001Okay, good evening everyone and good evening fellow trustees I'd like to call this WJ USD board of trustees open session to order at 5 0 1 and we will move on to item B approval of board agenda I do have some before you move on to approve. I do have some Change requests. Okay I have are they the three okay three yeah, okay, so I like to remove under closed session item d2 Okay, I'd also like to remove under consent and consent the minutes G for will bring him forward the next time I'd also like to move item all about item M which is finance and facilities and finance before teaching and learning We do have some critical things to talk about the budget and that's time sensitive so I'd like to Make sure we
002go through those things in case we run out of time tonight. Okay anybody opposed to that? Can we repeat those please? Yes She wants to remove item d2 from closed session remove item g4 from consent and move M items before L under teaching and learning Okay move M items the two items before L L being teaching and learning. Facilities and finance items before teaching and learning items. Okay. So can I get a motion then to approve the board agenda with the removal of D2 from closed session, removal of item G4 from consent, and moving M items before L, teaching and learning. Motion as such. Second. Motion made by Trustee Bautista Zavala, seconded by, I'm sorry, who was that second? By Trustee Brubaker. And we will take a roll call to start. And I'm going to
003start with myself, by the way, tonight. During the roll calls, start with me and go to the right. So we'll start with myself. Yes. Trustee Villagrana? Yes. Trustee Rodriguez-Mohica? Yes. Trustee Richardson-Fowler? Yes. Trustee Deborah Zavala. Aye. Trustee Garcia. Yes. Trustee Brubaker. Yes. Okay, the board agenda is passed unanimously with the items previously mentioned removed. We will now move on to item C, public comment for items on closed session agenda. Do we have any? No, we do not have any. Okay. So then we will move into item D and move on and convening closed session and return to open session at 6 p.m. Perhaps a little later depending on how long closed session takes. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Good evening, trustees. We will reconvene now in open session at 6 o'clock
004and we will start with the Pledge of Allegiance. Now we'll start it off. Okay now we'll move on to E2 land acknowledgement that will be read by Trustee Mojica Rodriguez. We should take a moment to acknowledge the land on which we are gathered. For thousands of years this land has been the home of a Potwin people. Today there are three federally recognized Potwin tribes. Kesheldehe Band of Winton Indians of the Colusa Indian Community, Quetzaldehe Winton Nation and Yochadehe Winton Nation. The Potwin people have remained committed to the stewardship of this land over many centuries. It has been cherished and protected as elders have instructed the young through generations. We are honored and grateful to be here today on their traditional lands. Thank you. And next we'll go on to the equity statement by Trustee Candice
005Richardson-Feller. All students deserve excellent schools which are culturally responsive and set high expectations, a high quality learning environment, and equitable resources to ensure that they are reaching their full potential. WJUSD will be purposeful about providing equitable access to all essential educational opportunities for all. WGUSD students, especially diverse and disadvantaged students who have historically been underserved by educational institution. Very good. And now we'll move on to Board of Trustee Agreements read by Trustee Bautista Zavala. Thank you. Board of Trustee Agreements. Check in, remember our larger purpose, boundaries, remember that individual decisions are not personal, open, aspire to finding common ground, having empathy, being respectful, and assume best intentions. Very good, thank you. And now we will move forward on to E5, announcement of any action taken in closed session or items to be approved. There were
006no action taken in closed session. Moving on item F public comment for sections G consent agenda and H community engagement. Do we have? public comment We did have a request for two public comments on their consent But the items really become need to go move to public comment because consent does not address seventh period So we'll move it to public comment section. Okay. I'm sorry I'm sorry. No, can you yes, can you please address your question to the side? Thanks Okay, but I think we've already made the decision and it's been moved correct This one's a different talk business consent agenda item. Okay. This is born, correct? Yes, go. Yes Hi, my name is Beth Bourne and I'm here to speak on the consent agenda. It's item two, purchase order 260896. You have here an
007item of $80,000 to a previously approved purchase order. It's for LCAP goals, social, emotional, and academic needs. As you know, some of the spending you've done recently as on trans family support services, you spent $20,000 to train or indoctrinate. staff here in Woodland on transgender identities. There was no attachment for this purchase order, but I want this financial advisor to consider why are we spending so much money to train teachers and school counselors to lie to students about their biological sex. I mean right now as you know CommuniCare is giving out free breast binders to girls in Woodland that are 12 and over. You know right here this is what you see at CommuniCare which is on your campuses. Free breast binders and free penis tucking kits. So these are these are products that Woodland
008Joint Unified School District through Trans Family Support Services, the contract, is telling children that they can access these products. Right here it says on the flyer, you can go online to CommuniCare, children 12 and over do not need their parents' consent to use these penis tucking kits and breast binders. So what kids are being told is that sometimes parents aren't safe if they don't affirm a transgender identity. You're triangulating the relationship between children and their parents by lying to them. I know the contract with Trans Family Support Services, I printed it out here. It's very clear on what it is that they're teaching to the school counselors and the staff and the coaches here in Woodland Schools. They're actually, I don't know, Trustee Fowler, if you know this, but girls are being told here in
009Woodland schools that if there's a boy in their locker room that... they have to be quiet and undress in front of that boy. Otherwise, they're being called transphobic and bigoted. They're being told that it's okay if a teacher wants to talk to you about your sexuality, who you like to fuck at night, and what you want to do in your bedroom. They're being told that if a parent doesn't think that you could be trigender, bigender, non-binary, gender fluid, gender queer, that that parent is actually a hateful bigot. So why is this trustee spending money on lying to children? Thank you. Do we have another comment? Thank you audience. Please let's be courteous to the next speaker or the next agenda item. No more comments on that. Excuse me. Order, order. We thank you. We'll if
010if we can't if we can't keep our voices down and allow for business to take To move forward well, we may have to clear the room so okay, let's move on with any other public comments all right moving on to consent agenda Are there any items that like to be pulled from consent agenda besides the G4 that was already mentioned G4A that was already mentioned previously? No other items? Okay. So can I get a motion to approve the consent agenda with G4A pulled from the agenda? So moved. Trustee moved by Trustee Brubaker second? Second. Second by Trustee Garcia. All those in favor please say aye. Aye. Any opposition? Any abstentions? Great. Okay. Consent agenda is approved. Moving on to item H, community engagement. Presentation of resolution 25-26 Fred Korematsu-Dei. If I could invite Floyd and
011Ruth Shimomura, I'm sorry, to the podium. Can we get the photo put up, please? So I am going to give a little bit of a history lesson because when I shared with my spouse that I had the great honor of presenting this as my very first resolution as a trustee, he said, who's Fred Korematsu? Exactly. So I'm going to, no offense to our amazing history teachers, I'm going to give a really, really brief history before I read the resolution that does explain Fred Korematsu, but there's important groundwork that needs to be laid before that. So I want us all to close our eyes for a minute and do a little thought experiment and think of who we are as human beings. We're not just one thing. For example, I am a mother, I'm a trustee,
012I'm an artist. Now imagine that one thing, your country labels you as an enemy and you start realizing your neighbors and people in your grocery stores and in your community start looking at you with suspicion because... because our country has decided that you are unsafe and That is what happened to our Japanese community members in 1941 and 42 in 1942 the president signed an executive order Saying that all people who were born in Japan who at that point were not allowed to have citizenship and their children and grandchildren Were going to be sent to internment camps here in Yolo County. That was 855 Yolo County residents the residents from Winters Davis and Woodland came to the train station here in Woodland and were sent to a internment camp in Colorado When you guys leave this
013meeting tonight, I would like you to take a right and walk down to the end of the building There is a train station there and that is the train station where our community members were sent into internment camps And the reason we celebrate Fred Korematsu is that when there was this thing that was said by our president and People had to go a risk imprisonment. He did not go So I'm gonna read the resolution now Whereas for the battle of civil civil liberties has been championed by ordinate ordinary Americans who have had the courage to stand up and fight for their basic constitutional rights and whereas Fred T Korematsu was one of those individuals who refused to comply with civilian exclusion order for 34 based on the federal executive order nine zero six six which
014imposed strict curfew regulations and required one one hundred and twenty thousand Japanese Americans to leave their homes to be incarcerated in American concentration camps during World War II. And whereas Fred, whereas Dr., Mr. Korematsu was arrested and convicted, but fought back because he believed with the conviction. Was went against the basic freedoms guaranteed to him by the Constitution and whereas mr. Karamatsu's conviction was ultimately overturned in 1984 a decision that influenced the US government's passing of the civil liberties Act of 1988 which recognized that a grave injustice was done by forced relocation and incarceration of civil civilian Americans because of wartime prejudice whereas until current California law Designate current California law designates a number of days have been Have special significance when public schools are encouraged to preserve and conduct suitable commemorative Exercises as specified
015and whereas the history social science framework of California public schools kindergarten through grade 12 states that the history curriculum at each grade level related to community, state, religion, and national, and the world must reflect and integrate the experiences of men and women of different racial, religious, and ethnic groups. Goes on to describe the designation of Fred Korematsu Day by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. But and you can read the rest of that in the agenda packet, but I want to talk now about the people were honoring tonight Ruth and Floyd Shimomura are Yolo County residents. They live in Winters Ruth graduated from Woodland High School and was an educator for ten years at Willow Springs School Floyd grew up in Winters and went to law school, eventually becoming the president of the Japanese American Citizens League and
016was instrumental in getting redress and reparations for the Japanese community. This included an apology from President Ronald Reagan to Japanese Americans on behalf of the United States government and monetary reparations from the Civil Liberties Act of 1988. I want to draw attention now to this photo, which is the train station that I mentioned that is right next to our building. And I didn't know this when I asked Mr. Shimomura to accept this resolution, but this was one of many photos that he donated to our train station. He has been a champion in our community of making sure this important part of our history is not lost. This photo is by a photographer named Dorothea Lang, and she was commissioned by the federal government to record the forced removal and internment of our Japanese community members.
017She was opposed to this happening but knew that it was important it be recorded. She said later on that she felt watching the internment that the Constitution was disappearing before her eyes, and I want us all to remember that. And I would like to invite the Shumamaras, if they would like to, to share anything. I would like to thank Trustee Fubaker for bringing this resolution forward. And as she said, I grew up in Winters and went to Winters High School, but my wife, Ruth, went to Woodland High School and also has taught in the... Woodland School District at Willow Springs School as a grammar school teacher before she retired. And so we have a lot and our two kids also went to school here. So we have deep roots in this community and our parents
018actually are probably in that crowd of people on the ramp that you can see up there. at the train station. And also with me is Patty Fong, who is working with me on a Day of Remembrance program that will be held on February 19th in Davis at the Veterans Memorial Hall, and she may make a comment on that in a moment or two. But I would just say one thing is that that this photograph that you're looking at here is very famous and it's just one of several photographs that Dorothea Lange took and she's very famous American photographer and when I was talking with Laura I I told her that that train station is probably the most famous building in woodland although most people don't know it and But that picture and the other pictures
019taken are in various history books and are part of the documentation of the forced removal of Japanese Americans, not only from Yolo County, but from the whole West Coast. Why are we talking about that now? This happened like 80 years ago. Well, I wish we were in a position where we didn't have to talk about things like this, but just one story from Winters. My family lived out west of town on what's called Horseshoe Road and the FBI came swooping in after Pearl Harbor and one of my neighbors, Mr. Takahashi, he was driving tractor out there and the FBI agents came in without any warning or notice and When Mr. Takahashi saw him, he stopped the tractor and put it in idle position. The FBI picked him up and they just disappeared and no one
020knew where he went. Somebody noticed that the tractor was out in the orchard just idling. That was the way the government did things during that period of time. And I guess what's disturbing about the current times is, you know, I'm hearing stories that similar kinds of things are still happening today. And it's just unbelievable to me. So I think it's really important that we honor Fred Korey Mott today and let our students know what happened. And also let them know that it's not something that happened far away. It happened right here in Yolo County. And that right there in their own train station was really the point where all the Japanese in the county were required to assemble. And many of them never returned for over three years during World War II. Ruth, do you
021want to say something? It's the 1966 graduate of Woodland High School. I thank the school board for the fine education you provided us. Also, we've been residents of Woodland for over 53 years now, and we thank you for your service. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you also for our... having this resolution so that all know a little bit more about the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. My name is Patty Fong, and I'm here to add to this presentation that we're doing a Day of Remembrance in Davis, and many of you may have received this by email, by copies. The lessons we need to learn from World War II is what we need to remind ourselves right now, because the How we're treating refugees and immigrants is the same thing that happened to
022Japanese Americans back in World War II. And the same lies that are perpetuated by the government are the same lies that made the Japanese the enemy back in World War II. And we're seeing that same thing happening today. We need to promote education of our youth and our community, that these are lessons that we need to learn and we need to see through the lies that we're seeing now, and we need to do whatever we can to raise the outcry against this kind of unconstitutional behavior. Thank you for being here this evening. Great honor for our board to have this presentation tonight. And while you're sitting up to take a picture, I just want to point out to our students that are here. That picture right there was taken just around the corner. I drive
023by that little station every single day, and I didn't know this. So, you know, we all continue to learn. about the impacts of history, the impacts of different who contributed to our community. And so very special that this resolution is presented. I learned something. I hope you all learned something too. So when you go leave tonight, just kind of take a look and maybe we need to pay a little more attention of the history that's right here, right in front of us. So thank you for coming tonight. And we want to thank you for the contributions the Japanese community has made on all our lives. Superintendent can I quickly jump in. I left the flyers that were given to me on the end of the dais there if anyone would like to come grab one
024to remember this really important event. OK. Very good. Moving on to item I student reports report from high school student representatives who would like to go first. OK. That is. So this is Ramiro Negrete from Cache Creek High School. Thank you for being here. Thank you for your report. Okay. Good evening, Board of Presidents Rodríguez and Trustee Superintendent Ortega-Lampkin, Executive, Cabinet, and Community. My name is Ramiro Negrete. I am a senior representing Cache Creek High School. My report tonight is the following. We ended the first semester with 15 graduates, and we just celebrated our first graduate of the new quarter yesterday, bringing our total graduates so far this year to 16. 31 students earned their way onto the honor roll for second quarter, including myself. We will be celebrating their accomplishments on campus next week
025with certificates, cupcakes, and coca compliments of our culinary program. This week, before then. The week before break, our first cohort of students who participated in work readiness sessions with Yellow Works earned their work readiness certificates. This semester, they will be placed in part-time positions with businesses in the community to pool the skills they learned to use. They are all very excited to start gaining work experience and earn a paycheck. We are very grateful for our partnership with Yellow Works. Over break, our school has orientation for students joining us for the third quarter. Last week, we welcomed new students to the campus and spent the first two days reviewing campus expectations, our transcriptions, and setting goals for ourselves for this quarter. We will hold more orientation for students in the next couple of weeks for even
026more new students and looking forward to welcoming them too. Next week, we will be taking the second... second round of NWEA tests and demonstrating the academic skills we're working on strengthening in our math and English classes overall and when settling back into the school routine. And we've enjoyed seeing each other and catching up with friends and teachers after the three-day week break. We're off to a great start to the third quarter at the Creek. Thank you and this is my consultancy for the report. Great job, Mr. Negrete, thank you. If we could hear, sorry, I can't see the moniker from there, but is this Pioneer? Okay, next we'll hear from Pioneer High School student Nicole Pimentel. Good evening, Board President Bautista-Salvala, Trustees, Superintendent Ortega-Lampkin, Executive Cabinet, and our community. Today my report is on the
027following. Pioneer has just returned from winter break, so this month is a little uneventful. Regardless, I hope you all had an amazing winter break. Pioneer held their very first winter social event last week on January 16. Students participated in various activities and games such as Smash Bros., Gingerbread House Building, and board games. It was a success and many students got to spend time with their classmates. Pioneer's wrestling team held their senior night celebration yesterday. Congratulations to the seniors and their dedication to their team. In addition to that, Valentine's Day is also around the corner. Lots of clubs, including Puente and HOSA, have been planning to sell flowers and food grams to students to raise money during school. Looks like we'll be having a lot of stands up for the next following weeks before February 14th.
028The boys' soccer team has their senior night coming up on February 4th. as well as that boys basketball has your senior night on February 5th. The times for those have not yet been posted. Thank you, and that concludes my report. Great job, Ms. Pimentel. Thank you. Next, we can hear from Woodland High School student Izzy Tafoya. Hello, and good evening, Board President Rodriguez, Trustees, Superintendent Ortega-Lampkin, and Executive Cabinet, and our community. My name is Izzy Tafoya, and I am here to represent Wilden High. My report tonight is the following. Auditions are underway for our spring musical, SpongeBob the Musical, yay, and we will have a Starry Night-themed winter dance on January 31st. The next week, we'll have Spirit Week and a long week lunch for... lunchtime activities to count down to the dance and tomorrow
029ASB will be hosting a shadow day with Lee middle school leadership class to demonstrate ASB business meeting and rally planning for the Lee transition rally in May that concludes my report have a good day thank you Mr. Foyer great job Okay, concluding item I, we move on to item J, public comment for items on the agenda. Trustees, we have 25 people who would like to speak on the issue of the sixth and seventh period. So, and we have... Two other two others a total of 27 public comment requests 25 on one topic which is the seventh sixth period matter and the other ones on different topics our procedures are that We will allow for 20 minutes per topic So we have 25 people as impossible to allow to if you want to listen to every
030single person We there would be over an hour to accommodate that one recommendation is that the board can allow for one minute and just allow all of them to speak so that everyone has an opportunity to and that will keep us within the 25 minutes a little additional time but it'll still keep us in time to address some of the other things on the agenda tonight so that's something for your consideration Thoughts from any of our board members trustee about this is a balla. Thank you One thing that I did request is that you guys clarify how this item has been agendized so that the public knows that it's non actionable so Yes, and just so that students know and members of the community who are here listening or here to talk about Want to
031address the sixth period? implementation board item. Tonight the board will not be taking any action. Today is only an information session. So the board will receive information. No action will be taken. That would be at a future agenda if that's what the board desires. But today is to learn more about what that might look like, what that might mean, and to hear from all of you about what your thoughts are on that potential initiative. But tonight the board will not be taking a vote on this. I just want to make sure we're clear. Do we need a motion. Okay so I move to limit comments to I'm going to go with a minute and 30 and extend public comment section to 30 minutes. Okay is there a second. Second. There's a motion and a second
032to extend public comment to a minute 30. Let's do roll call vote. I'm sorry. Discussion first. You're right. Forgive me. Discussion. Any discussion. Trustee Verano? Yeah, I don't agree with that. I think we should have at least two minutes. I mean, I'd rather give people the three minutes that they, it's an important topic as we know. And so I do not want to reduce it. So I'll be voting no on this motion second, because I don't think a minute, 30 minutes is sufficient. The public very likely prepared for three minutes. And so cutting the time in half, just. is not sufficient for me. So I'll be what do you know. To piggyback off of that, I know that a lot of the public is prepared for two minutes. So whoever seconded, if you guys are
033willing to accept an amendment of two minutes for the public comment. Actually I'm going to withdraw my second because I assumed other board members would not want to give the full time. I did too. So I'm good with three minutes if other people are. Let's extend it to 30 minutes and see how much we can get through. So I just want to make sure the students are clear because I don't want you to be disappointed. That means everyone's going to get we're going to go two minutes per speaker and when the 20 30 minutes ends no one else can make a comment. Hold on a second. I think we need some suffocation. The motion is for three minutes. We're extending it to 30 minutes. You're adding 30 minutes more? Okay. That's my motion. I mean
03410 minutes. I'm adding 10 minutes. That's the only total of 30 minutes. Trustee Richardson Fowler can you please repeat your motion. My motion is to extend public comments to 30 minutes keeping it at three minutes with the hope that our public speakers will be concise and considerate so that we can try and get through as many people as possible. So is that clear audience if you want. Want more people to be able to give their opinion you'll try and keep your comments as concise as possible. Okay. So here we go. Can I ask for clarification. I need clarification. What is a timer time that we need to put three minutes for everyone. OK. Three minutes for anyone and and 30 minutes max. So students to allow all of your friends to make comments if you
035use up the three minutes we're only going to have time for about 12 people. Or 10 10 people and there's 25 of you. So we're going to start with the other like I would like to recommend we start with the other topic first so students have time to adjust what they're going to say. It gives you some time to adjust. So we'll start with the other public comments. Hasn't been a vote. Yeah. So OK one more time. Trustee Richardson Fowler can you please. I motion to extend public comment from 20 minutes to 30 minutes. Is there a second. Second. Okay. Can we do a show of hands who need discussion. Oh gosh I'm sorry. Was there a discussion. I still object. I want to give people the full time. So I do not want to
036limit to 30 minutes. So you want to give all 27 three minutes? You said they're not prepared for two, so I'm fine with that. But yeah, again, I will be voting no because I want to give people the full time like we have in the past. So long as we're... Okay. The only reason I'm making a motion is because I assumed there would be opposition. I move to hear all 27 people who have a motion on the table. Okay hold on a second. So so if we if you were to entertain Trustee Villagrana's motion that would be 81 minutes correct? He doesn't have a motion. I'm sorry if you were to entertain Trustee Villagrana's suggestion. That would be 75 minutes. So I'll be over now five minutes an hour and 15 minutes Okay, so that
037was that was he had that was discussion. Does anybody else? Have discussion or a comment on trustee. You're on this discussion. Just a brew Baker. I agree with him Okay, we have a motion. There's a motion on table trustee Fowler Do you want to continue with the motion? Would you like to we're gonna call the question because this second is not being rescinded So let's go forward with calling the question Okay, so the motion currently is repeated one more time. The motion is to extend public comments to 30 minutes. Okay, is there a second? There was a second. There was a second, okay. All those in favor of expanding the comments to 30 minutes, raise your hand. There's only two, motion fails. Is there a second motion? I motion to give all public comments the
038three minute allotted time as expected. Second. So there is a motion to give all public comment the three minute time all 25 public comments the three minute time and has been seconded. Who seconded it? I'm sorry. There were 27 public comments correct. There were three are. Two are on another topic. There's 25 for this particular topic and then there's still other public comments as well on other topics. There's a total of 28 public comments under this particular item and then we have public comments on items when they come up on the agenda. Three under L2, two under M2, one under. All right. So just to make sure we're clarifying that we want to hear everybody who wants to speak. Not limiting it to 25 or 27 but for what you have in your pile right
039now. OK. So so again so that can you please restate the new motion. Allow all public comments the allotted three minutes per. Allow all public comments to have three minutes and I was seconded by Trustee Richardson Fowler. OK. All those in favor please raise your hand. Unanimous vote. OK. Let's move forward. Can we start. Now. Question yes, can we go with the superintendent's recommendation have the two other people go first? Yes all those who had Comments that were for that weren't for six seventh period can they go first? Well get it sorted out here second. Mr. President I just wanted to say if yes if I could kindly request that we get started so that we not waste any more time and if you can call out the names That's where they can start lining
040up That's what we're working on. Okay, we have to make a little adjustment here Okay, our first speaker is Dominic del Toro Cruz and then Braden is next and then we have Michael Bennie What agenda items? Thank you. The first item is l2 Thank you. And then the second and third are sixth and seventh period Clarification before you start so there's no other items being spoken about only L2 there's it it's the same item. So that's why There's M2. There's two on M2. And one on O. Okay. Can we get started with our first? I'm sorry. She's interrupting our board meeting. Can we get started, please? Go ahead. You can go ahead and begin. We thought this topic would be important for our friends, but they couldn't be present. On Tuesday, two of us made
041a request. We thought that if they saw the amount of signatures, they would understand how important it is for us. In 48 hours, we managed to get more than 500 signatures. Signatures of students, parents, teachers, and community members. Más del 75% de las firmas son de estudiantes. Queremos siete periodos. Por favor, escúchenos. Por favor, mantengan los siete periodos. Gracias. Thank you. Next we have Braden and then Michael. Good evening, trustees. My name is Braden Paul. I've taught TK, kindergarten, and first grade for WJUSD since 2017. Frankly, I would not want to be in your shoes right now. Being a trustee is a position of great responsibility and I know it must be hard to make cuts during this time when you're asked to make budget cuts. Watching the last meeting where you made $7.9 million
042in cuts, I noticed that you voted on cuts farthest from the classroom and those involving open positions first and then gave great deliberation to positions closest to the classroom and those involving current employees. As you consider additional cuts, I ask you to continue to cut carefully to maintain the quality of education that we provide. Please do not cut literacy para positions or switch the high school to a six-period schedule. Both of these changes would lower the quality of education that we provide our students. Literacy paras allow for small group and individual instruction in primary grades. Without them, we cannot adequately differentiate instruction to meet students where they are. Our primary students impress and inspire me every day with the way they learn in leaps and bounds, but they still need frequent interactions with adult educators
043to guide their learning. They are just not developmentally ready to work independently for the amount of time an unsupported teacher would need to pull students in small groups. If you don't immediately understand that, then you need to spend some time in primary classrooms. I know that primary teachers would happily invite you into their classrooms to try being a literacy para for a day, and that you would leave feeling both the challenge and immense reward of guiding young learners, and would also leave with the understanding that the work that literacy paras do is worth a lot more than what they are paid. I was dismayed to hear you talking about cutting the high school schedule to six periods. The superintendent's presentation on this topic shows that this change would negatively impact students' readiness for college and
044careers and would impact English learners and students with disabilities the most. Do they not deserve the opportunity to go to college or learn a career? Instead, I ask that you cut summer PD and action teams. The additional five days of summer PD began during the pandemic and was necessary at that time due to the seismic changes of distance learning and the return to school while implementing social distancing. However, now it is more of a want than a need. According to the spreadsheet that the superintendent shared at last week's meeting, these two cuts could free up over $2 million. This is more than enough money to retain literacy paras and continue with the seven-period schedule at the high schools. As you continue to make budget cuts, please do it carefully to maintain the quality of education.
