3/22/16 Board of Education Meeting

001Testimony and non-agenda items is limited to a maximum of 15 minutes per topic. Public testimony speakers are limited to a maximum of three minutes per speaker. Depending upon the total number of speaker requests received by the board, the time may be reduced to two or one minute each. Each speaker will have three minutes. We have three timely submitted with two submitted here recently. So a total of five, so three minutes each. to address the board and please remember, no deferral of time is allowed. The board asks that speakers focus their comments on the issues and not on individuals. When you begin speaking, the green light will come on, a yellow light when you have one minute left, and when your time is up, the red light will appear and the bell will ring. Please finish

002your sentence when your time is up. So our speakers in order Francine Maxwell Dwayne Harvey Celeste work Ozaki Mary then No, I'm sorry citizen then Ann Marie Haney with Mary then herder so starting first Francine, welcome to the podium. Thank you. Francine Maxwell, my concern today, President, is the parent outreach and engagement with the half a million dollars that is sitting on the table. As I attended the DAC meeting, I went back to one of my principals in middle school in District E, and she didn't know what I was talking about. Unfortunately, the DAC rep for Bell Middle School had a family emergency and couldn't attend. but my principal didn't know anything about this half a million that is on the table from Title I. Due to the fact that she had four people call

003out sick that day and she had to teach, the entire administration team at Bell had to be teachers. So as they... went from room to room teaching, upon having a break at lunchtime, we discussed it, and just watching the fact that she had to deal with the bullying that is occurring on Bell's campus, the fact that there's some teachers that have some suspect conversation with young African American and Latino and Asian young men, she had to deal with all that on her campus that day. So the sourcing and the contracts of this half a million dollars, I would hope that all principals would have some input when it comes to how we're going to spend that money she didn't even know that it was sitting on the table so i know that in the past

004we've had some challenges making sure that everything is being communicated to everybody so if we can just look into that because uh... it's sorely needed and i also wanted to ask i've been talking to my neighbors i call neighbors and scripts ranch their children are having problems with uh... the edge annuity and my children over in district e they used to love apex Apex is gone, and so they're having difficulty with the Edgenuity. So I'm wondering when we're gonna have a conversation with parents about a possible waiver for the EL students and the special ed. Right now is the time that grandparents, aunts and uncles, they begin to look at travel arrangements. And so once they're locked in to purchasing travel arrangements for a child that may not graduate, I think it does a big

005disservice to what we're trying to build here. And then my... And the last thing is many parents don't even know about our quality assurance department because their children know their rights. They're sitting in classrooms at Morris High School where their IEP calls for them to have teacher support. I walked into several English classes and not one special ed student had the English support that they needed. And the child looked at me and said, I know that I am supposed to have someone sitting next to me. The teacher has over 32 students. some English classes and it's very hard for that child that knows their rights and they know that they should have somebody sitting next to them to help them explain and digest the work. So I would hope that we can just send out

006a reminder so that principals know, ask the board for help, come to your trustee, come to the superintendent. When a child knows their rights and they know that they're not being served, I think there's something wrong with the program. Thank you, Francine. Dwayne, Mr. Harvey, thank you. Thank you. My name is Dwayne Harvey. I'm just here today actually to make some requests for some information. On Sunday, Chief... Little John made some comments or wrote an opinion in the, I'm sure everybody knows or probably read it, in the San Diego Union. And it was regarding armed officers and said as far as it being a benefit for armed officers to be in high schools. But he made some comments in here that I'm trying to vet and I need some information regarding that to see if

007what he was saying was true. One of the comments he made was that a sex trafficking ring was operating in the Lincoln neighborhood and it was uncovered and dismantled by school police and the Human Trafficking Task Force. I'd like to request some information regarding that sex trafficking ring in the Lincoln neighborhood and to what degree of involvement or role did the school police play in that action. If possible, I'd like to know were there actually students from Lincoln that were involved in that situation? And the reason why I ask is because he... He decided to make that comment that it was in the Lincoln area and was relating that to Lincoln High School. So because there's a lot of things that happen in Lincoln area that ain't necessarily related to Lincoln High School. But when

008he made that comment, it looks like he's talking about Lincoln High School. Another comment he made was that the school police officers receive specialized training in positively engaging students with polite. and respectful conversation that is neither intimidating nor harassing. I'd like to see what recent specialized training has the school police received and specifically examples of its application at Lincoln High School with the Lincoln students. All right, and third, he said officers visit classrooms to instruct students in juvenile law and what to do if they are stopped by police. I'd like to know the dates when the school police, or the recent dates when the school police instructed students in juvenile law and the procedures when stopped by police. And I'd like to actually see what that instruction material looked like. I'd like to see that

009instruction material also. Those are the only things that I would actually like because I would like to say I want to kind of vet what he actually said because he put that out there to the public about Lincoln. And one thing I had talked to Chief Littlejohn at one time and I asked him, he had an opportunity at one meeting. Does that mean I'm done or what? Well, finish your thought. I asked him about speaking positive things about Lincoln, and he had spoke on some statistics about the incidents in Lincoln had been diminished 59%. and I asked him, well, that could have been information that could have been went out to the public. He said that prior to doing this, he had the opportunity to say that and other positive things about Lincoln, but he

010chose to only say things about Abdi. At least 40% of his writing was about the officer, nothing about Lincoln and his students, and he didn't have, he had that opportunity. Thank you, Mr. Harvey. All right, thank you. Celeste. And before you start, I want to thank you for the good time I had with PTA on Sacramento Day. And I was real thrilled to be with you and our other leaders in Sacramento advocating for... legislation and funding for schools. Awesome, thank you. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen of the school board, Superintendent Cindy Martin. My name is Celeste Babakozaki. I'm the president for the San Diego Unified Council PTAs, and I'm here to share with you the latest key advocacy goals for the California State PTA that was shared with what Mike just shared about at the

011third California State PTA legislation conference that was held last week. where dozens of volunteers from across the state of California with the common goal of advocating for all children gathered together to get information about what's going on with their education and funding and whatnot and to also learn about the key messages that California State PTA has. First is to support AB 2680, which is a bill that's introduced by Bonilla, which is a... A bill to basically encourage the school district to establish a framework for establishing family engagement programs at their school district. It is intended to be a one-time investment into family engagement. There's no dollar figure attached to it, and right now our advocacy effort is to find a co-author in order to get the state legislators to support this bill. Second, to have

012all schools offer a full curriculum in order to encourage all school districts to offer a full curriculum so that students are workforce ready and ready to go to college. Because as we all know, not everyone is college bound, but we do need our workforce to be ready. So we want to be able to advocate for a full curriculum such as workshop. automotive, keyboarding, the various skill sets that maybe somebody needs in order to be work first ready. And third, to increase per pupil funding. We all share that same common goal and California State PTA has a key goal of at least $3,000 per student. San Diego U of I has the goal of about $3,200 per student, which I actually shared with Marty Block. So I'm standing here with you before today because I want

013to encourage you all to consider a resolution to support AB 2680. As we all know, family engagement is very important to student learning success. And to have a San Diego Unified School District, the second largest school district in the state of California, to support that would really carry the message to state legislators that family engagement is important to student learning success. So I want to leave with you the copy of the California State PTA key advocacy goals. Thank you. Thank you Celeste. So next in order, Citizen Anne Marie and MaryDen Herter. You shouldn't be using our taxpayer money to take political positions on proposals on bills. That's not... Good expenditure of tax money. Let's get back to Lincoln High School. Cindy Martin promised the public there was going to be a full investigation, a thorough

014investigation about the incident at Lincoln. She has not released public documents. That hasn't happened. When I went to the school police to get the complaint procedure, I didn't get it. I asked for a form. I was told there was no form. That's breaking the law. There is a law that states that any police agency must have a written policy and must produce it for review when a public member asks to review it. And that didn't happen. If you're breaking the law in such a small thing, what else isn't happening? This incident at Lincoln isn't all about the behavior of the students. There also has to be an investigation into the actions of police officer Bashir Abdi. He had a previous incident of tasers, and when I asked the school police, when I asked Cindy Martin's

015staff for the procedure on the use of tasers, I was told there is no such thing. I read the 36-page manual on tasers, and the manufacturer, the producer of that product, states, it could kill you. and that it does not provide procedures for law enforcement agencies. That is up to the law enforcement agencies to create their own procedures. So is there a procedure or is it a big secret? Because I'd like to know if he complied with the procedures of this police agency and the use of tasers on students. He's done it twice. There have been four incidents. What were the other incidents that involved tasers? Parents want to know those things. So why are you hiding the taser? use of taser policy? Why are you not releasing public documents? Why are the actions of

016a police officer that escalated the incident so that now we have several students looking at felony charges? So is there going to be a thorough investigation as Cindy Martin promised the public? Or was that just a what do you call it when you just have a little thing that you tell the media and then you just hope. Sound bite. Was it a sound bite? Or is she going to keep the promise that she made to the public and thoroughly investigate the incident? I don't see that happening. I asked the SDPD if they're going to investigate the actions of Abdi. They said, no, we're not going to do that. We're not doing that. But you promised a third party was going to do that. Everybody heard you. So are you going to keep your promise? The

017actions of the officer need to be investigated. Did he properly handle himself? Did he comply with a policy that apparently is a big secret? Thank you, citizen. Ann Marie. Please be next. I don't want to be next. Also, thank you for the terrific high school concert that was held and we had one and one one still yet to go Everyone was there Thank you. Thank you Well, I didn't think I'd live to see the day where I'd see a picture of the President of the United States with his hand over his heart as the band in Havana, Cuba Played the Star-Spangled Banner What an event. And the only other thing that of course occurred to me was that someone knew how to play the Star Spangled Banner. So I did find out a little more

