001This meeting is being webcast live and recorded. The recording or webcast may capture images and sounds of those attending the meeting. I'll now identify the close session topics of discussion. They are recommended expulsions, recommended suspended expulsions, recommended reinstatements, public employee discipline, dismissal, release and complaints, conference with labor negotiator, conference with legal counsel, existing litigation and anticipated litigation. And there are three cases. Two matters of those cases involve facts and circumstances that might result in litigation against the district, but which facts and circumstances are not yet known to the potential plaintiff or plaintiffs. Item 1.5, public comment on close session topics. Public comment on any close session item will be heard at this time. Pursuant to board policy, the board may limit individual comments to no more than three minutes and individual topics to 20 minutes.
002It is recommended you begin your comments by stating your name. Seeing none, we will adjourn to close session. Okay. Good evening. We will now uh convene regular session. Uh just as a side uh comment, uh board member D. Young will not be with us here tonight. Um Alandre Moran will serve as the Spanish interpreter for this meeting. Meeting attendees who would like to listen to the Spanish interpretation of the proceedings, please pick up headphones from the table located in the back of the room. This announcement will now be shared in Spanish. Gracias. Okay. This meeting is being webcast live and recorded. The recording or webcast may capture images and sounds of those attending the meeting. Members of the public who would like to provide public comment on items listed in tonight's agenda. We recommend you
003fill out a public comment form. the green form located at the table at the northeast entrance to the room. So over this way, please hand the completed form to exe executive assistant Licia Weatherford before the item comes up on the agenda. She is in the back of the meeting room. We recommend you complete a separate form for each agenda item on which you would like to comment. Members of the public providing comment, please use the microphone on the stand located in the front of the room at that time. Board member Paul Belt will now lead us in the pledge of allegiance. Please stand. Salute and pledge with me. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty
004and justice for all. >> Okay. Okay. So, I'll report out the action taken in closed uh session. In closed session on a motion by board member Gamoyan and a second by board member Viegas, the board agreed by a vote of six yes to no nos with one absent uh to approve the settlement agreement for case VCU 328128. In close session on a motion by board member Gabby. >> I don't have to. Oh, because the results are Yes. Sorry, little inside baseball there. In close session, on a motion by board member Gabby and a second by board member Viegas, the board agreed by a vote of six yes, no nos with one absent to approve a grievance resolution between the district and CSEA. Finally, in closed session, on a motion by board member Naylor and a
005second by board member Belt, the board agreed by a vote of six yes, no nos, and one absent to approve a settlement agreement between the district and CSEA classified employee EID number 16528. Okay. Um, there are revised item enclosures tonight. They are 6.1, 6.2, 8.10, 10 8.12 8.13 and 8.22. Do I have a motion to adopt the board meeting agenda? >> Okay, >> I'll second. >> Motion by board member Naylor, second by board member Gabby. Please vote. >> Motion passes. Um, student board member absent. Um, six yes, one absent. Okay, that takes us to item 3.7. Yep. Uh, student performance, LD Monte High School Choir. I'll introduce uh, director of visual and performing arts, Alan McFarland. Good evening. Tonight, the LDE Chamber Singers is going to take us back to their holiday concert under the
006direction of Roger Herbedian and collaborative pianist Ray Wolfendon. Please enjoy arrangements of That's Christmas to me and getting in the mood for Christmas board. As they come up, we invite you to uh head out to the audience for a better view. >> The fire is burning bright. shining all the presents underneath the good old Christmas tree and I wait all night till Santa comes to wake me from my dreams. Oh why that's Christmas to me. joy that fills our hearts and makes us sing. Oh, that's Christmas to me. I've got this Christmas song in my heart. I've got candles glowing in the for Christmas. Oh, that's Christmas to me. in the dude is always telling us the way that he rolls. Hurry, hang your stockings when the lights are down low. Listen to some music
007by the king in that baby. If you're ready, then I'm ready to roll. In the blues, the bells are ringing. In the groom, the party singing in the moon cuz it's ringing boogie boogie boogie for a merry Christmas. Come on now. We're going to party. I know how. Yes. To get started in the boo know I'm in the Okay. So moving on to item 4.1, the introduction or oath of office installation of the student representative to the board for the 2526 school year. The presenter on this is administrator of school leadership Matt Shin. >> Good evening, board president Odoto, board members, superintendent drum. It is my um honor to be able to install our newest student board member who was unable to attend the board meeting installation back in September. So, I'm going to ask
008that student to come up at this time. Okay? And repeat after me. Raise your right hand and repeat after me. I state your name. Do you solemnly swear >> domly swear >> that I will support and defend >> I will support and defend >> the Constitution of the State of California >> the Constitution of the State of California >> against all enemies >> foreign and domestic >> that I will bear true faith and allegiance >> that I will bear true faith and allegiance >> to the Constitution of the United States >> and the Constitution of the State of California >> and the Constitution that I take this obligation freely >> that I take this obligation freely >> without any mental reservation >> or purpose of evasion >> and that I will >> well and faithfully
009>> well >> discharge the duties >> of student representative >> to the board of education >> upon which I'm about to enter >> Thank you and congratulations ratulations and welcome to the board, Miss Contrarus. Okay. Item 5.1, public recognition, visual and performing arts, uh, VAPA students and fall athletics. The presenter, first presenter will be director of visual and performing arts, Alan McFarland. Ladies and gentlemen, good evening. Tonight I get the pleasure of honoring individual accomplishments as well as some ensemble performances and uh accomplishments within the field of visual and performing arts. We're first up is the students that performed with the California Coral Directors Association Central Region Honor Choir. Students, come on down. So after participating in a rigorous and students will just have you take a se a seat to stand up here in
010the middle. We'll we'll keep you standing face awkwardly to all your admirers here. And then can I actually get the uh the other choir students from Mount Whitney and Redwood as well. So, after participating in a rigorous and competitive in-person solo audition, 18 Vicelia Unified students were selected to perform in the CCDA Central Region Honor Choir. The the following students in front of you performed at the Shaggoyan Concert Hall uh on the campus of Clovis North High School on Saturday, November 8th. So, students, when I call your name, step forward. Uh audience, please hold your applause till the end. From LD Monte we have Diana Padilla, Janie Sperry, Lauren Hunter, McKenna McMahon, Marco uh Marcus Arasco Velasquez, Nilani Bernal, Nathan Hardy, Nicole Jimenez from Mount Whitney, Riley Fischer, and Braden Lions. And from Redwood, Abigail
011Ray, Ameilia Folultz, Brinley Travis, uh, Sabria Freeborn, Mason Perez, and Rosalia Longbottom. Congratulations students. Next we have the students that participated in the California Orchestra Director Association Honor Orchestras. Students come on down. You guys can stand. Fun center. So after submitting solo performance recordings, 18 Vicelia Unified Orchestra students were selected to perform as part of uh the KOD on orchestras. The following students performed on the campus of University of the Pacific in Stockton, California on December 6th. So while we had 18 uh qualify and participate, uh these lucky students were available to be with us today. So the students in front of us today is Jun Wei Wei Matthew Rodriguez we're from Golden West from Mount Whitney Nia Aubrey from Redwood Sierra Carlson um and Zachary Tamuka. And of the 18 three received special recognition
012performing in the top group, the the Full Symphony Orchestra. Uh, not all here today, but Bianca Lumapas, Julian Araki, and Zachary Tamoka. Congratulations. All right. >> All right, students, you can return to the room. Thank you. So now for outstanding ensemble achievements, I want to first bring forward the Golden uh student leaders from the Golden West High School marching band and color guard. Come on forward. Today representing the Golden West Band and Color Guard, we have uh Alandre Zavala, Kylie Ruiz, Esther Gutierrez, Joseph Estrada, Jose Estrada, Anthony Fernandez, Evelyn Deanda, and Michelle Avala. So, under the direction of Omar Salazar and Robert Whitfield, the Trailblazer marching band and color guard capped off a wonderful fall marching band season by winning CSBC's Division 4A at the Northern California Division Championships. Their Northern California Division Championship uh
