001board meeting of March 28 2023 to order now the time is 302. Rosie will you please leave our roll call Tristy Anderson here trustee crane here trustee weigandt here trustee Pearson here trustee Murphy trustee or soilu trustee Bartow we have some running late but they will be here shortly and Dr Smith here okay we will now adopt the agenda do I have a question so moved second moved by trusty wagon seconded by trustee crane trustee Anderson yes trustee crane yes trustee weigand yes trustee Pearson yes trustee Murphy trustee or soyloo trustee Bartow yes okay um do we have any um Community input items okay all right we will now move to closed session the items are for a conference with legal counsel potential litigation one case or B conference with legal counsel anticipated litigation one
002case um for c conference with legal counsel and to anticipated litigation two cases 4D conference with labor negotiator for E Public Employee discipline dismissal release unemployment and 4f student discipline two cases we will return to open session at 6 pm Welcome to our board meeting we will start our meeting at six o'clock um this is our regularly scheduled meeting for March 28 2023. um everyone we will begin our Opening Ceremonies with our student board member merci oh foreign over your heart ready begin I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all do I have a motion to adopt the minutes from March 7 2023 so moved second moved by trustee white again seconded
003by trustee Pearson roll call vote Christy Anderson yes Christy crane yes trustee weigen yes trustee Pearson yes trustee Murphy yes trustee or soylu yes trustee Bartow yes yes first up we have our recognition of secondary education student Award winners Miss Torres yes good evening I'd like to welcome up at this time Dr Mike Shaka and Dr Jacob Haley they are going to introduce their group good evening president Anderson members of the board Dr Smith executive cabinet and all of our guests tonight Newport Mesa students have an abundance of opportunities to participate in extracurricular activities one such activity is speech and debate slash Model United Nations the coromar speech and debate Model United Nations program competes in multiple State and National competitions in pursuit of engaging students in Civics and promoting positive citizenship I'm excited to
004report that the CDM team was recently recognized for the Civic learning Excellence award at Disneyland hotel I'd like to mention I'd like to invite up Dr Jake Haley to share more about the program and introduce his staff and his team yes good evening president Anderson um Board of Trustees uh Dr Smith uh executive cabinet distinguished guest it's an honor to be here to talk about this program and introduce our teacher uh beyond what you're hearing about speech and debate she also runs our Academy of Global Studies a pillar of academic excellence and um Pursuits for higher education bound with both of these programs and our kids achieve they achieve at multiple levels and it's really really fun to see it was also excellent to see when we got the invite to be recognized tonight uh
005when we submitted kind of the names I don't think there was an expectation that there would be 160 names that were on our list for mun speech and debate as you can see there would not be enough room so uh miss Mayberry had a difficult task of winning it down to seven so you made Seven excellent choices tonight uh uh who will be here to represent our speech and debate program and mun so it's my pleasure to introduce Laura Mayberry our speech and debate coach and teacher here we go we plant this like a like an athletic entry like coming out of the locker room here she is [Music] [Applause] foreign thank you for having us I have a big team there's like 160 so obviously they can all be here but I brought my
006student board with us and um they're very instrumental in keeping the team together and running everything and getting us even get any kind of recognition of an opportunity to apply for the Civic uh education award so I'm excited to introduce you to my students this is a mutasadi this is guard me pray ing all right Walker [Applause] thank you all right she's not here but I'd be happiness get you in two rows I'll follow them back left toe in front and then get you all to take one big step these are perfect thank you [Applause] okay next we will recognize our winter athletic sports champions don't go too far Dr Haley Sports throughout the school year and we have been highly successful tonight we would like to recognize some of our winter sports CIF Champions
007we have wrestlers from both Newport Harbor and Coronado Amar High School who are 2023 CIF Champions I'd like to start by calling up Dr Jake Haley to introduce his coach and his athletes Dr Haley I'll forgo the formality of my introduction uh so it's a pleasure uh not only to be introducing our coach uh but also uh to be sharing the stage tonight with uh the wrestling and athletes from Newport Harbor High School as well so huge shout out to our coach Mark Alex and Coach uh balloon over at Newport Harbor who've really done a fantastic job of collaborating together to grow wrestling uh in our community you're going to see it today when uh you see the athletes and the level of intentionality that they have to make sure that students are aware about
008what it takes to be successful on the mat in the classroom in our community the dedicated to and it's a fabulous program that they both establish and how they work together I couldn't be more happy to be doing that I'm really excited as well the two wrestlers you can hear tonight are both Juniors which is fantastic for us so we get one more year with them we're also happy that when we had our Battle of the Bay wrestling uh match I must say that Corona del Mar came on top this year so we're super excited about that always competitive they were at our tournaments I got to see Newport Russell and just fabulous enthusiasm great technique and just great kids all around so uh with that I want to introduce our coach coach Mark one's
009coming up and we can introduce our athletes so congratulations coach Mark great season right I'm really excited to introduce our two CF Champions this year our first CF Champion for the Inland division Zion bowling Hernandez [Applause] so I have a few words about Zion Zion is a junior as principal Jake said he won the CF championship at 160 pound weight class this year his record was 44 wins 14 losses with 27 pins by the way we've wrestled the toughest tournaments this season so 14 losses is really not a big deal when you wrestle the toughest competition in 11 tournaments we entered he meddled in nine of them awesome performance was also a League champion finished fifth of the Master's tournament and qualified and competed at state championships Zion also it's really exciting our first CF
010champion at uh at CDM in 20 years [Applause] our other CIF Champion Eugenio Franco [Applause] foreign he was a Masters champion which is our first ever Masters champion pretty awesome in the 195 pound weight class he's also a junior so next year I have the privilege and fun of coaching both these young men again so Yayo had 52 wins eight losses with 18 pins with a team captain for us earned a medal in every single tournament he entered this season 11 Tournament medals I was a metal CIF championships went to the state championship and took third place in the state of California [Applause] Catalyst since 1976 when we had state champion [Applause] okay [Applause] next we have our three wrestlers from Newport Harbor principal Bolton is frantically trying to get here right now but luckily
011our wrestling coach Dominic balone is no stranger to our world so I'm very comfortable introducing coach balone who's been at Newport Harbor for 24 years teaching math and computer science and has also coincides with the 24 years of coaching wrestling he's experienced a lot of success due in large part to the amazing students at Newport Harbor so I'm going to hand it over to coach balloon to share his students happy [Applause] Mama thanking the school board for recognizing these these student athletes is excellent and I want to thank on behalf of Newport Harbor my coaching staff and my parents the parents of our program and all the athletes on our team that that help these athletes get to where they are today and I'll bring out Anthony Mano first if you'll come on out Anthony
012[Applause] so Anthony mono's uh an excellent story for us he is the first CIF Champion for Newport Harbor since 2011. and in my tenure uh my 24 years of coaching he's the first sophomore to win CIF and so that's super good [Applause] like the CDM athletes we have sent these kids to the toughest competition and his overall record on the season is 39-9 and so that's an outstanding record and uh his goal for next year is to place in the state meet and for those of you who are not familiar with the state meet in California California is a very unique State and that it only crowns One champion per weight class for the entire State and there's over 500 schools that compete in wrestling so to be a state play sir you got to
013be in the top one two percent in the state of California which is an amazing feat and that's his goal for next year and one more note about Anthony he holds the now the current record for that most number of takedowns in the season in Newport Harbor history thank you next up is Skyler Castle Skyler Castle has been with us since her freshman year and uh she now holds the record as the first ever girls CIF champion in Newport Harbor's history her overall record on the season is 36-6 and just like the boys we sent them to the toughest competition so this is an outstanding record as well and she is in the top two in every stat category in Newport Harbor girls wrestling history at Newport her goal for next year is to be
014a CIF state champion and um she just recently got off a competition at the Nationals meet over this last weekend in Virginia Beach and placed third place in the nation congratulations Skyler and last but not least is Duda Duda Rodriguez [Applause] I forgot to mention both Skyler and Duda are Juniors and I believe I mentioned Anthony is a sophomore so we do have a lot of excitement about what's coming up in the next year and two uh Duda happens to be the second ever uh Newport Harbor CIF Champion she missed it by about 30 minutes [Laughter] um she is Newport Harbor's first ever girls Masters champion and the first ever Newport Harbor uh wrestling state champion boys or girls [Applause] duda's overall record is 36-0 she won every tournament she entered all year special designation
015in duda's case in the state of California at every competition that she competed in this year she did not allow one wrestler to score offensively against her um she also is in the top two in every stat category in Newport Harbor's girls wrestling history and uh due to his overall goal is to be an Olympian she got off to a great start by of course being a CIS state champion which is of course in California very challenging uh to be the best out of over 500 schools and then she just recently came back from Virginia Beach Nationals where she took first place Judah Rodriguez is currently number one in the nation in girls wrestling at her weight class congratulations you three you're amazing [Applause] thank you congratulations to all of you and thank you for
016all the families that came tonight to celebrate um next up we have our student board member reference trustee crane yes tonight um the student board member who will be sitting on a dice is from Back Bay Monta Vista it is moss Elliott and we have Marcy cope from Back Bay who will be reporting on Back Bay Marcelina Sanchez from orally Early College High School and Fernando veranon from Estancia High School and the topic is what are ways that you as a student board member make a difference in your own School community and also feel free to give a couple highlights of your campus Marcy would you like to come up good evening superintendent Smith president Anderson board members cabinet and Community the student board members were asked what ways as student board members we can
017make a difference in our schools firstly I help through helping with the organization of any activities with the students such as in ASB and I um I also regularly help with the One recovery program on campus and throughout the district district lately I have been trying to help by spreading awareness of the importance of physical and mental health and dangers of drug use but at Back Bay moss and myself always most importantly make a difference through always being there for the other students kids are the core of all schools and they're being for their for them is one of the one things that we can do to be there if we can be there for our fellow students we're really doing our job thank you so much thank you Marcy Marcelina Sanchez from Early College
018High School Marcelina do you want to pause for about 30 seconds so that sure you ever said the audience can sit down okay good evening superintendent Smith president Anderson and members of the board I first want to thank you guys for having elected me as student board member it holds a lot of responsibility and advocating for the student body I've been pushing to have a new mural on campus and a student Resource Center thankfully echs is in the works for having a new mural created we are currently holding a contest to choose a mural design that will be funded by United Way I think that the school needs something fresh and something excited exciting to look forward to the mural will be painted by a muralist but students will also help as well which is
019excited because a lot of students have been asking me that question um I'm excited for this project to take place and for the future projects to come I'm currently also a social media commissioner at Early College High School and was elected to be president for the next school year so that's very exciting and then for community service Club I am the rotary liaison and I started a subcl sub club called smile notes where elementary school kids get notes from Early College High School to motivate them throughout the weeks and with that I also got elected as vice president so I'm really excited to you know just keep expanding and just you know doing more work um as a student board member I do believe it is important to hear both the positive and negatives on
020campus and that's the only way to improve and I will continue to strive for student input and advocate for positive change on campus thank you next is Fernando branon okay from Estancia High School good evening superintendent Smith president Anderson vice president Crane and fellow Board of Trustees as a student board member I am grateful to assist in providing you voice as the stances representative I make a difference in my school Community by being a part of several extra extracurricular activities such as the acts of random kindness Club Leo's Club CSF and Culture Club and many more with leadership positions with these extracurriculars I've been able to volunteer in my in community service events that furthered my passion to help others along with these activities I've been involved in the lyceum academy and ASB for all
021four years that has allowed me to continue practicing my speaking skills and become a leader on campus um a couple on campus highlights I would like to mention is that um that yesterday the lyceum academy had a speaker uh in Orthopedics uh surgeon to talk about her profession and it was very enlightening for the students because we got to uh um hear uh firsthand from a surgeon's perspective on how she does her job and it was great that we were able to have a speaker since uh we couldn't have one prior due to covid and and such and um today we actually had a 8th grade move up day which we invited the team inco middle schoolers on campus to get to get to tour it and also hear about the amazing uh programs and
022opportunities that we have on campus on campus which has been great and um to add on to that Estancia High School is currently um bringing more awareness and towards the theater that's going to be built in this upcoming spring break and more students are aware of what's going on and we are trying to push that forward so that um they can relocate in the other side of the parking lot which has been uh slowly building up positively um with that being said I am appreciative of how welcoming and the district is regarding students well-being no matter what the student's gender identity is race or ethnicity I know that I and many others are supported thank you [Applause] thank you very much um we will not have a harbor Council PTA report um so first up
023we will have Sandy Gordon I'm nmft good evening president Anderson trustees superintendent Smith and all our guests in cabinet here tonight um nmft has been working hard on our teacher of the year program and we have had 21 teachers applicants and 15 have been nominated by their schools to be selected as teacher of the year for this year we have three top teachers that will be um have a surprise visit from an mft at their sites um who are just extra extra special and um will represent our District well we um Let's see we are um proud to have um our teachers who are truly extraordinary nft believes that we have the most brilliant talented and good looking teachers so um we are in discussions to have um a support specialist as recognized along with
024our teacher the year we feel it's important that our support Specialists get recognized also nmft is looking forward to the second Labor Management initiative tomorrow with the district and we appreciate the ongoing efforts to enhance and collaborate with each other so thank you thank you Sandy next up we'll have Eleanor rebar for csca good evening president Anderson cabinet Dr Smith executive board and guest Stu Tedford our president could not be here this evening but he wanted to encourage everyone to volunteer for a stay coming up you can Shadow a bus driver you can Shadow someone in the Kitchen paint your locksmith um accounting clerks payroll clerks so it's a fun opportunity you get to learn what we do every day and it means a lot for the employees to be shadowed so we'll have as
025many volunteers as are submitted we're also going to be celebrating classified employee week in May and we have several activities planned Stu also would like to thank the district for the Labor Management Management Institute several e-board members are attending and it's a great opportunity for management and the labor groups to meet to collaborate to discuss to learn about each other and that's about it other than wishing everyone a enjoyable spring break next month thank you thank you [Applause] next we have Community input on non-agendized items 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
