10/3/2023 - NMUSD Board of Education Meeting

001it is five o'clock and we will call our meeting of October 3rd 2023 to order roll call vote Sam trustee Anderson here trustee crane here trustee Wyden here trustee Pearson here trustee Murphy here trustee or soy Lou here trustee Bartow here Dr Smith here and next we have the adoption of the agenda do I have a motion uh trustee or salute can I ask that we um pull item 18b4 and move it to discussion action yes do we have here we have uh oh second okay moved by trustee ursulu seconded by trustee weigand to adopt the agenda and move 18 B4 to discussion action please roll call vote trustee Anderson yes trustee crane yes trustee weigen yes trustee Pearson yes trustee Murphy no trust your soilu yes trustee Bartow yes and do we have any

002Community input items for closed session no all right um we next up for our closed session items we have for a conference with labor negotiator for B Public Employee discipline dismissal release employment 4C Public Employee discipline dismissal release and employment for number 202310 HR and we will return to open session at 6 00 PM it is now 502. foreign we are calling the meeting of October 3rd 2023 to order at 602 enclosed session um we both Board of Education took action to approve the employment agreement number 202310 HR and the vote was seven eyes and zero no's and also earlier we adopted the agenda and we moved consent item 18 before to discussion action it will now be item 21c and it was moved by trustee ursulu and seconded by trustee weigand and we will

003now have our Opening Ceremonies led by our student board member Brianna Garcia thank you foreign place your right hand over your heart ready begin s to the Republic for which you stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all and next we have the adoption of the minutes from September 12 2023 do we have a motion so moved moved by trustee crane second seconded by trustee weigand roll call vote Samantha trustee Anderson yes trustee crane yes trustee weigen yes trustee Pearson yes trustee Murphy yes trusteer soilu yes trustee Bartow yes and next we have introduction of new staff but he is not new to our district right Dr sir that's correct thank you good evening president Anderson board members Dr Smith cabinet and steam guests tonight I have the privilege of introducing

004Mr Gabriel Del real as the new administrative director one of Elementary education Mr Del Rio if you could please come on up thank you Mr Del real is an exceptional educator who has served in our district for over 23 years making an indelible impact on our school Community for 10 of those years he served as a dedicated teacher at rail Elementary School in Newport Heights including serving as a teacher on special assignment for technology his 13 years in school administration have included serving as a principal at both Adams Elementary and Harbor View Elementary as well as serving as a district level coordinator of K-12 curriculum and instruction during his tenure in nmusd Mr Del real has demonstrated unwavering commitment to those he has worked with and the students he has served he has also exemplified

005the values of leadership dedication and kind-heartedness he is known as a devoted educational administrator who leads continuous Improvement by creating high expectations in a warm and supportive environment he has built strong and trusting relationships with our nmusd employees and is known for his open communication and integrity he is also skilled in developing systems of collaborative expertise and Collective commitment that will assist us in supporting all of our site leaders we would like to congratulate Mr Del real on his new assignment as the administrative director one of Elementary education congratulations [Applause] thank you president and erson trustees superintendent Smith and cabinet I want to express my gratitude for the opportunity to serve nmusd in this new role I've spent more than 23 years as a member of the instructional team here in Newport Mesa in each

006of my roles working with students in nmusd I have recognized the enormous trust that families placed in our schools in our district and in each of us as individuals likewise I recognize the fact that nmusd a district where I've spent more than half of my life has placed an enormous amount of trust in my hands whether as a teacher at Ray or Newport Heights Elementary Schools a principal at Adams or Harborview or now in the role as administrative director one Elementary education the charge for me has remained the same I serve nmusd with the responsibility of validating the trust that families place in our schools to help every student in nmusd realize their full potential in this new role I'll have the opportunity to serve nmusd in a different way but for the same purpose

007as the admin director of Elementary education I'm looking forward to working in a district-wide role of support for the amazing site leaders that we have at our schools I'm excited to get to know each of the principals and schools even better to develop a clear picture of our district-wide program and along with this district-wide lens I will maintain an understanding that every decision affects individual students and the hopes and dreams their families entrust us with for each of their lives I'm humbled and honored to have this opportunity thank you thank you we are very excited to have you back at the district next we have our student board member of reports trustee crane all right good evening good evening everyone tonight we have Brianna Garcia on the Dyess representing Newport Harbor High School Jose Gomez

008doing a report from Estancia High School and Valeria Orozco from Back Bay High School and the topic tonight is and this is in light of last month being mental Awareness Month what support systems does your school Implement and spread to help students struggling with their Mental Health also please share two specific campus highlights and we will begin with Brianna hello and good evening superintendent Smith president Anderson and esteem board members my name is Brianna Garcia and I'm honored to represent Newport Harbor as their student board member this year when I received the topic for tonight's meeting I felt connected and passionate about sharing my thoughts and those of my school as I served as the student wellness representative in ASB my freshman and sophomore year I began asking members of ASB along with communicating with

009our counselors to get the best answer possible one important event that helps students who are struggling with mental health at our school is Wellness week in May which is mental health awareness month during this week positive affirmations are written into the school announcements reaching all students on the PA system and sticky notes with helpful words are posted across the walls of school another helpful resource on our campus is the bridges program which main goals are to create an inclusive campus develop develop leaders and mediate conflict the program Bridges Works closely with students and staff to create a positive environment on campus along with this our school has implemented a program known as tars or Stars where staff are able to write students cards when they want to recognize their good behavior for example helping a

010fellow classmate or picking up trash in the classroom the student then receives a certificate to a local restaurant which is handed out by ASB members during class although this may seem like a small gesture many times while I was personally handing out tars or Stars I've heard people say things like hey how can I get one of those or wait I want one this also creates a positive setting at school and can further create a better environment for students mental health which leads me to our first campus highlight known as Wellness Wednesdays Wellness Wednesdays are hosted once a month during lunch and last month students were invited to make Rainbow Loom bracelets this event acts as a mental buffer between classes and a student student's busy life for 30 minutes at lunch students don't have

011to think about a test they have this week or what homework is due that night because they can simply hang out with their friends and do mind calming at activities such as making bracelets my second canvas highlight just occurred this weekend where ASB hosted a rally or student section called the tar pit at our home football game and the homecoming dance it began on Friday during school whereas fall rally highlighted the hard work put in by the Fall student athletes along with performances from Pep Squad dance and Drumline later that night was our homecoming football game which we won and students were able to cheer on their former peers on the football team and dance and sing along the music lastly on Saturday was our homecoming dance which had an amazing DJ laser tag photo

012booth and an ice cream and funnel cake stand between the rally game and between the rally game and dance students were able to connect with one another and have a fun and memorable experience together overall our school helps students struggling with mental health by making sure resources such as our school psychiatrists and District resources such as the care Solis social workers and healthy suggestions and tips when students are anxious or spread around campus through the QR codes and in counseling offices it is important to maintain and always find a way to improve the mental health of students thank you all right we'll we'll go with Jose from Estancia High School there's a microphone on this thing it's uh it picks up it's built in oh it's built in a while that's cool anyways um let

013me see two campus highlights one would absolutely have to be that our homecomings Act is actually this Saturday so for this entire week we've been able to see all the homecoming proposals you know there's been a lot of flowers and signs and you know little sweet treats that people have been passing around some are really nice and some are not I'm sure everybody here hates rejection anyways but another campus highlight is while unorthodox and a bit morbid I feel is important to talk about um recently a student in 11th grade passed away from Estancia High School I didn't know him personally but I'm sure he was a good man and that's not the Highlight I wanted to talk about the Highlight is the fact that the campus and the community as a whole came together

014to support each other you know teachers and students cried you know people were there for support and even people who weren't didn't know him such as myself we felt sympathy and we were there for the people that were suffering because they not only lost a student and a classmate but also a friend it was very tragic but it's nice to see that my community is able to handle this stuff with respect and with care which leads me to my other point on uh different things that my school has implemented to as a resource for mental health and that is that most teachers have what I like to call an open door policy where you can just walk in and they can you know help you with anything you know it could be homework an issue

015you're having really they're there for anything and I find that really nice even if you just want to come and chat they're there and it's really nice and it's really heartwarming especially for those people who were suffering due to our student passing away that's all I have to say [Applause] and Valeria Orozco from Back Bay hi I'm a little nervous um okay so at Back Bay High School the administration and the teachers work hard to create an environment that is safe loving and inclusive because of our small school size every staff member knows every student by name and find it easier to know each student and to figure out if a student is having a problem our school offers a wellness space where students can go if they are struggling we also have a school

016counselor school psychologist and therapy sessions on the school campus the principal does he checks in with all the students every quarter to check on grades and mental health I personally have never felt this safe and supported at any nnusd school that I have attended the teachers go above and beyond in every classroom by creating a safe space and motivating us I'm proud to call myself a Back Bay Bulldog because not only are the adults there for me but the students on our campus are non-judgmental and supportive of individuals My Hope as a student board representative is to change the perception of how the community high school we are a special campus that allows students to express themselves and grow at their own space good job [Applause] next we have our Harbor Council PTA report by

017Katie gamewell [Laughter] you're complimenting your students yes articulate presentation I know it's fun to hear from the students um hi everyone good evening superintendent Smith president Anderson trustees cabinet student representatives and guests my name is Kate gamewell and I serve as the Secretary of Harbor Council PTA I'm here on behalf of Cynthia who serves as our president and she sends her regards I'm also a parent at Corona del Mar High School just a couple updates that I wanted to share with you is to mark your calendars for our annual PTA Reflections and gallery which is going to be Thursday November 30th from 5 30 to 8 in the district Sanborn assembly room our theme this year is I am hopeful because and as you recall from years past this is a national PTA program and

018we participate here locally everyone's welcome to attend and we look forward to seeing all the student submissions our membership update our goal was to have 6 800 PTA members within our Newport Mesa ptas we are currently over 3 500 today so we're making progress there we did have two challenges to start the year one was called head honcho where we challenged our ptas to have their principal and assistant principals join their PTA by early September and we did have seven schools that were able to achieve that and then our September challenge was to have the entire board join the PTA of course this is also a requirement um but um I know there we only had five schools right now but I know they're working on that to get all of our board members um

019to be PTA members um and then two quick other things tomorrow is walk this walk to school day I'm assuming all of you will be at a school site tomorrow participating in that but this event celebrates walking to school encourages family communities we do have 16 elementary schools that are participating in that tomorrow and then lastly Saturday November 4th is the love our schools day and our ptas and parents are certainly looking forward to support those district-wide volunteer activities that are going to be happening at the school sites we have Astro PTA members or leaders presidents to connect to those elementary school principals to explore like the ideas because I know those ideas are coming together here in the next couple of weeks so thank you for your time next we have our csca president

020Stu Tedford hello everyone president Anderson trustees Wes how you doing bud uh cabinet and esteemed guests so tonight I want to talk to you about something that's never happened in our chapter since I've been here 18 years and that is that we're going to have a contested election in every position um we have a couple people running against me I have a couple people running against our first and it's on down the line but it's really encouraging to me because of what it says is that people are paying attention and they're getting involved and I think that's very important in the way that we run our chapter in the way that Newport Mesa views us as a chapter that functions well so that's a good sign for me um we worked last Friday on our

021negotiation survey uh it took a long time because uh a lot of the new members on my e-border are wanting to flush out some things that we never really considered before and I really loved the new ideas I think it's really going to be a fantastic year for everybody we have a lot of really great ideas and for the first time another first is that we're going to have our survey in Spanish we're working with Javier to get us uh that translated so that everybody can participate on an equal basis and eventually we'll we'll try to get the Vietnamese peace going so one step at a time the para educator conference is coming up so you guys know where I'm going with that so we're going to want to get some participation out of some

022of our folks every time we send folks they come back and they share the wealth of knowledge that the paraeducator conference provides to them they don't just hold it in the in their pocket it really does benefit everyone in their Arena so I highly recommend we send as many folks as we can and last but not least this is probably my favorite part of the whole school year and I know where you know where I'm going with this and that's state of the schools that's where we get to talk about how committed and dedicated we all are to our kids and then to celebrate our partners which we don't normally get to do which is really great for me so I'm looking forward to seeing everybody there I heard I've been given a minute 30

02360 seconds is that so I'm going to try to stick to that and if I can't maybe somebody can help me out with a little time keeping so thank you for your time tonight and have a great evening thank you thank you okay thank you next up we have Adam ft are you going to be speaking Chris yes we have no comments for today okay great thank you all right next we have Community input on non-agendized items trusty wagon this is an opportunity for the public to address the board regarding items not on the regular meeting agenda comments on non-agenda topics are limited to three minutes per comment up to 20 minutes per topic a speaker may not relinquish his or her time to another person by order of the brown act section four five

