001Test. Hi. I want to get this started. Hi Dave. Um, I call the meeting to order at 9:02. Good morning. Welcome to the Elkrove Unified School District special board meeting. Live streaming and full in-person meetings is available to the public by using the link located on the district website. Today's meeting is being video recorded and will be available on the district's YouTube channel. During special meetings, the public may make comments on items that are on the agenda only. Individuals with comments on general school issues may address those at the next regularly scheduled board meeting. Requests to make public comment will be accepted for an item up until the board president introduces the item. Generally, members of the public will be given three minutes to address the board. If there are 15 or more comments on
002a specific item, the board will reduce individual comment time to two minutes each. If there are 30 or more comments on a specific item, the board will reduce individual comments to one minute each. Individuals may not defer their time to another individual speaker to increase their total speaking time. Please be mindful that district students may are watching and you are encouraged to address our board and the public in a respectful manner such that all those observing from children to adults are made to feel welcome, safe and valued. The board shall not permit any disturbance or willful interruption of the board meeting and persistent disruption by an individual or group shall be grounds for the board president to provide a warning and then to terminate the individual's privilege of addressing the board. To start with our
003land acknowledgement, vice president, are you available to read? Hello there. Okay. All right. The EGUSD land acknowledgement. We acknowledge that the Elkrove Unified School District administrative facilities and schools occupy the unseated territory of the Miwok, the original people of the skies, land, and waters where we work and learn. The Miwok have cared for these lands since time immemorial. They continue to teach their traditional knowledge that comes from and responds to the needs of the land and people who share it. May our daily lives and work teaching, learning, leadership, and community engagement support the evolving mission of the Miwok for their community and these lands. May we strive to acknowledge the past for the betterment of our future generations. May we look to our tribal partners, the Wilton Rancheria, the descendants of the original people of
004this land to assist with the successful education of our community. The pledge. I'll have Miss Ay lead us in the pledge of allegiance. Salute and pledge. I pledge allegiance 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 start with an overview of the day. Mr. Riley, can you provide us an overview, please? Thank you, Miss Albioni. Um, so, uh, actionpacked day today. Lots of information for us to consume. One, uh, we're going to have an overview of the 2627 governor's budget update. So, several of us uh, last Tuesday attended the school services event. Um, many of our staff attended with many of our labor leaders and it was a very informative day. So,
005uh, Miss Watkins will give us an overview of the information that we gleaned from that event. Uh, next we will hear from our ed services and, uh, schools department uh, division and, uh, give an overview of reducing exclusionary discipline. uh very real and important work uh a focus uh of staff and so looking forward to a hearty discussion there and overview. And then lastly, but certainly not leastly, the legal update and Karen Rosendis from Lozano Smith will present an extensive overview of all of the new um the new legislative cycle um requirements, new bills. um definitely going to impact um our compliance uh have an impact on our policies and administrative re regulations and also our workflows and a significant impact on uh on staff. Um so looking forward to that overview and the contemplation
006of the impacts. Thank you. Thank you. So we'll start with the governor's budget update. Miss Watkins. Good morning. Get set up here. Good morning, Madame President, trustees, Superintendent Riley, Miss Avalos, colleagues, and community. Um, as shared, I am presenting on the governor's proposed budget for 2026 27. Um, as always, we orient oursel with our own financial reporting life cycle. And it's hard to believe we're at the end of January already. Uh, so last week, as Superintendent Riley shared, we attended school services um summary workshop on the proposal. And so we have um I'm borrowing all of their slides in this presentation other than our life cycle and we'll walk through them. I know it might be intimidating. There's 70 slides that I'm sharing but I'm going to try to go them at a pretty high
007level here. So, the overall theme for the governor's budget, um the governor is in his last budget that he's presenting as a governor. And so he's focused on um he's focused on all the accomplishments that he's done, the economic resilience, being a global economic competitor in California, preK for all students, an affordable housing, but the budget is overshadowed by mounting deficits as um it indicates that we are outpacing our expenditures over our revenues. And there are some concerning um tactics that we're seeing again that we first saw last year um in a budget approach that could impact us in public education. So in in a high level the e economics of both the state and the federal budget is that um although their shortfalls despite our rising revenues and we have strong stable economic growth
008gross domestic product is up markets are at highs inflation is slowing and all this is um helping lead to consumer confidence like more spending and ongoing consumer spending. There are some concerns regarding the budget's assumptions related to AI, and we'll get into that a little bit later. Um, the governor is assuming high rates of revenue return from artificial intelligence ongoing into future budgets. Um, where the LAO is only assuming that'll last through 2627. And so as we'll see later on, the budgets balanced for the 26 27 year, but in our out years we'll see deficits. And we um show that tax collections are outperforming what we projected, which is the basis for the higher revenues. Um but the concerns within the budget is that the governor is not anticipating any um recession into or um
009accounting for any potential stock market downturns. What's great about this budget is that the budget prioritizes stability and sustainability over any new programs. Um, we will fully pay the LCFF through this budget with no new initiatives, but there is a $ 1.9 billion deferral that we've seen in prior years, last year in particular, um, that's anticipated to be 5.6 6 billion what's called a settle up. So we'll look at our statutory a COLA. Um to share our budget at the first interim included a 3.02% COLA. This budget proposes a 2.41% COLA for next fiscal year. Um that's roughly a $5 million decrease in LCFF funding for our district. We'll look at the one-time grants that the budget has included and also speak a little bit about um what the impact to the budget is on
010local bargaining. Oops. So, our biggest um area to focus on within the US economy in particular is just uncertainty. That's the the highlight of this slide. Um in the context of the overall economy, the uncertainty related to tariffs, um AI stimulus as I just mentioned previously and the economic markets around the world. The Federal Reserve cut rates three times in 2025 to um address inflation. And so the the uncertainty is going to be the basis on how the revenue projections show up in our outy years for our California economy. Um one-time revenue increase from the AI surge. Again, the uncertainty related to that showing up in our budget and having delays in receiving our economic data. Also there are um we saw lower CPI from reduced um impacts in tariff costs and while there are
011some litigation at the Supreme Court pending that could impact um tariff rates and impacts on our future revenue. Also want to highlight in the housing market we're starting to see slows in the level of construction. What that means for us is potentially we could receive less than our school impact fees and we are uh dependent on those developer fees um to help our augment our construction projects. Um so those are only charged to help pay for school facility and housing. So as the market slows that could impact us locally even with our healthier revenue assumptions in the budget as I shared initially there are deficits in the future year and the difference between the legislative analyst office and the governor's budget is about 7.7 billion in their estimates for revenue in the current year. So
012if there's a stock market downturn or any other additional uncertainty there deficits in the outy years could be even greater. This I do before I move on from this slide want to indicate that this is indicative of structural issues and overcommitments of funds that we see these deficits in the outears and so it's something we want to watch for because if the revenue does decrease uh structural deficit could also incre decre increase. So our revenue sources in the state budget are founded in three uh large tax areas. We have personal income tax, corporate tax, and sales tax. And our estimates within the governor's proposed budget for next year exceed what we expected in the enacted budget. So for all three budget years, we ground ourselves in prior year, current year, and future year. And so
013the estimates are expected to increase in all three of those periods. This is a total of $42.3 billion higher than what we saw last June. So risks to the state budget that can only overemphasize the risk to the revenue assumptions, a projected deficits in the outy years, the volatility from AI in particular, policym at the federal level related to the tariffs and increased volatility from inflation. One other area that's a risk to the state budget overall is medical costs. Um there are changes at the federal level related to funding that are impacting us locally that could impact our overall budget. Now specific to education is the Proposition 98 budget and that will speak to the minimum guarantee for education. We constitutionally have a calculation that's defined by three different tests and they're a bit complex
014but in the current year we are in what's called a test one environment. It means we get 48 cents on every dollar in revenue that the state receives that's guaranteed to education. This is where it gets a little more convoluted and complex and I won't spend a lot of time in all of the numbers. Um, but what I will share is that um, and again overemphasizing the revenue projections in this budget exceed both the enacted budget and LAO's fiscal outlook. And what that means is with any volatility in the revenue and any uncertainty, our minimum guarantee amount could change. So these um escalated revenues are driving up the amount of our minimum guarantee. I do want also to call out that a couple of years ago in 2324 our Proposition 98 minimum guarantee was suspended
015by the legislature and the governor. And so there what we'll see forthcoming is our foundational base on what we're entitled to in Prop 98 was reduced previously. And um so there's risks in the differences in the estimates from LAO and the enacted budget. We are 11 uh 11 billion more in this budget compared to the enacted budget. And more revenue means more for schools. This is just reinforcing the 7.7 billion more in the governor's budget than Lao's outlook and this is based on increased personal income tax. I'm going to get into this area called settle up. Now the budget last year in 2425 included with this concept of settle up which is not constitutional. We were reduced in our appropriation to the minimum guarantee by 1.9 billion in 2425. This is the first time we
016saw settle up in 2425. It's a wait and see if revenues become available approach to determine what our minimum guarantee is and to hedge the uncertainty in the revenues from uh income taxes and corporation taxes. So, we are constitutionally owed Proposition 98 to support our students. If we defer the funds, it's a risk locally to balance our budget in real time. And our guarantee for last year for 2425 will be finalized at our May revision this year um in the next couple of months. So, we still don't have certainty on what we're um obligated to be funded at for 2425 until this um May in 26. So, with the withholding a year ago of the 1.9 billion in the budget act, that is proposed to be funded in the current budget proposal for 2627. So,
017this is a bad trend to start. We've did it last year. We're seeing it in the current year budget proposal. The constitution provides a mechanism called maintenance factor. As I referred to in 2324, the legislature suspended Prop 98 at that time. Within that um maintenance factor rules per the constitution, we can suspend Prop 98. Not we, but the governor and the legislature. It takes a a vote of twothirds of the legislature and the governor's signature to suspend the maintenance factor. And why that's important as compared to settle is that we will be repaid cola if we use the maintenance factor. It's constitutionally allowed to suspend the guarantee using that factor and there's a payment schedule for maintenance factor. with a settle there is no um reinforcement of when we get paid and we do not
018get paid cola. So the 1.9 billion that was deferred from last fiscal year we will receive this year but we won't get COLA for it which means that we're shorted even further of what our minimum guarantee could be. Our minimum guarantee for 2526 based on the current budget proposal estimates that roughly um if we were to average it across all students across the state that would be about $99 per ADA in new money to education. Currently the budget proposes appropriating significantly less to the tune of 5.6 6 billion less as compared to last year's 1.9 billion. By delaying that to future years, that's roughly 81% of our minimum guarantee for the current year that's going to be delayed. Now, the intent is to settle up when the 2526 Prop 98 guarantee is certified, but that
019doesn't get certified until uh 2027 with the May revision. So because of constitutional requirements related to making deposits into the rainy day fund, any required deposit into the rainy day fund triggers the reserve cap. And that local reserve cap is a 10% of our ending fund balance that gets triggered currently. Um it's proposed to be triggered in the current year as well as next um the budget fiscal year 2627. What's interesting about triggering a reserve cap midy year is that the law outlines that it get calculated within the adopted budget and a 45day revise both of which have passed. So there would not we would not need to do anything within our budget in the current year. However, we are already under the 10% cap. Um, so it really is not applicable unless our revenues
020were to exceed that. Some risks overall to the Prop 98 budget for at the statewide level is declining enrollment. The state as a whole and its students is declining. This is in addition to the economic um factors that are at risk and within the budget. The revenue factors that are at risk within the budget. Um deficit spending is also a risk locally. Um many districts like ourselves in the current year are in a deficit spending moan. Um also this Prop 98 settle up is a risk to us. Some local operational considerations. I want to call out the cola and how the cola is outperforming the consumer price interex both nationally and locally in California. Um this over time in the last is this 25 years. Um showing oh 89 yes 89 um showing how the
021cola has outperformed both indicators. So even though it may fluctuate year-over-year as compared to the CPI um steadily over time, it is outpaced. So the fun things for us as we get into the weeds of the numbers, we receive a base grant in the current year in 2627. that base grant is expected to be improved by COLA. Um, what's important to call out is the COLA is applied on the base grant, not our overall funding. So, for example, a district in decline could receive a COLA but could receive less money than the prior year um because they might be in declining enrollment. For us, that does not apply because thankfully we continue to grow in our ADA currently and our enrollment. And so our base grant will be improved by the COLA. And then we
022have grad span adjustments that are applied on top of that after the COLA, both TK through three for uh class size reduction as well as 9 through 12 to support CTE programming. And then we receive supplemental and concentration grants and those are factored based on our number of unduplicated students. For those that like numbers, these are the numbers um attributable to the COLA calculation. So, it's roughly anywhere from $250 to $300 um per student ADA for the COLA. Um the impact of the COLA reduction, as I shared previously, is about $5 million from where we estimated 2627. Once we have the base grant adjusted and the supplemental concentration grants, those calculations for supplemental concentration are assumed at 100% um average daily attendance. For us, it's roughly $1,400 for supplemental and $600 for concentration grants. The
023TK add-on is um added only based on current year ADA, not an average of ADA. And that's the value expected for 2627. Categorical programs are also receiving COLA. And we'll talk about it a little bit later, but what's important to note is the state preschool program is slated to receive COLA next year. If you recall in the last couple of years, um it's been included and then pulled back out or not included for COLA. So that's great for the current uh for the upcoming year that that be added back in. So part of our local control funding formula is the equity multiplier. The equity multiplier is um provided to us based on calculations from CDE that we receive midyear. Um it is intended uh we'll receive it in 2526 based off of 2425 data and
024we receive it mid year in 2526 after we're already halfway through the year. So we'll find out in February what our current year allocation. This funding is available um to districts for evidence-based services and support for students at select school sites based off of a CDE uh calculated factor of stability. Um, and so for our district in 2425, we had four schools uh that received, excuse me, received support and we received about 1.57 million. Um, so we'll find out in a few short weeks what the schools are to support for the current year. Another area within the budget because the proposition 98 guarantee is exceptionally high with the increased revenues and there's the volatility related to the settle up. The the governor is proposing investing in a lot more one-time investments um to meet the
025Proposition 98 minimum guarantee. One area that we're seeing uh resurface is the student support and professional development discretionary block grant. Uh we've received it in the current year. There appears to be a round two of the block grants and we're waiting trailer bill language in early February um to know if it will be allocated in the same way that the current award is allocated. Um but it's estimated at about $512 per ADA um according to school services if it keeps the same methodology as the current award. What that means to us is just shy of $30 million in more one-time funding. Um, and if you focus on the the the bubbles in the middle of the slide, um, it's really intended to address and where it will help support our district is in rising costs,
026offsetting rising costs. The budget act also includes um a new and final award of the learning recovery emergency block grant funding. Um we kind of anticipated this on the horizon as we went through our budget priority process. So this is already accounted for within um the scope of our budgeting if within the trailer bill um that this final investment in I'll say lbG um if it aligns with the same previous methodology to make us whole um back in 22 it was established it was cut in 2023. So if it does make us whole in this final investment, we'll have until June 30 of 28 to use it. The expanded learning opportunities program um what we see within the budget doesn't directly impact us in the current year. were in a rate one environment, but if
027you'll note um back in 2425, that rate one environment applied only to districts with a unduplicated pupil percentage over 75%. Um in 2526 in the current year, that was reduced to 55%. So that put us in uh rate one stability range. Um but what's important in the budget act is for rate two districts um that are less than 55% it guarantees a stable amount moving forward. In prior years that would fluctuate with with whatever was available after rate one districts were paid. So the stability is great and should we ever drop um below that 55% it would create um some certainty in the funding rates. Universal meals continue to be fully funded within the governor's budget proposal. Um this is to support freshly prepared, locally grown meals, at least two per day um high quality.
028And so it's great that the governor's budget still um supports this investment. This slide, I won't spend way too much time on this, but Prop 28 um was approved by voters back in 20 November of 22 provides additional funding for arts and music in schools. And we are coming up on the end of our first award cycle. And so there are some requirements to ensure um as these round one of funds expire and that includes annual reporting and certification. Um, so we are aligned um to meet all the requirements and the governor's budget continues to fund um this program as it legally obligated to do. We've um including some slides on trends statewide as these are um some of the cost pressures within our own budget. statewide. We are not alone in our special education
029trends. Um these all are have cost implications. We support our least restrictive environment and inclusive practices. And we are um continuing to invest in capacity um inclusive of full-time paras and and hiring our own staff and moving away from agency contracts um and investing in that recruitment and retention. um our services that we provide are more than just bell-to-bell and supporting our students with disabilities. And so those um it's important to continue to monitor those and throughout the year um to ensure we're maintaining our effort. What this budget highlights and it's a it's a win for all. This is um great that special education funding not only receives Sakola this year but there's a proposal to equalize the base rate and um as well as pour some investments into other funding that supports special education.
030Um currently our base rate um it is 917.53. We'll see the second bar from the the bottom. it would increase it to 999 per funded ADA. Um this is a significant investment for our own district. It equates to about $5 million on estimate um to increase the base rate from 917 to99. You see back to uh pre- pandemic that average rate was about $557 per student per ADA. This chart um I wanted to articulate that our growth curve is similar with the trends that expenditures continue to rise. um our students that we support in our districts represent about 15% of our um overall students and so that the trend rate on the per student cost increasing in the last couple of years. We continue to monitor that. So just re-emphasizing this ongoing analysis is critical
031to ensure reliable projections and that we will continue to monitor our maintenance of effort throughout the year. So as I just shared, we're a little higher than 15%. So we're right on line with trend. And it's important to monitor the demographic of the students that we're serving so that we can help anticipate the types of support needs. Our early childhood education budget, just spend a little time here. Um, as I shared, the state preschool program will get COLA in the um proposed budget as it had not received that in prior years. Early in January, um the federal government attempted to freeze funding to the state of California. Um it's been stopped because the state along with other states had sued uh the federal government and so there's a temporary temporary block on the freeze. But
032this is an area of uncertainty that we continue to watch actions at federal level. That was all related to the 2627 budget. Um but we also what's important is to look at our multi-year projections in the outy years. As um Matt Phillips at school services articulated, budgets are exactly wrong and approximately right. Um so we used our best information currently to project where we think we're going to be um as the budget shapes our planning assumptions. Our largest expenditure within our budget are our people costs and the salaries and benefits of our employees. uh we have cost pressures um for ongoing new LCFF funds, but we continue to monitor our step and column costs as employees move across the salary schedule. Um the cost of health uh care rates continue to increase as do our
033utility rates. We monitoring our insurance premiums uh cost pressures uh related to insurance claims that we're monitoring as well as increases in contracted services. uh area to highlight our employment retirement contribution rates. Um for every $100 that we pay in uh employee salary, we paid $26.81 projected for our classified employees to Calpers and $1910 for our certificated employees to Calsters. Uh we do um expect in the projections that in the out years we'll start to see some rate reprieve from KPERS which is great. As you can see from the trajectory back in 1920 we're just under 20% and now we're at almost 27%. There's u been some changes with stirs can now set their own rates. It had been held and for a long time statutoily held at 19.1 um they have a max I
034believe of 20.2 20.25 that they can increase to. They are expecting to maintain at the 19.1%. This um chart just articulates the impacts of the multi-year projections of our revenues over our expenditures with what we expect in base growth as compared to our costs for inflation and step and column. The unknown called out is our contribution um to special education, our insurance liability. Um as we monitor those over time, we make some assumptions on how those will look in the outy years. For those that like numbers, these are the related percentages and dollar values of um the different amounts that we include in our multi-year projection. As you'll see, the CPI rate um is decreasing in the outy years, but as we said, the cola um is and our planning cola is exceeding that um
035for the same um term. So local reserves um on average across all districts have been declining. We see that with our own as well as our our peer districts. Um this is a result of loss of significant one-time dollars and we're getting into a new norm. Um this is only in part exacerbated on the statewide level by declining enrollment but for the most part it's the loss of significant investment of one-time re um resources. Call this slide out. Attendance recovery. U we have implemented this program. Um it sounds like not all districts have chosen to implement taken advantage of this opportunity. Um but we continue to leverage um we're leveraging this program in the current year uh to recover attendance. We can leverage our expanded learning opportunity program to um help support the funding to
036run an attendance recovery program. Um and we are doing that. I wanted to highlight something you may hear about. Um there are some proposals and moving through the legislature about moving our funding model from an attendancebased to an enrollmentbased funding model. The legislative analyst office has done some evaluation of that. Um that would require an increase um of 7.24% in LCFF funding um to support that. um moving there's some unintended consequences also of moving to an enrollment based funding um and that is that many of our um other programs that we receive funding for are foundationally based off of attendance. So there's additional costs um to moving that program and so the estimate from LAO is that it would be $6 billion additional to implement an enrollmentbased funding model. I think there's um currently as
037far as the number of states that use an attendancebased model, I think we're one of five. Um but that is something being discussed. Our student enrollment as a state is declining. We fortunately are not in that position, but that is expected on a statewide basis over the next 10 10 years to continue to decline. We are the top county um with increasing enrollments. Um but you see the last county on the slide is LA County and they represent about 10% of the state's population of students. Um so that's um leading to the overall state decline. So how is the budget fit in and important with collective bargaining? um we want to found our um foundational ground ourselves that we're working to help improve the working conditions and um salaries of our employees. So being competitive
038is important so that we can recruit and retain but that's a balance because there's other pressures um with respect to retirement and rising health care costs. So one of the areas that's new and on the the forefront of discussion is AI. So more to come in that area as um we work with our bargaining partners there. Um you may also hear in the news the we can't wait campaign. Uh we are not a part of this initiative, but some of our neighboring districts um there had been in the news last couple weeks potential discussions of strikes and pressure in their bargaining landscape. And again, thankfully we are not in um a part of that um to be impacted and we have um I would say harmonious working conditions, but it's adds an additional level um
039to the working relationship and the dynamic in the district. So there's a lot of um you'll hear potential risk of strike. Um again we are not in that situation. As we are um in bargaining, there are a lot of things to consider besides compensation discussions and the impacts on multi-year the non- salary costs as I shared that are increasing and providing pressure on the budget with respect to health benefits and pensions. want to um also highlight there's a couple tax initiatives potentially on the ballot um coming up in um November and that this um is important to call out because our propos proposition 98 funding is heavily dependent on these tax extensions that tax our highest wage earners and additional revenue amount to support um funding of education or the education protection act. This, excuse
040me, education protection account. This account, as you can see by the light blue bar, provides that much additional revenue to support funding our minimum guarantee along with the tax base, the sales, corporation, and um personal income taxes. changes in district staff and student enrollment over the last five years. Um we've seen an increase on our classified FTE hires. I will share back in 2324 um as compared to a 2% hiring rate for teachers. Classified um was roughly 8%. They're both back to about 1.7% equally in 24 or 25. Um this was dynamic post pandemic. Just wanted to share some timelines as uh we move forward and uh considerations with respect to um layoffs and layoff timelines. You'll hear um more forthcoming, but from our discussions um related to our one-time funded grants. We do this
041every year. we provide um bring forward positions that get reduced um related to a lack of funds. Um as we went through our budget priority process in the fall um there are some positions forthcoming and there's some statutory uh requirements related to that um through February and March in um in advance of the new budget year. road ahead. Um the governor again his final year of being governor has um highlighted his significant investments over his term in TK12 education most notably expanded learning opportunities, universal meals for all kids and now the forthcoming special education equalization uh focus on early literacy and the educator pipeline. And one of the most significant um investments and accomplishments was the prek for all initiative and um most notably TK for all students. Something else to um highlight is the
042governor's budget proposal is um proposing in alignment with a 2002 master plan for education um to do some governance reform and move um this the state department of ed up under the state board of education instead of the state superintendent of public instruction. So more to watch um with respect to that and the that conversation as I um preloaded there's the midterm election in November. What's important um there's could be a lot of transition in congressional seats um in the state assembly as well and um the statewide offices such as the governor, superintendent of public construction and the ballot measures related to the additional funding to support um education. federal um actions to watch are the um the proposed closure of the US Department of Education and the related impacts and what that might mean
043to us and oversight and new agencies to report to and any lags in um um providing new processes that we'll have to follow under new agency administration. also to highlight um the dynamic and the adversarial dynamic between California um and the federal government. There has been 52 times that we've sued the federal government in 2025. So that's overshadowing um the potential for freezing funding um cancelling grants um lots of policy um discussions at the local level and so and firing half of the US Department of Ed staff. So a lot of um uncertainty and things to work through. Now, looking ahead um from January to June at the state level with respect to the budget, they'll review um the legislature will have discussions related to the governor's proposed budget. They'll go back and forth and
044what comes of that is our May revision in May. That will foundationally provide us the information on which we prepare our own June budget for board uh review and adoption in June in advance of the state enacted budget. um which they're required to enact by June 30th. And again, our slide as we move forward into May, so forthcoming um on May 3rd, I'll be presenting on the current year and second interim and be back in June. Um well, in May with the May revision and our June um budget. Thank you very much. That is a lot. Miss Balerin, do we have any blue cards? Madame President, there are no blue carts. Thank you. Um, so we're going to go ahead and take comments or questions from ourselves. If you remember, I said I was going
045to kind of change up. So, we'll start with Miss Moore. Yes, thank you. Uh, this is a lot of information. Um, and I'm try to do my best to organize my questions and thoughts. Um, so I do have a couple questions first. Just so uh so the public understands um how many years has um will this be that Gavin Newsome has underfunded Prop 98? I think this is year three of let's say maneuver. It we started with a maneuver in 23 2425 was the first round of settle up and now we're on 2526. Okay. So did we um my understanding that settle up is essentially kind of a reimbursement from when the previous year of being underfunded for with from Prop 98 fund is that that's a yeah a non-constitutional methodology for doing that. Yes.
