SRCS Special Board Meeting - April 17, 2024

001and now calling the April 17th 20124 special board meeting of the C City Schools board um to order um we will start off with the first item public comment on close session agenda items um that includes item B1 conference with labor negotiator are there any public comments blue cards president Medina there are no blue cards seeing no public comment we will now recess into Clos session now reconvening the uh April 17th special board meeting of sat City Schools board if you would all please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance flag United States the indivisible thank you we will now move on to let's see report of actions taken in close session there were no actions taken in Clos session so with that we'll move move on to public comment on agenda items only if you

002have a comment to make please make sure you submit a blue card I will be calling out your names and you will have three minutes first we have um I'll go with Dwayne followed by Katherine guess you got to put a timer up there so we know I'm on three my name is Dwayne dwit I'm from Rosland but a proud graduate of the Santa Rosa school system Cook Junior High Santa Rosa high school I'm here to point out that it's a good thing to have the graduation requirement waivers and the reason why is there's a number of young people who may not fit all of the specific requirements but they need to get on with life many youngsters for whatever reasons at 15 16 17 they may already be starting families they may already be

003working and out there struggling to keep themselves housed and doing different things of that nature when I was young it worked out that they called him a social promotion you got to go to the next class no matter what your situation was because they wanted you to be throughput get on go forward graduate that's not such a bad idea for young people especially if they're having to work Santa Rosa High School had a nice work EXP experien program which I started in as a junior and I was living on my own as a senior paying my way through and I couldn't do math very well I learned it after I got out of high school and was a soldier and I think it's important for folks to understand that many of these young people actually

004get almost crippled by a bad situation if they get a bad grading situation as they leave out of high school my high school stuff was terrible so I want you to make sure and keep the waivers possible maybe make them on an individual basis but make sure that youth get to move forward then the alternative education recommendations I don't know what those are specifically but I'd like to add to them in the sense of making sure that work experience is available to all youth at these high schools and that it not just be computer oriented we used to have lots of shops you had the auto shop along with metal shop and wood shop and then the farm stuff over at Santa Rosa high school so I'm advocating that you folks take the Practical approach

005looking at it like what would you do if your 15 or 16 yearold son or daughter came home and said hey uh we're starting a family unexpectedly and wanted to go forward all right and I think that you folks can be the ones that focus in on that let that be one of your main approaches for the next few years to make sure that all of our students that go to Santa Rosa Unified School District get through get out there for productive life they may have to learn math when they're in their 20s or 30s but atast start your time is up next we have uh Katherine how hi good evening it's Katherine Howell SRTA president um wow three minutes okay um not used to the timer so first of all in terms of the

006waivers thank you for planning ahead that gives our kids our families the chance to talk about it to plan for it to not be caught off guard that all of a sudden their schedules need to change it helps our counselors at the high schools be prepared for who needs to be enrolled what class and not have to do what they did this year which is midy year have to call in students figure out who's earned the waiver who hasn't uh and then go through that process with families again trying to get those waivers processed so I appreciate that this board is looking ahead to the Future and making sure that our families know ahead of time that these opportunities are available to them and that they don't have to wait until their students fail these

007classes to talk about about these waivers excuse me in terms of the alt Ed I want to say thank you to all of the people on that committee that list of names was uh an amazing group of knowledge and energy and passion and uh the time that they put into these thoughts and plans and the the ideas that they came up with I think we all owe them a huge amount of gratitude and I hope that this board really takes that those recommendations to Heart uh the Middle School interventions as a top priority is really important as a middle school teacher I know how pivotal those years are that you know let's change something now before they go to high school and start failing classes uh and again it's not the great time to be

008asking for new expenditures but uh I think that this is something that we really need to consider funding some parts of the priorities and make sure that we're getting some alt dead interventions now uh for our middle school students and then of course we've got the Community Schools um planning grant that we can hopefully turn into a real grant that will help our elementary students along the way so thank you thank you um we will now move on to um our discussion items um first we have a graduate ation requirements waiver update and board I'll just add that um I did ask for this uh to come up on our agenda as a discussion item um I I wasn't here during the meeting where uh the board approved the existing update um but serving on

009the graduation requirements committee one of the things that I've noticed is that there's maybe been some inconsistencies throughout the district in terms of how waivers are applied so I wanted to make sure that as we Implement a new you know the the waiver that part of the update is is what what the district is doing to make sure that we're consistent in terms of our implementation throughout of this update and hopefully that's part of what's presented so you have the floor thank you very much uh superintendent trell uh president Medina members of the board students uh staff and uh community of sen rosa city schools for this opportunity um tonight's presentation is going to describe how the waiver is been implemented including the number of waivers uh by school and grade level and also obviously

010serves as an opportunity for discussion and before we get into that I do want to uh thank all of the members of the committee um their hard thinking um uh the uh teachers uh the counselors that we consulted with all the way down to the actual form that's going to be used on this it can be very confusing for an individual that hasn't gone through a process like this before and thank you very much superintendent trell for the guidance through this process go ahead and turn it over to Dr bardelli from information and evaluation Department to get us started with some of the information all right good evening everyone so before we start I would like to catch up everybody on the process around the waivers and where we stand right now so as uh

011you all know in December 2023 we approved or the board approved um waivers or extended the waivers that were available during the covid pandemic for math and language other than English for classes that were graduating in 2024 and 2025 So currently 12 and 11th graders in March 2024 just last month these waiver was were extended for math uh and the cohort limitation was removed so these waivers are similar to what were available to students during the covid-19 pandemic and wave these two local graduation requirements of the third year of math and the second uh second year of language other than English so so far we have uh recorded 268 waivers in any uh one of those two subjects during the school year 92 students receive waiver only for math 131 students receive waivers for language

012other than English and for the2 students receive both waivers when we look at the breakdown by schools you can see that there is a little bit of variation across both schools and within School uh subjects roughly about 3% of all the eligible students um applied for and received the waiver so far when we look at grades you can see that most waivers were received by 12 graders maybe this not uh unexpected just because they about to graduate they know whether or not they need the waiver and they are receiving them uh we also have 11th graders that are receiving them these are students that maybe are planning ahead or maybe they need to catch up and and this waiver can provide them a safety net also you can see that there are no students that

013receive grade uh waivers for in ninth and 10th grade for math can see um the bar is pretty much zero and we have a few students that receive language other than English waivers these are usually students that receive this waiver because they speak a second language or because they completed um through a level two uh language other than English class so that we wave the rest of the graduation requirement credits so what our the next step now is to fully implement the new waiver that was uh approved in March 2024 So currently class of 2024 and 2025 are still receiving waivers during the process were approved and rolled out after the December meeting we are currently developing um a process for the new waivers that were approved last month for class of 2026 and Beyond

014um as part of the work that we have done with the graduation um requirements committee uh we would like to develop both a pamphlet for parents uh to explain them and provide them information about our graduation requirements UC CSU admission requirements and what can be waved at the same time you're also developing a waiver form and uh some information that goes with it to explain to counselors and Families about the process and so that that can guide both the decisions around the waiver and guide the meetings with families um when the waivers get discussed and then uh approved we hope to finalize the first half of the waiver application during the April councilor's meeting which is happening next Tuesday I believe we also met uh last month on March 28th with the secondary counciling Department

015chairs and we have a conversation around the waiver and what we would like to uh see as the process being implemented as we roll out uh the March um 2024 waivers so what was discussed was that um counselor would like to give waivers only to Juniors and seniors and not um wave too early during a high school career um and then uh thinking about reasons for students receiving a waiver uh three focal points emerged during the meeting first was whether uh academic needs either a student failed a class previously and might not have enough time during their four year to catch up um next would be a social emotional need extenuating life circumstances or anything like that and finally uh specific postsecondary plans that might not include for example uh admission to a ucsu therefore

016making those graduation requirement a move point for a student um as I said before we are going to meet with the all our secondary high school counselors on April 23rd we hope to get final feedback around the form and the guidance document that uh we hope to develop uh or that will accompan this form uh so that we can fully roll out next at the beginning of next school year um for our upcoming 11th graders good good evening I just want to add one thing on the postsecondary plans and course schedule conflicts as discussed with the counselors that could very well be a student who's trying to complete a Career Technical education pathway and there might be a conflict in between a specific um course for that and their chance to become a completer and

017potentially like let's say a third year of math question um well is it okay if we go to one one one last public comment real quick before um Will lion you have three minutes thank you sir good evening members of the board and the community I want to Echo what president Hal said thank you very much for um for accepting the waiver that the committee brought you I know it takes a lot of to talk about this um and it takes a lot of courage in some ways to support the committee that might bring you recommendations that you'd rather not discuss but I think it's time for us to discuss that and I appreciate that courage I wanted to make sure that we know that that was that the idea from the committee which I

018serve on is to bring the E bring the easiest ones first which is what we brought and thank you again for accepting that but there are other convers ations that need to happen and I hope that you'll be open-minded about those and continue to support the committee we're charged with bringing recommendations to the superintendent who can work with the president to bring it to the board and at that point you may or may not agree with them but we're really grateful for the conversation um in terms of alternative aded we have a lot of kids that don't really fit like there's no you know Square pay ground hole not every kit is going to fit into any any box that we make but with some additions to Alternative Ed specifically for programs for kids who

019are struggling and aren't being successful in the Comprehensive High School System Beyond credit recovery we're talking about students who maybe haven't failed The Clash yet because they're an uprising ninth grader we don't have a great place for them right now for kids who are really struggling emotionally socially that every single adult who knows that kid would think we don't need to focus on College we need to keep this kid alive we need to keep them we got we got to get them ready for Life After High School we got to just keep them in the game as long as we can there are ways to to build those alternative Ed programs that exist and again I just want to thank you for considering those it takes a lot of courage to do anything in these

020Current financial situations but we have kids that need that help so on both fronts thank you for listening thank you for open-mindedly considering everything and I'll pray with you all that we all make the best decisions available with the resources that we have thank you thank you all right Bard I'm going to ask a few questions and then I'll open up to the rest of the board for more questions um you you indicated that you're developing a form right now I just wanted to um could you elaborate a little bit on the parent component of the form and when um the involvement of parents in this process thank you for the question president Medina so um as it's currently standing once the next full counselor meeting happens with some feedback about the form the idea

