001to the right of us. Good evening everyone. Um, I'd like to call this meeting back to order in open session. Welcome to this evening's hybrid board of trustees meeting being held both in person and virtually. This meeting has been made accessible to members of the public on the link at the Morland School District website and onboard docs. Any person who requires accommodations to access the meeting has been asked to contact the superintendent's office within 24 hours of this meeting. This meeting is being recorded and may be published online at a later date and we'll go right to the flag salute. I believe we have students in the audience tonight from Latimer School who are part of a leadership group. All right, come on up to the podium and lead us in tonight's flag salute, please.
002Right hand over ready. Salute. [Music] to the stands one nation indivisible and justice for all. Thank you so much for coming tonight and for your patience while we start our meeting a little bit later than we had originally planned. So, we're very grateful for you. Um, if you could each take a turn, introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your leadership. [Music] Something I love about is that we get to lead a lot. I know a lot about leadership because something I like about leadership is that you get to hang out with friends and you get to make plans with them about like activities to do at recess. I'm what I like about leadership is that we help around the school. My name is Sophia Barker. have been attending lab work since the
003sixth grade that um me and Myra are part of our middle school leadership program so we can we're outs which are our spirit events uh lunchtime competitions we're in charge of pride effects and we just make every year at the school I'm something I like about leadership is that we get to lead people to provide direction out school events and just really make our school a better place thank you Um, so first of all, I I think uh as I was reading the description of what guy what you guys have been up to, it's absolutely amazing because it's one thing for somebody to kind of tell you what to do or ask you to do something and it's something completely different when it comes from you guys. And what you're doing to your own community,
004to your own school is absolutely phenomenal. So I just wanted to say thank you for that. And then second, of all of the things that you did, which part did you like best? Anyone can go. Spend days. Yeah. Which one was your favorite one? Oh, yeah. Excellent. Something I really liked about leadership was our lunchtime competitions. Our most recent one was the water pooling toss. I participated it participated in it with one of our other leadership members and it was really fun. The game itself was also was fun but I really enjoyed seeing bringing all the middle schools together. Awesome. Thank you Sophia. Um I just wanted to um echo what my fellow board members said. Thank you guys so much for being leaders on your campus. And kind of along that line, which activity
005do you think that you that you guys planned was the most like impactful at your school? question. I think it was probably the musical chairs. Yeah. A lot of people came to play and it was really Yeah. Anyone else? Our most impactful Yeah. thing that we planned was probably our last ro. We had a little bit of technical difficulties and the wind wasn't on our side, but we played a lot of games that really interested the students and they were really that driven and since then people have just been talking about that. What's like an example of a game that you guys played at Aurora? Um, an example is we played rocks, right? Yeah, rocks is um kind of our version of capture the flag. Also did this game where you have a water in
006the bucket in your costume. You're trying to get the last person have the most water. Super cool. Thank you guys. Thank you. Um well, first of all, I'm struck because we evolve. One of our core issues has been how to build culture generally speaking. you know, h how do you how do you create a an environment that kids want to be in, that they want to learn in, that they feel connected to and and that they want to continue to help each other and their peers. And so, you guys have just done a really great job of doing those things that that are the connective tissue in a community. And so, thank you for that work. Um, and then tonight even I say this to all the students that come through is that I'm sure
007it's kind of curious. Why would you have to come and lead through uh the pledge of allegiance? Um, but it's actually so that we're just reminded of our students before we take on any issues within the district over the course of the board meeting. And so you guys are the last image we have before we go and talk about issues, you know, that might impact your education. So, thank you for coming. Um, it actually is important. you are the great faces for us to remember for this evening. Um I'm really proud of your leadership. So thank you. I don't have any I don't have any questions. Take it around. Uh thanks again for stepping up. Um you know this is the just sort of the beginning for you guys and it's your opportunity to uh
