001Good evening and welcome to the regularly scheduled April meeting of the Bonzo Unified School District Board of Trustees. We'll start with a roll call. Nani Uswa here. Eileen Trustee here. Eric Kutega here. Roger Murchat here. And Larissa Anderson here. We are missing a couple of people but we do have a quorum that takes us to our Pledge of Allegiance. If we can please stand and our student reps will lead us in the pledge. One Nation. In closed session that the board met in just prior to open session, we considered the appointment, employment, evaluation of performance, discipline transfer, dismissal of employees. Discussed our position regarding collective bargaining with the Bonsall Teachers Association and the California School Employees Association, Chapter 703, in order to direct the superintendent as chief negotiator in the matter of BTA and CSCA
002contracts. Had a conference regarding legal counsel, potential litigation on two matters. as well as a conference with legal counsel regarding existing litigation. And in closed session, the board took action. To approve a final settlement agreement and general release and a special education matter involving student 8 5 5 3 1 1 2 8 6 8 1 in the district under this agreement The district will fund and provide educational services to the student involved in return The students parents have agreed to release all claims against the district as detailed in the settlement agreement The matter was resolved collaboratively without the need for a due process filing Upon a motion by trustee or ik tega and a second by trustee Merch app the motion passed 3 to 0 with 2 absent And we also had a conference with
003real property negotiators regarding property location on the east side of Horse Creek Ranch Road in Fallbrook. And that takes us to the approval of the current agenda. Is there a motion to approve? One change on the approval in the minutes? That's going to be on the next item. motion to approve second all in favor motion carries unanimously bringing us to our approval of the minutes since there was a technological hiccup and this special study session meeting for March 27th was posted twice instead of the minutes of the regular meeting of March 13th We're going to only be approving the special study session meeting minutes as well And then we'll have the regular meeting agenda meeting minutes of present on the next agenda. Madam President I'd like to see if we could table that because I
004wasn't at that meeting. I would feel remiss to approve those minutes and Since there's only three board members. We need two of them to approve it or three of them to approve it That's a good point. It was a study session that you were not in attendance with so we'll move to have both of those minutes then put on the agenda for the next meeting so We'll move on to the reports and that brings us to our superintendent report Good evening esteemed Board of Trustees and our student board reps. Thank you. It's wonderful to see you and Mrs. McInerney so pleased to welcome everybody to the April board meeting for Bonzo Unified School District and I'm starting with a picture that makes me very very happy and I know that this is many of you
005were here at the event for our purple star event But I wanted to recognize that student right there in the middle And that student has a massive pair of scissors. Not sure if you can see it. Almost as large as her body. But she did a fantastic job. That's Harper. I think, I'm sure Principal Camacho will call her out as well. But our student speakers did such a wonderful job. And I loved this picture because it's a student of ours who is surrounded by an incredible community. And we had our board there. We had administration, staff, students, families. And everybody that you see up there is part of the Bonzell Unified School District and the Bonzell Unified community as a whole. And we're really appreciative to have such a support. And we've got Rainbow Water
006there and North County Fire. And we have Chamber of Commerce. And we have Bonzell Women's Club and Palomar College and you name it. And it really was a wonderful event. And I'll highlight that again later. And I just have to say, Harper, fourth grade. And she had to read words like. meritorious promotion as she was introducing Sergeant Major Sherry Cook. She read words like consortium. Man, is she doing an excellent job with the literacy that we talked about last meeting. So with that and the wonderful picture, I think it is also an excellent example of our theme of belong, believe, and achieve. And as we know, we have a framework for the future that I like to remind us of. Nani, do you want to read our vision loud and clear, please? All students in
007Bonsai Unified School District engage in rigorous and relevant learning experiences that inspire them to be productive community members and future-ready, lifelong learners. Excellent. That's our vision, what we aspire to. Ailee, do you want to read our mission? We empower all students to thrive in a positive, safe, and supportive environment through high-quality education focused on the whole learner. Thank you. And you see our outcomes are right there. That's our learner profile. And our values of service, innovation, collaboration, and integrity. This is our North Star. This is our framework which needs to guide our decisions. Now, I want to take a moment to recognize that we're in a time that is somewhat tumultuous. in the larger landscape of education. And it made me think about, because if we're going to achieve that vision, we're going to achieve
008that mission, there's a lot that we have to navigate. And it made me think about this. I'm not sure if you're familiar with this framework called VUCA. Have you heard of it? Anybody? It's a framework that was actually developed by the US military and it was used to describe a very challenging environment. And in education today, I will recognize that we have this kind of challenging environment. Volatility and the way it works, by the way, you can see along one side it says how well can you predict the results of your actions. And then along the bottom, how much do you know about the situation? So if you think about these words of complexity, volatility, ambiguity, and uncertainty, and you're thinking about what we have to navigate, you can recognize that there's been some very
009rapid policy shifts around the country. There's been funding changes that require quick adaptations. There's uncertainty. It appears in some of our guidance that we're getting, the larger picture, unpredictable decisions, evolving educational standards. We're kind of working through all of that. Complexity is evident in all of our interconnected nature of our educational issues, where changes in one area, like perhaps assessment, are then going to affect other areas like curriculum and teacher evaluation. There's ambiguity that exists in lots of different interpretations that we're hearing about mandates that we have and unclear cause-effect relationships, etc. As leaders, you are all navigating this very tumultuous environment, and I appreciate everything that you're doing because we're trying to make sound decisions within that environment. And I say this because this morning I was actually attending a conference called ASU GSV.
