001I'm going to call this meeting to order and hear that story later um 1.2 we have a quorum 1.3 meeting announcement this meeting is being webcast live and recorded the recording webcast May capture images and sounds of those attending the meeting 1.4 I will now identify closed session items uh recommended explosions recommended review continued explosions Public Employee assignment reassignment appointment Public Employee discipline dismissal release complaints conference with labor negotiator conference with legal counsel anticipated live public employee evaluation superintendent public comment on closed session items general public comment and any closed session item will be heard at this time pursuant to board policy the board will limit individual comments to no more than three minutes in individual topics to 20 minutes it is recommended you begin your comments by stating your name any public comment new
0021.6 we'll adjourn to closed session it's from the table located in the back of this meeting room the announcement will now be shared in Spanish foreign 3.3 this meeting is being webcast live and recorded the recording our webcaps webcasts May capture images and sounds of those attending the meeting members of the meeting wanting to provide public comment on items listed on tonight's agenda we recommend you fill out a public comment form the green form located on the table in the back of the room please hand the completed form to Delia Smart Board manager before the item comes up on the agenda we recommend you complete a separate form for each agenda item you'd like to comment on Miss smart is sitting in the table in the back of the meeting room members of the public
003providing public comment please use the microphone on the stand located in the front of the room okay it's coming 3.4 our pledge allegiance will be led by board clerk Jacqueline Gaby 0.5 report action taken in closed session the board took the following action in closed session on a motion by board member case for Solano and a second by board member Gaby the board unanimously approved the settlement agreement between the district and the parties representing oah case number 202-3050594 3.6 revisions to the agenda and or closure items these are the Rev these are the revised item enclosures for the agenda 4.1 4.5 6.8 6.9 6.10 and 11.1 may have a motion to adopt the board meeting agenda a second on a on a motion by uh board member Naylor second by SEC case beer soleno all
004in favor student board representative votes yes and motion passes unanimously 3.7 student performance Redwood High School dance group Mr Thompson good evening it's my pleasure tonight to introduce our Redwood Varsity dance team called Dance Force directed by Michelle Lapp Michelle Lapp was our first dance teacher hired in the district back in 2000. that uh being hurt and so this is our 24th year at Redwood dance of Redwood has expanded from five sections to ten sections serving a diverse population of students dances often the main reason for the certain groups of students to want to come to school each day to show their Joy this one this team here um has one won many awards the stand students called danceforce and has numerous Awards uh in the believe competition in Fresno California first place in hip-hop
005and lyrical and most entertaining award at the USA dance Regional in Cupertino California there are first medium lyrical first in large hip-hop and last but not least at the USA Nationals in Anaheim California they were sixth medium lyrical seventh in large hip-hop and seventh in soloist with Tegan Horton being that student so overall now there are 70 school's there so that's quite enough feat when they're seventh so at this time board and staff would we somehow move maybe over to this side a little bit as they're going to perform out here in front of us we'll have you guys move and at this time let's welcome Redwood dance welcome the Redwood High School dance team Dance Force established in 2000 under the direction of Michelle Lapp introducing redwood's 2023-2024 dance team members Claire Tyson Karis
006Presley Jocelyn Michaela Sadie Jasmine Mia Adriana [Music] Rosenthal Sarah Brooke Haley merely Gwen Matthew Piper Savannah Kaelyn Michaela and Brianna [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] videos [Music] foreign thank you so much as the board comes up parents feel free you're more welcome to stay all evening but if you do want to exit out you are more than welcome to do so we'd love to have you here though they moved out pretty fast all right okay [Music] 4.1 Spotlight on good things happening in the district superintendent Shrum this is safe all right one second all right we'll give it a second so while we wait for that to come up just again want to Echo thank you to Redwood it is exciting to have our student performances back uh as this board and Community know
007the reason we are here are our students and so to highlight some of the great things happening at the start of a board meeting to focus us on our students and while we're here is so important and great to see them back and we also know how important our students being connected are and why that is important right whether you're in a club a sport whatever it might be vapa students who are connected do better in school they have better grades better attendance better self-esteem and so thank you to all our teachers our coaches our parents that support initiatives and activities such as what we just saw so thank you so much also as we get ready to do the spotlight want to make an acknowledgment we're happy to have County School Board member Tom
008link here with us this evening so I want to thank you for being here and thank you for your representation of our schools at the county level so as we get going with our Spotlight obviously we're back in school so a lot of exciting things to talk about again our foundation slide that highlights what we believe in what we're committed to doing our commitment for student learning and soon here in the next couple of months we'll have our strategic plan that will continue to further guide us through the upcoming years Spotlight on schools of course back to school nights are underway and and are wrapping up and so you see some of the highlights there lots of parents lots of student family members coming out to attend visit the campus get to know the teacher
009uh also a great opportunity to encourage our parents to volunteer to sign up of course as we've talked about before we have a new system where it's all electronic and online and so it's a lot easier now for parents to access how to be a visitor and a volunteer and so we're excited about that also I know this this one just makes my heart Happy uh we have shared and and uh this has been publicized but our investment in the new turf field at Highland Elementary now for those of you that have been here or been principals there or staff members there many of our district team uh you know that that's very space impacted school right also in one of our most impoverished communities and so investing over a million dollars through district and
010e-lot funds uh they had one playing field essentially where recess occurred and everything else and grass of course wouldn't grow on it and just just not a a very good space for kids to be out and playing in and thanks to this investment they now have a state-of-the-art field it is lined for baseball for football for whatever else soccer and so you see some images there we had a grand opening a couple of weeks ago and I just think all of our teams that made this happen and it was just joyous to be there and see the excitement on our students faces as they got to go out and play on this field speaking of connectivity happening now in our middle schools and high schools all across the all across our district is our club
011rush we have over a hundred clubs available for our students and so our middle schools hosted their Club Rush last month of course high schools are underway and this is a great opportunity for students to connect with their peers and to get involved in things that they're interested in now really excited about this and I don't know if any of our students were able to to make it on short notice but this board invested in expanding our dual enrollment opportunities and we were really excited to partner with Equity lab which is a National Organization and they bring dual enrollment classes through universities such as Stanford Arizona State uh Princeton and many others to districts where maybe students without that support without that partnership wouldn't have that access and so we started last year with a
012cloud computing class at Mount Whitney continue that class for the second semester we've now expanded to Golden West as well and continuing to look to provide additional opportunities for our students but really excited because they just released a report and we had three students who ranked in the top Nationwide in academic performance in this class now I'm talking you know this is thousands of students Nationwide taking a college level class and three of our students you see their names up there Mariah Eric and Emmanuel scored in the top ten or even higher percent Nationwide and so we wanted to take a moment to acknowledge those students acknowledge the teachers of these classes and all the students in general just an amazing accomplishment and I know we're going to continue to be able to recognize students
013every semester as we have these classes so thank you for that and we again we know the importance that students who take an advanced level class in high school who take dual enrollment or AP have greater opportunities they perform better in school and are more likely to receive a post-secondary degree and so these are things worthy of investment and thank you to this board for expanding these opportunities and congratulations to these students who now have performed already basically on academic Dean's List honor roll right if you think about it in college so congratulations foreign speaking of accomplishments uh we are all proud of our adult school many of us have had the opportunity to visit on multiple occasions and uh proud principal and staff have have presented to this board before and so we're very
014excited to talk about our adult school making some national news they've been selected for a national research project staff and students will be interviewed to capture how and why this program is producing outcomes that have met or exceeded State percentages for student performance credential completion and employment wage outcomes to share with other programs across the state nationally including the Department of Education so we've known how great this work is in visilla unified for a while and so it's exciting to see this work now going to be recognized on a national stage on a state level and for others to learn firm so congratulations to Visalia Adult School you probably saw me tweet a little bit about this because I had a great experience I think it was two weeks ago maybe to finally attend cycon
015scicon is a long-standing tradition in Tulare County and others where sixth graders go and have an amazing you know outdoor science based experience but what's powerful about this is the students spend about a week there along with teachers and also what's really cool about it is counselors are high school students and so it's kind of you know they get to apply and and they get to spend a week there and when I was talking to some of the the high school kids they remembered I was asking them oh why did you want to come spend a week with sixth graders right and they were like well they remembered right how great the experience was for them when they were and you know in school some wanted to be teachers some were interested in science careers
016you know all of that but what an amazing experience and I got to spend the day went on a hike with some of the kids uh you see some examples of the classes doing some research there with reptiles and uh in the in the water and everything and I know it's hard to think about being away from families for some of the kids this was their first experience being away um but just what valuable skills that you learn from this and I want everyone to think just a minute when's the last time you or your kid went without electronics for more than maybe an hour or a day right you probably aren't going to be able I mean maybe you can but like you're probably not going to be able to name that right these