018about the fact that music education is a high priority in Cuba. We know that because we have so many professional musicians from Cuba in the United States. They moved here. on purpose and were well trained to be successful professionally. So when they came they had job skills that served them very well. So I couldn't pass that up. Also, we on the same subject, of course we are providing music education for many of our students and this coming Thursday close to 300 students will be performing in the elementary instrumental and choral honor concert. So we have singers adding to our instrumentalists this Thursday. You don't want to miss it. It's going to be something really special. Point Loma Nazarene and I'm saying this today, most of you know about it, but the public is still is

019carrying the old idea that you cut music and you cut the arts and isn't it awful? And I keep saying these students are capable of auditioning and being in these concerts because they receive musical training. So we keep needing to get that out to the community. The last thing I hate to mention is that we have a crisis on the middle school level because there's so much competition for scheduling in the middle schools. We know that foreign language is pushed very hard, but also when my children were in school before Proposition 13, I should add, in all fairness, they took wood shop. Here's a wonderful article about children who have been struggling and didn't make it in the public schools taking wood shop and metal shop in a rehabilitative setting and making a success of

020their lives when they were really off the track and struggling. I just think the idea of having the students pushed into more and more heavy duty academics with no interaction does not serve their best interest. So I hope we can address this and make sure that all children have something in their middle school years. that brings them together and meets their needs. Thank you all for what you do. I hope to see you Thursday. See you on Thursday. You can come at the last minute. It's at seven. We'll still save you a seat. Let me know if you're coming though. Thank you. Thank you, Anne Marie. Yeah. Mary Dan? Good afternoon. My name is Mary Denherter, and I have the privilege of serving as the library technician at Golden Hill K-8 school. And in a

021few minutes, you're going to hear some of our students singing. I think we all agree that school libraries and the library staff are essential to the academic success of all the students in the San Diego Unified School District. At the secondary level, that is high schools, middle schools, K-8 schools, and atypical schools, library technicians serve populations of up to 3,000 students. We've taken on the full responsibility for running our libraries. This includes not only the circulation of our library collections, but also all the instructional materials and textbooks needed by every student. The work needs to be done, and we get it done. We do it because we love our students, and we want them to succeed not only academically, but as individuals. Last year I was one of a number of library technicians who worked

022with Barbara Barron, then the program manager of instructional materials, and Margo Denton, the district librarian, to revise the position description for library text. The goal was to revise the description to accurately reflect the work we do. When Ms. Barron submitted it to Human Resources, she was told to have us avail ourselves to the position reclassification process. Many library techs filled out that paperwork. All of those requests were denied without human resources following the mandated procedures. We've now been informed that the position reclassification request for all district positions have been put on hold by HR. HR has provided no details of the purpose of this action or the time frame for which or the time frame for when the reclassification request will be addressed. I ask you, the school board, to direct human resources to provide

023the reasons for holding the reclassification requests and also to provide a reasonable time frame for addressing these requests using the mandated procedure. This information needs to be communicated without delay. Holding reclassification requests indefinitely is not acceptable. HR needs to act fairly and quickly. The library texts are working hard to keep our students up to date in every way and are worthy of reclassification. Thank you. Thank you. Legal counsel would like to clarify one of the issues that was brought forward during this evening's testimony. Yes, thank you. One of the speakers was asking about the internal investigation, I'm sorry, the administrative review of Officer Abdi, and that has been referred to the Sheriff's Office and that is underway currently. Thank you for the clarification. This completes the non-agenda public testimony. Thank you all for your comments

024and for taking time to address the board and superintendent today. We appreciate your input and please know that your perspectives help us to better serve our students, parents, and the community. Per the Brown Act, public testimony on non-agenda items is not a conversation or a dialogue with the board. If an issue needs further attention, the board may refer the matter to the superintendent for review and or investigation. But it's something that we have a conversation about with the people making the presentation. I just want to make that clear. So the Army JROTC Color Guard from Lincoln High School will now present the colors. Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. Ready? Begin. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under

025God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you Lincoln High School. I'd like to welcome everyone present today and those watching the broadcast and call the March 22nd 2016 regular meeting to order with all board members present. If you wish to address the board today and your name is not on the speaker list printed on the blue paper located at both entrances to the auditorium and you have not already submitted a request for public testimony form, please complete the form and submit it to Cheryl Ward, our board action officer. Speakers on agenda items will be called on to speak during the discussion of the agenda item. Once the discussion begins on an item, no additional public speaker requests will be accepted by the board. Per Board By-law 1025, public testimony on agenda items is

026limited to a maximum of 20 minutes per consent and or action item, allowing for a maximum of 10 minutes per opposing viewpoints. Public testimony speakers are limited to a maximum of three minutes per speaker depending upon the total number of speaker requests received by the board on an item. The time may be reduced to two or one minute each. Non-agenda item testimony was heard at five and will also be heard at the end of the meeting. Now student presentation. Trustee Barrera. Thank you president Macquarie and we are honored to have students from Golden Hill K to 8 the proud Eagles here tonight and we've got principal Juan Romo and our music teacher Karina Brevitz to Introduce this so if Juan is out there if you want to just quickly introduce that or we're just ready

027to go And we're from Golden Hill Elementary School and we're going to sing Man in the Mirror by Michael Jackson. I like Man in the Mirror because when I sing it, we remember we can change the world. Hello, my name is Said Viveros and we're going to be singing Count on Me by Bruno Mars. I like Count on Me because it's about friendship and love. Yeah, sure. Not right away. No, no, no. It's on the agenda. Just getting you ready. All right. Top. Thank you. Music to our ears. Music is back in a big way. So does... I'd like to request a motion to... Is there a motion to adopt the agenda with section I, superintendent's consent agenda, to be considered immediately and acted on next? Second. And with the also including I-15? I'll move

028item I. Oh, we're adopting agenda. I got it. Thank you. I'll vote. I'll move item I with I-15 being pulled. Okay. Is there a second? Second. Discussion? The motion is to approve the consent agenda with pulling I-15. Vote? And I'm assuming we didn't have speakers on the other item. Okay. So action on Section I, Superintendent's Consent Agenda, means that all items appearing in Section I are adopted by one single motion unless a member of the Board or the Superintendent requests that any item be removed from the Consent Agenda and voted upon separately or withdrawn from today's agenda. Generally, Consent Agenda items are matters which members of the Board and the Superintendent concur are routine in nature and should be acted on in one motion. In addition to item I-27, we've moved I-15. Moving on. Are

029there any reportable actions to report out at this time? Yes, thank you, Trustee McClary. In closed session, the board ratified discipline settlement agreements with 25 employees, which provided for a suspension or resignation in lieu of discipline. Thank you. Item D. D1. Thank you, President McCrory. I have three management appointments, Human Resources Officers Ann Cato and Mary Wager, and Executive Director of Labor Relations Jessica Falk-Michelli. Congratulations. Welcome aboard. Item D2, Associated Student Body. At this time, I'd like the ASB student representative. To the board to introduce himself. Please tell us about yourself and what is going on at your school, both academically and socially. Sandra Higgins-Bush, ASB president, Kearney High School, science tech. And Owen is not here. He just got here. Introduce him. Are we right on time? And Owen Lim. Wow, just sometimes ASB

030president Sarah high school I want in addition to your school report Please provide the ASB council presidents report and we'll start with Owen and shift to Sandra Hi, I'm Owen. Like they said, I'm the president over at Sarah High School. I'd like to apologize for being late. I was a part of the longest volleyball game that I've ever experienced. So I came over here as quick as possible, but the traffic was all right. Did you win? We did not win. It's not whether you win or lose. It's not worth it. But yeah, glad to be here now. At my school, we recently had... Our winter formal dance, which along with our homecoming dance and our welcome back dance, set records in attendance, which was nice. We brought in a new DJ, which we were a

031little nervous about, and it actually ended up turning out very well. Other things we're planning, this is a combination of Sarah planning along with the council of ASB presidents, is we're planning our third, I believe, annual ASB bonding day, which includes all the ASBs from the district coming over to Sarah. on a Saturday. I think we have it scheduled for May 21st as of now, I believe. and that includes all of the ASBs from all the districts. Like I said, coming together, we play games, kickball, team ball, capture the flag. And then we also have activities that are especially designed to share ideas between the schools, especially among students that are of similar positions in other schools. So we try and, for example, hook up all the junior class presidents so they know what ideas

032are working at their school and what ideas they can improve upon to try and get everyone to come together and really improve upon. like so you can go back and improve upon all their individual schools Thank you, sorry Today we just had our blood drive We had I think about maybe 50 students that I know for sure that donated. More came in towards the end. We had staff and administration come in and donate. And then we helped clean up. So that was a big turnout as well. We are currently getting more students involved in our clubs and athletics, which is new for us because within the last two years our school spirit has died down and has recently just skyrocketed. We have new programs which are funded through the 21st Century Grant, which allow us

033to get more students involved. We give out more spirit gear. incentives for students coming out and being a part of our school and just getting to know us and connect with one another. Thank you. Excellent reports. D3, Superintendent Information Report. Thank you, President McQuarrie. I think that my two board colleagues tonight will probably talk about Council of Great City Schools that we just were in Washington, D.C. over the weekend advocating and learning about. current implementation specifically with the Education Secondary Every Student Succeeds Act, ESSA, and to be able to hear directly from Acting Secretary of Education John King and then some senior staff in Washington, D.C. about the intent of the law. We're watching very carefully here in California and what our state is doing by implementing and having the LCFF and the LCAP documents