026of the brown act section 54954.2 the board will take no action nor have any discussion on non-agendized items the superintendent May provide clarification during superintendent's comments first up we have Tim Britt [Applause] thank you Mr President and Anderson the name tags really help vice president Kent Crane and thank you for the trustees for a few minutes I'm just here to speak on behalf of the aquatics programs at CDM as you know there was a catastrophic failure at the CDM pool and to encourage you to make haste in getting our pool operational again has so many I on my 15th year in the program with my children huge impact on them and all of their peers great coaches great programs and we met with the school district today they were very responsive thanks for your support
027uh Carol and Lisa and they were collaborative and were excited about working forward with them we're looking at a lot of options but don't want to let the pressure up because there's a lot of kids sitting on the pool deck and not in the pool so thank you so much and I'm going to start coming to more of these meetings because these kids are unbelievable thank you thank you next is Darcy Harlan [Applause] hello board my name is Darcy Harlan I have two sons in the waterfall program we they've been um there for about three years uh they're in the aquatics program they're in the water polo program they're in the swim program my uh sophomore son also plays varsity basketball as a starter at uh so we are like huge Advocates of the the
028uh Athletic program at CDM I am also uh on the CDM board um as a sophomore representative so this is very important to me uh we chose CDM uh because of its Elite Water Polo exposure training and um creating an opportunity for them to have a college experience without even talking about the academic Excellence at CDM so I hold that to like an utmost um it's so important to us and and we support that um I'm here tonight to encourage the board to find a a very reasonable uh solution for pool malfunction um six months seems um seems unreasonable and I want to be part of the the solution not the problem uh I I I'm willing to do do whatever it takes to research or do whatever it takes that our program starts at
029age 10 and it goes to age 18 and we have kids that are Juniors who are looking for these D1 scholarships that are going to positively reflect the Claire uh the I'm sorry I went to my account um the Corona del Mar experience and um I think that's incredibly important to note uh um in the past couple weeks we have um Outsource pool time waking my boys up at 5am they're coming home at 10 pm um that is impacting their academics are impacting their sleep that's impacting you know not just my kids but it's the entire program from from 10 like I said from 10 to 18. so I implore you to um seek other uh options whatever it takes to uh get the the pool situation uh solution uh under sick under six months
030I think that I don't know I I don't know what the situation is it's it's a it's a pump malfunction it's a part um do we need a whole new pump can we do that within the time limit um I think we might have other options and I'd like to encourage you to seek those out thank you Rob Simonson hello good evening um thank you for your time and just to echo on the last two speakers here I'm also a parent of the CDMA water polo players and a swimmer at CDM and while I appreciate the accommodations you guys are making to find practice time uh for the for the kids right now my concern is the um that were being resourceful to find the actual broken part that needs to be found I appreciate
031how resourceful you guys have been to find pool time for us but six months to me just seems I'm not a pool expert but six months seems like an excessive amount of time to to find a pump for a pool and I know it's a little more complicated than a backyard pool but I think there's enough commercial pools here in California universities high schools hotels that have big pools I think we should be able to find the part and my my plea to you guys is that we're resourceful and we look beyond our initial vendor um I I think that can be done just give the example I'm sure if the pool went down at the Venetian in Las Vegas and the maintenance people wouldn't say well it's going to be six months I guarantee
032that thing would be up within a couple days so not that we have the same resources as them but I think um we can expedite things so thank you for your time thank you next is Halima sat before we start may I ask I know we have three minutes may I ask for half a minute more because I'm fasting and it's like the last 30 minutes left and I haven't had a sip of mortar so I keep pausing so if that's possible and I will start we have water we actually can't we can't do okay then let's start with the three minutes yeah dear members of the Board of Education dear superintendent I'm here tonight to express my deep concern and frustration with the ongoing psychological abuse and discrimination of the third graders by a
033teacher of our school for years this teacher has been verbally abusive threatening petrifying our children and accusing extreme anxiety causing extreme anxiety amongst them unfortunately despite multiple Communications with the teacher and principal my son had an anxiety attack two weeks ago due to the constant fear and stress inflicted upon Him by this teacher and when I reported his panic attack and some of you know to the principal the only action was taken yet again we will monitor the teacher my son is now going to school attending another teacher's class due to the doctor's orders yet fearing retaliation from this abusive teacher he is scared she will put him to the you know to the site during recess yell at him or I'm quoting be so mean that I will not be able to breathe since
034my son's panic attack Dearborn members and superintendent and guests I have had dozens of parents reach out to me to share their similar concerns and unresolved complaints including another panic attack of another child last year I have received received psychiatric reports from families and detail that detailed the detrimental effects that the bullying has had on their children's physical and mental health I try to encourage them to continue advocating for not only their own children but all of the kids that the teacher's class from that teacher's class and yet many tell me that they have given up after seeing no progress and change for years there were incidents with mine included where after our trial to communicate our concern with the teacher or the principal the teacher went straight to that specific child and said you're
035telling lies about me to your parents but guess what I don't care if you hate me I was finally able to trace the original letter which I will hand to you guys or I can send it via email that the children had written and handed to the principal in the beginning of the year of the school year that letter is literally a letter for their cries like you can you would cry if you read it yourself um at no point has a clear timeline of the investigation being shared with us and in no mean time our children and in that meantime our children continue to face retaliation and intimidation from school authorities I have followed every etiquette of communication with all manners by speaking first with the teacher than the principal and after seeing that
036all they do is Monitor I contacted our superintendents yet because the leadership at our school has not seen with her own eyes the Discrimination the harassment the intimidations retaliations and bullying despite years of complaints from families that teacher was still allowed to comfortably impose Stress and Anxiety into our children's lives and could not and I couldn't save nor could the other parents save their children from panic attacks thank you thank you too [Applause] next up Alicia B foreign good evening president Anderson superintendent Smith and trustees in reference to regulation 5145.3 a startling number of emails have exposed the transitioning of children in the district so I would like to point out some facts and pose some questions on March 19th trustees Bartow weigand and Pearson made a public statement with a memo to superintendent Smith
037requesting a review of The District's practices related to gender support why are only Elementary practices being discussed today in addition trustees claim to be pushing for a board policy to explicitly address making parental rights and transparency at the Forefront of parent and teacher interactions where is such proposed policy a description of tonight's anticipated report claims the nmusd does not create a counseling plan for any student without parental involvement public records is obtained by the center for American Liberty disprove this falsified statement furthermore you're providing social justice-based ruler approach mental health lessons implemented by school counselors without parental consent why blatantly lie to us Dr Smith please cite the exact wording of the law that says schools are required to fulfill students wishes and keep their transition from parents you can't because it does not exist
038the district is operating on a false premise that children's wishes supersede parental rights I on behalf of the public expect this parental secrecy policy and regulation 5154.3 to be amended and current practices that Co-op students and staff to keep confidences from students parents to be immediately ceased you are affirming children based on their assertion no evaluation no diagnosis and no consistent parental participation yet you're calling this mental health support it needs to stop now as I have previously stated under the 14th Amendment parents have the fundament fundamental rights to control the upbringing and education of their children with respect to Children's beliefs emotional development health and well-being other federal laws such as FERPA protects parental rights and any claim of complete privacy from parents is inaccurate having counseled students in districts as a school psychologist
039you are misguiding mental health professionals Mental Health Providers have the ethical obligation for confidentiality to students balanced with an understanding of parents and Guardians legal and inherent rights to be the guiding voices in their children's lives the district's affirmative practice without parental consent is proven in numerous emails has serious irreversible psychosocial and physical consequences parents given the district's lack of transparency and partnership you must immediately request to inspect and review your students educational records maintained by the school the only way out of this is litigation challenging the Constitutional protection of parental rights we want to help ensure that your rights are protected and that the underlying cause of gender dysphoria is adequately addressed always with parental consent thank you [Applause] next is Diane Wallace Diane Wells good evening good evening president Anderson trustee superintendent Smith
040can you all hear me and Newport Mesa Community the results from the 2022 California assessment of student performance and progress tests should concern all of us they show that only 58 percent of our students met or exceeded the state standard in English in math only 47 percent of our Newport Mesa students met or exceeded the state standard compared to 2019 these test results are down 46 percent these results should not be accepted by our school Community which pays for the district's budget of over 400 million dollars furthermore these results are an indicator that our resources are not aligned with improving student performance something is amiss the data suggests that District resources are being allocated to programs that are not improving student performance an example of this is an example of the 20 million dollars we're
041spending is on social and emotional programs while all of us recognize and deeply care about our kids mental health these programs account for five percent of the total school budget does total School District budget we're spending money on these SEL programs but the test results show that student performance is deteriorating despite these Investments is there any evidence to suggest that these SEL programs are improving student performance if not then let's reallocate our district resources toward the fundamentals let's teach our children how to think and teach the critical academic skills needed so that the test scores and academic performance improves thank you next is Wendy lease president Anderson and members of the scoreboard my name is Wendy Luis and I served on the board from 94 to O2 and I was also on the city council
042of Costa Mesa for eight years when I was termed out but um as a taxpayer now for 51 years I really do care about where our taxes go and with a lot of controversy and difference of opinion in the country right now especially after covid um I think that it's time that Newport Mesa uh has a financial oversight committee the budget is as well said is it's a 429 million dollars and I serve have served on the city's finance committee now for quite a few years since I was termed out but I'm also on a subcommittee which met today to meet with a financial or financial advisor as far as where our investments are and so I think that there are many people in this community who have the expertise and the willingness to help
043you so that you're not up there just rubber stamping the budget or trying to figure it out yourself so that's one thing that I'd like to bring up the other thing is as you know several years ago I really tried to promote the Chapman University Holocaust writing contest however I think there were two entries this year maybe the Early College High School maybe one other but I I wrote and asked if there were any winners from Newport Mesa none we had many meetings regarding the red cup incident and I lobbied all most of you to to talk to the teachers about the importance of our students understanding what happened in the Holocaust and I'm embarrassed that several years later we don't have any entries or winners it is a remarkable contest with writing video uh
044poetry and music there is no reason why we cannot have entries and winners finally a few months ago we had an issue on a West Side school at Wilson with a very uh inappropriate book being found in the library and I have asked through public records for a list of all the books in all of our libraries on Excel spreadsheets because we still don't know what's in our on our library shelves that we pay for so the next thing is I know we hired Consultants that are not from our neighborhood and I do not necessarily have our Community Values to scrutinize those lists well where's the where's that report thank you for your attention thank you next is Kian momini good evening thank you superintendent Smith president Anderson and members and members of the board
045my name is Kiama many and I'm a current senior at Costa Mesa High School voting has always been and continues to be our most important civic responsibility it is how we voice our opinions suggest our ideas and it Remains the most powerful tool and direct form of political participation in our Democratic Society past generations of Americans have fought to extend the right to vote to groups that once did not have this right and most recently the vote and the right to vote was granted to youth allowing them to vote at the age of 18. and in recent years young people have been considered one of the most influential voter groups yet young people still have the lowest turnout among all voter groups to provide some insight only 4 in 10 high school seniors knew what
046a midterm election is and that we just held on last year in slightly more than a year and eight months from now these students will decide the look of the next presidential term the book of the next Congress the book of local and state governments and yes these students will decide the look of this very board to break this streak of low order turnout I would urge the board to consider integrating comprehensive voter education into Secondary School curriculum this experience should enable students to identify their representatives understand the issues at stake in a particular election and most importantly understand the process of registering to vote thank you for your time [Applause] thank you next we'll have superintendent coming Dr Smith I want to start with the folks that came from CDM and address the pool
047it's one of the things that I in my meetings with is a question what gives you hope tonight like 70 days what gives me hope is a group of parents that want to find Solutions and I appreciate that mindset that's been the mindset that I've seen in emails and that was what was demonstrated today really when Tim and josephano and a group of others came in and had some ideas this pool breakdown was so much more than a pump it's a it's a total failure of the system and we welcome ideas from the community that group had some ideas for us and we're gonna we're gonna be diligent in following up on those things there will be no delays on our part that we can overcome if it's a delay outside of our control then
048then we'll report to that that to the community but I think that meeting was very very encouraging and it's like so many we have in this District so again much more than the pump we're are committed to working together and there will be no delays we can find Solutions and we know that together we have a better opportunity of finding those Solutions so thank you for that for that advocacy but also for coming to the table and saying we've got some ideas for you uh regarding uh parent and and complaints against staff we can't talk about those personal complaints in in open session just know that we take those accusations seriously and we can't report out on formal investigations but we take them very very seriously the thing the parents said that we have to
049make sure we ensure on our campuses that there's no retaliation for somebody bringing these truths forward so that's our commitment that we will respond in kind we value the input of our parents and we have to maintain these safe places where there won't be retaliation regarding AR 5145.3 the Community member herself identified that it's on the agenda I'm not certain why it was brought up at this point but I'll just say that we have that agenda as we'll have that conversation um with the board tonight so that will be coming up students performance we're glad when the community members come forward and want to talk about student performance those are the days talking about how our students are doing and how we can do better right and we've had at this Deus that Focus that's
050why this board has now on every board agenda wasn't there for prior boards student achievement called out on every agenda that's why we came to this meeting and shared those state right Statewide metrics also articulated why because of the pandemic and participation rates that data really isn't reliable or valid but it is a metric the state uses we've also since then had a demonstration of our reading data which is real liable and valid we showed how reading scores in early literacy are better than they've ever been because the board had that as an objective we've got to improve our achievement by focusing on early literacy and it's working and that's exciting tonight we're going to talk about some more of that student achievement things that are valid that are reliable and how our students are
