PUSD BOE Meeting - 02/08/2024 - 6:00PM

001what time is it 68 good evening and welcome to this regular board meeting of the power Unified School Board it is February 8th I believe yes February 8th and it is 6:09 p.m. this meeting is being recorded and broadcast so everybody in this room might be seen or heard on that recording I now invite you to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for it stands one nation indivisible andice for our report on closed session clerk kuet thank you um closed session began at 37 and the board took the following action for 2.2 in the matter of public employee appointment interim superintendent on a motion by kuet and a second by plotsky the vote the board voted unanimously to appoint

002Greg Melle as the interim superintendent effective tomorrow February 9th 202 4 in addition to performing the interim superintendent duties Mr Melle will continue in his current role as associate superintendent of student Support Services the board has directed um the board president and legal counsel to engage in contract negotiations with Mr Melle regarding his interim superintendent duties and the contract will be brought to the board for approval at next regularly scheduled board meeting um for 2.6a in the matter of conference with legal councel pending existing litigation case number ADR 011 62024 on a motion by sitma and a second by Patel the board voted to approve the settlement agreement 2.5b in the matter of conference with legal council pending existing litigation case number ADR 011020 24 on a motion by plotsky and a second by Patel

003the board voted unanimously to approve the settlement agreement 2.8a in the matter of pupil Personnel case number 2023-2024 one3 on a motion by plotsky and a second by sitma the board voted unanimously to approve the settlement agreement there is no report aable action for items 2.1a 2.3a 2.4a and 2.5a we um recessed at 6 o' and we will reconvene after this meeting um for 2.9 Dasa and that's the report thank you clerk Kett I note that all members are in attendance all six of us and for the welcome to the public Miss tretti welcome to the monthly meeting of the Board of Education if you would like to address the board on any agenda item please complete a speaker slip all requests to speak must be submitted to the clerk of the board before the

004agenda item comes up speaking time for agenda items is 2 minutes per speaker if you would like to address the board on a non- agendized item you may do so under item 4.2 public comments speaking time is limited to 2 minutes per speaker with with a maximum of 30 minutes total unless waved by the board president there will be a 30-second yellow warning light when time is running out speakers may only speak on one topic under item 4.2 and may not defer their speaking time to another individual if there are concerns regarding specific individuals it is preferred that the speaker refrain from naming them publicly to respect their privacy the board will accept and review any written materials that would provide more specific information the brown act does not permit board action or extended discussion

005of any item not on the agenda but your concerns will be referred to staff with that said welcome and thank you for coming thank you m tretti item 3.5 is approval of our agenda sequence is there a motion Mo motion to approve thank you on a motion by Dr Patel second and a second by Dr sitma Mr tretti for the preferential vote I and everyone else I thank you that's unanimous item four point1 our student board Representatives welcome let's start with Del Norte High School Aaliyah Rush canten welcome good evening members of the board my name is Aaliyah Rush Canen and I am the current ASV president for Del Norte High School I so excited to be back here and to get to share the recent events of my school with you since Del Norte

006is on a trimester system we are coming up on our finals in just a couple of weeks students are taking time to study and getting extra help by going to office hours with their teachers as we near our final T trimester that also means that preparation for the next school year will begin 9th through 11th grade students are currently having meetings regarding their course request forms students will begin choosing their desired courses taking another step toward their future and interests on March 19th we will also be hosting our eighth grade family night where incoming Nighthawk families will get a chance to visit campus and learn more about transitioning into High School while it's exciting for Nighthawks planning their next year in the flock I would also like to acknowledge our seniors who will be leaving

007soon our counselors have aided seniors in filling out their fast forms and other scholarships for college many seniors have even committed to college or are beginning to receive acceptance letters besides academics we have gotten to indulge in fun activities and participate in things we are passionate about I would like to start by celebrating our competition cheer team for coming home with second place at Nationals yesterday we celebrated more of our girls sports teams during our pep rally in honor of national woman in sports day every girls sport team walked through the gym and participated in a fun game and at the end of the rally we announced Mr Swanson as teacher of the year we also invited our theater program to sing sing a song from their upcoming musical Little Shop of Horrors opening night

008is tomorrow at 700 p.m. and we would love for you to come and support dnhs theater next week we will also have another opportunity for families to come support our Fine Arts programs at our Night at the Museum throughout the night you can see anything from Ceramics to coding projects to 3D animation lastly on campus we are always trying to keep students educated on different cultures and backgrounds both our black student union and Equity Alliance team have planned and put on numerous events for our student body since this month is Black History Month our BSU has invited influential speakers to share about their own stories and will even be putting on a movie night tomorrow at Rancho Bernardo High School our Equity team today invited all students to make origami and bracelets for Valentine's Day

009to send to children at the Ronald McDonald charity house another event they hosted was called bagels and belonging where students volunteered to meet in the morning and talk over Bagels about strategies our school could use to increase student support on campus all of the hard work our BSU and Equity Alliance teams have done has paid off as they had the opportunity to present to the San Diego County Office of Education at their Equity conference sadly today was the last time I'll be presenting on behalf of my high school as this is my last board meeting as ASB president it has been an absolute honor to have the opportunity to represent my school and get to present in the presence of you all so I would like to thank you again for your time and express

010what an absolute pleasure it has been to get to grow as a leader throughout this past year but with that being said before we finish I wanted to introduce you all to our next ASB president hello my name is Sonia Singh and I'm excited to be able to represent Del Norte as the new ASB president for this coming year and I'm also excited to be able to come back here and talk more about our school and what we're doing to spread dnhs culture I look forward to seeing more of you than missing I'm from ppmc La chalal [Applause] welcome good evening members my name is LA shalal and I'm from ppmc Powe to palar Middle College if you want to go the long route um and I'm very excited to share what what's going on

011with ppmc now to start off in November we were featured on zevely Zone on the channel 8 news it highlighted our campus and our program schedule how a typical student would balance their college courses with their High School courses and even their internships but most importantly as previously mentioned we focused on our students because our students are our most important part of our campus really and just any School in general of course but what makes ppmc so special is the fact that it's such a closely connected very small school so that way we get to feature our students so much more we also had our birthday celebration as according to our quarterly planning uh we celebrated our fall students who were born in the fall and the beginning of the winter and we also more

012recently are starting off with our Val Valentine's Day holiday celebration where we are putting the names of every student on hearts and handing them out and it's things like these that allow our students to feel connected seen and heard throughout our campus speaking of our students and uh just feeling enrolled we're enrolling them in courses and some of those courses are college level courses and we are starting off the spring semester very strong speaking of enrollment again uh applic ations are have opened up for enrollment of ppmc and we are looking forward to seeing the future of ppmc with our new uh Juniors and of course our new seniors who are the current Juniors of this year our Equity inclusion club and our staff are working tirelessly and effortlessly to uh create presentations for no

013place for hate specifically our second presentation on no place for hate which will be about microaggressions they're also working on posts and presentations on black history month and the Lunar New Year with a lot more to come and of course with these presentations and post students are learning about uh culture and diversity our future events include our Spring Showcase which allows students to Showcase and present what they have done within their internships within their clubs and within their classes even just normal high school classes in ppmc and they get just show case it off to uh uh internship leaders their coordinators their teachers and their parents lastly I'd like to focus on our graduating class as this will be our very first graduating class of ppmc the class of 2024 we're very excited to see

014how they go on in the future they are starting to uh accept their letters of acceptance into colleges and we are so excited to see them grow as people so with that I'd like to thank you all for your time and have a wonderful evening thank you very much I'm from Black Mountain Middle School Nathaniel casabar hello my name is Nathaniel casar and I'm an eighth grader and a 3-year ASV officer at blackmountain Middle School at bmms we cherish many things including our four core values which are kindness hard work responsibility and respect along with that we are in no place for hate school and we do not tolerate bullying we are the only na Avan National demonstration School in our district and one of 200 in the entire country we serve as a center

015for teaching and learning and continuously welcome guests who want to learn more about Avid schoolwide efforts just this Tuesday we were revalidated for another 3 years lastly we are a California distinguished school which means we are one of the most exemplary and inspired ing top 120 schools in California at our school we try to make everyone feel welcome and included we are like a family and we believe in getting to know each other our ASB class hosts BMS Beginnings before school starts so the sixth graders can get to know each other we also hold an ice cream social for all new students at the beginning of the year so they get to make new friends and have some fun during lunch next month ASB and Leadership students will visit our five theater schools to present

016to fifth graders what a day in life at bmms is like we kicked off the year starting the year off bright with our first beard day neon day as one of our Traditions BMS Avid had their induction night as students lit a candle on their path to College and Career Readiness and success in October ASV hosted our second prep rally ever to announce our school dance and its theme the theme was fall ball as a result of the rally we had the highest attended dance with over 600 students attending October was also busy with red W week which included highlights of passing out lays to all Raiders and hats off to good choices where we made hats at lunch out of shopping paper bags to end October all Avid students went on a field trip

017to YMCA Camp surf to build team building and Leadership November brought spirit days such as red white and blue day on this day we wrote letters to Veterans who are connected to our school to thank them for our service we also had turkey handcrafts to remind us what we are thankful for we end that month with a reward activity for our ASV fundraiser in December we had our Visual and Performing Arts programs on display choir Orchestra and band all held concerts in the evening for all levels we also had an assembly to highlight the advanced orchestra band and choir our visual arts department had their winter art showcase where they presented the art that they've been working on during this month PTSA and Foundation hosted a night Winter Wonderland event also in December was our

018career and college week activities leading up to our big career fair some of the activities included a game of capture the college pennant a trivia Challenge and Zella career interest Home Room lesson the week ended on Friday with a career fair coordinated by our counselors we had over 30 career volunteers available to speak to our students westf and Mom students also came to speak to Black Mountain Raiders about CTE Pathways available at high school each student has a passport form with incentives for participation and involvement in the career fair during January ASB and PTSA hosted our first joint event family movie night we played the movie in quad and had food trucks in the parking lot it was a wonderful event we also celebrated kindness week and more kindness week one of the highlights with

019the cloin challenge where ASB student wrote kind messages on Clos pins the Clos pins were then given to all students to either keep away give away or exchange with the fellow Raider also in January Avid went to SSU for an educational field trip many of our staff alumni joined the fund to help show students around many students now want to become an Aztec we also have created new exper experiences for our students this year one of the experien was is Raider rewards Raider rewards happen every 6 weeks for students who earn o or G's on their progress reports or report cards we have HED three so far the first one we had activities such as blob tag kickball capture the flag and Sharks and Minnows the second R rewards we had crafts and kickball this

020past R rewards we had various Minute to Win It games another activ fun activity we started this year is W wonderful wonderful Wednesdays on Wednesdays of each month ASV hosts various activities during lunchtime during November it was GaGa ball during December it was wintercraft and during January it was kickball for February we have planned carnival games as a Wednesday activity we also have a new elective at Black Mountain this year Avid Excel this elective class was added to support our multilingual Learners our Educators created goals around academic language and literacy to support all students with these additional language supports our educators are celebrating great progress on our ready scores at Black Mountain we have officially launched Our bmms Hope Squad hope Squad is an evidence-based peer-to-peer suicide prevention program that also pro pro promotes the

021community and connectedness at our school hope Squad members will be trained throughout the year on communication skills healthy boundaries selfcare and how to reach out to trusted adults when a PE is in crisis this year has also brought new clubs such as the Swifty society and creativity club we also have a board game Society book club speech and debate Spanish Club technology Club newspaper Club friendship racet club and Spectrum Club clubs are a great space on campus for our students to connect and dive deeper into their interests our Aces program is also going strong at Black Mountain some of the most recent events include a basketball charity event for Love on the leash our Black Mountain cheer team placing second in the MLK parade and being awarded best educational unit and after school School clubs

022such as gardening Color Guard sewing and campus Cleanup Crew our sports teams has also done extremely well this year with our basketball team placing second and our volleyball team is currently in session tomorrow we will host our second annual learn something new day where students will pre present during lunch their special abil ability or Talent some of the activities students will be presenting are Loom bracelets origami Hair Braiding card tricks and how to grow plants to just name a few to create fun environment we play music in the quad and host a ball cart where students can check out equipment to play with during lunch we also host lunchtime activities that include craft and games the current favorite on our campus is musical chairs to end our year we have a few more spirit days

023a spring music concert a pep rally and dance in April as well as our annual talent show that we're all looking forward to thank you so much for your time and the opportunity to speak and to wrap it up from painted Rock Elementary School Mason Wagner come on [Applause] down good evening PD school board and cabinet members my name is Mason my name is Mason Wagner and I am pained Rock Elementary School's student council president I am here to tell you about all the latest and exciting things that have been happening at the Rock in December we had our Jon and it went great we raised over $33,000 and the winning team was able to slime Mr Schultz our principal just a few weeks ago we finished a great kindness challenge that our wonderful school

024counselor Mrs Finn set up for us it was great seeing all the kids taking their their papers out at recess and lunch to finish their kindness checklist painted rock is also part of no place for hate and our committee of students and parents are always always working hard to make to make our school a more inclusive and connected Community next week we have one of our most anticipated events of the year the school's annual variety show we have over 70 kids participating in this year's show we can't wait to see what happens what happens what amazing talents our Panthers have and and student council is running the concession stand and we hope to raise enough money to pay for our fifth grade mural we also have a before school club called Panther Pacers our running