046but to make us make us whole for what um as I had shared about the maintenance factor would have allowed us to get even more because we're entitled to cola but settle up is a mechanism that's been introduced in the last budget um to supposedly make us whole. So have we received any settle up funds because you said this will be we're going into our third year of being um of that Prop 98 not being met. Have we received any settle up funds from for example the initial year that that was um that happened? Yeah, this current budget act proposes that we receive both maintenance factor from 2324's maneuver as well as repaying in full the 1.9 billion from um 2425's deferral from settleup. And um am I correct that you mentioned even if we
047receive those funds that we will not receive the COLA the associated COLA funds that would have come with that or essentially will come short for for the settle up amount of the 1.9 billion. Yes. Okay. All right. Um and then um how many years has California been in a a budget deficit? California. Yeah. Um I think this it's projected in the out is it on a total budget or on an education budget but we're currently a total budget um this year they're proposing a a slight deficit in the current year's proposed budget. I don't have the factors how many years back that they've been in a deficit. I did watch a discussion um with uh individuals on the budget committee and it from what their discussion it appears that it's been four years but I
048um that's just from what I saw but I just wanted to clarify that if you knew um but um anyway so I just wanted to this isn't the first year I believe though that we're the California is in and it's a continued deficits. Okay. All right. Um and let's see. Okay. On page um 55, I was just wondering um do we know specifically what is causing declining enrollment? I know that Sacramento County um is not that is not um what we're experiencing, but generally across the state, do you know what are some of the causes of declining enrollment? There's a couple contributing factors and we saw that most post pandemic there's either um students are aging out and families aren't having as many children or they're moving out of the state or most recently there's
049the impacts of immigration enforcement that's um causing some exodus especially in the southern part of our state. Okay. And on page 61 um well I guess 60 and 61. Is there a risk if this is um moved forward that individuals could move individuals in those brackets could move out of the state and and then not receive the desired outcome. I mean, I guess that's a could always be a potential uh risk, but this has been in place since 2012 and it's been a part of the tax base in that time to help support education. Um so while that could be a risk um there there's a larger risk if we don't reenact it that the bud the budget cannot continue to maintain especially our our Prop 98 guarantee as well as everything outside of education
050that's impacted. Okay. Um and then I do want to mention on page 65 um you know one thing that was discussed at um CSBA was that there are several unfunded mandates and um and we the governor talks about um TK for all um you know in the state of California and I understand that that was funed as far whereas um you know staff and curriculum and things like that but um districts were not given any kind of funding to uh accommodate the requirement for integrated restrooms. Is that correct? There was no additional funding to support facilities supportive TK. That's correct. Yeah. And so for me, I feel that that is um something that is frustrating um for districts to roll out some of these requirements when our governor and legislators don't take that into consideration
051because um now we have to figure out how to implement those um integrated restrooms which are required and which we should be providing to our students. And when I visit the sites, I you know, that's one thing I noticed is that we do not have the integrated restrooms that we need. And I I don't like seeing TKers and kindergarters having to share restrooms with sixth graders or walking across campuses to use oversized toilets. Um, so it's frustrating for me that sometimes when they look at these things like TK for all, um, they they need to consider what that roll out looks like on our school sites and the impact to districts. Um, so that's that's frustrating for me. I I wish that that would be considered uh because that is a budget issue that districts
052have to have to deal with. So, um, and I guess I one other question I have is so, um, last year's, uh, last year Prop 98 was underfunded by 1.9 billion and now we're looking at a 5.56 million, um, deficit in that guarantee. So, um, that's quite significant, a big difference. So, what does that potentially look like? um for our a district of our size. I'll have more information to provide with our interim report upcoming. Um but what that means is what happened to us in the current year is it delays even appropriation of the fund. So we don't even um see it at the district level. They short it by the reduced amount and they allocate our budget based off of that. So, it's it's a wait and see if we receive the funds
053that we're entitled to, but we don't bench our budget off of that anticipated dollars until it is appropriated at the at the governor's level. So, as far as quantifying that on a per student basis, the amount of the total award in the current year was about 9008 um $900 per ADA and we're looking to short 80% of that. So, it's a couple hundred dollars per student that we're receiving when we could receive an additional like seven what $600 per student in the current year and we have roughly 60,000 ADA. If we equate it that's 30 30 million if we follow the similar math with the other funding for the block ramp. So it's going to be quite impactful. Uh obviously um so definitely I'm very concerned about that. Um, and you know, so I'm just
054I I guess I'm it's frustrating for me that despite record revenues in the state of California, um, a large part of which is from personal income taxes, um, we're looking at, um, from my research, a fourth year of a structural deficit in the state of California and a third year um, of Prop 98 uh, minimum guarantee not being met. And um, so that's very concerning to me. Again, that's despite record revenues. So, um that's all I have to say. Uh thank you very much. Thank you, Miss Moore. Mr. Vargas, nothing for me. Thank you very much for the presentation. It was very thorough. Thank you, Miss Ballerini. Um I have a question about attendance, the attendance recovery program. It's on slide 51. Um I I see that it's new this year. And I want to
055know are is this TK12 all the way up the the ranks? Yes. Yes. Attendance U recovery applies at elementary and secondary. We can leverage expanded learning at the elementary level, but it is TK through 12. Okay. Um and are we going to be tracking how well it's working? um basically how many kids are showing up when they're supposed to. Whether or not the amount of expenses we're spending to to cover those days is actually bringing in more money than it's costing. Yes, that's something we're doing. I imagined we were, but I just I just wanted to bring that up because I I can I can imagine um it's it's first of all it's it's running a whole another school day kind of um if you do it daily or if you do it on the
056weekends. And um actually I was talking to Superintendent Riley yesterday about it and wondering if um I kind of equate it to summer school in a way the way we've run that in the past and we've gone to where we run it run summer school at all the schools but there was a time when we did it regionally and I did I was wondering if maybe we could even look at whether or not it would be more cost-effective to run attendance recovery regionally. I'm not sure that's the right answer, but it's just something I I I thought of, you know, if you have five elementary schools in an area, maybe if you get them all together and do a Saturday or whatever instead of after schools. I I just know the facilities for after school
057right now with all of the different ELO programs are just bursting at the seams with that and then um the arts u the VAPA type things that they're trying to do at the schools. We just need to like have a blowup school we can add to each school so they can do all the things. There's just there's just not room. Um that was all the questions I had on that. Um otherwise it's a lot. Thank you for trying to break it down for us. I appreciate it. Thank you, Mr. Yang. Yeah, good uh morning. Thank you for the presentation. Yeah, a lot of information for us to absorb. Um, you know, I just wanted to uh say that in the last 5 years, we had gone through quite a bit of stuff from uh COVID
05819 and all the fires that we deal with. Um, locally and then in LA and the budget um, you know, fluctuated. Um, but overall, you know, the governor has done a great job and u, I want to touch on uh, slide 60 uh 65. uh Governor Nent's legacy for public education and uh you know for the prek fall that that's very special I think uh uh there's no uh measurement in terms of the benefit that the kids get um you know have access to early education. So this is a phenomenal work um by the governor and his team and so um all the kudos to to him and his team and and and to all of us right who uh uh seek it through uh this program. Um so and yes I just wanted to
059say thank you to the governor and his team. With that said, yeah, there there's uh some concern in this uh presentation as far as funding and so forth. Uh but at the end of it, you know, we we have some control on our end, but a lot of uncontrollable on, you know, on the other ends. Um so for me, yeah, I will continue to work with you and and the rest of the board and superintendent and do what we can going forward. Thank you very much. I appreciate you. Thank you, Mr. Yang. Miss Davis. Well, Miss Valerine took my one question, but um do we know what our unduplicated student count is? Are we're it's averaged over three years. So, we get funded off of 62. Um but we are higher than that. We're about
06065. Okay. Okay. Thank you. And thank you for the presentation. Thank you very much. I had a few quick questions. You answered many of mine as I had forwarded them to you and you put them in the presentation. I appreciate that. Um can we look at page 27 though because I think um I have a daughter studying education and and trying to to um explain this to her. And when you're trying to explain it to someone, no, you always know you don't know. Is it 27 100% because they ask questions and you're like, "Oh, I don't know. Did you say 27? Age 27, please. So people understand how we're we're funded. Base ADA is what we get for every single child. Correct. And then can you take me from there? Yes. So we start with
061the current year base and we apply cola to the base and then so we have a 26 27 new base for our attendance and then we get adjustments for certain grade spans. So in that first TK through three column, we receive an adjustment for class size reduction. At grades 9 through 12, we receive an adjustment to support CTE programming. And that becomes our adjusted base grant. And that is per student. Per ADA per AD, but each ADA student. Yes. Okay. And then um if we are over that unduplicated pupil percentage, and I just misspoke. I said 65. is 62.5 um that 20% in a supplemental grant that we receive of our base grant. So they calculate that an additional 20% to support all unduplicated students over per ADA at 20% level. Then if we have
062a concentration of students over 55% we get a 65% concentration grant. So an additional 65% on that all in support of our unduplicated pupil population. And is that supplemental grant based on our unduplicated or is that on our total ADA? Our unduplicated. Okay. It's calculated against our total ADA, but we get it factored 20% related to our unduplicated and I think I got it right so I don't have to go holler back. Amari, thank you. Miss Alviani, can I add one little thing just if you're doing on the back of the napkin math for the supplemental and the concentration grant, what's reflected here is if your unduplicated count was at 100%. So what you would do is you would take for us about 94% of our ADA. And so the 2319 for TK3 in that
063column, you would multiply that by the 94% ADA. So it would be a smaller amount. So I I know it's into the weeds, but just if if people were trying to understand because it's based on ADA and we're not at 100% unduplicated, it's important to know that we're not getting that full $2,319 for the supplemental, we're getting our percentage of average daily attendance for that and then and only on the percentage of the up we have. So that number just gets smaller and smaller. So adding that whole column up is not what we get every year per child. Now the important thing is to realize you go to your adjusted base grant, that's what we get per child and then depending we go down at a 94% rate. Okay? And if you didn't catch it,
064as I shared in the presentation, um our supplemental is roughly 1,400 per student and we get approximately 600 in concentration funds per ADA. Okay. And um can we look at slide 15, please? I'm gonna say I thought I understood this and then when we talked I I got questioning myself again. Oh, I'm sorry, Miss Baldwin. I gotta refix my system here. Sorry. First time. Um, thank you. Enacted budget. Will you explain that? Enacted budget was the state budget approved July 1. That's the governor's enacted budget. And then the outlook was what in November the legislative analyst's office did an analysis and that was their outlook at that point in time in November based on the tax returns to date. So at both points in time we had lower revenue oops lower revenue anticipated in the
065minimum guarantee than what this budget is proposing for the three budget years. So we look back, we have our current year and our future year are all foundational to how much we're entitled to under Proposition 98. And the current budget is expecting that we're getting even more because of the higher revenues. Okay. And um Mr. Moore, welcome to the most frustrating part of this job. this the fact that we are to budget and we are to have three years out and we are to prove that we are positive and we are to make all our assumptions, our commitments to our staff, our commitments to to fulfilling unfunded parts of mandated things. It is from day one been the most frustrating thing that's ever I've ever experienced because I think I personally am very careful with
066my own finances and I feel a huge weight for the finances of the taxpayer and we are at a disadvantage I feel over and over and we've been owed millions and then they've been paid back and called something else and almost like they the state double counts them and we only get them once. There's a lot of things that that are frustrating in that part and I can empathize and definitely All right, this ball went it won't it should not happen again. I'm not going to say it won't. It's okay. I know you saved the best for last. Um, thank you. Uh, this is such good work. You make it look easy, Amari. I envy you. Um yeah, I share in the frustration and I feel like it's important that we all know that as
067um in our positions we can, you know, um get involved in this and really call on our legislators to keep in mind that our schools are not up for negotiation when balancing the budget. Um and so you can count on me to do that. Um I definitely plan to get involved. So, I've been on a board almost a year now. So, I feel like I'm finally like getting the gist of all this um and the value that we can add to this effort. Um there's no point to keep making this harder on our schools and particularly our school district. Um I did want to just uh make a comment. I'm trying to scroll through my notes. Um let's see. I the one-time funds, they're helpful, but they uh they don't feed or they don't pay
068for anything that eats is what I've learned. And um you know, we'll use them and we'll put them to good use. But you know, again, this is uh not a fix to what our district's u needs are in making sure that we're able to um meet the needs of our students. and those who are meeting our needs, our students needs, our teachers and our our classified staff. Um I am um happy to hear the good news about our special education funding and um the the cola and I I'm really hopeful that this is going to, you know, continue to move forward um as we take a look in valuing how we take care of our um most vulnerable. I think when we take care of our most vulnerable and our you state invest in um
069our systems that do that, everything else starts to fall into place. And so I'm really I'm really truly excited for the things that um cabinet is working on and Mr. Riley has shared in ter terms of our MTSS and how we can really support um those populations. Uh let's see, lots of scrolling. Sorry, there's 75 slides in case didn't realize that. Um, attendance recovery. Uh, this this this is a really kind of uncharted territory. I'm really glad that we're taking advantage of it. And I do want to just um send my appreciation out to our schools who are doing the hard work and making this happen. From front office staff to um afterchool programs who are coordinating. Um this really makes the difference for us. um it's it's an all hands- on deck um opportunity
070to to gain some of that attendance back and the impact that it means for us in terms of our budget. So, I just want to really appreciate all of the hard work that has gone into that and for all of the wonderful signs that remind us where our attendance is on a weekly basis. Um, I have definitely felt the shame of having to walk my kids in late. Um, and I think twice about scheduling those appointments during the day now and really looking at um, trying to make them, you know, on the weekends or later in the day as much as possible. The so those efforts, please know that those do not go unnoticed and they're making a difference for sure. Um, and I think that may be it. Uh, thank you again. I appreciate
071every all the work you've done to put into this. Um, uh, this is really helpful for us as we take a look at um, you know, the the year ahead. Thanks. Thank you. I'd like to take a five minute comfort break and then we'll come back and start with our reducing exclusionary discipline presentation. Where did she go again? All right, if we can get everyone to the dis, please. It's okay. Right. Our next item is reducing exclusionary discipline. Mr. Serudi, want to get us started, please? Good morning. There we go. Thank you and good morning, Madame President, members of the board, Superintendent Riley, and my good friend, Miss Avalos. Um this is uh customary. It's our midyear presentation in alignment with board policy 5144.31. That's the board policy that um it stipulates. It's primarily is
072focused on uh the differentiating between the roles of law enforcement and our uh administr site administrators. But embedded in there is uh that we will be presenting information twice a year. um the seriousness of removing students from the classroom or school is um it's perhaps one of the highest levels of of of uh seriousness that we have. And so I just want to share that right at the outset that we take uh great concern and caution uh whenever a teacher is removing uh a student from their classroom which they have uh an ed code defined right to do up to two days as well as removing administratively a student from school. So it is extremely serious. Um the other thing that I'd mention is discip we view discipline as an opportunity to educate. Um there
073is a Latin word um pun. Um I had not that I'm telling you about my high school experience. I took four years of Latin um and one could say why um but um pineer u means to punish. So punitive um literally means to punish. That isn't what we do as in education. We do not do that to punish. Um it's an opportunity to educate and it's an opportunity to educate not only the student but the family as well as the the the staff involved. Um it aligns closely to our uh philosophy with MTSS which views how can we approach things proactively. We're always looking at um suspensions are a result of of behavior of a student and what anticedants to that behavior may have become available and staff become aware of. The other side of
074that is the restorative work that that we're doing when students return. So all of that is embedded in our MTSS systems um in our approach to that. The other thing that I'll mention is that with 64,000 students, roughly 3,500 teachers and 225 to 250 uh or so site administrators, the need to calibrate our approach with all of those factors, there can be a great deal of variability in terms of how an individual adult is reacting to and responding to the behavior of a student. And so we're doing ongoing and considerable work to calibrate our approaches to that. Um I'm going to be turning it over uh in just a second to Mr. Schwitzer, but the team of that I refer to as the education services and schools executive team um lined up here. Um it
075is a collaborative and collective effort. Things are not being done in silos. You'll hear from our staff here. um our tremendous directors that we have running our programs. Um we will have Rebecca Wrangler coming up in just a second from research and evaluation. It is a collaborative effort and I do not want to give the impression that we have lost sight of anything. It stay remains a priority. It's a priority. It has been a priority. My meetings uh Mr. Riley um it is a top priority of his and we know it is a top priority of the board. And so with that, I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Schwitzer. We'll get into some data. I do want to reference for the board and so that the public is also aware um the data
076that we provide. Um, a lot of a lot of times what we're talking about is what is the right way that we can provide the data so that literally it fits on PowerPoint slides because you'll be receiving a full data set on Friday with the BC and that data will provide um every bit of detail for every single school as well as the aggregated data for the entire district. So for us to present that um this morning would not an impossibility but we would be here for several days and so know that there's tremendous amount of data coming on Friday and with that I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Schwitzer. Thank you. Thank you Mark. Uh so today's presentation format will follow previous presentations that we've done on this topic and we'll go
077over our guiding principles. We'll reflect upon our data. Um, we'll look at our decision-making and successful practices. And then we'll look at our education services and all of our supports through MTSS. And our guiding principles, uh, we want to ensure that our responses to behavioral incidents are educationally restorative versus being punitive. As Mark said, uh, it's a necessity to eliminate disproportionality in the application of exclusionary discipline. We know keeping students in class by reducing exclusionary discipline has a positive relationship with increased connectedness to school and student achievement. You ensuring classroom behavior is conducive to learning and maintaining school safety is a foundational expectation. And then by using MTSS grounded in data collaboration and layered supports we can help every student be successful academically, behaviorally and social emotionally. And with that I'm going to turn it
078over for data review with Mr. find and Mr. Gutier. Morning everyone. Thank you for this opportunity to share our midyear discipline data for this school year. For the data sections today, uh we're going to be showing the counts of certain statistics commonly used when reporting on suspension data. Excuse me. First, excuse me. First, we will review the number of suspended students. This is the number of students who received one or more suspension for an ed code violation. And then we will look at the numbers of actual suspensions where we count every suspension incident that occurs. So, one is a student count, the other is an incident count to provide structure on our first table. Um, this table shows the midyear quarter one and two number and percentage of uh suspended students. There's two years of
079data for each year and there are three data points enrollment number of suspended students and percentage of suspended students. Down the left hand side we have listed the district and then the three segments elementary, middle, high school and then within each one of those our three subgroups. So please note for this slide, students are counted one time in the overall total even if they have been suspended more than once. But sometimes students fit into more than one subcategory. So as an example, you could have an African-American student who is foster youth who also might be on an IEP. They would show up in all three subgroup counts. So starting with the district 2425 overall enrollment was 65,96 students uh versus this year uh 2526 at 66,17. So a little over a thousand uh growth of
080a thousand students. Elementary makes up about 900 of those. The total number of suspended students increased from 135 uh excuse me at at 135 from 1284 to 1400 1419 an increase of a tenth of a percent. For our African-American subgroup there was an increase of 59 students uh from 7 373 to 432 an increase of 0.8%. Foster youth and students with disabilities also showed increases. Foster youth was up 4% to 27 uh from 27 to 37 students and students with disability increasing about 3/4 of a percent from 47 to 471 or 64 students. In elementary uh with growth of about the 900 students, the number of suspended students grew by 58 from 151 to 209, an increase of 0.2%. Our three subgroups also showed increases. African-American subgroup increased by 23 students from 42 to 65,
081a 0.7% increase. Foster youth increased by uh four from two to six students or a 4.1% increase. And finally, our students with disabilities group showed an increase of 37 students from 51 to 88. This year, a 0.6% increase. Now, Richard's going to take you through the secondary. Good morning. Let's continue in the same format um that Mr. Fine started us with. uh the total number of suspended students within our middle school increased by 31 from 516 to 547 a.3% increase with our African-American suspended students. We had an increase by 19 students from 142 to 161. A 2.3 increase percent increase with our foster youth suspended students decrease by eight from 14 to six a 11.9% decrease with our students with disability suspended students decreased by 11 from 161 to 150 a% decrease with uh within
082our high schools. Uh the number of suspended students increased by 45 from 581 to 626 a2% increase with our African-American suspended students increased by 16 students from 175 to 191 a8% increase with our foster youth suspended students increased by 12 from 11 to 23 and 11.1% increase and uh with our students with disability suspended students increased by 43 from 83 to 226 a 1.4% increase. This next slide uh um will give us a visual representation of the previous data that we just talked and presented. Um here we can notice that although this year we see a slight increase from 2425 school year, we are still slightly below from 23 24 school year with an exception our foster youth. Um and with our foster youth, I wanted to make point out that um I did took
083the liberty to contact foster youth. They make sure like what what we're doing with our foster youth population in the support uh our foster youth to inform me that what they do is when a foster youth student gets suspended they get an alert uh every morning and then they connect with the vice principal over the school where the student was suspended and they enact a uh support plan for the student uh and then they involve other uh persons as well as into the case worker, the social worker and also um the attorney, the a rights holder of the student, the child wear uh the child welfare to create a plan to support the student. So I was very happy to see and to hear that we are working with our foster youth to make sure
084that our foster youth uh do get the support that they need based on the behavior that they um that our students are portraying are bringing. Um they they did discuss also that uh and we have plans to bring a trauma training for rice principles. Yes. Specifically for our foster youth. So here you can see that for our foster youth that we did see a plus 4% increase from 24 25 and then we do see a 8% increase with our African-American uh which I discussed earlier and a 7% with students with disability increase and districtwide is a.1% increase. This next slide um it has all of our students by ethnicity. Um, we can see that our African-American had a 08% increase. Our American Indian also had a 08% increase. Our Hispanic had a.1% increase. Two or
085more had a.1% increase. District white, as mentioned earlier, a 0.1% increase. Pacific Islanders had a minus.2% in our white plus 3%. are Asian a plus four.4% and our Filipino a minus.1% decrease on percentage of suspended students. This next slide is a percentage of suspended students by student groups. Um as you can see uh again our foster youth had that plus 4% increase. Our homeless had a decrease of a point 4%. Students with disability a plus seven%. Social economic disadvantage uh population had a 2% increase district-wide a.1% increase and reel population had a.5% increase. Mr. Martin Fine is going to come soon. This next table shows the uh midyear number of and rate of suspension incidents. This is different from the number of actual students from the first slide. This illustrates the number of incidents and
086rates that the students from the first table were suspended for. Meaning some students have been suspended multiple times for different ED code violations. Overall as a district, uh, we went from 1746 suspensions up to 1983, an increase of 237 total suspension incidents, which is also an increase in rate by 0.3. In our African-American subgroup, we saw an increase of 28 suspensions, uh, suspension incidents, an increase in rate of 1.8. Foster youth saw an increase of 15 suspensions from 50 to 65, an increase in rate of 5.8. And finally, our students with disabilities subgroup saw an increase of 135 suspensions from 656 to 791, an increase in the rate of 1.5. In elementary, we saw an increase of 133 suspensions from 204 to 337, a rate increase of 0.4. Suspensions for our African-American students increased by