024four nine five four dot two the board will take no action nor have any discussion on non-agendized items the superintendent May provide clarification during superintendent's comments first we have India Howerton thank you for being our student board member and being here to speak on a night that is not your night dedication is there a mic it's built it oh wow okay great very high tech good evening board members superintendent Smith and president Anderson my name is India Howerton and I'm a student at Costa Mesa High School I'm here tonight speaking on behalf of my own personal opinion I'm here today to advocate for a comprehensive drug education program that equips our students with knowledge about drugs like opioids such as Fentanyl and even the risks associated with marijuana use on the developing brain the statistics

025regarding drug abuse among teenagers are concerning and it's not limited to just opioids according to the National Institute on drug abuse a significant percentage of high school students have used drugs or alcohol at some point while our hope is that students avoid drug use altogether we also must recognize that some may choose to experiment and arm them with information that could save lives from overdose to begin I suggest offering comprehensive drug awareness and risk reduction education in our schools such programs do not just inform students about the dangers of substance abuse but also provide them with the strategies to minimize harm it's particularly important to educate students about the potential risks of marijuana use on the developing brain as Studies have shown that marijuana could have adverse effects on cognition and mental health and Adolescence

026I strongly urge that we begin training on the use of Narcan within our schools Narcan is a life-saving medication that can reverse the effects of overdoses when administered promptly if Narcan is given to someone who's not having an overdose there is no negative effect providing teachers staff and students with the knowledge and tools to administer Narcan can potentially save lives within our community let us Empower our students to make informed choices and prioritize their health even in the face of challenging circumstances thank you I think next is Rosemary bagara good evening superintendent Smith president Anderson board members and guests my name is Rosemary benara and I am a senior at Costa Mesa High School I am here to explain the problems of air conditioning at our school since the beginning of the school year air

027conditioning in several rooms such as the band room and choir room for example have not been working properly because of the marching band's rigorous early morning practices members come back to the room melting from the Sun and looking for solace in the room's AC as of now the band room has two portable air cooling units that need to be turned on and off when entering and exiting the room this causes extra time and effort that neither the band nor the director Mr batarse want to exert at seven in the morning the district it seems has failed to fix the problems of the AC in this room and it must be fixed soon as we enter fall we Southern California residents know that even though this season should be chilly it does have the occasional 80

028degree days our hard-working band members should be able to enjoy the cool air of the band room after the two and a half hours of practicing in the hot sun while this is just one example of an unpleasant AC experience there are many others in other classrooms while some some units may work they may also make loud noises randomly shut off in the middle of a lesson or make the classroom feel like Antarctica it is imperative that our district does a routine checkup on all of our all of our air conditioning units to provide a pleasant and equal classroom experience for everyone thank you [Applause] the next person is Rudy um it looks like Krave it's hard to read that last name Chris thank you okay my name is Rudy Krauss I like the last

029speaker who talked about uh drugs uh you guys were the ones who were the enablers of the drug explosion because you went with the Dare program kids take dares that dare to do drugs the bigger concept here is that you guys are enablers you push out these defective psychologies you should have just stayed with just say no I wrote the Dare gate investigation up to the U.S department of Narcotics and it's a real big deal still right now what we're talking about is uh world at world war three a semester asymmetrical Warfare this is the trifecta power pyramid there's only three elements there's the black racist agenda here there's the homosexual agenda over here and then there's the 76 percent enablers that's you guys you guys are the enablers you guys are the useful idiots

030that are implementing these programs and you're also the useful the useful or the useless thinkers you think you're thinking but you're thinking is stinking you get it wrong you meet behind closed doors and everything you do you debate and you still come out and get it wrong that's why you jabbed all the kids and masked them all up when it goes against the science in the middle the fourth element is the vaccinated the vaccinated or Public Enemy Number One they're extremely dangerous I wrote three three books on the science of Kobe my first first book origin of the species Homo Sapien vaccinicus human Copic virus parasite symbiote you've now progressed to the point of my third book Vex transhuman Chimera you've crossed the species barrier I wrote the anaerobic science of of covid this is

03130 years ahead of Malone 30 years ahead of McCullough I saw covet at the Nano level myocarditis the most important word in covid science is anaerobic covet is a anaerobic virus it lives without oxygen what they did was they gave kovid a gain of oxygen function that's how they made it super contagious that also enabled it to grow into its covid virus parasite stage all virus or parasites but not all virus are capable of growing into a parasite because they're stuck in an anaerobic prison this is the parasite that all the vaccinated shot into themselves from the famous midday microscopy you guys are mutating here's a gain of oxygen function is what it was I'm the first to State it in the world thank you sir your time is up next we have Shane fenmore

032thank you thank you we really need to get to the topic I want to talk about but that'll be some other day hello members of the board my name is Shane fenmore I spoke last board meeting to denounce the actions of Newport Mesa uncensored today I would like to continue that denunciation based on events that have happened since my last appearance as an employee says uncensored has resorted to bowling tactics to silence me and those who disagree with their perspectives following the last school board meetings meeting on September 14th Newport Mesa uncensored posted a video on Instagram of superintendent Smith's remarks after the non-agendized items in this post Newport Mesa uncensored tagged my mom why do they do that were they trying to shame her were they trying to get her to silence me why

033didn't they just reach out to me so they we could have a candid discussion I would have happily engaged in a civil meaningful debate with them however they have chosen to engage in bullying tactics instead other examples of their bullying tactics include personal attacks on school board Trustees for example they constantly go after trustee or shoelulu not having children in the school district defaming her position on the board they berate trustee Anderson for not having children of her own implying she doesn't care about children in my 17 years in this world I have already learned that bullying has never worked and never will work to create a better environment and resolutions as children teenagers we look to our parents as role models we learn from them what is right and wrong how to resolve conflicts

034and how to treat others if parents associated with new formation uncensored are supposed to be the role models of the students of Newport Mesa Unified School District how can we expect kids not to be bullies how can we expect them to develop the proper conflict resolution mechanisms to become better members of society thus I stand here today to commend Newport Mesa Unified School District for upholding there's District policies against bullying hate motivated behavior and harassment following guidelines particularly BP 5145.9 and 5131.2 I also commend the Newport Mesa School board members for being strong role models for our students displaying Integrity discipline acceptance whenever you the school board have been faced with those who disagree with you you all have listened intently maintained a calm demeanor and continued to Institute and uphold School District policies that

035have benefited all students and I thank you all for that [Applause] attendance comments yeah to our our first student we we totally agree um working right now with with Folks at the county level here in the district to figure out what is that comprehensive uh approach and we believe it has to involve students in the creation it's one of the things we talked about today and I think um you know comments about past programs where adults speak at kids they don't respond as well and the data is pretty clear so we think it's important to bring the experts in the room with students and say how is this message best going to serve you and we expect to have something started uh before the winter break so it's we do have programs in place but

036to your point we want to have comprehensive programs throughout the district we want to work with our local allies and one of our greatest allies are our students so look for us to be bringing folks our student board members and others together and saying how do we how do we craft uh uh you know sound message that will be received by our students so we we totally agree and we we hear we hear your advocacy air conditioning this this board is spent a lot of money on air conditioning uh the seven folks to my left have really really invested in climate controlled conditions for students and it's our job to make sure that those are working and as it turns out I know that the individual that oversees that department was writing feverishly as you

037were speaking and so um heard uh I I would just say um not a lot to correct people are certainly welcome to their opinions this is American that's what I love about it you're all welcome you have your opinions I would just remind the audience that we don't mandate a coveted vaccine in this District the state doesn't mandate one we've said recently there's no indication the state's even talking about that so that's good news so for individuals concerned about that there's maybe a clarification that brings good news to you um and then the courage of our students that's yep just want to say that next we have Community input on agendized items trust you like it this is an opportunity for the public to address the board regarding items on the regular agenda meeting agenda

038comments on agenda items are limited to three minutes per comment up to 20 minutes per topic a speaker may not relinquish his or her time to another person speaker cards for items on the discussion action calendar may be held until the item is considered by the board if the speaker prefers okay first we have Chris Jones good evening board members and fellow community members and parents I did put my name in for two things so my speaking on both are just one for it oh you can okay um so the one that I think that I'm talking on right now is the use of the B3 the library the library perfect okay just want to make sure um um so I'm aware that there have been concerns identified regarding using the elementary school and the

039City of Newport Beach both sharing the same Library space as well as implications and Logistics involved with that there have been parents who have expressed their concerns regarding books being banned and their desire to maintain Free Speech there are also parents who have concerns regarding the content that school-aged children do have access to I know my kids have come home saying that they've found some interesting and by their words inappropriate material I find myself sitting somewhere in the middle while we cannot completely shelter our children from every book in the world and quite frankly the internet gives them access to more information than a library could possibly hold I do hope that there can be diligence in preventing adult content from making its way into the children's school section kids will find controversial material if

040they choose to seek it out my hope is that we don't hand it to them on a silver platter I think no matter the topic and the varieties of views we can hopefully find Mutual middle ground that allows our children to learn and grow but especially while they're in elementary school to maintain their innocence for as long as possible thank you for your time I think next we have Bill Dunlap good evening uh superintendent Smith and trustees thank you for this opportunity to speak uh on this item which I believe is 18 uh B3 which is the agreement with the City of Newport Beach regarding the access to the library at Mariners and Mariners school I just want clarification on the protocol I had a good discussion with trustee Bardo Bartow today thank you regarding

041that the patrons request for evaluation of Library resources is the document to use for submittal as you know we have discovered books there that we don't want to ban we just believe their age inappropriate the ones that we found were in pre-k section I have filled out these requests and and other members that have been to the library have done so as well and so what I had heard is that you submit those to the city library board and we will submit them to you as as well these books have been there for a couple of months now and they really need to be relocated to another section of the library which is age appropriate for their content the books that we found that I found deal with homosexuality and so forth which needs to

042be at a at a higher a grade level doesn't belong in pre-k so I would like to have you comment on that later if you can regarding that you agree with that protocol and that we will submit both requests for evaluation to both you and the City Library board thank you [Applause] thank you good evening superintendent and trustees um I'm here to uh make a comment about the books there's been a lot of talk about banning books about trying to take books out the state of Texas and Louisiana have passed an FCC standard bill which is applied to books it is on the governor's desk in Tennessee and it is very simple FCC standards on profanity nudity obscenity are already on the books so we can implement it into the school books back in the

04380s and 90s Tipper Gore successfully lobbied to have parental advisory labels on music why can't we have the same standards which our FCC standards on books when we watch television when we watch movies movies and television and radio there's ratings so why can't we have age-appropriate ratings on the books it's very simple so basically if you can't say it on the radio and you can't show it on television it shouldn't be in the hands of children and in the classroom unless it's age appropriate how many of us have watched the program it says tvma how many have watched the program that says TV why it's very simple you don't have to make it a war it's already on the books and if we could just all come to the table and you know speak things

044into action in a positive cognitive way we could all do what's best for our children thank you very much for your time [Applause] we have 20 speakers um and as per policy we discuss if we would like to give people one minute or two minutes two minutes of time we have 20 you said yes 20 on 4B yes oh yes that's right but it's just overall are they all on the same topic yeah this is one topic so we are on B4 two one and a half we want to do I think a minute and a half within 20 minutes 20 minutes one minute each yeah okay so one minute we'll stick to this one minute all right we are going to stick to our policy and do one minute um if you would like

045to when I call your name if you would like to go when the item comes up which we moved it to um 21c so if you would like to you can do it then or you can do it now so um just let me know our first person is Dr Kelly Brown okay next is Ruth Hargis good evening board members it's come to my attention that the Newport Harbor Republican women are urging their members to vote no on the Community Schools they're saying that Community Schools are more big government promoting socialism and they I I wonder if they've read about what the community school is going to be and and it's a community school as a school that is organized around the whole child Community whole Community approach to Learning Community Schools leverage the resources

046and voices of the whole Community students families Educators and Community Partners to build relationship-centered supportive and Equitable School communities where learning is culturally rooted inclusive rigorous and relevant thank you [Applause] Klein would you like to go now or would you like to wait I don't know where the microphone is it it picks it up okay good evening uh superintendent Smith president Anderson trustees I wrote a few of you and then I ran out of time so um I'm going to kind of read off my email to a few of you um so I am here to request that you vote no on the community school agreement that is being voted on tonight in my opinion it's a slippery slope that is invading our school system here in Newport Mesa we have already seen kids being

