher often because they were getting assessed in their classroom then I'm giving them assessment and then they're taking a state assessment that was there and so I was always very cautious like what can I pull in that we're already doing and take out what I don't need right so if I'm re-evaluating a student and I'm looking at fluency instead of giving them 10 additional tests I'm looking at what's already there and what do I need to give me more information but I think as a teacher I took each assessment piece that came in and I determined what
109part that filled in of this student for me. And I think we need to, especially for our educators, moving them away from looking at assessment as a reflection of them, right? This is a reflection of you. This is a this is a piece of information that you can use to get a comprehensive picture of a student. >> And and that's a that for me is a refreshing statement. Exactly what you just said. And that idea is how do you take that information and based on your personal judgment as a teacher >> absolutely >> your professionalism >> you know how can you incorporate that to guide you without being feeling penalized having that additional burden that additional pressure you know coming from admin or whoever it may be and so I hope that notion that you're
110talking about is translating to the psyche of our teachers at that level you know Um I myself as a teacher when I get these assessments there's that pressure there perform perform perform move this over move this group over move this group over when in reality exactly what you just said and that is we need to reframe this idea of the word assessment to be a negative holding accountable um do or do or die type of situation into more of informative. We're not going to hold you to it. This is to help you guide your instruction without penalty. >> Yeah. you know, and without a negative assessment. So, um I I thank you for that refreshing point of view and but my main concern is making sure the teachers know that, >> you know, and making
111sure that all the admins are making sure that's reiterated >> and that really is what the purpose >> of these assessments are. Um we're getting different information from these two assessments. This is really drilling deeper into literacy where we know we've had long-term um struggles for our students and we know that our students can learn and we know that our teachers are doing everything that they know to do because they believe that and want that too. So if we can gather this information and provide some additional tools with support on how to implement them from the coaches, from their admin, as collaborative teams, um I think it's going to help everyone to feel more successful. As a teacher, when I would see results like this where my whole sheet was red, it it's like was
112like a knife in the heart, you know? Um, but as a teacher, and I know all of our teachers are the same because I know them and work with them. If we don't know what to do, we don't know what to do. But if we have the information and then have support and tools to help us, um, it's just a matter of identifying how to organize the time in the day, which is always limited, um, and the resources that we have. We're very fortunate in this district to have paras at the elementary schools that a lot of our districts don't have and really being able to effectively use those paras to help with this is going to be critical I think. Um and with these mini lessons that are available a parah really could look
113at them. they're very easy to follow and pull two students for 5 to 10 minutes and give them that little extra boost um if they know when to do it and the teacher can just provide them with the information. Um so we're going to look at lots of ways to support our staff so that they can support our students. You know, as a as a teacher, I just just really quick comment. I always did the BPST >> and I don't even know what the acronym is for that but anyway >> it still is the BPS >> BPST and that's the one that I would go by by >> I didn't go by the state testing or I didn't go by the computer testing and um and then there was another one I just can't remember
114right now dibbles I think it was >> yeah dibbles and um I always went with my BPSD because I know that every month and the kids knew exactly what to do. And I mean I would go by that because that was the true testing assessment for me for my kids. So um I I just disregarded everything else unfortunately. But I mean I knew my kids. >> Yeah. >> So anyways, >> just go ahead. We're going long here. Sorry. But the other thing that I would really push for with our fourth grade and up students is it doesn't matter. You could be the world's best reader and you what >> you're going to be thrown stuff that you don't know what they're talking about and you're going to be thrown tasks that you don't know what
115they're what they're doing. and talking to our students, creating projects, creating partnerships. I mean, all of us here sitting here have been through grad school where you have your one friend where you're like, I don't know what it means. What do you think it means? you know, trying to to cobble together how you complete this this task. And it's really talking to our students about you may be at a level B and it's a level L task, but maybe as a level B, you're going to do better on that level L task than somebody who's a level L because you put in more work that you that you figured out how to do it. And it that's what I want our kids to be graduating with that there's no task too hard for you because
116we've taught you the the resources that >> the ways to depend on each other and figure out how to get there >> and how to persevere >> because that >> sometimes is a challenge is how do I persevere and keep going at something where I don't feel successful right away. Thank you. >> Yeah, just one last comment. You know, I'm I'm trying to take a bird's eye view of, you know, of of our grade levels. >> And to me, it's it seems like, you know, we have we we we get students who are in the kindergarten and first grade and they stay within our system. That's our flood first coming in. We have another semiflood coming in with seventh grade with those students who didn't part of our district, but they do join us. So,
117but we have a lot, you know, of of of returns that can kick in because if we really want to make a difference, to me, the logic sense would be, okay, we know we have a group that coming in that going to be consistent with us for 5 years for sure, another coming in at seventh. Why not flood the system with kindergarten and first and possibly second with way additional support that could pay off with that group moving along year after year and all those grades benefiting for those grades later on. and another supplemental support in seventh flooding that in. It seems to me that will create a lot of the gaps in education because if we don't address all or the vast majority of students in in K1 or two, those gaps are consistently
