001Call to order the April 8th, 2026 meeting of the Santa Rosa City School Board. We're at item A, um, A1 public comment on closed session agenda. Is there any public comment? President Keaton, there's no public comment. Not seeing no public comment, we will recess to closed session to consider B1 student expulsions in the cases listed, B2 public employee discipline, dismissal, release, B3 conference with labor negotiators as designated for SRTA, CSCA, Santa Rosa 75, and Teamsters Union 665, and uh, B4 public employee performance evaluation for the and for the positions listed. We're recessed. We'll reconvene the April 8th, 2026 meeting of the Santa Rosa City School Board. We're now moving to open session. I'll start with C1, the Pledge of Allegiance, and then we'll move to the territorial land acknowledgement, uh, presented by Katherine Hall. Please
002stay standing for both. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the public for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Acknowledge that Santa Rosa City Schools is on the traditional territory and homelands of the Pomo people, traditional territory and homelands of the Coast Miwok people, and honor with gratitude the land itself and the people who have stewarded it through the generations. This land acknowledgement calls us to commit to continuing to learn how to be better stewards of the land we inhabit. By offering this land acknowledgement, we affirm indigenous sovereignty and will work to hold Santa Rosa City Schools more accountable to the needs of American Indian and indigenous peoples. Thank you. All right, we're going to move to item C3, reports
003of action taken in closed session. Uh there were none. Uh we're going to move to item C4, items considered in closed session uh for action in open session. Uh we'll go first to case number 2526-12 uh with a motion for a request for extension. Do I have a motion? So moved. And do I have a second? Second. >> Second. All right, moved by Trustee Medina, seconded by Trustee Jenkins to approve the request for extension. Roll call vote, please. Trustee Medina. I. Trustee Jenkins. I. Trustee Kirby. I. Trustee De La Torre. Aye. Trustee Prack. Aye. President Caston. Aye. That motion passes unanimously. We'll now move to case number 2526-16, which is an expulsion for stipulated expulsion. Is there a motion? Move to approve as the recommendation. Second. Second. Move by Trustee Medina, seconded by Trustee Jenkins.
004Roll call vote, please. Trustee Medina. Aye. Trustee Jenkins. Aye. Trustee Kirby. Aye. Trustee Day La Torre. Aye. Trustee Prack. Aye. President Caston. Aye. That motion also passes unanimously. We'll now move to item C5, statements of abstention. Are there any abstentions? I see none. We'll now move to item C6, adjustments to the agenda. Any requests for adjustments to the agenda? Trustee Jenkins. F6. F6. Any other requests for adjustments to the agenda? All right. Seeing none, we're going to go ahead and move to item D, reports. And we're going to start with our California School Employees Association Santa Rosa 75 report. Good evening, uh President Caston, Interim Superintendent August, members of the board, members of our community, and my union siblings. Um I took some notes. Going to be brief, but community. I work at four different
005elementary schools. And when I walk through those offices, I see working at our schools parents of students at those schools. So, in this time, you know, our staff are our families. Our families are our staff. They are getting disrupted both in where they're going to work next year and where their students will be next year. We are working with the district to resolve any issues with reduction in force notices, bumping, and demotions. There are daily questions from our members about where they will bump or be involuntarily transferred to next year. They worry about what they will learn about their location. Thank you for your report. We'll now move to item D2, Teamsters Local 665 report. Are there representatives here from the Teamsters? Seeing none, we'll now move to item D3, Santa Rosa Teacher Association report.
006President Hill? Good evening, President Casten, Superintendent August, members of the board, and members of the community. Um I need to start tonight with a huge thank you because my understanding is that this board plans to discuss the SELPA and extend the time for consideration of the formation of the SELPA and give Santa Rosa City Schools time to create an implementation plan and address the concerns of the community advisory committee, uh the concerns of the educators in this district, and by extension, show respect for the needs of every single family um of a student with an IEP currently enrolled in Santa Rosa City Schools. So, with this decision, this board has put students first at the center of your decision-making rather than allow an unsupported assumption of fiscal savings to dictate your actions. Thank you. I
007know many of you have spent countless hours talking to CAC members, reading emails from them, responding to emails on this topic from the community. And thank you for your time that you put into that. Thank you for your thoughtful consideration of this impact the SELPA is going to have on our students. Just as you have put students first in this action, SRTA is asking you to give the same consideration to all the other so-called budget solutions you have approved without implementation plans. Calling them budget solutions will not hide the fact that they are program cuts. And each program cut will harm our students, destabilize our school communities, and drive families away to a school district that can offer educational services that our students deserve. This district does not have a revenue problem. It has a
008spending problem. That problem won't be fixed by taking educational opportunities away from students, upending special programs while claiming that you aren't, continuing to ask our educators, classified staff, and administrators to pay for the spending mistakes of the past through cuts to salary and benefits, or indeed by laying off dozens of educators and classified staff across the district. Please examine the program cuts you have approved, prioritize safe and stable schools, and create actual budget solutions that cut wasteful spending rather than disseminating programs and creating learning environments that put the needs of our students last. This board is showing tonight that it can do better, and I thank you for that. Teachers will always fight for what is right for our students, and so should all of you. Thank you. Thank you. Uh we're now going to
009move to item D4, superintendent report. Thank you, President Gaston. This evening, I want to start by saying thank you to all of those who have attended our L cap input sessions. Um we've had one virtual, two public um open um in person, and one with the D lack committee. And very much appreciated um the time that people have come, you know, spent in coming and having those conversations. Um it is a little bit different this year to address some of the issues um that we've talked about um or heard about this evening in our uh labor partners' reports. Um we are being intentional with how we frame conversations given our current fiscal reality. We have been having great conversations around where support is needed as we work to realign resources to serve students within the
010means that we have available. Uh we do have an additional virtual session that is planned for next Wednesday, April 15th. We will have information on how to join on our website at srcschools.org. Please do participate. We do very much um appreciate the conversations and and hearing from from our community. Uh we will also be having those sessions uh with our stu uh superintendent student council, as well as our labor partners. Um the other night, uh was it Friday, I did have an opportunity to attend LC Allen's um multicultural night, which was a great opportunity. I'm sorry I wasn't able to make it early enough to to catch these student performances, but it was really a a great um a great event. And just a recap of where we are in moving forward around our around
011our fiscal plans. Um the other night on Monday, we had our fiscal subcommittee um meeting our uh finance subcommittee of the board and we talked about long-term planning um looking ahead of the governor's uh May revise. We spoke about implementation of the board's new policy of me of reaching and maintaining a 10% emergency reserve, including the appropriate use of one-time funds should those be identified in the governor's budget and the state adopted budget. Uh that does help us to smooth transitions when we do have reductions so that there aren't then there isn't the need to continue operating in crisis mode. That is a This is just a a reminder of where of the changes that have happened, the budget solutions that have come forward. And that that does, if we stay the course, create fiscal
012stability for the long term. They are not easy. They are not all intended to be permanent forever. It is a time to regroup. If you think about when you have something going on with your house and you have to make repairs and you have to first tear down things in order to to build back. And that is, I know, a painful analogy when we are talking about services that are key for our kids. I've said it before, this the needs haven't changed, our ability to provide those services in the same way has. We look forward to the time when we can be looking and focusing on the future instead of being in this in the mode of making reductions like are right now. I want to clarify again and do a reminder that that budget
013stabilization plan, our budget solutions, that is intended to get us back on track of having fiscal stability going forward. So, we do not foresee large reductions after this year. We will make minor adjustments as needed for declining or at some point in the future, um potentially increasing enrollment. With projections of birth rates and others, I expect that will be quite a while. The board and your leadership team are committed to ensure that we address that fiscal stability now. I do want to share that we have taken that action to achieve the fiscal stability, and we are committed and have an obligation to our community to do what is in our control to learn from this experience, so we do not find ourselves in this position again. I do want to thank our labor partners for
014collaboration as we move forward to make next year look as positive as we can, uh providing great experiences for kids within the resources we have. Thank you. All right. Thank you for your report. Um we'll move to the board president report. So, I want to thank I had a lot of meetings with uh many of our folks, uh both faculty or sorry, teachers and staff around several of the things that we have coming up tonight, and so I want to appreciate everyone's time. I mean, when we sit up here, we're we're here representing the community, but we're not technical experts, and being able to actually engage in thoughtful discussions and considerations and explore items in a safe way, where we're not just hearing the talking points, but actually exploring the solutions, is really valuable, and
015there are a lot of folks that engaged with me um on several issues and I appreciate that and the time that was spent. Uh specifically, I was able to visit Ridgeway and our independent study program uh between the last meeting and this one. Uh I continue my strong belief and commitment in our ability to standardize, expand, and really grow our ISP program. Um independent study, I think, is a direction where we see a lot of demand in the community uh both from the home school movement and other um charters and private schools offering solutions there. And it's a place where we see wait lists even without having done substantial amount of advertising of the efficacy of that program. So, seeing that first hand um not just with the information uh provided here reinvigorates my commitment
016and belief in that expansion being important for the future of the district. And then getting to tour Ridgeway and uh seeing trustee Fitzsimmons um out in the out in the quad there um and getting to, you know, really experience that campus and the intentionality put into how it's designed and uh the the work with the students there was uh really impactful and uh all the work that's going into it was very much appreciated. Um I I do want to comment on the the concept of the revenue challenge uh versus the spending challenge and part that's in the context of continuing to work at the state level. Uh we're expecting the May revise next month or not expecting the May revise from the governor will come next month on budget solutions and uh regardless of what
017has happened at the local level over the past years, we are incredibly dependent not just on um our ADA and enrollment, but also on the state budget. And so, one of the presentations I attended looking at economic forecast and the potential of recessions, especially around current macroeconomic impacts to the economy, uh it means that while next year we may not be facing immediate downturns in revenue, it is very likely that the state will have an impact um that could impact Prop 98 and the funds available for us 2 years out. And so, for us to be intentionally planning to have potentially millions of dollars not available to us uh from the state 2 years out uh to 3 years out, depending on what happens with that um big picture economic issue and some of the
018other things we're seeing there, I think it's going to be very prudent on our part. Uh it's not a secret that the state's very reliant on capital gains and income taxes, and there's lots of things happening that are causing there to be strong uncertainty in that coming through. And our guarantees under Prop 98, in addition to being tied to the overall budget of the of the state, are also starting to be allocated to programs that are not able to go into the classrooms. So, two big proposals in the current budget around ELOP and community schools account for $6 billion in potential allocations from our Prop 98 funds that we would be restricted from actually using for in-classroom purposes. Um so, I say all of that more as by way of information for us as we're
019planning and going forward that that there's still going to be a lot of uncertainty and constraints. And and I also I I want to address fundamentally that I have a very strong belief in our ability as a district to continue weathering that and actually achieving many of the goals that we've set out. This last two years, year and a half, have been incredibly challenging because this is the worst of times. We've had thick net pointing out that we were worst situation in the state for cash. Um we faced monumental challenges around closures, budget reductions. But that can't be the standard position for the district and for the board. We had We have to have done these reductions if, you know, direction where we're heading to a structural belief in our capacity to grow, in our
020capacity to serve our students better, and that each year we're going to be able to do better because we got ourselves back onto a strong financial foundation to then be able to move deliberately towards a strong programmatic and educational foundation. And focusing our resources on our education, academics, enrichment for students as we go forward in order to deliver our commitment as an education system. And functionally us up here at the dais, as board members, we're not going to be the ones doing that work. Our job is to enable and support and create the certainty so that our teachers and our classified staff and our administrators, our site leaders, are able to go out each year from now with more confidence in their ability to grow programs and accomplish things for our students. So, you know,
021I just want us to stay focused on the facts fact that we do have a capacity to accomplish and do things as a district. And if we don't believe in that, we are going to put ourselves in a very dangerous position of not even trying, and then we will definitely not serve our students well. And I'll end there, and I'll go to my fellow board members for their reports. Uh Trustee De La Torre, then Jenkins. Thank President Caston. Uh thank you to the community for showing up tonight and tuning in online for another amazing meeting we're about to have. Um I just want to celebrate some wins and some amazing community engagement I was able to participate in um the past few weeks and um I don't feel like the positives have elevated enough and
022they are definitely out there. Um I had a beautiful experience to go and watch the Marimba Club and uh Marimba Rita Marimba at the Children's Museum of Sonoma County last Friday evening. Um they performed for family night and just to hear these students and to watch these students bought into the program, the experience, um their ability to express their love for music through their instruments, um which is a wonderful experience and I'm really grateful that my family and I got to experience that. Um we also had the pleasure to participate at the El Molino High School Multicultural Night. Uh thank you, Trustee Medina, for all your work to help get that set up. And uh got to see my fellow Trustee Prac, who was quite the celebrity as the Lobo Solom. Um she was selling
023out raffle tickets and I thought it was she was just signing autographs. Um but it was great to see the community involved and probably the most beautiful thing my wife and I experienced at that was um how engaged entire families were from infants to grandparents that were sitting around tables, enjoying the music, the performances, engaging with the community, um and enjoying the food. Unfortunately, tamales were gone by the time we got to the table, um but it was a wonderful evening. Um got to participate at a SRJC Community Roundtable last week where we met with community leaders um through the junior college, Sonoma State, other community programs, and really sharing how what we're doing well, what we can do better, and how we focus and expand those programs where we are partnering. We have a
024really beautiful pipeline here in Santa Rosa and Sonoma County to offer educational opportunities for students K-12 through a junior college and a state college program that my family has really enjoyed and I know a lot of other families have had great experiences. Some things we discussed is the impact of space the JC has with some of its programs and with us wanting to find ways to cultivate and offer different pathways, what opportunities can we look into and explore on how we're truly collaborating. What MOUs do we need to explore to continue offering programs that are working and is there any way to expand those programs to other campuses to see them continue to work. So, it was a really great evening of collaborating and great conversation with community leaders on educational pathways and opportunities. Um
025and last but not least, this morning I was invited by Mr. Persinger at Monroe Elementary to go with his students and meet with the city of Santa Rosa water department employees for a creek creek stewardship program. Really grateful to the city of Santa Rosa employees who shared their knowledge and skill set with the students on having a buy-in and developing a love for this natural habitat and students were had spent the past few weeks identifying plants, what's native, what's invasive, what do we want our creeks to have, what do we want our creeks not to have, and why it impacts the environment and where that water is going. And it was a really fun program. I'm glad I got to take the time today to spend with the students and get rid of some invasive
026plants that were in the creek that didn't need to be there. Um and like I said, mainly just want to share the wins. Um it's a beautiful community. We're working really hard up here to be a part of it, and continue to take your feedback seriously, and participate as much as we can. Trustee Jenkins. Thank you. Um good evening, everyone. So, on the 28th, I attended a training put on by SCO for all trustees and superintendents in the county on legal responsibilities of the governance team. Um a couple of things to note of note came up. Um one, uh a governance calendar. Uh this is something that is often mentioned in trainings. Um I know President Caston is working on developing this, and I think it would be very beneficial a very beneficial document for
027um both all trustees to have access to, um as well as the public perhaps on our website under the Board of Education drop-down. Um the second thing that came up was study sessions. It was highlighted that study sessions are important for whenever really big decision is being made. Feels like those are happening all the time. Um we meet for so much longer and much more often than uh any of the other school districts around. So, I think as a board, we would benefit from continuing to streamline our rules, as well as how we conduct our business to best utilize study sessions. Uh the third thing that came up of note um for me was making sure that as a governing board, we are asking the question of our superintendent, what should we what should we
028expect when direction is given and possibly to inform decision-making? That was kind of an aha moment for me, and then I was like, yeah, that does make sense. We should be asking that all the time. Um just to get ahead of stuff. Um and finally, the other big takeaway was regarding evaluations. Evaluations are obviously such a useful tool. Um we discussed the importance of the superintendent evaluation um as well as the board self-evaluation. We were provided with a template, which I'm happy to pass along um a copy to President Casten. Additionally, we discussed the importance of teacher evaluations, which made me curious um and this does not I I hope this is not offensive because these things come out of my mouth. Um which it made me curious if our district conducts evaluations of all
029staff, including teachers, who's responsible, and what checks and balances are in place to ensure folks are continuing to grow professionally. Later that day, I volunteered at the um MHS alumni polenta feed. I am not an alumni of MHS. I was there as a um with a parent group Project Grad. Which was a huge success. Um I hear the baseball field dedication the following weekend was outstanding and loved seeing pictures of it on social media as well. Additionally, I logged into our virtual LCAP meeting engaging as a community member. Thank you for hosting that. Uh and the uh the first board policy subcommittee meeting agenda um with attachments is intended to be posted this Friday to give folks um time for plenty of review and in attempt to streamline policy updates going forward. On a personal
030note, um I saw Project Hail Mary in the theater, and if you have not seen this yet, please do yourself a favor and make it happen. Tuesdays at Airport Theater tickets are discounted. Um and this film was just so amazing, filled with inspiration, purpose, connection, and friendship. For those of you who may be '80s and '90s kids, it was definitely giving Flight of the Navigator vibes mixed in with ET. And lastly, um my heart goes out to all of our community touched by recent tragedy. I encourage not only students but also their parents to have the Stop It app on their phones and report concerns when they come up. Additionally, there are mental health crisis teams throughout Sonoma County who operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The one for the city of
031Santa Rosa is in response, dispatched by the Santa Rosa Police Department. Law enforcement is not automatically deployed. Instead, it's a licensed clinician and a couple teammates. Their phone number, cuz this is being recorded, is 707-575- 4357. Community members can also call 911 and inform dispatchers of a mental health emergency. It's the same people who dispatch and response as do the police department. And that is all. Thank you. Thank you, Trustee Jenkins. Trustee Medina? Are you I trust Trustee Prick. Good evening. Um So, last Friday I had a uh real busy day visiting. Uh I went to Maria Carrillo High School, got to see or got to meet Mr. um I apologize if I'm butchering his name, Ringedall. Uh got to see the zero period jazz um classes as well as zero period uh concert choir,
032and I was serenaded, and I learned a lot about uh jargon. Since the only thing I can play is the radio. It was nice to see a talented group of kids. I also went to Rincon Valley Middle School and Shrack's, and I met their principal. Uh hi. I got to see um and the students uh in their music class. As well uh dropped by Piner to go and uh visit the kid Well, mainly visit my kids at lunch and only one acknowledged me, so that was pretty good. And then in the evening, I went to Elsie Allen to Fermoy Take Cultural Night. And it was well attended. I was extremely impressed with the talent of the performers. And the food was delicious, so thank you for having me. And on to serious notes, cuz I
033am still very upset. Uh I want to take a moment to address a matter that deeply concerns me both as a board member and as someone who values integrity, transparency, and trust in leadership. In December, this board approved an agreement regarding administrative concessions, including furlough days and associated pay reductions. These reductions were expected to begin in January. However, we have now learned that the original agreement could not be implemented implemented as planned, and this was not identified until March. What is even more concerning is what followed. A decision was made without board approval, without written agreement, and without transparent communication to proceed with pay cuts for administrators in March and April. With the remaining balance to be deducted in June. This was not brought before the board. It was not formally documented, and it was
034not presented in a way that allowed our administrators the opportunity to understand, respond to, or agree to these changes. It is It is unacceptable that we were not informed in a timely manner. It is equally unacceptable that administrators were discouraged from reaching out to board members. That is not an open line of communication, and it's an opposite. And yet, administrators still felt compelled to reach out to me directly out of concern and frustration. This is not about a clerical error or misstep. This is about a breakdown in leadership, communication, accountability, and transparency. A leader, by definition, is someone who guides others with integrity, inspires trust, and takes responsibility for their actions. A good leader ensures transparency, follows through on commitments, and treats people with fairness and respect, especially when decisions impact their livelihoods. At the
035same time, we are asking more of our administrators. And next year, our administrators will receive less support, more students, and greater demands. Furthermore, I have repeatedly asked, "What are we taking off their plates?" And I've yet to receive an answer. It is not acceptable to alter compensation agreements in a way that directly impact people's financial stabilities without clear communication, written documentation, or mutual agreements. And it's not acceptable to expect cooperation when trust has been thrown out the window. It is especially troubling that we are asking one group to absorb pay reductions when other bargaining units, such as SRTA, CSEA, and Teamsters have not agreed to similar concessions. This is not got equity. That is not collaboration. This is not we're all in this together. Trust is the foundation of any effective organization, and over the
036years, trust has been broken time and time again. When people do not feel heard, when they fear retaliation for speaking up, and when decisions are made without transparency, we create a culture of fear, not a culture of collaboration. That is not a healthy environment for our educators, our administrators, or our students. Let me be clear. Our administrators are the backbones of our schools. They are the reasons families choose to stay in our district. They are the reason teachers choose to work here. We see their impact every time we receive emails from parents and staff advocating for them. If we want thriving students, we need supported teachers. And if we want supported teachers, we need strong, respected, and supported administrators. Right now, we are failing all of them. Respect is not shown in words. It is
037shown in how we treat people when decisions are hard. And right now, we're not getting that right. Moving forward, I'm requesting that this item be placed on the next board agenda so that we can formally address and void this agreement. That is the right thing to do, and it's an ethical thing to do, as well. We must reset. We must recommit to transparency. And we must lead in a way that reflects the values we expect from everyone in this district. Because what we are seeing right now does not reflect those values. We cannot model integrity at the top and we can't expect it anywhere else. Thank you for your report, uh Trustee Medina. Yep. Thank you. Um a few people have brought up uh last Friday's Multicultural Night at El Cerrito High School. Um I
038did want to just thank uh a few community organizations that came out and supported um by tabling. Uh the City of Santa Rosa, Sonoma County Sanctuary Coalition, California Highway Patrol, Four Seasons of Sonoma County, Comunidad Therapy, Buckelew, Vela, Sonoma State, TLC Child and Family Services, the Individual and Family Support Network, Amor para Todos, Positive Images, M.E.Ch.A. from Santa Rosa Junior College, Raices Collective, uh CRLA, California Rural Legal Assistance, and Next Gen. Thank you all for turning out in a very short time. And and uh a really big shout out to uh Tricia Alday and our business offices office manager uh Maria Lopez, who really were at the core of putting that together. Um I think I I did want to um um since I brought up uh Alday, I just want to say um I'm
039excited to see that her class uh a dance class and dance students are going to be headed to UC Berkeley this Friday um to uh on a field trip to see the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater. Um and and that's uh due to the fact that as a Title I school, they're able to get free tickets. So, I think, you know, as we have many schools that are Title 1, to just be aware of opportunities like that that are available to our students. Um also this weekend at UC Berkeley, um um the mariachi was invited to participate in the at a two-day conference, and they'll be performing at Hertz Hall on Sunday out there. Um which then also takes me to um I found out earlier this week that uh the mariachi will be um was
040invited to perform at California Adventure for the summer on June 11th, I believe it is. So, um a lot more things to raise money for. Um so, congrats to all of them. And And those two um also lead me to um um be thankful for the fact that we'll be able to send a lot of staff to the AME professional development um arts, media, and entertainment um as it relates to uh CTE. Um and and as the district maybe works to form more arts-related um CTE programs like Art Quest and maybe at some of our other schools, um AME is is an institute that helps develop those programs. So, it's good to see that the district is working forward to continue to grow and develop our programs, especially around the arts. Um with that said,
041um I I I just want to express that, you know, we're dealing with a lot of change. We're just going through so many things, and there's the something about to go slower, and I understand that, but also there's the sometimes I feel like just delaying things just makes it more difficult to kind of rebuild. Um so, we're we're just in a tough situation. Um I'd ask folks to just try to be optimistic and continue to work hard as you all do to try to get through it all. Um I know that we're dealing with very many difficult situations. A lot of people got a lot more work to do. Uh more work, less less less hours to do it, and mistakes are made. Um doesn't mean that it's okay. Um but I think we've just
042got to continue to understand that we're all human. Um but we'll continue to I think do our best to to be accountable in every way possible. Um I also would like to echo the fact that everybody should be encouraged to to speak up and communicate with us as a board. Um if you have issues, just let us know. Um I think that's really important. And just being able to communicate with us as a community and expressing grievances or highlighting good things happening always encouraged. Um thank you all. I also just wanted to say I was really saddened that I couldn't make it last meeting. I really wanted to be here for the farm workers day resolution. Um and to see the CTE presentation. Um but I really wasn't feeling well. Trustee Medina. Trustee Kirby. Uh
043thank you. Um on April 1st, I uh I attended the e-bike webinar online that was provided by Sonoma County Safe Routes. Uh they had some really outstanding information. And uh look forward to bringing uh a hopefully soon board policy regarding the procedures and guidance on the e-bikes on our campuses. We actually don't have anything right now in place, so something that we need to get on there. Uh one thing of interest was particularly regarding safety and just uh the law actually is as I've realize that e-motor motorbikes are actually prohibited on not only roads but on our campuses. So, um just need to double-check and make sure that your child isn't trying to bring one of those on to our campuses. Um Trustee Jenkins brought up the LCAP meeting that she was able to attend.