013uh automatically earned them a spot in CSBC state championships. So, on December 6th, they competed in Riverside uh California among 16 of the top bands throughout the state. So, go, congratulations on a wonderful season. And our final group of the night is the Redwood Ranger High School marching band and color guard. Students, come on down. The leaders representing the group today, we have Matthew Tete, Abigail Ray, Johnny Grove, Anne Woo, Leah Debris, and Emily Herrera. Under the direction of Jordan Ray and Dave Morris, the Redwood Ranger marching band and color guard began the season strong by winning the grand sweep stakes award at the Vicelia Band Invitational after earning the highest score of all 18 high schools in attend in attendance. And to close out a few months later, the their fall marching season, the
014Redwood Ranger Marching Band and Color Guard established themselves once again as one of the most competitive marching bands in the state by qualifying for the Western Band Association's prestigious Grand Championships Tournament. It's an honor that they have now received for their fourth consecutive year. So, congratulations to students and to the staff of Redwood Ranger March Mann and Color Guard. That closes out visual and performing arts. Up next is athletics with the director, Mr. John Perez. Thank you, Alan. We're going to give uh the parents for athletics a few minutes or a few seconds to get in. So, uh please bear with us. Okay. Good evening, Board President Odo, Superintendent Shrum, and members of our community. Tonight, I have the privilege of introducing Vice Unifi's outstanding fall sports teams and individual student athletes. Before we begin,
015I want to take a moment to extend my appreciation to the parents, grandparents, and all those who have supported our athletes throughout their journey. From the early morning to late nights, the countless drives to practices and games, and the hours spent cheering from the sidelines, your sacrifices have not gone unnoticed. Many of our students are multiport athletes and have competitions scheduled this evening which pres prevents them from being here tonight. They ask that we share their apologies for their absence and that we want to wish them the very best of luck in their contest tonight. And first we have Redwood girls golfer Emma Hernandez. Emma qualified for the Southern California Regional Championships held at Los Lo Serranos Golf Course in Chino by finishing as one of the top 12 individuals at the 2025 CIF Central
016Section Division 1 Golf Championships held at Cypress Ridge Golf Course in a Royal Grande. She also finished in the top five at the CIF Central Section Area Tournament that was held at Tallery Golf Course. And Redwood is led by head coach Ryan Cochran. Again, round of applause for Emma and her accomplishments this year. Thank you, Emma. Next, Redwood boys cross country team. You can give him a round of applause. The Rangers finished as runner-ups at the CIF Central Section Division 1 Championships, trailing only Clovis North while edging out number three third place Buchanan. Their second place performance secured a team qualification for the CIF State Championships. The Rangers total team time ranks among the top 50 all time across all sectional championships and stands as the fastest in both Redwood High School and Tallery County
017history. Junior Jack Areola delivered a strong performance placing in the top five in the Division 1 boys race. And here tonight are Jack Areola, Max Areola, James Gon, Corbin Kirby, Andres Nino, William Schaefer, and Zachary Vargas. Again, a round of applause for the Redwood boys cross country team. again. Thank you gentlemen. Great season. Next, El Deonte's girls cross country team. The Miners captured the CIF Central Section Division 2 Championships, finishing 20 points ahead of runner-up Clovis West and earning a team qualification for the CIF State Championships. Their combined team time ranks among the top 50 all time across all section championships and in the top 10 for division 2 meets. The miners were also the Eastman League champions and finished first at Mount Sack, which is one of the largest high school cross country meets
018in the United States. Sophomore Izzy Vasquez claimed the division 2 individual championships, setting a new meet record with an outstanding time of 1802.54. And seniors Brooklyn and Kimelli also delivered strong performances, both placing in the top 10. The team is led by coaches Kim Tucker, Pete Marietta, Mark Hails, and Adrien Romero Flores. Team members here tonight are Brooklyn Bahawan, Kimelli Bahawan, Isabella Vasquez, Zoe Chenny, Hannah Dlansski, Elisa Bella Avalos, and Deny Presci. Again, one more round of applause for the LDE girls cross country team. Again, round of applause for the El Diamonte girls cross country team. And finally, Golden West varsity football team. The Trailblazers were the 2025 fall academic team award winners for football, earning a team GPA of 350. They were not only successful in the classroom, but on the field as well.
019The Trailblazers finished the regular season with an 8-2 record and earned the number four seed in the CIF Central Section Division 3 playoffs. They advanced to the quarterfinals where they narrowly lost to eventual champions RFK 34 to27. In the season opener, the Trailblazers defeated the eventual division 2 champions Aoya Grande 35-28. team members here tonight. Noah Opalario, Omar Calderon, Isaac Carmona, Walter Chavez, Serabia, Riley Collins, Rowan Collins, Braden Casta, Marcus Garcia, Brody Lawrence, Parker McDonald, Brie Makin, Jaden Nara, Wen Pion, Cadillac Pina, and Steven Sanchez. Again, a round of applause for these academic and well-qualified varsity football players. Again, congratulations to all the athletes tonight. Parents and athletes, you're more than welcome to stay for the remainder of the board meeting. However, if you'd like to take this time to go and celebrate your athlete,
020I encourage you to do so now. >> Yeah. Good. Thank you very much. >> Thank you, Mr. Perez, and thank you, Mr. McFarland, for that. So, as they're filing out, I'll say this, although the people in the room already know this. School lasts long beyond the school day. And we create great opportunities for kids to get involved in school. And what you just saw here is evidence of the great job that kids, parents, and yeah, a little bit of help from the schools to make that stuff happen. Moving on, the agenda 6.1 spotlight on good things, not that that wasn't a good thing, happening in the district. Presenter, Superintendent Trump. >> Thank you, President Odoto, members of the board. I also just want to again echo uh how we begin all of our board meetings
021with our student entertainment, our group from LD Amante. What a great job they did. And then again uh moving on to our student athletes, our BAPA uh students as well. And just recognizing uh our coaches, our directors, and all of those folks that help support that at the school site. And uh as uh uh John mentioned just a minute ago, the parents, grandparents, relatives that uh get them to practice, sit in the stands and cheer them on and just uh it's a great effort. And so we appreciate and are proud of all of these programs and the accomplishments of our students. That's definitely a spotlight and a good thing happening in the district. As we move on, while we have been on winter break for a while, there have still been a lot of things
022happening. And so I'm excited to share a little bit of that tonight in this report. First, uh, three VUSD students were highlighted on this year's first, second, and third character matters series with K24. Maurice Cruz, a student at Pinkham Elementary, was honored for spreading cheer and celebrating the success of his peers. Fifth grader Yaritzi Sanchez, for showing her classmates how to be a leader. And Johnny Johnny Keley, a senior at VTEC, for showing that trust and kindness goes a long way. Congratulations to these three students for this incredible accomplishment and we'll see you at the end of the year banquet. Speaking of athletics occurring over the break, Redwood Mount Whitney hosted the 74th annual Poly Wilheims Championships on December 22nd, 23rd, 26th, and 27th. This is California's longestr running 16 team high school boys basketball
023tournament. So, thank you again to our coaches and sponsors and all of our student athletes uh who traveled uh locally to attend the sporting events. Speaking of our holidays holiday cheer, over winter break, our family and community resource center partnered with the assistance leagues, Lions Club, and United Way to support families in need. 15 families from multiple school sites, including two homeless, unaccompanied youth, received gifts for every child, grocery cards, food boxes, uh Costco from Costco and other places. Families picked up items staff delivered to those unable to attend in person. And the United Way of Tallery County also supports 30 VUSD families through a holiday event with gifts, Santa, and a restaurant mill. We are deeply grateful for our community partners who help make the holidays brighter for all of our families. Thank you.