021is then for a draft version of that to be used by counselors in conversation with some parents as this year is in probably in May and to incorporate any kind of feedback um if there's any about lack of clarity about uh scope and comprehensiveness of the information included in terms of the steps involved and so um what we'll be asked is that um we have each site kind of like maybe identify families they're already working with and just get a little feedback on how that's going and then that will be the final piece that leads to the quote unquote final version of the form and you also talked about the pamphlet um will the pamphlet include information about the post-secondary consequences and will that also be part of the Forum yes I believe there's a

022tradition in um our waivers of having that explicitly spelled out where the signature lines are that this will be if you make this choice this will be the kind of consequences and potential repercussions in terms of postsecondary opportunities it spells out they get limited beneath a CSU or UC direct transfer but that's still Community College um other opportunities exist and I think the pamphlet will include that as well we think that's an important piece of making sure our community Guardians and students are all mindful of the potential decisions they may make so they can compare those to four-year or long-term plans they have for themselves and with the Educators who support them and their Guardians to determine what the um outcomes might be of those decisions and in terms of training I know you guys

023are working a lot with the counselors but in terms of the whole auditing process is there any training being done to administrators absolutely so um we've already spoken with and are prepared to um work with our director overseas our vice principles who most directly work with counselors and oversee them at the sites and the high schools of course we'll work with our principles we'll go through through the finalized draft we usually go over the paperwork with them explain kind of the steps involved make sure we answer any questions so they're just as informed as a matter of fact our plan is to make sure the administrators Who oversee the counselors kind of introduce the final form so they are the kind of um responsible for being the keepers of the information in terms of bringing

024that forward and then of course then an audit and we turn back to administrators for the the process and we do believe it's important in there if there's a question or a point of um consideration where there's really kind of unsure if a if it would be the best thing to work with the family for this particular opportunity the um administrators will request that the counseling team comes to see them and that they be kind of a final guide for those decisions so that they aren't made um in absence of uh the positional Authority and awareness and just my last question is are there any situations or have there been situations where the waivers are denied that's a great question the first piece to that actually goes be before that question it really should be

025initiated by the school when the need is apparent by those three key reasons we pointed out so it shouldn't be like students are just kind of coming in but students will hear about it and they will come and that is when denials do take place they may not be completely appropriate I also want to add that this is I think um in conversation with the counselors this a service is a unique opportunity to have conversations with families about fouryear planning in general right and also for us to gather better information about students in terms of what they need and why they would be seeking out waivers and in general the K12 experience so that was something that was made explicit in the conversation with the counselors and even came from them I'll open it up

026to board members questions uh Tristy DEA Cruz um thank you for including some of the data um I'm wondering I appreciate kind of the clarity around the reasons for the waivers right adding criteria to them do we are we collecting criteria around what reason do amilies have to say you know one two three reasons altogether like is there a way of waiting them or is there a way that we're tracking kind of the the highest Reasons Why students are asking for waivers we currently don't track them in the current way um forms but the new forms will include those three reasons so that we can start tracking them moving forward so currently we don't but the ones that we're going to start giving out starting from new with the new form probably next year you're

027going to be able to collect that information and share it back with you great just to be clear it has been the case that we have had processes where it's more explicit in the past with waivers the most recent one that was approved in December is a little bit more generalized in process and I think we realize those institutions good to go back to a more specified way of tracking what's happening so we can quote unquote audit or you know pay attention to what the reasons are thank you um I also noticed there's a pretty large disparity in terms of which which schools are applying for the highest number of waivers could you speak to why Elsie's numbers are so low in comparison to other sites I would just start um you're speaking about the

028math specifically um both okay I do um I do want to say that I would have to ask more specific questions myself right now to kind of be very clear on that I don't want to make up a reason for you that I'm not aware of so I would have to uh and ask that team and kind of get more information and ask them what their processes are and what's occurring there that makes those maybe not being used either as often or not as necessary so I don't know um and then I'm wondering if we're also tracking waivers um by race and ethnicity by Language by immigration status any other kind of important data points for us to consider around more specific or um targeted is the wrong word I'm looking for but approaches to

029reaching certain certain kinds of kids or C with certain kinds of of issues so following the December meeting we started we split the waivers that were received through the form through you know these uh the graduation waivers versus the waivers that we call them exemptions so exemptions that students received uh because they speak another language or because they met the graduation requirement some other way uh the recordkeeping up to December was not consistent but starting after December we started to split the two and we provided clear guidance to our registers on which course code to use in the student information system so that we can disaggregate that unfortunately I can go back in time and change what data was put into the system but moving forward we will be able to provide you information um

030around whether or not and that is you know if you look at the language other than English bar that both includes waivers of the actual graduation requirements and also exemptions from the graduation requirements because students either came came from us from overseas or from another country and they actually receive language you know language instruction their first language so they don't need to go through our language other than English or students that maybe are coming from you know French American stter school so we say they're already you know Bing bilingual so they already met the graduation requirement by the time they reach nth grade I would add one more thing that I think is really important if you go back a few years to when we had the individual graduation plan the igps during Co we

031can look at some of those previous board reports and you can see that we disaggregated all the data by all those metrics and I would argue that if you're going to do an audit it should start with an equity audit that should look at the percentages in our district against the amount of waivers and what those lineup of demographics and if we don't do so we're being um you know professionally a little bit not on top of our game thank you um the last thing is it would be really helpful to see to what extent our w are increasing our graduation rates and so I'd just love to see that over time um to make sure that we understand the impact uh that these waivers are having and then the last thing I want to

032say is just thank you um thank you to our larger Community who's engaged in this conversation thank you for considering the timelines to make it easier on counselors with very high um student case loads um and so just really grateful for the continued ongoing conversation that feels very productive so I'm grateful for that Ry Sheffield thank you and um and thank you uh trusty deor Cruz for bringing up the issues particularly the ones around um data collection and race and ethnicity I think this is really important when I'm looking at these and I'm seeing the the schools and where you know the the the um the the schools are participating in this there's something that just kind of it stands out you know it it it stands out as maybe more than an anomaly something

033that we that data can explain I know we haven't in the past but moving forward all data we really do need to if we're going to if we're part of the implementation process is evaluation and you can't do a full evaluation if you don't have data so just really encouraging us to collect as much data um you know definitely raise ethnicity language um and that that's a big one as well and and that brings me to my second question I'm wondering how we are um how how we're communicating with families and when um that that this is an option that's available yes we're doing um counselor trainings but what's the counselor team and how how how are they communicating to families yeah so I believe that then once we finish the final steps as outlined

034above you know there's obviously the information that's included in previous board meetings and in our public record but I think it comes back down to the judicious um individual decisions that are made so a lot of the communication is about kind of judicious and careful looking at students who would be applicable based on the agreements and the criteria that are listed and then Outreach comes directly to families there I don't think will be um like a you know a large you know um like push of just like anyone come and get this so I mean the fact that it exists will need to be communicated but then it's going to have to be about the intentional followup with students that it's most applicable for and I think that's kind of one of the things that

035we should all as an institution learn from the igp process we went through which is that you have to see any kind of minimum standard as the floor and everyone should be pushing to the ceiling as much as possible always and so our job is to make sure we don't overcommunication looking out at the interests of the students once again in connection to four-year plans which we need to make sure we develop in Sant Rosa city schools and not just talk about so we can follow through with the implementation of this in an appropriate manner well so just follow up again I'm I I'm I'm trying to get more to the root of how we're communicating I want to make sure that we're being um culturally sensitive that we're having a conversation that needs to

036be had um at the right time um you know we heard from public comment about us taking up this discussion uh tonight giving um our our our school counselors more time to be better prepared um to helping families be able to better navigate what their options may be in that again my question is how are we communicating this to the families especially maybe families that um that are that English is not the the language spoken at home so I I can get the specifics um of that for you and circle back I do know that um in the meetings that we've been having with the counselors the impression that I've gotten is that like there what they have come to us is to get the information on how they can get that information out to

037their famili so I didn't get the impression that they weren't and for me it was like how can we best get it to them and um what are the parameters that they could best communicate right so um in terms of the specifics and how we're doing that Outreach I would um I can Circle back and actually get some more of the specifics in terms of like you mean like whether or not we're reaching out to uh families in their language and whatnot I can I can check on those specifics yeah I'd like to add um that it really what the board is bringing up is really critical for us to pay attention to and that is we know that as individual schools they have different graduation rates and while our our high schools in particular

038have different enrollment numbers so equal is not equal we also know that graduation rates are very um they're very different school to school and so our diligence and one not assuming that because students are at one particular School waivers should be higher it really is a matter of Are We being diligent in making sure that this information is available right to our families so that they can assist their child in making decisions for their future and I think we need to pay attention to the inequities that could be happening as a result of the way uh communication is or isn't happening so I appreciate the questions and we will provide you Pro followup information probably an information item so that it will be memorialized in our agenda and provide the board additional opportunity it gives

039us that opportunity to go back to our teams and ask because uh we have our counselors who are doing some of this work but we have administrators we have teachers who we've also tapped into for their perspective on how we move forward and so we all have a responsibility at the school site when we see students who may not be performing or uh seeing success in the way that we think they should or the way they think they should that we are serving them thank you real quick on on that question yeah yeah is is it part of that SST process too the ssts addresses so it could be a part of an SST although those are typically held for different reasons we have our mtss process which has tier one and tier 2 teams

040at school sites that should be looking at students who are struggling for a variety of reasons so we should be looking at how this is filtering in students and having conversations around that too for prevention and intervention yeah and I know that they're also presented at Larks for example we have um evidence that they've been presented at elex and and so um but I I do appreciate the question and I will get you more specific information from my end and I and and I'm I'm glad that you asked the question from my end I see that people are pressing us for the information so I don't bother to ask back that you know that what are you doing we're answering for them so I appreciate that and I will get that information great thank you