118needing to be filled in in grade four, five, six, seven, and eight. And at that time, it takes more resources, you know. So the idea would be you know if we were looking at funding the idea would be hey let's provide more funding more paris etc to kindergarters one two and kindergars one and two and maybe TK even and work have more individuals working with small groups and making sure that they're having the growth and the inputs and and and the performances before they move forward rather than scattering our paras and scattering our resources throughout all the grades. Because maybe it's just me, maybe it's the logical part of me or the business side of me or the mathematical side, but that's the way I kind of think of education sometimes, especially when we know
119one grade goes to the next, goes to the next. These are ours, you know, they're not leaving us in between. the vast majority once they start they finish with us you know but if as a teacher in ninth grade I always feel like I'm making up for all those gaps for students who missed out on something in second something in fourth something in fifth and they're all different >> you know different areas I'm trying to fix it you know but if we could have controlled it right from the kindergarten in first making sure we provided those resources those efforts yes it'll be expensive more costly But wouldn't that benefit us in the long run rather than sporadically just, you know, okay, this side gets one para, that side gets one pair, whatever grade, you know,
120um these are our students. We're going to keep them for those years. You know, why push off one problem to another teacher and then to another teacher and try to fill in the gaps along the way when we could have a more solid base that could continue moving through. I It's just an idea. I I you know, obviously it's a funding issue, you know, to a certain degree, but just something to think about as a board. I mean, I I just want to throw that out there. >> Yeah, maybe we can have that as a future discussion. I don't think about it. >> I'm just, you know, thinking outside the box here a little bit, but to me, the foundation has to be strong. The foundation has to be strong. You want to build, you
121better have a great foundation. You know, if you have a skeleton as a foundation moving up, then you're going to be constantly fixing broken bones along the way. I also just wanted to remind our community that we have a ton of interventions available to support as well. So we have during the school day interventions happening. We have after school tutorial by certificated teachers and we have Saturday academy and our Saturday academy enrollment is decreasing not increasing. So we want to make sure that you know our community knows as well that these supports and interventions are out there and that they're specifically designed to address what we find in this data. So um and to our you know our staff as well. >> Yeah I was thinking about that as well because I was like Saturday
122academy is going low but at the same time right >> more intervention that's being needed so that's kind of >> missed opportunity. Yeah I think before we move on I think that's what I was trying to um articulate was for staff and obviously we communicated that I mean it's not good to see this but at the same time it rather people have a positive outlook and it's not a positive outlook in the sense of like hey let's figure out how to get there >> as opposed to so yeah. Okay. I know we have a long agenda, but I I do want to have this as a future agenda item. So, when we Yeah, >> I made a note of it. >> Okay. Thank you. Yeah. >> Okay. I'm going to talk very briefly about human
123resources. Um, and it is the time of year for staff recognition. And so, as we've done in the past several years, we are looking to honor our educators and support staff through the teacher of the year and classified school employee of the year program. Um, nominations are due at the beginning of February. So, that's just a couple of weeks away. And the employee of the year celebration will be on May 8th. So, we'll make sure that date is included um in the list of upcoming dates for board members in case any of you would like to plan on attending that. Um, and this is just like it's been in the Oh, no, it's not. This is the Educational Leaders Institute. Huh? Claudia tricked me. So, we are um excited to provide some training for our
124classified um management through AXA, empowering excellence in school operations. And so, this is for an institute for checks assistant, right? our supervisor of nutrition services, our supervisor of MOOTF and what is um Husam's title >> manager for technology. I don't know all their titles um who are plan who are going to attend this um conference in February in order to strengthen their leadership skills within their departments um and better enhance the services within our school district. So, uh, Dr. Katis gave me a script that I'm supposed to stick to to say that we stay on time for attendance and attendance recovery. Um, so I just before we move on to the slides, I just want to really focus in that attendance um, continues to be a focus priority for us. You may have seen in
125state data that chronic absenteeism across the state increased. We are an outlier from that. We're doing better, but you'll see that in just a minute. So, when we're looking at this um slide here, you're going to see our chronic absenteeism, which is uh defined as missing more than 10% of the school year. So, chronic absenteeism would differ if a student started other than a time at the beginning of the year, right? So, it's based on the time that the student has been enrolled in the school in that school year as well. So I'm not going to go through the chart for you completely, but you can see that these are the areas of attendance that we look at. So excellent, satisfactory, manageable, chronic, and severe chronic. We're we're really uh reinforcing and praising our students
126who are sitting at the excellent and satisfactory areas of attendance. In that manageable rate, we're jumping in there early to make sure that we're providing supports and interventions. And then we're really dedicating our efforts of our community liaison, our clerks, and our assistant principles around the chronic and the severe chronic areas overall. Um, I want to make sure that I get all the points that Dr. Katis told me to focus on. Um, so in the first semester California attendance data through December 19th, our current district-wide chronic absentee rate is 12%. Um, which includes students in the chronic and severe chronic categories. This represents a point41 decrease from last year where our rate was 12.41. While overall that improvement may seem modest, it reflects steady progress and indicates that our attendance strategies are having an impact.