08757 to a total of 108, an increase in rate of 1.7. Our foster youth subgroup went from three suspensions to 11, an increase in the rate of 8.1. And our students with disabilities grew by 97 suspensions from 82 to 179, an increase of 1.7. The total number of suspension incidents within all middle schools increased by 27 from 765 to 792, an increase in rate of 0.2. with our African-American suspension incidents increased by 30 from 248 to 278, an increase of a rate of 3.6. Foster youth suspension incidents decreased by 22 from 33 to 11, a decrease in rate of 40.6. With our students with disability suspension incidents decreased by 26 from 389 to 283, a decrease in rate of a two. Within our high schools, the suspension students within all high schools increased by 71,
088from 736 to 807 and increase in rate of a.3 with our African-American suspension incidents increased by 36. Students from 233 to 269, an increase in rate of a 1.8. Faster youth suspension incidents increased by 27. From 14 to 41, an increase in rate of a 30.5. Students with disabilities suspension incidents increased by 69 from 251 to 320 an increase rate of a 2.4. And again this just next slide is just a visual representation of um of of the numbers that we just went over. This is the suspension incidents. Um foster youth had again a 58 increase rate. Um as well as African-American a 1.8 8 students with disability a 1.5 and EGSD total with um.3 increase. All right, our next slide shows uh our responses to the different types of violations. It's a a mix
089of minors and majors. On the the right side of this slide lists the number of violations by category. Uh so as an example the very top bar defiance disrespect non-compliance we had about 7400 incidents or excuse me violations within that category. Now focusing on the left side of the slide um you can see that 78% of those uh violations were managed by the teacher. The teal color the dark blue is other means of correction typically uh admin working uh to respond to those. Uh, and then there's a a little sliver there that's hard to see. About 1% were met with a suspension. Just underneath disruption. Uh, about 5,000 of those violations. You can see kind of the same thing. 68% were managed by uh the teacher in the classroom. 32% admin with alternative means of
090correction. If you if you let your your eyes scroll down a little bit to fighting, uh it's the second orange bar on the left side of the slide, you'll see that 28% of the fights that occurred were met with a suspension, whereas 71% were other means of correction. This is actually a a flipflop from last year that we thought was was pretty interesting. Last year, a little over 70% were met with a suspension and only 26% 25% were met with um some other means of correction. So, uh our admin teams, the teachers, they're all trying to do their their part to keep kids in school even when there are things, you know, such as fights. If you uh go down a little further, use and possession of tobacco, excuse me, at 74%. Uh 74% of
091those uh incidents and we're talking about 217 violations. 74% of those were met with a suspension uh and 26% other means of correction. That's actually a flip also from last year where last year we had uh 70 about 75% of the violations were met with an alternative and 25% a suspension. And so um the use and and possession uh is intensifying uh on our schools with tobacco. And then if you look to the bottom the 200% excuse me arson and bomb threat false alarm that makes up about there were 12 violations. Um and 100% of those violations were were responded to by a a suspension. Okay. Uh very similar to last year. Um and as we continue to uh support our students, we constantly examine our practices and calibrate our approaches. We look at this
092data uh weekly. We discuss with uh it during our admin meetings and we work through different scenarios. Um uh with elementary, we have our admin teams call us to discuss um suspensions, not to get, you know, uh permission, but to just see if they've thought of everything that they can think of to keep the child in school. This year, um as we've shared, 7 and a half% of the, uh behavior incidents received a suspension. That's a slight increase, uh from last year at 7.3. So that means 91% received an alternative to a suspension. Of that 91%, 54% received a teacher managed classroom response. 19% received some kind of admin conference, guardian contact um conference. 11% received a detention of some sort. And 6% received a mediated response such as restorative conversations, conflict mediation, student contract.
093um this slide the percentages um can be a little deceiving because I I will almost guarantee in in every situation uh whether it's the the teacher handling it or the admin there is contact made with the family there are there's conference with the student um as somebody said before me that the the restorative conversations occur when when kids are coming back um and so this is really uh it really depends on what's clicked in synergy when they run this report. If that makes sense. Some examples of uh responses to behavior incidents. Uh teachers and uh other means of correction. The admin on the right side both utilizing the MTSS process as much as they can. Uh teachers hold conferences with students uh and parents. They might utilize a buddy room for a quick timeout. There
094could be referrals to academic uh or behavioral support. on the admin side trying to find other means of correction. Again, student conferences, talking to the parents, having those restorative conversations. Uh sometimes they are, you know, assigning detentions or student contracts and then and referrals as well. Okay, please welcome up Ann Regali who um is going to provide some insight into special ed. Good morning, Chairperson Albiani, members of the board, Superintendent Riley, and Miss Avalos. I had to say that. Um, thank you very much. I really appreciate, um, your attention to this, and I just want to call out and thank my colleagues, um, Richard Gutierrez and Martin Fine, because they have really been very transparent in, um, their research and what they've shared out, and sometimes it, um, creates hard conversations. And in this particular
095year, midyear, um the data for students with disabilities did unfortunately increase. Um and I'm not here to offer excuses or anything, but kind of to share some insight. And I think um the direction that we're going in terms of um um keeping up with the um the downward trend that we had seen the last few years. I did also in just listening to their presentation recognize that the 2324 school year where we saw a downward trend, we had fewer program moves. Something to think about. We had fewer classes moving. Um and this particular year we've had we had more classes moved. So something that we have been working closely on with facilities with elementary ed and secondary ed is program placement. And it's a it's a little bit of a challenge because we do want
096to keep students closest to their homes and that wasn't something we had done historically and over time we're working towards that end. But it does um mean that there will be some hiccups as we continue to calibrate having students receive the services they need near their home or closest to their home while also um moving some programs while we make that happen. So um I we we did experience the major increase. Um and importantly the increase is not widespread across the district. It it has been concentrated and um with some students in some schools in many cases um one or two students account for the majority of suspension. This concentration points to some systems issues rather than behavior alone. We are seeing patterns related to placement misalignment, delayed supports, transitions between programs and school sites.
097Um, and again, as I mentioned, it's something we're addressing. When students behavior needs are not adequately met through appropriate placement and services, exclusionary discipline, of course, is more likely. We also know that our data and from research that exclusionary discipline does not improve outcomes and in fact reduces student connectedness to school which can negatively impact behavior attendance and achievement. This is particularly concerning for students with disabilities where IDEIDA requires access to FAPE and consideration of least restrictive environments. At the same time, maintaining safety in orderly classrooms is foundational. Reducing exclusionary discipline does not mean ignoring behavior. Rather, it means responding in ways that are educational, restorative, and effective. So, we have a list here um of some things that we've done in terms of decision making and um my apologies, this was um slide before,
098but I think um something that we are also working on and it was alluded to earlier is our MTSS. So our response is grounded in a schoolwide multi-tered system of support network and I a framework and I think everyone is aware that MTSS is not just for students on not on IPS. This includes students who also may be receiving special education services. It allows us to use data layered supports and collaboration to meet student needs before behavior escalates to exclusion. We are conducting targeted reviews of students with repeated discipline incidents to ensure their placement and services and behavioral supports are aligned with their needs. This includes strengthening tier 2 and tier three supports such as ABS, mental health, the um academic behavior social support services classes, mental health services, and behavior support services. And as
099um Amari mentioned earlier, we're investing in adult capacity. We are trying to recruit and maintain um district paras. And this includes training for teachers and and all parrots in classroom management, deescalation, disability responsiveness strategies, and restorative practices. Strong adult practice is essential to maintaining safe classrooms and reducing reliance on suspension. Just as we want to work towards LRE and inclusivity um you know inclusion is not an optional convenient kindness. It's a moral imperative and keeping students in the classroom is critical and we are improving our coordination across departments um to reduce delays in evaluations, placement decisions and service delivery. And our goal is to intervene earlier, respond restoratively, and keep students connected to learning while maintaining school safety. And I look forward to entertaining any questions you may have. Um, thanks. Also, one quick plug.
100It is the 50th anniversary of Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, so I have a little gift for each one of you, but I'll give it to Miss Aalos. Thank you so much, Ann. So, we're going to end our presentation today looking at what we're focused on in education services and schools in relationship to addressing tier one supports. So, as previous MTSS spotlights have shown you, we have a framework for MTSS. So you see before you the three different frameworks that make up that PBIS, the instructional framework, social emotional learning, and that's how we in Elkrove have defined each of these frameworks. I'm not going to read over all of the work, but I want to highlight a couple things that are going on. So we have invested heavily over the last few years uh in
101restorative practices, deescalation. uh we've looked at crisis prevention and intervention training throughout many years but have had a focused approach to it. We have looked at our discipline matrix. One of the things that's coming new to us, which we're all excited about, is basically an improved uh TFI, which is the tiered fidelity index. That's for PBIS, which is going to give a new improved look for schools to be able to look at the practices and the systems they have in place to be able to further support children and adults in the uh behaviors that occur and the decision decision making that's a result of that. So that's a coming piece. Um we also in terms of restorative practices have a team that's part of school services and ed services that's led by the equity department
102that is going to be looking at our discipline matrix and it's that calibration piece that Mr. Serudi referred to that's looking at the restorative practices and the interventions we might put in place in terms of u behaviors that result at a school site. So that's upcoming collaborative work that we'll see a result of. One of the things that I really wanted to point out to you because it really is the heart of MTSS. You all received your handbook on the instructional framework. So really a labor of love within the district to really define and explain what instruction good instruction looks like and sounds like. Um we're still working at that. We have a calibration of practices. And one of the things about just professional development in general is you can teach the content, but if
103you don't have the follow-up work to it, which is the coaching, which is the ongoing support, um building in reflective time for educators to be able to reflect on their practice, um that's something that um we wouldn't see the initial growth. So, we're early in those stages because we're working with our site leaders, elementary through secondary. This is year four of it of leading the instructional framework, which is really calibrating how they're giving feedback to teachers. And I think that's important because even though it's focused around instruction, it's looking at all three areas. you're looking at uh how the teacher is being culturally responsive. You're looking at the systems and practices that a teacher would have in place to address behavior issues. So, it's connected to all three of those areas. Um, another one that
104I wanted to point out just in terms of the social emotional learning, we we've adopted our curriculum. We're still in the practice, the early stages of looking at how we fully integrate that and having all teachers integrate it. So, in terms of current practices, everything you see up on the chart that's listed is what we have in place, but it's not a oneanddone. It's continued work that we're doing as a district and it is collaborative and across the entire district. And with that, I think we will welcome your questions. I do want to add that coming up in March, you'll have the next spotlight on MTSS that will look at tier 2 and tier three, which I think will address some of your um questions about how students are receiving different supports. Thank you. Um
105are there any blue cards on this topic? Madame President, there are no blue cards on this topic. Thank you, Miss Ballerini. All right, we'll take questions or comments from the board and start with Mr. Thank you and thank you very much for the presentation. I appreciate it as always. This is I think my sixth or seventh. Um so I appreciate that they continue to get better uh and more thorough and uh and that our responses continue to be thoughtful. Um, I appreciated that. Um, you started the conversation with a with um a discussion of our sort of philosophy on how we think about um discipline. And I I also appreciated the connection back to um you know when we when this board uh before my time did a more thorough thought or put some more
106thorough thought into um the the separation or uh like how we deal with um what goes to a law enforcement response versus what goes to uh you know an on-ampus response. Um, and I see in a lot of this, uh, how this conversation, how this change naturally flows out of that, uh, out of that thought process. Um, and I think it's worth, um, you know, just sort of, uh, echoing, you know, what you were talking about in that, you know, our we I think it's a mistake to think about what we do in a law enforcement context, um, or in a context of punishment. um you know what we do is to educate but in in doing that what we're what we're trying to accomplish when we talk about discipline um is not just to
107educate and not to punish it's to uh it's to fix a behavior um and then to mitigate uh or correct a harm um and so we're not you know we might there might be discipline or consequences associated with that um but the ultimate goal is not to punish or to you know um or to inflict a consequence The ultimate goal is that they should learn something and that we're fixing the issue. Um because this is a you know this is a group of people um a group of humans who are learning and are you know in the process of um development both emotionally and developing uh you know their cognitive ability to well control and and regulate their emotions um which is often where behavioral problems come from. Um and so I I appreciate that.
108I appreciate that we are very clearly aligning uh or trying to align our response list specifically to the violation. Um that this is not a one-sizefits-all, right? And you can see every every time we have this conversation um you know we're sort of adding to the available options, right? Um of how we respond to these things. Uh, and I think that that's incredibly important because if our goal is to fix uh a behavioral problem or is to mitigate a harm or is to uh, you know, is to fix a harm, um, then you need a solution that actually addresses that, right? And oftent times suspension is not a solution that addresses all of these particular very specific concerns. Um, suspension is one of those things that's appropriate. Uh it suspension doesn't really fix any of
109those things. What suspension does is it keeps the community safe if there is something going on where there is a danger. Right? And so that I think is what you see when you look at the data or when the community looks at the data and they see things like drug use, bringing alcohol on campus, bringing a weapon on campus, those are things that have a direct safety concern where separation may be appropriate. Um and so because of that, because you see the safety concern there, right, that's where you get the suspension, you know, becomes more prevalent in those. Um, and so I I just I appreciate that the thought that we've put into this uh in terms of aligning the the um responses to the violation so that we are actually accomplishing what is the
110ultimate goal which is to fix the problem or or address the problem, mitigate the harm um and ultimately educate these kids. Um, I'll one other thing that I want to talk about on philosophy before I get to some of the specifics is also recognizing and it's starting to become much more clear in the data is recognizing that doing it this way does create a burden um which is you see in the data a lot more um teacher responses, right? a lot more um burden on teachers to respond to specific incidents and sort of take the um take the reigns. And there's a lot of it makes sense to do that because the teachers are often the ones who are the first ones to notice a behavior or the ones who are immediately impacted by the
111behavior. And so and so including them in that response and giving them sort of the pride of place or the first shot at fixing it, it makes a lot of sense. Um, but I think we have to acknowledge it does create a burden. Um, and when I uh visit campuses and hear from teachers, that's oftentimes what I hear. Um, now I don't always agree with their proposed solution to the problem. Um, you know, or to that additional burden, but I do recognize that that burden is real. Um, and it's something that they have to um, you know, that they are now being asked to carry. uh and so to the greatest extent possible I think it's important that we not only recognize that but also provide whatever support we can um you know in helping
112them to carry that burden since they are going to be doing a lot more of it. Um, okay. So, I think in terms of the data, I didn't, you know, it I'm sure it will shock all of you that I went back and look at the trends. Um, but I it's interesting because it seems like we have reached I think I sure mentioned this last time. It seems that we've reached an interesting sort of plateau um where there is some natural fluctuations and you know within foster youth it's is an interesting one because there's so few um that it I'm curious to see whether this is a natural fluctuation um or whether this is something more dramatic um but since you have such a small population of students it's hard to the the numbers look
113more dramatic than they might be um so that one will be one I think that all of us need to watch. Um, obviously if we've reached a plateau, something I mentioned last time, if we've reached a plateau, then we should be asking why, right? Why? We've we've clearly implemented a lot of great policies. Um, so why have we reached that point where we're sort of at a at a stopping point? Um, and I think that we, you know, we need to then start to think about, okay, what more can we do? Is there is this a is this the natural floor? Do we think this is the natural floor? Um and I think we probably don't. Uh and if we want to get to whatever that natural floor is in terms of um you know
114suspensions, then how do we get there? Uh and if what we're doing right now is has gotten us to a good point but isn't getting us to that floor, then we need to figure out, okay, what's the next step? What's the next thing we need to do? Um, and you know, obviously, you know, that is that is one of the wonderful things that you all get to deal with. Um, and but I apprec I will appreciate that conversation that I'm sure we'll have in the future around like what more can we be doing? What can we add to this to make it uh to continue to see the good trends that we have. Um, I was a little concerned around the incidents. Um, and I'll let me try to find the page 12. Um and
115going back and looking at previous years, um it's pretty clear that there are incre there's some increases. Um some of the more severe uh you know, violations, the increase is not that big. Um you know, but some of the there are particular areas where the increase seems to be pretty dramatic, right? um you know bullying, fighting, um defiance, disruption, a lot of these uh the sort of higher numbers up here um those are the incidents are clearly climbing over the past few years and now I don't know and you know maybe you all can fill me in. I don't know whether that is you think that's because those we are seeing higher incidents of those or whether we're getting better at reporting and uh you know and something like that. So maybe you could shed
116some light on that. we are seeing increases in those. I would hope that I'll touch on the second portion of it which is I don't want to keep using the C word meaning um calibration but um the data is only as good as the data the data that goes in. Um and so we're continuing to work with uh with teachers and site administrators to make sure that what's going into synergy um is calibratedly accurate. Um but we are seeing increases in those situations and not saying that um I could lump all of them into the category category I'm going to share but we've had instances where um you could have as many as 25 even up to 50% of a school's suspensions could be occurring in a very small number of incidents because those incidents
117we could have 10 12 kids involved in something all at the same all at the same time. Um, one of the things that we've been talking about um, and this isn't blaming. That's not what this is. That's what that's not what this is. What we currently don't have is a place where a teacher or an administrator could click that um, social media was connected to this because that's the other thing that we're dealing with is our campus supervisors. when I was a principal. Um, seems weird because a little while ago, but it doesn't seem that long ago. Um, because I was carrying something where I could call somebody, but what it didn't have is anything that it has now. Um, the flip phone didn't have social media capacity. And so your campus supervisors, for example,
118and some of your staff that always have their ear to the ground, you knew what was happening and you kind of were able to potentially get out in front of it because you were hearing this was happening. That doesn't necessarily happen anymore because all they used to come to school to begin to find each other and the problems and situations would potentially occur. Now that's all happening out there. they're coming to school and immediately um there's there's something that's happening on campus and so not saying that that's the case with every single situation but in answer to your question we are seeing increases in the frequency of those and the increase frequency of those we have very little um in fact we don't have um opportunities to look at alternatives. These are literally required by
119the state where we have to send you home and in many cases it is warranted and justified for this for the safety and uh of the entire campus. And what I always share about suspensions and this is just my opinion. Um when I was an administrator there are I had situations where I may see a student um and they showed up late and I'm just talking to them and asking what happened and their response could be extremely inappropriate. and you work with a student, you bring them back and you can find out why they're saying to you what they're saying to you. Um, and you can find an alternative to that. There could be another situation where it's lunchtime and they're doing it and there's all kinds of students seeing that and to have that
120student then um an hour later or even the following morning be walking across campus and everybody looks and goes, "Really?" So that's what happens when you do what just happened. So context matters um when when these things occur, but I didn't mean to create a longer response to your question, but we are seeing increased frequency. No, I appreciate it. Um so I guess um you know as kind of a followup to that. Uh so what are we give me an idea of how we're responding to those things because you you noted um that we have seen a shift away from you know suspension on like fighting uh for example um and that is now in the other means of correction category more often. And so what are we doing? What is that other means of
121correction we're using for example in in fighting? Um, and do we think that that how do we think that that is going to be more effective? And I'll share a quick statement and then I'll turn it over to the folks who work are working more directly and frequently with our our site administrators. The one thing I a general statement and I should have made this at the very beginning is there can be folks and I know full well so Mr. Mr. Vargas, you say and thank you for getting out into our schools and all board members who are frequently out in the schools and you're talking to the people in classrooms and colleague and friend of mine um James um who is um our the president of the our teachers union um I know his
122his ears are are listening to this because we absolutely can have teachers who are under the impression that what we're doing is reducing um suspensions at the cost of the safety and security of classrooms and school climate. And I understand that. I don't agree, but I can understand that perspective. Um because we believe you can do both. We aren't just trying to lower numbers so that we can get everybody off of our back at the expense of what's happening in our schools. I don't believe that. We've seen increases in the numbers. So, that isn't just what we're doing. Um because when we approach it an understanding that a student or a situation could have been highly disruptive to the teacher in that classroom. Um but we have to look at the overall what we're trying
123to do and continue to support those teachers because you can see many many times the vast majority of times our teachers are the front line and solving many of these situations because of the relationships they have and the tremendous work that they're doing and we understand that perspective and we want to make sure that they don't carry that and the majority of our teachers aren't feeling that that they're feeling supported in what we're doing and I'll let our folks here share we share with you specifically what that is. I'm going to reference very quick something that Mrs. Ti said in regards to, you know, how we used to uh find out about if there was going to be an altercation or or there was a conflict on campus, right? Because we all were always had
124an ear. Our students always will come to us and let us know. And social media it is a factor or text messages or direct messages is a factor where um uh now we don't hear to prevent sometimes you know for us to prevent we need to know what's happening with within our students but one of the things that we always trying to do is is um uh look at the other means of correction per your question Mr. Vargas is about you know when a student pertains a behavior what do we do next right so we do restorative practice we first we we used to have suspend five deaths automatically we didn't do that anymore we do gradual suspensions unless it is required for a student based on the on the the behavior that or the
125damages that they cause or the physical injuries that they cost it could be five days but we do uh gradual um suspensions right we don't go straight to Five. We do two, three, four, and then five. It depends on that. But then our vice principles do communicate with us and let us know, oh, we had this incident, we did restorative practice, but then they came back and they went at it again, right? So there's something that even sometimes restored practices, although it is a good uh um uh system to have, but sometimes doesn't work, right? because there's a lot of things that happen outside the school because they live in the same community. They live in the same apartment complex and then they they they had it over there and they bring it back to
126campus, right? Um other things that we do is, you know, promote the culture of the school through PBIS, right? We we are constantly making sure that our our schools are uh engaging in PBIS and what areas for PBIS and how to promote that. But one of the things that I'm always encouraging our um of schools, it is to always have that one-on-one personal in-person conversations with parents. You know, the more we engage the parents into this uh um into our schools, the better. Before I I'm trying to have our schools not to make a a quick phone call to let to have the conversation with parents on the phone. I want for them to come on campus because it's more um it takes uh more value when you have that parent there and then we
127can create the systems of support which is counseling and then which is you know meeting with the counselor and and go and and also kind of review where the students are in overall arcing this is more for secondary I don't know if um elementary wants to add I was just going to say everything everything Richard said uh but in addition um that progressive discipline is key so you would start with something and then you know progress should there the additional incidents. I think um to answer your question, conflict mediation sometimes uh can happen in the heat of the moment. Uh same with a restorative conversation to where you can really tease out the root problem of what happened, let's say in a fight. Uh and and as Mr. Trudy said, if it's not, you know,