010And there were some really interesting speakers. I was here during a fireside chat. This was this morning. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon was there. There was a governor from the state of Iowa. There was the CFO of OpenAI. There are people like Sal Khan of Khan Academy, lots of ed tech companies and lots of entrepreneurs. And it's really interesting thinking about how complex our landscape is. And also there was a lot of information about AI. All of this affects what we are doing here in our district, and I think it's really important to look for that and to understand that. We have to track things at a national level. We also have to track things at a state level and how the impacts are coming through through the state and what we can perhaps do.
011to help influence action that is going to make sense for our students. So recently I had the opportunity to participate in what's called ACSA Legislative Action Days. It really, to me, it's incumbent upon us to consider the impact that we can make at the state level. So on these legislative action days, I was able to meet with that whole group, and there were actually people from the whole state of California. We got to advocate with local legislators for critical issues that are affecting our K-12 schools. including things like increased funding, educator workforce support. We talked about policies that might promote really equitable opportunities for all students. And it was very helpful for us to be able to engage with our local legislators to make sure that the voices of our students and staff and families
012are heard at that state level. It's essential for us to advocate for securing those resources. And we have to make sure that we are then thinking... So there's a lot happening at the national level. There's a lot happening at the state level, and there's a lot happening at the local level, and that's where we need to ensure that we are making the greatest impact. I was super excited and honored recently to be nominated as one of the Distinguished Women of the Year from Assembly District 76, and that is Darshana Patel. That's her assembly district, Assemblymember Patel. And what I wanted to share here is that that network, these were the women that were nominated. and what was amazing is that I knew quite a few of them. Because they're partners of ours. They're partners in
013our community. There were people there from Palomar. As a matter of fact, Dr. Star Rivera Lacey received the ultimate award. She was actually named the Distinguished Woman of the Year for 2025. And she's our partner at Palomar. We had partners there from Cal State San Marcos. As a matter of fact, Patricia there, Dr. Olmos, she was at our Purple Star event just the week before. We had partners there from Children's Museum and just... it made me realize how important it is that we're leveraging the community partners that we have because we are all united in the work that we are doing. Another example of acting locally, I want to thank Trustee Ortega for coordinating Antonio Guerra Day. And that was on March 22nd, and that's Mayor Todd Gloria, Trustee Ortega, Dom Anguiano. We also had
014Angie, I'm sorry you weren't in this picture, but Angie James was there, and we had some of our students there. And Antonio Guerra Day was something that is actually hosted by Apollo Band of Mission Indians, and Trustee Ortega coordinated that, and that's an opportunity for us to really celebrate. how we have been responding to AB 1703, which is the California Indian Education Act, and what we are doing in Bonsall Unified to try to partner with our local tribes and to ensure that we are representing culture and heritage and curriculum and instructional materials in partnership. And so that's another example of acting locally, which is great. Very, very important. Now, all of that is to say that we know we're in a time of this VUCA environment. There's a lot of challenge. I like to think
015of the challenge as an opportunity, as a chance, okay? This is a picture that you'll hear more about when Caroline Brown presents on a facilities update, but this is a picture from our recent Bonzel Advisory Committee meeting where we are trying to engage with our community, with all of our stakeholders to... plan for how we can best address the needs of our students, our current students, our future students, and how we are making sure that we are responsive to what our community is really looking for. And I appreciate that. I also want to celebrate. We have a lot of amazing examples that we're seeing across the district. Despite there being challenges, despite there being a lot of things that we need to consider as opportunities, there are plenty of examples of our mission and our
016values in action. We have excellent examples of our parent groups, for example. This was Bonzel PTA, but you hear about them just about every meeting. Our parent groups continue to shine. We have opportunities to celebrate students that you hear our principals share. We have Roar Awards and we have Lunch on the Lawn and we have, we just had a mother, well I won't step on. Principal Fortney in case she's announcing some of the other PTA events, but the mother-son movie night sounds like it was super awesome. But lots of opportunities to celebrate students and for parents to be involved. We have lots of opportunities for community involvement. You will hear about our community engagement initiative tonight. And this was a literacy night that I hope they highlight, but plenty of opportunity for our community to