127The majority of the students remain in the excellent and satisfactory attendance category and it shows us that um we are clearly identifying the supports that the students need overall. So some of the trends and patterns in addition to the overall rates we are closely monitoring trends across grade levels, calendar patterns and student groups so that we can make data based decisions and strategically target support. We continue to see patterns um for our students missing on Mondays and Fridays. They book into the weekend as well as the month of October which is interesting because the month of October you'll see in the following slides is also our biggest discipline month. So I don't know what happens in October. um we continue to see patterns on Monday and Fridays and by grade level absence are much more
128pronounced in our early grades kind of going back to our previous conversation. So when you look here you'll see that our students who experience the most absenteeism are transitional kinders followed by our kinders and then our first graders. So there's definitely a correlation um between that chronic absentee rate and some of that data that you may be seeing around student progress as well. And then we see that our seventh and eighth graders start to kind of pick up with their absenteeism or missing school as the year progresses and they get a little further along in the year. Jacob. >> Yeah. Quick question. Um >> so um okay the reason is like illness or medical. So what it looks like at um if students are sick or ill is that considered part of the in absent.
129Yeah. So chronic absenteeism does not take into account if an absence is excused or unexcused. So there's you know you have excused absences and unexcused absences. What chronic absenteeism is is a student has missed 10% or more of their school year of their time. It does not matter what the reason is. And the reason that that's an important number to monitor is rather a student is missing school for an excused reason like they were ill or an unexcused reason like they went to Disneyland, they still missed instruction. And as a school, we have a responsibility to make sure that we're helping them make up any instruction that they've lost. So that's why the state looks at chronic absenteeism. They don't care if it's excused or unexcused. >> Okay. >> Overall, >> um by chance, do
130we have this by doesn't have to be right by grade level? >> Yeah. So, okay. Oh, I can give it to you by grade. >> Yeah, it's not a rush. >> Yeah, what you'll see Oops. What you'll see in like I said in this slide, um I can give you the percentages, but what it we know for is very clear when we look at the data is that TK, Kinder, and First have the most uh absences. And again, um you may know that students do not legally have to attend school until they turn six years old. So there's still we're still looking at them for that 10% of absence, but there's not a requirement for them to be here. So if a student, and we'll get to that a little bit when we look at
131what the supports and interventions, we cannot tag a TK or kinder student for being truent because well, unless they turn six and kinder um because until they're six years old, there's not a state requirement for them to be in school. >> So we see parents take a little bit more leniency with absences because it doesn't hold the same weight >> and And for Sarah, um, at that age, do kids get sick more frequently in the younger grades? >> Yes, they are in fact sick. Like >> they're just getting exposed to the new germs. And I think again, Go ahead, sir. >> Yeah. I mean, a lot of it is that they are in fact sick and and sicknesses hurt them like they're anyone who's had littles, they're down and out, you know, kind of thing.