017students went for a whole week and that in and of itself is a valuable experience I even had us now of course they were quick to tell me they do miss their Xbox and other things however one student came up and and I was like well what's it like being without it you know they she said or I can't I think she said um well you know it's actually kind of nice because I don't have to worry about what is being said and so what a great experience for our kids to have this and connect and I just think our Tulare County of education for supporting this and thank you to all our district team our principals our staff that also go and spend time away from their families to make this event happen and
018so I just wanted to make sure I spotlighted that tonight I do look forward to going back I want to spend a night or two because there are quite a few activities I heard about astrology and some other things that I need to go experience so I will be back yesterday we had a great event at Mountain View Elementary School as they recognized and honored September 11th of course most of us of my age and and around that uh remember exactly where we were what we were doing uh when this tragic event happened in our nation and since that time of course this has now become Patriot Day a day of remembrance let us never forget uh the sacrifices of so many people on this day and so it was just very uh it was
019emotional but also very uplifting to see our youngest students learn about this day but also see them come together to celebrate the Day to recognize we had representatives from uh our our armed forces from the police department the fire department paramedics that were there our students we had a couple of student speakers as well and so uh the Mount Whitney band Color Guard were there it was just a great way to start the day for the students this is a tradition at Mountain View Elementary and one that that is is a great tradition and so I was honored along with several other board members and District staff to be able to in that day and uh there's a little video we have on social media that I encourage you to watch it because the words
020are just really powerful that you hear spoken there so I wanted a spotlight that of it as well Spotlight on sportsmanship you know so often we get caught up in competitiveness and had an opportunity here at this volleyball game where one of our players was hurt and the gym immediately went silent and just the student the team rallied around that student and so we just wanted to talk about uh this was at Golden West that the volleyball players for being such good incredible teammates but the entire Golden West Community including coaches and support staff all pitching in to support a kid and a family when we had an injury and really you know although we don't want those to happen sometimes that happens right but when it does like we come together in a spirit
021of sportsmanship and while we want to win of course right uh it is still about the skills and things that we learn from participation in these events and connectivity so shout out for great sportsmanship at Golden West exhibited during that volleyball game Spotlight on our elop program Athletics uh had a chance to attend on Friday the first uh flag football game for our six fourth through sixth graders I think it is uh in our after school e-lock program it was Highland versus Houston on the new Turf I can't remember who won it really doesn't matter it was about all of them getting out there to have fun all the so our e-lock program uh is for our elementary students after school and this is going to rotate so each School site is going to get
022to experience flag football uh soccer and some other sports all throughout the year in addition to a school play vapa and some other things uh our elop team has built an absolutely incredible program and it is noteworthy I am proud of it you can see this program literally changing lives for kids right in front of your eyes right in front of your eyes and you know I'm thankful for this funding stream and we also had a great event this weekend another expansion of this is including Partnerships and so partnering with our Aquatic Center uh held a camp with Olympians an Olympian uh gold uh actually I don't know if he won the gold medal I probably shouldn't say that but Olympian uh and his coach right his dad uh were there and put on a
023clinic for middle school kids right that are interested in being on the Water Polo team may be in high school and so many of our high school kids were also helping out how often do you get to be coached by someone who has been at the Olympic level for many many years so it was just amazing to watch him Coach and see our middle school kids held a clinic for our boys and girls to learn more about the sport that they're interested in so we have a short little video clip I believe about this that we want to show but again another example of our elop our partnership extending not only to Elementary but middle and I think the growth and what this is doing for our kids in in this community is just absolutely
024amazing El Diamante this morning and after afternoon really just expanding opportunities for our kids and what's really unique about today through this partnership is they are being coached by actual Olympians Olympian coaches so what an amazing opportunity for our students who play water polo or maybe are interested in playing water polo when they get to high school Richard El Diamante this morning and afternoon really just expanding I was like wait a minute all right thank you so just one I mean you can see the excitement on the kids faces and what a great opportunity and uh very proud of our Partnerships as we continue to expand those uh for our Extended Learning opportunity program Spotlight on instruction of course at the end of the day that's what we're about and so you see some examples
025here of our teachers working in their professional Learning Community teams you see an example of our phonics program of course thanks to this investment of the board and every single Cabinet member including the superintendent week after next we'll be teaching a phonics lesson we'll definitely Spotlight that because I know you'll want to see examples of that so we'll bring that back and teachers attending more information about learning into systems which support math a through G and so you see some of our teachers there and so thank you to all of our teachers counselors and leaders who are being relentlessly intentional about improving conditions so that every student succeeds our focus on safety continues this board invested in Alice active shooter training it's training that we need to be prepared but hope we never have to
026utilize and so as part of that continuing growth of that last this week last week we had trained the trainers and so now we will have the capacity within our district as new employees come on Lord and others that we're able to immediately train them and so nearly 50 staff members were trained including assistant principals and school safety personnel along with officers from Visalia Police Department and two Tulare County Sheriff deputies as well as well so continuing to invest in and and expand our preparedness this month we have several campaigns that our schools will be engaging in first of course is National Hispanic month and so we're excited about that education campaign uh also celebrate School attendance Awareness Month actually proud to report uh despite what the media may say our local attendance and staff
027attendance is even greater than it was this time last year and so our families know and our teachers know how important it is to be present every day and so thank you for our students our staff that get up every morning and come to work come ready to teach come ready to learn come ready to support you really do make a difference and also September is suicide prevention month and so those are all things that uh information is being shared with our students at our school and we look forward to bringing some of that back to our board and our Spotlight next month of the things that we've done in recognition of those months and as our favorite event is back or one of my favorite events I have to say is our high five
028Fridays that's the last Friday of the month our District staff goes to a school just to give high fives right to our kids some like to run through the line a couple times we accept that that's okay staff members run through it too more than acceptable so we really just really to build excitement and for us to be back on our campuses as well and so we'll end with I believe a little uh just clip of that [Music] [Applause] [Music] happy birthday yeah I will tell you that even high schoolers will smile you just have to work at it so thank you madam president that concludes my report any board comment or questions all right let's move on 4.2 public hearing and resolution of sufficiency of instructional materials I will now open a public meeting
029uh Mr Thompson super assistant superintendent of learning and Leadership sorry mine's not quite as exciting um but good evening board president good morning board members and superintendents from to be eligible to receive instructional material funds the governing board is required to hold an annual public hearing and adopt a resolution stating whether each student in the district has a sufficient textbooks or instructional materials in specified subjects these materials are aligned to the academic content standards and are consistent with the curriculum Frameworks adopted by the State Board of Education the specified subjects include mathematics Science History social science English language arts including English language development component of an adoptive program on behalf of the teaching and learning team and the textbook staff I certified to you that vusd has met all requirements for sufficiency of instructional materials
030and that by adopting the resolution enclosure 4.2 in your board pocket tonight you meet the needs of this of the statutory requirement our staff recommendation is that you approve the enclosed resolution thank you is there any public comment any board comment this is exciting I don't know what you're talking about thank you Doctor everybody is right I'll close the public meeting May I have a motion to breathe the resolution on the sufficiency of instructional materials I'll make a motion and I'll second it so on a motion by board member Villegas second by board member belt all in favor student board representative votes yes and motion passes unanimously 4.3 focus on school leadership um assistant superintendent of learning and Leadership Mr Thompson wait for just a moment for it to get up but again good to
031see you again uh good evening again president good morning Superman Shrum and board members tonight is actually this one I am very excited about I get the opportunity to share with you our focus on School site leadership which I'm really excited because we have all of our School site leadership leaders in the room tonight and so this is talking about their development and how they're leading and impacting School sites tonight's presentation is Ruden and our core beliefs and commitments all of them because we recognize that we provide high quality learning experiences and safe supportive and Innovative environments where students parents and Staff feel safe and connected and we recognize that school leaders are a vital role in making that happen each and every day in our schools our agenda for this presentation tonight is the
032role of the district research on school leadership leading in Visalia and elevating leadership so the role of the district I'm going to start with the role of the school board which we've talked several times about this is to provide conditions for the district office to provide leadership and support to school leaders School leaders then create the conditions for success for teachers which in turn creates conditions for Student Success this flow of creating conditions is important to understand and clearly shows the need for us to invest in School site leaders development and coaching as they lead teachers and our students each and every day question I might ask you and think for just a moment what makes an effective principle now tonight that is a rhetorical question but some things might come to your mind they're