047secretly transitioned behind their parents backs imagine with a community school that has a health and Physicians office these same kids being given dangerous puberty blockers or Worse behind their backs buying parents backs these drugs cause cancer have many other horrendous side effects not to mention the high rates of suicide for kids and young adults who realize that they made a rash decision at too young of an age and want to detransition as a mother or grandmother grandfather I'm sure you wouldn't want this to happen to your children so I would implore you to protect other mothers and grandmothers and their children thank you next we have Lee and karaday it looks like would you like to go now or wait may go one time on one item thank you yes I'm Leanne can a day

048and I live in Newport Beach and I'm here to ask you to vote no on the community the opposite of what she was asking to vote Yes on because I believe like Ms Klein that the schools are headed in the wrong direction especially where it comes to things like socialism the um in in our world socialism has never worked it didn't work for Stalin it didn't work for Lenin it didn't work for Mao it didn't work for Castro it didn't work for the perons it didn't work for um for Venezuela I mean it just doesn't work and I don't think it should be taught like it's something good because it's something not good thank you next is Leslie Salvador Oliveira would you like to go now or wait hi greetings my name is Leslie I'm

049here um I'm a student at the district people Mesa Unified School District as a student I could tell you firsthand how important it is to me to feel supported not just academically but also emotionally and socially that's exactly what this um exactly what Community Schools need to do I would like to request the Board of Trustees to conduct the need of Assessments involving students to better understand our specific challenges and needs partner with local organizations to offer services like mental health support or things like that and document academic tutoring right at our schools include student voices and the decisions making process to ensure the model truly serves the the needs of the entire student body and like adopting the community thank you thank you sorry we only have a moment [Applause] okay next is Shannon

050McDougall I will I will say people's names clearly if they write them clearly no I wrote it clearly it's very clearly read anyway it's not uh hello members of the board thank you for allowing me to speak I've heard word yesterday that you would be voting upon the cslx contract today um and it concerned me so that's why I'm here um I got to thinking why do we need to focus on so much of this uh diversity Equity inclusion and uh things that don't relate to real academics right now when our where schools are failing and we know it we know our test scores are down mathematically and English in English so um I got to thinking about all the great people in this world that accomplish great things before this this era and we

051have Benjamin Franklin we have Albert Einstein you know Tiger Woods you name we've got a lot of very successful people and they Rose to their success because they had god-given talents they had drive and they worked hard and they didn't have someone telling them that they were a victim and they needed help and unfortunately I think that this contract is going to promote that thinking thank you please vote no okay your minute is up thank you Chris Jones next that's fine next we have Luz Hernandez that was sweet good evening my name is Lewis Hernandez and I'm a student at Newport Harbor High School within the Newport Mesa Unified School District and as someone directly impacted by Community School models in our district the decisions here made I can't stress it enough how Community School

052could possibly positively affect not just my academic performance as well as other students but are overall well-being I urge the Board of Trustees to allocate necessary fundings and resources to Transitions into our community school Under model particulars in schools with the most urgent needs also creating partnership with local agencies and organizations to offer programs to focus on our health mentorship and family supporting rights within our school's permissions thank you thank you [Applause] okay next we have um max yuca ropina very clearly written thank you Max you copina I I am a product of Newport Mesa School District go sea Kings I'm also resident of Costa Mesa God willing my kids will go to duper Mesa School Districts as well thank you for having me speak I've been helping run and build startups for most of

053my career and startups are great because they see problems in the world and they try and fix them with Creative Solutions but the problem is that most startups fail the and the taxpayers and the parents are not Venture capitalists and our students are not beta testers this Community Schools initiative is a startup that we cannot Place upon our students so our schools need to focus on what comes first in that schooling and everything else is a distraction and we should not be using experiments on our students that distract them from where we're failing right now which is educating them so thank you very much for your time next is Nancy Nancy good evening hi there my name is Nancy Gilbertson and I dress superintendent Smith the president and the trustees I'm here to ask you

054to vote against the cslx community school program I did go online to see what the program is promoting and appears to be very fuzzy in their goals the wording was very very broad terms and they were glittering generalities it's very interesting that I could find no opposition to the community school programs on the internet when I typed in that question because I was trying to see both sides when schools stick to their primary purpose to educate and specific subjects they do quite well priorities and grandparents want children to be able to read write well compete math problems and understand the history of our country please vote no on the CX cslx Community curriculum Newport Mesa doesn't need another government program and we don't need to teach social socialism thank you thank you next is Carmen

055Ramirez thank you Carmen Ramirez is next okay um following that is Diane Wells would you like to go now or wait no please take a minute good evening trustees good evening superintendent this evening I'm urging the trustees to vote no to the service agreement with the Community Schools learning exchange the cslx aims to transform the traditional definition of our public schools and overhaul our school campuses into neighborhood centers to meet the needs of students it sounds good California is investing 4 billion into these Community Schools over the next seven years the concept of Community School seems like a good idea I believe though its model it's rooted in Marx's socialist Theory with the ultimate goal of degrading parental rights and expanding big government I don't see academic achievement for our students as a priority also

056what's missing in this transformation the parent Community Schools do not prioritize a partnership with the parent where is the parent in this conversation why don't we expand School site Council programs to engage more of our parents the community school socialist model goes against our school district's Vision our vision mission and belief that supports individuals the Costa Mesa communities excuse me your time is up you're taking time from other people please sit down thank you for your comments [Applause] hey everyone I'm here tonight to vote Yes on the Community Schools being a former teacher anything that will help to promote these schools especially Title One schools Title One schools are there to address low-income need students and it fine I find it very ironic that we have a whole bunch of people from Newport Beach here

057that have no concept of what the low-income schools and their parents and the students are trying to accomplish the two students that spoke did an excellent job in favor that's who we should be listening to and when I hear the word socialist I ask myself hmm socialist how many of you have a friend or a relative who is on Social Security oh that's a socialist program how many of you have a friend or a relative that has to have Medicare another socialist program this whole indoctrination business I have no idea what you're even referring to I don't think you do either people that are complaining about this because these kids need every chance they can get and the more well-rounded a child is the better academics will be thank you [Applause] [Music] thank you next

058is Francine Howard would you like to go now or wait as you stated my name is Francine Howard and to my friend who just spoke who said that there isn't anyone here representing low-income that would be my daughter and her husband and my grandson and I'm opposed to these Community programs you've already brought up in front of you air conditioning you can't even get that right there's books in the schools that are you can't get that right either and now a new program and what happens with families is when a child needs something the family steps in not the government we don't need the government to step in and I'm speaking on behalf of those people who live in those schools that aren't as economically advantaged and I'm saying that is disrespectful to think that

059their families will not step in and help them with dental and health and all those things thank you thank you next is Elaine Carmen foreign Carmen no everyone gets one one minute on this topic you can do it now or you can do it before we discuss it yes right but when we have 20 comments people get less time it's on our agenda this is so people if they would like to leave earlier they need to leave early they have the option to do both so yes good evening board members I'm glad to be here to speak on behalf of many families of Newport Mesa schools and asking you to vote no on Community Schools I've been in education for over 40 years and have singly handed single-handedly seen the decline of instruction I'm having

060to skip a lot many children just pass through a failing system and so we're gonna just add another layer upon another layer of failing systems to have more programs what needs to be addressed is this country was founded on God the one true God of creation we all need to stop and recognize admit turn to God because he is the one in charge not teachers not administrators not the school board not the government he has the truth he has the one to be trusted and it is him who is has our wisdom we do not need Community Schools we need neighborhood schools and separate community centers Community Schools are just another government takeover of our children how daring to be a One-Stop drop in the name of children thank you next is Victor valadaris [Applause]

061fancy organizations Unified School District is Del distrito foreign [Music] [Applause] a lot of greetings and uh greetings and good evening Board of Trustees president student body and the rest of the board hi my name is Victor uh executive director of Volkswagen a Grassroots organization representing low-income residents in in the County of Orange I'm here to advocate for Kennedy School model in our district this is about this is not about socialism it's about inclusivity Community Schools aim to serve everyone mirroring the diverse strict not just a select segment or a portion of the city or a portion of the district but the entire District itself I urge the board to consider adopting the community school model this is about elevating everybody not just a certain local vocal group or just a privileged view this is about

062inclusivity and an equitable approach for our district thank you so much for your time and I hope you all do the right thing thank you [Applause] next is Barbie George and if we have anyone that needs translation just let us know we added an additional minute good evening my name is Barbie George I'm the mother of five children and I'm afro-latina so for those who think that those who reside in Newport Beach don't understand what it's like to be in the inner city I grew up in the South Bronx Harlem and Newark New Jersey but I didn't let my circumstances dictate my future and I knew that I lived in the greatest country on Earth and that with hard work and perseverance I can accomplish what I have in my life which is going from

063Newark to Newport but I earned it and nobody had to give it to me this community school all it will do is Aspire people to be more dependent on the government and it tells parents that they are incapable of providing the needs for their children and so I ask you respectfully to vote no because we are a people who are very capable please do not make us victims and dependent on the government thank you yeah next is Angie Andrade hello members of the board my name is Anjali I am a parent of a student at College Park Elementary in the west side of Costa Mesa um as a first-time parent I immediately decided to join uh the PTA and got a first-hand experience on what a title one school is and I got to realize

064that I myself am a product of a title one school without even knowing growing up also in the inner cities so I absolutely think that this please hire the best grant writer to get us the most resources that we can for College Park Pomona Sonora all the schools that need it the most it's about holistic health for our kids so yes it would be a life-saving opportunity for many of our parents to have to know that my kid is going to get that tooth checked out because I can't afford the copay right it's that my kid is going to get whatever treatment medical treatment that they may need or maybe the psychological treatment because most health plans don't provide Mental Health Resources or you have to go most of the time private so thank you

065so much much more thinking of our kids next is Bill Dunlop and following that is Joni nickel thank you again for this opportunity obviously I'll make it quick we've done this once before two years ago we did the ADL contract we found out it was so far lending Progressive group trying to promote Dei and CRT and you guys rightfully so and we commend you for that you canceled it okay you didn't renew it which was great this is the same thing this is another Progressive group that wants to push Community School we are Community Schools our community we've been doing that for 250 years we didn't hire Consultants to have us help us do this you've got six great assistant superintendents you got Dr Smith you got we can do this ourselves the other thing

066is I need the district attorney to look into the potential conflict of three of you trustees who are paid by United Way who sponsors this company that you're going maybe not to hire I hope so please look into that because there is a potential conflict there if if you're working for United Way and there's sending money to them [Applause] hello and good evening I'm a parent I'm an educator I have a postgraduate degree in special education I have taught in the United States Scotland England Belgium and Holland and Mexico and my three children live in truly socialist countries I'm here before you because I would like to and implore you to please vote for what will be best for all our students and most especially our vulnerable students I don't think anybody could say it

067more poignantly than the two students who came up here to speak and the mother and I want to thank that one mother because I realized that's when I learned I needed glasses I grew up in an inner city school public school and that's where we found that I needed glasses and that's when we found out I needed help with hearing thank goodness my immigrant parents who couldn't have provided that for me had the ad assist so I want to thank her for reminding me that and I hope as Victor said that you will do the what's the best for our students thank you [Applause] next we have achievement a report on secondary curriculum update it's Miss Torres yes good evening president Anderson board and Dr Smith at this time I'd like to welcome up our

068secondary team Dr Mike Shaka and Keith Carmona who are going to share some slides with us tonight and provide some updates regarding our curriculum and some things we've been working on in our secondary schools so I'll turn it over to them good evening president Anderson members of the board superintendent Smith and executive cabinet thank you for allowing us to share with you some updates around secondary curriculum and instruction this evening our goal for this presentation is to provide you pertinent information around some of the great things that are happening in our middle and high schools in Newport Mesa Unified first we would like to talk about middle school science this school year we are continuing our journey of implementing our board adopted middle school science curriculum open Syed open Syed is a Hands-On student-centered inquiry-based

069science curriculum that is built around the Next Generation science standards in the classroom students engage in answering broad scientific questions over the course of a unit of study while exploring a phenomenon students make hypotheses conduct experiments collect and analyze data and even design their own experiments as an example 7th grade science students are currently studying chemical reactions and matter while answering the broad question how can we make something new that was not there before to Peak 7th grade students is curiosity and anchor the learning for the unit in the visible and concrete students start with an experience of observing and analyzing a bath bomb as it fizzes and eventually disappears in the water their observations and questions about what is going on Drive learning that digs into a series of related phenomena as students iterate