128sometimes context and and you're able to deal with that on a on a smaller, quieter, personal level with the two students, three students, their parents, etc. versus going to a suspension. It happens again following progressive discipline. That's when that suspension would kick in. So sometimes it's a oneand done for kids which is what we what we would want if they you know exhibit those behaviors. Mr. Vargas to answer you asked for a specific example. Um in terms of students with disabilities something we've focused on uh you look at disruption and inappropriate language and then you look at what was the um the disability cate I mean the discipline category um we are really working with office staff and with paraprofessionals um on identifying was that something you would expect from a person who maybe has
129an emotional disability was is that something you'd expect from from a student with autism and if so the threat from that student looks a lot different than a threat from a student who's maybe a neurotypical peer and um how we respond because we think of people with disabilities a child who has a a sweet well- behaved child who doesn't speak English who has a learning disability and we don't react with anger or with emotion to that child's inability to you know do um oper basic operations in math So we're really working to train staff so that they don't have an emotional reaction or response and including site admin you know not just Perez but all staff and I think um you know we're not normalizing the behavior but we're able to identify it. So I
130think that's helped and I think if we continue with that training that will we will um build capacity in our um ability to support students just in those two particular categories. Thank you. I appreciate that. And I think that you know that training is important. Um, you know, it's one of the hardest things, um, is to not have an emotional reaction when, you know, you are confronted by something. And, um, you know, I always, you know, I have great respect, um, for my sister in particular who has a 5-year-old and a three-year-old, um, because they love to test the boundaries uh, of how they can poke and prod and, uh, get a reaction out of their mother. So, um I am I'm happy to hand them back at after about two hours. Um okay, so
131the only other thing I kind of wanted to sort of push to the surface was let me if I can find so page 10 I think is probably the best illustration um is in my head. So we're seeing some of the some of these increases um you know what I would expect to see if we're seeing increases is kind of increases across the board. Um, and something that I just want to surface here and you know maybe get you guys to think about, you don't need to respond here. Um, is it does seem like there's very specific um, you know, areas where it's popping where that these thing these issues are popping up. Um right when we talk about there was a pretty significant increase um for students with disabilities um it's interesting that it
132the increase seems most dramatic at ele at the elementary level um and I you know in my brain I always think if there's going to be a you know um sort of an acrosstheboard increase where I go to look first is middle schools right because middle schools are just that age um and I what's interesting to me is that I don't see that increase in our middle schools right now um and so it is very it seems like there's very specific things and I'm wondering whether you know are there you know big issues going on or are there sight specific issues going on are there um you know is if there's not if we're not seeing sort of an acrosstheboard increase then you know my thought goes to okay what's going on at specific places
133um that are uh or specific in you know in the case of foster students right where we're the data is such it's such such a small group that you really could be talking about specific students. Um, you know, and so my thought process is, okay, like can we, you know, can we dig down on those specific places that are seeing a bump or those specific students that are seeing a bump and start to say, okay, what can we do to address those specific situations? Um, and that is obviously, you know, that is not our level. our level is high level, you know, uh, you know, monitoring, but um, you know, that's where my thought goes when I see these little these bumps in in in particular areas, but not really across the board. So anyway,
134just wanted to surface that as another, um, thing that I saw. But I believe that that is all of my questions on this one, so I'll pass back. Thank you. And just very quickly, Mr. Vargas. Um I appreciate you asking the question um on two specific student subgroups. Um with our foster youth, one of the things that that we've um we're examining is because the the total number of foster youth and the total number we've seen a we've seen a steady decline. We're slightly up from where we were last year. Um but even I go back further than even five or six years. There was a time when we had as many as 700 foster youth kids. Um, and it's significantly lower than that. But numbers aside, the numbers of kids that have been suspended,
135we literally know the names and the situations of those kids. One of the key things that we need to be looking at, um, Mr. Gutierrez when he was sharing the connection that um Maya Webb and the foster youth team under Lisa's uh leadership and and Lette Lame's leadership. One of the things that we're noting that we need to work on um in spirit of full disclosure is those direct contacts may not be coming during the right time. If there's a delay um there may be an opportunity. So, we need to work with our schools and with our not blaming the school, but we need to work with our systems so that if a situation occurs that could warrant a suspension that making sure that the teacher who is connected to it and the administrators that
136are making a decision fully know the story behind the student. I'm not saying that they don't, but foster youth may have information that could say, "Are you aware?" And so that that team and that's why it's easier for me to say here. So I can already hear people screaming that are out there going he's at the district office and he doesn't know. But we need to slow the roll just a bit before we're making decisions or even hold on a decision to suspend even if it's 24 hours until we've had time to put all of our heads together to make a decision. Um and then your other question about specific attending to specific schools. So, with special education, it uh unfortunately doesn't surprise me when we're increasingly including students in the general ed setting, whether
137you're special ed or not. Um, assuming that a 5-year-old or even a seven-year-old on the natural comes to school and is able to understand what how to function um in an environment where you're one of 25 and you've got a teacher and you're operating on bells is a false assumption and we know that. And so that's also what we're we need to work through is we need to work through um how we're making sure that we're supporting the the teacher, we're providing the supports needed within the classroom setting, but uh we expected that we were we were going to see increases in potential student behaviors that were inconsistent with what you needed in a classroom um when you're moving more of our kids in there. Now all that said, we need to evolve as a
138system because and making sure that those kids are in fact in the right environment. But we we look at this, you'll be getting the data on Friday by site. These folks are working directly on a daily basis and know where schools are having some success and we want to see what they're doing and we know where schools we see some spikes and we need to make sure that we're going out and we do and we're working with them. And so at the site level, I don't believe that there's a single administrator who would say that their directors aren't aware and having conversations with them about behavioral uh the behavioral makeup of their the students in their school. I hope that helps. Thank you. Excuse me. Could I add one more thing that over here, Missi?
139Thank you. Good morning, Mr. Vargas. I appreciate Mr. Ser's response and I just wanted to add to that. Um as you all know uh foster youth and homeless are now underface and one of the things that practices that we have begun and we're in the very beginning stages is due to this data we have seen this spike and are concerned. Um so we're starting to utilize a practice called relationship mapping. And what that means is that we want to make sure every student who is identified as foster youth and every student who is identified as homeless has an adult on campus that they can connect with on a daily basis. Um it's important our these students in particular, our foster youth and our homeless students experience trauma like you know many other students don't. And
140so we want to make sure that they always have someone that they connect with every day and who understands what they're going through and make sure that the teachers that they go to every day in class understand that as well. That sounds fantastic, Miss Ballerini. Okay, since you have page 10 up here, I I'll go with a question with page 10. Okay, and I know you tried to explain it, but I'm I'm still not understanding why. Um, let's go with under the columns of suspension incidents. Let's let's do 2425 just so we're looking at the same numbers. I know you know where I'm going with this. I still don't get it. Um, so the the number for the whole district in my world here should equal elementary plus middle plus high schools, but it doesn't.
141How come? We'll explain that directly to you. And part of that is also how much information can we put on the page? But I I shared this was a conversation we were having last night and I'm not just picking you out, but I said um all of our board, but Miss Ballerini will count numbers and things like that. So, just know she's got some questions around why things may not look like they're adding up, but uh we'll be able to explain that for you. Okay. Hello members of the board. My name is Rebecca. I work in research and evaluation. And to address your question, um that's because alternative continuation charter school non-public schools are not reported as a segment for the purpose of this visual. They all those groups are included in the overall district.
142But the reason if you were to add up elementary, middle, and high, that's why it's not equaling that district number is because those segments are not included as Mark shared mostly because of size constraints and how much. But the information we will be sharing with you on Friday will include um that information. Thank you. I just kept looking at them and they weren't making sense. And and to your point, um what we will do all all of this, we take this as feedback because if we're going to use the same thing we talk every every year, met with Chris previously, met with David. What's the format? And any feedback we get from you as the board, if you wanted changes to the format, we certainly can do it. We may want to put a note
143on this page that explains that or just another another not column but right row alternative education. We can do that. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. All right. And the next question I have is on page 12. Um, what is the difference between inappropriate language and abusive or inappropriate language? Now, I know you can't say any of the language, but but can you tell me what the what's the difference? I I'll let the folks here because I was going to head right to giving you examples and and so we'd have to put all the things up there. So, I'll let I'll let our our directors um walk you through that because with with a lot of this um to to think that any of this is complete black and white is wrong. No, there's gray that
144runs all through here. So, that's a very good question. Mr. Pine was giving me some some examples. I'm I don't want to use those. You got the short straw, huh? Okay. So one of the things is that we always look at inappropriate language versus abusive or inappropriate language is when um the student engages towards a staff or towards a student or a group of students. So sometimes we have some students that have those outbursts towards staff that use that language. So that would be kind of very abusive inappropriate language. Uh inappropriate language is is sometimes that our vice principles because they are suspending students and different categories. So the first one will be fight but then during the fight they were using inappropriate language as well. So then they will add that as a secondary
145as well. All right that makes sense. Thank you. Um and also because I used to work in student support and health services. It's always one I look at um and you brought it up earlier the use and possession of tobacco that also includes vaping of of the two types of vapor vapes. vapes. Um, yes. Okay. And, um, we've still got a team that goes out there and works with them. Yes. On those. Okay. The the 2P program that we have also coming from Lisa's world. Exactly. Okay. Let me see. and your your point just quickly as you're looking at it the prior point when Richard came up um I was just chatting with folks back here because we are always looking at our our discipline guidelines that we have matrix or guidelines and the risk
146of that of laying out every single type of situation you could think of that document would become 150 pages long and unusable. Um but that category may be one that those questions like how common is commonly understood is that. So you just gave us another heads up that we'll be looking at in terms of looking at the document itself and seeing how clear that is and potentially we could clear that up. So thank you. Okay. Um I think that that's it. That's all the question. Thank you guys for all of this and definitely thank you about the numbers. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you, Mr. Yang. Yep. Thank you for the presentation for the whole group. Appreciate that. Uh this this uh category of suspension is uh is it's play a vital part of our um
147achieving the gap for sure. And uh it is very important because one of the most important thing that we try to do is try to re try to close that achievement gap. So with that said, um I would like to uh mention that there is a survey in the Sacramento County um indicating that uh you know African-American students are at the top of uh being suspended. And there are uh consequence to that because uh if you were suspended, you're five times more likely to be in jail. um going forward compared to students that never been suspended. So there is a there is an effect on suspension and you know our board um have worked um pretty hard on this um category um the last 5 years I've been here and as far as I recall
148um the reduction of suspensions has um has came down um despite this year the numbers looks like it went up slightly. Mhm. And um I mean there there is definitely concerns on that. Um with that said um I would like to say um thank you for including some of the data here. Um we have give you guys feedback uh in the previous presentation and I think that there's improvement on it um and so forth. Uh, however, I um would like to uh say that it could be a little bit more um I would say efficient in my um in in my mind in the sense that uh let's just say for example um we have these datas here and specifically I'm looking at slide 10, right? So we got um 2024 2025 midy year and
149then we got 2025 to 2026 um midy year right and then it shows these numbers and those are those are you know very good datas. Um what what I like to see that to me it will be very easy to um anybody to understand is maybe you know um have um you don't need to have every year on it but uh do maybe the 10 last 10 years and then one last five years and then you could do yeah the last year and the current year so that you know folks who just look at that graph or look at that table and you see oh 10 years ago versus five years ago and in the last two years, right? And you see the trend of, hey, it's really coming down, right? Um or is is
150going up, you know, you guys get the point. So, so I'm just thinking of um simplicity as far as looking at the graph and gives you kind of like a you know, instant hits, you know, and then you could also show the graphs there. Um so so um do what it's I would say easiest to understand because there's a lot of numbers here right um so so with that said um you know uh this is definitely a category that we have to deep dive as a as a as a collective um district because it's it's very um important for us to you know reduce the the numbers in the sense that uh yeah I mean we are not looking to punish the kids. Um, as uh one or two of my colleagues already said, uh
151we wanted to uh make sure and that we um take this opportunity to um either educate them, identify their um wrongdoing and what we could do to um to to restore what is that necessary so that they could be better going forward, right? and and to be a a a learned lesson and so forth, right? So that that's to me that's very obvious to everybody. Um how we go about doing it that's very important. Right? So what that mean is that it's not just about uh identifying you know their wrongdoing but we have to identifying that the the other groups that are not um being in those categories what are they doing differently? Why are they not in that right u suspension category? So what what I mean is don't just use the folks that
152or the students that you know um why um they were being suspended but use also you know the other group student why they're not being suspended right so so do a deep dive you know it could be the student uh behavior all the way to maybe even you know to the household right and it in the sense that it's appropriate of course right so so to me this is a a a category that could be very deep dive and dissect in the sense that you know um you got you identify the issues you got action taken that could be so many things within the action and then al ob obviously you want to see resolution results so with that said um I just very appreciate the team you know continue to work and continue to
153uh uh make improvement so that we as a school district could really uh educate our students that are most needed and uh certainly um we want them to succeed in education but more importantly in life. So thank you for all that you do. Thank you. Thank you sir. Thank you Mr. Yang. Miss Davis I have a few questions and bear with me. It's going to be a little all over the place as I was writing my notes. um students with disability, are are we doing our due diligence to ensure that the actions are not a manifestation of their disability? And do we communicate with SPED before those students are suspended to ensure that we're keeping up with their IEPs? An important question and I'll turn that over to Ann. Yes. Okay. I like that answer.
154Um, how many of our foster youth would fall into other categories such as African-Americans, students with disabilities, homeless? Are are we looking for patterns in the subgroups then? And I'm sorry if you could just repeat it. I was just u Ann's response was the response I was going to give in terms of yes and I didn't know if there was any additional information. No, it's fine. Yeah, the short answer to that is a is a very strong yes. We do follow that. But if you could just repeat the second question, ma'am, um I was just wondering how many of our foster youth fall into other categories as well of African-American homeless or students with disabilities. I don't have that right off the top of my head, but we we do disagregate that so that just
155as it was referenced earlier on, we look at um students very well could fall into those categories. So we monitor that. I don't know if there's anything further um that we wanted to add, but I don't have that specific number, but we certainly can get that for you. It' be interesting to see. Sure. I I can just quickly um 46% of our foster youth are black African-American and 42% of our foster youth have IEPs. Okay. So, there's a significant overlap. Yeah. Okay. So, we might have to look at a bigger picture than just the smaller groups as one. Yes, for sure. You mentioned you're doing trauma training for principles. Um why are we not doing that for other staff that deal with these students too? Because a lot of them are the front line before
156they even get to the principal um or they spend the day with those children because they're they're not being excluded from the school but excluded from the classroom. Another very very good question and Lisa will be able to respond to that. Good morning Miss Davis. So we are offering uh trauma infor practices training to anyone at a school site but it's not uh you know mandatory. So it is on PL essentials and it's open to anyone front office uh anyone who works on the out of school site could attend. Okay. Is this something that we could maybe add to or um let them know more about because I know when I was there unless you went to look for the classes you didn't realize those classes were available. Absolutely. Yeah. We can advertise that some
157more for sure. Okay. Um on the page, Ted, the elementary African-Americans nearly doubled. Uh students with disabilities were over double. Um are are we looking into what's causing that? And are we looking into what middle school is doing right maybe right now? Because their numbers are falling. and and as a grandmother with one in middle school, middle schools are are chaotic and a whole different breed of themselves, but they're finding something that works and maybe we need to look at that. Great questions and yes, we are looking at at all of that. I didn't want to don't know if anybody has any anything further to add, but um again at the elementary level and when I say the numbers are small, that doesn't necessarily mean that we're viewing them as insignificant. Um but those numbers
158um so if you look at foster youth or you look at students with disabilities and you look at African-American students, we can find out exactly who those kids are and know exactly what the circumstances are at the school level. And that's exactly what our directors are doing. It's exactly what our uh service providers are are doing working directly with the schools. So they it's not just a number. We know the we know the the names and needs of those kids. Okay, that's great. Oh, sure. Um, to answer your question, we did drill down. We looked at the the sites and I did speak directly with a couple principles without, you know, it's it's a touchy subject because they also have classes and students with challenges. And I think to Mr. Yang's point um what they're
159doing well and really focusing on that and looking at what other sites supports and what's working for them and connecting them so they can um learn from that has been very helpful. But we do definitely have and I I spoke personally with the principles that particular data that you see the 82 to 179 there were a couple that were um the highest numbers and and we have been working with them and and again to see what what's going well. So thank you. And just quickly related to middle schools, um our middle schools have been working hard. Um and again, not just to make this a me thing. I was a principal for 19 years and half of that was in uh a prek8 school. And um there was really two schools within that, but um
160middle school in some places, and I'm not saying one is better than the other. Um it's like talking about schedules and things like that. It's whether or not the school is good. period. But middle schools were designed for six, seven, eight. And so I'm not saying that what we have is wrong, not doing that. But when you have schools and kids for two years, um the one thing that I would say is most important about middle school is that you actually have to be much more elementary like than high school like. And you have to think that way because you're bringing students are coming from basically having a mother or father hen. And now you have mothers and father henses and roosters or whatever. I don't know why I'm using this egg reference. Maybe it's
161for his health's benefit. But uh but nonetheless, that is what happens. And um the entire school needs to be much more and I oftentimes say even high schools would benefit from being more elementary. Um and now teachers are freaking out that are listening to this right now, but I mean that in all seriousness. Um, and so we really are looking at what what is the handoff to seventh grade and then you have them for two years and so it's hello goodbye. Um, and so our folks are working very very hard at establishing school climates and all of those connections with those kids as quickly as possible and slowing the role of the transition down. So there's been a great deal of emphasis on there. Well, I do agree with you. Sixth grade should be at
162our middle schools. there's a big difference especially after January. Um see do we keep track of um the rate of excluded students from classrooms but ones that remain at school because I think that is a different number that I'm not seeing in any of this data. Yeah, the answer is yes, we do. And um and I didn't know if anybody wants to add anything, but it's really important. Um and I'll I will turn it over to folks just in terms of how whether or not that information is showing up here because now you're you teachers by law again have the right to remove students. And maybe it's worth just asking how we go about and how that that data is tracked because they aren't lost. Okay. I would be interested at some point to see
163that because I think it's a higher number than people realize. We do have u a way to track it. For the purpose of this report, we do include home suspension and inschool suspension uh both teacher and admin in school suspension but there is a way to separate each segment so that you can we can have the data. So we do keep track of that and I think in one of the slice in regards to other means of correction where our teachers are really pressing in regards to um correcting the behavior I think that kind of speaks for itself in regards to kind of the great work they doing. Okay. Um just a couple more and I'll be done. Um I was noticing that more kids were sent home and excluded for tobacco use than fighting
164or physical aggression and that drugs there were no exclusions for using drugs. Is there a reason why we're not sending them home for drugs, but we're sending them home for tobacco? Believe you referencing this slate right here. Right. If you see at the bottom, use and possession of the drugs, that was handled 100% by administrative. There was no suspensions for it. But if you go up to use and possessions of tobacco, we suspended 74% of the students and 26% was handled by administrative. That that seems really skewed to me. Yeah, because if you see the violation category on the on the right and if you if you scroll down, if you look down all the way to that to use position of drugs, there are 202 uh and all of them were suspended. So I
165would like to see I will have to see in regards to what is the uh um the difference in regards to why in in the uh in the left side of the bar doesn't say that but if you look at the violation category of those possession of drugs that were suspended okay because that just yes it really stood out to me as as something um and on truency and tardy that's 100% handled by teachers those are things that are already be handled in the office that calls are being made every day, communication's going home every day by the office. Is that something that teachers should have to handle? I know they have a lot on their plate and it seems like that's double doing the communication on top of all of the phone calls and
166emails and text messages. They have a lot on their plate as well. I'm just thinking that that's one that could be handled in a different manner. A lot of times with um attendance whether it's absences or or tardies on the mic Mr. Fine sorry the teacher has uh that closest connection to the family and so um schools are encouraged to have their teachers be that first call. There is some you know follow up with the school calling and things like that when there's absences but as far as tardies go typically students would get a tardy slip in the office. they would go to the classroom, the teacher may log it in synergy, but we they do have that best connection with the family. And so that's why I' I'd probably disagree with you there because
167the office staff I I believe know the families and know the personalities and through all they they know what's going on and a lot of those calls are already made before 10:00 before a teacher, right, can even get to the phone to make a call home. So, I I I just don't think we're utilizing our teachers well if we're having them having to follow up that when we have people doing that job already. Ju just a thought there. Y um let's see. I guess my last one would be I I would like to see the numbers for homeless students on these two because I I think it's important to to be able to track and see how trauma and instability could also be affecting behaviors at school. So that would be a suggestion that we
168see that category also. Thank you. Okay. And but thank you. It's great information and I appreciate your patience with all my questions. Great questions, ma'am. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Davis, Miss Bowwin. Yes. Thank you for the presentation. Um lots of great questions and I won't reiterate um from up here. uh did want to um send a thank you to Miss Regali for providing the insights on supporting staff with appropriate expectations um of our neurode divergent children and our students with learning disabilities in terms of their behaviors um and whether or not um our expectations of uh our students with those specific needs um really meet you know who they are as individuals and how um we support them in accessing their education. Uh I really just to kind of give uh a personal um
169you know picture to when you provide really great classroom management and resources. Um you know we have had a really challenging year with um my son who had some pretty atrocious behavior at the beginning of the year. was really really hard and it would have been really easy to just oh, you know, exclusionary discipline and and and I and I'll be honest that there were some behaviors that probably warranted that. But knowing that his needs are very different than his neurotypical peers, we as a team were able to come together and really find um really good solutions to support him, support uh his environment, and now he's doing really great. And uh this week he actually started um or last week actually started uh GenEd. So, I was really really proud of him for that.
