001and to order we do have a quorum I will identify closed session topics closest and topics are recommended expulsions recommended suspended expulsions Public Employee assignment reassignment appointment Public Employee discipline dismissal release complaints conference related negotiator conference with legal counsel existing litigation conference with real property negotiators anticipated litigation and public employee evaluation superintendent is there any comment on any closed session topics seeing that there's no public comment on closed session topics will adjourn to our closed session welcome all right I'm going to be introducing The Interpreter Adam Avalos will serve as our Spanish interpreter for this meeting the meeting attendees who would like to listen to the Spanish interpretation of the meeting please pick up headphones from the table located in the back of this building of this meeting room this announcement will not be short
002in Spanish experience being webcast live and recorded the recording or webcast May capture images and sounds of those attending the meeting any member of the public wanting to provide a public comment on items listed on tonight's agenda please fill out the public comment form the green form located in the table on the back of the room please hand the completed form to daily Smart Board manager before the item comes up on the agenda please complete a separate form for each item agenda item you'd like to comment on the smart is sitting at the table in the back of the room members of the public members of the public providing public comment please use the microphone on the stand located in the front of the room will now do the Pledge of Allegiance if you cannot
003stand ready foreign there was no action taken in closed session tonight there are revisions to our agenda and or enclosure items there are revised media handouts for this evening's meeting enclosures number two three four eight nine ten 22 and 24. well I think we're going to get to the part that everybody's here for so our next item on the agenda is student performance we're going to have Washington Elementary School and Mount Whitney High School they will have the Folklorico dance group and a poem recital the presenter tonight is Mr Mark Thompson he's the assistant superintendent of learning and Leadership Mr Thompson foreign thank you president Guerrero board superintendent Trump Community family members thank you guys for coming out tonight and my job's real easy I'm going to hand it off first to our amazing fourth
004grader here at Washington Elementary School Perla Lopez do you want to come on up and do your poem the poem is bilingual by Alma floralda hi my name is Pearl and I'm from Washington School in the poem I will be presenting today is because I speak Spanish I can listen to my grandmother's stories and say Familia Madre Amor because I speak English I can learn from my teacher and say I love school because I am bilingual I can read libros and books I have Amigos and friends I enjoy canciones and songs juegos and games and have twice as much fun and someday because I speak two languages I will be able to do twice as much to help twice as many people and be twice as good in what I do foreign thank you Perla
005it took a lot of guts but you did an amazing job well done next to this is also because we're celebrating Hispanic History Month students from Mount Whitney and Washington Elementary will be dancing a traditional to a traditional Mexican song students are wearing traditional outfits that from the state of Jalisco called the ribbon dress and they stand out for the bright colors and beautiful combinations of silk ribbons attached with to their white skirt the second outfit is a traditional a Toledo dress made popular during the Mexican Revolution so if you're good let's get a big hand in Applause for these students as they're coming on in at this time [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] let's give him one more big hand yes you get some pictures as they head out thank you guys very much for
006being there today and celebrating with us thank you foreign okay I just said that I really enjoyed the dancing and the poetry wow uh what we're gonna do right now take a break right yeah uh we're gonna take a two-minute break so that folks that need to be with their children and whatnot or if you need to leave you could do that and then we'll resume our meeting okay so I'll call us back in session at 703 oh 7 13. all right so our next item on the agenda is enclosure number one the introduction and oath of office installation of student Representatives so this to the school board for the 22-23 school year Mr Mark Thompson assistant superintendent of learning and Leadership good evening again board president grow board members superintendent Trump community members it's
007a great honor tonight that I get to install three new uh School Board a student scoreboard members tonight uh coming from Sequoia VTEC and vcis students if you guys would want to come up right now so all three of you please come on up I'm going to throw you a little bit of a curveball so and forward you are before you are out of office my name is and I'm from Sequoia High School my name is Fernando Saldivar and I'm from VTEC High School thrilled and I'm from bcis so and at this time we will be taking our oath of office so here we go all right you saw me swear I have a support and defend the constitution of the town of California and domestic is Allegiance and Allegiance to the Constitution to the
008United States Constitution State of California that I take that I take uh reservation or purpose of evasion and that I will and that I will well and Faithfully discharge the duties discharge the duties the student representation to the Board of Education to the Board of Education upon which I'm about to enter this Christina's gonna get a picture of you guys and then Manuel will be joining us tonight from Sequoia he'll be up on the board in just a moment foreign let's give them one more big hand of Applause sorry to have you guys on the board Manuel if you would join us on the base thank you president girl I'll hand this back over to you so uh last spring our board made a commitment to expand our student voice and bring in students from
009all our high schools these are our alternative schools high schools and we welcome you uh manual we welcome you okay welcome all right so we're going to move on to our next item on the agenda which is enclosure number two Spotlight on good things happening in the district superintendent kirkstrom good evening I think uh what a great way to start with two spotlights are really three are students from uh our schools and our student board rep continuing that tradition and I think that is awesome and uh what a great representation for Hispanic Heritage Month and of course all throughout our schools and you'll see some examples of that in our Spotlight celebrating the rich diversity that makes Visalia such an amazing Community to live in and work in and so thank you good evening board
010president members of the board and our community tonight we're going to take you through some of our highlights our Spotlight on the USD and of course always beginning with our compass slide orienting our community and our district and our team to the work that we're engaged in what we believe and we're committed to doing for all of our students in community two pieces tonight gonna take a minute to Spotlight some of our ongoing investment in campus supports uh and then also our regular Spotlight on vusd so I want to begin with some of the spotlight on campus supports that we have of course we know that coming out of the pandemic our students are facing increased challenges and how do we rise up as a district to support that need and so really this work
011began way before I even arrived on this uh in this great Community from the leadership of our board a couple of those positions I want to highlight and these are direct positions to support the work of our teachers our school administrators and our students on our campus first of all new school-based positions counselors we have 63 total counselors six new in elementary for a total of 27 10 in Middle School 24 in high school 2 being new seven more social workers and 18 more ssip positions I'm going to talk a little bit about what those are safe student Intervention Program staff these are individuals who work with some of our students who present the most challenges how can we wrap supports around them so that they're successful on the school campus five of those positions
012are new so we've added two existing programs and things that we know are successful in supporting kids we also have a program that not many people may know about but it's our on-campus Intervention Program we have this is now what began in a few schools has now been expanded this year to all of our middle and high schools we have 11 programs offered across our district five in our middle schools four in our elementary schools and one in our elementary school and the four High School positions were added this fall and oci on campus intervention is designed to be a short-term intervention for students in response to challenging Behavior using an evidence-based curriculum and staffed by a multi-subject credentialed teacher so this gives us an opportunity for those students who maybe they haven't done something
013that warrants being removed from school campus completely but we know that this is a student that is exhibiting need and may be in distress and so how do we wrap supports around that student while also removing them from maybe the the current environment where challenges are being presented whether it's with a classroom a teacher other students but be able to deliver support to hopefully be able to come back and be an extremely successful student now uh one thing I you know I think it's important to note is we are always evaluating looking at the services we provide and when we do identify gaps we immediately work to fill those and one of the things I want to show is this board's continual investment in people and while stuff programs are important it's really people and
014their effectiveness that make it work and so you can see here pre-pandemic and this is just a baseline Middle School we could do the same chart for Elementary and high school and it would show similar and if you count you're going to see about 12 12 and 15 and a half in other words we have continued to advance our staffing this is looking at not Staffing at a classroom level this is actually the supports wrapped around our campuses for teachers so this is more an administrative Social Services type work all of our middle schools now have a full-time psychologist two counselors learning directors assistant principals behavior intervention technicians social workers campus supervisor youth service officers on-campus intervention the oci that I just talked about and also of course our wonderful office staff our clerical our
015front desk folks that keep our schools running those of us that have been principals know who really makes things happen behind the scenes and so we're continuing to invest in our school-based staffing to meet the needs that are present I also want to talk about some more campus supports we have heard of course you know one of the things that I had the privilege of attending back in May uh before I became superintendent was a student voice session where we had seniors and other students from all across the district and this board and we actually convened a special meeting to listen to the voices of the students listening to our parents and some of the things that we're describing here are a result of that ongoing dialogue and so one of the things we know
016we heard from our kids we heard about the bathrooms and the challenges and we want every kid to be able to go to a bathroom and not worry about what might be going on in there right of course that connects back to this board's one of the board's beliefs and commitments and so we've invested in vaping centers for all high school campuses three out of the four High School comprehensive high schools are installed ones in the process should become operational this weekend this will expand to Middle Schools as well and one of the other pieces that is ongoing right now is training and develop of admin staff now that they have this additional tool and also hoping that this is a deterrent to students not only is this an unhealthy practice but it impedes other
017students ability you know to access everywhere on the campus and so that work is continuing also our Raptor visitor management system now I've presented on this before and this has two parts this is the visitor volunteer piece right where people sign in it does checks and all of that and in the event of an emergency we now know who's on campus so if we did have to do a relocation we would know not only which students but if their visitors or guests on campus as well but the other piece and I think that's going to be most impactful about this especially for our teachers is the emergency alert part of this system so should the school need to go into a lockdown or some other drill fire drill situation evacuation right now our principals can