033an instructional leader they're a manager of resources they're a building leader they're visible they're a good communicator they build relationships they are proactive they are kind they are Visionary they are likable right they are smart they are organized what I'm trying to get out is this all of us each of us have our own vision of what makes an effective principle tonight you will see that we have built a vusd leadership framework around research-based practices of effective leadership actions why we want to clearly Define this is so that we can Define and train so our site leaders on what leadership looks like in vusd last year thank you to the board for investing in our principal supervisor supervisors which are entitled administrators of school leaders formerly known as Aries to many of us our leaders
034are administrators of school leadership team got ongoing training on implementing structures to conduct effective site visits through the principal supervision Academy they also are receiving training on developing and supporting 90-day work plans through the partner for leaders in education which focuses on a few big rocks with clear work plans to improve student achievement outcomes as well as they have they have a thought partnership with a consultant slash coach that provides training and support on developing internal systems and to create consistency and efficiency amongst the team our administrators are poised and trained and will continue to receive more training to effectively lead and Coach our site principles in high leverage research-based leadership strategies systems and processes that lead to transformational change in our schools for the past 20 years the Wallace Foundation has focused its research
035on school reform so this is talking about looking at some research on the impact of school leaders they discovered this the site despite years of educational reform efforts many Urban school public schools are falling short unable to raise student achievement a missing ingredient is improving public K-12 education is Sal School leadership School leaders is second only to teachers in school influences on Student Success let me say that again we already know how impactful that teacher is in that classroom every single day but we also know they need to have the conditions set in place and a leader that is supporting and guiding them and and working with them each and every day and that the the research shows there's this they are the second biggest impact and that's why we have to invest foreign Foundation
036identified four key practices that effective School leaders do more often than lower performing School leaders they do high leverage instructional activities building a productive culture and climate facilitating collaboration and and learning communities strategic management of personnel and resources these four key practices are focused on proactive strategic planning that equips and Empower staff to confidently execute their job in a culture of collaboration so why is that important it's important because of this a recent research study outlined in the chief executive found that when it comes to execution lower performing teams Spin and astonishing 83 percent more time firefighting meaning dealing with issues at a tactical level rather than at a strategic level our site leaders and School staff will encounter day-to-day challenges but in order for them to be high performing we must focus our attention
037on proactive strategic planning in order to provide all of our students an outstanding educational experience finally just a little bit more research on this so the Wallace Foundation research compared underperforming Elementary principles meaning below the 25th percentile so if you have a hundred folks that are the 25 or the the bottom 25 compared to above average Elementary principles which was 70 75th percentile or above and found that all students in a school with an above average Elementary principle increase their math learning each year by 2.9 months and their reading Levels by 2.7 months let me say that that is all students in that school let me put it another way an above average k6 principle would increase all students in that school's math and reading by two years over a student's Elementary career that's a
038huge increase for all students it is evident site leadership matters here in Visalia Unified we are committed to developing site leaders so that they can reach their full potential and become Elite leaders serving their students and their community now I'd like to hand it over to Mr Matt Shin administrator of school leadership to share with you what this will look like in Visalia Unified thank you assistant superintendent Thompson uh good evening I'm Matt Shannon administrative School leadership and I'm here to provide you with some information about school leadership and Visalia Unified so over the past year leading in Visalia Unified has gone through a transition within our learning and Leadership division there is now a greater focus on developing site leadership as you just heard with that focus in mind we have developed this draft
039of a leadership framework for leading in Visalia here's the draft oh going too fast there okay so the draft has three main areas of focus as you can see you have teaching and learning climate and culture and talent and resource management all three Focus areas help contribute to Equitable outcomes for students in Visalia Unified the draft also shows what effective leaders do within each of these Focus areas and I'm not going to read those bullet points because this is a draft so those could change before they come to you for approval so as assistant superintendent Thompson presented earlier research has shown us that the site principle greatly affects student learning at a school site with this research-based approach in mind the learning and Leadership division has determined that the four administrators of school leadership also
040known as the asl's are primarily primarily responsible for coaching site administrators on being effective in the focus areas of teaching and learning climate and culture and talent and resource management and I got too strong of a thumb I guess sorry about that so past practice for the the group formerly known as the area administrators was visiting School sites as time permitted in their schedules however with the res what research has shown us it's about building site leadership capacity through a coaching model with time spending classrooms together with the principals so now we have designed our site-based site-based visits on what we know from research based action we have increased the frequency of our School site visits we have also increased the duration of the time during our site visits and we are differentiating School site
041visits according to the needs of support for each School site as the asl's visits various School sites where we are intentional in addressing the three Focus areas of the leadership framework our visits are focused on our vusd initiatives which include tier one instruction those tier one routines and procedures as well literacy at the K2 model math 1 at the secondary levels as well as a problem of practice that the principal will identify during our visit or before our visit this intentionality has allowed each of our principals to experience consistency within the site visits it has allowed us the opportunities for research for us to research calib and for calibration and application as well so a typical School site visit will consist of a brief meeting between the site principal and the ASL prior to visiting
042classrooms with intentionality while walking the school side and visiting classrooms the asls and site principle or other site leaders will start focusing on tier one instructional practices and strategies as well as the types of tier one systems and procedures being used during instruction asls and site leaders May collect data during their classroom visits and use this data to help identify tier one Trends patterns of instruction and any other problems of practice that they may see there may also be a point uh there may also be a point in the site visit where the asls connect our site Leaders with our district resources such as our specific content Specialists for teaching and learning or content specialists in the education support department that can assist them with specific needs at their school sites the site visit will
043then conclude with the ASL and the site principle discussing their observations and or data collected and then next steps are follow-up actions I will now turn the presentation over to my colleague and fellow ASL Natalie Garza I'm not going to say ASL 10 times sorry it's hard to get used to so we know that our instructional leaders need a clear focus and deep understanding of that leadership framework so we've intentionally planned professional development during our general leadership session that focuses on teaching and learning climate and culture and talent and Resource Management our goal is to not only provide professional learning opportunities but also follow up with implementation and alignment for district foundations during our site visits part of developing a deeper understanding of our GLS learning is having our principles working in professional learning communities
044this has allowed not only principals to work together but our teachers to collaborate with grade level Partners across that plc leadership development is closely linked to Student Success this past year we invested in developing a partnership with the University of Virginia and their partnership for leaders in education to develop a learning lab model where several executive cabinet members asls and six principles endeavored to developing a different way for the district to orient their support to schools this group of Administrators are engaged in Innovative practices to advance student learning at their sites and to think differently about how we serve our students Michael Lambert is one of the principals who's part of this group and I would like for him to share his experience so far um I have strong thumbs too good evening I don't
045think I have to click any buttons so um we spent we spent a month or a week in Charlottesville Virginia and it was an amazing time at the Darton School of Business on the UVA campus we went to school in the morning and learned from some amazing instructors and then in the afternoon we met with and learned from other experts in the field principals area superintendents asls that have utilized this system to make their school a transformative process it's a different way of looking at education it real we developed a 90-day plan was one of the outcomes of the of the week but it was driven by our why why we get up in the morning why we do the things that we do and we looked at site data and or why to develop
046a plan so that we can progress monitor the steps we talk about finding barriers or big rocks along the way and make our school a transformative School starting the year the 90-day plan helped me develop all my staff development and preparation for students and I continue to use that as an open tab actually on my computer with my 90-day plan just to make sure that I'm following it appropriately and it gave me an outcome and a setting for the for the school year to come I'm looking forward it's a two-year program I'm looking forward as we travel through and seeing how my 90-day plan outcomes are or how they come out and then also looking to to see how I can dig deeper to make Golden West a transformative school but as a member of
047the leading six it was an amazing experience and I think all of us took away a different aspect of what we see in education it was just a different way of looking at education it was amazing and we were there thank you Mr Lambert and just so you know also those 90-day plans part of the plan is actually getting back to your site and collaborating with your team and orienting them on what the data look like so it's really rooting that why but then coming back to your school site and investing in your team so that you guys are moving together forward as one team at this time that concludes our that concludes our presentation and I will stand by for any questions is there any board comment or questions Mr belt president Mr Thompson
048I I've lived in Visalia 40 years and not only my four sons that went through visal Unified Schools but then also being married to a teacher wife of mine I've seen lots of principles and what I am hearing and watching over the last several months not just tonight but several months as you guys have formulated this and now getting it into a practice I have never seen this kind of training investment in principles it's great to hear collaborating rather than dictating because it seemed in the past it kind of fell into being a principal because you had certain strengths or Charisma but not the full breadth of what you're trying to do as Michael Amber just said transforming leadership which will transform our school so I applaud what you guys are doing because this is