170and and he wouldn't have gotten there without the team that's supporting him, his uh IEP team, the administrators, um my husband and I really kind of just looking at the whole child and recognizing uh his his needs and you know how his sensory system plays a role in his day, how transitions and routines play a role in how you know he engages with his his peers and uh his his team. And so I really really hope that those our teachers, our um classified staff, our administrators that are listening to today um really like I value you so much and and if you don't feel it all the time from um the community or from parents or you your own peers, know that we see you and the work that you're doing to invest in our
171children every day because our kids are not successful without you. Um, and with that said, with this particular topic, please, every educator, every classified staff member, um, become great friends with your behaviorist, with your the BCBAS on campus because they have some really great tips on how to help you manage the behaviors that are happening with our children. Um, you know, behavior is quite frankly boiled down to a science. There's a function behind every behavior and it is frustrating and it's hard and and that's where our wellness comes in, right? It's so important that we take the time to take care of ourselves. I'm squishing my needle ball up here because it helps me regulate. It helps me um process how I'm experiencing very tough topics and I know personally what it's been like for
172our family and our our son. Um, and so I just really I I love hearing that we're doing more around training and providing training to all our our staff, our frontline staff that are in the office engaging with parents and filling out all those tardy slips and trying to um work through um you know the various things that they see in a regular basis. and then to our teachers um our pared educators our special education teachers who are working really hard to um see the whole child and really really meet their needs. So, um, this is a tough topic. Um, and I'm glad that we are collecting all this wonderful data to really drill down to where can we improve because it is about continuous improvement and how um, you know, we can really meet
173our kids' needs and and be a place where all children want to be at school. Um, you know, having that caring adult and being in an environment that is, um, suitable for learning is so important and the work that goes into that starts with collecting this data so that we can see the real picture um, and really focus on where we can um, intervene and where we can um, really support with investing into the resources that are necessary. So, uh, those of you are listening, please, if I I it's not a shameless plug. Your BCBAS and your behaviorists are huge assets. Please reach out to them if you're needing help with uh classroom management. And that goes for any staff. Um, you know, you don't have to be a special ed teacher, you know, to
174to really um look at how you can utilize some great tips from learning more about functions of behavior. So with that, I'm done. Thank you and congratulations to your son. Thank you very much, ma'am. Miss Moore. Uh thank you. I I going to page 12. Um it was briefly mentioned um kind of the new dynamic or implications involved uh or that social media brings to kind of the bullying issues and dynamics that um on our campuses. I was just wondering is that is that tracked within the bullying numbers that we have here? Meaning if social media was connected to an incident. Yeah, if there was cyber bullying or social media involved. No. And we were we we were just we were talking about that. So the short answer is no. It's not in synergy. So
175if there's something but um it's something we need to look at adding um because um so the short answer is no. Um, but it it would be very helpful for us to be able to to note that. So, that's something that we can look at adding and making an adjustment to uh just click a box. Yes. Kick click a box. Yes or no. Every time I do this with synergy, somebody's going to tell me there's 10 other steps. And I don't mean that negatively. I just mean um it is something that we should track and could. Yeah. I just think I think that's really important because um technology obviously is evolving and that includes um into the bullying world and um and I think it's important that we um get involved with that at whatever
176level is appropriate um in our schools because I oftentimes hear that that does occur outside of school but it impacts our students in school. Um uh I mean there are several examples but one example is that there are anonymous Instagram pages um created by students anonymously where students can go in anonymously or go to like an anonymous Google docs form and basically insult people or make inappropriate sexual comments about specific students. Then that shows up on the Instagram page and there's no accountability. Um that's just one example. I mean, I've also heard of people making YouTube videos about other students. Um, I don't know how, you know, I don't know the implications of how much we can be involved, but certainly that's going to impact um morale of our students at school. And so I
177just maybe if you can create a board communication about how much we could be involved with that um and if possible I would love to see that as a subcategory in the future and see how we can address that because I do think that's important. We we agree and actually it wasn't that long ago. I'm trying to remember how long ago, but I would say within the the past year, maybe 18 months, um we oftentimes get requests for um survey information and things of that. And there was one that was inquiring about this very topic that the types of incidents and the frequency of incidents that were associated with um social media. And that actually started the conversation um and this is resurfacing that conversation of when we're doing this and um we're always aware
178that as teachers are doing this work and administrators how what's the user friendliness of of synergy but to have a drop-own box to just say yes or no and what then you can get into the are we describing exactly what it is even if a first step is a yes or no um we're going to see large numbers of our our situations that there was social media connected to conflict in school. Yeah. And as as I believe you mentioned or someone else mentioned um that oftentimes those issues are coming to school and then you know creating further issues. Um so I really would like to see that. Right. You're exactly correct. Yeah. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Um and then just to quickly uh echo or to piggyback I guess a little bit on Mr. Vargas's
179comment about um discipline sometimes being a burden to teachers and I know you responded responded to that but I do just want to say that I believe their perspective is valid and so I do hope we are offering supports um as much as possible and it sounds like we are uh so hope we can continue to do that and look how we can improve and Miss Moore we do meet I have monthly meetings with um with Mr. Sutter um and EGA leadership and it's a great opportunity because there may be times when we actually aren't hearing it. There could be teachers that are going to administrators and we're working through that. Um but we can hear from them. It could be internal communication and they're um great partners with us when they are hearing things
180and how widespread is it and what extent is it so that we're ensuring that um folks understand the philosophy we have but also if there are things that are are burdening an individual or a group of teachers in a school or how widespread is it we absolutely need to address it. There's no question. Okay. Thank you. Um and then on page 19 I believe um when we were talking about uh I think it was par educators uh or I believe that was mentioned um I just I I thought it was a little interesting that we had uh if I'm correct an increase in suspension rates in elementary age students um with students with disabilities. Yes, if I'm correct. And one common thing that I hear from administrators, teachers, staff, um, parents is um, you know,
181and I think it's commonly known that we have issues staffing parent educators and so and I hear that most commonly in um, the elementary schools just the trying to keep par educators staffed and the high turnover rate and things like that. And so I just, you know, kind of question if there's any correlation with that perhaps. um because I think having obviously the proper um properly proper number of pair educators um and then also avoiding a high turnover rate I think is important for those students as well. I know one dad told me his um student had seven different pair of educators in one year and I I I think you know that's a disadvantage to those students because then they it's hard for them to create a relationship I think with a when there's
182you know a high turn turnover rate. I mean, that may be an extreme example, but I just think it's worth looking at um continuing to look at how we can um recruit, retain, and support our PA par educators and also give them um the proper training and tools they need to be successful and to support our students. So, again, I don't know if there is a correlation with that. I just wanted to mention that. Uh and what I would do is ask um a couple of my colleagues over here that can speak to it because it's um the relational continuity between uh a child any child and in particular ch children uh with with disabilities that continuity is crucial and we do have situations where kids can experience turnover and multiple people. Um, I'll let
183our let my friends Amrik and Corey share with you um exactly what we're doing. We were in cabinet yesterday looking at um job descriptions and doing those types of things. Um but they can share with you exactly what we're doing to recruit and retain highquality people. It's it's an important factor for sure. Thank you, Mark. That's a great question, Miss Mo. Not only that, I think one of the things you said that's really important is with children with disabilities, consistency and relationships really matter. And so we have made a considered effort and Corey um will add to it. But uh we meet reg we have a collaborative team uh meeting with HR and special ed every other week and the focus this year has been staffing in that meeting and one of the things we
184have done and I also want to call out our fiscal friends because we've also made a big effort this year to move away as much as possible from agency Paris to hiring our own for the same reasons right we want continuity we want relationships so we've made a big effort in trying to hire own educators. Uh I I now don't ask me for the data. I don't have it at the but this is probably the first year in a long time we've had more staff who are EGUSD staff than agency staff in our special education classrooms and that's because of all the focus that we've had in hiring our own. Now is it perfect? It's not right. It's not perfect. It's a work in progress. But one of the things we have done this year
185is work with the special ed team and HR and identify what we call our priority vacancies. We've looked at which classrooms we think we've had challenges with staffing. We've had challenges with turnover and let's make sure we get those classrooms filled first so that we can mitigate some of these challenges. And we actually track it every week. One of the things we talk about every other week when we meet is how many PAR educators have we hired from the last time we met and we look at that. We look at the priority. We work with special ed and HR to get them hired as soon as we can or even even hire them as substitutes to get them going while we still do the HR paperwork. But that has been a focus this year with
186HR and special ed. Hi, these are great questions. Thank you for for raising them. I'll also talk about uh systems pieces that we're working on to add to what Marriquez just said. As Mr. Serudi called out, we're doing a deep review of our PAR educator job descriptions to help us be more competitive with being able to recruit um folks who are also eligible to work for our agencies who may not be currently eligible to work for us. So, we're doing a review of those pair uh job descriptions and we're also taking a look at our systems for hiring. So, um as you know, we primarily do hiring off of our ed join um through and our internal processes for hiring. Um, we are, and I don't want to get over our skis to share information
187before the the before it's time, but we are working on a different system to pilot with regards to our PAR educators that will reduce our hiring time significantly and make the process more efficient and uh, less manually intensive for our staff. I'm seeing some head nodding, so I think you know what I'm putting down here. So, we'll be sharing some additional information with regards to that as well. Uh, thank you. Uh, and then on page 21, we did mention campus supervisors. Um, I just think it's important we continually evaluate um the staffing ratios that we use and ration that we use for um campus supervisors, specifically at our secondary sites. um to possibly uh you know mitigate some of these issues and ensure campus safety and then also um ensure they also have the proper
188training um needed to deal with various issues. Um so I would just like to see that we continue to look at that. And then the last thing I want wanted to just point out is that I believe on the same page we mentioned connecting with families and building relationships. And I appreciate that we're doing that. It sounds like we do that in almost every case and I I hope we do that in every case. Um obviously and that's for some reason that's not um applicable but um or appropriate. But I believe that um building those relationships with families and connecting with them um then then we become a team kind of like Miss Bowwin said and I believe that the more people we have on the team the more we can support our students and
189and the parents want to be involved. So I appreciate we're doing that. That's all. Thanks. We agree wholeheartedly. Um Miss Bowwin's personal example and thank you for sharing that um is an example. Um if if the school uh the teacher and the school are closely connected and positively connected with the family um it can take a while but there's very little that we can't uh accomplish with those kids and so it is essential to everything that we do is having a strong relationship with our families. Couldn't agree more. Thank you. I had a few quick things. Um, the PAR educator has been a very big focus for a while and I personally count how many PAR educators we add and subtract every time I'm given a list and um, I'll proudly report that for this
190list we added 17. So it's it's on the right trend. The work is working. Thank you very much. And I hope when we make things easier and faster, we can do it for our substitutes, too. It's a long process. Okay, page 12. Um, I think I've done this every year. I've seen this and I have to um recognize the teacher manage things um can grow the teachers do a lot for us and and I just don't want to make this pass without saying thank you to the teachers which has been brought up but I also feel very important um I want to say about our report is we know our data is not where we want it and I am just so proud that we that we share out the way we do and that
191we are very honest and very open um to and we don't shy away from this data or these issues or try to hide it. And I think um it's it's disappointing like we've done restorative justice. We've done we've done um our equity work. I mean it's it's hard to sit up here and think what else can we do? It's been millions of dollars we've put to try to change this. and and so I just I I just want to challenge to a recommmitment to improving the lives for our subgroups and to changing these and and making change in the right direction again. And I also want to recognize this is the first half of a year and if we're we're succeeding in our education, the second half should be better. Um so it shouldn't be
192a double of this. It should hopefully it it does this and we learn. So, um, when you do bring things back, I would love if we could look at end of 202425, midyear 2526, and then end 2526 and see how that how that's working. Um, I I would appreciate that. Um, I think the trusted adult um, relationship mapping Miss Levasser spoke about is an incredibly powerful tool. Um, I've seen it in elementary school with check-in, checkout. we use it and it's had great success. I know. So, um I think that is something new and and sometimes some of those aren't even expensive. It's a it's an investment in relationships and an investment in our seeing children as humans that have had trauma that I can't imagine many of us can't imagine what they've lived through
193and and giving them a trusting place to be and possibly then they're able to share the other stuff that's going on in their lives and then we do get an ear to the ground a new a new place it's provides for us. So I'm excited about that. Um huge congratulations to middle school. This is the first year they've rocked it. I mean, this is this is amazing. Middle school is tough. Like has been said, um I think it's very important. We had homeless. I had a report from a number of staff members. Um that our foster student numbers are going down as our foster houses in our areas have gone down and our homeless students and I mean so sadly are going up and they are our subgroup. They are a focus. They are people
194so in need to to break cycles that we need to help. So, um, I would like to see them tracked on them all and I think tracking the social media. I'm just going to echo that. I think that will give us the data to have a conversation with families and whole schools. Um, um, it's easy for me to go and say, "Oh, that wouldn't be my child." But when you go to the school and they say, "This many incidents have something to do with it," you go, "Oo, that might be my kid." Yeah. I mean it just it changes the conversation from this could be or we think this is a part of it to this is how much of a part of it is and it and it just brings that reality to families
195and I think gathering that would be really important. So thank you so much for the presentation all of you. Um I think we are finished with this if I could ma'am just a couple just very quickly um and first of all thank you for your feedback and thank you to the entire board. Um, in terms of the report uh format, obviously after these meetings, cabinet meets and I'll work directly with Superintendent Riley in terms of any changes to the format, the data formats and things like that. We're here to support you so that you and the community can get the the the data that they need. And like I said, you'll get a significant data dump. Not necessarily the best term to use, but you're going to get a lot of it on Friday. but
196how we present it and what we have always open to adjusting that whether it's varying years and things of that nature and the only other thing that I would add is I appreciated what you said madam president because you were talking reflecting a little bit in terms of there can be frustration and all of us feel it in some ways I go home every day feeling frustrated and excited and feeling positive um because if we could figure this all out we would have figured it all out and we would then have be living in wherever because everyone would have come to us for the answers. I'm not throwing my hands up and saying we don't. But I'm going to make a statement and there could be people who disagree with this. Um and that is
197when you were saying what more can we do or what can we do? What can we do? And I actually think we know what to do. I do. I believe we're doing the right thing. We just need to do it better and get better at it. um because it comes down to academics, it comes down to behavior and it comes down to the social emotional development of students. So, we've got a model and we've got frameworks and we're getting better at evaluating those frameworks. We're getting data um to a level where um we actually are are working to be able to provide our schools. We're piloting this and I'm getting over my skis watching my boss right now and he's going to be shaking his head. Um, but it's actually pretty exciting what we're able
198to do because when our sites are making their LCAPS, and I promise I'm not going to wander around here, and we're not talking about LCAP right now, but our sites will they write behavioral goals into their site LCAP just like we have it in the district LCAP. Well, our wonderful research and evaluation department has developed a methodology where we can pro we will set the goals for them because we have an analytic means of putting together what are termed predictive growth measures. And so as a former principal, if my reading score was supposed to go up and it was at 45, you'd sit with the group and go, let's try 50. You'd want to improve, right? But it would just be a random number that you just picked. Well, they're not random anymore. And my
199reason for asking that or sharing this is we'll be able to do it to the student level. So, we could come up with predictive growth measures for every single student and a teacher would be aware of what that is. Now, I'm looking at James right now and he's going, "Wait a minute. Now, what are we doing?" And this has nothing to do with evaluating. What I'm talking about is I think we do know what we're supposed to do. the instructional framework works and PBIS can work and SEAL we have curriculum but we're still new into that and having all teachers teaching and knowing how to do that and not just teachers but MTSS and our systems getting better there isn't anything new we continue to learn more about the brain and brain function for sure
200and things get refined but the principles that we have in our instructional framework work are no different than the principles when I was going back and getting a teaching license from the University of Wisconsin. They were there, but what we've done is we've refined it and defined it and what does it look like and how do you do it and how what does it sound like? We're asking kids their experiences. So, I would just say I don't believe that we don't know what to do. I believe we know exactly what to do and we just need to get better. I love that idea and I and I love the idea that um seeing our our students and our families as humans, which is one of our goals, is a game changer. I really believe that
201for our kids. Thank you, ma'am. Um okay, board, we're a little behind. Um, but I I don't like to think of us as behind because the reason we have these day meetings is for you to have me not to be staring at you after five minutes with a glaring eye, but for to encourage you to ask all your questions so we can learn. The topics we pick for these days are deep topics and that's why we have them. So, um, I wanted to propose a change in the schedule. Would we be amanable to eating at the dis while um Miss Rosendees presents her material? Um I've um I will ask that we aren't actually on camera. We could be seeing the slideshow. Um but we could take a 10-minute break right now, get to our
202lunches, get lunch here at the dis. We can eat while Mr. Rosenis does her presentation. We take a five-minute break to clean up and then come back and ask questions. Yeah, sounds fine with me. That sound fine? Okay. Okay. So, we're going to take a 10-minute break now. Then we'll have Miss Rosendez, and then we'll take a fivem minute break when she's done. And then I'll start with questions. Welcome back everyone. Thank you. Miss Rosenz, hold on one second. Sylvester, will you let Mr. Yang know we're starting. He's right. I'm going to grab his phone. We have plenty. All right. All right. I think we can start. Thank you. This is our legal update. Thank you. Um, good afternoon. Thank you for having me here today. I'm one of the school districts legal counsel, Karen
203Rezendes with Lozano Smith. And, um, we have a brief survey. It's brief because there's so much more that we could cover and discuss. Um, but it may not feel brief to you. Um, there is a lot. And one of the themes for all the districts in California and and for Elkrove is that every time new legislation is passed, it means a great deal of work and insufficient funding to do the work. And so this presentation is the same as the others. There is more to do. And so we're going to be talking about that throughout the presentation. Um so before I get into the substance um I always like to share with the board how many um new pieces of legislation were passed by the state of California in the prior session. So this year
204there were 917 bills that were passed and of those bills 794 794 were signed into law and most of those were signed into law effective this month. Um some were urgency and we um we might talk about some of those. So that's just California new laws from December to now. 794 new laws. Then you layer upon that all the California cases and you layer upon that all the federal cases, federal law and federal issues. Um, and it is a very active and intense time for public education as it relates to new laws. And it's all evolving and changing for all of you um to be able to oversee. Um, and so keep in mind that what you knew last year or the year before with respect to law is very different today and what you
205knew last week is very different today. So every day it's changing and evolving. We're going to talk about AI right now and how that's not necessarily going to help you keep up either. So we'll we'll talk about that. So the first the first bill that I want to share with you is AB1390. And uh for decades, school boards have received basically volunteer levels of compensation for the work that they do. And um this most recent legislative session that was reviewed and analyzed by the legislature and it was determined that new compensation tiers should be identified based on the workload of schoolboard members and based on the ADA of those school districts. So whatever the prior year's ADA um was will determine uh board compensation going forward after a school board takes action to approve adoption
206of the terms that are included in AB1390. So AB1390 is codified in the ED code under 35012 if you want to look at the details and and different size districts and how they relate um to Elkrove Unified School District. Elkrove Unified School District is in the range that is from 25,000 and one students to 60,000 students. So this year the threshold for that is 3,000 per month. And then um as the board grows, it could go up to $4,500 a month. So that's currently codified, approved as new law. In order for the board to consider action to implement the new law, the board will have an opportunity to review and consider um the legislation, subcommittee recommendations, policy reviews, and updates. Um, there are additional rules in this new legislation that apply to student board members
207and provides an opportunity to provide student board members either with elective course credit or with some sort of a stipen or compensation. That will be another thing that the board will be looking at. When board members are absent um for various reasons, there is an opportunity to look at when those absences can be approved by the board as excused through a board resolution process. That's also included in the legislation. Um and in those instances where there is a regular board member absence, um it's proportional um to the number of board meetings that are held during that month. um determines what the compensation will be for that month. So you will get more and detailed recommendations and information in your subsequent board meetings about this topic and the process for implementing this updated law. Okay. So
208I'm going to cover a couple of really important cases um that are out there that the school district is focused on and paying attention to. The first one I'm going to emphasize is important is the Mahmood decision that was decided last summer. In that case, the US Supreme Court held that a district's inclusion of LGBTQ plus story books at the elementary level as well as the decision to withhold notice to parents and to prohibit optouts substantially interfered with the religious upgra upbringing of children and imposed a type of burden on religious exercise that was impermissible. So that's what the Supreme Court held. But it's it's helpful to have more of a context regarding this case so you can understand what that means to Elkrove Unified School District. So this was a case that involved um