045Our students and community are counting on you. Next, we have Michael Benning, and then Marlene Molina, and then A.J. Bright-Rose. And you may want to line up. That might save some time. Thank you. The conga line starts here. Thanks, everybody, for giving me this opportunity to speak. My name is Michael Benning. I am the parent, father of two students here. I've got one in Lee Middle School and one at Woodland High School. I've got a lot of emotions about the reduction to potential reduction, I should say, to six periods instead of seven. Firstly, I want to say we're living in a world right now with a lot of uncertainty, especially around education in this country. I'm not going to get political or really try to talk too much about money or anything, but I just
046want to say that. Learning that we're potentially going to be taking away a period from some students is challenging for me, just to try to accept that, because we have every period is an opportunity for the students that have it. And if we take that opportunity away from the students, there's going to be a reduction in kids that graduate with understandings of industrial arts, music. visual arts, foreign languages, and those are all going to be people that are in our community. So I would ask, you know, if it's possible, let's try to keep it at seven so that every kid gets the same opportunities and we're not reducing opportunities for future students. Like I said, I've got one in high school right now who's doing great in industrial arts. He's really blossoming and I love
047the education that he's gotten here. I've got a daughter that's about to be in high school and I'd like to see her have the same opportunities. So I'm going to give some time back for everybody else. But basically, I just want to say, think about the impact down the road. What is this community going to look like in 8, 12 years when those graduates that had less opportunities given to them are now part of the community, working, you know, the adults? So that's all I really wanted to say. Thank you for listening. And I'll give some time back. Thank you, Mr. Bannon. Next we have Marlene Molina and then AJ bright Rose Good evening everyone. I'm Marlene Molina. I've been a teacher at our district for the last 30 years I've been an EL specialist
048for almost 20 years and Coming up here. It's like twofold It's the sixth to seventh period day at the high schools as well as all the considerations that are on the attachment for the board cuts or the board the cuts for for you for the board and I'm also a parent of someone who went through, two that went through this district, and some of the best memories that they have are electives. You know, and that's where my younger boy, he learned his love for art and for designing clothes, and he wouldn't trade some of the art classes that he had for anything else. made him who he is. He's got a lot of integrity. He's honest. He's a beautiful child. And I know that that's the goal for us as educators and a team of
049educators for all of our students. A lot of the cuts are directly impacting, the considerations are directly impacting our kids, every one of our kids. And I want you, most of you who are sitting in front of me, you've had students that have come through this district. Imagine what their life would be like. if they didn't have an elective. Imagine what their life would be like without AVID, what their life would be like without those leadership opportunities. And it's really stripping from them those experiences that help them be those speakers, that help them be who it is that we all aspire them to be as well. I feel, as my colleague mentioned earlier, some of the other things that could be taken are some of those PDs. If you ask a lot of our own
050colleagues, if you survey us, how much of that PD really benefits us, most of the PD that benefits us has come from the PLCs and the learning that they do from each other. And so I want you to dive deeper, ask deeper questions about what it is that we need to do to make sure that we're keeping the cuts as far away from our students as possible. Thank you, Ms. Maluna. Next we have AJ bright rose Isabella to foia and then Alexandria Clark just as trustee. We don't has a question for the superintendent If you can remind me the the PD that's one-time money we're using for that right? It's not ongoing money that would be my money So we're not be able to use that money for ongoing expenses. No, thank you. Okay. Thank
051you. You can resume public comment Good evening and thank you for the opportunity to speak. My name is AJ and I'm a freshman at Woodland High. I decided to write a speech and come to this meeting because I believe we should keep the seven period school day. All the data that I have is from the presentation linked on the Woodland Joint Unified District website and I'm pretty sure it will be shown here. The first thing I want to mention is how electives will be affected. The slideshow provided shows that 20 teachers across three high schools could be cut and electives would go with them. Minimizing are opportunities as students. Additionally, ELD and IEP students would not have time in their schedule to take any electives until junior year. On the slide show, there's schedule samples
052on slide six and slide seven to show this. There will be a lot that they won't get to do because some classes have prerequisites and are multi-year courses. Also, the change will affect the credit system. And then the most important thing that I want to talk about is the graduation rates. In the slideshow you've provided, we can look at the statistics on slide nine and see two things. In the provided years with a seven-period schedule, Woodland High School's graduation rates ranged from 89.1% to 92.5%. That's the year with seven periods. Those are the years with seven periods. In the two years provided with a six-period day, the graduation rates were 77.5% and 84.5%, which is significantly lower. On slide seven, there's a link to a... Sorry, a link included on the bottom of that slide
053shows that the year Woodland switched from six periods to seven periods, the graduation rates were raised by 3.4%. The grades have not dropped back down since then. On slide seven, there's a link to a spreadsheet that compares graduation rates between schools in the areas and tells us how many periods they have. Over the past five years, the schools with seven periods have had graduation rates range from 89% to 97.1%. Of the eight schools with six period schedules over the past five years, their graduation rates range from 75.4% to 91.9%. All this data is accessible through the slideshow provided on the website for today. In conclusion, the schedule change will take away opportunities from students, jobs from teachers, and ultimately only save a little over a 12th of what the district has been spending on salaries,
054as shown on slides 16 and 17. Thank you for your time. Thank you. We have Isabella Tafoya, Alexandria Clark, and Zovey Benning. Can you repeat the names so they can stand in line? Yes, next we have Alexandria Clark, Zovey Benning, and then Willow Fowler following. Hello, my name is Isabella Tafoya, and I'm currently a junior at Wilden High. I have been here multiple times for a plethora of reasons, and it never ceases to surprise me most of the time it will badly affect students in the most need of support. Tonight, you are talking about whether or not to get rid of 7th period, which I and many students do not want. In fact, 562. Remember this number, please. Let me remind you all, these students are your future voters. Consider their opinions if nothing else.
055This cut would affect our IEP kids and our English learners the hardest. They would not be able to have an elective of their choosing till their junior year. That's if they don't fail any classes, which is likely they could. They could lose chances on being able to take electives that they need to graduate or even to meet the requirements to get into a four-year college. That includes anyone who does fail classes too. This is anyone who takes credit recovery or retakes classes during the year. They will lose a chance to retake classes or or to take electives. There's no positive to this, or at least a positive good enough to justify it. The numbers don't lie. The last time our school switched from a six-period day to a seven-period day, our graduation rates rose around
05610%. And it's one of the best things about our high schools. One of the best things we can offer our community is our graduation rate. That will go down if this goes forward. Remember that number I gave to you earlier. Please look at the packet in front of you that my friend is handing out. Thank you. Give it to me because Otherwise we have to make it available to the entire Public I can make it available to the entire public. I have the Google document I could share with you at a later time in front of you is a petition that 562 students across the district signed against this change and that was only collected over three days Three days imagine what I could have done with a month or full week So please think
057about these 565 students and more if I have the chance when you make this decision. Please, have a good day. Thank you, Ms. Tafoya. Next we have Alexandria and then Zovey. Superintendent I think it's important to clarify that when a document is distributed to the board it has to be immediately available to the public. Yes. And so what but what I can do is send it to the board after the board meeting so the board will receive this document. We just can't do it during the board meeting. Good evening. My name is Alexandria Clark and I'm a ninth grader at Pioneer High School. I'm here to discuss the possible removal of seventh period. Upon finding out that the board was planning to remove our seventh period, I was not only confused, but I was angry.
058I didn't understand what would lead the board to come to the conclusion that this would be a reasonable and viable solution. So before you make your final decision, I would like to inform you of the negatives that come with this decision. Electives teach students valuable life skills and give us a much needed time to decompress between A through G classes. Personally, I suffer from... anxiety disorder that causes me to leave school early because of panic attacks. Personally, I find solace in my music elective where I can relax by being with my friends and playing my instrument. On the other hand, art is something that I am heavily leaning towards to have as a future career. By removing one of our electives, you are making me and countless others choose between our mental health and our
059future. I would also like to repeat some statistics from my last speech. Out of 92 possible students, only 6.5%, or 6 out of 92 people, had something nice to say about the change from 7 electives to 6. With the countless budget cuts towards schools happening, I fully understand the panic around eating more money. However stripping away our students education should not be the solution to this problem in fact according to the California School Boards Association Boards are advocates for students the school districts educational programs in public education It seems counterintuitive to remove a very important part of a student schooling When your job is to ensure students in this district to get the education they need if this money is meant to go be going towards supporting Students then why not keep it where it
060is you have two options the viable one and the easy one I implore you to make the correct choice Thank you, Ms. Clark. Next we have Zovey Willow Fowler and then Amanda Young. Good evening. My name is Zovey Benning, and I'm a 7th grade student attending Lee Middle School. I would like to thank you for the opportunity to share my opinion here tonight, and I appreciate your effort to listen to your students' perspectives. My comment regards tonight's agenda item on the topic of reducing the high school schedules to six periods. This decision will negatively affect all of our district students and our staff. Here's how. Most importantly, having one less elective will result in a loss of opportunity to explore interests. Electives are not just fun classes. Most are directly tied to majors and future
061careers. Taking courses related to your intended career helps demonstrate a depth of interest and commitment. Without that extra period, students have fewer chances to show they're serious about their field. Colleges like to... Colleges like to see students who challenge themselves and pursue areas deeply, deeply, not just. I'm sorry, can I start over? Most importantly, having one less elective will result in a loss of opportunity to explore interests. Electives are not just fun classes. Most are directly tied to majors and future careers. Taking courses related to your intended career helps demonstrate a depth of interest and commitment. Without that extra period, students have fewer chances to show they're serious about their field. Colleges like to see students who challenge themselves and pursue areas deeply, not just... not just meet the minimum requirements. With less proof of
062determination, commitment, and effort for our interests on our applications, we as WJUSD students will be put at a great disadvantage to those who had more opportunities for electives. On a similar note, colleges love to see students succeed in challenging above-grade average courses. These are what AP classes are for. The advanced placement program allows students to participate in college-level courses and possibly earn college credit early. AP classes also allow students to demonstrate their readiness for rigorous college-level work on their applications. By removing an available class period, many students will not be able to fit these AP classes into their schedules, resulting in a lack of appeal to colleges and universities. As I have expressed, reducing the high school schedules to six periods will negatively affect us as a whole community. It will leave our students with
063a huge disadvantage when applying for colleges and will force them to complete courses only to meet graduation requirements rather than to pursue their own interests and focus on what will benefit them on college applications. Again, I'd like to thank you for taking the time to listen to my perspective, and I would greatly appreciate it if you consider my view in your decision. Thank you. Thank you. And if we can have the next few people stand in line, we have Willow Fowler, Amanda Young, and Rebecca Benning. Hello again, my name is Willow Fowler. I'm a ninth grader at Pioneer High, and I'm here to continue on the topic of seventh period removal. I have many questions as to how this will help encourage students to learn when you are taking away one of the classes that
064so many students look forward to. You are going to burn out all of the kids in school. If saving is what you want, then why remove one of the only reasons people go to school? Aren't you paid by the attendance of the students? This will only further dislike students dislike towards schools and create more reasons for our students to be absent. Ever since I was allowed to have an elective, those have always been my favorite classes. Having that extra class period gives kids an extra chance of improving their GPA, as having six passing periods out of seven is already higher GPA than having five passing classes out of six. Not to mention the fact that removing this period all but removes children who need the help, the ability to have an elective at all. Some
065English learners won't have the option to have an elective. at all since it will be taken up by an EL class. It would not only take away our ability to learn more subjects but completely remove the option for them to learn anything besides the basics the school is making them learn. I'm here to speak for the children who won't be able to get these opportunities because of some of you who collectively decided to act without listening to the interest of the students. What are you here for if not to encourage the improvement of the students? Like the foreign exchange program's rejection, you rejected it because it didn't benefit everyone, so why are you removing a period when it definitely isn't benefiting the kids? Only for you to point out the money mistakes in our speeches
066and ignore all of our other valid points whenever we spoke about the problems and none of the other valid things we spoke about. You bicker over power and authority, like four-year-olds arguing whose turn it is next on the swing set, rather than creating policy that makes us high-achieving school district. When you come to our schools, do you really see what's happening inside the classroom, the real people inside, or are you getting a snapshot moment without taking the time to talk to real people without a filter? Thank you for listening and for taking the time for me to come here, but I hope you actually consider what we're saying. Thank you, Ms. Farmer. Next we have Amanda young Rebecca Benning and then a Liam be Good evening superintendent board president cabinet trustees community members teachers students
067news media My name is Amanda young. I'm the proud parent of Izzy Tafoya She spoke twice tonight already once as a student representative and once on a topic that's close to her heart Izzy has utilized RSP services in our district since she was at Gibson Elementary School. She and my son both use RSP services. When they go to high school, this RSP service that they utilize as push-in or pull-out at the elementary level then becomes an entire class period. In order to access the services she needs to be successful as a student with an IEP in this district, Izzy has to give up one of her elective class periods. That means that she has less of a chance to be successful towards meeting graduation requirements. In our LCAP, we focus heavily on making sure our
068students are college and career ready. I think that that's important for our students. I know it's something that myself as a teacher within the district. hold very near and dear to my heart. And it's something that I really want to implore you to focus on as you're making these budget cuts. I know they have to be made. I know that it's a difficult decision. But let's work as far away from the classroom as possible. When you think about cutting one period, it's not one period. In the course of a year, one period is two chances to take classes. So that means over the course of their high school career, they just lost eight chances. Izzy, as many students have, didn't do so hot her freshman year. She has to do credit recovery at some point
069to recover some of those credits. She wouldn't be able to do that if she had less options available. She'd have to sacrifice what's getting her to school every day, which is culinary arts. And I would hate to see that for her or anyone else. And while this won't affect Izzy because she will graduate before it takes effect, my son James also is an RSP student in our district and it will affect him. As I said, I implore you, please, our students who are the most vulnerable deserve the consideration of taking this off of the table as even an option. Our RSP and our English learner students cannot afford it. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Young. And if we can have the next few people stand in line, we have Rebecca Benning, Liam, and then Ann
070Nguyen. Hello again. I'm reading this on behalf of former WJUSD teacher and my mother, Becky Benning, who unfortunately could not attend this meeting tonight, but still wishes to speak. Good evening. My name is Becky Benning and I am a parent of two WJUSD students. My comment regards tonight's agenda item on the topic of reducing the high school schedules to six periods. I am greatly opposed to the six period schedule for many reasons. As noted in the district's presentation, this change would have a serious detrimental effect on a wide range of students. Those planning to attend college, students struggling to graduate, English language learners, and more. My own son, a junior at Woodland High, would have been negatively affected by a six-period schedule. He has chosen to pursue a lifelong interest in metalworking by taking four
071years of the welding CTE course. He also discovered an interest in learning Spanish and has chosen to continue this course of study for four years. As he plans to attend college, he is also working to meet the A to G requirements. Which of these opportunities do you think he could sacrifice? do you think he should sacrifice so that WJUSD can balance the district budget? How would his future college opportunities and career earnings be limited? I ask these questions with great concern as my daughter, a current seventh grader at Lee earning straight A pluses, will be directly affected by your decision. Which of her dreams should she sacrifice for the district's budget? I respectfully remind our board tonight that while you might be able to lower WJUSD graduation requirements, as mentioned by member Villagrana last week,
072you cannot change the A to G requirements. You also have no control over graduation requirements in other districts against those students ours will compete for acceptance in college. Here in Woodland, we do not lower expectations for our children to save a few bucks. We do not rob our children of opportunities to balance the books. Woodland parents will go hungry before taking food from our children's mouths. I ask you to keep this in mind as you consider changing the high school schedule tonight. Thank you for listening, and thank you for continuing to provide our children with an excellent public school education. Thank you. Just a comment for the audience just so that it's known we generally don't allow other individuals to read something for other individuals. You know it happened this time but we won't allow
073it again. So please make sure that you're just reading what is yours. We don't allow someone to read some somebody else's letter. OK. Thank you very much. Clarification. Yes. I want to clarify my comment about the requirements was that the board can change the graduation requirements as far as the units. I never said anything about A to G requirements of course. Only the UC office of the president has the ability to create requirements for A through G. So again, clarification, it was about the units that are required to graduate, which we would reduce the elective units, not the state requirements to graduate either. So just clarifying. Thank you. Thank you for the clarifications, Trustee Villagrana. Hello, uh, hello, Woodruff Board members. My name is Liam Berthiaume, and I am a student at Lee Middle School.
074I'm here to talk about why we should keep the 7th period. If you get rid of 7th period, you will be getting rid of a fun elective for many of your students. For example, I want my seal of biliteracy, but at the same time, I absolutely would love to draw. So I have to choose between the two. Many kids, though, won't even get a choice due to things like being, because of ELD, AVID, or directed studies. And it's sad that you're doing this to save only around $1.3 million, which is still a lot, but pales in comparison to the money you still haven't used. When I read the reports of the 2024-2025 fiscal year, you still have around $58 million still unassigned or inappropriate. Taking away 7th period is doing nothing positive for our students
075and is just limiting our opportunities. As a student, I had to start over at a new school. I had no friends and it was hard. I gained my friendships through classes. And the best friendships grow when there is a shared passion. Passions you find in your electives. When ideas for budget cuts come up, it's usually only money in mind. Please don't look at us as numbers on a spreadsheet. Please remember the reason we come to school and stay in school is based on our relationships. Please think of all the students who need their seventh period. I think that it isn't helpful for the students and actually harms them. As previously stated, this isn't saving much money compared to the amount that you still have unused. In conclusion, keep the sum period and do it for
076the students of Woodland, no matter who they are, where they are, or their identity. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, if we can have Anne Nguyen, Emily Stewart, and Shouda. We have Anne Nguyen next. Good evening, Ms. Lampkin, President Rodriguez, and Board of Trustees. First and foremost, thank you for bringing this matter back to the table. Last time we were here, all of us shared why the 7th period was important to us. We felt that this topic would be important to our friends, but also couldn't be here. On Tuesday, two of us started a petition. We thought if you saw the numbers, or maybe you would understand how important it is to us. In 48 hours, we managed to get over 500 signatures and combined with a previous speaker's count, that reaches over 1,000. Signatures from
077students, parents, teachers, and the community. Over three quarters being students. We want seven periods. Please listen. Keep seven periods. Thank you. Next we have Emily Stewart, Shwaika, and then Alex Trotter. Hi, my name is Emily Stewart. I'm a teacher and AVID coordinator at Lee Middle School. I'm also a Woodland resident and elementary school parent. I've been a proud Wildcat my entire career, going on 14 years. Tonight, I want to advocate for the importance of the AVID program. AVID's mission is to close the achievement gap by preparing all students for college and career readiness and success in a global society, equipping them with the skills, mindset, and support to succeed in rigorous coursework, enter four-year universities, for the workforce and become responsible citizens. It provides academic and social support for all types of learners and especially
078those student groups traditionally underrepresented in higher education. As you know, we have many of those students here in Woodland. This directly supports the district's mission to prepare and empower all students for a future of endless possibilities. According to the CDE, Woodland had an adjusted graduation rate of 91% last year, but less than 40% of students students in that graduating cohort met the UC CSU entrance requirements. My question and concern is how can we realistically envision a future of endless possibilities for last year's seniors when less than half of them left our district having the option to access higher education? How can we possibly support this mission without programs like AVID, and for that matter, counselors, leadership, MESA, athletics, EL coordinators, Puente, and more, which work on a daily basis to foster future success in a
079global society. Like so many other items on the list of other considerations for budget cuts, it's an injustice to our students to even consider removing the support. In middle school, AVID helps students who are part of our harder-to-reach populations, including males, males of color, groups traditionally underrepresented in college and those with special circumstances. AVID helps these students feel connected to and engaged with school. We help them build their skills and confidence so they're prepared to be successful in high school. In high school, AVID provides these same students with the opportunity to apply for college. With the majority of our Woodland students actually qualifying for AVID and so many more benefiting from the strategies that we help teachers learn and implement in their classrooms every day, we should be thinking about how we can grow the
080program, not feeling like we need to defend it. So thank you for supporting AVID whose mission directly supports this district's vision for college and career readiness for all and for keeping the best interests of our students at the forefront of your decisions. I look forward to providing more data and insight as to how the AVID program improves student outcomes in the future. Thank you. Thank you. Next we have Shweta Tendalkar and then we have Alex Trotta, Lisa Fetich and then Jeff Getsch. All right. Good evening. I come here today to express my concerns about a six-period day. I want to strongly urge the board to vote against this change as it will do much more harm than good. Many of our ELs are required to take two English classes, which mean... that many of them
081will not be able to take most of their required electives until their junior year. Many of our newcomers need to take English language courses all four years of high school, which further restricts them. This will also bar them from completing some of our capstone courses, as some of these take three years to complete. On top of this, many of our Spanish-speaking multilingual learners would not have access to instruction in their main language. It would also not allow them to take AP Spanish, which would be a way for them to get the seal of biliteracy. On that note, a lot of our special needs students will also be similarly affected. A good amount of our students take RSP classes to support their work in other classes. With the seven period schedule, this still allows them to
082take an elective class. With the six period schedule, they will not have as much flexibility. Additionally, according to the graduation rate from the state dashboard which has been mentioned previously, we would actually see a decrease in graduation rates. Schools with a seven period day nearly consistently had above a 90% graduation rate, while the majority of those with six period schedules rated at under 90%. If we move to this schedule, it will be the students that suffer. Many of you have seen and have spoken about the wonderful things that these students have accomplished from earning the seal of biliteracy to performing an amazing theater to winning culinary awards and agricultural accolades. Much of this would not have been possible without the seven period day. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Ms. Candelora. Next we have
083Alex Trotter, Lisa Fetik, and then Jeff Goch. Goch. Hello, board members and superintendent. My name is Alex Trotter, and I'm a proud alumni of Woodland Joint Unified and a current teacher at Woodland High School. I actually was one of the first classes to benefit from a seven-period day, and I was able to take all of the AP, all of the elective classes that I wanted. And it was the thing that, I mean, I love school, but I really loved going to school because of my electives. I am here to urge you today to reduce the or to reject the idea of reducing the seven period day down to six periods. This reduction is going to take away a number of opportunities for our students taking electives. Our students love our electives. They come into my
084classroom at lunch and they just tell me all about it. That's what's making them come to school and right we get all of our funding from them coming to school So we want to make school an enjoyable place for them to be As a lot of our other speakers have said, it would take away from our SPED and EL students their ability to take electives until their junior year. And those students are often the ones that really don't want to come to school a lot of the times. So why would we make a choice that would further negatively impact them? I also am the AVID coordinator at Woodland High School, and I get to see firsthand the impact that AVID has on our students. I get to teach AVID 11 and AVID 12 this year,
085and our students, they go from Lee to Woodland. They're this giant cohort where they get to be all together. They build giant, strong bonds with each other, and they support each other in determining what they want to do after high school. But they also get to do other things. electives and they get to branch out and they get to try new things and come back and have these experiences shared together. So I urge you please vote with your actions not with what's convenient and what would be easy in balancing the budget. Thank you. Next we have Lisa Feddick, Jeff Goetsch and Daniel Montes. Good evening, members of the board, Superintendent Ortega-Lampkin, students, Woodland Joint Unified staff, and community members. I am a very proud teacher from Woodland High School, go Woodland, who first walked through
086the doors of Woodland High School as a special education teacher in 2001, quite some time ago. Clearly, I've been hanging on. Currently, I serve as the workability coordinator, serving students receiving special education services, teach a period of an elective titled Link Crew, advise both the Key Club and the class of 2027. I serve on the safety committee, lead our heroes program, our senior of the week program, and coordinate the summer link crew training and freshman orientation. My days are truly centered around fulfilling our district mission to prepare and empower all students for a future of endless opportunities. I'm sorry, possibilities. It is my hope that our mission resonates with each of you in a meaningful way and guides your decision making. It's important for me to begin by acknowledging how very difficult your role is.
087I would certainly not want to be in any of your chairs this evening or at any other time. Budget decisions force extremely difficult choices, and no one here doubts the weight of the responsibility. But when cuts are unavoidable, the question must always be asked, what can we cut without cutting students' futures? I was here when the school operated under a six-period schedule, when Ms. Trotter was a student, when graduation rates dropped as low as 77%, and our dropout rate climbed to 17%. An embarrassing statistic, I'm sure we can all agree. I was also here in April of 2017 when the state superintendent came to Woodland High School to highlight our outstanding graduation rate. The data is clear that our students thrive on a seven period day. We have seen our graduation rate climb as high
088as 92.5%, something I'm very proud of. The difference is significant. That difference represents real students, students who did not cross a graduation stage. Those are not abstract numbers. Those are students whose lives were permanently altered. The seven-period day allows students to recover credits during the school day, access ELD and directed studies while still participating in electives, and complete CTE arts and world language pathways, which I'm sure we can all are extremely important based on what we've heard this evening. It also gives them opportunity to participate in leadership opportunities and competitions. These are things that keep them engaged and attending school. activities that meet all of our LCAP goals. Removing these opportunities does not lighten the burden. Rather, it increases the risk of disengagement, absenteeism, and affiliation. Thank you. Time's up. Thank you. Thank you, Ms.