049going to make a difference I recently heard a principal respond to my wife who said you know my scores were good last year in my third grade class and the principal looked at her and said that's would be on me and I'd never heard a principal say that before it wasn't her principle but it was a principle who recognized the strength of the leadership investing in the teachers and in what were the culture makes all the difference in the world and that's what you're heading towards and so I applaud all of you it's always amazing to see this many principles in the room but it's because you are taking the time to have our students have their very best of everyone so thanks for doing that any other questions or comments um I just want
050to say thank you to the asls um and if I could brag a little bit Mike Mike was my biology student um and I just want to thank the principals you have been charged with an incredible task and it's like this big adventure and I just want to thank you for undertaking it and I'm very excited what's going to happen with our kids it's going to be amazing thank you yep last thing I'm going to add on to that too we're not we're developing because everyone needs a coach and that's our commitment here you know we have amazing leadership here in this District this is not because we don't it's because we do and we want them to become the elite leaders in in this Valley and in the state so I just want to
051be I commend the work that they do each and every day so thank you okay um 4.4 preliminary State data report I think we're going to hear from Mr Thompson again yeah I think they're trying to get me taken care of for like the next four months they're putting me all in one so sorry please bear with me good evening uh board president good morning superintendent Trump board members tonight uh you have the opportunity to share with you our preliminary again I'll say that preliminary these are not finalized yet State data report for the 22-23 school year tonight's presentation is rooted in the first core belief that all students can achieve at high levels and then demonstrate continuous growth on our first slide the University of California a through G is a series of 15
052High School classes that are designed to prepare students for college classes are in six subject areas each represented by the letter from a through G students that wish to attend the University of California or California State University will need a c or better in order to be eligible to apply as a freshman in each of these categories students that are unsure about their college plans are encouraged still to be a through G uh completers because that keeps all their options open for them so if you look at the document there you see school sites which is all of our high school sites you see the enrollment student which is how many seniors we have at each of those sites um then you're looking at a through G percentage that's for this 22-23 school year the
053percentage of students that were completers you have next to that the 2122 data of how many students were completers and then you have the growth or change between those two overall ra through G data Grew From 30 percent if you see down at the bottom 30 percent last uh two years ago to 47 which is a 17 increase VTEC showed an eight percent growth While most other high schools decreased a few percent compared to the 21-22 school year I would also like to highlight El Diamante high school as they grew in their a through G rate by 25 percent I'll say that again they grew by 25 this last year which is huge this was done by being relentlessly intentional with looking at each senior schedules and reviewing what class or classes they needed to
054become an A through G completer then they met with each student enrolled them in these classes and followed up with them throughout the year congratulations to the LD team for a job well done going forward our College and Career team will work with our high school sites to replicate some of the effective practices that LD implemented this last year next advanced placement is also referred to as AP classes AP classes give students the chance to tackle great uh college level work while they're still in high school and they're also able to take AP exams which allow students to earn college credit and placement as you look at the chart you will see that the left hand column is what AP classes we offer in our high schools next column is the number of students enrolled
055the next column is a total number of students that decided to take the AP test so you're not required to take the AP test just because you took the class there's a ton of value just to take the class itself as you're exposed to college level curriculum and also to an increased rigor again but it's an option to take the the test itself next to that you have how many students decided to take the test which is the percentage of how many decided to take that test and then the last one is past how many students pass that test in vusd we want every student that wants to take the AP test to have the opportunity so many people might not know this but we actually cover the cost of the student's first AP test
056and we also offer waivers to students who qualify if they decide to take additional AP tests I mean that we can work with them five years ago was when we started offering in-person dual enrollment courses which are classes offered in partnership with the colleges and recently a few online classes through National Equity Lab at that time there was a concern that enrollment in AP classes would be negatively impacted due to these dual enrollment courses I'm happy to report that the AP enrollment has actually slightly increased recently um while dual enrollment has also been added so what that actually means is we have more students that are taking advanced level courses and we know that taking advanced level courses prepare students for the rigor of college and also provides them increased critical thinking skills and opportunities
057Mr Thompson before you go yes go on I normally don't interrupt could you go back one slide I totally can I just wanted to take a moment because I know there's going to be so much other stuff that it'll get lost yes I wanted to take a moment because we we said it but I don't think we applauded like I agree with like ld's counseling team because it's my understanding that it was really like their counseling team that kind of pulled this off and so I just wanted us to give them a round yeah so let's get back to their learning directors they did a great job yes and Mrs Nelson thank you for leading that work if she was instrumental in directing that and working with the team to make that happen so thank
058you very much I appreciate that all right this chart sorry I got a lot of charts tonight right so it's data this chart is a preliminary English language arts or Ela cohort cafs data CAF stands for the California assessment of student performance and progress you might ask what is a cohort and cohort is when you compare the same group of students over a period of time for example if you look at the first column you will find third to fourth grade then you'll see above that the 2022 and 2023. and then their change so this data shows the cohort data for the students that were third graders in they were the same ones that are now fourth graders in 2023. cohort data is used so that you can see if the same student group has
059grown year over year ultimately providing the answer if a student group grew remain the same or decreased this data is measuring if a student met or exceeded proficiency or if they were nearly met or not meeting proficiency while you're aware that 11th graders are assessed you probably noticed that 11th graders aren't on this document and the reason for that is 9th and 10th graders do not take this assessment so we don't really have a good data point as we know the testing got kind of weird during covid so we don't have that so that's why we did not provide that tonight now I want to draw your attention to the far right column which is the blue area right over there which is standards meets or exceeded this shows the percentage of students that matter
060exceeded proficiency as you can see third through seventh grade we need we either stayed remain the same or showed a small increase while this is a modest um sorry why so if we look over here you see that actually there's modest gains in all of them what I mean by that is if you look at third and fourth we didn't have a change from 2022 to 2023 four through six or fourth to fifth grade we had a two percent two percent in fifth and six and then three percent and six and seven so we did have a minor gains while this is a month scan I want to point out though in 2022 the test was modified by the state and students only took 80 percent of the test in the 2023 they took the
061full comprehensive tests so the going forward this really is 2023 data will be an excellent Baseline for future cash testing results we did show on here not in seventh and 8th grade cohort we had a decrease of 11 percent this is an area of concern for us and we will we have work to do this year we committed to adding an academic instructional coach to each middle school so they're able to support teachers also we will take a deeper look into the pacing guides and structures of our double period Ela block along with our refocus on professional learning communities where teachers are able to review students results as a team on common assessments that will inform their teaching as they move forward this chart is a preliminary math cohort cast data I want to draw
062your attention again to that far right column that shows the percentage of each cohort of students that met or exceeded proficiency across all but fifth and sixth grade cohort we saw a small decrease in student proficiency keep in mind again the 2022 and 2023 tests were different as the 23 test was 20 percent longer but we know we have work to do here as well with our math instructional balance model we are lining our pacing guide resources and teaching methods to provide consistent high quality instruction to all classrooms with this alignment along with the additional instructional coaches and the refocus on quality professional learning communities on each campus we are confident that we are going to see academic growth this chart is still cast data but it's another way to look at it for both
063Ela and math distance from standard is determined by first identify the proficiency level for each grade level so let me Orient you on this one so obviously on the left hand column you have the grade and also some student population group student groups so you have familiar sped is special education homeless Foster English only ell Learners which is English language Learners and then social economic disadvantage students so you'll see the grade the skip two columns you have Ela and change but you go to the MET score so that met score is the proficiency score meaning if a student hits that number then that means they're considered proficient okay so and so that met score in the middle there that has the blue on the bottom of it are the Met scores for each grade level
064in ela if you go to the far right hand side it'll be for the math okay so that's the MET score now in ela you'll see that if you go back to that second column let's go third grade second column so Ela and it shows a negative 34. so how you just Orient on that is this the med score is 2432 for our third graders average we were behind by 34 points off from that 2432 that's the average for all of our third graders in ela now the change is actually we grew six points compared to our 220 2022 data so that's how you read that in math I'll go just across for third grade there right so the MET score is 2436. our students averaged a negative or uh behind by 30. so it
065changed from 2022 we actually increased by five so in 2022 we'd have been a minus 35. okay I'm going to give you now some context of what those numbers actually mean so you can kind of see that across the board there in in ela our average we are behind so if you go to the bottom is a 28 points behind in the from the proficiency line to provide context in 2022 I don't have the 2023 because it's preliminary still but in 2022 Tulare County average uh was 116.8 points behind the proficiency line and the state average was 12.6 behind the proficiency line overall an Ela we saw pockets of small increases and decreases but overall our data was flat keep in mind the 22 data is 80 of the test compared to the 23 data