017be involved. And the opportunities that we have for our students. to shine, continue to impress and to make us really, really proud. This was our SMS students coming and touring BUSD elementary schools, getting all the fifth graders and the students excited about what they're going to see at the middle school level. This was our SMS show choir coming to Bonzel Rotary to share their talents and to inspire our community with their beautiful, beautiful voices. We have track and field days recently. I don't know how Miss Oriano got that picture. Look at that kid. Can you see him? He looks like he's suspended in air. That is a fantastic picture. And I think that we have a lot of opportunities to uplift our students in many, many ways. Our CIF athletics, opportunities for students to be
018making sure that they are shining through a lot of their sports and extracurricular activities. And of course I mentioned our Purple Star ceremony. It was a beautiful night. And we had the opportunity to celebrate the fact that out of, I think, 10,000 schools in the state of California, I think 179 of them were honored with the Purple Star. And five of those schools were in Bonzel Unified. 100% of our schools were recognized with the purple star, which means we make intentional efforts to support military-connected students. And we're seeing great examples around our district of the whole month of April, actually, which is the month of the military child. And that was a beautiful, beautiful event. And another example of community involvement. This is super exciting, and I want to put out a call to action.
019We have coming up a unique opportunity to partner with North Coast Church, which has once again selected Bonzel Unified for a weekend of service. This time there are two projects that they are going to be engaging in. One of them is at SMS, and one's at our Bonzel Farm. May 3rd and 4th, calling all volunteers, we'd love for you to come out, but it's a beautiful example of a community organization that sees a need. wants to make sure that they are serving that need in collaboration with us. And so we're really excited about that. That's May 3rd and 4th. We'll put out the call for volunteers so you can sign up. I'll definitely be here. And I also wanted to just share some other examples of ways that we're trying to engage our community and
020ways that we are trying to gather enough information and feedback so that when we are taking action as a district, we are actually listening carefully to what our community is wanting us to act on. The community survey that we've put out, we already have, I think, about 400 responses, which... which is fantastic we'd love to see even more i think dr pendleton it's open until friday It's open until Friday, but we will be really, really looking at that survey feedback, and that's another opportunity for our families and our parents and our students and our teachers to fill out that survey and share with us what they think about our goals and about our actions and how we can make sure that we are performing as well as we can. So that's an important April 11th
021date. Please remember to fill that out. Couple other announcements that I want to share. Other examples of shining stars in our district and things that we are doing. Coming up on April 22nd, there's an early college program and the Academies of BHS informational session. And that is open to anyone who is interested. I think at the last board meeting, we had the academies present. And you know some of the fine, I think it was last one or perhaps the one before. But they presented on what they're putting together at the high school. very very exciting and that's open to all the hs students and families uh... please check that out and that's april twenty second five p m k couple more announcements of things that are coming up We're very very excited about the mural
022that is now at Bonzel High School and Sullivan Middle School and there is a mural unveiling April 23rd at 5 p.m. And we will have a wonderful celebration with bird singing and bird dancing and some great speakers including dr. Tip iconic and Dr. Proudfit, and I hope Chairman Smith is able to go. I know Trustee Ortega is going to be doing a land acknowledgement, and we have a lot of people that will be there, and it should be a wonderful program. So April 23rd at 5 p.m. Another upcoming event, our Bonzel Women's Club and BUSD Spring Art Show is on April 30th. The submissions have already been turned in. Thank you, President Anderson, for your work with Bonzel Women's Club and BUSD, making sure that we're coordinating an excellent event. We're very, very excited for