089Feddick. Okay, and then we have Jeff Goetsch, Daniel Montes, and Ashley Gulling. So a lot of what I wanted to say has been said, so I'm not going to repeat it, but... You know, as a parent, I have two kids in the district. You know, we all understand that budgeting is hard, and there's always a finite amount of money and an infinite amount of need. And what I worry about having watched the previous board meeting is that often it's easy to look at a spreadsheet and see a number, seriously consider the second-order effects that those budget cuts have and They don't always end up saving what you think Because you need to make up for it elsewhere. I think in this case if you reduce from seven to six You're gonna see lower graduation rates
090You're gonna see higher absence rates And those are things that are gonna have to be dealt with I want to share one story from back when I was in high school. I was a I had a lot of issues back in high school, but through a series of mishaps, I ended up in this music production course, which was the farthest thing from anything I wanted to be doing. But I met a lot of great kids who were there because of that course, and that was the reason they went to school. And these were kids that had no parental support at home. No older siblings to step in and help them. They weren't reading at level. They weren't at math level. They had a lot of problems, but this music course kept them coming to school
091every day and kept them working at those other classes so that they could stay there. One kid in particular was incredible. He was transcribing music on the fly from ear. from some incredibly technically difficult bands that make music. And we would all just crowd around him as he worked. And he never talked to anybody. He didn't have a friend. He didn't have any other prospects going on in his life. And he had to drop out of that class because he had to do some retakes. And what ended up happening is he just dropped out of school. And so I worry that things like this is what we're going to be dealing with if we go from seven to six, because this is what keeps a lot of those kids engaged and going every day. Thank
092you, Mr. Duffer. Next, we have Daniel Montes, Ashley Goling, and then Kylie Dewberry. Hi, board. My name is Daniel, and I am a freshman in Woodland High School. So I want to start off by saying that With the sixth peer change, it would affect, like everyone said, a lot of students, like ELD students and four-year college students and teachers. Teachers would be fired, and a lot of the electives would be gone. And I don't know what I'd do without some of my elective teachers, like Ms. Levinsky. She really brightens my day as she's my first peer teacher and she's really cool out of all my teachers and I think she's the best teacher I've ever had. And for ELD students, they'd be left with zero electives and four-year college students also zero fun electives. For
093four-year students, we'd have to take two years of language. So we'd only have, I think, two years, but for Kids want to graduate early like me and we're only doing three years of high school We're left with one year of only one fun elective which won't give us time to explore what we want and a lot of us kids look forward to electives and Having fun there because we make most of our friends there since it's a classroom full of people who have the same interest as me and That's for the same for a lot of students. So it's way more easier for people to find friends in those electives. Thank you next we have Ashley Goling, Kylie Dewberry, and then Alex Hernandez. Good evening. My name is Ashley Goling. I teach English at Woodland
094High School, and behind me is our Woodland High School ELD team. We all teach English learners at different levels. I am here to advocate for a specific group of students. One of the courses I teach is English 5. Almost every student in that class is designated a long-term English learner. If you've read any data on LTELs, you know that that label comes with a lot of baggage. My students, many of my students feel a specific way about being called a long-term English learner. And with that comes disengagement from school. For many of my students, the brightest part of their day is the elective they get to take. They only get one because my class takes up an elective spot. They have to take two English classes. These kids go to classes like child development, culinary,
095art and culture, welding, automotive, and they thrive. because those classes provide them with real world hands-on experience. Many of these students are already planning on going to a trade school. And so in certain classes, they are learning skills that will contribute directly to their postgraduate education. By reducing the number of classes from seven to six, these students would not have the same opportunity to explore their interests. and to have an active way to engage in school, which is so vital, especially for students who don't see themselves represented in every classroom, for students who don't feel that they belong in many schools and many classes. It is vital for our LTEL population. that they have access to opportunities for electives. They have access to opportunities to engage with their peers in a meaningful way, and they
096have access to explore opportunities that might be available to them after graduation. Thank you. Thank you Ms. Galway. Next we have Kylie Dewberry, Alex Hernandez, and then Isabella Ceja. Good evening, members of the board. My name is Kylie Dewberry, and I am a very proud senior at Woodland High School. While shortening the seventh period day schedule to six would not affect me personally, I feel as though I have to speak up. I am a 5.0 extracurricular student who is deeply involved in my school and my community, but I would not be here if not for my elective courses and full scheduled periods. At every chance given, I filled my schedule with an AP or honors class that furthered my education. And while I struggled greatly because of mental issues with learning, I prospered because of
097my electives and supportive teachers. Now, I won't be giving you statistics that you've heard and thought about a thousand times over, as I understand that this compromise couldn't have been easy. But I will be giving you a student insight on a personal level to put a face and background on the statistics that you see. Numerous students that I come into contact with every day base the rest of their lives and careers off of our CTE and elective pathways. But many times I've heard that they fell out of place in core classes due to challenges they faced with standard learning. And the electives they chose gave them a purpose they didn't know they had before. In addition to simply removing numerous life-changing electives, this act would be removing our staff. Staff that critically impact students on
098a daily basis, acting as more than simply instructors or teachers. They are our role models, trusted adults, and friends. I can wholeheartedly say that I would not be as successful and involved and happy as I am now without the support of my elective teachers, especially Ms. Fettig, Mr. Del Sol, and Ms. Bermudez, who love their students and jobs so much they stick with us throughout our issues and put us before all else. While I believe that education is vital regardless of your career, following the college path is not for everyone. My best friend has stated a multitude of times that she never felt like college was the route for her, and she didn't know what she wanted to do. She signed up for Auto Tech her freshman year because she wanted to explore her interests,
099and she never looked back. She now works at AutoZone and plans to pursue her career in the mechanic trade path. She reflects hundreds of students that feel seen through our numerous diverse paths that don't benefit from traditional learning. Now, this is all excluding the obvious negative impact that this shortened schedule will have on students that need support. Students learning English, students with disabilities, and students with mental disorders will struggle vastly more than they already do because of the decrease in supporting classes or classes that interest them and push them forward. We lose students that are excited to come to school and learn, that find reassurance and comfort in our proud role models that constantly push them to be better, which they may not have anywhere else. So I urge you, if you... truly care about
100your students' success and their desired paths, please reconsider this cut and put our students first. Thank you for your consideration. Thank you, Ms. Dubé. Next we have Alex Hernandez, and then Isabella Ceja, and Christian Alderetti. Hola y buenas tardes. My name is Alex Hernandez, as said. I am a ninth grader in Pioneer High School, and when I heard about... The new, I don't know, six periods now, I was extremely upset because students not only, like, as spoken multiple times, they thrive off of this, in my opinion. And it benefits us extremely by allowing us to, sorry, I'm nervous. My apologies. As you know, multiple students are struggling with mental illness and are already struggling with burnout in general just because of school. And I feel like removing one elective and increasing, I heard that you
101guys are also increasing the times, which I think is mm-mm. Okay? Okay? Just mm-mm. Because it just, it doesn't seem beneficial towards the students and their mental health. I feel like if you make this decision, it'll gravely, or I don't know the word, sorry. It'll like affect their mental health really, really badly. and won't be beneficial, not only towards students, but also towards teachers. Eventually, teachers will get burnout as well due to the fact that they have to deal with specific sorts of students, because if you've seen a ninth grade classroom, oh my goodness, oh my goodness, sometimes kids are over here acting like crazy banshees, like they throw in pencils at the ceilings. It's just not well, okay? And that's with one hour. Two hours, oh my goodness. might as well call Satan because,
102oh my goodness, all hell is going to be breaking loose. It is not going to benefit teachers and students in general because eventually teachers as well will be so exhausted from their last period class to a point where eventually they're just not going to try with their students. And for me, that's not okay because school is about education, making sure our students get educated. And having an extended class doesn't mean more information. Having an extended class means less information and more burnout. More burnout means less information intake. And that's just not, it doesn't make sense. Especially since I struggle with ADHD, I feel like that won't benefit people who also have learning disabilities as well. And I don't know what else to say, especially since I have four more minutes. But thank you for listening
103and have a good day. Thank you, Ms. Fernandez. Next we have Isabella Seja, Christian Alderetti, and then Maria Luisa Lattes. Hi everyone, my name is Isabella Seja. I'm a very proud junior at Woodland High School. For now, I'm a very involved student. I'm a cheerleader, and I'm able to graduate early. Before that wasn't possible I suffered a lot my freshman and junior year and I was really behind and without credit recovery and my and Avid as Miss Alex my teacher and Mr. Who's my teacher in middle school without them? I wouldn't be here oil as I caught up I have I'm lucky to unlucky to be a part of the dual enrollment program, but without avid credit recovery A lot of students would suffer, especially the students with IEPs. I'm here to speak because my
104younger brothers, a sophomore at Pioneer High School and an eighth grader who's about to enter Woodland High School would be affected by these changes. Although I wouldn't be affected by this because thankfully I get to graduate before any of this could happen. they'd be greatly affected and Why should students suffer? I look really I'm really happy with my electives I would struggle so much in class when I didn't have my electives I'm part of my last year of CTE pathway careers with children and Working with those kids not only does it benefit me it benefits my teacher the teacher I work with and the students they're happy to see me and they learn a lot I learn a lot from them But without this, I wouldn't know what I want to do. I wouldn't want
105to know that I was a teacher. And why should kids suffer because money's a problem? I'm speaking about this because my mother, a proud Woodland High School alumni, class of 1996, she was an English learner as well. That program benefited her a lot. But I don't understand why money's a problem. We didn't know that you guys were losing money. Where was... Where was the data? You should look at students not as data, but as people. And that's all I have to say. And if money was really big of a problem, stop overpaying our superintendent. That's all I have to say. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Seha. Next we have Christian Alderete, Maria Luisa Lares, and then Alexandra R. and Patricia Silva. Thank you for this opportunity to speak. My name is Christian Alderete, and I
106am a junior at Woodland High School. I understand your position. It is not your job to teach or know us students personally. Our students work hard to teach us while also getting to know us and accommodate for us, yet they are the ones you want to get rid of with this decision. Based on what I've heard from my fellow students and we've heard tonight, I think I speak for most when I say we don't like the proposition of getting rid of our seventh period. This will take away opportunities from us to explore our interests, make it harder to take the classes needed to get into competitive institutions like the ones we have in California, and make it less forgiving if someone fails a class and English learners will not have an elective at all until
107their junior year. In short, this will not help us students in any way. We will be less prepared and at a disadvantage no matter which path we take after high school. I can't see how this idea was proposed with us students in mind, so I ask that you think about this when you make your decision. Thank you for your time. That is all. Next we have Maria Luisa Lares and Alejandra R. is next. Hello everyone. My name is Maria Luisa Lattes. I'm a school counselor at Pioneer High School. In case you don't know, I have been a school counselor at Pioneer High School since it opened back 2003. I want to share my professional opinion on the impact of going back to six-period day based on... based on what former students have experienced because at
108Pioneer we used to have period one through six. A six period day would directly affect the student. It would also diminish all programs that have been created within the year and have helped students in all levels to learn and grow academically. One example would be mariachi. When we were six period days, students were limited in courses they were able to enroll. enrolling. Students were not able to take multiple AP courses or honor courses. AVID, Yale students with students with an AEP and with an IEP were limited in elective classes because of the support classes they are required to take. At Promise students, formerly known as at-risk students, could not graduate from Pioneer High School and needed to transfer to Catch Creek. However, Catch Creek waitlist was long and students had to stay enrolled at Pioneer
109High School until they completed their fourth year or waited until they turned 18 years of age to enroll themselves at adult ed to earn their high school diploma. Cache Creek also had to limit the enrollment of students with INEP and EL students to be able to help them graduate. The drop rate was much higher than it is now. All remedial programs that were implemented at Pioneer were unsuccessful because they required students to stay after school. Staying after school was and continues to be a challenge for students to do. It was a long day for them and they did not like school. Seventh period day had given students more opportunities to take challenging courses they want and need. It has helped AVID EL students with students with an IEP feel that they are part of the
110school because they are taking courses with their peers. Seventh period day does not exclude students from feeling limited. For at Promise Kids, it gave them a second chance to remediate situations they got themselves into. into without transferring to Cache Creek or Adult Ed. 7th period day gave at Promise students hope to walk the stage at Pioneer High School and they graduate knowing they can and will accomplish anything they set their minds to. You must look elsewhere for budget cuts that do not directly impact the student. Look closer to the positions in the district office that are far away from the students. Start there. The possibilities are endless of administrative positions at the district office that can be reduced. Thank you. And our last public comment is Alejandra R. and Patricia Silva. Hola, buenas noches a
111todos los presentes. Mi nombre es Patricia Silva. Soy madre de familia de la Escuela Bimer. Estamos aquí presentes por la preocupación de nuestros niños, ya que por reducción de costos están por desaparecer las posiciones de los auxiliares de maestros de los grados de... Kinder a tercer grado. Y pues yo estoy aquí para comentarles que por favor no lo hagan. Estas personas trabajan directamente con nuestros niños. ¿Por qué desaparecer puestos de personas que son de gran ayuda? Perdón. In nuestra escuela, porque si estas posiciones trabajan directamente con nuestros niños, hemos visto cómo se han elevado los resultados de nuestros hijos gracias a la ayuda de estos auxiliares. El día de hoy, hemos visto y hemos comparado con los años anteriores y ha sido de gran ayuda. Nosotros como padres somos los que vemos los resultados. De
112hecho, íbamos a pedir más auxiliares para los grados de cuarto a sexto. ya que la primaria son las bases que llevarán a nuestros niños para más adelante. O sea que si van bien desde ahorita, hay más oportunidades de que en los grados superiores les siga yendo mejor. Este beneficio no es para nuestros maestros, sino para nuestros hijos. También vine a hablar para nuestra especialista de café. Estas personas son el medio entre padres y la escuela. Y a veces si uno quiere hablar con alguien, y esta persona es la que está siempre presente y disponible para atendernos a los padres en diferentes temas. Son ellas los que dan la primera. Mano, en cuanto se llega a la escuela, por favor no desaparezcan estos puestos de nuestra escuela primaria BIMER. Como representante de padre de familia, se
113los agradecería. Gracias. Muchísimas gracias. Hola, mi nombre es Alejandra Rodríguez, como padre también de la escuela. Estoy en desacuerdo con el despido de maestras o ayudantes de la escuela BIMER, ya que ellas han sido un gran apoyo para nuestros padres. Thank you. You smell gracias we have one more public comment Jesse Ortiz Good evening members of the board superintendent Lampkin first. I want to take a second to thank trustee Pote's the Savannah for the dedication and commitment She's had with this board knowing she's leaving and also want to thank the rest of the board because I know it's a very difficult to Make these decisions especially with the budget time and but I understand your dedication commitment haven't been there I also want to say that I've had over 40 years of public education, now
114retired, but I am so impressed with the students this evening, and I'm even more thankful to know that they come from the Willingjoy Unified District, which is my, I'm also the alumni of this district, so I want to thank those students. I'd like to propose that we keep the seventh period for many of the same reasons that you heard tonight. And also just say that if the board is conflicted when you take action next month or next week I should say or the next board meeting I would advise that you form a committee of students parents and maybe local educators But after hearing the testimony tonight, I don't know how you can be conflicted Seventh period is an important issue in this community and it's important to have that input and this board and this
115district has a history community engagement and communication to the public. If you look at your LCAP goal number four, your vision and role of board, that is right there. The community engagement is important. Having born and being raised in this community and been involved many years as an advocate for public education in this community, right now is not the time to divide our community around an issue like this. We know what's best for students you heard from students you heard from parents and community advocates to this evening Again, if you're still conflicted after tonight, please don't make a rash decision Listen a little bit more and study the issue some more this period this this issue is important to all a community and I just want to thank you for the time you've spent and
116extending the time to listen to the students and parents and community and Thank you for your commitment to all the students in this district. Thank you Thank You mr. Ortiz Okay, thank you to all our speakers this evening and appreciate your input and thank you to our fellow trustees for showing the willingness flexibility to allow to hear this comment tonight Before we move on I'd like to suggest that we take a quick five-minute break. That's okay. Yeah, okay, so we resume in five minutes With our agenda we will move on to item K reports Okay, superintendent report. I am not going to give a full report today. I have no PowerPoint. I anticipated that we were going to have a lot of public comment. I'll just want to make one again to remind our students
117and community here that the board will be discussing tonight additional finalizing decisions on the budget and then we're going to have a separate discussion regarding the six period matter as information only. The board will not be taking any action regarding six period. They'll only be hearing an information presentation but we will have to discuss the remaining budget discussion. And those are two separate items. Thank you. Very good. Thank you, Superintendent. We will move on to K-2, report from California School Employees Association. My name is Rebecca Rossiter, and I'm the library technician at Douglas Middle School, and I proudly serve as president of Chapter 118 of the California School Employees Association. First, I do want to express my appreciation for the board deciding to allow all of the public to give their full public comment. It's
118very appreciated. At the board's last meeting, significant budget reductions were approved that resulted in or will result in the layoff of classified employees. Part of those decisions, the board voted to eliminate cafe specialist positions with discussion centered on reimagining the role for a future school year. Tonight's agenda includes additional eliminations options that would reduce paraprofessional positions. As the board considers the options presented this evening, we want to highlight the scale and reach of these proposed reductions. In the board packet tonight, options A and B for the paraprofessionals eliminate the majority of literacy paraprofessional positions district-wide, resulting in the loss of about 24 or 25 people. It is important to understand that the impact of these reductions will extend beyond literacy alone. The district currently has 66 employees on the paraprofessional one seniority list. Your board
119packet says that 40 of those are assigned to literacy programs. The remaining paraprofessional one employees are assigned to combination classrooms, English learner services, TK classrooms, and possibly migrant ed. Because layoffs are governed by seniority and not by assignment, reductions to literacy paraprofessional positions will trigger displacement across all paraprofessional one assignments. In practice, these decisions will impact support services across multiple student populations, not just within literacy. With respect to the previously eliminated cafe specialist positions we want to respectfully note that Reimagining a role is not an informal or conceptual process under our collective bargaining agreement Reclassification is defined as the redefining of a position to account for changes and required skills duties or responsibilities That may alter the nature of the position When a reclassification is approved and no existing job description matches the approved duties,
120the contract requires that a new job description, including a proposed salary range, be developed collaboratively and ratified prior to board approval. We believe that a reimagining of the cafe specialists can fit within the reclassification process our cafe specialists are trained in community outreach and We can revisit their job description to better fit the community schools grant without losing our valuable employees I want to also mention that in light of the classification study that is currently tabled after three years of work It will be a hard sell to our membership to approve new job descriptions. Option C for the paraprofessionals, by contrast, preserves all literacy paraprofessionals through the use of one-time funds. While we recognize the fiscal challenges facing the district, this option provides stability for students and staff while rolling out the district's new literacy
121plan. We remain concerned that reductions continue to fall disproportionately on classified positions. These employees provide direct student facing support that is critical to school operation and student success. Eliminating these positions increases workload and expectations for remaining staff and reduces services across school sites. As decisions are finalized, we urge the board to carefully weigh whether the savings achieved through these cuts justify the permanent loss of experienced, classified employees and the broader reduction of services. We also ask for clarity about how remaining workloads, expectations, and services will be aligned with reduced staffing levels. CSCA remains committed to working collaboratively with the district and the board. We ask that tonight's discussion center not only on budget targets, but also on the long-term impact on students, programs, and the classified workforce that supports them every day. Thank you for
122this time on the agenda. Thank you for your report. Next, K-3, report from Woodland Education Association. Good evening, President Rodriguez, trustees, superintendent, members of our community, and students. My name is Becca Bernard. I'm the president of the Woodland Education Association, and I've taught seventh grade science at Douglas for nearly a decade. First, I am proud to share that voting is underway for our tentative agreement, and we anticipate closing this vote on Sunday. We'll share results with HR and the board at our next meeting on February 5th. Second, I want to thank you for listening to that marathon of public comments. And I, too, want to address the item L2 about moving to the six-period day at the high school. I want to begin with the students because this decision impacts them the most. This week,
123some of our middle school students organized a petition to keep the seven-period day. These are the same students who stood in front of you back in December and spoke up about their concerns. In just 48 hours, they gathered over 500 signatures. They're paying attention, and they're asking you to protect their opportunities. As you heard earlier, Woodland High students also shared their own petition, gathering another 500 signatures. I want to commend these students for their courage and leadership. Getting middle schoolers to talk to each other in meaningful ways can be painful at times. And yet they did it all on their own, and I am so proud of them. Humor me by reflecting for a second and putting yourselves in their shoes. How many of you sitting on this board can remember an elective class or
124teacher that sparked joy in your own school experience? Because for a lot of our students, especially the ones who struggle the most in traditional academic settings, electives are the difference between school feeling like a place that they endure and a place where they actually want to be. This morning I noticed that the presentation attached to this agenda item was lacking teacher input, so I took it upon myself to send a survey to our high school educators, and since lunchtime, the results are 72 out of 77 high school teachers who responded opposed moving to a six-period day. The remaining five were indifferent, and not a single teacher said that they support the change. Not one. The negative impacts they anticipate reflected many of the comments you've already heard tonight. Reducing electives and pathway offerings, limit credit
125recovery, reducing graduation rates, harm college and career readiness, and perhaps most importantly, this decision would disproportionately affect EL and SPED students, many of whom would lose access to electives until their junior year. The teachers put it plainly. This doesn't just reduce options, it reduces equity. It reduces belonging. It reduces opportunity. It creates a high school experience where the students who need the most connection to school are the ones who get the least. When asked what the benefits could be, the responses were just as consistent. Almost every teacher wrote none. A few acknowledged the only realistic benefits are potential cost savings and that smaller class sizes would help because the cap would return to contract language, which is 32 students per class. If the only clear benefit of this decision is financial, then we need to
126be honest about what we're actually doing here. We are taking opportunities away from students in exchange for dollars. Is that really the kind of district we want to be? Is that the culture we want to promote in Woodland? We've also talked repeatedly about declining enrollment and ADA. If all of the neighboring districts around us continue offering seven-period flexibility and we are moving backward, families will notice, and we risk pushing students out of our district and worsening the very problems we are trying to solve. In the fall of 2023, district survey data showed a supermajority, 90% if my memory serves me, I think Lori sent that. survey out. I can't remember. But 90% of parents, staff, and students supported keeping a seven period day. That was just two years ago that you did that survey. So
127if the community has already spoken, if teachers are overwhelmingly opposed, if students are actively organizing and pleading with you to stop, then I need you to pause and look around. Teachers, students, families, community, they are all telling you this is a bad decision. You sit on this board because you claim to be here for our students, but this is so clearly not a student-centered decision. So why are you here if not to give our students the best? Because what makes this so frustrating isn't just the proposal itself, it's how rushed and disconnected this process has been. It is not even clear to the public why you are supporting it other than finances, or why it is being pushed forward so aggressively when the message from your community is loud and consistent. And if cost savings
128is really our only motivator, then let's actually talk honestly about it. This change will revert class size to contract language, 32 per class, not 36. So you're talking a savings projection that's not actually accounting for that reality. If class sizes shrink, we're talking dozens of sections that are still going to need to have teachers, which by my rough back of the napkin estimates could translate to around seven full-time positions and about $700,000. And I just used average teacher pay for seven teachers. So if you truly care about balancing the budget while protecting outcomes for students, then please stop trying to cut the parts of the school experience that make kids actually want to be here. Let's get back to the real issues. How can you start using reserves to support this year's students and this
129year's dollars? You could fund the seven-period day for a decade and still have reserves. And can you start taking a hard look at outside contractors spending and redirect those dollars into staffing in Woodland for the people who create stability for kids? Our motto is excellence for all. Offering less to our students sounds more like a bare minimum for all. Woodland students deserve better than that. Thank you. Thank you. We will now move on to K-4, report from board members. Any board members have a report like to start? Trustee Vigarana? First of all, I thank you to all the public comments that were given by everyone, especially the young people. Second, I was very happy to hear that our W.A. union is very supportive of increasing opportunities for our young people. I look forward to future
130conversations on what that can look like. And then just the last comment, many times we were compared to Sacramento Unified as to a model district providing salary and benefits. And I'm glad we didn't follow that because right now they're in really big financial trouble. And they haven't always, they've just been hiding it because of the extra money they had. And they're in big trouble right now. You know we're making decisions that are keeping us from from being in that situation. And I'll continue to advocate for that because you know we don't want a state takeover like they're potentially have in other districts that happen too. So just appreciate my colleagues making tough decisions to keep us solvent and out of the hands of the of the state. That's all. Just to be a good on