018make an announcement maybe there's a bell that rings of course the alarm but with this system with a punch of a button the administration can put the whole entire school all of the staff computers and devices and the screen will light up with what's going on right so instant notification across the campus the other piece of this that I think teachers are going to find really impactful is how do I get help in the classroom when I need help how do I respond if there's a disturbance in the classroom maybe I need some help but you know I don't really I'm teaching right I don't want to want to make a big deal of it I don't want to go over to the intercom and announce somebody's business in front of everybody else right like
019how do I handle this and so with the Raptor systems all teachers and staff will have access to a team assist alert basically uh and so the way we'll program it is when they click that button automatically it will alert every campus supervisor and administrator on campus so that immediate support can go to the classroom to help the teacher uh with whatever they might need in that situation also transfinder is being installed on all of our buses uh oh let me go back to Raptor we expect the the visitor and management part of this system uh welcome to a supply chain opportunity we're working on getting all of those parts in however the emergency alert portion we do believe is going to be operational possibly as early as the end of the next month which
020means by by just a few weeks all teachers are going to have access to this support to receive help in their classroom of course we'll be giving more information about that transfinder currently right now if you're a parent and you want to know where your kid is on the bus or where the bus is uh you're kind of at the mercy of if my kid has a cell phone uh or you know ice you know just word of mouth or maybe I see the bus so transfinder is going to be an automatic alert so if the bus is late maybe there's a different bus number parents will be notified um and also the with transfinder uh those of us that have been Elementary principals we know at the beginning of the year try as we
021might every now and then somebody somehow gets on a bus they're not supposed to be on right so with transfinder now every student will have an icon or a badge basically or or you know that sort of thing scans when they get on the bus automatically tells the driver hey this kid is assigned to your bus or Big O X this kid is not assigned to the bus so before the bus even leaves the driver has a chance to work with staff to get the student where they need to be and so oftentimes those of you that are parents you know every now and then although this is not appropriate right every now and then sometimes a kid gets off the bus at the wrong stop to go home with a friend right without letting
022their parent know and of course parents are worried well now when the kid scans to get off the bus the driver will know this isn't your stop right or in a worst case scenario let's say they do get off and get past the scan we now know where the kid got off and so we can send immediate support so I think for parents and for our students this is going to be another safety layer uh also this is going to help us route our buses better and so be more efficient with that so really excited about that we are piloting that this fall starting with our special ed buses and we expect this to be operational district-wide in January so we'll continue to update you on that also want to remind everyone that all of
023our students on their device have a way to make an anonymous report so if you're a student and maybe you're not comfortable going to an adult or telling an adult on campus about a problem obviously we we hope you would be able to do that but if not there's a way you can make an anonymous report I'm concerned about something I saw something I need a little help and so we're working to make sure all of our students know that that is available that also goes to our administrative team where they're immediately able to intervene or discreetly reach out to a student who indicated they might need some additional support um one of the things I heard loud and clear from staff in the community is we need training on what to do uh in
024an emergency a safety emergency um and so through a partnership with our Visalia Police Department uh the sheriff's department uh working with our new team members that we have our coordinator of safety our coordinator of discipline now we are working on training every single District employee on what to do in one of these emergency situations through a nationally recognized system called Alice active training shooter shooting training for all staff this teaches a curriculum to our staff they practice this is going to be delivered to administrators this fall and then in early spring we are working with our partners and we are going to train our entire District in a matter of a few days and so we won't have a situation where one school gets training in January and another school has to wait till
025May right everybody's going to get the training in a very short period of time and so although it's unfortunate that in this day and age or that we have to do this sort of thing we do know the um that this is something we have to do and so we want to make sure that everyone on our campus is equipped and they know exactly what they need to do that we have consistency across our entire District what one school does and another school in the district office everybody's in sync our vocabulary is the same and so we'll be sharing much more information about that in the coming weeks and so again as I mentioned our Visalia Police Department appreciate their partnership as you know we have youth service officers on our middle and high school
026campuses very much been a partner in how do we deploy this training to all of our district team and I know one of the concerns that's been echoing in our community and of course our board has asked about a status update is that of Fentanyl and the drug that's uh you know in within our nation we see a lot of headlines about it so assistant superintendent DeMeo has reported a last board meeting that we're in the process of training our School nurses we're in the process of installing the the storage uh lock box I guess for lack of a better term where that will be kept we're still waiting to hear from the state we've applied as a lot of places have on to get the the medicine in stock we are still waiting on
027that but in the meantime should a worst case scenario happen we do have Ru service officers and other municipality agencies that are here to support us and so at this time I would like to invite up Sergeant Cummings I believe is here and just to give us a brief update on Fentanyl and our community and how we're prepared to respond and then of course if the board has any questions before the sergeant so good evening thank you for having me so my name is Sergeant Jimmy Cummings I'm the sergeant of the youth service officers and I'm new to the position so I just wanted to introduce myself to you um so fentanyl in our community uh yes fentanyl is here but the numbers they climb each year we're still relatively low um we looked at
028some of our stats as far as overdoses in the community and I would say any overdose one is too many but overdoses related to fentanyl um our overdoses are higher in prescription medication and heroin than they are in fentanyl one thing that we've done with fentanyl with our officers in the community is every Visalia police officer has been trained in the administration of Narcan Narcan is a medication that can be administered by an officer the first officer on scene and you can get immediate results so every officer in the Visalia Police Department has been trained in the use of Narcan and Carries Narcan on their person in their pocket that includes our ysos every yso on every campus has Narcan on them and they've been trained to use it and I would tell you if
029if there was ever an incident of a fentanyl exposure at a school I would tell you that every officer in the Visalia Police Department would be going to that school as soon as they could just because is the the presence of Public Safety is so important especially in our schools um but that's that's really all I have and I just want to say uh thank you for my relationship with Luis harmillo and Terry Martindale they've been instrumental in my uh taking my new position here and working with uh Andy de mayo and Brandon Gridiron and also superintendents from that's made the transition very easy and uh seeing there uh the importance they put on public safety and school safety for our students and so uh that's all I have important thank you thank you so
030thank you for that and again uh assistant superintendent DeMayo will continue to update this board on the progress of when we're expected to get that so that we can also have an additional added layer above and beyond the current layer of protection that we have on our school campuses and so more to come on that um as I turn to some additional campus supports want to talk a little bit about the importance of our campus culture and you know we have talked a lot about one Visalia connected and I think everything we see in here points to why this is so important we have to connect our kids we have to connect our kids to meaningful activities not just in school but outside when they're engaged when they have a mentor when they have an
031internship uh when they're on a sports team when they play in the band the more connected they are the less likely they're going to engage in Risky Behavior hence the less likely need for any of the things that we just heard about to occur because our kids are engaged in something that's productive and so while we use our code of conduct we have our youth service officers on campus if a student makes a bad decision if a student gets into a fight they will face a code of conduct consequence depending on the fight most often that could result in a suspension it could also result in a high likelihood of an arrest those are all things that we do not want but that is the reality and that is what will happen to students that
032choose to make the wrong decision but that can't be the only story that we tell we also have to wrap around supports so this is not just a school system issue alone it is a community issue if a kid's not in school they're going to be out in the community right that behavior will still be occurring the location just changes so in addition to the work that we do with our supports we need our community's help we need our communities step up and be part of one Visalia connected be willing to be a mentor to a kid that's in need be willing to be a tutor in our AVID program be willing to increase internships open your businesses so that we can increase the opportunities for kids to be engaged in meaningful activities and I'm
033excited about what this initiative can do and what this can do for businesses within our community so in addition want to just talk about a couple of other things our new training support for classroom staff this is another area that we've been very attentive to because we know that we need to connect our students we need to work with our teachers and so focusing on training around the foundational pieces getting back to core instruction getting back to good reading instruction getting back to good math support and including and increasing our teachers on special assignment these are expert teachers who have demonstrated great Proficiency in the classroom and now how do we build upon their proficiency not only to help kids but also coach teachers and so how they model and how do we do those
034things to help increase the ability of our teachers to reach our kids and so those are just some of the additional campus supports and items that I wanted to talk about and share with our board tonight I want to talk about Visual and Performing Arts for a minute vapa very important for a lot of our kids sometimes people wonder well what you know you've added some positions well what does that mean what that means now is we now have a comprehensive way to assess our programs one person that's a point of connection for all of our schools same thing could be said for athletics and so those folks are not left to wonder well who who at the district office do I contact if I need this or that right there's a person that's building
035along with them a comprehensive plan for the future to advance fopa to advance Athletics and so a couple of things I want to point out about vapa that this work has translated into streamlining Transportation so for the first time saying here are all of the opportunities that all of the schools agree to participate in we're going to pay for that transportation not about the number of buses right because we know that if we say you're going to go to these 10 programs of course you can go to more right that's where your other funds kick in but this is what the guarantee is this is the foundation for every school one school might need five buses one school not not might need four that's why we don't just give a certain amount but we pay