034be about local control and local decision-making as the federal government begins to shift. California, each state has some very important decisions to make about what the new accountability system will look like. So we had the opportunity to ask important questions to important people and advocate for our particular stance here in California about what we believe that students are more than a test score and the appropriate role of testing and accountability in public education. The Council of Great City Schools that we're a member of has, as of this weekend, two more districts were added. So there are 70 school districts representing about 7 million children. in the large urban districts and the opportunity to go with our board president and with Dr. Evans and advocate and then listen so that we know specifically how to best

035implement the new laws. And as California begins to think about the role of testing and accountability and what the new system will look like, we know that we're shifting to more holistic measures, and yet standardized measures are still part of this law. So trying to strike that right balance. And we want to use our voice here in California to make sure that... state as they design the new accountability system. Federal government has turned it over to the states as we design that at the state level. We hope that great lessons that have been learned over the last 10 years under No Child Left Behind will be implemented and we will take the lessons learned. and be able to be smarter and lead in a more powerful way using assessment as a flashlight instead of as

036a hammer. And so it was important work over the weekend, and I look forward to continuing to use my voice and the voice that we have here in San Diego to influence and shape the next 10 years of the way we support students and what accountability might look like. Excellent. Board information reports? I'll follow up on that. In terms of the visit to D.C., with the renewal of the authorization of Every Student Succeeds Act, one of the things that we found was that there's an increased portion of the money, maybe 3% to 6% going to the states, rather than coming directly to the school districts. We pointed out to our congressional representatives that it's actually a cut. to our local districts and that's part of the law but the only way to remedy that is

037actually to increase the Title I funding. So they hear about flat funding but we wanted to point out that it's actually a cut to us and we need to watch out for that. We also talked about a great food services program here and the fact that some of the really stringent requirements that don't allow for substituting certain foods for other foods for the same nutritional value. cost at least $700,000 to the districts. We also pointed that out. We had very strong support from both senators and congressional representatives in terms of signing on for letters for military impact aid, which comes up every year. It's $8 to $10 million for the district. it's constantly threatened. So that's another aspect we looked at. And one thing that was exciting was that we've been dealing for a long

038time with the set aside for supplemental educational services where we have to turn over some of our Title I money to outside vendors. The ESSA law actually takes effect in 17-18, but there is a way for 16-17 year to actually working with the state. where we can actually use those funds within our own district in a more integrated manner. So that could be a big addition to our district too. That's it. Other reports? I just wanted to report that this week we went out to, within the last five days, we went out to Oak Park and they're delighted to have a new turf. there and the superintendent was really highly praised for them getting that turf. They had a school-wide assembly and it was just fantastic to see how grateful they are. Parents and staff

039were all there with all the students to thank the superintendent for ensuring that they did get some turf there and they're excited about the improvements to the community based upon that at that particular site. also attended the mid-level music concert and was the only representative. Everybody deserted me at this point. But I did learn that they will be bringing forth some proposals to enhance the music program in District E for next year. So that's kind of exciting to hear that they're devoting some attention and resources to District E and our music program. and The other thing that I did was to go to the California School Boards Association recognition event. And there I met someone from Ipton Charter. It was a wonderful event. And we had someone who was recognized also. And it turns out

040she knows the person. I mean, I just met her, but she knows the vice principal there from Kearney High School who was recognized at that particular. They call him Mr. Me. Mr. Me. But anyway, it was a wonderful event. Thank you. A few events I attended. I was also at the Council of Great City Schools. And the comment I want to make there is that this is the 70 largest school districts in the United States. To be a member, you have to have a school within a community of 250,000 residents and 35,000 schools. Where they make exceptions is if you're... the largest school district in a particular state that doesn't have a city or community that's 250,000. So, but it's a representation of the school districts that have the issues, some of the same issues

041that we have and we can share and talk and learn from each other. It was a great event and a chance to meet Secretary of Education King. and to move forward. I also was at the Kearney Cluster meeting. I was at the Met High School celebration of business partners and mentors. I was at the Luso-American celebration with the Portuguese ambassador that came to San Diego and the consulate came there from Los Angeles. And we were recognized for the new Portuguese class we're starting at Point Loma High School next year. In addition to Portuguese next year, we're starting Vietnamese at Central High. I mean Central. Elementary. I was at the PTA Legislation Day to get to know what PTA does and who they are and how we can partner and work effectively for parent engagement. I

042also was at the California School Board Association Legislation Day in Sacramento and did the rounds there as we did on the Council of Great City Schools at the Federal House at the Congress. I had a great celebration for food, California food for California kids, a luncheon with our county superintendent Ron Roberts with Drew Rowland and cafeteria Gary Patel and our cafeteria department. It was a great event with our cafeteria services receiving... Lots of acknowledgement for the quality services that we're doing to provide healthy food for healthy kids at our schools. 150,000 meals per day are served that are fresh fruits and vegetables. I was also at the La Jolla cluster meeting and had a pretty busy couple of weeks. Moving on. Yes, Trustee Barrera. Thank you, President McQuarrie. I just wanted to thank the San

043Diego High School community. who people might have heard are dealing with an issue that they really shouldn't have to deal with right now, which is San Diego High School is the oldest high school in San Diego County that was established on its current site in 1882. Fifty years after the establishment of San Diego High on its current site, there was an amendment to the city charter. uh... saying that the site the land that san diego high school sits on uh... belongs to balboa park the long and the short of it is that there was a lease that the district entered into that expires in seven years there was a court case that resulted in a settlement that decades ago that pushed the situation into the future. But now we're looking at a situation that if

044the district and the city of San Diego don't work together to ensure that San Diego High can remain on its current site, the site becomes threatened within the next decade. So the district has reached out to the city council. and asked for a very simple solution, which is that the City Council is bringing forward a number of charter amendments for voters to vote on this year, both in the June and November elections. There's a simple charter amendment that would say, essentially, school that was on its current site prior to this 1931 Charter Amendment is exempt from the Charter Amendment and can remain in existence which would apply to San Diego High School. So we're asking the City Council to simply bring that Charter Amendment forward so that voters can decide in the November election. The

045good news is that the San Diego High School community has come out in force, asking the city council to take this action. We've had well over a thousand signatures to a petition, savesandiegohigh.com. I'd encourage everybody here to sign the petition, savesandiegohigh.com. We had a rally out in front of the high school last week that Superintendent Martin and I... uh spoke at uh along with uh principal dr carmen garcia council member david alvarez who's been an incredible champion and who is an alumni an alumni of san diego high school And most importantly, we had the ASB president of the high school, the Cesar Chavez Club's president of the high school, and the Cesar Chavez Club's president at McKinley Elementary School, who mentioned that he intends to enroll in San Diego High School in five years and

046wants to know that the school is going to continue to be there. It's a simple solution to this issue. The idea that San Diego High School would be torn down is an absurd idea that I don't think anybody... entertains. However, the City Council does need to act. We applaud the leadership of Council Members Alvarez and Todd Glorietz and Council Member Gloria's district. And we applaud the leadership of Mayor Kevin Faulkner, who stepped up and proclaimed his support to keep San Diego High School in its current. So advocacy needs to continue. The city council needs to do the right thing and bring this to the voters. And if so, I believe that we're going to prevail in the election this November. Also, as part of the board report, we will have the Secretary of Labor and

047Superintendent Martin. Do you have specifics on that? Oh, yes. Tomorrow, we featured our Qualcomm Think-A-Bit Lab as one of the promising practices that we have to expand workforce and experiences for students. And in partnership with the mayor and some of the initiatives that we're doing there, we're happy tomorrow to be hosting the Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Labor, Chris Liu, who will be coming to the Think-A-Bit Lab tomorrow and working with Peter Kals. and the mayor's office. We're going to be discussing these three specific questions. What are we doing to create opportunities for young people in our region? Why is this important to the organizations and our community? And are there ways that we can work together? And specifically, Chris Liu, the Deputy Secretary of the Department of Labor, is asking what can

048the federal government do to support our efforts and paying close attention to not just the Think-A-Bit lab, being able to expand opportunities, summer jobs, career pathways, working with workforce partnerships. and how the federal government can partner with us. We're expanding to, we'll be featuring tonight actually in our board item on broad and challenging curriculum, but we're happy to be hosting federal officials paying attention to the work that we're doing to expand opportunities and career pathways for our students, and that visit is tomorrow. Perfect. Agenda item E1, Superintendent Instructional Matters, Vision 2020, Quality Schools in Every Neighborhood. Thank you. That's the item I was just speaking about. Tonight we're focusing on our Vision 2020, the quality schools, and I'm going to invite up our presenters that will be presenting with me, Cheryl Hibland, Sophia Freire, and

049Bruce Bivens. And tonight's topic is focused specifically on the quality indicator of offering a broad and challenging curriculum. So we're going to need to bring a few extra chairs up as the team joins me. We'll just scoot over. So as you know, this is a monthly report. It's not required by statute that we update monthly on our goals and our progress, but it's something that we've committed to as we develop our Vision 2020 and align it to the LCAP goals and our six goal areas, one of them being a broad and challenging curriculum. We've made promises to ourselves and to our community how we'll spend the dollars. what programs, actions, and services, and then what metrics will go with it. And so we like to, each month, present how we're doing on each of the