131just a point of clarification. What high school did you reference. Not high school or did you see you see unified or a district? I'm sorry, but the Sacramento Sacramento. Sorry didn't hear you. Okay. Thank you. Yep. Thank you Who'd like to go next? Thank you I also want to thank everybody that stepped up to give public comment. I know it could be really nerve wracking especially for our students that maybe are doing it for the first time. So thank you for everyone that went up there. I also want to just acknowledge that the comments were respectful and that's very helpful to to be able to really kind of take in the message. So I appreciate that. Not all of the emails that we have received have had that same tone. So thank you very much
132to everyone that shared public comment today. I also want to just say that I appreciate everyone that's staying and I hope folks are able to stay for the conversation about six period. And I want to ask that folks please recommend to everybody that was here before to please view the recording, if not the live stream, if they have to leave early. There is a lot of information that's going to be shared today. Not all of the information is able to be contained in a slide deck. And there were a number of comments. or remarks in the public comments that were not accurate. I did not step in to correct it because I know it's really overwhelming enough to even step up there and I didn't want any of the students especially to feel like they
133couldn't speak. But there are a number of things that need to be corrected and I'm hoping will during the presentation. So please let people know to please view the recording so you all can have the same information we're going to have as well. So that's it. Thank you, Trustee Rodriguez-Mahica. Any other reports? I will go. I don't have much to report, but I am overjoyed and excited about the parent and student engagement. Those are LCAP goals of ours. Trying to create student leaders and to engage parents, and this definitely did it. We had tons of parent engagement and tons of... tons of students speaking up, my kids' friends were asking me questions nonstop. And I would also like to highlight the maturity of the kids as well. The only person who continuously made six, seven
134jokes was my 16 year old. Everybody else missed that opportunity to be about six, seven. And it's been a golden opportunity. The teacher in me just could not resist. Sorry. Obsessed. I just want to say it shows that we are investing in our kids because even the shy kids were out to speak. They had a role. It wasn't just the popular kids. It wasn't just the gregarious kids. These were kids who, oh, I'll show up, but I'm not going to say a word. I will show you about the survey, but I'm not speaking out. I'll send an email, but they drew the line somewhere, but they did their activism. And for somebody who bought into for the people, by the people, while still in school, I love... seeing people who realize that they're not gonna
135make a difference unless they stand up and have their voice heard. So this, there's so many moments in life where you're just like, the kids are gonna be all right. This was a moment for me where I'm like, the kids are gonna be all right. And I'll just leave it at that, thank you. Any other trustees like to give a report this evening? Trustee Brubaker? I was not going to give one because we have a long meeting and I took a little extra time on my resolution but I have to also add my deep gratitude for our students. I will share and I've shared this a lot in board meetings. I have a learning disability so I in my freshman and sophomore year of high school I was in a class probably basically the same
136as directed studies and so this is a topic that I have real life experience in and I also want to recognize the vulnerability of students coming up and sharing that and or that their EL students and the extreme amount of bravery it takes to share that in a room full of grown-ups they may not know and so I just think they need all of the props that we can possibly give and I want to say the students who took it upon themselves to do surveys holy cow Amazing. I'm blown away. I'm so proud of our students. Thank you. Very good, and I also have public comment. I just want to thank everyone again who came out to speak tonight to talk about a topic that was important to them, especially focusing on the students. We
137pride ourselves on trying to do everything we can to engage our students and have our students be part of our work up here, and we certainly had that tonight, no question about it. I also just want to reiterate that thank you to the trustees for being willing and being flexible. For allowing that not not every board would allow that And then just quickly I was told that it is Jerry's birthday today. I just want to say happy birthday Jerry Thank you for being here and any other staff members whose birthday it is today And then lastly I just wanted to make a comment. We talked about this last meeting but today's Trustee Deborah Bautista Zavala's last board meeting and we really want to thank her for all the work that she's done I saw there
138was a really gracious interview in the Daily Democrat and you know, talked a lot about your motivations and how much joy and how much pride you have as being a Willard alumni. So you can check that out as well. Just before the meeting, we talked a little bit and this is her eighth year being here, almost an entire decade. And so I just want to say thank you very much for your service. Okay, moving on to K-5 information board committee updates. Are there any board committee updates? NO, SEEING NONE, WE WILL MOVE ON. NOW, THE NEXT ITEM IS M2 AS WE MOVE THAT UP ABOVE L, TEACHING AND LEARNING. SO THE NEXT ITEM IS M1. IT'S AN ACTION ITEM. ACCEPT EXTERNAL FISCAL AUDIT REPORT FOR THE FISCAL YEAR 24-25. WE ARE DOING M1, RIGHT? Okay,
139thank you President Rodriguez members of the board. I know we have a heavy agenda tonight, but before you is our request for you to approve our external audit and This evening we have a member of crow Tory Jockle here to say a few words But most importantly to answer any questions that you may have Good evening everyone As Lewis mentioned, I'm Tori Jockle, a member of the Crow engagement team. We are engaged by yourselves to conduct the independent audit over the district. Overall, we issue four opinions for the district. The first is over the financial statements. The second on internal controls over financial statement reporting. The third for state compliance. And the fourth for federal uniform single audit. We, of course... are using generally accepted auditing standards as well as government auditing standards throughout that
140process which are a little more stringent. We do take a risk-based approach when conducting our audit so on a continuous basis throughout the audit process we're meeting with management, identifying key controls and processes within the district, and then building our audit procedures to address any of those potential risks and applying certain materiality thresholds. This year, the district did implement a new accounting pronouncement. That's for GASB 101, the compensated absences. So the district is now required to perform a very robust analysis over compensated absences, including sick leave, vacation, and whatnot. So you will see on page 16 of the report, that's your statement of activities. There is a restatement to beginning net position, but I do want to emphasize that's not due to any error on management's part. That is just a reflection of that implementation
141of the standard. and is very standard for this type of implementation. So there's no error or finding related to that implementation. Throughout the process, we do also pay very particular attention to certain management's judgments and accounting estimates, including the LCFF, local control funding formula, useful lives of capital assets, and then loss contingencies and pensions and post-retirement obligations, just because there's potential management bias there. So we pay particular attention to that throughout the process. You will also see that there are two corrected adjustments on page 63 of the report, and this was just due to the bond issuances, so reallocating or reclassifying some of those expenditures, recording premiums, moving them from the building fund over to the... bond interest and redemption fund. So again, that did not result in any finding as that's a entry posted
142by the county. So just simply reallocating that to the appropriate fund. Otherwise, there were no other matters that we would need to communicate to you, no disagreements with management. And you'll see on page 77 of the report, there's a really good summary of the overall results of the audit. So you'll see for the financial statement opinion, we issued an unmodified opinion, which is exactly what you want to see. It's the highest level of assurance. There were no material weaknesses identified in internal controls over financial reporting, no significant deficiencies, no matters of noncompliance, and then moving into federal awards, again, no material weaknesses, issued an unmodified report. You can see here that we did test two different major programs this year as part of federal, including the Child Nutrition Cluster and Title I. And then overall
143on the state awards, issued an unmodified opinion. And on the following pages, you'll see we did not identify any matters that would need to be reported and included in this report. So overall, that's everything that I need to go over with you. Do you have any questions for me? Thank you. Trustees, are there any questions or comments? Trustee Brubaker? You mentioned the bond so that would be for locals the measure why you found no Misappropriations anything like that everything was was perfectly in in order That's correct. And that is a separate report as well that gets issued. So not as part of the district report So we'll be going to the CBOC with that at a later time, but that's correct. There were no findings there either. Okay. Thank you so much Of course, I
144do have a comment in the question One question that I would like to ask, as you did your overall work, your overall assessment, did you find any impropriety or inappropriate use of funds? No, we did not. And we would of course be required to report that to you we also meet with the board president during this audit process to Do certain require communications with them? And of course if we were to identify any matters of fraud or impropriety disagreements with management, we would be reporting that to you Absolutely. Thank you very much. And secondly is a question on the measure. Why money? I wonder if in the work that you all do, you could give us any reference to the time it takes to be able to use those funds and if there's a timetable
145that is either deemed appropriate or average. So a criticism may be of a district that they're taking too long to... to spend their monies. And I was just wondering if there's any kind of information, a graph, a statistic out there that would, I guess, tell us if... measure the size of ours During the during our year had a you know particular Average of time when of use I don't know if does that make sense It does make sense and we can certainly look into that and get back to you only because again at this time we're Discussing the district's report. So when we go to discuss the measure white report happy to give you some more information on that matter yeah, I think that'd be a interesting analysis on how another aspect of how we're
146using how quickly how appropriately we're using especially as compared to state average or or other districts that that pass a measure in our year okay look and get look into that for sure thank you trustee Richardson-Fowler So oftentimes other districts are invoked and we learn about the problems that they're having even tonight we mentioned SAC Unified School District and I think one of the questions that probably people at SAC City but I know I have is what are the questions that they should have been asking at these audit reports that didn't get asked that landed them in those situations. So I'm gonna start with, are there any red flags that are pauses for concern that you can highlight for us? You know, that's a good question and not at this time. As you can see
147here, we did issue an unmodified report with no. Findings at this time But we can certainly you know again we can look into that and get back to you. Okay Any what assumptions could you collapse? Like do you see any projections in the next three five years? Do you see any sensitivity to enrollment numbers? Any of that stuff, you know as part of the audit we are not engaged to do any sort of projections That far in advance, you know three years five years So I can't speak to that at this time Lewis unless you wanted to speak to that That's a great question, Trustee Fowler. I think the thing to keep in mind is that their charge is to audit where we're at as of June 30th. Your question is more appropriate toward, you
148know, forecasting, budgeting, looking in the out years, looking out. And so I think we can begin to have those further detailed conversations the next time we're talking about perhaps the second interim. Okay. I just ask that because I know as a former executive director of a nonprofit, when we were annually audited, we had a section of growing concerns. And so I'm just wondering if there is. even though there's not a growing concern section, if there were any growing concerns. Yes. A going concern means that you may not have the ability to be around in a year or two. Right. And that is something that's analyzed when we, UCS put up what is known as our, our multi-year projection. That's where we're trying to make that assessment. But I think the County office, our County office
149of education has an obligation under AB 1200 and under AB 2756. That's where that type of evaluation is done. Perfect. Just wanted to clarify, since we've been talking about other schools, their deficits, even talking about school closures. And then the last thing I want to ask is in your report, and I believe it was page like nine, you had mentioned our reserves and listed that they're supposed to be at about 3%, but we are listed at about 24. Any concerns for you there with that? Number with those numbers No, not at this time and I'm a page 9 I believe as part of the management's discussion and analysis so that is prepared by your management team Okay, so that is not something that we would have audited Okay. Thank you. That's it for me. You're
150welcome anything else Any other questions or comments? No? Okay. So no other questions, comments. Can I get a motion to accept the external fiscal audit report for the fiscal year 24-25? Move motion made by Trustee Richardson-Fowler? Second. Second by Trustee Brubaker. Any discussion? Seeing none, we will start the vote with Trustee Villagrana. Abstention. Abstention. Trustee Rodriguez-Mohica? Yes. Yes. Trustee Richardson-Fowler? Yes. Trustee Bautista-Zavala? Aye. Trustee Garcia? Yes. Trustee Brubaker? Yes. Trustee Rodriguez? Yes. Very well, the audit is accepted with the vote of six yeses and one abstention. We can now move on to M2, information action, review proposed budget adjustments, reductions, elimination of particular kinds of services for 26-27. I believe we have two public comments. First we have Amanda Young and then Stacey Mounts. Hello again. I'm taking off my parent hat and I'm putting
151on my teacher hat. I'm one of your TK teachers within the district. I daily am supported by a paraeducator. In addition, all of the teachers around me are supported by paraeducators. We have lit paras and special education paras, TK paras, just to name a few. These para professionals provide direct support to our students on a daily basis to bridge gaps. They are helping our students to truly stay focused, building strong foundations. especially in the areas of literacy and doing the hard work closest to the students. They are a need, not a want. Today, I had our cafe specialist call home to a family for me. My Spanish is TK level, so I was unable to do it alone. I appreciated the support that she provided me. She provided translation for the conversation. She also provides
152translation for many of my TK students the first few weeks of school as they adjust to being in school in our district for the very first time. She has provided translation for parents who are nervous and unsure about what they're coming into as first-time parents. This is just a small portion of what she does on a daily basis. She's also a mom. She has a student in our district as well. And she has begun making steps to look for a different career path because her position is being eliminated next year. She is a need, not a want. We are a community school. I'm at Whitehead, so we were considered one of them. I sat on the committee last year as we developed what we needed for this. And as part of that, we thought that
153we would be retaining a cafe specialist type position. She will no longer be that position because it looks like we're going to look at other ways to create that. But it's still a need, not a want at my school and at every school. As a teacher, I implore you to look as far away from the classroom as possible. And I know Trustee Villagrana said that sometimes we can't cut things because they're one-time funds. But I also know math. And I know that if you cut from here, you can move to here. And there's a little bit of room that we can wiggle things around. And I've seen you guys doing it. And you're doing the hard work. And I appreciate that. But perhaps we can look at those things that we can move into one-time
154funds to free up funds to keep these positions. They are important positions. And I want to reiterate, they are a need, not a want. I implore you, please keep our lit paras. They are so important. Our cafe specialists and our combo paras. Thank you. Thank you. Next, we have Stacey Mounts. I was here on December 11th where Mr. Guzman spoke on behalf of cafe specialists. He spoke of their importance and several others did too. Before and after his speech, Batista Zavala reiterated multiple times that no one sitting on the board has voted to eliminate them. She further stated, I just want to clarify, this idea is coming from the superintendent and cabinet and not the board. We need to consider it. I don't want anyone to leave here thinking that the board brought the idea
155forward. Well, fast forward to January 16th when the cafe specialists were told their jobs were eliminated. I doubt many of them are here tonight to advocate again because you see the deed has already been done. My question is why the need to continue to state the board didn't bring this forward. It's not the board's idea. The reality is you took a recommendation, voted, and a valuable resource was eliminated. You need to own that. And tonight there are more cuts and most of them directly impact our students. First generation college students from an underrepresented group? Sorry, no puente for you. Mostly B's and C's? No avid to help you be college and career ready. Love science and math? No mesa. Need a ride to school? Use Fred and Barney and get walking. Don't have internet? Bummer,
156no hot spot for you. Walking to school? Sorry kids, play Frogger, there's no crossing guard. Foster youth or experiencing homelessness? We can't help you. Sick or need medication? darn no health staff want to learn leadership skills have pride in your school or affect school climate love music love sports sorry too bad we don't offer those classes or extracurricular activities anymore need a book nope have a mental crisis too bad don't speak english sorry you can't understand the iep sorry no flags and no need for a seventh period day because we all have no electives Many staff positions at your school sites are on this cut list. All of these cuts are close to kids. They directly impact our kids at school sites every day. If you cut them, what are we supposed to tell our
157students? The things they need and enjoy at school are not important. I wonder, were we here tonight that these aren't your recommendations only to later learn you voted to eliminate them? I live in Woodland. I pay my taxes and my kids attend neighborhood schools. You are collecting my tax dollars. They are to be spent on my kids. Why do you have such a large reserve of $78.5 million and $60 million in unrestricted funds and why are you not spending it? What are your plans? If we have declining enrollment now, I am terrified to see how many people will take their kids elsewhere because we have nothing but reading, writing, and arithmetic to offer their kids. better be good at it too because we don't have any supports to help you if you aren't. Please think
158very very carefully about making cuts as far away from the daily life of our students who are all here tonight to speak to you about what's important to them. Thank you. Thank you. Okay is that it? I just want to. We'll move on now onto the information and to unto the. Sir? Yes. I just want to clarify that. After I made that statement, I did speak to other board members and I want to clarify that the board gave direction to the superintendent to bring back recommendations for potential cuts in order for us to meet our budget. And that's when that recommendation came forward as a possibility. And now it sits at the discretion of the board to make that decision. So I just want to clarify that I may have stated it incorrectly. Thank You
159trustee about these as a vala and now on to proposed budget adjustments reductions and elimination of particular kinds of services for 2627 school year Do you have a yes? We have a power presentation. So while that is being put up Just want to tell you that today Hopefully is our last discussion on budget reductions for now We're going to go through really quickly just to, I'm not gonna go through the whole thing that I've been doing each time, but just really quickly, just one more time, to say the purpose of the budget adjustments. Our district needs to make approximately 8.8 adjustments in order to reduce our deficit spending. It's not gonna take away our deficit spending. It's just gonna reduce it, and we wanna keep each time. Taken away from it so that we don't
160end up like sex city unified, right? So if we keep looking at the budget and making adjustments to reduce deficit spending To keep us in good standing not just now but for future years to come We also want to make sure that we are working and supporting Developing a multi-year projected healthy budget to present to the county office We want to make sure that we look at our budgets and maximize the use of available fundings as much as possible I think I'm miss young described it very well about moving things around And that's what we've been working on and we'll continue to do that to see how we can maximize the available grants available one time monies as we as we navigate through this process. We want to also prepare for increased costs. We all
161are feeling it in our own pockets at home with our PG&E bills and groceries. And the same is true for the district. Everything is costing more and we need to consider those impacts. And we also want to prepare for decreasing one time funds. There are one time funds that are just going away and we just can't sustain keeping items that we enjoyed with one-time monies when they're going away so we need to prepare for that and also prepare for potential federal fund impacts as you know things are very unstable at the federal government and then we also want to make sure that we meet our obligations and our obligations to take care of our staff to make sure that they get the increases and salaries and benefits and commit to those ongoing costs. In order
162to do that, we need to adjust our budget to meet those commitments that we have just made with our bargaining units because our teachers do. I do agree. They do deserve the best because they work really hard with our kids. So we need to make adjustments to meet our commitments. So just a really brief update again. Our estimated target is 8.8. We've had three board meetings. We've had a meeting on November 20th where we reviewed all the options. We had another meeting on December the 11th. We continue to discuss. And then, and there was a lot of questions. Thank you. There's lots and lots of questions asked by board trustees in preparation of those. meetings coming in in between the meetings before the meetings lots of emails and the data and information to the one
163I think the board for your thoughtful questions as I know this is very difficult it's not something we enjoy doing it was a lot more It was a lot more exciting to figure out what we were going to do with $35 million of one-time money that came from COVID, right? Those were much easier decisions to make than having to do the reverse. And so thank you for your thoughtful process and your time asking questions and also, you know, having the discussions here in public so that the public can also weigh in. On January 15th, last week, that was just last Thursday, the board took action on reducing $7.9 million. And so what remains now is another $892,000 to meet our 8.8 target. So that's where we're at tonight. And the bottom line is the one-time
164monies is decreasing. Our enrollment is decreasing. And our expenditures have increased and we just can't sustain that in order to making sure that we have a sustainable responsible budget that we to keep our district solvent from future years to come. So the only remaining things from the last board meeting that you requested, you requested some options. You made decisions on all the recommendations that were made. And the only remaining area that you wanted to continue discussion tonight was the para educators for literacy support. I also want to make a comment. I think it was Rebecca made a comment and she's correct. I want to make sure that the board understands this and that we're being very transparent. The para educators all of them fall under one category. So even if when we reduce literacy paras
165IT DOESN'T MEAN THAT IT'S THOSE SPECIFIC LITERACY PARAS. IT COULD BE ANY PARA IN THAT CATEGORY ACROSS THE DISTRICT. SO IT COULD BE OUR TK, OUR COMBO, DIFFERENT AREAS. SO IT IS A BIG, YOU KNOW, JUGGLING THAT WE NEED TO DO WITH HR, WORKING WITH OUR BARGAINING UNIT TO MAKE SURE WE GO THROUGH A SENIORITY LIST. SO IT'S NOT NECESSARILY THE PARA LITERACY THAT ARE CURRENTLY IN THOSE POSITIONS WHO MAY BE LAID OFF. IT COULD BE SOMEBODY ELSE ON THE LIST. SO I JUST WANT TO MAKE SURE THAT WE COMMUNICATE THAT AND WE HAVE THREE OPTIONS. OPTION A IS THE ORIGINAL RECOMMENDATION THAT I MADE TO THE BOARD. OPTION A, THE RECOMMENDATION, THE ORIGINAL RECOMMENDATION IS TO REDUCE 24 LITERACY PARIS FROM THE TOTAL FOR 40. THAT WOULD BE POSITIONS, 16 POSITIONS THAT WOULD BE
166SAVED. THAT WOULD REDUCE BY $900,000, WHICH WOULD MEET OUR TARGET. AND IF WE WANT TO, AND THEN THE REMAINING, THE ONLY WAY TO DO THIS IS THAT WE USE THAT 700,000 REMAINING INTO ONE-TIME FUNDS TO KEEP THEM FOR A LITTLE LONGER. I WILL STILL HAVE TO COME BACK TO YOU NEXT YEAR TO ADDRESS THE REMAINING ONES. OPTION B. One of the ideas of a trustee was to what if we put one literacy para, oh, sorry, let me go back to option A. Option A would be that we would keep the para educators at our low-performing schools and that we would keep our, supporting our combo classes. So option B. Same saves would be 25 out of the 40 that what this is a request from a trustee say well What it would what would it
167look like if we had one literacy pair at least at every school? Every elementary school and have at least two are low-performing schools That doesn't make it makes a little bit of adjustment right? It's um, that would be 25 out of 40 and that would be 15 positions and the cost would be reductions would be nine hundred and fifty thousand and the remaining expenses would be 650 which we will have to find 650 in one-time monies and those one-time monies can only be kept first, you know So long one-time monies right now. I have to come back And then option C, which was another recommendation from a trustee, was just to keep all our paras as is, which would be zero reductions, and it would be $1.6 million that we would have to find money
168in one time. So these are the three options that you have regarding literacy paras if you choose to reduce in that area. So I'll leave it to the board for discussion. Thank you, Superintendent. Any questions? Are there any comments or questions? Trustee Mojica-Rodriguez. The numbers reflected on there, I don't think they're the most up-to-date slides. If we want to change that out. Oh, perfect, thank you. Okay, thank you. We have the old slide. We'll just take a minute and let them get the updated slide up there. Do we want to call a break or? Do we have an ETA on how quickly? We're pulling it up on the flash drive. So are you asking for a break, Trustee Viedra? If it's going to be a while, then yes. But if not, then no. Okay. Thank
169you, Trustee Viedra. I'm just trying to reduce the pressure on the person. This is the correct one. Okay. It matches what I have in front of me on paper. Okay. So let me go to this really quickly again. Option A is the original recommendation that was made to you back in November, December, and January 15th. And that recommendation would be to eliminate 17.9 FTE out of the 29 FTE. What does that mean regarding positions? That's 24 positions out of 40. It would save 16 positions. The reduction would be $900,000, which would help us meet our target. And however, I would have to move the remaining expenses to one-time money, which at some point, that's going to have to come back to the board. A trustee requested for what it would look like, and that recommendation
170was to focus on our schools, our underperforming schools. And that recommendation was based on student data, student achievement. and trying to address some of the literacy gaps in our district. So that is why option A was a recommendation. And then also, you know, these are very difficult recommendations. It's not fun to be doing this. But this money, we were able to do this because of the one-time money that came to us. And some of the money that came to us for COVID, we wanted to, it was during COVID and it was after COVID. So how can, the original idea was how can we support our classrooms with the impact that they had with learning loss by, you know, being, having to, the online learning and all those pieces. And we wanted to really focus on
171the lower grades, the little ones who, some kids started kindergarten through Zoom. First grade a very critical year and developing literacy they were learning through zoom and so we wanted to use those one-time monies to address and support our students to With those funds and that's what we did. But unfortunately those monies are running out option B was a Trustee requested what it would look like if every single school at least had at least had one parent literacy Para professional that would support the lower grades and have two of the two at every at the local forming schools The amount came almost similar, but this would spread them out and that would be saving 15 positions and The cost the reduction would be nine hundred and fifty thousand which would help us meet our target,
172but I will still have to find, commit $650,000 in one-time monies to keep that. And then when that one-time money will run out, I'd have to reassess and come back to you with further recommendations. Option C is not eliminated at all and keep him for another year. It's $1.6 million. Use some one-time monies just to keep them for one more year and then bring it back for further discussion Later at that at that point we would not meet our 8.8 million dollar budget reduction Target, so I'll leave it up for your questions comments and discussion for the board any trustees have any comments or questions Just be a runner. So if we were to go with option C we will still have a 892,000 deficit to cover. Yes. So we'd have to find if we
173wanted to cover that we'd have to find another $892,000 from somewhere else to cover the structure deficit. Yes. Thank you. Or you can continue to you know with a larger deficit. Yeah. Thank you. Trustee Rodriguez-Mohica do you have a. I have thoughts and ideas but I want to wait to hear kind of what other trustees have to say on this. Trustee Richardson-Fowler. I'm in a similar boat to trustee Rodriguez-Mohica however I do wonder about and something that's coloring my view how the Prop 98 windfalls are going to have an impact. What number of funds we're supposed to be getting out of those several billions to Woodland and. If that would make it a wash I'm not inclined to cut a position that is so essential to filling a void bridging a deficit bridging a gap
174if we're going to get monies for it in April or May especially if I'm voting to oppose it and as I vote to oppose it I can't bring that topic back. Any comments on. on trustee Richardson's comments? Trustee Rodriguez-Majigota. Can you say more about the I can't bring it back I don't think I followed that. So I'll give you a concrete example. When it came to the health tax I voted no on eliminating the health tax and then we went on a fact-finding mission and got some more information which is also why I proposed having a new board format and then When I asked when trustee Brubaker brought back bringing forth the health tax She couldn't bring them forward because she didn't vote in the initial vote and then I couldn't bring them forward because
175I was a no vote So it had to be one of the people who voted to cut the positions who can bring it back Thank you that helps So in this case the vote board would to vote No, yes, that's correct. What Trustee Fowler just explained. The other way is also for me to bring it back again as a superintendent. I do have that ability to bring it back for consideration. Okay. Trustee Bautista-Zavala, do you have a comment or a question? No. Trustee Garcia. Yes. So if this change after COVID. How many paraprofessional way we have before? Before COVID, we had paraprofessionals for special ed. And we have some paraprofessionals for English learner newcomer support. And then sometimes our sites sometimes funded their own paraeducators. Since COVID, though, we've added TK paraeducators because it's required.