025club hit an awesome Milestone of hit of running 9 thou 19,1 4 laps and that's a total of 4,776 miles that is all the fun stuff that our Panthers have been doing so far this year thank you psd's school board and cabinet members for inviting me to speak thank you all so much for being here and sharing everything that's going on at your schools if you have homework or studying to do you are welcome to head home and do it or hang out with us for a few more hours thank you again at this time we are on uh 4.2 public comments if you would like to address the board please do fill out a public speaker request and submit it to miss Anderson um before the agenda item is called speaking time is limited

026to 2 minutes per speaker with a maximum of 30 minutes total so submitting a card does not necessarily guarantee you will be able to speak reminder if you have concerns regarding specific individuals it is preferred you refrain from naming them publicly the appropriate complaint process can be obtained again from Miss Anderson the keeper of all information the board will not allow any disturbance or willful interruptions of our meeting we have an expectation that everyone here will conduct themselves with decorum respect and Civility and with that in mind clerk kuet please call the first Speaker relle Baer over two years ago I started to watch the PC board meetings when I started hearing about many issues within the district because I didn't believe what I had been hearing it wasn't until I began watching and attending

027the meetings that I couldn't believe my eyes and ears there was the one meeting there was one meeting that changed it all for me I heard a parent speak about inappropriate content that was given to her child in class without her knowledge what she shared was shocking that night and as I come through my son's backpack I found the curriculum she had mentioned it was the first time that I had felt my parental rights were violated and after that I spoke at my first board board meeting and have done so since what I found over the past few years is that nothing is going to change in our district until the board changes and I mean the entire board I've witnessed this board violate our trust and have proven themselves to be incompetent for the

028job they have put their own self-interest ahead of the children in the schools they have proven they will protect one of their abusive and bulling employees at the expense of children in our schools they have disregarded mountains of evidence to fire the superintendent the expense of our children's safety and wellbeing their poor decision-making and lack of meaningful lead leadership has led to multiple number of lawsuits being F filed against the schools immediate action is needed and since I only have two minutes I can't share more but I do know that many in the community are waking up to what's happening in our district so this is why after two years of meing our board repeatedly failing our children parents in the community I'm now seeking all options to recall Michelle OK Conor Ratcliffe Ginger kuet

029and Heather plotsky D Batel and cind Cindy sitar up for re-election so no recall there but I would like to share that there are some pretty amazing candidates that will be running to fill those seats this District needs a complete overhaul top down when I say I'm going to do something I do it and my history here advocating for our children should be quite telling of how serious I am if anyone would like to help me with my recall campaign please see me after the meeting thank you Nicole Ash my name is Nicole Ash I'm here today because parents are outraged that PD superintendent maren Phelps is being paid while she is on administrative leave she should be terminated immediately without pay Phils began The Clapper Gate scandal 8 months ago on May 30th 2023

030at the Del Norte softball banquet when she began a Witch Hunt after she erroneously concluded that her daughter did not receive a loud enough Applause after the banquet Phelps called one of the senior softball players who was 17 years old at the time and interrogated her for more than 30 minutes until almost midnight accusing her and others of conspiring to not clap Phelps threatened her telling her that all of the senior players would not be permitted to walk at their own graduation this late night call by itself was grounds to terminate Phelps for cause 8 months ago sadly that was just the beginning of phelps's abuse of power she then targeted a junior on the team who was the direct competitor of phelps's daughter as they both played the same position Phelps banned her from

031the softball team and all extracurricular activities her senior year unless she admitted to this non-existent clapping conspiracy the softball player had no choice but to file a complaint with PD detailing the facts surrounding phelps's egregious abuse of power you were all given 26 witness statements and video footage from the banquet all confirming that there was never any clapping conspiracy but you did nothing philps has lied manipulated the internal investigation and has done unspeakable things to cover her tracks but you still did nothing finally you recently put her on leave because the independent investigation confirmed what you already knew but you're still paying her many of our schools have completely dilapidated or non-working facilities yet Phelps is getting paid while on Le Rebecca Oakley PD's board policy of keeping a child's transgender status hidden from parents

032is harmful to students it puts children on the path of a lifetime of medicalization and eventual sterility the first stage of soall gender firming care is termed social transition the social transition of a child has been noted by EXP researcher in the field of gender dysphoria can Zucker to itself be a form of medical harm this is because the social transition process May solidify the child's belief that he or she is in fact the opposite gender the7 the 2017 endocrine Society guidelines state that quote social transition is associated with the Persistence of gender in congruence as a child progresses into adolescence end quote it is therefore understandable that such a child whose brain has not fully developed and is now solidified in the gender dysphoria would want to begin injections of Lupron and then cross-

033sex hormones Lupron is not merely a pause button as we are told it hinders brain development lower IQ makes the user infertile and is the same drug used to chemically castrate sex offenders despite what some may be told there are no long-term studies of subjects who had adolescent onset of gender dysphoria and had subsequently undergone transition related interventions the first of which is social transition knowing this the board policy is effectively experimenting on children Michael Roberts good evening I spoke to you last at the November meeting regarding the conduct of superintendent Phelps at that meeting I urge you to do a proper investigation and gather all the facts we're obviously pleased that you put Phelps on administrative leave we're not pleased that you're paying her your last communication to the public placing Phelps on leave

034stated we have reached a sensitive point in the investigation and received information regarding the impact of this process I have no idea what that means I think I can guess but I don't think you're being very transparent that current statement differs substantially from the previous ones you've made by both communication director P former president Patel and superintendent Phelps and they include comments like parents making misinformed claims small groups of parents spreading misinformation and lies and numerous denials publicly by Phelps saying she had no involvement in the investigation these statements are untrue they're not factual and you knew it and we want an apology this all started nine months ago you've got over 100 pages of testimony from parents like myself that have voiced the concerns from the public the original investigation led by athletic director

035Amanda Waters and vice principal Mike giami did not include testimony from a lot of students that had firsthand knowledge my daughter was one of those that was not interviewed there were several families that indicated I'm sorry but that's time sorry that's your time is up Casey [Applause] doen Casey Doan good evening board my name is Casey danan I'm a local parent of three and I'm the Palama Council PTA Jedi committee chair I was fortunate enough to attend the San Diego County of Education Equity conference in January and I wanted to share with you some of the takeaways that I had from the event it was really wonderful to see so many PD students at the conference the deln high Equity Alliance team were there again this year and they always draw such a large crowd

036who are Keen to hear how student leaders are using their agency to make our schools more inclusive and exciting places to be and the PD black student union panel with student representatives from Del Norte Mount camel and RB High gave such an impressive and inspiring presentation about their efforts to celebrate Black achievement and contributions to American life these student groups are welcoming of all students and are truly setting an example of what cross-racial Sol solidarity looks like in action secondly it was really interesting to sit in on a panel of Educators from three local school districts including ours discussing ethnic studies one semester of ethnic studies will be a graduate requirement for all California high school students beginning in the 2029 to 2030 school year San Diego unified is way out front on their work

037they're offering micr credentialing to their course teachers they're actually already delivering what they call ethnic studies for all integrating ethnic studies across curriculum in K through 12 and they made The Graduate requirement effective from this current school year super impressive Jedi would like to see the P PD's ethnic studies curriculum and educator training strengthened because we know students who take this class love it and we'd respectfully ask the board to support expanded efforts on this so that PD is offering a great ethic studies program to students before the 2029 requirement thank you hosang Ru hi uh my name is hang and my son is a senior at pawe high in the last November he injured his shoulder while participating a physical exercise hosted by a third party at pwe high he just received a surgery

038at UCSD Orthopedics which will be followed by six-month rehab this screws up everything he has been preparing for long time for his life this injury disqualified him from going to the military service academies for good he barely met the fitness requirement for the academist after the injury although he had has received Congressional nomination for all four schools he cannot go I have reported the incidents to the school and the district on November 22nd never heard any word from the district yet Marin core Recruiting Command does not believe they are accountable for the injury although the injury occurred on the equipment owned by Marine Corps on PD property if none of the above are accountable is my 17-year-old accountable for this devastating injury I have never signed off any waiver for third party activities at school

039are schools aware of all third party activities in detail if they do why didn't they why didn't pawe High ask parent for waiver for the physical exercise conducted by Marin Corp FR Belle hi I'm Freda Brunel representing Palomar Council PTA I'm going to report on this year's California pta's legislative conference in Sacramento the legislative conference is when you realize the impact PTA has so several organizations two senators four assemblymen and the Secretary of State came to speak to us California pta's legislative Team Works closely with selected legislators on both sides and after many years of advocating we had some recent accomplishments TK for all students free lunch for all students and dyslexia screening for all students in K to second grade some highlights from the conference were um Mr cabal from the California leg ative

040analyst office talked about the 38 billion budget deficit uh this came from difficulties budgeting due to the delay tax filing last year fortunately there is a so-called rainy day fund that will be used for education but schools are still likely to notice an impact with decreasing funds from Grants I won't have time to talk about all the interesting things that I learned but I'm going to select my favorite speaker among all the Senators assemblymen and organizations Jess Balo Chief uh of staff for Senator Skinner talked about her childhood how she loved the cafeteria because it smelled so good but sadly she didn't have enough money to buy lunch it wasn't until she was in high school that she learned about the uh free lunch program and she got really mad that no one had told

041her with lunch her great sword and she was able to get the scholarship for college she thanked PTA for our tireless advocacy for free lunch for all thank you Tony Blaine okay and uh good evening um so I'm Tony Blaine I'm here to talk about school safety and gun violence um and uh thank you all for everything you do I'm a former Middle School teacher High School teacher track coach Cross Country Coach um I'm a family physician right now father of uh four boys who went to Poway schools and uh I'm in the California National Guard too um last week the San Diego Police Department prevented a mass shooting at my son's High School Ranch Bernardo High School um the Panic swept through my house and many other uh many others in Powe Ranch and

042Bernardo and neighboring uh communities we were all concerned about the safety of our schools and we want to see Powe Unified School District do more to protect our children pawe has already had one mass shooting at the kabad of pawe on April 27th 2019 I'm here to implore you to take more steps to avoid the next mass shooting um every day in the US 12 children die from gun violence another 32 are shot in injured since 2020 Firearms surpass motor vehicle crashes as the leading cause of injury related deaths among our children and adolescents ages 1 through 19 there were 4883 gun related deaths due to homicide suicide and accidents in the United States in 2021 which is an 8% increase versus 2021 the United States has the most school shootings of any country in

043the entire world preventing gun violence and school shootings involves proactive interventions by parents children teachers administrators school boards law enforcement community and political leaders mandatory Health assessments of students and adults exhibiting risk factors bullying drug abuse self harm suicidal adiation depression can prevent gun violence bystander reporting is a crucial strategy and it helped avert the the recent school shooting po Unified School District does a great job okay Larsson Smith good evening board members uh first I would like to express my appreciation for allow or for the opportunity to speak tonight I would like to convey my feelings on the exploration program in power Unified School District um I think the elementary school is supposed to be fun and I think that exploration is the perfect way to both expose students to many facets of knowledge

044that they may not have um the chance to experience in elementary school and to make it very very fun as well I can remember specifically when I was at Canyon de Elementary School in the um exploration program um I had the opportunity to learn the very basics of coding and computer programming and it was really the only time that we talked about it at school was um during the exploration program and now I'm fast forward to the presid and I'm excited to be in as many AP Computer Science classes I can and let me assure you that they're not as fun or light-hearted as the exploration ones but I'm still enjoying it and I um am very grateful for that uh very early exposure to the many topics and so as a former participate in

045the exploration program I think that is a very fun and important program to have at our elementary schools thank you very [Applause] much I'm sorry um Monson MIM sorry good evening board members um my name is Monson Smith I am a um eighth grade student at blackmountain Middle School and I'm also here to convin my feelings about exploration um as a also former participant of it I really do think it um helps peque interest in many subjects that um our elementary schools do not show like um dancing um and um other Visual Arts there's um it's many good things it also allowed me it also will allow kids to help choose their electives in middle school so that they can figure out what they want to do and help them along um other things but

046uh thank you for your time and have a good evening Melinda Hunton PA unified recognizes its volunteers and other contributors at Starstruck Gala the business partner of the Year award went to the La Hoya based Law Firm Atkinson andon Loya rud and Romo to recognize the legal services it has provided to the district since 2015 The Firm has also been consistent and generous supporter of the PD Foundation by contributing to its annual giving campaign sponsoring its Golf Classic and the starstuck event Porter said uh parents were wondering how was this business partner of the Year award voted on was this a board vote um and if this wasn't decided by the uh the board then who who did decide on this um is this a conflict of interest considering that the law firm handled the

047complaint uh this probably wouldn't have surfaced without the current lawsuit but this definitely looks suspect in light of the past eight months um a lawyer in this picture at the gala um he he was directly involved in the dull nor day softball case since the summer of 2023 so we've already seen the conflict of interest with our superintendent just how far does this pay to playay go um and I looked up some budgets I've got a big stack here um in August of 23 the legal services to this Law Firm were $370,000 in um September of 23 legal services for this uh Law Firm were also $250,000 so over half a million dollars to this one law firm and I pointed out last month that um in December settlement fees were $17,000 for the month

048I looked up some other ones back in August 4,365 illegal in September 37,7 36 in October 243,000 it's just it's mindboggling the amount of lawyers and settlement fees that you guys go through and I just don't understand what's going on with this stuff it's really disappointing steuart cook this school district is supposed to be a no place for hate but the district itself is fomenting hate even encouraging students to join hate groups I have a picture of a lesson from the white board of an ethnic studies class at delnorte this lesson encourages students to join BLM and their protests BLM is an anti-semitic anti-white anti-American political group that supported the rape and torture attacks in Israel on October 7th BLM sent posts with paragliders on the mocking Jews that were tortured and burned alive that