036for that right so whether I need five buses because of the size of my band or I need three we've got that you'll see additional funding here that has gone to school programs this year Instrument Repair we have a new building getting ready to open uh this week next in two weeks for our Instrument Repair so that's going to be our ability to help students when an instrument needs repair and so also you saw tonight another product of that is showcasing our students so prior to coming here I don't think we had our students showcase the great things that are happening in our schools at a board meeting we are now going to have that at every board meeting and in addition if you walk out into the back hallway you'll see a whole art
037display and so we're working to transform this district office into a showcase for our student work and you'll see in the back hallway if you get a chance to walk back there after the meeting some of the great art Talent from from our kids that's on display and of course wouldn't be able to do that without the great work of the teachers and others here's another immediate result of having people in positions to build systems so one of the things our new vapa director did was a quick assessment these past few weeks what's an immediate urgent need in the vapa program now keep in mind he's building out a strategic plan for that development and growth but in the process of doing so identified some immediate challenges first of all we discovered that we had
038kids on waiting lists for instruments we discovered that we needed violins I'm not going to pronounce cellos stream bases bell kits Alto saxophones you you can see the chart we also noticed that our high school band directors were standing on eye on things that were maybe a little questionable as far as safety right uh and then a c train for set construction and storage the point being this is over a hundred thousand dollars worth of items that that our vapa director identified in working with our vapa teachers at our school sites that needed immediate attention that we didn't think we could wait a year or so more all of this that you see on the screen is in the process of being ordered and will be on our school sites as soon as it's able
039to be delivered this is what having a systematic approach to things helps us do so thank you to Dan and his team uh Destiny to others for all of their work so moving into some Spotlight for our sites want to start with the great environments and again it is wonderful to see our parents our community our families back on campus Mineral King Elementary hold a great pastries with families uh September 23rd students were able to join with their families allow families to be connected and so I didn't get invited to that we'll have to work on that I'm not sure on the pastries uh so excited to see that also Ridgeview Middle School creating book talks a librarian La Donna Jones created a space for seventh grade students students to use stacks of picture books
040to engage in book talks and just an amazing environment that she has there in that Library I've been there a couple times it's amazing Annie R Mitchell literacy night read a lot literacy night was a huge success families engaged in word games read by the campfire with s'mores enjoyed readers theater love readers theater received books that made Reading pledges great job principal Taylor and team for your work on spreading the joy of reading and a big shout out for the curriculum instruction team for helping to support this literacy night and efforts throughout the district Willow Glen Elementary you see on the right side there held a movie Under the Stars great job to the principal and team there for bringing families together on campus for a great event of course Sports very much underway all
041of our fall activities Redwood High School girls water polo again another way to connect students as of Monday I'm told that the girls water polo team is 9-3 overall and three and one in the league so great job to the coach there and all of the students also cross country all of those meets are occurring and uh 31 schools came together at the cross country season start for That season and so again thank you to coaches and families we know it takes families to invest in these things and so thank you gotta take your kids back and forth and all of that Spotlight on the district office along with our school side our district team is designing an intentional learning opportunities for staff to build capacity some of the has been guided reading training for
042our new kindergarten teachers curriculum instruction literacy team providing that work preparing our teachers for great first instruction and also number talks for our first grade teachers we know that number talks part of numeracy is really again foundational so how do we make sure we're building our teachers capacity so great shout out to our tosas and others for doing a great job and embedding this professional learning throughout the year we've talked a lot we've heard from our board we've we've also heard from parents and our students on the importance of the counselor the importance and the ability to get with the counselor when you need to to build those post-secondary plans and high school plans and so our counselors are working really hard on developing their capacity so that we can reach the gold standard ramp
043certification counselors have started their College and Career lessons taking place at every grade including counselor connection cards being sent home with students to learn more about these lessons and also started friendships social skills grief support all of those things that counselors do to help support a kid when they're in need so thank you to our counselors that are now on every campus thanks to this board's investment we appreciate the work that you do and then continuing uh since some of our Educational Services team to Hove Noble with LA Cultura this is Again part of training our Pat our students and our staff to work with students how do we reach students and connect uh culturally with them participants are ready to support students on their journey through this character development curriculum and then unfortunately I
044was unable to be there but our high five Fridays continued uh this time at Divisadero and so again the whole District staff we like to come out see the look on kids faces and even teachers because they also run through the tunnel and do the high five in just a great way to show connection to our school sites and our location for what are we turning into October will be announced as we get closer to that date so stay tuned you might be the site of our next high five Friday and so thank you to the principal and the Divisadero staff for setting amazing tone I think they had their mascot there and some music and some other things as well and then of course every month there are many special days and designations uh
045that we want to celebrate and recognize and so this month our Communications team has been very intentional about celebrating and honoring various calendar days so this slide has just a few examples of the events that were recognized and highlighted on our campus from Patriot Day National payroll week right that may not mean a lot to some students but that means a lot to about 3 500 employees and an amazing payroll department that that just does outstanding work to make that happen just automatically right National Hispanic Heritage Month Native American day and National custodian day as much as we can we're using the voices of our own staff and community members to make each of these days personal so we encourage our school sites and others to continue to share retweet and promote these things through
046social media honoring and celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month two more sites celebrated this month you can see here Goshen through a display of culturally relevant traditional outfits and then VTEC students shared presentations of Latino Heroes thank you to all who have celebrated this very important month including our students who came tonight and then coming in October and some of this will continue to celebrate you'll see some of this on our next Spotlight we have lots of different things occurring this month and activities occurring throughout our school to raise awareness with our students from National bullying prevention principal appreciation Red Ribbon Week Hispanic Heritage Month uh bus of appreciation day national school lunch week and many many more uh it seems like every month there are more and we just are working really hard to make sure
047we're celebrating and recognizing all of our students our staff and our community our parents through these events so board I believe that concludes the spotlight on vusd I will turn it back over to you Mr President any questions or comments from the board yeah thank you sir our next item on the agenda is enclosure number three which is the superintendent's entry plan it's an update and superintendent Christian all right well hopefully everyone is hasn't fallen asleep yet uh I'll try to go through this so I wanted uh thank you Mr President board and Community here tonight wanted to present the final update on my superintendent's entry plan course beginning with where we are now our beliefs and commitments and priorities and of course at the beginning of the entry plan this slide this direction did
048not exist but now it does tonight going to take you a little bit through context building where we were where we are and where we're going through engage examining and envision and also share a little bit about our data that we received this most recent testing cycle so as we go into this I want to bring back to our community that prior to the superintendent search or the interviews occurring the community had opportunity to participate in a search survey where they listed what they were interested in and through the partnership with Tulare County Office of Education superintendent Tim heyer LED this process with our board and so we saw that at that point in time there were 40 in-person meetings held seven listening meetings and the community came back and said we want a superintendent
049that has a vision that has leadership and is positioned to be great we also heard some personal characteristics that were important to the community trustworthiness student-centered honest were the top three communicator and then you can see all the way down intelligence was the last one I don't know what that means but but but there it is uh so again our listening to our community here's what we're interested in in our next superintendent but also really important our community was very clear we need a focus on academics we need to focus on student and staff safety communication those were the top three now we're working on all of those things you see there but those were the top three all of this helped provide the context that I needed to use to develop an entry plan
050and think about what some of our first actions would be and as I took that into account and then listened met with the board and thinking about where do we need to go what I discovered was a little bit of a current state we have a lot amazing people in Visalia Unified but we had a lot of people doing a lot of different things a lot of arrows going in a lot of different directions and we weren't really looking at are those aligned are they the right actions and are they having impact are they helping our kids ultimately at the end of the day are they addressing those things that we saw that the community said and so realizing that we needed to bring that together we are a unified school district we are not
051a district of schools and so if we are a unified school district we have to begin to orient our structure to represent that this is a quote I use oftentimes from dimming every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets the board was very clear in the interview process and ultimately when they offered the opportunity to me we want to see something different for our kids and for our community and ultimately my job as superintendent is to direct this District to make that happen the board holds me accountable for that and we know dimming also has another quote that I've used sometimes and I'm going to kind of get it wrong but it basically is you take a good person and you put them in a bad system and they're not effective and
052so we have to have good people we have to design our system so that they can be effective and have impact another thing I think that was very important is that we begin to make decisions based on data that we look at what's happening and we don't just guess right and then also we have some form of accountability how are we coming back to the board saying here's where we are here's where we need to go and here's what we're doing and So within the entry plan began to work on engaging examining and envisioning and so those were intentional terms right because each phase had intentional actions that I wanted to make sure I took engaging of course going out to the community talking to uh different groups listening to as many people as I