070and improve their models depicting what happens during chemical reactions from middle school science by the end of the unit students have a firm grasp on how to model simple model molecules know what to look for to determine if chemical reactions have occurred and apply their knowledge to chemical reactions to show how mass is conserved when atoms are rearranged in order to support our teachers in creating these experiences in the classroom we have been providing ongoing support through our professional development and teacher articulation time the open-sighted curriculum is robust and our teams are working closely together to bring alignment to the work that is being done at each of our school sites next I'd like to you about where our science curriculum and instruction is headed for our high school students enrolled in biology chemistry and

071physics as you may recall last year our high school science teachers had the opportunity to participate in a pilot of new instructional materials through a very methodical process our teachers evaluated several instructional programs and eventually narrowed it down to one program that they elected to conduct an extended pilot that curriculum is also open Syed the same curriculum being implemented at the middle school level the decision to have an extended pilot was doing due to the fact that the final units of study of open Syed for the high school are not yet released and we believe that it would be obviously most prudent to fully examine the curriculum before making a recommendation to the board of education for final approval just as in our middle school program High School open Heights open Syed focuses on inquiry-based

072learning with the exploration of phenomena the current unit of study for example in biology asks the question how do ecosystems work and how can we understand them how can they help us understand or excuse me and how can understanding them help protect us in this unit students investigate the 30 by 30 initiative a proposal to protect 30 percent of U.S lands and Waters by 2030 and the reasons humans engage in conservation students use the Knack the Serengeti National Park in Africa as a case study to figure out how ecosystems and conservation principles work and how to apply those understandings to conservation dilemmas in the United States through investigations with complex data sets and Hands-On simulations students figure out how limiting factors impact carrying capacity how group Behavior impacts survival and how biodiversity supports ecosystem resilience

073the high school teachers that are participating in the in extended open sighted pilot are receiving extensive training and allocated articulation time in order to best ready their classrooms for their students we expect to make a final decision about which curriculum will be recommended to the Board of Education after this extended pilot is complete next I will share with you that our teachers in middle school language arts middle and high school World languages and AP environmental Sciences are now implementing their new textbook adoptions that the board approved last spring beginning over the summer and continuing through the start of the Year our students have access to new standards aligned instructional materials in these three content areas each of them come with physical textbooks and as well as computer-based resources and materials and online versions of those

074texts again we are seeking to provide ample support for our teachers so that the instruction that students are receiving in these subjects are optimally engaging the last portion I'd like to share with you about tonight before I turn it over to Dr Shaka is the wonderful new opportunity being piloted at Estancia High School which is algebra 1 for newcomers it is recognized that we have a population of students coming to us from outside of the United States that may not speak English fluently but possess math skills that enable them to access the mathematics of algebra in a different language as such we've created a section of algebra for Spanish-speaking newcomer students at Estancia High School the goal of this class is to provide rigorous math instruction in algebra so that students enrolled are able to

075continue to move forward in their math journey while their language skills develop it is important to note that the students identified for this class are newcomers meaning that they have been in the U.S for under two years additionally their families were provided this option but not required to be in the class a typical algebra class in English was also an option for these students it is also very important to note that this is certainly not lowering the bar for students in mathematics instead it is keeping a very high level of rigor in math but providing for instruction in two languages Spanish as well as English the teacher in the classroom is bilingual and Adept giving instruction in both languages while the goal for these students is to have them achieve high levels of mathematics there

076is also a focus in building supports in the English language so that we can create a pathway for students to Transit transition into future math classes in English the Dual language Focus for these students helps build confidence it empowers our kids and honors their native language as an asset we will be collecting data on these students progress during the school year and I will share with you anecdotally that we are already after having already visited this classroom the early returns are extremely positive walking into the classroom you will see a lively classroom filled with student Voice Kids feeling connected to one another their teacher and their ability to do math they communicate with peers in structured groups they interact with one another in a way that is building their math skills as well as their

077confidence and their as academic Scholars if this model proves to be successful we will examine the possibility of replicating it at other sites now at this time I'd like to pass it over to Dr Shaka with two other exciting initiatives in math thank you Mr kimono president Anderson members of the board Dr Smith executive cabinet I'm just making a brief cameo in this presentation you just you just heard about math pilot we're running out of stancia I wanted to share two other math Pilots that we're offering this District at both Carnival Mar High School and Newport Harbor the first is multi-variable calculus we're piloting this faucet at Colonel Mar High School and what this does is this provides an opportunity for our students who have already exhausted all of our math opportunities in Newport Mesa

078and are still in high school so they've gone through algebra through Calculus BC and are looking to take more math so we've partnered with Coastline Community College to offer an in bell schedule multi-variable Calculus class taught by a coastline community college professor this is really exciting because these students can go take multivariable calculus continue to earn high school and college credit should they choose and continue their math experience inside our district we are piloting this class and looking to expand this option should it prove successful this first year we're learning a lot about what the kids and Community College need most and how they partner together next we have math 100. this has been a partnership a long time in the making we have partnered with Orange Coast College in this scenario and Newport Harbor

079High School to offer an inbel schedule math 100 class now I want you to think about this for just a second math 100 is the is the general mathematics class most students who are not math majors are required to take either a community college or at our state our state CAL States and UC schools so a student at Newport Harbor can take this class under the supervision of our Newport Harbor staff and should they choose complete their college math requirement before they leave for college so a student who's interested in something that might that might not be math related can overcome what could be the largest stumbling block for some of our students in post-secondary and have it all taken care of before they leave this is a really exciting opportunity and again a pilot

080they were working on that we hope will be successful and we can expand to other schools we're tracking the data and we'll continue to keep you updated as we move forward and now I'd like to pass it back to Mr kimono thank you and before you leave thank you and congratulations on winning the Golden Bell for the district for graduation coaches so thank you for spearheading that finally we wanted to share with you two resources that are serving as a great benefit to the implementation of curriculum in the secondary schools the first is the work being done by our floater teachers these individuals are full-time teachers that have been hired to serve as daily subs in our K-12 classrooms so that our classroom teachers can have the opportunities to participate in professional development attend conferences

081work on curriculum alignment committees and seek to improve overall instruction for kids it was born out of the sub shortage and has been a very creative solution currently we have 12 of these teachers that are deployed around our sites our sites daily and they have quickly become an incredible resource the last is the addition of several teachers on special assignment positions at the secondary level we've added in teaching toses at the middle and high school English language arts and science content areas each of these four individuals teach two periods during the day and then serve as supports for our teachers for the balance of their daily assignment the value of this split is that they are experiencing firsthand the curriculum and instructional initiatives that we're focusing on and then in turn can be even more

082responsive to our teachers needs as they serve in an instructional coach capacity they help facilitate curriculum implementation apply teachers with all of the needed resources and work to bring our schools into further alignment for you this evening but we'd happy to take any questions that you may have thank you thank you very much trustee Bartow thank you I'm so excited you know a math nerd I am I'm so excited to see these Pathways being offered um with the multivariable if that works is that something we would expand to other high schools or would we I mean there's probably not a lot of students that want to take this would we have them go to that one high school how would we handle that if like if it catches on yeah when I saw the math

083the sample math question we had his own graphic my head started to get a little dizzy this is very high level math so what we've done is look at student interest and we want to match the resources to student interest so should students at other schools show an interest should you know there's going to be a certain threshold of students that need to show interest but absolutely if it's there right because I mean I I can't imagine you get more than a handful because it's it's you know if you to complete BC and then go into that but that's great that we are exploring that and really pushing the limits of what we can offer for our students I'm so excited and then for the math 100 um would that be available can you kind

084of walk because I I know what it is but can you kind of walk through what the topics covered and why you do that instead of maybe like since it covers your math requirement how it's not maybe calculus but it's the math that you'd normally need yeah so so math 100 is the class that students who are generally majoring in not a non-math related uh major take to get their general education math requirement out of the way at our community college system or Cal State and our UC um so so we're excited it's it's a combination it's got you know some Algebra 2 in there they they recommend that the students have completed Algebra 2 before they're ready for math 100 so those are the group of students that we have in there right now

085but we've been working with Orange Coast College to talk about a partnership to where we could possibly look at students who have taken algebra and geometry only and then creating certain scaffolds in the class to make sure that they're successful in math 100 after they finish geometry features has there been any and I think there has but I might be forgetting any discussion on having sort of the floater teachers help with some of our math and science classes I know a lot of students who are going through those um kind of before they get to them or before they get to the math 100 there's a lot of students with challenges in the enhanced math pathways are we going to be using the floater teachers to kind of help with that or have we explored

086that at all so the floater teachers are primarily focused in on providing basically they serve as like a day-to-day sub for teachers that are going to get released um so we could examine that and we could we could certainly look into that perhaps a way to do that is to be able to utilize them in those clusters classrooms so that the teachers in those classrooms can have additional training or additional supports along the way right you definitely look at that thank you thank you question they don't do professional development every day student board member Brianna um I'm also a math nerd I'm gonna ask a similar question but then I had another question because I'm in calc a b so I know if I take the AP test and I pass it then like you

087that's how you get your credit for college so for the multivable calculus do you take a test or do you know if you just have to like pass the class to get credit that that's a great question so so the first thing is is which students are able to take the class so what they're looking for is a student who has scored a five on either the a b or the BC AP test um and and if the student has gotten a five on the AP test and they're qualified for multi-variable calculus now if you take that class you automatically get the college credit so there's not a there's not an exam you have to take similar to IB or AP if you pass the class you get the credits great question thank you um

088next is Trusty crane yes I have a couple of questions um these these courses are they semester for example the the multivariable Calculus class is that a semester class or is there a year-long class again a great question they're both this year running at semester classes okay now what we've talked about with the partnership is the possibility of expanding it to a slower paced year-long experience and maybe running both options for the kids but this year both multivariable calculus and math 100 or semester so at Newport Harbor in particular we're going to be able to offer math 100 second semester to a new group of students okay so and then which um I'll also have another question about class size you may not know this but maybe you can get back to us on it

089how popular are these classes is it finding are we finding a niche within our community to meet the needs of these kids math 100 is extremely popular we we have yet to meet the current demand of math 100 so this pilot is going to tell us a lot but that's going to be an extremely popular option multivariable calculus we had I believe it was 17 students that qualified when faced with the realities of what um what multivariable calculus entails we're down to single digits this this year but again it's our it's our first year for pilot and we're optimistic it's going to grow right okay yeah when offered and then oh yeah and then the uh the algebra one for newcomers I thought I think that's so Innovative I love that and what would be

090the next language in line if you were to add another another class so obviously we want to look at student need and um certainly Spanish is is the kind of the primary language of our English learners but we know that we have a growing population of students speaking Russian Ukrainian and so I think all of those would be in a part of that conversation and we want to see how this what what it looks like for our students this year and the goal isn't necessarily to create a second pathway in multiple languages but to incorporate literacy in there so we would entertain all of those thank you trustee or salute great thank you for the presentation so before the existence of the algebra 1 for newcomers where were what class were those newcomers would have

091been in before right so um as with all of our English Learners they're enrolled in core math science uh social studies and so the approach would be a scaffolded approach for those students recognizing of course for our newcomers that's rather difficult so those newcomers would have been in the typical Algebra 1 class and they still have that opportunity as well okay and how are we going to judge if this works better for them or not are we looking to see that their average learning is higher than it was of the cohort that was in the regular algebra class like what's the how are we going to know if it succeeded yeah that's exactly right so by basically looking at the we we're fortunate to have benchmark assessments in our and and of course Assessments in

092our classes and so we can look at the results of students kind of historically speaking that meet that same demographic and how they performed over time on those math assessments awesome thank yep um I had a question about the tosas how do you decide which subjects you're going to place a toasted So currently there's science and language arts great yeah great question uh so we previously had One Singular tosa last year working in science supporting both middle and high school so science continued to be a priority because we were in the midst of implementing new science curriculum at the uh at the middle school level and then we were on the in the process of adopting at the high school level so it just requires additional support there additionally we were at the middle school