049day why does PD want our children to join that also our latest round of test scores were horrible for marginalized children that our Dei programs are supposed to be helping why is PD telling children to join protests and hate groups instead of telling them to stay home and study so they can do better at Reading Writing and arithmetic you don't improve math and English scores by teaching children how to hate whites and teaching whites how to hate themselves part of your ethnic studies curriculum tells children that whites are unconsciously racist and oppressive I'm sure children being taught to hate themselves does wonders for their mental health all mentions and materials supporting the hate group BLM need to be removed from this District how long do we have to wait before you remove hateful material from

050your no place for hate District do we have to wait 6 months or a year or for the news media to take interest or for law suits like for the superintendent and abuse of power issue can you please do your jobs and remove the hateful BLM material from this District if you refuse to remove pornographic materials at least remove the hate materials lenise t chist last month the pawe chieftain reported pawe unified recognizes its volunteers and other contributors at Star strut Gala the second annual oscar style Gala event was hosted by the Pawa unified Foundation which on their website they State they are PD Partners in education and provide funding resources support and opportunities for District activities and programs three partner of the Year recognitions were presented for the time Talent treasure and the recipients

051contribute the business partner of the Year award was given to the law firm Atkinson andon Loya rud and Romo it's my understanding that this is the same Law Firm that handled and communicated the denial of complaints against the superintendent these Legal Services arguably gave the superintendent a hall pass for her poor choices as revealed in The Clapper Gate scandal what ethical standards are being defended within PD at the taxpayer's expense did AC Anderson Lya red and Romo hold themselves to the highest of ethical standards when investigating The Clapper gate complaints against the superintendent what message is po unified Foundation sending to the community by handing Mark brass an attorney involved in communicating very serious superintendent complaint denials and award who voted for these partner of the Year Awards what is going on m p [Applause]

052USD item 5.1 is approval of the consent calendar I here we have some public comments so we'll pull those yes um on 5.3a and 5.3 B thank you does any other board member have anything to pull all right is there a motion to approve the consent calendar absent 5.3 A and B motion to approve put with those two items on a motion by Dr Patel and a second by clerk kuet all in favor I I that's unanimous we'll go to 5.3 A and B 5.3a is the approval and ratification of contractual Services report number 07202 Mr little yes thank you Madame President this is our monthly uh report to the board of our contracts uh we seek approval and or ratification of all contracts in excess of $155,000 each month uh and this is our

053latest report thank you Mr little and clerk kuet Lenny see Christ paid $86,000 towards the thought exchange software um I'm curious to know if that's an annual contract fee or is that total amount for the whole two-year term does anybody know that or can someone get back to me on that I believe that I i' I'd have to look into it before it's for two years the total 86,000 is for two years it's for two years yes okay and then I had two other questions on this um this the $16,200 worth of training the national conflict resolution center is providing to Mesa Verde Middle School staff what does that look like what kind of training is that do you want to speak to more detailed in the title please if board members are interested in

054having that answered we'll do it after you finish your questions because I don't want it to take up your whole two minutes okay and then thank you for that um and then can you confirm the 95,000 $699 qualtrix contract for the districtwide data integration and covid-19 protocols is year three excuse me year three of three covid money and that there's no plans for an additional contract going forward that's just true and true true okay okay that's it that's it for question thank you sorry that does leave the question regarding the national conflict resolution center any board members have any issues on this item at this time is there something you can share about I'm sorry I think that's Miss Peterson's item these are these were Services uh this is four services that were provided the

055bulk of spring last year to support the Mesa Verde staff with one session occurring in September of this current school year thank you but we don't know what that training is there's nothing you can provide to the public about what specifics those train that training is I'm sorry can can someone follow up with me on that I'm happy to respond now or follow up at the direction of the board well you can follow up now for about another one minute okay uh those um those trainings are to assist staff with Prof professional dialogue among one another and to help move through conversations and potential conflict to arrive at a positive place so the staff can move forward together professionally and in the best interest of students so in connection with disciplinary problems is is that

056what I'm gathering that is not that is your past your time for asking questions if you want to follow up though with Miss Peterson you can do that and she can answer some of your questions some of that is for their staff and there's a reason we brought in outside people to help thank you all right is there a motion to approve that item motion to approve on a motion by Dr Patel is there a second second second by Dr sitesa all those in favor I that's unanimous 5.3 B ratification of District purchase orders revolving cash fund expenditures and Purchase Card transactions Mr little yes thank you m president this is our monthly report to the board with respect to purchase orders uh which usually subsequently come after this contracts were approved in the prior

057uh board meeting and we are asking for approval of all those uh exceeding $5,000 thank you Mr little clerk K Tim Dockery hi there uh this could be a quick one or or maybe not but um this is in regards to just just had a question about the change order uh it was uh I think P 72034 the the change order request uh looks like the original po was for $4 million the change was to increase that by $2 million to six million and I'm sure there's some sort of reasonable explanation for that just seems like a a lot of money for a change order 50% increase yeah for uh looks like it was for U Pharmacy uh benefits for for and my understanding and I'll let staff correct if this is not correct but

058when I asked this identical question it was that we had a miscommunication the first time around and it should have been 6 million the whole time back from the beginning of the year yes and I asked the same question that you both asked of my staff and uh we spend between six and seven Millions each year on our RX program and so the purchase order should reflect that6 to7 million each year uh but somehow there was a miscommunication between the finance team and the HR team or the benefits team and uh we only established the original PO for $4 million so so that's why we're doing the change order some sort of Cl clerical error you said communication but maybe just just application of what it should have been look into it further I don't

059know if it was clerical or a misunderstanding in some direction okay but it's on par the six is on par it sounds like with yeah six to S million is what we've been spending annually okay thank you thanks any questions or comments from the board at this time on this item is there a motion to approve I'll make a motion a motion by Miss platsky is there a second second by clerk kuet all in favor I thank you that passes unanimously 6.1 public hearing and approval of the initial proposal for contract reopener negotiations from the Board of Education to the Powe Federation of teachers 2024 2025 this uh Mr jenez I'll I'll allow you to open it before I open the public hearing thank you madam president currently as you know we have a three-year

060contract with pawe Federation and teachers and the school district which expires on June 30th 2026 under the government code the presentation and Adoption of the district's proposal for contract negotiations is is a two-step process last board meeting January 18th the district's proposal was presented for an initial viewing of the public this evening the initial proposal for reopener negotiations is presented to open a public hearing for comment and then to reopen the meeting for final adoption and approval this initial proposal allows the parties to negotiate a limited number of reopener articles for year two of the current three-year contract thank you Mr jenez and at this time I will open the public hearing at 7:06 p.m. and to hear any public comments clerk kuet are there comments not on this one okay thank you then I

061will close this public hearing at 7:06 p.m. is there a motion to approve motion to approve thank you from Dr sitma is there a second second SEC thank you from Dr Patel all in favor I that passes unanimously thank you item 6.2 initi proposal for contract negotiations from the PO Federation of teachers to the Board of Education 2024 2025 Mr Jimenez thank you pres uh Madam president the exclusive representative for our certificated employees for the purpose of collective bargaining is the paway Federation of teachers otherwise known as PFT PFT has presented its initial proposal for contract negotiations to the district for the staff and public to view the board is asked to take action this evening to approve and acknowledge receipt of the the paway Federation of teachers initial proposal for negotiations as it will

062allow the parties to begin negotiations pertaining to a limited number of reopener articles in this second year of a three-year contract thank you Mr Jimenez is there a motion to receive this we do have a comment oh thank you okay Tim do hi good evening my name is Tim dockerty and I'm speaking tonight uh here to acknowledge the pawe Federation of teachers for their efforts to address parents concerns particularly in sections 7 8 and 11 of the contract negotiations similar to the board's proposal section s rightly focuses on class size and Staffing advocating to quote strategically reduce districtwide class sizes to benefit student learning unquote this is consistently at the Forefront of parents Minds I commend the PFT and board for their proactive stance additionally their proposal includes a valuable request to quote develop a

063highquality student teaching program in partnership with local universities to attract and retain the best teaching candidates unquote Section 8 is equally significant urging a district to explore quote explore ways to address the teacher shortage including but not limited to teachers with specialized credentials unfortunately this this crucial aspect was overlooked in the board's proposal I can personally attest to the repercussions of the L staff appointments as our school faced challenges in being fully staffed at the start of the Year furthermore my daughter's entire IEP team underwent turnover from the previous year including the principle causing disruptions section 11 introduces the vital topic of wages expressing the desire to quote work with the district to identify and recommend to the board regarding compensation for our members surprisingly this critical aspect was absent from the board's proposal I

064understand the inherent challenge of striking a balance with Financial Resources especially when they appear to be in serious flux addressing these issues collaboratively will not only underscore a commitment to our children's education but also Foster a positive and supportive learning environment thank you for your attention to these concerns thanks does that conclude our public comments on this item it does okay thank you sorry for not asking the Sor no worries good until 82 is there a motion to approve is that a motion to accept yes a motion to yes approve to receive yes motion to approve to receive thank you but um from Dr Patel is there a second I'll second from Miss ploty a second all in favor I all right that's unanimous thank you item 6.3 is approval of a new classification and

065salary reallocation for Braille transcriber 2 Mr Jimenez thank you president OK Conor rackliffe as part of the 2223 classification and compensation review study an appeal of the brial transcriber one classification was received and reviewed by our Personnel commission staff as part of this appeal review external comparisons revealed that some of the districts used in our comparison group did not require possession of a literary braal certificate additionally several of these districts had tiered braal classification with the higher level classification requiring the literary braal certificate which indicates that an individual has passed a rigorous training program and examination to be certified in accurate Braille transcription a desk audit of our current incumbent found them to be functioning at a higher level of Independence and complexity in recognition of these specialized skills and the need for continual technical

066Guidance the Personnel commission recommended the creation of a two-level braille classification the new classification Braille transcriber 2 will serve to support the ongoing train trainings as well as perform the more complex spra trans transcription transcription excuse me of educational materials it's recommended that the board approved the salary for the new Braille transcriber 2 classification to be allocated to range 28 of the psca unit 1 salary schedule and it is also recommended that the current braal transcriber position along with the incumbent employee be reclassified from Braille transcriber to the new classification of rail transcriber 2 based on a gradual accretion of Duties over time this recommendation was also approved by the Personnel Commission on January 31st and is now presented to the board for final approval thank you Mr jenez is it correct to I I

067think I heard you describing just one Braille transcriber in the district currently that's correct okay thank you any questions from the board no but I'll make a motion to approve motion to approve by Miss platy and a second second by Dr Patel all those in favor I all right that passes unanimously thank you 8.1 is a presentation of our local control and accountability plan midyear update Miss Peterson Madame President per requirements from the California Department of Education PD District staff will present all available midyear outcome and expenditure data related to metrics identified in the current years local control and accountability plan or the lcap I want to thank our district team for their work to gather data and examine alignment between goals progress and the impact on Student Success um presenting tonight we have executive

068director Christine Donnelly director of categorical programs Mercedes Hub Schmid and executive director of finance budget and accounting Joy Romero to share the midyear ALC report on progress and the local control funding formula budget overview tied to the lcap thank you rich thank you so let's see uh good evening everyone so um as you can go ahead rich thank you all right so um as Miss Peterson uh just shared with the Senate Bill 114 added a requirement for districts to present a report on the annual update to the lcap and the budget overview for parents and it has to happen at a regularly scheduled meeting which is we're all here together for this part so this evening in adherence to the requirements we'll share the available metor outcome data related to metrics that are identified in

069the current your lcap as well as available meteor expenditure data that we have and also about where we're at right now with implementation of the actions and services that are within the current elcap and with that I will turn it over to Joy okay okay next slide please and next slide I think it's me that's okay so there if you want to go back oh so the data that guides our lcap um goals our current elap actually was written during the 2020 2021 school year and the Baseline cast data was from Spring of 2019 uh because there was no Casp as we know for two years um available during during covid other data uh would be primarily though that you find in the lcap would actually be from 201920 the year before we wrote the

070lcap um so every year we look at any student group who is in the red orange yellow range and then sites really dig deeper to identify students who need more support and that three-year lcap plan is updated each year with the data available through the dashboard and data Quest the work we're doing across the district this year is Guided by many different data points though um and just as a reminder uh we did use an alternative metric also during Co and that was I ready um because we did not have the Casp data then um and sites have access to additional data that they use to guide decisions for Student Success okay so for Budget overview for parents which is required to be included in the district's alup report as you can see on this

071slide um we are providing the revised Reven new budget based on the first interim budget report that the board approved on December 14 with total revenue budget in the general fund of 5311 million this change in the revenue has no impact to the ELA budgeted expenditures next slide so at this point in the school year some Metric outcomes are unknown some are in progress and some are known um to give some perspective lcap goals number one and three have 11 and nine metrics each goal number two has 25 metrics uh so tonight um we'll give a broad overview of those goal areas um but we did provide to the board a detailed list of all 45 metrics and midyear outcomes to the board that we were able to get at this time next slide thank