041and then the last question I had you know this came from the suggestions from um um about the waivers only for juniors and Beyond um I think that was on slide seven I'm I'm just wondering for what we currently do there are waivers for languages other than English for and I see currently ninth and 10th graders that something that we will no longer be doing we will be those will still be given out as exemption for the graduation requirements under what we call exhibit five if uh from our graduation policy which is students that have met the language other than English graduation requirements in other ways so usually there are two ways currently that students can pursue that the first one is whether uh for each year of secondary instruction after seventh grade or seventh

042grade and beyond that they receive in in a language other than English they can wave one year of Lang language or than English I don't know if that makes any sense so let's say that we have a student that completes seventh and eighth grade in Italy and then they move back here and they enroll as the ninth graders as C City Schools they can receive a waiver for those two years of Middle School in Italy just because we say you have met your graduation because you receive formal secondary education in a language or in English so they can wave a year for each year that they receive so that is the first time you know one case that uh grader could receive a waiver um for that graduation requirement the second one is a student

043that has met has placed in and successfully completed a level two um language other than English class and by level two means the second year of a language other than English so a student that for example places and completes uh Spanish uh a Spanish true class they will meet the graduation requirement even if they haven't taken Spanish one so for example um we have a few students that complete two years of Spanish in middle school and they qualify and roll in Spanish too as ninth graders our current graduation uh policy allows them to wave the other 10 credits of language order than English because they have already met the minimum requirement for admission to the you see so those are the only two ways in which you can receive a language other than English exemption

044that we call them because they met the graduation requirement already but then afterwards right let's say that you just have 10 credits of English but you are in 11th grader then you can apply for the current waiver in case you want to enroll in a CTE class and you don't want to trade your you know 10 credits of elective out of a CTE program in instead of taking language or than English and that instead would be an actual waiver I don't know if if no that totally makes sense yes absolutely thank you thank you thank you all the questions I have and I have a trusty Flores followed by trusty theor thank you so um and SL by the way thank you for the presentation and I want to reiterate what my fellow uh Tres

045have said you know um I hate to say this yet again um when I see data here I expect this to be um you know included with you know uh the uh segregation of not segregation the uh what's the word I'm looking for the segregation desegregated data in terms of ethnicity right so um so I I think that's something where we've asked not once not twice but you know consistently in this board so um uh just keep that in mind and then two in terms of the U the exemption versus the waiver so I'm looking at slide number five five and then there is a ninth there are like four ninth graders with with a waiver right um there are four ninth graders that are waving lot so um H how my idea of the

046waiver is that you know we give students opportunities to take the classes right not talking about exemptions not talking about AP 2121 not talking about those special you know these waivers are for students who you know for one reason or another are struggling by by the you know for graduation purposes right not exemptions so how does a ninth grader four um are waved in here already so our policy uh which we did not change the policy has existed that students who take come with uh experience maybe probably their native language I understand that so there is a difference between exception exempting that because they've already met the requirement and waving you know because the waiver that we're talking about here you know it's for graduation purposes in ter if they are having difficulties for graduation

047purposes right yeah not you know because they took you know they they they they were in a in a foreign in a foreign country and the language of instruction was Thai or Spanish or whatnot yeah yeah my um I believe these are recording issues in our SAS where the wron CSE code was used when the exemption was recorded into the system and we just disaggregated those two course codes starting December so these are likely students that received them before the original waiver was passed and before December we were using just one course code for everything so we are now able to disaggregate what now we call the exemption versus the waiver now we actually have two different course codes that we can use but that will fix the data moving forward but looking back at

048this year uh those will be included just because we reuse the course code that that makes sense to me because I'm a school counselor and I know exactly what you're talking about so it might have gone over people's heads so and then the other thing um I I would like to include here um uh is it's data about the other you know um uh graduation um uh exemptions that we have um or W not waivers but exemptions in terms of ab1 180 6 for example or AB 2121 where the graduation requirements is it's minimized to the state minimum so in and when the uh data comes back from uh I think it was director de um Al uh De La Cruz who was suggesting to to have that information be brought here I would like

049to see how many of our students are also you know um taking advantage or actually being identified in in those uh specific bills um for uh that that wave full graduation uh requirements yeah I was just waiting for school to be over so that we could give you the actual numbers we will also be reporting them to the state because for the first time they are requiring us to report a students are graduating waving local graduation requirements so that's definitely something we can share with you all right thank you thank you guys very much for this information um I'm going to talk about it as well because the more of us talk about it the more it's going to hit home um the data is there we've seen the data when we had our a

050through G special board meeting last year we are shown numbers that over 54% of LC Allen students were not on path to graduate so when we get this data four or five months later and it's showing that only 5% are utilizing away for math that's a big flag that's a big concern are they getting the information are those students that need these waivers getting the information on the process accurately And Timely enough to be a part of this process so we should we should have answer those questions because it's something that we saw the writing on the wall already it scared all of us and we want to make sure this is being done properly um I'm I'm a huge champion of this Avenue because what this does is provides off ramps for students and

051families to see their own version of success through high school to know there are other opportunities to successfully get through high school and be begin their pass and family engagement is H huge part of that um so as we're going through this process and preparing this um understanding what those different levels of family engagement need to look like and how to be compliant and getting that feedback from those families of what's important to them and why they're requesting these waivers and why this matters um so that we have those um opportunities to learn from this and help others in the future any other board comments um see none would anybody oppose another public comment no okay um Chris bur you have three minutes got a lot to say in three minutes A lot of them

052are pertaining to your questions I am a school counselor at Santa Rosa high school and I was on this graduation committee and I'm also was on the all Ted committee um so I did a lot of work with my team members um as well as the um um the district office people as well um so those questions that you have I actually have answers to and if you want me to go sit down there and answer them I can or I can answer them from here so the first thing I want to address is just in regards to communication with families um so previous and I want to thank Emanuel for um all the work he's done with data because as you may or may not know our previous data collection system was didn't work

053um and there was no differentiation um there was no way you could pull the differences between different um different waivers compared to exemptions compared to all of these other intricate pieces that nobody except for us in the trenches even know ever knows because of course he's a school counselor so you know we're not just talking about this graduation waiver that we're spefic specifically talking about the third-year math we also have ethnic studies waivers we also have any students with IEPs get their 130 minimum California graduation requirements we also have um we have the ABS that are for homeless and migrant families there is so many moving parts for a counselor to try to grab a hold of and so many pieces of paper that we have to grab a hold of to make sure we

054communicate to make sure we get signatures then to make sure that the registar gets it and the vice principal gets it and then Emmanuel is talking to our registers to make sure there's a new code created for that specific kid the kid who had Spanish in middle school but then needs one year in high school or the kid who takes the JC Spanish one which is only 13 credits instead of 20 credits but yet counts for two years there's so many intricacies that we have to follow to try to get these kids to fit into this box um so many pieces is a paper so much data inputting and again if it wasn't for em Manuel we we including the board would have no data to be able to figure out and get these kids

055at least in a box that makes sense that we can look at and say grad requirements are pretty darn close to being accurate so thank you for that Manuel um the next thing is in regards to how we communicate with families and families of all of of both Spanish and English-speaking families as high school counselors we do a ton of Outreach we have parent nights we have question and answer nights we go to Middle Schools we have um elac we have one of our counselors we have two of our counselors who speak Spanish that hold parent nights for all questions to do with um school not just waivers but how do you contact the attendant's office how do you check your kid out how do you log in and get a parent log in to

056be able to follow your child what not to you know when your kid says oh no I was in that class I swear mom how to not you know not yes so how do you second you know how do you guess how do you do that so we work very closely with our um with our parents no matter what their language is of trying to educate them we also work very closely thank you Chris your three minutes are up thank you I'm ask do you not want the answers to your questions then I know why LC Allen numbers are different do you does anyone care I'm just trying to be fair terms of public comment Pate but I appreciate it really do thank you anything final board um Manuel thank you for the data I

057like to follow up I just go ahead uh Chris I just like to follow up you know I mean that information is really important right and then uh we're just trying to be fair in terms of the brown act in terms of people having all this but I'll be more more than willing to sit down with you and talk about that and and relate the information to the board because I think it's important for us to know what's going on in terms of the disparity in the numbers um uh so um it's not that we don't want to hear you uh we do uh we just want to be fair in terms of uh the uh meeting rules uh I'll follow up with you and give you a call and make sure that we have

058that information thank you thank you all for the presentation appreciate it um we will now move on to our next board item is another discussion item it is discussion on alternative education recommendations and updates item D2 thank you uh this uh presentation is a result of a lot of hard work from the alted committee again thank you to all the members on that committee the good and difficult thinking from the uh teachers the counselors and all the individuals that participated I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to executive director Tim zanardo um and our coordinator Aaron Gilden Goron good evening superintendent Trel president Medina members of the board give me just a sec to uh click on my presentation and share the screen thank you for your patience with that and uh good

059evening once again also to our Santa Rosa city schools community so in just a minute I'm going to uh turn over the bulk of the information to uh Mr gilding Gorn as our alternative education coordinator but I did want to set the stage just a minute so as you saw in the board cover and as the public could see we uh met multiple times between the creation of the committee and tonight's State um in that there was a commitment on the part of Mr gilding Goron and for myself to make sure that we were true committee chairs in the sense that we were facilitators but not that we were coming forward and asking members to comply with a version of things that we think they should be we really wanted the committee to be able

060to think broadly and widely and co-construct ideas for alternative education um as a group the beautiful thing was that most of the people who consistently showed up those folks um all have a lot of experience or have had experience in alternative education settings so there's a lot of qualitative Knowledge from the lived experience of the members lastly talking about coming forward with specific expectations there was only one um hidden agenda that was a completely transparent agenda which was that we did not want to talk about alternative education settings in the form of um kind of a deficit mindset I want to make sure that's absolutely clear and a few months ago I was in front of this board and I defined alternative education as a very broad array of options within a public school um

061institution that allows students to find paths towards success so I want to make sure I make that very clear we began as a committee by reminding ourselves of all the different iterations and nuances with the ways in which alternative education can emerge and the kind of situations and the ways in which it supports students so as I turn it over that is how we ask the committee to engage in the work we ask them to think of the fact of your niece your son or daughter your cousin a young person you know the ways in which comprehensive education tries to meet their needs but maybe there are some other things that they could use to support them and we ask the group to think from a place of support and to think of alternative education

