001What else do we have? >> Yes. I just want to say that so passionate about correct and they all respect that. And they all work well. >> Feeling a little bit and I love that. >> And I just probably not going Thank you so much. >> Feeling a little bit of a >> It's good to be like to work with and see the results. So I appreciate you It's my picture. I think it's That's why I don't count it. She's like They stay here. She's like >> Mhm. >> I'd like to welcome you all out to this evening to our board meeting. Just real quick, Trustee Lopez had a accident at work yesterday and she's going to be laid up probably somewhere between three to six weeks. She's okay. Which she's going through a lot
002of pain. Just want to let everybody know that she had a a workplace mishap and so we all wish her well, but she won't be here tonight and uh you probably won't see her around town for a couple weeks at least. So anyhow, with that since she won't be here, um we will start with the roll call, Jen. >> Rich Coronation. >> Here. >> Stephanie Amado. >> Here. >> Polly Kaguana. >> Here. >> Bill Coronation. That's my name. Sorry. >> It's going to be Bill Jones. Here. >> You can't I'm in the middle of my roll call. >> Who are you? >> Bill Adams. >> Yes. >> Rebecca Harman. >> Yes. >> And Natalie Valdez. >> Yes. >> Already, um we now going to report out of closed session. >> Yes, and we do have
003an item to report. The board voted unanimously to approve a confidential compromise and release agreement between parents of a special education student to resolve a claim against the district instead of proceeding to litigation. >> Okay, thank you. >> Also, we have to go back into close after >> Yeah, we still got a few more agenda items that we have to continue and so if you're wanting to you can hang out and we can report out of the next closed session part and uh sometime tonight. >> I don't anticipating having anything to report out for those of you who are thinking about doing that. But we do have to go into discuss some things. >> Just ran out of time. Thank you. Um if we can do salute the flag, Stephanie. >> Begin. >> I pledge
004allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Thank you. We're going to be moving on to 3.5, celebrating success. Principal Danielle Buckman will introduce this item about workability programs. >> Any adjustments? >> Did I really? How did I do? >> Well, do we have adjustments? >> No adjustments. >> Oh, there are adjustments. >> You know, I was just so excited. We got such good principals in our district that we just couldn't wait. >> So, I'm asking if we can move item 5.8 up to item 5.2. >> Hold on a second. So, you want 5.8 to move it to where? >> 5.2. >> To move it to 5.2. >> Just because there's a lot
005of people that are going to be here. >> Is that the only adjustment? >> That's the only adjustment I've got. >> So, I'm going to >> Do we need a vote? I'll make a motion to move 5.8 to 5.2. >> Second. All those in favor? >> I. >> Okey dokey. So, that is I'm just going to put 5.8 there and then we'll Do we just bump all the rest of them down? Okey dokey. >> Mhm. >> Um >> With that in mind, then let's get back to 3.5. Jen, can Danielle come up now? >> She can. >> No, I'm just kidding. >> Absolutely. >> Danielle, yeah, I'm I'm positive. Huh? Actually, I do have a one important question before you start. >> Okay. >> Are you golfing tomorrow? >> I will not be golfing tomorrow.
006You didn't invite me to your team. >> We got a chance, Austin. >> Me neither. Oh, you didn't get the invite either? >> Well, we have more of a chance because you're not playing. >> Shots fired. >> No. >> to be a fun time. It's going to be a good time. >> Just the truth. >> It's going to be a great fundraiser for athletics, so I'm excited about it. All right, so a couple years ago I introduced you to all to Sherry, our amazing WorkAbility coordinator, and she has far exceeded, surpassed any hopes and dreams that we had at that moment in time up until this time here, and she's going to continue doing that. We always Sherry always bursts into my office with new ideas, like, "Hey, we should do this. Let's expand here."
007And like, "Yes, let's do it. I'm always in. I'm always in." And so what I get the pleasure of introducing tonight is kind of a little bit of fruits of of your labor, right? And an amazing success story and he's sitting right here with his wonderful mom and dad in the fire department and I get to talk a little bit about Eli Gardunio and his his experience with WorkAbility and kind of what's led him to here. So, I'm going to read. I normally don't read, but I don't want to leave anything out. So, I'll I'll introduce him. Eli became involved in the WorkAbility program after attending a classroom presentation by Sherry and independently seek to or sought out additional information about how to participate. He demonstrated initiative early on in the process by completing and
008returning all of his required forms, which allowed him to move forward to the intake interview with the Department of Rehabilitation, which is a required step in the program. During his intake interview, Eli expressed a strong interest in pursuing a career with Cal Fire. In response, our amazing WorkAbility coordinator leveraged community partnerships to create a meaningful career-aligned opportunity for him. Through collaboration with our local fire department, Eli was connected with the community engagement coordinator who introduced him to available training and career pathways. Eli was placed in a structured in-house training experience at the fire department where he developed foundational skills in safety procedures, first aid, CPR, community outreach, and general firehouse operations. This placement also included participation in community engagement events, allowing him to build both technical and interpersonal skills. At 18 years old, Eli became
009additionally eligible to volunteer independently with the fire department. He took full advantage of this opportunity, supporting the crew doing calls and gaining valuable real-world experience beyond his formal placements. He has successfully completed all of his required work hours for the WorkAbility program and has taken the next step in his career pathway by applying to become a volunteer firefighter. His application is currently in the background check stage and he continues to serve as a volunteer while going through that process. Eli's journey reflects strong initiative, persistence, and a clear commitment to his career goals. His experience highlights the impact of our WorkAbility program in connecting students with meaningful career-aligned opportunities through our amazing community partners. So, without further ado, I'm going to invite Eli to come up and share a little bit of his story with us.
010>> Yeah. All right. Let's see. Hello, my name is Eli Gore Jr. I'm a senior at Windsor High School. I started the WorkAbility program fall 25 through Windsor High School. I was interested in Cal Fire before getting this opportunity to be in the fire department. When I started, I wasn't sure of what to expect. I did some ride alongs, which I found very interesting and found found it fun. It made me think about what I really want to do once I graduated. Um this program gave me an inside look of what firefighters do for our community. I realized this was something I want to pursue. I want to thank the Windsor Fire Department for allowing me to shadow shadow them and participate in some of their events. I want to thank Sherry from Work-ability program
011for this amazing opportunity they gave me. I also want to thank my mentor Cindy Foreman for the Windsor Fire Department. I gave thanks to Michael Franceschi for giving me the chance to be a volunteer firefighter. This program was lots of fun and has given me real world hands-on experience. >> Eli, good job. >> And now I'd like to invite our community partners up to say a couple words. >> If you can introduce yourself, that'd be great. >> Yes. Okay. This is Okay. So my my name is Charles Hall. I'm a fire inspector and investigator with Southern County Fire District and I had the pleasure of I was not Eli's uh direct liaison through the fire department. That her name was Karen. She parted ways with our agency uh recently, but I kind of filled in
012her role once once she left and I was involved with Eli quite a bit. But uh yeah, so my name is Charles Hall, I'm a fire inspector investigator Southern County Fire District. And I want to talk a little bit about about Eli. So Eli's first day showing up for this program with us, Karen brought him over to an event at his high school at Windsor High School and she made, do you remember this? She made him do a social media, didn't make him, he said he was willing and she he did a social media video explaining where he was and to and telling people to come on down and to to check him out that followed him on social media. So he was just always willing to do anything anything that was asked. I think
013Danielle spoke on he takes initiative and that is when I heard her say that that was like verbatim. I mean he that's the kind of guy Eli is. He would show up with eager eyes ready to ask what he could do if we didn't have anything planned for him. He'd come up with something to do. But he things that Eli did when he was with us, he we spoke on the ride along as that's literally riding on the fire engine acting as a firefighter and going to all the calls seeing what they do not necessarily participating in all of the rescues and medical aids but at least seeing how it's done. Um other tasks Eli was involved with we we a lot of our rural district we have address signs which are contrasting you probably
014see them all over the place. They're usually green background with white letters and it's to help us find people's properties when they have offset driveways. And Eli made a bunch of those so Eli directly is helping our fire response to for our to lessen our response time. Um what else did Eli do? Eli did so much for us. Eli I think a couple things involve your fam so you did it the Fiesta de Independencia at the LBC and his family he had a big chunk of his family came out and saw him there which was cool to see him in to see him in action working with alongside us. He actually got to go to a fire investigation a real fire. Fire was out and it had been out for a while but there was
015a we had a battery fire in a garage and he got to ride along with the inspect with Karen to meet the investigator Ryan that day and I believe that fire was down the street from his grandparents' house, so while he was helping investigate the fire, his grandparents actually drove by and saw him. If that's if I heard that correct. >> Well, um so, you know what I know that's really cool about Eli? And so, like I mentioned about the Windsor High School, he was there and he's a student there. So, the other students, the younger underclassmen see him around campus, they you know, they know of him and then they see him now at a table with and he's still a student there. They see him at a table with a fire department and
016I think that sparked a lot of interest in other students, too. And we um to inquire about how they could I've been getting a lot of calls about how they could get in his program that he's doing cuz they they saw what he did and they're like, "Oh, I can actually do that?" So, and then another one at Roseland Collegiate Prep where the students are not in high school, they're younger, but Eli you'll probably remember that. That's when he he uh it was a career fair and he was he spoke to all the kids and he he's young, right? In the scheme of careers. And I mean, he's just getting started and he's graduating high school here in June. So, having the younger kids see him at a pretty young age doing this, I think
017it sparked a lot of interest in them and shows his initiative and it's a a true success story, I feel like, for this program because Eli hadn't really touched a fire hose before he started with us and I'll guarantee he's going to be a firefighter one day. So, a paid career firefighter. He already is a firefighter in my mind. Um and also he also would do any task. He washed Karen's car quite a bit. She never heard her heard her truck. She never had time to do it, but Eli always found time to to clean it up for her. So, I guess I'll end with saying thank you to Danielle. Thank you to Sherry. Thank you to Eli and thank you to the school board for letting this happen and uh we really uh really
018enjoyed our time with him and yeah, we look forward to another one. And and then uh so, thank you. >> Really quick. Thank you. Hi, my name is Cindy Foreman. I'm a division chief and fire marshal for the Sonoma County Fire District and uh we've had the the extreme pleasure of having Eli intern with us and he's worked under and with and next to um all of us and um you know, he came in as a pretty shy, not sure what to think about some of us was, you know, a little trepidacious, didn't want to interrupt, didn't want to and pretty soon you could tell he started to feel very comfortable. He started to kind of find a rhythm. Um you know, we would say, "Okay, listen, we don't have anything right now for you
019upstairs, but go check in with the captain downstairs and see what he needs." And you know, the first time we took him down there and then we started saying, "You go you go do that go down you go down and check in." And that's a little intimidating for uh you know, an 18-year-old, but he kept doing it and when I'd look at him and say, "Sorry, man, you got to go check in downstairs." He'd do it every time. Uh he pulled weeds in the garden. He helped clean out our prevention storeroom. There's just nothing he wouldn't be willing to do. He stuffed envelopes. He put labels on things. Um not sexy, but he was very happy to do each and everything and um we've really seen him come out of his shell. We've really seen
020him gain confidence and that's just been a real blessing for all of us. The other thing uh you know, I want to speak on behalf of our fire chief and say one of uh the things that he really really tries to instill in us is we need to grow our own. And Eli is an amazing example growing our own and we've had numerous kids that have started as explorer junior firefighters, move into a volunteer, move into an apprentice where they're actually writing and working actual shift work and those are kids, sorry, I'm saying kid, but those are students, those are those are young men um or young women um that we want to invest in and we do have opportunities in our budgets When we see those those young men and women that that are
021hungry and that we want to invest in and we want to grow our own. And there's lots of opportunities for fire academy scholarships and support paramedic school, those kind of things. So Eli is one of those young men that we are really looking at and sort of fits that model that the fire chief wants of let's grow our own. So thank you very much for for funding this program for uh you know, supporting um Sherry and Danielle uh our Windsor our Windsor High School is is uh an amazing place for us and thank you so much. >> Sorry, it's me again. I have I forgot one thing. So in fire law enforcement so like uh military, we have a challenge coins. Uh So Eli's earned a challenge coin from Sonoma County Fire. So here you
022go Eli, this is your challenge coin. >> Thank you all very much. I I had a question. Somebody mentioned somebody the last name Franceschi. Horse Horsefield Franceschi's? >> Yes. >> Which one though? There's lots of Horsefield Franceschi's. >> I I know I grew up with all of them. That's why I when I heard the name I was like Two of them? Hey Eli. I I just want to tell you something. The way they speak so highly of you, you aren't doing just great things for you, but you're paving the way for other people by the example you're setting, it makes their job easier to get more people to go down that road. They're willing They will be more willing to work with the next Eli and the next Eli because of the example that you're
023setting. I I I just hired a guy today and I told him "What am I going to do?" I said, "One day you might be pulling weeds and the next day you might be programming a variable frequency drive. You just never know. You'll have big swings of different things and all of them are important. And so when they were mentioning that, I was like, "This kid's doing it." So, uh anyhow, thank you for for really setting setting a a trail for other people. Thank you. >> Yes, thank you, too. >> Yeah, Eli, before you go and before Sherry and Danielle start, uh Eli's parents are here and so congratulations, folks. Um In my day job, I am the lawyer for the fire district and I have seen Eli doing his good work. Uh last year,
024one of our captains of the football team, Wyatt Morris, graduated. He went through the fire academy. Cal Fire's very nice, Eli. Be a volunteer here, get the fire district to put you through fire academy and paramedic school cuz we will hire you. >> I paid for the attorney. We've got it. >> Uh listen, everything President Carnation said is is very true. You carry a big weight on your shoulders now and and have paved the way. So, thank you very much and thank you again, Mom and Dad. Okay. >> And we're just going to do a little a quick reminder presentation right about workability and what it does and and what it's you know, offering to our students. Um so, our workability program um is is an opportunity for our students with IEPs and 504s to
025be placed um at community jobs all throughout the town of Windsor. Um Sherry works really hard with our community partners to to make the to build those relationships and to really find a placement that's perfect for that kid, right? It's not just getting them into a job, but it's it's finding that job, it's finding that manager, it's finding that place that really meets the the needs of that student and and finding that compatibility and and placing them appropriately. Um this year we've got 63 students that are um working through the Workability program um and we have 47 community partners. All right, and it continues to grow. How many did you have when you started? >> Eight community partners, right? Isn't that wild? Eight community partners and now she has 47 community partners, right? That's all
026this lady right here. She works her butt off and she's absolutely amazing. And again, here's a hired success story that we're super super proud of and we were really excited to share this evening, right? Again, congrat- Where did you go, Eli? There you go. Again, congratulations, Eli. Congratulations, mom and dad, you know, thank you for letting us be a part of this. Thank you. >> All righty, thank you, everybody. Um we're going to move on to 3.6 uh public comments for non-agendized items. Uh if there's anybody that's got something that they would like to talk about that's not on the agenda, uh feel free to come on up, announce who you are. You got 3 minutes and uh go from there. >> Yes, I would. Um my name is Jane Ellen Kobakovich and I'm um
027special ed teacher at Cali and also the garden coordinator. So, when I'm at school, oftentimes late in the afternoon and early evening, I get to see our custodial staff. And I am aware of how hard they work. So, I am here to really put a shout out and an appreciation for our custodians. Mario, if you've watched him work, he's a dynamo. I mean, he is non-stop and he fixes, cleans, organizes every second. I'm also really wanting to acknowledge another person who came on this year, and I've watched him, and I am aware when somebody has a special talent, and that's David Douglas. So, as a custodian at our school, I highly recommend him, and that if there's any possibility of keeping him to continue on working, he has the leadership skills. He's really helped Cali
028a lot. I know how hard it is to balance a budget, and how you have to look at everything and make decisions, but this young man, when I talked to him at one point, I said, "Tell me about yourself." And he said, "This is important career for me." Oh, it's not just a job. It's a career. It's a way of working, and actually, when he works with some kids, he has a good rapport with them. He's efficient, he's clean, he's highly conscientious, hard working, and dedicated to this job. So, he consistently works to make our school a better, more beautiful place. Keeps it clean and in excellent working order. His positive attitude comes through every single day. So, I, as a teacher and as a person who acknowledges leadership, I want you to remember him,
029no matter what happens in terms of his employment with, you know, the fact that he's just started. He sees it as a career and as an important life work. So, I'm just here to say that he has the professionalism and the commitment, and he wants to be a part of this community. That's why I'm here. >> Great. Thank you very much. >> And I have written a letter in, um, appreciation. >> Thank you. >> I'm here to say thank you. >> Good evening, members of the board. My name is William Eutman and I'm a parent of a 12-year-old student at Cal Cal Mesa Language Academy. I'm here tonight because of what has happened to my daughter Harley is not just a misunderstanding. It's an example of how administrative decisions, especially in a school with high
030turnover, can harm children instead of supporting them. On March 25th, my family received a message from the school informing us that a kindergarten student had accused Harley of unkind mocking. The message also stated that the incident did not occur on school grounds. Yet, the school still chose to intervene, identify my daughter from a yearbook photo, and notify us as though disciplinary action were appropriate. What the school did not do was speak to my daughter. Not once. They questioned only the younger child, accepted his statement without verification, and then used a yearbook like a 1950s crime movie to perform a lineup and pick out a suspect. If the school believed the incident was outside their jurisdiction, why conduct an identification at all? And if they believed it was serious enough to intervene, why was my daughter
031denied the basic fairness of being asked for her side of the story? Had anyone spoken to her, they would have learned something important. This child is our next-door neighbor. There's a long history of neighborhood conflict involving multiple families, something the school could have known and because they never asked. Instead, they delivered a message that effectively told us to reprimand our daughter for something they openly admit they could not investigate. The result, my daughter now feels unsafe in her own neighborhood. She worries about retaliation. She worries about being blamed again by that same neighbor. She worries about being misunderstood by the very adults who are supposed to protect her. Harley is a nearly straight-A student, an artist, and a child who avoids conflict. She's also a kid navigating the challenges of divorce and a shared households.