044I just want to reiterate that the LCAP survey is still active online on our website. Um the local control accountability plan and your input is is very critical in deciding how to prioritize funds that are allocated specific school sites. So, please go on there and take a survey if you're able to. Um lastly, um on April 20th before our next meeting, I'm looking forward to uh uh attending with some of our other staff down to the Bellflower Unified School District to look at their 7-12 programs that they've had for quite some time and and get to see them in action and and learn from some of their best practices. So, looking forward to that. Thank you, Trustee Fitzsimmons. No reporting? All right. Then we're going to move to item E, public comment on non-agenda and
045consent items. Mr. President Castaneda, we have one blue card for our non-agenda or consent items. Uh 1 minute, correct, President Castaneda? >> Correct. Uh so, if you could please make your way to either podium, our first speaker is Raymond Joseph Soto. Uh yeah, I'm Wallace Fowlie of 87. I was sitting in the attendance segregation administrator council and I was doing data entry and I was told to reduce the certain format. And but my discovery in summer 2000 there was when me and one administrator was aware there were no two records in the database. And on January 3rd, I turned around with the eight copies is when I discovered it. I did turn around and get copies. Give me a copy with that for copy and I did send the registry to the high school. But
046then August 6th, I was trying I was trying to find out that the registry The registry did not sign it at the school student boy. And then there was going on from seventh was signed by Amanda, trustee. And then when on my sister was signed by I was written by Britney Gibbs and it was authorized by Amanda, which was trustee. And this student aid administrator and secretary three made it sixth grade on fall semester. Also we did use a certain format which was the cuz it was all important which is freshman, sophomore, junior, or but it was altered again by August 6th and I don't know what's been going on in the high school since 1997. >> much for your comment. Mhm? Thank you for your comment. President Castaneda, no other cards. Now move to
047item F, the consent calendar looking for a motion on items one through five and seven. So moved. Moved by trustee Medina. Second. Seconded by trustee Kirby. Roll call for vote, please. Student board member Fitzsimmons. I. Trustee Medina. I. Trustee Kirby. I. Trustee Jenkins. I. Trustee Della Torre. I. Trustee Prack. I. President Castaneda. I. That motion passes unanimously. We'll now move to F6, trustee Jenkins. Hello. You could probably say from there. Um I just had one question. And where did it go? I was wondering if if De Soto was not being used specifically for 7-8, would those numbers be different? Um Yeah, they would be a little different, not by much. We we would um still be doing the roof at the auditorium as needed be as well as modernizing all uh classrooms is still part
048of the implementation plan, so we would still be modernizing building as well as turning the bathrooms into uh all access restrooms. So, for the most part the only thing that would be unique to that 7th-8th situation is the sinks in the six rooms, the additional sinks. So, plus or minus, I'm going to have to guestimate somewhere between 750,000 to million dollars of extra to do that work. Perfect. And who doesn't love sinks? Sinks for all, I see. Perfect, thank you. I move it unless there's further discussion, I move to approve that. Moved by Trustee Jenkins. Second. Seconded by Trustee Kirby. Roll call vote, please. Student board member Fitzsimmons. I. Trustee Jenkins. I. Trustee Kirby. I. Trustee De La Torre. I. Trustee Medina. I. Trustee Prack. I. President Caston. I. The motion passes unanimously. Hold one
049second here. With the board's approval, we're going to move back to item C4, um items considered in closed session for action in open session on case number Wait, we have to revote on this. I'll explain in a second. I need a case number. 16 All right, 25 26 16, so it was not the extension. We just need to approve it as an expulsion from a hearing, not stipulated. Do I have a motion? Motion. I make a motion to approve. Moved by Trustee Prack. Is there a second? Second. Seconded by Trustee Kirby. Roll call vote, please. Trustee Prack Aye. Trustee Kirby Aye. Trustee Jenkin Aye. Trustee De La Torre Aye. Trustee Medina Aye. President Caston Aye. That motion passes unanimously. We'll now move to our G calendars, discussion and action items. We're going to G1, the
050charter school calendar. We're going to move into the public hearing on the Santa Rosa Accelerated Charter School renewal. I do want to state to the CCLA community that I know was planning to be here tonight that I apologize for the delay. The work of the site administration and the charter committee to be ready was, you know, very monumental, and we recognize the work that they put in, and we understand the frustration that there may be because of the delays that have occurred on the review. And we look forward to seeing that public hearing at a few other, hopefully, next future board meeting. But we see you, and we recognize your work, and thank you. And with that, we're going to move into G1A, the public hearing on the Santa Rosa Accelerated Charter School Charter renewal.
051Dr. Castro You're sitting in front of me, so I'm going to go with the assumption that you're presenting. Thank you very much, President Caston, Superintendent August Hume, members of the board, staff, community of Santa Rosa City um I can go ahead and call down the um staff, the principal and staff from the um Santa Rosa Accelerated Charter at this time. And go ahead and turn it over to them because they've been working very hard over the last few months to prepare this uh petition for this public hearing. Um as you know, after this um we will have um some time to ask some questions, and they will um be able to provide some clarifications. And then we will circle back in a few weeks to provide um the decision on this. Superintendent August. I just
052want to say thank you to our Shrax um team for coming and presenting tonight and for the conversation um as we were looking um for as we were having having um discussions around bringing the petition forward, I know that we have um some items that we will be working together with when we come back for with our analysis, and the and the state the district's findings, we'll be working together with Shrax to finalize those items. So, thank you. >> I'm going to fill space right now just to let people know cuz there's I feel like I see a lot of people who haven't been here before during the meeting. There's a screen down here, so sometimes if the board is looking down here, we're not being disrespectful. We can just see things better. Do you
053kids want to hear a joke while we're waiting for the grown-ups? How do you measure a burrito? In enchiladas. On On that note, do we need a couple minute recess? All right, we're going to take a three two-minute recess. We'll reconvene at 6:26. All right, we'll reconvene our meeting and we're on item G1A, which is the public hearing on the Santa Rosa Accelerated Charter School Renewal. Uh, just to be clear, I am opening that public hearing. We'll receive comment after the presentation. And go ahead and whoever's starting, introduce yourself when you start the presentation. Good evening, President Caston, trustees, Superintendent August, and the community behind me. Thank you for your service to Santa Rosa. Uh, we know that this is a hard time for the district, and we are very grateful to be here today
054to share with you the work that we do as educators in Santa Rosa. We are pleased to bring you a high-performing renewal with no fiscal, governance, disciplinary, or disenrollment concerns. And we are requesting a 7-year term for the renewal of Santa Rosa Accelerated Charter School. Before we share more about our school, I just want to share, um, start by highlighting the legal standard that governs our charter renewal. The chartering authority shall not deny renewal for a high-performing charter school. And that is a legal legal designation for our school based on our dashboard data. Authorizers can deny renewals for high-performing schools for fiscal, governance, and disciplinary and disenrollment concerns, but those do not apply here. Okay. So, we are very excited to share with you, and we will quickly run through the SRACS story, and then
055we want to have time to answer questions. Go ahead. Yeah. So, the mission statement for Shrax um has remained the same since the very first charter in 2002. Basically, we're based on interest, creating academic challenging uh opportunities, real-world learning, um and growth that proceeds most effectively for the student. Technology is involved, and we look at making connections across the disciplines. Shrax was formed through a district-driven process that included district staff, middle school principals, and innovative teachers that were change agents. The school has been at full capacity since 2007. Each year, the school has a waitlist of approximately 40% to 50% of its enrollment capacity. And that's you. So, we we have made a lot of efforts to diversify the student body at Shrax, and one of the things we've done is gone to a 4:1
056draw for students who qualify for free and reduced lunch. Um and that is solely in the interest of creating a more diverse program. Um and as you can see on our on our data that's on this table here that we are uh we are becoming more diverse and hope to come become even more diverse um in the future as our program grows. Our student outcomes speak for themselves. We are a high-performing school. Um the dashboards show that we are succeeding in accelerating our students, and as a result, we are designated as that high performance. And you can see that our uh ELA 91.41% of our students are meet are meeting or exceeding standards, and 88.2 uh 8% are all in mathematics. Our Our school is successful right now. Our ELA scores have increased about 10%
057year-over-year and our math scores have increased 4.5% year-over-year over the last 3 years. In the 24-25 school year, our percent enrollment from outside of the district was 76%. So, SRACS is bringing in students from out of district and hopefully as the program grows and expands, we're able to bring that to a wider swath of of Santa Rosa. We take great pride in our attendance. Our average daily attendance so far for this school year is at 96.98% making us the the highest attended school as far as ADA is concerned within the district. So, is Thank you. SRACS is a benefit to Santa Rosa and the county as as you know, we've seen we attract students from outside the Santa Rosa City Schools boundaries. We work really hard at building community. I'm really looking forward to you
058hearing from our um speakers who want to present to you tonight about our charter and how it's impacted their lives. Um and we focus on academic excellence and provide a really valued alternative program for students who really have a hard time in a you know, larger setting, um, a more traditional environment. Um, we have staff that are just really spending a lot of time getting to know how to help students who are, you know, the kind of on the edges of the bell-shaped curve, the outliers. Um, and so one of the things I just wanted to highlight was that we have alumni coming into Santa Rosa now. We're getting to the point with our program where alumni are coming back and living in Santa Rosa and they're teachers in Santa Rosa City Schools. They work
059at Keysight. Um, we have Keysight alumni coming and building solar cars with us. Uh, we have alumni tutors who help us. Um, we have hopefully some alumni behind me who might speak tonight about what they're doing in the community. Um, we have a volunteer who helps Mr. Williams in the Lego Robotics program. Every Tuesday after school, he's been doing that for years now. He was in my first class at the charter school when I first taught 18 years ago. Um, so a critical factor in Synapse School's success is the fact that we're a charter school with the protections and the freedoms of a charter school where the staff are able to become disciplinary experts. This allows us as teachers to better support students through differentiation and acceleration. Um, we have had the opportunity to select
060the curriculum, build the curriculum. Um, we are constantly improving what we do and trying to make it better all the time. We're very self-reflective. Um, being departmentalized is a key part of that where we have teachers who are specialists in math and science, teachers who are specialists in humanities, teachers who are specialists in music. Um our PE teacher is a secondary PE teacher who does an amazing job at preparing those kids for PE in the secondary level. Um he challenges them as much as any of our teachers. Um we have a special 10-day program. I will have um one of my other colleagues here talk about that a little bit. Our music program, I'm going to have I feel bad I didn't introduce everybody, but um Mrs. Boulay is going to talk to you about
061the music program. Um Nancy Blair is going to talk to you a little bit about our um you know, core program. Nancy is on the end. And um we have a parent who's going to speak with you at the end about all of the reasons why you should proceed with supporting our program. And I just want to state really quickly and we'll start the timer now, but we are held to a 10-minute presentation prior. We didn't start the timer, so we're going to go ahead and do that now uh for 10 minutes just so we keep the presentation consistent with our other charters. Thank you. I appreciate that. As Ms. Wall said, I'm Roxane Boulay. I'm one of the two music teachers at Sharc and most of the Sharc students continue on with me at
062Rincon Valley Middle School. So I also teach band and orchestra at Rincon Valley Middle School. At Sharc, daily music instruction is more than an enrichment. It is a cornerstone of who we are. Strategically built into each student's daily schedule. Our students learn every day from exceptional educators in close partnership with Rincon Valley Middle School and Maria Carrillo High School. This unique collaboration is consistently cited by families as a defining reason they choose our school. Research shows that students engage in music um develop stronger cognitive skills, achieve higher academically, and demonstrate increased conscientiousness, openness, and ambition, regardless of socioeconomic background. Music training actively shapes the brain through neuroplasticity, strengthening decision-making and accelerating intellectual growth. But, beyond academics, music builds something even more lasting, self self-efficacy. Students gain confidence, learn persistence, and become collaborative, creative problem solvers.
063As former US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan noted, the arts help students become tenacious and team-oriented, qualities essential for success in school and life. Our music program is not just successful, it is transformative. It develops the whole child and reflects the very mission of our charter. Um Oh, I was just going to mention there were two links in the presentation that we wanted to share with you that showed the research behind all of that. And um because of the way it was uploaded, you can't really see those links, but we would like to forward those links to you all by email, so that you can take a look at that research. Okay, I'm Nancy Blair. I am sixth grade humanities teacher, half of the sixth grade team at Shrek's. Um professional development and curriculum leadership
064are critical components of our success, and they are written into our charter and into the LCAP. The um guiding principles for our curriculum at Shrek's are conceptual curriculum design. The core curriculum is guided by goals for the students examination of topics in depth and complexity while honoring the struggle and intellectual risk involved in working in novel ways or on novel processes or with novel concepts. We utilize research backed thinking frameworks to create a conceptually designed curriculum that prefers inquiry and problem approach. In addition to the depth and complexity framework, the STEM teachers use the building thinking classrooms framework. Now about this 10-day schedule. We have a unique 10-day schedule that takes 10 years to learn. No, I'm sorry. We have a unique 10-day schedule that allows core teachers to work with two classes of 32
065students and gives students instruction in each of their subjects both in the morning and in the afternoon on an alternating schedule. The schedule honors the differences in students varied cognitive needs in terms of which part of the day learning best occurs and it also provides opportunities for students to practice learning in all core subjects during the time of day when learning is more of a challenge. My name is Bana Solomon and I am a parent of a fifth grader at Shrek's. Uh Shrek's has nationally recognized program and was designated a National Blue Ribbon School in 2016 by the US Department of Education. This year Shrek's fifth graders are the 22nd cohort. Shrek's has been successfully operating as an integrated campus transitioning upper elementary students to a middle school program for over 21 years. During that
066time Shrek's has built a strong community that is vertically integrated and provides mentoring opportunities from preschoolers at Brush Creek up through high school and beyond as our alumni begin to contribute as returning adults. Our families are inspired to give to the city and county and support the entire community. For example, the playground was provided after many years of fundraising by the SF PO. We ask that you support a 7-year renewal of the Santa Rosa Accelerated Charter School as an endorsement and of our recognized unique program and strong commitment to Santa Rosa. So, thank you for the presentation. For trustees, we'll go questions, public comment, which will be a part of the public hearing. We can then make our statements at that point in time after we've received that. Recognize that we're taking no action tonight
067and this is coming back to us after. So, let's start with questions. Trustee Della Torre then Jenkins. So, I got two questions. And the first one would be what areas of growth do you imagine for the SRACS program? So, if I can restate your question, you're wondering what the community who is involved in >> of your program do you imagine capacity to grow? Would it be grade levels? Would it be capacity for the SRACS charter renewal? I'm just curious if you thought about or had an an opportunity to imagine what growth could look like at any way. So, um the SRACS program is designed to be aligned with a middle school as its host. And it's designed to prepare our students to go into secondary. So, we see growth as involving that continued relationship where
068we are very closely aligned and integrated with a middle school and a high school. Um and our program in my mind has two major components. The one is the and it can grow in all grade level directions, really. I mean both ways. And that is our depth and complexity and building thinking classrooms portion of our program. That can go in both directions, grade-wise. Um the program's alignment with acceleration, we gain that out of our relationship with the middle school and the high school. We get that momentum. We get the um resources and the efficiency in the program out of that part of the program where we're part of that middle school high school integrated 5 through 12, even, relationship. That is the part that I would like to see continue. Um it is what makes
069us cost-effective. Uh makes us um you know, really attractive to our parents. And my um hope is that we can continue to build that part of our program. Um it is a a really important part of the acceleration part of what we do. Does that answer your question? Not specifically, but it's what I'm trying to get at is is there an opportunity for growth through Sharyland ISD? Um you guys have seen our challenges. You're part of our district. You understand what we're going through fiscally. You understand what those challenges may look like in the future, especially if campuses uh shift. And I'm just curious if you've had the opportunity especially during the research of this renewal process of opportunities you'd have to grow capacity. I I see that there's a waitlist. Um I've had two
070family members go through Shultz over the years, so I'm very familiar of um what a benefit the program is, but just curious to see um if you had an opportunity to reimagine of what growth could specifically look like if that would be an opportunity to uh if you needed more classrooms for more students, if you needed more grade levels. Have you had any of those opportunities to think about what that might be able to look like? Yeah, and we have had those discussions. As a matter of fact, we had part of that was part of a discussion we just had with uh with uh Dr. August uh the other day around um the the alignment is to a 7 through 12 model or a 5 through 12. So, being able to replicate what they do
071at other campuses is something that um with community interest um uh and drive behind wanting to make that happen could happen at any high school. Um and so, really growing into expanded to um other other school options, whether that's Santa Rosa High School or Piner High School or Elsie Allen High School. Um that would be something that has been discussed in having that program grow in that way, but the the important part is this is attached to a uh middle school and has a pipeline to a high school. Um as uh Ms. Pratt got to uh speak to watching that Honors Jazz Band um at Maria Carrillo, those students have been playing together um uh many of them since fifth grade um as they played at Shultz and then at Rincon Valley and then at
072Maria Carrillo, and you see them develop those talents over those years. So, that that is an important part of that pipeline. But yes, that we we had that conversation and believe that there is room for that growth. Thank you. And my second question um is scoped around the boundaries discussion. So, you had talked about mentioned that 76% of your student population is from the outside the Santa Rosa City School District boundaries. But, is that within the geographical boundary of Rincon Valley Unified School District? So, it's outside the elementary boundary, but not outside of our secondary boundary. Um I'm really curious about that because I see that we had uh approval for a companion charter school in 2004 on the Comstock campus, but it never realized due to not enough interest to open that school. Um
073so, is this merely successful due to its location and a high population of Eastside families wanting to attend at this program? Or do you see opportunities on how we can replicate this program in other aspects um where you had a companion approved on the Westside, but not enough families were interested in going there. So, when you say 76% of out the district, I'm a little curious about that and what that means from my understanding a majority of students were coming from the Rincon Valley Elementary District, which is in that neighborhood of the campus. So, that was more aligned, but are are you guys seeing interest from other districts and other parts of the city or county where students are asking to join this program? So, I did prepare for that question. Um we we can
074tell you that um the data fluctuates from year to year in terms of where the students come from and um there's a variety of factors that influence wildfire fires and administrative changes at various schools. Um and in general, 70 to 80% of our students do come from outside of Santa Rosa City's um elementary district, but exactly where they come from is a little different each year. We've had over the years students come from as far away as Bodega Bay, Sonoma, Kenwood, Petaluma, and Healdsburg. That kind of gives you the outer edge of all the different places where I've had students come to Shrax. The following list is reflective of our recent cohorts. So, we have of course Austin Creek, Hidden Valley, Sequoia, Madrone, Saint Eugene, Proctor Terrace, Santa Rosa French American Charter School, the Charter
075School for the Arts, Whited, Strawberry, San Miguel Elementary, Kenwood, Binkley, Manzanita, Reibli Elementary School, and CCLA. So, but it changes each year. So, do you have an understanding of what percentage that is cuz I'm hearing a lot of Rincon Valley, I'm hearing some Mark West school districts. Um, I'm hearing some of our elementary school districts. Um, I'm really trying to identify this geographical question of our families simply coming cuz they live in the neighborhood and it's a great program, or have we found ways to attract families from outside of that geographical space, not just the school district for elementary, but the geographical space cuz if we have a better understanding of that, we might have opportunities um, to expand this program um, for other communities. So, it has changed. Like um, we suddenly started getting
076more students from Bennett Valley at one point. There was only, you know, maybe one 20 years ago, and then we started getting more. Um, we started getting more students from um, uh, you know, we would get students at times who were coming from pretty far away. I don't I cannot give you the exact percentages because collecting that data is a very laborious process for us um, at our school. It can be done, but I did not have time to do it at the same time that I was preparing all of this and also have a full-time job as a teacher. So, I I knew that this question would probably come up and I can't give you solid statistics, unfortunately. It can be pulled together for a small set of years, probably, because, you know, we
077we've got this file still, but we have to literally go through each individual um application, I believe, and try and figure out where they came from and put it all together into a spreadsheet and give you that data. And I appreciate how busy you are. I really do, and I understand the work that goes into these renewals, but these are questions that are really valuable because if we don't have answers to these questions, we don't know what programs to support that students may want to be in. Um one of the biggest biggest successes of the STRACKS program was it being small and it there being an opportunity for direct um education uh to these students in a smaller capacity. Is this something that would work in a larger capacity? Is that something that would work?