062from a growth mindset and with that I'll turn it over to Mr Gilden Gorn uh uh superintendent trell uh board president Medina trustees thank you for having us and uh providing us the time um I'm not going to read word for word the slides that uh you know uh hopefully you've all had a chance to preview um but I'll I'll highlight a few things about each priority and save uh the the bulk of our time for questions and discussion um the the presentation is in reverse order so priority 5 uh was deemed by the group as the lowest priority of the models that that were created uh that they wanted to prioritize and that is a um grades 7 through 12 CT mag CTE magnet programs um some important factors would be uh developing Partnerships

063between middle schools and high schools uh and cohorting CTE programs uh the example given was a science Medical Careers at ccla which would feed into a health science pathway at LC Allen High School um the important things to remember with CTE is that it creates interest based choices in student agency with uh choosing their education um the mo this model would be building on already existing uh CT Pathways um with each model there is approximate cost on a slide and I want to highlight that it is approximate um depending on how uh each one of these priorities would be rolled out there is a great variation in the cost that it could entail uh for our district um this one for example you know there's there's a broad range of over about $5 million um

064and uh uh an important another important consideration is having uh CT awareness and exploration activities at all of these grade levels so students are exposed to uh not just the different programs within the school but different Career and Technical education options um as they become adults and before we dig into priority four just quick reminders um with approximate cost that could be from developing things in current locations and we'll talk about more of that later but physical location as you see the approximate costs that already exist but need to be transformed a little bit all the way to creating new locations so that's why you're going to see a pretty broad range and lastly do remember that the committee members um worked in groups to build these different models and then we did at the

065end kind of rank them through a consensus model so when you see them in the um way that we're presenting them the group as a whole kind of worked in subgroups and then we brought everything together as a whole and then the whole kind of made judgments about ranking the PRI ranking which model should be the top priority and we are starting again from what the group agreed was the fifth most pressing we'll end with the first most pressing so we are kind of going in reverse order um priority four is uh a model similar to big picture learning um big picture learning model is typically uh 3 days a week about 8:30 to 1:00 Monday Wednesday and Friday you're you're doing instruction um in classrooms with teachers and then on Tuesdays and Thursdays that

066time is typically reserved for community service projects internships um internship experiences field trips and so students are gaining credits through work uh work experience um and then uh within the cost of the model um I was able to get an approximate quote uh for Big Picture learning it starts around $355,000 to be a part of their Network and then uh um grows according to the amount of support you can have a big picture learning model you can model that type of school and that type of curriculum without necessarily being a part of that company's Network um so that's something that should be uh in consideration for um whether or not um we were going to to align with that company um and this it's a smaller student to teer ratio approximately 20 to1 um a

067much smaller counselor to student ratio as well and again is really driven by uh work experience internships and Community Building uh priority three is uh sorry can I just ask a quick question um you know I know we have some experience with Project based learning from learning house during the pandemic can you kind of talk a little bit about the ways in which this model is kind grounded in what we learned during learning house or is it reflective at all is there any is there anything that we can take away from learning house to apply here right I won't be able to speak about the specifics but I know that the um the the pedagogy the instructional pedagogy behind learning hous is around differentiation and combined grades and um high expectations and rigor and a

068belief going into that that the students will um be able to um succeed in a in a Project based learning environment but I didn't want to speak to the specifics of that particular model because they were Blended grades weren't they or yeah and I I would say that the lessons that can be learned um may not be I don't know simply transferred once people kind of look at scope and what we're talking about we do have once again grade ranges here but they may not be explicitly kind of co-equal to other settings in terms of what they served and with Project based learning specifically um I know the uh Educators that were working in that environment you know had a strong grasp what they were trying to do but this would to me be a

069little bit larger scale and it would require a deeper a commitment across probably ed services to support thank you thank you for that add um here to because we did take a trip up to um the Foothills to visit a big picture learning school Confluence high school thank you I was trying not to name them but Confluence High School uh where we had an opportunity to see a big picture learning continuation High School in action in this case it was a continuation High School um and the the difference here is um the one age difference uh we had a lot of in learning house a lot of elementary students uh as well and so there's there's a difference um I want to address the differences in times if you could go back to that slide

070on what the schedule says so we asked uh we asked the question of well what happens on the off days we you still have teachers so what's happening with them and um the answer was some kids may not have acquired an internship yet so they might actually still be at school working with teachers working on curriculum content and intervention as they're still trying to acquire an internship because it has to be a good fit it's as if they're applying for a job per se and it depends on their area of interest and whether an inter internship actually exists in that moment or if they have to work with employers to build an opportunity so it really is uh really tailored to individual students and what their future interests are so they can get into the

071field and experience what it's like can I just add also that um there are two types of big picture learning um uh schools right you have the continuation uh School type and then you have the uh backnet sort of school one right that it's a it could be a3g it could be you know it's independent you know High School uh for the most part you know a lot of the ones that we visited were you know um well I actually visited one Sacramento that was you know 9 through 12 it was a through G approved you know uh and they had their own you know their graduation requirements and they started in ninth grade uh with you know with the idea of you know this is a a uh a community where you're learn how

072to you know be part of the community by actually being part of the community and going out there uh so that's one and two you know uh we've had a these you know well not only here in Sant Roosa but across you know sonama County we we had a a a disparity in in terms of now what do we teach our students who normally said you know our Traditional High School hasn't work for me right and then we put him in another place where we give him packets right of the same sort of things that didn't work for them right and this is a different you know type of schooling in terms of okay you know this is more hence on you know you get experience you get credits by doing your internship so it's

073a different type of approach right something that I've been actually pushing forward you know for you know our contion high school here to do uh but um it could go other way right in terms of uh conation high school or Comprehensive High School um uh so uh to continue uh priority three the the middle priority uh is high school on-site intervention programs uh similar to The Grace model that currently exists that uh was a part of the presentation on I believe January 10th um different in that uh this model would be more specifically for 9th through 11th graders um a to support them in uh if when they're identified as struggling um and offering things uh for students who do not wish to continue with their education to be enrolled in uh or to have

074concurrent enrollment options to be prepared for the highet or the GED um and um as well as uh um possibly uh letting those students enroll uh 11th grade students enroll at Ridgeway High School um if they would like access to a 180 credit diploma um and again and then the the cost with this um it can vary greatly because there there may be a site that needs uh would need to hire four teachers um to to make this happen specifically when this model was developed the group that developed it had the intent of hiring four new teachers and having a different schedule or or uh basing the schedule for those teachers those core subject teachers for these students so that those teachers can have collaboration time later in the day um so you know to

075follow the exact model this would be a more a more accurate cost but at a school where you could um uh isolate sections a and take current teachers that you have you may not need to hire as many teachers or you uh reallocate um responsibilities for counselors and classified Personnel that are currently there and then it doesn't cost as much to to recreate programs similar to Grace or similar to the model that that's being presented here um priority two um which I I would like to point out was very close in voting with priority three uh they they were nearly tied um is for a middle school opportunity program uh important aspects of this is that it would be at a separate site um not necessarily a brand new building but not at a current

076Middle School site was was kind of key for for the group that that modeled this to give those students um a new environment and kind of that Fresh Start um as well as having you know increased parent involvement um and then Transportation would be a major consideration if if that this wasn't going to be at at uh a sight you know moving students from all around the district um and and the model was approximately 80 to 100 I believe um it would there's Transportation cost to also be considered within this and then the highest priority uh was the expansion of our independent study program this group modeled four different possible expansions to independent study um starting with uh simply hiring ing more independent study teachers to expand our current model to serve more students and

077eliminate the need for a weit list um to expanding our ISP model and uh having a fully virtual independent study program for students where they they don't have that uh weekly oneh hour um mandatory session with with a teacher sorry where they don't have that mandatory session so in a in a fully virtual uh independent study model there is a teacher who is responsible for a much larger case load and they would have uh similar to open Office hours for groups of students virtually or that this is a um a a model that could be used um and so they are would be responsible for like checking on students work and communicating with them if they're falling behind in particular subjects but there in our current model there is a mandatory one hour per week

078with the teacher to to stay up to date uh and be checked in with receive um additional help but in a virtual model it's not mandatory students are pro essentially um taking courses through online um Avenues and it's being uh supervised by a teacher and then there are more of an open Office hours uh group meetings um do you do you mean like a genuity play I mean is it uh cyber high that sort of thing our current our current uh online courses are cyber high and acelis accelis okay can I just add here can you go back to the 50 versus the 25 um the difference here that we just want the board to be aware of and we did share this with our team before presenting is the law still says that we

079will only get Ada reimbursement for 25 per teacher so if a teacher is serving 50 we will only get Ada reimbursement for 25 could you elaborate a little bit on the priority determin how did you determine what's highest priority what's so the the con the group consensus was that the highest priority the number one priority that should be considered by the board would be this independent study and then the lowest priority model would be the one that we started with which was the um further further development of CTE magnet programs I I get that but I mean what are the motivators behind that like why it's a wide range um of discussion we had uh we tried to take in account um a lot of the knowledge of the individuals on the committee what they're

080seen explicitly in schools with students that they're interacting with we also took into consideration the collective knowledge of the group around kind of what's really practical like right now I'm those members of the committee are well-informed individuals they understand our budgetary environment so some things might come from a very practical lens um and then lastly um is really kind of conversation about we always tried well we started um president Med with kind of like a list of things that should really guide our work what provides the most flexibility what what allows student agency what um gives students the ability to like explore a non-traditional experiences in school and so those kind of things were at the kind of base of our like the themes that overran how we kind of approached it and I think

081those did emerge in in shifting how people kind of made final decisions so it's a mixture of different things in a really nuanced way that we discuss over multiple weeks questions board members trusty MCN is it okay if we go through the important not notations oh my gosh I thought you at the answer it's okay and then we're going to go into questions and then we'll kind of be done so we'll just kind of go into important notations and I'll I'll pass it back to Mr gilding G um so some of these we discussed but um important notations for uh priority 5 um those that developed this um included that high school students would have flexibility to access CTE programs across the district so they they foresaw students being able to uh be at their