053could here are the things that we said we would do I said I would do to the board listen and learn with all stakeholders you see green checks there because those were some of the immediate actions that were taken as part of my entry plan meeting with District leaders community service clubs want to be very clear that just because I'm ending the entry plan phase of the work that engagement continues right that doesn't just end now it's going to take different forms roundtables advisories Town Halls Community meetings all of those things will now shift into just how we're going to do business perhaps really importantly was also examining looking at our data what does it say about where we are again this board had charged me with developing a path forward and improving our academic
054outcomes for students that doesn't just happen systems have to be built things have to be worked on to do that right and so one of the things I wanted to take a minute to do tonight is share a little bit about where we are in that Journey To be honest and transparent about our current state but also looking at how we'll become more intentional and data driven to get to where we want to be so we know the state uh well says they're going to release Statewide data they weren't going to release it now they're going to release it supposedly in October we're not waiting on the state we're going ahead and sharing with our communities our parents our students students and teachers how our students did in this last testing cycle so as you
055see here you can see that visil unified in the at the top in the lighter blue 41.7 percent of our kids were considered to meet or exceed standards in ela and 24.8 in math and of course I've shared that before when I presented our um through your math uh presentation now that's certainly not where we want to be this year establishes a new Baseline we know it's been a couple of years since we've had testing and even this year's version or I say this year's but the end of 22 was a scaled down version of previous tests it wasn't the full bloom you know days hours long thing that we put kids through right it was a shorter version and this really establishes a new Baseline that we can look at this data and say
056okay here's where we are now we know now we have to build if this data is the same next year then this board is going to hold me accountable for that and I can tell you the data will not be this next year now there are some bright spots here that I think it's important to point out we exceeded the district county average so when you take all of the districts within Tulare County and there are quite a few of them our performance was higher than the average of all the county districts so we're pleased with that um another data point now we can't do a lot of comparison because other districts haven't released their data yet we have to wait on the state but one District that did release their data Fresno Unified very
057similar demographics to our system also a large system 32 and 21 so it's good to see that we are leading some other districts within our community of course what I hope for Visalia Unified is that not only do we lead next year in the data cycle that we're the highest performing District within the county but I would love for us to be the highest performing District within the region and then eventually the state and I believe we're going to be on the journey to do that here's where you see uh and the reason I'm not calling out other districts within the county is they have not necessarily released their data and that would not be appropriate for me to do so we will just call them ABCD E and F so a few of the
058other districts again although we exceeded the county average and all of our academic indicators when it comes to actual District performance we were second so very close though 41.7 uh and then the course you see the county there and the highest district in the county was at 45 so we're shy of that top District in the county by about 3 percent in ela and then you can see we were at 24.8 in math and the highest other District in the county was at 25 so less than a percentage point off from that so I feel very confident with the outstanding work our teachers do every day having our students back on campus we're going to see growth and Improvement there so again pleased at what we're seeing but certainly not in any way satisfied and
059it's also good to see that coming out of this past couple of years we maintained our performance in relation to other districts within our County and State what I'm really most proud about um and this kind of changes the trend a little bit is our a through G completer data now a through G data are students who reach certain benchmarks that uh enable them to enroll in a University of California or California state institution right kind of a gold standard of student performance now this community is aware it's been reported that when you look at our Comprehensive High Schools we know that in the 2021 data cycle what we reported to calpads that's essentially the state right what we reported the state wasn't accurate and actually in three or four cases way under reported the
060achievement of our kids and in one case slightly over reported that so on the far left side you're going to see in 20 and 21 what was actually reported to the state so you see if our four comprehensive high schools there now had that been reported correctly in the next column actual data that's what the reality on the ground was so even though only say six percent point six percent of kids at Golden West in the state portal were reported as being a through G actually 34 percent of their kids were and of course that was reflected on the transcript and that did not impede their ability to take that and apply and enter a university it just as our reporting and doesn't look good right so part of what this board and part of
061my systems work was identifying we had a gap in our data processing we had a gap in checks and balances of our data we had great people entering data but when it came to training when it came to checking that data we fell a little bit short we've addressed that with an administrator of instructional technology who's tasked with leading that team and so now we have a different story now the state has not officially released a through G this is our estimate this is what we reported this year you see the four 46 percent El Diamante if I base that on what they really had last year right or two years ago the that's an increase of 1.9 percent Golden West 39 that's an increase of 4.8 percent 9.8 percent increase at Mount Whitney and
0628.4 percent at Redwood this is coming out of the pandemic this is a story of resilience of our students support of our parents and the work of our teachers teaching under extraordinary circumstances trying to teach through Zoom trying to work with families at home who were also trying to work and do their job while they had children trying to work and engage in school all in one place despite all of those obstacles and all of the things and barriers that got in our way our kids still made it happen our teacher still made it happen our parents still made it happen and so this to me to come out of this period and have an actual increase in the percentage of our kids who are a through G completers or qualified is really outstanding and
063so I just want to thank our teachers our administrators and all of the support at the district level that worked to make this happen I also want to be very clear you've heard me say before I'm not going to be satisfied and this District team is not going to be satisfied until every one of our kids is College and Career ready but this year is a new Baseline we now have this data and so now it's about where do we go from here and that is the expectation of growth and so that's what we're working on as we build our systems and we're going to continue to do the right work for our students part of that goes into how do we envision this path forward what are our actions going to be what do
064we do and so you can see here part of the Journey of this part of the entry plan was to take all this together working with our Board of Trustees and to begin to develop goals commitments and Building Systems and messaging to improve from where we are to where we want to go and so several immediate actions were taken in direct response to what the community said on their survey in academics we've now adopted a three-year math requirement giving a stronger post-secondary value to our high school diploma we now have 24 7 tutoring for students in grades 4 through 12 via our paper platform and as of today I think it's about 2600 tutoring sessions that have occurred so far development of a learning and Leadership division to focus on student achievement we had pieces
065of that scattered throughout our district we needed to bring those together development of the one Visalia connected initiative to create a framework so that we could connect all of our kids and then of course different positions to address gaps that were identified both at the district and at the school level student and staff safety immediate actions that we've taken I shared a few in the previous report Raptor technology for our visitor emergency alert system transfinder for our bus all of these are Safety and Security positions targeted directly for that again investment in District and school-based positions to support our students culture and climate and working on our excuse me our K-12 counseling structure to ensure students are assessing academic and social emotional needs all of our counselors now are in a new structure under one
066director so that we can work to build out their support and training to improve the Great work that they do and then in Communications remember the third item that the community said we wanted to have and dressed so we built a department we built a team we didn't have that right so we had to build from scratch uh and Building Systems of communication and so you can see here um the percentage of people that are interacting with our stories our ability to highlight those great things that are happening in our classrooms uh all of that has drastically increased it's it's almost like night and day compared to the previous state and so now highlighting and showcasing the great things that are happening within our school and so again thanks to that team and that department
067for their excellent work in getting our story out there now this again may not seem groundbreaking or shattering to some folks but but it is if you don't know where you're going to go if you don't have a direction if you don't have a North star if you don't have a goal any road can get you anywhere and you may find yourself where you don't want to be and so our board took time to declare here's what we believe and we're committed to doing and if this is what we're building and what we're committed to doing then charging the superintendent and his team to make it happen so part of that data application all students can achieve at high levels and demonstrate continuous growth is that the reality right now for every one of our
068students no but now we have a baseline now we have a goal and so now we develop the systems to make that reality learning environments should be safe supportive and Innovative is that the reality today for every single kid no but our board has declared that this will be the reality for every one of our students and staff and so now we build the systems to make that happen and then family and Community engagement and then is that the current state for every family and Community member know but again now we've declared this is what we expect and so now we have to make it happen how do we make that happen clarifying people's roles and responsibilities if you don't have Clarity in your role it's hard to be held accountable so we're working on
069developing Clarity within roles starting with our community our community Alexa board the board has three major responsibilities create policy to drive the work approve a fiscally responsible budget right that the superintendent's recommendation and evaluate their employee the superintendent to do the things that the board wants to see happen those are the three overarching responsibilities of a Board of Education they then through that set the conditions for the district team I take that I create the conditions for our district team to be successful our district Team Works to create the conditions for school leaders to be successful School leaders do their work right to create the conditions for our teachers to be successful and then of course where the real magic happens is the teachers creating the conditions for each student to be successful and that's
070the cycle and when there's role Clarity then you can say here's what this role does here's the resources and tools here's what Effectiveness looks like and here's how we'll work to build that into accountability also important that we get clear um it's been a few minutes since I was a teacher but what I do remember and what I see in our classrooms every day is there's a lot that our teachers have to do of which a part is teaching there's a whole other world to that classroom management interacting with kids working with parents all of those things make up the work that they do we have to get clear on what it is we expect and what our focus and Foundation is this slide has now been used for all of our teachers we've shared