078It would work in other communities. Um it's a really valued program, but we in the over 20 years the program's been here, we haven't had that opportunity to see if it could work on a larger scale or if it could work in other communities aside from the Rink O'Bannon Middle School campus that it's been on its entirety. Yeah, the future ideas that from our community definitely we had um parents who had suggestions that we be like a four through six, that we be a four through eight, that we be um we we have, you know, our music director at Marie Curie High School who would like to see a way for us to be um a five through 12 kind of scenario somehow. Um that would be targeting uh AP and capstone AP at senior
079year. Um Um, there's a lot of ideas about to take what we're doing that is the depth and the thinking frameworks, we'll call them. Um, and make that pervasive throughout Santa Rosa. As a matter of fact, my first year as a teacher at Santa Rosa Accelerated Charter School, the one of the first things I said to Stephen and Anna Williams was, "I really want to see this be pervasive." That was the word I used. I had come from technology. That was a popular word back then. Um, and I still feel that way. And one of the ways that I think the district could work towards that pervasiveness is, um, by replicating the program, not completely expecting us to entirely move because we've built so much goodwill in the community and we have, you know, a
080program that is got all this different integration throughout the community and up and down through the grades. I would hate to see Santa Rosa lose that. So, I'm really suggesting that we replicate the program somehow. Um, and that's, I think, I could get really excited about helping Santa Rosa make that happen. And I know a lot of people who would also be very excited about trying to help that happen in Santa Rosa. Um, so I hope that helps. Can I speak a little bit to the I want to speak about the vertical alignment between Sharc's RVMS and Creo. Not only do the students have we have vertical alignment with all the subject matters, but I could speak to the music program. I teach at Sharc's and Rincon Valley Middle School. And the Sharc's students, they
081want to continue on to Rincon Valley. It's the the students that are serious about music want to continue into the music program at Rincon Valley Middle School, and my advanced classes, 95% of my advanced classes are actually made up of Shrock students. My um more intermediate classes are about 75% and students from other schools are in those ensembles as well. But we actually share a lot of resources. Um we share like things like music stands and chairs. You wouldn't think it, but a music stand costs 100 bucks. And that's in one room, that's 500 bucks. Um instruments some of the instruments belong to Shrock, some of the instruments belong to Rincon Valley Middle School. Many of the instruments belong to Rincon Valley Middle School. I do um give my instruments out to my Rincon Valley
082students first, and the ones that are left over, I do um let my my Shrock students use for for families that are not able to rent. So, um if we were pulled away from like our host middle school, we would lose thousands of dollars worth of um accessibility of music program materials. And the kids from Rincon then go on to Carillo, and um Matt Bring It All is the the band and orchestra director at Carillo, and also he is the orchestra director at Shrock. So, there is vertical alignment between the elementary, middle, and high. And he has very similar like percentages. The his top ensembles, it's 87% of the students in his top ensembles are from Shrock students. And um other ensembles are around the 70 75 77% students. So, these students really are interested
083in being a part of um the Rincon Valley and and Credo opportunities. And you can go to Trustee Jenkins. Thank you for the presentation. Love the program. Love what you guys are doing. I have logistical questions. So, as we all know, Rincon Valley Middle School is going to be absorbed into Maria Credo, not this next not this school year, but the following. You're applying for a 7-year charter renewal attached to Rincon Valley Middle School on the same property, which is in not our elementary district. So, what is the how do you how do you see this working? I think it's really hard to say today exactly what path we should be taking. I think that this should be a collaborative discussion between the district, the board, the community that is um part of SRACS, um
084and also the community throughout Santa Rosa. You know, it'd be really great to hear what other parts of Santa Rosa are looking for that might be similar to what we're doing. To clarify what happened in the past, the original charter said we would have a second site for SRACS. Um it was in the original charter. And the um opportunities came and didn't come together. And I would say that what's critical for anybody listening out there, if you want a program like SRACS um that has this kind of integration between 5 through 12, um that has these kinds of thinking programs, you need to build a family um a big community voice and and ask for it. Um because that's what was missing when we had the opportunity to create another shrakes in Santa Rosa 20
085years ago. Um, there wasn't that voice that said we want this, that we're wanting to sign up for it. And you have to do that when you're a charter school. You have to have, you know, parents who are willing to sign, teachers who are willing to sign, and then you can, you know, launch. So, um, the other thing I would say about this is that um, uh, I lost my thought, darn it. Well, I got to go with that. I'm going to go to Superintendent August for the update on where the status is at with the approval from Rincon Valley. So, we've submitted the formal request, but we have not received any answer of yay or nay. So, that will be we we've talked about what my conversation with um, Interim Superintendent Superintendent Herfurth is
086that they would let us know um, likely after their next meeting. So, I did ask for a a date of no later than April 30th so that if there are adjustments needed to the petition, then we would have the opportunity to do that before bringing back for for action from the board. Um, when we're talking about the location of of shrakes um, in the in the future, um, it does have to be attached either to a one of our 7th through 12th sites within our elementary boundaries. That would be Montgomery or Santa Rosa. Um, there's there's that would be the only two, those would be the only two that are that are currently eligible without an expansion of the charter specifically up through 12th grade. And those campuses are cramped. Currently, yes. So, then I
087guess the follow-up question would be So, I understand like it's a great program. I am I have no question about that whatsoever. It's what we're doing within the district and how to make that work. And so, like in my brain when I was reading up on things, it's like, "Okay, well, we have a campus that has a lower enrollment because they're expanding their boundaries and it takes a minute. Can you put a 5-6 on a campus that has a low that has space temporarily until we get things juggled out?" But, it sounds like if we had if we I'm going down a rabbit hole. If we get the approval from Rincon Valley and then yay, Tracks is on the campus for a year, and then Rincon Valley closes, which is what the intention is, we
088can't put them on Creo because there's not space to add fifth and sixth on the Creo campus in addition to the 7-8. So, then they would have to move to Monte or Santa Rosa. It just sounds that sounds like a lot. And I I'd like everyone to have the opportunity to have this experience. And the reality of our situation currently is not So, uh Chelsea Jane, is there a question or >> I do have a follow-up question. So, that was that question was discussed. My It's not a follow-up. It's it's a separate question altogether. Um related to kind of the demographic side of things. I'm curious about the marketing. Um I did see that like the it looks like like a lot of kids come from Rincon Valley. I understand that. Um but as far
089as marketing to ensure that everyone knows about it. This is something that I feel like the district has been running into a lot. It's like, "We have all these great programs. We want everybody to know about them." What's the What has What has been done for marketing Tracks to um to enrich that the demographics other than the 411. Our family is in the Northwest Santa Rosa. We're from the Piner Olivet district and we go to Straus. So, I know other families um who are from Southwest Santa Rosa. So, I don't know what the data is or what the numbers are, but I know that we are very happy to be a part of Straus. We will drive that 20 minutes over Fountain Grove every morning to get to Straus or through Chinati um because of
090its wonderful program, its support staff. It's My daughter has an IEP and she is so well supported. She has made tremendous improvements two school grades of um reading. She's improved two school grades over this one year um so far and she has more growth. Mrs. Walls has been so great in her academic workshop and helping my daughter excel in math and I've seen my daughter overcome mental barriers and she has so much more confidence. You guys will hear from her later, too. She has so much confidence in herself and it's all because of the way the school can pour into her. Logistically, I don't know what's going on with this district and all these school cuts. I was really looking forward to putting my daughter into Rincon Valley Middle School and now that looks like
091that might not even be an option um anymore. Uh I don't want to put her into Piner. That's our neighborhood school um Piner Olivet Charter School. That's where I actually went as a you know, middle school. Um so, I really can't speak to the seven-year plan of it, but where it's at right now, I would hope that we can somehow some way continue it um because it's so advantageous especially to us who don't have those advantages in our neighborhoods. So, how's it being marketed? I don't So, um we don't really do any marketing. Um yeah, we don't really we we don't want to do any marketing and then have to you know, just hundreds of people on the wait list and disappoint a lot of people but let me just say that in the old
092days we used to go to the events at the fairgrounds. We used to go to the events at Cottingtown Mall. We would set up tables. We would talk to people. We would tell them about our program. Um we are you know on your website. A lot of people find out about us um now because of the online enrollment process. Um they find out about us on your website. We used to before we had that online enrollment system we had uh every year in the fall a big event in the cafe at Rincon Valley Middle School. We would definitely send out all sorts of newsletters to everybody every group we could get to and ask them to come and hear about our program and at that meeting that's where we would hand out the application. Um
093you didn't get an application um the the fastest way to get an application to go to our school was to come to that event and people would come just to be the first ones to get the application and hear about the school and that was our big marketing event. That does make sense but then it does um that does get you cornered into Rincon Valley and for a charter in my perspective like for a charter it's a school of choice. It should be open to everyone. Everyone should be able to know about it and so it um like with the numbers it's not a question. Yeah but I We can hold that for the discussion. All right, thank you. Trustee Medina. Thank you. Um first off uh good job on the slides uh big high
094performing right in the beginning which is kind of what leads to uh allows us to doing the seven year uh term renewal and I did confirm. Looks like you guys are above all the state which the state standard averages so you are high performing. Um I did have a question as it relates to the um talked about further diversification. You you highlighted the green socio-economic component and highlighted element H. Um I'm wondering and this was this the first year that you guys did that um for one draw or how many years have you done that? No, I wish I could tell you the exact exact first year that we did that. Um it's pre-pandemic for sure. It goes back to our charter that is at least uh 10 years old and maybe even older. Um
095so yeah, it's been a while. And um yeah, so I think that kind of answers the the next part. I was wondering if anything had changed as it relates to um the race data. I saw your 10 years of race data. And so I thought maybe that might be new um this past year, but it probably didn't change too much from the previous year. So um what I notice when I look at the data is that we have a general uptick happening in the subgroup that is called um you know, basically two or more races. And that jibes with my experience as a teacher of the students. Um and that goes along with the idea that at our school, we're working with students who are speaking so many different languages. Um uh 10 languages I
096was able to make a list of wasn't me who made the list actually. I have to shout out to uh Sarah Sarah Stathatos who made that list of 10 languages last year. Um so you know, when we talk to our parents and when we talk to our students, we know that they're bilingual and that they're building up their English skills at the same time that they're maintaining their native language, whatever it is. Um and we often times have to teach students who are trying to exit out of the English language learner program without really resources that you would have typically because their language might not be one that's very well supported by the curricular systems. So, we've developed our own sort of curriculum and style of teaching to help those students develop their skills. And
097then we have students coming from CCLA and French American Charter School who are totally fluent in Spanish and French. Um and we are, you know, we take we embrace that and we create opportunities for them. So, is the program student body changing? Absolutely. Um but it's changing in a way that's not 100% exactly the same as what you see in uh all of Santa Rosa. If you look at the statistics by subgroup, we don't match up with all of Santa Rosa and we're very aware of that. Thank you. And um I think uh Yeah, I'll just leave it at that. But thank you for the data. I'm going to go trusty Kirby then Brack and then I'll ask my questions. Hi. Um regarding the issue about your location of your actual campus. Um I know
098you started out the slideshow showing the legal standard and that will shall not deny. Um I guess the question is, you know, are we, since you're not in our area, are we the actually the actual charting authority chartering authority? Superintendent August? Yeah. So, that Yes, we are the chartering authority. The question will be whether they can remain located where they are. Okay. Um you mentioned uh the other than the other than the music program where you mentioned that there could be some impacts. Um And you share a lot of the things with RVMS. What other programs or at your school would be uh affected if RVMS was no longer there where your campus is or I to be honest with you, cannot quite wrap my head around the future fully, you know? Um I've been
099there for 18 years with the group of people that are there right now. So, what will it be like? I don't know. I can How will we be in affected? I know we will be. Um but I can't really fully envision what that will look like. We do know that we have our music program. That's really easy to quantify. Um we know we have our PE program, which is also pretty easy to explain and quantify and share with you if you come to the school and see it in action. Um we won't have that if we are uh separated by uh great distance from Rincon Valley Middle School. So, it's fair to say you're fully integrated with the We are >> basically and a lot of shared space and equipment and Yeah. Okay. Um regarding
100since I'm kind of a finance guy now, I guess. Um Uh looking at at your um your attachment that you had on the appendix B, the budget. Um I'm not sure how if you can to a lot of this or maybe Superintendent August can, but the uh So, currently, um we typically, as your chartering authority, we receive a fee, oversight fee. Um I can't tell. I know we can we can get up to 3% if we provide mostly a free um uh facilities for them. Is that Are we providing mostly a free facility for them? I So, we've updated how we do There's two different pieces. There's the oversight fee, which we typically charge 1% for for our charters, whether they're dependent or independent, because they're typically paying a portion of the of the facilities
101piece, the operations. We've moved to if if a if a school is not maintaining their own separate um facility, then it's a operation um is what they should be charged. And we also have a 15% essentially for providing services. So, that covers administrative, many of the facilities pieces, the um the HR, the all of the pieces, you know, that they're a school of the district, and there there are costs to supporting that with Right. So, if I'm looking at the appendix as a person in the grand I mean, where would I find that on this chart? Not the I I will pull it up, and if it's not clear when we bring back the the analysis, we will get we will have a clearer part portion of that when we bring it back with um
102with our fiscal department. We'll That's fine. It's just not uh um for me it's not easily labeled. I'm I'm a accounting person. I'm sure it's there somewhere. But uh yeah, if you if you get a chance to pull it up, that'd be great. >> Part of this also is that we just codified the 15% for our dependent charters with last year. So, Right. >> It's As we're as we're all these charters are coming up, I just want to make sure that we're covering that. Make Perfect. Prack. >> Perfect. The analysis. Right. That's all I got for now. Trustee Prack. Hi. Um I had my older goddaughter go through your program and she's at the middle school now and my younger goddaughter's in fifth grade and she's loving the music program. She plays the violin. Um
103I They asked a lot of my questions already, so I had a question. Is it difficult finding um teachers to uh for the specific criteria that you need to teach in your schools? Um So, our teachers are um a little crazy about education. They work really, really hard. Um we spend a lot of extra time doing professional development that's specifically for our community of students and um is it hard to find teachers who want to come and work at our school? Kind of. Um when we interviewed last time for a teacher, we you know, didn't get a just a ton of people interviewing. We had maybe three or four. Um and so, you know, we don't get tons of people who want to come to work at our school because they they may be here
104that it's you got to be kind of crazy about education to work at our school. It's a lot of work. It's a lot of extra work. Um and a lot of extra professional development. We do a lot of PD all all year long in the summertime, um, during the school year, webinars now, fortunately, you can do on the weekend, and we're always trying to improve our understanding of the, um, uh, mental health needs of dually gifted students. I'm going to use that word twice exceptional is a more popular word, maybe. Twice exceptional students, um, have some like really focused areas where they can hang in there, and they really want to do that one thing, but they don't want to do anything else, and they usually have, you know, some special needs around, uh, social
105emotional learning and mental health needs, and we get extra education on that because we're interested and desiring to do the best we can for those students. Um, I don't know whether you want to add on to any of that, or maybe Nancy could add on to that. Well, I would just have to, excuse me, say that it's a long-term commitment to be a teacher at Tracks. Um, it is a commitment, it's not something you take on lightly and just decide to go to a couple of of trainings, and you'll be good to go. It's, uh, it takes years to really learn the, um, thinking systems, and, um, so I want to I think it's safe to say that a teacher would really have to commit to get everything out of the job and put into
106the job. I mean, well, I hope every teacher would feel that way about their school. >> Yes. You know, I mean, I understand that it's specialized programming, um, but I didn't know if it was a requirement to have a secondary teaching credential or master's degree for this site specifically. So, we don't have a requirement, but what we know from experience is that, um, in order to work with the students that we have, it's very helpful to either have experience working at secondary or have uh secondary training or have a master's degree. Um, that extra training really helps with being able to accelerate students um and uh differentiate students. So. Okay. So, um a teacher could apply and it wouldn't it Okay. But, it's just before you have four teachers, right? Right. So, and everyone has
107a master's degree. Okay. And then for the extra training, that's on top of the PD that SRT or our district puts on, right? So, your teachers are going using their I'm assuming it's your own money to pay for these trainings? Yeah. Yeah, we >> you budget for that? >> We budget for that every year in the LCAP, yes. Oh, okay. Okay. Thank you. I mean, very impressive presentation. Thank you for doing all this work. And sorry, you you just startled me with clapping. I got really I got scared. Sorry. All right. Thank you. Uh for my questions, similarly a lot were re-answered. I I've specifically heard about the potential benefit of adding fourth grade to the model as a benefit for the students. Could you expand on that a bit? Yes, we actually three and
108a half or so years ago put together a renewal that would expand us down to fourth grade. We think that having a fourth grade would be uh great because we could start students on the thinking frameworks in the fourth grade. And then when they get to fifth grade, we're not, you know, teaching them the frameworks. We're just accelerating. About uh spring break every year as a fifth grade teacher, my students they get it what we're doing and they are raring to go. So, to have a fourth grade prep them means that the fifth grade would have a whole year of R and D go, which would be really exciting at the fifth grade level. And then you know, the sixth grade teachers, Nancy can speak to, you know, what it's like to have the students
109already prepped. Definitely. I mean, it's a vertical alignment, perfect example of that. So, yes, it's it's we're very happy that we have our fifth grade department prepare the kids for what we can how we can prepare them to move on to middle school. Thank you. On the chart that has the you're doing around. On the chart that had the students with the different statuses for the column with the students with disabilities, is that identified through IEPs, IEPs and 504s, or through any students that have a disability? They're they're identified through IEPs and 504s. We we work with Shrek's works with Reagan Valley Middle School to get counseling support. And so I work with the team and our school psychologist over at RVMS also to do all evaluations for either IEPs and 504s. Okay, so that's
110504s and IEPs and that number is both combined? No, that that number was just IEPs. That did not include 504s. Okay. I mean, I think the reason I'm asking the question is I like to have a sense of the population of twice exceptional students that are being served. IEPs service certain population of students with disabilities, but we also still have an obligation to serve all students with disabilities regardless of qualification for IEPs, and your program seems particularly designed to meet the needs of twice exceptional students who may not meet the standards for an IEP but need a challenging curriculum just to learn. So, if we could get that data or a better sense of that data before we come back, I'd appreciate it. Absolutely. Um and then my other one my other question and this
111is not contemplating the current location is contemplating this conversation around expansion or other locations. Um is it proximity or co-location that's most important? And I say that because we may have campuses where proximity could be achieved but not necessarily co-location. So, uh I think a case-by-case basis is how I would prefer to answer that question. Um uh co-location works better in my mind, but proximity is definitely something that we've brainstormed around. And um I don't want to be specific about sites that we brainstorm around because I mean I we just never want to get our heart set on any idea and there's so many ideas out there that we would like to discuss and brainstorm about where would be the best place. But you have thought it through and co-location could be in the right
112situation a plausible strategy. Or sorry, proximity proximity could be a plausible strategy in the right location. I I we definitely have had thoughts about proximity. Okay. As walking distance because we already do walking distance sorts of things right now. Like Marie Curie is walking distance. Brush Creek is walking distance. Thank you. Last one a quick question then I want to get to the public. Trustee Delatorre. Due to being an elementary program, do you currently have or has there been an an expressed need from the community for uh child care? Uh every year our families have asked for us to have uh after-school child care program on site. And every year we've done all kinds of things to try and make that happen. The closest we have had over the years is bussing to Hidden Valley
113Satellite Day Care. Um we have students who were doing that this year, I believe. Um and this year we've had this for the first time ever, Boys & Girls Club on campus. And so that started January 30th and that's been very exciting. What we do as a school though is we provide we try to provide something every day after school. So for example, Monday is Dungeons & Dragons, Tuesday is um Lego Robotics, Wednesday is Academic Workshop, Thursday is Chess Club, Friday is Math Counts, which is a program that we could not do if it weren't for the fact that we're on the Rincon Valley Middle School campus. And former Shrek students come from Maria Curio. Um they walk over or drive over and they run that program with the Rincon Valley Middle School students and
114the Shrek students um preparing them to be able to do math competitions. So those are our five days and our students also kind of have an opportunity to tweak those a little bit like Dungeons & Dragons is something that you know, was a pop-up. And we have years where it's gardening club, you know, or but we try and have something as best we can every day after school. What are the hours of those extracurricular programs? Generally speaking, they're until approximately 4:00. Sometimes there's one that might go till 4:30. It certainly helps when our program lets out at 2:45 to have, you know, that extra thing that can be done after school. Plus, our students are just craving, you know, stuff like that for after school. And then, boys and girls that is available till 6:00
115p.m. every night. And this is the first year that's been an opportunity at the Sharc's campus. That's correct. Okay, thank you. Um my last question is to um President Cassell and Superintendent Holm. Um this is just an emphasis on why we need to have that conversation of um RVMS and Korea so that we have a better scope of what we're looking into so the whole community can plan for the future. So, um just reiterating more emphasis to have that discussion. Um one last question. My understanding is your uh charter used to include a priority for geographic residents in the Rincon Valley area. That's but that discontinued at some point. Have you seen more diversification in your uh student body since that change? I actually don't know how to answer that question. So, that would that
116would require some work to get an answer to. So, we'll add that to the data questions that come in previously. My understanding, I mean, to recognize this your dependent charter so our staff is you also your staff and my understanding is that um we have staff that can answer these data questions uh and and pull the data together between now and when it comes back. So, uh it's it won't be you personally having to go and look through all those all those records. Um Trustee Jenkins and then we'll go to public comment. Yeah, um so aside from like the location piece, uh with the recent kind of policies around um intra inter whichever one is the the transfer situation about where you live and where you go to school. Um that has tightened up recently.