032Her emotional load is already heavy. This made it even heavier. And this incident doesn't exist in a vacuum. Kelly Comic has experienced significant administrative turnover and that instability shows. It affects judgment, consistency, and the ability to understand students as whole people. But this isn't just a Kelly issue. Both WDEA and CSEA have been raising concerns during contract negotiations about the district's struggle to retain staff. Teachers and support professionals are leaving because pay isn't competitive and rising health care costs are eating into any salary gains. When a district can't keep people, schools lose institutional memory, relationships, and the steady leadership children depend on. What happened to my daughter is exactly the kind of mistake that happens when a school is constantly rebuilding itself from scratch. I am asking the board to ensure that Kelly's administrative practices
033reflect fairness, due process, and common sense. No child should be identified from a yearbook without being spoken to. No family should be told to discipline their child for an incident the school itself says it cannot investigate. And no student should be left feeling unsafe in their own home environment because adults failed to gather basic facts. Our kids deserve stability. They deserve thoughtful leadership and they deserve to be treated with dignity, not as names in a yearbook lineup. Thank you for your time. >> Thank you. Actually we're going to have a topic coming up. 5. Excuse me. >> Yeah, 5.6, but it touches on the MOU. Can we touch on this one? >> No, no, actually it was on the um Where is the s- beach one. >> 5.4. That might have You might want to
034stick It may have something You might be interested in that discussion. >> I appreciate it. >> Thank you. Hello. Wow, what an interesting um comment to go right after. I'll check in with you later, Harley. Um hi. My name is Sophia Tsuet. I am a teacher at Kelly Kahl Mehkak, and I actually had no idea that this comment was going before me, but it ties in very well to what I'm about to say. So, I'm a little nervous, but I'm excited at the same time. Okay, so since I started at this school about 2 years ago, I was blown away by the familial nature of the school culture. Everyone was somehow related to each other. Kinder students are high-fiving their cousin in seventh grade. Moms are dropping off their kids and then going to work
035at their position that is at Kelly, and it's such a beautiful thing to witness, and I'm sure many of you can attest to that. Um this year, I understand that Kelly finished grant funding allocated to certain positions such as a paraeducator and behavior aids. This led to a tumultuous time where staff were concerned or wore concerned looks on their faces while greeting students instead of smiling faces, and where teachers whispered in corners for their and whispered in concern for their foundational support team. As a school, I believe they're doing their best to manage the situation. Although, I don't agree with the necessary evil uh narrative that is often tied to these situations, it is clear that their hands are tied. But, I feel like it's tied by a flimsy sparkly ribbon. It looks tied firmly,
036but really it's almost like a decoration. From my understanding, correct me if I'm wrong, the district had a $3,370,378 in their reserve for economic uncertainties, which is 5% of the total expenditures of $67,226,688 when according to the California Department of Education should actually be 3% since our daily average attendance it was approximately 4,383.56. I don't know how you could get .56 of a student but maybe they come for like half the day. I don't know. So if the district were to be at 3% there would be $1,353, or sorry, $1,353,577 left over in those reserves. I'm very open to any other conversations surrounding this money because I'm new to understanding these kinds of budget things but to my kind of teacher eyes I was like very impressed by that amount of money. So based on
037this information I am wondering a few things. Why are schools getting more students with behavioral difficulties that are expected to be accommodated for while schools are letting go of counselors, behavior aids, and paraprofessionals? First question. Second question. Why aren't schools like Cali with such a large population and you know administrative turnover as mentioned by the person before me, why aren't we being supported by the district to fill these holes and meet the needs of the students and the families? And lastly, does this lack of support align with goal number three that is supposed to uh one of the goals of the board to create and maintain optimum learning and working environments for students and staff? Those are some questions that maybe y'all can ponder. Maybe we can talk about it as I will be a
038union rep next year and you'll see me more. Um but yeah, just some things to think about and I think it was actually a great opportunity. So thank you so much for your time and yeah, have a nice evening. Thank you. >> Thank you. Is there anyone else that would like to speak on public comment? All righty, seeing none, we will move on to 3.7, report from student board members. Oh, by the way, just in case some of you are new, public comment we're not allowed to really dis- discuss. >> Yeah, it was just things to keep in mind. >> Sure. Oh. >> Yeah, thank you. >> Yeah. Just in case Well, I haven't seen either one of you two before, so I just wanted to make sure you you knew. Um the 3.7, a
039report from student board members Rebecca and Natalie. >> Hello. Uh so, this is our presentation for the month of April. Uh next slide. So, first up, Matty Washburn, they had a Scholastic Book Fair from March 30th to the April 3rd, and then second grade had a wax museum, and that's a picture of uh Neil Armstrong, if you couldn't tell. And so, the way that the wax museum worked was that each kid had a poly spot in front of them, and when you tapped it, they would give you their spiel on the the person that they had chosen from history, who I think the prompt was someone who inspired them. Um and I thought this was super cool, because this was just a few days before the Artemis launch. Um and so, it was really fun
040to see that. >> Here are some photos from some third grade events that have been going on at um Brooks, and this Friday, tomorrow, is their Jaguar Pride Day, so all students are encouraged to wear black and gold and all of the Jaggy fur they have. >> Next up is Caley, they had the math literacy night. They had some family movie nights. They had some fourth and fifth grade student of the month things, which I learned are actually like kind of rallies, which is cool. Uh and coming up, they have a PTA meeting on the 20th at 5:00 p.m. They have the fifth grade student of the month on April 22nd um in the morning and a walk in walk and roll to school day as well as a coffee with the admin on April
04124th. So, the picture in the above is from career day and then below is from the rain that we had and it's a double rainbow. I thought that was so so cool. Um the secretary there sent that to us. >> Windsor Middle School wrapped up their Jaguar Color Run on March 13th and on April 24th from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. they have their spring fling school dance. >> I don't want to go Do you want to go over this? Okay. Uh so, Windsor High School has had our club carnival. We also had the splash a senior day and there's some photos from that. We had the Windsor High School Outlets which was like a collection of live music and art that are all um student connected and mostly Windsor students but also students who go
042to other schools and it was about um kind of bringing together the high school arts community not just within Windsor High School but all of Sonoma County. And on the lower right-hand corner there's a poster for that which was drawn by uh the vice president Jazzy of the music club and I just thought that was some really great art as well. We also Oh, sorry. We also had movie night on um April 9th and it was Cinderella story. >> And then upcoming, we have a lot so I'll just talk about a few things on the slide. Um the spring concert will be on April 21st at 6:30 p.m. a collaboration with Windsor Middle School and orchestra and Cali band students. On May 1st is the academic awards assembly which is something that we started last
043year and we actually this year have two officers that have been working on this and dedicating a lot of time to planning this the whole school year so finding ways um to recognize students not just um athletically but student uh academically and then any awards and scholarships as well. We have the prom rally on April 24th, which is a community-wide event. It's free. There's food trucks. Um, there's performances. There's lip dubs. A lot of fun. Um, graduation auditions will take place April 29th and applications for this are due April 22nd. They're looking for, um, Spanish welcome, someone to sing the national anthem, and overall welcome speeches. There will be an awareness awareness week on from April 27th to May 1st. It's currently to be determined, but, um, you should hear about that soon, which is
044worked on by the wellness center as well as youth council, which is the club that works with Trevor, our wellness advisor. Um, prom will take place April 25th from 8:00 to 11:00 p.m. at the backdrop in Santa Rosa. Project 26 will be on May 7th. So, this is an awesome way to see all of our, um, career technical courses and ECE programs as well. Lady Jag Ball will take place May 15th from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. There will be an AVIDs award night on May 18th at 5:00 p.m. And lastly, I added this in. It isn't a big school-wide, um, event, but it's our junior Jaguar leadership conference. So, this year we're expanding to be inviting students from Maddy and Brooks leadership programs, as well as Cali and Windsor Middle School. And this is, um,
045a place we also have an officer position dedicated to planning this the whole year. We meet at the town green and it's a great day of learning the ropes of leadership at Windsor High School and getting to meet new students. Um, so, yeah. Next is Big Picture Learning. So, they presented their end of quarter three exhibitions before spring break and they also had a leaving to learn session or a leaving to learn um day at Sessions, which is an indoor climbing gym. And coming up, they're going to be visiting the Academy of Sciences and they'll also be releasing the steelhead trout that they have raised in their teacher Shannon Johnson's classroom. Um another really big thing going on for them is the LTI, which is learning through internship showcase. That's on Wednesday, May 6th um
046and from 5:30 to 7:00 and so that's just kind of like kind of like what we do with showcase um on the main high school campus. So, just going over like what the students have been doing in the past year through their internships. And this is some photos from their day at Sessions. >> Windsor Oaks Academy wrapped up a few of their monthly events, their Fiesta trip on the 13th, a bowling trip on the 24th, and their Lake Sonoma steelhead tour. And then these are some photos actually from January that we hadn't seen. We have a shared album with Oaks and we hadn't seen these, but this is um something they had on January 26th that recognized some of their seniors. So, there's Ms. Buckman there and some of the teachers, too. >> Uh do
047you want to talk about this in here? >> Yeah, so um obviously we have Best Buddies meetings every Wednesday and we've actually been heading out. Um these are some photos from our track practice with um Mr. Tinelli and Mr. Cameron's class at Windsor High School. So, actually Megan Johnson, the president, was going to come, but she's also a varsity softball player, so she's at a game right now and she had flyers and everything. So, maybe she'll swing by and bring those in a little bit. Um but a really cool thing, she actually got nominated for the Inspiring Diversity Award for uh for the Press Democrat Award. So, that was from last night and her um topic was actually Special Olympics and the Bridges program at Windsor, so. And then finally, we're doing the WUSD spotlight
048a little differently, like looking at the end of the year. So, this month we've decided to talk to students and talk to them about what their favorite events was from the last year. I think a big the reason why we go over all the events at every campus is so that everyone can kind of understand just what the schools are doing. And sometimes you lose the smaller details of the kids' day-to-day lives when you're looking at all these like bigger policy things. And so, we wanted to really key in on that and look at what the kids really liked from the past year. I also wanted to mention that Cali is the only school that we have ever had to do two slides for other than Windsor High School. And obviously, like we're at the
049high school, so we know everything that's going on. Um but like Cali just has so much going on. There's so many grades they're taking care in like paying attention to all of them and making sure that all of them have just really great events. So, I talked to two classes this week. I talked to a second grade class, My Estrellitas Lunas class, or first grade class, sorry. Um and they talked to them. We went through and we looked at every like field trip and event and guest speaker that they'd had over the year. And we looked at photos and they told me about what their favorite things were. A big things were um the pumpkin patch, and there's a picture from that where they're with their teacher. Um and then also they when they were
050celebrating uh the when they were learning about the Mexican Independence, their teacher dressed up and they a big thing in first grade and like with younger kids is chanting. Like they just love to chant and they'll take any opportunity they can. Um and so, they would call it Viva Mexico because that's what they got to chant with their teacher. And they so they really really enjoyed that. I also spoke to some of the representatives from the uh leadership class, which is the upper school at Cali. And they were talking about some of their favorite things. So, they really like the Dia de los Muertos celebration and how it's set up so that all the grades can kind of participate in it at once. Um they also talked about just how they liked going to and
051organizing the rallies. And they talked about something that they're looking forward to, which is the try or die. So, that's like an obstacle course kind of around the whole school where they um are thrown with like color powder by the teachers and then at the end it's kind of like a fun day type thing. So, I'm excited for that to come up as well for them. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. >> We have been fed well. Um we are now going to move on to Thank you. Uh to 3.8 Superintendent's Report. >> Thank you. All right. Let's get started. Uh So, something we've been doing that I wanted to point out cuz I don't know if you've seen them or not, but we've been doing Finance Friday. So, we've been posting them on our district webpage.
052Uh so, we we know school finances are confusing and we know that that for instance, Cali has its own budget, right? So, not a lot of people understand how all of our school finances work. So, we've created really like I think we have 12 different topics that we're going to go through. I think we released two or three at this point. I was going to try to play one. Should we try it? I don't know if it's going to work or not, but we'll see. Is there sound? There's sound. Well, it's something. >> You are on my mind. I pray you love me. >> We want to be quick snippets, right? Cuz we know people don't have long attention spans. So, Heather's created all of these. Uh I think they're pretty cool. I think just
053that little bit to understand between unrestricted and restricted funds is a significant part of what we do. And so, we have a number of those. Also, uh one of our students was mentioned. But, we also have a couple other ones that we might need to point out because we have several students that were nominated for the 2026 Celebrate Community Youth Service Awards, and they were in the Press Democrat. Uh so, winners were announced last night. Uh well, that's not true actually. We We do know Oh, sorry. We know our nominees. Winners were announced last night, so we don't know who won yet. But, got some nominated students up there, and I'm not going to read everybody's name, but you might want to look at the Civic Stewardship person. Um she might be sitting on the
054board. Can we give it up? Rebecca Herman. Yes. And there's another name on there that might be important to point out because there is a relation to one of these board members. Uh STEM Environmental Sciences, Jasmine Ahmad, is maybe Stephanie's daughter. So. Every student obviously deserves a round of applause, but I don't want to say names wrong, so I'm not going to say all of them. but we've got Windsor's well represented here. We also have some athletes who've been getting some recognition. Our athletes of the week were were Kason and Jackson for baseball. And we have our all PD team players. So, girls basketball, we had Olivia Wright with first team, second team was Britney. Girls wrestling, Rich. Boys wrestling, you may want to say it better than me cuz I'm not going to say
055that name and mess it up. Malia, Cadence, Joey, Cole. And then boy's soccer, we had a first team player Yadier Trejo. If you saw him every read the paper, you saw him in there plenty. And second team, Marcelo. And we had an honorable mention as well. So, our student girl soccer, you see first team Avery North, second team McKenna. We're well represented all the time in sports. And just to point out, you know, we have some amazing athletes. Also, our very own Heather Bailey got some recognition at the California School Public Relations Association conference in March. So, she won two awards for her work with the district. She won an award of merit for the Secova marketing campaign and an award of excellence for the press release regarding the ENA for Windsor Creek. >> Good
056job, Heather. >> We had a big PD day last Friday and this was kind of the theme, learn it, build it, teach it. If you I don't know why I got a little goofy on the presentation, but we started off with the keynote keynote speaker. His name was Derek Rausch from the from Sonoma County Office of Education. He's kind of the guy overseeing AI. And he did a really good presentation that just set the stage for for learning for the day. And then this was a big undertaking because we wanted to give choice to teachers. It's difficult when you're a you know, maybe you're an art teacher and then you're forced to do something that's specific to math. So, we really wanted to try to give choice and we had workshop I think that's 9:15
057is what it says. And and there were a bunch of choices which I'll show you next, and then another workshop at 10:55. Then we had lunch that we catered, and then every single school site was a little bit different. All of our elementary teachers did a math workshop with P3CC. Uh and then Cali Middle School and and then the middle schools and high school had their own thing that they did. But, I want you to see all the different choices that we have for TK-5 teachers. Okay? So, we had acting right, drama as a classroom management strategy. We had AI for the rest of us, simple tools, real impact. Artificial intelligence in education 101 and then 201, which is the follow-up to that, right? Uh I mean, I'm not going to read every single thing,
058but I just want you to understand there was a a large a plethora of things that teachers could choose from, and we had good feedback. So, this was elementary, uh and then we also had 6th through 12th grade. Uh some of the same ones, but some of them were different. I went into Desmos math art. Actually, Susanna was in there. It was really freaking cool. I didn't even know it existed, but I don't even think I could describe what it is, but essentially computer programming, learning math so that you can design stuff. That's the superintendent way of describing what I saw. It was a bunch of math I didn't understand, but it was really cool. So, anyway, uh I think we had good feedback. Uh so, the only really some of the feedback that we
059got that wasn't as good as we had some virtual sessions because we couldn't get the presenters to come, and that was pretty much it. Otherwise, it was really positive feedback. So, we're going to try to do it again. It was big undertaking. Um good success. We have three new administrators. Uh Shawn Gilbertson, uh which we've done the press releases, but he's an internal candidate. He's at Brooks right now as the the TOSA. He's going to become our new principal at Mary Washburn. Jillian is coming to us from Sonoma. She's the director of curriculum and instruction in Sonoma. She's coming to be our principal at Windsor Middle School. And then Shawn Kerr is the principal at Roseland Is it Roseland University Prep? Anybody remember? One of them. The other one? Roseland Collegiate Prep. He's currently the
060principal there, has been so for the past few years. He's coming to be our assistant principal at Windsor High School. Really excited about our hires. Think they're going to be great great additions to our district. And just so you know, at our last board meeting, the board approved us going out and surveying our community to get a feel for what what people are hoping to accomplish with a potential bond or if we should even be going out for a bond. So, just know that you may be receiving a phone call, a text, or an email survey relating to one of these to relating to potential school bond. If you're contacted, it really is us. We're really trying to do this. It's not spam. So, we would love for you to take part. All the input
061we're really going to dig into and listen to. So, please, if you get a call or an email, please take the survey. And that's it. So, thank you guys. >> Thanks, Jeremy. Is there any anybody in the audience who wants to comment on those comments? All right. We're going to move on to Board of Trustees reports. Board of Trustees? Paul? >> I guess I'll go first. Yeah. So, I attended an evening in Seville. That was a Windsor Rotary event. And I just wanted to shout them out because that event raised a whole bunch of money for Windsor Unified School District. Well, part of it was for Windsor Unified School District. They also did other things. You know, gazebo and and hills where which I didn't really understand that one, but but they do good things
062and they raise a lot of money. And what was really it was a it was a feel good event. People of Windsor are really generous. They're generous with the items that were up for bid on the in the auction. I mean, I mean, were trips to uh was it where was the one trip to uh um I can't remember the trip. The Oregon. Yeah, that one was was good. Like a whole new brand a whole house, and it only went for like 1,500 bucks. Do they know for a week? Do they know how much it would cost you to do? So, anyway, it was it was kind of cool, but they raised a lot of money. The the things that they they said that they um that would the Windsor Unified benefit was Avid, the
063Avid program, uh Windsor Middle School Farm to Table, uh Windsor Middle School Student Theater program, fifth grade science camp. So, these are all big big hitters. But, the one that was kind of cool was um the they had someone talk about this um ACC communication device, which was kind of cool in order to for the teachers to be able to communicate to non-communicable kids. Like, you push the button and it would talk. I mean, it it didn't really work real good in the presentation, but I could see how that would be helpful for for the teachers to be able to communicate with their kids and their kids to be able to communicate with the with the teachers. So, it was it was a really kind of a a feel-good event. Um So, that was good.
064Um the other things I had were I'm going to ask the district for I I would like to know an update at some point. You guys can just write this down. E-bike the e-bikes and scooter plan, how is that going? I would like the board to have an update on how it's going because um frankly, I still see a lot of those running around on the streets. I The other day I saw two girls on a on a scooter, an electric scooter, and then behind them a third girl on a scooter. And first of all, they were not 16. So, right away that's illegal. And I and I know it's not our job. It's the police's job to to police it, but it's still disturbing to see that happen. Almost any day of the week
065you can go down one of the side streets in Windsor and see an e-bike with a throttle and a kid doing a wheelie. Raise your hand if you've seen a kid doing a wheelie going down I mean I see it all the time. Again, not something that we need to police, but I would like maybe communication with the police to see kind of what maybe is going on um and then a report about how our bike and identification at the middle school is going and how and how that's being monitored to and from from the campus there. Um so that would be awesome. >> You want to just take the meeting? >> Well, go ahead and just say if you if you know the answer. >> Um so I was there last week and checked
066all the bikes you know I mean just I just went over and checked them and then uh Windsor PD was out in force today. I know I got pulled over. Uh on my scooter. Yes. Uh and so >> a wheelie? >> Were you doing come on. I really did. >> You got pulled over on a Why'd you get pulled over? >> Because uh my scooter wasn't registered properly. >> Oh. Uh-huh. I think they're taking it serious. >> Good. Well, no that's good. >> Um so they were out today. Um I saw them patrol I saw them talking with kids. They were passing out stickers you know and they were doing their their education piece like they said. Um but I did not get a sticker or a ticket, but I did get pulled over today.
067>> Well, they need to pull over the kids not you. >> Well, yeah so so I I did see them out today. Um motorcycle patrol was out there and they were talking to the kids and um and and and as they said they want to go education first um and then if they have to um fortunately my scooter was too big for for him to impound. Um so they let me ride it home, but uh >> All right. Yeah, but but again I don't know that still that the word has gotten to the parents that they cannot ride those scooters. It's illegal. I mean it's I don't know where we got to put banners up. Your kid is under 16, they cannot ride e-scooters, period. End of story, until they change the laws. So, anyway,
068that that's my little rant on that. Um Also, I'd like an update from the district on how things are going at Maddie Washburn as far as we've made big changes, the board approved big changes in how we're delivering special ed at at the at the campus and how we're addressing our reading deficiencies at at Maddie Washburn with the hiring of of the the coach at Maddie. I would really like an update on how that's going. Not not just data, but even the anecdotal, you know, just a feel. Maybe someone can come and give us a an update on that. Do you think that's possible? >> through how to do that. >> Yeah, cuz I I really do think we spent so much time and effort into getting it going. I'd like to kind of know
069how it's going almost three quarters of the way through the through the school year. >> You know what's interesting, we're we're looking at our assessments heading into next year, and I wonder if that wouldn't be the That would be a good premise to to use for the update. So, maybe we'll we could talk about that. I think that makes sense. >> No, that does. >> Okay. >> And then lastly, I loved the presentation on the workability program, but that's only for kids with IEPs and 504s, and I I looked at the chart and it had 47 community partners that are participating. I'm just wondering, I'm just throwing this out, did we miss an opportunity with BPL? Did we miss an opportunity with Big Picture Learning? Did we really reach out enough? If we had 47
070partners for the workability program, I'm just wondering if you tried hard enough on Big Picture Learning. That's all. Bill, Steph. Give me that. Okay, he gave you that. >> Yeah, I I don't really have a report this month. Mine just still enjoying serving on the board. Taking every day as it comes. It's been a pleasure. Um but I don't have a specific report for this month. So, I'll pass it on to my colleague. Bill Orbegich >> I just got a couple of things real quick. Uh I heard Bill say he wanted to go last, so I'm going to The uh We did a little bit mentioned up uh but I want to mention again uh Malia Ramos it and uh Joey Guinella, they went up to Reno this last weekend with some of us coaches.