024And I got to give a shout out to our facilities, our operations, and many of those teams uh who did some amazing work over the break. First, just to call out a few of those things. Our maintenance team was busy over the break with several safety trainings and upgrades to our school sites, including adding bott bottle filler stations at Shannon Ranch and Elbow Creek and Ridge View, completing a backflow prevention project at Charter Home, and upgrading the electrical at Creekide Elementary. Thank you for this team for helping us start the second semester strong. And continuing with that uh are on our facility side district improvements included our much anticipated technology upgrades that are now underway district-wide starting with Mount Whitney and then Redwood later this spring and eventually move into all of our sites to
025upgrade classroom technology. Um also another uh great event occurring campuswide uh LED lighting at Houston is nearing completion. Uh Houston modernization is ahead of schedule with phase two completed and phase three beginning this month. And another major project that our board and community are aware of that we're excited about, the stadium scoreboard replacement prog uh program is in progress. Uh and so you can see there I think in that second uh the the starting of the dismantling of one of the scoreboards soon to uh have amazing new scoreboards plus some other surprises uh that we'll have for our two stadiums that we're excited about and cowshaped HVAC upgrades continue at Royal Oaks and Valley Oaks. So thank you to all of our employees uh district staff and others that continue to work while many uh
026other folks might have been on uh winter break or vacation. and thank you for what you do. Speaking of our our staff and students, winter inter session. Uh that doesn't mean all our doors were closed. We were excited to provide a winter inter session this year that ran the last week of December and the Friday before school started. I imagine some parents were happy we ran that as well. uh in partnership with California Adventure Camp Pro Youth High Performance Academy, over 700 Vicelia students in grades TK through 8 participated in the winter session amongst the activities, field trips, and other things. Uh and lastly, we hosted a winter session this past week for integrated math 1 students to utilize our papers grow tutoring platform alongside in-class teacher instruction to strengthen their mastery of core uh
027standards. and this support model allows them to progress into the second semester ahead and in good position to not have to potentially retake a class in summer school. So, we're glad to provide that intervention and look forward to that growing in the future. Now, I do want to highlight a couple of people in this next one. Um, you know, we've we've mentioned this team before uh leading up to uh this award. The past previous years, they've been recognized. But this year, we received notice from the Association of School Business Officers, also known as ASBO, that we were awarded their highest honor, the meritorious budget award. This award is given to districts who show a clear and transparent budget presentation and communication plan. Now, so first of all, I want to recognize them. And so if
028that team would please stand to be recognized. Thank you all. Now, another exciting piece of this is part of this is an art contest to represent the budget, the the visual part of that. And so we held a district-wide creative contest where the winner's art would be chosen as the cover of the report. So, I'm proud to recognize Remy Wright who is an eighth grade student who was an eighth grade stu grade great grade student at Greenacres at the time of the submission. I believe he him and his family are here. If they could please stand or she Yes, thank you. I'm sorry. Please stand and be recognized. So, ninth grade now or eighth grade still. Ninth grade. This was okay. Trying to remember when we did the art contest. So, thank you, Remy, and
029uh for being here tonight and for your creative uh submission. And so, let's give all this team a big round of applause and our student as well for their art. And I do also want to make a mention just just how how selective this is. So not only from the art side of all the submission from the entire district yours was selected but also for our board to know last year only five California districts received the meritorious budget award and there were only a handful across the nation. So this is very uh high honor and so again I just want to congratulate our student and our uh budget team for this great accomplishment. Congratulations Last week, return the page. Our HR team hosted new and veteran teachers for Keegan training focused on our district's embedded
030practices connected to student engagement. 95 teachers attended two days of training and 60 previously trained teachers attended a day of materials review with updated structures. These types of professional development trainings allow our staff to become better educators, furthering our mission of every student learning every day. Now, you might notice there are a few uh empty seats uh up here tonight, and that's because uh several of our principles and selected staff from their sites in addition to some of our district team are at the UVA winter leadership session where they're focused on improving student outcomes through researchbacked methods. And so, you see a picture there of the team. And what's uh exciting about the winter program is each of our schools that participates brings about three staff members with them. And so it really helps to
031start to spread uh that work across the school. And so thank you for our teams. Uh it's hard to go this first week because they had to miss the first few days of students coming back, but I know that leadership investment is well worth it. And speaking of that starting strong, we are back. It was great to see all the activities, norms, and academics happening on Monday. I want to thank our staff, our teachers, our families for making the start of the second semester amazing for all of our students. and and I had the opportunity uh I was at Emanuel Hernandez to welcome kids back and you know I don't I don't know if if people realize just how important our staff and and connection is for students. So I'm standing at the front with
032a couple of staff members who by the way knew almost every student's name and that that's a very large elementary school but student after student stopping to say what they did over the break um where they went shopping to get lunch for this week. I heard a whole a whole story about that and just that attentiveness of our staff and that connection of our students with them. Uh thank you to all of our staff for for building that connection and relationship, but especially those staff that are present at at gates in the morning and and helping unload cars and all of those things. That connection uh is so invaluable and and it was uh just just reaffirming to be there and see that in person. Also happening uh this past uh before we went on
033break, we had our vocational nurse and pinning ceremony. We have an incredible adult school in our district that provides adults the opportunity for completing a myriad of programs. 27 students received their pin for completing vocational nursing program. Together they received over $20,000 in scholarship funds to pursue their education and career. Congratulations to these students. I also want to rec congratulate adult school for being recognized as one of 12 exemplar ELLL programs in the state by the California adult education program. As part of this recognition, the adult school will participate in interviews to share strategies on how they support English learners in navigating adult education successfully to transition to career. Congratulations to this team. They also held uh their uh uh winter graduation and and uh certificate program last night and we'll have photos of that
034in our next month's um spotlight. In social media, we had our winter me uh messages. We started a new partnership for automatic admissions with Soma State. We've already heard uh they came out to talk to a couple of our schools and middle schools and uh we had uh high school and middle school students asking for the business cards of the presenters from Soma State. So the interest in what's available and how do I get to these sites and all that is alive and well and I want to thank our college career counseling team uh for working on these partnerships. Uh, also in social media, we had our winter break. We had our high- five Friday. We also had our welcome back. And finally, I want to end with this month is our CSBA California School
035Board's schoolboard appreciation month. Um, and uh, our board members work very hard to make sure that they're listening to their constituents, our staff, our students, and making policy, budget, and other decisions to guide our district. And so I just want to thank our board for their unified governance and uh thank you and congratulations for the work that you do on behalf of our students in our community as we recognize you for our schoolboard appreciation month. And although I don't know if all of them love it, we do have a nice banner uh that uh uh of appreciation that will be here in the boardroom and out front. But uh if you do have a second, be sure to thank our board members. uh they do a lot of great work on behalf of our students
036and our community. Uh and I appreciate the opportunity to work with them every day. So, let's give our board a round of applause. And that concludes the spotlight. >> Okay. Thank you, Mr. Shrum. Uh next up, you're also up again. Uh 6.2 strategic plan year one by annual report. Mr. Shum. >> Yes. Well, you're stuck with me for a little bit. As I mentioned, the team is uh in Oklahoma City, so I'm sure they're watching and uh and listening to the report. But really excited to bring this report to you tonight, board uh President Odo and board members. Um this our strategic plan. This is our first bianual report. This report is centered on our work completed in the first two quarters of the 2526 school year, which is year one of our strategic plan.
037And as you know, our beliefs and commitments, our commitment for student learning led into the development of our strategic plan. And this slide really again shows those pieces and how they fit together. We heard from our community what they wanted and expected from our schools that turned into your beliefs and commitments, a new vision and a mission that all fed into the creation of a strategic plan. That's our vehicle, our actions to make this work happen. and also on the accountability side so that our community and our board knows how we're doing. We have two measurements. You heard the first report in December where we reported on our priority student outcomes. That's more of the academic the data focused piece. And tonight you're going to hear a little bit more on our progress indicator metrics.