066the two areas that do stand out that we need to place focus on is Middle School and our foster youth I've already talked about middle school and what we're working on there our foster youth many of you know but maybe not everyone is our family and Community engagement team works extremely hard to stay in consistent contact with our foster youth in order to provide them support stability um for them and their families we will continue to find a ways to provide our foster youth both social and academic supports so that way they can continue to thrive and that we can see them improving academically as well in our math our average was 71 points behind the proficiency line in 2022 Tulare County was 179 points behind that was the average for Tulare County and our
067state average that was uh points behind provisioning line was 51. overall in math we see a small increase in all grade levels and students to groups while we see modest growth but we are I'm sorry we saw small increases across the board if you look at that I think eighth grade maybe we had a minus one there but again very modest when you're looking at a scale of 2 400 points right so a couple points here there why are we seeing models modest growth again we're not can we're not content with that right so we are committed to continuous Improvement and focusing and and and improving our skills I'm almost there so you guys stay with me we're here we're almost there I know it's a lot of data but it's good data and it's
068important that we're looking at our data and it makes a difference because we can't make good changes if we're not clear on what our data is and what is telling us so that way we can make strategic transformational change English Learners or Els are students that start school with a primary home language other than English each year all El students are required to take the English language proficiency for California assessment or what we call the lpac because we love acronyms in our business to show their Proficiency in the English language so the chart shows up here is the grade levels so we have Els in all grade levels how many students were tested this last year and then the number next to that the third column is how many students reclassified next to that is
069the percentage of students that reclassified comparing it to the enrollment numbers I want to draw your attention to the bottom row it is the overall numbers for the entire District this year we reclassified reclassified 465 students which equals 10 percent of our ell population compared to last year this is double the amount of students that we did okay so double so 465. reclass means that a student now shows Proficiency in English they are they are cleared of that El status they are called that's why they're called reclassified of the reclassified out of that program so you might ask the question well why is this important El students that are able to master the English language are much more successful in academics many of them become bilingual in both their their primary language and in English
070which also eventually can get them the syllabi literacy we also recognize in our community and all communities around the world how valuable and important it is for students to be bilingual in our in our current Workforce also reclassified students aren't required to take English language classes in their secondary schooling this allows them to have an additional class period so they could take a Visual and Performing Arts class they could take a CTE class they could take a dual enrollment class or an AP class or another elective of their choosing so essentially what it's doing it's opening doors and opportunities for for our El students I want to just give a shout out to all of our all of our El team on sites at the district office office for all their hard working getting the
071reclass we've seen a doubling of students over the last two years so very proud of them and this case personally let's give them a clap for that thank you I provide you with a lot of high level preliminary data but no we as a team will be looking at this data in more detail to Monitor and adjust our work plans to ensure that we optimize student academic performances in our district as we know looking at that data matters finally I just want to share with you tonight a series of four videos will go out over this next month so one a week to our vusd community to start sharing our data out in that way so you'll see those coming out first one starting tonight at this time I'll remain for any questions you're a
072good teacher Mr Thompson I don't know about that you guys got a lot of me tonight thank you is there any more comments or questions yes yes thank you uh I want to start with also echoing the shout out to all of our English language learner teams on our sites I think a lot of credit to that and I've been invited to actually talk to some of our English language Learners and the way that they have talked to students the way that they've introduced this um I love it because we're shifting away from this sort of deficit mindset of you know you're an English language learner it's just saying you know I saw students um being presented for example a TED Talk video of two young individuals uh who led this bilingual presentation and how
073much of an asset that is to themselves to our community To The World At Large and so I just want to you know show a lot of love to our teams who have reframed this and who have you know emphasized why it's so important for our students to be bilingual and learn multiple languages so thank you to all of our teams um I had a couple of questions um around a few different slides that were presented I'll start with the AP what are some of the reasons and we saw varied numbers across you know students who chose to take the exam versus students who did not what are some of the primary reasons that students choose not to take the exam given that as you discussed the the cost for the exam itself isn't a
074barrier so what do you what are some of the reasons that students choose not to there's several I mean there obviously that's personal to each student right so first of all we also I first want to share just the value of the class in and of itself right so taking the class exposure students to that college level when a student goes through the class they have to make that determination if they feel like this is a this is a test that I want to take to get college credit some students they prefer not to take the test because they have anxiety of the test or they're maybe not quite sure if they're ready for that test the good information that I do have is we actually have a very high number of students that do
075take these tests and um actually did some research on the pass rate because that if I was you I'd ask the question about pass rate and I've been very pleased at looking at the state pass rate of students that did decide to take the test we are consistent or above the state in almost every single test there's a couple tests that we're a little bit behind but those are areas that we'll look at but just very excited at the pass rate some of our Pass rates are almost uh 20 more than the states um but again it depends on the student it depends on why they took the class in the first place and if that's what what they're doing to move ahead in that particular subject I'll give you one last thing because personally
076you know talking to a student they're really focused maybe an English major but they're taking this class as a math as a math class they're wanting to take that math class again as a college level because they didn't feel confident they wanted that class again so that that some situations that happen that way as well and understandably these students also typically earn that GPA Point um yes is there any sort of penalty for example let's say they take the AP exam they don't do as well as they they liked they're in a one or a two they're not required are they required to report those scores when they apply to other colleges or universities or is that also their autonomous decision it's actually I'm working through the process right now I have a senior myself
077it's actually an optional to give SAT scores I'm sorry SAT but also AP scores it's optional they can submit them many many colleges are actually taking twos these days so I would encourage students even if you're not sure go ahead and take the test anyways because they are actually have more flexibility on what they're doing now with AP tests the other part too is you know we do have students that are also taking the dual enrollment courses as well and so that's also taking a different grouping that way as well and they're looking guaranteed college credit that way so there's a combination here of the student has to pick which one of the best fits for them and then make a determination if that test is best fit for them as well right just looking
078and thinking through ways we might be able to better incentivize them but understandably students may have personal reasons um my other question was around uh our a through G completion rates and I'm uh looking at the data very excited and already happy to hear that we're looking at how can we model what we did at El Diamante at all of our sites um and so I'm also wondering do we have disaggregated data for each of those sites to understand basically did those students not meet a through G because they earned a d or an F in the class as opposed to a passing grade of a c versus how many just didn't take the course at all to be fully a through G do we have that yeah so I will tell you our high
079school principals and their teams along with the College and Career Team seeing what our results are and seeing uh what results El Diamante got and the things that we're working on they're already actively working on really scanning through transcripts and working that we're also working with another outside company to work with us and support in those areas so I'm very excited about that the excitement and the commitment of our site principles at the high school level to make sure our students are a through G completers has actually blown me away as we've seen this data they're like we want better we want more we're going to figure this out we got to get it we gotta we gotta figure this out and get them there so absolutely um yeah and Kudos I think you know
080we we've set the bar High I think we all collectively want to continue to raise that bar and I hope that we as a board also continue to have those discussions around a through G and what that looks like for every student here in our district so thank you Mr Thompson okay okay Mrs I'm sorry one more just to kind of follow up on Dr villegas's comment there so are we disaggregating the data to see why they're not a to G so that was a big part of well how El Diamante moved forward so again we're going to use practices that El Diamante created and did um that we're working on so yes that was definitely a part of what they were doing they looked specifically at every student's transcripts to see why many times
081it's one class like that's their senior year and they have flexibility in their schedule their senior year so it's getting that them in that class but you know it's more than just getting a kid into a class right it's actually checking in on them giving them the why that class is important and what that what door is open because of that so that's the work that we have to do like I said it's not just a quick fix and move on it's actually a continual relationship conversation with that student so they make sure they understand and they cross that Finish Line uh to again they might not even College might not be their focus but we want to keep that door open in case that becomes an option later on they still have that option