093adopting English language arts um in the Middle School level and our high school language arts teachers are a group that we would like to bring kind of further into alignment and provide additional support to they are a group that we we would like to pay extra attention to so we made the decision to start there see how the model works and then evaluate going forward great thank you that's very helpful any other questions just trying to solve that calculus problem thank you so much it's been 20 years since I've done that and next we have um our consent calendar do I have a motion so moved we moved by trustee weigand my second Ed by trustee Pearson are there any questions okay roll call vote please trustee Anderson yes trustee crane yes trustee weigen yes

094trustee Pearson yes trustee Murphy yes trustee or soilu yes trustee Bartow yes great and now we are having our public hearing for compliance with requirements of Education Code section 60119 and 604-22b sufficiency of textbooks or instructional materials that are consistent with the content and cycles of curriculum of the curriculum framework for 2023-24 the Williams settlement legislation Miss Shields yes if we could just open up yes we'll open the hearing at 7 30 on the we do not have any public comments so we will close it at 7 30. ready yeah so then we follow with the adoption yes of the resolution do you did you want to declare though that we don't have any certainly with the adoption of the resolution the board would declare that we do have an adequate supply of adopted textbook

095materials for all the students in the district great thank you very much and um next we have our resolution 20. a adopt resolution number zero seven ten two three in compliance with the requirements of Education Code 60119-60-4222b the sufficiency of textbooks and instructional materials do I have a motion to adopt so removed okay a second moved by trustee crane seconded by trustee Pearson World Cup up trustee Anderson yes trustee crane yes trustee weigen yes trustee Pearson yes trustee Murphy yes trust your soil yes trustee Bartow yes okay and next we have 20b adopt resolution 0 8 1 0 2 3 selection of Farmers and Merchants Bank as a depository for various accounts of district and authorization therewith Mr Trader on occasion we have changes in Personnel need to make changes to account authorizations and this

096resolution will do that thank you very much do we have a motion to adopt the resolution so moved okay with my trustee weigand seconded by trustee crane I'll call that trustee Anderson yes trustee crane yes trustee weigen yes trustee Pearson yes trustee Murphy yes trust your soilu yes trustee Bartow yes and next we have we'll begin discussion action um 21A approved credential waiver for certificated employees Ms Olson thank you good evening tonight we bring forward for the board approval for credential waivers for our certificated employees who will be teaching drivers ed driver's ed is required as an offering however currently there is not a teaching credentialing program for it so therefore this waiver allows us to have people teach it they are credentialed teachers just not in this area and should a program become available

097then they would enroll do we have a motion to adopt the waiver so moved I moved by trustee weigand seconded by trustee crane walk all the student board member Brianna Garcia trustee Anderson yes trustee Creighton yes trustee weigen yes trustee Pearson yes trustee Murphy yes trustee or soil yes trustee Bartow yes and then next we have our 21b first reading and Adoption of modifications to board policy Dr Smith so the board policy edit team has worked with staff in this case assistant superintendent Trader and um assistant Torres so they can answer questions the board policies have been reviewed by the policy edit team or board policy 13 30 youth facilities board policy 35 13.3 tobacco use free schools and board policy 51 31.62 tobacco and then if you have any questions so moved second by

098trustee crane seconded by trustee Murphy any questions I don't have a question but thank you for opening the pools earlier on Sunday appreciate that heard some comments from it so thank you yes every day of the week we're trying for uniformity of timing gotta win those championships the fields the pools all the same times right every day the same days trustee crane I just want to also make a comment about updating the the tobacco free schools policy it was much needed so thank you team for doing that technology is evolving in that field with e-cigarettes Vapes and all that so we need to include it so I'm glad that we're staying relevant and keeping up with the times yes one day we may have a vape smoke detector right here it's a very interesting times

099right I'm gonna work on that any other questions comments all right we'll call vote please student board member Brianna Garcia yes trustee Anderson yes trustee crane yes trustee weigen yes trustee Pearson yes trustee Murphy yes trust your soilu yes Rusty Bartow yes great and now we have our for 21c we'll have our item that we moved 18 before from the consent calendar and uh missiles yes thank you um so I don't know the order in which you want to do this if you'd like me to kind of explain the contract yeah sounds great thank you so as just a little bit of background the state of California has invested in Community Schools as you heard earlier and it offer had offered two rounds of Grants planning grants and implementation grants planning grants ended last year

100and the implementation Grant will be on its I believe third round this year and there are other districts in Orange County uh Tustin has an implementation a planning Grant I believe Garden Grove has a planning Grant others Anaheim Union Anaheim elementary there are a number of colleague districts in Orange County that have received Community School Grants and an effort support it by the County Office of Education as well and so looking at the goals of the pillars they call them of Community Schools there are four that are deeply aligned with the board goals that have been charged to the schools in the district and they really include increased parent engagement of course literacy learning academics meeting all the needs of students collaborating with Community Partners and expanded learning and so knowing that the there is

101State money available to support our efforts in meeting the board goals it is a concept brought before you to consider finding that support from further State dollars to bring those goals to fruition here in the district of course all of these are to serve the academic goals that the school district has set forth what we understand is that many families come with a different set of resources and that there are ways that we can serve families by things like I wanted to kind of put in people's minds what the types of things we're considering and that this really is the most local form of control and uplifting parent voice teacher voice student voice to really State their needs and to address them but the thing the types of things that community school projects have funded

102across the state and here locally in Orange County are things like home visits Early Childhood Focus zero to five parent education further elop and enrichment opportunities CTE connections across grade levels thinking about vertical alignment tutoring mentoring family engagement events very similar to the resource Fair we had this summer where so many families we know in our district came out funds like this would help us offer that more often most of this would happen outside of school we know that we need instructional time and that is what we're seeking to create the best options for during the school day and we know that providing resources like listening circles and focus groups which would amplify again the voices of parent student and staff things like food banks and nutrition services we know that many of our families

103after school hours May struggle to find adequate food Transportation Dental as we heard earlier dental assistants eyesight Glass glasses and also housing supports we know that this is an incredibly difficult place to find and secure housing it's very high cost of living here and many of our families face daily stressors in securing adequate housing those are the types of services that the school Community themselves would discuss and we would bring forward and match the best existing Community Resources and we know we have so many we're entering about to enter into the holiday season and we're already getting bombarded with caring Community Partners who want to provide for families who they know might struggle through the holiday season this type of thoughtful organized integrated support with additional staff to be the person to do that to

104not take away from the time the teacher needs to spend on instruction to not take away from existing resources those are the types of things we would hope to offer to schools and allow their voice to guide the way as we bring forward the appropriate Community Partners in that work thank you do we have questions oh actually oh yes we'll do our speakers first um first we have Carmen Ramirez we'll have Chris Jones Wendy lease and Dr Kelly Brown is necessity is [Music] um foreign attention [Applause] hello members of the board superintendent and a guest my name is Carmen Ramirez I have a child in the best District I always say in Newport Unified School District today I'm here to express our Collective and strong support for the community school motto in our district should

105I yeah you have a minute um Community Schools focus on the complete well-being of our children providing Equitable opportunities for every child to succeed irrespective of their socio-economic background uh just like Mr Koro said I identify with what she mentioned um in districts like Alameda County Community Schools have proven beneficial especially in high need areas we believe the children of Newport Mesa deserve these same advantages we urge the Board of Trustees to allocate resources for comprehensive needs assessment to identify most urgent needs of our students and families establish Partnerships with Community agencies to bring vital services like Health mental health and social support directly into our schools we know that we need that and to commit to transparency and actively involve parents caregivers and community members in the decision-making process investing in communities schools is

106an investment that the district should make thank you thank [Applause] you thank Chris Jones followed by Wendy Wiese thank you good evening board members thank you again for the opportunity to speak this evening I was curious to learn more about Community Schools this evening as well as how care is determined and delivered I know for myself and many other parents we like having the reassurance and thank you for that description that care is always discussed and approved by students parents or legal guardian if parents and Guardians can remain part of the decision-making process they can work together with health practitioners and educated professionals to find a solution that is best for their child ultimately I hope that our Collective goal always remains caring for our children allowing families to navigate resources that their children may

107need and just being the phenomenal community that this is I can't imagine living anywhere else and I thank you for the supports that are out there but I think parents being involved in knowing their children so well is the Ultimate key so thank you very much thank you Wendy Luis and then Dr Kelly Brown good evening Madam president Dr Smith and members of the trustees with all due respect I signed up a card to speak about the library did you not see that no I didn't I apologize do you mind if I yes since you've already voted on it can I just give my two senses would that be all right and then it was the agreement with the city so that's right I mean I know you know that but some of our other

108speakers I think didn't realize that we're not in control of the library books at Mariners library but yes please well to that point um president Anderson we aren't really controlled but on in the contract we're I'll talk for my minute the the new books when it does say here if you present if the district presents a new book a copy to be considered in the joint collection that the district shall be solely responsible for the cost to acquire the new material so um and then it's very convoluted on the next page under 2.2 as far as how to a a taxpayer like me I guess we can fill out the form but according to the district policies and procedures those aren't outlined so just going forward see if you can make it a little bit

109easier on citizens and taxpayers parents and grandparents who've had kids in the district to file a com file a concern complaint about a book that's a concern so anyway Switching gears here thank you we'll address that and pardon Dr Smith will address it during his comments okay thank you all right so now we're on to the Community Schools I urge you to vote no I believe that we have very many highly paid people who are fully capable of assessing the community's needs without hiring a firm from Oakland which has a different agenda they do not live here they do not embrace our values which are very unique to Newport Mesa and I've been in meetings where the Delphi method tables and people are you know spread out and people are intimidated by the consultants and

110by staff too so the the reason that I tell you that is that 46 years ago I got involved in Newport Mesa because my who's 50 now he went to Victoria preschool and they said you have to take this parenting class if you want to have your kid in preschool I said okay I just had a baby it was the government telling me how to parent I said no way I didn't do it so that's why I'm here still okay thank you very much Dr Kelly Brown good evening thank you so much for allowing me to speak um I just I'm here to urge you to vote Yes on the service agreement with the Community Schools learning exchange I am a mom my daughter goes to Costa Mesa Middle School um I'm also an educator

111um so I guess I want to speak about this on two levels in 45 seconds first is professionally I've been working in the UC system as an instructor and as an administrator for over 20 years and prior to that worked in early care and education for children zero to five and what I will say both at that level and what we see in the college is that academic success is entirely predicated upon serving the whole student and so whatever we can do in Newport Mesa to support the development of the whole student leads to Stronger educational outcomes that's something that we're dealing with at the UC system but on a personal level I will just say my daughter was in Harbor View Elementary School for five years and we moved her over to College Park

112a title one school she's now in Costa Mesa middle school and the discrepancy between resources is something I had no idea about whatever we can do to obtain resources thank you thank you [Applause] trust you again thank you and thank you for all the speakers um I had a couple concerns on the um on on this grant for Community Schools um one I I think I heard someone talk about a comprehensive needs assessment and I do believe that you know there are needs in this district and I don't want to I saw you know I heard a lot of students come up and talk about their needs and what they want and I want to be able to provide um that support for our our students but I think before we even go about saying

113yes let's write a grant to get some of this money is let's figure out what we really want our community schools to be and figure out you know do we need um is it more tutoring support is it Extended Learning opportunities what does that all look like because I know that the idea of Community Schools is scary to to some constituents and you know I want to make sure that what our students need is what we're giving them but also that we give them with our parents and I know that there is a big discrepancy with how well a student does in school based on if their parents are engaged in their education so I would hope that as we are looking at a possible um opportunities for um you know a type of services

114that a community school could provide which I think would only be tutoring tutoring and a lot of educational supports and after school activities those types of things I do believe would really benefit our our students but I think we need to take a step back at first and see okay what is that community school or what does what does our Stu what do our students really need and what do we what do we want to get out of this because I can tell you the things that we don't want or would be you know medical attention to our students without parental consent anything like that that that goes above and beyond what our parents are willing to do but again you know there are I think you said four billion dollars on the table of

115our hard-earned tax money that we've spent and I'd like to get some money of that and use it in our district but for the right reasons so those are my comments on that thank you uh trustee Murphy um well so first of all um the one thing to know about Community Schools we don't establish what the community school is the community does I mean that's like sort of the whole point is the community comes together the parents come together they decide what they want in their school the parents may say they want dental care and that may be what they want in their school I don't actually believe it's up to us to tell them that they can't have dental care in their school because if that Community has come together in their school to