038That is how are we doing on completing the actions that we said we were going to do. This report, I will also mention, is available online for our community to see on our strategic plan part of the website so they can follow along as well with all of this information. This shows our reporting progress when we're going to bring to the board and the community reports about our strategic plan. And you can see that we're in January and June, which is the outline portion there. And that's when we'll bring to you the B annual report. The way this report looks, you'll see uh some images there on the first cover. Uh and again, this can be found at vusd.org/forward-2030 strategic plan. And each of the photos represents one of our three themes uh and will
039rotate and change out as we present our bannual reports. As a reminder, for our community, our strategic plan is very comprehensive. It covers three themes, 65 strategic actions. We have over 54 individual staff members who are responsible for steering these actions along with uh committees and teams as well. 16 actions are in implementation for this year. And this is another slide our our community will see if they go to the online piece. This just kind of gives an overview of what each of the themes means. are high expectations and high achievement, empowering students, families and the community and organizational efficiency and effectiveness. And so I'll orient you to this first slide and then uh it'll the pattern will follow for theme two and three. So for each theme when we bring to you the by
040annual report you're going to see on the left side uh the percentage of each action and where it is. So if you remember we have research uh design implement monitor and different phases and so you'll see of the actions that are being worked on this semester or this year that is how we're doing tracking to in eventually five years or so 100% completion. So a an action is considered complete when we have researched designed and implemented it. Once it's implemented, it then goes and shows as complete. While we recognize monitoring and continuous improvement is an ongoing action or an ongoing effort for all of our actions. And now there's some science behind here. I'll read it this first time, but I won't read it for the next three to to bore everybody. But the percentages
041are calculated based on all the actions within the theme, not just the highlighted ones. So, we are going to highlight some things. And you see in each of those boxes a highlight of some of the actions that are being researched, designed, implemented, and monitored. That's not all of them. That's just a snapshot of some of them. The percentages on the left show our completion. And so this theme includes 28 actions. Each action has the potential to reach 100% completion in each phase, resulting in a total possible score of 2800. 28 actions times 100%. So then to calculate the percentage for each phase, research, design, implement and monitor, we add together the percentages for all actions within that phase and then divide by that total and the results are shown. So and again as I said
042each action is considered fully complete when it has been implemented and moved into the monitoring phase and currently for theme one% of our actions are complete. So each theme I'll highlight one specific action and story that talks about the progress of that action. So for theme one, we're expanding and strengthening our AVID program which is advancement via individual determination by the implementation of the AVID academic language development courses at the high school level and piloting of AVID Excel at middle school resulting in more than doubling the student participation in AVID programs. This work centers on AVID's core components, writing, inquiry, collaboration, and reading to build academic language, critical thinking, organization, and student confidence. To ensure consistency and quality, the de district has developed a clear AVID programming blueprint that defines expectations and supports across grade
043levels. In addition, we've established a structured college visit framework that expands student exposure to a variety of colleges, including our partnerships with automatic admissions pathways. And I'll be highlighting that next month. Very excited about some of that work. Together, these stu these efforts are strengthening collegegoing mindsets and expanding access to rigorous supportive pathways for more students. Moving into theme two and again the same pattern completes on the left side. You can see the percentage of actions in research, design, implement and monitor and then what is considered complete at this time. So here where you see the different uh actions that are being highlighted in research, two in design and two in implementation and also two in monitoring. And what we're pulling out of this is a little bit more information about strengthening our student voice
044for our students to ensure that they're not only heard but actively shaping the future of their schools. At a recent student advisory meeting, an elementary student, Princeton Butler from Riverway, shared, "I feel like we are being listened to. I really do." In 2526, the district has expanded from a single advisory group to a coordinated network of student leadership and advisory forums across schools and programs with uh supervisors of school leadership, principles, assistant principles serving as active partners. These structures create meaningful opportunities for students to collaborate, learn from diverse perspectives, influence decision-making at the school and district level, and students describe these spaces as energizing where they can learn from one another and feed off each other's ideas. And then moving into theme three, organizational efficiency and effectiveness. Again, same pattern. You can see on the
045left side what is being researched, designed, implemented, and monitored. And then in the middle there you can see some snippets from some of the different actions in research in design and implementation. And again this is posted online for our community to go in and read uh these updates as well. And what we're highlighting in our third theme tonight is our commitment to responsible facility planning that reflects community input, fiscal stewardship, and a focus on modernizing our existing schools, guided by an analysis of facility conditions, projected enrollment, and ongoing community feedback. This work is shaping the modernization of Mount Whitney High School, aligning facility upgrades with advanced academic opportunities, balancing enrollment across our high schools, and ensuring our investments are sustainable and represent the best financial decision for our community and taxpayers. And again, uh that's
046another one we'll be bringing continued information to our board about as we continue that project uh at Mount Whitney, both facility and programmatically. And so again, just concluding with a reminder of the by- annual report coming twice a year, letting you know how we're doing on completing our actions as well as you can see the other times different information will be brought to the board. And once it's shared with the board, it then goes online for our community to see uh as well so that they can follow the journey of our strategic plan. So thank you board. That concludes uh my report. Happy to answer any questions. >> Okay. Any public comment on this item? Board member comment. Seeing none, thank you very much, Mr. Trump. >> Okay, moving on to item seven, general public
047comment. General public comment on any topic not on the agenda may be heard at this time. If you have public comment on an item listed on tonight's agenda, there will be an opportunity for you to share your comments at the time the item comes up for discussion by the board. Pursuant to board policy, the board will limit individual comments for general public comment to no more than three minutes and individual topics to 20 minutes. To comply with the Brown Act, California's open public meeting law, board discussion is limited to items on the agenda. Therefore, when receiving public comment for items not on the agenda, the board's role is limited to receiving such comments, and the board may not engage in dialogue with the public. The board thanks the public for its participation in public comment
048and understanding of the board's responsibilities. It is recommended you begin your comments by stating your name. We didn't receive any green forms here. Is there any public comment from the audience? Okay. Seeing none of that, we will move on. Okay. Consent agenda. Would any board member like to pull an item from consent agenda? >> I would. I'd like to pull item 8.16. >> Okay. Any other items to be pulled? Okay. Seeing none, may I have a motion to to approve uh the consent agenda except for item 8.16? >> I'll make a motion. >> Okay. Motion by Mr. Viegas. >> Second by Miss Naylor. I saw first. Okay. >> Please vote. >> Motion passes. Um student board member voting yes, six yes, one absent. >> Okay. All right. So coming back to item 8.16. Uh this
049gave me. >> Okay. So I'm flipping there. Okay. So 8.16 is a um contract with paper um tutoring service. And so mostly I'm kind of pulling it just to um be clear that it is actually tutoring for our afterchool program because we currently have um a contract for their tutor or for their tutoring services during the regular day and looking on here it may look like a little redundant that um we have another contract for them. So um one it's just to u make sure that we're like I'm correct it's just it's for the after school. So like 2:30 to 6 kind of like after school um type thing. Um and then I guess my other um uh want or um discussion is this runs from February until June is this contract. And it's, you
050know, not inexpensive. It's about uh almost half a million dollars for 300 students. So, doing my quick fast math here, it's about $1,500 a student. Um, so kind of putting out there at the beginning so that we're not asking for it after the fact, what kind of like metric would we get for this or like how can we start to evaluate which programs are um kind of like, you know, just say best bang for your buck as we get into budget questions down in the future. It's um just wanting to start to bring up some of these things so that we can have some metrics to evaluate them and we're not just making decisions off of our own opinions or you know certain whoever is running that program or something like that. So um it
051doesn't even typic necessarily have to be right now but just um want to put out there how do we understand kind of like what should we be looking for um come June to decide if this was successful or not. >> Yeah. So, I'll I'll try to answer the different. So, first of all, yes, we've been uh partner with paper tutoring for a while. Uh that began with pretty much just a chatbased tutoring. Uh kids could access it during class or after school for homework, that sort of thing. Uh we saw usage mixed. We saw a lot of students use that, which we do have the numbers for. I think two or three years ago when we first started, we presented some of those numbers to the board of how many students were accessing it for
052essay reviews. Uh a lot of our high school English teachers utilized that as part of their process. Um and then recently in the past year or two, uh they grew their platform and developed into uh what's kind of become known across everywhere now as high impact tutoring. essentially uh certain period of time researchbased I think it's about don't quote me three times a week 20 to 30 minutes uh but essentially the student in this in this version is on the computer with a person with a live tutor uh usually groups of two or three uh working with one tutor centered around the um the the academic um uh standard that they might need help or support in. Um, and so we began work with that uh this past school year at a couple of pilot
053schools. Uh, one of those being uh I believe it was um, oh my gosh, I just went blank on it. Hurley at Four Creeks. Uh, and we when you talk about the results, we uh, those teachers have to give them a shout out. Uh, especially at Four Creeks, they've they've now been invited and they spoke last year to uh, uh, the paper team because of what they did and the system they implemented. So they utilized it and leveraged it during the school day and we saw across the school math scores rise not only from the students uh who were in the program but how the how the teachers deployed and worked with other students and so we saw at uh Four Creeks in particular they had either the highest or some of the highest math
054growth uh in our entire district. Um so leveraging that and recognizing at the same time our our extended learning opportunity programs I think as our board is aware is phenomenal. We have a lot of students involved in afterchool, California adventure camps, all of those things. But what we've been looking for is are we also addressing clear academic needs of our students after school. Um I think we recognized as a district that there was opportunity there. Um and so seeing the results of this program at Four Creeks, this is essentially now a pilot of that. What would it look like if we brought this to our afterchool programming? Um and so students essentially will rot, you know, becomes a rotation, that sort of thing. Uh the other piece that this opens the door for that we're
055exploring, and this is also something I can bring back to the board, um from our winter inter session at Mount Whitney, which leveraged the grow paper tutoring for the math one students. Um we're able to capture attendance recovery. Um and so this being facilitated by um a certificated teacher allows us to cap capture uh attendance recovery funds uh as well for students that are participating. So not only academically but also a financial uh piece which uh as we build this out could uh help compensate for you know potentially the cost or other things. Um but to speak specifically to two pieces. One the funding for this is for afterchool and it is from ELOP extended learning opportunity funds uh which are restricted for that and academic pieces are for that. So it's not general fund.