132But it is also um especially for if it's your first kid, it's also training the parents that hey, you know, like Sniffley knows like we're still going to school, you know, kind of trying to and and >> with with co >> with co that wasn't the messaging that people were getting, right? You know, there there was this keep them out longer, you know, kind of thing. So, um, but yeah, I mean, so just the first time they go to school, it whatever that first grade is, whether it's TK or kinder, they're going to get sick a lot because they're just in this germ pool they've not been in before. >> And I think again, what's important about this data, just like the academic data that we were talking about, what chronic absenteeism data is is
133a message to us, right? So when we're looking at a TK or kinder student who's been chronically absent or whatever the grade level is, it trigger should trigger to us as a school, we need to support that student in making up the information that they lost. That's it. Making up the learning that they lost. So again, it's not about punishment. And Dr. Katis and I's perspective around attendance is not around punishment. Um, and you may have seen there's a new uh regulation that came forward that we families could no longer be fined. It used to be that students families could be fined or be issued a bench warrant for attendance and truency. The that law has changed. Um so it's a really focused on supports and intervention. So when we're looking at our chronic absent
134students, those are the students we're targeting for Saturdays or after schools or um during school interventions to make sure that they have the opportunity to miss make up the learning that they lost regardless of what the reason was for them. Overall, um this is by the student groups. So, you'll notice that um our highest group for chronic absenteeism continues to be our special education students. Um we've seen that trend for quite some time. Sim, you know, kind of going back to what you said, some of our students have chronic health issues. That's part of what's qualified them for special education. Um so, that may be impacting it. Um we have there's lots of reasons. It's late so I won't go into all of them but overall um we did see a decrease that we've have
135targeted supports and interventions around chronic absenteeism with our special education students and we saw a 1.98 decrease in chronic absenteeism. So it's moving in the right direction across the board overall. These are just some of the actions. I'm not going to read Dr. Katisa script. These are some of the actions that we've taken. Um first of all it's really about early notification to families that students are at that chronic point and what temp missing 10% of your school year means um and then providing the supports as well as that positive messaging for students who are attending school and those students who are attending after chronic episode. Right? So a student may have been chronically um absent. We provide a support and intervention support the family and then the student returns to a a normal state
136of attendance. um we're making sure that we're sending out those positive messages overall. We want to identify students who are at risk of chronic absenteeism early on so we can address the root cause. So if it is a health condition or a mental health condition or it's access to school or it's transportation, we can start to provide those supports um and interventions. Um we're doing attendance conferencing and attendance planning with students. We're offering those recouping opportunities through all of those invent interventions that I've mentioned several times and you'll see them up there um rather that Saturday our migrant program um in process we also have a um ELOP teacher who is a special education teacher who will be doing attendance recovery with our SDC. So if you remember to do attendance recovery it has to
137be a teacher credentialed in that area. So it can't be a paraprofessional. Um, so we've been able to bring on a retired MCOE teacher who will be supporting our SDC students and afterchool programming as well. So to date this year, we've held 83 conferences districtwide for students who are experiencing chronic absenteeism. Um, 11% of our elementary students have improved their attendance postconference. 1% of our middle school students have improved. Though that number may not seem huge, um it is an improvement and we're gonna continue to work on the focus and why our middle schoolers are not attending school. And then this is the part that is important as well. So those ADA recovery efforts. So chronic absenteeism is about student learning and making sure that students have access to the supports and intervention to recoup
138that learning, but it's also about funding. when students are absent, regardless of the reason, excused or unexcused, districts don't receive the funding for that student for ADA. And so through our attendance recovery efforts to date, we've made up 500 days um and which equals about 37,500 in ADA recovery overall. Um and then the state put into place this year a new banking system. So basically if a student attends Saturday but they have not been absent yet they can bank those days so that if they are absent due to illness or something else comes up we can use those days for that student um going forward. So our students have banked 384 days. Now we can't cash those in for ADA if the students never absent but if any of those students are ever absent we
139have that bank of time for them as well. So that's a nice little addition that the state added this year. Cindy, did you have a question? >> Yeah, I have a question. With that recovery, all students are included in that. You know, like you said, obviously for many different reasons, you know, special education being one of them and, you know, illnesses, all that. Are those opportunities provided for students too to make up those type of >> all students are invited to all of our interventions? So, after school tutorials, Saturday Academy, they're >> we have the support and all of that for any. >> So, then what we're doing so Dr. Katisa has been working um directly with the principles to identify the students for example for after school tutorial. So we're looking at students who
140have been chronically absent because they oftentimes also have uh learning deficits in specific areas. But we have some students and I don't want to brag I was one of those I was a truent student myself. I especially in high school I didn't go to school very often. It's why I ended up graduating early. They were like graduate her or she's going to drop out. We do have some students who are chronically absent but are doing really well. I mean that is not the majority but that is the case. And so that student we may not target for the intervention. It means we may not get that ADA recovery for them but we really want to save those intervention spaces for the students most at need for those but all students are invited to attend. Right.