050goal areas that we've committed to. So specifically tonight, we're going to be focusing on the goal of broad and challenging curriculum, as we see as being central. A quality school in every neighborhood is not quality unless we offer broad and challenging, that you can't just have a basic program. We want more than basic for our students to be able to have access to opportunities that are high leverage equity strategies. So specifically tonight, we're going to focus our presentation on the powerful partnerships that we're leveraging to make sure that our offerings are broad and challenging. And then we're going to feature two additional strategies that ensures that each and every student has access to the broad and challenging curriculum that... this board has committed to in a policy. We wanna show you what that looks like

051in practice. So this two, besides the powerful partnerships that leverage, we're also gonna focus on what we're doing with our master schedules and our partnership with the equal opportunity schools that those two specific strategies help us deliver on this particular goal of a broad and challenging curriculum in San Diego Unified. So with that, I'll turn it over to, are you starting, Bruce or Cheryl? Okay. Good evening. Tonight I get to update you on some really exciting advances in our partnerships for extended learning opportunities. The first update I'd like to give you is our STEAM project Lead the Way Camp. So a year ago almost we did a transformation at Claremont High School, a link learning transformation. And one of the promises that we made when we brought link learning into that school was that we

052would create rich summer experiences for students to have an opportunity to engage in STEAM-focused camps. And so one of the models we looked at currently are JROTC, Marine and different military opportunities. They go for the summer. They spend five nights overnight there. And so we asked Project Lead the Way and the Moxie Foundation if they would support that same opportunity for our link learning students to spend five days at San Diego State engaged in Project Lead the Way information technology, Project Lead the Way engineering, and Project Lead the Way healthcare. And they said yes. So by application this summer, 50 students in San Diego Unified will participate in full day Project Lead the Way. lead the way STEAM camp at San Diego State University for our link learning schools. Another opportunity that isn't necessarily attached

053to Project Lead the Way, but that is very exciting and is going to take place on April 13th, is we have purchased for the Lincoln Fire Science Classroom an actual fire truck that we are dedicating to the program. Now I'm told it's disabled, but it is something that the Fire Science Classroom is going to be able to use, and that dedication of the fire truck is going to take place on April 13th. to enhance the fire safety pathway there which is growing and doing very well. Tonight I'm also very excited to talk about our Thinkabit-inspired work-based learning labs. This has been some of the most exciting and meaningful work that the secondary office really has engaged in this year. Qualcomm's Thinkabit lab, thousands of students travel there from San Diego Unified, our middle school students,

054and have an experience where they incorporate engineering and art, and many students go to that lab and realize that they can be engineers. or be pretty much anything that they want after they spend one day creating something amazing at the lab. So with the help of Ed Hidalgo at Qualcomm and our partners at the Workforce Partnership, Andy Hall and Peter Kallstrom, we have been reaching out to other organizations to see if we could replicate those labs for our students in San Diego Unified. So the first update that I want to give you, and this one just took a very interesting turn, is the future partnership with Raytheon. So initially we were thinking, because we decided that the theme of the Raytheon lab would be to have kids engineer surface level rover robots to kind of

055like the defense system boats that Raytheon on a larger scale produces. But what we realized was rather than buying kits or purchasing something, we have worked with Johnny Medina, the CCTE teacher from Madison, and John Riego de Dios, the CCTE teacher from Kearney EID, and they're going to help us build prototypes with their students that are going to be used in the Raytheon lab. So students from middle schools will twice a month go to Raytheon and have an experience. developing and engineering these water rovers. The other exciting work-based learning experience that is currently being piloted, so every time we build a new lab, we don't just send kids to it, but we have a pilot phase to have kids react to it and we figure out what we need to tinker with and change. So

056Laura Slanik is actually here tonight with me from SeaWorld. She's the Director of Education and Conservation. Wow, what SeaWorld has done for us. I'm going to show you some photos. So students from Mann Middle School and Wilson Middle School are... pilots for this and what what we've done is it's a one-day experience and they go to many people don't know in the back of SeaWorld they rescue animals they rehabilitate animals they support animals because most of what people have seen has been on the front so in the back of SeaWorld which I'm going to show you a picture in a minute there are different types of animals due to different human and environmental conditions that end up in the back that SeaWorld helps Rehabilitate and so the one day experience is going to the kids

057get to get up close and personal with the animals and I love this back part because that's a dolphin coming out of that blue little Water it's like a pool and the kids get to go back there and in the other areas to the right are some of the animals when I was there last time the animals that were most impacted with the sea otters from El Nino El Nino the moving the food away from the coast. And so the kids get to experience for an hour an opportunity to engage with the animals. And then in the next segment of their visit, they get to talk about and learn how humans and the environment impact sea life. And then at the end of the experience, they create an art. And it's called ocean-minded art. And

058it has to depict how humans impact the ocean and its animals. So this has been piloting every Tuesday and will pilot all the way through April. And then we will officially kick this off and open it up to all of our middle schools in the fall. So thank you so much, Laura. This is just so cool. And just thank you for everything that SeaWorld does for us. All the kids you employ, thank you so much. Okay, the next thing that I wanted to share, and before I get into unlocking the genius. One of the really exciting things that has happened this year is our partnership with UC San Diego Extension. And this started with them being willing to offer some of their UC San Diego courses in our schools. The pilot went so well this

059year with UC San Diego. We only piloted a few, like four classes a term. The pilot went so well that I got a call from UCSD Extension. And they are asking to meet with me to create hubs across the city where students from all of our schools can go and take these courses, but we would make sure that the hubs were on the schools where maybe kids didn't have cars and then the kids who did, so we would be very purposeful about where we put them. But they want to extend the program, have hubs where coursework could be offered to more students across the city, and, and this is, oh, this is the best, and they have a certificate. program at UCSD Extension where you earn certificates. And what they want to talk to us

060about is that kids in grades 11 and 12 would be able to start to earn certificates. They have over 100 certificates at UCSD Extension, and they want to be purposeful about which of those certificates we would offer. Some of the certificates that they want to talk to me about are healthcare information technology, AutoCAD, Java programming. and so students in the eleventh grade could be working on the certificates and complete them by the time they left it's just so exciting it's just more than I could have imagined, but they're so happy and they really want to be a part of our system. So that's just an update about UC San Diego. So the final update that I wanted to give you tonight was in November we brought all of the secondary principals and counselors in and

061we gave them the strong and strength inventory and we unlocked their genius and they figured out what they were really wonderful at so that they would appreciate the experience so much. and want to give their students that experience. And then we followed up that event in December by bringing 50 counselors to the apprenticeship programs to open their eyes about some of the options that exist in San Diego beyond four-year and two-year colleges. The follow-up now is the student piece. So currently, we are getting ready with our partners, Qualcomm Think of It Lab, UCSD Extension, Junior Achievement, Thrively, which is an online strengths platform, and SkillsOne, who has created a version of the strong inventory for us called SuperStrong. And we are getting ready to pilot this opportunity with our students. the month of April all

062the way through the beginning of March. Students from four to five different clusters will go into a pilot phase. And during this phase, the eighth grade students will attend Qualcomm or UCSD extension. They will take the strengths inventory via Thrively, which tells them not only their genius, but in this platform, they can go click on different areas in town that have work-based learning experiences in San Diego that they can... experience in order to have their genius continue on. And then we are going to help them create an agency plan. And our hope is that this agency plan is a little plan that they bring into their high school counselor and say, I'd like to be an engineer, so these are the classes that you need to put me in so that my future is set

063because this is what I need to do. And then in 10th grade, we are sending the students to Junior Achievement Finance Park. Now, this was a big deal because it's expensive to go to the finance park. But it looks like Junior Achievement is willing to work with us on an extremely lowered cost so that we can send all of our 10th graders in the fall, but right now only two clusters currently, to go and develop. They have the finance park experience where they learn how to manage. money, something all of us probably should have learned before we left high school, and they will develop a post-secondary plan that has a finance component and a future component. And so they will walk out of this experience understanding what they need to do, the steps they need

064to take to get to the post-secondary future that they want, and the financial responsibility that it will take to get them there. So we're very excited about this. We'll find out from the kids if they're excited about it. And then the plan is to go ahead and roll this out full force in September. I just wanted to add that I've taken the junior achievement course this last semester, and it was very helpful. I've learned how to budget money and where living expenses come from. Great so hi everyone Bruce Bivens everyone superintendent nice to see everybody today we know the importance of building school culture and the importance of how structure in a school supports quality teaching and learning every class and how structure can really play a critical role. So we're going to talk about

065a major structural support and shift that we are doing in San Diego Unified. And we have been very strategic and deliberate in providing scaffolded support to our high school principals and teams around the master schedule work this year. Back in October, November, we introduced the 13 master schedule expectations for high schools, and we'll go more deeper into those areas, but these areas are best practices, research-based, and have proven results. We've also provided direct, in December, providing direct support to with teams of folks, area superintendent, secondary office, and counseling to meet with the high school teams directly and look at their development tools for master schedules and to identify their equity challenges on site and look at the limitations and possibilities of their current master schedule and where things need to shift in order to support

066the equity work at each school. In January, we presented and provided all of our schools workshops directly to work in areas with our EOS, Equal Opportunity Schools partner, college board, and looking at AP potential work, and the OLA office to look at our English learners and students with special needs. and we went directly into their master schedules to look at how they are structuring and sequencing courses to support all students. We've done those draft reviews in February with district priorities around A through G access, advancement opportunities, and intervention supports for all students in need of intervention. And now we are moving into March where tomorrow we begin our master schedule presentations with instructional cabinet with high school principals presenting how they are addressing their equity work in their schools, how they are addressing the 13