116take a look at what their kids need and that's what what they just decide on then we have to go with it I mean it's not us establishing what a community school is going to be the whole point is the parents in the community coming together to decide what the Community Schools should be it's not even Community School what should be what resources should be in that community so I find the language twisting here to be disingenuous or or not exactly truthful because Community Schools if you want to call them Community Schools have been around since the early 2000s they were originally called Healthy Start they were doing phenomenally in the state we had the Great Recession Jerry Brown cut all the funding for them um it was a sad day for a lot of

117schools that had spent a lot of time a lot of energy and a lot of um resources on developing the appropriate programs that their parents and their Community felt they needed in those schools so there was actually a lot of schools that went ahead and fundraised on their own to bring and keep those resources that they were able to get through healthy start funding to keep them in those schools even though they didn't have state funding anymore so education advocates for years and years and years and years and years have been trying to bring these back because what we do know what we've certainly heard from everybody is when you are involved as a parent in your school you know what your school needs that's the that's the process that works that's the system that

118works that's what we're supporting when we saw an opportunity you know education Advocates saw an opportunity with a budget to finally get the funding back it was like kind of a little bit of a miracle I will say I mean four billion dollars is a lot of your taxpayer dollars as we all know um no one thought the governor would sign it and he did so now we have an amazing opportunity to bring some of this funding back to Newport Mesa back to our communities our parents who want to see programming in their schools that is not currently there and they have every right to make those decisions and decide and take a look at it themselves figure out what's going to work for them it may be tutoring at one at one school it

119may be after school programming in another school it may be Dental Care at another school but that to me is not up to us as the board to decide what's up to us is to give the schools the resources and our administrators the resources and the support that they need to make sure that our kids are as the most successful they can possibly be leism is absolutely right this is this whole child model is is the whole goal of it is to make sure we have the best educational outcomes we can possibly achieve I want to see those schools that were identified that could be potential Community Schools have much better outcomes the whole point is for them to have better outcomes the reason why I ran for this position was to make sure that

120our kids were all reading at you know 80 percent or 90 percent or whatever at grade level as high as we can get those numbers out I mean the reading scores in and of themselves you know bother me same with the math scores language arts course I could never take that Calculus class but I mean you know go for it all you math people um Brianna and so so I just um I just have to put that out there that I I can I hear the concerns I understand where people may have been misinformed about keeping secrets no one's keeping any secrets here this is this whole approach is based on the parents coming together and looking at their school and what their school needs I hear you Chris I would never support anything that

121where we were just gonna blanket say no now you're gonna go do this I don't believe in that model either um I also will I just have to say so so um there's a lot a lot of United ways in the state of California just so real clear um Orange County United Way is its very own Standalone 501c3 I have never heard of csle until this was brought up in the board agenda so for anyone out there who might be concerned that I have any sort of conflict of interest Orange County United Way does not have a contract with csle we have never supported csle I'd never heard of them before this agenda item so just to be very clear Orange County United Way has nothing to do with csla I have no idea if

122they are the grit if they are the right folks to help us in our grant writing I don't necessarily know there could be other vendors that could be better that is certainly a possibility and certainly something if that's what we want to entertain um certainly open to that but I just have to defend Community Schools because it is a model based on parent engagement and based on community engagement at its heart so um and I know we all want our kids to be doing the best that they can possibly do and be and we want to give them all the supports that they need to get there say about that thank you trustee Pearson um okay I'm just confused are we riding the ground to ourselves or are we voting for the 450 000 for

123them to write the grant for us Fordham never 450 000 okay 45. and that was a series of trainings and meetings and building the knowledge and understanding of what this is and taking us through the cycle of the needs assessment and the conversations to then inform the Grant and write the Grant and so they would be writing alongside of us they have been one of the um providers of capacity building around this concept again both here and in this region but in the ends we would be riding the grant we would be defining kind of and analyzing and summarizing and seeing what our parents have said but they would be alongside us helping understanding I mean the grant process as many of you know it's also what what are people looking for to be awarded

124the money and because they've helped other organizations with that they kind of know some of the formula to make sure we would be awarded the money so if we have to write about like what parts they value the most in writing about that to our context our parents our community our student voices okay and do we know are there strings attached to this money I mean do we know what the requirements are to keep this money to get it and then to keep it well I will put an asterisk of State money estate money and I don't want to like think like I know what they're going to say all the time because you know this day's the state but right now what the requirement is is that everyone who gets these grants would hire

125a person for that site so the requirement is and they don't even tell you what position but they want acknowledgment that this work takes more than what we already have that this is additional work for the sites to be able to integrate and make Harmony of all these different things and resources that people need that are not the day-to-day work of schools and teachers that that the people applying for this grant understand that the districts understand for every school each one of those schools needs to have a position so it's not a district position it's a site position to help organize and coordinate all of those ongoing activities Services whatever whatever whatever might come of it so that is the known agreement plus of course evaluating and kind of like the lcap where we've said

126this is what we're going to do that we have to turn in the evidence that we have done what we proclaimed we would do with the money so there the known requirement is employing that new position for this new work okay okay one more um I am all for getting kids what they need and when they need it I'm just afraid that coming from the government getting money from the government this is going to become something that we didn't attend it to be and I think that's what worries me are these these requirements that we might need to do and I think that's what our constituents are worried about um is that leaking into to other schools and other situations um like in the dental like the dentist I would love to get the help

127from within I know I've toured the Assistance League area where they have the dentist right there so what's the difference between are spending money you know for the dental at a community at their Community but when we already have that help already in place so this would be helping something like let's say a site said dental and they were kind of within proximity of the Assistance League which does so much for so many of our schools this would be maybe getting a bus that has a routine pathway that gets people to the dental clinic so it wouldn't be us creating new stuff it would be us connecting the families who need those things that already exist that are already trusted Partners in our community getting them closer together just like we did in the resource

128Fair where you kind of put everybody together this is helping people access the things that they've said are most important to their children and their family to be the strongest they possibly can when they arrive to our school doors so it isn't about replicating any strong resources that already exist it's about building Tighter and closer connections so that families don't struggle getting there and I would say just one more thing um board member like we already received some government money and one of the things about this money and Mr Trader might have the specific language but because it is short-term funding there is a way when we hire and Miss Olson could also help there is a way when we hire that there are Escape latches if you would if the money was to go

129away and so the district is protected in that if the money goes away because of some budget item which that is also possible at any given time or we decide that the cost of doing business this way with that money is too much for the district there are mechanisms to fall out and not incur long-term budgetary restrictions or damages or to our personnel there are ways to do that that hold everyone as harmless as possible knowing the funding is being cut either by our our choice or the states um trustee Ursula yeah this is a great conversation to have and I think a couple items about um what you know asking about what strings are attached um as an evaluator on several State funding streams um what the state wants to know is did we

130spend the money like we said exactly what Socorro just explained that's what they want to know will you will Socorro fill out the reports on time that are due every quarter to the state did she sign them properly did she do all the things that we promised we would deliver on those are the only strings that come with this kind of money it's do we do what we say we're going to do for the kids we say we're going to do it for so there's really no hidden agenda we hear that word a lot someone's got this agenda that agenda an oakland-based firm they're an oakland-based firm so they're close to Sacramento because they have such a deep understanding of community schools and I know that trustee Murphy mentioned that she hasn't heard of them

131in her line of work but I have and they're out there and they have a good reputation and they have the expertise and the connections to ensure that when we have a team like that work working with our team and with the county all together they have a track record that's solid that gets money into schools that need it and I I understand the concerns for those folks that that think that you know many of these things are parents responsibilities parents responsibilities we hear that a lot and that's great but having grown up and worked in my entire life grown up then worked and no longer living in just working in low-income communities I can attest to you that not everyone has these magical unicorn resources within their family to pull this kid out to

132the place that he needs to be it's all about Maslow's hierarchy of needs if we can't meet their physiological needs their safety needs and their basic care they cannot cognitively learn if our job here all of us is to make sure kids can learn we need to make sure that they have those basics of the pyramid settled first that they're not starving that they're not tired that they just didn't get beat last night we need all those things to be in place for them to do multivariate calculus and do it well so until that day comes we need resources that wrap around the whole child and the whole family and the School site is just the easiest place to deliver it it doesn't mean it's it's a value that we have or we're pushing something

133on some family it's hey parents in this neighborhood what would you like to see that would help you okay you'd like that all right look we just got 4 million million dollars and we can help you with that cool great so it may not appease the people that come from a different Community if you're coming here from Newport Beach and you're telling us that your family and your children that you know don't need X Y and Z cool you don't have to but uh um what were the six schools identified at the six Title One schools in Costa Mesa that have been identified as having needs don't prohibit us from taking this money on the west side and helping our kids because our kids need help so it's it's really important I think I don't

134want us to get caught up on such a mundane thing as a Grant application a consulting firm so if it will appease people and and calm their nerves I just don't want to lose this firm because they have those connections and the ability to know what will sell in the grant writing space What will get us that money so if if the amount of you know the 45 000 is a is a deal breaker for people what if we just contract them because it sounds like Socorro and her team have already been working on that you need to there's two steps of needs assessments when you write a grant there's a preliminary just enough to get the grant out the door then there's the hey we need to really assess with all the parents and

135all the kids what they want to do exactly with this money and the state usually gives you like six months or nine month planning period once you get that money in the door hey this is the kind of thing we want to do and that's where the parental involvement will definitely happen because you can do the work without that so for this preliminary period of quick and dirty kind of needs assessment it sounds like our staff has a handle on it so if folks would be open to the idea of just still giving a contract but a fifteen thousand dollars for them to solely weigh in on the grant writing review at the end because we do need another pair of eyes to make sure that we are getting the maximum bang for the buck

136to make sure that we bring that money into this District because it's our taxpayer money I want to bring our money back here so if we could you know think that you know outside the box fine don't give them 45 to do the Deep needs assessment and all that work but 15 so that they can at least advise on the grant making process and make sure it gets through the door cleanly and has their um their engagement because ultimately when you're based up in Oakland in Northern California you have access and you have ways to make sure that our stuff gets seen and gets validated so um I would like to make a motion if if people will have it or if we're going to have more discussion first discussion please okay thank you all

137right so um we we've read a lot of emails uh surely on both sides of the argument uh one concern was the specific uh consultant that was on that was assigned to this this contract do we have any uh way to possibly ask for a separate or a different consultant to be on that our team because I know they mentioned the name Mr bridgeforth was a concern and so if we want to appear like we're listening to our constituents and there's a there's a little bit of a leeway that we can you know suggest something different is that possible certainly entering into any contract the district would never like give away our rights to do something that meets the needs of our district so if that was the decision the board would make that that

138person is not the right person to partner with us that is the clarity we would make with the group because I do know there are other people who could work with us particularly if we've narrowed it specifically okay because it sounds like we're already doing a lot of that community school work anyway and it has been a board priority to um support the whole child uh engage a meaningful constituent conversation including the community we've been doing this since I've been on the board and it's been a direction of the board to involve the community and I know we have at least 60 to 100 Community Partners such as ones that were mentioned earlier and and more so I think what we need to understand and feel comfortable with is the fact that we could have

139that localized control we're not doing the model that's being done in San Francisco for example we are localizing it to what Newport Mesa needs and to the extent and the Comfort level of the board and so I think what I I'm sure that we can do that right we don't we're not just copying we're not copycats of a different districts method or model it's one that we can after we hear from this consultant then focus and try to get the grant it is very contextualized the four pillars still stand but as you mentioned those pillars really do represent our four board goals quite closely and hey it's money coming from the state it's not costing us anything so I see it as an opportunity but we also need to be comfortable as a board to

140go go ahead with it understood okay um trustee Bartow you have not shared yet right yes I can't tell if my light is on or offside it is yeah I just wanted to make sure we have two other but they have already spoken once so you're next um so one of the reasons I decided to run for school board in five years ago six years ago whatever it is now um was because I was at a meeting with a bunch of non-profits and I was there as a fly on the wall for another non-profit that I'm part of and watching the uh Folks at that time from our school district and a bunch of other Community Partners all being in the same room really wanting to help each other but no one kind of speaking

141the same language and understanding what everyone else was asking for was frustrating to me and was something that I felt like I um through knowing lots of different people in those spaces and coming from a Communication business connecting kind of background could help with so I think very strongly about connecting Our Community Partners to our schools I work at the Assistance League dental office as often as I can a couple times a year at least and I you see a lot of our students coming in in the middle of the school day and you know if you've ever had a 2 thick you really can't think about anything else other than that pain so you're not learning I think the problem for me though is one thing I've seen us to do so well especially