082home school for core subjects and then uh uh take transportation in some way or another to a desired CTE program um if there was a focus uh for instance at s Rosa High there is a culinary program um it to be able to give students that choice um that for that detail to uh to come into realization Transportation attendance accountability issues for students um safety issues come come come into play um however if students wanted to be able to transfer if that was something that uh we wanted wanted to be made a priority by our superintendent board uh we could change the way or increase the availability availability of intradistrict transfers um for priority three the high school on-site Intervention Program was developed with the idea for a different schedule uh for those classes uh

083that uh as I touched on um and the creation of a separate schedule may be a roadblock um to to that model being followed exactly but uh it also may not be imperative to having further on high school on-site programs similar to Grace um priority two and priority three were close in the voting uh priority two the seventh and eighth grade opportunity program model was developed with the idea to bring back uh the arpc to the district um to have both voluntary and involuntary placement of students within uh that program and uh the arpc was previously disbanded due to State identified issues of inequity with regards to students who are being identified and involuntarily involuntarily transferred um so we felt it was important to note that um priority one due to Ada laws virtual ISP

084model ratios uh would have to be further explored and ensured uh to ensure the student teacher ratio is compliant as superintendent trell pointed out um our our student board member who's not here tonight um I I I call that person out because they specifically asked about reintegration with alternative Ed models uh reintegration was cited in all the models as a need and it's a policy that would have to be developed for any new program moving forward um all models would have the capacity to support students with 504s and IEPs though each model would likely be best suited to serve mild to moderate needs not moderate to severe um and then these priorities were set using a consensus model with the group um so you know not every everyone agreed to which model is the first

085priority but uh through group vote we uh there was the consensus as to the priorities set as the way that they are and the agreement um to support one another in doing so and thank you for your patience we're almost done there are some questions that we have to end the presentation as those kind of are up there and you have a chance to start ruminating on them again I just wanted to mention two key things uh that are also important to note one of those is that we talked about elementary schools early on and uh intervention and alternative education settings we started to talk a lot about the Community Schools partnership program and we realized that that might be its own Endeavor of course that's incurring in our district and so we did kind

086of like move that off to the side our Focus then really became 7 through 12 and to be really fair to our um committee we said our job was to facilitate them when we were with them and with the board our job is to present the information clearly that they came came up with we know that not everything here is figured out that's definitely the case we know the committee would have to come back with direction to get more detail so you might ask some questions that we just will have our answer will be well we need more time to develop that but I can say very clearly there was a lot of concern about the window in between 7 through 910 came up quite a bit and um Mr gilding and I were going

087over some notes when we got here during the city council meeting just reminding ourselves of some of the information we used with the group and part of that which we happy to speak to if you want more information was just information from our students who are currently in alternative settings and from parents and what they were looking for and that age group also came up as a as an area of concern a place where extra help could have really been used to help students make sure they maintain a positive path so um those are just important other things to consider and now that you've had time to ruminate on some of the questions that we kind of ask you um we turn it over to you at this point and thank you for your um

088patience with the presentation thank you so I have trusty mcnali followed by trusty de la Tor trusty Flores trusty De La Cruz thank you for the presentation um do we have any current spaces that would be viable for the opportunity program without any major disruption to our existing schools this is a place where I'll uh put on my faux facilities hat but I don't really want to pretend to speak too clearly to those so what I would say is we do have um obviously trends of enrollment and space we've done that just most recently for the bond so we can tell you those things in more specifics I can't rattle them off right now um and those could be places to look at smaller incremental moves where you're knocking down walls renovating a space for

089use so we'd have to bring that information back up to to consider that so there are there are there are spaces currently I think also we should we can defer to um associate superintendent uh with AUST thank you uh perfect timm can have your spot back thank you for the question and there are several factors related to that so as director zardo shared that yes with our Capacity Analysis through our facility's master plan there are sites that have some additional spaces available however with the uh contract that the board approved last week for the school closure and consolidation committee facilitation that's something that could be explored for the long term over the next couple of years as we go through that process and recommendations are made on how to best use our facilities across the

090district was that interesting thank you very much for your presentation um so so this has been brought up before in a perfect world we wouldn't need these opportunities in these programs um but in the world world we do and I really appreciate the time and effort that went into identifying the different needs and what were considered priorities um all these programs are going to have a cost all these programs are going to need Staffing so um I'd like some food for thought planted that we are considering what opportunity may allow us to retain or rehire staff that we recently had to notice how can we utilize what we have what do we how can we use what we have to make any of this work um I do have some concerns with Priority One being

091virtual as a parent of a student with an IEP distance learning and virtual learning was a complete Nightmare and I know it says that there will be some options available but nothing in the IP translated another resource so we are we have students that are very vulnerable and are in a situation where they need alternative education opportunities and it's really hard to put a student in front of a laptop at home or in an environment say there's the other opportunity because what's normal wasn't working so trying to take that in consideration as well these are really vulnerable um students that we don't want to lose and we want to provide opportunities to help educate and retain and reignite that spark of how important education is and can be um so we just need to keep

092thinking about those priorities and how these things might land um Investments have to be made so let's make them as smartly as possible to really get to the students can I add um just to for trustees consideration uh if we are thinking about doing something uh more immediate what we have to take a look at is how many students that we would be bringing into a a separate program and then we do an equivalency of the FTE uh that we currently have because math would be if we remove say 50 kids from the general program um or the number that would be part of our class size we would equate that to the number of FTE the tricky part is the kind of program that we want to offer um unless we're trying to use

093multiple subject teachers where there is housing going on about the the kind of subjects that they're teaching we need to think about the number of teachers to the equivalent of the number of courses that students need to take that's where the math gets a little bit tricky because if we're going to offer them a seven period day experience just throwing out a number we need to have a number of teachers with that number of credentials or who have a combination thereof credentials to be able to teach all of those subjects obviously we want to be Innovative we want to capture the interest of students in order to retain them and we need to think outside the box as far as what that coursework looks like in order to get them back into reintegration um eventually

094and so that's going to take extra effort who that it trusty trusty Flores I have several questions here so bear with me so um first um let me go back to uh let's see priority number two Middle School priority program so um we've already identified that we we have a need um based on our waivers right for Lotte and math right so I was looking at per number two you know and I didn't see you know scaffolding opportunities to to ensure that students were struggling in math or Lotte are given the opportunity to to do that you know and a way you know before they struggle in high school just fo For Thought okay that's something we can add in the future to to to you know as a as an alternative sort of Education

095um before they start struggling once they enter high school now two you know priority number one I understand why you know people elect independent studies right so what's the number of you know weightless students that we have and wanted to go into independent studies uh thank you for the question um currently the the weight list uh well currently independent studies serves 125 students with five teachers um and the weit list is approximately 40 students um it fluctuates with uh students coming on and off uh and students graduating um early we are you know we had a few graduates at the quarter um so some students came off of the waight list so uh around around 40 currently Okay so um that's what I thought so uh you know the idea well the way I I

096was thinking about this is that you know what sort of programs do we have in order to attract and and and help those students that are not you know that are fall through the cracks right a different sort of method to to to ensure that we are captur we're we're capturing before they they they start you know are failing or you know they drop out or whatnot right so um you know maybe you know I'm thinking for Priority One uh we need to expand that a little bit right not not developed you know a full on you know just just one sort of thing in here and and priority number two we need to ensure that we develop scaffolding opportunities for students who are struggling Lotte and math and then um but the idea you

097know is is to further in know it's further in alternative education options then um that and I want to start thinking about programs that will attract those different types of Learners that those Learners that eventually you know uh end up not fulfilling their graduation requirements for whatever reason right or end up at you know uh Rich way uh so uh that's the idea that I'm thinking in terms in terms of alternative education I think priority one's phenomenal right I think we need to expand it a little bit right but in terms of thinking outside the box we need to start looking at priority you know number 5 4 3 and two as new innovative ways to make to ensure that we you know encapsulate those students who are not you know um doing well in

098traditional schooling thank you prusty de Cruz thank you for the exciting thinking here I know it's been uh quick and so I'm grateful for the urgency that um I see reflected in these steps forward um I'm wondering if there is a list of criteria that you used to both come up with these um areas of focus and then that you used to prioritize um the the presentation here today yes so I'll just speak kind of um to once again when the committee first met we really kind of started with an experience of talking about um like I let me go back a step a lot of the members of the committee I think almost everyone who was showing up consistently had already worked in alternative settings and so one of the first questions was what

099about that experience from your point of view really made that a different environment that worked for students so there's a lot of discussion about that and from that we drew some common themes as I referred to earlier that had a lot to do with um what we what we think were valuable in terms of we saw students need a lot of flexibility we saw students need a lot of agency return to them because they can get disenfranchised their educational experience and like I alluded to we also use the criteria of what are teachers and counselors and administrators seeing now and like I said as well we also use feedback from parents and families and students who are actually currently in some of our alternative settings and one of the resounding things that came up as

100a as a really important criteria um was smaller environments getting more individual attention just kind of sang out from the rooftops as just really being key so you can see all these models include a reference to smaller which then has references back to concerns about cost and Staffing and FTE we know that but it our job was to bring forward what came from the committee and that came out very clearly so that was a a significant one and then also is just um very clearly discussing once again that that range a lot of parents and students in our own staff were able to acknowledge that if we could make sure that we had a smaller environment that really focused on community and kind of well-being and connectedness so it's smaller so maybe it's easy to

101connect in there and that's accentuated and you also provided intensive individual support with a little bit more academic intervention that would be really key and so those two things came up as being really key and important um other than that um I've kind of covered the broad range of things that influenced the development of the models and because you had a core group of 12 or 13 to 15 people really coming together you know um working in subgroups of two or three the voting was very close by the nature of just the size of the group yeah I really appreciate that so I'm I oh go ahead I I would just like to to add Tristy de Cruz um we also as a part of the work that we did we looked at the the