056Um and then we will certainly bring you uh some of the academic results as we go through this semester uh before we look and see how it might be utilized not only in the summer uh but next year as well. Um, and we're already seeing some results uh from the math intervention that we did this past week uh at Mount Whitney. So, we'll definitely bring that back to the board. But yes, this spec speaking specifically to this contract is leveraging extended learning opportunity funds. And maybe even like I bet some students, you know, kind of would prefer like um you know, we talked about a little bit of almost it's like a game console or something like um you know, we have students that like different ways to interact with getting help um and having
057an afterchool um person, you know, aid, what whatever the that person's designation is, know every subject for every student in that school is kind of daunting. So I mean the idea of having some sort of tutoring is definitely needed. So it's just like how do we start to metric that so we can see the benefit and then go from there. >> Yeah. And and and I won't share any names obviously student confidentiality but u had a great conversation. and I went out with a couple of our staff members to visit the intervention uh program at Mount Whitney last week and sure enough the teacher uh uh of record who was the algebra 1 teacher uh at the school who has phenomenal uh results by the way does a great work uh he mentioned a couple
058of stories of students in particular uh one a couple of coaches leveraging it recognizing we had a couple students that had a potential eligibility from grading uh opportunity to say the least and so they were you know that opened the door for them to continue their sports program. Uh but also a student uh with some unique needs that was not very uh participatory in class, but because of that format and and maybe it's having headphones on or or to your point like you know working on a computer, but with a live person, a trained tutor, um began conversing and and great conversations, been able to catch up. And so I think there are a lot of different ways we could bring back uh how this is benefiting our students uh academically and and other ways.
059So thank you for that. >> Okay, Miss >> I for one am happy that after school is going to be reinforcing and tutoring. This opened some questions for me. Um do we will there be a certificated teacher that's with these kids after school? >> So I will look for confirmation. I do believe for what we're piloting for this spring, we will have a a certificated teacher that uh is works as part of our ELO program supervise that, but I'll get back to the board with accuracy. But that does allow us to capture the attendance recovery, which is part of what we're looking at. And then for our winter interession, yes, we did have uh the math one teacher at Matt Whitney did administer the program uh in the class. And if we find that this
060is successful, which I think it will be, um will we maybe do this for summer school as well? So summer school is more um catching up academically. >> So we will leverage what we discover this spring really to be able to answer that question. But I do think um you know and we have a lot of opportunity in how we utilize time uh when students are at home in particular in the summer. We want them to be engaged. We want them to have fun and all of that, but at the same time, it's a unique opportunity to recover. Um, you know, so that students maybe don't have to wait and do summer school. Maybe they can do the inter session. So, I do think we're looking as a district to learn from the winter interession
061that we had at Mount Whitney, listening to that teacher and those students, uh, and also what we learned this spring to help determine, uh, what might be the best use, uh, knowing the cost and also all of those other factors. Yep. President Odo. >> Yeah. >> If I might piggyback on board member Gaby's idea, a question which is really viable. The $478,000 divided by 300 is about $1,500. But then monthly, if this literally is a certified teacher that's helping, it's $375, which we could not I I dare say not too many teachers would do that. Uh $375 in a month to tutor students. So, it's well worth it. It sounds to me that like you said, if we see the outcome uh that we're hoping for, we've changed the afterchool programs from fun and games
062and hopefully some homework catchup to robust academic enrichment and that's what we're trying to make sure these monies are used for. Thanks. >> Okay. Any further discussion? All right. All right. So, may I have a motion to approve item 8.16 from consent agenda? >> A motion to approve. >> Moved by Gabby, seconded by >> second >> by Miss Kamoy. Please vote. >> Motion passes. Student board member voting yes. Six yes, one absent. >> Okay, that moves us to item number nine, student representative report. Miss Africa Contraras, Vicilia Charter Independent uh study student. >> Good morning board members. My name is Africa Contas representing VCIS. Since the last school board meeting, there have not been any USV student leadership meetings or superintendent student advisory meetings. As a result, there is limited information to report on from
063this time. Looking ahead, our next USA meeting is scheduled for January 26th. During this meeting, students will focus on topics of teaching and learning. Miss Brienne Phillips and her team will be joining us to engage students in a discussion about highly effective classrooms and what meaningful learning looks like from a student perspective. This conversation will provide valuable insight into classroom practices, student engagement, and learning environments and will help elevate student voice around instructional experiences across the district. Thank you for your time and your continued support of student voice opportunities in VUSD. And now we move on to our site level reports. During Christmas break, Eliamantes minor FFA student showed their dedication by competing in the citrus contest and earning strong team and individual results across multiple events. Wrestler Christopher Kryson completed competed as the prestigious
064Doc B invitational and earned the coveted cowboy hat with a first place finish. Students are ready for the second semester surrounding testing season and finishing strong. On December 15th, Golden West hosted a warm and welcoming day of cocoa with counselors, providing students the opportunity to connect with counselors in a relaxing setting while enjoying hot cocoa and winter cookies. The event was a great way to kick off finals week and head into winter break with encouragement and support. Mount Whitney's Library Vortex Club made and gave away 25 boxes for students families with over 30 food items in each box. Their ASB had fun with finals. Each morning, ASB would hand out hot cocoa to the staff and students. Friday, students were able to have hot cocoa and cookies donated by the Mount Whitney culinary class. In
065addition, their ASB handed out hot cocoa to welcome students back for the new year. Students have appreciated the hot drink to start off their day. Radiant Church came and did three service projects at Mount Whitney before the break. They came in and landscaped the a the amphitheater. They pressure washed and repainted the tables near the cafeteria. And they made Christmas ornaments for each staff and student. And they were hung in the halls when students were returning from their Thanksgiving break. At Redwood, staff and student leaders were preparing for upcoming events which may include Anastasia the Musical, Club Day, and Love Week. All students at VCIS recently compe completed their winter MAP assessments, showing the progress that they made during their first semester in their reading and math levels. Over 356 students improved both their math
066and reading scores from their fall assessment and will be receiving an award next week on campus. The top 10 student scores for math and reading and the top most improved will be celebrated at a special lunch next week to congratulate them on a job well done. VCIS is excited to announce that this semester they increase their COS dual offering to three courses by offering these dual enrollment opportunities after school. Not only VCIS students are benefiting from these courses, but students with impact schedules from our comprehens comprehensive sites as well. VTEC is hosting their eighth grade tours expecting over 200 students to visit their campus as open enrollment starts on February 1st, 2026. Finally, VTEC FFA Family Night will be held on January 22nd of 2026. And that concludes my report this evening. Thank you. >>
067Thank you very much. Good job. Appreciate the insight on what's going on at the high schools. Takes us to item number 10, board member reports in traditional form. Mr. Belt, we will start with you. Okay. Thank you, President Odo. Um, I'll try to make this as brief as I can, too. I appreciated the opportunity to ride a bus again, something I like to do every semester if I can. Uh, this time with Louisa's help, I actually rode an electric bus, which, um, we still have a lot of difficulty with how how many miles we can get out of them a day, but in a shorter route, it works really well. Um, with that I was given the opportunity to see what was his name that just retired that Friday. >> Brian who has poured himself
068into leaving a resource for the the entire transportation department. Uh, and that is a digitized maintenance program. So that they're able to log clearly and efficiently not only what vehicles need to be maintained, but even how to look up the parts that we usually buy, where we buy them from. It's a complete package that they're going to be rolling out here in the next month or so to actually utilize our preventative maintenance as well as necessary maintenance of all of our vehicles of ISO 5. That was pretty amazing to see. Uh thanks for your leadership, Luis, to get that all to happen. Uh the also part of that you know of our um tracking program that we are um it's not as robust yet as we'd like it to be but it's getting better and
069better. We'll be getting new name tags soon um at least by next fall that will allow for the ease of actually swiping uh onto the bus so that it it's amazing to bust when we think about it. In the past, quite often a bus photo of students, the the driver barely knew who was supposed to be there and who was not supposed to be there. And so they have worked really hard over the last few years trying to bring that to a reality of safety. And it is this close to being ready to go completely that we know exactly what students should be on that bus and what students shouldn't be on that bus. but also then the parents can actually on their phone track where their student is, know how far or how many