141So a student rather they're doing exceptionally well or they're having a challenge can attend our Saturday can attend our afterchool program and such as well. Yeah. >> Yeah. And and I think and I really appreciate dealing with it on an individual basis. It's really important. Um, you know, at one point I was a kindergarten teacher with a chronically absent student and and things snowball upon themselves because the less the child is there, they come back, everybody else has learned things or they know how to do all these new routines and you don't and it becomes then now this place that was safe for you becomes scary because suddenly you can't do it. And then boy, maybe you don't feel sick but you're telling your parents you're sick because you've, you know, you've learned that that's
142a way to to not be here. So just really those um those supports are really important in dealing with what's at the root of what's happening with individual families really makes a difference. >> I agree. And just keeping in mind like even the DI program that I shared with you is an ADA recovery option for our students. So if our students have absences and but they're interested in engaging in some of these other higher level activities, we can use that because it's led by a credential teacher as well. Okay. Student discipline and interventions. Um so just looking at where we are in terms of our suspension for this year. Um to date we have a total of 34 suspensions. We're down about 10 suspensions from our previous year. So um there's more um we had
143a data discussion at the county office and it's really challenging for me that school climate is based on like one data set which is suspensions because there's so much more that goes into it. So I don't gauge necessarily a reduction in suspensions or an increase in suspensions to be the full picture of how our campuses are doing. So with that what I know is our suspensions have gone down because our students are having less discipline overall and that's the better measure. So, at the elementary um level, when we're looking again, um we're looking at each of these categories. When we're looking at our suspensions, there were five um elementary special education students and seven middle school special education students that were suspended. And the reason that I put that on here for us to look
144at is that it is an area of disproportionality for us. And so, the states looking at those as well. So the percentage of special education students suspended is greater than our percentage of special education students or the suspended students who are special education. Um the special education team and I are working very closely to address this disproportionality. And a big piece of that is really looking at is the behavior um being accounted for or the reasons for the root cause of the behavior being accounted for within the IEP and the supports that the student is provided. And so you can see there there's one special uh one special day class student. There were nine students who are receiving resource support and then two students who were on a 504 plan within that um by grade
145level. You can see there that the majority of our suspensions are happening at our highest grade level at 8th grade. Um and so we know that sometimes being the elder on a campus comes with some of those pieces. Um, and then when we look at race and ethnicity, this is not an area of disproportionality for us. Even though the majority of our students suspended were Hispanic, it still was within our percentage were 91% Hispanic right now. And that percentage is less than that. So, we are not disproportionate in the area of race and ethnicity. We've had 30% of our students um attending our alternative to suspension program and that we've had six students who have had two or two suspensions. We had no students with more than two suspensions. And if you remember that part
146of the role of our alternative to suspension teacher is to case manage all suspended students to make sure that that recidivism rate is going down. Because there's a big difference if you're seeing 34 suspensions and a student is being repeatedly suspended six, eight times in a year versus a student has a behavior, there is a suspension and they're never coming back to being suspended because we've addressed the root cause. So our recidivism rate is very low. We do have the other area of disproportionality for us is that 78% of our suspensions have been male students and our our population is 40 uh 49% male, 51% female. So almost double the percentage of male students are being suspended as female students. And so when we're looking at that and that disproportionality, it's really about also looking
147at our own internal bias around behavior, right? are we identifying male students for more progre for more um exclusionary discipline than we are our female students because data tells us that that it should be proportionate in that. So my team, my RP team really dives into that and who are those students and what were the reasons? Um, as well, a big percentage of these eighth grade um, suspensions have been for repeated um, vaping incidents. Um, we do have our drug, alcohol, and tobacco counselors. And it's important to know that students are not necessarily suspended on the first offense for having being in possession or under the influence. Um they're in our other means of correction. They work with our Daisy counselor and complete that program. Um the state also just adopted a new freeof charge