102overarching definitions of uh eight different types of alternative schools from diploma press programs to Community Schools magnet programs School uh and schools and uh Charters opportunity education and then also looked at uh about 17 local Pro local the California programs uh from a variety of different models um to to to inspire and to educate because you know some some of the language around Community School Community Day School and uh County Community School right it all it sounds very similar but they are very different programs uh so we did that as well so given that this is kind of your area of or this criteria that you're using to prioritize and kind of make these choices how does expansion of an ISP program kind of meet those criteria because that feels that's the one that really

103feels like it's individual online right and it's not creating that connectedness or that sense of community or the cohort so that's the one that feels like a little bit of an outlier but I'd love to hear how that came to be the highest priority yeah I don't want to speak exactly for all the experiences of ISP teachers Etc and their knowledge but um when you go back to some of those things about individual kind of attention and help when you go back to kind of the sense of being known and belonging though a student in an independent study environment is not immersed in like that full School experience with all the different pieces that go along with that there is um two key parts of that process that emerge one oftentimes the student is looking

104for something explicitly that they are not receiving in that larger mass that really that individual kind of sense of connection with the teacher and their ability to focus in a more kind of um self-initiated environment really seems to help and so students tell that to our teachers so that goes with the kind of onetoone help the flexibility the ability to really connect with the student but not in the way you're thinking it's not like through let's say full School environment um activities and the second thing that comes is the range of Human Experience right and cognition is so broad that's why we all have to have a growth mindset du um is just so complex to capture and how schools function and so what happens is you have students that just desire for a multitude

105of reasons and when you ask an independent stud teacher what is this students individual story that makes this the setting for them it's completely different than student B it really is each individual story is that unique and complex so that's why it came up as being to the group A A system that is responsive and I did add earlier that there were practicalities as we were talking and we knew that that is something that could scale up much quicker than maybe let's say something that requires uh CTE materials and facilities and you know saws brought in or whatever so that's part of it thank you may I add the other piece about independent study just in my years of experience in secondary education is that not all students who are independent study are struggling they're

106child actors they're professional athletes that travel and they need a different kind of environment for their learning in order to support really what their passion is and and their future traj trajectory so it's not always that the students are struggling it really is a matter of what they need so that they can expand their own opportunities an ISP track is what got me through Law School in my third year right and it was really about creating the kind of education that I wanted that I wasn't getting right and and then being able to really choose the teachers that I wanted to work with to develop that curriculum that wasn't being offered so I just really appreciate kind of some of the you know demystifying of what our ISP model looks like um and really recognizing

107that individualization um that can create that deeper sense of connectedness um see I really appreciate the acknowledgement that some of these older models right around alternative placements were disbanded for reasons of you know concerns about racism um can you talk about what protections what kind of PL skills what checks and balances will be put into place to make sure that we are not going back to something that we know hurts kids of color um so through through uh through our work you know we essentially uh have deemed all of these models as voluntary so uh recruitment for them would would vary depending on the program so uh the CTE magnet programs is something that uh would be publicized and students would be recruited for on a very broad spectrum something a middle school opportunity program

108um there would need to be a process developed uh within uh ARs and board policies on how to identify kids how to inform families and how to go how to go through that process to ensure those things don't happen how did you get to 80 to 100 already that was a matter of trying to give a specificity so it wasn't too amorphous that we thought was a at least a feasible starting place um and in thinking about the uh talking about student bodies and just the need of that that were being seen especially by our Middle School teachers we're trying to think of kind of just a number that felt like it was reasonable and also you know once again keeping in mind one of those guiding lights of kind of environments that weren't too

109overwhelming for students and maybe these are places that uh students are struggling because of anxiety or maybe the social conditions are having a trouble navigating how to their mat saturation level or their understanding of how to navigate this as complex for them and we thought you know that would be a place to begin so we tried to start with what we thought would be a feasible beginning based on kind of what the collective knowledge was of the need in the room and thinking through our mtss one two and three tiers what kind of the number of students that we might see kind of bubbling up who could be really talked to and and discussed with and as Mr gilding Gorn said all these would be uh options of choice and as I said at the

110beginning we don't have all the answers to everything yet so that is something in the committee we know we told them there may very well be Direction that we are going to return with you with and that we need to work out some more specific details which might be what are the triggering criteria and conditions how do we communicate that Etc yeah I'm I'm really grateful that you know there is some real recognition of historical recognition of certain problems being problematic and then so I I'm I'm really excited to you know dig in with this board to make sure that we learn from those past mistakes and we don't recreate those problems um I think I also just want to lift up right voluntary nature of certain you know enrollment um can be a really

111um ephemeral reality for parents and kids who are struggling inside of our systems um you know we see this definitely with school discipline conversations you have a choice between this and this but right and so we see folks doing that because there isn't the level of you know to trusty Sheffield's Point earlier around cultural responsive communication um parents and kids really feel feeling empowered in these conversations um so just I'm I'm excited for this board to continue providing guidance around you know what does it look like to put you know um productive bubbles around our choices to really help us kind of bounce into a place that is new right um and it's int it's intentionally new with a lot of the lessons that we've learned um from from past harm um can I just

112add the note about that that's why we've been so consistent about that range of cost it's a 5050 response from students and parents of students who are currently in our alternative settings who said basically I would love to have some kind of alternative setting embedded within because I don't want to be removed and also we have those saying I would like to actually maybe have a chance to start somewhere different because I would like to remove myself and so that gets to other layered complications about how others see themselves within a community and environment and what sustains them and lifts them up so it's very new wants and complicated I do think there would have to be elaborate discussion about that within the committee and then maybe some direction and to that to that point

113I was wondering if there was any kind of like data collected or analyzed qualitative or quantitative from kids and parents um who are currently in alternative placements you know again in disciplined conversations that this board has had you know around certain choices that students have made those are definitely the questions that we ask you know students and families and and admin in the discipline conversation right which is why is this the best choice for this kid and how can we make sure that this is true empowerment in making this choice right um and so I just I'm curious about um what kind of data it was collected if at all um and is that available for us to look at and understand um you know as we also are guided in making policy here um

114yes so uh we did two two different surveys uh the group was first asked by Mr zanardo um before before I joined the district um to go out and collect Street data and conduct empathy interviews with students um and uh that was done in in a variety of ways some folks had one-on-one conversations with students um and sometimes families uh to fill to fill out uh the form and get qualitative data other folks gave gave the survey to student students in a broader swath um and so students took it individually and then when I came on I was able to to sit down with students from grace and from uh Ridgeway and hold kind of group interviews with those students we had over a hundred student responses um and then we also sent out a

115uh uh a survey to parents of students in the grace program uh parents of students at Ridgeway ISP and home and Hospital unfortunately we only uh received eight responses to those but that data uh was shared with the group and was looked at um and I believe that we could share those responses with you right um I know we've got a lot of new offerings at Santa Rosa high school night school um you know some of these kind of ESL programs for parents those also seem like there would be rich areas for us talk about um some of those alternative and not only alternative models for you know for kids who are looking for some additional supports um but also like a captive audience is not the phrase I want to use but like a

116great place to engage with parents who um might be in in in one room all together um for us to talk with um has there been any fiscal analysis at the admin level to determine which of these are even possible so at this point no we did have the discussion the other day when we were looking through the slides as far as the ranges and so we looked at okay are these reasonable costs and from that level yes but as far as the feasibility no because as you all know we're in a situation where we have to now prioritize which services and programs we are going to to pursue and um if something new comes in something that we have existing needs to go out and so that's the space that we're in is looking

117for direction on prioritization um and to that end too are there are we looking at Grant programs that are looking at alternative settings to deal with kind of social emotional Behavior challenges that are definitely not ours alone in this time in our country um is there any kind of digging deep into those whether it's a federal earmark or uh right is there ways in which we could really activate and engage in some advocacy at a state and federal level with and for you always on that piece of it we're always looking for opportunities um to augment any funding that we do have I would I am not aware of any specific grants related to this aside from looking at Services through the Community Schools partnership program and really that's partnering with organizations to be able

118to provide wraparound Services which does speak to the social emotional and things of that nature and the familial supports thank you so much I think following up on that um I was look you know priority five um it lists you know the AL Allen Health Science pathway they've got the education the Public Safety the mechanical engineering uh those are programs that exist I imagine they're already staffed and here it doesn't in terms of the cost it doesn't list like you know teachers counselors Etc so are these just construction costs that talks about labs and remodels um so the the the cost that that those numbers include um cost for four uh four new Middle School CTE Labs uh four and then four remodeled rooms so that first number the 3.65 million would be for those

119new lab Lab programs which are wheel programs so every middle school that has that would get an opportunity to go through a wheel of programming of CTE um as well as the four remodeled rooms and then uh the higher end of that is uh would be high SCH multiple High School remodels and Equipment purchases and it is com completely um conjecture it is it is not I mean we took real costs we we worked with uh a coordinator of of CTE programs and got um prices from her on on what the wheel program or CT Labs cost as well as other projects that she has already executed but um in we're not able at this point we weren't able to give um that much attention to detail and exactly what would be purchased and who

120would need to be hired and the exact remodel costs it it really is a proximate if I can add to that that is something that within would be an allowable use within the bonds through our facilities Master planning it would need to be evaluated with when we're looking at our priorities prioritization and the modernization of each of those School sites so it's something that could be incorporated once we get to that actual project evaluation at sites it is a lengthy process to obviously depending on where where we go with that because it would be obviously all DSA if we're doing an actual remodel of something if we're replacing like for like as far as doing some type of upgrade then that's a lower cost okay so so that's kind of what I was getting at

121if those were something that could be done with those F funds um and you probably I don't think you know this but I was wondering if the 3.6 million versus 8.5 um was were the estimates based on the 3.6 being only the four middle schools and the 8.5 being only the high schools or would the 8.5 be the middle schools plus the high schools uh the 8.5 was the middle schools plus high schools okay okay um TR l so the ultimate driving force on this should be the students and student needs have this committee or have we put it in any steps into understanding what our current student needs are for alternative education and what part what of these priorities might fit those Stu specific student needs um yeah yes so within our student survey