071Er they went there and us coaches went too. And uh it's the Reno Tournament of Champions. It's kind of it's the West Coast version of the Super 32. So, there's all the good kids from all over come to that tournament and try to get the win these pretty big ginormous eagles and all kinds of stuff. Anyhow, uh Malia and Joey both went and both of them won the tournament uh in their different weight classes. Um and Malia's a freshman, Joey's a sophomore. Um both did really well. Um they they do it at different times, so I didn't get to see her matches. They cuz they do it based on the different grades and age groups and stuff. And they've got little kids there, too. So, it's it's it's it was huge. There was You you
072couldn't get a room in Reno. So, they had the wrestling thing and then they had a volleyball deal. So, it was just the whole town was packed. And so, anyhow, but both of those uh kids won uh students won. Um did really, really well. Uh Joey actually ended up in the quarterfinals beat a Washington state two-time champion two-time state champion on his way. So, our kids are really doing well and um uh bringing a lot of of good um uh notoriety to to our school. So that's really good. I want to let remind everybody tomorrow Windsor High the athletics is having the golf tournament and it's a a big fundraiser a lot of people in the community come out just people come from all over the place. I have no idea where they all come
073from but they all come and they're all gunning for the normally winners of the tournament and so we expect to have a really good report at our next board meeting about the outcome of that tournament. We should be doing that really well and then also just in case a lot of people aren't aware school we're going to be having a special Olympics event at the high school here coming up real soon. I know that whenever you put events on like this they you can never have enough volunteers. So if there are people at home listening and you've got some energy and a big heart please get a hold of Jamie Williams or some of the other folks at the high school and they can help direct you on where there's many opportunities to to serve
074and and and help some of our special people and that's what I got. >> Okay. >> You can get a t-shirt that looks like this. Oh, it's May 14th at 9:00. Thank you for those who sponsor it. Jamie I love that it says we play unified a number of years ago I had to ask athletic director Williams what that meant. Unified sports is for all abilities and so this to me is us demonstrating and walking the walk of access to all different kind of services for our students and really diversity. We're going to have schools from all over the county in addition to our staff the student leadership group. In fact one of the folks from Best Buddies was recognized with one of the Civic Awards. So 9:00 on Thursday the 14th of May. So,
075um Rebecca and I are going to jointly report out in a second about our VAPA ad hoc meeting and and just let you know that I wanted to throw another shout-out though to Heather Bailey. Congratulations on that award. Many people may not remember 5, 6, 7 years ago this California School Boards Association has golden bells and other sorts of things that recognize schools and school districts and individual educators. And they inaugurated a an award called the golden quill. And Heather at that time was still working in the fourth estate and she was the editor of the Windsor Times and some other newspapers. Nominated and was one of these statewide first year winners of that for coverage of education. And so, um I haven't forgotten that. When we wrote it when we wrote it up, I
076had to I did help doing that. And so, congratulations on that. Um do you want to maybe start, Rebecca, about the ad hoc committee and then we'll uh It's interesting. We had a number of different things that people talked about already in the meeting about the various things that are art and art related. And um we're talking about that. So, why don't you start and I'll sort of fill in gaps as you're going. >> Yeah. So, um the visual and performing arts ad hoc committee met and would recommend that we review and update the strategic art plans. We looked over the past plans, the one that was made um late 2010s and the more recent one um made just a few years ago and talked about kind of where that was lacking and where we
077think maybe there could be edits made. I think um some major goals of ours are just the culture around the arts in Windsor Unified School Districts um specifically around like our community partners. I think was a big thing we talked about in making those connections and making those very intentional connections to have them um meet with the district and be like our partners, I guess. Um and I think a big thing that we want to focus on is making sure it's sustainable. So, starting early so that we can grow the culture from a young age to make it so that our upper schools will be provided with um just some really great performers and people who are interested in the arts. Do you have anything >> Yeah, I think one of the things who we'd
078like to do is is we have a an arts Tosa and Elizabeth Robertson is between now and our May meeting get an initial stakeholder group together both faculty, staff, students, and nice community partners to talk about objectives and and and how to eat the elephant maybe one spoon at a time. Um you know, we have a lot of existing capacity and programs. We're spending well over a million dollars in FTEs for I don't even know how many it is, 12 or 15 and all kind of other programs that we have in the catalog at all our different campuses, what we already are doing and where there's ability to perhaps reinforce with a modest level of effort or finance and others where maybe a program has lapsed uh and could be invigorated. Um one of the
079things we talked about as just a a thing to look at without advocating that this has come through any kind of stakeholder scrubbing. A number of years ago we used to have an addition to ensemble music, we had a very vibrant choral program. There was chorus teachers a full-time teacher um at middle school and high school. There are right now maybe 75 or 100 Brooks students um not all the fifth graders but a great number of them and right now as they graduate and go to our middle school, there is not a choral program there and so as a music possibility um one of the things we talked about is like Rebecca was fundamental behind helping some of the students by establishing a student-driven theater club this year about possibly having a choral program start
080at the club level at the middle school and high school maybe starting next year with ways to do that because it's music where you don't need an instrument. You don't have to learn to play the flute or the trumpet or anything. You just come with it and your rhythm. So, that's the kind of outside the box thinking we're thinking about but really to invigorate this and I appreciate very much Rich and Rebecca and I think the this is not really for action today but we would come back I think with um some initial feedback from the stakeholder group at our meeting in May uh to map out what does what does next year look like and and taking the best of these plans that we have and reinforcing those. Some stuff may be uh overcome
081by events or time or whatever but really make an assessment. Um you know, we were the gold standards of arts program right before COVID um and got millions and millions of dollars of grants because we had an effective plan off the shelf that we could use and uh we're not quite that ready anymore and um so I appreciate the opportunity to to do that and and there's more to come on that. So, thank you. >> Thank you as well. >> Thank you, Rebecca. All good. All right. Thank you, everybody. Uh moving on to 310 staff association reports. >> Susanna Pepper, WDEA president. Um uh let's see. Where should we start? So, WDEA has elected a new executive board for a 2-year term. We have the president Joe Collins from Windsor High School, vice president Jamie
082Hamilton from Windsor Middle School, treasurer Emma Donahue from Windsor High School, and secretary Katherine Maribali from Brooks Elementary School. And that's the first thing I wanted to let you know. That's all been settled. Some most of the site rep positions um are filled. There's a few openings still at um the middle school and at the high school. So, um last week we did a professional development day that it seems to be seemed to be well attended. Was it well attended, Pete? Yeah, we we didn't have a lot of um people out. No, that's good. That's good. That's a That's a shift that That's what we want to see. Um professional development is for us. And it was nice that it was for us and a lot of it was by us. We had a lot
083of in-house people sharing their expertise. That was really really nice. Um the last thing that's going on is um WDEA is actively working with the district to maintain our contract standards and what our contract says and what it means and also the intent behind a lot of our articles that we negotiated long and hard for. We've been working on that as well. We hope to continue working on that. The intent behind those articles is critical. Yeah. Thank you. >> Thanks, Suzanne. Any other Okie doke. Uh let's move on to 311, approval of minutes from the March 12th 2026 meeting. Um We did the uh this at the last we we met over at the middle school. So, they don't have a recording of it, but um >> And unfortunately, I've done the minutes, but I
084couldn't get them to load on this program. So, I put that to say I'm really sorry. I'll put them on the try and get them on the May >> Okay. >> board meeting. I just I tried half the day today to get them loaded and I just couldn't get them loaded up. >> Okay. So, we'll just do both months in next month. I mean both meetings next month. All right. Moving on to 312, um staff recognition, Pete. Yes. There's a story here. There is a Can you You got to let that roll just a little bit. Let Let it roll just a little bit. There it is. So, staff recognition is also staff recruitment. We want the best people in the district. Feel the energy in the district. There it is. Thank you. All right.
085So, we've been having a really good time in human resources thinking about ways that we can hire and retain the best people. And one of the one of those things is is is recruiting and making sure people kind of know what we're about. We're fun. We have a good time. We We take ourselves seriously when we need to. So, but we also want to emphasize that we're a fun place to work. So, we did uh some some recruitment songs that will be playing when we're at our recruitment fair this Saturday at SCOE, and that's one of the songs. There's also a country version, which it just hits me right here. I I kind of like it. Rich, I think you're going to dig it. But, it is it's a fantastic. We'll be playing them as
086we set up, and then we'll probably have them low. We also have some screens that will be scrolling, including our highlights, like our pillars of excellence, and then some of the things that we like to celebrate. You know, we have a new and improved salary schedule Uh and we're going to you know highlight our child care policy. So those will be rolling on screens with some low music reminding people out there that we're fun to work for. And in celebration of people who acknowledge how fun we are to work for, I'm going to we're going to be celebrating Cali this week and I'm going to start off with classified. This is a person that you will have recognized because I think Alexis was celebrated the last time but she is absolutely phenomenal, a game changer
087of an employee. She does a great job at Cali and in Lydia's words, we're excited to recognize Alexis Seja, our incredible Cali principal secretary. She's the heart of our office, always stepping up, solving problems and leading with grace. She somehow reads my mind making even the busiest day run smoother. Alexis goes above and beyond and is always finding ways to improve how we work. We're so lucky to have her talent, dedication and heart in our school community. She is fantastic. I do want to say that I have not yet nailed down when the first meeting will be so the invitations to that will be forthcoming. The the certificated staff member that we're celebrating this month is Maria Cruz. We're excited to recognize Maria Cruz, our amazing second grade dual language teacher at Cali. Maria is
088a true leader and a force for positive change as part of our guiding coalition and P3CC math leader. She helps shape our school's vision and support strong math instruction across the district. At Cali, her leadership helps our second graders grow and succeed. Maria shows incredible resilience and strength. She inspires everyone around her and we're so grateful for all she brings to our students, team and community. So we look forward to seeing hopefully as many of you as possible next month to celebrate these fantastic employees. Are you going to let me walk off with that too or is it just just walk on? I don't know. I'm going to have to have it playing all the time now. >> Thank you, Pete. I I I my playlist does have a few of the country western songs
089in it, but those are usually to be played when I'm in a lot of trouble and my wife I'm trying to make her happy. Um >> Which is the Tony Braxton? >> I I'm Yeah, I I uh You don't have subwoofers for country western music. Just saying, Pete. >> It was a truck that I mean I was thinking Rick Rich has got to like this. You're You You like it. Maybe your your wife would like it. >> She would love it. She would love it. Um thank you. The uh By the way, I don't know. I'm going to keep on going. Hey, we do have some killer staff in our district. And you mentioned one of them who has helped one of the people trying to figure out how to get grandkids scheduled, enrolled, all
090that kind of stuff. And I appreciate the diligence of our staff helping us cruise through the myriad of I wonder what that question means. So, anyhow, uh we got some great people working here. Thank you. All righty, Pete. Uh we're going to move on to consent items, section four. Um we've got 4.1. Ooh, and I'm going to turn this over to Paul 4.1 through 4.14. And we've got some things. >> All right, so consent items 4.1 through 4.14. Do we have any that we need to pull for discussion? >> I think we need to pull 4.1. >> I knew that. >> I know. >> So, we will pull 4.1 for discussion. >> Yep. And then, uh I just Yeah, we'll pull that one and then just comment-wise, um are there any others? >> No, not
091not the pool. I just want more of a comment for the one the numbers have moved around. Um from the motion. I'm not seeing it. All right, maybe it moved off. >> Which one are you looking for? >> It's okay. >> Are you looking at the thank you one? >> Yes. >> Yeah, where is it? >> Number former 4.4. >> 4.4. Yeah, I just I just want to uh recognize even though the school district and the town council and the town we're kind of like, uh you know, two different parts of the same family working with with all the same families here in Windsor, but it's it's, you know, we do work collaboratively together in a lot of times and uh I know that the school district people have donated and given things to the
092town and the town there when they have certain things that they can come back and send things to help us, uh it's just nice and I appreciate I we all do. We appreciate having a great relationship uh with our other parts the the town council and the town services and the things that they do and I know that they keep us in mind uh when they have opportunities that they can help enhance kids um uh and so, anyhow, I know it's on the consent item, but I just kind of wanted to just pull not pull it, but just, you know, a little bit of extra recognition. I like it when people help donate their time and talents to the kids. >> The town donated a tractor to us. I think that's what you're referencing. Right?
093>> Yes. >> Yeah. >> They use it the athletic fields or I think Yeah. >> Um I have another one qualify might 4.10. Uh I just wanted to acknowledge our culinary programs. I think this is the first time I've seen it. I apologize if I had missed it before. Our middle school and high school culinary students are going to a statewide competition down in Riverside next weekend for 4 days, which is just extraordinary. I think that's great. It shows the kind of uh career technical education integration and articulation that we have now for a program that runs from 6th grade to 12th grade and it's very apropos to what Rebecca and I were speaking about because that's one of the things that's a real strength in our school system is we have these pillared programs
094that we deliberately connect from our upper secondary, middle school, and high school students. And so kudos to those students and congratulations. We wish them well when they go down to Riverside, which is a schlep. So, you know, that's like going to almost to >> Mexico, so. >> Anyway, thank you. >> All good. So, >> Okay, we need to talk about 4.1. >> Should we pull talk about >> What do we do? >> Approve the others first and go to that one? >> Okay, we can do it either way around. I don't know. >> I don't know. >> So, we So, we Okay. >> Okay, so are there any other discussion on any of the other items or and from the public? I think seeing none, uh we need to have a motion to approve 4.2
095through 4.14. >> I'll move. >> I'll second. >> Okay. All in favor? >> I. >> Where's Eli? >> Oh. >> One. >> Only some of you got >> And then I'm 4.1. >> So, on on 4.1, we have a whole bunch of personnel moving all over the place and a lot of different things. And I think the only exception I think that we I think we should consider is uh declining one of the leave of absence requests uh for and then um for Diane Bryant. Um >> Diana Bryant >> And then other than that, she's welcome to come back, but just the way that things uh scheduling works out, I think that we would have to decline um the leave of absence request. >> So, we're going to make a motion to approve the personnel
096assignment order with the exception of denying the leave request for Diane Bryant. >> So, Diane Bryant Diane >> Diana Diana, I'm sorry. Diana Bryant >> No, it's it's Diana Bryant. >> That's what I thought. That's what I heard. Diana Bryant >> No. >> Bryant B >> Bryant, yeah. >> It's all good. I just want to tell you our our our program's getting better. It's but the little thing it's blurry when you press the little PDF. It's This side of my screen is clear and the the PDFs are blurry. So, I apologize. The um >> So, that's what we're doing. >> Yeah, I believe so. So, should we need to make a motion? >> Yeah. Well, I'll make a motion that we approve the personnel assignment order with the caveat that we are denying that um
097the leave of absence request from Diana Bryant. >> I'll second. >> Hey, all in favor? >> I >> Rich Make sure you get do personnel book. Sorry. That me just give me that. I'm going to >> I Yes. >> Thank you. All righty. Thank you. And with consent. All right, moving on to 5.1 and just a reminder if people came later, earlier, whatever. We've earlier in the meeting, we decided to move 5.8 up into the second spot of 5.2. So, we're going to have our 5.1 update discussion regarding Windsor Creek campus to pretend a Decker. >> Yeah, so we we put this on here. We don't have anything to report about out about negotiations, but we did submit um We did submit an inquiry to the FPPC regarding Trustee Carnation for Windsor Creek to make
098sure he's been recusing himself the entire time. Uh but, we wanted to know if he had to recuse himself actually. So, we submitted an inquiry to the FPPC. We got the results back. And what we learned is that he is allowed to participate in the negotiation with Gallaher Community Homes. Uh We were looking at two different things. It PRA as well as 10 government code 1090. And they found that he does not have any conflicts. Uh and we have I think it's like a 13-page basically paper. So, we just wanted to report that out. >> Yeah, the the um Just historically speaking I'm I'm I'm on Gallaher Community Homes board. It's a nonprofit board. And I was asked to be on that a long time ago. I'm also on this board as well. But, so
099the question um So, I recused myself a long, long time ago just to make sure everything was all on the up and up. Normally, the FPPC, the Fair Political Practices Commission, they normally get complaints after the fact. We just had the attorney ask them up front cuz I've been recusing myself on the board here. I've also been recusing myself on Gallagher's board as well. So, I wouldn't been involved with either side of it. Anyhow, I just want to read there's two little spots so that way everybody's just on the same page. So, the question was and this is from the Fair Political Practice their attorneys. They wrote back and said, "Does the Does either the act or section 190 prohibit Board Trustee Carnation or the district from entering into an exclusive negotiating agreement with or
100participating in a discussion regarding a project with Gallagher Community Housing, GCH, a nonprofit organization that Board Trustee Carnation is a board member of regarding the development of affordable workforce housing on district property?" That was the question. Conclusion, um again, it's anyhow, it says, "Neither the act or section 1090 prohibits the district from entering into the agreement nor does either nor does it either disqualify Board Trustee Carnation from participating in either the agreement or the development project. Under the act, Board Trustee Carnation has no financial interest. Under section 1090, Board Trustee Carnation has a non-interest in the agreement with Gallagher Community Homes because it's an He isn't because he is an uncompensated board member from Gallagher Community Housing, a nonprofit, and he is not required to abstain from a discussion from a decision involving Gallagher Community
101Housing. However, this non-interest must be disclosed to the district board when the exclusive negotiating agreement is considered and noted in the district board's official records. So, I'm just reading that so that way you know, again, discussion, disclosure, transparency, the whole nine yards. Um so, I'm able to participate in voting. I'm able to participate in discussing with both. Um I'm not sure if I will do that. I might still just not recuse myself. I might just excuse myself or I might just abstain from voting. Might vote present. I don't know. The trustees have been doing Stephanie, Jeremy, particularly, been doing a great job as far as I can tell and sometimes why touch something when it's not broken. So, anyhow, but I just wanted to know sometimes I'll hear things said that I don't think are
102accurate and if I feel so inclined, now I will clarify it. So, anyhow, just wanted to share that with everybody. I think we had to wait like three or four months. >> It was supposed to be 21 days. >> Yeah, you're supposed to get a reply in 21 days and >> It took about three months. Yeah. >> So, anyhow. >> Rich, I have another question. Have we finished with the FPPC part? >> Yep. >> Okay. I had a question for Austin and Superintendent Decker. I believe the time for a response for any of the notified parties who were part of the list when we had declared it excess property, I was just wondering and if it's not a position that we can disclose for some reason at this time that needs to go to closed
103session, but I if it is disclosable, did we receive any interest from anybody within that I think it was 60 days? >> We have. That's why we're going back in a closed session. We didn't get a chance to speak about it. So, in closed session we'll discuss. That's okay. Thank you. I just One and two have that mentioned. I thought that might be it and we didn't report about it and people may be wondering cuz that 60-day period I think 60 days or whatever the period was for other entities, governmental entities particularly to respond to us and thank you for that answer. We'll talk about it when we recess back into close session. >> And just so just so everybody knows, we won't make any decisions from close sessions. There won't be a report out.