051doing on these Advanced courses participation rates it's exciting stuff I want to get in front of the team because they want to share the good news but if you really are concerned about achievement in the district stay tuned there's some great things coming forward uh public records requests and other processes we we follow those we make sure that we involve attorneys and we always provide what we have and then just to the student there's no clarification needed I just appreciate students coming advocating for things like Civics and promoting Civics in our schools so to that student my commentary isn't a part of this but right on thank you that's also one of those things that gives me hope I appreciate your courage it's not easy for a student to come and stand in front of
052all of us as uh genteel as we look setting up here at the Deus so thank you to the student and that concludes my clarifications next we will have Community input on agendized items trustee weigandt this is an opportunity for the public to address the board regarding items on the regular meeting agenda comments 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 that item is considered by the board if the speaker prefers okay first up We Have Bryce Krauss hi my name is Bryce Krauss I'm a resident of Newport Beach eight years I'm a business owner and a family man I have my
053third son coming in three weeks and uh I just think it's kind of sad that I'm not going to be able to put my kids into our school districts because of what you're pumping into their heads I'm glad I'm here in front of uh my crowd sounds like and uh I'm just calling I'm just here to to call attention I'm gonna awaken my community and I'm sure some of you board members that are up here um didn't start this problem as I'm learning it's been ongoing since about 2016 but you are enhancing it so I'm going to awaken my Community and Mental Health and parental involvement wow okay so uh so clearly what we're doing as a school board um as Educators as teachers isn't working if now you guys are um focus on their
054mental health and what your creation is doing to our students so we need to pull way back and get back to the fundamentals of teaching because what we're doing right now isn't working so thank you next India Howerton hi my name is India Howerton I'm a sophomore at Costa Mesa High School where I serve as my class secretary I'm coming today concerned with the hysteria transphobia and misinformation that is infiltrating our community in regards to students and gender identity state law IB 1266 requires our schools to maintain to maintain confidentiality regarding a student's gender support plan and or preferred pronouns unless this student provides staff with permission to inform others this includes parents I want to point out that this is a state law so debates and threats of lawsuits towards our school board are
055misplaced they must follow state law however I also want to speak to why I support the state law and why I'm glad that nmusd is following it let's start by being clear that this is a law around social transitioning not MediCal or hormonal transitioning for which parental consent should be necessary social transitioning might mean that a student decides to go by different pronouns or uses a different name at school that better reflects their gender identity sadly for many transgender students the prospect of informing their parents of their desire to socially transition can be scary and in some cases unsafe many transgender youth come from families that may not be supporting or accepting of their gender identity which can lead to rejection harassment or even violence in some cases allowing a student to socially transition without
056informing their parents can be a life-saving measure transgender youth are at a greater risk for depression and anxiety than their peers a recent study found that transgender youth had significantly higher rates of depression and anxiety nearly half reporting symptoms of depression and 77.3 percent reporting symptom reporting symptoms of anxiety transgender youth are also more likely to experience suicidal ideation and attempts with 51 percent of respondents reporting suicidal ideation and 30 percent responding reporting a suicide attempt within the last 12 months if we care about youth we have to look at these difficult statistics and act accordingly family rejection can have a negative tags on the mental health of transgender youth research has shown that transgender youth who experience family rejection are at a higher risk for depression anxiety and suicide attempts schools have a responsibility
057to ensure the well-being and safety of their students allowing students to socially transition without informing parents can be an important step in supporting these students and creating a safe and inclusive learning environment for all by affirming the gender of identity of these students and allowing them to live as their authentic selves schools can help prevent the psychological distress and social isolation that often accompanies the experience of being transgender opponents of allowing students to socially transition without informing parents May argue that such a policy violates the rights of a parent to be informed about their child's education and well-being however it is important to remember that the well-being and safety of the student should always be the top priority by supporting transgender students in their gender identity and allowing them to live as their authentic selves
058schools can help prevent the psychological distress and social isolation often accompanies the experience of being transgender thank you [Applause] next bill Dunlop thank you good evening board members uh welcome new board members and thank you president Anderson and superintendent Smith for allowing me to speak I appreciate that very much over the last two years our group has been very involved in obtaining and reviewing uh through public records requests uh the curriculum being used by our children this has been done legally with General correspondence and as I said with Pras through this discovery it's become apparent that the district is communicating internally with teachers and staff and is not doing the same with the general public this was brought to light most recently in the front page article of the epoch times on Monday March 20th
059that article exposed the intent of the district regarding promoting an agenda of indoctrination and transitioning including SEL and Dei that is not approved policy by the district to have Mrs Franco come out with a public announcement standing behind AB 1266 which was just mentioned is somewhat of an egregious disregard for the transparency that is due the parents that law does not address transitioning and does not address counseling which is taking place in The District in our form of government Democratic Republic at that being we the pair of parents and taxpayers have the right to know what our children are being taught and exposed to it is the duty of the board the transparency and Truth obligation of the board as a priority to do so when those elected officials who we pay for disregard that
060responsibility be not exposing these violations we lose public trust and we're concerned why must we inquire and research over all these months why are we doing the homework for you it's all in your files in your computers yet for two years we've had to dig into the files through Pras legal letters to find out what you saw in the epoch times that information you've had why are we paying for you and we're doing your work so it seems that the truth and transparency is a bad dream for you guys you just want to have it go away where is the leadership and courage and integrity you committed to when you all ran for the board are you really afraid of the marginal woke and the radical left who are trying to drive the agenda of
061a whole District uh demographics don't play that out in this District at all last year we had the flamer issue and of course you guys we found out about it we discovered it we had all the discussions we won't go into that but the bottom line is that you promised to investigate and get to the bottom of it but here we go again we have another issue regarding what's being taught to our kids through counseling and transitioning and then you come out with a statement that says we are committed to full investigation by the district well it's too little too late you leap from the front not from the rear we're tired of leadership [Applause] it's three minutes we actually we are cute we actually have multiple speakers on this topic and if we had
062liked we could have done two minutes and we allowed everybody to have their full three minutes so please respect that time so everyone has time to speak thank you um Patricia corett is next Patricia interpreter see good evening everyone thank you so much for allowing me this opportunity to speak in front of the students I'm a little nervous tonight because I had not prepared anything yes so I'd like to give my opinion I've heard many negative things on social media about our district I really uh was very positive to hear Miss India's uh comment is so I would say that even students are not prepared for gender identity and that topic because even uh within them they they're not ready for this because of the cruelty message this happened with my daughter and this is
063why I'm sharing this is so something else I'd like to mention that really offended me because I am Mexican is and the tradition of the quinceanera is for a 15 year old to dress up to have her dress boys do not usually have kids I must must respect but I do have to respect gender identity I have to respect how others think is Escuela so now we speak about mental health we speak about positive things negative things we as adults are supposed to be supporting our children when children need help they where do they go they go to school yes he says so I have three children 18 16 and 13. so unfortunately a year ago one of my daughters was questioned by one of the mental health professionals because she had an incident at
064that school so because of that there was anxiety and I didn't say that the psychiatrists said that do we have an additional minute for the Translating gracias thank you so now I will be talking about my son he has an IEP Nosotros so now I would like to talk about um what the woman mentioned her son uh just eight years old and already having anxiety how is this possible how can we not help our children as adults so my son had a problem the teacher tried to tell him go to the office leave their classroom he didn't follow those instructions and I will remind you that he has a 9p gorilla so the person in charge of uh safety there whispered into his ear do you want me to embarrass you in front of your
065friends so do you think that's fair to tell a student that has an IEP I can't imagine what kids eight-year-olds at CDM are going through and now he's 13 years old and he was able to share that with me please do something for our children gracias thank you [Applause] next is Haley Jenkins hello superintendent Smith president Anderson and members of the board I'm going to read a part of an email I received from head of student services Sarah Coley last August the same Sarah Coley that's a part of most of these emails floating around the gender support plan helps the transitioning student know the options and to designate the preference to the school administration but it is not required for a student to have one it is encouraged to have parents part of the process
066but under law it is not required the student can request that District Personnel address the student by a name and pronouns consistent with the student's gender identity without parent permission as required under ab1266 my email is one of those in that large email dump online floating around so I guess everybody can read it if they want um just for families listening Miss Coley's statement is false the district likes to play word games with you all um assuming they know better than you nowhere not even once in ab1266 does it say that schools are required to keep a student's gender preference quiet from parents no wording at all about that in fact one part of it states the parents or legal guardian of the pupil shall be notified in a general manner at least once in
067the advance of career counseling and course selection so that they may participate in the counseling sessions and decisions president Anderson members of the board call these counselors and administrators out hold them accountable for their actions to transition a child of any age but especially in elementary school and not inform their parents is one of the most shameful and disgusting acts of overreach of power California Alliance for education has lawyers on hand right now to protect families rights and hold everyone here accountable the community put their trust in you and voted for all of you especially the new ones to sit up here and make decisions in the best interests of their children you have failed on protecting them already from the library book pornography we never got a report on that there's still some at
068Mariners I was just there the other day you've approved hateful anti-bias education and social emotional I mean social justice education the test scores are still abysmal the list is getting pretty long Beyond finally approving building a theater or installing some new scoreboards what have you done for our children thank you next is Shawna McDougall hello members of the board I'm here tonight to speak out for the community for the parents that can't be here for parents that don't know about what is going on relating to the secrecy policies relative to transitioning kids as early as kindergarten and withholding that information from the parents um I'm the chief domestic officer at the McDougall residence which means I'm a mother of two children that don't go to the public school but I'm here because my tax dollars
069are paying for the public school and I have a say so in what goes on in these schools to preserve our community in the next generation of leaders such as yourselves but I will I will say this you need to be 21 to drink 18 to vote and we are now preparing children without the approval of the parents to go down a very um a very risky uh lifestyle puberty blockers and things like this which could forever impact the fertility of children at an age when they don't have the ability to really know what is Fantasyland and will soon come to pass and it is the parents that help their children through this fantasy process of coming to reality so I I'm just asking all of you to really think about your child and what
070you would like and I'm I'm sure that most of you here would prefer to be involved with those types of decisions so as you're doing your job bear that in mind and save this decision for an adult to make and let's focus on getting our grades up Mr Smith let's focus on Reading Writing and arithmetic and not social emotional welfare leave that in the home thank you Wendy lease foreign good evening again I'm superintendent Smith members of the board and president Anderson I'm sure you're all familiar with the quote not to speak is to speak not to act is to act and that's from Dietrich Bonhoeffer the full quote is silence in the face of evil is itself evil God will not hold us Guiltless not to speak is to speak not to act as
071to act you know that Lou thought that he was a Lutheran Pastor a Nazi dissident and he was in prison for several years and he was hung on April 9 1945 when the Nazi regime collapsed in a few years a few weeks later he would have been free he was martyred for speaking up and I started speaking and before the Newport Mesa ward in the 80s the mid-80s because then there were safe sex indoctrination happening in our high schools and as a parent of five children I I just in with my neighbors kids we just didn't feel that that was appropriate with our tax dollars and thankfully there was a state law and there was abstinence and it was a whole we won and and it was put into Newport Mesa in the 90s um
072and Mr Dunlap and I spoke up about the age inappropriate books at Newport Harbor when our daughters were there about 15 60 years ago and now I'm speaking up about parents rights to raise their children there are children my neighbor's children and we want to preserve our family values and we pay taxes and we have a right to speak up we do not want you to Cave in to the vague State administrative regulations which may give you a vague authority to direct staff to hide a children's gender change from his or her parents a 12 year old has no idea what's ahead I teach kids at a hospital what kids are there you know from because they want to take their lives and it's a very complex issue it's not just the gender thing it's
073it's the parents the family and and Trauma and abuse it's it's not just one thing I want you to take courage and speak up for the parents to not cave in to Dr Smith in the the district attorneys and to to have courage and have a backbone we elected you to represent us this indoctrination Trend that's coming down from Sacramento and and we don't want it here I spoke about the bathrooms the gender neutral bathrooms at Harbor a few months ago we didn't want that either this is Newport Mesa if you want to have that kind of stuff then Northern California is a more liberal cities fine but um think about that quote not to speak is to speak not to act is to act please act and please [Applause] Matt Armstrong president Anderson members
074of the board superintendent Smith I watched last week's board meeting when some of the people that were here tonight that are here tonight were complaining about a proposed HPV vaccine mandate and I don't have a pony in that race but what I do know is that the folks at Newport Mesa uncensored have a new complaint every month whether it's pandemic shutdowns mask mandates vaccine requirements book Banning teaching race sex ed assembly Bill 1266 they have a dart board of manufactured drama to satisfy their need for outrage you'll never satisfy these people and for this reason alone they are not to be taken seriously if you need more evidence that they're unserious people here we go they still have a list of Newport Harbor staff who they've named on their sexual grooming reel they still have
075it real on their Instagram that questions the very Humanity of our queer students in other words some of the most privileged middle to upper middle class adults in our community are attacking some of the most vulnerable teenagers on our campuses this is what we call punching down still earlier this follow a group of our lgbtq students wrote a letter to Newport Mason uncensored asking them to explain why they have such a problem with our trans students and guess what they did not reply they won't discuss their trumped-up grievances directly with those whom they target yet they have a pro they have no problem spouting off on social media or to a conspiracy mongering rag like the epoch times all reasons not to take Newport Mesa uncensored seriously last week one member or one speaker described