071it with our principals this is now going to orient what our work is this year this is about being committed to utilizing District resources making sure in every classroom every student is being taught on grade level and if they are not on grade level then we're wrapping supports around them but we're not robbing them of receiving on grade level instruction if they don't ever get on grade level instruction they will never catch up we have to accelerate and fill gaps we have to use the resources we have let assessments guide our work and use tools such as iready and others to help support the work of teachers we're going to get there right we're going to do this we're going to implement our instructional Foundation working through our professional learning communities and making sure every
072school has a highly effective leadership team and student support team and we know why this is important every kid in every classroom deserves the best instruction we're able to give them that shouldn't be left up to chance of whether I'm in this classroom or whether I go to this school there should be confidence throughout our district whatever school you're in or whatever classroom you're in you're going to get on or grade level above instruction and you're going to be equipped for Success not only does that apply for our students but also for our teachers and leaders as well that's our Focus we have Clarity of our focus and how we're going to move forward and so then all of our district supports wrap around that so no one's left to wonder what are we working
073on what do we need to do also part of this is getting clear with our cabinet on what their role is in this remember the circle graph the role of the district to create the conditions for school leaders to be successful so as a Cabinet team we've come together and we've created accountability commitments here's what we're committed to doing that we're going to hold each other accountable for we've created the first metrics for monitoring as a Cabinet team so how do we know if the work we're doing is right so for example you'll see things on there like are our buses getting to school on time right that's an accountability metric if they aren't then we got to do something about it because if a kid's not at school on time they're not learning right
074they're missing instruction so on and so forth and this is just the beginning of how the district team we're going to hold ourselves responsible for this work and then finally focus in foundations uh you'll see you know one Visalia connected as we've talked about why this work is so important uh connecting every kid to something meaningful and impactful and our role this year what we're working on is creating those round tables which we've started you see here uh student advisories are underway the best part of my day the other day last week was my middle school and Elementary School student advisories they will tell you without filter what life is like at school and I'm listening because that's information we're bringing back teachers do the same and I think I have my high school advisory
075this week if I'm not mistaken so looking forward to that conversation um and so these are things that we're doing as we move forward and so finally why is this all important because now we've moved from that state prior to entry of a lot of well-intentioned things going a lot of different directions to alignment beliefs our commitments our foundations and one Visalia connected so now we can improve and enhance our impact where are we going from here so some of the next work our district team our board will be engaging in is developing a theory of action so if we believe this and we're committed to doing this then how do we do it Right theory of action uh strategic plan beginning to lay the foundation of a strategic plan every effective organization has a
076strategic plan with accountability metrics in it that's part of the next work continuing to work on our instructional Foundation Building capacity and staff and then communication with our stakeholders and continuing that so as I conclude my entry plan I'm really proud of the work that our district is doing I'm really proud of the work that we see in our schools I'll give I'll give you an example of at the end of the day how all of this boils down to effective leadership at the end of the day that's what all of this is about so I'm on a high school campus uh yesterday I think yesterday was Monday it's been a couple hours on there through lunch and some others and had a great opportunity to chat with teachers meet some students and just hear
077about how things are going and one of the problems or concerns that have been echoed on that campus was tardies well if you're a teacher and a kid's not in class that's a problem right now you've got to use instructional time to get the kid come on in sometimes that goes lots of different directions and it's a distractor it's a barrier to a teacher being able to do their work and so in a great example of leadership this principle pull teachers together and said okay here's what I've heard here's a challenge now let's talk about what can we do what support do we need one of the things that the school needed was well our campus supervisors need to be able to get across campus to interact with students they had a couple of golf
078carts that were inoperable when we found out about it we purchased two golf carts right away removing that barrier for that school team to be successful I got to ride in one of them I know they work now uh the other thing was talking to teachers like what what can we do together and so what's so remarkable about about the leadership of our Golden West principle is they're emerged two kind of potential solutions to this challenge and so what did the principal do well let's let's try both of them this group wanted to try this they're working on that right now the other wanted to try something different they're doing that all with the same goal though right so now they can see what works how do we refine practices and then what do great
079administrators do they think well what can I do and so what one of the things that they're instituting this is a great strategy I've done it before is a tardy sweep so if you're not in class when you need to be doors are closed everybody come with me we're going to sit down and find out why you weren't in class now I'm removing you from being a distraction on campus what support do you need to get back in class before we have to move down you know different paths but this type of leadership is played out every day and every one of our campuses across our district and our job as a district leadership team is to create the conditions so that they can do what they do best which is support learning on their
080campuses and so board as I end the official entry phase this is about five months into this amazing journey with Visalia I'm confident that we have the foundation identified we have identified our Baseline data we know where we are we know where we need to go and so now we really fully engage in the work of building and designing the systems creating the accountability systems to make sure we're effective on that Journey so I am pleased to be here and I look forward to the work that we're going to engage in together as a board and as a community uh proud to be a visalian and thank you for this opportunity to serve as your superintendent so Mr uh president I'll turn it back over to you any questions for many board members any comments
081go ahead I have a couple comments um first of all I just want to say thank you for what what your team has done in 90 days is really laid a foundation to really move forward and I'm very excited about that the things that this community and this board asked for they're happening so I want to thank you for that and I just want to put a plug for the one Visalia connected initiative I was talking to a community member and he is a teacher in the prison system and some of his guys were saying you know really all I wanted was to belong and to be loved and nobody showed me the appropriate way to do that and he said if someone had connected with me about fifth grade it could have made a
082difference in my life so I just want to invite the community please be involved with this I think this is not only going to change our our schools but it's going to change our city so thank you thank you just wanted any other comments um I just wanted to say thank you too and um so many things that I love that you've done but um one of my favorite things is just listening to student voice and getting to see that slide of the zoom call you had with those kids and just like you said there's no filter they're going to be honest and that's the best part about them so um I've seen you connect with parents and invite the community in and now that you're doing that with with students that's awesome so thank
083you any other comments no I just want to Echo all those comments and um I'm just thinking back to one of the the best things that we've been able to do last semester was that student listening session at one of the high schools and so I think that's uh something I'm looking forward to and maybe even expanding to the middle school and Elementary level as well so we can also hear from them directly but thank you for all your hard work thank you to all of our staff anyone else I totally like the information you provided um this didn't happen when you were here and I'm what I'm when I say this I'm talking about the data for 2122 and I really think that that's a reflection of all the hard work that went on
084by all staff across the board I mean the teachers the classified staff the administration that was working hard during the pandemic and you know everybody pull together and focus and you know we have a good Baseline and I know it's going to increase and thank you to everybody okay so we're going to move on to our next item on the agenda and that is the general public comment on any school related topic may be heard at this time the board asked that any public comment on an item that's on tonight's agenda be addressed at the time the item comes up for discussion by the board to comply with the brown act California's open meeting law board discussion is limited to items on the agenda therefore when receiving public comment for items not on the agenda
085the boards rule is limited to receiving such comments and the board may not engage excuse me in dialogue with the public the board thanks the public for for its participation of public comment and understanding of the board's responsibilities pursuant board policy the board May limit individual comments to no more than three minutes and individual topics to 20 minutes it is recommended You Begin by stating your name the first person on my list is Mr Joseph Beaton good evening I am Joseph Payton Hospital laboratory scientist area 7 resident and the father of a first grader my Facebook page offers the most comprehensive coronavirus data analysis available in Tulare County with a new law passed in the state of California outlying medical misinformation I risk my entire career to gain nothing financially I am hopeful that the
086right to free speech will supersede the preference of Public Health departments to censor criticism our current School Board member our current School Board censors those criticals of our failing school district Applause at the end of any public comments is muted every school board meeting from 2021 has been deleted from YouTube anyone naming a failing school district employee risks legal consequences ask respectful and informed questions of the board and learn that your trustees do not have enough respect for their voters to answer in this context the omission of our concerns is the commission of censorship though I was able to speak at every school board meeting from June to December 2021 it is difficult now for me to attend boarding board meetings in person in January and February I was using the telephone public comment feature
087to offer input at board meetings my comments have been silenced as telephone public comment was considered no longer effective in the reduction of coronavirus infections the elimination of telephone public comment for health reasons is not a logical action as telephone public comment was in practice before the district implemented pandemic style and infection prevention additionally contradictory is the continued presence of the pandemic microphone stand is it another reminder that Uninvited members of the community are less important than students and staff who are asked to speak at this Podium when I am silenced also silence are the physically or visually impaired or families that have challenges with child care Logistics or vehicle ownership the censorship of the less privilege does not consistent with the claims that our our district promotes diversity equity and inclusion our district is