067master schedule expectations and the district priorities. Anything you want to add on timeline? Okay. So Dr. Freyde and I will go into the 13 master schedule expectations. So as I mentioned before, these are best practices and research-based. So A through G is just providing access to all students. And apart from labels, whether you're an English learner or a student with an IEP, we must guarantee access to A through G courses to be graduation and college ready. We also know that alternative bell schedules provide opportunities for more courses. and schools are shifting to alternative bell schedules such as a 4x4 block and these more courses provide more opportunities to allow access to both intervention courses as well as advancement acceleration courses. And with more courses and credits equals more competitive and more apt to stay A

068through G on track. The other area of AP, IB, and college courses not only allows you to be more competitive, but that access provides a greater reliability on becoming successful in college. I think students that take at least one AP course are twice as likely to command. There's different research around that, but it is quite a significant jump. Assessments, why the importance of assessments and intervention. So one, looking at the diagnostic data of our incoming ninth graders into high school on their reading level readiness as well as their algebra readiness and providing intervention supports for students in need of that and using those assessments to guide our students on their scheduling needs at ninth grade, structured scheduling. Common planning. We know that common planning in master schedules is the engine to support school culture for

069excellence for all. And apart from having a strong leader on every campus, the professional learning collaboration that occurs with teachers is truly the engine of quality teaching and learning in every classroom. So being strategic in a master schedule to allow for common planning time during the day is key. Also eliminating tracking and limiting stratification. So being very strategic in our course sequencing. to making sure that the demographic of classes in advanced courses are aligned to the demographic of schools in which they are serving and the communities in which they are serving, and to make sure that labels do not determine a destination. in the courses that they're offered or accessed to. We also believe that in the final one, English learners and students with individualized education plans, that they should be scheduled first in the

070master schedule and given high priority in the scheduling process. Dr. Ray? I have the other ones I'll be presenting on. Number eight is regarding the least number of teacher preps as possible. We believe that lesson design is the key lever in improving first-time instruction and that limiting the number of preps for teachers facilitates better planning and better instruction. Number nine is in terms of maximizing enrollment in elective and physical education courses. We want to make sure that student choice and variety of elective offerings does not supersede students' academic needs. And so we've been using the term structured choice. We believe students should have a choice, but it should be structured choice. And we have to always keep in mind what students need. The next one, number 10, is middle school course completion. We were looking

071at instances where high school students were asked to repeat courses that they had already passed in middle school. And so following along with new assembly bills, we need to ensure that if a student passes a course, like a math course or a foreign language course in middle school, that they're not asked to repeat that course in high school. Number 11 is regarding strategic sequencing of science courses. We want schools to be thoughtful about their sequencing, that they're looking at patterns and trends and data in their school, that they're taking into account math prerequisite skills, and that they're thoughtful about the order in which students are getting physics, chemistry, and biology. Our next... Number 12 expectation is regarding CCTE courses. We found that a lot of our schools were treating these as individual standalone elective courses,

072and that's not the way they're intended. They're intended to be part of a pathway, and therefore we are closely tracking this idea that it's a multi-year sequence and that there has to be introductory courses, foundational courses, and capstone courses. And finally, number 13 is strategic staffing. we believe that our neediest students need to have access to the most effective teachers that have strategies in their tool belt to meet their needs. And so that is, those 13 priorities or master schedule expectations are what's been leading the work that we've been doing with high school principals around master schedule. Just one quick clarification on number eight. Yeah. Teacher prep and planning time. I'm not sure I understand what you mean because that sounds synonymous. I'm assuming teacher prep is for planning. When we say teacher preps, it

073means the amount of different courses that they are required to teach. So every course is considered a prep. You weren't talking about the prep, limiting their prep periods. Yeah, it's how many different classes do you teach that you have to prepare for. If you teach geometry, algebra, and intermediate algebra, then there's three different classes you have to prepare for every single day. you should be teaching geometry, geometry, geometry. That way you can prepare one quality best lesson. Yeah, and the reality within our schools is that teachers will have more than one prep, but we just want to, that's why we've added it here to limit the number as much as possible in terms of teacher preps. I hope that makes sense. Okay, so the next part of our presentation is... Before you go to that,

074Dr. Ferrer, I just want to say many times I talk up here about how we need to do our work in ways that are systemic and coherent. And by looking at these 13 master schedule expectations, speaking of coherence... This is an example of what that looks like in an implementation of A through G for all and what this actually is going to take to deliver on it. It takes a strategic systemic approach and to be as concrete and drill it down as specifically as these expectations. And this isn't just a list of expectations that we put out to our principals and say, go and do it. There is support for each one of those with detailed meetings and then follow-up meetings and support for how to actually live those. And the slide before that showed

075how tomorrow our principals are... going to be. tomorrow and the next day high school principals march 2016 will be presenting their cross department to across department central office team how they've been implementing these 13 expectations and they might be picking a few of them that they're focusing on because the equity challenges that we have in terms of broad and challenging curriculum to provide access and support for that access occurs inside these 13 expectations and each principal taking them on in different ways depending on what's most important at their school so we want to make it really concrete that that policy that's passed here is specifically tied to coherent systemic implementation and that's an example of what you just saw about what it takes to really. deliver on the promise of broad and challenging. So that

076was a key feature. You heard Cheryl speak about the partnerships offering broad. You heard Dr. Ferrari just talk about the challenging curriculum doesn't happen without intentional master schedule design and support for that. And now Bruce is going to continue, I'm not sure which one he's going to talk about, equal opportunity schools as another way that we make sure that the challenging offerings are in place and that we are offering equity strategies for our students to have access. So one of the things I wanted to add to the master schedule expectations conversation is that very aligned with what the superintendent just mentioned, every high school has been asked to pick. three expectations as priorities that they're going to focus on this year. So we would see that in their master schedule come alive, actually come alive

077in their master schedule. One district-wide priority for us is number three, expectation number three, around advanced placement courses and international baccalaureate courses. And the superintendent's started today's presentation with the idea of powerful partnerships and we have a powerful partnership with equal opportunity schools and that's the data that I'll be presenting next and so on this graph what you see is the solid bars represent the number of students district-wide taking a minimum of one AP or IB course and the bars are divided by ethnicity and socioeconomic status and so if we add up the solid bars you have 6091 students district-wide taking at least one AP course. Of those 6,091 students, we have 3,575 students that are underrepresented. And that's something that we need to celebrate. A lot of times we say, well, there's these gaps,

078but we don't appreciate the fact that there is data that says that there are underrepresented students that are already taking at least one AP class. So I wanted to pause and celebrate that. However, the... section in the dotted section in each of the bars represents the students not in AP. So underrepresented students not in AP and so these that section or that section in each bar represents where the gap is. And we basically have 1,891 students. that we need to add in AP in the underrepresented bars to be able to close that gap. In our partnership with EOS, we've identified those students. We've identified over 2,000 students that have AP potential. And one of the things... How do you identify them that they have AP potential? And how come they're not in AP classes? There's

079um so I'll answer the first question first Students took a survey and so we basically identify their potential based on their what they answered in the survey if they have interest in going to a college if they have interest in going um taking advanced placement courses and so one of the things i wish i would have shared and would have ensured that you had a copy of was what's called a student insight car a student insight card we have one of these for every student that's identified and i want to share a little bit about what's on these cards because we have them for all the students that have been identified The one I have in front of me is for a student at Lincoln High School, 10th grade student, female Latina. Her educational goal

080is a four-year college. her career interest, she wants to be a chef. She's identified three trusted adults on campus that she feels she can go to. I'm going to channel my colleague, Fabi, who said, you know what, there are some students that we have insight cards for that have zero trusted adults. Let's find out, let's outreach to those kids because every student needs at least one trusted adult. We also have... Her GPA. We have information about her mindset. So she says she's willing to take upper level courses. Reported barriers, and this goes to your next question, why isn't she in AP? She said, I would be more likely to take AP if I knew that I would have opportunities to redo my assignments. Or I knew that there were optional study skills trainings like time

081management, organizational skills, etc. There's also a place where they can add comments and she says, no matter what, I do anything to get good grades. And then her second comment was, sometimes I need help. So we basically have specific data on all of the students that have been identified that have AP potential. Schools have these cards as area superintendents. We have these cards for all of the schools that we support. and so I'm not sure if I answered your question, but it was based on a survey, it was based on GPA, it was based on a lot of different measures, and the college board and the PSAT gives us some of this data. What EOS does for us, it actually casts a broader net to be able to identify students who normally would not take

082an AP course. Yeah, I'm not sure we've gotten to the... to the why aren't they in AP classes now? So then I guess, you know, moving on to the next logical thought process, which maybe is already part of your presentation is, you know, how are we going to get these kids in an AP class? Well, the idea is that we have to demystify AP. And so there's two things happening at the same time. There are gatekeepers at schools. And so whether that is teachers, counselors, students themselves, there's gatekeepers not allowing certain students in AP classes. So we're finding that across the system. So that's the institutionalized racism in our school district. So we have part of that, but we also have the idea that some students don't want to take an AP course because it's