076our community as conservative and if for the sake of argument we take that at face value then it should be noted that the voters of this conservative Community rejected the Newport Mesa uncensored slate of candidates resoundingly electing four of you in absolute landslides ranging from 19 to 34 percentage points so it is the voters you can take seriously they have given you a mandate to listen to the voices of reason and I encourage you to represent them thank you [Applause] have achievement or spring assessments good evening Dr Smith president Anderson members of the board and community as Dr Smith mentioned every board meeting per year direction we really start grounding ourselves both in the achievements of the students that we saw this evening their holistic view on success and the experiences they have at school
077as well as talking about academic achievement and it's important in Spring to set the context of the lives of many of our students and the things that happen throughout the spring that allow us to assess both how we've done throughout the school year and how our system is doing so you could say that teaching and learning is really an issue of simplexity seems very easy we just say what we're gonna do teachers teach students learn and then they demonstrate Mastery but what everybody knows is there's so many layers in that the individual micro decisions that teachers are making in the moment to understand how to get every student to respond how to draw out the best in them how to monitor where students are what they need next the type of questions they need to
078ask it really is quite a delicate balance and then we're looking at all the places where students and decisions that affect students are made from the district level to the site level to the classroom and all of that is a constant interchange of information and data so one of the things we know that is incredibly important is the way in which students demonstrate Mastery and they're really three large buckets one is how they do that in the classroom much of that is teacher created some of it is in the moment some of it's daily some of it's weekly a lot of parents experience it with their students at the end of semesters or the end of large units when we see larger assessments these can be curriculum-bounds they can be teacher created but always assessing
079they're always assessing how are students doing how is this Landing what's being retained what comes next then we look at assessments now again there are those classroom level assessments but they're also local level assessments we've reported to you before about some of the reading assessments that are happening in the district how we're monitoring the growth of reading across our early grades and upper grades and as we know we've talked about really quite a lot in the fall the state level assessments s-back assessments how we're doing in math reading and Science and how those have been looking at the kind of macro level of the district but they're also National level assessments many of which happen in the spring as well for our secondary students we'll take a glimpse into that and then as you know
080in our district real world application is also of high interest we have CTE classes and others like that where we're looking at Hands-On demonstrations of what students know and can do and other types of certifications all of these important we're always trying to increase all of these and allow students multiple ways and methods to demonstrate what they know so there's a lot happening in the spring as you know there's Seasons to uh the year they're also seasons in the classroom joy and hope in the beginning get to the holiday season now it's kind of a mad rush to get in what we can before these large assessment and big things big assessments that affect and impact students in their lives and so this is just a little glimpse of what that looks like at the
081different levels again we know as students age the importance and kind of rigor of those tests begin to multiply so they have semester exams they have finals at the end of the years they have AP they have IB all of these other types of Assessments in addition to things like the S back and the lpac and things that are happening for all of our students but again just a little window of the types of things that are going on we know so much is happening for all of our students all year long there's a lot of um high anxiety and high interest in what's happening in the spring one of the things we want to show is the level of international Baccalaureate success in the district now there are two things the district would aim
082to do one is increase the number of students who are having access to the exam because what that means is you also have access to the class many times those are some of our most veteran teachers everybody wants those teachers wants to be in those classes and do well on the exams so we're looking to increase the number of students who have exposure and how well they're doing we know that International Baccalaureate is a program found at Newport Harbor but we're very proud of the level of passing rates for those tests it shows not only how well the teachers are doing in that class but how well the students are doing those are important indicators for the system additionally we have advanced placement AP as many students know at all our high schools and every
083high school has different types of classes that they offer but one of the things that we're proud of now we know that covet had an impact on everybody's system but we are testing more students more students enrolled in AP classes this year than ever before again level of rigor access to college-like post-secondary real world classroom experiences students and families choosing to put themselves in classes that are going to require a lot of attention so we're very proud of that effort and you see listed along the road the types of classes that are offered always looking for ways to increase that think about how many sections we have enrollment by gender and enrollment by grade and what we know of course is that usually the longer the student's been in school so our Juniors and our
084seniors are those looking to take more AP classes it gives you both a bump in your GPA it has a weighted percent and it also is attractive to schools as it indicates to those in post-secondary land that you have taken very rigorous courses and been exposed to kind of that level of intellectual Pursuit again while we do have the covid bump we also continue to see an increase we continue to see a an increase in how well students are doing on the exam and how well they're doing in class again not every student in AP or IB will necessarily take the test there are a lot of reasons for that we look to eliminate barriers or along the way so that every student who is interested in that continues to go forward but we know
085some students for various reasons and families decide not to take those tests and then just kind of a little synopsis of how we use all of this outcome data for students these important things that they're engaging in the spring the levels of impact the outcome data has on where these decisions are made so of course students and families are making decisions about how well they did what they're willing to invest in classrooms what they're going to take next if they're being the you know type of student they see themselves wanting to be then we know sites are deciding how many sections are we going to have what types of courses are we going to offer what type of support do teachers need in professional development or resources to ensure we're doing our best and at
086the district level this type of data informs our curricular choices are these books getting us the outcomes we want are these materials that we've selected the level of professional development it also helps our site principals and other District leadership focus on where we need to improve and what we need to do next so this is just a brief snapshot of what spring looks like in schools and the level of Assessments that we take very seriously all our staff and our students when we wanted to make sure that everyone is aware of the level of intent we have to ensure that our students are prepared and that our systems are serving them well any questions yes trustee weigand um so I just want to clarify on the um slide slide five that's um the the pass
087rate is the percentage so we had in 2021 91 of our students that took an AP test passed it yeah three or above yes that's outstanding yes yeah it's amazing IB oh IB got it yeah International backwards sorry about that yes thank you for clarifying that yeah thank you next up we will have our report on elementary elementary mental health practices and parental involvement good evening president Anderson Dr Smith our Board of Education cabinet and all of our guests in the audience tonight we are very pleased to stand in front of you this evening and provide you some information to report on some Elementary Mental Health Services and practices I'm Carrie Torres I'm our assistant superintendent of secondary education and this is Dr Sarah jochum who is our assistant superintendent of student Support Services special
088services and the reason I ask that is because we just changed our divisions and so um tonight both Dr jochim and I are going to be presenting together because um just recently after evaluating some of our district practices and looking at efficiencies within our systems we decided to share some work and move some work around and so tonight you're going to hear from both of us because most recently just after the first of the year at the beginning of 2023 we moved our student services division over to Educational Services and so uh we chose to do that because we really felt like that would be a more efficient model for our students really being able to connect the work directly with schools so it's going to take two of us tonight to share information because
089we have some new information for you some next steps and then we also have some hysterosity and some some information we'd like to share um since we're making up words tonight um hysterosity um from from years past and so I think it is important to ground us and ground our guests tonight in where we come from but I just want to remind us tonight that we are here to talk about the um you know information on Elementary Mental Health Services and practices and really to keep in mind and ground ourselves in the work that we do for students and that all the services that we provide for students are really to support them and allow them an opportunity to seek support to feel socially safe and to feel safe and successful for themselves so I
090just ask you to keep that in the back your mind as you hear us tonight and you take copious notes and you ask us questions that that's where we ground our work so I'm going to have Dr Jacob switch places with me for just a moment thank you president Anderson members of the board Dr Smith student board members who stayed and uh everyone else in the audience I want to give a little bit of background on both where the federal and state laws exist to ensure that civil rights protections for students who identify as transgender which include the responsibility for a school district to support them through their social emotional mental health and well-being for all students regardless of what their identified gender is and then in California as we look kind of locally and
091what our requirements are and we have our requirement and a responsibility as a school district to treat all students equally on the basis of their gender and identify the programs and services that they need and that also includes the required use of that transgender student's chosen pronoun and that is a requirement within California and so when these changes came within the state school districts within California developed what we call a gender support plan and it really is to make sure that the district is meeting their obligations um and kind of checking all the boxes it's often used as a checklist and it's for two reasons one how we're going to support that student during the school day and make sure that they feel safe and supported and are able to access their education that's the
092purpose make sure they can stay in school and access their education and kind of the second purpose of having that gender support plan is also protection for the district we have that plan and then if there's any questions later on we can and can demonstrate what the plan said we were going to do and if we actually followed what that plan says so I think it's important to keep in mind that when we talk about gender support plans and I know Kerry's going to talk about this again they are not transition plans sometimes that word gets used interchangeably and that's not um that's not what this is we do not transition students to a different gender we do not provide any medical support any Medical Counseling anything like that this is strictly a plan for
093how to socially support the student to navigate their school day with their classrooms with their PE facilities Sports all of those things that comprise a student school day so how do we use gender support plans and what's been our process since 2016-2017 when when this first became implemented number one we've had this overarching belief that our students deserve to feel safe on campus and we need parent involvement to be able to achieve that one doesn't outweigh the other they're both important to our work and since the Inception of this gender support plan work there's been an understanding and a knowledge of the importance and the necessity of parent involvement at the in the plant especially at the elementary level and beginning in the 2016-17 school year um we did training with our elementary principals our
094school psychologists and they received training and worked closely with our director of student services at the time on this plan how to implement it how to work through this plan here's some key points that I want you to take away from the implementation of this plan gender support plans are parent and or student initiated often at the elementary level students don't know what to call what they need they don't go up to somebody and say I need a gender support plan they may talk to somebody and say I'm struggling I want I have this name I prefer to be called this then it becomes the responsibility of District staff with parents to dig deeper into that and to say really what are we looking at um you know I want it to be called Princess
095when I was younger and nobody you know nobody did that so we want to take all of those factors into consideration as we look at our kids we want to ask more questions just because someone says I need this or I want this there's questions that need to go along with that work so the student the parent and at the elementary level the principal were the core team that would look at identifying gender support plans for students um and often at the elementary level at that time a school psychologist was involved and supported the principal in asking the questions worked with the family to create that plan now of course we have some additional staff we have coordinators in student services who also serve in that role we have a different director of student services
096who support School sites with these plans and we also have Elementary counselors at our school sites who can help support students and families and so the school sites work together to determine who those appropriate people are to develop that plan with that family sometimes the teacher is included in the development of that plan in conjunction with the counselor and the principal so the creation of a gender support plan does not include counseling there are opportunities if that's something that the student needs to build that into the plan and have the parent consent to that but it's not an automatic part of a gender support plan there's no counseling that goes along with that as a as a matter of course and one of the things that um we have done in this district is not
097provide counseling to elementary students without parent permission and parent support and our practice has always been starting in 2016-17 to involve parents in the creation of these gender support plans at the elementary level we have parent signatures on the gender support plan we also have in some cases where students have asked for a gender support plan and in those conversations with the families they have declined and a gender support plan has not been created when the family has parents have said that's not an Avenue they would like to explore at that time with their students so I think that overall what I am hoping to get is in in terms of historically kind of what our philosophy and our practice and our training has been is that we do involve parents in the creation and
098development of any gender support plans at the elementary level and I will say that training for our new administrators and for our new counselors on this topic has been pretty inconsistent since the pandemic and as we came back from the pandemic it wasn't the top of the of the list items so I know that um Carrie is going to talk a little bit later about a couple of things in including kind of restructuring that training and really what that oversight is going to look like to help provide um what I think the board has asked for which is kind of the oversight to these plans and making sure that they do include parent involvement I'm going to turn it back over to Kerry thank you Dr Jacob and I really do appreciate the clarification between
099you know social supporting socially supporting students and medical transition because those are definitely things that we do not uh we do not do um we had a chance to really dig into this topic last week and I had the opportunity and pleasure to meet with all of our counselors in the district I had meetings last week to specifically address the concerns and questions that our board and Community had brought forward and so I am confident in saying that our counselors were very responsive to the discussions and the desire for ongoing training so Dr Jacob mentioned that training was punctuated because of the pandemic and just other priorities at the time but we are prepared to revisit that training and it's also a good time because as things change nothing is always the same or stagnant
100and so when we started this journey back in 2016 we're now in 2023 things change and we want to make sure that we're current so we are prepared to do that and our counselors overwhelmingly supported that had a chance to talk with secondary counselors in one group and then with Elementary counselors in another and that's important because the needs of students well can be similar our secondary students are a little bit more independent than our elementary students so we needed to kind of draw out some information from each of those groups and it was very a very good meeting because they were able to share their current practices which Dr jockton has described and really ask good questions and again asking for that training so you can have confidence in knowing that moving forward we