209a very large school district in Maryland. Um and I think they have 159,000 students. So big even in Elk Groves world big. And that school district at one point had an opt out and notice provision with regard to um LGBTQ and other um types of um curricular material and they eliminated that notice and opt out process. In California, you're familiar with the notice and opt out process when it comes to um comprehensive sexual health where parents are given an opportunity to opt their students out of that curriculum. So um in that district in Maryland, they um had that opportunity and then the school district decided to remove that opportunity because of the challenges for teachers and administrators in administering the opt- out process and providing alternative curriculum. They were focused mainly on elementary students, so
210great kindergarten through fifth grade. And there were books that the district adopted as part of it its English arts curriculum. Um, and they identified these particular story books to provide more of a voice and more recognition of the people in their community. They wanted to have more representation of the folks in their community. And um so they um adopted these books. They did have opt out. They did have notice and then they eliminated it. Why am I emphasizing that? It's because the Supreme Court when they were looking at the free exercise of religion and they were looking at options to be able to accommodate parents desire to identify curriculum that might interfere with their religious upbringing of their children. They looked at what was done before and they said, "You've done this before. You can
211do it again." And so in balancing the rights of the parents um with the desire of the school district to reflect a more representative um curriculum for their students. They looked at those different um perspectives and they said because it could be done before it can be done again. This case is is um still fairly new and it also reflects probably what the status is in many states throughout the US, not in California, but other states in the US that have had a longstanding opt out process, notice and opt out process. Like I said, we have it in California for sexual health. Um but um other states have had something similar to that with regard to LGBTQ plus and other things like evolution and other um topics that parents can opt out um with respect
212to. So in looking at the actual curriculum, the actual story books, it's kind of unusual, but the US Supreme Court did include the titles of the books that they were looking at. and um they emphasize the normative nature of how the story books were used as part of the curriculum. What I mean by that is that the court looked at the training that accompanied the curriculum and and found that the training had a judgment call good or bad, right or wrong. And that's the normative piece with regard to the instruction related to the story books. And um they did not address in this decision simply the identification of representatives from various communities in curriculum. They were really focused on story books that included this normative aspect where there was a right or wrong component to
213how the curriculum was um provided not simply the identification of um what what I would call people in protected groups. Okay. So that's the MMU decision. So how are school districts implementing it? um every district is doing it a little bit different and there wasn't a roadmap and this case um actually um was a preliminary injunction decision and so there still could be additional um case law that follows from this Supreme Court decision on this preliminary injunction. But right now, what most school districts are doing is um either providing an opt out form for parents, communicating with parents about what's the specific instructional material supplemental or curriculum that they are focused on that they believe substantially interferes um with a sincerely held religious belief. and how that curriculum and their sincerely held religious belief connects
214to interference with their students religious upbringing. And so those three factors, specific curriculum, sincerely held religious belief, and an impact on their religious upbringing have to be strung together to result in an opt out. And so a lot of districts are providing a form or if a form is provided going through that process to determine when a student is opted out of that curriculum. I know you're eating. I'm just going to keep going through and know there will be questions on these cases. The other big case that is um currently um going through the courts both through the ninth circuit and is um on an emergency request at the US Supreme Court is the Mirabelli case. Some people call it Mirabelli versus Olsen. Some people ver refer to it as Mira Mirabelli versus Bont. Um
215this is a case where at the um district court level there was a decision made and then I'm just going to talk procedurally quickly and then we'll go into what the substance is. So there was a decision Hold on one second. Can we get the right slide up? Oh sorry I'm just talking away. Thank you. Um so with the Mirabelli case, there was a decision at the district court um that found that um with regard to gender information that's that parents have a right to access that information. The ninth circuit court of appeals stayed that decision and that means they said that lower ca lower court case cannot be implemented pending full review full appeal review of this case. Then the parties um the plaintiffs in this case appealed that decision to the full ninth
216circuit in bonk which means the entire ninth circuit panel not just a threeperson um subset of that panel and the plaintiffs in this case also appealed and requested an emergency um order through an emergency application to the US Supreme Court to intervene. So you've got the Ninth Circuit case that's outstanding. You've got the US Supreme Court case um that's pending. So both of both these venues are looking at this case. As of um the last several days, um both parties, including the state of California and other parties, have filed multiple briefs with the US Supreme Court supporting or um defending the Ninth Circuit's decision um or going against that ninth um circuit's decision. And there's also similar u pleadings that have been filed with the Ninth Circuit. So where does that leave us now? So
217here here are the topics that are being considered um or the questions the issues that are being presented. One question is do parents have the right to gender information based on on the 14th amendment to the US Constitution using substantive due process as the basis for that information? Question one, do parents have the right to gender information um based on the first amendment free exercise of religion? Question number three, the teachers have the right to provide information to parents under their first amendment right to f the free exercise of religion? And then number four, the teachers have the right to communicate accurate information regarding a student's gender that's prevented um presented to the teacher or to staff. Um did they have the right to accurately communicate that information to parents? And so um all of
218this started in San Diego with Escanido Union School District and with two teachers who filed this lawsuit. We've got two jurisdictions levels that are reviewing this decision and right now the focus is on whether or not the underlying decision in a San Diego district court should be put on hold while the whole case is reviewed. Um, and where we are at this minute is there is no final decision in this case and there is no action for the school district to take at this point. And there are various perspectives in terms of what is the law. And in talking to clients about this issue, I hear things like, well, just tell me what the law is and we will comply with the law. And I try to explain, we don't know yet. and we won't
219know for a while. It is possible that the US Supreme Court might issue um some sort of a stay or it could be a combination of a stay and an intervention. It is possible that that could happen in the near future, but we don't know till we know. And so, um, depending on when you Google this topic, um, you're going to hear different perspectives about what the status of this case is because at one point the answers to these questions were, um, yes, parents and teachers have the right to communicate on this topic. Then if you Google it a couple months later, the answer would be no. that decision was wrongly decided is what the Ninth Circuit said. And then you have the most recent appeals and petitions to the US Supreme Court and also
220to the Ninth Circuit as a whole saying no no no we don't agree with your initial ruling on an injunction. So there is no answer at this minute whatever this minute is 12:45. There's no answer right now that I'm aware of. So stay tuned. you're going to get updates on this topic. Okay. Next case, uh people uh Berkeley's people alliance versus city of Berkeley. So, imagine if you're the city of Berkeley and you're holding a city council meeting and it's um you've got a member of the audience that's very agitated and loud and disruptive and that member of the audience doesn't stand down when um the city council asks for them to comport themselves and not be disruptive. After multiple attempts to try to ask this member of the public to not disrupt their city
221council meeting, the city council um took a break and moved into a smaller room to continue their meeting. They invited the media to go with them to continue their meeting so that they wouldn't be disrupted by this individual. The court in this case said that um they couldn't do that. A lot of school districts, city councils, county boards, a lot of um different legislative bodies will do that. And so this isn't an unusual thing that they did to reconvene in a different room. Often times it's perceived that convening in another room is less problematic than physically escorting someone who won't leave the room so that you can continue with the business in this case of your schoolboard meeting. Well, in this case, the court said, "No, you can't reconvene in a smaller room. You can
222kick people out. You can ask them to leave. You can require them to leave. You can order them to leave, but you cannot go into another room to continue your meeting. So, logistically, that could be very challenging as you might imagine. Um, so where we are in this particular case, it's good for us to know that if we're ever in that situation, the case is still traveling through the courts. So ultimately, we will find out if the courts believe it is a Brown Act violation or not. But at least at this point, um, the California First District Court of Appeal did rule that, um, clearing the room is the the option. um you always have to leave members of the media um if you clear the room, but leaving the room and reconvening in a
223different room is not an option. So there'll be more updates on this particular case. All right, so on to some new legislation. Uh truency. So we heard that earlier. Um, it removed the concept of a misdemeanor for parents um who um whose students were truent. And so that allows school districts to work more closely with parents without the stigma attached to this is a crime, right? So you heard more about that. um lot of information from your district administrative team on student discipline today, but there's a a new um aspect and that is an opportunity um with the rehabilitation plan uh before readmission of a student. If for some reason the student is unable due to financial or transportation reasons or constraints um or lack of opportunity to complete that rehabilitation plan that that can't
224be a factor in denying readmission at the end of the expulsion process. That's a new requirement. Um new legislation on holidays. So um frequently the state legislature will add opportunities for additional holidays. So in this case they added through AB268 Dewali as a list of state holidays that can be authorized. That would require collective bargaining um and an agreement with all of your labor groups. And um it would also not reduce the number of instructional days that you're obligated or work days that you're obligated to have. So um it's not as though you can add a holiday and reduce the school year by a day. You would have to move the calendar, excuse me, move the calendar um so that it match the holidays that you do have. But it there is an opportunity to
225consider that. Um, the next piece of legislation deals with Title Nine and protecting students from sexual harassment, including sexual assault assault. The FBI has expanded the definition of of sexual assault and um, to include criminal sexual contact um, which is a broader range of misconduct than what was included in Title N before. So now title nine has been expanded to um additional types of contact that involved sexual contact. All right. This one SB848. Um this is one that the board needs to understand is a huge shift in California law. This has massive implications in terms of time and effort by your school district. This adds an entire program um designed to protect students from people who may have um engaged in child abuse or other very egregious misconduct towards students. It adds an entire layer
226regarding classified employees that didn't exist before in the past. or currently for certificated employees. If someone resigns or retires during the pendency of an investigation into serious misconduct, the school district is required to report that termination of employment to the commission on teacher credentiing. And the commission on teacher credentiing has an entirely separate process where they evaluate the information provided by the district by the employee and determines if there's any consequence with regard to their credential. It's like a licensing process and they can suspend, they could admonish, they can revoke credentials, they can do a lot um with regard to consequences for someone who engages in egregious misconduct. A system like that does not exist right now for classified employees. And so this adds this whole other layer that didn't exist before. Um over the
227last couple years there were enhancements to the process that exists for credentialed employees where credentialed employees um have been required to provide every single educational employer that they've worked for in the past when they apply for a new job. So, if I'm a teacher and I and I want to work for Elkrove Unified School District and I work for Alama County Office of Education, a private school, uh, Pleasanton Unified School District, um, wherever else I've worked, I would have to list every single education related employment that I had in the past. and the school district would be required to check on all of those to determine whether or not there had been a history of egregious misconduct in the past. So that was just put in place. This additional layer now loops in classified employees
228into a similar system. So um school districts are now required to do a number of things that I'm going to go over. One is if the CTC re the commission on teacher credentiing receives funding through the state budget to allow it to create a new database system like what we have for teachers. Then districts are going to be required to report just like we do for teachers any classified employee that engages in egregious misconduct and the results of any consequences at the district level. Um the district will also be required on the other end of that to check all applicants, all classified applicants to determine um whether or not they're listed on the statewide system um once that system is up and running um before I leave this slide. So, if I'm a classified employee,
229just like as a teacher in the in the example I gave, I'm going to have to list every single school district, every single educational institution, even if it's private, um the history and contact information. So, the school district that I'm applying to can check and the school district's required to check every single one of those entries. So you can imagine how time consuming that's going to be to check. The district on the other side or the private school on the other side is obligated to respond with information. So it's a mutual obligation. Both the potential employer um has to get all the information and they have to check and the um prior employer has to respond to the inquiry in inquiries and share any sort of egregious misconduct. Egregious misconduct are things like sexual assault,
230child abuse, very s serious crimes involving drugs. Those are the kinds of things that's defined in the ED code, egregious misconduct. So, um there's liability if either party in that mutual communication cycle doesn't comply. If the district doesn't if in this case, if the potentially hiring district doesn't check every one of those prior employees to determine if there was misconduct, there's liability for the hiring employer. If the I'm going to call them the sending employer, the prior employer doesn't send the information to the potential hiring employer, there's liability for that entity. So for Elkrove Unified School District, you're going to need to create systems to gather the data from applicants, vet all of the data that they provided with prior employers. Bird dog, is that a real word? um follow up with prior employers to
231make sure that they've responded, that they prioritize responding in a timely manner before they make hiring decisions. So, you can see how that might be a um a cog in your efforts to really turn around and you know the selection of employees and so lot of new obligations. But wait, there's more. So the other thing that before July 1, the school district has to do is adopt a professional boundaries policy. And you already have professional conduct policy. So, um, it's going to be in conjunction with that or a modification of that, but it's supposed to address boundaries between pupils and employees, adult volunteers, and they define adult as over 18, 18 and over, school contractors, between pupils, between adults employed and volunteering, um, or under a contract. And the policy is supposed to address appropriate
232limits and contact um appropriate limits on contact between pupils and employees, volunteers and contractors. And it includes um via social media, internet platforms, texting, and other forms of communication that do not include the students parents or guardians. So, you've all heard of cases of grooming and other misconduct where the use of texts are used between um a school employee and a student. Those are the kinds of things that your policy needs to address and regulate against unless the student's parent is included on those types of communications. there now needs to be new policies, plans um and specifications on that um and that has to be done by July. It also um includes that the protection of students will be um supplemented in your comprehensive school safety plans. So the comprehensive school safety plans have to
233address additional supervision and protection of children from child abuse, neglect and sex offenses. Um assess crime committed on school campus. And the idea behind this legislation, the intent of it was for staff to be trained on the comprehensive school safety plan. It also enhanced who's a mandated reporter. It expands who's a mandated reporter to um volunteers over 18 and contractors whose duties uh require contract um contact with or supervision of pupils. So this is just another layer of training that's required. board members, employees um were always part or have been for a long time part of the mandated reporting obligations, but this adds a new category of folks. Okay, there's additional terms regarding what needs to be included in the training and who needs to receive the annual training. Um, and all of the training
234and proof of the training must be completed within the first six weeks of when they start. So, there's a huge turnaround time. Volunteers are those folks that are are with your students when there is no parent, guardian, or school employee. limits who is a volunteer a little bit, but still think about how many times you have volunteers that are in um a room um or on a on an activity um with students alone. Okay, we're going to switch gears. We're going to talk about immigration um action. So, a year ago, President Trump issued an executive order titled Protecting the American People Against Invasion, and they included um a a plan to enforce immigration laws. And in the past, prior to that executive order, there were understandings about what area what areas um were accessible for
235immigration enforcement. One of the areas that were limited were schools. Another area was churches. So there were certain areas that were deemed to be um disruptive for purposes of immigration enforcement actions. Those locations, the rules regarding those locations, those were revoked last January. And so um Elkrove has a board policy regarding responses to immigration actions. And your policy requires that schools continue to be safe and welcoming places regardless of citizenship or immigration status. That no student um shall be denied equal rights and opportunities based on immigration status. And that information regarding the student, so student records um are not released for immigration purposes without a parent or guardian's consent or a court order or a subpoena. So normal protocols for FURPA uh in terms of student records, normal confidentiality protocols and um our policy says
236that the district protocols should be followed if an immigration officer or an agent appears on a campus uh requesting information or to access the campus. I'm going to talk about the campus because there's public areas of a campus like a school office and then there are non-public areas or private areas where either employees only are allowed or students and employees um are present. So, just going back in time, 1982, um I still remember the music from then. Back then, Plyer versus Do says that a student may not be denied public education based on their immigration status or the immigration status of their parents. So, that's been in place for a very long time. Um, in terms of some of the guiding legal precepts, um, when we are enrolling students, um, there's a process for establishing
237residency and age. As part of that process, um, we have to be careful about the information that we're using so that it doesn't shill an undocumented students access to an education. Um, this is just a reminder. All student records are confidential and cannot be disclosed to an unauthorized person unless the parents consent or there's some sort of a lawful exception to the rule like a subpoena judicial order or there's an emergency exigent circumstance. So, California adopted new legislation that says um that any officer or employee of an agency conducting an im immigration enforcement action is prohibited from entering a non-public area of a school without a valid judicial warrant. In other words, signed by a court a judicial subpoena also signed by a judge by court or a court order. So, does that mean they
238can't be on campus in in public areas? No, they can be on campus now because the the order that was previously previously in place was revoked, but under California law, they're only supposed to be in uh public areas unless they have a court order or some other type of judicial order. There are also new laws regarding notice not just to families but also to employees. One one of the laws state that if the district um receives notice that there's going to be some sort of an audit or review of your immigration documents. And you're required when someone's employed to check their ability to work in the US. So do they have citizenship? Do they have other work authorization documentation? You are required to do that by law. If there's an audit of those documents and
239the district receives notice of it, the district's now required to provide notice to their employees. Um, and also if they're and and to families, if they are anticipating or if they've received information about an enforcement action that is expected to occur on campus and we're aware of it, we're supposed to provide notice to our communities, our employees, um, our families. And the school board is also entitled to get information and notice if there is any sort of an enforcement action that happens on your campuses. Okay, there are some posting requirements. The um state of California um published a California workplace know your rights document, but there's a toolkit that's available online from the California Attorney General and it has a lot of the notice requirements included in the new legislation as it relates to immigration
240enforcement actions. Um it's important to know that this is an extremely controversial um intense topic right now. Um and I think we're all very aware of it. families and people are um very concerned on both sides of the political debate and it is something that um does impact families and students in your district just like every district in California. So again, Elkrove Unified School District, like other state um school districts in this state, are constantly trying to balance what does the law require in California, what is the federal law, what are the courts saying, is the reconciliation of those two laws, and then you as a board and your administration are trying to figure out, okay, what is the law right now today? and what do we need to do to make sure we're complying
241with the law and it's evolving. And so I hope you'll be patient with your legal counsel and um with your team as you're navigating these issues because they are very intense and complex and everyone is trying to do the right thing um by everyone involved. Okay. So another aspect of this is this concept of family safety plans. And this is the idea that um families will want to identify in the event that they are detained um who can care for, pick up um make educational decisions for their children. And as part of the family safety plans, there's been an expansion of of who can be a relative, who's authorized to execute um a caregiver authorization affidavit and who has rights for medical care and for other purposes. Um the definition of who is a relative,
242there was some language before that talked about um what I would call friends. Um, and it has been updated to include more family members, but some of the language regarding friends and neighbors have been removed. So, it's been expanded and contracted in a few different ways. The definition of a relative is now an adult who's related to the child by blood or adoption, including stepparents, siblings, and all relatives whose status is preceded by the words great or grand, as well as the spouse of these relatives. Okay. Um the little document I showed you before um is part of this SB294 and it includes um rights. It in that document it doesn't just cover immigration rights. It also includes labor rights and they're handinand in this document. meaning the right to have a labor rep, the
243right to organize, the right to participate in um concerted activities and negotiations and those things. So, this is part of that document and they've included both the labor aspects and the imig immigration rights aspects in the same notice. Employees may also designate a contact to be notified if they're arrested and detained. And the school district is required to notify that contact if we have knowledge, direct knowledge that an employee was detained or arrested while at work or during the performance of their job duties. So, this is a new obligation for the school district. Okay, new topic entirely. Um if a public employee engages in certain types of felony um crimes um fel felony level crimes they can lose their pension. They forfeit their pension. And so the types of crimes are really related to financial
244misconduct. So extortion, bribery, embezzlement, theft, u perjury. If someone is convicted of that type of a felony, um, then they lose their right to their pension, as they should. Okay, next topic, catastrophic leave. So, with all the fires in California, um, and all the other catastrophes, um, the law has been expanded to permit an employee to donate leave to a catastrophic leave bank for, um, a state of emergency. And so this would have to be negotiated exactly how it would be implemented in your district. You have different um labor partner agreements that have different terms with regard to catastrophic leave programs. But this is an opportunity to provide support for colleagues especially in the event of a state of emergency. Okay. Student identification cards. Um, so this adds a requirement for the back of those