083more rigorous and it's going to impact their GPA. And so we also have things that are happening both for the student and at home that are keeping students from taking AP courses. Oh, I'm sorry to interrupt. I was going to say exactly that this is not a simple why are they not in it. And our partnership with Equal Opportunity Schools and the Insight Cards, this is a national effort to find the 10,000 missing students across the nation. And the survey helps us drill that down that there are multiple layers of reasons. Sometimes it's awareness. Sometimes it's belief system, belief system of the individual, belief system of the family, belief system of the system. And so by being able to put a bright light on this and underline. and specifically other indicators that we're just blind

084to, we just weren't looking at them, it brings it to light. And Dr. Friary just gave very specific examples, but for each student, there is a different reason. But that doesn't mean the system can't begin to learn those reasons, understand them, unpack them, and then figure out how to offer that type of access. I think it's phenomenal that we have at least identified who the students are. And when I read it, I thought you had some... Test data a lot of factors going in it to to do a composite or compiling on each student I Think I've got some other questions for you. I should after you present the data button because it is fascinating for me this we finally can you can put names to all these folks it's not just Nebulous data you

085have those names and faces. Yeah Yeah, we have names and faces and reasons for each one. Each one is a little, to answer your question, each one is a little bit different, but there are patterns and there are trends, and when we understand those patterns and trends, that becomes the system work that we get to do to begin to break those chains that are holding our students back, and when you know better, you can do better as a system, and the entire system is taking it on. It's not a pilot, and it's not something we might do. We're right in the middle of it right now, and we have by name, by school, by student, master schedules being built based on what we've... learned in this in the insight cards that we've collected from our

086students. And then just one clarifying on these three trusted adult on these trusted adults do we know which of those have made a commitment to mentor? We would hope that the trusted adults would help in the conversation to get the students into the AP courses and so that the staff members faculty are a key part of this effort and yes we would encourage them that they would help enroll them in the class, but also help them as they go through the course throughout the year. And so one of the things I failed to say is that this effort isn't only about access. So a lot of people will say, well, you're going to get him into the class. We're also thinking about access and success. How do we ensure that these students who are taking

087AP courses for the first time are actually successful in the class? And so that's another part of the conversation that we're having as we look at master schedules is not only access to the class, but what supports can be in place to ensure that the student successfully passes the class. I just have a question. Do the trusted adults know they've been identified by that student as a trusted adult so they can then reach out to them? Yes. Okay, thanks. And also, I... My dream, my vision is to have a cadre of retired teachers, seniors, folks from Qualcomm, wherever, on a roster who are willing to take this on as a role. I mean, just take one child. Kind of like what they do with Voices for Children. They have CASAs, or Court Appointed Special Advocates,

088for individual children or families to just nurture them through the process. Because if you're at Qualcomm and you're an engineer, you know what it's like to go through these. and you can then offer the child or some children the support that, yes, you can do this. It's not that difficult. Look at it a different way. So that's what I hope we would get to in the next round. It's something that we want to monitor closely because we know that a lot of students, even if they start with an AP class, as soon as the class starts or on the first day when they look at the course syllabus, they're like, oh no, this is not for me. We need to monitor it closely so we ensure that the students that are initially enrolled have the

089support they need to feel confident and have agency to stay in the course. So right now we're right in the middle and in the thick of things because every school is launching recruitment efforts to ensure that the identified students actually get into those AP courses. And so it's conversations. We wish we had time to be able to highlight what every single school is doing. Unfortunately, we don't have that time. So tonight we're going to highlight what two schools are doing. And so I'm going to turn it over to Bruce, who's going to share some of the great things happening at Serral High School. And just to reinforce, principals are being very strategic with their trusted adults, being the ones that deliver the message personally, face-to-face, with a letter of congratulations, inviting parents to come to

090the school, to go to an AP meeting, and they may have never been invited to an AP workshop or a meeting before. So breaking down all the barriers. So at Sarah High School, currently they've had identified their equity challenge of 131 students, 136 students that are underrepresented and need to be in courses, and 331 total in the program. Oh, I'm sorry, 496 students total in the program and 136 that we're targeting. I know we've increased that number because we've also used the AP program. potential data as well to dig a little deeper alongside the EOS survey data. So if students were not identified through EOS, AP potential gives us another window to look at skill sets and readiness. Some of the things that Sarah High School has done this year to recruit differently. First is

091look individually at the survey data because it also kind of gives you a window into the grit and growth mindset of students as another identifier and then obviously then the one piece that Sophia mentioned was the self-identifying so students can self-identify in that survey data that they want to take an advanced placement course. So it's a nice way of looking through that window and teachers can then identify as well for students that they believe in any course that they have students that have potential on taking an AP course. So looking at that and the recruitment efforts, Sarah High School held an AP fair for the first time and invited the students that were missing and underrepresented to come and bring parents. They had almost 100 families attend out of the missing students and AP students

092in current courses along teachers presented AP workshops on each course and Dr. Mays also presented to all parents as well. So one way of reaching out. It's definitely a catalyst for their hashtag no more gaps campaign that they're starting to work towards as excellence for every student in every classroom every day. And they also held student panel discussions with students currently that are underrepresented in AP courses to demystify the AP coursework. I also just want to broaden that it's AP, it's IB, it's college courses, it's rigorous advanced access to coursework across master schedule. We use sometimes AP synonymous with all of the above knowing that these are great determiners for our students to graduate ready for college. And we are doing some fantastic work as well at Mira Mesa. Just one question on the graphs

093there. Yes. You draw a red line at the top of the median high-income white and Asian. Oh, yeah, let me explain that. As opposed to, I'm assuming there are also some high-income white and Asian students who could be encouraged to take AP courses. I know we're looking at the equity issue, but equity. we could be shooting higher. Right. Other groups don't have to stop when they reach the level of the dominant group. Yeah. So I would say that this is today's equity challenge, right? And the idea is to rise, a rising tide to lift all. all demographics, but right now, we know that white and Asian students are most represented in the advanced courses, and they currently represent the highest demographic presented in those courses, so that's our challenge to at least align to that

094gap closer, but also to, as you said, more representation across the board. And because when you're talking about advanced placement IB college courses, there could be an eventual goal of having almost everybody at some point participating in that right absolutely and schools are starting to to consider that as a goal to have every single student take at least one ap course in their high school career could you just i i thought this was very interesting the bottom bullet about current ap students writing the welcome letters could you just talk a little bit about them Right, so we know that personal touch is key. So that way they not only from a trusted adult but also from current AP students for that insight piece. So the panel discussion, the letter of welcoming and insight and encouragement

095we believe is a game changer because adult mentors and peer mentors. Someone who's already in the class saying this is what it's like. You can do this. And maybe somebody that looks like you, same cultural, race, or ethnic background. So a huge encourager. So I'd like to present on behalf of Lamont Jackson, my colleague who isn't with us right now, the great work that's happening at Mira Mesa High School. So based on their data sheet, there are 523 students currently in their... either AP or IB, and 271 of those students are underrepresented students. So it's almost already half are... already underrepresented. So that's actually something again to celebrate. We've identified 106 missing students and those are the ones that we will target for AP potential. And a few things that they've done is EOS has

096identified nearly 300 students to be able to fill that 106 student gap. And similar to Sarah High School with their hashtag NoMoreGaps campaign, they've launched a campaign around I love AP or I heart AP and that's the what they're calling their program there. The principal, Jeff Sabins, along with the administrative team is hosting and facilitating small group discussions with students to encourage them and to recruit them in AP courses. And they're also sending letters congratulating students for enrolling in AP. And so that personal touch is key. And a congratulatory letter would help ensure that students get enrolled in the class and then stay in the class. something to celebrate. And so I believe that's the conclusion of our presentation and we're open to any further questions that you may have. One of the things that

097I observed, when you look at Sarah's data, they tend to have the traditional model of the African American you know, it's substantially smaller and lower than the other groups. But when you look at Mission Bay High School, if you look at the medium... I'm sorry, Mira Mesa High School, and you look at the medium-high incomes for the Hispanic, the blacks, and for all other races, they're fairly at the same level. You start observing discrepancies when you look at the low incomes, but that says something about that community that it's across the board pretty uniform for median and high income. And I thought that was an interesting trend for that particular community. You don't find the wide disparities that you find elsewhere. So it indicates that SES is a factor within these variables. Absolutely, and that's

098been the interesting part of this work is acknowledging that context matters and that every school's equity challenge is going to be different and having school specific data is really transformational in an opportunity to do this work. And what our area superintendents are able to do is go back to those 13 master schedule requirements or whatever we called them to say those, if we're going to find the missing students that the master schedule, there's these guiding principles about creating a master schedule that's actually going to work. You can't just say, okay, well, we have 1,891 missing students. how do you build a master schedule that's going to accomplish that? I want to say that our partnership with Equal Opportunity Schools, when we were in Washington, D.C., over the weekend, we heard the Secretary of Education, the

099Acting Secretary of Education, speak about the way that the nation is going to transform itself, about 90% graduation rate, a nationwide effort to do that. Equal Opportunity Schools is... being called out as an example of a partnership that's going to put in place what we're calling high leverage equity enhancing strategies. It's not just about a CST score or a KC to tell you you can have those scores and still have a major equity problem. And so what we're looking for, what are the indicators that help us show that we're making a difference, that we're closing the gap, and we're calling them the high leverage equity enhancing indicators. We believe this is one of them. And at this point, Equal Opportunity Schools is making a prediction that san diego unified will become the largest district in