101will be providing additional training um Dr Jacob mentioned something else which is um you know parent involvement and that is one of the values and tenets of the groups that we met with last week the other group we met with was on principals we got to see all principles last week and we met with them and talked to them about this process and how they see it reflected in their school sites and that was also a very informational conversation but all these groups resonated the value of parent participation at all levels and that at no time are they seeking out working independently and away from families they describe circumstances where families have actually turned them away and didn't want their help and we understand that but our groups of people and our professionals are are
102grounded in the value of engaging parents and they are looking forward to new ways to find ways to talk with parents about these very difficult issues that our students face no matter what age we can always be better and we can always be more clear in our work and so um we've done a lot of groundwork over the past few years but we can do better how can we do better we can take a look at our policies and procedures that are written we can try to be more transparent as we move forward into this journey what does that look like I know the board has asked questions about what policies and procedures could be evaluated and maybe be refined to be more reflective of 2023 practices that is something that Dr Smith has asked
103us to look at and that we are willing to undertake and share as we move forward but we can be better we can be more clear and we can ensure that our language demonstrates the values of the district that we do not engage in these types of plans without parental involvement while students at all levels have a level of protection and privacy we know that our trained professionals which are teachers counselors administrators have every ability to help bring parents along in the process and they've described in their actions how they've done that in the past so we will continue to work on that and bring those documents forward as we continue to review them um in terms of of our focus and our work with staff as a professional team as an executive team as
104our principals lead schools we do everything we can to train our our teams and set expectations that happens at all levels and on occasion that system may break or fail so we may have somebody in our organization who steps out of the boundaries doesn't stay in their Lane that could happen but if it did you should have all the confidence that when that's brought forward to us we would address that because we do have guard rails for all of us our employees in how we interact and support students at all levels whether it's academic achievement it's counseling athletic programs we all have rules and expectations that we get to follow and those are the tenets of our organization and if at any time that happens I just want you to know that we'd be willing
105to look at that and investigate that and address it because that's important to us because we do want to make sure that we're clear and that we're providing correct information but we want to do everything we can to ensure that we are following um following our values but if for some reason that does not happen I want you to know that we would look into that and we intend to do so and I know um that we currently had a concern brought forward from some of our emails that we've seen and that we will do everything we can to investigate those and I believe our investigation has already begun and so we're confident that we'll be able to deal with that and then just in closing we just want to remind our community and all
106those who are listening tonight that if at any time your student needs assistance we're here to help you there's many people on our campuses that can do that to our students if there's at any time you need assistance there's people you can go to um and if at any time you feel like we're not approaching something in the correct manner in the way you see it ask questions we appreciate those it allows us to be able to provide the correct information moving forward thank you questions trustee Bartow .com so I have a few questions um as someone who has a gender plan currently um I just have a few questions about how it differs from elementary school to secondary school that I'm in as far as how a student can get a gender support plan
107when it's approached like does a student have to go through a principal or can they go through a teacher or is it something where they can get counseling on their own like just can they go to a counselor not with this in mind and then have it end up being something that's approached later so at the elementary level it looks a little bit differently and so if a student were to say something to a teacher or to a counselor then that would go through with the team with the principal and the counselor and they would have that conversation and include the parent then in terms of saying what are the next steps to support this student but they would also let the student know that well and we're going to have a conversation with your
108parent if the student you know has concerns about that then there's a better a bigger conversation with the student about you know well help me understand what your concerns are and then there's maybe different paths that we go down not to say we're going to do a plan without the parent support but it may be that we work with that student on how to disclose to the parent if they haven't done that we know that kids are more successful transitioning when they have family support yeah um I also know that as I have my mom here and she's also always been a support to me but I wanted to ask in following to that that okay so when a student does this uh they don't have to go forward with the plan like if it
109is notified to the student that their parent will be notified and they don't wish for this to happen can they withdraw their wish for a plan yes okay thank you and so you also asked a little bit about how the plans differ right now the plan the checklist looks the same from elementary to secondary and that's one of the things that Miss Torres was talking about in terms of as we and kind of tighten up our process that the elementary plan will look a little bit differently and it will talk about um you know parent involvement um more upfront than it currently does yeah I can add to that Moss excellent question by the way and right now um we don't have currently anybody who's on a plan who didn't want one and whose parents
110you know whose parents hasn't been informed or involved and if any time a student has said pump the brakes we pump the brakes and that's the way it's supposed to work amazing um thank you for the clarification uh everything you've said sounds very reasonable my bigger question though is how we kind of got to hear some of the emails were very shocking had some shocking things in them and um some of the the claims are pretty horrifying um that the the allegations that were made um can you go through how um we're ensuring that parents are involved just so that we don't get to a point where we have these emails that show this thing that says maybe something we didn't do maybe something we did do but I feel like that shouldn't have come
111out in the first place if if we have such good practices um and then also um how in regards to the secret components can we talk about that secret what was that the secrecy component that okay yeah so in terms of emails in terms of the emails that are being referred to you know those were gathered through a cpra request and those that have been shared online unfortunately don't represent the entire conversation having said that um you know there's conversation there that does look scary right and looks like as though there might be staff overreach and so that's one of the things that we're taking a look at just to ensure that there wasn't anybody who may have overstepped their boundaries and uh maybe recruited students instead of letting students come forward so one of
112the questions that Moss had was kind of like well how does this happen right how does how do we approach gender support plans you know the student is the one to come forward and then we support the student in their needs we as adults should not be looking for the students or so you know seeking them out so we need to ensure through through those emails and through that investigation that that is what we're looking for we are going to determine whether or not anything happened there in terms of secrecy um we can always I had mentioned earlier you know we can always do a better job and we can always continue to work with our staff to be more clear and transparent and that's just us meaning us myself and our team working directly
113with those that are involved with the plans to be able to understand like what their responsibilities are and what the expectation to communicate to families would be so that it wouldn't be in secret now sorry the um the query that we did with all of our counselors Elementary and secondary and principals also indicated that um with all of the gender support plans they have on their campuses that parent involvement um was part of those plans so that was kind of our secrecy you know let's do a little due diligence on that you know concern or complaint and that was the information we received back was that parents have been involved in all of the gender support plans at all of our schools at this time thank you because that's the thing I think as parents
114people really would you know if that happened with my student and I didn't know that would be really hard for me as a parent who'd want to support you know however I chose to support my student I'd want to know what's going on in my child's life because you know it's not an isolated decision um how are we protecting students who aren't a gender support plan who um you know I think one concern on both sides is um just sort of kindness and humanity and how we're approaching that so that students who are you know in need of support from the school site or who are unfamiliar with these sorts of things how are we supporting um families with all of that because I think it's it's it is new territory that we haven't gone
115through before I think it's a the reason it's a controversial topic is because this is New Territory for schools um I think there's a lot of conversations that people are going to need to have in order to come up with you know the right way but what are we doing to ensure kind of that that safety piece for all students and that's an important piece because the whole intent of these plans is to ensure a student feels safe on campus Because at some point students who are coming forward have a need whether they have a need to talk to somebody about how they're feeling what they want you know they're trying to flesh out their feelings to how they want to be seen on campus and how they how and what they need to feel
116safe so to answer that question part of the process is you know through students coming forward they're basically alerting someone hopefully their counselor that I need something right so and they're there to tell us what they need and then we can be the connector of that in working with their parents to say your child has come forward these are some of the things they're sharing with this how can we help and so if parents are accepting of that help and are consenting to that type of partnership with us for this issue then we can connect them to internal resources that we have and then we have external Partnerships where they can provide supports to students and so that's done with families so we don't I think you may have heard that earlier but I'll definitely
117it's worth repeating is we don't provide any like one-on-one counseling services to any student without parent consent so if a student comes forward and needs support and needs to feel safe and needs help a lot of times parents don't know where to go sometimes we're the first person to have told them this or to have their child bring forward in bravery with us to say something so we need to be able to have resources available to them and we do if they want them if they don't want them then we can we refer them to go ahead and find help on their own is there a way that when we go through the process of kind of how we do this we can let parents know what to expect from their school side so you
118know what we we're setting up our process I think communicating to parents what that process is is going to be helpful overall because I think whether parents do want to go forward or not with their student kind of knowing that that's out there what the district process is I think people do well with clear expectations I think staff does well with clear expectations I think it enforces those guard rails all around so there are no surprises um do we have a way that we're going to kind of outline that and communicate that to parents well I think this is timely because the training component is going to be really important for the people who are going to execute the work so when we talk about school counselors Elementary secondary uh when you think about secondary
119schools you've got assistant principals who at times are are pulled in and then of course site principles and so they're going to be part of the conversation about how we make this process Tighter and better and how we can communicate it why it was so important for us to triangulate the information last week and talk to secondary counselors Elementary principals other mental health professionals that we have in the district was to get that kind of feedback to understand first of all what's the current work and our current practices and secondly what were they telling us we need to do better at or where they were confused or concerned or unsure of their work and so they're going to be part of that for us to be able to move forward and do what you're asking
120which is to be able to outline a detailed kind of a Next Step FAQ for families who come forward and what to expect what you can expect and what we can give to them and their families thank you I think that would be great if the one the board could kind of know what that is but also that that could be communicated to all parents just so they again know what to expect um one and for you and then I have a question for our attorneys um is there we don't currently have a we have lots of board policies and we have lots of board policies around lots of things that could be helpful for Parental transparency um and our board has really prioritized that over the last several years we added the parent engagement
121component to our lcap um it's one of our priorities to speak to the community more often I think we've made a lot of efforts in that direction and I think we could continue to do better um one thing I'd like to explore and this is more of a question for my fellow board members is how we whether we I think it'd be worthwhile to pursue a parental engagement transparency kind of policy um reasonable and fair but just something to let parents know that we are aware that a lot of state laws have come down which have changed what school boards can do and um you know we we recognize that kids spend more time with their spend more time out of school than in school in most cases and so I if there are models
122for that that either you guys come across or we as boards can research I think I'd love to do that um and then lastly my question comes to kind of the the first causes of all of this and would you mind uh going over how we get to what the uh California school districts uphold in regards to privacy and things okay we should probably introduce ourselves Tony DeMarco and Sarah Young we have the privilege to serve the district in the legal services capacity where we're with the firm basically Irvine Atkinson Anderson and like trustee Bartow indicated we're here to answer any legal questions you might have so a little bit about privacy yes because that was actually one of my questions that I had early on was how we got from ab1266 to well where
123we are so I want to kind of clarify ab1266 from this idea of privacy and what we're talking about so ab1266 is a specific rule about gender and gender equity in schools and what it gives us is really clear rules which are in your your administrative regulation that when a student identifies as female or male whatever they identify we have to respect that as Educators and allow them to use the facilities that align with that allow them to do activities and other kind of sex segregated programs so um if we have any sex segregated clubs if our high school does boys versus girls at a pep rally they go where they want to go that is what ab1266 does it also includes that if our counselors are doing academic or career counseling or College counseling
124they represent and respect the gender the student identifies and they can't say oh you're a girl homemaking for you they have to just respect and do everything they also have to invite parents once a year to come participate in that college career high school type academic counseling okay that's 1266. we also have General non-discrimination obligations for students that includes that if a student comes to me and says I'm Sarah I identify now as Sean I identify as a male pronoun if you choose to not use that you're discriminating against me you are required to do that that is a general non-discrimination that we have to do we got in some questions and some concerns from the community from you guys from the diocese from your staff about privacy so if a student comes to me
125and says I know I've always been Sarah I'm Sean now don't tell my mom what do you do as an educator it's a Sticky Wicket you know do you respect that student do you follow your non-discrimination do you tell the mom so in California we have the California Constitution Article 1 Section one all people have inalienable rights of privacy all people doesn't say 18 plus 21 plus all people so we have a right to privacy I just told you something very private about myself I expect that you're going to keep it private I didn't broadcast it on Facebook if I tell you please don't tell my mom that was a private conversation I had with a staff member I trust now you have a tenant of parent engagement that's where we get that parent piece
126of how can I come back and talk to your mom about this California separate from the Constitution has Ed code there's Ed code section that says if you are 12 or older so if you're someone like Moss or your student school board members here you're more than 12. if you're 12 or older and you go to your school counselor and you have a counseling conversation that is protected privileged and confidential so if you go to your counselor and you say I'm experiencing some some changes in my gender I think I'm going to be non-binary don't tell my mom you cannot tell my mom that is a counseling conversation that's confidential and privileged Newport Mesa has some k-8s you have k-6 there's some sixth graders who might be 12. so if you're 12 years old and