104It's really just discussing what what came in. >> Okay. Thank you very much. Cool. Any other trustees you want to comment? I'm going to open this up to a public comment. There's a any public comment on 5.1 Winter Creek update so far? Seeing none, we'll move on to a 5. the new 5.2 which is the old 5.8 which is Let me read it. Consideration of presentation of elementary math improvement team P3CC2526 activities. >> Good evening. Um I also won't be there tomorrow, but I am pulling a team together and we will be there next year. Just wait. Um all right. I would like to introduce our elementary math improvement team whose work is part of a statewide effort through California Education Partners focused on strengthening early mathematics outcomes for preschool through third grade. Thank you.
105This is going to be for you guys. Oh, I think I do have two slides. All right. I do. So, we're currently in year two of a three-year initiative and this team represents a strong cross-section of three schools, Brooks Elementary, Mattie Washburn, and Cali Calmecac Language Academy. Uh principals are involved and uh one district coordinator, Robin Fletcher. They are working together that it to ensure what happens in our elementary classrooms are aligned, intentional, and grounded in the latest research. Over the past 2 years, they've done the hard work of digging into the 2-year-old California math framework, aligning expectations across grade levels, and strengthening instructional practices. What's especially important is that this work is no is not about just training them. It's about scaling what's working and making it sustainable across our whole district. So, for
106example, last year, they did presentations at each school site to to share with their colleagues what they were working on, and just last Friday, they convened a cross-district elementary professional development workshop for 2 hours for every elementary teacher in the district. They got glowing reviews in our post-workshop survey, and I'm super proud. Um I want to share that we had an integration of mathematics and arts workshop series uh in our partnership with the Luther Burbank Center. We had other arts um we had other arts uh focused workshops and mathematics. So, you would have seen at least 25% of our 16 workshops last Friday were focused on the arts and some math integrated. Um they are closest to the work, and I've asked them to share both what they're learning and where they're headed. I am
107proud to introduce our math improvement team. >> Who's going first? >> Absolutely. Yeah. >> Um I'm Marisol Leyba. I'm TK teacher at Mattie Washburn. Um so our improvement team uh does quarterly convenings and monthly team meetings to develop an understanding around our math frameworks. Um and we focus on the unit planning process and open tasks. Um we also presented like Annette said during staff meetings um at Mattie, Brooks, Cali um and did a curriculum analysis and open tasks. Um and we came here a year ago at the board meeting to talk about um just an overview of what we're learning and um brought a rhombus paper activity. I don't know if you remember it, but um it was nice to to share with you what we have learned. So thank you. >> So we are
108now in year two and here is a snapshot of what we've been up to uh in the past year. There's three kind of focus areas uh and they're outlined for you on the slide, but there's definitely a an instructional focus because obviously it has to trickle down practices, instructional practices have to trickle down to our students. That's what really matters and that's what the math framework is geared towards. Exploration of the math framework itself is geared towards big ideas. So know that phrase. You're going to hear a lot about it in the coming year. Big ideas are how uh we shape those standards into focus areas for students that then become the instructional practices that we call open tasks. So that rhombus paper last year was an open task. We have learned many more and
109we are now starting to share those additional open tasks with other staff. You'll hear more about that soon. We have continued to this team and and the rest of our teammates have also been continuing to work and spreading our knowledge, our practice now within our PLT work and our site leadership teams. Professional development is one of the huge buckets for us this school year. April 10th, which will be flushed out for you more, but that was highly targeted math professional development for elementary school teachers. So that was TK 5. The beautiful thing was spanned three different school sites and we were all learning together. It was It was honestly one of the most beautiful learning experiences I've ever been able to be part of. So lots to be proud of there with an additional focus
110on the math framework for the rest of our TK 5 teachers that day and again more open tasks. Lastly, the math adoption which has been a huge driving force for us as a district, we are interwoven. We the P3C team and work or MIT are very much a part of what our math adoption team and work has been doing. That has taken different forms. One being part of SCOE's curriculum adoption series. So we went, we got to see It was like a fair of all these curriculums just put out in front of you, all their sales pitches, but really our lens is unique because of the work we've been doing over the past year. So we got to see these curriculums and their offerings through a very different lens than we would have even a
111year ago. Uh that being said, we're currently in a K-5 math adoption process, uh and we are leading the way, specifically the teachers here leading the way within their grade level teams as we pilot the options that we've selected thus far. You're now going to hear a little bit more about what we've been currently doing. >> Hi, I'm Maria Cruz. I'm a second grade teacher at Cali, and Friday was a very special day, like you've heard. Um the teachers got to present. Um it was a 2-hour thing. We had everyone present. Annette and um My god, I went blank. The frameworks. They started with the frameworks, uh frameworks for our teachers, and they made it very concise. Um and it just a small, like two-pager, that really put all the bullet points in there for
112our teachers. Then we went into an open task, welcoming everyone that Robin led at the theater, and it was called how many ways, and so they were given a number, and they had to come up with all the different ways of making up this number. It was very easy to do. The kids were The teachers The kids The teachers were all engaged, as well as our kids when we do them in the classroom. And then we all went to different classrooms, and we did 20-minute rotations. Um Marisol and Sheila presented on um number persistence, thank you. And the teachers had to come down with something they had never seen, and some of them were like, "This is very challenging, but it's very engaging and very fun." Um a lot of them focused on number sense
113for the kids, looking for patterns. Um and I even had I did coral counting, and one of the teachers said, "Well, how do you do the fluency?" I know fluency came up last time, too. And um that was one question, and we started doing these patterns, and the teacher was like, "Oh. So, if we do a lot more of these open tasks, the kids are guiding themselves a little bit more, and they're getting a lot of that fluency practice, too, a lot of these open tasks." Um we did like we said, pre-K all the way through um fifth grade. We shared some resources that we had, and Maestro de Luna did um counting collections, and he'll tell you a little bit more about that. Um counting collections was one where we get to count, but
114it was introduced introduction of like multiplication for third grade, and looking at it different ways, and it one of the basic one of the most important things for us as teachers, I think, is the open task really make the kids feel very confident, and it allows some of our quieter kids to participate in class because they feel in a safe environment, and it's something that we've been really been looking at when we're looking at the new math adoptions. Um they come in a lot of the warm-ups, which I think a lot of times they're kind of thrown out cuz it's not the main curriculum. We're now looking at the new frameworks. We're really looking at making sure that we're hitting those open tasks and making teachers aware of this is how we make our kids
115feel more comfortable. They can participate in class. We engage our um students that are second language learners. Um I particularly have a student that is very shy, doesn't really want to talk. Um and this is the first time in the whole year while we're doing an adoption, and we're doing the open tasks in the classroom that I've been trying with my students that I've really seen the student participate and engage in the classroom. So, we're really excited about what we're bringing um to the teachers. Um it's been a week almost since we um did the professional learning day. We had a day at um the district office. And we still had teachers that came and said, "Oh my god, we loved what we did with open task. I already ordered this book that you shared
116with us or I'm already trying this open task with my students." So, we just wanted to let you know that and my son >> Ma- Maria, before you step down, could you demonstrate choral counting for us? >> I need a chart and some pens >> Okay. Could you describe what it is? >> What we did What the one I did was choral counting, which I think I really like because it's very easy. You just need a chart paper. Uh you put a number up and you can do it's very um you really really have to be very um concise with the questioning you're asking the students. And you need to know what the learning target of your students. Choral counting, the first time I heard it was um I think I had it on my
117slide. Uh was um Sesame Street with Count Dracula doing his choral counting. Totally different. You start with a number. If you're don't want the kids to do the like to figure out the pattern, you give them the pattern. And you can just start by saying we're counting by fives. But a lot of the times when we say counting by fives, we start with five or zero with the lower grades or we start with you know, like 20 or 25. This really motivates you to start with like, "Well, let's try with 24." And we count. So, then the kids start looking you counting by fives and then you would say like 24, 29, if I'm doing my math correctly cuz I'm put on the spot. And then the kids would then see, "Well, I noticed that
118this is changing in the ones place." Well, can you explain to me how it's changing? What is it changing by? What do you see? Well, it was a four and 4 + 5 is nine. So, then you would like circle with a certain color code. Then the students would say, "Well, I notice that the tens place is the same here, so that tells me that they didn't add a 10." You could be looking at a coral count going um down the column. They could look at it doing um diagonal. So, there's a lot of different ways. With the one I presented with the teachers was counting by quarters. And you also have a very purpose cuz I could do it on the number line if I want them to see it on the number line
119and just continue counting up. I made it so that I may I wanted my students I presented as I want my students to see that four quarters is a whole. So, I would 1 quarter plus 2 quarters plus 3 quarters four not plus, I'm sorry. 1 quarter, 2 quarters, 3 quarters, 4 quarters. And the kids would tell me, "Well, you're adding a quarter. The numerator the numerator isn't um changing by one. The denominator isn't changing." That was one of the patterns they saw. And then as you start counting, they're like, "Oh, you have a whole on the first row. You have a whole on the second row." Um and like sort of like that. >> Thank you. Right. Good evening, uh Pedro de Luna, first grade teacher. I'm very happy to be here. Um Rebecca,
120thank you for your kind words and thank you for the visiting the classroom earlier today. Really lifted up my spirits. So, thank you. Um what did we get and what did we get back? What did we What was the feedback from the staff from from the elementary teachers? Um first I it's I can't really say anything until we get an idea of the setting, right? So, these were elementary teachers who worked all week long. It's Friday. They went to these seminars in the morning. It's raining. They're tired. And then they're being told, "You have to transfer from room to room so you can hear these presentations from your fellow teachers." So, that's already a tough tough setting. But we knocked it out of the park. We hit a home run. It was a touchdown. We
121won the lottery. Put it all together, right? We saw happy faces, happy teachers. We presented um with smiles for each presentation. And at the end as they walked out of the classroom and we were receiving the next group of teachers, elementary teachers, they were having their faces just shine and they were happy to be there and we were happy to present and it was an honor for us to do it. Comments that came out from the survey we had at the end was, "I understand the new math framework is better and learned some easy task that can some easy task that can be implemented." I knew I was going to ruin that word. Sorry. Into the classroom. I think you get nervous here. I get a little nervous here, okay? You think it's tough with
12224 6-year-olds, right? You think that's tough, right? Second comment was, "I love the hands-on activities and fact that it was presented by colleagues who who can answer further questions from me." The presenters did an amazing job. I love going to the different stations and learning. This is just a reflection of what the teachers felt. They were with their what we call in Spanish compadres. They were with their the person they they can trust. The person they can say, "Hey, I know that person. I work with that person." And everything was was successful. And just to share a little bit more tidbit, today we had we were working on the pilot, right? We were at the district office and some of the the math teachers were together and we were just talking and we were just
123trying to get an idea of what is the best thing for Windsor and what program works for Windsor. And no one was doubting. Nobody was asking questions. They were they got a spoon-fed information of open task. Spoon-fed information of all that what they need to look for in a math program. And when in doubt, they looked at us and asked. So it's just strengthening our community, strengthening our teachers and by the way, happy anniversary. We were here a year ago and we gave you guys clipboards and we did math and it's a pleasure to be here one more year. So, um it's just a very good vibe, very good vibe. And I hope to see you next year, next April. This is year three, and thank you very much. >> All right. Good evening. I'm
124Robin Fletcher. I am a coordinator for the curriculum, instruction, and assessment department. And um looking ahead to year three for the P3CC, which is our third and final year um with the P3CC collaboration, um we have a few instructional shifts and some scaling efforts that we have planned already. Um one of the things that has already been mentioned is that we're adopting a new curriculum. And so, this team um being experts uh through this process already uh in choosing the two that we've been piloting, they'll be leading the implementation. Um they've already been instrumental in in guiding today our our second pilot introduction. Um and they will be uh we're going to have the best implementation of any curriculum we've ever done. It's going to be super thorough, and we have these experts to guide
125it. Um we are also planning uh increased engagement with our PLTs. This uh every one of these leaders has as worked with uh their PLT, their their grade level teams to ensure that we are uh bringing these math practices um into that process, into our curriculum maps, and our unit planning. Um they we have a process called the green, yellow, red, where we look at different lessons, and if it's ready to go, we give it the green light stamp of approval. Um and so, that came from the P3CC team, but that's also being used throughout the PLTs for all different curriculum and all different uh subject matters. Um as far as scaling, uh even though it's going to be our last year with the California Ed Partners, we're going to um continue the math improvement
126team, the MIT, another wonderful acronym for education world. Um and so, the MIT will continue. We're going to keep going. We've already reached out um we have preschool to third grade and we've reached out to fifth grade. And so we're sure we can get that and I think we can even get it all the way up to 12th grade. So we'll have this math improvement team that is district wide. We have monthly meetings. We continue our professional development and we are um becoming experts in all of the evidence-backed uh strategies that we'll we'll bring down to the student level. Um and so we have we we have big plans for the next PD day. Next year we have one in January and one in October and and we're going to we're going to bring it
127again and um and we're just going to expand the team and we're going to solidify this as as just a the one of the Windsor ways uh of just improved instruction and I hope next year when we come back again cuz it was it was um I think it was like April Today's the It was April 17th of last year that we were here. So it's like one year or so. We'll see you in April next year hopefully. Um and I think we'll have a big celebration of data. I think we're going to see it by then, you know, we've built the foundation and we we're scaling the work to our teachers and now we're going to see it really affect our our student scores and our student success. So that is my goal. Um
128and in closing, I mean, we'd love to answer any questions you have, but I just want to make sure you know how special this team is. They have been working very hard. We have um Let's see. I want to go back to that first picture where we have everybody here. Um We have Jessica Borland and Francis Leon who couldn't be here today from our preschool world from early early childhood development. We have administrators from all three sites. We have teachers from all three sites. We represent every grade level. And it's very special. We don't have that in our district where we are all collaborating, learning together, and we show up for each other. They're very dedicated. They're very knowledgeable. And I'm very proud to be part of this team. So, thank you all. You're amazing.
129And we're very proud to have had the chance to present to you last year and then come back this year and we we look forward to seeing you next year. So, any questions for us? >> I might have missed it, but what does P3CC stand for? >> The preschool to third grade Cohesion Collaborative. So, it's about vertical alignment between each of the grade levels. So, it's a common experience for for the students as they move up. >> I'll just say math is a huge priority for us on the board and I know for our whole district and your excitement and enthusiasm and the energy that you bring is it's so clear that you guys are loving what you're doing and it's I think reassuring for definitely me, probably my colleagues on the board to know
130that you are kind of carrying this torch because it's so important. Um, and just I'm I'm so glad that you're doing this work. I can't wait to see what you bring us next year. We love data, so we can't wait to see how that plays out now that you're able to start scaling. That's so exciting. >> Thank you. And we will bring a math activity. >> We'll we'll get we'll do some more math with you. >> Coral counting, I think. >> All right. Thank you. >> Hopefully you need this one. >> Yeah, just give it a go, man. >> Just a couple things. One one as a as a person who's got little that are going to start the journey again. >> Um the I'm excited for me, not necessarily for you guys, cuz they're
131very very energetic. >> Um >> And and and smart little boogers, too. But, um, I just want to maybe next time when we do this next year, if you guys are going to wear uh shirts that says math is a piece of pie, can we have our culinary follow them >> Uh >> with cuz I've I've been looking at that thing for a >> Or maybe we'll do it on Pi Day. >> 40 minutes now and I'm The only question I'm thinking is how big of a piece of that pie do I get? And so anyhow, thank you very much and and like Stephanie said well and all of us on the board and and really all of us in the community, you know, we we really want the best for our kids and we
132want and and we know that you guys do too and we're just searching desperately for that magic that sparks in in our kids so that way they can um um be excellent in in math. And so so and whatever it takes. So anyhow, they but but we really appreciate all your efforts. >> Uh two two things. Kudos and thank you for the compadres comment. I'm I'm I'm I'm struck how when little kids come to the upper grades, they inspire those big kids and when the big kids or the middle school kids go down to lower grades, they carry that day and that example and being able to grow our own as we saw two hours ago with Eli, I think that's what you were carrying the message on and thank you very much for that
133because if you can inspire your peers and keep them interested, you speak with the street cred and you're backing it up and you're there the next day at school to say, "Hey, that's fine there but you know, come on, what's the real story?" Um so thank you so much for that and stepping up. On a second thing, I like that the the t-shirts as well. I would like to get one and more than just getting one if you can find me an extra large, I'd like to get an extra large for my friend Paul Corgorno because he has we are bigger than the sum of our parts and I think if there's one of us on the elected side of the board that has been very passionate and outspoken and helpful about math, doesn't mean
134that you endorse what the product end game is, but but if we could, you know, maybe find out a way that we might be able to to to get some cuz they're really cool. And and I like just the branding. I mean, it's like an in-your-face, you're proud. Oh my god. All right. Well, I I don't need the name. Wait. Um but you can make them fungible cuz they just say trustee or something on the back, but in all seriousness, thank you for what you're doing. As as you know, this is a a place where for whatever reason the change keeps falling out of our pocket and we're investing money and trying to row the boat against the tide and whatever acronyms and and and and analogies apply. And we're we're we're making headway. And
135I see this particularly if you transform those classroom teachers one at a time with your peers, that's a game changer. And so, thank you for for leading that um on an area which is just essential. And the creativity. I mean, I love that arts integration piece and a couple things that people talked about the PD and what you're doing. I thought you were going to sing, but I couldn't I couldn't get you to do it, Maria. May maybe if I Think about it for next year cuz I'll lead my peers in singing if there's a singing ashes. Okay. But no, but that But for Robin and Annette really and and and the staff, um thank thank you. >> Yeah, Bill said a couple XLs and then one that's the whole pie. >> Thanks, guys. Really
136appreciate the good report. >> two closing notes. Um I think we're we're all feeling the urgency of what we are seeing in math achievement in our district. It's happening all over the state. What's different about what we're doing is that we are now digging into the 2-year-old framework. And we are experiencing different ways of teaching so that we can give more students access. There will forever be the group that gets it. There will forever be the group that if they if they memorize it, they've got it. There is a whole group of students for whom we need to give access. And the framework and the practices that we're teaching is changing practice in classrooms. We know what's happening in classrooms isn't hitting the mark for a large group of our students. So, the hope here
137is that we can with with engaging teacher leaders, that's my second point. That when we can engage teacher leaders who are interested in learning, it's not that they come to the table understanding all of it. They have a willingness and a heart to learn, to spend more time on it, and that's who these folks are. And they're prepared now and ready to start scaling this, and teachers will always and forever learn more through their colleagues. So, we Robin and I and others worked really hard to pull as many teachers as we could into our PD day last Friday, and my hope is that they see the gift of that and that we have more that submit proposals next year. Um, and just one little side note, the teacher of the year was my daughter's second
138grade student teacher. My daughter is now 30 years old. She's been committed that long to students and this work, and I just want to say thank you. She's getting her master's degree next month. Thank you. >> Thank you, thank you. >> All right, so that was 5.8 that isn't now 5.2. So, now we're going to move on to 5.3, which was the old 5.2. Consideration of discussion of the district cell phone policy. This is going to be presented by Superintendent Decker. >> I'm going to call Heather up, too. She's done a lot of >> Superintendent Decker and our all-star. >> Our all-star, yes. If we're talking about golf, I'd be the all-star, obviously, but that's what we're talking about. All right. Uh so, you know, you guys remember that on >> TV that >> recorded.