070stops away they are when they're coming home and so forth. So, thank you again for our continue to work, Eric. You've worked really hard, Mr. Kerr, to to try to get that dialed in and it's very close. Uh, on that day, I also got to see, of course, our amazing nutrition department, 3 million plus meals. Is that correct? Uh, four four million meals. Uh, and that staff I made a video that I haven't I don't think I've rolled that out yet of how they work diligently to make as much fresh food available every day that vegetables, fruits are packaged by Vice Unified and not too many people recognize that or realize it. And so we have an amazing opportunity to make sure that not only is the food um not rotten old, but that it's
071nutritious and it's timely uh distributed. I had an opportunity to go to the intercession that we've just talked about uh with the California uh adventure camps, which I was so intrigued this summer when they came and did our day camps. This this day camp was again right on par with how amazing the summer one was. and and now Cwley School, Principal Vang u I understand has seen it, saw it in its progress, has an amazing new mural because one of the classes that they've offered was a mural class with a professional mural painter. And so they have an amazing eagle on the side of one of the buildings that uh will be there for posterity or however long it lasts. But the students got to learn how to actually make that happen. uh makeup, the
072music, songwriting, film making, photography, art, vision boards, all of these were a part of the amazing intercession uh class. I also understand that green acres became kind of um what do we call it ground central or there's a word for that when you have the >> the e the well where disease came out they they had a a whole epidemic of the flu. What do you call that? Ground zero. Thank you. I was like, Brown what? Something. Um the the flu was going around and so they had about 140 students that whittleled 50 of them or so were ill. Some of their staff was ill and so they had some things to overcome just to finish out the week and did a tremendous job showing us what they are doing. They also had field trips
073uh that I heard of going to the movie theater and even going bowling when I was standing there watching these kids load up on the bus. Uh in my goal to try to go to all 42 school sites in the nine months that we are in session. Uh I want to thank principles Taylor Wyn and Crabtree for uh allowing us to come and visit Pinkham Sierra View and Crestwood. Uh two of those were just today seeing again how students are progressing. Um I have a a dream that something we did three years ago. Uh Allan, you're now ahead of that. That our VA program in music for K when then we went to TK through fourth grade is going to make a difference. It should be measurable in the next year. if it really has
074done what we would hope it would do that music and art developing the right and left brain utilizing the right and left brain the development of something that happens biology but but utilizing right and left brain we'll see some better reading scores uh math scores uh overall academic should increase but again we're at year three right now so it's going to be in the next year we'll start to see some of that uh results of the outcomes for that of course the vice adult school graduation last night as always is a very unique opportunity to see the full breadth of ISA Unifi TK to adults coming back to school to finish their their GED, their diploma. Uh 200 certifications last night. 200 students, not 200, 200 students receive certifications, whether it be uh LVN, uh
075medical billing, there's so many different things that they are working hard at the adult school. And I met a student who was 41 years old and he got his high school diploma last night. He was inspired by his wife who went back to school at the adult school to work on getting a nursing degree. She's an LVN now and she's working out towards the next level. inspired him to say, I I want more. And so someday, not too far away, he's got six classes at COOS. He started yesterday as well. Uh we may see him as one of our new staff because he wants to be in education. Again, that's what Vice Adult School offers is life changes and opportunities. The last thing I want to bring up is I know it's just in a
076um development or what we call a a program to to give us an idea of how it works is we had a massive internet shutdown yesterday. AT&T experienced some kind of vandalism of the fiber optic line someplace up the freeway here from us, but it resulted in, you know, the district's internet going down. But at the adult school, we actually have a Starlink set up. And Principal Olsen told us last night, everything can continue to work fine because of the Starlink. Um, and so that's something that we are looking at as a possibility of perhaps expanding in the future to as a backup because again, you got satellite feed and you actually can still have online access. Um, and we of course have other backups that our technology services keep working at. Uh that's the
077last thing too I'll leave is technology department uh Chuck and all of his crew showed us uh that their modernization if you will. They took these old I don't know what those buildings were barracks or something and and have now made them far more useful and they um they're excited to actually have some new digs as well. So that's a a part of what we're doing and seeing and again I thank you so much for your leadership uh superintendent shrum of every area of ISO unified is having uh challenge to be doing it excellence the best they can with what they have but also giving them the tools to do that. So thank you so much. >> Okay board member Gaby. >> Well first of all welcome back. Um, even my high schoolers said it
078wasn't so bad. Um, and I think it's really nice that we also put a board meeting on this week um, just when you get back. But, um, to echo the, um, adult school, I think it's there's just such an impact being made out there and I don't think we bring it up enough. And, you know, yes, we're back, but um, all of our other students are kind of mandated to be there. um adult school students, you know, they have a choice every single time they go and when they sign up. And so it really speaks to the quality of the program because they're choosing to be there and they see it changing lives and that's that's pretty awesome. Um other than that, thank you to our budget team, Kyla. You didn't stand up, but congratulations.
079We know that you work very very hard over there and um I'll just speak as a board member. It is so comforting to know we have such a strong budget team because um it's a pretty big budget and um you know there's a lot going in and out of it and so um it is just it gives us a lot of peace of mind to know um that you're always there to answer questions and everything really is that transparent. So thank you for all of that. Um and lastly just cuz they were here too with VA and sports, thanks to all of our high school coaches. Um, I know they definitely don't do it for um the pay that they get out there and anymore. Um, they're coaching year round. Um, I know, you know,
080fall sports start the minute school gets out in June and, um, you know, they're opening gyms and meeting kids and, um, you know, those cross country coaches are driving all over the state and there for hours and hours and giving up their weekends. And so, um, thank you to all of that cuz for a lot of our kids, sports do connect them to school and make them successful and that's that's awesome. So, thank you to them as well. >> Okay, board member Naylor. Time to wake up. >> Um, I also want to welcome back. Uh, good to be back. Um, I hope that everybody had a restful three weeks, which was nice. Um, I didn't get three weeks, but um, anyway, I want to also say, you know, thank you, Mr. Perez. I know that
081there's countless hours that you put in behind the scenes also, but to our coaches, because I've been at the school, high school, and just see the the many, many long days and hours that our band directors and our, you know, our um, coaches are out there late at night, you know, early in the morning. So, just thank you so much for all those uh countless hours that you give and for supporting our students. Um, congratulations. Also, I've said this over and over again, our budget team is amazing and always has been and I just think that award is so deserving of all the time and effort that you put in and keeping a balanced budget. So, thank you so much. Um, I just real quick, I did visit Visadero. Um, I was a little late
082because my got my times kind of messed up, but I did get the tour. So, thank you um to Principal Giannis for um showing me around even though it was a little bit late. Uh, love the science labs we did. Um, our um maintenance team and our, you know, our facilities team did an amazing job in converting those classrooms. I thought, "Oh my gosh, it's if we could just do this to every classroom, but I know we can't." Um, it was it was beautiful. Um, and just seeing the kids, it was the last it was really the last day before Christmas break and they were still working on and doing tests and working on uh review which was tells me, man, that's what we want to see. Um, I just want to give also a
083shout out to Taller County Office of Ed. I attended the holiday lights at the observatory. Um, pretty neat event. it was, you know, they had a lot of activities for the kids, uh, for our kids, for the community. Um, they did a light show on the Northern Lights, the Aurora Boreal. So, I just thought, "Oo, well, I feel like I'm there." Um, it was amazing. So, I would encourage anybody if they have do another show or another presentation to um, join them because they really put on a lot. They made cookies, decorated cookies. Santa was there. Um, it was a great event for students. So anyways, welcome back everybody. >> Board member Viegas. >> Uh thank you, President Oto. Um like everyone has said, welcome back. Excited for another semester uh with amazing learning. Earlier
084today, I had the opportunity to visit Sierra View Elementary along with Border Belt and uh Mr. Deoa where we got to see a lot of great learning in action. Uh including some of our young kiddos learning with phonics, uh fractions, um a really cool moment where uh students were using their critical thinking skills using fractions and using rulers to measure. I think it was their desk and a book. And one student said, "Well, actually there's a gap between this ruler and this ruler, so we actually have to overlap the rulers to get a more accurate measure." And just seeing that that light bulb go off in those moments um was just really heartwarming. And seeing students engaging with one another, sharing their learning. Um so looking forward to another wonderful semester. Um thank you to
085all of our staff, our parents, um everyone who's been actively involved over break. Um and also want to recognize that so many of these students are involved in multiple activities whether it is sports, VAPA, FFA. Um so want to recognize all the hard work, all the time management um and all the efforts that go into that from both our family, um our staff and students themselves. So excited for another wonderful semester and welcome back >> Miss Koy. >> I too want to welcome everybody back and um it's a fresh start. I always like the first day of the second semester. Um I just want to encourage everybody to please follow the journey. I like the way you said that um Mr. Shum of our strategic plan. Um, one thing that our community asked for was