127you go to your counselor and you have that conversation that is privileged under Edco if you're younger than 12 gets into a little Sticky Wicket conversation again and that's where we start looking at some other ideas if your evidence code it's a privileged conversation again if I go to a licensed social worker a psychologist a counselor but again the younger the student and depending on who that conversation is that might not be a privileged conversation that might not be a confidential private conversation and so that's where you're going to come back to what are your District vision and values and what is your practice and procedures look like you have in your gender support plan one of the very first conversations is where are your parents and how are we going to get your parents
128on board with this okay thank you yeah that and that just leads into one more question which is how much flexibility can we bring into bringing parents because it is I think earlier you mentioned being a mandatory reporter there might be some issues where people are afraid of physical harm in their home but I feel like that's not going to be as common as students who are going through this and need that support overall from their parents and um it's not a it's not an isolated thing in their lives is there a way to bring parent into that if you are just going to make a hypothetical you have a 10 year old who comes to you this might be the third time they've brought gender forward you know they brought it when they were
129nine they said you brought your parents they brought the parents along and the parents were not in favor and they said okay I don't want a gender support plan they did it again now they're 10 and they say I do not want you to call my parents you have a reasonable belief because maybe the last two times this kid said well you know I got hurt at home my parents were really angry you might as a professional have a reasonable belief that this child suffered abuse or neglect that's your your that's the Educator's job as a professional under their mandatory reporting obligation do they actually believe a child will be suffered you know will there be harm abuse or neglect then they could go okay well I might make a CPS report I might choose
130to keep this privilege and confidential because they have a reasonable belief but it isn't a fallback of oh every kid who comes and tells me and says I don't want to tell my mom they're going to be abused at home you can't make that leap you have to have reasonable facts to rely upon it is an unfair leap to all the parents out there when a kid says well just don't tell my mom you say no we need to have a conversation how why what's your concern we need your parents on board here thank you um okay I think that was all of the questions that I had that related to um legality and protecting students and bringing in parents if possible thank you I have another question but I'll say that for later I
131sort of have a question to do with legality only on the um subject that you said um some things about counseling and how that's protected and I was just making sure that it's clear that everyone over the age of 12 if they say something confidential to let's say a counselor or social worker that is protected they are not required to tell a parent correct if you are meeting with a counselor your conversations are protected unless it's educationally like I want to go to college yeah thank you trustee weikened thank you thank you for all this information um and I I think you know as as a parent this definitely was alarming to say the least when you want to make sure that you know what's going on with your with your student on um on
132campus um and so you know I'm I'm highly supportive of you know I think trustee Barty Bartow um talked about parental engagement transparency I think that is a a good policy to try to figure out how we can make sure and put systems in place that we do have parent involvement and we do have a system that we we go through when these kinds of issues with our students arrive that you know our parents are you know the number one important um person in their child's life um and so I appreciate us trying to memorialize I think it said in the agenda what that would be so we have systems that we so teachers counselors principals know that and expect those correct actions that they should be taking um and then for us also to
133understand if they don't take those actions that's that's a problem in there in their environment and and in their um in their job um I have a question a little bit about um what it looks like um with these Ed codes we talk about Ed codes we talk about ab1266 and maybe this is for the attorneys again so sorry um Carrie and Sarah um but who makes Ed codes what where does that law come from and and Who develops those that's the state legislature signed by the governor Okay so um the hierarchy of laws of the State Constitution right then we have the legislature that issues statutes signed by the governor we have state agencies that issue regulations like California Department of Education State Board of Education so we have regulations we can file follow
134and then um we have case law that informs us and then we have board policies as a form of rule as well so statutes is all going to be legislature statute okay all legislature okay and and who has to follow all of these Ed codes education yeah okay your District to be sure yeah and all districts in California correct how about public and private I'm sorry public and private schools not necessarily the bulk of the Education Code sections are public education there are some that apply to private schools and Charters as well okay and so what happens I mean when say a student comes up and and talks to their teacher and say I want to be called John and my name is Jane but I want to be called John what does that next
135step look like um within our school district so that next step looks like a teacher either reaching out to the parent and saying that somebody came forward today and wants to be called something different so teachers have told me that that's how they have reacted in the past two they go directly to the school principal and say the student is asking to be called by a different name where do I go from here so the information can kind of go in two different ways um we also have had a re um our staff members let us know that through our mtss work and we have mtss teams and we had a wellness team in place that sometimes students would come forward through the wellness team and then that type of discussion would surface and then
136they'd be able to work with the family at that point okay I I think also that it that it's one of those where you also look at the student's age because again when I was in kindergarten I wanted to be called Princess and nobody called me that so I think that's one of the responsibilities of the teacher is was this an isolated incident or is it every day the student is asking me to be called this name and that's when they can kind of make some decisions versus you know I want to be called you know Aladdin you know and it's because oh they were just watching Aladdin so that's what they want to be called or you know so I think there's there's um some and that's where it gets into that gray area
137right or a teacher to say anytime a student says I want to be called you know a different name I'm going to call a parent or is it you know the teacher says I'm looking at how old they are and the context that they're saying this and that's those are the pieces we can tease out in terms of of an FAQ with staff to help them get that direction because they do want we they do want to help and support and you know they don't want to alarm parents if they don't have to but you know they also don't want to like not do something and so that's I think with some of the guidance that we can put out is here's kind of how you vet that depending on the student's age the context
138some of those pieces to determine those next steps okay and then um you said that we went through everyone in our district or every um I guess gender support plan that we do have and you say all of them have parental notification and provincial support correct and how did you go about trying uh uncovering that what process did you go through so meeting with the teams that are responsible for those so I met with the secondary counselors and talked with them and then they were able to report that out it's such a small number so let's also keep that in mind so we're a district of 17 000-ish students it's it we're talking such a small number right so and while we don't necessarily have a finite number we know that it's a very small
139volume of individuals so when speaking with counselors they were able to actually respond because guess what they know those students right and so they were very easily able to respond in that group session and say yeah okay this this and this you know or no none you know and so and I asked very specific questions in relations to that and so we had a meeting with our secondary counselors we had a meeting with our elementary counselors and then we had a meeting with our secondary principals and then we had a meeting with Elementary principals just to again try to make sure that everybody was speaking talking the same language and so we were able to do that and so that's how we were able to find that out thank you boss I I have one
140more question sorry about that um I was thinking of it because you were talking about possible training in the future and coming back to that and I just want to know what that would look like especially in the elementary age when we have these K through six K-8 schools that have such a wide range of Ages in their students and teaching them about how there's a difference between you know the younger kids asking to be called a different name versus the older kids maybe when it starts to you know be a legal issue when they start to be 12 and how that will look different so um great questions love having you here too thank you so much board membership is all about for students so thank you um and so right now it's a
141great time for us as well because we are um so we have myself right so um and I oversee our director of student services and we're also in the process right now of hiring an elementary coordinator of student services and then we're going to have a secondary coordinator so instead of just having one person kind of oversee all of these types of um student issues we're going to break that in half so we'll have somebody who's focusing with me just on Elementary who will be working with our elementary counselors to be able to dig deeper into those supports and expectations and kind of policies and procedures specifically for our younger students then we'll do the same thing in secondary which is our 7 through 12 kids so to your point how we usually gain information
142from our adults is we usually work with the teacher group so we get groups of people together who are professionals and we say to them tell us how this plays out for you in the classroom I was a teacher and I could watch the student over one or two years and I would know okay this isn't an isolated incident I've been seeing this from my student for one year two years or three years and so then it becomes a kind of a different level of information for us as teachers but to your point we would gain information and create that not just like me by myself or us it's really with a group of people who are experiencing the work so for example at your level I'd be talking to secondary counselors maybe even bringing
143in your counselor and saying how do you deal with this at your school site and how are you making policies at your school what do you do and so we bring people together to do that work but that was part of us moving student services into Educational Services which is a little bit of mumbo-jumbo language for education but what that means is we get to do the work more closely with schools and we get to be able to break it in half which means we're going to really focus on the different groups because they have such different needs yeah that's that was the majority of my question is how it's going to be broken up because you see the huge difference between those age groups and then there's the like sort of you know Middle
144School area where they cross over but having two separate people that'll be way better yeah it doesn't allow us to really uh focus on the needs of each of those groups yeah yeah okay any other questions or comments Murphy um I just wanted to say thank you to our student board member Ms Lewis for all of your input tonight for being so brave and sharing about yourself you're truly the Next Generation and I look forward to everything you accomplish in the future thank you and thank you to mom for being in the audience yes I just had the one last question thank you um so just to clarify were you will be refining the process and coming back to the board with how that all works and informing parents as well so I'll work with
145Dr Smith to figure out how we represent or reinfor or inform the board on progress in terms of what we're doing here in this particular uh with this particular conversation um we can also update you on progress that we have with our teams out in the I'm going to say out in the field meaning our focus groups of teachers and counselors that we'll bring together to kind of work through the policies and practices the FAQs that we could bring forward to be able we're going to create them and then bring them forward but we'll work directly with Dr Smith and how we bring that back to you and and eventually how parents get to know that I think that would be great because I think this is part of the bigger question of how we
146we have things have changed so much in the past several years especially with covid and how we approach mental health and mental health supports and I think letting parents know what the process is uh some of their some things I didn't even realize that were part of the process on how students get counseling if they need it so just sort of a general information relational item whether that's at the beginning of the year with our registration or something like that parents need to know what what schools are offering and what's available for you know a variety of reasons um and then I wanted to add if we could add ruler to a future agenda because that's part of something we didn't talk about but as part of that greater mental health and transparency and offering
147that um because we have actually really a lot of great resources as well and I think that that's kind of getting lost in this other conversation so I think um being there for for parents in both ways is really uh this is a new maybe a new area for us to look at our parental engagement policy or parental engagement board priorities that we haven't so far I'm glad we are much more focused on academics and academic needs and I think that's primary importance but this would be an area of growth for us thank you and I'll work with Dr Smith to find a time to bring that back into understanding and what we can include in that presentation thank you I just um not a question so much um I would love um if we
148could do the FAQs I think to have those at two different levels and put them on the website I know a lot of us get questions that we often things are unclear and so I think the more clarity that we can add to a lot of these items the better um and I think one of the things for me that's really important too is that we're protecting staff and teachers and so um I'm glad that we're having principals and people look at what our current plan kind of template is um because I think it would be really helpful to make sure that there are checks and balances in there and that there are multiple people you know that have signed off on something it's not one teacher it's not one counselor I think that protects
149our staff I think it adds Clarity for parents so I think the more that we can do that the better thank you so much thank you next we have our report the board and the board is appointed a Citizens oversight committee for overseeing General obligation bond fund expenditures and uh I am just really grateful I can help them with the charge that you provided them tonight we have Suzanne Gauntlet their uh the the committee's chair okay I'm gonna try to get to where I'm supposed to be let's see how see oops I think for Dave is just the website try that try the website there it is right there this one yes okay um hi everyone um I just want to say what an informative evening that has been this evening um and it's so
150nice to see that people in Newport Mesa are very gracious and let everybody speak and don't overrule a talk of other conversations that's really refreshing in this day and age that we can come together as a community and hear everyone speak it was really nice to witness that this evening um superintendent Smith president Anderson trustees cabinet guests I'm here to do our annual update on the citizens oversight committee and what we do is sort of on the website here last year we asked the sort of like Ashley just asked I was going to say last year we asked the group to update our website to include our bylaws the agenda it always included the agendas and the adopted minutes but also include the bylaws the resolutions and everything that had to do with the citizens
151oversight committee so that's all there it also goes into our duties the website lists who our members are and so forth um so this evening um what I before I sort of get into things I really want to thank Jeff Trader ARA Wiggins and Lori horrell for giving us all the information that we need to do our jobs we asked for things as part of our job in a number of different ways and a lot of times it isn't how they give it to us we ask to see it differently we ask to see presentations we see sometimes things maybe before you guys see them and we're asked to sort of be quiet about it which is but we need to because our job is oversight our job is to make sure that the funds
152that the voters approved in 2005 are going exactly how they're supposed to according to exhibit a of the bond and we are currently now on the final Pond project which is the Estancia theater um so that's what we're dealing with at this point but I also want to go into what our Duties are basically we dig into all the details of everything that has to go on with the bonds then we review The Independent financial report and the performance report and that's the audience I'll be presenting tonight then we review planning and scheduling and budgeting we do site surveys uh we'll be doing a site survey sometime in the next few months once you get break ground I understand we're breaking ground April 8th and then sometime after that we'll probably get a visit if
153it's safe enough um and then we also represent the community uh interests and we also um give advice and then we also at this meeting are required to give a report on this every year and as you will call last year on May 12th we sent you an email as part of our advice uh portion of what we do some of you because you're new you probably didn't know about it but um we had consensus at the meeting at that we were really concerned that the board was going to go in a direction we didn't think was appropriate based on our fiduciary duties so we sent an email to the board stating that they should stay the course of the Estancia theater and stay at the original plan so that was the advice that we