117I know that with SRA X typically the kids follow the path, right? They're they're at 5 6 SRA X, 7 8 RVMS, 9 through 12 Carillo. With the changes of really having to reapply or apply at each spot for transfers, this is not coming out correctly. However, what I'm trying to say is can the program work if kids have to go back to their assigned middle school or assigned high school since it's a charter and they often are not in that area. So, I again don't know how to answer that question because um during my 20 years like half of it students have once they go to RV SRA X, they go into RVMS and Maria Carillo. Um that was the pathway. It was written into the charter. Then the charter was revised approximately, I
118might get the number wrong, 10 years ago or maybe 12 years ago. Can't remember the number, 15 years ago even. And the pathway directly to Maria Carillo High School was uh discontinued. And um I have that number that year somewhere, but I can't get access to it right now. Um but right now our students once they get they get into and enroll in Santa Rosa Accelerated Charter School, they are on a pathway into Rincon Valley Middle School. That's the current charter as it stands today. Um and so I it's hard to answer that question in my mind. But is that is that in this charter? The one that's for renewal that they stay with Rincon Valley and then stay with Carillo? It is currently in the charter that way cuz we didn't change the previous
119charter with that language. Not with Carillo, with Rincon Valley. >> Not with Rincon Valley. Just with Rincon Valley. >> That'll be interesting. All right, quick questions for you Trustee Medina. Yeah, um two things um cuz I feel like we're going on all kinds of tangents. The the hearing's on renewal of the charter um as as they were introduced uh basically says high performing uh we pending the Rincon Valley district thing. Um there's a question Superintendent uh August, is there any reason why we we we don't have any reason to not renew the charter or do we? To not renew the charter itself? Yeah, I mean basically the the the the way it was introduced we cannot redo we cannot deny renewal. Um is that true? Correct. The the question would be around location or pieces
120like that but the charter itself is a high performing charter which is a shall renew. Okay. And um the other question just on page 47 of the document that was attached to renewal talked about um how you guys notify parents that they don't have to um volunteer or do community service or whatever it is. Um is that part going to be added or was that just overlooked? It's just highlighted in yellow insert text here of how parents will be communicated. I'm just curious. That's something that will be addressed. It was just an oversight when it was attached. >> Thank you. All right, we're going to move to the public hearing. I'm going to go ahead and open the public hearing. Thank you President Kasten. We have uh several blue cards here. We'll start with students
121and I'll call three names. If you can make your way to the podium, please. The first three are um Sangvi Kim, Ida Solé Taylor, and Isabel Vasquez. Thank you. Hello. You have 1 minute. Go ahead. So, good evening. My name is Sangvi Kim and I'm currently a junior at Mira Costa High School. And currently, I'm my eighth year into band and I'm also leading a financial literacy program with a dozen staff across Mira Costa High School, Pioneer High School, and Technology High School in Rowland Park to enrich people with financial literacy and economics, but at one point in my adolescence, I was a timid student. Coming from South Korea, it was very hard to find community inside US. However, in SRA I really felt like there was a sense of community, a place where I
122could learn how to collaborate and work with people. And one example was during COVID, it was very difficult for me to pursue my passions. However, Mrs. Walls, who was speaking previously, actually spent hours to try to find a chemistry textbook and mailed it to me despite all the extra work she had to do because she wanted me to pursue my passion in chemistry and yeah, Thank you for coming. The next uh speaker is Ida Solé Taylor, followed by Isabel Vasquez, followed by Kylie Wilson. >> Okay. Hello. Okay. Hello fathers. Hello fellow student student board members. School board members. My name is Ida Soler. I'm a fifth grade student coming from Santa Rosa Accelerated Charter School. Also representative. My school has made a big impact in my education. Ms. Walls, Ms. Hilkey, Mr. Piazza, and Mr.
123Bullet Ms. Bullet and Mr. Bringardal have supported me and helped me grow as a student and as a person. I love my school community and feel at home. Please let other kids have the same kind of experience as me and keep SACS in the way in the way it is. Ms. Walls has helped me in math by keeping me challenged and pushing me to do hard things. And in science she has gave me these very cool and quite impressive labs. She has also taught me how to be a scholar. Ms. Hilkey has helped me with my vocabulary and knowledge of history. Mr. Bringardal taught me how to play the viola and I would I would have never have never part have been part of an orchestra if it wasn't for him and SACS. Thank you
124very much for your comments. Thank you. Our next speaker is Isabella Vasquez followed by Kylie Wilson followed by Laura Montenegro. Hello. I am Isabella Vasquez, an eighth grader who graduated from SACS in 2024. One thing about SACS that really sets it apart from other schools is their learning approach. I believe real learning is truly understanding difficult concepts, whether in English, math, etc. When I was in Trackers, I remember doing a lot of kinesthetic learning. I remember doing science experiments at least every week, and that helped me understand science better than a textbook ever could. And when I say experiment, I mean real lab experiments such as building hot air balloons or dissecting cow eyes. For me, this not only made learning interesting and fun, but showed me to prioritize in-depth understanding over surface-level memorization. Another
125part of this are the depth and complexity icons that Trackers applies to everything they teach. These concepts foster advanced critical thinking skills and are taught in universities. But isn't just their academic program, but their music program, which makes students well rounded. This opened a door to a whole new realm of possibilities for me, and in January, I played in the Sonoma County Honor Band and won a scholarship to a music camp. Thank you very much for your comments. Next, we have Kylie Wilson, followed by Laura Monteagra. Mont- Negro, followed by Kim Raper. Rapper. Good evening. I'm here to strongly encourage the renewal of the Trackers charter. Trackers fills a critical need in our community by offering advanced academics alongside a robust music program. For students who feel unchallenged in a traditional setting, the school provides
126a place where they can stay engaged, thrive, and deeply develop a love of learning. Trackers also strengthens Santa Rosa City Schools by bringing families into the district earlier. Its recognition as a National Blue Ribbon School speaks to its strength and program and the results that it delivers. One of the most important factors in Trackers success is its location. Being near RBMS and Comerio does give students access to facilities, programs, a broader academic community um that significantly enhances that experience. The location is essential. Without it, the quality of the program and its ability to attract and retain students would likely suffer. The data speaks for itself. Strong academics, consistent performance, but beyond the data, I've seen this impact personally. My daughter comes home excited. It's been life-changing for her and what she learns, how she's grown
127in confidence, her collaboration with peers. >> Thank you very much for your comments. Thank you. Next is Laura Mont- Montenegro, followed by Kim, I'm not sure if it's Rapper or Roper, followed by Dominic Piazza. Hello and thank you for your time. I am Laura Montenegro. I am the parent of a fifth grader at Tracks who is also a twice exceptional student. Supporting Tracks is a matter of equity. Twice exceptional students who are highly intelligent learners that are both neurodivergent and or have learning differences are too often the most overlooked students in our education system. In a traditional classroom, even those with excellent, classically trained teachers, these 2E students' gifts can mask their struggles, and their struggles can hide their brilliance. As a result, they don't just fall behind, they fall through the cracks. The Tracks
128staff has specialized training to provide essential services that these students cannot get elsewhere. That has been experience for my child. I can speak directly to that. They combine advanced, rigorous academics and with targeted support for learning differences. This isn't a luxury for these children, it's a necessity. Without both, these students are denied the opportunity to reach their full potential. Tracks doesn't just teach differently, they understand differently. Thank you very much for your comments. Thank you. Next we have Kim Roper, followed by Dominic Piazza followed by Ashley Bell. Um every year SRACS teachers expertly bring together fifth graders who don't know each other from all over the city, from different ethnicities, socioeconomic backgrounds, who speak a variety of languages at home, and within a month they are friends. Sorry, I'm like an emotional person. Okay. As
129co-president of the SFPO, I've been blown away with how parents and families have stepped up over and over again in fundraising, donation of time and supplies for events, supporting um faculty, and communicating with stakeholders over school issues. This engagement provides a vibrant community at SRACS and demonstrates to the kids how to show up for others. Um on a personal note, my fifth grader every day at her previous school, which is a great school, she would say, "I hate school. I don't want to go to school." She has not said that once this year, which is kind of amazing. I actually just thought of that while I was while I was sitting there, but I owe it to SRACS and they're amazing. Thank you very much for your comments. Next is Dominic Piazza followed by Ashley
130Bell followed by Taylor Joy. Good evening. I'm Dominic Piazza and I'm currently the instructional assistant at Santa Rosa Accelerated Charter School, also known as SRACS. Trustee Prack, I also have a master's degree. Today, I would like to share with you an anecdote about what makes our school wonderful. My time at our elementary school has been hugely enriching, and I've noticed an amusing pattern in our accelerated curriculum. The teachers at our school often give instructions to their students that remind me of what I learned in college. They give their students some of the same advice that my college professors gave me. I can see our students learning things that I learned when I was a decade older than them. I think this is a testament to the quality of our school and the value that we
131provide to our community. With minimal resources, our educators work tirelessly every single day on the clock and off the clock knocking themselves out in an effort to provide their students the highest quality education possible. I hope you will continue to support our great school. Thank you. Next is Ashley Bell followed by Taylor Joy. Um Ashley Bell, Santa Rosa High School. Um I'm here tonight cuz this program sounds fantastic and I wish that my son would have access to that level of especially music. The music's really cool. But the point I want to make is that we as a community have completely de-invested from middle schools. We've made a conscious and purposeful decision to no longer have middle schools and to eliminate that experience. And so the expansion of this program is something that I would
132want, but unfortunately we cannot do because we no longer will will We're not going to do middle schools. I would love not to see this program end or Rincon Valley close and join with Credo, but perhaps reinvesting and bringing back middle schools and expanding them to include fantastic programs like this. Let's restore Comstock. Let's put Santa Rosa and El and Slater back on Slater's campus. Let's keep Rincon Valley where it's at and then let's expand and do these really cool things where we can share facilities and staff and stuff and create fantastic outcomes for students. Every child on every side of every freeway deserves this. Our last speaker is Taylor Joy. Hi there. Uh thank you for your attention. Uh my son is in fifth grade at Sraqs. Uh he loves Sraqs. How many kids
133around in fifth grade can say that around the county? I don't know. Um last year he wrote out numbers longhand for 3 months and was getting disengaged um with school. Now he's challenged every day. Um He's learning time management, advanced math, he's learning attrition, problem-solving skills. Uh his introduction to math music as at Scratch is lit a fire. He comes home and plays every day and is seeking out more music by himself. Um on his own. You ask about diversity. The school is very colorful. There's I I've seen many Um it's very colorful. Um there's a lottery to get in. So if you're asking about enrollment, there's a lottery to get in. So you there's more people wanting to get in than is available. Um bringing it expanding it Um to me is the only
134way to get more kids back in >> to this Thank you very much for your comments. There are no other public comments. All right, this is a public hearing, so is anyone else that wants to approach and speak? Seeing none, we'll close the public hearing. I'm going to bring it back to the board um for discussion. Now we're not making a decision tonight. This is a discussion related to what we want to see come back when we're looking at the item. And I want to remind the board that this is a dependent charter, so our comments are both germane as the board that's requesting the recertification as well as the board that's authorizing it. So if we are looking at some of these key questions about the growth, the strategy, the future, that is also
135relevant because we are also the board that's requesting the certification in addition to the um approval. So we have both sides unlike the independent charters that we've experienced before. Um Trustee Delatorre and folks give me your hands if you want to go ahead. Um so first and foremost, thank you for the presentation. Um like I said, I've had two family members, my daughter-in-law and my nephew, go through the Tracks program. Um so I'm a huge advocate of the program. Um what is important to me is that we have conversations of a program of this caliber and those conversations do not get um shortened into the narrative of pigeonholing or isolated opportunities in a specific silo. What the main driving force for us as a district should be and how to remain fiscally stable and grow
136is how do we take what we're doing well and expand and grow it. How do we take these beautiful opportunities that everybody's excited about and replicate them so that we don't have a waitlist and we don't have a lottery, but we have opportunities for students to get this type of education that they're requesting. So those are things that are going to be on my mind as we move forward. Those are things that I'll be thinking of as we consider the renewal and working with our feeder districts and our other educational partners on how are we taking what we're doing well and making it better and finding ways for it to be successful. Trustee Jenkins? Um kind of similar comments. Um I had some things coming up when I was reading the charter. I read it
137all. Uh similar concerns came up for me when I was reading this charter as came up when we were talking about programs last meeting, meeting before that. Uh regarding like ECM and the UC program and that I very much agree with Ashley Bell and that everyone needs to have access to these programs. By having it on one side of the town and it being limited to two classes does feel very inequitable. I was not able to get my kids across town. Um so I did not apply personally as a mom. Um and so that I also have similar thoughts as far as figuring out how we can make this more accessible and having it you know, if it's connected to a middle school and we're going away from middle schools I do think that we
138need to take a closer look at that. Um I'm excited about it. I like the program is great. I think so many of our programs are great. I would also like to see it marketed more to help with the not diversity, but that I diversity of who has access to the program and if we can replicate it on other campuses then we're going to be better educating our students, all of our students just by having it more accessible. Josie Medina, interested in pride. I'll just say um I'm supportive of re- renewing the charter and um great job on what you're doing there. And I'd love in terms of marketing, I think we just need to make sure that we market every good thing at all of our schools, which there's a lot of amazing things
139that lots of our schools to choose from. That's all. Thank you. All right, then for my comments um I mean first off the outcomes are exceptional, right? Looking at outcomes in math and English three times the state average. Um even if we were to assume that half of that differentiation was cuz of selection bias of those who apply or location, we're still by far and away exceeding outcomes you know, from throughout the state. So, the work that's being done here is incredibly important. And I join the voices of how do we make sure that we increase access and expand it. Whether we renew or not is not really the question to me. I think that is the effort that needs to be put forward to Lincoln Unified and if we get a positive response there,
140it's a natural decision. The real question is for us as the board for the accelerated charter school is how do we get more students in here? And first and foremost, my concern is that I believe that this is probably the most effective program in our district right now that serves twice exceptional students who are students with a disability but don't necessarily qualify for other supports because of their natural academic success. And having that program placed in a charter runs the challenge of there is no ability for a student with a disability to actually access it unless they're lucky enough to get through the lottery which does not have a consideration for the fact that they have that disability. So, I think the first thing that I'd like to see back when we're approving this is
141if there is a way to acknowledge make sure that we are tracking and provide access to twice exceptional students both in making sure that they're part of our data because I think it's a concern if it's only students with disabilities with IEPs because a lot of twice exceptional students are not going to show up in that tracking. So, we need to make sure we're accurately tracking how many students with disabilities we're serving and then also if there is a way that we can make sure that we can provide um, prioritization for students that need this curriculum for their disability. So, I don't know the answer to that because I know it's tricky, but I feel like we need to make sure we're tackling that because we need to give access for those students to be
142able to get to the curriculum they need. Um, and equally that that speaks to the to the imperative to expand this. Um, while there may have not been success 22 years ago, whatever it was, on putting something on the west side or at another campus, uh, with results like this, there's no way that the marketing just associated with a 91.4% um, ELA s- standard and a 88.28 math standard isn't going to create demand. Um, I also think that the vertical integration, not just with the middle school, but actually with the 7-12 secondary, uh, that intentional thought is a large part of the data that we saw in the 7-12 models for other parts of the country when we're looking at the success of that model because it gives access to that differentiation. And I could
143see this being highly successful with a 7-12, um, campus where there'd be greater access for differentiation, uh, especially for students. And I I have one my son has a 12th grade English level in fifth grade. So, you know, having actual access to that differentiation across, um, a broader grade span seems like it would only deepen the success of your program. Uh, and and as such, I'd like to see a very deliberate intent to look at the expansion, especially at the Santa Rosa High School campus, um, and, you know, potentially at the Montgomery campus, uh, depending on the French American and there's already a charter there that's kind of has that relationship. But, um, I think looking at it from the Santa Rosa High School campus perspective on the intersection of two major freeways where we
144already see a lot of access to for students that are not just in Santa Rosa, but actually throughout the Sonoma County. Um would be a very important place for us to look at that expansion. And I do think we need to call that out in the charter renewal um now to make it a deliberate intent uh and and be able to pursue it similar to how we've been able to pursue the relocation of French American even though we still have to make material changes to our charter um around the new location. We've been able to pursue that expansion for them with their demand. When we see 40 to 50% waitlist without any marketing, that means that there's demand from the students um in the community that want it. And then we see these success rates
145and these numbers, it's an imperative for us to drive forward that expansion and access. um On the reference to the priority transfer discussion, I I I think it would be important for us to have that directly correlate to the same priority we would give for any other student who is uh using the transfer um priority of being on the same campus. So, I think I think however we need to align it so that it's uh all our students that are on a campus are treated equally within that transfer is an important thing when it comes back. And then we use that language consistently across um our other dependent charters cuz I could see the same need for French American uh with Montgomery. And so, I'd like to make sure we make it consistent and based
146on the same transfer criteria all students have access to. uh And then I just I want to say I don't actually think that I have any concern about a uh growth of this program based on teachers wanting to do it. Um I think we have many passionate teachers in this district and throughout this community that would be incredibly excited and um you know, thoroughly engaged. And you know, I I I think um I think the passion that this program has is an excellent way of also highlighting and showing the enthusiasm I see in lots of our different programs. And uh you know, from that I I just want to say that I have great faith, you know, our ability to be able to recruit teachers for this program and equally recruit teachers that are as
147equally excited for all of our programs and schools. I believe that is all of my core points. So, unless there's any final comments, um we'll go ahead and close the public hearing and we'll see you all back here Do you have a specific date? We'll see you all uh within 30 days. All right, we're going to move to G2 um student services calendar and we're going to start with G2A public comment on the student services calendar. President Cassell, we do not have any blue cards for public comment. All right, uh then if you can call up our folks Uh all right, we're going to G2B um Director Does Dearing on board policy 5131.8. >> All right, good evening members of the board, members of the community. My name is Stacy Desiderio. I'm executive director of
148wellness and engagement and I am here to bring you a follow-up to a topic that was originally introduced this fall. Um and it is a discussion of the potential adoption of board policy 5131.8. Tonight joining me, we have representatives from a couple of our schools who have been piloting cell phone policies. We are joined by Principal Santos and Principal Clissold from Montgomery and Santa Rosa High respectively. And we are also joined by our teacher Ashley Bell from Santa Rosa High School. And in the our presentation, we have an opportunity to share some voices of students because it can be very difficult for students to come out this late at night. Um what we are here to discuss today is the implementation of a new law. It is AB 3216. And AB 3216 is asking that
149California schools adopt policies that restrict or prohibit student use of smartphones on while on campus. The origin behind this is the research and what is for most of us common understanding and knowledge that a reduction or the prohibition of student use of smartphones while in class will definitely minimize in class distractions, improve focus, and address some mental health concerns that we recognize have been exacerbated by cell phones. It's important to recognize that when we look at this policy, it is often referring to smartphones, but the language of the proposed adopted policy 5131.8 recognizes that it is not just smartphones, but other electronic communication devices, which will help because there are some tools out there and an ever-evolving technological landscape that we have to write a policy that addresses not only our understanding of smartphones now,
150like the iPhone, but the new gizmo watches and whatever new device is going to come out next week because we know it's going to continue. Um when we began talking about this in the fall, you encouraged us to engage our community and we wanted to ensure that uh student voice was represented. Our students not only participated in questions uh through Panorama both last spring and this fall. Um we also met with the student advisory council with the superintendent and we collected specific data from the January and previous years Youth Truth surveys. Our staff was shared the same Panorama survey that our students took and they were also shared some options uh to engage with us about their opinions of the different options that are built into this new policy. And our parents were invited both
151at our fall start meeting as well as the um Youth Truth survey to explore some of their thoughts and opinions about cell phones in school. And what I'm going to do is I'm now going to turn it over to our site-based leaders to talk a little bit about how they've been addressing some pilot programs at their schools, what their programs currently look like in terms of policy around cell phones, and what have been some of their learning lessons. Good evening, board, superintendent August. So Montgomery, we started this process 3 years ago um based on the fact that our staff and our community, our parents were requesting some changes with regards to cell phone policy. So we took some surveys, we talked to kids, and then we sat down as a team of administrators and teachers
152and talked about how we could move forward. So we implemented a cell phone policy that included that students could have their cell phone on campus because of the incident that occurred. Um they would always have access. Number one. And number two, that our cell phone policy would student will allow students to have their cell phones before and after school, at brunch, and at lunch, but not during academic time. So, that meant during class time, during the halls, on a pass, students would have access to it, wouldn't have the ability to use their cell phones, and that included in the classroom. That helped us in many ways. We saw the a reduction in DNF rates. We saw a reduction in student fights and struggles on campus. A lot of less social bullying that we were aware
153of, and students were coming to us actually spending more time with one another. So, we really worked hard as a team, not only just with us, but also with our student council and our ASB. Um, so our process is that students, um, if there is a student that uses a phone when they're not supposed to, there's warnings. The teacher, um, can then give a second warning, and if they need support, then an SSA can go to the site, the classroom, and pick up the phone, or they have an option of pouching it. Um, we initially looked into getting the Yondr pouches, which are these lovely pouches that, you know, close with a magnet. However, they were like $20,000 for like I don't know, 200 of them, and it's just there was just not within our
154financial ability to do that. So, we looked at pouches through Amazon, because again, going back to the incident that occurred at Monte, we always promised our parents that in the case of a an emergency that our students would have access to a cell phone if they were in lockdown and they needed to contact their parents. So, we bought these inexpensive pouches, and we have it where a student can get their phone pouched, but the student carries that pouch. Um, and then they're color-coded by grade, and then, um, a staff, all the staff have the codes, all the SSA have the codes, so we can actually, if we need to, we can get into it. Um, we saw a deter deterrent, I mean, number of staff, um, let me back up. The number of staff that
155didn't realize how much they were using cell phones in the classroom based on the fact that our students were using cell phones to engage them was tremendous. They saw a reduction in them using that as well as the students using it in class. So, I know that when I was a teacher at Monte, I did the game where you'd could your phone in flip it up to play like a quick game to get our kids engaged, right? I didn't realize how much I had been using my cell phone. Um, and then I became the administrator on campus and when we started this policy and I realized, "Oh my goodness, we are actually all using it." I think the struggle we have as the adults on campus is that we're not digital natives, many of us.