245student identification cards to include um for grades 7 through 12, the hotline, suicide hotline, and LGBTQ plus hotline. Um, that is um through the Trevor Project. So those are new requirements that start for next school year. Artificial intelligence. I'm so excited to talk about this. um because I'm scared by it right now. Um so there are two definitions I included but these are just two examples. One's California, one's NASA. I'm not going to read those to you. Um but what I am going to share with you is a few just in the last week just in Karen's uh life in the week of Karen and AI issues that have come up. So yesterday I want to make sure I have the right one. So, first I'm going to talk about challenges and risks before I
246talk about opportunities. So yesterday, one of our clients received a um public records act request for all chat GPT prompts and outputs going back to January 2023 to present for all district managed chat GPT platforms and any personal accounts uh for chat GPT used for district business. And so, um, we as a law firm are going through that P request and are trying to identify, um, if that is a disclosable public record, if we are able to retrieve all of those prompts and outputs. So, think how challenging it is when we receive public records act requests for texts or emails. um if whatever the platform is doesn't provide for it, what we're being told is it's basically a PDF for each of those prompts and outputs would have to be researched and will take an
247extraordinary amount of time because of the quantity of questions and answers that GPT is putting out for our clients, for every teacher, for every student, for every administrator, for every board member. And so several years ago, we had a similar case as it related to texts for the um city council in San Jose. And we thought, oh, the court's not going to require that every single text be produced that a city council member has. Um and the court at that time came up with a test. And the test was if that text, even if it was between two board members, if that text was, "What are you having for dinner tonight?" That would not have to be produced. But if it had to do with, "I'm going to be late for the board meeting because
248it relates to the school district's business," it would have to be produced. So, this is just a whole new can of worms um technical term um for what we're going to be dealing with for public record act requests. And so that that came up this week. The other thing that that came up within the last several weeks is um PE well this week one of the other things that came up is there are um legal research platforms that are designed for attorneys to do legal research. Lexus Weslaw. And um if you haven't purchased their AI platform, they're probably going to call me after this, but if you haven't purchased their AI platform, they give you like a freebie. You do the regular legal research and then they'll say, "Here's what you would have received through
249our AI platform." Well, we discovered that their freebie in terms of here is what you would have received, included incorrect information. the legal platform for doing legal research that's designed to eliminate hallucinations and bias and other risks of using AI provided completely incorrect information. It citled cited to a penal code section regarding the use of a firearm that did not relate at all to the use of a firearm. So that happened this week. And then the other thing um in the last few weeks was um the public employment relations board that adjudicates um unfair labor practice disputes um different um organizational structures for unions duty of fair representation cases received a pleading um a statement that had several legal citations and was completely fabricated by AI And so in their ruling they said we otherwise
250would not issue a presidential decision in this case but because the entirety of the legal analysis in this case was fabricated we are going to publish it so that we can share that um attorneys people who are representing themselves unions if you fabricate using any means any platform there will be monetary sanctions you're at risk of the case being dis um um dismissed or ruled against you. And that's like a small sliver of the number of um judges that have issued decisions where people have been fined or sanctioned. AI is great. It's fun to go on. It's a I call it sometimes a smart start, but it's only just a start. So be skeptical about whatever is produced and when you're working on your board policies and you're making decisions as you will regularly and
251pretty soon um keep some of these horror stories in mind because it it is a significant risk of liability for the district. So that was the challenges and risks part of the story. The opportunities are huge. um LA Unified attempted to do this and if they were successful it would have been great. However, the company that they worked with um was unable to produce what they promised and the company went bankrupt. But the idea was that parents and students could access an AI online platform and they would be able to get access to their homework and support to help them improve in the areas where they were struggling. Wouldn't that be miraculous if if that could be the case? And so there are huge opportunities to use AI um both to support your students and
252also to support your staff because the theme for this legal update is that there is more and more work to do for teachers and staff administrators and not enough time to do it. So if there is a way to harness the power of AI, which is so enormous, to make some of your functions um more efficient and effective, that would be wonderful. It's just as you're going through making those decisions, the importance of of vetting whatever the product and the provider, the vendor is is is going to be one of the bigger jobs that you have. Some of the pro AAI people that are listening right now are going, "Stop talking. What is she doing? Okay, smartphones. Um, so you probably recall when uh the law was passed to um have students when they were
253under the control of the the schools to not use their phones and that was going to be taking place um this July. And part of that law, it was AB 3612 in 2024, part of that law had um exceptions for um exceptions for when students could have access to their phone. And one of that the idea being if you're in um some sort of a traumatic experience, some sort of an attack on your school and you want to be able to call your family and let them know you're okay or what's going on or law enforcement. There was an ex um there were um exceptions um to when a student could get access to their phone. And so now under this new law, they clarified those exceptions. So a school district can still even in
254an emergency prohibit access to the phone. So why would they do that? So in the first legislation they said no phones during school time or when you're under the control of the school district. Um but in emergencies students can have access. And now they're saying, well, there are there is going to be certain times when even in emergencies, they shouldn't have access. And the reason for that is, you can imagine, um, there is an active shooter situation and phones are going off because parents somehow know what's going on on the campus. They want to make sure their baby's okay. They're all calling. That noise from that phone could create exposure for those students. There's also apps and I my understanding is students can opt into it where if the perpetrator is a student that's connected
255to those students where they can see clusters of students on their app. So this group of students are here and they can see those students are together on the campus. That would be another example where for good reasons the first law was passed but in light of the technology and the risks they needed to make an amendment to the law. So the amendment to the law allows if the school district addresses this problem through your policy updates um to limit use of phones even in an emergency when the um health and safety of students are potentially at risk. The next um legislation regarding graduation regalia is an attire. It used to be that you could vet what people were going to use of religious or cultural significance prior to the graduation ceremony. So this law
256removes the pre-approval process. So, it really becomes the parent and the student deciding whether or not what they're going to place on their cap or gown is of religious significance um or of cultural significance. And the district is left basically at the last minute right before a graduation determining if whatever that is that they choose to um wear is disruptive. So if if it is disruptive, you still have the authority as a school um district to limit that attire. Um but you're going to have to make those judgment calls. Your administrators and the people who are supervising graduation are going to have to make those judgment calls real time. So it makes it more challenging. We've talked uh about the possibility of encouraging participation in a pre-approval process just to make sure that your child's
257graduation day um goes really well. You can't require it, but that might be something that the district wants to consider is a um a voluntary pre preapproval process just to have things go more slow smoothly on graduation. Um, so there's a lot of challenges with students that um have to transfer from one school to another due to military orders. And um those challenges are exacerbated when you're a student with disabilities. And so this new legislation AB1412 um addresses um proactive steps to support students who are in that situation. They're they have to transfer with their parents. they have um an IEP that needs to be implemented and just expediting that process is part of this new legislation. Cyber bullying, I know that was a question earlier with regard to the data. So, um education code
25848900R has quite a bit of language regarding the use of technology um to electronically bully um and create um really negative educational experiences for students. So um this new legislation focuses on the wear of it all. So as you know you can discipline students for what they do on campus and you can discipline students for what happens before on their way to school and after on their way home. Um, and often you can discipline students for conduct outside of school or outside that going and coming role if their conduct outside of that environment has um ripples and impacts on the school campus causing a disruption on the school campus. This clarifies what that means with regard to cyber bullying. And so the California Department of Education is um going to um adopt a model policy
259and I'm sure CSBA will adopt a version of that and it addresses more directly that which happens at the middle of the night at 2 am that school administrators aren't aware of that impacts school. It impacts kids ability to get an education. It's talked about during the school day and is disruptive. um it's harmful. So that severe and pervasive conduct that creates an intimidating or hostile educational environment is what um will now be more emphasized in the law uh when it comes to disciplining students for engaging in that kind of conduct. Okay, new topic you all need to know about this one. AB640. So AB640 requires that all school boards are trained regarding the content and adoption of school um district annual budgets and fiscal penalties for not providing accurate information. So, FickMat is the
260organization that is supposed to develop the the curriculum for that and board members who are board members in April of 2027 must complete that training within a year by April 1, 2028. And um for subsequent new board members, they have to do it within one year of their initial date of board member service. But for some of you, there's good news because CSBA has a um a program, Masters of Governance, and if you have that certificate, bingo, you are already in compliance. So, highly encourage um those of you because there's more to it than this fiscal aspect, but it's a really good program. So, last last topics, um legal updates to the Brown Act. So AB707 is an confusing piece of legislation, but let me break it down for you. So if you decide to
261research this and look at it on your own, you have some key terms um to differentiate between what applies to school districts and what doesn't. So wherever it says all legislative bodies, that includes school boards. Wherever it says eligible legislative bodies, that is not you. That is not school boards. That's city council, county boards. Um those are other um legislative bodies, not you yet. Who knows? In the future, could be you, but not right now. All right. And so um there's a definition of what these eligible legislative bodies are. Again, not you. Um it's only when they say all does it apply to you. And um you're familiar with the traditional teleconference requirements. So, if for some reason you know you're going to be out of town for work, you're going to be at a
262particular location and you provide notice to um the district of your location address, that address is on the board agenda, it's posted um within the 72-hour notice requirement for a regular meeting and 24-hour notice requirement for a special meeting. And wherever you're located, wherever that conference room address is, it's open to the public and you put signage up that it's Elkrove Unified School District's board meeting, then you can attend that meeting remotely as long as members of the public can come in and make public comments from that location. So, that's still in place, but they've enhanced the just cause um provisions to encompass the emergency con um concept. And um I'm not going to go into detail on these, but it is similar to what was in place for the last couple of years. They
263just combine the two and the requirements are extremely ownorous and challenging. And just to share a story from the field, um, one of my colleagues was at a schoolboard meeting a couple weeks ago and was texting all of us urgently with a question because they were attempting to do one of these remote meetings and their two-way audiovisisual platform, Zoom, um, or Microsoft Teams went down and in those instances, you may not go forward with your meeting for a period of time and so it really created quite a disruption for that um particular school district. So there's lots of rules that come along with this and um can it be done? Yes, but not without great challenges. So I've included some of those challenges one through seven um on that slide if you want to look
264into it in more detail. Um the other thing there's there's some um attorney general opinion and rules with regard to reasonable accommodations. If there's a situation where a board member requires a reasonable accommodation, um it's really important you let the superintendent know as far in advance as possible so that we can determine what all of the audio, video, and other requirements and what you're required to report out when you are attending in that situation, including who's in the room with you. Um if they're older than 18 years, 18 years old. And then um the disruption language that was in the Brown Act, that language has been extended. And so there's a script that you have to go through to make sure you comply with the Brown Act. If someone is disruptive, if someone goes beyond
265the time that's allotted, or they engage in some sort of a protest that's so loud that you can't hear each other and you can't transact the business, you need to transact. Um where the district can order that someone leaves the meeting. Um, and it also applies to teleconference meetings. Um, you're all entitled to have a copy or you're required to have a copy of the Brown Act if you have that um, white bound book. Um, you've we've already satisfied that requirement. The social media um, requirement has been renewed. And what this says is that you can respond and engage to questions that members of the public might have on social media regarding district business, but you cannot respond to even one other board member on social media. You can't post a heart emoji because you
266like what they're saying. You can't say yes, I agree. For sure. Um, but you can't directly respond to any social media post of any type by any one other board member. Um, it's pretty ownorous, but that requirement's continuing. And then um the law also expanded who um within the definition of management must have their salary schedules or their agreements read out before the board deliberates and makes decisions to approve those salary schedules or agreements. That must be done in open session at a regular school board meeting that the public knows what you're talking about. Um there is um a new requirement regarding certain committees. I've listed those committees in bold. those committees. It used to be that if there was a committee that was um considered um in such a way that would allow the
267public to participate with public comments, a committee that is subject to the Brown Act, that at a subsequent meeting, the public um could be prohibited from re visiting that topic and their comments. Those limitations have been eliminated. So, if there is that type of committee in this district in the future, um there is no longer a limitation on public comments. If someone wanted to make public comments at that committee meeting and then come to a board meeting and make comments again, there's no limitation on that. Uh make sure that your boardroom is accessible to the public, including Americans with Disabilities Act accessibility. And one of the things um to be aware of is if someone needs to video tape or record the meeting because it makes the meeting more accessible to them, they are entitled
268to do that. There is there there is no um possibility of a rule that says no audio or video recording. Okay. Questions? Wow. All right. We'll get right to it. Um Mr. Vargas. No, I'm wrong. Miss Ballerini. Okay. I read all this at home, too, and thought, "Wow, that's a lot." And I still have pages of notes. Okay. Um, I'm just going to ask a couple clarifying questions. So for the SB848, the classified employee requirements that includes um temporary activity coaches and temporary athletic coaches as well. You're asking because of the definition of classified. Correct. In the legislation, it says non-certificated. It doesn't use classified. I used a shorthand by calling them classified. So it does include them. So, the answer is yes, it applies to them. Okay. And is there I didn't see anything
269on there about how much time the district has from the time they receive a request from somebody to answer. Is there a time? I see. So, we're the hiring um employer, how long does the um sending former employer have? I can check and find out for you, but I don't know. I just I don't know. Yeah, I'll find out. We can put it. Okay. Yeah. Um, let's see. Uh, um, okay. So, you already answered that one. Okay. Um, the FCMAT um, AB640. Um, the MIG does cover it. And does it cover it forever or do you have to retake the MIG classes? If yeah, if it applies if you're continuous, if you're continuing as a board member, if you stop being a board member for a period and then you are either reappointed or reelected,
270then you have to do it again. Okay. Um, I probably have more questions, but I can ask later if I think of them. Thank you for the complete report. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Ballerini. Mr. Y. Yeah, thank you Karen. Um, sure. A lot of great updates there. Appreciate that. Uh going to have to uh going to have to uh reread some of them to uh to use this going forward. Uh with that said, uh I am on um slide number 13 uh executive order uh immigration actions. That leads to uh slide 14. Yeah, just just uh just just wanted to say that uh you know u with that slide and uh it uh current situation you know that we have uh seen unfold in Minnesota. And I think that has um definitely a dom
271effect to um the nation, to everybody. And um as a school district um as as our uh school district, we have um a very high immigrant um populations and and students here. So my uh question will be um so let's just say you know just just say uh hypo hypothetically questions right so uh we we have our own um policy and so forth um to protect our students and so forth so let's just say if I agents are outside of the school campus right waiting for students or whatn not. Do we have any um any rights in regard to um protect our students? Um you know giving scenario that hey our students coming out of the campus now they're off the uh school campus um premise then I could detang them. Do we have any
272say or any right to protect our students in those kind of scenario? So the part of the hypothetical that I'm focused on is that they are no longer on campus. Yeah. Um, and so if if we believe that a child is at risk of being harmed or anything else, I would recommend that that folks not intervene, but they call 911 and they if there is a safety plan in place to call those family members. Um there is no affirmative obligation for the school district in that scenario and um there is potentially some risk um to intervene especially if they're acting lawfully within their orders. So in addition to that, let's just say for example, um a student is requesting to stay longer on our campus because they notice that there's ice agent, you know, um
273next to the school premise. Do we um obligated to um to help them out as far as uh keep them at the school until further um action could be taken where they feel safe and sound and ready to go home? Are we obligate to provide that kind of service and protection? So, with any student who presents um to an employee of the district expressing fear or concern for their physical safety, um it's going to be very fact specific and factbased and it may warrant contacting the parent, the guardian, a caregiver um to determine what the appropriate next steps are, but it's going to be very factspecific. I can't give you a general answer with that particular scenario. Okay. Yeah. So, just just um wanted to um recommend and and obviously I'm going to work with
274you guys off um the board meetings, but I I would like to say that it may be appropriate for us to provide some sort of a uh educational um workshop if if if that's even a uh appropriate thing to do um to provide information for our um immigrant students so that they have a better understanding of what we um a school district provide as far as protection goes. Um I think a lot of them probably don't really know what's going on. Um and if they do, you know, just reassuring them that hey, this is what we as a school district could protect you guys with and cannot protect you guys. um and so forth so that they have a clear understanding of you know um what they're up against. Uh again, you know, with what's
275going on uh in Minnesota that, you know, has a trigger effect to all of us. Um especially um the social media these days are, you know, pretty much just an instant uh uh kind of like a replay, you know, for all of us to watch and and see it unfold. So with that said, yeah, I'm just I'm just very concerned and I uh want us to uh work on this and uh really address any um way of that is uh uh appropriate as far as educational uh purposes. And um that's all I have for now. Thank you. Yes. Um, I'll uh work with Superintendent Riley, but I do know your district does have re um resources for your administrative teams um that are shared with teachers as well um that may have some supports um
276for staff dealing with these kinds of questions on the daily. Thank you, Mr. Yang. Miss Davis, I have a few questions on SB848 on classified employees. Do they have to report all jobs or just educational jobs? There's a list of all the jobs they have to report. The shorthand of it is all private and public educational institutions. Okay. And it's a the it includes things like um specialized programs for students with disabilities and other youth programs are included in the legislation. Okay. Um, also the written policy is great to clear up what expectations are. Um, the hiring process is going to be crazy. Um, but does that written policy be regarding behavior go towards our students that are 18 or older? Would they be cover behind besides just a student expectation? would they be expected
277also to be covered under this AB848 and our description there if they were hired? Um, so two two different kinds of situations. So for volunteers that are 18 or older who are with students in an unsupervised volunteer capacity, they would also be subject to the training. They would also be a mandated reporter for um maybe existing um students, adult ed students or students that are 18 or older who are employed by the district. They too are obligated to provide all their prior um education related employer history to the district. Okay. Thank you. Um, also under AB848, um, conversation I was having with, uh, Superintendent Riley was, um, attendance records. Are those considered student records? Because we have, um, CPS workers, social workers that come into offices all the time and are wanting to know or
278see the students attendance records or they're asking for parents addresses or contact information. Do we just have to tell them no and refer them to the administrator and appropriate director? It depends on the context of their work. If there's an educational reason to know or if there's parent consent or an exigent circumstance or emergency circumstance or some type of court order. There's a lot of exceptions. um furpa would apply um to addressing who is entitled to have access. Okay? Because that's an almost everyday situation in all the offices and and many times in that day too. Okay. On SP 294 where on page 23 where it says that employees have a right to give notice of um an emergency contact. Would that would we also have to extend that to volunteers who might be on
279campus at the same time that if they were arrested, would we have to have an emergency contact to let them know they had been arrested? Yeah, right now I'm not seeing that in the legislation, but I'll double check. Okay. Because that that there's lot on campus. Um, on page 25, AB642, can the employee donate directly to another employee or do we still have to use our catastrophic leave banks? So, how those catastrophic leave banks will be administered um will be subject to negotiations. The only change in this law is in addition to illness um and other you know illness of self or illness of family that may have been negotiated you could also add um a state disaster. Okay. State of emergency. Okay. Thank you. Um on AB727 page 26 about putting the information on
280a student ID card. Um, a lot of our schools go to electronic ID cards that doesn't have the ability to put that information. How would we resolve that? I will need to double check with your district to see how they're doing it. Now, um, so if those electronic cards have the ability to include additional information, you'd have to put it on there. And you may already be doing that with different hotlines for domestic abuse and suicide hotline. Okay. Thank you. Um, the smartphone. That's a great one. I've been at school site where we've had emergencies and we have parents knocking on the doors because the kids have called them. So, Oh, yeah. That that is a great one. Um, and I just wanted to clarify SP7 on the Brown Act on page 33, it said
281on there, no requirement that remote location be open or accessible to the public. Is that wrong? It's not wrong. There's two different kind well there's multiple kinds of remote attendance. Um there's the traditional remote attendance which is the first bullet which does require public access to the space and then there's the fairly new remote access that has all those other other bullet po um bulleted requirements. doesn't require access to the remote location, but it requires two-way audiovisisual opportunities for the public to see you the entire time for them to know who's in the room with you to be able to make public comments through that same platform and if that platform goes down forever whatever reasons the board has to cease for a period of time um before it can continue with its meeting. Okay.
282So, those are some of the examples, but that is a different category of remote attendance. Okay. And my last question, and you know, I always have lots of brown act questions. That's good. Um, can we support board members campaigns or personal posts on social media? The ones that don't have anything to do with school district, like, oh, great picture of your grandchild or hey, I'll be at your fundraiser. Are those allowed? Um, campaign, no. Fundraiser, no. Anything connected to the school district, no. Personal, I would recommend against it. May I ask quick question? Of course. Are you finished, Mr. Davis? Yes, I am. Thank Thank you, Mr. Y. Yeah, just quick question to uh clarify that. So, so if you can you can you give uh endorsement to your colleagues on social media? Yeah. No.