176So those are not in this because that's mandated as required. So that didn't happen before COVID because TK happened after COVID. No, actually, yes, the law changed on that. So if we were to eliminate all of the literacy paras, we would still have all our special ed paras, our TK paras, and our newcomer EL support paras. But we don't know how many are. I don't have that number. Yes I would like to have that. But we have a lot of special ed. I'm not sure that having just one paraprofessional for secondary like a middle school and high school is going to be enough. This is only this is only for elementary. Oh this is only for elementary. So we don't cut any for. No. I would like to see that. Oh where are the paraprofessionals.
177A report. A report. Yes. So but for today's purposes, we don't have any more time to make a decision because we have to make a decision tonight in order to go through the processes, the legal processes and the steps that we need to do for HR and notices and resolutions we have to bring to the board, give people an opportunity to address any seniority issues and notice people appropriately and legally in order to lay them off. So today is the final day. to make any decisions that could impact any potential layoffs. Trustee Villagrana, did you have a comment on? Yes. So before the COVID funds, did we have the literacy paras? No. So there was no literacy paras? No. So there was none. Thank you. Was that it, Trustee Garcia? Yeah. Trustee Brubaker, do you
178have a question or comment? Not at this time I'm kind of in a similar position to some of the trustees where I'm I'm not really sure where I think what I think of this Which has been different than other meetings so I might my comment is that I Mean we we understand why we're doing this. We know that We have to make difficult decisions or subsequent item will be about difficult decisions But I think we also need to be grounded in what we as a as a group have said that we want to see progress in that. What is our number one goal. What should be the number one goal for our superintendent. And that has all revolved around literacy. I'm not you know not naive. I understand that you know anything that might bring
179back all literacy or save literacy, we still have to deal with our deficit down the road. But it just seems to me if this is our number one priority and we've made it pretty much all the way through, whether it's us, whether it's the superintendent, and we can see the needs, we've got our reports, we've made some progress in some areas, but we've got a long way to go, it seems to me that uh you know for for me option c is is something that we can do this year um i think one of the things that might bring some small glimmer of hope is that the governor seems to have made literacy his project that he wants to help but it's not clear what that looks like or what kind of funds might actually
180develop from it but it's possible because he is you know bringing out a program that we might get help in that area and that that's a again that's a slight hope but it is a tangible hope because it seems like this is happening we just don't have the details yet so so to me I THINK THAT IF I LIKE TO ASK THE SUPERINTENDENT QUESTION. SO IF WE WENT WITH OPTION C, $1,600,000, WE COULD ALSO STILL GO BACK. WE HAD TALKED ABOUT GOING BACK INTO MONIES THAT HAD BEEN MOVED FROM TEACHER, CONTINUING EDUCATION FROM TEACHERS IN THE SUMMER. WE COULD USE THAT MONEY. TO BE ABLE TO PAY FOR OPTION C OR SOME PORTION OF OPTION C. FOR ONE YEAR. FOR ONE YEAR. I JUST HAVE TO SHARE. WE COULD DO THAT FOR ONE YEAR. WE
181ARE GOING TO BE DEFICIT SPENDING ANYWAY BECAUSE THAT'S HOW School budgets are difficult and with all these unknowns. We're gonna have a new governor We don't show what the new governor is gonna do. We haven't gotten any concrete decisions We'll know more in the May revise doesn't mean the money arrives in May But we'll know more than may revise about where this may be going at the state level We can go ahead and do the 1.6 and wait till next year and then we'll have to face These other options potentially so it's not it's not it's not gonna get easier. It's gonna get harder And I just want to be very honest and transparent that it's going to get harder. So we can wait, but we're not going to get away with facing these realities.
182Yeah, I think there's no question that there needs to be a... Maybe a discussion out beyond what we're doing here, but there needs to be an ongoing effort year-round To taking a look at where we can have cost savings You know, we've already looked in the areas that that we've talked about tonight. Here are some other areas That we may have to look at seriously Do one extent or another but for this particular discussion for this particular year, I think that my opinion would be to go with C and then if we can use the monies that were shifted from the summer continuing education for our teachers to mitigate some part of it or all of it, it would be up to you. Can I make a comment on that? If the board were to
183consider option C, my recommendation would be to the board is to put a hiring freeze. people leave or positions open to readjust and shuffle so that we're not having to pace the least people possible when we actually get to layout. So I would request that if you were to choose option C that you give me that direction to do that because that just makes it easier for everyone. Okay, very well. Going back around, Trustee Villagran, do you have any comments? Okay, Trustee Mojica, any comments? Are you making a motion for this, or how are we? I'm not making a motion yet. I'm going back to, you had said you wanted to hear what everybody else had to say, and so I'm coming back to you. I agree with what you said. My only conflict is
184that it is using one-time funds, so it would be one year, right, which is better than losing them all in this year. But I agree with what you said I feel like we've made a big commitment as a board to literacy we still have that literacy plan that's coming back to us soon hopefully for approval. I know we put in a lot of time and energy and dollars to creating that literacy plan. So I am also in support of option C knowing that in a way it's a band aid solution because it's only one one year. And I agree with you also in using that summer PD timesheets money. And I have a clarification because it's a I'm having a little bit of a hard time understanding the reductions column and then the remaining expenses
185because on I'll say on the chopping block for the literacy paras since the very beginning it has not been all the literacy paras. It's only been the 17.9 correct. So this is a 900000 dollar cost. That so basically we'd be pulling nine hundred thousand dollars from the summer PD timesheets to be able to save the seventeen point nine literacy pair of positions. So it's not one point six million one point six million is a total because not all of them were on the chopping block before right. Am I understand. I have never all been on. They have never all been on the chopping block. Yes. From the get go. My recommendation was never to eliminate all of them. It was just a start. Reducing yes and eventually having to come reduce again So it's only
186nine hundred thousand then that it's gonna cost us the 1.6 million is what's kind of freaking me out a little bit That's a very big number. That's the way this is right now not to cut any Option C all of them to keep them all as there are now there would be no savings no reductions, right? That means is 1.6 million to keep them all as is Even though it was only seventeen point nine that were ever Being considered for elimination and that I was 900,000 I added to see because the trustee requested not to cut any to not to cut any Then that would be to keep all of the FTE all of the positions, which is 40 positions It would be the twenty nine point nine FTE which If you look at each
187individual person is for it's 40 people because not all of them work for all time And so that would mean it's 1.6 million That was never recommended because I needed to start looking at where to reduce Right. So that C just got added Due to the board request to bring me to bring this back option forward. The only recommendation we have made was option a Right, but it's up to the board to ask for more options and this is what I'm providing For option C. We are only pulling we would only pull 900,000 from the summer PD then right? Well, I would need to find 1.6 million I don't, I would need to, let me see. It was already, the other part is already in one-time money. Danielle, can you come explain? Hear what you're
188saying trustee mojica. Yes it we would have had to pay $700,000 out of one-time expenses already So what we're talking about is an additional 900. That's my adding that right an additional $900,000 we'd have to find in one-time funds But the total amount to keep them all would still be that 1.6 million. Is that what you were saying? Yeah, I think so. It's still moving only 900,000 new money because you all were already moving 700. So the 700 is already kind of accounted for if you had approved it. Yes. Okay. That helps me. Thank you. I hope I didn't confuse anyone else. I was just really having a hard time understanding that. But I'm in support of C. That's the bottom line here. And so generally, I think if I'm just making a comment on
189your comment would be to support option C and then directing the superintendent to be able to use summer PD timesheet or hiring. Freeze did you say no? What was I would like to if if C is what you want to do? So if you look at the last column That's what we would move into one-time money for option a we would have to find $700,000 and one-time money to to do option a to do option B we would have to find nine hundred and fifty thousand out of one-time money, which we've already kind of marked as potential and then if we do option C then it's a hundred one point million one point six million that would go into one-time money so all of this options are one-time money options is only one year now
190it doesn't mean that they'll have to they'll stay there forever when we look at the the budget next year when I come back and I reconsider and I want to change this because the board directs me to make this priority then I'll have to come back could potentially with other positions to put on the table as potential reductions. So I just want to make sure that we're very clear. We can do this, but then we're going to have to face this and we can wait. But that's the reality. Trustee. So I know we keep talking about the literacy paras as if they were a luxury of COVID and we're not taking into account the fact that our kids and our schools are completely different since the pandemic. I mean, one of the major outcomes of
191the pandemic is so many people think that they can do the jobs of teachers because they did it during the pandemic or they think that school is optional and we see that in attendance. And so when you've got attitudes like I can do what teachers do, I can do what these paras do, and they don't value the education that they're getting, as well as feeling like school is optional, there needs to be much more individualized instruction that goes into educating the kids now. And so I don't see these as just a luxury of the pandemic. I see these as essential going forward until we as a society change our mindset back to the importance of school because that's not where we are as a society right now. That said, I stick with C because it's
192a start. And if we start here, then we can start figuring out how to fund them from here on out because we need them. And just to clarify, I want to make sure our paraeducators. LITERACY PARADISTS KNOW THAT THEY'RE BEEN VERY CRITICAL AND VERY IMPORTANT. I WAS ONE OF THEM IN MY PAST LIFE. THAT'S HOW I STARTED IN THIS DISTRICT BEFORE WORKING IN THE FIELDS. I ENDED UP THEN BECOMING A PARA EDUCATOR. AND SO I UNDERSTAND THE IMPORTANCE AND THE IMPACT THAT THEY CAN MAKE. SO IT WAS NEVER MY INTENTION. I HOPE THAT THAT WAS NOT THE COMMUNICATION. WE JUST HAVE A RUNNING OUT OF OPTIONS. AND WE HAVE OTHER POSITIONS, TOO, THAT WE'VE CONTINUED AND REPRIORITIZED DUE TO THE IMPACT OF COVID. FOR EXAMPLE, WE'VE INCREASED COUNSELORS. AND COUNSELORS WERE NOT ON THE LIST.
193We added social workers. Our families are struggling, so social workers are not on the list at this time. But it could be potentially that I might be forced to have to bring other recommendations. It's just gonna get harder and harder to come to you forward with recommendations. And I'm willing to do that, so that's why I have this job, right? To make those difficult recommendations. And then, you know, you discuss, and whatever the boards will, I will do. I do request, though, that you consider, if you give me option C, to put a hiring freeze. So are we going all the way around because I would like to motion to go with option C with the hiring I'm coming all the way around because trustee Brubaker still has to okay. So just about this is
194a valid. Do you have any comments? Yeah, I'm fine with supporting option C, you know, I'm reading the school services budget workshop and I'm Wanted to make sure that I understood what? funding was coming or proposed by the governor which is it looks like it's like 40 million one time to support continued implementation of student reading difficulties and screenings so I think that maybe it may not be the 40 million but it seems like it's going to be something so I'm optimistic and hopeful and maybe our school district can chime in and help champion and advocate for you know school districts like ours. So you know it's one thing to support option C but it's another one to actually put this option to play and advocate for it and at the legislature given that we're
195just right here. So I want to challenge you that if you're going to vote in favor or support item C I don't know if we even have to vote for it because we're not making any cuts but if you're going to support it that we actually you know put ourselves to the test and go and ask for this funding. Because if we don't, we're really not doing the due diligence that is needed in order for us to maintain this investment. And we need also funding advocacy for flexibility because the governor, we don't know what regulations and limitations. or flexibility they will provide us with those funds. And I have to tell you, 40 million, that's not a lot of money. That's statewide. So I wouldn't even say, like, hey, if you're going to go and
196champion and advocate, don't ask for 40 million. Ask for more because that's probably going to turn out to be pennies when it comes here. It will be pennies. And I think that funding was for that new literacy assessment that we're doing to diagnose students' learning difficulty. And there might be some monies there to help with some staff development. and understanding that diagnosis. So it might not be 1.6 million. We don't know. We'll have to wait. It's a guessing and it's kind of, I don't want to make a decision on monies that we're not sure what the amount is going to be they're going to receive. We have to make decisions on what we know now. We can always adjust later when we have concrete information, but right now we don't know. Okay, thank you any
197comments on trustee Bautista Zavala's comment? No. Trustee Garcia do you have a comment? I have a question. So do we know how many positions are on field? I don't know that right now, but if the board gives me direction I will not fill them starting tomorrow. Okay, that's it. Okay, Trustee Brubaker? So I am very conflicted because I know we need to make adjustments, but I also was a kid that struggled to learn to read. And I am concerned if we go with option C, we will be back here next year and looking at the same line item because as much as I love our paraprofessionals and I know that we need them, I also know we need our counselors and we need a lot of other things that we also need to have. And
198part of me is more inclined to go with one of the other options to see how that goes and make adjustments next year, seeing how things have changed. It does not sound like my colleagues are thinking along those lines. So I do want to ask for a clarification on what a hiring freeze would mean, because I know we do have critical positions that are vacant. So I just got clarified the trustee Garcia's question right now we have two unfilled literacy Paris So that would mean that I would not fill those I might have to read just all my staff would have to redistribute Paris to make sure that our low-performing schools are covered and make some adjustments. We look at how we're allocating Through the equity lens about where the most needs are and you
199know continue to adjust when there's an opening Not fill it and readjust what the Paris are for literacy. And so that's what that would mean But right now we do have two open positions that it's a board to action tonight I would not I would direct staff to freeze heart to a hiring freeze so that when we're here next year If we have let's say ten people that somehow for whatever reason retire move get married that you know things happen that we would have at least Less to have to make decisions on So for clarification you are asking for a hiring freeze on literacy para professionals not district-wide if we do Option C. Oh We're talking about literacy paras I would request that we do a hiring freeze for literacy paras like because I can't
200do a district-wide because we have to have her for TK And we have to have paraeducators per IEPs in special ed. So it can't be, it would have to be specific for those positions. Thank you. Or those assignments. Are there any comments on Trustee Brubaker's, Trustee Bautista Zavala? There's a hiring freeze and there's a hiring frost. So I think. modifying our recruitment practices due to fiscal uncertainty and you know enrollment fluctuations I think it's something that needs to be agendized I think it's hard for me to say yeah I'm gonna support this when in reality I think we should position our district in a conversation that's agendized that we could be presented with information that tells us which positions we have to legally have staff and which we don't have to, that could potentially be
201frozen or frosted. And then I think the board could better identify, okay, you know what? We feel comfortable here. And then, you know, identifying what the cost savings would be in order to meet the budget demands. But I get what you're trying to do tonight. Meet the budget. that we're trying to get to but I think in terms of like hiring freezes or frosting really needs to be identified and we need to have a plan I I personally don't feel comfortable giving direction in terms of freezing or frosting the only ones we have flexibility on are the para educators and Then and the EL Paris other than that all the other ones we have to have So we're only talking about two two particular assignments trustee with these maker What's a hiring frost a hiring
202frost allows for limited hiring with special approval and it slows down the hiring pace allowing for more staffing assessment prior to initiating the recruitment So it allows for reconsiderations. So we would give the superintendent. Hey, it's not a freeze It's a frost to allow her and the HR department to have special rights to reconsider Either one will work for us. I do have a comment. Are we still going around or? It was a comment on Trustee Brubaker's. Yeah. Are you you're done. OK. So I will have a comment and then come because it's not on. So I think I'd like to try and make a motion. I think that in the motion will obviously be for option C and just giving giving we know that that's what we want within this capsulized understanding. Right. We
203know that We know that this is just going to be a it's a it's an ongoing process about figuring out where we have to cut Right now if we don't make a decision for option C You know, it'll be it'll be it'll be limited in regards to what we have available from these options And again, it goes back to at this moment in time in line with everything we said that we wanted to support and be about I think Option C is reasonable understanding that it's gonna take continuing ongoing monitoring of the budget. So it can't just be these kinds of sessions to me anymore. We're gonna have to really participate in taking a look at what could be available as a board. But there is much to be said I think for Trustee Richardson-Fowler's
204earlier comment which is that If we're going to make a commitment and we know we need to make a commitment, not because we want to necessarily, but because we need to, we understand what the scores are. We understand there is a lot of work that we have to do. This doesn't help that work. And so I think with that. I WILL MAKE IT RIGHT NOW. I WANT TO HEAR WHAT YOU HAVE TO SAY, TRUSTEE RODRIGUEZ. MY INTENT IS TO MAKE A MOTION FOR OPTION C AND TO ALLOW THE SUPERINTENDENT TO FIGURE OUT WHAT IS THE BEST WAY TO ACCOMMODATE THAT OPTION. ANY COMMENTS ON MY COMMENT? THE HIRING FREEZE, I AM A LITTLE CONCERNED ABOUT THAT. I UNDERSTAND THE PURPOSE AND THE ROLE THAT IT WOULD SERVE. But I worry that, you know, I mean,
205people leave their jobs, step out for a variety of reasons, right? Life happens. There's a lot that can happen. And I worry about how low that FTE for the literacy paras would drop. So that's my concern. I support option C. And I do understand why the hiring freeze or the hiring frost would be helpful. But I worry about... And also not really knowing how low we are in the literacy paras right and what schools are serving and what's going on there. So I would like to retain the support option C but keep the 29 para positions with no hiring freeze or we could put a cap on the hiring freeze maybe but I worry about how low that number of paras is going to go without us maybe not even knowing. I guess my comment,
206I don't know if I can do a reflection off of you and come back here to superintendent. What does that mean practically for you if you were to try to do this without hiring freeze? It would just take away my ability to look things through an equity lens. So let's say there was a high-performing school. If there was a hiring if I had that ability I would be reshuffling our resources where they're most needed and using an equity lens to that in this case that would not I would not be able to do that I would just fill the positions as is now and now I'm bringing it back to you next year trustee I don't know that I'm following that. So you would not be able to move paras around? No, not if you're
207telling me not to do a hiring freeze, then you're not giving me any flexibility at all. Now that I'm hearing the discussion, I'm leaning towards more what Trustee Zavala about a hiring frost. It's more I think would be mean halfway It just takes away the ability to make those decisions with my staff to not only keep an eye on where the needs are but also keep an eye on the budget piece and giving me that flexibility to make sure that our schools are covered but I'm prioritizing the need as I'm also looking at for the future on Coming to you to support you and going through another round of budget reductions Mean I guess I'm not entirely following because my understanding of this is that if we say let's say we all agree to keep
208all 29 literacy paras It doesn't say on there that they need to be spread out equally across the sites. So in my mind, you still have discretion to move them around and put four, five literacy paras at one school if you think that's what's needed and none at two of them. That's, to me, us voting on that does not take away your ability to do that. But I don't know if I'm misunderstanding this. I don't see any language on there that says that they must be at, you know, X number of schools or so many have to be there. I'm just saying that because our staff right now, all our teachers, that's what they have right now. So they would need to understand that that's what I would do. Otherwise, you're going to get public
209comment and emails. And I just want to make sure that I'm clear on what direction and flexibility you're giving me. So we're with we left off with trustee Monica Rodriguez. Is there a comment on trustee or the mojigas is comments? Sorry about that. No. Okay. I trust you Richardson Fowler. Do you have a comment? Trustee about this is a voila trustee Garcia trustee blue breaker. I just want to I I am very concerned if we go with option C we are going to have to come back next year and We can't we wouldn't be able to afford them and that will be a big shock to the system Whereas if we went with one of the other options We can adjust and have some time to see how things go I don't like any of
210the options to be clear. I don't think any of us do that's my only hesitation but it does not sound like the that is Their support for that. So I will I mean I'm good I'm going to comment on that. Okay. Your sentiment goes for all of the items that we continue to move forward. Whatever we don't try to adjust, I'm just going to say adjust, is going to have to be reconsidered in later years. We don't have the votes to cut these positions. I just want to say, you know, what you just said is what we're going to have to keep doing every year. You know, you're probably going to mention that when we get to the next one, which is the CAFE specialists. If that doesn't get reconsidered this time, it's going to
211have to be reconsidered every year. So I invite you to look at that with the same lens in the next items that are up. comment on to a Subaru Baker's comment This is just it's an ongoing process right we we can vote to go ahead and do option C allow the superintendent to use her her best abilities to Make sure that it's done in a way that reflects what we want and yet that does the last harp I think there's a lot of different options and then and then we will we I think we should then be reviewing that. She should then come back to us and let us know how it is that she did it. Because literacy, the importance of literacy, still is going to be shaped by how we move forward with
212our literacy plan. And in fact, how much we all want to fight for literacy and how much we want to take a look at our test scores and figure out what we want to do about them. So this is just a constant machine where we know we have to get rid of our deficit spending. We're doing it a little bit at a time. And here is an ask to be able to back up what we have said is important to us. and what we know is a tremendous need. A TREMENDOUS NEED FOR OUR STUDENTS TO BE ABLE TO HAVE LITERACY SUPPORTS. AND I THINK THAT'S JUST KIND OF WHAT IT COMES DOWN TO. AND THIS PROCESS OF TRYING TO FIGURE OUT WHERE TO MAKE BUDGET CUTS, THAT'S JUST GOING TO BE, TO ME, IT'S GOING
213TO BE AN ONGOING THING THAT WE HAVE TO PARTICIPATE IN. ONGOING. EVEN THOUGH HERE WE'RE DOING IT IN A COMPONENT, I THINK THIS IS GOING TO BE A YEAR-ROUND THING THAT WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT AS A BOARD, HOW WE PARTICIPATE IN THAT. So I'm going to make a motion. I'm gonna make a motion to support option C and to allow the superintendent to figure out the best way to get option C done. Given all the options, whether it's summer PD, whether it's the freeze, any other option that we can think about and come about. Do I have a second for my own motion? Second. So motion has been made by myself and seconded for option C and to allow the superintendent the flexibility to do the best she can to make it happen. I'm
214going to ask for a friendly amendment. Yes ma'am. I'm going to ask that the board be updated of the adjustments that the superintendent makes. I don't know, how much time do you need, superintendent? It would be an update for next year because right now I wouldn't make any changes for this remainder of the year I just think that it's important for you guys to be updated there would be next year if you guys and I'd rather have this do a fight effect Because if I'm gonna be questioned about where I place people that's getting into the how and that's not really the board's role I accept the friendly amendment. If the amendment is to simply get a report back about how option C happens and the choices that the superintendent makes, then I accept the
215friendly amendment. Thank you. And the only reason I'm asking for this is that if the board decides to do something similar to this in a different motion, that you guys... I think we're going to be fully engaged in how we help support literacy amongst many other things. Okay. So we have a motion again to choose option C with allowing the superintendent to figure out what the best way is to make that happen essentially and to have the superintendent give us a report back once she has figured out the pathway. to make it happen. Yes, and already I've been having discussions with my staff in cases this was gonna happen tonight that I was going to figure out, need to have data to demonstrate what kind of impact these positions are making. So we're gonna have
216to figure out how to identify certain groups that are being worked out and monitor that. We do some of our tools like iReady to see the impact on how our paras are making on student achievement. Okay, we have a motion and a second. Is there any discussion? Okay, we'll put this to a vote. We'll start with Trustee Rodriguez-Mohica. How do you vote? Yes. Trustee Richardson-Fowler? Yes. Trustee Bautista-Zavala? Aye. Trustee Garcia? Yes. Trustee Brubaker? No. No. Trustee Rodriguez? Yes. Trustee Villagrana? Because I don't know where the money's coming from to balance the budget, I'm going to abstain. Abstain. Okay, so the motion passes with five yeses and one no and one abstention. Okay, I want to state one thing, just for clarity. Oops. The board has made decisions. The end of all this process, we are