154gave and that advice wasn't taken so just so you know you do because you voted to move the state move the theater to another location but you need to know that we did give you that advice um so basically a little bit of the bond history is that the bond was passed and August well way back in August 2005 the Board of Trustees passed a resolution to authorize 282 million dollars in bond funds and they went to a very specific exhibit a list of all sorts of different things by sound everything has been completed except the Estancia Theater which I just mentioned um so also after that the board had to create rules of the oversight committee so they created an oversight committee and the committee consisted of 31 members about 2016 31 members were
155hard to get a quorum out of and so the board went back and amended the rules and made it a committee of seven and Quorum was four and ever since that has happened I think we've pretty much made every meeting and then when covet happened we went uh our meetings went zoom and we always had a quorum and every meeting was held minutes posted uh and so forth agenda's Postman is posted um so let's see here so to the uh basically now to the audits at our last meeting we got the performance audit and the financial audit both audits were clean yeah so that's the the big news that's the most important thing both artists were clean there was nothing wrong with them um the district it's Personnel are doing everything they're supposed to do
156in regards to how things are however just to let you know the funds were not huge we only spent the net was a little over 300 000 uh dollars in funds that were actually spent uh at the next time at period when we've seen the primarily more dollars being spent in the next couple of years that'll be a different time frame uh the audit period goes from July 1st through uh June 30th of each year and that's what this audit is for it ended up June 30th 2022 and that's what you've received and that's what we accepted at the meeting on the 27th of this month um so basically I'll tell you what their opinion said uh the accompanying financial statements referred to above present fairly in a material respect and I'll repair pardon me
157in all material respects the financial position of the building find measure F of the district as of June 30th 22 and the change in financial petition for the year then ended in accordance with the accounting principles generally accepted in the United States and that was the financial audit and then the performance audit is the one to make sure that everything is being paid properly and so forth and they do a test of invoices and so forth to make sure it it's going to be paid to the right thing and went to the right vendor and they do a sample on those um so basically the results of our tests indicate that all the significant respects Newport Mesa Unified District properly accounted for the expenditures held in the building fund measure F and that student expenditures
158were made and such expenditures were made by uh for authorized Bond project so the bottom line is that everything was clean and uh everything was fine basically the other thing I want to mention is that we only have a little over 27 million dollars left in the bond and obviously the theater costs a lot more than that so you're well aware that basically you've approved a theater that you're going to have to use other funds for outside of the bond and in the committee we've asked to see those anything that has to do with the theater parking going in and out of the stancia property those are all things that are caused because because of the theater and the move to the theater so we've asked to make sure that we see all those uh
159reports and it's reported to us in that matter and then the other thing that will happen in the 23 report is you as as I said you'll see more funds being expanded and you'll also see the accounting that about the sale lease back that has happened to fund the project and that's pretty much it thank you very much any questions okay thank you I just had one question um I think I brought this up to Mr Trader one time before but it looks like um there's one person that's on the committee that is I think can still just be a member Awards but is notated as a commission that no longer exists the senior commission for Costa Mesa hasn't existed since 2019 so I think the person just needs to be on there as a
160member at Large um I think that um just so that one site's correct oh okay okay um we'll make that correction we're also working on uh refreshing the the committee we have some vacancies so thank you I I just want to thank you for the report and say I look forward to seeing the 2023 so thank you for your efforts we have our report on Elementary School shaded playground structure Improvement project Mr Trader Trader and Mrs Wiggins we have Otto Wiggins here who is our director of facilities and she's going to present some updates on our playground equipment uh with shape good evening president Anderson superintendent Smith Ford executive cabinet and our guests so I'm here to talk to you tonight about our elementary playgrounds and specifically shade associated with those um so we know
161that it's a priority for having shaded areas for students um just to limit their outside exposure to the Sun and so we started looking at what what are the shade elements that we can consider and so everybody knows that schools like to put in permanent shade structures and so we also wanted to start looking at trees as we're going through this exercise um so what are the typical areas that we're you know putting shade structures or trees around which are the playgrounds the lunch table areas and then grass fields looking at kind of as we move forward in some of our projects creating some gra um some tree lines that buffer around some of the grass fields the types of structures that we're looking at are Standalone structures which are your typical four post structure
162with a fabric canopy and then also we're looking at an opportunity to have shade incorporated into the playground structure structure or apparatus itself and then we know that we have on the district campuses we have a variety of solar structures some sites have them in parking lots some sites have them over their lunch areas so we've kind of accomplished our solar aspect of those but just wanted to know we have those as well and so what we're looking at is what is the best approach to get sun sun shade um in an applicable applicable application so the things to consider as we're deciding what type of shade to incorporate now or sooner than later is um so the universal TK program so we know that we are implementing year after year um additional birth dates
163that can come to school at the tkh group and so as we're considering that we're looking at the possibility of not only having to modify buildings to accommodate the TK program but also potentially expanding lunch areas that are adjacent or part of the Kinder yard and also the playground areas so as we're looking at what type of structure to do not having the full implementation of TK in place we're trying to be very careful about what we're going to propose to you and then the same goes for the permanent four posts shade structures and as it relates to the master plan so we're trying to look at how would if we went ahead and put the shade structures in particular areas how may that conflict with the master plan and a huge expectation as we're
164preparing to do this master plan is really to get a lot of community feedback and so um knowing that we're looking to do shade maybe sooner in some aspects at the sites that don't con conflict with the master plan we're looking at a couple different options there and we know that we're going to go ahead and install shade structures at 22 Elementary School sites in a variety of areas so we've been working on strategizing how we do that so um as recent as February 17th we interviewed four different playground structure vendors and it was kind of fascinating we called them up on a Wednesday and we said can you can you meet with us this Friday we're going to give you an hour for each of you we pulled together our construction management team the
165maintenance team and the facilities team and we did these interviews and we had a great turnout everybody showed up and um all four vendors were very well known in the area they've done these type of projects and so we were trying to determine who to pick and really A lot of it was the type of structures they have whether they're they're already DSA approved or not um and then the vendors exhibiting how they have done district-wide projects in the past so they had to give us examples of projects and specific schools districts for us to consider as we went through that process so at the end of that process the team got together absent of the vendor itself and we evaluated all of these vendors to determine who we would move forward with So within
166three days we had notified the vendor that we had selected him to be able to participate in this process and so they were quick we've already done all of the assessments of all of the elementary school sites so they went out to every campus to document all of the of the different play areas to document the type of equipment that already exists on campus and um and actually put it on a plan for us and so what they're going to do next is they're going to provide us an exhibit that shows us all of those areas that I just described and then they're going to go through and provide us options of types of equipment that we would develop a standard so for the TK kindergarten yard this is a standard and it can come
167in different configurations depending on the layout of that playground um and then depending on if we have a preschool area they would give us a different configuration there and then Elementary and then once we have um options of what those standards are going to be we're going to meet with the elementary education department and talk about those standards and have them kind of Select either one or two that can be put in at all of the schools across all the elementary schools and so this is just an exhibit showing you where some of the playground areas are this is Kelly Brook we have two different play areas but if you think about some of our other sites like Wilson we also have a separate area for the preschool area so we'll be looking at all
168of those spaces um so they've already conducted the assessments and so we're anticipating probably another month or so and we'll be able to have those standards to to meet with the education department just another example of Anderson Elementary which is a little bit different right we have different levels and then the Kinder areas off to the side there um but just another example of the exercise we went through oh so let me go back to this and so when we get those standards developed we're going to bring those back to you and have you um we'll have to schedule put together potentially a phase schedule for implementation and then we'll also have a cost for you to review um as we attempt to move forward with this we'll definitely need a budget from y'all so
169what are we talking about we're looking at specifically incorporating the shade um that is part of the structure so these are just some of the options and as we look at these options we're going to have to just assess how they fit on the sites and our intent is to get as much shade as possible Incorporated there are certain triggers though that would require us to go to DSA if it's a certain size so we're going to try to find that balance as we go through but we just wanted to give you some examples of what we're looking at as we move forward make sure you knew that we were looking at only the playground pieces and not the other four post structures at this time so that we don't conflict with the utk or
170the master plan implementation I just have a quick question on those two um what is the material that's on the ground because it's not going to be Universal throughout what what determines what you're going to have on on that so so we are going to look at that as part of this study some schools have already been updated with um a different material other than the wood chips so we're going to see what's possible and depending on the schedule that we end up implementing if if we decide it has to be done in a year if I put out that schedule out with doing the structure plus replacing the surface material it may end up actually being a year and a half so we can bring that back to you once we have that assessment
171and that list of what exists everywhere we can talk about whether or not we Implement different materials for the surfacing what tips are on their way out they're trending out huh that's our intent and just depending on how quickly one we want to get the shade in if we came back at a later date and and replace the chips thank you I'm trustee ursulu yeah thank you so much for this presentation I I really appreciate it um I love that you highlighted that it's a board priority to provide shade but it's also I believe board policy to have sun safety overall so this is you know sort of a great subset of this to keep our kids healthy um so we've talked a lot about the vendor but on that very first slide you mentioned
172that it's shade structures and or trees can you talk a little bit about how that vendor or is there a different kind of assessment that's going to take place to increase the natural shade structure from trees and how that gets Incorporated with it as you know some on this board have prioritized you know preserving our natural shade and not only for children's mental health our trees sort of integral part of their built environment but moving forward not only not displacing trees that we have but adding more trees to where it's possible can you talk about how that so so we have so right now what we're saying is we know there are other opportunities to provide shade for this phase of this project we're not looking at the trees it's something that we would consider
173as we do the master plan and the long-term plan just being a more permanent thing the other thing to note is if for whatever reason our master plan or our utk implementation plan conflicts with what we do for this phase of the project the play equipment is much easier to move or expand around than than any of those others right now thank you but we will definitely keep you apprised of that as we move forward with the master plan excellent point trustee weigandt thank you for this presentation and especially know what chips I love receiving my kids homework and work that they do in class but not the other stuff that comes back in their socks yes so that's great on these sheet structures I know that there's been um you know some foundations obviously
174want to have other shade structures at their you know on their sites would this be something that you say that we would Implement in the next year or two kind of you I believe so so it it all of our schedules are kind of dependent on how much Community input we're going to get so we'll we'll put a schedule together that considers a board meeting to bring it back to you once we finalize a plan to bring it back to you but I can see a two-year overall schedule once it's approved what we're going to implement and we have a budget for it I think two years is is fine the one thing that we will need to consider though is if work could happen during the school year could we potentially be working on
175one playground structure and you know it's down for a month but they have a new facility a month later so we'll look at what that phasing looks like how much they can accomplish during the summer and then if we have to go into the school year what that looks like but if you say nothing can happen during the school year the then we'll be looking at maybe two or three Summers got it thank you so thank you I know what a few of us first brought this item up we got kind of like silly looks like shade wow why are we talking about Shades so I really appreciate that you you did um right on here board priority and it's something that we really value and for putting together a comprehensive plan so quickly thank
176you thank you and next up we have our consent calendar do I have a motion so moved second okay moved by trustee crane seconded by trustee weigand roll call vote trustee Anderson yes trustee crane yes trustee weigen yes trustee Pearson yes trustee Murphy yes trustee your soilu yes trustee Bartow yes and then next for our discussion action calendar we have item 20a approved transportation service plan under California Ed code [Music] 939800.1 Mr Trader Ms Humphries so now we have Shelly Humphreys here she is our director of Transportation she's going to present to you the district's Transportation plan hello superintendent Smith president uh Anderson and members of the board so I'm happy to be here I'm sorry my audience is all gone but we'll get through this so we're here okay we're sorry the back rows
177there too the back Row's there all right so there's a new assembly bill out it is ab181 and what it did was it tasked school districts that have gen Ed uh busing to come up with a plan and there's the plan is to prioritize certain groups of students that we transport to school So the plan also can be found it is in draft form until the board approves it on our school website so the priority should be TK through sixth the Kenny vento kiddos special ed Foster Youth and low income let me see if I can do this here um so gen Ed bussing is not required in the state of California but Newport Mesa as you know we're one of the few school districts that still offer gen Ed busing which is exciting right
178we want to get the kids to school so that is something and we do it without reducing other services to kids so there is a special legal requirement for special ed and that's driven through the IEP and so the IEP team under sir jockham's watch right uh decides whether a student needs transportation to and from school in order to fape education and so that is a legal requirement we work directly most of the time just with the special ed team and they do a great job so that is something that will continue to concentrate on then we have our McKinney vento kiddos and we work directly with the Leia azons and the school sites to identify kids that are possibly homeless to keep them in their home school and so when they're in our district
179what we do is we put them on our current routed system and if they're outside the district and we're getting more and more kiddos that are moving uh further away we get car service for them so we can keep them stabilized in their home school Foster youth we've um Now We're working directly with Social Services we're working with the liaison that we have here at the district to ensure that Foster youth can also access their programs we are getting kids outside the district again there it all seem to be going to Lake Forest for some reason and we do have car service for those when it's mandated by the courts or it's in the best interest of the students so the mode of transportation that is the legal requirements it does include walking private cars