082available of them uh towards the end of the school year so yes answer any other questions or comments thank you Mr Thompson thank you 4.5 Visalia Unified School District mission and vision Mr Trump all right well good evening board president good morning board members uh excited to bring back our mission and vision I want to compliment this board has worked through multiple work sessions to make sure we get language that clearly demonstrates what we believe for our mission and vision committed to and all of those things and I want to ground everyone again in our foundation slide these are our foundational policies that this board has passed unanimously that point the direction of this District right for the future our core beliefs and commitments what we believe in and we're committed to doing our commitment
083to Student Learning also known as our theory of action and our strategic plan which will list the initiatives to make those things happen initiatives meaning like the actual thing so for example we talk about how do we increase parental involvement right well an initiative that may be in our strategic plan may be every school has an active PTO or PTA right that's an example of how that will work that strategic plan will make those beliefs and commitments become reality through those initiatives and so when we think about our mission and vision you will notice the revised version that comes before you tonight is much simplified compared to some of the earlier versions that we had shared and that's by Design and here's why it's by Design because how we do this how every student learns
084every day and how we're going to make sure every student is empowered to achieve future success is here and we'll be in our strategic plan so for example when we say every student learning every day we used to have words in there that said connected engaged and those sorts of things but that is how they learn so how we want students to learn is we want them to be connected we want parents to be involved we want them to be engaged right which you don't see here because how we learn oops went the wrong way is here and so I wanted to draw those connections right because the Strategic plan and the beliefs and the commitments are how we're going to make those things happen so when we say we want every kid to learn
085every day we want all these things to happen to make that learning happen and so board tonight I present to you our revised mission and vision and I again appreciate the thoughtfulness of this board uh this board every member took this to Heart provided numerous layers of feedback to get us to this point and so our recommendation for our mission is every student learning every day at the end of the day that's what we're about as a school system all the other things are important but you're either learning or you're not and then as a product right the vision the future state is a student leaving visal Unified has to be empowered to achieve future success whatever that success is for them we want to make sure they're empowered with everything they need and again
086all those things that they need aren't in the mission and vision they're here right and they're in our strategic plan so that concludes my report I'll turn it back over to the president and here's our recommendation for approval tonight for the USD mission and vision comments questions board Mr belt thank you president gamoyan and so much Mr Shrum I am on record in our last public meeting that we discussed this of trying to extend some ideas and some words and I think I even had a moment of inspiration that night that I hadn't thought about about it being a conscience that that's how we utilize a mission statement but I I do want to say I appreciate how this statement is clear and concise and it doesn't have the extra things that any one of
087us many of us wanted to add and so with this in mind and with what we've already made very very clear our core beliefs and commitments include families and parents I can gladly say this is a good mission statement any other questions or comments could I have a motion to accept to approve our the USD mission and vision statements motion to approve awesome on a motion by board member Naylor second by board member Gaby all in favor student board representative votes yes and motion passes unanimously great work and I want to say I'm glad I'm happy that it's simple somewhere out in the community and someone says what is our mission and what is our vision it's very simple you know every student learning so thank you very much for and let me just take
088let me just tag into that for just a bit committee work can create one of two things it can create junk that the committee just kind of struggled through and that was the best they could get or it can create great clear things this work here I think represents the latter and not the former so thanks to the board for doing that and wanting to get to clarity thank you board let's move on thank you Mr Shrum uh five general public comment general public comment on any school related topic will be heard at this time the board asked that any public comment on an item listed on tonight's agenda will be addressed at the time the item comes up for discussion by the board to comply with the brown act California's open public meeting law
089board 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 and the understanding of the board's responsibility pursuant board Paulie sorry policy the board will limit individual comments to no more than three minutes in individual individual topics to 20 minutes it is recommended you begin your comments by stating your name our first public comment is Sean Saltzman I believe he left okay thank you uh next Crystal Reynolds good evening my name is Crystal Reynolds and I am the mother of three with one child in the district I hope and pray that my statements tonight resonate
090with each one of you most particularly I hope they resonate with you Mr Otto as you're my area representative and one that I have always respected to do within the best interest of students parents and teachers alike we currently have three bills that have passed the California State Assembly and Senate and are awaiting Newsome signature to sign into law ab665 permits minors 12 years and up to consent to mental health counseling mental health treatment and to obtain medications free of parental consent ab957 obligates a judge to include gender identity affirmation by a parent as part of the deciding criteria when awarding custody in Family Court and finally ab1078 seeks to sideline local school boards powers to make decisions about the curriculum taught in their school district and instead follow the guidance of Sacramento bureaucrats we
091cannot have a system where we lose the trust of parents by lying to them about their child we cannot have a system where judicial courts are manipulated in such a way to inherently favor one parent over another and we cannot have a system where parental input has no representation by our locally elected Board of Trustees parents have a fundamental right and constitutional right for the 14th Amendment to control and direct the upbringing of their children there is no epidemic of parents harming their children who may experience gender dysphoria I don't know of a single parent that does not love and support their child or children and will in fact bring their child closer if and when they realize help is needed according to the National Library of medication data indicates that 82 percent of transgender
092individuals have considered killing themselves this is from the resource PubMed shouldn't all parents be afforded the opportunity to help their child in such circumstances adoption of secrecy laws do not afford parents this opportunity so Mr Otto as my area representative I am seeking your help tonight I am asking that you help parents like myself that love children and parents unconditionally to initiate a parent's Bill of Rights policy six other districts have already passed a parental rights policy and these districts are reading Rockland Chino Temecula orange and Marietta I can assure you that you will have an overwhelming amount of support from the community to adopt such measures with your past leadership and experience I can't think of anyone more qualified to lead such an effort any and all fellow board members that could get behind
093such an initiative would be greatly appreciated let's protect kids by including their parents in their lives thank you any other public comment okay we'll move on six the consent agenda would any board member like to pull an item from consent agenda may I have a motion to approve the consent agenda on a motion by board member belt second by board member Naylor on favor student board representative votes yes and motion passes unanimously seven student representative report Miss Eliana Juarez from El Diamante High School good evening everybody today I'm here to share the student board report LD Monte High School on August 29th audiomonte hosted their first minor Senate meeting the focus of this meeting was student feedback on the first few weeks of school on September 8th El Diamante hosted their fall rally the fall
094rally was Scooby-Doo themed and was held to celebrate fall athletes and recognize our pick Award winners the student Equity Forum on August 31st this is a student-led meeting that is open to all students audiomonte is making preparations for a Candyland themed homecoming the week of September 25th at Golden West High School Golden West hosts a club rush for all students got to join lots of different clubs as well as enjoy some amazing food it was a huge success Golden West celebrated culture of Excellence week where they recognized Club presidents athletes very merry on birthdays hot Awards and student making a difference on campus Golden West celebrated their first home football game with the Blazer spirit game followed by a neon Knight for the second home game Golden West is currently in the process of preparations
095for the Rio themed homecoming the week of September 18th at Mount Whitney High School on August 31st Mount Whitney High School hosted their first rally welcoming all of our students into a brand new gym the theme for the rally was Whitney Tunes kids had fun watching their seniors get slimed we are welcoming our new ASB feature to our program Mrs Johnson who just took over her new position as of September 7th we are currently working on our homecoming which our theme is road trip to homecoming the mount lightning FFA will be going to the Tulare County Fair to Showcase their animals this week at Redwood High School Redwood has their Homecoming this week redwood's theme is Super Mario Redwood has their homecoming game this upcoming Friday where the king and queen will be crowned yesterday
096Redwood had their homecoming rally where the nominees gathered in the top five senior girls and top five guys were announced for homecoming Redwood has a lot of club meetings happening through the last two weeks like the treat people kindness Club pickleball club and just serve Club Redwood had their second football game last Friday the theme was construction Redwood had a great turnout in their student section Redwood beat Tulare Western with a final score of 17-6 a Sequoia High School they completed I ready testing with 79 participation rate ASB had a water balloon volleyball game during lunch and to celebrate the start of the NFL season they had a football competition Toby their therapy dog has returned to the excitement of their student body and child development ethnic studies teacher Mrs sarentas invited the native star
097Foundation the purpose of the foundation is promoting healthy mindsets of Native American Youth through culture practices Sequoia students participated in Native songs and dance uh vcis VCI hosted back to school night on September 7th ASB students welcomed parents and gave tours of the campus on September 28th the vcis 10th 11th and 12th graders will be going to trades day a day for career explanation at the Porterville Fairgrounds they are excited about providing this opportunity to their many students that are interested in pursuing trade ASB has been ramping up for our suicide awareness campaign and planning for the Harvest Dance on September 33rd bcis a GSA Club will be hosting its first meeting on September 28th after school on West Campus at VTEC on September 8th VTEC held their first dance of the Year let's kick
098it it was a great success students had fun dancing and also playing in the arcade games hosted by the ASB students in support of Suicide Prevention VTEC ASB will be passing out handmade friendship bracelets to all the students on campus along with the Freshman bracelet students we highly encourage to contribute to the VTEC vsd inspired September heart wall located at the entrance of the gym if you take FFA student hosted their first meeting September 5th and shared that they are participating in the Tulare fair and are showcasing an array of animals like pigs lambs and chickens this Friday the tech Spanish club will be hosting various activities and festivities to honor the start of Hispanic Heritage Month and that is all I have for today thank you I have a question for you did you