217reducing by $7.9 million, $8,000. regarding this round. And I know I want to thank the board for again what I said earlier, your due diligence, your questions, your thoughtfulness. And just to give you, to be transparent with all of you, with the public and teachers, I'll be coming back again next year unfortunately with additional recommendations for cuts. But for now, we are done with this process. Thank you very much everyone these are very difficult decisions and yes, thank you for being all engaged and thank you superintendent for You know letting us know what it takes to make happen what the board is asking for Okay, so now we're going back to LL to having Having finished with the M agenda item LL one sorry going back to L teaching and learning L1 information action review
218review approved school accountability report card. So we have here every year the state We are required to have the school accountability report cards that they're published by the state Our principals are committed principals have been waiting here I know they've been in the back catching up with emails and things, but they're here waiting in case you have any questions. And so we ask for your approval. These need to be approved before February 1st. So it is an urgent item that we need to address tonight. Very well. Do we have any questions on L1? Any comments or any questions? No comments. The questions there is a motion to approve l1 review approved school accountability report cards Do we have a second second seconded by trustee Garcia? Is there discussion? Okay, so I'm gonna start with trustee
219Richardson Fowler. Yes Yes trustee But this is a vala. Hi Yes trustee Garcia, yes. Yes Trustee Brubaker is not here. Trustee Rodriguez, myself, yes. Trustee Villagrana? Abstention. Abstention. Okay. So we have four yeses, one abstention, and two missing, two trustees missing. So it passes. It is approved. So, principals, you're more than welcome to get going, or you're welcome to stay with us longer if you like. I know what I would do. Very good. Thank you everyone for being here Thank you to all our our principals all our staff for staying late now moving on to Okay, I'd like to request that we move to item l3 Because that is a time sensitive item that we need to have this Policy be approved. It's a new policy. So item l3 is a time sensitive Policy that
220we need to consider tonight trustees were being asked by the superintendent to Go directly to l3 before we get to 2. Is there any objection to that? No, seeing no trustee Villagrana. I guess my only objection is that I'm not ready to approve it today Should be an information item and then comes back at the next meeting for approval That would be my only objection. So there's a lot of questions so Superintendent you're saying that it must be approved today, please. Dr. Wilson. Can you come up? Good evening everyone there is a deadline of January 31st 2026 to have this board policy in in place That's all I can state So trust you Aaron when did we come aware of this deadline? It came through in December. So we were told in December that it
221had to be approved by January 30th. I became, yeah, that's when the legislation was brought forth for me to see. I can go back and look specifically on the date. It was, I'm looking at, hold on. It was Assembly Bill 153. And so I can go back and look specifically on that. I mean I don't need the exact day in December but it was the month of December that the school districts were notified by the legislature that it had to be implemented by January 30th. I believe that that it was. Yes I believe. Trustee Bautista Zavala did you have a question. I'm looking up the bill right now. Thank you. Okay, so the ask is to go to L3 and Trustee Villagrana, I note your comment, but if we could go to L3 and if
222we had four votes to move it forward, then that would carry the item. Do you have any comment? TO WHAT I JUST SAID. I ALREADY COMMENTED. OKAY. ALL RIGHT. OKAY. SO CAN I JUST GET FOUR SHOW OF HANDS TO MOVE TO L3? OKAY. WE HAVE FIVE, I THINK. TWO. CAN'T COUNT. SIX. OKAY. HERE WE GO. OKAY. L3. INFORMATION ACTION REVIEW NEW BOARD POLICY MENTAL HEALTH. Good evening everyone. Um, so We have a recent update to state law This item is presented to you. It is a brand new mental health board policy For all school districts. We have not had this before so for you today is the CSBA version of this policy With no modifications to what they have put forth for your review Do we have any questions or comments. Trustee Richardson-Fowler. The language
223in this policy is this straight from the bill or did we synthesize much. I have not touched straight from the California School Board Association recommendation. I have not touched it at all. Trustee Bautista Zavala do you have a question. I mean this one this became statute in 2024. Which one. This SB 5 1 5 3. So, I mean, the only reason I'm chiming in as far as when it became statute is because we need to do a better job about when we bring these board policies for consideration. Like if this took statute in 2024, then we had all of 2025 to start working on this. So I feel like we're just being presented this very last minute. I'm going to stop there. I'm going to echo in on that one. Trustee Richardson-Fowler, do you have
224a comment on Trustee Bautista Zavala's comment? I do, because we're dealing with at least five different Assembly bills and State Senate bills here, some that go back as far as 2019, but the most recent one is 2025. I see that there's a lot of stuff that's convoluted in here but it might behoove us to do some sort of a monthly update of what's coming down the pipeline with education ledge. That being said since we're talking about staff cuts maybe we also as trustees take that initiative on our own to continue to look up what's going on and then touch base with our district as well. One of the things that I mean is the reality is that these Items are passed by the legislator legislation and it takes a while for organizations at CSBA Acts
225of whoever to start providing like what does this mean in practice? What is what would this look like into policy and When they start developing the sample policies we start hearing about it as well. So I just wanted Just to just to give you a perspective that once something has passed it takes a while for people to read and understand it and just ask questions about what that means in policy and then we kind of we really follow CSBA to assist us with bringing a policy that they feel is aligned to the law and requirements. So I just want to give that perspective and all fairness to staff as well. But yes this is one option the board can consider is to approve it tonight. and bring it back again for further discussion for revisions
226to answer your questions so that we meet the required deadline. You can pass it and ask us to bring it back to you in two months so that we as to answer all the questions and make additional revisions to meet the deadline and also come back and you make changes. That's another option to consider. So part of this bill. Sorry go ahead. I just saw Trustee Villegas on his hand up. You have a comment on Trustee Bautista Zavala's comment. No I had a concern I was going to express but I can wait. OK. OK Trustee Bautista Zavala are you done with your comments. No. OK. I don't want to go over on my my turn. OK. I'm going to say one more thing. OK. So this policy says that it shall be developed in consultation
227with school and community stakeholders and school-linked behavior health professionals and shall at minimum address procedures relating to referrals to behavior health professionals and support services. So I don't even know that we've done the community engagement and school-linked engagement with our professionals. to engage in this policy, you know? And I get what you're saying, Superintendent. Like, yeah, we look to the associations that we belong to, AXA, CALSA, CLSBA, CSBA, but we can't rely on them. We're associated with them for best practices. You know, that's why we have our legal counsel. This is why we have an opportunity to participate in contract consultants to help us abide with laws. So we can't just rely on the associations that we're linked to. with professional membership and dues. We need to do a better job about how we implement
228the bills that we're being held accountable for. And by all means, I'm not pointing the finger at our staff. We as a board have a responsibility and duty to abide by the law, and if we need to provide staffing policy supports, then that's something that this board needs to consider as we continue crafting our budget for future years. Okay, any other comments on trustee but this is of all the comment no, okay trustee Garcia, do you have a comment trustee Brubaker? I have a question. It's it's can we can we still add language? Right now. Yes. Yep. Okay. Here's a question I couldn't recall, and I didn't see it when I read. Do we survey our students on a yearly basis on their mental health issues or our mental health services? Specifically on the mental
229health services, no, but we do do twice a year what we call the mental health self-evaluation for students. So they do take two surveys per year where we determine the intrinsic and extrinsic or outward and inward mental health needs of the student. Our schools use those to support. You would see them in the safety plan. You'll see them in their SPSAs about making determinations about decisions on what to do on the campuses and who to target that have identified themselves as in need of mental health support, but not on. the actual services being presented. Not on the services being presented. Right. Okay. I don't think it's, I may want to ask for, if we can add a language to do a survey of our students, of our mental health services. Do you think that's fairly
230easy to do? I shouldn't say easy, but is that reasonable? Is that a reasonable ask? I think that. It may be it is a part of what is asked here to make sure that students are aware of What is available and how to access that so as a part of that that could be a part of that process Okay, thank you. Just be run clarification asking for a survey or an evaluation of This from the students of the services. Well, I would want to know what the students felt about our services, whether they thought they, so we could change to evaluations that better fit that definition. Basically getting feedback from the students about our services. Yeah, to me a survey is more like asking their opinion about what services they need versus their feedback on
231the services they've received. That's always clarifying as to what, so that staff is clear. Yeah, I guess I was just thinking of a survey of a method to have them evaluate it. But I probably would just leave it up to staff, you know, just say can we get an evaluation, direct responses back from the students. Okay, that was my comment. Trustee Villagran? So I have a lot of questions and concerns. A lot of it's just like by when some things are gonna happen, because it's not clear, but one of the main ones, I guess. If you want to look at it one two three four five the six paragraph starts the superintendent Disney shall ensure that all certified employees and says and 40 percent of classified employees I'm like why 40 percent why not 100
232percent. And so there's more but that's like a big one to me that like anyway. So just sharing my concern. Do we have an answer for that? As it's written in the bill, I can read it to you here. It's pursuant to Education Code 49428.2, as added by Senate Bill 153, the district is required by July 1, 2029, to certify. to CDE that 100% of its certificated employees and 40% of its classified employees who have direct contact with students in grades seven through 12 have received youth behavioral training at least one time. So that is how it's written. Again, that was the bill, that's the CSBA presentation of the requirement. And you obviously can make the changes. Trustee Mojica. Rodríguez. Oh I'm sorry I'm sorry. Same sentence at least one time one time during their
233entire career or every how often you know how soon does does it need to happen you know after they're hired. I mean it's just there's a lot of vagueness in here. So that's all. Trustee Villagrana are you open to the suggestion that that they could we could pass it tonight but then. Bring it back for these revisions that these types of revisions that we're talking about today. I don't see how else we could meet the deadline. Yeah. Understood. OK. Trustee Roligis-Molica. I want to clarify are you requesting that that edit be made for next time it comes back. And what is the edit on that particular item you were talking about. Among others. OK. I agree with that. I actually have the exact same comment on my PDF. And I'm also thinking about I can
234imagine that it'd be really challenging to actually monitor the 40% of classified staff with people coming in and out of positions and being part-time, full-time. So I think that's another reason why I think just saying all would just be better. But I do have another one. The two paragraphs below that or the second paragraph below. So I think that's actually at the bottom of page one. Annually the superintendent or designee shall provide and require all certificated employees serving students in grades 7 to 12 to participate in at least one hour of cultural competency training. Right. And I'd actually like us to explore going below grade 7. I understand that maybe it just says grade 7 to grade 12 because that's what you know it said but I think maybe we can discuss an expanding that
235training beyond 7th through 12th grades. So that would be my request for next time it comes back for revision. And I don't have a specific grade level that I want to go down to. I think that's up for conversation but I feel like it should expand beyond 7 to 12. Comments on Trustee Mohica's comments. Just to be clear can you repeat what what you just said in regards to what Trustee Beabie Baker supported. Sure. So it's page 1. So the second paragraph from the bottom it says annually the superintendent or designee shall provide or require all certificated employees serving students in grades 7 to 12 to participate in at least one hour of cultural competency training. And I'm saying. That's great, but let's expand those grade levels. So it's not just certificated staff in grades
2367 to 12 It to be taken up when it comes back for the revision. That's right. Okay Okay, trustee Richardson Fowler Nothing. Nothing. Okay trustee about this is evolved. We've come back to you. No Trustee Garcia just be weak. Okay, so I'd like to make a motion to To I'd like to make a motion to approve the new board policy mental health policy with the understanding that the policy will be brought back in before the end of the year before the end of the year to make the revisions that we've talked about. Is there a second. Second. Seconded by Trustee Brubaker. Is there any discussion. I actually had other requests. Can I should I just email those later and that you all can include it. Email all your requests that way staff has all the
237information. That'd be great. OK. I'll do that. And if you could do it between now and the end of February. So the staff has time to redo it and then we run it through legal counsel make sure that we didn't change anything that we weren't supposed to change. OK. And any other trustees can follow suit the same way. OK. Any other discussion. No, okay. Let's call this to a vote. We'll start with trustee Bautista Savala. Aye. Trustee Garcia. Yes. Trustee Brubaker. Yes. Trustee Rodriguez. Yes. Trustee Villagrana. No. Trustee Rodriguez-Mohica. Yes. Trustee Richardson-Fowler. Yes. Okay, the motion passes with six yes and one no. And so we have approved. THE NEW BOARD POLICY ON MENTAL HEALTH. NOW WE ARE GOING BACK TO L2. INFORMATION, IMPLEMENTATION TO MOVE HIGH SCHOOL SCHEDULES TO SIX PERIODS, EFFECTIVE 2027-2028 SCHOOL
238YEAR. WE HAVE ONE PUBLIC COMMENT. SORRY ABOUT THAT. WE HAVE A, I'M GOING TO MESS UP THIS NAME, LAST NAME, NICK SAD. He might not be here. Is our public comment here? No? Okay. So he's not here. So we will continue on to L2 and presentation. Okay. Just a point of order. It is approaching 10 o'clock. And if we're going to extend the meeting, we need to talk about that soon. So the board can the meeting can go up to 11 mm-hmm And you'd have to you know vote if you want to extend after 11, but we still but we'd like to usually check in I'm just saying that our bylaws say that at 10 o'clock We need to go over the agenda items and decide if we're doing that and I'm pretty sure we'll
239be presenting at 10 o'clock Trustee about trustee via Donna. Do you want to make a comment? Last time I read I recall it said 11. I don't remember saying 10. I'm looking at it right now it says at 10 p.m. the board president will go through the remaining agenda items and full board full board will determine which items to table. But not to extend it. Yeah, so like right now I requested to do the mental health one because that's urgent I kind of leaning towards looking at the HR items because that's People's positions so I'd like to request that we look at the H items so that we can get those people hired and moving forward This area and some of the other policies other policies can be tabled so right now Sorry, Lori, but
240I think the priority would be the HR items and those should be quick And then this L2. So you're saying to go. Just to clarify. Yes. I'm not saying we're doing the vote. I'm just saying to be in compliant with our board policy at 10 o'clock, we've got to go over the agenda. If we were presenting then, we would not make that deadline. Okay. So saying simply let's just take the vote right now to extend no. You could. I'm just saying at 10 o'clock, we're supposed to go over the board agenda for our bylaws. So at 10 o'clock we'll just check in to see how we're doing. Which is in about 10 minutes. Yeah. This is a check in. Okay. So. Trustee Richardson-Fell. I'm just going to reiterate that we were going to start a
241very dense topic and if we had started that dense topic we would not have been in compliance with our bylaw of going over the agenda at 10 o'clock. That's it. That's all. So did we want to do that earlier? Right so that we can do that now We can do that now we can go over a quick topic. We can do whatever It's clever. So my recommendation because I'm not sure how long the the item for the sixth period is going to go the matter of urgency would be discussing first items under in Human resources because those are time sensitive to hire people and then continue on with L2 and then we could if needed we can table the rest of the policies Okay any any objection? Seeing none. We will then move to end
242human resources and one Needs action approved variable term waiver request for Spanish bilingual authorization. Are there any questions? See no questions is there a motion to approve variable term waiver request for Spanish bilingual authorization Move to sorry trustee Just see Garcia moves to approve and who seconded Brubaker seconds Brubaker second any discussion and we'll put it to vote. We'll start with trustee Garcia trustee Garcia. Yes Trustee Brubaker. Yes Just sure the regas. Yes TRUSTEE VIEGRANA. YES. TRUSTEE RODRIGUEZ-MOJICA. YES. TRUSTEE RICHMOND FOWLER. YES. TRUSTEE BATISTA ZAVALA. YES. IT IS APPROVED. N1 IS APPROVED BY UNANIMOUS DECISION. YES. NOW WE MOVE ON TO N2, REQUIRES ACTION APPROVED VARIABLE TERM WAIVER REQUEST FOR SPANISH BILIGUAL AUTHORIZATION. ARE THERE ANY QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS? MOVE FOR APPROVAL. TRUSTEE VIEGRANA MAKES A MOTION FOR APPROVAL. IS THERE A SECOND? SECOND. I'm
243sorry who was second? Claudia. Trustee Rodriguez-Mohica was the second. Is there any discussion? No. Okay. Trustee Brubaker we'll start with you. How do you vote? Yes. Yes. Trustee Rodriguez. Yes. Trustee Villagrana. Yes. Trustee Rodriguez-Mohica. Yes. Trustee Richardson-Fowler. Yes. Trustee Bautista-Zavala. Aye. Trustee Garcia. Yes. And two passes with the unanimous decision. and is approved for the variable term. We have a request for Spanish bilingual authorization. We now move back to L2, information, implementation to move high school schedules to six periods effective 27-28 school year. Okay, so we have, for board direction, we are here to present information. regarding the implementation of high school to a six-period day. This was discussed several times with the board and I know that's been a hot topic for the community, for our students. I want to thank our students. I
244was very proud of them as well for being so articulate and having the courage to come here and speak. I do want to share before we get going on this item that the superintendent youth advisory group, there was also a request from a student who wanted to agendize this topic on their next meeting, which was yesterday. And so the superintendent advisory. did meet. They wanted to know how to read an agenda. They wanted to know how to access an agenda. They wanted to know how to make public comment. There were some students that made public comment before. I had them share and I offered direct conversation with them for them to ask me anything they wanted to ask me. They engaged in an activity. They were here in the boardroom. They had Post-It notes. They
245engage in the activity that discusses a group just to breaker was here observing this activity and then I Sent emailed the board just a summary so that you have the notes from the meeting so that you can hear what our youth advisory They want to have much interest in getting more involved on Decisions and and they are in some ways, but they want to you know Just really interested in how to be involved regarding board item issues. So we're going to support their growth In that way on having them understand how they can access Their input formally directly to the board So we have here a topic on implementation of high school six period day the those requests by Trustee Mojica supported by the majority of the board to continue the discussion the agenda planning
246committee has decided to put this as information for now so we'll have information tonight and then we'll see what the rest of the board would like to do for next steps. So we have Lori Carrillo who is a director of ALTERNATIVE PROGRAMS. I HAVE TO JUST SAY A LITTLE BIT ABOUT LORI WHY I HAVE TASKED HER TO PRESENT THIS ITEM. SHE HAS A LOT OF EXPERIENCE NOT ONLY TEACHING HIGH SCHOOL. But she's been a coach at the high school level. She's been a vice principal. She's been a principal. And so she has a lot of experience in developing master schedules has worked directly with our principals understands what's happening at the secondary level not only in our schools but her own experience and background working in other districts as well in our district. So I
247felt she was the most appropriate person to help me and help the associate superintendent to put this presentation forward with you. With information is the first steps in it. It's not going to answer all the questions I had lots of questions from all of you As you know, I've emailed them to you as best as possible. I know this is a very challenging topic But we're doing our best to give you the information that we can with the time we had available. There's other deeper questions that would take more analysis and we did not have time to provide deeper analysis but if the board directs me to we can do that as needed. So with that I'm gonna go ahead and pass it on to Lori. Thank you. Good evening Board President Rodriguez, trustees. superintendent
248Ortega-Lampkin community students if any of them are still here I am here this evening to share some information with you about what the implementation of a high school six period day would involve and also the impacts of that shift thank you so first Our four LCAP goals, this is a topic that really touches on all four of them. It impacts every aspect of education for our high school students in particular, but primarily we're gonna focus on goal two for this presentation, the academic needs, social-emotional needs of our students. But there's no denying that the structure of the instructional schedule is gonna impact the high school experience for all of our kids in all areas. So our goals for this presentation tonight is to provide you with some data and information regarding what the impact of
249a shift back to a six period day would involve and we're going to review some current enrollment data talk about some historical graduation rates and data our current high school schedule data and then the impact of a six versus seven period day on both students and staff we've also included some options that we've put together for how to mitigate some of the impacts. And we're also going to look at some regional information. And I'll explain more about that in a bit. So we're going to start first with the high school enrollment demographic data for both Pioneer and Woodland High based on our fall one report in December to CALPADS. We have two thousand seven hundred sixty three students in grades nine through 12 at our two comprehensive high schools. wide range of demographic or of
250ethnicities represented. We have 2049 unduplicated students 208 English learners 7 foster students 28 homeless students 93 migrants and 374 students with disabilities. Just to give you a picture of who we're talking about as we go through the rest of the slides. Of those excuse me of those 2000 763 students, 1,447 of them would be impacted by a shift back to a six-period schedule because those are our freshmen and our sophomores. At Pioneer High School, we have 811 freshmen and sophomores. Woodland High, we have 636. At both schools, we have... populations within those grade levels of students that have directed studies, which is the support class for some students who have IEPs. Not every student with an IEP or every student with a disability requires directed studies, but that class is intended to support students with
251their academics, with their college and career exploration and planning, and their executive functioning, and also with their social-emotional learning. It is a service that is provided in the IEP. And so those classes are not optional. We have to provide them. So they tend to be smaller in nature. We also have populations of students in both freshman and sophomore grade levels that are English learners. We have two types of English learners that are in what is considered ELD or English language development. We have newcomers and we have long-term English learners. Our newcomers are those students who are here, they're recently arrived and... Our structure or the structure for our ELD for newcomers is two periods of English. We award English language arts credit for one of those periods and we award them elective credit for the
252second period. But they are in a block English class every day during. their newcomer status the other structure for long-term English learners When they get to high school if they are classified as long-term English learners and meet other requirements that indicate they need more language support They're placed in a support English class or an ELD class, which is ELD for ELD 5 Those classes are designed to support academic growth for students who have conversational English skills but they need more support with the academic language that tier three vocabulary that is higher level and they need a little bit more support until they can get meet those requirements for reclassification after ELD 5 they transition out and they are no longer in a designated ELD support class so they return back to the regular schedule structure
253and have access to all of the other courses that everybody else on campus has So at Pioneer High School about 19% of the student population and freshmen and sophomores would be impacted by a six period day. At Woodland High School about 12 and a half percent would be impacted because they have those additional support class needs. So again, remember that directed studies classes are not assigned to every student that has an IEP. They are only for students that have that service directed in their IEP paperwork. Not every student needs it. All right. So I've included a sampling of sample schedules for freshmen. And this is what it would look like for a freshman depending on what... of student they are. The first column is our current structure. It's a seven period day. Freshmen take the
254freshman courses that are required. PE nine, English nine, math one, freshman seminar. Most freshmen take biology. They don't have to, but most of them choose to. And they have room in their class schedule for two electives. Now as freshmen in a seven period day, they get to choose what those electives are. Usually it's something like Spanish 1 or band or art. It really depends on the kid, but they get two. If the six-period day were implemented this year, The schedule would look very similar for a standard student, one that doesn't have additional paperwork, not an English learner, doesn't have an IEP that dictates directed studies. The schedule would look almost exactly the same with the exception that that student would only get to select one elective. Again, they would get to pick whatever flavor elective
255they wanted, but they would be reduced to one. If that student happens to be a newcomer, an ELD or an English learner student who has recently arrived, they would no longer have access to an elective in a six-period schedule. They would be in that block period of English, and then they would have the other required courses for a freshman. They would have PE9, biology, freshman seminar, and math one. The ELD one through three, we have ELD one, ELD two, and ELD three for the first. chunk of time that students are here and learning English and they move through when they gain proficiency to move up the next level or year by year. So that second English class that we give elective credit takes the place of the elective that the other students get to choose.