088one of the worst performing school districts in the worst performing state in the USA the board will not release the scores of the most really recent standardized tests taken by our students while suffering through virtual and Suffocation impaired learning I filed a public records request exactly 21 days ago at midnight tonight the district will be in violation of that request as I have not received any of the legally available data requested aside from failing test scores the board wants us to ignore increased violence drug trafficking and Educators discussing sexuality with students the failure of this board is cause for Action the action necessary is voting there are four candidates ready to take four seats from this board their names are Jesse Perez Paul belt Crystal Reynolds and John L Murphy my daughter Lily Beaton needs
089their help the other thirty thousand students in Visalia Public Schools need their help too you thank you next person is Crystal Reynolds is this one okay um actually believe it or not I was actually coming to address the telephone public comment and that was before even Mr Beaton spoke um I know I've asked this board quite a few times to see if there could be a discussion maybe put it on the agenda but I have more concerns now I think more than ever with bringing that telephone public comment back the one thing you got to think about too right now is um people's abilities to even get here right now with the gas being as high as it is right now I'm thinking about our folks in Goshen Ivanhoe people that are coming from work
090trying to get here um I honestly I think I I rode all the way here from Tulare with my low fuel light on and I just I kept thinking about people that you know again may want to participate but they can't and so this is a chance for maybe the board to discuss and see if this is a better time to re-implement that as Joseph said and I've said this before too I don't really see why we can't have that back in play it was there before the pandemic and it's not just again you guys just for Joseph I know of several people that have contacted me online that would like to be part of these meetings but they can't they've got Child Care issues they work and now we've got this increased gas or
091increased expenses for child care so I'm hoping that you guys will consider that and and maybe start a discussion or get it on the agenda for the next meeting thank you I only had those two on my list is there anyone else okay we'll move on we'll move on to the consent agenda please um I need to announce that in closure number six has been removed okay now is there any public comment on any consent item no okay so is there a motion from anybody president I need to pull an enclosure okay and that'll be enclosure number 17. closure number 17. okay any other items anyone wants to pull somebody call Delia I'm not sure if you announced that um enclosure number six was pulled sorry I just can't do that thank you okay any
092other items that any Boardman would like to pull now do I have a motion on the consent agenda all motion motion by Ms Casper Solano all second second by Miss uh Blair all in favor student board member votes yes motion carries 6-1 absent okay we'll move on with our agenda the next item uh enclosure time thank you oh yeah I forgot about you okay closer number 17. go ahead uh yeah at an abundance of caution uh I have a sibling who is employed by someone who does business with the district therefore to avoid any perception of a conflict of interest I will be abstaining from this item okay I'll make a motion to approve I'll second motion by Mesquite Miss Gaby second by Miss caves mussoleno all in favor student rep okay all right student
093board member votes yes motion carries five one absent one abstention here's our next uh presenter will be uh our student representative report that would be Manuel caceres Jr Sequoia High School good evening everyone the board my name is as you may know and I'm giving the reports of each high school and what they've done for the past weeks and months edhs is honoring Hispanic heritage monthly displays on the front of the gym and lunchtime activities such as Loteria and dancing on Friday October 7th edhs has featured during the Friday morning football section on ABC channel 30 Morning News the viewers were treated to a very spirited rally HS will host a College and Career Day for juniors and seniors on Friday 10th and 14th there will be over 90 presentations 40 colleges and organizations who
094will be a part of the College and Career Fair Golden West High School held a successful homecoming weekend Harvest Dance for the most excited to celebrate senior night for their many incredible athletic programs Golden West is celebrating school spirit week with dress-up days for their school colors and is capping off the week with the televised gold out football game Golden West will be celebrating the spirit of Golden West Awards uh my Whitney is beginning preparations for the upcoming cowhide football game and the rally October 28th of the spooky theme Nightmare on Coney conure Street sorry uh some shoes Whitney's volleyball team lost a heartbreaker against Golden West in their annual pink out game to help support the battle against breast cancer on Saturday the ranger band took first in the western band Associates competition our
095Washington Union High School in class 4A competition they also took home best music and best percussion and crew students will turn the hallways of Sierra Vista into a gray walking haunted house for all Redwood families to enjoy on October 18th Redwood is preparing for cowhide on October 28th Redwood High School drummer will put a wonderful show this weekend and they're combined The Princess Bride and Star Wars the CIS hosted a field trip today to the Tulare County Office of education's Trades day in Porterville to help build career pathway awareness versus vcis students they've toured Porterville College to expose their students to multiple community college options in our area ASB will begin hosting lunchtime pizza sales and make a variety of games available to students to play on campus once a month during lunch the goal
096is to bring more students on campus and create a positive social setting for them to interact with their peers ASP also decorated both campuses for the harvest season vcis ASB is running food drive in order to start the shells of their on-campus food pantry which serves vcis families who are in need ASP is coordinating coordinating Suicide Prevention Awareness Week in mid-october yellow ribbon will be provided to all students and staff to work along with the hotline cards posters Etc the serial supports of ucis students and family VTEC is hosting their annual pancake breakfast this Saturday from 7 to 11 A.M there will be hayrides face painting bouncy houses and other activities for the public to enjoy VTEC FFA took six opening closing speaking teams so amount Whitney last week they took first and second for
097their novians teams and third for one opening team and third for the office team as well they also had multiple students receive best of for their position VTEC ASB is hosting Harvest week this week which gives their students the opportunity to run for royalty those who are nominated earned points throughout the week by participating in dress up days different activities and going above and beyond in their acts of kindness vtecs ffas Khan judging team at their first competition on the first of the month will be beating again this weekend in Korea Sequoia and a quarter one with 44 students on track to meet graduate status on September 27th we had an assembly to recognize 30 students with parents present to their positive behavior Awards and an ASB provided the students several suffices of pizza and
098water the rest of the student body were given raffle tickets for prizes on September 30th to promote the federal student aid program our students were encouraged to wear their favorite logo and staff to wear their college Alma matter logo Sequoia volleyball fell to La Sierra in the Central Valley Athletic Conference and that's everything thank you thank you Manuel that was good real good we really appreciate those reports you did a good job [Applause] Dr Villegas yeah sure thank you um I had the opportunity to volunteer at the vef band showcase so I just wanted to take a moment to thank the my cell Educational Foundation their board of directors all the parents and family members who made it out to support our cheer teams our dance teams and of course our marching bands um it
099was a whole lot of fun you know cooking up some burgers and hot dogs and seeing the you know all the performers from the sidelines made me kind of Miss clicking sticks in front of drum lines so just a really fun day and also wanted to give a big thank you to all of our band directors and coaches because uh so oftentimes you know our coaches go and recognize we have color guard coaches Drumline coaches uh visual coaches or dance coaches um you know the coaches that you all saw today um you know with our valefo chlorico um so just a really big thank you to all those staff members as well I just wanted to give kudos and a shout out to Houston Elementary and all the community members who attended the campus beautification
100day last week uh and all the parents and volunteers and community members that have also been successfully leading a soccer a neighborhood soccer league at Houston Elementary uh so looking forward to making it out to a game and supporting our students I was also able to visit Crowley Elementary I was superintendent Trump where we got to see some learning and action uh it was really a joy to visit and see the TK program on all these excited faces on Little Learners and really want to thank the staff there and principal for just wonderful work and as well as you know dealing with the transition we have a lot of remodelization going on there so we got to see some of our tax dollars at work our librarian at that site just did a wonderful job
101you know with a temporary portable classroom and that she's transformed into an amazing library for students uh at you know one point where there's also so many students that we have to like wait for students to leave and then you know come back so they can check in books but we got to see what will become the new library there so really excited about that opportunity and that space that's just going to provide so many resources and opportunities for all of our students and Families and I wanted to also mention and discuss I've asked several meetings ago to see if we could potentially discuss a resolution on both measure C and proposition 28. I was hoping we might have a first read tonight but that's not on the agenda so we could have a second
102read before the next meeting but you know as November 8th approaches I believe that both these local and Statewide initiatives can have a tremendous impact on our students in regards to access to you know higher education as well as additional music education without increasing taxes if it's possible to place it on the next agenda even though that would be you know a first and final read I would like to see that happen but I know that takes the will of more than just me um and then finally just wanted to plug for our community if you want to mark your calendars for November 5th the Redwood students against trafficking Club is going to be hosting a car wash and all those all that money will go back towards the club and fighting against human trafficking
103in the morning they're also going to be hosting a training against human trafficking that's going to be open to the public as well as a documentary later that night at the theater so if you're able to make it out to any and all these events I highly encourage you to do so and that concludes my report thank you Claire so I got to attend a couple of Loft um events this last couple of weeks lot stands for Leaders of Tomorrow and um the first one was at El Diamante with their Cinema and TV Arts Academy it was just amazing to see our industry Partners sitting with kids the kids get to ask them questions and just ask them about their experience because that's something that they want to go into and then today I got
104to go to Redwood for their Ace Academy which stands for architecture construction and engineering and they had several part industry Partners there just talking to them about their jobs and what what they go through and what their life is like and it's just so awesome to see the kids totally engaged um listening asking hard questions and um you know the teacher Mr Blair Ryan Blair was there and he was saying I would have killed for this when I was younger I would have loved to do something like this so it's just awesome that our College and Career are Readiness team puts those on and just our our District staff that does that I also got to attend two Faith um round tables in the last couple weeks the faith-based and the education-based roundtables so we
105came back to the table again just to talk about um what our community has to offer so that we can wrap our arms around our kids and help them to be connected and then I also got to go to the Visalia Education Foundation band showcase which was so fun I hope everyone can go next year it's just so fun to watch all of our high schools at the same I mean on the same night and there's really a lot of camaraderie between the bands and then the bands cheering for each other I just and um the cheer teams and the dance I mean it was just such a good good night and lastly I got to attend with several board members a panel discussion at Tulare County Office of Education on parent engagement which was