086transparency. That's all out there. And again, our budget team, um, getting an award for part of the award had to do with their the transparency of our budget. So, I do want to thank our our team again. And I thank you for the kindergarten presentations you give us um because that budget's hard to follow. So, thank you for that. Um, I also went to um the Vice Adult School graduation last night and it was just heartwarming to see, you know, there's second and third and fourth chances. You're never stuck. So, I just love that with that graduation people, you know, coming into jobs that are going to help them financially immensely. So, uh, thank you adult school out there and looking forward to a good second semester. >> So, I'll close out our portion of
087this by simply saying seconding everyone everything that everyone has said that's positive. Lots of good work going on in the district. Um, and this is also the time to say that the middle part of the year is here and the middle part is always the hard part of anything. When you start something, there's excitement. When you finish something, there's excitement and relief. But the middle part is really where the work happens and where we win or lose. So with kids now and the work that we do in the district and the work teachers do in classrooms and the work that we do around all of that, this is the time where we we knuckle knuckle down, get it done and where the results are developed that will show up later on. So thanks very much
088to everyone for their hard work. We see lots of evidence of that and thanks also to principal Giannis also visited visadero with Mrs. uh Naylor and that school every the last two visits I've made there is showing great progress. It is a productive positive great feeling school and it was good to see that that that journey is continuing and I think it reflects what's going on in schools across the district. So thanks to all for that and with that Mr. Shum it's all you. >> I will also just say welcome back appreciate our teachers our staff and uh also looking forward to a productive semester. Thank you. Okay, back to me. Uh, 12.2 recommended suspended expulsions. May I have a motion to approve the recommended suspended expulsions? >> I'll motion. >> Motion by Gabby. >>
089Second by Gamoyan. Please vote. >> Motion. There you go. Motion passes. Student board member abstains. Um, six yes, one absent. Okay. And I goofed. I skipped over one because I put notes next to it. Uh 12.1 recommended expulsions. Uh may I have a motion to approve the recommended expulsions? >> Moved by Mrs. Naylor. Second. >> I'll second >> by Miss Gabby. Please vote. >> Motion passes. Student board member abstain. Six yes, one absent. >> Okay. Okay. Now, the happy part of this 12.3 recommended reinstatements. There's a lot of them. May I have a motion to approve the recommended reinstatements? >> So, I'll move it. >> Second. >> Okay. So, move by belt, second by Miss Naylor. Please vote. >> Motion passes. Student board member abstain. Six yes, one absent. >> Okay. General agenda 13.1. Adoption
090of instructional materials for K8th grades. Amplified Desmos Math California First Street Read. Our presenter here is STEM director Jim Billingsley. All right. Okay. As that's coming up. So, good evening board president Odo, Superintendent Shrum, board members of the community. I'm Jim Billingsley, director of STEM. Uh, tonight I'm proud to present the adoption committee's recommendation for the new K8 mathematics instructional materials. We believe that all students can achieve at high levels and demonstrate continuous growth. With this belief at the core, we have a laid a solid foundation to ensure every student is learning every day. The math adoption supports teachers in providing highquality learning experiences for students and equipss them with the necessary educational tools to support their the student success through our collaborative adoption approach, future training of teachers and implementation plan. We are setting
091the conditions for success of our learners aligning with our strategic plan to design a district mathematics framework. Tonight I will review our adoption process as well as the recommended uh textbook for K8 mathematics. This adoption is the culmination of three years of work by the STEM team, principles and teachers. Three years ago, we started by asking what does a highly effective math classroom look like in Vicelia? That question led to our balanced instructional model. We spent two years refining that model in our tier one embedded practices before we looked at even at one single textbook. Our intent was to ensure that instruction, not a publisher, drove our decisions. We wanted to find highquality instructional materials that fit the high standards we have already set for ourselves. With the California Math Framework adopted by the California
092Department of Education in 2023 as our guide, we vetted these materials through a very specific lens. Uh we look for a program that does two things. It requires students to truly understand mathematical concepts so that they can apply it to problems that they have never seen before. And two, the materials must actively engage learners. Because when students aren't engaged, learning does not occur. What I'm presenting to you tonight are highquality instructional materials that align to the quality of instruction we've been building in Vicelia for the last three years and supports the type of mathematical thinking we expect for all students. For each of our the USD adoptions, we follow the timeline you see here. This is the framework that VUSD follows to ensure the approach is thorough and results in a recommendation that is rooted
093in student learning, growth, and achievement. I want to briefly walk you through how we got here because it was a very intentional process. We began in January of 2024 by issuing a request for qualifications clearly communicating to publishers the high expectations our instructional materials must meet in Vicelia. We formed two committees, one for K5 and another for grades 6 through 8, made up of classroom teachers, instructional coaches, site administrators, and content specialists. We recognized that math learning looks very different across grad spans. Our teams reviewed materials from 11 publishers using a district rubric uh aligned to the California math framework and our balanced models of instruction. This narrowed the field to five and then to two finals. Those two programs were piloted in classrooms. We observed lessons, gathered feedback from teachers and students and asked
094if the materials were engaging. We also opened the materials to public review for transparency. In early December, both committees reconvened and reached a shared consensus, bringing us to the recommendation before you tonight. Beyond the research and the rubrics, I want to show you the actual scale of our pilot. This wasn't just a handful of classrooms. This was a 30 school effort spanning grades K through eight. As you can see from the data here, we are very intentional about who participated. We didn't just include our committee members. We included their entire collaborative teams. This allowed our teachers to use the PLC process in real time to analyze how these new materials were working throughout the semester. The numbers really speak for themselves. 86 teachers were testing these materials daily. Over 2,300 students were actively learning from
095these programs this past fall. But there is a strategic reason why we went this big. By involving 86 classrooms, we built a human infrastructure for success. When we move to full implementation in the 202627 school year, we won't be starting from zero. We will have site expert at almost every school site and who have already used the program. These teachers will be our leaders on the ground helping their colleagues and driving the implementation forward to ensure these materials support student learning. And that brings me to the recommendation I'm here to share with you tonight. The adoption committee recommends Amplified Desmos Math California. The adoption committee didn't select this program because it's a top tier resource. It was selected because it is a perfect fit for the foundation we've already built in Vicelia. It aligns seamlessly
096with our balanced instructional model and our tier one embedded practices and brings our vision of a highly effective mathematics classroom to life. So why Amplify Desmos? The materials bridge the gap between basics and critical thinking. It builds conceptual understanding and procedural fluency at the same time so that students know how to do the math and why it works. The lessons are designed with clear instructional moves. The material supports students where they are using prior knowledge and bridges that gap to grade level mastery. And this material delivers a robust toolkit to foster deep thinking and ensure that when a student leaves a grade level, they have truly mastered the content, not just memorized a formula for a test. By approving Amplified Desmos, we are supplying a resource that matches the high expectations of the California math
097framework and more importantly, the high expectations we have for our own district. teachers provided input about the program based on the guiding statements in the rubric that align to our balanced models of instruction and based on the feedback. Uh some of their responses were the open-ended tasks really engaged them and break down complicated tasks like exchanging tens for ones when regrouping. Another teacher mentioned I was able to use the curriculum easily and effortlessly. The students love the math learning games and manipulatives. And finally, another teacher mentioned there is definitely a high level of rigor. they have support with a partner in the initial activities and then can move to independently practicing those skills. We also had students chime in based on feedback and so they provided that feedback uh for us and some of their
098responses were I like to work with my partner because it was very fun and I like to have two brains combined from a second grade student. Uh, a fifth grade student mentioned, "I can share my ideas by using the warm-ups and understand the concept and I can share out my thoughts that I have and I can explain them to people." And finally, a seventh grade student mentioned, "Math was easier because we were able to take little steps at a time until we were able to learn how to do the problems." When we talk about an adoption, we aren't just talking about a textbook. This provides a comprehensive suite of tools designed for the classroom. This package includes both high-quality print materials and a robust digital platform. Beyond the core teachers editions, our teachers will have