156And so we had to really be mindful of our students and how to make sure we move forward with that. So, um, when we started this process I started messaging out like crazy. I was sending out Parent Squares for months. We started in March of the first year for that August that we were going to start the cell phone policy. That meant that we sent out Parent Squares talking about how parents could access their students during the day, how we were going to utilize our Chromebooks since we are one-to-one campus, how there was, um, specialty programs that the parents wanted to reach out to some of our community members on how to help support their students with their cell phone use. Um, and then, like I said, I bombarded my families with, "Your kid needs
157to have their Chromebook. It needs to be charged. We're going to be using Minga and there's going to be passes." So, all this communication went out for months. So, we've been very, very fortunate. Again, the DNF rate's gone down. We've seen a decrease in student issues. We do still have our problems, don't get me wrong. We still have struggles with the cell phones cuz there's earbuds and there's meta glasses and there's all these different little pieces of it, but for the most part our kids are really in tune with it. And the ones that have a struggle, we work with them. We work with our SBTs, we work with our families, we work with our community members to provide supports for them to help kids that struggle with screens. Thank you. All right, good evening
158everyone. Um, I don't want to I think re-tread a lot of territory in terms of what Montgomery has gone through is similar to what Santa Rosa has tried to do. Um, I just returned back to Santa Rosa this year and I can speak over the, uh, the current year as well as when I was here two years prior. Um, the entire five years that I was there, cell phones are a disrupting influence. Um and they do tend to cause distraction at best and sometimes other situations. Um I'm sure that everybody on the board, as well as my educators here, um are pretty familiar with the uh news and the information and the studies out about the impact on students' mental health and actually just the mental health of adults. Um we've got technology all over
159the place here tonight. And so what we're trying to do is we're trying to learn in tandem with our students how to limit, be responsible, how to use it appropriately. And um so we kind of have two experiences going on at Santa Rosa High right now. We have our uh stricter policy for our 7th and 8th graders um that was brought over from uh Santa Rosa um Middle School. Um so they do not access it. If we see it, we take it away. It goes to cell phone jail. The student has to go get it. The um the parents are informed. Uh and that doesn't always even prevent students from from accessing it. Uh there's ways to to communicate through other technology, Chromebooks, um the watches, uh things like that. At the high school level,
160Santa Rosa High School teachers, very similar to Montgomery, um have wanted to have a more uniformed uh a stricter policy. Uh the at the teachers' discretion is also kind of built around a policy similar to what you see at uh Montgomery High School in terms of we don't want phones out interrupting technology. But to be quite frank, some of the implementation is uneven for good reason. Teachers might be using it to allow students to access things that they need to. Uh so it's a tool. Uh in other instances, there's downtime and the phones come out. Or the phones are taken when students are taking the longer than usual bathroom breaks or going to fill up their water bottle, they get distracted just like we do. All of a sudden you spent 20 minutes scrolling on
161I don't know what. And then you have to do all the other things you didn't do. So, I think one of the things that we are looking to do this year is to lead off with a stronger policy, much similar to what Montgomery did where there's a lot of messaging, there needs to be buy-in, there needs to be clarity. It would be very valuable to have a uniform policy across the district for us to anchor that because there is a lot of disagreement and concern about when we should allow students to use their personal technology and when is it okay for us to to limit that. So, thinking through all the ins and outs, how are students going to access technology when they need to, how and when are we limiting it, and then the
162safety aspect is something that is a current topic at Santa Rosa High and something that we know we want to be very clear on and set before we roll into the next school year. Um so, I'm going to I'm going to talk from the teacher perspective. I've been at Santa Rosa High for 10 years. Um I might be the oldest goat up here right now, you know what I mean? Um we noticed a huge increase in issues with cell phones after COVID. Um and so, our initial approach to dealing with cell phones was very grassroots. It actually was uh we were doing curriculum design with English and and history and the social studies chair. Um and so, we were working on that together and we're like, you guys, we have to do something about cell
163phones and it started there. And it sort of built over time. The issue that we've had at Santa Rosa and I'm I'm sure other sites have had it, but probably not to the degree degree that we have, is we have not had um steady site leadership. I've been at Santa Rosa High for 10 years. We have never had the same admin team twice. We have had one, 2 3 new people every single year. Since January of 2024, I think we've had seven or eight principals. Um and I say this for a variety of reasons. One, we need to have strong solid admin teams with complimentary strengths that are allowed to stay for years, that are not fearful of retaliation, and are so fearful that if they're not obedient that they will be let go, that
164they are able to support us in the classroom. Because those conditions do not exist for our admin teams, because they are scared for their jobs, because they are scared to suspend kids, because of all those things, and I don't want to speak for them, but this is my experience as a classroom teacher, they are cautious and nervous about these types of things. And because they are cautious and nervous, we do not, as a classroom teacher, want to take the risk of putting our neck out there and then getting eaten alive by some parent who is pissed off because they called their kid 14 times during third period and they didn't pick up. So, all of that to say, everybody needs to control their cell phone, us and the students. The students struggle more cuz their
165brains aren't done cooking. We have to show them how to do that. But in order to do that effectively, and efficiently, and equitably across all of our campuses, we need a policy. That way, there's progressive discipline that happens the exact same way at every single school, so that every single kid is treated the exact same way. We need to have clear messaging for everyone, and that comes from a policy that is then passed on to strong admin teams that that compliment each other and that like each other and that work well together for like maybe more than 6 months, but that's like my bitterness at Santa Rosa High not having a principal basically since the last time she left. Those things are essential for us to be able to really address this issue and make
166sure that we're creating learning environments at all of our sites that our students deserve. So, um obviously, and I am sad that Trustee Fitzsimmons wasn't able to um stay late enough to be a part of this, but we wanted to make sure that student voice was also captured in this. And because, unfortunately, um the students that we were able to reach out to weren't able to join us, I wanted to um quote some of our students. These came from surveys, these came from conversations directly with the um student uh uh uh advisory network to the superintendent. Um and one of the um pieces that was really repeated over and over is that the cell phone or the use of communication technology is seen as a cultural part of student life. It is seen as a
167connection to their families and to their peers. And um over and over, we had students that say that their relationship with cell phones are absolutely essential to their relationships and to who they are. Um but students can be very, very honest with us as well. And um they say, "It It helps me sometimes. Other times it gets in my way." Um one of the quotes that came out of one of our surveys, which I absolutely loved, was this quote in the center that I find teachers who enforce the no phone rule in the class are the classes I'm most successful at and most proficient. And um they also recognize the relationship between cell phones and safety. Um and they recognize that this is complicated. But one of the things that is reassuring to you as
168a board is that not only do you have your your school sites saying, "We want a consistent policy." California state law says that by July 2026, you must have a consistent district-wide policy addressing this. And so, you have the opportunity now to give us that guidance, backed and supported by both California Department of Education, legislature, and your school communities that are saying, "Give us the support." So, it is important because I know that one of the biggest questions that families come back and say is, "But I feel safer when my child has access to technology." It is important to recognize that this new um policy, whether you are looking at the suggested board language, or you are looking at state law, this policy does provide protection for students to be able to have access to
169their technology if there is an emergency, a threat, or a danger. Teachers have the authority and agency within their own classrooms to permit students to use technology because we do know that there are powerful and important ways, healthy ways, to use technology to amplify learning. And teachers our our our our experts on that, and they will not be limited by your adoption of this policy. It is also permitted that an IEP or a 504 can or a health plan can write in that a student have access to technology for a variety of reasons. Some are medical applications that support a student's health. Others could be a social emotional support. And an IEP, 504, and health plan is protected under this new policy. And so, that is something that I want us all to keep in
170mind as we do hear because we will hear from our community some concerns that we can reassure families that adoption of a district-wide policy will not interfere with those four elements. And just as a reminder, you have some latitude here. There are two different options in the board-adopted policy, in the language that comes from CASBO. Option number one is to, similar to what we see at uh Montgomery and at uh Santa Rosa High School, and I do want to acknowledge this is two schools that have adopted some pilot programs. This is in no way representative that the other schools are just the wild west. Every school does have cell phone policies. They're just right now a little different at every school, and it's important to bring that together. You have the right under this to
171either choose option one, which limits cell phone use only during instructional time, and like Montgomery does, allows students to use their cell phone before and after school, or during lunch, or during nutrition break. You also have the right to adopt option number two, which is no use at school. When you come onto the campus, those cell phones go off and away, except, of course, in those emergency situations. But, um you also have the right to write your own option. And one of the things that you are seeing in a lot of the adoptions that are happening across California is what we call a transitional option that says that you are making an adoption that looks one way this year, and is different next year. So, you can stair-step into this if you want to move
172in a way and you're thinking, "Oh, is it too abrupt?" You can also have some transitional planning where there is one policy for elementary and a different policy for secondary. Um so, that's what we wanted to share with you. That captured some of the questions that came up from the fall. And we are here now to answer questions. Trustee Jenkins and Trustee Medina. Um, so question with other devices. So, what would that actually look like? I don't even know I don't know what it looks like currently as far as um watches. Mostly watches is what I'm >> watches. But also, if they have MacBooks, they can text from their MacBook. >> Right. But I will tell you, this is what I see. They're trying to scroll on what watch watch reels or TikTok, and or
173they're telling me that their mom is texting them. That cuz they need to order them food. When I was walking 10 miles uphill both ways in the snow to go to school in I don't even want to tell you when cuz it it wasn't the 1900s, but it was pretty close. Um, I had to take the bus and I had to discuss that beforehand. And then I had to eat the cafeteria food. And I think that it made me both a stronger and more exceptional person. And whatever bacteria is in my gut probably has California public education to thank for it. We were all alive in a time where your mom couldn't order you Chick-fil-A and then text you. And and that isn't normal and okay thing to expect of our students. Is it a
174shift? Is it a change? Is it going to be painful? Yes. Is it for good reason? Is it for them to be better? Yes. You don't need Your kid is Maybe not yours. I don't want to talk about you. >> No, not mine. >> But there are Whoever's listening >> watches. Your kid is looking at Ms. Bell and saying my mom is texting and they are not texting my mom. Right? They're not texting you. They have They're texting somebody else and they're saying it's you texting or they're saying it's whatever. They're They're smart. But my question is with those devices yeah. Like you can put away a phone, are you expecting the kids to take off their watches and put them away? Like how how does that work? >> doing CASP testing right now. So,
175we're doing really fun CASP testing. Um really thrilled about it. The students are loving it. I'm like, "Show me your ears. Put this in your backpack. Show me putting things into your backpack. Let me take your backpack." Could I do that every day? Um emotionally, no, without some really big support from the rest of from you guys and from our team. >> what I'm wondering. Like if with the policy like this, does that then is that what this means for watch for watches? Like those are the mobile communication devices. >> bigger issue. The AirPods are the bigger issue. The AirPods are a huge issue. So, for the I'll say for the most part, most of our kids follow the policy. I mean I we really do have great kids that follow the policy. >> So,
176do they take their watches off? >> off. Sometimes A lot of times Well, we tell our kids, you know, like put the phone in the backpack, turn your watch off if you need to, or you know, put it on um take it off the Wi-Fi cuz that's where the other issue A lot of kids are only using it on a Wi-Fi. But a lot of times our kids that are using watches or their their phones themselves, those are not the issue. They don't They get put away. There's not a problem with them. I mean, we have to take out our students to take off their watches when they're doing AP testing or CASP testing. There's things like that that we need to because of security issues. But our biggest issue is the AirPods and headphones.
177And then that's I mean, that's Right, cuz they're connected to everything. >> take them out, put them in your backpack. I mean, kids are I guess And that is a secondary problem what we are seeing at the elementary because although we don't have any elementary here, um what we are seeing at the elementary is less the smartphones and more the They're like GPS tracking watches that have the limited call capacity. So, you can't go and and shop on Amazon, but you can call uh you know, up to 20 people on some of these devices. And so, there would need to be as part of this, remember that every time we look at this there's two different levels. There is the board policy and there's in the administration regulation. So the board policy is saying what
178is our rule. The administrative regulation, which has to be written second, is how do we take that rule and put it into the classroom. So the how that you're talking about, what would we do during testing, how do we navigate smart devices? That comes in the AR, which is part two, which needs to be written second. >> with the policy because we're asking them to turn them off and away. So if it's a mobile device that is that is not necessarily only the AR. My other piece um so thank you for that feedback or answer. The other piece is I was asking about I asked about this the last time this came up about the with option one mobile communication devices shall be turned off during instructional time. Um I've searched the Ed codes, it's
179not there. This is just wording from the CSBA. So I do I if like as we're going forward with this, um I have a I have a big problem with turning them completely off. In an emergency, it is not easy to turn your phone completely on, figure out all the bells and whistles, and getting all the messages from people who have texted you. They should not be getting texted, but I text my children during the day. I know. They don't respond. April, they don't respond. I would like that. One of them does. Um but that that to me is is like I love the away, but turning it off is a hard pass for me. That's not a question, it's a comment. Sorry. What I would say as the teacher in the room, if I
180don't see it, I'm not like "Hey Sarah, is it off?" Right? I mean the goal is for them not to be using it. That's the goal. It's just that in a a when it starts so strong like that, then there's not any wiggle room for it. Just a minute. Thank you. Um a couple things. For uh you brought up uh Minga for example. Um how is that currently used and how are cell phones involved in any way? At this point because at the high school level um they have their one-to-one with their Chromebooks, our students can use our Chromebooks for Minga, but also our view screens in the classroom can be utilized for Minga. So, there's check-in and checkout or passes Excuse me, are utilized through other systems. All right, sorry, within the classroom. So,
181it's not an issue without having a cell phone. So >> we weren't a one-to-one district anymore. At the high school we still are. Um So, just to clarify, within So, it's during non-instructional time where it's not used. Um which school is that where you guys So, lunch and brunch is okay, but if if they go to say leave class and they have a pass, usually you guys do Minga. Do Does that get sent to their phone or right now >> through the Chromebook or through the teacher iPad that's in the classroom. Okay. And I think I I I understand what you're you're getting at is um does the student have to have their device in order to show the pass? No, they don't. Um that's where our SSAs or other individuals in the office that
182have access to Minga can pull up that student and see where their pass is from. Our SSAs have iPads as well, so they can pull up the student on the iPad when they're in the hallways. And I see that a lot of uh especially uh well, special programs, uh student government, um they do a lot of social media postings during the day. And is that under the teacher permission category or whose devices are they using? Is it school devices or their own devices? A little bit about So, um we have what's we have some passes that the students wear when they're out doing things for ASB or for yearbook that specify that they're out doing those things. So, we had made some agreements with our teachers and staff to be to prior to the beginning
183of the school year to talk about how we were going to address that for those specifics. Um so, students have their own devices that they can utilize during that time um or use school devices when it comes to like cameras and even their Chromebooks take pictures and stuff. So, we've been doing that as a team sitting down together as to make those policies and procedures. Um just thinking as long-term if depending on whatever the policy is, if maybe considering like for those types of things, there should be special equipment to do those video recording whatever. Um the other question I had was around um Well, first off, you know, I've been seeing seniors graduating this year. They were born what? 2007, 2008. So, when the iPhone was born. So, that's their existence. Um The the
184I think one thing that was brought up was their identity like being tied to like these devices and stuff. Um Personally, I think that um we need to not have them at all during class time, but process of what it would look like under these emergency situations, um you know, I think of when something an emergency comes up, uh parents would call the school, right? And then the school would connect with the students. Is that what's done, for example, at the Santa Rosa right now or or what's done right now in those emergency situations if the are the students' phones off or what happens that? What's your procedure? So, so currently at Santa Rosa High, we we have obviously our systems in place to communicate with parents through Parent Square. Um we would get information
185out regarding any safety issue or what steps the school was currently taking. Um I think where parents get very concerned is what if there's a potential lockdown, right? I want to know where my student is and I want to know that they're okay. So, currently because we do have discretion and at our at our site within classrooms, one of the things that is part of our safety protocol is to um ask our students in the event if there is a safety issue to very quickly and shortly text their parent and just say, "This is where I am. I'm okay." Then we actually ask them to stop at that point because if you have 1,800 people all texting at the same time during a safety incident, you will actually disrupt communication and that might even prevent
186some of the things that we're trying to do on campus. So, we do we have built that in. If we get a new policy, just like right now we're getting new gates, we will revisit our safety policies and we would we would adjust, but that is a concern that is continually brought up by students and parents and even some of our staff members about access to phones, right? I I think my my question Well, first off, I think that there's that chaos when you have that many that many devices, but I'm I'm thinking of emergencies where it's like the parents something's happening at home and they need to communicate with their child. It's just about contacting the school. Yes, absolutely. Then that would be a call to the offices. Our our process and our protocol
187at the preference is to call the attendance office, have the attendance office locate the student, have the student get whatever information they need. That is not what happens. Generally, what happens is the parent and the student are communicating and the student sometimes will come into the office and say, "Here, my mom texted and she says I can go home." and what then we call the parent and we confirm, of course. We've had times even where the student has left and the parent calls us and and we say, "Oh, okay, we'll get your student." "Oh, no, no, she's they're halfway home already. I texted them." So, there are instances right now where some of our protocols are complicated by the fact that communication is happening around and above the school rather than through the school, but
188I can tell you that we have we have those systems in place. But, the cell phone communication allows people to go around and over it, unfortunately. >> to answer on our part. So, at Montgomery last year, we did a quick reference guide. So, when we started our 3 years ago when we started, we put together a guide for parents when we did our parent squares about in the event you need to get a hold of your kid, rather than using the cell phone to text them, here's who you can contact. Here's attendance, here's health, here's, you know, different options, and we send that out at the beginning of the school year, and we send it out periodically through the school year um to our families as well. And then when we host our parent nights,
189again, we have that parent guide in Spanish and English and a couple other languages available for families on who to contact. So, they know who to call and where to drop things off versus, you know, my I'm upset, there's something going on at home, whether it's in a medical emergency or, you know, so who's who's going to pick you up after school? All that information is there for them to know who to contact on campus. I think also a a major piece of this is coming to a community agreement about what constitutes an emergency because there are times when being able to get information in real time to a child is critical. Knowing that uh my ride is not going to be picking me up can be really important information that you may not be
190able to say 3 hours ahead of time by calling the school. That may be something that that we have to be able to acknowledge. We also have to have a common understanding of what constitutes an emergency. So, when a family might be reaching out to say, "Do you want Chick-fil-A or, you know, Taco Bell?" Um, that may not constitute an emergency. And having those kinds of constant messaging and communicating about how and when, um, and why not to, can be really helpful in rolling out this plan. That's why it is important to make a timely decision so that we can do the active front load of communication between now and August 1st so that by August 1st, it's actually able to be more fully implemented. Is it going to be perfect? No. But we've got
191to roll it out. >> If I could add something too, emergencies didn't start happening in 2008, right? We all know this. And a part of what we see happening in classes that there's a non-agreement on what an emergency is. And then we have people who are like live tweeting events to their children during class. And their kid is then sitting there in full emotional panic, right? Where we have a staff of people who if it was done through proper channels, we could actually support that child. And instead I have a kid who's panicking in the back corner like this on their phone. And I'm like, "What are you looking at?" And there's something serious going on. So, I think that calling on us as professionals to support kids as a whole community would actually be
192better supported by having a policy where mom's not like live tweeting what's happening with grandma. I I also want to add that contacting the school is predicated on having enough certificated staff to be able to answer phones. That I'm sorry, classified staff to answer phones. Thank you very much. Um, we we we have had challenges fielding all of the calls that we need to do on some occasions because we don't have the requisite staff. Um, I think back in the day, there actually was a position where somebody was just kind of the switchboard of the school and they could field the calls. That was the work that they did. Um and we don't always because our um classified staff wear so many hats, um they're front-facing people are coming in, they're trying to support students,
193they're um trying to do orders, they're doing all of So I Wait for >> I do want to make sure we have enough time for all the trustees' questions, Ms. Medina. The next question is around um bullying. You brought up the bullying. Um just thinking of the the the role of cell phones in in that during school, um recording incidents happening, the impact of that. Um what's the difference in the in the two policies as how it's impacted that in terms of disciplinary issues tied to >> So part of the policy for Montgomery is that if a student records a fight or records something that's inappropriate, there are actual natural consequences that can lead to suspension. Um and we put that out there as part of our communication to families that that's not acceptable. Um
194we do get it through our stop at stop it app and through families that there is some social media bullying going on or just bullying in general and we address that. Um when we first started out with our policy, we actually brought in some outside um resources to present to our students and our families and our community. Um we had some uh I can't think of the name of the woman, I apologize, who came in and spoke on several different nights and during the day with our students about that. Um we do constant training with our SPTS and our counselors about bullying. So again, the consequences are natural. If there's if you record a fight, if you record things or you're social social bullying people, um then there's consequences and we work with the kids
195on that. But I'm wondering in terms of the numbers that were provided >> that were provided. We have saw significant decrease. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I can send that to you. I I do. Um so we actually went through the last 3 years in um YouthTruth. YouthTruth is our climate and culture survey where students are answering the question, um have you been bullied in the last year? And the number of students who are reporting that they have faced bullying and harassing, and the secondary question of was that bullying and harassing happening in person or online? One of the good pieces of information is that we are seeing a gradual incremental downhill, um trend of the number of students who are reporting that they are being bullied. Um however, at
196both the middle school and the high school level, around 30-35% of our students who have been bullied are saying that that bullying is happening over a social media platform or online. The problem with pulling the specific data is that when we capture data, the ed codes that we are coding it under say either in person or by means of an electronic act. So, those are merged together. It's also important to know that some of the social media doesn't create a situation of bullying, but instead creates a situation of peer conflict that results in physical conflict, and we won't be capturing that under bullying data because, you know, she posted something about me, so I go and find her and I punch her. That's not bullying, but it's a fight and it's related to social media.