148uh program as another means of correction for tobacco or um marijuana in students where we can do a referral directly to state supports and they work with the student and the family. So um we're really focusing on the vaping epidemic currently. We have Montage Health coming to our middle schools as well as one of our elementary schools. um two doctors who are their addictive medicine um specialists coming to do assemblies for our classes as well. And then I've spoke to these so I'm not I'm going to call out just a couple. So these are some of the interventions that we have in place. We have an amazing restorative practice team and as you know um we received a $100,000 restorative practice grant just for Gablam View Middle School and I'm so excited because Coach Al
149from Mindset Academy has taken on um that role for us and they had their staff meeting yesterday. Staff are super excited and coach Al and his team will be on our campus here at Gavlin View meeting the goals around our restorative practice grant uh starting next week. they do the launching assemblies and then they he'll have a staff member, a male staff member and a female staff member who will be there four days a week split uh to support us in those goals. So, we're really excited that coach is back with us. Um we also really make sure that our staff have been trained in trauma-informed classrooms so that they're identifying when a behavior is related to a trauma. We're building those early skills and interventions through our second step tier one and tier 2
150seal programs. And starting in January, we have CSUMB school psych students coming in to do additional lessons as well. And then some of those attensive supports, behavior intervention planning, behavior plans for our non-special education student um setting up those regular parent meetings with parent and student check-in checkout procedures. So, lots of lots of work happening um in these areas. >> I just wanted to comment real quick. Um I thank you because um Coachell was a student with us and I went to school with him and I mean he's in a lot of the neighboring school districts and he's so inspiring and um I think right now when you said you know Montage is coming that's awesome >> getting all that information you know but getting a perspective for the kids to get a perspective and
151see themselves in someone else and know that there's a future and there's, you know, all of this is great. So, I am so happy to know that we have them back in our district again. And um hopefully, you know, I know teachers and and and students will really um get a lot of of this for sure. >> And I'm so excited too because I also got him to be our keynote speaker for the state migrant ed speech state speech and debate tournament in May. So, um, he'll be there on Thursday to get or excuse me, on Friday to get students really pumped up and motivated for the state tournament and then be there on Saturday to kind of prepare them before the award ceremony. So, um, yeah, >> really quick, is that ringing kind of
152noise? Is that the AC or is that >> it shouldn't be the AC's off? >> Okay, you guys kind of hear it though like >> the ID. >> What is the remote? just without. >> Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. >> Because we have everything wrapped up in the >> Okay. Huh. >> Yeah. So, without intro, we can go into the technology side of things, right? Um so, yeah. Um so, what we have um for our first piece is our IT department um portion where we're talking about our network and security supports that we have. And one of the things we're most thrilled about right now is welcoming our new technician, Jonathan Forom. You see him in the background there. Um he's just come on this week. Um and he is an alumni from our school district
153as well. And so and he's been in our area and he comes very highly recommended and we're very excited to have him. He's already blending in with the team and getting to know all the sites. So welcome Jonathan. Um, and with that, we're also working on uh planning and the reorganization of our department. So that way we can serve our sites based on like a ticket prioritization rather than a complete sitebased tech piece. And then as well to help serve our project needs. So when we're rolling out, you know, larger project pieces um in support of the construction on boarding new technologies, um that's going to help us in navigating that as well to have more of that customer service aspect as well as the placement and support of the devices that we're we're implementing.
154Um some of the other pieces that we're doing in terms of our support is we did complete the Google Workspace audit um and some more development from that um working with Robert um in that sector to where we can more refine our Google Workspace because Google's always changing and they've also upgraded quite a few of their components. So making sure we're in align with that as well. We are preparing for our rate or the replacement of our switches and all the UPS's at our site. So, what that's going to do is that's going to give us more robust network, give us more capacity um for what we have, especially with the um additional buildings that we're putting in that requires more tech and more space within our servers to serve that technology. So, we'll be
155doing that upgrade in this next um upcoming -ate cycle for next year. >> What excuse me, what are switches replacement switch? >> So, our switches are um really what we have for our network. Um so everything is plugging into that and providing all the connectivity for all the devices that we have um within there. So yeah. Yeah. So that's why I was like oh there they're right there. Um we also did complete all the installation of the classroom devices the cloud security systems and the networking for the buildings at JG as you saw in the tour last time. Um and then we will be starting that also with Gavlin View our for our technicians and staff we are working on >> in what's it on >> go back again okay thank you I didn't notice