256For our long-term English learners I didn't have enough room to put five schedules on here. I wanted you to be able to read them. So ELD and long-term English learner schedules would look very similar. The only difference is instead of ELD 1-3 being a two-period block, they would have English 9, and then they would have ELD 4, and then the rest of the schedule. So that ELD 4 would take the place of the elective in the standard student schedule. For students who have IEPs that dictate they need directed studies, it looks very similar to a long-term English learner, except instead of ELD four or five, they have directed studies in place of their elective. Forgot to hit the button, sorry. All right, we did the same thing for sophomores. If you look at the current
257seven-period structure, sophomores have their list of required classes, and this is assuming that the student passed every class that they were enrolled in in their freshman year. They would take PE 10, English 10, Math 2, World History, and Chemistry. VAPA CTE or world language would be a an elective course but it would also be one that would fulfill both an A through G requirement for electives and it would fulfill our graduation specific VAPA CTE world language graduation requirement then they would have an additional elective. They can take that course that's listed under period three in the seven period schedule at any time in their high school progress. I just threw it in a sophomore year so that you could see. that they would have the opportunity to do that. They could also have done it
258in their freshman year. But still, two electives as sophomores and a seven period day. If the six period schedule were in place this year, again, the elective option would be reduced to one period for a student that didn't require any additional support classes. And then they would have the rest of the standard schedule, PE, English, math, history, and chemistry. For the ELD student, again, you see the ELD 1 through 3 for two periods. That's the block period. That is, again, for newcomers. If it were a long-term English learner, it would be the grade-level English class, English 10, and then it would be the ELD 4 or 5. And then for a student that has directed studies dictated by their IEP, the directed studies 10 takes the place of the elective. If you are interested in
259seeing the full high school mapping of a student in any of these categories, there is an attachment that has the four-year progression of students in each category, including long-term English learners. I believe it was the first attachment, but it's a spreadsheet, or it's a PDF with multiple pages. All right. So there's lots of talk about electives, particularly when we're talking about shifting schedule structure. So I wanted to make sure that we all understood what electives are and what it means for a student to get elective credit. For our purposes, elective is a credit type, right? You get English credit, you get math credit, you get history credit, you get elective credit. And there are categories of electives, like we require specific electives. Freshman seminar, for example, is a year-long elective, but it is a called-out
260separate category because it is a local graduation requirement. VAPA, CTE, world language, those are all electives. but they are called out in our graduation requirements. They're also called out by A through G and by the state as graduation requirements. So elective classes are any class that is outside of the core, right? Math, English, history, science, PE. Those are the core requirements for graduation. Everything else and if you take courses above what is required for graduation Those courses get elective credit. So the example I gave on the slide is science We require two years of science one life and one physical if a student takes biology and passes it Takes chemistry and passes it and then they choose to take physics That physics class is a science class, but it gets elective credit for both graduation
261and A through G. It's an academic elective, meaning they're continuing to study in an area where they've already fulfilled the basic requirements, and they're extending their study. We also have non-core electives. Those are the courses that the kids were referring to earlier as the fun classes, right? The classes kids show up for because that's... where their interest lies, right? Those are classes like art, all of the art classes, the color and design, jewelry making, animation, art and culture, digital photo, mural design. Things like for athletes, athletic conditioning. For our students that are first generation or low socioeconomic students who are planning to go to college, AVID is a huge one. And Chicano Studies, which is both a social science class. an elective and satisfies our ethnic studies requirement. I'm not going to read the whole
262list to you. There's a ton of them. We are fortunate in this district that we are able to offer a wide variety of electives in both CTE and non-CTE categories to allow our students to explore their interests and really figure out what they want to do and where they want to be. And as I said earlier, the support classes that we provide for our English learners, that second period of English, and the directed studies classes for those students with IEPs that dictate it, they get general elective credit. But that credit doesn't count for A through G elective credit. It's just general elective credit that helps them move toward graduation, but it doesn't satisfy any other academic category. Okay, on this list, any class that has an asterisk at the end also meets the ethnic studies
263requirement, which is a year-long graduation requirement for us and for the state. Coming up here pretty quick, in the year 29-30, that graduating class will need to have at least a semester of ethnic studies credit. So we double the requirement of the state. Okay, so we're gonna... Take a little trip to the past we have compiled a list not a list we have compiled a table of historical graduation data that includes not just the graduation rate, but also the dropout rate going all the way back to 2009-10 we stopped at 2009-10 because that is the the furthest back that we can go that CDE has data available so if You want to see the entire table. It's available there at the link. It's also, we added it to the attachments so that you can see
264the full progression from 2009-10 every year up until 24-25. There are a couple of things that are important to note when you're looking at this data. There have been a lot of policy changes in education since 2009. In 2009, we were smack dab in the middle of No Child Left Behind. We had a California high school exit exam that students had to take. No matter how they did in their courses, they had to pass that test in order to receive a diploma. So it didn't matter what kind of student they were. If they couldn't pass the test, they couldn't get their diploma. We've had political changes. We've had policy changes. We've had community changes. We've had all kinds of things. All of those impact. student performance in school, right? The level of poverty in the
265area, the level of education of the adults in the community, the resources in the community, number of English learners, all of that, right? The political landscape and the community landscape all impact graduation rate. So we can draw correlations, but we can't prove causation with this data. We switched. In the 2011-2012 school year, we moved from a six-period day at Woodland High and a four-by-four schedule at Pioneer to a seven-period day. And there were lots of reasons why we did that. We were identified as an underperforming district at our high school levels during that window of time between 2009 and 2011. As a result of that identification, we also had a deep dive into our graduation rates, our scheduling policies, our board policies, our curriculum, course access, everything by WestEd. And WestEd's recommendation. concern was the
266level of access we were providing our students to A through G courses, to electives, to CTE, to college and career exploration, and one of their recommendations was that we switch our instructional schedule. Their recommendation was that we move to a seven period day and within that seven period day structure that we provide a school within a school model so that our schools would be organized like academies. Students who had interest, for example, like our superintendent's children, interest in business, could attend the business school at Woodland High. And the idea was that the students would be cohorted. by interest. So the students who were interested in business would all take the same English class, the same math class, the same history class, the same science class, and the same business classes. And their core content, English,
267math, history, science, would be taught to them through the lens of business. So it wouldn't be British lit or poetry or American lit. It would be... English for business, right? It would be math for business. And that was the recommendation. We started down that road, but it proved to be more complicated and difficult than anticipated. And we never fully brought that vision to fruition, but we maintained the seven period day schedule. Now I mentioned the Casey, right? The California high school exit exam, which was required starting in 2006. In 2015, Governor Brown ceased that requirement. So if you look at the full spreadsheet, you will see variations in graduation rate. In 2015, Casey goes away. You'd have to look at the full spreadsheet, not what's up here. Casey goes away. And then in 2016, The
268California Department of Education changes the way that it measures the graduation rate for the adjusted, the adjusted, hold on. I wrote it down because I knew I was gonna forget a word. Where's it at? I don't know. It's the adjusted graduation rate, but there's another word in there. And so 2016 is sort of the odd year out, right? They don't recommend that you look at years prior because the criteria for determining what the graduation rate and the dropout rate were was different. So Governor Brown does away with the KC in 2015. We are already. Three years into our seven period day schedule, but if you look at our graduation rate We have been pretty consistently in the lower 90s or in the very upper 80 80s for our graduation rate and again, that's a correlation
269right? We can't prove causation because we haven't done the meta-analysis that it would require in the deep dive and all of the data and all of the causes that could potentially impact it but there is a pattern of higher graduation rate for those years. Let me see. I was just gonna add, one of the things also during that time was that we had two different high schools with two different schedules. It was difficult for collaboration for teachers. So that's one of the things that also was a recommendation to get everybody on the same schedule so that teachers can collaborate. Also, there are students that could benefit on taking a section a class at one high school for example the mechanic the mechanic program So that they were scheduled their courses so that there'd be an
270opportunity for high school kids from one high school Pioneer high school to drive over to one high school at the mechanic. So there were some other things that were considered But the big focus was how do we increase a 3g? How do we increase graduation? How do we provide more access through this through the and use and do it through this model? The model didn't happen, but the other pieces were benefits for students that were able to take the intervention during the school day. And so I just wanted to add that little history piece too. It gave me a chance to remember what I forgot. I wanted to explain why the chart on the slide is the way that it is. So usually when we review data, we review five years worth at a time,
271right? Three to five. So I included on the slide the two years prior to the shift to a seven-period day and then the five years of most recent graduation data because that's where we are now, right? That's... where we're living compared to where we started with the six period day. So that's why it's an abridged version of the data that's available at the link and also in the attachments. Okay, all right. Now, this, can you click that? I wish these would let us click it. This slide has a link to some comparison data for schools that are within our region. In 22-23, the 22-23 school year, we actually convened a committee to review schedule structures in an effort to determine whether or not we wanted to switch our instructional schedule at the high schools. The
272committee included teachers, administrators, classified staff. I led the committee. We also had community members, partners from Woodland Community College. uh... the woodland library parents and students uh... were invited to participate in the community as well And as part of that, we reviewed data from 60 to 70 high schools and their structures and their demographic data, their graduation rate, dropout rate, A through G performance, every piece of data that I could collect on them to just compare what they were doing with what we were doing and to see if there was any similarity or any pattern that we could identify any strategies that that that was loud sorry strategies that they were using similar schools were using that we could adopt or things to avoid it was a small but mighty committee we had lots of
273good conversations looked at a ton of data read some research had good conversations about what that entailed This list actually comes from, this list of schools is a shortened version of the list of schools that that committee evaluated or reviewed. So these are schools that are within our region They are schools that have some similar demographics to our district They are schools that have a variety of schedule structures. Some of them have snack breaks or nutrition breaks in the day Some of them have advisory There's at least one school on there that has a four by four schedule There are six period days the majority of them Some of them have a seventh period option. Some of them don't but All of them are similar enough to us that we wanted to look at how
274they have been performing in the last five years to determine whether or not there are discrepancies between what they're doing and how they're performing, what we're doing and how we're performing. I'm going to say again, graduation rate is not directly... caused by the schedule structure, but the schedule structure is a factor, right? Because the schedule provides access. If you have six periods in a schedule students have access to six classes. If you have seven periods in a schedule students have access to seven classes. Classes become credits. Credits become diplomas. So there is a correlation with this data but not causation. OK. We wanted to as the committee we wanted to provide we wanted a point of reference. right what does our area look like what does our community look like and how are we performing
275in contrast and what are the similarities so that is the purpose of this not to show that schools that have six period day are performing better or worse it was simply what's happening in the area around us and what can we take away from that I just want to do a time check so that it resembles we want to make sure that there's time for the trustees to ask questions so if we can go through as quickly as possible. Okay. Wait what happened. Nope. All right. Current scheduled data. Did I skip a slide? Oh no, it's here. Current schedule data, we also looked at how many students don't have to take a full day, a full seven periods when they get to be seniors, and how many students don't have to finish their senior year
276because they finish all of the requirements early and can graduate and move on to what they want to do after high school. Right now, this year, 60% of the seniors at Pioneer High School have a shortened day. That means they have fewer than seven classes because they have completed the requirements that they need to complete. They're on track for graduation. They don't need those extra two classes. But that's only seniors. That doesn't include juniors, sophomores, or freshmen. At Woodland High, 44% of seniors have that shortened day. We generally have between 20 and 25 early graduates every year. So far this year, we have 16. So we are... And I don't think we've got a ton coming down the pike so we'll probably be under 20 for this year. All right. So this next slide includes
277information about how some of our sections or our periods are being used at the high schools. We have two classes that are very similar in nature at the high school level. We have TA classes which are teaching assistants and we have peer tutors which are. generally used to support other students in classes that those peer tutors have already completed. So for example, an ag student who has already completed the ag pathway and is now a senior could enroll back into one of the ag CTE classes as a peer tutor to support students who are currently moving through the courses or that course because they've already been successful in the class. Students who've already completed chemistry can enroll in chemistry as a peer tutor and be the lab assistant for the teacher, things like that. TAs
278are more clerical in nature. They run passes, they organize, they make copies, and you have a mix of both. At Woodland High, they only use the peer tutor label, but the students are a mix of... the actual peer student assistant helping other students and those clerical supports for teachers. But they only use the peer tutor label. At Pioneer, they distinguish between the peer tutors and the purely clerical TA. We also have credit recovery during the school day. That involves two types of credit recovery. Sometimes students will opt to retake an entire class. I didn't do great in biology as a freshman. I've got space. I'm going to take it again as a sophomore and wait until I'm a junior to take chemistry. Or I'm a sophomore. I failed math and biology as a freshman. I'm
279going to take a credit recovery class and do those two classes in ingenuity and then move on with my life. Administrators at the site get to decide how they use the section allocation as long as students have access to what is required and they are taking into consideration student requests, student voice and choice, and the sections get used appropriately. It works. And so the reason you see the discrepancy between the number of credit recovery periods is that administrative decision making, right? They make the decisions based on what's best for their students, what's best for their master schedule, and still honors the student requests. All right. So here we're talking about student impact on a seven period day, which is what we currently have. In general, students have a heavier course load. That additional course adds
280homework, exams, learning another adult, all of those things. It does allow students who are motivated to move through curriculum and coursework faster. So if they're interested in graduating early, they can. It has more opportunities for kids to participate in those electives, those pathways and program electives that require multiple courses over multiple years. And it does allow students to complete requirements early so they can have a shortened day. I've already talked about the students with... who require ELD and who have directed studies in their IEPs. It does allow them to take their support classes and still access electives of their choosing and it does allow them the opportunity to complete a pathway or a program elective that requires multiple years for credit deficient students. It allows them to access those extra credits every year and to
281take credit recovery during the school day. Six period day. It does have a slightly lighter workload. It's six classes instead of seven. One less adult to learn, one class. less of assessments and homework and all of that. The schedule would allow for longer class periods. Classes, because we run right up on the state minimum for instructional minutes, we can't shorten the school day, but we can lengthen each class period. So if we reduce to six periods, the classes would no longer be 50 minutes on a regular school day. They would be 58 to 59. It will impact the graduation rate, reduce the number of students who are able to take a shortened day because they don't have those buffer classes every year. So instead of being able to take five extra electives over the course
282of four years, they only have one extra class. And so the progression toward meeting all of the graduation requirements is pretty tight. They don't have as much of a buffer at the end of the day. And it'll impact those programmatic and pathway electives because students won't have as much opportunity or as much of a buffer to take multiple classes because they'll be focused on fitting in all of the requirements for graduation and if they're planning to go to a university, those A through G classes. It will impact students who have those. Support classes required because it takes away that extra period so there's no opportunity for electives in those first two years Junior year will be the first year that they'll get to pick an elective And if they end up needing credit recovery their
283only option will be to do it outside of the school day or during summer And the same with credit deficient it could also impact cash Creek in that it could require more seats which then would require more staffing or a change in how we do things at Cache Creek. For staff, the seven period day is the most expensive instructional schedule because of the number of FTE it requires. Right now, this year, we're spending approximately $12 million on FTE salary alone. That doesn't include benefits. There are some areas where we need to tighten things up in the seven period day scheduling how principals are using those sections making sure that they're more efficient and using them in the most effective ways. Teachers have to prep periods in a seven period model. It does allow for teachers
284to cover and still be able to prep if we don't have subs which is not our first choice as administrators. We don't want to pull a teacher from their prep period but sometimes we don't have an option. It also allows and flexibility for scheduling common. within and between departments. For instance, RSP teachers who push into a math class on at least one of their preps, they can be co-scheduled with the teacher whose class they push into so that they can co-plan for those push-in classes. And it allows for more of those specialty and advanced academic courses, those AP courses, those specialty VAPA courses like jewelry making and those high interest courses for both the adults and the kids. because there's extra room. I'm just going to interrupt quickly. I'm just going to ask for you
285to do, I know you're doing your best to super do your best to wrap it up because we've got less than a half hour. I know. I'm sorry. Discussion. No, no, it's not your fault at all. Can I wrap it up in five minutes? Sure. Six period day everything's reduced. There is a potential savings of up to 1.3 million that doesn't include benefits, but all of that is going to be impacted by where those staffing reductions happen and what options we choose for mitigating the impact of the six period day. Everything that involves a class offered outside of the school day costs money. All right our options or solutions for mitigating the impact we can offer zero period courses we can offer an additional seventh period course courses that are the same as zero period
286but happen at the end of the day. Those two options are outside of the core academic. We cannot require students to participate and we cannot put courses in those time periods like the extra ELD class or directed studies. Those have to be offered during the core academic day. We'll we. can continue with our summer school credit recovery. We can adjust how we use credit recovery by allowing students who are impacted, who have ELD or directed studies to take original credit courses during the summer, which we do not do now. We can offer virtual credit recovery during the school day using the same model as we use during the summer, but tighten it up. We could discuss reducing graduation requirements or restructure how we deliver support in the ELD and the special education course structures. Other
287things to consider is that there are some new graduation requirements coming down the pike from the state. Personal finance being one, it's a one semester course. There's pending legislation for computer science. We'd also need to look at how it would impact dual enrollment. consider potential impact to ADA and also as was mentioned earlier in public comment the maximum class size will shift back to 32 from 35 meaning that there will be additional staff required so the formula for determining savings will shift. Things that we will need to consider as we move toward implementation if that is the decision. We will need to reestablish the committee so that we can get a variety of perspectives and input on how and what this should look like. Then deliver a report on the findings of the committee. We
288need a year at least. We need to make sure that we're communicating and that involves. communication to everybody to you to the community to parents to students information night we need to train our administrators and counselors on scheduling during a six period to ensure equitable access we need to talk to kids who are going to be impacted and help them adjust their academic plans because freshmen and sophomores have already decided what high school is going to look like for them and if we shift the schedule structure that's going to change so they're going to have to make some hard decisions about what they are and aren't going to take HR is going to need time to bargain impact and then to follow the legal processes for notifying if we go through reductions. We need to
289develop other options for credit recovery, make sure that we're offering as much as we can as equitably and efficiently as we can. And we need to look at our program structures, graduation requirements, impact to pathways and electives and how we deliver academic supports. I'm done. Okay, thank you very much. Sorry about that's okay squeezing that window on you, but I know I talk too much no no just We're caught here at the end. I'm not say okay Any any comments any any questions? Trustee Brubaker Can we go to? 16 I think I know that's what it was in the previous version staff impact. Yes So I downloaded these slides over the weekend when they were first posted And on the previous version of this slide, it quoted the cost savings of being between $650,001 million.
290And on this one, it says $1.3 million. Can you explain that change? I can. So it's important to remember that staffing at high school and middle school is credential-based. So you can't just say, I'm going to reduce staff at this school by four teachers. You have to look at the number of staff. students, what's required for graduation, both locally and by the state. You have to look at where kids are, what flavors, what services we're required to provide. And then you have to look at the departments and how they're staffed. So what was on these slides over the weekend was a rough estimate that had a window based on whether or not the staff that was reduced was new because they generally cost less and staff that was super tenured who's been here forever because
291it's possible that you'll get a variety right depending on where those reductions have to happen 1.3 was the estimate that we gave you at the last board meeting and it was based on what we currently spend when the class size is 35. And if we were to reduce and everything else stayed the same, that would be the savings estimate. Everything is an estimate. And really, once we add benefits in there, the amount's going to change anyway. But just to give you a picture, I wanted, in the original version of the slides, I wanted to give you a... Closer to accurate picture and so I put the scale in there, but it confused everybody So superintendent asked me to put it back and just be clear. So I'm sorry and just to add to that We
292can't guarantee an exact savings because determine all that plus anything that we add to Medicaid Impact it also is a cost. So the savings would be that has to also be considered, right? so Would it be unfair to say that the cost savings would be between six hundred fifty thousand dollars to two point? I'm sorry one point six six hundred fifty thousand to 1.3 million it will be somewhere in that window. Okay, I would imagine yeah, and then can we go to slide? slide six and seven please so Just wanna make sure we're all really clear at what this would mean for our English language students and our students who Are in the directed studies class as required by their IEP s they would not get an elective For their freshman and their sophomore year
293that also means if their freshman year they don't pass a class they have to wait till their junior year to Potentially retake that class. Is that correct? It would be a choice, right? So Kids get kids get options in this case as a freshman. We require freshman seminar It's not optional to not take freshman seminars as a freshman. So that is their elective In The sophomore year we add history and so it takes that period that is done by by freshmen now they could choose to delay taking a science class and that would allow them to take An elective but you're kicking the can down the road at some point the kids not gonna get to take an elective in that year other than their support class, so Is that is it would it be
294correct to assume that if we were to switch to a six period day? Just I'm speaking out as a sped student myself. There were classes I struggled in And I'm worried that we will be even more disadvantaging them at getting to that graduation Because of those two factors combined I have more to say but I'll pass it on Okay, is there a comment on trustee Brubaker's comment just to you like other days Yeah, on those, I know you had to go through it fairly quickly because we're in a time crunch, but you did include things to mitigate the impact, right? So for students that do need those additional ELD classes, with students that do need directed studies, they have options beyond just retaking the course, right, or doing credit recovery during the school day. Right.
295Or they would. That's one of the things that we could discuss. They could if that was the direction of the superintendent and the board. And I'll just say them again because I know we were rushing through them a little bit. But one is that I thought was a really interesting idea is we already have summer school options but it seems like students go to summer school to retake a course. And what I what I heard you say is that. We would change that so that they can still go to summer school to retake a course but they could also take original courses there and that would free up space in their school day to be able to take electives. It is something that we could do if that again if that was the direction I
296will caution. However summer school is short. It is 20 days and to ask a student who is currently learning English or struggles with academics in general to complete a year's worth of curriculum in 20 days is going to be a very tall order. And so we would need to be very selective. in how we did that. Understood. That's helpful. So that's one option to mitigate. The second option I heard too was do virtual credit recovery, a genuity during the school year in addition to having it in the summer. That would be another option that we could, we would explore. It'd be additional costs because we don't currently offer it during the school year. And I think the other things that were on there were zero period. And I think you said optional seven period on
297there. I'd have to go back and look. Yes, both of those were listed as options. Okay. Zero and seventh period. They would cost because we'd have to pay teachers to do them, but we'd also have to look at access, preventing transportation, meals, things like that, which would all reduce the amount of savings. And then still not every student would be able to access those. And the payment for that would not be a period. It would be extra duty pay. No a zero period and or an optional seventh that would be an additional assignment to a student or to a teacher Because it is it is a class it's every day that they would meet so we couldn't do it by timesheet We'd have to compensate them for a period it would be an additional contract
298for that. Okay. Thank you so I just added that to to those points because I think at least my understanding when we first started talking about this is that things would not go as is right if we do move to six period that there were things that we would need to do to make sure that we try to make sure that our students especially those in these classes are able to have more opportunities. That is that is correct the additional thing for the board just to for your information is we will not be able to make students take zero period or seven period or summer school so we could provide those options as a way to mitigate but we can't ensure that they'll take advantage of those opportunities Just to break it. Yeah, I would
299just like to respond with to trustee Rodriguez my he goes comment for the mitigation Ideas are those free? No, so would it be fair to subtract subtract the cost of those items from the potential cost savings of six hundred and fifty thousand dollars to 1.3 million dollars we would need to write because whatever savings in staff reductions Would then be offset by whatever mitigation factors we chose And then is summer school a cost-effective way to educate and I know that's a really big question but Would you say for the cost-benefit analysis of educating students? Is that more expensive than during the school year or less? That's a really hard question for me to answer. It's a summer school. What are you more? We wouldn't be able to offer we don't like if we were basically
300what you're asking me is providing zero parents having period Less expensive or more expensive than doing summer school. I think that's what you're asking, correct? educating during the school year where we have a large amount of students in one location with the same energy bills the same staffing versus Educating during the summer where we have less students in one place to optimize The ad a that they we get per students in one location is kind of what I'm getting at I don't believe we collect ad a for summer school because it's it's a redo That seems like a factor Okay, any comments on trustee Brubaker's comments? I have one comment. I just you know based on the budget questions it really seems like we really don't know how much money we're gonna save. We have
301an idea but just in this very short minute of questioning you pinpointing already costs are gonna start knocking out at the savings and for us to be positioned at this time to try and make such a major decision WHERE WE DON'T REALLY HAVE A GOOD HANDLE, IT SEEMS TO ME, AT THIS POINT, TO EVEN BEGIN TO TALK ABOUT THE COST SAVINGS THAT WE COULD CONSIDER THAT AS AN IMPORTANT PART OF OUR DECISION MAKING HERE. I JUST WANT TO MAKE THAT COMMENT ON YOUR COMMENT. OKAY. WE'LL GO AROUND THIS WAY. I'M SORRY. IS THERE ANOTHER COMMENT? YES. NO, NOT ON BRU BAKER'S. I THOUGHT WE WERE GOING DOWN THE ROW AFTER MOJICA. I HAD TRUSTEE BLUEBAKER AS BEING THE FIRST PERSON. SO THAT'S WHY I'M GOING AROUND THIS WAY. SO THANK YOU TO THE TRUSTEES WHO
302HAVE BEEN WORKING HARD ON THIS ISSUE. AND OF COURSE, THIS IS AN ISSUE ABOUT SAVING MONEY AT ONE POINT. AND WE KNOW WE HAVE TO. We will have to look at many, many ways to do that. This could possibly be one of them. But it's clear to me that there is, there might not be causation, but there's some correlation. And that correlation is a pattern. Right, and that's how you can say maybe there's some correlation because you see a pattern and whenever you see a pattern That means you have to figure out what's causing that pattern And so there might not be you know tremendous causation, but there this is still a piece of the pie and So I think that if we you know If we rush this and don't really understand what all
303the ramifications are, we could very well see less graduation rates. because there's not enough opportunity, right, for those students who need credit recovery. I think one of the slides, it's over 200 students at least, which is no small number, especially when we're talking about equity, especially when we're talking about what do we offer that can help maximize success of those students who need extra time to do well, you know, credit recovery to graduate, et cetera. I think that the response from the crowd this evening in terms of who was here giving testimony, teachers, our students, what a tremendous response by our students. I don't think I ever recall a time where students came and they offered that they had 500 signatures on anything. And I go back to my old UC Davis days when I
304would protest and we'd tell the chancellor, It's not that the students are completely right about anything, but it's that when you have that much energy on something, they're the canary in the coal mine. And so they're trying to tell you that you need to pay attention to something here. And all this, to me, just tells me that we need to take more time to examine what we're trying to do. We need to be able to take all the constituents that are important, an important piece here, before we go down. too far down the road of decision-making and we should still be on fact-gathering and being able to really understand how we how we'll impact this ecosystem because to me when I hear all of the Testimony I hear that seventh period is our ecosystem now
305I know what it was supposed to be right but it has now become our ecosystem for all our students students with all our underserved students right when we fight so hard to be able to make sure we're not making moves that undercut them in any way. But in fact, it is for all students. I hear it's where students can make connections with teachers because they're maybe not talking about English or math that they don't connect with. And so I think this is a really important part of our ecosystem. And so I just caution us from moving too fast, too quickly. And that's my comment. COMMENT TO MY COMMENT, TRUSTEE MOJICA RODRIGUEZ? YES. WE DO HAVE A PUBLIC COMMENT FOR SOMETHING THAT'S NOT ON THE AGENDA. SO WE WANT TO MAKE SURE WE SPEND TIME SO
306WE HAVE LESS THAN A FEW MINUTES. I'LL TAKE TRUSTEE MOJICA RODRIGUEZ'S COMMENT. UNLESS YOU WANT TO EXTEND THE MEETING PAST 11. I MOTION TO EXTEND THE MEETING TO MIDNIGHT. IS THERE A SECOND TO EXTEND THE MEETING TO MIDNIGHT? DO YOU WANT TO AMEND YOUR MOTION? 1145. There's a motion to extend the meeting to 1145. Is there a second? 1130. All right, we got a second for 1130. Okay, there's a second for 1130. Is there any discussion? Okay, I'm going to start with myself. In terms of voting on this, I vote yes. Trustee Villagrana? No. Trustee Mohica. Yes. Trustee Richardson-Fowler. No. Trustee Bautista-Zavala. Yes. Trustee Garcia. Yes. Trustee Brubaker. Yes. So there are enough yeses to extend to 1130. And just to be clear, I'll be leaving at 11. And Trustee Richardson-Fowler will be leaving at
30711. Me too. And Trustee, okay. And that will still leave us with the quorum. Okay. Are there any other comments on my comment? I'll try to be super quick. I know Trustee Fowler has something that she wants to share probably before she leaves. So the comment on your comment. One is I do want to share with the board that for me personally, I'm still interested in this item, but I am slowing down. So I hear what you're saying, Trustee Rodriguez, in terms of gathering more information. I have already sent questions that I'd like more information on, and I'm sure others have as well. So I just want to share that I agree with you, and I'm good with slowing down on this topic. The second thing is our use of the words correlation and causation.
308The professor in me cannot just not say anything about that. So correlation, statistically speaking, is a formula, right, where you actually do analysis on these numbers. So I think maybe... Either we're talking about this as just like it looks like patterns. It looks like it might be But I really caution us against even using the word correlation because my understanding is that we haven't run that analysis There could be a correlation on there, but I don't know that we know that So I just caution us in our use of terms when we're looking at graduation rates and the differences in periods and I Appreciate the causation clarification, right? That's a huge one too because there's a ton of variables that come into play So I'll stop there so that others can share before they leave.