106just awesome there were so many resources that our county has that our district has where we just want to reach out to all parents and help them engage with their students because students who have parents involved are are just higher Achievers so that concludes my report this case personal no report thank you Miss Gaby well I think they've mentioned a lot of the events going on so I won't repeat those um but I will repeat the one um that Manuel mentioned over at LD they had those kids out because my daughter was up at 5am ready to go at El Diamante for a rally so whatever they're doing there to promote that that was a pretty awesome feat and the other thing just a little shout out if you're not following the tick tock account
107of Highland Huskies it's pretty cool and principal Pareto out there very cool connection those kids and her staff look like they are having a great time so very cool is kimonia I had an opportunity to visit Highland with principal paredo and um she truly is an instructional leader and I love her humility of bringing in Consultants to make sure our ELD kids get academic language when we visited I visited with the superintendent Shrum I mean kids are on task and I go classroom to classroom like I visit a couple third grade classrooms and they're each teaching the same content but their own little unique twist and that's kind of the art and craft of teaching so that was really fun to see I also went to the Tulare County School Board Association function on family
108engagement and our own Jim Sullivan was a presenter and we really have something that other school school districts don't have and so that was really fun to see how we're connecting with our families also went to Faith Basin education roundtables we have one more coming up we have an industry Roundtable that will occur in about three weeks I think and yeah just you know the more our community can be involved with our kids the better so thank you okay so um nobody mentioned any sports so I'm going to do it I uh I went to the water polo games at Golden West High School I believe they played uh manashi and Mount Whitney oh it was Redwood in Mount Whitney and I also went to the Golden West High School football game so one for
109homecoming which was against against Wenatchee and last week against Mount Whitney and it's pretty exciting over there you know just watching everything and every everybody's back and forth to the concession stand especially the high school kids so I also went to the band showcase and then I went also to the tcoe tcsba parent engagement session but I want to highlight something there and I I I need to request that the board bring back the parent Institute on quality education they presented there at the at the parent engagement session and we used to do a lot of pizza sessions uh throughout our district in fact I believe they started in 2001 or 2002 in La Jolla middle school and the parent Institute on quality education is a very good program so good that right now they're
110International they're in other other countries even so uh I thought I'd mention that if we can look into that also um Mr Viejas I'm very supportive of what you're requesting in terms of vigilant performing arts and measure C so you know hopefully we can have that discussion when we meet again an executive committee okay and I'll turn it over to the superintendent for his report I think I've probably spoken enough tonight so through the entry plan and uh the spotlight so I'll again just say it you know as we're in October uh this is always that time between breaks right we've started we're a little bit of ways and it's kind of that crunch time uh so folks get a little bit tired but it's also a very exciting time because of the activities and
111and other things that all of the board members said and so just a huge shout out uh to the perseverance of our students our parents our staff our faculty uh just appreciate the work that you're doing every day and so we do have staff that are currently working and this uh I'm gonna sound the devil for them staff dismissal okay we're going to move on to our next item on the agenda which is enclosure number 20. recommended expulsions do I have a motion all in favor our student abstains on this yes okay um student board member abstains motion carries um six one absent our next item on the agenda is recommended to spend suspended expulsion is there a motion or motion no second motion by Mr Vega second by Miss Blair all in favor student
112board member abstains motion carries Five One apps I mean six one absent okay we're gonna move into our general agenda and our next item on the agenda is enclosure number 22 expanded learning opportunities program Elon overview and first read of three proposed expenditures elivo Ames and arts Visalia I will say that I've been looking forward to this presentation for a while well I thank you for having me up here president Guerrero superintendent Trump board members I too have been excited to come to share with you this evening um as a reminder the Extended Learning opportunity program oh wait Chuck's putting it up there you go this is something brand new that the state of California recognized is a need in our world right especially in the state of California and and I think nowhere more
113important right here in the Central Valley because it impacts our kids we recognize that our students have struggled these past couple years so the state has decided that there's a need out there so just as a reminder everything we do in our school district is around these three tenants and I just want you to know that the work we've put together for the Extended Learning opportunities program definitely surrounds all of these things as a reminder what this program really is is the opportunity to provide more for our kids we know that the seven hours a days we have them is not enough to give them what they need to catch up and to be successful in our world so through this program we're looking to extend the day extend the year extend opportunities for them
114to be successful but we want to do it in a very unique way so what vusd has decided to do is really start from the basics start from the foundation like Mr Shrum alluded to earlier we really really wanted to make sure that we focus on where we know we are we looked at a lot of data to tell us what our baselines were and we've been growing since we started this school year and I think what you're going to see is the growth is now becoming exponential now that we know where we're going we have a direction we're really excited about adding some things let me see if I see my friends tonight so really instrumental in this program are two directors of the Extended Learning opportunity program that's Michelle Reed and Mr Jeff
115Hahn they're with us this evening I can't stress enough enough you guys we haven't done anything like this before this is something brand new so we're thinking outside the box in very creative ways to get our kids excited about taking on these opportunities we wanted to let you know where we've been so we started this last summer and we really thought about what is the community going to want us to be thinking about the state has said that we have to think about our elementary students first and then once we get going on the Elementary programs the state would then say based on where you are if we're able to think about our secondary students we're one of the few districts around that is able to do that because of the level that we've already
116risen to so we are starting to look into our middle school and our high school programs that we've already started that starting in August um Mrs Reed and Mr Han put together committees right because we didn't want it to just be what I think our kids are going to need I mean my kids have been out of school for several years we need to know what do our parents say what our Community Partners say what our teachers say and more importantly what do our students say so we put together some teams made up of Elementary principles District experts community and parent Partners as well as the Extended Learning opportunity teams and they've been meeting every other Friday for the past few months to really come up with where we really think that we're wanting to
117go in the future so our journey at our 27 Elementary sites we have our extended opportunities programs at every one of our elementary schools we had any student who wanted to take part in this was able to do so we've added things to this program through our curriculum Department through our partnership with Mississauga and our district Librarians they've been instrumental in the success of this campaign they've stayed with our students after school they're running book clubs and maker spaces Makerspace is a wonderful opportunity for them to basically have a space to make things in lots of different opportunities to do that our school has been many schools have already been doing additional things and some of those additional things I've just listed here for you so at any of our school sites you're going to
118be seeing just some of these great great opportunities that our teachers our classified staff our families have taken on because they see that that was a need for our students so those are things that are already taking place now what are groups our committees have decided they want to see in the future are what we want to talk a little bit about tonight we've had four teams getting together an athletic committee a CTE committee a stem committee and a vapa committee and each of those committees have decided this is what our group really feels our students would benefit from in the future and really another piece of this again Mr Shrum talked about this we need to know the effectiveness of the things that we're talking about right so we don't want to just start
119something and make assumptions about whether it's going to work or not we really need to establish some metrics so that we know along the way I'll be able to come back to you in a few months and say hey this is really working great we're going to move forward or perhaps we need to course correct a little bit based on what our students and our data is telling us this teams are going to continue meeting they're going to meet in the spring evaluate the effectiveness of where we are so far and again bring us more recommendations on what we'd like to do in the future this right here just shows you um a calendar if you will of how the offerings are going to look at each of our school sites we wanted to make
120sure that every student in our city had the opportunity to take advantage of anything they wanted to do so this will just show you kind of the cycle that will take place at all of our schools you'll notice that Athletics happens throughout and then we're flip-flopping our stem CTE and vapa programs again to make sure that those opportunities are at every school regardless of where they are we don't want to we don't want to have it like playing Russian roulette right if you happen to be at a particular School you get to do the cool things there it's going to be happening at every one of our school sites in the district another thing that's really cool remember Michelle talked about this earlier Mrs Reed we have created opportunities on the weekends we know that
121a lot of our families want to take part in the learning of their children now we are going to have some really cool field trips that are going to be happening parents are able to go with us if they'd like if their schedule doesn't allow then our staff will make sure we take them as well but we have field trip opportunities that are going to be happening for all of our schools anybody's going to be able to take advantage of that we've got a winter intercession that's planned remember I said our goal is to extend the school year we know a lot of our families don't have the ability to take three weeks off and take a vacation to Europe I know I don't so perhaps that could be a great time for them to
122come do some really really fun and exciting things at our school sites and also gain some new learning opportunities that will be going on as well as some new after-school programs that I'm going to be asking you guys to think about because next time we get together I will be asking you to consider some action items that we look to add to this program one of those is a really cool thing called olivo now this is something that's going to allow all of our elementary students to take part in organized athletic opportunities it's not a cut program so it's not like you have to try out and have skill in it any child from TK up through sixth grade who would like to participate in really engaging after school activities that are Athletics are going