008use your voice, use your leadership skills, be able to talk in front of people, be able to talk to others and lead others. I call you guys bridge builders. You're building bridges. Bridges to connect different grades, different people from different backgrounds. And I hope this continues on as you go on to high school and into middle school for you guys. It's a great opportunity. It starts here and it can only get better. And I know you guys come up with ideas. You've got we continue to see study ways to uh know problems and how to solve these problems and keep that up. Communicate with each other. talk to each other and it brings this culture that we love to see from you guys. Um so congratulations. I hope you guys continue to do so. Um
009lots of great things to come. Lots of fun. All right. Well, hello again. Um it is my understanding that you um were all focused on creating a sense of belonging in your school this year and that was the focus. And one thing I do want to say is that lots of people have great ideas about what you should do and how you should do it, but leaders take action. And you guys all planned, took action, created um a sense of belonging for students. And I see here um that the scores went up for students perceptions around their sense of belonging in school. Congratulations. What is it about a sense of belonging that kind of makes so special? I know you can answer this because we prepped. Um I feel like you know belonging is a
010very important thing because some people they don't want to go to school in the morning but especially like our like lunch competitions and roouts like it's definitely made an impact because some people find it more enjoyable like they're like oh at lunch we can do this like some people they don't feel like they belong in certain places but I feel like since we've incorporated so many different events this school year it's like just made people feel more welcome and have more fun and and you know like bringing more things just academics. Thank you. Anyone else want to add? Um adding on to Lyra. I think another really special thing about ours is that we're all divided into college students at random. So it really gives you the opportunity to speak to people from different grade
011levels that you couldn't necessarily talk to on a regular basis. Also, I would like to add one more thing like even for our like spirit weeks to make sure people you know they don't they feel like you know they belong. we like be sure no one's going to feel left out as we're planning them and really like make it so everyone can like participate into that. Thank you so much for your leadership. I really appreciate what you're doing and thank you for leading us tonight. Congratulations. You ought to be so proud of yourself. I'm sure your parents and your school community is proud of you. We are very proud of you. So, thank you for coming tonight. Good job. All right. So, we will move to approval of tonight's agenda. I'll make a motion to
012approve the agenda. I'll second it. All in favor? I I comments from the public. Not much of the public's left. Members of the public may address the board on any subject of concern to you, including those not on tonight's agenda. However, provisions of the Brown Act preclude any action as an unagendized item. No response is required or permitted from the board or district staff and has already stated, no action can be taken. The board, however, may instruct the superintendent to follow up, which may or may not include placing the item on a future meeting's agenda. If you would like to address the board this evening, please complete the blue public comment card within the first 15 minutes of the board meeting being called to order in public session. On the card, please list the agenda
013items you would like to speak to. If your comments do not pertain to an agenda item, please write public comment. When your name is called, please come to the podium and state your name and organization that you're representing. Comments are limited to 3 minutes for Gore board governance manual. Do we I don't think we have any blue cards. Thank you. Uh superintendent report. Sure. Well, hot off the presses, um the AXA edc newspaper comes out weekly. The AXA um is the Association of California School Administrators. It goes out to about 17,000 individuals. And lo and behold, once again, Latimer is in the news for their We've got the root beer float. We've got the root beer float socks in there. Um, thank you Moren for making that submission and keeping a keeping Morlin in the
014spotlight. I appreciate that. Um, also we've got new logos. We've um kind of spiff them up. Have a few has their new logos. Um, we're going to make sure we I'm going to use Tasha's wordj up over in the enrollment center. Make it more welcoming. um but that also schools can use them on their as they send things out on their websites etc. So thank you for that. Um so we had president's council in our MEF meetings um last week and this week and everyone is recruiting new board members. That is kind of what's happening this time of the year. Um, I had a wonderful meeting with Anna Chan, who is the current MEF president, to discuss fundraising ideas for next year, how they can support us. This year, they gave Morland $189,000 in support
015um, from the generous donations of our community. And so, I just want to say thank you to everyone um, who's watching us right now um, for your generosity and your contributions. We uh will be voting on next year's budget uh during the June MEF meeting. So that'll be the last meeting beer will be dedicated to that. Okay. So we just had our people of the year celebration and we will have our retirement celebration on Tuesday, June 3rd at 3:30 p.m. We're actually going to have it right here in the boardroom. Make it a little more intimate. Um juzj up with some flowers and table sauce and make it nice. It's a lot of Where did I got it? you like to I didn't know that word before Tasha came to the district. So that is