099get slimed um that was at Mount Whitney High School oh I guess you didn't get slime then a board member report Dr Villegas thank you president camoyan and uh thank you Eliana is this your last meeting with us yes if we could take a moment to give Ariana a round of applause for and a wonderful job representing all of our students here at the UST so thank you for serving in that capacity um I'll just keep it brief I had the opportunity to uh do some site visits with my fellow trustees including president gamoyan and board member belt where we took some time to visit Creekside Our Community School uh where we got to see some awesome things with principal Burgess and the amazing staff and I want to give a major shout out to
100our staff at Creekside and really just everyone buying into the vision and mission of serving students who are sometimes facing the most exceptional circumstances in their home life at school outside of school and a great example of that is they held their first back to school night and you know they had tacos they had music they had parents and families there was a jumper out there and I just think that that speaks to the work that is already happening and the leadership that's already happening at that site so thank you to all of our staff all of our students of course all of our teachers and all leadership at Creekside and so we're looking to continue to see that site develop and grow and our students coming back to and returning to their sites you
101know better prepared better connected and ready to learn and engage other than that we also had the opportunity to tour Ridgeview Middle School with Dr Gonzalez but all uh all of my colleagues speak to that because I don't want to take up all the space thank you Dr Otto okay so I had a Career Technical education day uh kind of thing today and it gives me a moment to kind of Praise what's gone on there but also to reflect for a little bit so I attended the leaders of tomorrow um event today at Mount Whitney High School that was for the um Academy of Health Sciences and good strong Academy what what occurred there was kids sat down with Professionals in the field and learned what the professionals did so they get a chance to
102explore the depth and breadth of what uh professionals do in Health Sciences or in health Fields uh following that I attended with board member belt and board member gomoyan the V pie meeting if I say A Partners in education which goes way back uh back into the 90s I believe for a basically a level a meeting regarding the direction of vocab programs CTE programs pardon me showing my age in the district and another chance to to look at CT from a different perspective in the morning with kids in the afternoon with Business Leaders to see what it does what we can do to help our kids better serve local community business um and as a former shop teacher it caused me to reflect for a couple minutes while I was sitting in the in the
103noontime meeting today about how some of these things came together none of this is new stuff but what's unique about what's going on now is that the district and staff and teachers have embraced a broader approach to the work when I was a drafting teacher at Mount Whitney back in 1987 I had to do those things myself I brought in a group of advisors and we talked about stuff and set Direction all that I did that and my three pairs at the other two Heist two pairs at the other two high schools were doing similar kinds of things they weren't coordinated today's work was coordinated both at the kid level and also at the community advisory level and that's that's all good it provides our kids with a better perspective on what's going on and
104provides us with more impact for the work that the district does educating the kids which are the future of the community but as I was sitting in the meeting today I reflected back to my time as a teacher and how this stuff happened way back then and I'm going to bring up two names two people who recently passed in the last two weeks that I'm sure most of you guys don't know probably even the names although Mrs Naylor will remember these folks Terry Garrett was an assistant principal at Mount Whitney High School when I started there great lady I've had a big heart and understood vocational education as we called it back then and the value could bring to kids she was a homec teacher homec who calls it that anymore no it's consumer and
105family studies because you know we have to have a bright shiny long name for Stuff but she understood the the value of CTE and what it brought to kids and then at the district level sought to broaden that impact she brought into the well she worked with a another person a Golden West teacher on special assignment B socksman and I know you remember B she started off I think at Redwood and then moved to Golden West when it opened B was the person who handled the money but also handled the technical stuff so the vision for CTE got funneled or got addressed two ways one with a broader picture that was kind of Terry's job and then one with a person who made the details work and made them happen consistently so that we had
106as much coordination across the schools in the district as we could in the shop homak AG Etc programs that is the origin for the work that I saw or observed today and I'm not saying that it was better and brighter then because it was really a lot of work it's much better now but all of this stuff goes back deep into the past of isilia unified I came here back in the 80s because this was the one District that was hiring shop teachers which is what I was and they were also protecting program making sure that things didn't get cut that things were supported so that the programs could continue and serve kids and that's still the case today we kept things here that other districts cut when times got hard because it was an
107easy cut to make it's not an easy cut to make in reality because it's a short-sighted thing to do but this district has always had the foresight to make sure that we the things that we invested in were good for kids and that we maintained them so I just wanted to touch for a minute on Terry Garrett and B socksman and their contribution to the district and their help in getting us to where we are today thank you that was nice um board member belt thank you president gamoyan as we have highlighted principles a little bit with Mr Thompson's report and hearing from them I'd like to thank you again this is Aguilera At Ivanhoe got to visit her campus and see her vision as a new principal in our district Mr Franco of Valley
108Oak Mr Gonzalez at Ridgeview Mr Burgess at Creekside and Mrs Crabtree at Crestwood these are all principles that we had to the opportunity to walk alongside for an hour or an hour and a half depending on how much time Mr Shrum had and then engage and see the engagement of their teachers and students in many different aspects whether it be special ed or kindergartners who were putting their blocks together with the alphabet or it went on and on but it doesn't happen in a void it happens because everyone's there focused and I want to thank all of them because they gave us a little bit of interrupting their time but actually then a taste of the day in the life of their School site I accidentally uh finished washing my car and saw some activity
109across the street we don't we don't like the exact exacerbate the address but for our music instruments get repaired and stored and I bought I've gone by that before but I couldn't get in the door was locked so I ran over there well it drove over and got a wonderful uh tour of what they're doing not only is it a place to store to work with but to repair rebuild instruments I don't know any school district that has that kind of facility let alone the the drive to make sure that every student who wants an instrument has one a functioning one and then to actually see the excitement of Mr Cantu of the future as we did this summer and more in the future of having students actually get a Hands-On how to repair instrument
110kind of experience whether you call it an internship or a summer employment one or the other or both but it can just continue to grow because he has the passion to help pass that along a lot of which he he learned because of necessity it wasn't because he was trained anywhere he just wanted to make sure it happened uh the last thing I wanted to highlight is I enjoyed watching Dr Villegas play soccer on the new uh Turf as uh we were we had the biggest pair of scissors I've ever seen actually cut that ribbon and the excitement of the community of those families and students there they combined it with back to school night so it was a captive audience and they were very excited though to welcome as well as be encouraged by
111all of us that this is your new grounds and there's a lot of amazing hours of use and opportunity in a very a significant investment on the school district's part so thank you for the leadership there that they now have a useful grounds to play year-round no report or whatever Naylor I'm trying to make my insurance sweet um I also had the opportunity to visit two sites um along with board member belt and our assistant superintendent Thompson I just appreciate the principles taking the time out of their busy schedule because I know what it's like at a site um just to take us around you know Mrs Aguilera at um Ivanhoe the kids were excited you know there's learning going on when they want to share what they're learning and so when we walked in
112they all waved and they wanted to explain what they were working on that was amazing and at Green at um Valley Oak Mr Franco is so proud of the new science labs and they're beautiful done beautifully and it just it warms my heart knowing that our kids have the the school and the facilities to do and to learn um with the state of art a state of the art um equipment um I also attended the little garden party fundraiser for green anchors and I want to give a shout out to miss Kristen Corliss for doing an awesome job it was a great event a little hot but it was a great event um I hope you raise lots of money because again that goes through to our vapa which is you know I just am
113so such a proponent of vapa and CTE and I want to thank board member Odo for going down memory lane because I too am a CTE teacher and I just think that is so important to have those classes for students to gain those skills and to see them out in the community it just you know working and being and being happy at what they're doing and knowing that they learn some of those skills at high school just is um to me the best thing of Education thank you um word clerk Gaby um so yes ditto to a lot of um what was said site visits are always the best seeing kids learning um it's why we're here and um the Green Acres Little Theater you know they really just um to see that over time
114continue um it's just it all goes back to a group of dedicated and committed people and they really keep that program going and also just kind of shout out to the are all of our AG students fair this week and oh my gosh the hours they put in um also the hours the parents put in um to you know early morning driving out and feeding the animals to taking care of them and and um we just have some amazing students in in FFA and if we could get Toby the therapy dog to come to our board meetings now there we go and be nice and we can't forget Walter the therapy horse named after named after me yeah um so [Laughter] um so I got to do some site visits and I was able to
115go to Crestwood Creekside Ridgeview and it was so fun to see principals bursting with vision they're just really excited about what's happening at their sites I want to thank Mrs sapuentes for the Patriots Day you gave a tear-jerker of a speech and I want to thank you for that and just the way you're instilling that patriotism and being proud of being American in in your students that was really wonderful to see so thank you um yeah so that's my report all right well thank you for that I I will work on Toby uh the therapy dog I could use him on some days as I'm sure all of us know that'd be awesome um I do have to make a mention of I forget which school was doing Candyland but that is one of my