072you so as far as the ELA bu bued expenditures the district budgeted 69.2 million towards all the actions in meeting our elcap goals as of December 31 the actual expenditures reported is over 30 million we have 392 million of budgeted expenditures we are projecting to spend by the end of the school year okay and as we look to the midye update of our lcap this is just a quick reminder of what those three LC cap goals are are and those include the safe and and inclusive learning environments um number two improving systems structures and programs that lead to increased student achievement and learning opportunities for all and finally uh Foster and maintain positive relationships with parents and the community all right now I know this slide has a lot of data on it so I

073apologize for that um the three broad areas of the nine metrics that we use for goal one um attendance and dropout rate suspension and expulsion rates social emotional and physical safety so these are some midyear up um metrics that we have some of them yes are based on last spring because that's when we get the data from the dashboard and data Quest is a year in a rear um so full results will of course be included in our spring review of our three-year elcat plan but a few key updates are as a district we've been very focused on our absenteeism uh we have a number of intervention programs in place at every site um including a site team working with families and students to identify um any kind of ABS reasons for the absences and

074creating plans to support Improvement um an example is just a few days ago during a was visit to Mount carmell High School um a student freely offered that she's often told uh we miss you when you're not here so it's those small things that we can do across the board that's really going to help us budge that attendance number um the midyear checkpoint on chronic absenteeism shows that we are making progress with a decrease of nearly 1% um the students who are currently considered chronically absent have missed 10 or more days of school because we're about a 100 days into the school year um and while that 1% might seem kind of small it actually represents approximately 300 students or a little over 300 students um who um fewer students who have been deemed chronically

075absent um to date as compared to last year um additionally we also still have time to reach out to those students who might be at 10 or 12 but they haven't reached that number of 18 which at the end of the year 10% of 180 days is 18 so we have time to continue to work with our students and yes it's about the number but it's about the fact that we know students in school are learning we want them here um and so that really drives our work um our next step though too is to really as a district is to triangulate the chronically absent students with the student groups and the academic performance to further refine our data and target support um social emotional safety we have a number of programs and actions in

076place that Mercedes will go through in more detail these programs will allow students to fully access and participate in that rigorous academic program we know our teachers work so hard to put on their lessons and their activities in the classrooms and we need our students here to enjoy that and benefit from it uh the physical safety of the schools is continually being assessed and addressed through improvements such as additional security cameras which actually came from the site safety walks and input from parents students and staff next next slide for example this is last year's thought exchange um some of the results of last year's thought exchange and how that drives the work that we do across the district um surveys do guide our goals and actions and one example is the thought exchange that you

077can see and this year is this open again so we encourage our families and our staff um and our students to take that survey um related back to that goal area safe and inclusive schools you can see that the priorities and actions put in place this school year uh survey respondents wanted more student access to counselors as well as more social emotional learning and mental health supports PD and our school increased counseling staff and student support specialist hours and the district also added social workers and psychologists for school safety PD invested in physical school safety measures such as Gates fences cameras and locks as well as training and hiring more campus security and for Better Staffing support during employee shortages Powe is funding dedicated substitutes providing salary increases to all staff and expanded free employee

078Wellness programs so those all are related directly to goal area one Joy next next slide okay so our midar actual expenditures for gold one is 16.9 million this is as of December 31 and we are estimating 21.9 million will be spent by end of the school year 2023 202 for okay so just as a reminder this midor elap update provides the required information as to the level of implementation for our actions and services and they really could be in one of four ranges it could either be not implemented it could have been planned it could have been partially implemented or fully implemented so that's kind of what where our ranges are so um for goal one we're really excited to share that our actions and services have all either been fully implemented or partially implemented

079there's none in the bottom two ranges right so as we work towards safe and inclusive learning environments for our students and our staff we see that many of the actions and services were developed with the students who are identified as unduplicated students that we really kind of centered a lot of our actions and services about ensuring that their supports were being in their needs were being met um so right now when we look at overall you see for example the support of our foster youth support of our homeless families um campus supervisors many of our actions and services again are about exhibiting intentional support for our families the exception here for example we see maintain custodial support and that really is supporting all students in all staff across our district actions such as Dropout prevention

080provide targeted support to sites and helping students meet graduation requirements with the support of alternative programs and alternative programs counselor and of note is also the transportation support that we provided for an addition of a bus route supporting students who are identified as low income um as a reminder as Christine mentioned earlier a full report with additional detail was provided to the board as well okay next please so in looking at those actions that are considered partially implemented we really find that typically the difference between partially and full implementation really reflected actions that were in place but perhaps have some just additional components that are not exactly as refined as we'd like just yet so that's really kind of where you see the major the major difference for example our inclusive practices continues to expand

081supports including a new teacher learning collaborative uh professional learning which is focusing on our preschool through 12th grade special day class teachers and creating engaging and rigorous learning opportunities for their students um and as K Stein mentioned earlier as well we continue our focus on chronic absenteeism with school sides beginning to implement really wonderful incentive programs over the past month to really motivate students and get them to school and as she mentioned you know letting them know that you know that we miss them when they're not there and that we care that they you know that they're with us and again we are starting to see a result of those efforts and finally as we recognize ongoing facility needs we understand that though capital projects have begun we still have to be able to prioritize

082them and but they are being implemented along the way okay all right so lcap go two metrics so in a seate presentation tonight I'm going to go into more detail on the California dashboard itself um that'll go um a little bit deeper into um the academic goals and the metrics that measure that including uh language arts and math um two broad areas that we're looking at within this mid year is instruction and professional learning and College and Career Readiness um in the area of instruction and professional learning we continue to provide professional learning to our staff through professional growth days TLC's clc's and a number of different seminars that staff can can choose from throughout the year um sites really go above and beyond to find professional learning that meets the just right needs of

083their staff uh during the year uh actually during the summer and early fall this past year approximately 90% of our K5 teachers participated in a two-day session on the new math curriculum uh we also completed the second half of our imse K2 cohorts this year which means that with few exceptions every K2 K12 teacher is now using this research-based early reading program that's huge um College and Career Wess this one always stumps people a little bit what does that mean uh how does the state measure it so College and Career Readiness is it's a criteria that the state gives us and to be met to be college readiness um they have multiple different criteria you can choose from and some can stand alone and some are used in combination with other criteria things of course

084like the Casp language arts math AP exams college credit courses that could be academic or CTE subjects a state seal of by literacy um a through G of course for our UC and our CSU schools then for college sorry for career Readiness um there's some unique criteria there and they're typically combined and include things like leadership or military science Casp of course again CTE Pathways uh college credit courses again academic or CTE subjects um pre-apprenticeship um state and federal job programs these are the criteria that the state used to save your career ready um transition classroom and work-based learning experiences um and then related to the college rating us last year we actually saw a slight decrease of 1% in the number of graduating seniors completing an AP course with CG grade or better but

085we did however see an increase of 4% in the number of students meeting the a through G requirements um and we'll talk a little bit more about that later next slide so again back to some of our um stakeholder survey data that drives our work and decision-making um you can see here that another theme that emerged and it's related to this goal area um from previous surveys and last year's was the need for stronger cyber security and an emphasis on digital citizenship as students spent more time online as we know PSD installed a more robust it infrastructure to protect our systems as well as training for the teachers to support Blended learning including digital citizenship lessons survey respondents ask for more stem options and expanded career and real life opportunities and PD expanded Elementary and

086Middle St Middle School Starry stem and Project based learning and at the high school level um we're adding CTE classes many of them based on feedback from our business partners and what they want in future employees and a big one was smaller class sizes that was a big request and while it's not feasible at all grade levels due to budget constraints uh by the way it costs a million dollars to reduce a class size by just one student at a single grade level um PD did however um reduce student teacher ratios at Key grade levels and in key subjects another priority was more help and academic support for struggling students as those as uh as well as those who were wanting to accelerate which was provided through tutoring and expanded summer school and enrichment programs

087so students can participate in Credit Recovery or take extra classes at their own pace okay for El cup goal number two out of the 30.3 million budgeted expenditures our actuals as of December 31 is over 13 million 17.2 million is actually most of this are encumbered or already committed okay so p as you saw from the budget and as you see on the slide in front of you goal two has always been kind of our medius goal as it's focused on increased student achievement and learning opportunities for all and amazing work continues to be done for for our children this slide shows those actions that are fully implemented including programs to ensure support of our students who are identified again as unduplicated including our bilingual parent Liaisons um our exploration program and our Title One

088support for our students who are identified again as low income these actions are in addition to those in place to support our staff as they ensure our Learners are able to able to able to access those learn you know important learning standards this includes our support of the Universal Design for Learning uh through the collaborative efforts of our professional learning engag now trainings and impactful work of our teachers on special assignment so several of our actions and goal to are in varying stages of implementation for example support for our English language development of our English Learners has included implementation of powerful professional learning such as our eel Champions program and the ongoing designated English language development training however individual sites are still beginning to implement professional learning around the support of our children her English

089Learners at the site level here and there um when we look at our actions around least restrictive environments and our special education collaboration we see really great progress I was talking to U Mr misel earlier today and just looking at the different raos and percentages and it's really something that we should really be proud of um this includes increasing opportunities in the general education setting preschool through the adult transition program and what I found when we were looking about fully implemented versus partially implemented it really was around our Special Education team really leading into growth holding a greater ambition and outcomes for our students with disabilities and CR will now take us into our final goal update so in lcap goal three these metrics um this is really about fostering and maintaining those positive relationships

090with parent and Community um in the two broad areas of the nine metrics when you think about putting them into buckets uh parents as partners um welcomed with opportunities to contribute and Community Partnerships um we continue to involve 100% of School site Council parents in the spsa process and additionally the district just um as I mentioned relaunched our annual thought exchange survey um for Reference last year um we had nearly 9,000 adults take the survey and 79% of those were parents um and over 4,000 students um shared comments and ideas about what supports do students need to have their most successful School experience in powerway unified um those results help us along with the other data points from the state and our internal data um to move us along and and measure how we're doing

091in certain areas um and again those the expansion of those stem opportunities in elementary middle and high schools is directly related to improving systems structures and programs that lead to increased student achievement and learning opportunities for all you can see how these three goal areas work together right and that's what it should be we need input from our parents our community our teachers we need to provide professional learning under gold two for all of our staff um and then that just really brings us to that point where we're doing everything we can to provide opportunities for our students to be as successful as they can be um and then the other one too is interesting is recently um our every single site has an equity team and in the elementary level our Equity teams under

092Monique are really working on very specific Outreach to our historically underserved parents um to find out what they need to really be as engaged as possible in our school sites and what can we do differently you know our goal is always to get every parent engaged in a meaningful way in their students education next slide and again you wanted it and here they are more student access to counselors improve school security and maintenance um and Better Staffing support due to employees short shortages so that's a recap of some of those um survey results and priorities and actions taken um again they wanted more student access to the counselors and so we've increased different counseling staff over these last couple years and for school safety we've invested in those physical school safety measures Gates fences cameras

093okay and we're funding those dedicated substitutes all right next slide okay for El cup goal 3 we budgeted 108,000 and over 49,000 has been spent as of December 31 so in lcap go three for actions you know as a district we've always valued our Partnerships with our parents and our school and local community so um go 3 really focuses on fostering and maintaining positive relationships and a couple of the actions we're going to touch on tonight we've already heard about earlier today um from uh in regards to a presentation and also um some back from our children so in review we found that almost all have been fully implemented uh two-way communication through surveys and again through thought exchange our wonderful partnership with Palomar College where work we work closely around our Middle College we

094heard a student presentation earlier this evening when he was sharing um and dual enrollment opportunities and those Partnerships not just you know enrich our how we collaborate with others but it also provides just really some beautiful experiences and options for our kids to um enrich their own uh learning meanwhile our parent education courses offered through the caring connections Center are basically they're informed by Community input when a parent reaches out and says hey this is an area we need more support in we do as best we can reach out and try to find a parent educator to meet the needs of our families next question so within goal three is the action on community conversations on equity and inclusion for the past few years we've had the opportunity to listen and learn with our community

095as a shared points of belonging and areas where we needed Improvement as we move to implement different aspects of our racial equity and inclusion plan it was necessary to focus on learning with site based teams so thus we're working to enhance the building of capacity in our school communities um a wonderful example of this is another uh piece that we heard earlier this evening about bagels and belonging at delor high school um facilitated by Tasha Griffin and sponsored by the d uh Del Norte Equity team students were invited to share their diverse School experiences uh with the principal and the teachers to bring about awareness and increase equity and belonging making sure that our children have safe spaces so they can best learn and so thus what we did is we responded to the feedback

096and and your current status to adjust to make sure that we are being mindful of next steps so overall when we consider um the actions the services the funding the expenditures and our metrics we are making really great progress toward our goals um as we mentioned the 20 uh 23 24 school year wraps the end of the three-year elcap cycle and as we begin to develop the new three-year elcap please remember that the thought exchange elcap survey is currently open and will remain open until February 16th the Fe feedback of our school and local community is very important to its development and we hope that everyone will take some time to share their thoughts and as always we thank you for your time and for your support and we're happy to respond to any questions

097that you might have thank you all so much I know uh I I did see an earlier version of this and I want to thank associate superintendent Peterson and all of you she obviously um took quite a bit of board feedback on an early version of this to Beef It Up and this presentation was great thank you very much um I'll start with who wants to go first no okay Dr Patel thank you very much for this presentation a lot of it yes to took into account some feedback and I appreciate the the robustness of the presentation I have kind of a broad question big picture question so this is the end of our three-year cycle and some of our problems prove to be quite stubborn right we we didn't move the needle or we