139I did say it. >> Just saying. >> Phil agreed with me. Okay, so, we've done a lot of work uh with regard to community outreach and cell phones. And we're going to walk through some of it. We're not presenting a a position as a district. That's not what we're doing today. We're really presenting the results of our outreach so you guys can have a discussion and give us some guidance to bring back a policy before the the end of the school year. So, why are we doing this? Uh because we have to. AB 3216 tells us we need to have something in place uh by by July 1st, 2026. And I mean, really, that that's it. I'm not going to go through everything else, but we have to do this. That's why that's what caused
140it. This is the policy language. So, we have to develop and adopt and shall update every 5 years a policy to limit or prohibit the use by its pupils of smartphones while the pupils are at a school site. So, that's what we have to do. Now, there are a lot of different, you know, interpretations of that, and that's what you guys are ultimately going to decide upon with a board policy, but this is what we have to do. Yes, sir. >> Do we So, at our So, our drop-dead date is our May meeting, we have to have that policy voted in on? >> We What we need today is direction from you guys to bring you back a board policy in May so we can have a first read for you to give us more
141feedback to make sure we have something solid in June that fits what the board is hoping for. >> Got it. Okay, I just want to make sure we had the time right. Timeline correct. >> So we we've made sure that we've involved the stakeholders significantly. So basically we've applied we've abided by this policy language. So you need to know when you what we come with to you next time, we've abided by the policy to get there. So the road so far, Heather why don't you this was you. This was your your life here. So why don't you take it? >> Hi there. Um so first we sent out what would really be called a general information opinion survey. We we offered a lot of different We really were looking to see how people felt about
142cell phones, how they were interacting with them, you know, if they were teachers or students, um what our what our students were thinking, what our families were thinking. Um it was a pretty extensive survey. We sent it out to staff first so that was in September 8th to the 14th in 2025 and then after we had gotten their results in then we sent out a similar but not exactly the same survey. We did students in grade 6 through 12. We did our elementary families, our secondary families and for this first one we pulled the Cali families out and and surveyed them separately because they have a different policy than the rest of the district. Um so we wanted to get a feel for what their feelings were about their policy as well. Um we then
143held two town hall meetings. Um some of you guys were able to come to some of them. The one on November 4th in the Windsor Middle School Library was very well attended. It was it was we had a lot of people there and got some really good interesting feedback. Definitely I think for me left me thinking in some ways I hadn't before so that was super interesting. Um the one we had at the Windsor High School Library was not quite as well attended, but I think most of the people that really wanted to come out and speak did so at the first meeting. Um then taking some of that feedback from the first survey and also from those town hall meetings and those conversations we had, created a secondary survey that was sent out um
144January 9th to the 19th. This we sent out slightly differently to just staff, students in grades 6 through 12, and then all families together. This one had a lot more specific policy-related questions in it um where we sort of offered two options and tried to really get their feelings on those two options. Now, I want to preface that by saying those two options that we are presenting in the survey are not do not necessarily have to be the options that you guys work from. We were just They seemed to really the two options we presented and we picked because they seemed to sort of be the bulk of the feedback that we were getting from some of those town halls and to what people were thinking. So, we wanted to present those options just to
145really get a feel for some more specific opinions about things. >> All right, I can do this part. So, where we are tonight, we're going to present the findings of the data. Uh it's going to be your guys' turn to ask us questions so that hopefully we can answer. And then like I said, we need to leave here with enough direction from the board to make sure we can come back with a created board policy next meeting. Also, we really learned this throughout this this process that we have to consider some other devices, especially I'm just going to skip over to smartwatches. Earbuds and headphones are really more specific to 504s and IEPs, students with 504s or IEPs. But, smartwatches were a large part of the conversation uh especially if if we were going the
146route of not allowing cell phones at all the entire day. A lot of families said, "Well, I don't know about that, but maybe if they had a smart watch cuz they like people like to track their kids." So, that's definitely something that needs to be considered dependent upon what you guys decide to move forward with. Some of what our neighbors are doing. Uh so, you got some bell-to-bell bands, and this is really when we're talking bell-to-bell, what the feedback that we got and we'll we'll get into this, but a lot of it centered around the middle school. Okay, so high school uh oftentimes they're a bit more permissive, meaning students are using them at break not during class. And elementary, students are not using them at all. That's kind of where we're at, but the
147middle school is where we had a lot of our conversation take place. However, having said that though, there's some bell-to-bell bands that are being implemented in our county. West Sonoma County uh has announced that they're going to do a bell-to-bell ban. Cotati Rohnert Park, they've also announced a bell-to-bell ban uh including no recording devices without prior administrative approval. Piner High School is moving towards a bell-to-bell phone-free campus for uh next year, but they haven't released any specifics. In Petaluma City Schools, there was an article that said they're also moving toward a bell-to-bell ban, but we we don't know the particulars. And then, where they're allowed during breaks, uh Santa Rosa High School uh well, all of these Montgomery High School, Maria Carrillo. So, Santa Rosa City Schools currently are not looking at bell-to-bell bands. Middle
148School, again, you got bell-to-bell bands at Petaluma, Cotati Rohnert Park, Santa Rosa Middle School, uh Salmon Creek. Uh we couldn't This is not exhaustive, right? We tried to do a search. Heather did the best she could to try to find different comparables for you guys. Uh and then Oak Grove is also going to be a bell-to-bell. And then, we know that uh Montgomery Middle School and Piner High School, they're they're not going to be bell-to-bell, but they're going to be used at breaks. What the research says. Heather, how close are you to this cuz really I just read this to the board versus >> So, the research is on the one hand fairly clear, but also not as clear as one would like it to be. There are certainly clear advantages to removing cell phones
149from the educational space. Um, however, some of those improvements very much depend on the type of student that you're talking about. Um, students that sort of are already in would be considered disadvantaged or underachieving see the most gains from having cell phones removed from the school environment. Students who are already achieving at a high level don't tend to see much in the way of gains in terms of those cell phones and that distraction being removed. Um, that being said, the improvement that is seen by those students that maybe do need that extra help or time is very real and and pretty significant. >> The reason we included this slide is because it's required for us to do so based on the law. You need to see the research and know it, so we made sure
150to include the research for you. Or at least some of the research. There's a lot, obviously. All right, survey findings. So, if if we're just looking at groups of people, staff, TK-5, and the Cali families are largely in favor of bell-to-bell ban, no phones even at breaks. 9-12 families and students, they they believe there should be restrictions during class time, but should be allowed otherwise, meaning breaks and lunch. 6-8 grade families are really split, guys. So, it's it's really tough. It's like 50/50. I don't think there's one way that we really found that families were leaning. Um, but again, the families who are in favor of a bell-to-bell seem like they'd be open to watches, and then those who do not want a bell-to-bell said we absolutely would have to have watches. So, I think
151it's just something for you guys to think through. I guess I just said that there on the first one, other tech. And then safety and emergencies, this was There was a lot of conversation around I need to get a hold of my kid, right? Now, back in the day, we called the school and didn't call the kid directly, right? But that was definitely a conversation that was had is if something's going down, I want to be able to text or call my kid or have them do the same. And this was universal. So, whatever we do, we need to have clear rules, consistent application, and penalties for non-compliance. And this even came from kids. Like, if you're going to do this, then you better follow through. Staff, same thing, right? If we're going to do
152this, then then you guys better follow through and make sure that if the students are breaking the rules, we they have consequences. So, survey number two was really specific. We already kind of talked about that. Option one was the current model, TK-5, they're banned, 6-12, they're allowed at lunch and break. And then option two was more the the Cali model. Cali doesn't allow phones at all right now. And so, option two that we posed to families was TK-8, they're they're banned in classrooms, allowed at break and lunch. No, I'm sorry. They're they're they're banned completely. And then 9-12, they are allowed at break and lunch, but not in class. >> Is that written wrong? >> Yes, it is. >> Oh, okay. >> All right, there's a lot of stuff on here, right? So, what we
153found is staff overwhelmingly prefer option two, meaning they're banned at lunch and break as well. Families, if you if you look, they prefer option two, but it's really not all that clear, right? 46.8% versus 39%. And it's interesting cuz there's a lot of people almost perjure themselves, so they vote one way and then their comments suggest a completely different way of voting when it's open-ended. So, it's really tough, guys. Um but if you look, when asked which policy best supports student well-being being mental health, social skills focus, support for option two, of course, increased to 49.3%. Um and the bell-to-bell ban support rose to 7%, but there's just this is tough. It's tough. And especially if you're saying, "Oh, yeah, I want this thing to happen, but for my kid, I want this thing to
154happen." Or I want to make sure my kid has their phone, but I believe that cell phones are bad. You got a lot of that. Again, this is a lot a lot of data that we just wanted to make sure you had, and we'll share it with you. But um you know, students students really feel like we're okay. We can manage our self. You don't need to take our phones away at at lunch and break. Uh 78.7% of students agree it's important to have access to the phones during lunch and break. And if you asked about their current phone use patterns, students responded as follows. Um they they don't 28.7% they don't use phones at school at all, right? About 40% said they do use their phones at lunch and break. So, again, and if
155you look at that, 65.5% believe policy one would improve behavior and school culture. Policy one is the not the bell-to-bell ban. >> Correct. >> Yeah. And 58.9% believe policy one would be best for student learning. Uh yeah, jump in. >> I just want to briefly add um as a point of interest, for survey two, the majority of students that answered the survey were actually from Windsor Middle School, which is really the campus that would be affected the most by this, because uh the principal thought it would be good for them to She allowed them to take the survey during class time. So, we had a huge amount of participation. I don't know. That I don't know. Um a huge Yeah, a huge amount of participation from the Windsor Middle School students. So, these numbers, I
156think, are quite reflective of their thoughts and opinions on this more than either middle schoolers at Cali or high school kids. >> Well, they could also take it on those Chromebooks which they still do have which they can text from which is another part of the conversation that makes this entire thing somewhat difficult to manage. So some additional findings of interest again, this is a lot of narrative on a slide for you, but parents reasons that they want their kids to have phones roughly half say safety and emergencies and then there's about 30% who say they don't need their phones at school. And then this was a topic of conversation at the town hall where parents said, I just want to be able to say, "Hey, so-and-so's picking you up. You have a you have
157practice. I want to make sure you know where you're going." So it's communication about after-school activities. Uh parent interest in bands by the grade level. So TK-5 they they definitely feel like, you know, four and five four out of five say it's good to not have the phones. And then again, uh 6-8 it looks like you know, parents somewhat support 54.9% agree, 32.9% disagree that we should have a ban. Uh and 9-12 42% agree that there should be banned phones, 36.5% disagree. Roughly the same. And then staff views 85.7% of staff really feel like we should be more strict with our cell phone management. Uh I'll let you guys read. I don't need to read it you guys. >> We actually went over it. >> The font keeps getting smaller. >> It does keep getting
158you know, it's interesting. So >> Did you guys run out of pages or something? You had to start you want to >> what's interesting? So we used AI. I used AI. So we had a bunch of slides with a ton of information, and then there's a thing in Google that says basically make the slide prettier, and we clicked that thing, and that's what all this is. So, we tried to take all the information and pare it down into into into smaller amount. But really, if you just look at the bottom uh >> Maybe next time say AI, make this smaller. You mean the the quantity Yeah, there you go. Concise. >> Well, it that it's actually in the instructions. >> I can't read it. >> Believe it or not. >> I have to ask Rebecca,
159what did that thing say? >> She has bad eyes, too. >> If you're looking at this, let's just let's just talk about smartwatches because that that could potentially be a solution where if you did choose to ban, then you did allow smartwatches, but they would then have to be in school mode, which means you can't text on them, which is tough to manage. Uh there's just there's a lot to go into this if we choose to ban. And Heather, is there anything else you want to touch on here? >> So, we have Parent Square as our communication platform. We're going to be turning on the student-facing piece of this called Student Square, and Student Square now has a feature where um parents could text with their students, and students could text with their parents, but
160only their parents through their Chromebooks via the Student Square app. So, that's an option for families that are concerned about being able to connect about after-school pickups or in safety issues or anything like that. So, just wanted to throw that out there. >> And did we already turn that on, or we're going to turn that on? >> Yeah. Shh. Yes. What is our policy right now? >> Cali, no cell phones the whole day. Okay? Uh middle and high school, cell phones at breaks and lunch. TK-5, no cell phones the whole day, during lunch break, anything. That's the policy right now. >> I'd like to mention I don't know how it is at the middle school, but at the high school like yes, it's like don't have your phone in class, but everyone has their phone
161in class and it's under the table or it's just out. Like a lot of teachers just don't really care or have gotten tired of trying to enforce it and so like I think that's like a very simplified version of it, but um yeah, I just wanted to mention >> She's absolutely right and and part of the the results were if we're going to do something then be consistent cuz we're not consistent right now and that's part of our problem. However, our policy is that we don't have phones out unless the teacher allows them, right? Unless the teacher says take out your phone so you can use your calculator or whatever it is in classes, high school. >> Do you remember off the top of your head what like the breakout was for specifically middle schools
162teachers opinions, like the staff at the middle schools opinion on what should go on there? I think the staff opinion's really important, but it's hard to say like if it's all the staff at once. >> It was high. I don't know you we can pull we can pull it up. We have all the raw data. It was pretty high from the middle school staff regarding banning the phones, but the feedback was if you're going to do it, then you got to make sure you manage it well. >> Okay. >> So what does man So I had a couple questions. What is managing it well? What are the consequences of violating whatever policy we come up with? >> Oh God, Rich, those are hard questions. >> Well, that's why you get the big bucks. >> Yeah,
163what does managing it well look like? It means that we actually can manage it, right? So if we're going to have a policy, we need to be able to manage it and so if kids can find a spot on campus during lunch where they can just go and get on their phones, we don't have have enough supervision, that's not managing it well. Or if we have staff who are like, yeah, I'm not going to really enforce that thing because it's 50 kids I have to enforce this on and this is impossible. That's not managing it well. So, could it mean that we would need more staff? Potentially, but it really depends on the policy that we come up with. I mean, there's different options. You can put their sleeves that you can put your phone
164in and then you can't access it until the end of the day. However, then kids can have a burner phone, right? They can have a phone they put in there, but then they have their real phone throughout the day. So, I mean, that's what managing it well means. Like, if we're going to do this, then it might require more resources than we currently have to manage it well. We may have to purchase certain things in order to have, you know, cubbies. Students may have to put their phones in little slots when they walk into a classroom. It really depends on what we come up with. >> So, the I know a question I've had people ask and and I've had people accuse different schools of doing, only because like we go to wrestling tournaments where
165at different schools and some schools reception's great. Some schools you can't your Bluetooth doesn't work right next door to something, right? And I'm I don't know if I'm supposed to ask this question, but we don't have some like blocker thing at our schools, do we that do we turn something on so beep bell goes off and all of a sudden no cell signal in the school district for the next period? >> No, we can't do >> I I didn't think so cuz I would have thought I'd heard of it, but I had a kid parents go like, "Well, you guys are already blocking the signal." >> And I'm thinking we're blocking content, not the signal. So, there's certain things websites you can't get on. >> through the internet part, but not >> Correct. >> Right.
166Okay. So, the uh So, I guess, you know, so we need to know what the consequences are, number one. I really really really do not like the idea of us putting phones in a bag, putting phones in a box, putting them in the little basket when you walk in or whatever. I do not want the teachers to have one extra duty with a phone. These some of these suckers cost a couple thousand bucks and I don't want a parent going like, "Hey, Billy's phone's missing and he handed it to Rich." >> Sure. >> And so, I don't want to put us in that situation at all, which kind of goes to a philosophy that I have, which is how I think I kind of how I kind of hope to see this kind of go
167and that is this. I've you you guys have heard the story about the kids and the cookies and the marshmallows and the kids that cannot eat it right now and wait a little while, they get more later. The principle of delayed gratification. I've used it coaching my my my whole career. And they've come out with lots of studies. Kids who learn at a young age to practice and get good at delayed gratification have just huge gaps of higher levels of success in everything they do. And so, I'm kind of leaning more towards let the kids in breaks and lunch get their phone. Who cares what they're doing at their break and their lunch. We're trying to train them or teach them to be responsible, socialize, do these different things, whatever they want to do in
168their period of time that that they choose how they want to spend it, right? And so, but in class, I think it's also pretty obvious on its face that unless you're using your phone as a calculator in a math class or whatever you need to use it for, you really don't need your phone during class and it would be a disruption. So, if the kids at all levels do not have their phones in class. I like that idea. Having it available during breaks and lunch and other non-institu- instructional time. That's, you know, at different grades. You know, I'm kind of there on the youngest level of kids. So, this for right now just discussion with 5 to >> 8 through 5. >> Right? As a parent, I I don't want an 8, 9, 10-year-old kid
169having a $1,000 phone anyway. Uh that they're being responsible for. I'd rather have that kid have a little more maturity to understand how much that money really is and what the value of that phone is. So, you know, we we kind of have a a morphing or a hybrid of of different things. Um my concern is is that if certain schools have Let's say we come up with 8 through 5, no phones. But, junior high level, we're going to let them go ahead and have those phones. Then what do we do at Cali? Because now the 6, 7, and 8 grade kids are going to Hey man, we're getting >> I mean, it's currently the same right now, Rich. They don't have any phones, right? >> No, it is. And so, do we just maintain
170the status quo over there and it's separate or not? Um I think that since you know, one of the things that I'm also not opposed to is we kind of have some options and some ideas. I don't think we necessarily have to get it right the first time. We can take some things and then we can revisit this, you know, after a year. Get more feedback from people. Hey, where did things go well? Where do we find a I promise there's going to be a problem that none of everybody have thought about. >> And can I say something to that in anticipation of other questions? So, we talked about do we come up with some robust solution if you guys were of the mind to ban phones? And my direction was no, we do not.
171We're not going to come up with all the solutions that you're going to ask about if we ban phones because we want to know where we're going first and if that is kind of where the board is leaning, then we will convene this whole team as well as our our teachers and principal principals and we'll come up with what we deem our solutions. But we do we will not have those answers tonight if you ask them. >> Yeah. No, I I I don't think we're going to have answers. Things are going to come up during the year that we didn't think of. Um so I I as much as I hate to say it, I mean I try not to do anything that Santa Rosa does. But Santa Rosa High School, they're they actually I
172thought had a pretty decent uh description of something that I thought was Let's see, keep going. That one right there. Phones, headphones, earbuds, etc. must be off and in backpacks caddies during class, allowed at breaks and lunch. You know, because that kind of was all encompassing of all electronics. Um is the phone thing I mean that's phone. Is the watch thing because parents track their kids? >> Yes. >> For like >> You can also call your kid on your watch. You can text your kid on the watch. All of it. >> Mhm. >> Just to briefly answer your inquiry, Rebecca, 100% of Windsor Middle School teachers who answered the survey were either completely agree or somewhat agree with the option to the bell-to-bell phone ban. >> And the student advisors were as well, but they
173did acknowledge that it's going to take a significant amount of of work and planning to actually enforce um a bell-to-bell ban. Administration at Windsor Middle was not in favor if you're were breaking down staff >> Mhm. >> And what are you looking for from us today? >> I kind of we kind of need direction. You know, are we going to go Here's why, Stephanie. If we If we decide to go with the bell-to-bell ban, that's a lot of work, right? That's a lot of work for my team to come back with a plan for you. If we are not, it's not a lot of work for my team to come back with a plan and a board policy. So, we need that direction, right? Are we going to now mobilize everything to to really come
174up back come back with a policy for a ban. >> But but right now, our policy and our practice is that TK through fifth, no phones. >> Correct. >> What What about watches for that age group? >> Is that the same? >> I believe we I believe we allow them. Yeah. I mean, my my kids have watches. >> But don't you have to have a phone near the watch? >> No, you do not. >> Oh, really? >> No, not anymore. You can Some watches require that, but other ones you you pay more and you don't. >> Sneaky. >> So, really I I'm hoping that you guys can talk to one another. I mean, you can continue to ask questions, of course, but I'd love for you to talk to one another to kind of figure
175out where you stand, and we'll listen. So, so we can kind of develop this policy moving forward. >> What do you have on your face? >> Well, I'm I'm just curious, do you put your kids watch in school mode? >> I do. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> Wait, what is >> I have a question. What is school mode? Like, how do you put school mode on the watch? >> So, you set the hours. So, you at at home or on your phone, you can set the hours that they can receive texts or that they can text on their their watch. That That's really what school mode is, and they can't change it unless they have my password, but that's what it is. So, from the hours when they're in school, they can't receive texts or
176texts. >> Would Would that watch thing and Heather or what what she said about the >> Student Square? >> Yeah, Student Square. Would it go show up on their little watch thing? >> know if there's an app for Student Square that we could get on a watch. >> It has to be on their Chromebook. >> It has to be on the Chromebook. Okay. >> No, my my thought was we can debate this for hours because what I'm thinking might be different from Stephanie, Ridge, our students, and and Bill. >> Yeah. >> So, what my thought is because I don't know exactly I know what you're asking for, but I can say my my this is what I want, but then Stephanie might say something different. >> okay. I'd love to know what you think, Paul.