016the new word. Um so I want to congratulate everybody um that has just dedicated their service to the Morland school district and we will celebrate you on June 3rd. Um and then music in Morland has just been they have had so much fun. They've been in Disneyland. They've been to Great America. Uh, let's see. Almost 70 students from all three middle schools went to Disneyland along with six parent chaperones and our three music directors. Uh, the trip included a visit into the recording studio where Disney conductor directed the students through four movie soundtrack pieces from different Disney movies. The young musicians also got to ride the rides at California Adventure at Disneyland during a heatwave. recordbreaking temperatures for Anaheim that day, 98 degrees. On the whole, it was a very good trip. We had lots
017of fun experiencing the two Disney um parks and displaying their music abilities. And then, as you know, I think it was a couple weekends ago, our musicians were also at Great America um for music in the parks and our schools EDS and Latimer really stood out and won several awards. So EDS Jazz Band won first place in their division with an excellent rating. EDS symphonic strings first place in their division with a superior rating. EDS Symphonic Band first place in their division for superior rating. And Latimer Symphonic Orchestra was first place in their division for excellent rating. And then there was this final award where apparently they watched the students from the time they got off the bus, they watched them all through the as they were playing their music through the park. Um, and
018they judged our student, they called it the Aspriita core award. So, it was respectful behavior, kindness, how they treated one another, how they treated other people that they might not have known. And so, that final award went to the combined schools of EDS and Latimer representing Morland very, very well at Music in the Park. So, I want to say congratulations. Yes. And then as a reminder, we have our Thursday honors concert on uh uh 700 p.m. over in the community center gym. That's this Thursday. And so, hope to see you there. Um open house season. We're in the middle of it. So, all of those dates are on our website. You can find them. We've got, I believe, Baker tomorrow, followed by EDS and Latimer next week, and then Payne and Country Lane the following
019week. As a gentle reminder, there will be no school on Monday, May 26, in honor of Memorial Day. And then, believe it or not, the last day of school is coming up quickly, Friday, June 6th. So, we look forward to celebrating our eighth grade promoters completing their Morland journey, preparing for their move to high school. So, we will have 8th grade promotion ceremonies starting with Latimer will be Thursday, June 5th at 9:00 a.m. And then EDS and MMS are on Friday, the last day of school. Um, EDS starts at 9:00 and MMS starts at 10:30. So, we hope to see you there. That concludes my remarks for this portion of the agenda. Thank you. Board members, communications. Um, just when I was getting used to skiibbidity. Now I have to learn. Thank you. You know,
020you're welcome. Oh, you're you're a step behind me. Okay. Yes. You don't want to go there. It's a language that is foreign to everybody. April 24th, I attended the Anderson um I Shel and I were at Anderson site visit. Jod and Jessica walked us through um the campus. Again, always struck by uh how much uh of an impact the their approach in uh classes is having, especially with intervention and small uh small groups. We had an opportunity to kind of sit in and kind of watch some of that in action. So, it was very very informative and um I again, as always, thank Jod and Jessica for taking the time to do that um for us. And other than that, I just want to just uh maybe spend 10 seconds on this. The what we
021just witnessed with the award ceremony is always such a special um uh day for for me because it is it's one thing when your peers recognize you uh with some of these awards because they probably uh know your work better than almost anybody else. And in I kind of like as I was going through everybody's comments, three things kind of stood out, which is like, you know, people talking about focus on the students, focus on the kids, focus on empathy, and kind of like collaboration. It's kind of like, you know, that just kind of says Morland, you know, more than anything else. So, I just wanted to say those few words. Thank you. Thank you. Um, yeah, I went to Anderson site visit with Sher and then also MMS with Heather, right? Okay, I feel
022it felt like a long time ago while I took my calendar. Um yeah and again I just want to say thank you to you know the principles and wishers for taking time out because it's like it's a big chunk of their day you know just showing us around and like Sham echoed it was great to see a lot of the interventions being used in this in the classroom and you know just being sometimes we are not I think it helps a lot to be at the site to see what the schools and the principles are really talking about um seeing it into action um even at MMS Teresa has lots of great ideas that um I'm excited to see play into next year. And so again, it was just a great time. And then um