122we asked what needs they felt needed to be addressed um students highlight um needing additional academic support wanting more onetoone conversations with counselors and teachers wanting more community building and connection uh and wanting a a smaller School environment as as well as wanting smaller class environments so the students that are in our alternative Ed programs currently that that was the feedback that that they gave as to what they felt uh was positive about their experience what they thought thought they would have needed when they first needed alternative an alternative setting outside of a comprehensive site um and what they thought others would need as well yeah and I just want I'll go ahead that's very similar to what I've heard as well with students and unfortunately a lot of those don't hit the the nail

123on the head when it comes to Virtual learning so that's why I just wanted to obviously you guys are doing the work and I really appreciate that but I want to make sure we're asking those questions because a lot of those connections is what's really being needed and desired by the students in need and virtual is a top priority and that might make the most sense but it's going to be hard to make that work I think given the answer on the possible use of funds my my question that comes up now is um rough guesstimates on timeline for implementation of these different models like seems like priority 5 one would take years versus well I don't know what they would take how long it would take do you guys have any idea well assuming

124we had resources how long would they take to implement I mean it could take with planning on the the the the quickest end in my opinion would be the independent study uh which could happen as soon as this fall um I think the places where we have to build space and infrastructure and consider the programming that could take a little bit longer up to at least the next half a year for potential soft start in the spring or a pilot of some kind um and I just want to offer this because I I feel that I mean for us we would love to do all of this because it means multiple opportunities that we're we're modeling that at one size fits-all is not what we're after right unfortunately funding is a constraint just us pouring

125over data over this last year and the equity and anti-racism work that we're doing where we're looking directly at students I feel that there's two areas that could be a start for us and I'm just going to put this out there to the board and ultimately it will be your direction um I think we should look at independent study we do a lot more more of alternative program thinking in our secondary um education years in high school I think there's something that we need to focus on in Middle School what we notice is that because we have eight feeder Elementary districts which is why we're getting out there to meet with our feeder districts to understand what programing programming looks like so we can bring bridges for our kids and for their experience um we're

126also losing kids that's the first place because our students converge together in seventh grade that by e8th grade we're already losing kids we know this it is verified in our data when we look at interventions when we look at counseling um opportunities interventions where students are starting to drop off you can see it in patterns so we have to do something in middle school and I would recommend that we design a p pilot uh that we can start as a start there are going to be costs involved will we be able to start that in August no but could we soft start something where we're engaging parents identifying the kids starting to meet with them and understand their needs that is absolute I think we can do that I think that is doable so I'm

127just going to seed plant those two things I'm sorry but a pilot in terms of what though what sort of programs are we looking for the grade 78 opportunity model is what I'm hearing yes so I think that's what we would have to identify so I I want to just ground us that this you know I raised the alternative Ed this conversation in the face of increasing school safety issues that were being raised by our community and being experienced by our kids so if we're really grounded in kind of recognizing that ISP is awesome creates a lot of flexibility right but it doesn't necessarily kind of get at that core rationale that created the basis for this conversation in the first place um I I don't know if that for me hits the highest Mark

128um I also am not willing to entertain any program that lets us lose adaa dollar at this stage in where we are as a district and so for me that also kind of takes option one kicks it a little bit lower down on the on the priority for me so if you're looking for direction from this board as a whole I would love for us to be able to have some discussion between all of us so that we can reach consensus on what is the highest priority for us that's really grounded you know in that purpose for this conversation in the first place and um you know that that really allows us to to focus limited resources limited staff and um you know in in a tough in a tough way so and I I'm

129just grateful for your recommendation that you know in terms of what is possible to roll out and start developing to me it really does does feel like the 78 opportunity model um opportunity program um you know seems to hit for me at least the you know again the the the Genesis for really wanting to have this conversation was about school safety and looking for alternative placements um responding to both teachers as well as kids asking for some of those things that look different from where we are right now so um I just like can we take a straw vote are folks like are we feeling like we want to vote on the priorities as listed right now do we want to because I I really hear you asking us to say now what right and

130and so that that's a really important piece for us to do what we need to do to give that direction and then also to do our best to find those resources in a tough situation I I think I would add that you know in serving on the grad requirements committee I think the one thing that seems clear to me in terms of dealing with that is that by the time our students are coming to us in ninth grade that's where they're they're already not ready they've already been set up for failure and so I think I would agree with focusing on our middle school students um is important um I I did have a couple more questions real quick that I wanted to ask in terms of the time for um I think the was

131the big picture one yeah um it talks about the shorter times I'm wondering does that meet like the required educational minutes overall um for the big picture learning model yeah yes uh we would have we would have to ensure that it did those class times um are they don't that amount of time has a much shorter class schedule there I believe it's only four or five typically uh it's typically the four core classes and so they're longer class times um on those three days but they're focused on those core subjects so that they meet those minimum requirements I mean any program that we would have uh for high school students would have to meet the minimum requirements for um for earning credits in graduation and I think or or apply for a waiver okay and

132I think kind of getting to what tros was talking about what I I I don't know if but best way to phrase this question but in terms of providing these different priorities or recommendations um I guess what was the the problem that you were trying to solve in terms of trying to develop these um opportunities and I don't know if that's the best way to put it but um yeah so that goes back a little to the origin of the January 10th meeting so as uh you know Director D La Cruz mentioned it kind of came from some requests from the board and then we tried to make sure like I started very explicitly with there was only one hidden agenda that was completely transparent we were not going to see and talk about alternative

133education as a place that we expel and remove take away and think of a deficit model about our students the frame was all about the fact that it's very expansive and so we weren't actually trying to solve a problem except the most Insidious one which is that the formation of public schooling from its Inception has had deficiencies and began in a place of control and assimilation and the loss of people's culture and Heritage and sense of identity so we wanted to begin from the place of how do we restore the sense of ability to move through one's education with purpose how do we envision environments that invite students to find initiative and agency and that was one of our biggest themes was a sense of agency I don't didn't matter to us if the students

134you know 12 years old to you know well I imagine my daughter when she was two and refused to clean her room I learned very quickly about agency and a human being right there right we wanted our students to feel agency so we weren't trying to solve a problem besides the larger construction of public schooling to the benefit of our families and students if I can speak to the instructional minutes for oportunity program specifically if it is set up as an opportunity school then the minimum instructional minutes are 180 so it is different than than traditional classes and um you asked for like a straw pole trusty oh real quick I was just going to mention remind everybody that we're just working towards giving direction but um not necessarily a vote you had a comment

135tril so as we continue to have these conversations I think what's really starting to hit home with me is is how these are prioritized and all the work that's put into it and that there's no one right answer for what we're dealing with um I like the other annotations that we're providing about the independent study program your personality is your personality so you are going to typically get a student or a student's family that knows what they need or what they want or what works for them and the independent study program is going to work better for that student to get what they need so there could be an option of expanding our ASP program to meet those students needs that need that because not all the students are going to need it but then

136do designing a pilot program around priority 2 that might be able to get to some of these students um more reactionary needs in a middle school environment to help better prepare them for high school so it's not that we're picking straws for one of these and saying move the direction it's thank you for all these opportunities thank you for the work that's put into looking at these different models and there are bits and pieces of the different models that we might actually get to work on and put into place um financially it probably makes more sense with expanding finding a ways to expand an ISP program virtually opposed to building a new lab for a CTE program um so what's in front of us what's feasible what's reasonable and how do we find a little

137bit of each of these to move forward with trusty Sheffield just wanted to expand a little bit on the feasibility and we have you know superintendent trell um had made two suggestions in looking at um the priorities I'm I'm wondering within these prior prorities one and two the um the ISP option and the 78 opportunity program are there things just looking at looking at priority number one um trusty de Cruz brought up the the Ada challenge with that is that I'm wondering is that something that that then can be modified is there a a AIX is it can we can we can we crack that nut can we say well maybe M maybe we don't go up to 50 students why would we go up to 50 students um if there is a simple solution

138to that one is that something that we can consider and I would include that in my recommendation it's okay yeah I okay I've seen nods for pending with independent study it it can't go up to 50 yeah it it has to be equivalent to what we have in our other classes as determined at P2 right as far as on the Ada okay so I I I also I want to clarify that um in that within that priority there's actually four different models that that 50 was indicated for only for teachers if they had a fully virtual case load they could have up to 50 but we our current ISP model is a 1 to 25 ratio so expanding our current ISP model would entail allocating more FD or hiring another one to however many teachers

139um to expand the program and keep the model as it stands with the the one toone meetings one day a week for an hour 1 to 25 ratio okay I think there's some interchangeability that's happening here um that is coming from the committee one is we're talking about independent study that has very clear guidelines for Ada and then two we're talking about virtual learning and we would have to actually create or designate a virtual school in order to be able to recoup all of the Ada and currently we do not have a virtual school created to allow us to do that and there specific parameters legally for us to do that so is that then creating a virtual school no I don't want to say is that a simple solution but is that is that

140a simple solution it is not it comes with its own set of um cost analysis okay because you actually have to have a certain depth and breadth of Educators to be able to provide that program you also have to have a brick and mortar location for in order to be able to meet with parents and students in person if needed and so um I've LED work around this in designing virtual schools and so it's quite expansive and it okay and then cost a year just to think about the design for that and what about cost it you have your FTE cost you still have care curriculum in many cases virtual schools also have online curriculum so you're talking about licenses uh whether you're going to offer 247 tutoring outside of that so it sounds less

141and less feasible it may not necessarily be less expensive okay it's feasible but whether it's less expensive or or oh I guess when I'm thinking of feasibility I'm thinking long-term shortterm I will say this because we've had this discussion about and I've had it with um with Miss how also um is our competitiveness enable you know if we have a virtual school that could open up an opportunity and draw back students that we could be losing because there are neighboring districts who have a Virtual Academy of some kind we would just have to look at the current um legalities and requirements to design something like that and then depending on grade levels um keep in mind that if we're going to offer High School the Virtual School must meet wasque accrediation and so that's a