180parents school buses public transportation special ed or special buses and taxi services so any means that we need to get these kids to school we utilize them all so we also have our free and reduced bus pass program and a lot of our families do receive free and reduced we do have three Title One schools that we currently all all kiddos are free there if they uh put in an application but we follow the federal poverty guidelines for those and how we're going to prioritize busing under these different areas so we have special ed which is IEP driven we mentioned that Foster youth mckinney-vento TK through sixth and then we look at things like safety the distance from the home the walk zone so we look at the shortest distance from at a radius view
181from where the student lives to the school and then we try to maximize that to the best extent possible and then our routed service what we do is we look at we have what we call a no bus zone so we have walk zones as I mentioned Newport Mesa is one of the few school districts that still offer gen Ed busing which is exciting and hope it never goes away but our elementary walk zone is three quarters of a mile and that's either to a bus stop or to their school Middle School seventh eighth is one and a half miles and high school is two miles so Orange County school districts there's 26 of them nine do not offer any jet Ed busing so they didn't have to do this plan um four of them
182offer very limited busing and it's based on safety issues of where the the students live in relation to their schools and 13 offer limited gen Ed busing based on distance as you can see from the chart Newport Mesa has the lowest would consider it walk zone or no bus Zone in terms of distance to schools and then we work directly with the safe routes to school and we've partnered with them we encourage building Healthy Lifestyles it's proven that kids that walk to school actually do better academically they do better on tests and all the maps are located on every single one of the school sites for the Costa Mesa Zone um and so parents can find that and access access it very easily and what we're going to do to prioritize this so but the
183bus pass applications open on July 5th and so all qualifying schools prior to that to the new school year have an opportunity to go online and apply for a bus pass busing is offered outside of the Walk zone so anything further than the distance I mentioned earlier routes are assessed for historical data and what we try to do is maximize the capacity for those kiddos from TK to sixth um we have established also scales for the federal poverty guidelines in order to offer free and reduced busing and we work directly of course with special ed to determine the mode of transportation under the IEP so some some kids are curb to curb some are at a transitional bus stop making them a little more independent and right now with the exception of one school all
184of our buses are inclusive so there are no separate buses just for special ed with the exception of one school and then with so the social services and Foster use Liaisons we look at whatever is the best interest of um the student and how far they live from the school and whether the court is mandating so we're probably not going to transport a student from San Diego back to our district it's not really in the best interests of them but if it's Court mandated then we would have to figure that piece out and the mckinney-vento we do a really good job of getting them on our routed system and um right now we have about sometimes it's higher than that it just depends on where they live and then um those of course are free
185to free to families and then we have a partnership with OCTA for free bus passes for all grades within all school districts and they're going to continue that partnership next year so for secondary students that you know are in that walk Zone they could still take OCTA and we've worked with the Liaisons too to set up those routes for them so I I think public transportation routing is very complicated so we typically do that for them and then we'll help a family and then I big shout out to the transportation staff with the Nationwide driver shortage they've done an amazing job and our vendor Partners as well uh just making sure everything is run smoothly so big shout out to them any questions I have one question yes um now that we are doing the
186free meals for everyone is it more difficult to get the information to determine who qualifies or is there an application yeah so there's an application process and then we do follow we have a chart that we follow for the federal poverty guidelines and So a family would bring in income documents it could be a bank statement it could be either you know if they're on unemployment or some other documentation and then it's based on the number of adults in the household too thank you yep oh yes 20 away again oh yeah I just wanted to clarify you said that OCTA uh provides Us free bus passes for any nmusd student that would want any students so they bring the packets over at the beginning of the year we deliver them out to the schools so
187any student can go to the office and get a free and they can use it on the weekends and nights and whatever they want oh wow okay no qualifications no qualifications yeah yeah it's an amazing benefit have we um no well they'll so if a family in need is an elementary they also can get a bus pass so they can use that for their student all the time so do we know approximately how many students um use that I think they use it more for their personal use than they do to to access School definitely no elementary kids good right so go to the beach on the weekend thank you very much okay any other questions all right thank you thank you to have a motion to approve the transportation plan so moved second moved
188by trustee weigand second by trustee Bartow student board member Moss Elliot yes trustee Anderson yes trustee crane yes trustee weigan yes trustee Pearson yes Christy Murphy yes trustee or soyloo yes trustee Bartow yes we'll do informal reports starting with Dr Smith I know it's been a long night for everyone um Shelley mentioned Staffing National shortages for bus drivers that's true for all Educators we met again with the California Staffing collaborative recently with HR with our team we think we've got some Innovative approaches here with some Assurance we'd be able to fill all of our expanded learning opportunities next year and even start to address classified shortages and this is what's really cool about one of their services is they would do the recruitment for us for classified employees that would become your members so we
189struggle in other ways to find people that's one of the options pretty pretty exciting anyway we'll see where this goes I want to thank and congratulate Grupo Chris said for the 100 almost 150 parents that got their graduation from this parent education program was awesome uh it was great to to see them celebrating uh on zoom and then d-lack this this last week just some great great opportunities for parents to learn about what we're doing also for them to ask me questions I think there were two pages of of questions they had they had great insights about their concerns and gave us some direction to the team about some things that we can focus on I want to say Labor Management Institute the work that we're doing there it is tomorrow looking forward to doing
190that with our labor allies we have trustees that are going to be there the way to keep relationship great make them better is to be intentional about making those relationships better and we're doing that work every day and in particular we're doing it tomorrow and then finally I was challenged publicly to be on hot seat at CDM against my wife's better judgment because of my cardiac condition I said I will show up but I may have to at some point bow out I finished all the wings and had a great conversation with our young people our young people all across the district are so impressive and so everyone survived they had a student that's in an EMT class he was there just in case I needed CPR who's on call what kind kid right um
191but but I met the challenge that concludes my report okay thank you we'll start with trustee crane let's see uh several of us trustees attended the Newport Beach police Bank banquet a breakfast and that was lovely and um and then some of us also went to battle of the books which was uh hosted at Oasis Senior Center thank you Oasis Senior Center for being a partner in this and a shout out to Lindsay coomb who's an eastbluff parent who basically facilitated and coordinated the whole event there were hundreds of our students representing five of our schools so that was wonderful and I believe that superintendent Smith managed to make it I don't know how you end up everywhere but you are so thank you for supporting us I also want to commend the parents that
192came here from Coronado Del Mar regarding the pool I I truly appreciate their um their approach of collaborating and partnering with us and thank you Steph for meeting with them and I know you spent the weekend working on this as well so appreciate it um also want to commend um assistant superintendent jokum and Taurus for their very candid discussion today on on the item on Mental Health including gender transitioning and all that it's a raw conversation it's a good conversation it's a necessary conversation and we really appreciate you facilitating it and the trustees has some wonderful comments about it and questions foremost however I am constantly Amazed by our students how articulate they are how intentional and brave and just love having them come and speak to us because they are again I keep saying
193it they are why we sit up here and do the work so and especially proud of our student board member Moss Elliot Marcy cope and Mom thank you should I see if I can yes I um a week ago there was the Newport Beach City youth track meet which had um some great uh Runners from our elementary schools and there are running clubs from Harbor View Newport Coast um College Park uh Our Lady Queen of Angels and which is a private school but um we'll let them in um but no it was it was all for the city and um and um oh and Newport Heights and I have to say that um it was so great to see our elementary schools having school spirit and having running clubs and I was really a proud
194I think the biggest running club is actually from College Park and they have a great parent that that runs that um no pun intended and he was great it was it was a great event it was great to see our youth um out there um I was also able to um attend Battle of books which was great that was that was awesome um I have LMI tomorrow and I just also wanted to give a shout out to um Miss Elliot over here and uh just say never lose that courage well our students have been extremely busy this month um I got to I got to go to the harbor view production of Aladdin which was absolutely spectacular um the Newport Coast Elementary production of Willy Wonka Jr um and the talent coming out of Newport
195Coast is amazing um I also got to go see cdm's Chicago production which was something right out of Broadway I'm just so proud of our students and the amazing things that are are happening um I attended a couple Battle of The Bays for the volleyball Battle of the bay where both of our principals were cooking Burgers which was amazing and I think one of my favorite events another one of my favorite events this month was um our student representative for CDM TJ put on a car show at CDM um student run all by the ASB and they wanted to do something special for our community they wanted to invite the community and they didn't charge a thing they didn't want money there wasn't a fundraiser it was just some way to get the community involved
196and for those young kids to want to put something like that on for the community at such a young age is is truly amazing that's it [Laughter] uh yeah so thanks uh not too much has gone on the last couple weeks but I guess a lot when you start writing it all down um did I did have a chance to join in on csba legislative visit with assemblywoman Katie Petry Norris that went uh very well I think thanks to Michelle more so than than myself so I pretty much got to listen but it was very informative um so it's good to know what's going on at the policy level with the state and how well our school board fellow trustees advocate for um our teachers in schools so that was great also met with Dr
197Kwong and uh um an assistant superintendents here at cabinet staff uh the other day to talk about more anti-bullying and school safety efforts at Costa Mesa middle school and high school that was very helpful and informative I really appreciate everyone's hard work on that and all you do to keep our kids uh safe at school it's always impressive um they let's see next uh coming up on the agenda we are going to be um tomorrow night at the Norma Herzog Community Center for the women in engineering event if anyone wants to show up at 6 15 to 8 30 which is a random time but that's what the flyer says um as well as uh trustee ursulu and Anderson and I will be at soy for their Newport Mesa School board panel on Thursday night
198starting at six for anyone who won to join us there um this weekend Costa Mesa High School drama is presenting their Broadway musical Bye Bye Birdie four shows this weekend March 30th and 31st two days four shows everybody please come and enjoy it it's going to be uh it's going to represent Mesa drama Mesa music and Mesa dance so it's going to be a great show and I'm excited to go um also uh um principal uh Dr Kwong wanted to remind everyone that Newport Mesa is having their lcap forms coming up on March 30th and to please register parents out there and and please give your feedback as to the Future direction of our schools and the district and that's it um I'm just happy we're talking about trees and shade we can all go
199oh my job is done I had the privilege of going to the Future Trojan night at T Winkle and um the principal there did such an excellent job motivating everybody to want to come to our neighborhood school she played my favorite Jam so she wins um and I want to just give a shout out to the student who is here in the suit talking about voter registration wherever you are there is an organization called the Civic Center project Civics Center project and they do exactly what you want done which is voter registration early registration on high school campuses so we can't reach out to them because we're election elected officials and that would be very shady if we were out there registering youngsters to vote for us um but you can do that so you
200should reach out to whatever school you're in to your principal and orchestrate some of those voter engagement and future voter engagement activities that you are asking about very eloquently good job and also excited to go to Soy this week and Moss like everybody has said you were the right person at the right time today so good job and I'm going to give you my flowers here for you to take home to your awesome family so thank you for all you do and now you're here um I attended the legislative advocacy I used to be weak it's a few days um via Zoom um this past couple weeks um and then was also really um pleased to see the CTE exhibits at T Winkle um it was really great how engaged all of the kids were
201and I a couple of them came up to me and said where do we start so I said wherever you find an interest so it was nice to see that um they were so overwhelmed by the opportunities that they didn't quite know where to start and that was great um tomorrow I will um attend the RAS performance at Newport Harbor High School which I'm very excited to see it's always a wonderful show and then along with trustee crane we have our Community Alliance for bike safety meeting and a chance to talk about all of the bike rodeos and other sorts of programs that um schools have prioritized throughout the district over the past six months and how we keep working towards goals of increasing bike safety and that is all for me other than to
202say again thank you like everyone said but masi and Marcy have always been such a great part of the sports we're glad to have you back again and yes truly right place right thank you um and following up on the bike safety um I was able to attend the uh Bike Rodeo at soy I'm going to Soy twice this week um and I just wanted to thank um Dr Smith for coming to dwac and answering in depth the questions that the parents had I particularly appreciated your challenge first off that we don't want the list to ever get that long again um and I thought that was really powerful I had lots of parents after say that they really learned a lot and loved it um and then I went to Future Trojan um night
203at T Winkle and one of the things for me that was really impressive is um there were two people there that I went to Estancia with they teach in our district and their kids are at one at Team ankle and one in Estancia and they're part of the PTA and it's just lovely to see some of our our Costa Mesa former Newport Mesa kids that are teaching and are trying training others and how to join the PTA and how to advocate so it was really lovely and I got to attend the Rey family literacy celebration which was more than just um talking about literacy they get the parents get a book in English and Spanish and then they it's to build community and so they have a smaller group of moms that do it and
204then they train a next the second cohort and so they go through like their life story they do a presentation and so it was a really emotional and kind of touching event I really appreciated it and I also was able to attend on Saturday um kind of interesting and strange but uh Northgate Market which is like a very large grocery store chain that's largely in like northern coast or Northern Orange County they are building a massive kind of like a North Gate grocery store slash Cultural Center on harm and Wilson and so they had their first event last Saturday they're going to be having an event next month and they want to they're going to have a test kitchen they want our CTE students to come they're going to have a stage they want to
205have like our youth Mariachi groups come they are really involved and invested in being a huge part of our community and so there's like 40 ideas that I think would be possible for our district to partner with them including just basic field trips there's all kinds of crazy things they're going to have there so it was random but lovely and I think it'll be a great addition to our city um so oh and then tomorrow I'm going to the CTE women in engineering night at the library um I think it's Annie Young Love's last event so we thank her for her many years of service and caring for our students so we will now adjourn the meeting at 906.