142with our electives and our safety Outreach in our town halls is the way we've approached our communities as a group and kind of develop that needs assessment on site um I'm concerned that if we have another firm it's it's definitely more work on our part but I'm concerned if we have another firm leading that work we get to a different result than the places where we've been so successful with our safety task force force and with our electives and um you know the gains we've made in that area that's my concern with this particular contract is I want to make sure that we're doing as much of that work in-house and with our cons you know with our community as possible and somebody coming from another space who's done a lot of these is great

143for so many reasons but it's also brings in a bias of what they've seen in other places and I I feel like we there's not a lot of districts in California there's you know just by the Numbers Title One basic Aid all of that there's not a lot of districts in California that are even close to ours um and so you know everyone wants to feel like they're the special unicorn but we kind of are um in that way so I I would prefer if there's if possible that we provide you know the resources the access to Dental Care the bus to the Assistance League if needed because you do see a lot of Estancia kids carpooling with others and trying to you know coordinate their doctor's appointments to get in at the same time

144um and it would be great if we could help them Miss less class by doing that um but I also want to make sure we don't end up with a game of how can I help you telephone where everyone's in the same room thinking that they're helping someone else and didn't really get what um is actually needed because they're so excited about these things that they're bringing from their own groups and with other spaces in other places they've been so that's my concern uh trustee ursulu yeah and um thank you trustee Bartow for sharing that because that's something that is really important to make sure that it meets the needs of each School site this isn't even about the district as a whole this is about which these particular schools that get these particular money

145so it's really about that community that neighborhood that surrounds that school and it sounds like you all have already done some of the preliminary needs assessment and this firm wouldn't really be needed for that part they would just be needed to have eyes on the grant to make sure the submission goes smoothly that they catch any red flags they know what the state wants to see in the grant the grant writing game is kind of a game those of us that play it kind of know how it goes so to have a team that has worked in that space and knows what to look out for to support our proposal and make sure it goes that way but then when the money comes from the state whatever four million 2 million whatever we get that

146is really going to be in the hands of Socorro and her team working with those parents at that school site at that school School site you know however many we get funded so so I don't know that there's going to be the space for an outsider to weigh in on their particular you know take it's really going to be at that point when we get the money it's really there's no money to do you know if they just help with the grant submission part there's nothing for them to do when the money comes in the door it's it's Socorro her team and whatever you know if you hire coordinators or whatever you do that are at the school site that work with those parents directly to identify oh do we need Dental here or do

147we need food bank you know what do we need here in this neighborhood right here so I think that can clarify that concern trustee Murphy did you have your life I just to Lisa just to so to alleviate some stress about this too um so far in Orange County Garden Grove unified Magnolia Magnolia Science Academy Nova Academy ocde OC Innovation High Palm Lane Global Academy samueli Academy Savannah Elementary District Unity Middle College High School vibrant Minds Charter Vista condor Global Academy never heard of that one uh Vista Heritage Global Academy Anaheim elementary Anaheim Union High School Centralia Fullerton orange Santa Ana Buena Park Tustin Huntington Beach High School District tomorrow's leadership collaborative Charter Magnolia Magnolia Science Academy in Santa Ana have all been recipients of Community Schools funding from the state and I think they

148are looking at it as an opportunity to have access to dollars that they wouldn't have any other way and I like this part it's our tax dollars coming back to Newport Mesa we are a donor community so um just if that makes you feel any better that there has been a lot of districts in Orange County that have already taken advantage of this opportunity So and I've heard nothing but good things about once the money gets to the site how it's been able to be utilized okay trustee Bartow um I just I'm not from the grant writing world so um how it looked when I reviewed the proposal online how much money are we actually talking because it looked like it's as little as a hundred and fifty thousand I'm really trying to understand how

149much every year per school okay for school it's between 150 to 500 000 and they determine a per pupil allotment based on the size of school so I imagine I don't know for sure but I would I think the size of our schools would probably be 300 000 in there per year which would provide for that additional position plus some and allow for some enrichment opportunities and other things and potential Partnerships that we haven't been able to afford yet um and for how many years five five okay I wanted to make sure I understood that clearly thank you okay oh trustee weigandt thanks um so you say this this is for five years is there after five years what do you do if we have these programs and we don't have funding ah what we've

150done since the dawn of time we begin to unwind things we really value if we don't have the fun I mean you know we've gone through these ebb and flows in education at prior times I think whoever the board is at that time will have a tough decision to make are these valuable enough to invest with the dollars we have or will we have to move away from some of these practices and hope that communities Partners can continue to carry them because I think that is ultimately like one of the reverberating messages is that schools can't do this alone we have we are educated to help academically and children come and need and families need more than that and we need other people to do their part as well that they want to do and

151that they're skilled to do to help our families Thrive so hopefully at that time more Lotto money who knows but you know we'll just somehow the governor everybody will have to decide what we do at that point and can you name the six schools that this is would be I don't think we've named them in public the sixth time the schools we're looking at right now are uh Wilson Whittier Ray Pomona pauloreno and Kelly Brook okay and then this is only title one funding money right so we can't figure out you know if there are you know needs at other schools the state has a threshold last year it was like you had to be over 70 percent um unduplicated counts so the state has targeted that money to the highest leaned areas we are

152in Partnerships with other places to always help make sure our schools are getting the Community Connection and resources they need but as we've discussed tonight the level of depth that our different schools need because they are quite different the communities that they serve are quite different they aren't all the same but we have ongoing relationships I mean you hear us speaking about Newport Harbor and CDM we know that they have Community relationships that are getting needed resources to families the volume and magnitude of that just simply might look different but we are always actively trying to match the needs of every school Community this goes kind of a step Deeper by bringing that person on site to help organize it and connect it keep parents in constant communication keep staff in constant communication and connect

153all those dots because they can be overwhelming when everybody's used to focusing on the classroom and we'll continue to focus on the classroom So when you say that person at that school well they'll be one person that'll be like the community facilitator for that school that will um you know direct that student and family with the service that they need I mean we'll work on what that position is and it would always complement existing resources that we have so we know the board has invested in the counselor we know we have strong School Community facilitators we have great resources in the district already our teachers who have strong relationships with students and with parents what we don't always have is the connection to kind of send them to exactly the right place in a timely

154manner and this would help address some of that so this funding would go to the students with their need not necessarily an employee of the district that will help facilitate that there would have to be if there would have to be a new employee that is the one string there does have to be a new employee again because it's a new level of work as the state kind of is defining as a new level of Amplified Partnerships and Amplified voice but outside of that there aren't kind of the money must be spent this way that Community would decide so does that yeah that just that Community would decide and how much does that employee make that has not been established yet we haven't established what that position would be because where I'm going is how

155much is actually if it's 300 Grand safe for our schools how much is actually going to be given to the students as opposed or used for the students as opposed used for like you know a staff member right I would say probably at least half thank you okay um did I had some questions slash comments first um I think one of the things for me thank you for explaining um and I think to um discussing which schools they are is really helpful um I know that with some of the concern where some folks weren't necessarily sure which schools I think one of the things for me um that I think it would be helpful unfortunately oftentimes when we have people who have comments about some of these topics that are National topics they leave before

156we talk about them so unfortunately you know they they may be at home hopefully listening but you know Community Schools have been around for a very long time they have been in existence in places like Texas and Arkansas for a very long time have been approved and are thriving in places that perhaps some of our community may think that they wouldn't exist or they wouldn't have been approved and I I think one of the things that's really important and I think each of us hold really strongly is continuing and maintaining local control and when articles are published or people are talking about education policy at a national level it is a there's a lot of jargon there's a lot of opinions and it's not a lot of fact and it's not a lot of what

157actually happens in our local context are most people's local context Orange County particularly is a bit unique I mean La unified is one monolith San Diego county is massive they have a variety of districts but we Orange County is unique and basically every five miles there's a different School District because of the desire for local control and unfortunately there has been some overstepping I think some of us are not comfortable with from the state level for certain things I think particular early for Community Schools and the intent and the entire focus of them being about local parent voice and choice to me I hope that we don't see that but we also would have the option to say well if you're giving us ten thousand dollars and their strings attached we would be uniquely placed

158that we would be able to then know which programs work what our parents have already decided they need and either ask for corporate Partnerships or private philanthropy to meet those needs if we needed to withdraw from State funding um and I think one of the things for me similarly to having the state or different people telling us as a district what to do one of the things for me that's personally frustrating is people coming who may not have a vested interest in our district or know our schools very well telling us what we should do with our local schools it's the same thing as the state coming and telling us what to do the same thing if somebody is coming from a community that is has no idea what a family is experiencing on a

159day-to-day basis and telling us what we should or should not do it's literally the same thing and so I have a problem with that I think in the past particularly for these six schools there has been a lot of disenfranchisement of our parents some of our teachers and our staff in the past have been ignored and not been included in decision making and Community Schools one of the pillars is collaborative and shared decision making with parents at the Hub of that so it was fascinating we we really got um I balanced emails pro and con those that were against what we're doing a lot of it was National rhetoric but almost all of them were talking about removing parent control and that's literally the opposite of what this model is um which leads me to

160believe they really don't understand what it is they're just hearing from somebody else that is bad that is something you shouldn't have um for me I think it's really important we've added student board members we really value and want students at the table it's super important to hear directly and Community Schools also build that in not just at the high school level but at the elementary school level I think I have seen personally you know some of our School site councils are people who are always involved the PTA people it's the people who are always involved and then of Community Schools is to set up a framework where those voices who that are not often heard are at the table and a safe and caring way and that their needs can be heard and addressed

161I don't know of any other context where that happens and I think particularly for these six schools and knowing these schools these six School communities extremely well collaborative shared decision making based on feedback and authentic voice to me is exactly why we are in these roles I every single person that is up here is up here because they genuinely care about parents and families we're not doing this for you know outside reasons we we really care about this and so it's not just something we're hearing on the news we all even when we disagree the intent that we all have is to empower families and I think there's a disconnect with knowing what some of the actual barriers that our families experience on a day-to-day basis um and I think we we have made an

162excellent start adding in one Community School facilitator at each of our schools which took five years but was literally the thing that several of us heard every day from parents heard every day from teachers every campus that I ever went to of the five elementary schools and Wesley Costa Mesa they were like we need a full-time facilitator or nothing else please but there's not a coordination with that currently so while that I'm glad we have them we are missing a key person very similarly I went to the Community Alliance as well as a non-profit partner and just a Community member and there there's not coordination and so we need a point person who is directing and coordinating and saying we have six providers of backpacks guess what everyone Newport Mesa has a brand new backpack

163but we're missing these three things I need to go after a community partner that offers that we don't we don't currently have a person doing that and I see that as a real Gap and I think this is something that that will create um and I I just I think um our school facilitators to me are some of the most important people on our campuses and oftentimes they spend their day finding resources for their school Community like say there's a facilitator at Ray well there's a facilitator at Pomona they could be doing parallel work that day there's not a point person saying I know where you can the hours that you need to to go to the dental clinic and having a shared a bus or a transportation linking we need a key person to

164link those two and so I just for me I feel very strongly I think I remember when we added community and family engagement as an lcap goal to me it was one of the conversations that I had with Vanessa galey and I was like could we possibly do Community Schools could we just use one or two of the pillars or start talking about them um because really a lot of the research that I have done and I've studied Art District since 2011 um like this is what we need and so for me I agree you know I'm not I'm not married to an organization I'm definitely not committed to having a one point person I don't think I've usually seen a bio that goes with a contract from one agency and if people aren't comfortable

165with that I'm I'm fine with that but I think partnering the way that this grant is too with multiple districts and with our County to me it just seems like something that's an obvious next step and it's particularly for this my schools are five elementary schools that are all Title One that are extremely under-resourced and the parents will want to be involved but often until recently we now have all five principles that are bilingual we now have a facilitator at every school we're getting there but now we need someone to help coordinate those resources so that that those are all of my comments and thoughts but I think this is great [Music] I don't usually speak for everyone but I feel very passionately about this obviously um trust yourself yeah I just had one follow-up

166comment about trustee weigan's question about that how much would be spent on Staffing and I think that's a tricky one because if we if each if each school for instance got the lower end of the scale yeah it might be 50 but if they get the higher end of the scale then it would be a fraction of that so it's really about like the average staff person of this caliber 60 to 80 grand that's for that person and then the rest goes to making those connections and getting those resources in but you need a human to connect those resources so there has to be one but it won't be the whole budget for sure it's not usually how that works I actually have one more question that I did um will they be walking alongside