177I mean, it would help us >> I'll tell you what my my personal thought is bell to bell from K5 and 6 through 12, they can have them in the break time. >> That's helpful. That right there is helpful. >> That's just Okay, so to me I want to try to make it simple because I'm going to maybe I should ask our our student trustees here if cell phones really are a problem in the high school. I think it depends on the teacher and how they run their classrooms, but I don't want to restrict their ability to have those phones at at breaks. >> Okay. >> And maybe some of the teachers say you have to keep them in your backpack, >> And that could be part of our policy. >> But then but then
178at break time they have them available. >> Sure. >> So, I don't I don't know. Maybe it's more or making a bigger problem out of it than it is. I don't know. I should defer to the to the student trustees on that. >> I guess I have kind of like an odd I'm like the person that would answer the question this way and then make a comment the other way. Cuz I grew up with absolutely no phone restrictions. And I honestly got a phone in the second grade. I think having siblings that are like 30 had something to do with that. So, but in my opinion, I think changing like I wouldn't suggest but I don't know how it would work with like both of the middle schools being different, but I think how Cali
179operates their phones is also playing a part in how their students are disciplined and how their students act and even at the at the conferences that we have where Cali comes to the middle school, there are different so not reactions, but >> norms >> different norms and attitudes from the students in Cali students tend to be a little more respective and I think that's because they have a little more restrictions. And so I wouldn't I don't know. In my opinion, I wouldn't take away their no having phones because I think it's doing a good part in their students. But I don't know. I guess I had no restrictions on my phone, but at the same time, I think there should be restrictions with the middle school phone. So, I don't know. >> So, would you
180So now that you're saying you you think they shouldn't have them at lunch and break? Cuz obviously restrictions absolutely during class time and all that. >> I Yeah, I don't honestly. I remember going into and high school's a little different. I mean, it can tend to be very different especially when you're 17, 18, but I remember going to the middle school and I went to one of the club meetings and the kids were on the phone the whole club meeting and it was so hard because I could tell those kids were also struggling mentally and I see them watching videos on Tik Tok that are not helping their mental state and I think if those kids had those restrictions on their phones, they would have been more involved with the club meeting that their friend
181dragged them to, right? So that that student obviously wanted to be sitting outside on their phone and while yes, they could be doing that and that would give them more gratification in the moment, um I think that student would have been a little more involved and I think that it's okay to put more restrictions on students that are younger and I think like more and more as a as a society we don't like we forget about that. Um, but that's also coming from a student with who didn't have restrictions so I don't know. It's like you it's like you get some students that end up being perfectly fine. If anything that gave me a really good balance on my phone that my parents didn't restrict me. Um, but that's my personality so and not everyone's
182like that so >> Sure. >> I 100% agree with everything Natalie said about just like all the reasons and also like walking around Cali and walking around the middle school like there's also the social reasons like just it opens up a lot for them and I think especially like at during puberty like imagine having just like actually like a physical block to being social and like you're already so awkward and I it just hurts me to think about. Um, and I come from the opposite thing where I had so many restrictions on my phone and like I still have restrictions on my phone at 17 put on there by my parents. Um, and so like I think it's interesting that we kind of come with two different viewpoints but then have the same conclusion. Um,
183I I think I would say to like lay it out um K through five is just a complete ban and I would also um continue that at the middle schools and then in the high school I think it should be allowed at break and I think something I want to discuss and I think Richie mentioned this too is um like how we're going to make sure it stays away especially at the high school I think because there's like the struggle of like you don't want the teachers to have to be responsible for that then also is it really even possible to have that restriction and to um like um enforce it without like physically taking the phone and like the addictions are very strong. Um, so. >> Well, and and it's a good point. We
184don't have a policy right now, per se. We have a rules. We got kind of a thing, right? But once we have a policy that is consistent in our district that is somewhat similarly you know, a little higher a little bit lower and all the other schools too throughout, you know, our area. The the the kids all across the board are going to know better now than they do that hey look, there's just some expectations when it comes to your phone and these are it. If you if you don't, you know, I don't know like what's the consequence. If if you your phone's out, you know, hey, you got a warning. It was out a second time, it goes home. It doesn't come back to school for a week or a month or something and
185that's not us to do. It's like hey, where's Stevie's in phone? In the office, parent comes and gets it. Which I want to include the parents. And this is here one of my fears with this is that and I've cuz I've heard people some folks at the middle school level and some others. They're not wanting to ban a phone because it's interfering with their learning. They're wanting to ban the phone because they're trying to control what the content of what the kids are watching or exposed to. And I don't think that that's our job. I think that's the student and the parents' job where they decide what they want their kids to be doing. Look at our house way way a long time ago. We just if you had a computer in the house, the
186computer was in the living room. That's where kids do stuff. The computer was a Anybody could walk by anytime, see what was going on that computer, and that's just kind of the way it was. And so I I don't want to get to where we're the content police. I just want it to get to where we are making the environment the best it can be for our kids to learn and and inside the class. And I haven't heard anybody say that the phones are adding value to their education. And then on the other hand um you know, having a parent be able to get a hold of their student at different times or however. I don't know that that during the breaks. I don't know how that's really um if they're if they're putting it
187away and then they're looking at it, seeing what they have to do, check a message, just like a lot of us people do when we're in a business meeting. We don't use our phone. Phones are in our pockets, on silent, they're put away. We have our meeting. We walk out of that meeting. We turn our phone on and bing bing bing bing bing bing bing. Emails and and texts that we got. We look at them. We take it. We figure out which ones are the ones that are the hottest fire, which ones that are not. We take care of them. We go to our next meeting. >> But your brain's developed, right? For a kid when they see the bing >> That might be debated. >> Yeah, wait. So I think there's >> Well, and
188that's why I said, they're learning that delayed gratification part. Cuz you may you Some of these kids are I'm going to use the word addicted to the phones. You know, I I I want to use it too much because of drugs and things when I call that addiction, that's a a different kind. Maybe it's not a different kind, but it's anyhow. Yeah, so um anyhow. >> Um can I just uh give you some information? Um so my sister-in-law works at Santa Clara High School and they did choose to do a um a ban from bell to bell. Um the kids have bags that are um uh magnetically closed. Um and every single student is assigned a bag um at the beginning of the school year that's theirs. In their first period class, they seal the
189bag. Um they don't have access to open it up. I mean, I guess you could buy like one of the little things on the internet, but it's pretty expensive to do. Um and she said um she she works with both ESL students and she works with um advanced um math um and honors kids. Um she said that she has had her test scores increase. Um she has had less mental health issues with her kids. Um it's it was such a struggle because, you know, kids say, "Hey, I have to go to the bathroom." and they sneak their phone to the bathroom and they go, you know, use their phone in the bathroom in the middle of class. Um and, you know, the she's seeing a lot more kids talking during lunch um and like socializing.
190Um so it I mean, it has he had a huge impact on um the learning of the kids in her classroom. Um and again, increased her test scores by having that bell to bell ban. Um so I just want to kind of give you guys you know, we'll see in the future if this the districts in Sonoma County are seeing the same kinds of things. Um but it's, you know, that's that's a positive note for um for that type of ban. >> If if we knew our math scores and our reading scores were going to go up we did the bell to bell, I'm in. >> Yeah. I mean, the interesting thing about kind of the location of that high school is it's in the middle of like the tech >> Yeah. >> world, right?
191And those families have bought into the idea what I'm sure a lot of them work for big tech companies and have bought into the idea that their kids shouldn't be able to have access to a phone for the whole entire school day until they're 18 and graduated. So, that's pretty interesting. >> They actually have a large percentage of socio- economic students at Santa Clara High School. Um so, it's not there's not a lot as many you know, big tech bigwigs there. >> Mhm. Okay. >> I just wanted to also add um just food for thought on what you were talking about Rich with that you don't want to be the content police. Um a lot of the comments that we received cuz all of the surveys had options for people to add comments is the
192parents who do want to restrict content by and large actually don't give their kids phones. What happens however what and what those parents express concern about is their kid that goes to school and then watches that video or checks out a thing on their friend's phone who they're sitting next to you all of lunch. Um and so, some of the families that are very strongly advocating for us to go to a bell-to-bell ban, um their concern is really rooted in you know, I can keep my own kid away from a phone when they're with me, but if all the other kids have phones and my kid's the one that doesn't, my kid is still going to be exposed to that content whether I whether I want it to be or not. So, that's just there's
193enough I received enough comments from families that I just wanted to share that with you. >> Did you have >> Yeah. I I when you had mentioned that that kind of came to my mind as well that if we don't ban, we are facilitating access to content. >> Mhm. >> Just something to think about. >> We do have filters though. Here, we have filters on our >> No, cuz they just still me just use a sell. >> I understand. >> I only have the Wi-Fi, right? Yeah, so it's not good then. >> You made a comment I I like the way you built that stuff on Cali. You You know, you can persuade me. Um I know Well, the Nelly, you had I know your three brothers, so your parents when you came along >>
194They were like done. >> No, when they were when you were born they were like, "Thank you, Jesus. Oh my golly." >> Oh, yeah. I hear it from my English teacher every day cuz she taught like two of my brothers. >> Yeah, so so you're an anomaly that I can't use as a rule, but may- maybe the I don't want to say compromise cuz I I don't think this is a compromise issue, but maybe the what's best for our kids maybe it is that we kind of go, you know, K through 8 cuz it seems to be working at a Cali. And we don't We've been on the board 7 years something like that. I haven't heard one gripe from anybody that they can't have their own at Cali. And so I'm wondering if maybe
195initially what we do is we do go K to 8. And then when the kids are a little bit more mature into the high school ages then they're able to maybe that's where we kind of have that demarcation and then let them begin to because in high school so many more activities, so many more things where the communication between a parent and a student is is so much more critical. Um or you know, Austin, too. Maybe that might be I mean, it wasn't my It wasn't my original um thought, but it is hard to try and remember back when you were a kid and whatever and um the you know, the debate about, you know, should we allow kids to have telegraphs or should we not, you know, in class. But But so so so
196may so maybe maybe that's the thing. Maybe that you know, on the from the maturity standpoint >> That's a real thing. >> of maybe it's it's K to 8, and then we mirror kind of what's been working at Cali. And then in the high school we kind of hey, you know, here you go. And then if things at the high school don't improve then maybe we got to go, hey, it's we're going to have to do like And we have other schools that are doing it a different way or are you doing it that they're already going to do it that way. And if they all of a sudden start having great success, you know, I think we have to be able to to morph when we have data. >> Can I hear from Bill
197and Stephanie? I don't know what >> question, but go ahead. >> No, please. Ask your question. >> Um my question is, I know in the high school there's kind of a ban during the day now, but not really. I don't know that there's really a strong policy. >> Supposed to be during instruction time. >> Okay. So, will that be more enforced next year? Like will there be a procedure and a protocol? Because I I do agree with Rich's kind of philosophy that the less we require and with the caveat that the metal bags or metallic bags or however that works or magnetic bags, that sounded really interesting, but could we just try to do what basically they do at Cali, which is you put the phone in your backpack and it's turned off. Nobody listening,
198tell anyone. But, you know, that's kind of what that means. Um what's happening at the high school? >> So, the law will require that there is no phone use during instructional time unless the teacher explicitly allows it for instructional purposes. So, that doesn't mean we've got 20 minutes left in class, you guys can play on your phone. Um and so so so teachers are going I mean that's that's the state law. So, they are going to have to follow that. Administer Administrators are going to have to enforce that. If you walk into a classroom when everyone's on their phone, that's going to be, you know, something that they're going to have to to to deal with. Um, but so the question is though it that the teachers are worried about is like, well, if they're
199just sitting in the backpack, then kids are going to be, "Oh, I got to get my pencil." and then they're texting on their phone or "Oh, I have to go to the bathroom." or I have to go to that. And that's why they're looking at maybe a cubby system. Um, but I but no teacher wants to do this on their own. So, I think whatever the board's direction is the the high school is going to need to say every classroom, you are doing it this way. >> Mhm. >> Um, so that the students know what to expect. You know, if you're going to three different classes or four different classes in a day, it's difficult to know which one is in the backpack, which one's in the cubby, which one's in the, you know, in
200the chart on the wall and all of that. >> Yeah. Well, I know in Cali it like I remember when it was kind I don't know if maybe it was implemented a long time ago, but >> Yeah, it was. >> Um, but I've been a parent there, so I've seen kind of that adjustment when kids get their phones and they maybe push the limit of using their phones and kind of how their system of teaching the kids how to put them away and making sure they do that. I it seems to be pretty effective, though it is a lot of work to do that. And I think if we're willing to do that at the different campuses, then I mean, I guess we have to. I mean, regardless because if we're really not allowing them
201in class, it's still a lot of work compared to what's happening now where there is a lot of phone usage happening, especially at the high school. >> Um, can I just say I think this is something that you said, Mr. Williams, about like um, like it's in the Cali culture that they're not going to use their phone and so there's going to be a big shift for students at the middle school. I think probably for a few years. Like you can't expect it to be like within 6 months or something. Um and I think like it's important to not be like I guess afraid of that when we're making the decision because like as you've kind of said like they have a they are very affected psychologically by the mind games of social media and
202the way that phones are set up and so um I like I expect that and I understand that and I would still recommend that it's like as much of a ban as as we can at the middle schools. Or in middle school grades. >> Where do you land, Bill? >> So um to Rich's point, I think the science and the research and what Jessica Borland said, test scores go up if we do a bell-to-bell ban. If we are seriously interested in those things, we are investing money and intervention and taking things about scores, a bell-to-bell ban should be something we seriously look at. Um I I've not heard anything that says, "Oh, no, it's okay if you have a middle ground." It's a culture shift. It's a social enforcement problem, but the device ban is
203shown to have a pedagogical impact in the success of the students. So, I would start there. Um and I think we need to really look at it. I mean, a comparative district for us is a Rancho Cotati school district, you know, where Cotati Rohnert Park and Rancho Cotati High School. Almost a mirror to our district from size, demographics, the town. Um I'd be very interested to hear from them how they decided on a bell-to-bell ban. I would like to know about that as we weigh in for the first reading. Um so I am leaning towards that. I'm thinking this is an opportunity to take steps. I get that there's a lot of things people do in high school. I don't understand smart watches or the control of that. Um but from where we sit as
204as preparing students for success in the world where they are at our school, I think a bell-to-bell ban should be where we start and then work backwards from, well, gosh, are they so busy that they need to check in at lunchtime and breaks? Maybe. The fact that content or isolation is facilitated by having phones, I absolutely agree with. I knew we were doing this. I've been walking around the high school and middle school looking and they're on them like flies, right? It So, I think that we might approach it from a a ban bell-to-bell ban to meet many of the obligations we have to the students is something to think about and does the inconvenience of that or the interference of that mitigate against it? That said, and that's really only 9 to 12. I
205think we are I get there's a separate culture. I think we need to have a consistent middle school grade policy and I would absolutely support a bell-to-bell ban at the middle school level. Um >> Middle school down. That's okay, eight, you know, until we get to ninth grade, um ban across. I I you know, the Cuz I've looked at the policy and thank for putting it back up. I mean, it's to limit or prohibit, but it's really the goal is to support pupil learning and well-being. Well-being and access to phones is I guess communication with their guardians or their activities. I'm just it's you know, so I think a K8 consistent for the reasons and thank you, Rebecca and and and Natalie. I think your articulation, particularly about puberty and the middle school students, that's
206a ways off from a lot of us and certainly you know, so I think that ban is a given, but I'd like to approach it to find out what did Rancho Cotati High School's governing board in the Cotati Run Unified School District consider when they went to a bell-to-bell ban. Um they are more like us than anyone else and I I'd be very interested about what they figured because I would lean towards the opportunity. Yes, it's a cultural shift. Yes, it may be inconvenient and require some adjustments. Um but I think from the purpose of this policy and where cell phones have deteriorated both the culture and I would say the performance of our students, that seems to be what the research is showing. I'm not saying it's easy. I do think that addresses the
207issue of student consistency, which is going to be a problem. I know there are teachers and I'd be interested to hear what Susanna thinks for staying about this. She's at the high school, what they would say about the consistency, but you know, a bell-to-bell ban removes that problem. Right? I don't know what these magnetic bags are. That sounds pretty cool. You didn't talk about what Oh, she's gone. >> We looked into them and and there's a cost and >> Do you go at the end of the day with the magnetic reverser and you take your bag and you have to Okay. So I I don't know what you know, the mechanics of that are, but you know, other people are doing it and I think they're doing it for a good reason, not to harass
208the students or inconvenience the families. I'm kind of curious since we do have a high school teacher here and the union rep from the teachers. I I'd be if you have a thought or what your peers are saying, um I'm you know, maybe it's cuz my kids aren't in high school anymore, but I'm really leaning towards boy, I'd like to be convinced why a bell-to-bell ban at all the schools would not be the way to start. >> Sure. >> And the student is nodding her head. So >> I'm going to start with saying that the more engaging the lesson and activity in the classes, the less likely the student's going to be on the phone. I'm going to start with that. Um and it's um it's insidious. The the students have multiple phones, so it
209doesn't matter if we're going to take one away. Um a smart watch might solve some problems, but it's going to open up a whole lot of other problems. Um parents that want to be able to track their children can make them carry an AirTag. They don't They they they can see their location. They don't need anything else. Um but as far as what happens in a high school classroom, um you might find this surprising, but most high school teachers become high school teachers so that they can be the monarch of their small domain. And they're going to do what they want in their classrooms anyway. So, um enforcing it and having that consistency across the campus is going to be a cultural shift at Windsor High School. Whatever the policy is, you will not get
210everybody following. You can't even get everybody to follow the the bells. So, um and and those ring and everybody can hear them, so. There you go. >> But what do you But Susanna, what are you saying? Cuz I mean, you're speaking for our our teachers, right? I mean, where where do you kind of land on this? And you're a parent of a high schooler. >> I'm a parent of a high schooler that I text during the day when he's in class, whose teachers take the phone away, and he still can respond. >> All right. >> So, um the it it's unen unenforceable. So, yes, we have to have a written policy. That's what the law says. Yes, the teachers are supposed to be following it. Our um employment agreement says that we follow district policy.