283Okay. What What about um just like what about giving them fund? Can you give them money? Yeah. Towards their campaign? Yeah. Yes. Okay. So, they can they list your name on their web page or their website as an individual in your personal capacity? Right. But then not as an endorsement as a schoolboard member. Wait, so you saying that they just want to clarify that part because that that's a sounds like a tricky uh thing there. So So let's just say if Beth was to run, right? Um and and let's say I give Beth like a hundred bucks. Yes. So she could I mean obviously it's going to be on her record, right? Right. She has to report it, right? But then if she put on her website say, "Hey, these are my sponsors or I
284should say endorsement, right? Can't she put trustee Sha Yang on it?" Can she do that? She can put Sha Yang on it. What about trustee Sha Yang? You've you've got some board policies, some rules, and in terms of when you're speaking in your role as a board member that we can talk about at another time. And unless I'm if I could just jump in really quickly. Um unless I'm mistaken, most uh individuals when they're running for office specifically state in there somewhere that if a title is used, it's only for identification purposes. And that is that's exactly so. And the reason for that is if there is a title that's inadvertently used that it's clear they're not speaking on behalf of the the entity, the public entity. Okay. So if she would to just list
285it sh that that would be fine without the that would be fine. And if somehow that you're a board member was included and you had some magical legal language as a caveat then that would be fine. Okay. And then just to clarif what I heard from you is um I cannot say hey I endorse BAF for school board. I cannot do that right on on my social media like let's just say Facebook account. So what this law deals with is when one board member comments on another board member's post. So, if you as a board member comment on another board member's campaign and say, "I support this board member's reelection campaign." That would be a Brown Act violation under the current law. Okay, got it. Thank you. All right, Miss Bowen. Oh, yeah. Miss Davis,
286this is this is why this is why we have these kinds. All right. I just want to make sure if if there's an outside person who's collecting signatures for um a proposition that's on there, are we allowed is to go on there and say that I support this or I'll sign that or would that still be a no? No. you have you have the right to support um and you have the free speech right to support any candidate or any ballot um initiative. Um what you are not supposed to do is um engage in anything that would violate the law regarding use of the district's um uh equipment, property, time to advocate for a political matter. And so when you use your title as board member, there is a potential risk that um it could
287be perceived that the school district is engaging in unlawful political activity. But can you sign a petition? Absolutely. Can you state your opinions on political matters? Absolutely. Um, but can one of your board members comment like in response to that post if it relates to school district business? No. And even if it's tangentially related to school district business, um, you put the board member at risk if you if you comment um because it's a Brown Act violation. Thank you. I just want to um if you come to something and you have a question, you should feel free to forward it to David who can forward it to Karen um because it's better safe than sorry. That is that is part of why we have her. Miss Baldwin, thank you. Um I think there was quite
288a few um great questions to kind of clarify where we stand and coming into compliance with the new legislation that has passed. Um I if if possible, I think it would be great to just have a review um Superintendent Riley of what we have in place for um when um immigration issues arise on our campuses or our um properties just so that we could review that. And then it would be great to see maybe an analysis of what might need to change based on um the new the new revisions. Um, and I think just to say, uh, it's important for families, um, any adult who care about people who look like me, um, please update your emergency contacts. It's going to be really important cuz we're in a place where immigration's very scary. And I
289have ancestors that have been in this land before immigration was ever a thing. But I know that we have a lot of families out there that are being targeted. And it's really unfair for our adults in our schools to have to figure out and decide what to do when faced with this kind of an issue. And it's important that we all be prepared because it will affect us in capacities that we don't fully understand. And I just really hope that when it really hits us hard that we will all stand together united to support our families because this is a truly painful thing that our country is experiencing and that our community is being faced with. So whatever we can do, I get liability, I get compliance with the law. Whatever we can do to
290do what's best for kids and families, I think is very important. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Moore. Thank you. U going back to I believe it was page three. Um to clarify, is it your recommendation that um as a district we look into uh creating an opt out form for um for MUD vers Taylor. So, with regard to that case that currently is in place and I know your district has been working on issues related to that in terms of um any sort of request for opt out. So, I know that's in process. I'm not sure if that's been completed yet, but um that would be something that we can follow up on and get you some information about. Okay. Yeah. one of the um CSBA workshops I uh took kind of took a deep
291dive into this and their suggestion was that districts do um create an opt- out form. So I was just wondering if you had more insight to that. But yeah, our general advice has been to understand what curriculum and supple material supplemental materials you have. Um look at whether or notice is required. There's always an opportunity for families to inspect curriculum that's always been in place and that's still there. And then um have a form and go through what I call an interactive process to determine if those three elements are in place um and then make decisions based on on that um partnership with that family. Okay. um on page 22 and I believe 21 um when you discuss um AB495, could you give us a little bit more insight into that? I know that u
292I think you mentioned this, but the original form of the bill was not um really specific at all with the adults that I believe that the adults that could um gain essentially custody of your children, but the it was revised to give more direction. Correct. As you kind of indicated there. Yes. Um, but that's still pretty a still pretty a broad broad um, you know, it could be like your, you know, your great um, great aunt's husband. I mean, like would that be an example of how broad it could be? Yes. Like a grant. Yes. They include great great or grand as well as the spouse of these relatives. That's very broad. Yeah, that's very broad. Um and then also can you explain how individuals could obtain the affidavit form um for this process? So
293if I'm a parent and I want to know how to I'm sure every school site has that form available or it's available online. Every district has that form. Um, so it's just a matter of um probably checking with your school site or your school site's website. Yeah. Well, so I I that's what I was kind of getting to is that it's it's a form that can be easily found online by the said individuals that we just mentioned. Correct. Yes. Um so what are possible loopholes that maybe could have unintended consequences? I understand that the intention of this law, but are there unintended um consequences perhaps. So, you know, as a parent when I was filling out those forms, um, and you know, knowing the kind of work that I do that I'm traveling, you know,
294I was in addition to my husband and my parents, um, you're very careful in terms of who you're going to list on that form, right? And if you're in a situation where you're concerned about immigration or some other law enforcement action, you may want to extend who those people are on that list if it's possible that you may also be part of that enforcement action yourself. And so, um, yes, there are consequences with all of the things. Um, so there's consequences with educational rights, making decisions regarding assessment plans, approving IEPs, medical um, rights to make decisions regarding a student's health care needs. So all of those considerations are things that I believe families need to think about before they make a decision regarding who goes on that form. So, my understanding, tell me if I'm
295incorrect, but my understanding is that an individual could obtain this form based on the relation um in the the description that you provided, they could obtain the form online, go to the school, and um because I believe it, correct me if I'm wrong, but from my understanding, it was created so that if someone was um deported and their child was left behind that that someone could go and you know, basically become the temporary guardian caregiver. Yes, I understand that. But from my understanding, an individual um basically it's been um labeled as the legally kidnapping bill because an individual could take that form and go to a school and um unenroll a child or or um remove them from school for the day or as you said the medical, you know, give medical permission for medical
296treatment and so forth. And so that's what I was talking about with unintended consequences. Have you have you heard about that? I haven't, but that sounds like something I should look into. Yeah. Could you maybe get back to us? Because I mean I obviously I respect your legal expertise, but that's what I've heard from lawyers and and the research I've done is that there are unintended consequences where essentially a stranger could go around the intention of what that law was um made for and and essentially pick your child from school and because um without parental consent like there the form doesn't require any kind of notoriization or or anything like that. Correct. So, no, but it has to be submitted to the school and the um school staff are going to review it and if
297the person that's submitting the form isn't the lawful guardian or parent, they're going to question that before they accept that form. But I hear your concerns and they're very serious and I'll look into further that issue and also check with the district regarding the protocols they have in place so that something like that doesn't happen. We have issues in all school districts and schools that relate to child custody issues and temporary restraining orders and other actions um that protect students from one adult or another adult or in a different you know particular situations, custody issues. And so a lot of care and education and training is provided to folks at school sites to be able to navigate that. And often it's still confusing. And when that happens, when it isn't clear um who has um
298educational rights um or or custodial rights regarding a student, they're going in your district. They're going to run that um up the flag pole to the next administrator who has more expertise. And if they're still unclear, sometimes there's competing custody orders, competing court orders, um then they'll they'll take it to legal counsel and um we determine by going directly into the court systems what is the most recent legal document order that applies to a particular child and that takes time. So it's not happening real time. So I am concerned about the concern that you expressed. So, I'm going to look into that further, but um we do have a lot of protocols as school districts throughout California to address some of those challenges with with custody and rights with regard to children. Yeah, if you
299could maybe just let us know because I again I would appreciate that because from what you're saying it sounds like that a parent would have to fill out that affidavit bid form in the event that a situation like that occurred. But um the research that I the information that I've heard is that any individual could take that form in and say I'm now claiming whatever it would be like a guardianship or whatever of this child and I'm going to take them home or they have my they're coming with me to get a med medical treatment on their great great aunt's husband and you know or and just they I believe they have to show ID but I also question what um if if we are equipped to verify you know their I think they have
300to provide like what information do they have to provide are we equipped to verify that um do we require parental consent because my again I don't I've heard that we don't in this situation um anyway I would just like if you could communicate that with us so that we better understand because I think it's really important that we that student safety is very important and you know schools have the emergency contacts in place. And I think that's very important. And there's a reason that parents put the emergency contacts on that list because those are individuals that they trust for their children to to care for their children in some sort of event like this or any other emergency. So, I just want to make sure we have we understand the true implications of this law
301in the affidavit. Yeah, I I'm understanding the serious risk and concerns and I'll work with Superintendent Riley to follow up. Okay. On this topic with more information. Yeah, I'd appreciate that. Thank you. Um and then is um on AB727 the ID cards um it's my understanding that the the website that is provided is um the Trepper project is that correct? Yes. Yeah. And I I do have some concerns with that. Obviously, I don't have any concerns or I don't have any take any issue with us providing resources for um subgroups as appropriate and um and obviously um I think that suicide is a very important issue that we should provide appropriate resources for, but I do want parents to know um that the Trevor Project is gives kids access to an unregulated online environment. Um,
302and it the Trevor space claims to be a safe space for youth aged 13 to 24. And that's very concerning to me because obviously that's grouping um minors with adults. And so I'm I'm concerned that we're again, I know this is law, but I just want people to be aware that this could potentially be exposing young teens to being encouraged to um socialize with unbetted adults. And um there's no system that verifies the age of the user, meaning that adults of any age could pose as a teenager on on this website. Um, and users can send private messages and images to each other. Um, and some of the clubs that that youth can access on this website, um, including our dad include our dad's uh, sucks sucks club, mom's are overrated club, um, lovesick lesbian
303club. Also, other clubs include Satanism, witchcraft, um, furries and polyamory clubs. Do you know if this suicide line is connected to that? Um I happened to be in the Senate committee hearing when this was brought up and um I just wondered what I was getting the idea that it was a suicide lane and and I understand concerns with the Trevor Project but that this was a separate piece. It's all called the Trevor Project but the suicide line is a service that's over here and it's by voice. uh this has been tested by individuals to that went in and were able to access all these things. So I just think people need to be aware of um yes the Trevor Project may have multiple um resources but this is one that can be accessed through their
304website. So I just I just want people to be aware. To me that's alarming and so I just think parents should be aware. And again, I know it's something that we can't change um because it's law, but I would want to know if I was a parent. So, thanks. Thank you, Miss Moore. Thank you, Mr. Vargas. H if being on this board has taught me anything, it's that before I got on, I always used to wonder why people complain so much about an active uh legislature. And now I understand. Um it is the constant changing especially on the education side of the law is kind of a pain. Um and add that to the endless unfunded mandates and endless requirements to do various different things. And um they always seem to take everything every good
305idea to its logical or no to its illogical extreme. Right. Um and there's a couple in here that I just I will I'll poke at. Um but uh obviously S SB848 is sounds like a great idea. Um you know I'm looking forward to the policy conversation around that that that we have coming up. Um AB772 uh the cyber bullying off campus. That's one where I have just no idea how we're going to deal with that. Um that is a huge addition to what we already do. It is incredibly difficult for us when we're dealing with, you know, anything in the online universe. Um, and, you know, we're just, you know, making us in any way, shape, or form responsible for what happens in the online universe is just going to be difficult. Um, so I
306I look forward to those conversations as well, knowing that's going to be a very difficult conversation for us. There is some language not to be a fan of legislation um but there is some language with regard to the cyber bullying that um provides some protection if you don't take disciplinary action or you're not aware of it. It's when you become aware of it and there are the impacts. Yeah. I just that's a whole it is a bottomless pit of things that are going on in the online universe that we don't know about. Um 100%. So, I I don't know. We'll see about that one, but that'll be that'll be an interesting conversation. Um the you know, changes to the smartphone policy make sense to me. Um I think one of the big things on smartphones
307is really that we just were not there is no way for us to be aware of everything that's going on there. There's just no way. There's so many apps, there's so many different things. I mean, I'm always shocked at the amount of things that our team knows about. um when we when we get that information, I'm always like, h how did you even figure that out? Where were you looking to find that information? And um so we have our we very much have our finger on the pulse of a lot of what's going on. But there's just no way to be involved in everything possible. and the way that like now um so I I have been shocked my younger friends I didn't do this um but my younger friends they have uh on their
308phones um they have their location information turned on for all of their friends and so they have all of their friends they know where they are all the time and it is so weird to me like the relationship they have with each other that allows them to do this and the comfort level they have with each other that allows them to do this because like I got freaked out when my sister told me her husband had access to her location data all the time. I was like that feels weird to me. Um my my sister also has no sense of direction so I understand why she she does that. Um it it makes perfect sense for her relationship with her husband but it's crazy to me. And but for kids today that's totally normal. is
309totally normal for them to know each other's location at all times. And so like that's something where like people you parents need to know that like you need to because we aren't going to have access to that information but they're going to have access to that information and they're going to have access to that information for each other. And so like you pointed out that can be very dangerous in a an emergency situation. Um and so that's something where parents we can't have that conversation with kids parents need to have that conversation with their kids. Um, and so the more that parents are having these conversations around smartphone, um, you know, smartphone safety, uh, the safer everyone's going to be because there's just some areas that we are not able to get into and that
310frankly we don't want to be involved in. Um, because it doesn't deal directly with, you know, the education of your kids. Um, and the more you pull us into those areas, the more uncomfortable we're we're going to be. And I promise you, the more uncomfortable you're going to be and your kids are going to be. So, um, like let's let's try to, you know, all be working on that together. Um, graduation regalia is one of those is one of the ones that, you know, sort of, um, you know, got under my skin a little bit because we as a district had great conversations with, um, you know, our local tribe about two or three years ago around graduation regalia. and we brought them in and we had long conversations with them as we were developing
311these policies. Um, and we came to what I think was a really good and very effective understanding with them about what a good policy would look like. Um, and to the extent they supported our policy when we when we put it forward. Um, and one of the things that I think was really important in that was that we had a pre-approval process. Um, but it was understood that it was a pre-approval process so that we knew what was coming, not so that we could block things because I don't think we we almost never did. Um, but we we needed to know ahead of time because the last thing we wanted was for a kid to show up with something on graduation day and have us say, "No, you can't wear that." And so we that
312was the point of a pre-approval process. And my worry with this new legislation is it sounds good to get rid of a pre-approval process. But what that means is that instead of us having an interactive conversation with students and their parents for two months ahead of graduation to find some way for them to cross that stage, they're going to show up day of and we're going to have to tell them no. And that is going to happen. It's not it may not be in our district. It's going to be somewhere in California and it's going to be litigation. And it's like it's entirely avoidable because we should have had two months of that conversation ahead of time. And so I just think like this the the legislation sounds great. It's going to cause problems. Um
313and it's problems that we had avoided as a district prior to this. Um and that were entirely avoidable had the legisl legislature actually paid attention. Um I feel like I'm turning into carbon. passion. Okay. Okay. Sorry. Um, so I did want to swing back to um, Mmood and Mirabelli for a really quick second. And Mmood I I think the points I want to make here are policy for us because we are in the process of um, coming up with policies around both of these issues. And so the things I want to go over are to kind of flag a couple of things because I know we're going to make changes and so I and I know these things are not done. So I I know we're gonna, you know, this is going to be a
314long-term process. Um, but what scares me about Mount is not necessarily the ultimate conclusion that we get to around opt outs. Like I'm generally fine with opt outs. Um, a couple of things scare me. one is how broad this is because you did a really good job Karen of um giving us the narrow interpretation. Um but I think as you and I both know courts love to latch on to language in in you know Supreme Court opinions and apply it in ever growing areas. Um, and so I worry that right now what we're talking about is LGBTQ books in elementary school that, you know, give a moral or or try to give a normative, as you said, or moral judgment on, you know, um, LGBTQ families, for example. That's what the Supreme Court, that's what
315this case was about. Um, you can see just in the coverage of this that people have said, "Oh, no, this is all LGBTQ things. This is all LGBTQ books. This is all and you can see that expanding out pretty quickly." Um, and my concern is that it's going to expand beyond that to because I think there is an argument based on what the Supreme Court said that we're just talking about religious objections generally, right? That any rel that any religious objection could trigger an opt out. And that's a huge universe of things. And part of what really scares me about that is that suddenly we are in the position of trying to figure out what is a legitimate or valid religious objection. And that is really not something we're qualified to do. That's certainly not
316something I think any of us on the board are qualified to do. It's certainly not something any of our staff were hired to do. Um and so that scares me. Um I think what I have seen I think the CSBA put out a you know model opt out form. I'm sure there are other ones out there. Um but even when you were talking about what what the three um factors are. Um the fact that we are asking people to tell us what is your religious belief and how does that religious belief res how is that religious belief burdened by what we're doing. that automatically puts us in this position of judging that religious belief and that's really not what we're here to do. And I think one of the things I remember from my first
317year, first second year of law school was it used to be the case that we balanced religious the religious freedom, you know, um, rights by saying you're not going to have a lot of opt out rights, right? When it comes to the law, you have to follow the law and we'll give you some religious opt- out rights and in exchange, we're not going to ask for a lot, right? we're going to assume that you're when you tell us I have a religious region reason for opting out of this, we're going to assume that's valid and so we'll just let you do that. But as we've expanded the universe of religious opt out rights, including here, right? My worry and I think what we're seeing come to pass is that we are by expanding that we
318are now expanding government's role and our role in trying to judge okay what are legitimate what are the legitimate bounds of these religious you know beliefs that justify an opt out right because we don't want to you you know if we just keep saying any if you say whatever you say goes right then it doesn't matter like you can opt out you can just say well my religious belief say I don't have to do that and my child doesn't have to do that. And so if the the universe of those opt outs is infinite then and the universe of religious beliefs is infinite then you can opt out of whatever you want. Um and so I I worry that now we're in a place where we're going to start making judgments and we're going to
319start telling parents like they'll they'll give us this form and we'll say okay but is that really a reason? And the minute we start doing that, we're in we're in bad territory. And I, you know, I just I absolutely don't want us to be in that universe. Um, we should never ever be evaluating somebody's religious beliefs. Like that's just not our job. That's not what we should be doing. Um, and I worry that this is putting us on the path to do that. Um and the the other side of my worry around Matmood is um that we are entering a situation where we are allowing parents to exclude their children from certain parts of education, our education and yes they will you know our policy is and should remain that we will give them an
320equivalent opportunity of some kind. So, if it's if they're not reading a book on LGBTQ um you know, parents, right, the the Penguin book, um they're not reading that, we're going to give them something else to read, right? That is of equal educational value. Um but they're doing that in a separate space. They're doing that separately from their class. Um, and so one of the things I want us to think about as we're doing this is that that exclusion, that separation, even if it's even if they're in the same classroom, but they're being told, "Hey, you have to read something different from your classmates," they're naturally going to ask why. And once we start getting into those conversations, right, that's going to make them feel excluded. That's going to make them feel like they are
321other. That's going to make them feel like their classmates are getting something that they're not getting, right? there's any number of reasons why that exclusion is dangerous um and is not healthy for them. And so as we are thinking about this, I I want us to think about okay, if there is an opt out, the more opt outs we do, how are we making sure that that doesn't turn into exclusion. Um, and I feel like the worst scenario, and you know, maybe I'm just being pessimistic here, but the scary scenario is that you're going to get someone, you know, one of our teachers who's going to be having a bad day and is going to get this opt out and is going to say like, you know, and is going to be impatient and say,
322"Well, your parents told you you couldn't do this because of X, Y, and Z, and so you can go sit over there and do it." Right? And that's the absolute worst kind of situation that we absolutely don't want to have happen. And so like we need to be thoughtful about how we're continuing to include these students even as they are opting out of certain course materials. So that is the other thing I want to talk about on that one. Um on Mirabelli I we're going to we're having a whole policy conversation on this so I won't delve into it too deeply uh because there'll be time to have that discussion. Um but I think that you know my issues around the Mirbelly case are not around the first two questions right which are um do
323parents have a right to access certain information and I think the answer is always yes right the the legal answer um as far as I know and you can correct me if I'm wrong is that if a parent asks us for certain information particularly around you know health information or even if they ask us point blank right is does my is my student you know on a gender support plan or whatever we have to answer them Right. There's a record, a student record. We have to Yeah. And and we have to answer them honestly. And I think that that there's a very good reason why we do that, which is, you know, one of the most important things for us is that we are not disrupting a family relationship. And that family relationship is whatever
324the parents decide it gets to be, right? If the parents want it to be a want to know all of this information, regardless of how that student feels about it, that's their right. Um, and so it is not our place to tell them no, right? It's not our place to hide information when they ask for it. But there's a the second two questions on the in this are completely different, right? The second two questions relate to the district or a district employees right to force that information onto families. And that's a very different situation because the vast majority of families with LGBTQ or questioning students have deci have made the affirmative decision to say maybe my child is queer or somewhere on that spectrum and I'm going to wait for them to tell me because
325I think that's the healthiest most appropriate thing to do. And that is that is the situation my parents were in. That is the situation the vast majority of parents are in is they are going to wait and they they might suspect, they might know already, there might be some reason that they think this is the way it is. Um but they're going to wait because they think that's the most healthy thing. If a if a a teacher or a district employee for their own reasons decides to tell the parents they have violated those parents rights. They have taken away those parents ability to control the relationship with their kids and that can have very serious consequences even for parents who are supportive. Right? Because a parent who is supportive, they should be a their kid
326should be able to talk to them about it. And when you take that right away from their child, that damages the relationship between that child and their parent. And so as we are having this conversation around Marbelli, I think we're going to need to think about this in terms of, you know, what do we how do we respond to when a parent asks something versus how do we respond when a parent has said no, I'm going to let my kid run this one and I'm going to wait for that information. because those are both decisions that parents have made for their families and it's not our place to interfere with either one. And so as we're doing this, as we're having this conversation, I just want to put that out there as something we need
327to think about. Um because this is going to be a very trying policy decision that we have to make in the next in the next year or so. So uh that is everything I have. So thank you very much. I really appreciate. Thank you. And Mr. Yang had one last comment before I make mine and we move on. Yeah. Thank you, uh, board chair, I wanted to, uh, make a comment about immigration. Um, as a US citizen, taxpayer, and elected official, I have immediate families in Minnesota, uh, who lives in St. Paul and Minneapolis. I have sisters, brothers, cousins, uncle, auntie, niece and nephews, whole bunch of friends, and of course, we all have a whole bunch of Americans over there. What's going on over there, it's scary and injustice and people are fearful. I
328speak to my family on a daily basis and they're telling me and I'm recommending to them to put their citizenship passport. Make sure it's print out to put on the dashboard or or in their car compartment just in case they get pulled over by ICE agents so that they have proof to show that they are US citizen. The reason why I'm saying this is because it's really real. Miss Bowen's spoke a little bit about her personal opinion and her emotion was truly shielded. And I'm scared for my family over there, the people over there. I'm scared for myself, my wife, my kids. People that looks like me, people that are immigrants that getting stopped, detained, harassed just because they look like immigrants. And we are very scared. And I wanted to say this because I
329want you as my American colleagues, elected official to to feel it that it is so real. Uh I remember living in the refugee camp in Thailand. I don't remember we have to carry our documentations uh with us. But here in America for almost 40 years and now we feel so scared. So I urge you and encourage you to stand with us in solidarity to tell other people about our rights and how we going to help out each other especially the most vulnerable community, the most vulnerable students that they have their rights and we going to do anything in our power to help them to protect them. Uh, with that said, the killing of Renee Good and Alex Pretty, I condemn that. I think that is so unlawful and I hope that it will stop immediately
330because I see video kids that you know just got an award from playing soccer and being recorded that you know he's uh t soccer um teammates who are white. It's it's making racism uh comments like, "Hey, you should go back to your country where where you came from." And you know, the kids respond, you know, in that video, he was crying. He's like, you know, I I didn't live anywhere else but in the United States cuz I was born here. and colleagues and that that's what creates um discrimination and racism you know and what that mean is you know discrimination and racism is being taught you know it's not being born with it so it's it really had that domino effect and I just wanted to say please let's work together let's condemn this uh
331unlawful acts by the people that's supposed to do the right thing by taking out um the illegal immigrants that you know um that don't supposed to be in America. I support that. I support the law. So with that said, I just wanted to end say that, you know, um I know that we going to work together to protect our students in Elgrove Unified School District and their parents in any way that we can uh by the law. So thank you. Okay. Um, thank you. I have a few quick questions. On page 26, when we're talking about adding the crisis line, we're not taking anything away. They're adding. Correct. Adding. Adding. Okay. Um, on 28, when we talk about graduation, regalia, you say of cultural and religious significance. Is that That's the definition. That's the definition.
332So having a pre-approval process for anything that's not cultural, religious, and how specific are they? Because I think a lighted cap that says UC SD is not cultural or religious personally. But yeah, if it doesn't fit into that category, then the district still has the ability to have a pre-approval process. And who defines that category? We will be working on that through your policy work. That sounds good. Thank you. Um, and I think the social media things on page 38, it might benefit. Um, we once had a whole presentation on social media and um, I don't know if we could we could pass that out again if it's still appropriate. Still, um, an updated version. An updated version. I went home and deleted mine after everything I learned. I'll be honest. All your social media.
333Yeah. Yes. um the the the limits, the the how open it has to be, just the the process and what people have rights to and what you are restricted to in an elected position is I think would be shocking to most people. And so I think um from some of the comments tonight, I think it would benefit our board to have some more information on those, please. And that's all I have for that. Again, um thank you board. I think we had a great meeting. I think people asked a lot of good questions, shared a lot of things. I I just want to remind us that when we're in our board meetings, we're try to keep our comments to five minutes because they're not workshops. So, if we can rein that back in for our
334next meeting and those thoughts, it'd be great. I need to ask for are there any blue cards related to the consent agenda, Miss Ballerina? Madam President, there are no blue cards related to the consent agenda. Thank you. So, I'd like to call for a motion to approve items one and two on the consent agenda. Moved. Second. Moved by Mr. Vargas, seconded by Mr. Yang. All those in favor? I. Those opposed? It is now 2:36. We're going to recess into close session to address items one and two on the close session agenda. Thank you. We ready? The board met in close session and no action was taken and I'm now adjourning this meeting at 3:20 p.m. Thank you.