098didn't move it quite in the right direction we wanted to or sufficiently so as we look forward to the next threeyear cycle do you see specific areas where you would want us to increase budgeting increase resources anything specific yet that pops up maybe thoughts on some particularly stubborn areas and I know we have new eyes on this as well so excited to hear um what you've seen so far coming from an outside District um yes so where I would like us to focus is be more targeted in how we're providing our support really dive deeply into the data it's easy for us to rest on our Laurels when we see higher percentages of achievement but I believe we can um really increase our students performing above standard that percentage um in addition we really need

099to um look more closely at the support in a very systematic way and how we are meeting student needs for all of our different student groups what are their needs and how are we going to Target our approach toward Meeting those needs um because even though I think in English Language Arts 10.75 students did not meet standard according to the assessment and 13.94% meeting or exceeding standards in ela and 60 almost 67% meeting are exceeding and that's a programmatic issue that's not a capacity issue among our students so we really have to take a look at our systems how we're delivering instruction and focus in on those pedagogical shifts that are going to move the needle thank you I appreciate that that was a really high level question you actually had details and facts and

100I really appreciate that don't feel shy or hesitate to ask for more resources in those right directions I think you have a very willing board thank you here for I ask for wait a minute I've got my list right here I know I I would I would tag on to what Dr Patel said um and maybe ask as we're entering um budget season here and you know a tough budget season um can we expect moving forward an analysis of how effective our actions have been last year and currently before we decide where we're going to be targeting um our student groups more effectively perhaps but if we're not if we're not getting an analysis of how effective our current actions have been it's going to be hard to budget to change those actions so so

101I know I and I assume all of the board members would appreciate some more specifics and I would know you you mentioned that um board members got a full list of something that you referenced several times that didn't happen we would love that list um yes but we have not seen that that was news to us so yeah that's that Miss CET so um my first two questions um concern the lcap goal one metrics and um that that stubborn absenteeism that I know we're really trying to Target and um just wondering are we trying to focus on people who aren't there for a long time are we offering long-term contracts are we trying to hook them up with some other options if these kids aren't comfortable coming into class are we trying to get them

102into other are we trying to be proactive and getting them on that and then also I know it's nice to say gosh we missed you or we love it when you're here are we using any would say stick approach but talking to parents saying you got to get your kids in here and are there any type of penalties that we can do do there to get these kids in class cuz sorry it's it was you know go ahead sorry well I can speak to it because I we coach the principles right so we work with the principal every time we coach them or meet with the principles we're asking them to look at their attendance data um we have reports that are live we go through them we say okay tell me what's going on

103with this student and this student and this student and I'm telling you our principles are so engaged in this work and they really do know the stories behind these students and what's going on so first of all it's just like a DF list I always use this as my example but as a new AP they gave me the dnf list I started planning all these interventions right away didn't really look at the names that oh I got 14 kids I can make this happen let's do a tutorial and then I F finally started looking at the individual students and talking to them and finding out what they needed and they didn't all need an after school think some needed this some needed that so that's one of the things that we're really quite good at

104at the site level they know their students we have counseling support we have ssas we have uh principles APS we have all all these people really dedicated to this so it can vary a lot Ginger it really can it sometimes it might be a stick or you know we've tried a lot of like strokes and now I need you to really step up even thinking through with you know like Mercedes when I talked to principles we were talking about okay parent education maybe there's another course that we can develop for parents on you know what when you're struggling to get your child to school here's some help things that we can do so there's lots of things we think about every time we talk to our principles and our site teams about this and come

105up with more supports and ideas and then we share them out amongst each other okay did it answer it it it does it's a Sticky Wicket and each one is unique I have to tell you I can I can get that so and what I did mention in there too is we're really looking at that chronic absenteeism is something that's going on all year long they're missing a day every week or was it maybe a short period of time that it was a once- in a-lifetime family trip or an emergency or something that was more of an acute thing that one year so we're going to triangulate that data and see how that might be impacting AC academics versus the ones that are all year long just missing day after day along with tardies okay

106that's our next step right well so tagging along with that um you know just right below that it says that you know 33% of secondary students don't feel safe at school right um how are we I mean I'm sure that directly ties into I'm sure those kids are probably the ones that are absent more often are we trying to give them some alternatives are we try how are we trying to help those kids because I bet you there's a a correlation between those and we we have number of different programs some go to you know home school we have different programs and we can meet their needs it just there's a lot that goes into each of those um but yes we we do look into that and figure out what's the alternative for that

107child sometimes um I can I can name a 100 kids right now I can probably them up aund different ways that we've approached it with those students so we do have alternative programs though as you know in the district that might be a better fit for the child at any level and you you nailed it right there when you're saying safe at school that's that belonging and we've been talking about it because we know that's a really key piece if you feel safe at school if you feel like that they know who you are you're not leaving your identity at the door you get to be who you are um that really does make kids want to come to school so that's a big Focus that we've been doing as a district and we're we're

108trying to track the data to see how that proves right because it's one of those intangibles and a survey other every other year with um chicks is not maybe enough that's where Panorama and these other ones come in okay and we'll track that data to see how that manifests in PD but National Data points to that being the answer that it is that belonging and not leaving your identity at the door and ensuring that you know the adults want you at school um and that you have a group that you identify with that school Dr sitma thank you and I apologize you might have said this but kind of picky packing on what Dr Patel was saying in terms of like moving that needle forward as um we are closing out the um three-year um

109set for this um lcap goals will this year's thought exchange inform any language change in our goals or how does that look going forward so when the when thought exchange wraps up on the February 16th at that point our team will sit down and kind of look at theming about what that looks like and at that point we'll look and see what is our community saying what is our what are our metrics saying and when we look overall around um again feedback from the board looking at our staffing looking at feedback from cabinet as well we kind of look to see overall what is it that we really should continue doing and what are some areas that we need to really kind of you know hyper focus on and maybe this you know action or

110service maybe was not it was it helped some but maybe there's something that we can also re examine that might be more impactful so it gives us an opportunity to uh do a couple of things one is we can always change actions and Serv Services you even within the three-year LC cap goal right so when we move into the next piece we as we make a decision about are these goals the same goals we want to continue with or are we looking at different goals one and then two looking at the different actions and services and seeing what might be still effective what might need additional refinement and what might be some actions and services that may not serve as well you welcome Miss platy so my one question about thought exchange and I have

111this every year I know but is that parents that answer thought exchange questions late in the game it's kind of like a Facebook program that you don't get as many likes if you're at the end of the game and you're the last couple days you're way down at the bottom so it doesn't rise to the top and have and I know those are the goals that don't get added because it's always the ones that has the higher numbers is there any way that I mean are you guys reading all the way through and like hey these are really serious concerns but only a couple people like marked those as important Christine do you want to take that one sure um so couple things uh thought exchange um actually does employ a lot of AI technology

112so even though we might not necessarily have human knes on every single thought that comes in what it does well is summarize the priorities in the exchange so if even if it didn't necessarily rise to the top that doesn't mean that it's excluded additionally it's very rare that um One Singular thought is so unique that it isn't represented uh repeatedly or elsewhere in the thought exchange many of the ideas that come in are really um around certain things and so um I believe that most of our community's priorities are represented in the thought exchange and one other them is psky too I think one of the the nice Part Parts about how we set up our thought exchange is that we definitely have that districtwide view but sites you know even as individuals we can

113go on the website and we can drill down and look at our own individual School sites and really kind of look at the those comments and the granular of what even the school site's saying so it gives us opport Unity not just at the district level perspective but also that very important site perspective so that our site leaders have that data about their school Community as well miss tretti um I wanted to share something specific that um Twin Peaks in West View are doing to address um lcap goals to and three I thought um it might be something interesting for other schools to look at as well and so they're trying to um attain um this ramp designation from the American School counselor Association which involves submitting a lot of um documentation um and making

114sure that their like learning gaps are addressed and so they have like these advisory councils with parents and teachers um and students um to talk about them and discuss strategies and so um at the high school level after reviewing alcap goals um they saw that um 8 through G completion rates have decreased and so um they're targeting 11th grade students and they set a concrete goal of reducing the number of D's and F by 54% by June of this year and so we're going to meet again and see um how that is going and the same thing um specifically targeted for um our African-American and Latino students um and so that includes um bi-weekly meetings with the students um and monitoring bi-weekly grades and also um advocating for students with teacher of um repeat classes

115so I thought that was something interesting um that maybe other schools might be interested in thank you Mr bet than it's great to hear that sites are looking at their individual data especially the the student groups to uh have more targeted targeted interventions potentially so Dr Patel yeah two more thoughts um one is going back to the um um the discussion around absenteeism and chronic absenteeism I know from other parents in the district school refusal is becoming a huge challenge for students and it's a variety of reasons it's not just feeling safe at school it's it's mental health issues and I think parents are looking for supports they want to be partners it's just a really hard heavy emotional lift for some parents especially for those students that are not communicating well with their parents

116so the parents don't even know what the situation is so I think the increased counseling supports are great also increasing the communication back and forth when we start to see that number of absentees uh absences ramp up we need to intervene early um because sometimes parents aren't even ready to have those conversations right and um with thought sorry I'm a little all over the place but with thought exchange it is nice to hear I think there was always this lingering doubt in my head as well around the clustering of ideas and it sounds like Christine you're saying that the AI That's embedded within the thought exchange platform allows those um like keyword clustering and so just because your particular thought doesn't get a lot of stars and doesn't get elevated as long as there are

117others with similar um key wordss it will get bundled together and and elevated together so don't worry about you know sending out that mass email for everyone to to to like the same thought your ideas will get clustered I think we saw that at Mesa verie around the band program or something like that absolutely and electives and things like that and I can and and the public as well as schools and anyone who gets the results which we share at the end can Search keywords as well so if you're a site leader or you're a parent and you're curious as to who else you know shared similar thoughts on this topic you can do keyword searches as well miss CET um one more question I have is um back in elcap Gold 2 um that

118only 72.2 of our graduating seniors were deemed prepared for college or career and I always get nervous people just getting moved on moved on moved on so what are the kids the there's my math skills 28% what are they doing after they graduate if they're not prepared for college or career are we tracking what's happening to those kids are we trying to circle around that seems like a high number you see point that microphone at me wasn't that sweet the hand out well because and that's why I did want to give you some of the details they might be going on to college it might be that the indicators that the state has applied according to their metrics and how they weight things they might say that they're not college or career Readiness that doesn't

119mean that a child in that Gap area from the state doesn't go on because the way the criteria work is sometimes you have to have two of them and stuff or in conjunction this and that or this or that so it's possible that we have kids in the that do meet the college on Career that don't go to college or career and vice verse so it's it's an indicator to look at really overall patterns and Trends so I don't know that actually we get that list of those who are not deemed I'd have to look at that for you Ginger um because it's one of those State indicators and as you saw too it's even when you'll see in the dashboard it's even a different graph because they can't compare to the previous year because

120they actually weren't able to gather that data for the last few years it'd be interesting on that because if we're if they're still showing success and they don't meet those indic those certain criteria then obviously the criteria are wrong or we need to expand those criteria you know it's like like you know and that's the state the state makes easy yeah but but it' be interesting to track those kids to see what they are doing and and because I I don't want to teach to the test I want to teach to success you know so that's just a so so I think in a couple different ways too the CCI indicator it's kind of like an algorithm so there's not like even like a really cut and dry way as Christine mentioned it's kind of

121like the combination of a couple of different things the same piece with a through G I think as a district we are making strides toward you know looking at promoting more uh kids doing the estate sale by literacy and opening up those Pathways we see um the different uh dual language programs that we are looking at that again are going to feed into that um that CCI indicator in addition right now we've been doing a lot of deep work uh with the AUG Improvement Grant and working with County Office of Ed about looking about transcripts and course offerings and alignment and so really trying to make sure that we're doing all those pieces and to your point just because they don't may not be in that CCI indicator by the state doesn't mean that that

122they are not prepared to to move on to other pieces is we have children who uh do the two-year go directly to fouryear do a 2-year college and transfer we have wonderful programs through Palomar promise where kids can go there for the two years for free and then transfer to you know to different uh opportunities joining the military joining the work for force uh Technical vocational schools there's just so many things that our kids take with them and this is one measure of success but we know that they walk into the space you know really trying to find things that they're passionate about that may not always be measured through the state indicator but I also hear what you're saying about what what happens to them and sometimes it's difficult because sometimes the data is

123self-reported so how do we track once they they leave us how do we you know how do we get back that information back to us so we can be able to be more intentional about that analysis thank you and before we we're about to move on to our our dashboard presentation but I wantan to I want to make sure I'm crystal clear that the actions targeting our student groups that are reflected in this lcap that we're looking at right now those those student groups that we're targeting were identified from our dashboard two years ago I certain agree yeah so that is a serious frustration with the data lag for sure um on that note then how similar do our goals for the elcap from our community look year-over-year have they been similar I assume things

124changed quite a bit over over Co um oh yeah so I think so we at ELC Cap's infancy here power unified had 17 goals and after the we did we had 17 goals it very exciting um and then we looked at we looked at that overall we went to five goals but what we found is those 17 kind of fit within those those five I think when we went to the three goals we looked at what kind of what our board priorities were we looked at um what the community was telling us we really kind of had an opportunity to refine what what it looked like and I think right now what we have and that is around um the social emotional safety well-being the learning um the the Partnerships with our community and our