211Um, so we can discipline the kids and the teachers, I guess. I don't know. It's It's a tough one, but like I said, we close our doors and, you know, as as long as our kids are actively engaged, the phones aren't going to be that much of an issue. >> Thank you. Do you want board, would you like us to go back and design a policy centered around a bell bell band TK through eighth grade and show you what that cuz there will be a cost to it most likely if we have to purchase the slips or if we have to have more supervision because I but if we want to if you want us to go back and do that analysis, I mean, we can. We've talked about it. Or I'm Do you want
212something else? >> I am not in favor of us buying, purchasing No. >> The magnetic bags are cost is what I'm saying. >> Yeah, the magnetic box or this or that or whatever, no. Keep it in your gosh dang backpack or your pocket or whatever it is that is not in your hands. That is not a hard concept for anybody in our schools to to understand. >> The biggest worry, I will say for me, so I'm just speaking as Jeremy now, the biggest worry I have is, let's say we do a bell bell band and you keep it in your back. That's your responsibility. The job of our student advisor, assistant principal, and principal at the middle school then becomes, "Hey, put your phone away." It's not how was your day. It's, "Hey, put your
213phone away. Hey, get that. I see what you're doing." It becomes negative interactions with students. >> Mhm. >> That's my biggest worry. If that If that wasn't part of this calculus, I'd be all in, but I worry about it. >> But haven't they been able to do it at Cali? Yeah. don't have bags. They it's a cultural decision. >> It's true. >> That, you know, they have a process for how they discipline the students. They get like three strikes and they go through that process and by the end of that, they don't take their phones out. It happens with all of them. >> That's true. Thank you, Stephanie. >> Once there's an expectation, you have more you have fewer outliers. I mean, if we had a if we went and spent the money on those
214bags, it's still Jeremy, where the hell did that phone come from? Give it to me, put it in the bag. >> Mhm. >> Right? So, it's the same kind of a negative type of a deal. >> Yes. >> And so, we can use them as learning. Jeremy, what's the school all cell phones? Oh, did you forget again? Jeremy, if you keep forgetting >> I'm a student. I was like, "Oh, you're asking me a superintendent? I'm confused." >> Well, you had your hand in your phone, though. But, it's the same thing. It's like, "Hey, you know what? I'm sorry. You're you bring your phone up to the office and your mom's going to have to come and get it or your dad." Right? I mean, kids are not going to want to deal with that and
215it won't happen too many times before the parents going to say, "You know what? I'm tired of coming to the school and getting your phone. So, guess what? You ain't bringing it to school anymore." And so, those things can correct themselves. I'm I I unders- I'm desperate enough to for our scores to go up that if this if if not having phones K through eight, at least, because those are the most formidable time that if that bought us a 5% increase, I'm in. That's how little how desperate I am for for improvement. So, if I can get a 5% increase across the board because we don't have phones in there, I I'm a yes. >> Why don't I feel like we have enough direction to go back and start working? I mean that's what this
216conversation was for cuz we're not I don't want us to craft a policy from the dais, right? But I feel like you've given us enough feedback and direction that we can now take it and start talking. So that was my hope today and you've done that. So if there's anything else you want to add or for us to consider, please do, but I'm feeling like we've got enough. >> I mean I Dianne I believe at the high school it's going to be for all the reasons you articulated. And I appreciate the honesty because it's it's going to be like that. So why create a lot of dust. >> And we had 100% of our middle school teachers that are in favor from what Heather said. So I feel like that speaks speaks volumes. >> Hey,
217but on the other hand, let me just put it this way. If all of a sudden we do this and over the next two or three years, our scores go up 10, 15, 20% and the high school better look out. >> Fair enough. >> Cuz cuz the pudding >> Fair enough. >> so to speak. All unless there's some other thing that they can point to or >> Well, I mean the nice thing about that is those kids will be so used to not having their phones that you can literally matriculate them up into that policy and it won't be that shocking. >> Everybody used to look forward to driving a car. Wait to be 16 and drive. >> That's true. >> Wait to be 16 to get a phone. >> I feel like I've got
218we've got it. I feel like we've got it from here. Give us a chance, we'll come back with some sort of proposed policy that you guys can beat up. >> I mean philosophically, I think Bill's probably right. I just don't think in application wise I just don't know that it'll work. >> I'm with Bill, too. My kid is not getting a phone. So I I it. So I would like if he would come back if it's a K K8 buildable total ban. >> Yes, sir. >> And uh come up with like five bullet points on how Rancho Cotati High School seems to think they're going to do it. >> Okay, we can reach out to Petaluma, too. Casa is very much >> no, no, no, the examples that that were provided on the slides say,
219"Hey, how are they thinking about doing this?" You know, they're I just be curious to and we're aware then. >> Yeah, we'll reach out to Petaluma and and Rohnert Park cuz I those high schools are all pretty similar to us. >> So, some Somebody said something about the AirTag versus the watch. I I understand that a parent could legitimately be concerned about their kids' whereabouts safety-wise, right? So, is the AirTag do anything I mean, does that watch do anything? >> Just location. >> So, we could say no watches, but AirTags, yes. >> We could, but then in a in an emergency where you have a lockdown, the concept is that, you know, a parent can break their school time, right? And then they can contact their child. The child can't break it and go the
220other direction, but a parent could. They could say, "Okay, well, I'm going to get through school time and talk to my kid." >> Yeah, so the the kid can respond on a watch if the parent really wants to get through to them. On an AirTag, >> there's no response. >> you could Someone could throw it somewhere. Like, it's not necessarily on the kid. So, I think there is a big difference between an AirTag and a watch. >> Big difference. >> in being able to confirm that you've received the message. >> Can you bring us back a little I Honestly, I thought that if the watch was connected last time I had it's the two of >> It's like a phone. >> together. >> Uh no, they're not. >> So, so I >> I'd be off
221Okay, as a parent of a kid who's going to go to the middle school, >> right? I could I could function just fine with no cell phone, but I'd want my kid to have the watch so that if I really want to get a hold of my kid, I know I could just go into my app and I can break the thing and I say, "Are you okay?" Right? If they're in a lockdown. That would make I'd be totally fine. >> can do that, right? >> Correct. Now, not every parent as responsible as I am setting up school time and whatnot, right? But >> So, if a parent So, if we said, "We're going to do watches for the reason you just said." Because I don't I I think that's reasonable. If you can monitor
222it, but then what happens if the parent doesn't do it? Then the kid loses the watch? >> That's what we need to all discuss together. >> I think we should that there should just be clear instructions for families on what the expectations are, too. Like, you know, they they're probably going to have questions and maybe if we say, "You can set your kids' watch to school mode." Like, then it's okay. >> So, a lot of the schools um locally that have that are doing bell-to-bell bands, but are allowing watches, the general concept that they all share is if it makes a noise or makes a distraction, it it goes to the office. That seems to be the way that they're handling the watch question. >> But, I have a question about that. Like, how is
223that monitored? Cuz in a class of I don't know, like 30 students, a teacher is usually is not going to be able to know Like, at least with my teacher, she's not going to always When she hears a thing, she's just like, "Who is that?" And they don't respond. And then it's like, "Okay, that just interrupted her lesson." And that wasn't fair to her because now she's having to monitor another device on top of students probably locating their phones, too. So, I don't I feel like it's just adding like adding a watch is like it's just like adding another problem. I feel like there should just be overall restrictions on every sort of like device that a student's going to bring. >> I worry about the parent response based on what we heard from parents
224and as a parent >> on the watch? >> It was >> We we had parents who sort of started We had parents come to some of the meetings that started from a place of you know, I don't care what rule you pass, my kids having a phone. And then when you drill down through that conversation, it turns into because they're worried about safety, they're worried about tracking their kid, they're worried about monitoring or being able to connect in case of an emergency. And the vast majority of those parents, when you have that conversation, if they had when you discuss them being able to keep their watches, that changes the conversation for them. Then it's, you know, "Okay, well, yeah, in an emergency then I could contact my kid on their watch and that would be
225fine. They That's right. If they had that, then I'm fine with the phones being banned." So. >> So, it's just a thought. Maybe if we did say watch, here's the parameters, and then if it doesn't work, I mean, we we could come back and I think you're a very reasonable person. You understand the educational world as much as anybody. And you tell me that, "Hey, I want my daughter having a watch at school." I'm I have to weigh that. >> And I do. >> Right? And and and I I look, I I would want my kid to be able I want to be able to get a hold of them, too. So, I like So, maybe we do the thing where we K through eight, kids can have watches if the parents understand and the
226parents sign a little paper, "Hey, these are the things that your watch can do. First offense, >> second offense, that we we do all that. >> also very clear to them. They sign. It's not the kid that's going to hot jack or whatever they do the the thing, but the parent. So, the parent knows, "These are the expectations of the district. Here's what the parent is agreeing to." Cuz it's the parent who's going to change where that watch can do some different, right? But we can always come back to this if if the we start getting feedback from you guys and say, "Hey, the watch thing ain't working. We're having a lot of trouble with it or whatever." And we can we can modify. So, uh or we can say, "Hey, your test scores go
227up 20%. Every time it goes up that 20 will keep dropping in the grade. You can you can have your phone. You know, make them happy. Make us all happy. So >> take a stab at it. Is there anybody left? We got one. Do you have an opinion? You you can't be here for the food. But anyhow, you know no comment from the from the public. Um okay, I'm I'm going to bring it back. Yeah, I would say yeah. That is a great idea. Um is there item on the agenda that you're waiting for, sir? No, you just you just Oh. Come on up. No, no, no, no, you got to go to the front. You got to say your you got to say your name. >> I'm Diego I'm Diego Madrigal. I'm also your
228senior class treasurer. >> Okay. >> As well as your >> Wait a minute. So you guys are going with the guy with the money. >> But I did want to mention something. I I've had my core teachers I've been in the same core vineyard for the past 2 years. And the first year in the beginning they didn't really do much about phones and stuff until they it started to become well a problem. And then they implemented the well the pockets. You you all know those pockets that they hang up on the wall. Everyone has their own number already designated on the attendance paper so everyone already knows their number on where to put their phones. But that was working pretty good and and then this year they started like going easy because they started getting
229these boxes. They just well from I what I've seen it was all it's only really been our core. They had these boxes that they lock. They keep it open because the majority of the time it's in front of the class so everyone sees if someone goes to get a phone well everyone sees that they go get a phone or the teacher is able to notice oh look someone's going to go get their phone and be like what are you doing or why are you going to go get your phone? But it's been working for the whole year. No one has had a problem with stealing phones. It could happen. I'm not saying it from what I've heard in my core no problems have occurred and it's been working fairly well. Everyone in my class is
230paying attention. You look around Yeah. Some people may have their burners but that still lowers the amount of people that are actually on their phones. Not everyone's going to go aside and buy an extra phone, you know? But other than that caddy those caddies those boxes they've worked very well. Nothing much to say. >> Good feedback. >> Um did you like do you think that the boxes even though they're not locking them worked better than the phone like hangers cuz I've noticed the hangers it's easier cuz they're usually by the door. >> I I do. >> Okay. >> Because also like if a teacher's not paying attention oh I want to go to the bathroom. They sneak off they they they right out the pocket. With those they have a door you got to open
231and then close it. It's pretty difficult to sneak off a phone unless teacher's not in the room or completely not paying attention or if it's in a place where it's easy to grab. Just have them Just have They just have to have it somewhere where it's noticeable. Other than that, it's been working great. >> feedback. You did tell on yourself. >> Of course. >> You know, your girlfriend now knows that you might have a burner, so she's going to be looking for both phones to check your texts. >> I would never. No no reason for me to have one. But >> Now we're going to move Oh, sorry. Go ahead. >> Oh no, yeah. But yeah, and at first also freshman and sophomore, I'm pretty sure that's also when they still Probably sophomore is when
232they had the pocket still. I was still in Vineyard. And that then during that time I did usually notice more people having their phones during class. But I don't really I think the pockets are just very easy to access and they just ended up not working in it. Ultimately, teachers ended up not even using them at all and just being like, "Just don't use it because it's just too much like oh they yeah, they got to worry about this. Who took the phone? Oh, do I have to check it again at the end of class?" It's just a lot of work for the teachers. >> Did Did we ever have any issues with people their phones getting stolen or missing? Brian you hear much? >> Not since phone security improved where you It's not like
233you can just pull a chip out, put a new one in, and sell the phone. >> No, yeah. And with all the new iPhones like even if you turn it off, you could still see the location on Find My iPhone. So And to And to sign it all off and do all that, it's a lot of work and you need another computer and it takes time to do that and it's just risky. You know, why would you steal a phone that's expensive and at school you get in trouble for it. >> Got it. >> You're gone. >> Well, thank you very much. Appreciate you uh chiming in. >> Thank you. >> All righty. all good. >> Good discussion. >> Can we >> Nelly, you know he would never get a burner. Just He's got three
234brothers who would beat him up. Okay, so moving on now to You know what? I have a question, everybody. Um we've done this once before, but since we're on to 5-3, which is now 5-4, on the consideration of approval for the CSBA recommendations, we were thinking that we weren't going to take action on this tonight as much as just talk about it, kind of figure out what we're doing on it. Considering the time, do we want to go through the rest of the agenda first, and then maybe come back to that if we have time? >> And so, the >> Or >> there's a publication code that by law has to be approved and and the administrators need time to be able to get it into their their handbooks and distribute it, you know, out
235there. So, we are kind of running out of board meetings. I mean, I'll do it in whatever order number you want um for tonight. >> Yeah, that's I wasn't sure. >> But it would be helpful since we moved this already 1 month that we do take action on it tonight. >> We can always take action again and have a a greater discussion if you if you need that specific language. We could always bring it back next month and have a more robust discussion about policy. If you wanted to approve it, it's up to you. >> I I wasn't ready to I was ready to get information, hear other trustees, and really drill down on this particular topic. Um and so I wasn't uh and we're missing one of our trustees that I think's pretty interested
236in this topic. So, I'm just guessing, but I mean, we play by ear. Maybe it's >> Maybe you guys should have the conversation then, Rich, and we just got to to in the time. >> Yeah, I mean, let's let's let's just go with it. Just go ahead, Brian. >> All right. So, why do we have to do this? Well, one, uh I think um you know, when we think about students, you know, they're under 18, and you know, they're not adults, but they still retain strong constitutional rights, particularly um when it goes when we're talking about freedom of speech. Um but yet, a school still has to maintain a safe and orderly uh environment. And and kind of the real issue is is that enforcing these rules is often very subjective. You know, what's offensive
237to one person may not be offensive to another person. And so, what our hope is tonight is to be able to create that clear guidance um that protects our students uh right for speech, but also um directs staff and and the district um in how we should kind of handle these situations as they come up. So, for those of you who it's been a minute since you've been in the first year of law school, um why do we have to do this? Well, it's the First Amendment to the Constitution. Uh and it's also in the California Constitution. Uh it's also in education code. And then, there's a number of key court cases that specifically deal with student speech. Um what this new update to the board policy is is it kind of brings the language
238into uh the digital age. And so, um now it it includes journalism, yearbook writing, uh student publications, but it also includes school-sponsored social media. Um and so, what I don't think our current our staff know right now is that you really can't curb student speech unless it it it has a couple of areas that we're going to go over. Otherwise, you kind of have to say, "Well, that's protected." Um and the other piece is uh understanding that, well, schools can assert, you know, that you violated something if if the speech happens off campus, if you can create that nexus to the school. But if it's not connected to the school and it's not causing a substantial disruption, students really continue to have those freedom of speech rights within the community and it's not necessarily our
239role as the school to enforce like their social media page. So, you can limit expression >> When you say their social media, you mean the student's social media page? >> Yes. So, for instance, I got an email from a concerned parent saying that one of our students had a slur on their their personal social media page. And I had to respond to that parent saying, that's their personal social media page. That's protected. You can What you would have to do is you would have to report them, you know, to to the company that owns the social media page, but the school can't take action on someone's private page unless we can connect it to a substantial disruption at our school. So, if the expression is obscene, libelous, or slanderous, if it's discriminatory, harassing, intimidating, or
240bullying, if it's likely to incite unlawful acts or likely to cause a substantial disruption. So, my first year as principal at Windsor High School, there was on our Pride Day a number of students who brought pride flags, and then there was a counter protest, a number of students who brought American flags and Gadsden flags. >> And what? >> Gadsden, the don't tread on me flag. >> Oh. >> With a snake. And to to the point where it caused a substantial disruption as students were trying to run around and take each other's flags. Um and so we went and said no more flags. Was that a Was that um re- you know, taking away their freedom of speech? In that moment, yes. Did I feel like I could demonstrate that it caused a substantial disruption? Yes.
241Um Were the papers kind to me? No. Uh time and place matters. Uh this the the new the update allows the principal to designate um particular spaces for free expression. So, Principal Buckman could say senior steps, you can protest all you want, but what we're not going to do is have 1,600 students roam the campus um in some mass protest. You're allowed to kind of limit the area where the freedom of expression is happening. Um it talks about in terms of your ability to distribute materials. Um if clubs wanted to pass out materials, the clubs are allowed to pass out materials. Um but it just says that you can't collect money for passing out the materials and you can't have any coercion for collecting uh petition signatures. Um students can wear slogans and insignias. Um
242you know, we had another recent case of a hat that from from a number of years ago that said let's go Brandon. Um for those of you that knows what that's referring to. Um >> That was our superintendent, right? >> What's that? >> Not that Brandon. >> Yeah. >> The slogan was different. >> Oh, I'm not >> Um >> I'm missing something. Sorry. >> And And that hat, uh while we don't have to have that student on our website or CSBA's website, that hat at school, protected speech. Um it's a it's a political statement. I'll tell you afterwards what it means if you want to know. Uh but that would be a case of that's protected speech and even though the the teacher or the staff member may not like it, it's still protected. Um
243you could wear a button that says I don't like teachers. That's protected speech. That's your opinion. Um and it's not libelous and it's not slanderous. Um so are you ordering your buttons on Amazon right now? Um we are allowed uh with student publications to insist that um they specifically say something like student views do not necessarily reflect the views of the Windsor Unified School District. Um but the students still have a right to have those views. Uh there can be a review process um and that would create a dialogue between the student and administration about what's allowed. Students may modify content um but you can't we can't just blanketly deny something. There has to be a reason and it has to go towards those reasons that we talked about. Is it slight slanderous, libelous? Um
244but students also have to follow um the standardized journalistic uh you know, language when they do that. So you know, when you're going to have that journalism class, they're going to have a lot of freedom to do that but they also um have to kind of follow those journalistic norms. Here's a fun one. Uh middle school and high school students are permitted one pre-approved excused absence per year to do some sort of civic or political uh events such as voting or public forums but that also could be um a protest. Um the interesting thing is it has to be pre-approved meaning that you have to indicate before you do it. So an a impromptu class walkout would not fall under the pre-approved uh absence. Um so that is >> You said middle school kids want
245to go vote thinking that that's maybe a problem. >> Um but you can so if there was if there was a a local protest, you know, let's say on the town green and the parent called in and said my student is going to participate in that protest, we would mark that as as an excused absence for one time per year. So that would be an example. >> We put ADA on excused >> We do not. So the recommendation is that the board review administrative regulation and and look at kind of all the areas in the item I included the CSBA redlining markup so you can see exactly what's being changed and modified. If there are no changes, then it would be to approve the regulation and then if there changes need to be made, then
246we can push it to a further month, but we are required to get this publication code into the student handbook for next year. >> Oh, Rich, I had a couple questions. And and we had reviewed Um I had asked Brian when we were in the policy review, we have a policy while slogans, I don't even know what Brandon is either. So I'm so unhip. Um but we that they don't wear red to school. And I said, so does this mean that our school policy about not wearing redish and what it should share about why that is I understood it know that policy would not be disturbed by these additional protections for student expression. >> Um so all student dress in most cases is protected, um, schools are allowed to implement restrictive dress codes if we
247can relate it to like gang activity and affiliation. >> A couple of examples and I do not know the circumstances, hadn't heard about it before the parent came in public comment today. But, for example, taking it face value as I understood what he was saying, the student said something off campus that was then triggered a message how unless that was eminently going to be under the injure or some other exception is that not a protected example? If I understood what he was talking about, I don't if that's a bad example, we won't talk about that one. >> Um, so that that's then exactly what what I caution our administrators about is overextending your your nexus of control, um, which is why you heard that the staff saying this is not something we can take action
248on. This is not our purview. I think they were trying to be informational in terms of that this was something that was reported to us, um, but a lot of that comes in with, you know, if if there's a fight that happens on a Sunday afternoon and even though it's two of our students, that does not make it a school issue that we're necessarily suspending on Monday unless we can connect it to a nexus. >> So, one other thought, um, close to home for our our theater uh, advocate on the board, a year or two ago, the ArtQuest program at Santa Rosa High School had content, some of which was student driven sort of by the faculty, but let's let's say it it had a student significant voice in the play that was curtailed from
249being performed. The student expression and student is that expression or is that publication when it's an activity? How would you think from what you know about that? and I just know what I read in the paper and ultimately they sort of prevailed and as much public sentiment against it I think I don't know what the school board did about it if anything. How how would this affect that where you had controversial let's let's say it was to the point of obscenity as I recall it that it was really strong themes and does this new policy would that would that have led to a different outcome maybe? >> So I mean the interesting thing about board policies that are based off of um state and federal laws regardless if the board passes the policy we still
250have to follow state and federal law. >> Understood. >> Um so what what really what we would do is refer to this publication guidance that is in there. Um so unless we were able to demonstrate that it was obscene um then then the that student expression would have prevailed. >> Okay. >> And it's the same thing with if you're writing in an English class and you write an essay and the teacher says well this is not appropriate it might not be appropriate but is it obscene libelous or slanderous? >> Okay. Thank you for all three of those and I where I was getting with that is when we had the policy subcommittee um with Stephanie and I I'm of the view while this is expensive and maybe troublesome to some of us individually or parts
251of it um the policy as it is written I believe is consistent with state and federal law. So whether our policy well we need to do something about the student publication code as as required but um these situations will come up whether or not we adopt a policy we're still going to be bound by them as I understand it right that that that overlay of the state and federal law which is >> Correct. >> expanded protections for student expression those are my sort of characterizations of what this comes are an existing situation we need to know about whether or not we make it a policy because we may or may not like the >> Right. We would be referred to the Office of Civil Rights. Um and that is not a pleasant experience. >> Okay.