116all-time favorite kids games uh that I love to play as a kid so I may just have to make a visit I can send you the dress-up days like I'll receive the email yes um but I do want to Echo or bring uh to light an item that was on our consent agenda tonight and that was the approval of an architect to begin the modernization for Houston Elementary and as many uh been on that campus multiple times and I've had teachers say well when when is our modernization coming you know we're you know a school one of the oldest in the district right we just made a great investment in Highland and so um you know it's always been there right but these things are processes and it takes time and I remember a teacher
117on that campus when I was there this year but when are we going to see something tangible and you know although you know not to get people too excited you know it is a process right it's going to take a while to do the architect it takes you know this is a two to three year so process but that process is no underway and I sort of just wanted to highlight something that was on the consent agenda because I think that's important for that community and I know that the you know the principal and the staff you know are aware of that and look forward to uh great things for that school that Community as we go forward I also want to announce to our community to be on the lookout we talked about a
118series of Engagement opportunities with our board and we're excited to announce conversations with our board will occur late October early November our board members will be going out to the community holding a conversation uh and we're excited about that and the opportunity for dialogue for our board members to have dialogue with our community and so be on the lookout we'll be announcing later this month those events as well and very excited about next week will be our first state of the schools a state of the district event we're gonna I think it's going to be live stream be look out for information and it's just going to be an amazing opportunity to showcase all of the wonderful things that are happening in our schools it's okay to toot our horns sometimes right you need to
119show what's happening when you have a community that has a strong school system it attracts business it attracts jobs it attracts confidence in a community and so I'm really excited about hopefully beginning what will be a yearly Tradition at our first state of the district which will be next week and so looking forward to that event thank you thank you okay we're moving on to 10.1 recommended expulsions may I have a motion to approve the recommended expulsions motion to approve second on a motion by board member Casper soleno second by board member Odo on favor student board representative abstains and motion passes unanimously 10.2 recommended reviews continued expulsion may I have a motion to approve the recommended reviews continued expulsion a motion okay on a motion by board member Vegas second by board member case
120Garcia all in favor student board representative votes yes and motion passes unanimously student board member student board member abstained yeah sorry come on Mr Thompson 10.2 recommended no no I'm not doing right 11.1 fiscal year 22 2022-23 unauded actual report Chief business offer officer Mr Hernandez good evening president gamoyan members of the board superintendent schrum so the item tonight is our 22-23 unnaudited actuals report this is the final staff report and accounting for the 22-23 fiscal year um we'll come back in January that'll be presented by our actual Auditors with our our officially audited report um and so this is this is our finished strong report as we finish through the summer time closing out the books so thanks to our our budget and our finance and our purchasing teams who close out the books
121throughout the year um this is kind of their culminating event so um this is also as we've explained how the board puts the financial resources behind the beliefs and commitments and our commitment to student learning and soon our strategic plan because this is how in the Strategic plan the board will provide resources to make sure that those initiatives become reality um so our agenda tonight we're going to review what the audit what the unauded actuals report is do some high-level comparisons and then talk about some next steps so what are the unauded actuals these are our financial statements for last fiscal year it's the final accounting of all of the financial activity and it's a point in time so it's as of June 30th um so when we talk about things like carryover those are
122things that happen um they might get approved prior to June 30th but because we close out on that day they might actually get paid for in another fiscal year so we'll talk more about that when we get to our interim reporting it's required to be filed by September 15th with the county office so we are at our deadline and then it's used by our external Auditors again to prepare our audited financial report so what does it mean we have three questions about learning right what are you learning why how do we know so this is these are the three questions for did I get that right so these are the questions we ask about this report are we living within our means so do we spend more money than we receive are we are we
123deficit spending uh was the district able to meet our required um Reserve or economic for economic uncertainties of three percent and are each of the district's operating funds uh also operating yeah in in a surplus in fiscally solvent and happily the answer to all these questions is yes we are meeting our reserves we're not deficit spending this year and we are also solvent in each of our district funds so we've talked about our accounting cycle so we're here in September um and again we'll come back in January with the final reporting on this year jumping right into the charts the data um so this is general fund revenues comparing 21 22 to 2223 and you see a lot the difference there's lots of different amounts there and there there are very large variances and we've
124had a lot of activity in the last year with one-time dollars but you see just starting with the top are local control funding formula we received uh increase a cola of six percent in 22.23 along with some additional base funds so you see a larger increase there than typical on the federal side all of the Esser funds are one-time funding is still coming in and this is the last year current the current year is the last year that we'll be spending those Ester dollars and then one-time funds around those block grants for learning recovery Arts and Music instructional materials block grant and then other local has to do with increased interest earnings again because we've had a lot of cash come in from from some of these one-time funds and this is what it looks
125like in a chart in a pie chart um so typically lcff sources are over 80 percent of our our budget but because of all the one-time funding there's some differences there um and what those amounts are our general fund expenditure comparison again large variances and we see the cost of living adjustment that was provided to staff along with a one-time payment that was uh that was approved in increases in retirement cost as well as increases around our expanded learning opportunities program the elop programs um and and one-time fundings we did have a slight decrease in our other outgoing capital and that was because we made a large property purchase the Grace Church in 2122 but otherwise revenues exceeding our expenditures and this is probably my favorite chart um but this is how we spend our
126dollar and so if you look at the expenditures here of most of our dollars are spent on staff salaries and benefits over 76 percent in our total general fund and that that varies between unrestricted and restricted sometimes that's upwards of 80 but again lots of one-time money being paid on other things being paid for paying for other things besides salaries and benefits and so that's come down a little bit foreign on just our unrestricted fund balance as we start looking at reserves and funds that we have set aside um so total revenues 377 million expenditures and contributions left a net increase so an increase in our overall fund balance of just over 2 million you're getting fund balance was 62 million and we ended at 65.29 million and so 40 million of that is in
127the reserve we also have a reserve for alcap as well as a pension so those Reserve balances equal out to that 10 percent so we are pretty much at the state limit for what we can hold as reserve and we talked about earlier about career serving programs and that's the reason for having that Reserve level at the highest amount that we can and then some other carryover balances El Cap and things that we'll talk about more at first interim report in December and then our what we consider are unassigned but the 331 000 is just not assigned to any other balance in our other District funds I won't go through them all but you can see they all have positive ending balances facility funds typically spend more than what comes in because we issue bonds
128for example and then we spend those bonds down throughout the year uh total fund balances both general fund and all other funds of just over 375 million so our next steps is we'll send this report off to our County office they will in turn send it off to CDE for approvals our external Auditors will review this report and they'll come in October and um and provide us with the final report in December and that will come back to the board in January and then our report is officially closed so with that around for any questions is there any public comment is there any board comment or questions I like all that positive thank you Mr Hernandez oh we need to yes sorry may I have a motion you sure can motion to approve this most
129important and best report of the Year yes I second it okay so Emotion by Dr Otto second by board member Naylor to recommend uh reviews no what am I doing oh yeah I'm sorry I'm reading the wrong place to have a motion to approve the unauded actual reports I'm tired today sorry student board representative votes yes and motion passes unanimously I also need to shout out to miss Kyla Johnson she's sitting out here because she's the one who puts all these reports together [Applause] 11.2 exemption from required expenditures classroom teacher salaries Mr Hernandez thank you president gamoyan members of the board and superintenders from this is a new item we have not had to bring this before you before um in the past um it's an it's an exemption that we're requesting to be filed
130with tcoe from an education code requirement that's actually kind of outdated and not really consistent with how we operate schools today the requirement is that for unified school districts to spend over 55 percent of their expenses of their of their funds um 55 of their expenditures on classroom salaries and benefits and so we have been meeting this kind of barely over the last couple of years well a lot of districts have not met it and so they've filed these waivers this is the first time that we're requesting a waiver our actual was just over 51 percent um but there's and there's a lot of different reasons why some of that has to do with some of the one-time funds that we receive but also just since the lcff and the lcap came into place a
131lot of supports going towards more addressing whole child's social work and counseling and behavior intervention that is not considered classroom salaries and benefits and so we're asking that this report be approved so we can send it off to the county for their approval public comment board comment questions may have a motion to approve the application for exemption from required expenditures classroom teacher salaries all motion second on a motion by board member Casper Selena bought a second by board member Odo all in favor student board representative otgs and motion passes unanimously 11.3 warrant list Mr Hernandez yes so this is our routine item to approve the warrants between July 28th and August 24th of 2023. may have a motion to well first of all is there any public comment on discombobulated today any board comment questions
132may I have a motion to accept the warrant list all motion I'll second on a motion by board clerk gave me second by board member Casper Solano all in favor come on I see you pressing it student board representative votes yes motion passes six zero with one abstention by Dr Vegas thank you everybody I think we need to adjourn foreign