309Very good. Any other comments on my comment? No? Trustee Villagran. Just thank you for answering all my questions on email. Appreciate it. You're very welcome. I don't think there's any comments on that comment. Trustee Mojica Rodriguez. I will go after Trustee Fowler if that's okay. Sure. Are you good with that, Trustee Fowler? Trustee Richardson-Fowler. So I'm looking at the mitigation impacts and I love the zero period idea. I even have a yellow sheet to increase that to freshmen and open that up. I love the optional seventh period. I have a yellow sheet in to see if we could have an eighth period option. Summer school is where I have a problem with it considering it is not compulsory. for staff or students. That being said our recovery credit recovery program is a genuity software and
310it's self paced and our kids can be in a classroom and then just click click click click. When I go to site visits and I talk to teachers that is a number one complaint at genuity. It's a function of the broken system. It's it's a problem that we have. It's our reality. And we are not properly educating our kids during credit recovery with a genuity. We're just not. So for that to be a mitigation I think I see where you're going with this but I just I don't even think that's a viable option. So I see a lot of summer stuff here, but we've had the most epic summer school program in the county because of the COVID funds. And now that's dried up. And so without those COVID funds, it's less enticement to teachers
311to take those summer assignments. And as a teacher who has taught every summer since the pandemic, teachers need a break. I, as a parent, want my kids' teachers to be well-rested and well-paid. Please don't give an angry underpaid teacher access to my kids because they're feisty That's it. That's all I have to say. Okay. There's any comments on trustee Richardson Fowler's comment Justin Brubaker I wanted to share actually similar to her I have concerns about ingenuity one of the first experiences I had running for school board was someone who came to me who knew I was running saying They had a student that they were trying to help who had failed math in school was on the cusp of being sent to Cache Creek, but I DON'T KNOW IF THIS IS THE CASE. THEY WERE
312TOLD THERE WASN'T TRANSPORTATION AND THEIR FAMILY COULD NOT GET THEM THERE. THEY WERE TRYING TO HELP THE STUDENT. I'M THRILLED IF THAT'S NOT THE CASE. THEY WERE TRYING DESPERATELY TO HELP THE STUDENT PASS MATH WITH INGENUITY AND THEY WERE NOT SUCCEEDING AS AN ADULT. WE'RE VERY FRUSTRATED WITH OUR SYSTEM THAT WAS FAILING OUR KIDS WHO WERE FAILING. SO I HAVE CONCERNS AS WELL. Okay any other comments on Trustee Richardson's file? Any other comments? No? Okay Trustee Rodriguez-Mahica. Sure I sent my questions and I think they've been sharing the questions with all of us so the one thing I do want to share is the nine minute difference that Lori shared right in the if we do move from seven periods to six periods so it seems like right now under seven periods the classes are
31350 minutes long right? If we do end up moving, transitioning to six period, it'll be an additional nine minutes per class. So the classes will be 58 or 59 minutes roughly, right? That, if we do the math, that's an additional nine minutes times five days, that's 45 additional minutes in each class. So that means 45 additional minutes of Algebra 1, for example, for a student, if our teachers use that time strategically, right? Because I know it's nine minutes, it's not half an hour, but having been a teacher myself, I know I could do a lot with nine minutes, and there's activities that I could actually do that I wouldn't be able to do with less time. If we continue with the math, that's 45 minutes because it's nine minutes additional per period times five days,
31445 minutes additional. And if there's 36 weeks in school, that means essentially 36 additional class periods per class. So by adding, and I could read the whole thing because I might have lost you all. So if periods move to nine minutes longer with a transition to six periods, that's 45 minutes. So teachers and students would gain approximately 45 minutes more instructional time per class, right, a week. That's almost one whole class period gained in one week, 45 minutes. If we have 36 weeks of school, that's about 36 additional class periods per class. That's approximately seven more weeks of Algebra 1, World History, Chemistry, Biology, or whatever that might be. So the point I'm making is that that change is nine minutes and it comes out to a lot of instructional time added to each content
315area, right? And that's, I think, something to consider, especially when we think about the difference between graduation rates and achievement, academic achievement. We've been discussing academic achievement a lot. That has not improved is my sense at our high schools. So while our graduation rates are increasing I don't know that our students are actually doing well in the classes that they're taking. They're passing them because they need those credits to get there. But I'm curious if these additional minutes per class could actually help students be able to grasp the content better. That's a lot more time if we actually do the math, the nine additional minutes per period. So that's just something I want to share with the board about a possible benefit, I guess I should say, for that, especially for those classes that are
316very dense. Somebody have a comment on trustee make out of these comment trustee Richardson Fowler those additional nine additional minutes per period Also equate to one thousand six hundred and twenty minutes less of an enjoyable activity that motivates the kids to get them to come there and So I think it becomes a wash Because the thing that motivates kids to come to school especially for our artsy kids our vapor kids is having that choir is having music and band is Those milestones for achievements getting that AP on their AP class on their Transcripts and doing the subsequent what they need to work up for if they can't do that their motivation is gone their will their joy for school Their thrive is gone Because as you've calculated yeah they can absolutely do more with that
317time. But is it intentional. Is it joyful. Is it going to actually net more scores. And I don't know if they don't have a reason for joy at school if that's going to actually work out the same. And on that note good night y'all. Good night. Thank you trustee Richardson Fowler for staying here. So late. Thank you so much trustee Brubaker. You have a comment I just wanted to piggyback on trustee Richardson Fowler's comment. I don't know if it's possible to pull up the attachment with the graduation rates from surrounding schools because the Graduation rate for schools that do have six periods and have less of those enjoyable classes is less than the schools that have either four by four or seven period days. If you were to look at all of that, that's just
318my little two cents to add to that. Trustee Mojica, did you want to respond to that? I do, yeah. And this is what I was trying to say. That we can't say that right like we see these numbers but without actually doing statistical analyses We cannot say that the reason those graduation rates are higher is because of the number of periods As Lori shared, there's so much that has changed, right? And there's so many differences at each of the school sites that I just really caution us against that. And I know it's really tempting in looking at this, and I've had conversations with our superintendent about that. But we don't know that that's what's contributing. And again, I know it's tempting because it looks like it, and we heard a lot of our students mention
319it, but we can't say that. We also don't know that's not what it is. Absolutely, but that's why I'm just we need to be very careful about how we read this. We don't know either way I hear you superintendent would like to That is correct, we don't know either way there's a lot that we don't know and I think this item I'm gonna need some clear direction where we go next but it's really important for myself and for my staff to know what outcome What problem we're trying to solve? And based on that, that helps me determine what information I need to get, what reports you need to understand, have you all agree on what outcome you're trying to resolve? Before we put additional time and efforts. This is a lot of work just even
320to get to this point And I know there's a lot of more information. I don't believe that my staff has a time to do a meta-analysis of different factors on many different things that are being asked So I just like to work for to consider what what problem what whistle what problem are you trying to solve? And be and I wanted to have a really good. I want to need any clarity so that I can have my staff come up with solutions to the problem that you're trying to resolve. Are there any more comments on Trustee Mojica's comments? I'll go. Trustee Bautista Zavala. Do you have a comment on her comment? Yeah. Okay. I think that Trustee Rodriguez-Mojica, you raise very, very good points, all worthy of conversation and discussions. When I hear the superintendent,
321you know ask for for guidance or direction I Think it's all part of the conversation, you know one yellow sheet can identify issue areas and other You know spaces that we didn't imagine It's kind of like lifting a carpet and seeing what's underneath I don't know that we have a solution to all the issues that we've uncovered. Like there isn't one size fits all. But I do think that this conversation needs to continue. I think that maybe this could be a broader discussion that can be discussed during a board retreat or a special session. But I do think that. We need to have a list of what issues we've identified with this agenda item and then the board can decide okay, what do we want it if We're gonna consider this in the future from
322going from seven to six if at all You know what issues need to be addressed to move in that direction if you guys even want to right because it doesn't have to happen For example, one of the issues for me that I've been talking about for a long time is implementing rigor in our summer programs. It's remedial. And I think that that really ignores a student population that would like to maybe excel and take extra courses on top of already taking the seven periods. Yes, we offer the Woodland Community College options and yes, we do pay for their textbooks and provide that support, but what can we do in-house? And when I hear Trustee Richardson-Fowler talk about our teachers need a break, absolutely. Absolutely, if teachers decide and choose to have a break, absolutely. But
323we also have teachers and staff that rely on that summer work. They need that to supplement their income. So that's something that I respect and I would like to see how we can utilize those staff members and teachers, not only for remedial but also for rigor. I heard conversations about summer school is only 20 days. It's 20 days because that's the direction of the board. We can add additional days. The minimum is 20 days. So I just want to clarify that. A few years ago, I said, let's add one day. Let's add two days. We didn't have the board support for it. but it's something to consider if we really want to improve literacy, if we want to improve our test scores, if we want to improve performance overall of our students. But it's an
324investment that we have to look at. But as it relates to this topic, I'm going to be quiet now so that we have enough time to talk about what direction you guys would like to go, but I think those are possible solutions in terms of continuing the conversation. Thank you. Okay. Any other comments on trustee mojica's comment? I have a comment and one I just want to thank you just because You're you're able to put your Singular talents and exclusive talents as a professor as a researcher into the information that we have tonight And I think what is clear IS THAT AS A TOOL, AS AN INSTRUMENT TO POSSIBLY GET US TO A PLACE WHERE WE COULD DEAL WITH A VERY IMPORTANT AND BIG ISSUE THAT WE HAVE TO DEAL WITH WHICH IS BEING ABLE
325TO NOT HAVE FISCAL SOLVANCE TO MAKE SURE THAT WE ARE DOING THINGS AS EFFICIENTLY AS POSSIBLE FISCALLY AND WE KNOW THAT WE HAVE DEFICIT SPENDING TO TAKE CARE OF AS A TOOL. I THINK THAT WE ARE STILL ON THE PATH TO THIS IS A LEGITIMATE TOOL. BUT I THINK IT'S AS YOU CAN SEE, I THINK YOU CAN FEEL IT THERE IS SO MUCH TO THIS. NOT JUST the tool that's capable, but what are the practical implications for everyone? And I think we have to do more than simply come to agreement here. We have to process and disseminate information in a way that makes the best case to the public as well, that we are trying to do the right thing here and that we've done our best to try and get to that. And I
326think... And I think that you know we were talking about data just a little while ago about We could save so we could have so many extra classes right I don't know if you want to kind of read Re-establish that point quickly, but it was that that you could have more time essentially to give to students right? They could have more class time Right and then but and so then I would ask you right in the light of the same question that we've had tonight Is there? Have you seen the research causation, right? That would mean that if we were able to have that extra time with the students in a district that matched our district with the socioeconomic status of our district, would that causation be there, right? How much would it help them?
327And, you know, what can you inform us to that point? I can't say that. I don't know that there's research to actually show that because it all, a lot depends on what's actually done with those nine minutes, right? Some teachers could use it really strategically and have really good ideas of what to do. Others might not. They might just use it as nine minutes for students to start on their homework or to do a reading. You can't control for that, right? I don't, I can't say, you know, research wise. And I think. I think that's the same point with all of this is that we really don't know. We are trying to do the best that we can with what's in front of us. But just the same way as we can't say that the
328numbers that are up there are a result of six periods or seven periods, I definitely can't say that those nine minutes are going to make all the difference and students are no longer going to fail classes. Like, I can't say that. Well, it's because it's multi-layered. Right? It's the opportunity that you present in extra minutes. But yet that's not the only thing. How are we managing those minutes? How are we making sure that what we said we wanted to happen has actually happened? And so this onion that we're unpeeling has a lot of layers. And I actually think that for whatever the outcome is, that this is a really important exercise to go through. The thing is that it's very difficult on staff. RIGHT? BECAUSE WE HAVE SO MANY TOPICS AND WHAT ARE THE PRIORITIES?
329WHAT IS THE URGENCY OF FIGURING THIS OUT RIGHT NOW? I THINK THERE'S AN URGENCY TO GO DOWN THE ROAD, TO START DOWN THE PATH. I THINK THAT'S VERY LEGITIMATE. BUT WHAT IS THE URGENCY TO DO IT ALL NOW? AND I THINK FROM THE DISCUSSION THAT WE'RE HAVING RIGHT NOW, I THINK IT'S PRETTY CLEAR THAT WE NEED, AS YOU ADMITTED A LITTLE BIT AT LEAST, I THINK, THAT WE NEED TO TAKE OUR TIME. to be able, a reasonable amount of time to go down this path and make sure that we know what we're getting ourselves into. Okay, I'm sorry. No, yes, that was my, I'm not, okay. I was going to make my two questions before I finish. Did you have a? Yes, I have questions. I'm sorry. I'm just trying to get my place in
330here. Deborah, because that was my comment on her comment. So Deborah, did you have another? Okay, Trustee Garcia. Yes, I want to ask if we can have an estimate cost to fix the challenge of the six-period, like zero-period classes, optional seven-period, more summer school, virtual credit recovery, and transportation. And in order we know if we make some savings, we need to invest on this. Can we have this information for the estimate? Well... To provide an estimate for a 0 or a 7th period is difficult because you can't tell how many you're going to need. It's not a 1 right. So for instance right now Pioneer is offering two 0 period classes a jazz class and an AP US history class. Woodland High only has one 0 period class a jazz class in 0 period. And
331those are based on student requests. And so if students don't request the classes that are offered and don't enroll then you don't end up needing it and same for the after school if we were to do it after school. So I mean we could. Well we can do I think it's between 15 to 18 thousand dollars for one period. Depending on the teacher. Yeah. Is it possibly what it costs to have a zero period for salary between 15 and 18 thousand depending on the years of teacher. That would be the same thing for then you would times it by how many zero periods or how many seven periods if we were to provide transportation we would have to consider that a Rory impacted with transportation so that would be very challenging. Yeah. Yeah. So we
332we we can probably give estimates of what it would cost for a period but we would have to I guess we could do like if we had five zero periods versus tens zero periods I guess we could do something like that. But again we want to be able to give you a concrete number. And also yes and you mentioned before superintendent when when the change to 7 period there is no follow up to the implementation. Is that correct. Of the part of the original recommendation by West Ed which was a small school community component part that ended up not. it ended up being more difficult than anticipation. You have this vision and intentions, but when it came down to really implementing and trying to schedule it to have all students take in cohort and the
333reality of trying to get people to have the same. Prep period ended up not being easier said than done. It's really, really difficult to schedule in that model. So that part did not get implemented, but the part that did get implemented, did it provide more access and options for students? Yes, it did. It provided more options during the school day without having variables of transportation or whether kids wanna come on zero period or seven period. That did, has, Been an outcome and that's what I said originally when we first talked about this in December That some things that were intended to happen didn't happen, but there was better things that did that were That were a benefit But the whole thing how is originally intended was not implemented now Does that mean we should throw
334it away and start something different? I'm not sure that's the right answer. What I need, what would be very helpful for me, for staff is to understand what problem you're trying to solve. Is it a financial issue or is it an academic issue? And then based on that, I can bring recommendations on those pieces and get input from staff with that. So what is the outcome of this? Is that we're trying to improve student academics and trying to... Increase rigor and improve rigor You know that can look differently than what the discussion that we're having now Are we do we believe that rigor and access it will increase by second six period? I don't I don't believe so But if the board wants us to look into it to show meta-analysis and all that we
335can take the time to do that But I don't believe that that that will be the outcome because there's too many variables. Changing the six periods, like you said, there's too many variables. We have students who are foster youth who have mental health issues. Whether it's a six-period day or a seventh-period day, there's going to have challenges for those students. If they're an English learner, they're an English learner in sixth or seventh period. So which way do they have more chances to be successful? So if it's academics, if it's financial. you know, then potentially we could save some funds for the sixth period, potentially, not as much as we probably would think that we would save. And, you know, maybe there's other options where we can look at saving money. So it would be helpful,
336I think that would be helpful for the board as well to agree on what are you trying to solve. to help you decide where you want to move next. Because when we are going the wrong direction and not knowing what we're trying to solve and come back to zero decisions and have our staff and our community and our students go through all this stress or feelings and pieces, I feel like we need to be clear with our community about what we're trying to solve. So then I can work with my staff and bring that to you. instead of just have unclear, I'm not sure what outcome the board wants. Okay, we're getting 11-17, so we're gonna have to kinda reach a decision soon about how we move forward. Trustee Brubaker, do you have any more
337comments? Have many but I think that yes, yeah someone wants to address the superintendent's question I think that's the priority at this point. So I will cede to anybody who would like to respond to Justin Monica Rodriguez So I'll be the first to respond or maybe the only one since I was the one that brought up this item. So when I first brought up this item, if we all remember, it was in the conversation of budget reductions, right? So we weren't able to move this forward for next academic year. So we ended up kind of tabling the discussion and bringing it forward later. So it did originate. based out of budget reductions as a way to be able to save money. in a more permanent way. So no longer just relying on one-time funds, right?
338But really making cuts so that we wouldn't have to be in the same place we are all of the time, right? That did not come up from a conversation of how to make big cuts. It was just something on the slide that we started talking about, and that's how I moved forward. So that's how I originated, and I think you all might remember that. I do think that the move to six periods could increase rigor. I don't know. I can't say for sure that it will, but I think there's a possibility that it could. So I think those are the two things for me is definitely a financial issue, right? And an opportunity for rigor. That being said. I am not opposed to what the superintendent said. I did not join this board or, you
339know, wake up one morning with a dream of, like, all I want to do in my life is eliminate seventh period and go down to sixth. That is not how I approach this. I think we are running out of things to do financially, right? Our superintendent shared with us all of the things that are going to be on the chopping block. One thing I want to make sure that we are careful with is that we really expand what we are eliminating. If we were to move to seventh period of six, it would impact all students equally. It's not a good thing because it impacts all students, but it's also not continuing to go after our students like our English English learner students. And I've seen them on the chopping block for at least the last
340two years supports for them. And that is what I'm not OK with. So we if we don't pursue this right, if that's the direction of the board, then I do think. I'm not opposed to exploring other options, but let's look at it equitably and let's stop continuing to take money away from certain populations. So that's kind of where I'll stop. So I hear rigor and I hear economics, fiscal savings. So based on that, thank you for clarification. That helps me. Based on the original discussion regarding under the budget, I like for the board to consider because there's lots of things that we still need to look at and I like for the for the for the particular part of the budget I think there's many other things that we can continue to explore where we
341can continue to look more closely there I got a list from Rebecca Bernard it's not here right now but you know recommend things that would need more time to be looked into That I that we can continue to look at to see where we can find additional savings I'd like to and I've had conversations with trustee Brubaker about reestablishing our budget committee. I've already had conversations with Mr. Lewis about having a reestablishing that committee to with community input and to be looking at throughout the year not wait till these budget cuts so we get something that we could also start to look at the budget piece. Regarding the instructional piece I'd like to give some time for my services associate superintendent to work with staff and counselors and principals to discuss what rigor can look
342like. We already are participating in a grant with the county office of education a redesigned high school. grant that we just started. We're still learning more about what it is, but it looks at just that about how we can redesign our classrooms to have more engaged learning happening in our classrooms. So there's different ways that we can address these two things. And my recommendation would be to slow down on this and have more discussion with the board about exactly what they want and maybe we can still move in those ways, but not necessarily with seven period. Superintendent could we have a future discussion a special meeting so we're not running into this situation on the two issues that have been identified rigor and fiscal savings in at a future date because I don't there's not
343any urgency and we don't I don't think we're in a place to be able to actively move forward so I'd like I would like to make a motion for a future meeting that is information only. WE ARE NOT READY TO MOVE FORWARD. IT IS INFORMATION ONLY. SPECIAL MEETING ON THESE TWO ISSUES. IT IS NOT ACTIONABLE. YOU NEED FOREHEAD NUBS. WHAT IS THAT? THIS IS AN INFORMATIONAL ITEM. JUST FOREHANDS. NOW WE ARE AT A BOARD MEETING. WE COULD EITHER DO THAT OR LEAVE IT UP TO THE SUPERINTENDENT TO COME BACK WITH A RECOMMENDATION FOR A FUTURE MEETING UNDER SPECIAL MEETING. As a special meeting I just seen the majority of you too with what last time at the last board meeting there was discussion about bringing this back at the next meeting for action and Sounds
344like maybe that's not what the board is talking about now or The board can direct me just by show of hands or majority here To bring this up to continue the discussion at a special board meeting to get to get clarification on the financial and the RIGOR. AS A WAY TO CONTINUE THIS DISCUSSION. RIGHT NOW WE ARE OUT OF TIME. WE DON'T HAVE BETTER FOCUS THAN WHAT WE HAVE BEEN ABLE TO COME UP WITH THOSE TWO ISSUES. WE WILL CONTINUE THIS DISCUSSION. IT IS PRETTY CLEAR. I DON'T THINK WE ARE READY TO TAKE ANY KIND OF ACTION. Like I said I'm good with slowing down. I am OK with this item coming back as an information and delaying the action in a special board meeting is fine. I want to clarify though what I'm hearing
345in my hearing that we're expanding it to include other options that would pursue rigor and cost savings. I'm asking to have a discussion with the board to get clarity about you know what is it that we really want to do. You know this all started with like you mentioned earlier about financial. THEN IT HAS LED TO POTENTIAL INCREASE OF RIGOR IN THE CLASSROOMS. CAN I INTERRUPT? WE DON'T HAVE A LOT OF TIME. CAN WE JUST KIND OF AGREE TO THAT BASIC THAT WE WILL MOVE FORWARD WITH THOSE TWO ISSUES? WE CAN REYELLOW SHEET THIS AND HAVE MAYBE A DIFFERENT DISCUSSION ABOUT WHAT OTHER ISSUES SHOULD BE IN THERE? LIKE JUST THAT DISCUSSION, RIGHT? SO THAT WE CAN MAYBE HELP FOCUS WHAT THIS NEW SPECIAL MEETING WOULD BE ABOUT. SO I WANT TO MAKE A MOTION
346THAT WE HAVE THE SUPERINTENDENT IN THE FUTURE SCHEDULE A SPECIAL MEETING FOCUSED ON THE ISSUES THAT HAVE BEEN SPOKEN TO TODAY, SPECIFICALLY ACADEMIC RIGOR AND THE FISCAL IMPLICATIONS OF GOING FROM SEVENTH TO SIXTH PERIOD. WE CAN INCORPORATE STILL THE SIXTH PERIOD DISCUSSION ON SOME OF THE QUESTIONS THAT WERE ASKED AS WELL. BUT WE'RE REALLY RUNNING OUT OF TIME. I JUST NEED ENOUGH. CAN I GET A SECOND ON IT? YOU CAN'T REALLY VOTE. YOU HAVE TO JUST SHOW HANDS. CAN I GET A SHOW OF HANDS FOR THAT MOTION? So we got yeah direction. We have four direction. Okay. The next thing I would need to do really quickly is to table L4 L5 and L6. Is everyone okay with that? Can we do that with a show of hands? Everybody okay? Table all these items that
347and then just mentioned and then we have one public comment or run out of time one public comment on oh On um, yes one public comment. Thank you so much for your patience Push the button right there All right. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak. I'm a resident of Woodland. I have three kids in the school district, sixth grader, ninth grader, and 11th grader. And I'm here today really to advocate for elementary school-age kids. I looked at, before I came here, I looked at the Great Schools website. and found that where my grandson goes to school, Roto-Maxwell, they're at, in terms of math, they're at the 22 percentile. English, 33 percentile. Whitehead is at, on math, 11 percentile. English, 16 percentile. The FOIA, 27 percentile for math, 36 percentile for English, a
348little bit better. Spring Lake and Zamora doing really well but I can imagine that if I look at Freeman Prairie Beamer and some of the other schools are probably going to have the same kind of low rates as Rhoda Maxwell so I would say the majority of elementary schools here in Woodland are failing and if if kids are failed at the elementary level they're not going to do well in middle school They're going to have challenges. They're going to have behavioral problems. And it's because we're failing them in kindergarten, in first grade, in second grade. My grandson doesn't know how to do his multiplication tables. I have to help him out when we do his math. And with the Common Core, it's even more complex and difficult to help at home. But I can't imagine
349after six years in your school district, he doesn't know the timetables. That's incredible. That's a failure. And so if you really want to have you know, and then of course when you go into You look at the two school districts. Well, I was going to point out the middle schools, but It's just a no-brainer that if you do well in the elementary age level The school district is going to improve at the middle school level and at the high school level So somewhere along the line, I think you guys got to create a task force. What are we doing wrong with elementary? You know, kids are sponges. They should be able to learn. And somehow, for some reason or another, it's not working. So you really have to create a task force. What are we
350doing wrong with elementary education, with the education of our elementary kids, and start creating some solutions? Because if we continue this way... This school district doesn't have a good reputation, and it's just going to continue to worsen. And kids' lives are being affected. If you don't improve the education level of elementary kids, then you're going to have more difficulty with the middle schools, more dropouts in high schools. My time's up and please do better jobs in the elementary level schools. Thank you. We'll move on to item P, information requests for future agenda items. Are there any requests? Okay, seeing none, we'll move on to item Q, information. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Item P, we have seconds. Yeah, so I'm asking for a yellow sheet to direct the superintendent to explore at MOU with the Woodland
351Community College for a joint use of their new soccer facilities, addressing overcrowding of current sites. AT THE WILDLAND COMMUNITY CENTER AND SUPPORTING OUR WINTER SOCCER PROGRAMS NEED FOR ALL WEATHER FIELDS, LEVERAGING EXISTING ATHLETIC FUNDING. ASKING THAT THIS BE AGENDIZED IMMEDIATELY SO THAT THE SUPERINTENDENT COULD BEGIN CONVERSATIONS AND PLAN AN MOE TO POTENTIALLY COMMENCE WINTER SPORTS 2627. THIS ITEM IS CO-REQUESTED BY BOARD MEMBER CLAUDIA RODRIGUEZ MOJICA FOR FOLLOW THROUGH AS I AM ON MY WAY. THANK YOU VERY MUCH. ITEM Q, INFORMATION CLOSING COMMENTS. THANK YOU, EVERYBODY.