142whole layer that we would have to ensure how students are going to get credits towards graduation and have that be seen at as as an accredited uh school so then what would be the difference between this and cyber High cyber High well you can probably answer this Tim cyber high is um intentionally used as an opportunity for students who have already experienced um learning with the full course it's an opportunity through a self-paced model to review and then get a chance to do better at something it's not intended to be its own um kind of Standalone curriculum the first time through and truly is geared towards credit recovery and a kind of very narrow slice of helping students say I need to do better in that course to get the credits that I needed but

143it's definitely not about First Learning and about kind of or original learning so we're also not using online Educators our own educators are still the teacher of record okay I have trusty Manti and trusty MCN did you have your hand up just trusty MCN okay just have some quick questions about um the independent study program so I see that in the current model students can take up to two classes on site um and I think that's awesome because you know as a teacher I see all the time those kids that are not doing well most of the day but they have that one class where they're making connections so I'm wondering would that continue with the other models we're considering like the virtual model and also is is there any way that we are or

144that we can encourage that for students to find that one or two class that they take on site thank you for the question so I think in general one of the Hallmarks of independent study is just the idea and the conception that students have the ability to really stay connected to the school that they the comp prehensive setting and so I don't think we'd want to um uh deviate too largely from that unless there is some really explicit reasons that we are trying to create something that met students needs I think one of the keys is to allow that flexibility again in a lot of students there is potentially one course or something that could draw their interest and we would want to limit that so I think that would be a kind of standard

145thing to look at moving forward it's just part of independent studies constructed did you say you had no questions just a minute okay any any other board questions um I do have a public comment and I just want to be clear um this is a special study session public comment was agendized at the very beginning of the meeting um I'm being flexible in allowing it but I'm I'm only allowing like one per person um just to be fair again um so Chris you already spoke once so I'm just limiting it to one so then I have uh Angela hello I'm an independent studies teacher and I just want to answer a couple questions that I heard that I wasn't they weren't quite answered so we have five teachers we each have 25 kids we see

146the kids for an hour a week um they stay with us either in our office or outside in a little area where the kids group together and work together and they come every Tuesday at 2: they see the same kids Tuesday at 2 and they become friends um their kids are open to come anytime they want throughout the week from 8:15 in the morning to 3:30 in the afternoon to get extra help um whether most of the time for math but anything um and so they do they come at the same time with their friends they like I'm supposed to be here on Tuesday and I'll show up on Tuesday to see my teacher but I'm going to show up on Monday because that's when you know Susie shows up um um so they do

147have that Community they also can take one to two classes on campus It's usually the ones that they enjoy the most every now and then they take the one that they struggle with the most because they want that that extra help in math or something so they do that um and so that's nice what I wanted to say was at the height of our um weight list we had 93 and the only reason why we're at 40 is because as we've been calling them um to say one of my kids graduated I have a spot and we call and they're like oh we're no longer with Santa Rose High We we've left um they're at different they're at different places um so a lot of the kids that we should have called back in November

148have been waiting until March and April and they're no longer available to us because they're no longer in our system the other thing I wanted to say was um I don't know what else I was going to say there was something else um I just lost my train of thought I'm so sorry um there's something very important I wanted to tell you about um oh why the kids come many of them have high anxiety and they can't make it on a day of Campus not even one class um there's kids that I have that don't go outside at all except to see me for an hour and I asked them what they did this week did they did they go to Safeway and buy something do they go to Starbucks and get a soda or

149a coffee no they don't leave their house we have kids that um are high high high Achievers and they want to go as fast as possible to get through some of the curriculum and then take additional JC classes and then we have kids that are not necessarily placed with us but are not allowed on their campuses anymore and they have chosen to come with us and um have really succeeded with us and and I I gave one student last quarter um an honors honor certificate for doing so well and he cried um because he hadn't had one since grammar school and this kid was pretty much kicked out of school last year um so that's my proudest moment thank you so back to the board um trusty Flores I said florus I thought you said

150Torres I was like wait um I just want to say that uh you know priority uh program number independent studies which is priority number one right uh we we know that there is a need for this uh as a school counselor I do see and I was going to say this earlier but a couple of you said it and thank you um for saying that that a lot of our students are suffering for social emotional issues due to covid isolation and and other and other mitigating factors right so that's one thing so I think it's important you know to to expand a program that that has already you know shown that is you know um effective right but I think it's important for us to start thinking outside the you know I'm not saying to

151get rid of I'm saying expand independent studies because we need that right because we don't want to lose you know those students but at the same at the same time it's important for us to start thinking about what other programs can we can we Implement to attract the students that don't fit in the independent studies program for example right uh and that are choosing to leave our district right so I think we have an opportunity here right from all these from you know program from the other programs right to choose maybe one or two or or a hybrid of these right uh to to give you know our uh staff uh some um guidance as to where to go and and I like to start and I like to you know go back to what

152try de lauz mentioned which is I think it's time for us to start Joe and a all vote as to what sort of things it is that we need to do and I'd like to start by saying that I think we should expand you know independent studies right that's one two you know it's so I have like three priorities okay two is to ensure that students in in the Middle School levels get the extra scaffolding that they need in order to be successful in high school right uh it's it's it's too late you're you're right it's too late by the time they're entering eth uh uh nth grade right and they may be falling in math or other skills right so we need to make sure to we need to ensure that they have those

153skills so some sort of scaffolding method method or program in in the middle schools and thirdly I think it's important to to develop a program where you know a uh students who have told us one way or another that a comprehensive or traditional high school or middle school is not what works for them right and I see you know a CTE program in here for example right a magn CTE program I see big picture learning big picture learning you know is not necessarily just a continuation school I've seen it very successful been implemented as a as a comprehensive high school program right to attract those students who may not necessarily think that or may not necessarily you know have shown us that high school you know Traditional High School has not worked for them so

154I mean that is my priority in terms of you know what I like our district to go right um because I do have a lot of students in Hillsburg for example that leave because they they want independent studies and we don't have that in Hillsburg and they go to Windsor they come to San City schools and then they are weightless here right so they they they they they stay in limbo and and those are students with high you know sort of needs right um so uh I don't know if that's much of a strawb vote I give you three priorities so uh yeah I'm not on three so as long as a superintendent tal or whoever's capturing that so they could kind of understand um I'll assume yeah so how about we go um trusty

155the and then all the way around this way individually and you just kind of give your thoughts on which priorities are more important to you so about next top three sure or two or one my top three would be uh two three and five in that order uh trusty Manti yes my top three sorry I'm just going to say the what the names because I'm going back and forth with the numbers it's confusing me um expanding the independent study program um and a pilot program I would love to see a pilot program for the grade 78 opportunity program trust be MD welcome back okay I haven't been able to see you all night so like I didn't even know you were gone I'm sorry we had the screens here yeah in the middle if you

156looked you just saw trusty L you want to go again um two priorities are the Middle School opportunity program is my first priority and second is an expansion of um independent study do we I guess this a question too do we currently have Middle School independent study yes Angela thank you okay so yeah I I appreciate the focus on middle school again with the expansion of independent study so in that order opportunity independent study yes in in order one priority one and then priority two I'm going to add priority five because I know there's already a lot of work that we're doing um around CTE but sure would like to see that um kind of be if if we're if we're looking for priority areas I would really like to see a heavy focus on

157expanding CTE okay um in terms of priorities I would go 215 I did um want to add that I was curious as to whether one could maybe like if there's the ability to maybe modify what we have in an existing place to maybe meet some of these new needs but maybe has something to look into um but you know with with two that cost seems really high so I'm very curious as to how we would get it done but in terms of Direction 215 for me um so then with that I would ask superintendent um do you kind of have an idea of direction or do you need more think thank you everyone for your uh guidance what we'll do is come together as a team and talk about how this comes back to the

158alternative education committee but I think we have a good sense of where we start first and go next um so that we can also produce results that demonstrate that we're not just talking about it but that we're going to actually take action which means that as we engage in our budget conversations right now including elcap we have to think about what the costs may be um and how we're going to make room for that and what gets removed in order to make room for that I think the the only thing also I kind of want to add about this meeting um it's a special study session um one of the things uh in in vice president uh lores and I along with superintend now kind of discuss that you know our regular board meetings are

159just so long we don't get to really talk about stuff so we decided let's try to have some special study sessions to actually be able to get into some of these things um with that said um you know I think it may not seem like it but input is really important to me um I do want to make sure that we're kind of consistent in process um I don't want to set precedence where um I'm being very unfair to some people in terms of the long term so I just want that to be out there um but I think as we go on to continue to um have more study sessions like we will have on May 17th another one or 15th 15 oh yeah 15th sorry sorry um I think if if folks see

160um you know our partners see stuff on the agenda and you think you might want to be part of the conversation reach out out to the superintendent see if maybe that's something that could be possible um I don't know it'll depend on the issue but um you just clarify what the procedure is for special meetings with regard to public common so it's not public common after every topic being discussed so in special meetings there's public comment in advanced of closed session for any closed session items then we recess and then there's going to be public comment in advance am any discussion and or action items that public I comment is to to um comment on any of the items on the public agenda and today I did a lot of flexibility to allow some public

161comment after that initial period can can I suggest something thing um um I I think it's your input is invaluable for sure right uh but when whenever we have uh committees that were involved if we can have maybe one representative from the committee uh so that way you know uh if we have questions we can you know they can answer they can have the opportunity to answer those I think that's a great suggestion outside of adman yes they're all on the right right exactly I I think you know it just goes back to I think we wanted to create better partnership and collaboration with everybody in our team and so it would go towards that but in terms of today I just really don't want to create any bad precedents for the future um go

162ahead TR just like to add to the the point of the study sessions is to give the board more chance to interact on a topic right to be more in that mode of not necessarily taking action but to to really look at all the angles of things and so we put the public comment at the beginning so that we can hear from the public but it's not an opportunity to answer questions that the board is asking that could actually be deemed a brown act violation if the board were to continue to engage with someone who is at the microphone making public comment which is why in this case because it's more engaging in a study session we have offered the opportunity at the beginning just to give the Board Room just to have that discussion

163amongst themselves I appreciate the flexibility today knowing that we're still trying to set what our regular Cadence is um and bringing public comment and I'm grateful that we were able to give that opportunity to those who weren't there at the beginning of the meeting with that said meeting adjourned