197We don't have a way within our current student information system to pull out how many of these fights come from an act of social media as the in- inciting incident. But, my question is more just in in the two schools, was there one model potentially had a higher decrease than the other based on these two models since that's kind of what we're looking at. Did one maybe have a higher decrease that we don't >> don't we don't have that data, but what we do see is that if we are looking to impact that use of cell phones in capturing other people's actions, then permitting cell phone use during lunch and brunch is not going to be helping that because a lot of the I'm going to video tape a conflict and then I'm going to
198use it in order to create harassment. That more often happens at brunch and lunch, unstructured time, than it does during instructional time. And and this will be my last question for now. Um I'm strongly for the only before and after school, but my concern is around staffing, especially with the decrease in admin staffing. Um what impact does disciplinary issues tied to this? What what has that had in terms of um increased workload? Um I think, you know, staff, teachers probably need support. I actually talked to a teacher the other day that says, you know, it's hesitate to uh deal with a cell phone issue um because it just feels bad, but in terms of the admin support and the disciplinary cases and them dealing with parents as a might. Um what what impact would one
199policy have over the other if the approach >> I think I've we're really fortunate at Monte in the sense that we have our SSAs who do a lot of that initial support that we have with it, whether it's picking up a phone and making that initial contact. So, that's part of our process at Monte. So, um when it gets to the point of kid can't have a cell phone on campus at all or it's gotten to the third or fourth incident, that's when the admin gets involved. Um so, we're very fortunate that our SSAs um are able to take on some of that work initially for us. And so No, it's And that's not a reduced position. I was just told. I forgot. So, we still have our SSAs on campus helping us. So, we
200put some systems in place with knowing that we're moving forward that things are going to change next year. And that's been our at least at our end. Yeah. When we had to sell this to our staff, what we said was the first 3 weeks are going to be really bad. Like, you're going to hate every second of it. It's going to be conflict, conflict, conflict. But, if we all buy into this and we all do this and we all push through the 3 weeks of phone calls and emailing and documenting and conversations. And frankly, kids become really physically aggressive when you try to take their phone from them. Like, I'm not joking. They actually do become physically aggressive. Um if you can get through that and you start norming a culture where they aren't on
201their phones, tho- those incidents do decrease. But, you have to pay kind of a big price up front for a better long-term investment. And that's where a board policy can come through and say, "Hey, we're following this policy. This is what the AR lays out as far as discipline. We're doing it." And once word gets around that they're serious about cell phones, I would imagine that we would see fewer incidents. I want to make sure we get through the remaining questions. Uh so, we're going to go with Trustee Kirby, De La Torre, myself on questions. We're then going to move to 2C. I'll ask you all to stay up here. If anyone has remaining questions, we can deliberate and ask questions for the second round. So, Trustee Prack. I I just wanted to know what
202option you guys would recommend. Cuz there's three, but which one do you like best? Having worked with the one that we built 3 years ago, I really like the fact of kids having the ability to use their cell phones during lunch and brunch and before and after school. Part of the process for us as educators is to build those skills for our students. And that's as part of our ability is when they have those cell phones at lunch and brunch and and having those conversations and building that skill set. Um, so that's my opinion and I've been at sites or districts where, you know, technology wasn't allowed at all. And so, I see both, but I also know that we need to build better students and better citizens when they leave our campuses. So, this
203is a way for us when they're still and have that ability for us to do some molding and helping, supporting. But that's just my opinion and probably my team. This is a this is a very complicated um issue and one that I don't think is just about building the expectations and the policy for phones. I think it it it has to be a multi-pronged approach because where we see the bullying and the harassment and the conflicts um that can often get physical on campus, these are things that start in the evening. And they they they're on the weekends. And so, I think we also need to consider a multi-pronged approach um with getting parents on board, getting them educated, educating our students about the effects of just using cell phones and uh any kind of
204electronic technology all the time. Uh so, I would I would hope that we whichever way that we go because there are pros and cons to both um approaches. If you say no technology, you're going to have a lot of enforcement issues. If you say even limited, you are still going to have the same enforcement issues. Um but I think if I were to lean on one side, I would say whichever one mimics where we want to see our students college and career ready for the world. So, what mimics what we as um you know, adults are trying to do in our own use of technology, I think we should try and build that into schools. I just want to quickly just piggyback off of what you said from a parent perspective in this policy. Um
205thank you, Principal Santos, for all that you have done for our community, your leadership, literally everything. Um and as a parent who went through going through this process with the policy, um my like my experience was exactly what you're talking about. Like it educated the parents because we are not we I am not a native cell phone person um cuz I'm so old. But the but it helped it helps the parents in the long run figuring out like because I know when my kids first got their cell phones, their aunt texted them during the school day and I was like, "Jenny, you absolutely cannot do this. They're not supposed to be on their phones." I know you're cutting me off, but I just want to say like the having this policy does then educate the
206parents and it creates that I'll stop talking. Thanks. Sorry. >> Christy Kerby. Thank you. Christy Kerby. Thank you. Um just a couple of comments. I I will say that I guess I'm a little disappointed in uh in our two options that we did because they're actually very similar and we didn't actually test out uh one where we had no schools no phones available on the campus. So I'll just say a little disappointed that we don't have a better look at the two separate options. Uh but I I just want to comment that um Los Angeles Unified they just instituted their policy about a month and a half ago, I believe. The largest in the state and they went for the entire uh can the whole day. And can't have it out. So but they also
207go uh not not when you step on campus, but bell to bell. Like you know, whatever you know, when the first bell but have it out when you're on campus, where you get to campus early, sure. Scroll. Um I think I I've been to other campuses on our in our community that have this uh I'll just say, and I engaged with the students and asked them about it, and they they say, "Yes, first 2 weeks were tough, you know, I was jonesing for my scroll, you know, during lunch or whatever. So, I but after the first 2 weeks, they're like, "Hey, I actually noticed that during lunchtime, people students are actually talking to each other, and they're looking each other in the eye, and they're engaging." And they're like, "And and now no one even
208thinks about it. They're just like, And I've been I've sat on the campus and just watched It's amazing just seeing the kids talk to each other and socialize. It's amazing. Mr. Kirby, uh is there a question mark? >> There is a question. Sorry. Yeah. Um the uh Oh, the enforcement. Uh you talked about the less admin. Um I guess are they are you are the SSAs having trouble uh enforcing during during the breaks or I mean, on kids using it? I see as us having less enforcement people on campus, how it could be how it could be easier for them if there was a total ban versus trying to always decide yes or no. So, the the first piece is that there are no proposed cuts to the SSA positions. Um it does that mean
209that there's going to be fewer administrators? Yes, there have been proposed there. But when we talk about the physical supervision of most of the public space, we are maintaining that same level of supervision, but now I want the sites to talk about how does that look in practice? So, we've been building capacity of our SSAs on campus. So, the expectation is for them to take on some of these lower level incidences and if they need to rise to an administrative position intervention, then they bring them to us. So, I don't see it impacting it with the SSAs. Admin, I don't know at this point. I would say that with the team that's in place, there's a great team and there's going to be a lot of support there and it's going to continue with the
210systems we have in place currently. Sorry. Thanks. I'm not the admin, but I do want to say the reason that we don't have two things to compare is because this is not a pilot that was driven by the district office. This is a pilot that was taken on by schools addressing their own needs. And so, it's harder to compare cuz we just sat down in our own bubbles and said, "What do we do?" Um and I I will add that we are going to have fewer CSEA, fewer certificated, and fewer admin on staff. So, yes, the year will be the same number of SSAs, but there'll be fewer people answering phone calls. There'll be a 700 to 1 ratio. And I know at Santa Rosa High, we're looking at a 37 to 1 teacher ratio.
211Um so, those are significant changes when it comes to enforcement. Sure. Was um when it was made clear about the policy, was it made clear to the students that uh using the Stop It app is okay? Like, if you're is it considered a a an emergency or you know, it's one of the reasons that you can pull your phone out if you need to. Is that Was that made clear? >> that makes sense. A lot of our students actually have the Stop It app on their Chromebooks. And so, that's another option for them. Um again, having that one-to-one and the kids having the ability to use that has been a really good thing. As well as we have a do have computers in the library in different places. Um but if a kid has an
212emergency, most definitely they can use the Stop It app. We've not had an issue. And a lot of our kids, as you know, our students will go to their trusted staff member and say, "I need to use my phone because of the situation or there's an emergency and so they go with that trusted adult, have that conversation in a private area and then that's how it's handled. Okay. I I also would add that at our 7th and 8th grade level, we do have no cell phones. So, once we start the day, they aren't to have their their phones out. If they If we do see them, um they those get confiscated until the end of the day and then we do have progressive interventions if that is a continuous issue to a particular student. And
213we did not do that at the at Montgomery. So, our cell phone policy is 7 through 12, it's the exact same policy. I would just say I think it would be easier to enforce if it was uh same across all 7 through 12, you know. Yeah, well we have two alternate bell schedules. So, it really is kind of easy to to somewhat separate it. We haven't quite fully integrated. So, the um 7th and 8th graders rarely see the high schoolers using their phones. Um and we we have uh since they are condensed into Soto and we have um our highest level of supervision presence during the junior high uh breaks and lunch, it's pretty easy to monitor that. If we move to a school wide, the monitoring is going to run into some of the
214the challenges that we've named. Um there's just the size of the campus, all the nooks and crannies. I I I know that a lot of our board members have walked Santa Rosa High School um with me and you you know that there are spaces and places. So, you know, monitoring and enforcing the policy is is um if it were to be no phones for the entire day, is um we have to I think always be cautious with any policy, like what can we How can we implement and and support that policy once we create it? Trustee Dayala, I will say that I don't want to speak on behalf of Santa Rosa Middle, but everyone who I've spoken to who works at Santa Rosa Middle has been raving about their policy and the significant change it
215made to culture when they were at the Santa Ana middle campus and that having them they had lockers there they don't have lockers at the Soto but having the kids put it in the locker was like a huge shift academically culturally the whole thing was a really big deal and one of the first things they talked about last year when we were doing the empower things is like how do we get lockers because they really want to continue on the whole day bell to bell. Mr. Naultory and then we're going to go to myself then we're moving to deliberation. So what I'm curious about is what has your buy-in and alignment rate been from your teachers with these pilot programs? No policy we adopt or write is worth its weight in pennies unless it is
216implemented to fidelity. So I'm just curious now that we've had these programs for 3 years and you know this year what's the buy-in been from the staff and how are they feeling about it? So with our policy it was staff initiated so I have about a 98% staff that are compliant that work with the policy that work for you know sorry that work with it I apologize I'm tired. They work with the policy there's a few teachers that struggle with it but those are the teachers that utilized a lot of technology in their classroom and so it was very it was a big shift for them to go from using their cell phones and other technology pieces and having kids use their cell phones to not having them use their cell phones in class. So
217most of my staff is on board there's a few that are not to be honest and we saw that change um pretty quickly the buy-in was pretty quick and it's not coming from me about reaching out to teachers like why aren't you doing the policy it's their peers. I get more from staff to staff questioning them about like hey we need to do this together it's about us working look at the changes we've made and what a significant change it's made for our kids. So I've been very fortunate. Okay so this is the thing about secondary sites not middle schools high schools. We have staffs of 60, 70, 80, 90 people. So, this is a lot of people to get on the same page. If we all had to order pizza for a pizza party,
218it'd be a nightmare. We have a bunch of people who are very much into it, and we've got a bunch of people who are not. And the people who are not, mostly the reason why is because they're they don't feel like they're going to get backed up. They feel like they're going to get into a confrontation with a kid, and then they're not going to get backed up by any policy, by any admin, by the DO, by anything, and they don't want to take that risk of having conflict with the student if they feel like they're on an island. So, that has stopped a lot of people from really wanting to buy in. It's just feeling like, why am I going to be here fighting 165 kids on something that they're very clearly addicted to
219by myself with the door closed, knowing that no one's going to have my back. And so, I think that a policy that was across the district would actually help a lot of the people who are still maybe nervous or apprehensive or whatever the word is, it would help them buy in. Are we ever going to have 100% buy-in on everything? No. But, I do think that the vast majority of teachers would support any sort of policy because then it gives us a leg to stand on. So, one of the issues that, you know, we we've had this as a school rule forever. This isn't new. It's debating a new policy and following the new Ed Code to have that policy in effect. Um the biggest struggle we've run into is either failure or inability to
220enforce the rules. Um nobody should have their device open and on in a classroom ever at any school at any time. And I'm from the 1900s, so we didn't have that option. But, that should be a rule, but unless that rule's enforced to fidelity, it's useless. We can put a policy together, and unless we have the ability and the buy-in to enforce that policy to fidelity, it won't mean much. Um my other question is from a parent's perspective, and this is really near and dear, especially what we've been through the past 10 years, is what does that look like if a cell phone is not accessible in a classroom and an emergency happens? Because the essence of an emergency is you There is no planning. It's like, "Oh, let me go get my phone and
221turn it on and communicate this or check in." Um you may not be in the classroom. You may not be You may be a different part campus. What does that look like through your pilot programs of allowing access to a phone in an emergency that you've seen success or that you've seen struggles with? I I'll speak to Montgomery because of because of what happened in Montgomery. I was very clear with our community that I would always allow, and we would always have our students have access to their cell phone after being in that lockdown that that we were in three three years ago. Um so I give it leave it up to the teacher's discretion when they're going out onto the field or different places how they get the students phone with them out there.
222So, if the students are taking their backpacks, it's going in there, but if they're going out to an activity, the students can have their phone. I'm not going to say no because again, when it comes to safety and access, I want that I've I've made a promise, and I'm going to keep that promise. Um and you know, these are also, as we talked about, tracking devices for our children. Um everybody in my family's got the Find My Phone on there, so I know where they're at and you know, I don't know what they're doing, but I know where they're at. So, if something happens, I know where my child is. Even as an adult, I know where my child is. So, that That's a really um integral piece to why these devices are so important.
223Um just that sense of comfortness that you knowing where your child is and that they're okay. Because often times, we cannot communicate all of the details in an act of emergency or a escalated emergency because we don't have all the details yet. So, you know, parents got to at least know where their kids are. So, I really have concerns of any discussions of turning your own off completely, um because that's provides a disconnect from the family of that student and of that child. Um I appreciate that we've had pilot programs to at least work out some of those kinks, um and I'm fully supportive of not having devices in an instructional time. Um and you know, we need to have a policy to back you guys up for that. Well, and and I do think
224that um it is important to acknowledge that this policy is asking school districts to limit or prohibit. It does not say limit and prohibit. So, as the board, you do have the discretion to say, "We are going to choose to limit cell phone use to these areas, and we may choose not to prohibit, but that is that is the discussion." And the expectation is that by July, we will have a a decision in place. I don't think I know a single teacher who's like, "It's It's got to be off." I don't think that that's the linchpin of this decision. And so, I think if that is like what I'm hearing from you is like that's that's your line, I think that we could have a very successful policy with an enormous amount of staff buy-in,
225and just strike the line that says turned off. What we want is the kids not to be using it during class time. Most pair of pants that I own come with at least four pockets, right? You can put your phone in one of those pockets while your parents tracking you. I'm not a tracker. I don't even track my husband. I I I I I I I'm I'm apparently I'm like the old person in when it comes to that, but like we have ways that the students could be physically close to their phone if that's so required, and not have the phone off. I would push back and say, "We have lived so long without having to be this close to the people that we love. Are we hurting them, or are we helping them by
226putting them in this bubble?" So, are there any questions? Yeah, thank you very much for that perspective. Um Um, just, you know, reiterating that we're it's also family and parent education. And these are creating opportunities for parents to properly It was never a problem for any of my children because there were rules in the household and boundaries set by both parents of how you do and do not use your device that your parents are paying for. So, this is not your right and privilege to do whatever you want, however you want. And if we can have that similar language with educators and families and how to properly use these devices, um, we'd all be in a much better place. Okay, so I'm going to transition to my questions and then go to the debate. I
227I I just want to comment on the safety stuff. Um, I've been through several lockdowns. I've been through um, things prior that were actuals before I came to Santa Rosa City schools. One of the things that I have told my family is don't you dare text me if you see something up on the news. I'm busy. I'm I'm trying to keep myself safe and everybody around me. I know for students and parents it's a very difficult to trust that at the school we are um, you know, doing all those things. You want to be immediately touch with your student, but I can tell you that when there is an incident, it is a good idea and we try and do this with our students to think about how you are reaching out in the ways
228that you are because that might not be the safest choice. Having your phone on and it rings and it gives your position away. Or you're so busy that you miss the opportunity to get to a safe space. Those are all things that we have to consider as well. And so I have told my family, I'm like, you're going to have to trust the news. You're going to have to look at Parent Square. You're going to have to text one of my admin friends and have them see if they can give you news. Do not text me. I I am otherwise as soon as I can text you, I will, but it's not going to be my first go-to in an emergency situation. I appreciate that perspective. Um, we're going to questions will transition into deliberation.
229If you please stay up here so that we can Is it a quick question or no, okay. So, my question is actually on the option three that was presented. If I understand it correctly, that's just a selecting options one or two with an effective date of next year next school year. >> Well, it's the what do we do now? Because you can as a board say everything stands as status quo right now. Everything new starts in July. You can also choose to implement some changes right now today and roll that out. You could also that you are going to choose a different option based on grade bands. So, you may choose no phones ever even during break, even during lunch for a certain age group and the only during the instructional time at a different
230age group. So, that was option three is the mix and match to meet the needs of our community. >> So, my question to our practitioners, representing these folks here, is does it make the most sense to implement changes with the new school year or would it make sense to do it sooner? And actually, I I am so emotionally overwhelmed by what is going to happen to me and to us by extension in the next like two months. I I don't want to speak on their behalf, but like we're trying to figure out like where people are going and like after scheduling and like to do one more thing feels like a lot and we could probably be more intentional and do better messaging to our parents and community if we waited till August. And that
231was my sense as well. So, I but I wanted to clarify that. >> Okay. And then I I just want to acknowledge that this policy is K-12. However, we adopted it. It is not solely a secondary policy or solely a 9-12 policy. Yeah. Correct. Um so I I'm going to transition this into the deliberation. Um Okay, one quick questions. First, Medina. So um my question goes back to I see the progressive uh discipline like warnings, parent meeting, um whatever the other one was. Um how many warnings um at what point or is there any point where staff member takes the phone away? Um and as it relates to warnings, how are they documented? Do they get one one warning per class? Do they get So can they get like X amount of warnings in each
232with each one of their teachers? How do you keep track from a discipline perspective? Um I'm wondering how that's happening. No one wants to talk. I'll talk. Um I the way that we document any to our sort of tier one or tier two intervention is through Aries. And so anyone who is on that student who has that student can access everyone else's notes for the most part on Aries. How I have seen it work out from my little view is that people enter those warnings and we see it progress in Aries over there and and they they call people in. I tend to be a warning person before I take the phone just because in the past I have experienced students becoming physically aggressive with me and they're always bigger than me, right? They're always
233the tall ones who want to get like a little saucy. Um so I tend to be a little bit more hesitant from taking the phone, but I do take the phone. I've taken phones this year and I've marched them downstairs to the main office and said their mom can pick this up and it it's worked out fine and it's in Aries and we move forward. Um but that's just my class period. That's not the whole student and the way that they deal with it. Well, I think for us we do three warnings and then it depends on and I have to say the teachers take it upon themselves to make that decision and it's on their discretion in the classroom. So we're very fortunate. But, when it comes to the third warning it or it's
234been on discipline areas all day long, then they call us and call us SSAs to have the phone taken. And so, that does occur. So, it's it's progressive though. It's not one warning you get taken. Three plus is when it usually happens in one classroom, or if it's all day long we're having issues. But again, most of our kids don't get to that warning list system. Most of our students are pretty, you know, compliant. It's those frequent flyers that we have to deal with in a different manner in order to support them with the struggles of the cell phone. The integration of Manga does give us some opportunities to consider putting some alerts that can be seen on the Manga app. So, for instance, somebody who has had continual struggles, and once again, this goes
235back to the culture of the students with the phone and maybe the integration of that into their identity. You know, they just they're compulsive. They have to check. So, if we were to quote unquote sort of um give a badge to that student like this is a student that we probably are not going to go warning warning or, you know, somebody that really that's that student you need to grab right away cuz we've already done a lot of interventions. So, maybe they're like a tier two cell phone intervention on anytime you see them using it. That is something that we're going to have to work out when when the policy is is written is how to exactly implement that in a way that works for the integration of teachers and administrators and SSAs. Um but,
236there are a lot of opportunities for us to to support students in making the choices. I do know that this is where we really need to get parents on board and we need support because this can escalate really really badly. I imagine that all of you have experienced a time where you have had to take something away from somebody that does not want to give it up. Um and so, we are often, you know, trying to navigate that in a way where we do not want to escalate a situation. We do not want it to get to the point where it becomes a battle. We don't want it to get to the point where a student would rather leave class that day or even school because they'd rather have that phone. And and that is
237something that we have had to deal with and we are going to have to think about even once we have a district-wide policy, how we're going to address those um as a team. And just to clarify, these are not any options we choose in the policy. These are the types of things that will actually be in the AR and the site procedures and discipline. It's not about which options we choose tonight. So, a short questions. Yeah, so the only other part was the latter part of that after the parent meeting, where it says loss of phone privileges. Does that just mean they're not allowed to bring it at all to campus? I I think it's really important before we get into the weeds of how we're going to implement each of these tiers to recognize
238that there are some violations of cell phone policy that are pretty innocuous. The student who can't look away from Candy Crush and they keep going back and and playing their game or watching their reels, right? Um there are other violations of cell phone policy that are creating actual safety concerns in a classroom. Somebody who's playing a little bit too much of their video game isn't necessarily creating, you know, a a hardship. Someone who is using it to actively bully or create a dangerous situation, the way we interact with that violation is going to look materially different than the way that we work with other policies. And there are ways to limit or prohibit if a student has lost the rights to be able to work with a family to allow the student to have that
239device on their way to school and on their way home, but maybe they turn it into the office during the school day so that the student can still feel safe while in transportation to and from school. But again, we can get into the weeds once we know what policy we're creating. And so, this this kind of goes into like the deliberation. I think for me, it's important as we move forward to also recognize that I think for a lot of students, it is an addiction. And so, to keep that mental health component and I think this detox that we might have students experience, um what role that plays. And the other thing that I think is important to me is that whatever method um for storage of phones or whatever, it's equitable and the same
240throughout um the district. And so, that we as as something comes back to us, we know what the cost of that'll be. I like the idea of lockers, but I know that at not at all of our schools there's enough lockers. So, if that's part of the solution, what would that cost? Um but but I think that whatever we do, we do the same everywhere in terms of the solutions. Would be my hope. So, I want to um point out a couple of things as we move into this that I'm hoping we can all just accept quickly. One is it was brought up earlier that we are not just IEPs, but also 504s and health plans for the exception. That's actually not in the policy. So, um I think item four in the exceptions, um