023I woke them clean. I accidentally missed the open house for Anderson, I believe, last Wednesday because I or two two Wednesdays ago because I put it the wrong date in my calendar. But I will be there for pain open. So I apologize. And that is it for me. I have no I'll mention that I went to the last uh president's council meeting last week. Um I was there for a little bit but um I presumably assume that there's going to be some changing of some of the president's council as they are looking into ne looking into next year's um how to pass the torch along and then uh looking for possible uh members and um other uh parents volunteers which has always been appreciative of those who make take the time um out of their
024day to uh create that culture and build that culture at on each of the campuses. Uh, and then that is, uh, just this morning, uh, Heather and I was over at Baker and got to speak with Jenna and, um, the amazing job she's been able to do this year out of all the years of her first year and all the circumstances. And we did have a a lengthy talk about how she's been able to uh, search for support and then um, implement the things that she's been wanting to do. and then even when she had um questions and answers, people that she relied on and how we were as a district supportive of her in in this year. Um so it was great to see that and then go through the classrooms and see the
025children. Absolutely. Um I'll just uh echo our our our gratitude um for visiting Baker this morning. It's always a treat and um and it's just impressive. I think the work that's being done in our district and um having the opportunity to hear about, you know, we asked kind of pointed questions about support given being a new principal and um some of the challenges she faced this year and she just glowed um about the amount of support that she got from all of you and from her uh colleagues and everyone. And so, um, we know how fortunate we are to have such strong leadership in Morland, but I wanted you to know that that's that's being said everywhere. And so, thank you for that. Um, MMS was also a pleasure. It does feel like it was
026a while ago. Um, it it's always a treat to be on a campus and to see in action um, some of the things that we read about or we get reports about. um they're working so hard to develop such a strong culture amongst their student body and they're doing a phenomenal job. Um it was really really wonderful to see posters everywhere. They talked a lot about um how they were preparing for testing and how they looped the kids in. They told them about their data and they told them about how important it was that um the work that our kiddos are doing. And so, um, it was a really wonderful visit as well. Um, I did attend Anderson Openhouse. And so did Nick Flober. Yes. And Tasha. We It was quite the quite the showing.
027I'm um I just want to say I I've said this before about open houses. um how what a unique opportunity it's it is to be able to talk with a teacher just kind of one-on-one for even just a quick minute um while they're greeting their kiddos or they're talking with their families or the superintendents come in. Um what I heard time and time again from the Anderson staff was just how much they love that school and um and it and it shows um the work that the kiddos are doing, some of the work on the right on the walls, the writing is is just amazing. Um and so I want to um just congratulate them for a strong year and um all the work they're doing as well. Um, and then lastly, I'll just mention
028MEF was a terrific meeting. Um, and they're already planning for next year's pumpkin patch. So, last year was kind of a challenge, right? Because there was a a kind of a later in the in the window of opportunity change in leadership. Um but they it was a full room for that MEF meeting and um they are really taking the opportunity and running with it. So um I want to express my thanks to MEF as well. And I think that's it for me. Thank you. Thank you. Um MCSEA is not here. Just making sure. Okay. And we're on the consent. Any questions on tonight's consent? A motion to approve tonight's consent calendar. Thank you, Brian. And a second. I'll second it. Thank you, Shir. All in favor? I I closing items, future meeting dates. We know
029the next board meeting is is going to be the study session. Yes. Um and we know Brian, I think you're not able to join us. Um anything else on future meeting dates? Just a clarification more than anything. Mhm. Uh June 3rd's the the retirement uh celebration is different from the board meeting, right? Different dates. Do you think you'll be able to attend the retirement? Be able to do both. Wonderful. And um we'll all check our calendars for other site visits and and um promotion ceremonies and all the stuff come coming up. Um, anything else on future meeting dates? Um, not but a request. Debbie, yes. If you wouldn't mind, could you place these uh some of these? I've got some of the times, but like the retirement celebration the um middle school promotion uh times
030if you could put them on the calendar that that way it'll be there. Thank you. Uh anything else? All right. So, announcements, reminders, requests. I guess you jump jump jump jump jump jump jump jump jump jump jump jump jump jump jump jump jump jumped ahead on me now teasing you. Anything else on that front? No. Okay. So we are going to adjourn now to close session. Thank you. Have your little your little envelopes or the teach the staff appreciation gift that was given to all staff. Everybody got those with their with their school logo on it. Oh, wonderful.