252Thank you. I appreciate that. >> To Bill's point, we we have to follow the state and federal law or change it. >> Mhm. >> I mean that we have to those are our two choices. One, by the way, I just looked that up what the Brandon thing was. >> Yeah, we don't need it. It's >> I was I had no idea. So, anyhow, um the um my concern is and I'm going to use a gentleman that talked earlier tonight that we have some wonderful, well-meaning people that sometimes get overzealous. And what is obscene to you and what's obscene to me could be two different obscenes. Uh it what's libelous and slanderous, I mean, I'm going to use myself as an example here. Somebody come up to me and say cuz I'll I'll I'd say it
253to you. I mean, what the heck is that fat guy doing, right? Is that slanderous? Is it libelous? Is it obscene? Is it derogatory? Is it hate speech? Well, I'm 5'8" and I'm a well-proportioned gentleman, right? Trying to be more like you, though, Brian. You're my hero. I'm coming for you. But in all seriousness, who's the arbiter of that, right? Because if what the gentleman said earlier, it sounded to me like and not I mean for his perception of what happened what I heard of that perception was it sounded like we were in somebody's business that we shouldn't have been in. Um and so or I could also take the other view and say, "Hey, uh a well-meaning administrator was concerned about somebody's complaint of their that of their safety and so that person went,
254"Who we talking about? I don't hear it. Do you know what they look like yet?" And they showed it. So, they weren't trying to be the FBI, but they just wanted to know, you know, you know, "Was it little Miss Valdez?" It was. "Oh, that doesn't sound like her. She's always nice to everyone. You must have misunderstood." Or, "Yeah, there's little Johnny who, you know, has got a little challenge with little Johnny, right?" So, I I don't think that looking at a yearbook was in and of itself was was a problem. It's just to kind of get gain information. But but there is a line and I don't know, maybe um maybe there's some uh you know, guidance work that needs to be done or could be done where people are really clear on you
255know, "This is black, this is white, here's a gray area and we want to just try and like stay out of those." So, of of how much we're into other people's business. But, that's my when I was looking through this, it's not so much the law or the or whatever, it's everybody's consideration of it, right? And so, um and and how it's applied. And is it applied the same all the way across? And and, you know, I can say, "Man, I hate ice skating." And she can say, "I hate wrestling." >> Yeah. >> And is is that really hate or hate speech or what have you, right? And then it depends on if it escalates whatever. So, anyhow, I don't know how to uh where the guidance would be on cuz like those that it's
256it's the law, so we got to follow it, but to what degree um and what sensitivity levels of that are we going to do? Are we going to be more sensitive if it offends certain people or or less if it offends somebody else, you know? I know that, you know, free speech isn't free. Someone paid for us to be able to say the things that we say. Um and sometimes the things that we say are are pretty bad. That uh but it it is our right to say it. When I say our, I mean all of us together to say some you know, sometimes ugly things. So so and I don't know how that really works at the school level as far as um if somebody really wanted to push the issue of I think
257you just, you know, So, anyhow, I'm just kind of concerned about how those obscene, libelous, slanderous, and other things that we have in the presentation, how those things get meted out. >> So, I I have a question. Just understand where we are in the presentation, but I'm kind of wondering where we're going in the present and like what the ask is for us. Because to me this is just basic First Amendment. It's listing the categories. So, what is Yeah, what are where are we headed? >> It's It's It's to do two thing Oh, went too far. One is to approve the board policy and administrative regulation 5145.2. And all the all the redline changes that are in there. The other one is to review the exhibit for the student publication code and to approve that.
258Once that's done either tonight or with changes in the future, then that student publication code will be what we refer to when as Rich was saying who's the decider, that that code will be how what we refer to. It's what the parents will be aware and the students will be aware that these are their rights as well as when we would do this. And that it it's hard. On one day, a student could say something and no one pays attention to it. And the next day, a student could say the exact same thing and all of a sudden a huge crowd forms and it becomes a substantial disruption. What they said didn't change, but the environment did. And so day two, you might have to make a change and say no, we're not going to
259do this today. And they're going to say, you know, well so-and-so got to do it. Now you're violating my rights. And then we have to point to the substantial disruption. So none of this is going to be clean. And that's why we do a lot of scenarios with our administrators to make sure that they've kind of experienced enough of these of of like what do you do? >> And that is my concern with the substantial disruption because if Brian's going to start talking about how you know, we love basketball and I don't want to hear it. I just got to create a big enough fuss so that way I can shut you up by creating a substantial disruption. >> And and we've all seen videos of board meetings where that is what they do. Right?
260You know, they shout try to shout down, you know, public speakers and yeah, that is a tactic. >> Yeah. You mean on TV. >> Right. You like you've see like we've seen clips where you have public speakers and >> Oh, yeah. >> And in other in other board meetings where, you know, people shout and and and shout down the speaker. Yeah, that is that is a tactic. >> So, what I understand the ask to be is the administrative regulation is like a legal update and an update to include kind of like new technology. >> Yes. >> And then the written publication policy is a new policy. >> Or >> Part of the >> The school publication policy is a new component of this that we haven't had before. >> Yes, and it adds the the
261key things that the new language adds, it explicitly spells out the reasons why we can limit expression. It allows the principal to uh designate the free expression zones. And um And And it allows for uh the requirement of the disclaimer that says that the student views do not uh necessarily reflect the views of the ones of Unified School District. >> I did like the employee >> to the >> Oh, so it's all together. >> Yes. >> Okay, got it. >> What did you say? >> No, I I had it pulled up on my >> Did you bother >> And I don't think we have a lot of latitude, right, to change any of this. >> Correct. Um we would just be out of compliance with not having a a publication code. >> Got it. >>
262Yeah, I I don't really have an issue per se with what we're going to uh approve as cuz like they'll say it's this pretty much the law, right? And if we have a real issue with it, then we have to work to have that law changed. My concern really is more of the application across the board. Uh And And that was the whole frankly was the thing of, you know, how do I shut Brian up? I just go and have a disruption. Whatever it is, right? And then And then the So, your your ability to exercise your right to speak your mind is getting squashed because I'm outmaneuvering and politicking uh using the language to shut you up. >> Well, creating that disruption is a violation of California Education Code K, disruption defiance. So, we
263can take action against students who are causing a disruption. So, they don't It's not a free pass to be able to do that. But, having an opposing opinion also would be considered free speech. >> So, if you had If you had a If you were up there and you were talking about apples and I hate apples and I'm a banana guy. So, I have a big old banana just, you know, problem, right? Kind of basically create an issue in our policy then, which I didn't read it that way, but if That's That's cool. That I'm actually the one who's violating part of the statute by creating a big fuss >> Different part. >> to keep you from exercising your rights. We have that ability in here. >> That That goes under a different part of
264Ed Code 48900. That That That says, you know, how you need to conduct yourself at school. >> Mhm. >> So, so you can't harass, you can't intimidate, you can't you can't bully, you can't do any of those things. So, if you're doing any of those things to stop someone from speaking, that's that's another That is a violation of California Education Code, but it's not necessarily a violation of your of your um free speech. >> Got it. Okay. no, that Thank you. That makes complete sense. It it makes me less concerned then. >> So, so like the tricky ones is is a student who wears a Confederate flag shirt. >> Okay. >> In in this county, we probably could make a case um, that it's discriminatory, harassing, intimidating, or bullying. And other counties in California, they
265may not have that same view. And so, that's the part where we have to continually have those conversations with our our staff about what what is acceptable in our community in terms of what we as a Windsor Unified School District are going to accept. And I think that is the role that the board has is to be able to say as the representatives of the community, these are the standards that we want. And then, as long as they pass muster with, you know, with a legal review if we ever get challenged, then those are our standards. >> But ultimately, you're staying that by who you're hiring and the job that we're doing, right? That's really where your power is because if we're not interpreting these things as you would want us to, then you're not
266going to have us in our positions. So, to Brian's point, it changes wherever you're at, right? >> See, I I disagree with that. We're not hiring you to have a certain view. We We don't We want you to right down the line. >> But what I'm saying is to Brian's made the point numerous times, there's no right down the line here, right? It depends. The Confederate flag shirt is a perfect example. Here, that might be unacceptable, but if somewhere else, it might be acceptable. >> Mhm. >> So, if we're not managing the fallout of that situation effectively, then it feels like that's your oversight, not necessarily the policy. >> Right. >> The The The values and the priorities I think are part of what we get elected to be that community voice. >> Mhm. >>
267Right? And so I think that's where Superintendent Decker was going. Where where we see this is is on these blurry areas the policy says what it says. What those means, I don't know. It's every everyone is a separate interpretation, but we we we hire and give direction to the now to the superintendent and he he hires the other people, but to to to carry out what that local interpretation is, right? So not necessarily Jeremy himself, but Jeremy executing the will of the board and and again as people change on the board that will and community direction can also evolve and and morph, I think. Yeah. But I think maybe are we at a point where we can have a vote or you're entertaining a motion or or or not on this? Um >> Yeah. >>
268I'm good. >> Okay. I would then out of as a member of the policy committee make a go back to what we're doing. Uh I think we just have the first two. So uh to review and and and approve the policy 5145.2 and approve the exhibit as drafted for the student publication code. I'm not aware and I haven't heard any changes. Um so as as as as submitted at this point. Certainly understanding that as issues come up like we spent so much time in the last matter that we'll you know, we can always regather and review these when we see you know, what the what the effects of this decision or this particular publication code is is in in in application. >> If if it's possible not tonight, but if you guys could shoot us
269a clean copy that's you know, all the all the deletions and whatever. >> The red line >> And and we'll do that normally. We'll have the red line and usually we have the clean copy. I noticed we only had the red line in here. >> Okay. >> So, next time we do a board policy that's a one-off, we'll make sure we have both clean version and the red line. >> Okay. Sometimes you it's so chopped up >> I understand. >> that you got to read it in the clean version or a lot. >> Yeah, and there is a lot changed. >> And I'll second Bill's motion. >> Okay. Is there any public comment? Seeing none, we'll bring it back. Can we have a motion by Bill, a second by Stephanie. All those in favor? >>
270Aye. >> Any opposing? So, no. 4-0. 2-1. Very good. Thanks, Brian. Good job, Brian. Alrighty, that was Let me see here. This one that was 5-3 or actually 5-4 now. So, now we're going to go to 5.4, which is the new 5-5. That is going to be by Annette. >> Just say yes. No, this one. Yes. >> Good evening. I'm just confirming that this is the adoption of uh K-2 reading difficulties. Yeah, okay, great. Okay, just making it sure. >> No, no, we're we're >> Because I had another item, but I think it was in section four. So. All right, good evening. Yes. >> Let me make sure you >> Is your Do you want me to present or you already a yes? >> Well, I I I think just a little tiny bit. Okay,
271let me let me >> early and I'm a yes. Yeah, yeah, we we're ready. Okay. >> I like the the very cliff notes version just so we know just so the public knows what we're talking about. >> Cliff notes, I'm bringing forward the recommendation to adopt multitudes as our district's reading difficulty screener. We are already in compliance with California Ed Code that required districts as of the beginning of this school year to have a reading difficulty screener administered to every student K2. We piloted both DIBELS and multitudes with our teachers last spring. Both were suitable for our district according to that teacher group. The teachers recommended that we consider DIBELS which came at a cost of $8,000 for each of the two school sites because it came with a volume of resources that teachers could
272use once they had some information about student on the assessment. After a year of use and consulting with teachers and site administrators, they are not using the platform. It's not something that they feel we need to use going forward that we have other resources available to support us in addressing early literacy needs. So we are proposing a change to our reading screener. Multitudes is developed out of UC San Francisco. It is a free resource for us and will be a cost savings of over $16,000. >> Oh, fantastic. >> Awesome. Is there any any discussion? I I'd be interested maybe this time next year to see I I I understand I think what it does, but to help us get for our ELA program and we don't test of course until third grade are we better
273identifying the readers with difficulties and the students and is there some what's the connection when we have this sounds like more accessible or user-friendly program whatever the reason we didn't like the other one. But what what what does it bring to us when we meet this requirement of getting you know You know what I'm saying? It's late and it's tired we have to go back into closed session and so >> Can I say something Bill? >> I I'd be I'd be interested in the cause and effect of this maybe to say help us understand what what what is this bringing to the table? >> I think it go it coincides what Paul asked for where we're going to do kind of a comprehensive overview of what the assessments look like. >> Good. >> And so
274I think we'll build that in your question. >> Thank you. You said it so much better than I couldn't say. >> My name is No. >> Good. Thank you. That >> All right. >> Just a comment. >> Thank you. >> So in that I'd move approval of the multitudes as recommended. >> Second. >> Any discussion from the public? All right. Bring them back. All those in favor? >> I. >> All good? >> Thank you very much. >> All good. Thank you. >> All righty. So that's now we're going to move to the old 5.5 which is now 5.6 consideration approval declaration of needs for fully qualified educators. Uh Pete Sullivan. >> Hello. So uh this is an annual approval. Um Windsor Unified always tries to hire the most qualified and hopefully uh credentialed folks for
275our various positions. Occasionally we are unable to find people um the the right person with the right credential and the right job. So we have to submit or we have to hire them under a variety of permits. The declaration of need allows us to um tell the CTC that we may be hiring people um in the following year that are under credentialed or improperly credentialed and they acknowledge that as long as we support them in that role and ensure that they are properly mentored and entered a program. So, I'm seeking approval for the declaration of need for the 26-27 school year. >> I make a motion that we approve the declaration of need. >> Second. >> Any public comment? Okay. All those in favor? >> I. >> Any opposed? Perfecto. All righty. >> I think
276I'm next. >> It passes. >> All right. Now, we're going to go to 5.6, which is actually 5.7, consideration approve resolution 2026-24 in the matter of pre-retirement certificated part-time employment. >> Beat. We are seeking approval for phased-in retirement for Alfonso Salinas. >> Okay, this has to be a resolution, so we have to make a motion, which I will make a motion that we approve. >> I will second because he was my teacher. >> There you go. >> So, he's he's about time, right? He deserves to >> He's a young man. >> I did have a question for you. This is a 0.5, right? Correct. >> Do we know who the other 0.5 is yet? >> I don't know yet. I've talked to Lydia a little bit about that staffing, and I'm not I'm not sure
277what she's going to do for the other side of that. >> Cuz you guys make it way easier than it was for me, Mr. Decker. I had to have who I was going to be sharing with and all of that, so >> We do a job share. >> It's a lot easier. >> Well, you guys wrote it in, and I approved it eventually. >> Eventually. >> Yes. >> Anyway, any comment from the public? Okay, bringing it back to our board. All those Oh, I'm sorry, you got to do a >> Oh, it's a roll >> Roll call. >> Rich. >> Yes. >> Paul. >> Yes. >> Stephanie. >> Yes. >> Rebecca. >> Yes. Natalie, yes. And Bill? >> Yes. Thank you. >> All righty. That was 5.6 Pete. Now we are going to 5.7 or
278which is now the 5.8 public hearing for resolution 2026-25 Williams quarterly report for January. This will be done by Annette instead of Brian this time. Got tired of getting beat up, huh? Come on. This is Miss Williams. This makes you the closer. >> All right. What you have in front of you is our quarterly report which shows that we in the last 3 months we have not had any complaints. I have to open the hearing. >> So just make sure the minutes reflect the time. >> All right. >> It's my favorite part. We open it up. >> We're going to open the hearing. >> Everybody's quiet. I get to tell a joke. Open the hearing at 9:51. Okay, we open the hearing at 9:51. Just going to sit there for a minute. >> It's 9:52
279somewhere so I think we can close the hearing. Is there any comments from the audience? >> It sounds like it looks like it's 9:52 to me. 9:52 so I'm going to close that the hearing. >> Yeah. >> I make a motion that we approve this. Can I get a second? >> Yeah, we have to >> Yes. Okay, if seconded roll call please, Jen. >> Rich. Yes. >> Paul. >> Yes. >> Stephanie. >> Yes. >> Rebecca. >> Yes. >> Natalie. >> Yes. >> Bill. >> Yes. >> And remember if we don't adjourn, we have to go back into closed. >> Okay, so thank you everybody. We appreciate you being here tonight. Um thank you for >> Rich. >> helping us work our way through our discussion of different things. Bill has a >> Yeah, on routine
280information, I saw a poll you sent out Jen for a workshop on the 27th. Did we >> No more though. >> Oh, okay. Are we going to have a workshop on the bond sometime? >> Yeah. >> Um probably mid-May. >> We were pushed just on that one, Bill. We we were told that day would work, but then the other consultant doing the actual survey said that day's not going to work. That's too soon. I need more time than that to get the results back. >> Okay, thank you. I just >> I did from I think when I took the calendar days out of the calendar, it had a note going with it saying it's going to be sometime in um that second week of May. >> Like to to occur before our next board meeting?
281That's kind of what I'm trying to get I think it should. >> What did we say? What was the date? >> It Well, it's going to be right at the same time, I think. That he what he told me, Tim, is I think it's the week of the 14th. >> That's what I remember, too. >> That we'll get the results. >> Is our board meeting on a Monday that week? >> It's going to be on Monday. >> 4:30 >> Yeah. So, it's the it's the week after. So, it's what it's just whether or not we get the results back in time to put it on the agenda. >> I'll reach out, Bill, to see if we can make sure we can get it. >> Um >> Okay. Is our is our board meeting on the
28221st, the regularly scheduled one on the third Thursday? >> It's on whatever that Monday is. >> Our Monday. >> It could >> the town green music. >> Okay, the 11th or 18th? Do we know? I mean I can look. Okay, I'm sorry. I I 18th? Okay, thank you. >> I'm I'm glad you brought that up because there was just that other quick little one giving you some date in May. Um early May for the um >> the special one. That's the That should be like a 5-minute meeting. The one that Pete had Okay, understood. Thank you. >> So, just please make sure you respond about that part of it. >> Right. Thank Thank you for that clarification. >> I think you did. You said that they do a work session. You said they do a
283work. >> Yeah, I just need to know what so I can block it off. >> All right. Well, as soon as I get you an answer, I can tell you. >> Okay. >> And then I think as soon as we adjourn, we're going back in the close session. >> we're not adjourning, right? >> Oh, right. We're not adjourning. >> Okay. We're not adjourning. We are going to miss you all as you go home and have dinner and get in your cozy warm beds. We will continue our close session meeting in the comfort of Jeremy's office. Thank you all. Good night. Surely they'll provide