023that. Please make sure that you come out. The show's April 30th at SMS and BHS. Is it 5.30? 5 to 7. 5 to 7 p.m., okay? And another upcoming event for those of you that love golf. This is going to be a fun one. Saturday, May 10th at 1 p.m., we have our Bonzel Athletics Golf Classic. And that is a four-person scramble. I am going to borrow golf clubs from someone, maybe Miss Arellano, and I'm going to do my best. I play disc golf, not golf, but I think it could be transferable. I think I'm going to do just fine. I don't know. We'll see. We'll see. I'm calling it right now. I'm going to do an amazing job. Yes, yes, it's going to be wonderful. But we definitely encourage participation. We want to raise
024some more money for our Bonzo Athletics and have an excellent time as a community. As you can see, there are so many different things that are going on, and I want to make sure that we're calling that out. It's easy to get caught up in the VUCA, and then it's also just as important to make sure that we highlight. the amazing things that are going on and that we stay true to our North Star as we're working towards our vision and our mission and our framework for the future. Now with that, I am going to turn it over to Mr. Williams and I'll have to say before he comes up here, when I see the names of people that we're about to call out, I already have tears in my eyes because I am so
025happy for them and so sad. for us but at the same time i have many many plans for their volunteer work because they're all going to be back but i'll call up mr williams now for some special announcements Good evening President Anderson, Board of Trustees, student representatives, Dr. Golley, Gina McInerney. Well, we do have some very special recognitions tonight. This is a remarkable group of retiring staff members. They have all been essential in fulfilling our vision and mission and values. And I'd like these folks to join me on either side of me as I call them forward. And then we have some really special words that were put together by their principals. So first, if we could have from Sullivan Middle School, Office Manager Linda Pipe, please come on up. We'd also like from Bonzo
026Elementary School, Teacher Miss Molly Bloodsworth, please come on up. From Sullivan Middle School, Teacher Terry Breckenridge. From Sullivan Middle School, teacher Monica Powell. And from Vivian Banks Charter School, library media specialist, Varda Trujillo. Now, I asked the principals to create a fairly short narrative. They wrote really, really long narratives, so I had to pare them down just a little bit, but I wanted to read some special words about each one of these folks that's standing next to me. So first, Linda Pipe from SMS. Today we celebrate the retirement of an exceptional member of the SMS team, Mrs. Linda Pipe. For four years, Linda has been the heart of SMS's operations, ensuring that everything runs smoothly behind the scenes, from managing the office to coordinating daily tasks. She has been the glue that has held everything
027together. Her dedication, organizational skills, and unwavering support have made a lasting impact on the entire SMS team. Whether handling complex situations with grace or offering a helping hand to students and staff, Mrs. Pipe has always been there with a calm demeanor and a smile. Beyond her professional expertise, she has created an atmosphere of warmth and trust that has made the SMS office not just a place of work, but a welcoming environment for everyone who walks through the door. Her commitment to the success of our school and her positive attitude will be deeply missed. Her legacy of excellence, kindness, and hard work will continue to inspire the Wildcats. SMS extends a deep felt congratulations on your retirement. Congratulations, Linda. All right, Molly Bloodsworth. Molly is an incredible educator, mentor, and friend. Bonzo Elementary is deeply grateful
028for the countless ways she has touched the lives of students, colleagues, and the entire school community. For the last 27 years, Molly has taught Bonzel's children at Bonzel L. She's been a champion for students, supporting them, inspiring them, and believing in them. She has dedicated her whole heart, energy, and passion to ensure that every child feels valued, capable, and empowered to reach their full potential. Molly, while the BES team knows you enjoy this next chapter filled with well-deserved relaxation, new adventures, and perhaps a little less grading, your impact, your kindness, and your love for your students will never be forgotten. Principal Fortney wanted to share a few words that colleagues said about you. She has an amazing ability to collaborate with others, always bringing positivity, practicality, and support to the team. Her dedication to teaching
029is truly admirable. Molly is always willing to help others and is a great resource for her team. She takes charge and gets things done. She will leave a legacy of love for teaching at Bonzo Elementary. On behalf of the of the entire school community, BES thanks you for your years of dedication, for giving so much of yourself, and for making a difference in the lives of so many. BES wants you to know that you will always be part of the Bonzo Elementary School family. Congratulations. And Terry Breckenridge, SMS. Today we honor a remarkable educator who has dedicated over 30 years to shaping the hearts and minds of our students, Terry Breckenridge. As a sixth grade teacher and the guiding force behind our ASB, she has not only educated but also inspired generations of students and