125businesses right now those really Encompass they're very over you know broad-reaching umbrella goals where many things fit within so I think that when we look at do they change over time well this last time you know we're just we've had these for three years well you know what's coming around the bin I still don't know I guess what I knew the answer to that piece I think what I'm trying to get at is more a frustration with the data lag which is the state's fault and I never mind hitting the state over the head for their you know their lag time on everything um and expecting you know expectations of districts to make plans Based on data that doesn't exist yet or data that's 2 years old in this case so as we're moving ahead

126to the new lcap our parent input and our student input Community input is brand new and current but that's the only thing that's current all of our other data points are two years old which is why we draw on multiple data points and don't rely solely on our spring testing scores that's one piece of information and we may end up B Bas on the feedback staying with those three broad goals and goals written broadly really are advantageous to us what we should see change are the more targeted actions that we're going to take based on our multiple data points not all of them based on the really old data correct correct thank you and and to that point and I always like to mention this if we get thought exchange data and we are able

127to take immediate action we take action we don't wait till we implement the plan in fall of 2024 when we have information and we can act on it we do it absolutely and thank you for that clarification more questions more comments no I I am super excited for the dashboard presentation but I'm going to call a quick recess okay thank you e okay team we are back in session at 809 we are on item 8.2 California school dashboard Miss Peterson thank you Madame President the California school dashboard is a resource which provides parents with information on school and District District progress tonight executive director Christine Donnelly will Pride provide information on the state indicators according to data from Spring 2023 the most recent State assessment data the California dashboard data became available to districts in

128mid December these indicators will be used as part of the development for our ELC plan for the upcoming school year 2425 and before you begin we do have one public comment on this item Miss CET Tim Dockery I did on on all of them actually so I'll share it with you yeah no worries that microphone should no worries thank you um hi uh again my name is Tim and I'm speaking tonight to express my uh ongoing concern regarding the results of the dashboard uh specifically in light of the recent Casp testing outcomes which I discussed a couple months ago while I appreciate the efforts made in the uh to be made in the subsequent presentation to address the overall District performance I'd like to draw your attention to some critical points that require consideration and

129strategic action first I acknowledge that in aggregate the district's performance appears commendable with many indicators showing a positive outcome however my concern lies in the disparities evident among certain groups and uh schools and student groups it's disheartening to note that despite the district's overall success specific groups such as African-Americans and special needs students continue to struggle in both English language arts and Mathematics those groups perform below the standard although chronic absenteeism remains relatively flat year-over-year three student groups fall below the standard suspension rates while also stable show that more than half of the defined student groups are below the standard additionally graduation rates although flat reveal that more than half of the groups are below the standard with all groups experiencing a decline year-over-year my overwhelming concern stems from the fact that despite the district's

130overall performance meeting or exceeding standards there are specific sites and student groups that urgently require a more in-depth examination and substantial Improvement it's imperative to address the root causes of these challenges and Implement targeted strategies to uplift these groups I urge the board to provide concise and clear planning outlining how these under performing groups and sites will be supported and improved thank you for your time and consideration and I look forward to positive changes that reflect the district's commitment to the success and well-being of every student thank [Applause] you all right so you might be wondering why we're doing a second presentation on data tonight um well throughout the year we actually present to the board on different platforms and that data is submitted to the state or the state reports on uh the district

131um the time frame for the dist presentations can actually vary due to changes in state requirements for example the midyear um LC cap that we just did um that was a one time only during covid and then it went away last year and then they brought it back as part of a requirement this year so and then sometimes they'll move when the local indicators are due so things can vary from year to year um and so that's why some of these reports feel a little bit duplicative because it's it's repeating information and we have to hit certain targets uh for dates and deadlines at the state's uh mandate um and then if you look up there you can see where we're at here so this year in the last 12 months uh back in January

132we presented on the dashboard from the year before um and then in June we did an lcap review um dashboard was done in June as well and then um this is the February reports and we can try to spread those out and then sometimes a datal or deadline will shift and we're back into kind of clumped up um as I review the dashboard tonight with you please keep in mind that other than our local indicators again the data used by the state for the dashboard is from previous school years um and it does uh end up being in AAR next so how does it all work together this is California's accountability system it informs the development of the lcap right so the dashboard to the local data plus and we get to the lcap U

133we've talked about it earlier the the other presentation is how do we really focus in on the groups are not uh making the the appropriate amount of growth or significantly behind that's where we're going to really be going with this next LC cap is we're going to drill down and find those research back based strategies strategies that may be tried at some sites and are having Effectiveness and then take that to scale um it's hard in a district like this we do try things and then taking it to scale is a challenge um diving into the dashboard is a showcase on how well students um within a district or School are performing again on those variet of indicators next so for the state measures people might wonder what they use um to decide where we're

134at on the gas gauge um it so the particular one I'm presenting on tonight it's the 2223 results and how those results improved from the prior year of 2122 okay and then the dashboard again you see it's returned back to the use of the colored gauges um red is the lowest and blue is the highest um and it's again important to note that the dashboard is the totality of the district's progress right last year as compared to the previous year next so here's our seven indicators for PD um that was published in December these are the seven indicators um I'll try not to repeat information that we've gone over both in post uh presentation discussion and in my other presentation um we do have areas we need to focus on chronic absenteeism our suspension rate

135um but there are areas that we are doing well as you can see um College and Career Readiness uh English language arts and Mathematics I'll go into each of these uh seven areas in more detail and while it guides us on a larger scale it really does need to be repeated and noted that due to the fact that it's a year in a in reporting and students included in the reports have graduated and or changed grades um it doesn't track cohorts of students with the exception of the the graduation you know four-year gradu ation rate that that's a cohort they they watch they start together and they so but this is not cohort data your students you might have a group of 50 um in a in a group and then the next year it

136looks like 50 but some of those kids are not the same kids and students as you know can be in more than one group um so it it gets a little tricky I think for people to understand that um but we're looking at overall and then we drill it down to sites to give us more data um so and separately from the dashboard our school sites identify specific students who need more more support and provide those appropriate interventions in a much more responsive way okay that we do have a lot of data at the sites we have um Comon assessments we use I ready as a diagnostic those kind of things can be used right off um you often have planning starting in the summer before the kids even arrive based on how they were

137doing last spring um sites are already putting things in place and it does Drive um Master schedules we've gotten a lot better at Shifting the system to meet the needs of our students rather than just building it um I am just I've been in this for a long time and I'm just so impressed on how much energy our secondary schools put into building those Master schedules to ensure that our students can access co- talk classes can access as many electives as possible it really does touch my heart because that's been a work for a long time and it's coming to fruition don't forget in the primary grades they're not taking Casp right but we do actually a universal screener on every single first grader in this District in those first few weeks of school and

138then we get interventions going immediately in sips sips is a Intervention Program these are very targeted very research-based programs so realize yes we do have in some ways we call it the autopsy from the state with the years and AAR we have data that we use at the sites and we move fast right and we're very excited to see how our long-term imsc data comes through all right um next one so again we' talked about chronic absenteeism quite a bit so I'm going to go ahead and abbreviate this one again um last year it was 14.7% um and we did see a decline um in the number of students who were absent um it's not as much as we had hoped um we were aware of this last year and we were working on it

139so we're trying new things this year that's what we do we measure it is it working we do it more if it's not working we adjust and try something new um and just overall eight of our students maintained the previous year's chronic absenteeism you know that range of what's maintained by the state nine actually did have somewhat higher chronic absenteeism but 15 did improve or improve significantly as measured by the state um and then I'm going to skip because we've talked about these things already next slide suspension rate again suspensions are a significant concern for us um and it reinforces our work to ensure that every child is seen valued and heard and we're committed to taking a deep dive into this work um actually two of our student groups are African-American and Foster use

140suspension rates did increase last year um from the year before uh 2.1% or more in 2022 the African-American students were 3.1% suspensions and last year it was 5.5 and our foster youth went up from 12% to 17.9% so this is data that's available on the dashboard but anybody parents it's a great resource you can gohe and click on the different groups and drill down um and really our American Indian students and three groups in the green and blue range all maintained from last year um no group no other um no group actually overall declined in their suspension rate last year though part of it is because our suspension rate by the state is pretty low um we we really want to do more though but it's hard when you're dealing with a small number of

141students as you know and it's not the same students year to year um and the one thing I really want to say is that specific measures that you've been asking what are we doing about these things specific measures that we've added expanded this year include those P Positive Behavior Support teams PBIS is not a new term but the way we're doing it is much more in depth um and that's under guidance from our director of equity it's the LSS team it's from the student Support Services team it's from our attendance and discipline everybody is really into finding the best ways to support our students with positive behavior um that's at every site we have Equity teams at every site um uh We've restored our uh expanded sorry our restored practices and are other means of

142Correction and if you get Jamie dayoff up here he's going to tell you about that one of these times he loves talking about other means of Correction as a district um next slide um English language learner progress actually if you look we're really making gains with our elel students um if you look at that purple up there um we you see how we're moving them more students last year progressed at least one LP level that's really what we're looking for a kid isn't supposed to come in and not speak any English year one and year two be completely fluent right it's a path and what we're looking for is each year are they moving along that path and right there 51.6% of our students met that right so and overall really 55.4% of our English

143Learners are making progress um that's a lot of work and a lot of really great people committed to this next um so the academic engagement indicator is that graduation rate um I do want to point out that the way that the state gathers data is it ends in June and so it doesn't capture our summer grad graduates the ones that are capturing those credits during the summer or technically fifth year seniors so actually our internal data is um higher than 93% it's 95% when you capture those students that they did graduate from PD um and we have a several that are in the no performance color because it's smaller than 30 students the state does not report out on smaller than 30 student groups I me you're like wait they reported out on these groups

144and other ones well yeah remember we're only talking about the seniors so it's just that senior classes all right um and then this indicator we know we do note a large number of groups identified by the state is red and orange um and so we've been addressing this in different ways uh we have now early we started at early graduation credit checks in the fall so they're getting ahead of it right right away in the fall uh the counselors are working with the students on these early graduation credit checks right away we have summer school for our high school students to recapture credits A genuity for online credit recovery um and we've increase the number of high school um Excel classes I know we've talked about these These are these math courses meant to really

145pre-teach and frontload and have students be successful in the regular math course um that's expanded so it piloted and then it's expanding now from one high school to three um that's that's amazing that's research-based best practices um and then this school year we also brings our District's brand new um remember access pathway which is our alternative Pathway to a high school diploma for our students with moderate to severe disabilities that's something very specific that we're doing for a student that's in the red right um the students with disabilities so we look we respond and then we put things in place um next slide please that's that College and Career and we've talked about that that's that various criteria used by the state um it's a little confusing but lots of different criteria but I do

146want to point out that our um we have students who didn't meet the criteria to be considered um so we're constantly looking for ways to improve that how they might hit that a through G that's one that we have a lot of resources in place for we're always looking to expand um in the past two years we've had an AG a ag a tog sorry a tog administrator in learning support services so she's working with us under the a through G Grant to find new ways to really reach out to students and as I reported earlier we had a 4% increase in the number of students meeting a through G and our ctae department is amazing about finding new ways to reach students through engaging electives that are part of that CT um pathway CTE

147pathway all right and they use data as well to guide them next so our academic performance indicator for English language arts um so the dashboard reports it as 59.1 above standard people might look at that and say how does that match the 74.6 below 74.6% below low is the Casp overall who met or exceeded the number that they use for the dashboard is that uh distance from standard uh math formula that we use average of students above or below this point of meeting standards um and overall 75 nearly 75% of our students in grades 3 to8 and a grade 11 um performed at the at standard achievement levels right um all three groups in the orange range African-American homeless and students with disabilities maintained as determined by the state but we want them to improve

148we want to get everybody up into the blue um of the 13 groups with performance colors three increased in their average distance from standard six maintained um including four of those groups in orange and yellow three groups did decline um in their points and it's interesting that all three were in the green zone our English uh our e students our uh White student group and our two or more racist student groups um we've also really as I mentioned earlier from The Institute for multi-or education that imse um education for our K12 that's something we've put in place we're very excited to track that data over the years and see what kind of effect that has because that's that early literacy that we know when it switches in third grade from learning to read to reading

149to learn um we're we're just excited about this and Greg's over there probably smiling because that's his baby all right um so that's really going on and we're going to monitor that impact of that foundational learning that sets the stage for continued growth in Reading language art and Carries over every content area uh co- teing language arts and social studies courses in middle and high schools uh we're expanding those more in the elementary school the code teaching model um academic success courses focusing on academic skills at the high schools we've got a double dose of el Support classes in Middle Schools uh we have year-long targeted English instruction for ELD Avid excel in um Middle School we predict that with these and others site initiatives uh we will make gains towards every student meeting or

150exceeding standards next slide mathematics um we are we really have focused on mathematics um this entire year we have put on a lot of professional learning for not just our teachers but our um Learners our leaders our elementary principles our lead Learners on the campus and facilitating the new math um it's been like this deep dive alongside with the teachers and coaching and mentoring their teachers in this new math program um overall 67% of our students in grades three to eight and 11 performed at standard achievement um and then we do have groups that we want to continue to focus on our African-Americans our students with disabilities um how are we going to reach out and meet the needs of every student and that's all everything's connected nothing's in isolation it goes with belonging it

151goes with best instruction in the classroom tier 2 interventions these things are so interwoven it's really hard to just pull them out and say what metric is going to measure this right it's very challenging and so we're always looking to see and there is anecdotal evidence right and there is qualitative um and it's getting better and better about talking to students about what they feel like on campus what gives them Joy how are they learning what would they like to see in their learning this street data for lack of a better term it's that idea of we can do lots of anonymous surveys or you can go out and talk to students either in focus groups that they volunteer for you're doing it informally with incentives whatever it is we need to talk to our