156um for enrolling in trainings we're going to be advancing them in some more network trainings um our Google workspace also looking at uh more advanced cabling so we can maybe possibly do some of the installations ourselves so we don't have to outreach to other areas. Um, we're also working on a future development of a train the trainer model so we can enhance some more site supports. So, it's kind of that maybe ask three before me before we get the ticket for something that can be, you know, turned off and on or something of that nature. So, we have some more of that basis coming up. Okay. >> Yeah, I did the the slides didn't hide for some reason. So, yeah. And there we go. So in terms of the educational innovation side, we have AI
157awareness and responsible use especially for our students. Right now we're starting to gauge in with our staff trainings um reviewing the digital citizenship um lessons that are provided for students in near pod so we can begin that implementation and the soft pilot to move those into the next school year to be a main component as we're building that out. Uh we're currently piloting Gemini for the Google suite for staff. Um you see the backgrounds and all the organization of slides that actually is a component of slides within Gemini um for our pilot integration for the integration of AI literacy the students um for student tools and there's also some areas I'm looking at right now in terms of microcredenturing. So micro credentials would be where teachers get training in things like an hour of AI
158that they can implement with their students and they get a small credential for that and some teacher hours um for their pay. Um those can also come through common sense media as well which is a huge uh proponent for student knowledge base and success for what you heard from our academic coaches. um continuing to engage them and the site administrators for tech enhanced instruction for student achievement. So again going beyond this is your computer and that's what we're using to actually developing and enhancing doing design instruction those types of things with our students. To go with that we have the professional development and training um for our district pro programs and applications so we can continue that innovation. And for the spring, we're also have completed the outline for our middle school uh spring college
159and career exploration day for that plan. Um and starting to move forward with that plan with our uh middle school counselors, coaches, and site administrators so we can have that implemented in later spring. And that's where we are. >> I'm going to speak very briefly on behalf of Victor Um, so we're going to look first at completed projects. I'm not going to read through all of these, but just a couple of the highlights. Um, the solar repairs districtwide are completed. Um, the lighting in the gym at GV has been replaced and that's made a huge difference, especially for evening time athletics. Um, we have the installation of the washer and dryer at the family resource center at Santaorita, which is um, great for our families. The installation of the new fire alarm panel at Sanorita
160was a big um, need. >> The entire neighborhood, thanks very much. >> And so that is complete. Um, and when we did our learning walks at La Hoya yesterday, we were able to see the new restroom that's been installed there. So that's exciting news. Um, and you can read through. Oh, the other one I wanted to highlight was the installation of the electric hole for the new refrigerated water dispensers. Something that a student had brought up at one of our town halls as a need. So, that's in progress. Yay. Um, and then ongoing and for upcoming for the summer are these projects. So, district office entrance and removal of the lattice, which is very dated. Um, we're looking at the installation of new classrooms at Gavlin View. Um, coming up before too long, the replacement
161of the old RIFF building that we've been using for storage here and associated site work. Camera, GPS, and card reader finalization for the buses and the white fleet um is an exciting project. Updating the old restroom at La Hoya um for staff use. So that'll be great for our employees. And then MCOE will be breaking ground before summer break for their new designated space at La Hoya. So that's also exciting news. All right, Chuck. >> Bring it home, Chuck. Chuck, >> thanks for that. Chuck, >> hold on. >> Before Before you start, Chuck, I just wanted to ask about the washer and dryer at the family resource center. So, what just explain a little bit really quick? >> So, um through MOB, uh homeless services, we were able to they purchased a it's actually a
162washerd dryer combo in one. So, it can be used if a family For example, if a student um who's in need, we can wash the clothes for them and turn those home with the student because oftentimes our students who may be experiencing homelessness may not have access to changes of clothes. Okay. Um we can wash clothes that have been donated to us so that we can supply them to the health aid for example who are students who may need it. Um families who are experiencing homelessness can work with Lanca and come in and do laundry within the facility as well. So it's for access to our families to make sure um I don't want to waste more time share with you. I think I shared with you It was a school district, a high school
163district that was experiencing homelessness and they thought that students weren't attending school because of transportation challenges. They bought two new school buses, sent them out, added new spaces and their absenteeism rate did not change. When they brought the students in and asked them what the real challenge was, the real challenge was students did not want to attend schools without clean clothes. They didn't have access to clean clothes or to do laundry. And so that was what really was preventing them from attending schools. And so when we heard this from some of the school district that shared this information, that became a priority for us to make sure that in addressing chronic absenteeism as well as the needs of our students that we had that resource available for our families. >> Fantastic. Thank you. >> Thank