030staff. Mrs. Terry Breckenridge is the embodiment of kindness and has truly been the cornerstone of that value at our school. She is the heart behind the motto, kindness really does matter, a phrase that has become a guiding principle for the Wildcat community. Through her actions, words, and unwavering dedication, she has modeled what it means to be a Wildcat, compassionate, supportive, and driven to make the world a better place. For over three decades, Mrs. Breckenridge has been a role model to both students and colleagues, consistently demonstrating the values of empathy, kindness, and respect. She's been a true leader, creating an environment where our students feel valued and empowered by their best selves. SMS thanks you for being the heart and soul of the Wildcat family. Congratulations. In SMS again, we have Monica Powell. Monica Powell began
031her remarkable career at SMS as an eighth grade math teacher where she played a key role in developing and enhancing the math department. Her dedication to data-driven instruction and her determination to help students succeed on the state examinations demonstrated her relentless commitment even in the face of considerable pressure. Through it all, Monica maintained a steadfast belief that this can be done. and her unwavering optimism became a cornerstone of the department's success. As she transitioned into teaching science, Monica continued to make an incredible impact. She has been a mentor to countless new teachers, generously sharing her expertise and guiding them through the curriculum. She was instrumental in piloting the new science curriculum and consistently went above and beyond often staying late or coming in on her own time to prepare engaging hands-on labs for students. Monica's
032passion for teaching, whether in math or science, has always been evident in the enthusiasm and energy she brings to every single lesson. As she prepares for a well-deserved retirement, the SMS family honors her exceptional contributions, her dedication, positivity, and love for teaching. They'll all be greatly missed, but her legacy will live on in the countless lives she has touched throughout her career. Congratulations. and Varna Trujillo of Vivian Banks Charter School. Today we celebrate the incredible 37-year educational career of Ms. Varna Trujillo, a true pillar of Vivian Banks Charter School, the Paula community, and Bonzo Unified School District. For nearly four decades, Ms. Varna has poured her heart into supporting VBCS students in every way imaginable. Welcoming them into the library with a smile, keeping a watchful and caring eye during recess and lunch, guiding young
033learners in her current first and second grade classroom, and always showing up with kindness, patience, and an unwavering commitment to education. Her steady presence and gentle leadership have made her not only have made her, excuse me, not only a beloved staff member, but a trusted mentor and friend of many. Vivian Banks Charter School Principal, Dani Costa, shared that Ms. Varna is strong, dedicated, honest, and holds a very strong sense of justice on behalf of her students. She can connect with her students on many levels, and all of the students share a deep trust in Ms. Varna. Mr. Costa also wants everyone to know that Ms. Varna is an excellent cook. That seemed to be really important for Mr. Costa. And thinks that she, here's some advice too, and he thinks that she should open up
034a restaurant as her first retirement project. We'll see what happens. According to Miss Jackie Withers, who worked for years alongside Miss Varna, working with Varna has been a lot of fun. She works great with the kids, and they all know that she cares for them. She has also been someone to turn to for advice, and her dedication is evident. As our party planner, her ideas and delicious culinary skills have filled us with many memories. I wish Varna nothing but the best and she will be missed. Whether helping a child discover the joy of reading or modeling what it means to serve others, Ms. Varna has been a constant source of light in the school, district, and community. She has touched generations of students and families and her legacy will live on in the value she
035helped instill. Respect, care. and community as she steps into this well-deserved next chapter we celebrate her not just for the years she gave but for the love wisdom and heart she shared with with all of us congratulations miss varna you're truly one of a kind to all our retirees We want to thank you for being part of this wonderful ride in Bonzo Unified. As you will soon drive off into the horizon seeking new adventures, we are hopeful that once in a while you will take a quick peek into the rearview mirror and remember the wonderful times you've had at your school with your colleagues and friends and how you greatly contributed to the kids and families that you have faithfully served in Bonzo. We wish you all the very best. Congratulations. Okay. All right. Yeah.