152students and find out what they need and how we can help them uh we're addressing these student needs through research-based support such as that new math adoption that's a huge lift we're talking about every K5 teacher is going through learning this new math it's a big lift and our teachers are really dedicated to it uh we just finished January 29th going through a deep dive into discourse and discourse in math also applies in another subjects you're talking about a life skill your life skills around communication and being able to talk with others and explain your reasoning and asking good questions that's a life skill and it's being done through math but it applies in all of our subjects we have math Excel courses in high school New TLC is like crazy uh professional learning focused

153on conceptually based mathematics um that code teing excuse me the Cod teaching model in um mathematics in middle school and high school and we're starting to expand it into more elementary schools targeted student support um we have so much going on with that professional learning like I said with our dk12 administrators uh we just finished today on one of our Equity walks and it was through the lens of the socially conscious leader when you're going into classrooms and you see student discourse what measure tells you that that discourse is powerful right there's rubrics out there to use um and we're constantly reviewing our PD attendance patterns for different student groups and how that is possibly related to academic performance and math and English language arts next slide and so goes the end of the most

154exciting day dashboard I hope that met your needs there Michelle when you were looking forward to it I was and that was fabulous thank you so much director Donell so you're welcome so again this data demonstrates a clear need for a laser focus on the following Frameworks high quality instruction and belonging they're not separate things and it's what's driving the work we're leading in LSS questions or comments who would like to start this one Dr sitma thank you uh I have a couple of questions can you speak a little bit to this no student group yes absolutely so if you look there which page are you uh I'm just noticing that on any of the is gr out there either gray out red or there's one of them that's on yellow but there's several so

155again some student groups when you're talking about like a one grade level or something like that the number of students who are in that student group might not may not meet that 30 minimum threshold to be reported on so there might be is that the one we're talking about like what it says no student group no student groups yeah I assume that's actually referring to no group is in the red correct yes so if you're looking at if you go click back a couple I know which one you're talking about now okay I had a different impression I'm like is that someone that's a group of students that are not something or say none of your student groups are in this Red Zone that's what that means the other one is no uh no performance

156color that would be the American Indians saying The Chronic absenteeism because the number of students in that group is too small to report on uh publicly we do have that data obviously on the back end okay and you mentioned new math yes so can you talk a little bit to that because I feel like it was not that long ago that we had common core which was new math well Common Core so common core is longer than you probably think give me a guess but 10 years yeah so about 10 12 years ago Common Core at the national level and adopted at the state level and the Common Core actually those state standards are still the same by the way so this is based the same standards so the progress notices and report cards are

157still based on the same standards that we're teaching it's how we teach them instead of focusing on a procedural method it's focusing more on a conceptually based um approach to math and it matches what we've been doing for 10 years in our middle and high schools okay cuz I know that 10 years ago I think about how old my child was when this was pushed out and parents were like I don't know how to help my kid right now because I'm not speaking their math language anymore and for all of us it's probably four languages ago right it's it does have to change you know what when we know better we do better right and we we do good work and we do it with the information that we have at the time and we

158put in programs in place um we use an analogy right now in um math it's it's a it's a heavy lift it's really a different way of thinking about numbers right and fluencing these things and that is on our list of things to do is how do we put some more um ways to help parents support their students with learning at home I don't call it homework I call it learning beyond the school day you know how are these authentic ways that we can support families and their and their students and what's interesting is there's an analogy you know when you learn to ride a bike you can learn to ride a bike in the old way which was with training wheels and somebody directing you and trying to tell you what to do or

159you can learn on one of these New Balance bikes and if you watch videos of these two you'll see that the one is directed by this the rider the balance bike they're learning it from instinctually going through it um it is challenging I wasn't a math teacher but I oversee math and you know what sometimes when you come in with that rookie smarts we call it you know or that new lens at looking at something you've never taught it it gives you a different perspective on it and I and I have to say I appreciate the work that our principles and our teachers are doing around this and we have math toses that are just wholeheartedly into this okay and and I just want to add to that I wouldn't want anybody to walk away

160with the idea that it's new math math is math math is math the standards are new curriculum yes how to teach it correct thank you numbers are still on a line good miss plotsky so while we're talking about math um is as much of the elementary math question question s and story problems because I know that was a struggle with the younger kids that had dyslexia they were not they were right out the gate like your second and third graders that couldn't read they they were falling so far behind in math because of their dyslexia because they couldn't read often you mean like in second grade originally when the story problems started increasing right because that was a huge Common Core thing it it started out well the research that went into developing the common

161core is solid and the states adopted those standards we have our California State Standards those have not changed the Frameworks are uh changing on how we teach so think about a child with dyslexia that's a reading disability correct so but now you have a lot more opportunities to talk about your math thinking right it's not just about the numbers on the page and figureing what this word means um you have this opportunity to really talk and listen to somebody in these vertical whiteboards and actually there's you know the mathematical practices but there's also these five strands and one of them you know is the procedural but there's other strands and they all work together and one of them is really having conversations with people and discourse is a very important part of this uh learning

162to talk about math and make uh visual images that goes with it and that can I'm not saying that you don't to support students absolutely you know you don't just put kids in a group and say Converse you have to put in supports in place to help them be successful in that and that would go for students with a disle Leia or other learning disabilities too okay so I don't know if you answer my question so is there as is it as F so it's not as focused then on um written questions and I think yeah okay so I think it's there's fewer problems and you're going deeper with the problems and looking at them from different langles okay it's a shift from the the old the model I do up at the board you

163do and then we do so now it's uh you do I do we thank you I'm tired I'm sorry yes it used to be I do we do you do now it's yes Julie you do do you do it you get to practice with it you do a warmup right and then we do it together and then the synthesis with the teacher at the end is kind of putting all the things they've been talking about into what what they're learning okay thanks I'd love you to come see a class okay yeah I'm going to try that yes thanks Dr Patel thank you thank you for this presentation um again I am going going to bring up the absenteeism question one more time and in this lens when we look at that absenteeism data these are

164not unexcused absences necessarily these are all of our absences so it includes absence for illness it includes absence for vacation it includes all kinds of absences and so when we look at that not all of them are specifically needing interventions if a child is home with a fever they're going to be home with a fever right and there's no intervention needed except for the medication they may take correct then they return to school so that also if we look at the year might have included several absences due to co absolutely and extended absences due to covid right right and that's still going on so we have to take that into account when we look at this data and just feel a little grounded and that the situation isn't completely dire correct and if you look

165at Chronic absen ISM before covid it was much less yeah I think 8% or something if that no I can't remember but really we do know through Co too is if we used to come to work coughing all over each other all the time right the rules are and it was like a it was a you know like a badge of honor man yeah I'm a I'm sick but I'm here now we're better no I'm not kidding you right like that was how we taught the teachers upfront and coughing and we we went to work kids and we've learned right however I think you brought up in the term is right it's that school refusal we really got to look at that a little bit and give parents some skills because it there's so many

166elements to it and we got to help parents with that to because it is a challenge when your child just will not go to school and they're not sick right so how do I help them okay and then the other thing I want to bring up is clarification around these indicators and the way they are presented by the state it's not necessarily intuitive so it's not an absolute marking it's the it's the indication of the shift corre from the previous year so is it possible when we look at the dashboards and I know it shows that if it goes from blue to green it means it shifted from blue to green correct right can we we have year-over-year a visual of that so that we can see it also year-over-year this was yeah I could

167do that for you I know I think I know what you're talking about because I'm I'm that visual person my head is thinking oh this is an absolute number but I would love to see that shift year-over-year because that helps me see a little bit better how we're doing whether our interventions are actually making progress or whether we're staying I I know you've said that but it in the visual it helps me just process I know what you're talking about yeah and and part of what you will see that in the um when we do the cap because it's got the Baseline and then it's got the 2021 22 23 so it does it um it does it that way you can track it across but I can do it from the dashboard for you

168because that's my natural instinct too is I kept toggling back and forth you know I'm doing the presentation toggling back and forth because it is it's it's their indicator there but what does that really mean in number differences and okay and I and I I know it's very obvious but I'm very concerned about our African-American students and some of our other groups our students with disabilities homeless youth they're just staying being stuck in those lower tiers and I really want to see the intervention programs that we're implementing making progress I know we have College Bound for our secondary students to access what other programs or interventions do we have for these particular student groups except maybe more targeted interventions and maybe it is maybe that's what it has to be one-on-one interventions for these students

169that continue to struggle I think we have to do a better job of identifying the specific need right so for example when we talked about summer school that that's not a specific need that's saying we see that you're struggling academically but it could be in math it could be in language arts and then which part of language arts so we have to do a better job of really drilling down and identifying which piece it is uh identifying the start date what the intervention is what's the period of time measure it again because then that will drive the steps we take and do we elevate a student to a tier 2 a tier three intervention but we've got to be really really solid at that ground level with really good data that is an area and

170an opportunity for us to improve thank you absolutely thank you I also just wanted to say regarding absenteeism this reflects when we still had restrictions in place for covid right you you tested positive for covid you were required for a certain period that you couldn't come to school and that is all factored in there yeah so you take your 10 days for your one B of covid and then you add a couple of days here and there and you're at 18 correct we'll get better it's not an excuse it's just an observation I'm encouraged by the idea that we're looking to more specifically Target our student groups who are in the lower tiers I think you pointed out though that at least in math that our you know several of the groups in the green

171actually fell so I think um you know keep it in mind that we're not just worried about the red orange and yellow groups we want to make sure our green moves to Blue and our blue stays in blue and they continue to improve year over year and I know we're not following cohorts but you know we're we're not just worried about the students at the bottom we we got to we got to keep pushing and make sure we don't lose any of the students who are at the top right now and keep moving more students to that space so I I appreciate the I I don't love the presentation from the from the states perspective what they make us do and how they how they phrase it but I appreciate your explanation of what it

172means um and I appreciate the ideas about how we're going to move forward using the data and and digging into it by sight even and getting down to those levels and I think that really will go to our sipsas how much did you actually look at your data because they are the ones who have more than just the old data they have the more current data and they have the anecdotal data um so I think our sipsas are real a real tool for us to put in place the right not one- siiz fits-all intervention so I appreciate this and it sounds like we're making a move and I I like that any other thoughts before we move on no thank you so much for this presentation you're welcome thank you guys yeah um GNA move

173us through here I'm going to go first and last I think on our board member reports um I'll start here um this is the more kind of a more General districtwide but happy Lunar New Year um Saturday February 10th kicks off the Year of the Dragon uh I I think all of us up here are excited to celebrate tomorrow at the annual Lunar New Year celebration at Adobe Bluffs Elementary um in addition to that uh hundreds hundreds of extremely talented dedicated student musicians from across all of California we're invited to the all Southern and All State honor bands and Orchestra and the the whole list and it's a long list is in 11.1 uh PD is so so proud of our middle and high school students who auditioned for and were chosen for that prestigious

174honor so kudos to the teachers the staff our volunteers and students for continuing this really strong tradition of Visual and Performing Arts excellence in our district and speaking of Excellence this is Dr burk's final meeting in her position as associate superintendent of technology and Innovation for the district she's been selected as the preferred candidate for superintendent of salono Beach School District and is expected to be formally appointed by their board next week since her arrival in 2017 she has led PD to the Forefront of technology and Innovation through her vision leadership and professionalism we are so grateful to Dr Burks for her dedication and contributions and wish her the very best you will be very missed up here but best of luck to you um this week is National School counselor's week and while we

175appreciate our counselors year round we want to especially thank them and highlight them this week for the vital role they play in the success of our students through helping students with goal setting and academic success managing their emotions applying um interpersonal and social skills and providing counseling to identify and address student issues and needs this week some of our schools were touched by tragedy and our school counselors were there at multiple campuses to support students and staff our school counselors are really really the best of the best and their services are more important than ever so please take some time to thank our school counselors for their work and I'm just going to clap right now this month we celebrate Black History Month our schools and student groups are holding events to share greater understanding

176of the the significance of black and African-American contributions and achievements in the US in addition our school district and social media sites have been sharing posts to highlight and celebrate Black History Month I saw a recent post by the San Diego County Office of Ed um black history is American history and it's exciting to see a more diverse history being shared with our students our staff our families our entire broader Community I'm so proud of this collaboration and the passion that's moving this work forward um and finally we're in the middle of our CommunityWide survey for our local control accountability plan at the elcap through thought exchange so um we're excited to engage with thousands of parents students and employees and other community members in this conversation so from now until next Friday you've got

177a little over a week here um February 16th we'll be compiling those the top thoughts for each school as well as the district as a whole to share with everyone and again as we heard the input helps us refine our funding priorities and our lcap goals moving forward so thank you for that and I'll go down to miss travetti I hope all students are doing well this month um last Friday I went to pawe high school with Dr sitma um to talk to different students and I've been wanting to connect with students from different schools um as it's easy for me to see things from more of a West View perspective um but we got to talk about um different facilities updates that students are hoping for so I was glad to see the um

178hbac um on our agenda for today um as well as we talked about um what it has been like to switch over to the trimester system um after being on the semester system for so long so that was interesting food for thought for me um on Friday I went to the West View Mount Carmel basketball game and West you may have lost but it was great to see some familiar faces from across the 56 um and shout out to all of the PWD teams that are um winter season League Champs um I also attended Mount carmel's winter formal at CSU St Marcos on Saturday which was High School Musical themed um and I think the ASV did a great job planning that so shout out to them um and this semester I'm trying to explore