164you. >> Ready. Um so yeah, a big push for our department this year has been the Chef Anne Foundation and developing that partnership. Um we had a fall pre-apprenticeship program and that saw us have seven total participants. Six were in-house, one was external. That external one is actually also a sub. Um subs on a daily basis at any site. Of those seven, we're going to be moving into a 9-month apprenticeship program starting next week. We had a um director's orientation that Ashley and I attended yesterday um virtually getting getting that ball rolling and we'll be starting that on on the 20th. Um, this apprenticeship program is going to allow the participants to dive deeper into and expand their knowledge on skills in relation to school food service. So, they're not it's not just about food
165preparation, but they'll also touch on procurement. Um, they might touch on the business side of it, ordering and all that stuff. Um, so it's going to include online courses through the Institute of Child Nutrition and Chef Anne Foundation School Food Institute. There'll be 18 live virtual learning sessions with scratch cooking and school food experts along with networking opportunities with other school food service person uh professionals. Um in conjunction with that, we're also going to run another pre-apprentichip program to hope hopefully get more of our staff involved. We don't have any yet from our staff signed up for that, but we do have nine external applicants so far. Um and that starts I believe in March. Um again, you know, during the fall program along with the help from our participants in it, we were able
166to identify and and develop seven new recipes to our menus. A couple of those are um pole, which was a huge hit. Um a freshlymade crispy chicken wrap, some overnight oats, and some sweet chili chicken wings, you know, just to name a few of them. Um the program also included us sampling some items with students during meal time and that that led to us being able to adjust the recipes um based on input from the students. Uh this past Monday um even though our classified staff was not technically in session, we were able to offer an on-site training. So chef an sent somebody on um they sent one of their chefs almost half of our staff signed up. I was pretty impressed by that. And the training revolved around the production of two scratchbased recipes.
167One was a homemade ranch dressing and another was a Moroccan carrot salad. Um it gave our staff an opportunity to learn how to use new pieces of equipment. One is a Robocube, which is in a sense a giant food processor, slicing, um shredding vegetables, etc. And [snorts] an immersion blender. Um a lot of people have those at home, but this was a huge 14-inch one that they can make soups with. and and that's how they made the ranch. Um, so yeah, just overall, you know, we're excited about the direction we're moving and the partnership that we've created and we're going to continue as long as we can. That's my slides except for the last one. That's this is a recap that um Ashley Perez, a supervisor in our department, came up with just to share
168with our staff. That way we can try to get some more buyin from everybody that's not involved in the program yet. Um, so just kind of recapping of what they did on Monday. Perfect. Well, thank you staff for uh I know it was a longer uh meeting than usual, but it was a good conversation. I think it's the important topics that we need to cover and so I think we're we're grateful for the for the time. Um so we're going to move on. Any final questions, comments before we move on? >> Just gratitude for all the work. Thanks, guys. >> Yeah. Um 10.1 approval of two independent educational evaluations contract. Thank you. This is um for our special ed department. Um and we have a need for some individ independent educational evaluations and so this
169contract would be for two of those. >> Motion to approve. >> Second. >> Any all those in favor say I. >> I. Captain. >> The motion passes. Uh 10.2 approval of agreement with the Monterey Peninsula Community College. >> Thank you. Um, this partnership is for students at MPC who would observe in classrooms as part of their um, associates degree leading into an educational field. >> Motion to approve. >> Second. >> Okay. All those in favor say I. >> I. Motion carries. Uh, 10.3 approval of CSP manual maintenance November 2025 policy update. >> Thank you. These are our um, regular policy updates that have been reviewed and recommended. >> Okay. Make it a motion to approve. >> Motion to approve. >> Second. >> Okay. All those in favor say I. >> I. Captain. >> Okay. Motion
170carries. >> Uh, advanced planning. Our next regular board meeting is January 28th, 2026. Um, any suggested future board items? >> Um, you know, uh, Elva, I I think, you know, we talked about it regarding Mary Kaiser. You know, I'd like to bring that back. We we talked um that we would like to have um like just a little a little tiny tribute kind of like we did here to Mary Kaiser, our long-term board member who who had passed away and um just someone that we potentially would have included but but did not. >> Okay. And I think >> it's her birthday today. >> Yeah. And I think the rest of you took notes as far as this followup from the scores and then eventually having a conversation not right away but about what you had
171mentioned about more investment on the K K through second grade level. Uh with that can I get a motion to adjourn at 8:27? >> Motion to adjurnn. >> Second. >> All those in favor say I. >> I motion carries. Have a nice evening everyone. Thank you. Yes.