036That was an awesome part of the night, but I'd like to call up next Dr. Veronica Pendleton, and she's going to introduce our next group. And as Dr. Veronica is coming up, I just want to let everyone know we just have a student performance, and then we'll have a brief meeting intermission. So if we can direct our attention to Dr. Veronica. Thank you. Good evening, distinguished board. students, board members, superintendent Garling, Ms. McInerney, it is my pleasure and privilege to introduce our next student performance. Before we do that, I'd like to speak a little bit about movement and dance, because it's really an essential component, as we read in our mission statement, of our efforts are the commitment of the board to invest in a well-rounded student, and we know that. This is essential. It's
037an essential component of a well-rounded elementary education supporting not just the physical development but also the cognitive, emotional, and social growth. As we also see that it's consistent with highlights of the value of integrating the arts, particularly dance, into the school day to foster the whole child development. Incorporating movement into daily routines and instructional strategies can significantly enhance learning and memory. We also know that students who engage in regular physical activity demonstrate improved attention span, working memory, and also attributes to classroom behavior. Dance in particular combines physical movement with creativity and sequencing, which supports the development of executive functioning skills and spatial awareness. both critical for academic success. Dance and creative movement programs are especially powerful because they are accessible to all students regardless of prior dance experience or ability. Miss Cassie, excuse me, every
038child can participate and shine in this activity. In our district, the work of teachers like Casey Costa and Cassie Costa. and Emma Jade bring this vision to life, engaging students across Bonzo Elementary, Bonzo West, and Vivian Beck's charter in joyful, meaningful movement. And without further ado, I'd like to invite both Ms. Cassie Costa and Ms. Emma Jade's group of... So I have to say, this is a program that the board has decided to invest in creative movement, music. This is the kind of program that allows you something different in your day, right? Something where you get to move and have fun. But what Dr. Pendleton said is that that actually is doing a ton for your brain. So Ms. Cassie Costa is a fantastic teacher. And Emma Jady that we mentioned is over at Bonzo
039West and Vivian Banks. But that means that all of our elementary students have access to creative movement throughout their day. And we're really appreciative for you and for Emma and for what you're doing for our students. You guys did a fantastic job. Yes, you did. I was so impressed. You had so much that you remembered. So nice job. We're actually going to get an opportunity to take a little break. But what we would love to do is we want to take a picture with all of you. And I know our board members would love to come and say thank you also. So if you can hang out for a few pictures, that'd be great. And parents, thank you so much for bringing the students so that we could see what they're doing. Thank you. Wonderful.
040Okay, let's stand on up. Let's take a picture right over there. What's that? Yes, board members, yes. Do you have to do a recess? All right, the time is now 6.53. We're going to take a seven-minute intermission. We'll regroup at 7 p.m. Okay. Thank you. This one. Thank you. um I had some great Yeah. Yes. I feel like they're looking at me. Thank you. And nobody ever uses the laser, but the laser's right here. I mean, don't laser people's eyeballs, but... No, no, no. I just have to be able to read my nose and not get nervous. Okay, thank you to everyone who's still in the room for the second half of our meeting. We are now at the reports and the group reports. So our, I know I saw we have Sullivan, PTO, do
041you have a report, Tisha? Chris, I'm going to think you're starting doing this on purpose. Good evening, esteemed board members, Superintendent Cawley, the most fabulous, Ms. Gina McInerney. My name is Tisha Tokars. I am vice president for Sullivan Middle PTO. And I will quickly do my report so you guys can get on with your business. We finished up our February Nothing But Cake Valentine fundraiser. Thank you to everybody that supported us and bought the Bundt cakes, which were always delicious. Our Mike's Flowers. Fundraiser event for Easter. You know if you have a birthday for April 17th or April 18th that will work too. They're giving back 15% to us. Just mentioned Sullivan Middle PTO. We are busy planning our staff appreciation in May. A donation for that for our community members will be coming out
042soon. And our last event of the year is our student yearbook signing party with Donuts for All Students, which is always a huge hit. A kind of kickoff to summer coming and get that yearbook signed. We are still looking for board members for next school year, the 25-26 school year. So if you know anybody, we would be happy to connect with you. And that's it. Thank you, guys. Thank you. Do we have anyone here from Bonzell LPTA or PING or DLAC, Bonzell Education Foundation? No one else in the meeting? Okay. Great. That brings us to our labor reports. BTA, Ms. Ariano. Good evening, Superintendent Gulley, esteemed trustees, and Ms. McInerney. First of all, I wanted to say happy birthday to Linda, who is amazing and supports our teachers very much. Really appreciate that. So... Today