179different electives at my high school and so I joined our school newspaper so I spent today shadowing our principal to write an article about a day in the life of West's principal which was super enlightening um also um I attended the unity basketball game at Westy today which is a super amazing tradition where our special education students um and our school Community comes together for a basketball game and our there were so much there were so many students in the gym that we didn't have space in the bleachers um for everybody to come watch um and that was so amazing and really a really really special part of West viw um and I was also really happy um to see that we adopted did the new um special education um physical education course and I

180think that just really goes in tandem with what I saw today um and again as Miss Michelle Conor Ratliff said the lcap is open and so I hope students take the opportunity to make their voice heard I believe Rancher Bernardo had the most responses last year so if you're from the other high schools you need to step up your game this year and make sure you're encouraging your friends to take it too um and um lastly I know um not just students in RB and Powe but also across thect District were um frightened and alarmed by what happened um in the RB Community um and I just want to say that you can't say it enough but thank you so much for doing your part um and seeing something and saying something and reinforcing what

181has been said for many many years so thank you so much and I hope students take that as encouragement to keep um alerting the important authorities about what they see so that's it thank you yes good evening everyone I hope that everyone has managed to say stay safe through this atmospheric River that's passing through our friends and family members that are down in South County are not fairing so well so if you have some time and some um resources feel free to go down there and and spend a little time helping our community members out as usual I will use this time to highlight just a few activities that I participated in as a board member since we met last January this month I attended the csba capital advisers budget workshop at the San Diego

182County Office of Education where we discussed as um Community member Freda brenzel from the PTA mentioned the federal and state fiscal outlooks and the governor's proposed budget while we are in a period of budget shortfalls the outlook for schools looks relatively flat um for the most part big budget wise but we will expect some tightening of the per strings around special grants and programs we're being told that this is a good thing because there is at least there are not significant cuts and no deferrals more to come as a state legislature puts forward their budget proposals and we push towards a final budget later in the year I was proud to attend the M MCHS was visit and share my thoughts on the positive impacts of Mount carmel's culture on student belonging academic success and

183outcomes I was joined by President okon Ratcliffe and I'm sure she'll share more on that visit as a fan of vaa uh at least for me there's no better way to spend a Saturday night than with student per performers and the um Bernardo Heights uh Middle School theater company did not disappoint their production of Frozen Jr hit all the right spots with their backstage crew acting singing and comedic and tragic timing this middle school performance was really truly impressive my husband laughed out loud at several points he doesn't typically do that and I love that these students continue to thrive through our vapa programs earlier this week I joined staff at design 39 in welcoming visiting board members and administrators from maretta Valley Unified School District as they began their journey of exploring how they

184can recreate or create uh different learning experiences for their students I love the opportunity to see our own schools from the eyes of visitors sometimes it's very eye openening and thought-provoking to see how others see what we're doing as a Schoolboard trustee I often look at our district in the same way and see a truly remarkable system that strives to continue to deliver highquality education and supports for our students staff and Community like many in our community I intentionally chose to raise my children in this District because um because of power unified and everything that it stands for we care deeply about the district and the well-being of our students and staff while there are always areas to grow and improve I know we have a solid foundation of supportive community members families and dedicated

185staff to support our engaged students so thank you everyone at Team PSD for carrying this this ball forward in honor of black history month I would like to share a well-known quote by Maya Angela that speaks to my philosophy of continual learning do the best you can until you know better then when you know better do better it's pretty simple and that's how I continue to um live my life I'm proud of the work that our black student unions and school sites are doing to Showcase Black History Month across the district and for those celebrating Happy Valentine's Day and happy Lunar New Year with that I and my report see you next month good evening these past few weeks have been extremely taxing on our students District families and staff together as a community as

186a whole we've been shocked frightened heartbroken stressed angry and scared for a variety of reasons only a teeny fraction of which make the news and to the family staff and especially the children we see you and we hear you but no one else may ever know your struggles so I'm asking we must be more kind to each other because we don't know what the person next to you is going through I wanted to use my board report today to thank the brave students at RB High School who did as we've practiced since they were little to see something and say something which gets much harder as you become a young adult because there's much more peer pressure I also want to thank Greg mzelle Cindy Hicks Hans Becker all 205 RV High staff from everyone

187from the administration to the maintenance crew for who the daily protect our children and our emergency responder Partners from for their handling of the situation that took place a week and a half ago while also dealing with a multitude of other student crisises that happened that same exact Friday and Monday or Friday and Tuesday I know some of the other schools have had issues this last couple weeks and concerns with lockdowns and a multitude of other things I want to thank their administrative staff for addressing the rumors immediately so parents could breathe easier when we say we're in this together and as transparent as we can be I had a lovely email from a conversation with a parent of three at RB High last Tuesday that believed that the Board of Ed had not released

188information about the search and arrests and she felt it wasn't safe um to send her child children to school because she felt that the information had not gotten out so when I emailed her back saying that we had because we were living in real time I meant it so CU I told her I was watching on the news but my children had already walked out the door and I had three children at RBI high so it was we had the same information that she did and she emailed me back and we come Converse a few more times she was much more comforted in knowing that we were doing everything we possibly could and we were as transparent as we could so that's my brief of the week thanks thanks um I'm going to keep this

189short because I know we're going back up to close session um but I wanted to take the time to thank our associate superintendent now in terms superintendent for stepping in Greg I uh really appreciate you doing this kind of studying the helm um it's really important for our staff and our district to understand that they're heard they're respected and we are as good as we are because of them and um I just want that healing to happen and I look forward and I know you're the right guy for the job so thank you for doing that now on the other side I'm really sad to see Dr Brooks go because as I reflect on we could never have had that transition of going one to one the technology that you're able to put out to

190not only our teachers but our parents for support it was remarkable and the fact that we have a good cyber security got a knock on wood on that little Superstition um is is is Forefront so thank you for all your efforts and I wish you the very best out there and they're lucky to have you and finally I hope everyone has a nice ski week because it's snowing and you should have a fabulous time good evening it has been an eventful month um I was fortunate to be able to make it to um a lot of really fun things this past month um not enough hours in the day to make to everything uh here's a few highlights from my month and district-wise uh hard to believe we have surpassed the 100th day of school

191I always get a kick of while I don't have an elementary kiddo anymore but of going scrolling through social Med Med and seeing all the fun hundred things that kids counted out and or dressing up like they're 100 years old uh so creative uh and and so much fun to see all that I I do miss being a part of that um believe it or not I attended my first spelling be um I mean I had classroom spelling bees growing up but I went to my first spelling be kudos to all of those students at Twin Peaks who had the courage to compete against their peers it was beginning to feel like the event would go all night it took 2 hours for 19 students to spell their way to the top very impressive um

192kudos to all of those kiddos um who doesn't love being up close to a helicopter students at Pomerado had a special treat we all had a special treat of um R's Children Hospital landed a helicopter at the school it was planned um they did all of the paperwork um it doesn't matter if you're five or if you're 75 the excitement at watching the The Landing was electrifying um several superhero medical staff shared tidbits of what they do answered questions from the students and stood by while the students got up close and personal to check out that helicopter and the ambulance that was sitting on their field um Meadowbrook faculty beamed as they were very proud to show the growth that they have made um this year towards inclusive practices they Pride was rightly so I'd

193like to express my gratitude especially towards the students who bravely and candidly shared their thoughts on the before and current educ educational experiences they've had with respect to um being in a restrictive environment and now being in an inclusive environment what they feel is working and what isn't working for them their honesty and their faculty's willingness to listen to them is a very important part of this growth process so kudos to all of them and the work that they're putting into this I was invited to back to Twin Peaks to hear a special presentation to um students who were invited um based on surveys and population um there were there were criteria to hear Dr Scott I about to say Spock Scott who he's a Community member his children are are soon to be going

194to Twin Peaks uh who he is an um an opthalmologist um students did have to have parents signed a permission slip before they went into this presentation on what he does I sat through he he only gave presentations during home room so he gave back-to-back performances I sat through both because he was so fascinating um the breakdown of the the complexity of the eye uh and how it takes there's truly there's there's actually four different medical trainings that you can go through to to learn about the eye and and uh the complexities behind it he works on the retina and he he also is an oncologist specializing in the eye and there was one slide hence the um the uh the the permission slip where the students saw him removing a worm from the from

195the eye there was definitely some screamish but he was motivational to those kids like he showed how he he figured out what he wanted to do but the Journey about the importance of give yourself some Grace have fun with what you're doing and then when you figure out what you want to do give it your all but don't forget to to take some time away for yourself for your family and and and have fun um so it was fascinating fascinating and I know that there was some other District representation there that I believe Mr lamaster was there some conversations about uh having him maybe present in um other areas of the district I want to thank Miss tretti again for inviting me to come and be present at uh while she connected with Powe high

196students um it was it was fun um they they needed a little bit of like teasing of out of like guiding the conversation a little bit like okay well what do you let's take big picture and then let's narrow it down but the conversations that she guided those students in from everything from registering to vote to what do you want to see at your school to free open you know reach out to me at any time now kudos to her so thank you for the invitation anytime um vapa again I I love vapa as well I know I'm not the only fan up here the Powe high school music production of Little Mermaid wow uh this was my favorite animated movie as as a teenager being that little little bit rebellious as a 16-year-old when

197this movie came out um I even had a dog named Ariel that's how much I L that movie the young women who played Ariel and Ursula stellar I mean if they if they don't go Broadway amazing Chef Louie I have a personal relationship with the girl but oh my goodness so funny uh I I loved it I was singing along hopefully nobody heard me um the whole cast though just amazing talent from behind the behind the scenes to in front of the stage you would have thought it was a Broadway production uh so I could go on on well done Titan theater uh yesterday I I had it was I had the honor of connecting with a different sect of members in our community at the point Interfaith Harmony breakfast their positivity through various spiritual

198connections and optimism was was uplifting and it was just a really great way to start the day um so I'm I'm glad I was able to make that very early morning meeting uh good luck to all of our winner teams as they uh continue to compete in CIF um Dr burs we will miss you thank you for everything that you have done for this District um happy Valentine's Day happy Lunar New Year and hope hopefully you have if if you're interested and all I'm watching the Super Bowl I will watch the commercials and with that I conclude my report thank you Dr sitma um as as I'm sure you you know it's been an interesting week and to anyone who's imagined our district evolving into some form of like a rudderless chaos um I am

199very happy to report it has been exactly the opposite if the waters have been a little bit choppy everyone has pulled together taking up extra responsibility and looking for ways to assist and for that I want to offer my heartfelt thanks to my fellow board members this has been difficult and to the district office uh all the staff there um in particular um I often speak during my board reports about team PUSD um and I'm so proud of the way especially this week that we have really walked the walk um every conversation I've had keeps coming back to what's best for our students what's best for our people in sticking to those principles I am confident that our district will continue to thrive through any Challenge and you don't have to look far to see

200it I think I was at a lot of the same things as Dr sitma this past month I didn't realize we were like quite on track I didn't see the eye guy but um the the students at pomad elementary school getting to see that R children's helicopter land on their campus as part of career day a parent made that happen parents are on team P USD too um our students as always simply incredible um as are the adults who facilitate their their opportunities um on Saturday night Titan theater deservedly received that standing ovation for Little Mermaid I mean wow I think it's safe to say that Disneyland Disney Disney fans everywhere like the one I was with and me were ready to Swoon um three more shows this weekend by the way get out there

201um Little Shop of Horrors as we heard from our student report at Del Norte opens tomorrow so get out there students needless to say are a huge component of Team PD as well and I'll ask have you been to a school library lately rbi's blind date with a book initiative where you get to rate your date it amazing how clever um coupled with their book displays to tempt students in into really productive and um celebratory ways to um to read about black joy and honor black history um Librarians are team PE USD too the inclusive practices board um meeting at Meadowbrook Middle School um again hearing firsthand from students and staff and walking around classrooms to see the incredible work that Mustangs are doing with coot and collab classes they have up their game significantly

202this year and it shows and again as as just to Echo Dr sitman that level of cander from both the students and the staff in front of their principal in front of their teachers in front of a bunch of administr trors frankly so meaningful and really speaks highly of the culture that principal brownley over there is developing again go team PUSD I was at Mount Carmel on Sunday to welcome the wasque visiting committee and for those unfamiliar with the wasque process all schools go through it every few years it requires them to engage in kind of a really I I think a really demanding self-evaluation and then bring in the peer review um that focuses on Equity inclusion access to highlevel rigorous courses and learning opportunities for all students the work that the sundevil administrators

203and their staff put into preparing was absolutely tremendous students were part of that too they led a campus tour for the was visitors and parents the parent panel absolutely sang the Praises of a school that they clearly love that's the Su of way and explained and demonstrated to that team by a broad swath of our team PD there is so much wonderful work going on in our district we have not stopped and we will not pause we're embracing the message of Keep Calm carry on I've always hated that but it feels really meaningful in this moment um the success of our district is based on a solid foundation we have fantastic students we have supportive families and worldclass Educators and support staff so between with that solid foundation and the strength of our leadership team

204frankly and thanks to Mr miselle for being ready to set up and and sit here next next time um we're not going to miss a beat here so thank you team PUSD for your dedication your hard work and really your cleare eyed commitment to our students and with that I'm going to recess at 908 and go back to close session thanks everybody