123to have the ability to do that the illegal program is going to bring to our campuses the staff the equipment the coaches the refs and the training to take place on our campus one of the things we've heard from all of our partners is there's a lot going on right our teachers are teaching after school programs our classified staff are coaching in many places they're doing lots of things um we're we're running out of staff to kind of get things done so we're looking at opportunities to bring in those Community Partners who can help us make sure that we're able to offer these opportunities for our students and lack of staff is not going to be the issue so one of the things you will be asked to consider is bringing this group on our
124premises to do that and one of the great things we've set up with this contract is throughout this process they're going to be training our staff to be able to keep this program going in the future should that need arise so every time we train a few of their coaches our own staff's going to be able to take part in this as well the next one for your consideration this week is the Ames program now some of you might remember this especially my friends that are in the world of Education the Ames program is a a campaign that started here in the Central Valley and provides very very exciting Hands-On learning opportunities in the stem campaign so it allows us to purchase the equipment and then Implement those exciting instructional opportunities in our classroom so
125you'll have the opportunity to consider allowing us to purchase some of these products and have those on our school campuses so again if students want to take advantage of those science technology engineering and mathematical programs on our school sites they'll have the ability to do that and finally the third one that you'll be asked to think about is through Arts Visalia this is a wonderful Community partner we look to partner with who is going to be bringing their staff talents and materials to our school sites and actually teaching our students fun and engaging lessons through the Arts now before I put that slide up because that's a scary one um you're thinking wow this is costing a lot of money right we're spending a lot of money and and that is the case but remember
126the state of California gave us money for a reason because they recognize our kids have a need and financially we don't want our students to be held back because of a few dollars well we have a lot of dollars so let me just show you what you're going to see up here is highlighted in green are those campaigns I'm asking you to consider and it's a lot but what I want you to recognize is look over to the right hand column when you look at total expenditures if we were to okay the expenditures I'm asking about tonight we will have spent total about 6.3 million dollars for this year paying for all those wonderful things I just shared with you but what I want you to notice is we have 25 million dollars this year
127to spend we have lots of money to do great things for kids and we're going to keep doing that so so we've got lots of money to be spending these next few months and we'll be coming back to you with those ideas for sure because again great things are happening for students but I didn't want you to be nervous that oh my gosh we're spending all this money what are we going to do yes there is a cost involved but I just want to make sure you know this is a great investment that we very much can afford to do and finally the Extended Learning opportunities program Mr Han and Mrs Reed put together a wonderful website with the help of Mr passina's team so that our families are able to go to the district
128website link on to the web page for this and find anything and everything they want to know about the program including but not limited to actually registering for these campaigns through the programs that we've added before so again Extended Learning opportunity is a wonderful opportunity for us I'm really excited about it so fortunate that we've got these offerings for our students I want you guys to be thinking about this this week so that when I come back to you in two weeks you're ready to say yes we want to move forward with that but for now might there be any questions I can answer for you any questions or comments from the board um thank you Mr demaio this is great I I love that the Ames program I don't know much about it but
129I'm I really like the emphasis on sort of you know Central Valley and culturally informed approaches and with that I'm wondering you know if we can also think about that in relation to vapa um because I know I've seen in other districts for example I think the Bakersfield City School District and a school district in Alisal or Salinas um has mariachi music for example and I know that's been a very attractive option for many of our students to learn um you know about some of these classical instruments and new directions and new ways right um and so I I hope we can look to some of those models as we think about vapa and other programming going forward as part of elop and I'd be happy to share you know some of those districts and
130programs Etc but really exciting things thank you we'd love to hear about it thank you any other comments questions no but I'm on crickets right now signing my kids up awesome website um Bob first of all I want to say thank you to Mrs Reed and Mr Hahn for all this work this is really exciting and I did go to Ames workshops at Fresno Pacific and it's amazing amazing and it was basically it is kind of middle school and under but I really adopted it for high school biology it's a wonderful program I was hoping you could tell me a little bit more about the AG program that is going to be do you know I was talking about it in the CTE team well so and also to answer um Mr villegas's point we
131are still building those things out so the com the Committees are still meeting so the next time we get together what my hope is every few weeks I'll be able to come back to you guys and say Here's Where We Are here's what we're doing here's what we're looking to add and that's one of the things we definitely want to add for the second semester coming up okay yes sir one more quick point of clarification because I know we had the uh slide on there with the schedule of for example Bob Athletics Papa um stem vapa and or sorry Athletics and um I'll find that side but I know they had different block dates so um if a family only wants your student to participate for example in the first and third blocks or the
132first and the second do they have that flexibility or do they have to commit to all three uh what does that look like absolutely great flexibility for any of these programs if they want to come do it one day a week two days a week they certainly can if they just want to come and do athletics but don't want to do the other opportunities they don't need to um and just so you all know we will be providing them with snacks all those great things so they can stay all day if they want to or just come for portions of it great question anybody else I have a couple um I just I just see football here I don't see soccer or anything like that are we gonna consider others oh there's yes yes yes
133that's just one example there's tons of different types of sport sporting events really it's going to be um also looking that will be built out in the future is the idea perhaps we might have some competitions going between the other sites um it's also going to be dependent on the age of the kids so for example um what I'll be sharing with you the next time is we were at a school site was Lynnwood a couple weeks ago um with transitional kindergarten students um and they were playing football so to speak but it looked very different so some of the activities aren't necessarily games like football or something it's more just activity in nature so lots of wonderful things but yeah not just limited to those two well my follow-up to that would be when
134we do the Athletics is it going to be co-ed what happens oftentimes when you see these leagues get built is that they leave out the girls yeah I'm just yeah it is cool idea Jeff yeah absolutely no one's no one's held back from this yeah I I'm glad that that um Dr Villegas brought up Mariachis because I brought that up about 10 12 years ago and you know I and at one time I think El Diamante had a mariachi band out there they were doing mariachi but it would be great to expand it and do that so uh the other part is that uh at csba uh last year I was able to see uh Edward James Olmos uh he has uh a cinema production or Cinema uh type of program that they have in
135the the LA School District I think it's also up north and it's uh it's uh the Stanford University did a study on on that program and just from doing that program it impacted the kids in terms of their ability to write their creativity and it brought up test scores and reading and writing you know but since we're doing since we're looking and we have some funds available you know it'd be something to look at uh I think if we if staff can Google Edward James Olmos and his Arts us our cinema program that that he's doing in the in the school districts I think that would be something that would be very creative it it will impact their their studies their their their you know if they're at grade level and Reading Writing they have
136that type of data but it sure would fall under the visual arts and Performing one great example of being high interest too so we'll definitely look into that okay those are my comments that's that's it okay so thank you it's information only next week on two weeks we'll be voting on that okay thank you all right so I'm going to move on with our agenda and push it on our next item is age the AC material procurement for vcis new campus modernization first read and closure number 23 Mr Eric Kerr good evening president Guerrero superintendent Trump members of the board Eric care operations um if you don't mind if I might take the Liberty to combine three uh three enclosure items 23 24 and 25. we don't mind at all okay I didn't think you
137would um the first two 23 and 24 I'll start slideshow the first one is vcis procurement of HVAC equipment for the new campus this is going to be funded by Esser funds sr3 funds the reason we're doing this early is because we've got an 8 to 10 month lead time on getting HVAC equipment so this project is scheduled to begin in January but we want to get the materials ordered a little bit early the second one which would be enclosure 24 is for pinkham's boiler Chiller replacement it is to order the package HVAC package units for this campus as well the estimated cost just for the equipment for vcis is about 250 000 that's just to purchase the HVAC equipment that's an estimate and the estimate for pinkam is about 240 000. so again both
138of those projects will be funded completely through Esser funds there you see Pinkham it's the two can it's the two main buildings um that will completely remove pink from the boiler Chiller system and it will be all package units and the same thing for vcis although they that that's the Grace Church property they have they have package units now we'll be adding some additional and replacing the old units the third enclosure which is enclosure 25 is a little bit different in that it is the um the initial information only or first read if you will for the Valley Oak modernization project Valley Oaks modernization project really consists of three parts it includes a roof replacement it includes a boiler Chiller and HVAC removal from the main admin building as well as the science room modernization
139so this information item is for the first read for the project and it's estimated construction cost is approximately six million dollars so we're bringing this forward as information only or for a first read on these three projects as you can see there's a top map of Valley Oak a view of Valley Oak again there's one small Chiller there for the admin building we're placing doing some roof work but the made the major bulk of the work at Valley Oak is the science modernization that we're doing at four out of the five middle schools already and there's a couple of pictures science here's the scope building two restroom building admin building um you can see we're also doing technology fire alarm upgrades some Ada upgrades as well and um some estimated schedule there some boring diagrams
140any questions any questions or comments this has been in boardline so hopefully we're giving you enough information on all of this it is our effort to make sure you have all the questions all your questions answered so all right thank you our next item on the agenda Mr Hernandez we're anxiously waiting for this is the school calendar it's enclosure number 26. good evening president Guerrero members of the board and Mr Shrum um so I'm going to take the liberty of combining two items also um here subbing for Mr Ben Dillon but this is the first read um informational only on the school calendars for 2023-24 and 2024-25. um the calendars are developed by a committee with input from both our vuta and our our CSEA bargaining groups they've recommended approval of this calendar and so
141it's being brought again back to the board for uh first reading an informational item tonight foreign any questions or comments okay thank you thank you there are no more items on our agenda tonight's meeting is adjourned