099a full library of ancillary resources. We know that a one-sizefits-all approach doesn't work. So, these materials include dedicated tools for assessments, targeted inter intervention, math language development, and student extensions. One feature our teachers are particularly excited about is the flexibility of the digital tools. They will have access to fully editable materials with PDFs and Google Docs of all print resources. Teachers can tailor the assignments to fit their specific classroom needs. They have facilitation tools that include dynamic presentation screens that bring math to life during a lesson. And they have a complete assessment package that provides real-time feedback, allowing teachers to see exactly where a student is struggling and pivot their instruction immediately. These resources are designed to efficiently support lesson planning by allowing our teachers to do what they do best. Facilitate deep meaningful math
100learning. As part in addition in addition to the teacher materials mentioned in the previous slide, the seven-year adoption include student and teacher print materials, MClass and boost assessment, uh classroom manipulative kits, math center kits for grades K through five. Uh it also includes implementation training, professional learning and support for the adoption. And this is a cost of 7,510,4223 at this point. Are there any questions? >> So is there any public comment on this particular item? >> Okay. Board member comment or discussion. >> Mr. Belt. >> Uh first question, can we make payments on this? um uh I I haven't seen of course I I don't understand all the the very basic parts of this but our um my observation is math fact seems to be something that we have um we kind of went away
101from it and we're trying to bring it back is that embedded in this too I don't see that mentioned >> right and that what that is really where we're talking about is building that math fluency and so there are multiple ways in which we can build that math list one is using those math facts others are finding other ways in which to find those answers So all of that is built into this program. >> Both. Okay. Good to hear. Thank you. >> Miss um there's a couple things that I loved that you did and that is the amount of teachers cuz there are experts >> that were involved with this that you use the PLC process. I love that. Um, I love that there's going to be site experts at every site and it meets
102our high expectation with high rigor. So, there's a lot about this that I love. So, thank you for that work. >> You're welcome. >> Okay, Miss Gabby. >> So, yes, it looks like a lot of people are ready to get rid of Go Bath and move on. So, that's awesome. Um, and so, um, yeah, I mean, looks awesome and excited, um, excited for, um, bringing back all the manipulatives and even the training on, you know, how to use those. That seems silly, but, um, there really is, um, good PD there. Um my one question is just how it is going to integrate with I Ready because it really does have a very robust um digital platform and it has everything from diagnostics to lesson followup a lot that a teacher could utilize um and so
103is that something we're kind of shifting or that will integrate together or just kind of like that it's on our radar, >> right? Yeah, great question. So right now uh I ready the diagnostic is part of our priority student outcomes and so during this really the first year we don't really want to pull that away right now and so during that first year really we will maintain that I ready diagnostic through the first phase but really our first priority with this material is to provide that professional learning to our teachers to ensure that they have that pedagogical shifts and have that instruction so that is the focus for that first year so that way if we do do the instruction and the assessment I feel like we don't want overload our teachers. And so we'll
104focus that first year. We'll encourage our teachers to engage with the digital access and then we'll develop teams and how do we onramp that the digital piece in year two. >> Thank you and definitely appreciate it's well thought out. >> Okay. Any further board comment? M. >> Yeah, I was just saying thank you for the time because I like the fact that you really involved all the stakeholders in in making that decision, but it looks amazing. I can I go to the classroom and do it? I would love to see how that uh unfolds. But thank you. >> Okay. Any further discussion? >> Okay. Seeing none, uh may I have a >> actually what I want to only this is the first street. >> Wrong line. >> Okay, got it. Okay, Jim. Thank you. Good
105job. >> Uh now we get to 13.2. Notice of intent to employ certificated personnel and approval of provisional internship permit requests. Presenter is administrator of human resources development Judy Burgess. >> Good evening. Um this is an agenda item for a teacher who is for provisional internship waiver and so they need additional time for their credential subject matter competence requirement. >> Okay, we've done this before. Any public comment? >> Board member comment. >> Okay, motion to approve. >> I'll make a motion. Motion by Mr. Viegas, second by Miss Naylor. >> Second. Okay, please vote. >> Okay, we have um student board member motion passes. Student board member abstains and motion carries six yes and one abs. >> Okay. Item 13.3, warrant list, November 23, 2025 to December 19th, 2025. May I have a motion to approve
106the warrant list from November 23, 2025 to December 19, 2025? >> I'll move to approve. Motion >> by Gabby, second by Mr. Belt. Please vote. >> Sorry. Motion carries. Student board member abstains. Um, five yes, one abstension and one absent. >> Okay. And item number 14, last on the agenda here, uh, recess regular session and convene to Vicelia Financing Corporation meeting. There is action on this. We will now recess the regular board session and convene the Vicelia Financing Corporation meeting. Okay. Our presenter for this is administrator of business functions, Kyla Johnson. >> Good evening, board president Odo, Superintendent Shrum, and members of the board. My name is Kyla Johnson. and I'm here tonight to bring you the annual status report for the Visaya Financing Corporation and also the selection of officers. Oh, there we go.
107Too fast. Back. There we go. In terms of our district foundations and the board's core belief and commitments, the Visaya Financing Corporation has played an important role in supporting the district's ability to provide a safe, supportive, and innovative learning environments by financing facilities and modernization projects. The Visaya Financing Corporation helps ensures our schools and workspaces are designed to support innovative instructional practices that ultimately support improved student outcomes. The purpose of the Viselia Financing Corporation um is to help acquire and finance key properties and facilities. The Visaya Financing Corporation was formed in the late 80s. And also just to remind you that the Visaya Financing Corp or I'm sorry the VI Vice Unified School District Board of Education serves as the board of directors for the Visella Financing Corporation. And so tonight I'm going to give
108you a brief overview and um with an update on its outstanding debt and the annual selection of our officers. The primary way that the vicea financing corporation has supported the district is through the issuance of debt which is also our certificates of part participation or coops. So historically the district has had three coops that were issued through vicea financing corporation. One was in 2005 which is no longer outstanding. That one was fully repaid. And at this time there are two outstanding cops. One was issued in 2015 and the other was in 2018. Starting with our 2015 COP, the current outstanding balance on that is approximately $10.85 million. These funds were um used to complete several district pro projects which I'll reference in the next two slides. You can also see the associated interest rates and
109the repayment timeline with our final payments on here. What is important to note about the 2015 COP is that it is paid using the um the former redevelopment funds and as long as this debt remains outstanding, we will continue to receive those revenues. So once our debt is fully paid off, those um additional funds will um stop. Our 2018 COP, we currently owe a balance of 14.19 million. That was primarily issued to support um completion of measure E projects while the the district was awaiting state funding. In 2021, the district did repay a significant portion of this debt, as you can see on there, um the $37.8 million. And so our current, as I mentioned, our current balance is 14.19 million. So as part of our upcoming long-term um facilities planning that we are doing,
110we will be doing an analysis and um look at possibly fully retiring this and paying this debt off. We did receive some state reimbursements and so we have cash on hand to pay this off. So we will be bringing that back to the board if we decide to do that process or use the cash on hand to do um future projects. But any recommendation will come back to the board for approval. Um and so as I had previously mentioned, these are the list of the projects funded with the cops. You can see the 2005 that one has been repaid and then 2015. Um most notably um the those were used for purchasing this building as well as our Oaks building. And then for our 2018 COP, as I had previously mentioned, these um the COP
111helped um finance several measure E modernization projects. Most notably, this was Denton and Sequoia. And since that time, as I had previously mentioned, we have received the state funding for these projects. And so we have that cash on hand. So we will be um doing an analysis to see if we want to pay that off. Each year um each calendar year the board conducts the annual selection of officers for the Visaya Financing Corporation. So consistent with past practice staff recommends that the members of our current board serve in the same capacity for the Visaya Financing Corporation. Those officers are president, vice president, secretary and treasur with our vice president and secretary treasur can be held by the same person. So it is our recommendation for calendar year 2026 that we do the following appointments. President
112would be Dr. Todd Odo and then our vice president secretary treasurer would be Miss Gamoyan. That's it. >> Okay. Is there any public uh discussion of this item? >> Any board member comment on this item? >> I'll I'll be 93 when the last one's paid off. Maybe we shouldn't have her as an officer. Okay. Any other any other board comment? All right. So, may I have a motion to elect uh me, Todd Oto, as president and Walter Goyan, as the vice president, secretary, treasurer for the Vicelia Financing Corporation for the calendar year 2026. >> Um despite her being 93, I'll I'll motion to approve that. I'll second first. And Miss Naylor second. Please vote. Motion passes. Student board member abstains. Um, six yes, one absent. Okay. We will now reconvene the regular uh agenda. We
113will close the meeting of the Visela Financing Corporation or reconvene the regular session of the Vicelia Unified School District Board of Education for our final action which is to close this meeting. Thank you.