100the united states to equitably include low-income students and students of color in ap ib if we stay on track with those 13 priorities that we just told you and looking at identified student by student school by school with specific support now we're and we're tracking now april and may going back and making sure they're enrolled if that happens we would these these partnerships are happening across the country but we would be the largest urban district to show those results of equitable enrollment and that's a key high leverage equity strategy that we know is important for our students. Excellent. Any other comments, questions? Yes. Trustee Burrow? Could you just talk a little bit about the support structures that we're putting in place? I'm thinking about the student at Lincoln. So she talked about having support if

101she needs to redo an assignment, so that there is that. support in place so that students are going to succeed once they enroll in these classes Okay, well one of the expectations with the alternative bell scheduling allows for supports not only to go into place for students that are reading behind grade level, but also for students that are entering AP for the first time. So our hope at Lincoln High School in particular is to add supports for students that are entering AP for the first time with like an AVID course. or an advisory to allow that extended time and be targeted to align that teacher that is in an advisory to be aligned to the teacher that is in AP would be ideal to narrow the gap of communication and to allow for content and

102skill support to happen at that level. Bruce, could I just add that Bruce and I spent a morning over at Lincoln, and one of the things that we started to develop is an equity menu. So we asked ourselves, what would every child that arrived in Lincoln High School in ninth grade take? And if there would be any reason that that student would not take it, why? and what's the intervention we would put in place before we would ever remove anything. And so what started to develop at every grade level, and we spent, it was a huge group of people we discussed this with, was that we were going to lead with intervention because the data, the reading data shows that... that we need to close that gap and that we would discuss very deeply with

103families and with the community. I know Bruce and I both want to get up at AAAE and at the Lincoln Cluster meeting and share this equity menu that we're creating because we want the communities to support Lincoln for structured choice and say, look, this class might be what you want, but what you need needs to come first. And how do we build that bridge so that in a year we can close some of those gaps? significantly so that more choice can be offered in the upper years. But that menu was a very powerful activity and it really showed that if kids have a gap, there has to be closure built in and it has to be somewhat fun. It can't just be, you know, ooh, you're an intervention. So we talked about fun ways for

104that to happen, for kids to have an engaging experience. So I just wanted to add that work. And can I just add that how beneficial and powerful it's been to have secondary schools office, Cheryl Hiblin, and her resource counselors on site working with principals and their teams. It's been incredible, the coordination and collaboration that's been happening for that coherence across the system. Thank you for that shout out. Well deserved. Appreciate it. Yeah, if we want, our challenge is to increase graduation rates and not just for that to be a number, but as I heard Bruce say, it's every child in every classroom, in every school, every day. We want to make sure that every child's educational learning is reinforced. And this effort here identifies those students. Normally schools just talk about numbers. We really know.

105Who those children are and we're digging deep into what they need and what are their barriers? And we're addressing those in a big way and and I will move past the 90% Graduation rate into 95 to someday a hundred percent every child will be challenged every day Thank you, thank you. Thank you to the team That was an information item the next item e2 is an action item Revisions to the 2016 San Diego plan for racial integration. Super 10 word. Thank you. This is to approve the revisions to 2016 San Diego plan for racial social economic integration We have updated changes. We had a whole board workshop on this and now we're just bringing it forward for the for the final approval knowing that for the 2016 federal magnet schools assistant program we have to

106have an active integration plan this active integration plan is one that we've developed we've shared it with you at the board workshop at a board meeting Specifically will be supporting funding in support of building the STEAM teaching and learning program at Carson, Linda Vista, and Montgomery, as we had discussed previously. We have to, of course, have to update the plan to submit it with the grant. And last time this was updated was in 2013. That was before I started. And the 12-13 version outlines some outdated district procedures. And it included Franklin, Jefferson, Washington, and revisions to Valencia Park. So in this plan, you'll also see the summary of the revisions. We have the RFP out to the federal magnet school assistant program. It's expected to be released in March of 2016. So I know Maria

107Nichols is waiting patiently every day for when it's coming out so that we're prepared to go forward. But this plan has to be revised and the revisions have to be approved by the board prior to the expected submission date. So this is a process that we need to go to. So as soon as the application. I move to approve immediately. Second. Is there a second to the motion? second would be a good idea any further questions to any questions any comments though passes unanimously item p three is information it's the informational update and progress report on the lesbian gay bisexual transgender actions that we've been taking. Thank you. We had a board update recently and about some of the major promises and commitments that we made out of the Office of Youth Advocacy to support

108our LGBTQ plus youth and during that board presentation I had asked some very specific questions and timelines and I didn't want to wait too long to come back with an update on specific things so is Sophia joining us too tonight? No. Thank you Sandra. Okay. Oh, Sandra had to leave to go do homework. So with that, this is a mini update on some of the progress since the most recent report because we didn't want to let too much time pass. So with that, I'll turn it over to you, the advocacy. Thank you, Superintendent Martin. I first want to say thank you for this opportunity and actually we look forward to every opportunity we can get for updates for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning and ally and other youth. And secondly, I was scheduled to be

109presenting with our program manager of LGBTQ education and advocacy, Sophia Arredondo. However, unfortunately, literally moments before the board meeting she received a call and had to go to the hospital a family member had to be rushed to the emergency room. I don't really have much more details than that. I was going to say she just mentioned it this morning. She was very very excited to be here. She is very excited about the presentation and I know had a big part in putting this together. 100 percent and so but she'll be in our thoughts and prayers. Very fortunately, we have Michael Raben, Mick Raben, our resource teacher for youth advocacy and LGBTQ education and advocacy, who's been intimately involved in this work. And so he can, he's pinch hitting for us today and filling in where

110Sophia unfortunately was absent. So again, we always look forward to these updates and we'll be talking about four specific topics. Our local climate survey, online bullying and reporting form, some staff training, and support to our gay-straight alliances at some of our high schools and middle schools. Mick will talk about our local climate survey that we're implementing and you'll see that, and he'll talk about some of the numbers of the completed survey and some of the pieces of it, but I do want to point out that this has been a very, very, a process that has given us and we've gleaned a lot of information on delivering surveys, in-house surveys. uh... to our school sites and so we look forward to this useful information spin very informative school board trustees. So I'm Mick Raven, project resource

111teacher for LGBT safety and inclusion in youth advocacy. And just I think maybe the important take from in terms of the survey Vernon already mentioned that there's been a lot of information that we've gleaned from conducting this. But it's important to note that this has been a collaborative piece. We've worked with departments around this. We've worked with individuals. from students all the way up to the principals and teachers in order to inform the process, to understand what the most important takes are for the survey. So we had a considerable discussion around the wording, the vocabulary. We created some glossaries to explain to students and have the teachers that administer the survey be able to provide provide a bit of an explanation for some of the verbiage around this survey. And so if you look at

112the calendar you can see how we've sort of laid out what the plan is. We're right now in the district-wide implementation phase and our testing window, I'm sorry not testing, our survey window goes from yesterday actually officially throughout the entire district all the way through April 22nd and at which time after April 22nd we plan on being able to crunch the data and move into an interpretive phase so that by May 23rd after May 23rd we should have some information to be able to share with you and Just as an update as of right now. We have collected over 870 completed surveys so that includes implementation starting district-wide yesterday and plus Some of our initial implementation in earlier weeks the survey results. We're going to be looking at those ready to provide some analysis in

113the end of May and in early June. But really the point is to take this and combine it with other work that we're doing with California Healthy Kids, Youth Risk Behavior Survey, and other data points that we're collecting so that we can go into our summer and come, especially when we're, for instance, talking about our first learning cycle, about creating the academic and social social environments worthy of our students, we can ground that in the data that we've collected through this process as well as our other process and surveys. With regards to our online bullying form, we started this process in early February and there are active leaks on our school websites and our district websites. When a person submits and completes an online bullying form and inputs the information, those submissions are directly and

114automatically forwarded and immediately forwarded to the site principal, the Office of Youth Advocacy, and the Office of Quality Assurance. we all get an email immediately that indicates the information that's been submitted of the bullying, maybe some of the details of the bullying, and some other information so that we can follow up. So since February 9th, there's been 110 bullying reports. That's when we made this powerpoint. point but as of today we've had about 135 bullying reports with actionable information meaning we are able to contact the school sites and follow up with some investigation and some other information. And this has come from about 45, 46 different schools in our district. And so, of course, we don't have a billing report yet from every school site, but it is on all of the school websites. The

115link is active. And every day we're getting these reports. And the way I view this and the way our communication is with our principals is that this informs us and gives us actionable information to go and conduct an investigation and really mitigate and address the bullying. It really shouldn't be seen as, oh, you know, something else I have to deal with or something that could potentially be a nuisance. It really should be seen as something that's informative. And that's how our principals and our site leaders are taking it. The tracking form A little too fast there. The tracking form, and I did, for presentation's sake, block out the school sites, but you'll see on there, the tracking form, and this is just a snapshot of the form, it's constantly updated, and it is actually on

116a shared document on our district server so that our superintendent and others can monitor this, but our tracking form is our way of knowing within 24 hours of the report being received, we're contacting the school site and asking the principal, A, have you received the report? Because it does come in their email and sometimes that can be challenging if you're getting hundreds of emails. So we want to make sure that the bullying report was actually seen and handled in some way by a school staff member. And then you'll see we're indicating if it's in a pending status, meaning we're waiting for information from the school to inform us. If it's we've got confirmation that the school is investigating if the school indicates that they've done interim measures and then the last piece is is there