241uh should be needs to be needs to clearly state 504s and health plans. Um so, either option um it sounded like that was relatively unanimous in the intent. Um so, Yeah, when we look at the actual policy, item number three says when a licensed physician or surgeon determines that the possession or use is essential for either the student's health or well-being or under an individualized education plan. And so we can >> a 504. Right. We can add the language of 504 either under number three or number four. We have some latitude there. >> I was just doing in five and four since the plan so um so I'm calling that out and hoping that our motion can include that. And then I know when we previously discussed it had been kind of a consensus of
242the board for option two. Um this discussion has not swayed me off of option two and and for a couple of reasons. One, when we're talking about the concerns around being turned off, being turned off is only required under option one. Um option two says students shall not use um while at a school site but it does not explicitly require to be turned off and I think that that can actually touch on it while providing consistency across our grade spans and on a and across our um campuses for not having them be used but still having them be turned on and available for the emergencies and the exceptions we're talking about but also creating a clear standard that if we see them out, it's going to be one of those exceptions. Um and you know,
243I think based on what I'm hearing and honestly when I look at the case studies that did implement something closer to option two throughout you know, the country and and state, it seems to have the biggest and highest benefit and the clarity for enforcement. Um it also just makes it easier. I mean, I think if it's just clear that cell phones aren't being used, we eliminate the cyberbullying happening at the breaks cuz that's not one of the exceptions on here. Um and and we're clearly supporting a healthy academic environment. And you know, when I think of college and career ready, um which I I really appreciate that standard and thought for how we would do it. I cannot tell you the number of employers I work with right now where cell phone use is a
244major issue during the work day for productivity and you know, that gets us substantially closer to I think what that frame of mind is as far as being at the workplace using the times in between direct work to actually socialize, network, and build professional relationships instead of necessarily being on the cell phone and scrolling. So, you know, for me I haven't left where we were at at our previous meeting and I would be inclined with the addition of this language around um uh the 504s and recognizing that this still provides the both teachers and administrators the ability to customize and recognizing that doesn't undermine our successful option twos that are currently implemented including campuses like CCLA and St. Rose's junior program. It doesn't undermine their efficacy. So, that's where I'm at. I'm going to go
245trusty Jenkins, Kirby, De La Torre, and then I'll loop back here. Um where I'm at is that well, first off with option one, these are just options and so we can adjust this language. This is not permanent language. So, it can say mobile communication shall be put away during instructional time instead of turned off. That is not an Ed Code. Um additionally, I for me, I think that I I like option one for 9 through 12 and option two for K through 8. Um I'm I'm not okay with it. Well, I mean, I know it can be more strict even if we have if we have like option one for for K-12. I understand that it can be more strict if if schools are wanting that, but I'm I'm not comfortable with kids having phones
246out fifth, sixth, and seventh, and but I do I do think that it can be um a tool and um and really be teaching like the life lessons like utilizing those life lessons um in the high school years, the 9-12 specifically. Um I also have a little bit of concerns with uh with going too fast with this. So, I think that having the option one for 9-12 and then revisiting this in a couple years as as we see the impacts of it, um we can always make it more strict in the future. This is our first one. If we have two schools that it's working well with, um currently I think that expanding that to all of our high schools is um is appropriate so that things can really stabilize. Trustee Kirby? Um well, as
247I mentioned earlier, the um having seen the total ban I not total ban way option two in action um on some other campuses, I would be a proponent of that um as well as I guess the fact that again, I've just mentioned it, the largest uh school district in our state also went with option two for their policy. Um I just want to add that one other thing, maybe just to clarify in here, um I would add something that I've seen at at these other districts was um they kind of helped define uh to your point the the mini devices that this covers. It's not just smartphones, but they included uh cell phones, smart watches, AirPods, meta glasses, and tablets. Um I mean, just They said they kind of just had a line there said
248this policy includes you know. My only advice there is that that list that you just created is what might be available today. And unless we are ready to revisit this policy every few months, I would prefer more generic language about mobile communication devices. Digital devices maybe just It could be. I just I want it to be flexible enough that the new invention also falls under this. We are required to revisit it every 5 years. That doesn't mean we can't go faster. But I I caution us against listing specific ones because we know how fast tech evolves. >> Or say something like not all inclusive or such as Well, and I wouldn't put it past a student to bring in a non-smartphone and try and use it. Well, and that's been a that's been a problem
249at other campuses where you have the pouches on the wall. They they've got a a dead phone that they just slip in the pouch and they've got their live phone in the other another pocket. So, I don't the pouch thing doesn't seem to work, but The classroom teacher in me would beg you to do any sort of ear thing. Whatever. I don't know if headphones, Airpods. You would not believe how much music these children listen to and they are doing everything they can to listen to that instead of my really engaging historical lectures. No, my son has the new glasses and that I mean, you can I I put them on and they're playing music in the glasses. It's crazy. So, anyway, that's my main comments. Just to clarify that last comment cuz I'm trying
250to track the things that might be universally accepted. Would mobile digital and entertainment devices capture what I'm here cuz entertainment might be the earbuds. All right. Is there a general consensus when we get to the end of it? All right. Uh Trustee DeLaTorre. Thank you. So, um I really caution option two just simply due to the fact that the practitioners that have piloted these programs um have told us it's near impossible to enforce, and we're going to have less bodies on campus trying to enforce these policies. Um I really do prefer option one. That's my perspective, and would like the language to um be clarified to phones put away, not uh phones turned off. And ultimately, if we went to option two, we are now dictating what children do with their free time. So, that's
251not truly developing the identity of a citizen of you can never have a phone all day when you're clocked in. It's how do you appropriately use that device? What do you do with that device during your free time appropriately? And educating those aspects opposed to um the non-reality of it's just not an option for an extended period of time. Trustee Medina. Thank you. Um I did have to define devices on my list. Um I I don't know if you said mobile um what what were the three things? Mobile, digital, and entertainment. Just devices or communication or Mobile communication and >> Sorry, mobile communication, mobile, digital communication, and entertainment devices. I think as long as we have something like that or or or a reference to the AR that lists those. Um so that people can
252actually go in and see, but still leave it open somehow. I think it be essential. The other thing is that I I I'm strongly supportive of option two and I think the other thing that's important to understand is that um it's in essence changing the culture, right? So we might have these few initial years of like where it might be tough within the high schools, but as the younger students keep coming in that are used to this new culture, they'll be used to it. They'll know this is the the way it is and so it won't be as difficult at that point. um I think of in 2023 the US Surgeon General released report on social media and mental health and one of the things they talked about there was having students have tech-free zones
253to to you know promote fostering physical relationships, right? Well not physical in-person relations and and I think that that's kind of part of that culture that we should and want to create in our schools because that's also like a lifelong skill to have and I think thinking of it in that context tech-free zones or something along that line would be helpful but but I think it's about that child development and mental health perspective as well that we got to keep in mind and I'd say check out that report. um but again I am strongly supportive of option two. The a part of discipline and how it might play out in that first couple years with the decreased admin cut is the part that I worry about but I think definitely starting it in July it
254would be essential so that we can start really figuring out how we're going to communicate that to all the families and making them aware of it and and finding like effective ways to start letting people know, right? And and I think the other part will be just we need need maybe collaborate with some community partners just uh help teach our families about the the risks and problems with um with the devices aside from the fact of how it impacts instruction in the classroom. And we're schools to teach students and they're there to learn and that's why I think we need to get rid of them. Trustee Prack? I'd like to be done with this conversation. Uh knowing on a straw vote basis where you're at on option two would be very helpful to enable me
255to do that. Whatever Ashley Bell wants. Um well okay, well I appreciate that Ashley I'll go to Trustee Jenkins, but let me actually get your it was brought up that the practitioners were not asking for option two. Your personal thoughts on option two. Um I do not speak for all of SRTA. I I will say um that first and foremost um I am on break at break and lunch. I am eating my lunch and I am trying to access the bathroom during that time and I am not doing supervision. So I actually do not feel like I'm the one to make that decision. Um so I don't I I refuse to answer. >> that's okay. But I do want to say whatever option you guys choose, you are potentially going to see changes in the
256dashboard. You are going to see more suspensions potentially and I want you to be emotionally prepared and say you know what yeah, we did do that because we care about these kids and we had to suspend a couple of them. And that number might go up so that you don't come down on these these people who are really trying to do work. All right. Trustee Jenkins? So if if we were three or four years into all of our implementation of all of the things, I would have a different perspective. But I hear that and I agree that you take something away from someone who may or may not be addicted to it, but like that is part of who they are and there is going to be there is going to be that solid pushback
257not only from teenagers, but also from their families. Um but again like I I'm not against the option two if we were three to four years down the line when the dust has settled from all of this other chaos because if if it is like that means we have to Oh, this I'm recorded, but that's okay. Um like kids don't and I I know it's coming when this comes out of my mouth, but kids don't necessarily know how to interact with each other. So if you're asking like with less staff on on campuses, you're asking those few staff who are trying to take their break to then try to teach teenagers how to interact with other teenagers safely, respectfully and I and I'm I want to make sure that I'm not coming from like a
258fear-based approach to that cuz I hear it in myself, but it's I think it's real. That's all. And good morning, good morning, good morning. Could I say something back to that? When we came back from COVID, I would walk into a classroom to start a class and I'd say good morning and they wouldn't make eye contact with me and they wouldn't greet me. And people told me over and over again it's cuz it's COVID cuz they were in their their bedrooms for six months and I looked at those people and I was like they're 15 years old. They're 15 years old. They're 16 years old and you're telling me that being locked in a closet for six months, they suddenly forgot that when you are greeted you respond to? They are so smart. They know
259how to do this and they're socially awkward because they're teenagers. Like that's just part of the teenage experience like being weird and not knowing what to say and feeling social pressure. Like that is a beautiful human experience, right? I think we should trust them to make those weird mistakes, and that shouldn't be our reason not to do the policy. They're going to be weird, but like all of your good stories from your life are from when you were being weird. So true. I'm not concerned about the weirdness. >> Trustee Medina de la Torre, and then I have comments. I think um Trustee Jenkins, what you just said to me is an argument for not having them because it's like, okay, they don't know how to write. Okay, well, now I don't have my phone. What
260do I do? Maybe I'll talk to somebody. I don't know. I think that's one of the major reasons we need it. So, I think you made an argument for option two. All right, Trustee de la Torre. So, something that I just thought about as we're having this discussion, and it would be an imperative, and I don't know where we are with this, but if we were to ask for option two, and ask the students to not have their devices all day, we would need to have an expectation for adult adults on that campus to model the same behavior. So, how would that look where we're then asking our teachers and our staff and our SSAs to be device-free all day? Is that a safe opinion because you can't tell the students to put your phones
261away, and they're walking around while the adults are scrolling, the adults are watching their reels, and that's just a reality of society today. So, if you're truly going to implement a tech-free for the students, you'd really have to have a discussion on how that would look with the adults modeling the same behavior. I'm going to respectfully push back on that. I'm an adult, right? And they are children, and there's a power dynamic here. We are not equals, right? On purpose. We don't have an issue of me trying to teach and being like, yo, hold on, I'm still scrolling, right? Like, I'm at work, and they're at school. Having different expectations for students and for teachers is totally normal. I don't show up in a crop top. They show up in a crop top. If I
262want to use my phone at lunch, and I'm allowed to as an adult, that doesn't mean that they get to, too, right? Like, we are we're different There's different rules for different people. And our admin, they have district-issued phones to respond to emergencies. Like, they can't not They can't not have their phone. I mean, I think the expectation that you're as a teacher are not on your phone in class during direct instruction should be something that's a professional expectation. But, to say that as an adult, I wouldn't be allowed to have access to my phone during my lunch because I'm being equal to a 16-year-old. It doesn't It doesn't feel nice. So, it doesn't feel nice, and I appreciate that perspective, but you're not every adult on campus. Walking these campuses, being a parent, being
263a coach, being an on these campuses, I can tell you there are instances where adults on campuses are not using their phones appropriately. So, if we were to ask our students to shift the culture and change the identity of phone use, this is not just an addiction for children. This is a culture-wide issue, a society issue. Um so, I don't want to play the I'm an adult, I do what I want, you can't because you're a child and I said no. It's how are we shifting the culture for proper socialization and integration as humans, and we have to model that behavior as well. We can't just say, "Well, I'm an adult, so I can do what I want." We have to really think this through. I'm going to bring it back to summarize where I
264believe there's a motion. We'll see if there is, and then we can still have a debate if there is. So, my my grasp is that there is a motion for a 26-27 school year adoption that includes the language around mobile, digital, uh communication, and entertainment to be comprehensive of earbuds and glasses and future holograms or whatever. Um uh and that there is a general consensus on adding 504 um into the exceptions under four. Um and then I'd be looking for the motion on what I believe would be option two from the sentiment I'm hearing from the board. Is there a motion? So moved. Moved by Trustee Medina. >> Second. Seconded by Trustee Prack. We can now have more discussion. Trustee Kirby, I believe you'd Yeah, I was just going to add that talking about the
265um talking about you know, the kids being off by themselves on their phone. Again, the the campuses I went to that actually came up I was going to share that earlier is that they said they what they found when they when the phones were prohibited, the the kids that had been like loners and off by themselves, yeah, all of a sudden they were like brought into the fold and they started talking to people and they they weren't they weren't just disappearing off in the corner with a phone by themselves and so I mean they were really got socialized and were being a part of the campus again. So I mean that they saw that as a real positive. Hey. Appreciate the sentiment. We do have a very meaty item coming up next, so unless there's
266any urgent debate, uh we'll move to a roll call vote, please. Trustee Medina. Aye. Trustee Prack. Aye. Trustee Jenkins. Yes, that's fine. Let's move to the roll call vote. >> Aye. Trustee De La Torre. No. President Castaneda. Aye. Trustee Jenkins. It doesn't matter. Um Um Aye. That motion passes 5-1. Thank you all for your presentation. Thank you. And we are now going to move to item G3. Uh we'll start with 3A, public comment on the special education calendar. President Castaneda, we do not have any blue cards. Uh similarly, 3B, uh which is which was our public hearing. Okay. So, we'll move to 3B, which is the public hearing. I'm going to open the public hearing. Are there um I'll do the presentation. All right. So, I'll invite down folks for the presentation. There will be
267a second opportunity to provide comment after the presentation because it's a public hearing. Is it On on my screen, I can see the presentation, but it looks like Is anybody else seeing it? Okay. Let me stop sharing. Let's again. Feel free to start introductions while we're figuring out the technology. Uh while the technology is getting figured out, we're to go ahead and suspend the agenda and move to item H1, approval of the minutes. Is there a motion? Motion to approve the minutes. >> Moved by Trustee Prack. Is there a second? Second. Seconded by Trustee Della Torre. Roll call vote, please. Trustee Prack. Trustee Della Torre. I. Trustee Jenkins. Minutes. I. Trustee Kirby. I. Trustee Medina. Um I would have to abstain, but I did have a question under F1, it says motion failed, but it
268doesn't identify who made the motion. Uh that's that needs to be corrected. There was no motion. There was a motion, it just there was no second. I made the motion. >> Sorry, there was a motion, but there was no second. So, we should identify uh a motion with no second. So, it did not fail. So, with that correction, Trustee Medina, I believe you're abstaining. Well, I wasn't there. And I'm a I, so the motion the minutes pass. Everyone in agreement and consent on the change. All right. So, it passes with that amendment, and we'll move back to the item before us. President Castaneda, I'd like to make a motion to extend the meeting to 10:30, please. Is there a second? Second. All right. Any objection? Not saying we got to stay till 10:30, but we
269need to get through the >> not use it, but seeing no objection, we'll extend to 10:30. Director Fisher. Um John Fisher, executive director of special services, Santa Rosa City Schools. Brittany Efronti, education specialist, independent study. Uh and we have a short presentation to share that uh interim superintendent uh Augustine and and I were I think we're going to ping-pong it uh in in going through the slides and then we have some more information to share after that. And I apologize for the way my screen is going to look, but if I do actual slideshow, it does not connect correctly right now, so I apologize. I know. I've This one I haven't seen too often. Uh so, yes, this evening we are here to talk about um the proposal to form the Santa Rosa City um
270SELPA. And as we get through this, we will have recommendation about a um around the change in implementation date. Want to first call out and say thank you to our team um working very hard over this last several months in getting this done. And um also to the CAC and our our staff. Um with that. So, why form a a Santa Rosa City SELPA? It It's around direct local control over funding and decisions with aligning resources to Santa Rosa City uh school student needs, increasing transparency and data and outcomes, and reducing administrative layers um related to us belonging to a a large um 40 44 LEA local education agency um system, and building and refining programs responsibly over time. I I want to be very clear when we're talking about that, it's not that there's
271anything wrong with with SELPA in and of itself with the Sonoma County SELPA. It's related to the difference in the membership of the SELPA and the way that that pertains to Santa Rosa City Schools and being one vote of 14 when we have a larger population and different needs for our students and the way that and the way that that interacts. So just wanted to clarify that. It's not that there's that there's an issue with with support to our I know our teachers are very appreciative of the support that they've received from SELPA. It's around having that local control and transparency so that we have just like when you think of our local control funding formula and the way that things come in in a way that we're able to decide for our students. The
272same reasoning applies with the Santa Rosa City SELPA. I wanted to talk a little bit bit about the distinction between our Santa Rosa City Schools Special Services Department and what we do versus what would be done and and what is required to be done by SELPA. And again, that's not to minimize the work of a SELPA or a district in any way, but I wanted to make a clear distinction about that. So first off, Santa Rosa City Schools or any LEA any district within the SELPA is directly responsible for serving students. Yes, there are some regionalized programs where resources and and so forth are shared, but it is the responsibility of a local school district to hold IEP meetings, develop IEPs for its students, provide services, conduct assessments, ensure there's a free and appropriate public
273education, all that sort of on the ground special education services. Roles of the SELPA are funding allocation as uh special education dollars flow through the SELPA and um then are allocated to to districts. So, that's that's one of the functions of of SELPAs in California. They maintain a local plan which we'll talk a about in a little bit. And uh a coordination role, a coordination of systems and reporting and supports in the county. And uh part of that is through coordination ensuring that there is a continuum of services and placements within the SELPA to serve to serve all students. Um And then finally, uh I'll say compliance support. That's fiscal compliance, fiscal reporting, um special education data reporting, and so so forth. And I want to again call out the support that we've we've received
274from Sonoma County SELPA um in in these areas. Uh really in um certification and technical assistance and and and so forth. Those things that we want want to talk about when relating to differences are you know different scale and same responsibilities when we think of a local SELPA that's multi-district with our elementary and high school district versus um being a member of the county SELPA. Again, two districts versus 44 LEAs, local board governance um versus regional governance, direct accountability versus shared decision-making, streamlined structure versus a larger administrative structure. I want to speak for a moment here around to piggyback a little bit earlier around the the fiscal piece. That doesn't change as far as fiscal funding allocation. The difference is there are different layers um with a SELPA and with a multi-district SELPA, a large
275multi-district SELPA versus a SELPA with with two districts with common administration where you have fewer layers. There it's the funding comes in and it's clear doesn't be it doesn't get allocated out in the same manner with off-the-top holdings and things that are you know within the structure that was determined by by the SELPA rules and that that as us being a member had an had a part in many years ago. And updated. Um so our summary and and recommendation or as as was alluded to in terms of the the timing we're making a shift in in the recommendation which we'll talk about in a second. Um Uh Santa Rosa City Schools already serves and remains responsible for our students with disabilities. Again, regardless of whether we're a member of Sonoma County SELPA or whether we
276are a Santa Rosa City SELPA comprised of two districts. I I I do acknowledge that our students in some of our students are served through regionalized programs. Examples of this are um our D8 Deaf Hard of Hearing services that we receive from SCO, the DHH program that we run at Hidden Valley, etc. But again, ultimately Santa Rosa City Schools are responsible for our students with disabilities. Uh the proposal as Superintendent August alluded to, local control, transparency, and accountability um allows for more responsive and efficient operations because of in in essence fewer administrative layers. Implementation phase developed, continuously improved over time. Um my expectation going forward with forming a SELPA, um, as we move forward, um, we may bring more programs back to Santa Rosa City Schools. Uh, DHH School itinerant is is one example of
277that, um, and so forth. In addition to that, with our own SELPA, we are able to make adjustments in terms of, uh, funding allocations and so forth in a way, um, that's directly responsible to the priorities of the district. Finally, we went through a process, statutory requirements, took a, quite a bit of input, uh, from the CAC, uh, and from our local plan group, and consulted with, uh, California Department of Education on the on the formation process. As Director Fisher alluded to, we are actually coming to you with a different, um, recommendation this evening after, you know, taking a lot of that that conversation, the input into, you know, to heart and looking at this, and working with legal counsel to determine how we can commit now and move forward so that we have that
278clarity so we aren't starting the process over in a year. That actually gives us the opportunity to really implement, um, July 1 of next year without having to have that rush. Um, so do appreciate all the conversation we've had around there. This is kind of a rough timeline. I know it's kind of hard to see since we can't make it bigger. We will upload the revised, um, slideshow with this last, um, added slide. Essentially, what we would be looking at is an approval, uh, recommendation of section B, which is the governance section. Um, the rest of it would actually wait until later because there are things that are updated every, you know, that it's an annual plan versus the governance. And so just kind of lays out in rough estimates that we would be looking
279to have work done um over the next several months with submission in plenty of time for us to have that feedback back and forth with the county office um for their review of the SELPA, for us to coordinate with the Sonoma County SELPA in how we in in how we make that transfer happen, and ensure um ready to to run July 1 of 2027. And uh uh Superintendent August uh Hume referred to a couple of sections that we uh would not be approving now, and that's the annual service plan, which is section E. Uh that is uh has to be approved and uh updated every year. So that's that's one point, and then the the um section D, which is the budget plan. And again, for a projection for Let me get the years right,
280'27 '28, there will be some some changes and shifts uh depending on various fiscal factors, hence why those wouldn't be approved at this point. All right. Uh Brittany, would you like to add to the presentation before I take comment? Um okay, I wanted to Brittany and I had talked beforehand, and we see this as an opportunity to make some uh significant changes and start the ball rolling on significant changes in Santa Rosa City Schools Special Services, both in the SELPA, but Special Services in in in in general. Um and I think it's well acknowledged that the most uh important task within Special Services, and perhaps beyond that is to be able to build systems and procedures. Um and I we had a special education study that was done in approximately January of 20 Getting my
281years right, January 2025. And again, taking additional time on the SELPA enables us to start on this path towards change and building systems. Did you want to Okay. First off, thank you very much. I know you all have heard a lot from me over the last several weeks, more than probably anybody wants to. Um and I did get the find out about this today after I had already made my like two pages back and forth single typed thing that I wanted to make sure I got across. Um so, I want to first off say thank you very much for allowing for practitioner voices these last few board meetings. That's been really important, something that's long needed. Um I also want to acknowledge that asking teachers to come up here and provide feedback uh is a
282little challenging in our current climate. I think Trustee Prack nailed it that there is a culture of fear in this district and not everybody is ready and willing to be the dissenting voice. I happen to be wired that way, so here I am. Um but the thing that I've been saying over and over is we just need some basic foundations. And so, we do have the sped task force um that was one of Dr. Gillespie's recommendations um that we need to actually create systems and um just to sort of give you a little idea of the the lack of systems and why we need them. I want to just tell you briefly about my tenure in this district. I started as an intern and I was given the keys to in classroom three days before