167them for some of that the listening component if there is any of that will they say like here's how you hold a town hall at an elementary school here's how like is that because I saw there was something about like listening sessions of course we would be working side by side with anybody we contract with with this work I mean there's an important role for principals and staff to be side by side in this it's not just parents it's parents and staff and it's everybody together and so we would be doing that alongside of them this person would just kind of be connecting all the dots all the time and focused only on that which we don't have the luxury to focus only on this because we have a lot of other but we will

168make whatever the board deems appropriate to if you can deem anything appropriate to continue with this work we will make that work and we will Thrive under those conditions and then the last thing it was something they think has been brought up before if we have some of this money then we would have District money that would be freed up from some of the things that we currently use it for to then go to other school efforts or programs right like if there's some there's something that's currently being done that's not covered that would get wrapped under Community Schools for we know Mr Trader is a magician and he does amazing things and creates opportunities for our students with whatever we have so I definitely believe under his guidance we would maximize our resources we

169would combine what we could and not combine what was illegal to combine and create opportunities for our students across the district yeah I mean does everyone else have all their comments okay yeah if I could if everyone has kind of asked and answered all their their elements if we could have a motion to approve the contract but revised at a very tight scale and scope of just fifteen thousand for their Grant rating support service part not the planning that should be Socorro and her team and the principals and all the people on the ground but just to have those Expert Eyes on this grant because why spend the time on a grant if you can make it a little bit better and make sure that it gets you know that extra Edge to get funding

170into the district so just a small scale scope contract for fifteen thousand for grant writing support services from the community Scholars learning exchange for them to be able to review and work alongside and just have that that extra set of eyes knowing that they have been in this game a lot longer than we have okay and you're trustee uh trustee Bartow um but we couldn't do that today right we can actually well I would like to see that contract before I would agree to go through with it I would like to see what the scope is I wouldn't just want to do it up here on the floor I wouldn't feel comfortable I said I wouldn't feel comfortable doing that on the fly without seeing what that information looks like okay but trustee or salute

171you mean emotion do we have a second for your motion I second um were there any other questions or comments on that motion just Ukraine yes um trustee barter what do you mean because I I think the contract's already all enumerated so which we could probably go into it right now and see which part we're going to use and that would be it right so the contract's already all there it's just which one we want to take out of the contract we can get get done with it tonight mm-hmm trust your soul yeah I think the the issue would be to have that contract which which I believe staff has and then right now it has probably a bunch of different bullet points and a 65 000 price tag of forty five thousand I keep

172getting it wrong forty five thousand dollar price tag Crossing out all of those other elements except Grant support service and fifteen thousand that's because the contract is already written up and those are elements within not above you know we couldn't get something approved for over the forty five thousand tonight but because it's a fraction of it and a fraction of the scope that's already written it is actually possible to do do we have any additional questions um roll call vote please trustee Anderson yes trustee crane yes trustee weigen no trustee Pearson no trustee Murphy yes trust your soil yes trustee Bartow no and next we have our informal reports Dr Smith you know people evaluate success in lots of different ways um it's hard to argue what is failure what is success people have their

173own opinions but I want to argue that we have some great successes in my mind to celebrate and one is the graduation coach that was mentioned earlier we got a California School Board Association Golden Bell award for that [Applause] had one since 2017. we have one for this I've judged those before it's hard to get one so I want to congratulate our team and I got to tell you talking about successes we have a 97 graduation rate in this District we have two schools with a hundred percent graduation rate if the goal is to educate kids College and Career and graduation is a requirement therein man I think we're doing a heck of a job but but the great thing about this board and this district is uh good enough or great is not enough

174so even with 97 let's get to 100 percent right and we have folks helping us do that work and I I want to celebrate them also Blue Ribbon Schools are hard to get I was a superintendent another districts um we didn't have any uh for the second time in two years we've been awarded another blue ribbon and that's early college and the great work that they have done and this is even harder to get it got the lighthouse award too so we are doing great work out there if you're bored next Tuesday Morning want to come to breakfast and hear me brag even more about why I think we're successful you can buy a ticket and or make a donation rather and and attend and then I just want to say that this last week

175we did the California Labor Management initiative and trustee Anderson was there right alongside our team as I said it's probably Labor Management governance coming together and it's about being intentional about the relationship right and I want to complement our labor allies they were they were in the room we see around us in the country right now a lot of Labor and management unrest right and folks have a right to express themselves and the one thing that history and research is pretty clear about is that if you have the right relationship built on trust and communication that you can survive those you can disagree and not dehumanize and I'm just proud of our team when I look around the country folks have their own realities but our reality is one where the person coming into the

176district said I love coming to your District to facilitate because everywhere else people are fighting I come here and I get to laugh with you and build a relationship and so to our our labor leaders and to those folks that don't know what your labor leaders are doing when they go we're not negotiating we're not taking away your rights we're intentionally building relationships that'll protect the dehumanization of one another so we can serve our students and I'm just proud to be a part of this district for all of those reasons uh trusty crane yeah so a trusty person and I had the honor and privilege of visiting the our Presidio Campus of Monte Vista the the new campus for Monte Vista which is an independent study alternative education school and it was wonderful to see

177the fact that we could that this group could have their own campus and just the interaction with the teachers and everything was just flowing so nicely and the one of the highlights was also moving on to the alternative to to suspension program where we went over to another space where they're gonna they're gonna get a new one but it's not quite ready yet but they were in the portable and we walked in and there were three students who basically were there because it was their alternative to suspension they weren't home unattended or just not doing anything they basically were at school in a separate environment there was a consequence but learning was not interrupted and we had a wonderful experience the the teacher there Mr Wagner was so engaged with his with his students we

178actually got to participate in an activity right and it was really a wonderful very insightful and engaging experience so that was great I'm so glad that Newport Mesa has provided that as an alternative environment so thank you we also are well we're getting ready to do our walk to school we're gonna Rush brush up our tennis shoes tomorrow and join Newport Coast and Anderson Elementary because a lot of our schools are participating in walk to school activities tomorrow I think I heard 16 from the PTA and just doing a lot of sports attendances and performances and just having a lot of fun um just celebrating what our kids are doing and how engaged they are and their the staff and teachers and and all that so that's it looking forward to state of the the

179school breakfast awesome um well I first want to start off saying um I wanted to thank the board for some very insightful and respectful discussion I know these things don't come easy but I value all of your opinions so well up here and I really thank you for all your insightful knowledge and and I do and and I I like to see us have meaningful discussions that especially with our students in the room as well so that it it you know can set hopefully an example of hey we can disagree but we can all really get along and get along for for our common goods so I really thank you guys all for that discussion it's a great thing to watch and be a part of um one thing that uh actually trustee Murphy and

180I did we went and saw Kaiser and Mr B our new principal over there and just to see how um you know a new admin at the school um kind of Sparks a little life into a lot of different different parts of the school but also um just going around and seeing how excited and how great some of the the classrooms are I think you um spied on some some important people in your world that um kind of scared them and that was great um but you know our yes and I also wanted to say I was going to say uh Jeff it was great to also see that you have given the principles a list of what facilities projects are going to happen and when um and so that was really great to see

181and there might be some discussions about you know moving around some things later on but um I appreciate all your work at the site level thank you I also wanted to know what you said thank you for the great discussion um being a new board member it's like I didn't even know when we were going to discuss it or how you could discuss it so it is great that we pulled it and we were able to discuss it and get our questions answered so thank you um busy September most of the things that I did I did with these guys I also visited with trustee Murphy College Park in Davis and she was also spying on people there too um I enjoyed a flag football game with Carol crane girls flag football which was I

182it took me a while to get there but when I got there it really was we got into it it was very very fun fun to watch and a great addition to our schools um I also enjoyed visiting prasita Presidio um we got to see a lot of theater and also the Zone pack is one of my favorite things to go to Zone pack meeting ours is at Corona del Mar and it's when all of the principals and the PTA presidents get together and discuss they share what they're doing on their campuses and it's so great to see the sharing that goes on and um it really benefits every school and I think it's probably one of my favorite things to be part of love to scale it oh okay you guys need to do

183it you need your own Zone packs you can use some of that money to start the selfie pack you should come to the meetings and bring it up um because I don't know how those are gonna go so we'll we will be learning together um yes uh thank you sorry I get a little passionate about this um I really you know I want our Costa Mesa schools to be able to be the best they can be so I do get a little fired up sorry about that um I care deeply about our community as we all do and um yes I had fun running around uh Kaiser Mr B's doing a great job um I've heard nothing but great news or great feedback from all of the families um about Mr B so thank you

184Mr B for Contin for continuing all of that greatness over at Kaiser um it was fun telling him about how Kaiser Carnival does go all the way back to the end of those fields that's some pfl money he had no idea he was like the whole field as I guess the whole field it's like the whole East Side comes over has fun um and then obviously uh College Park and Davis are doing great it was fun to meet up with those principals um and so yes uh it's always nice to hear from our schools and our principals that they feel supported that they feel that the staff and administration have their back and our and are giving them the tools and resources that they need to be successful so thank you always for everything that

185you guys do and all the hard work you pour into into this work we know it's not easy um I don't have much else to to add except for CU it Costa Mesa next Tuesday for the state of the schools we are very much looking forward to having you all there so um come you can park at my house if you want and walk across the street it's an option save me a spot yes it's an option I can carpool everybody um so anyway thank you thank you okay I would also like to thank everyone for the discussion and I just really appreciate how respectful we are towards each other and I think as the I know at any given time at least two of my kids are watching but I think not just that

186a lot of our kids are watching and I think that um what makes our country work so well is how we can have these discussions and disagree without ad hominem attacks and it starts with a local level so I think that's great if we could get that to the rest of the country you'll be doing so much better because we can disagree but we don't need to call each other names um for the Newport bike City bike safety bike safety training something I spend a lot of time on so I'm very pleased to share that Newport L did their bike safety training today for their upper grades that's new um both for regular bikes and e-bikes Ensign did that as well last week and then they've got a bike safety Community night it's believed sometime

187this week I forget what the date is I went to the Newport Harbor High School homecoming and was so uh it was a lot of fun new cover one but the better part was hearing from so many parents who thanked me for the good work the district is doing I had people come up and say thank you so much for all the changes on the baseball field so Jeff they they notice they're very appreciative and a lot of parents come up and say oh you know XYZ teacher changed the way my child feels about math they were they didn't love school they had struggled with math and you know this teacher is so positive and has all these great motivations around the room and really has explained math in a way that makes my student

188love math um so many so many things like that every single parent I encountered had a big thank you for some great work the district is doing so thank you and that was nice to go to homecoming and not have um not a single negative comment about the district like lots and lots of cheers that was wonderful um and then tomorrow Our Community Alliance for bike safety has a meeting with trustee Crane and we will be discussing ways that we can further expand our efforts we've done really well with Newport Beach and now we'd like to expand that a little bit with Costa Mesa and then none of us mentioned the Estancia theater groundbreaking oh that was so fun of course and it was exciting it was exciting to um you know to literally stand

189in the dirt and take that shovel and watch it and watch what the students are going to get that first step so that's all I have yes and that's that's all I have the groundbreaking was great that it was next to the green space and not on top of the Green Space so that made my day um and uh we had a riveting policy committee meeting last week that was kind of awesome um and then tomorrow is the Youth Sports meeting where we expect to thank you that the pools are now open at the crack of dawn you're welcome and um I think upcoming next week another riveting time I'm going to go speak to the Estancia AP research class about methods so come join us anyone that wants to do that so those are

190all my updates for now um I am just really impressed by how many students we have had coming to speak and engage in our meetings it's just been wonderful to see from all of our campuses um so that has just I love to hear um students sharing their thoughts and opinions um I'm very excited to meet our new principal at Whittier on Friday so I will see you Chris um I think it is a wonderful opportunity to have um now all five of our our principals in area seven are bilingual speakers um sorry four of five Victoria is not but it's not as needed there um and then I'm excited too for the facilities master plan listening sessions um which maybe some people aren't but I am very excited about them and I think it's

191a great opportunity for our community who have a lot of thoughts and opinions and um ideas too um to come for each of our zones to share those for students as well I think often parents come to that and that it would be amazing to see students there and then we also had the retiree recognition event which was very delightful it was amazing for me to see my freshman PE coach Sharon Ewell retiring I've known her since I was 14. so it was just a really lovely time of seeing so many of the people who are retiring also have family members who are still members of our district and or attended or this sure so um that was just a really wonderful event so thank you so much and it is 8 55 and we

192will close our meeting now thank you foreign