043I worked on a video for the district teacher of the year and I really think we can win the whole thing. I just have to tell you guys, be on point. We're going all the way. As you know, it's Greg Hinchcliffe. But the thing that was resonating is... Every student that we interviewed said how much he made learning so exciting for them because he really understood how to reach them. That's the magic of the classroom teacher. And elementary school teachers, they have an even bigger challenge. I've done both, I have to tell you. Elementary school is harder. But we have great teachers. That's the strength of Bonzel. Bonzel would love to have our great admin, especially district office, be more present in the classrooms. Because we do want to belong, believe, and achieve more than
044anything. And it's really hard right now. and it's not us it's just how it is everywhere but because we in our mission statement in our values what our vision for this district is you know I've always said we're a destination district that's what we're growing to be I just think that we would feel it more the more we see you. And I know that you guys have so many big jobs and you have to reach out and up. But more time, just FaceTime right now to get us through and so that we know that you truly, I know. I work with a lot of people in the district office and I know where their hearts are and their minds are but we just really would appreciate seeing everyone in the classrooms a little bit more
045have that face-to-face time that understanding and the support because it's rough out there thank you oh one more thing I'm not going to belabor the teachers of the year because we are going to celebrate them at our very own meeting on April 25th but The group that just retired oh my goodness as BTA They were there when we needed them for the bond or for elections They were there for us. They have always been there for their students. There are that they are the best of the best and we are going to Really miss them for their mentorship and how they always leaned in so I just wanted to say personally. Thank you to all three of our retirees and we're going to celebrate them more at our own meeting thank you is there any
046representatives from csca in the audience today i don't see carol no okay bringing us to our management reports i believe we're doing elementary school and we're going to start with vivian banks mr costa good evening all President Anderson, board members, superintendent Ghaly, Ms. McEnerny, and student board members. Thank you all. So I'm going to do a... a deep dive a little bit of for where we're at with chronic absenteeism. We were asked to look at a challenge that we're still working with and this has been an interesting journey. It's been one of my primary focuses throughout the year and so I thought it would be interesting to just give an update and also just to go into some of the data that I personally enjoy sharing. So this is directly from the LCAP that was
047written last year. And you can see it is LCAP goal 1.1, area of improvement number one. So right off the bat, attendance and specifically chronic absenteeism rate. I will come back to this information, but this is just to give you kind of the brief overview before I get into some of the specifics here. the baseline information going back to 22-23 really right now the and i'll get into more of the specifics in a few minutes but the the main number here is 43 percent in 22-23 of all students were chronically absent and just for the audience and anybody who may not know that definition chronically absent is student who misses 10% or more of a given school year so that could be 18 days or more typically so we'll come back to this but this
048is just to kind of get us started here So these are the previous three years of chronic absenteeism at Vivian banks. I just pulled this off of dashboard. So we have 22 right here where we see 48 and a half percent chronically absent. So almost half. And then we can see this progression toward better numbers. And this is well before I showed up on the scene. So this is something that is really a community success. And that's part of what I want to point out here is this is something that the staff, who many of them have been around for multiple years and community members, have all been working on. Mr. Ortega, Chairman, many of you here on the board. So this is a progression that is really, there's a lot of people. behind this
049number. So this is nothing new here. But we started out at about 48.5% chronically absent. That's a tough number, right? Just to get the students at school with almost half missing over 18 days of school for a year, it's going to be very hard to even get to the point where we can start really thinking about rigorous academics. So we went from 48%, the next year 23, here in the middle, 43%. So a decline, which is a good thing, a decline of 5%. And then last year, 31.2% chronically absent. Still very high, almost a third. the trend is at least going in that right direction. So I determined when I came on board, I want to continue to really attack this. And this is something that the community also felt was very important. So we'll
050look now and see where we're at. And then I just want to share, you know, kind of my challenges, what I've faced through the year, and then some lessons learned. Okay, so this is just my little chart that I run every week. So far, the chronic absenteeism story this year is really a tale of three acts, essentially. Up until mid-November, we were running... We're running great. We had, you can see here, this is our weekly attendance rate for this given time period, November 12th through the 15th, which was week 14 of the school year. Our cumulative attendance was 96, a little bit over 96%. And this is our lowest that we got to for the school year to date. So a little bit under 3%.