283the first day of school and I did not know how to write an IEP. Uh I was at North Coast and my first class on writing IEPs was not going to be until October. I was very fortunate that I had an incredible department at Curio and on top of that, I had my mother who is a 20-plus year Ed Specialist in this district and she could not get away from me. So, I had a ton of support. Um I was super lucky, but we have teachers who start in our district and if they don't start right away and they're an intern and they get their job maybe a month or two in, they will go an entire school year before they get any information on how to write a compliant IEP in the program. Uh
284we're told that program managers are meant to support us, you know, don't worry, your PM will do it and our program managers are stretched thin. If you look at what their job description is, they're they're doing beyond that and other things and they are operating in a system without systems. I was super lucky again that I figured out that if I called my PM at 8:15 in the morning, that was when they were dropping their kid off at school, so I knew how to get a hold of them. A teacher shouldn't have to be lucky and you shouldn't have to be scrappy and figure out how to call people to get information and to know how to do your job. And so, the hope is is that over this next year that we can work
285on building our basic foundations and procedures that we desperately need within special services. So, one piece of that that we've we've made progress on is developing our procedural manual for the district and that's been a job of the task force and I want to our school psychologist will be has been sort of sort of lead on that, but that's that's one piece. We still have a lot of work to go. And the idea is to have sufficient information and systems that uh it's not Britney, for example, she'll text me about a legal question about an IEP. But that's not an efficient way of doing things. >> Um and that we have written down procedures, people know where to find them and can use them in a very practical way. Um go ahead. >> And to
286the point, we also need to make sure that we have people in place that are able to train all of our teachers because there is a significant portion of our teachers who are interns. Um our Um we have a whole group of teachers who are international from Ghana and they are lovely, but they don't have the same system that we have. And so we need to ensure that not only do we have all of these training manuals and procedures, but we we desperately need people to be able to provide that training um because we are losing program managers and um we can't just rely on on on other teachers to hold the slack, so that is another piece. And in addition to that with the staffing changes, there's more responsibility for special education appropriately is
287um going to be landing with with site administrators. I think that's a good thing uh because one of the goals is we don't want to see special education program classes um or special education in general as separate from the campus. If we have a DHH class or a a RISE class at Hidden Valley, that's a Hidden Valley classroom. Um and responsible to the site administrator Hidden Valley. Easier said than done. We So this involves um additional training for site administrators. And again, it is a it is a lift, but I think in terms of making a change in a system where all students, whether they have an IEP or not, are students. I think this is an important step in that direction. Um next uh in terms of programs, I think we need to develop
288metrics for all our special education initiatives and uh review them on a regular basis, report to the board on a regular basis that we are meeting or not meeting those metrics. If we are not meeting those metrics, um then we need to change. Um there is at least in in my experience so far in our special our special services system, we use very few metrics for measuring the success of our programs. And the metrics are out there. We just don't use them at this point. Um in addition, I need to scroll up a bit. Um establishing fiscal and operational clarity, uh a I'll say I believe a significant change that has occurred within special services and particularly working with fiscal uh department and executive director at Donato's over the last year and a half, um
289special education contributed significantly to how do I put it? Special educ- unprojected special education costs. Let me put it that way. Not that they weren't appropriate costs, but they were unprojected and it resulted in budgetary surprises. And this happened s- many of you were here at this time. Um and that is preventable and it's developing again appropriate communication and procedures from special services and fiscal in particular that we can um we're able to project special education costs. As as Liz Cathcart has said, the goal isn't to cut special education, it's to manage our special education cost increases. And the most significant piece about that is to have adequate flow of information from fiscal fiscal services and back to special services. Again, we've made good progress. I do have concerns. One elephant in the room is
290me leaving and I'm concerned there's a lot of information that's stored in my head. That's not useful in the long run. It It sounds arrogant, but that's that's that's the way it is. And one of our my goals and I think Bernie's and our task force is to and hopefully my my pardon gift to the district is to start to develop procedures that are independent of the individuals in those positions, which is which is what we need ultimately to be successful in the future. Yes, very much so. We need to not be dependent on the person in the chair because they could get the hit by a bus the next day. Or hopefully a different or or decide that they are done. That they'd prefer to move to Minnesota, but yes, that's true. Uh yeah,
291and there's this anecdotal, but my experience in the district has been lack of system and lots of phone calls to figure out the right person to talk to to get information and so forth. While it's lovely that we have expertise in various areas, that's not what a system makes and that's again, that's both in terms of shelter development and in development of special services in a collaborative process working with our labor partners and community partners and so forth. Um that's the progress we need to make beyond a more positive sure footing going forward. Thank you. For the sake of time and knowing how our deliberations and questions in the go, I'm going to open the public hearing. Are there any comments? President Kassen, there are no blue cards or public comments. I will close the
292public hearing. When I move to questions and deliberation and I before we start, I want to just get a very clear understanding of the recommended proposal. I'm hearing that the the recommendation is within the three items that we have here would be for the local plan we're approving B with the other ones being on the timeline that was stated. This would involve us taking action on item 3D uh because we'd be looking for the expertise to be able to pursue this um with the opening on the position um and then it wasn't entirely clear to me on whether or not we're taking action on E or not. Under this recommendation, so My understanding with respect to E, it goes together with approval of the local plan and my my uh recommendation on it that this
293would given that we would be participating in a uh Sonoma County SELPA uh next year, we would not be taking action to change that policy at this point. So the recommendation that's coming to us is in C, action on B within the local area plan and then action on D, no action on E. So I'm talking about the calendar. So item Yeah, so in the calendar item 3C is the local area plan and the recommendation is to approve within the local area plan B. I'm just clarifying the recommendation, we'll move to discussion. Um so for 3C, we would take action on C only for section B. Yep. And then we we would be taking action on 3D uh because that's the position that needs to fly. And then we would not be taking action on
294item three. So that is the recommendation. So just make sure that's real clear. Um so with that uh we'll go to questions. And we can make this question {slash} comments, but I will cut people off cuz we have a hard 10:30 uh deadline. I want to make sure everyone has a chance. Trustee Delatory. So I'm very trepidatious about approving anything and then saying we have a year to figure it out. Like what are we approving if we're not there yet? And I appreciate seeing the road map and the timeline. But when I look at that road map, I look at it vertically and it's very indicative of this district's relationship with special education and the roller coaster that it's been on for decades. Um so there's just some true valid concerns. And if we don't
295get this right, it's going to cost us more in placement out of district for students that are the most vulnerable. Um so I have some real concerns here about approving a position and a title and investing into somebody to build something that we're approving tonight and not implementing for a year. I just don't think we're there yet. Okay. Uh Trustee Kirby. Director Fisher, could you I know we we talked a little bit more in depth on our Monday meeting at the at the uh fiscal uh subcommittee meeting. Could you um talk a little bit on the on the financial side? I I know obviously that we had some uh challenges in getting all the information that we needed from Snow and Selpa to to dial in exact numbers, but you know, just from a financial
296standpoint you know, does it make sense for us to go into our own SELPA versus staying with Uh and I I believe so, yes. And um I want to clarify a little bit with respect to information. It was It was an exchange with the county office in the special education programs in terms of getting numbers and it was uh resolved with a few emails and asking the the right questions. So, I I just wanted to to put that out there. Um Yes, I I believe just in purely fiscally It is fiscally and it will be fiscally advantageous for uh Santa Rosa City Schools to form its own SELPA even given that there are certain costs that are borne through off the top or pool pool spending in Sonoma County SELPA. Um but um with that
297said, based on our analysis of the numbers and the again, the projected costs for Santa Rosa taking on certain um certain services that are currently done by the county, um it it would be fiscally beneficial. In addition to that, there's one particular piece of it um which is that the county uh Sonoma County Office of Education currently serves uh the number I've heard most recently is 48 uh deaf, hard of hearing students itinerant. This is not the Hidden Valley students. Um and these are students who may receive 30 minutes a week, 90 minutes a month, 120 minutes a month and and that sort of thing. Um with moving towards 27 28, that would give us an opportunity to recruit staff and serve those students within uh Santa Rosa City Schools. The credentials are somewhat somewhat
298hard to find, but that uh would give us an opportunity to do that, which in additionally, I think that would be um a fiscal net positive. Thank you. And um regarding um Uh jeez, I already lost my question. All right, I'll think >> quickly want to ask the similar question, um Britney, the uh in your personal professional experience and having looked at this and gone through the iterations, do you believe this move with this timeline for implementation and things that have been discussed would be beneficial to this district? Can you state that one more time? Does the recommendation lead to a better place for our students with all of the considerations that have gone into it at the time to develop what the things and that you having worked with looking at this this SELPA
299and the and the provisions of services? So, I am not a money person. So, I'm not going to pretend to even say that that is my area of expertise. Um but uh so, I will like say that I can see that yes, potentially based on what information has been provided that in the future it could be beneficial to us. I think for me the biggest thing is that we have to ensure that we can have the most basic foundation established um because SELPA is not just finance, right? SELPA you you all saw my beautiful color-coded table. Um SELPA is a lot more than that, right? And there are pieces of of what that is that uh we should already be doing as a district. So, I think that if we can actually for one of
300the few times in the history of our district um make a plan and develop metrics and timelines and follow and create the things that we need to create and do that really hard work and train the people um that that puts us in a in a better position in a year to see if this is a you know, better position for us to be moving forward, but we have to have all of those things in place before we can And those things are things identified in this timeline that you and John just talked about. Yeah. Yes, and if I may, yes, in terms of training develop systems with within Santa Rosa City Schools um in terms of training um procedure resources etc. Absolutely and building capacity within Santa Rosa City Schools. Trustee Kirby did that
301help you remember your question? It did. Thank you. Uh quickly hopefully. Um so you know, the task force has come up a couple times. I did um would it be a part of the task force to to ensure that this timeline gets implemented properly or do they need to meet more often, more you know, for a longer period of time. I Did I Britney's been on the the task force and I I know Trustee Dellatorio has as well. I don't know if you want to Yeah, so we meet once we've been meeting once a month since September um and you have a group of parents uh educators some admin who are are part of this group and to put it as nicely as possible there is a big mess in in this district, right? And
302so when this task force started meeting it's there was just so much to look through. Dr. Glasspy gave us I think 172 points um of things that he believed needed to be addressed in the district. So, we have spent a lot of time talking. There's been a lot and a lot a lot of time talking and we did come up with the statement of purpose, but and then we also have a team who's working on a procedural manual for us, but yeah, we need more time than once a month for 2 hours. Um and we have a lot of people who do a lot of free work in the district and there at some point has to be you know, a line drawn in the sand and and we should probably start funding some of
303that work in order to have it done not just once a month. Um so yeah, we we do we do need more more time. Probably some funding. Okay. Speaking to the task force, Tracy De La Torre, we have limited time so I want to get through everyone first. So, Tracy Jenkins and then we'll move this way. Um I just hopefully mine will be quick. The So, it sounds like a lot. I appreciate I I do appreciate the time kind of time to get things done. My concern is financial because it sounds like we need to do more before getting money before getting a savings of sorts. So, I'm wondering um like what are we getting rid of to make sure that we can do this. Luce. Luce. Is she here? Hello. I think while we're
304waiting for her, John can talk to a little bit of this. First off, in in terms of improving compliance procedures and this should decrease litigation and should de- decrease compliance complaints and so forth by having and also fewer disputes within the district by having better services serving our students better ultimately potentially by serving our students before they're referred to special education when we can. So longer term savings but that that particular savings would be I think it's a good investment. Upfront with respect to developing procedures and training and so forth and it was a recommendation of Dr. Glaspy's report that that in and of itself will result in a fiscal savings procedure examples would be if we have procedures before a one-to-one instructional aide is is assigned. we should have a fiscal positive from that
305in addition to that if we have very clear procedures on when students can potentially be if if it's appropriate exited from speech services will ultimately have a savings in what I'm what I'm arguing is that just developing procedures and processes in general and with appropriate training that in and of itself will result in some fiscal savings. I don't know if Luz is on yet but the other piece that we were talking about is with the reorganization in the district office and specifically special services around supporting new teachers with with the training on IEPs and that's actually just repurposing existing positions changing that to be teacher led. >> Yeah and I Thank you for bringing that up and again both Brittany and I have been involved with this about and a have few of us from
306special services had a meeting with some I'll say teacher leaders at this point to um develop improved ways of supporting new teachers which I think we've identified as the single biggest area of need in the in the district with respect to special services. Did you want to talk about it a bit? >> Yeah, just I'll talk quickly. If you are a new teacher and you need support at an IEP meeting and you need to have your program manager there. If your program manager has to attend all of the IEP meetings for NPS placements, which some of them like Innova can take many hours of your day, many days of your week. It's impossible to get in and then when we have our admin ratio that's going from you know to 700 to 1, it's impossible
307to have that support. So the idea of having teacher coaches, IEP and case management coaches that are assigned to specifically support our new teachers, to teach them how to write compliant IEPs and to teach them how to facilitate meetings and for them to have that support in somebody that they know that they can call and also somebody that they are not worried they don't have a concern because it's a peer about messing up and having an administrator it just it works a lot better when you have a peer coaching you. So you want to make sure we move the conversation to the rest of trustees with the time remaining so I'm So we'll go to Luce and then we'll come to trustee Medina and then Prack and then myself. Is there a particular question on
308the table? The question was just it sounds like we we need to spend money to make money and to do that what are we getting rid of? I kind of like I don't feel like it got answered directly, not of any of your faults. Just Yeah, so I think the first step would be to determine what are those actual costs that we would be wanting to add on, right? So the one cost that we know is there's a slight difference between the having a director of special education from the job description to a director of special education {slash} SELPA, right? So to do both of those pieces, um and I would submit to you that is a it's a better plan to hire someone to do that work with that understanding of we're going to
309be implementing and then they're creating and planning for what eventually gets implemented on July 1 of 2027. Um the I think anything in addition to that would have to be a conversation, um and it would go through that process that we've described of we want to be able to determine what are the cost, what's the why, um how does this tie in with our plan as a district as a whole so that we're making decisions about if I'm going to spend money this way, it means I can't spend it that way. And so we're really truly choosing our priorities and so that's part of the the finance conversations, it's part of some of those um markers we've talked about on how we ensure that we're talking about the system as a whole and not doing
310the piece-by-piece um conversations that sometimes as school districts we do, right? We we tend to silo and we're we're working really hard to ensure that we break those silos and we don't we don't do our conversations that way. Thank you very much. It I I have not read all of the pieces of this and but from the conversation it was sounding like we were asking to invest more than just that adjustment of the um of the job description. So, uh thank you for the for the the answer. >> the clarification is that today it's the adjustment of the job description. Anything else will be back coming back to us. Uh Trustee Medina. I think um I I did want to say that. Um I'm supportive of moving forward with this today, but um I think
311it I I would ask for staff to come back with um a way to support staff to work with the CFC on a more frequent basis. Um if we could find grant funding or anything to help support that. Um I think um we should try. Um but I think in order to make it work uh we'll need to do that. And also with I don't know who's responsible for the manual, but if there's if it's going to take away time from from folks, then we need to make sure that we find a way to fund that work sooner rather than later. Uh Trustee Prack then myself, and then we'll loop back around. Do you recommend this? I really really really really want to see us do well. Like, I want us to be legal. I
312want to know that that the job that I am doing is I don't have to text message Don at 5:00 in the morning. Although, that will be 8:00 a.m. in Minnesota, so better for him. Um I think that the things that have been presented to us about what the potential benefits are, I can't dispute that because I am not a financial person. Um but if what they are are are real, then then yeah, that sounds like eventually that is a good decision and a good way to go. But we have to have the other things. I I can't say yes, and that was my whole point is I can't say yes to this if we are doing business as we currently do. So I think that if if the board can demand and require checkpoints
313and have something that we are, you know, ready to show. And I think that also it's we can come to to next May and you as a board can say you haven't proven yourselves. So yes, with stipulations, is that what you're saying? Yes, with stipulations. Yes. It's It's a stipulated yes that that we that special services that this district can actually do what needs to get done, do the hard work, and get the training, get the support, make that happen, and show up here a year from now in a much better place than we are now. So on that point, I want to clarify the checkpoints that were presented in the timeline are the regulatory checkpoints of when we would be taking actions as a board. Um as alluded to earlier, there is a governance
314calendar in development for this board where a checkpoint that is more open-ended, broader conversations that inclusive of this would be coming and the intent is for that to come in the fall. So we would be We wouldn't be waiting till May to have our first conversation about whether we're on track or not. Correct. And I think our our intention would be to lay out a timeline in terms of the the picture work or the the broader scope of work, a sort of timeline for the year. And that's both with respect to the the SEL piece, but also with respect to the the changes that need to be made and what needs to be established within within special services. So, that said, something like an action plan for next year with regular checkpoints with again with
315metric. I'm sorry. Is Tracy Prack, was that your Yes, if we can guarantee or enact I don't know, monthly or every 2 weeks getting an update of things are progressing from whoever's How does monthly but exclu- not excluding summer sound to you? I feel more comfortable with that. >> Okay. Uh Okay. All right. Um I just want to make sure that there is oversight what's happening. >> I like this. I think we can come back, I mean, for me, I would like to come back in like a month with an actual plan laid out >> Yeah, that's cute that you don't think that you're going to be continuing talking to us. Um but have an actual plan, right? And and present that and then not come back here, you know, once a month with a
316dog and pony show and look at it, it's so nice and beautiful and but like I want to actually have real metrics that we can that are our our teachers, we need to talk to our teachers, we need to talk to our our PCA staff and we need to figure out what are those metrics. Are you being put in charge? Is that what we're doing? Uh I believe there's already a recruitment effort underway on that one, but uh I just really quickly for my comments, I'll come back around to the folks who have hands up. Um I I strongly support where this has landed because I think it recognizes both the need for us to be able to not just talk about things and then in the future talk about them again and and nothing
317happened in between, but we're actually laying out an intent. We are taking some of the actions that would be necessary and I think the job description and having the element of the plan that would be adopted so that it gave clear place for work plan for the advisory committee are two places where it means it will actually have the competencies and we'll be searching for the right people and we'll be moving with the intent to actually get to a place where we could accomplish this. Um but at the same time it's giving us healthy checkpoints um to be able to say it's not working or we're not there yet and those checkpoints involve the full board and I do think, you know, one of the things that you said at the beginning the presentation around
318the culture of fear I think there's a 10-plus years that have gone into the development of the current cultural challenges we're having and not just on this topic and there's no way through words that we're going to get through it and I think it's the examples of the work that you've done, um the work that's been going on between the two of you and the broader community around this and that's actually showing these new behaviors that we're going to get there and I think this is a well-detailed um expectation and plan inclusive of the plan to get clearer expectations uh around metrics and measurables and where we can start to show those behaviors through actions and not just through words. Um but we have to actually make actions to make those things feasible and I
319think that the action on B, um you know, 3C, B and 3D are good actions to make sure that we're making progress to actually get to that point well not taking us all the way there with one month to implement and you know, adding on to a lot of the other things. So um that that's where I am at. Uh I because I want to make sure that we don't run out of time. We're not the US Senate, so we're not going to do filibusters. I want to first ask if there's a motion and then we can continue debate. I'll move to approve. This is it section B? That's 3CB and then we have to take a separate action on D. Yeah, so on on 3C Uh, the local >> And sorry, with the implementation
320date of 7/1/27. With an implement implementation date of 7/1/27. All right, so that's moved. Is there a second? Second by Trustee Prack. Uh, brief discussion, Trustee Delatorre. So, to me we're all trying to take a vote tonight on hope. A stipulated yes, uh, come back to me in a month and I'll have a better idea. And the special education task force was a very well-intended group of individuals with a variety of resources and experience in special education experiences that were asked and tasked to prioritize the very long list of what needed to be cleaned up in special education in this district. So, that is not the proper tool to be used to guide and steer implementation of a SELPA and designing. Um, the institutional knowledge cog of that special education task force and of the
321even introduction of the SELPA was John Fisher. And we are losing him at the end of this year. So, to approve a new position and a salary to hope we get the right candidate to figure this out and implement it in a year, again, this is all on hope. That's where I'm at on the situation. Hm. Uh Quick, can I respond to that really quick? So, um the goal is Jeff, I don't want the task force to be the let's rubber stamp the the SELPA. My goal is to have the task force do the thing that the task force was supposed to do. Um, and we were like a couple of months to a month ago, month and a half ago, it was like, okay, we need to actually have a tangible thing that we
322can bring forward. Um, and what we did do, and we know we haven't really had a chance to meet since then, was the idea that we need to have a centralized hub where our sped teachers can go and they can get resources, our gen ed teachers, our parents, our admin, and also even a board member sped crash course. Um, you know, that that is what I want to see is I want to see us actually doing the things that we were supposed to do, but have have the deliverables, have make the difference. Cuz I can't feel comfortable with the idea of us being a SELPA unless we've actually done the things. And if this is the fire that the district needs to like clean up the act, then great. All I will sign me up
323if that's what it takes. If this is if this is really it, then let's do it. And let's actually make the change and get the work done. And what we've come to is we need policies, practices, and procedures that are going to work and work well. And we've been told that those policy practices and procedures are going to be fiscally responsible moves. And that's with or without our own SELPA. If we clean up our policies, practices, and procedures, even as things currently stood, then we would be more fiscally responsible on our special education services needs. All right. Trustee Medina, and then we'll move to a vote unless Um, this is a question for Loose. Um, these uh, conservative estimates of quarter million savings, when does that begin? That would start um, once we became our
324own SELPA. So, if it's delayed for a year, then it would start July 1 um, going forward. And just want to note that's like on the minimum side, right? That was with us being super conservative, um, it'd be that number. Thank you. Uh let's go to vote. Trustee Medina. I. Trustee Kirby. I. Trustee Jenkins. No. Trustee De La Torre. No. Trustee Prack. I'm trusting you. Yes. President Caston. I. The motion passes 4-2. Trustees De La Torre and Jenkins dissenting. We'll move to the motion on item three, D, approval of job description. Is there a motion? So moved. Moved by Trustee Medina. Is there a second? Second. Seconded by Trustee Kirby. Roll call vote, please. Trustee Medina. I. Trustee Kirby. I. Trustee Jenkins. I. Trustee De La Torre. No. Trustee Prack. I. President Caston. I. That
325motion passes 5-1 with Trustee De La Torre dissenting. Uh that moves us to the end of our special education calendar. Uh we've already approved the minutes. Uh we have 7 minutes for board member requests for information. I we don't have to use that time. We can use email, but uh we'll do it. Trustee De La Torre, Trustee Jenkins. Uh just once again asking uh that we have the conversation about RBMS and MCHS. And also asking that we get some information on um what we need to do to move forward on the requested Monroe Elementary name change. Trustee Jenkins. No. Wait. All right. We are adjourned.