117sufficient information so that the school can submit attachment number two per our bullying policy, bullying and intimidation policy so that that form goes to our office of quality assurance and so internally we monitor this information and the office of quality assurance also works with us in waiting and expecting those forms to come in and follow up. So there's multiple folks that are working with our schools to offer support and to conduct follow up. And these things are happening very regularly, very immediately. So I know there was a concern when this was first presented of, oh, the schools have five days or ten days to act. And that's what our procedure 6381 says. but the reality is within within twenty four hours there's action being taken on these reports and other reports that come in and

118follow through expected and one of the things that came to light as we're coordinating between the advocacy and quality assurance We have to realize and remember that bullying is not just reported with this online form, that sometimes that's how we know that something's happening, but bullying is sometimes reported verbally, and part of Administrative Procedure 6381 that we spent so much time developing is that has to be reported so Quality Assurance Office actually collects the totality of bullying. You can say this is what we've learned through the online form, but if bullying is reported at a school, the principal has to report that to Quality Assurance and Quality Assurance. has the entire scope of everything that's being reported in terms of bullying across the district. So does that roll up into the tracking form at any

119point? It's all being tracked at Quality Assurance. What we realize is that if all we track at Vernon's office, Dr. Moore's office, only tracks online, we're missing a huge portion because not everyone reports that way. And so Quality Assurance has already been in the business of tracking 6381 since its adoption. They've been tracking principles. That was the mandated training that we had at the beginning. beginning of the year. So principals were aware of this new procedure that they need to report it. It used to be reported in the old procedure to race and human relations. That's no longer being reported to race and human relations. It's being reported to quality assurance. So we have one stop shop of where we collect all this information in one place. And this is part of the aggregate that

120quality assurance collects. So what this online bullying reporting platform is doing is it's giving the ability of some of these things that are happening in our schools and getting them to quality assurance that in the past may have never gotten there. Well, they are getting there by procedure. Now by procedure they need to go, they can go there through this. In the past, but in the past, they may never have gotten to quality assurance. And now, because of this online bullying reporting platform, a lot of those things with actionable information is getting routed and getting on quality assurance's radar now. So that's great work. And the point of it, I think, really was when we were developing it and working with the different offices was we wanted a way to, again, get the actionable information,

121certainly in the hands of the school sites, but also a way to monitor it. And we're meeting regularly with Quality Assurance to go over our reports and to ensure that items that come in from other forms, not using the online form, but maybe a person has come to an office. maybe they've contacted Quality Assurance directly, that those schools are receiving support as well. And Mick will talk about our work now with the employee trainings that we're rolling out. Okay, so the first segment that you see up there regarding the out-batch training, as mentioned earlier, we have the out-batch rollout that's happening throughout the district. And that's actually gone on with a variety of different departments, including counseling, librarians, IT. And we've rolled that out to approximately 150 or so participants. And then those 150 will

122then disseminate those badges to their sites and provide trainings. Different training models exist at different sites. And then the next one down, the LGBTQ plus safety and inclusion trainings. So we have a variety of different trainings we've offered including at Logan, Deportola, the secondary head counselors, and there's also a sequence of. after school EROs that we've offered to educators, these voluntary trainings. We also have the LGBTQ awareness and advocacy trainings and these are the ones actually that we have managed to discuss with the area superintendents. So much of the work that has happened in the last couple of months has been just interacting with and meeting with the area superintendents for the first time. So Sofia Redondo and I have been meeting with area superintendents Bivens, Jackson, and Bagula. And when we did, we identified

123a number of different schools within each of those areas to reach out to those principals and begin meetings with them so that we could conduct the trainings. We have some trainings that are actually on the books. Among those are the site training as mentioned before, but we also have some Ed Center training dates coming up. Those are at the bottom there, May 5th, 9th, and the 18th. And I want to make sure that I invite all of you. I'd like to invite all school board trustees, as well as the superintendent and the superintendent's cabinet to come to those meetings. It's really an Ed Center kind of training. It's a two hour training, and we have three of them offered on different dates. We really would love for you. to attend so that you have a

124decent idea about what kinds of things we cover in this. Do we know on the 150 and the 200 participants, how many of those are classified, certificated in administration? So the 150 participants include for the OutBadge that includes some departments that are classified and certificated, but I don't know exactly what the numbers are. I would say that the IT department would be probably... I'm imagining about an even split but Dan Stoneman could probably explain a little bit more about that and then as well as the librarians so we'd have library texts on board so those are going to be a lot of classified I do want you to know that for the the trainings that we're talking about at the different sites. The first priority is to reach out to the actual teaching staffs, like

125the counselors, the teachers, the certificated employees. However, we do have absolutely a long term plan on reaching out to a broad segment of classified employees, including bus drivers and gardening and food services, etc. And I did attend the Out for Safe Schools badge training and got my badge. And also we have upcoming, specifically upcoming trainings for Out for Safe Schools already scheduled with Transportation and Food Service. So we'll be working with those departments specifically in the next couple weeks. Okay, so for GSA support, much of the work that Sophia and I have been doing also is being able to reach out to the GSA advisors and the GSAs around San Diego Unified. And GSA, for those who are not completely aware, are gay-straight alliances. There's a long history of GSAs in San Diego and throughout

126the nation. They are no longer always referred to as GSAs, and sometimes the... The acronym refers to an updated form of that which is a little bit more inclusive. They like to use gender sexuality alliances. And so a lot of the work involves just discussing things with the students. I mean being able to meet the students and hearing them out. Just listening to what their concerns and interests are and offering them some resources and also some ideas around being able to extend the the safety and inclusion to a broader segment of the campus, not just within the space of the GSA itself, but also to the campus. And down the line, we're also planning a GSA summit, which we've planned. We initially had it planned for spring, but we bumped that to postpone it into

127the fall for 2016. One high school GSA that you haven't yet to visit and I hope that you'll visit soon is Morse High School. which was actually the campus where a child was horribly beaten because he was gay. And so, you know, there's a lot of research out there that shows that just the existence of a gay-straight alliance club at a school reduces bullying by 50% or more. So I hope that we'll have the opportunity for you and Sophia when she's better, her family's better, to go out and visit Morris High School and support their GSA advisor. It's a priority to get to every single GSA and quickly and to visit them often. So yes, thank you. Thank you. Of course, it wouldn't be complete without a plug for our LGBTQ Advisory Committee meetings. Our

128next one is April 20th, and the concluding one for the year will be June 15th. uh... we're gonna switch the format up a little bit and and uh... begin with uh... a segment for our students so that we can hear our student voices for the last uh... two or three meetings we've had students of invited and have come from uh... several of our gsas and other groups around uh... our our secondary schools and so uh... we will be creating an opportunity uh... as we open these uh... these last two meetings this year for our students to contribute and so we can hear their voice as part of this very important work. And these meetings are open to the public to attend? Yes, and they're all here in the Ed Center upstairs in 2226. The team

129is mighty, it's growing. These folks don't represent the complete office of youth advocacy. All of us work very closely on a whole lot of different advocacy efforts. This team here represents the folks who are directly working with this, but we have the support of all of our departments as well as all departments within our district. We've presented in our instructional cabinet, and this is ongoing. work throughout all of our offices and all of our school sites. Yes. Trustee Whitehurst. Just one comment. I really commend you on the tracking form because it captures some excellent data. So thank you for that. Thank you. I want to say thank you, Mr. Rabin and Dr. Moore. One thing that we all know as a board and as educators is that bullying is not germane to LGBTQ students. And

130the bullying tracking reporting points that out. That a lot of the students that are not feeling safe, that are reporting that they're being bullied, are being bullied because of racial slurs, public humiliation, teasing, social exclusion, and a variety of other things. So this is going to benefit all students and hopefully make our schools even more safe than they are. Absolutely. Of the 135 reports, we have tracked nine specific reports that indicate, or that the reporter, whoever submitted, indicated that there was some specific issues regarding LGBTQ. Those are referred, usually Mick and Sophia will follow up with the site principals and ensure if they need any assistance in addressing that at their schools. We're also, that issue, and this is where the local climate survey comes into play because it's not just, as you've mentioned, about

131LGBTQ students. Our local climate survey actually asks about other forms of oppression, including cultural oppression, gender oppression, and so forth. So these are things that certainly that our office and our district is tracking. Thank you. Thank you so much section F board consent agenda move the consent agenda second discussion no discussion Push your button vote passes unanimously Items G operational matters for the board g1. This is also action item Resolution supporting California Department of Education collection of data to improve services to special education students and opposition to public disclosure of personal... identifying student information. I'd like to move item G1. It's basically we're in support of studying the use of special education services and improving them, but it's been brought to our attention by many parents, the issue of the public disclosure of personal student

132identification names, addresses, social security numbers, and so forth. So that's the reason that Dr. Whitehurst-Payne and I are introducing this. Second. Any other comments? Second. No further discussion about passage unanimously I'll move item h1 is an action item second presentation We have staff prepared and our financial advisor prepared for a presentation if you would like. So this is our proactive management approach to making sure that our debt and our bond programs are being managed in a proactive way. So we have our CFO and our financial advisor to present the current opportunities to refund the Prop S bonds based on current interest rates and the related capacity of issuing those bonds. Tonight you would be taking action on that. So thank you, Superintendent Martin, and good evening, Mr. President McQuarrie and board members. So our item

133that we have today that Mark and I are going to be sharing, and primarily Mark going over a couple of slides, is actually a follow-up to our meeting that we had last month where we presented and there was board action on February 9th. we have presented at the time proper memory funding resolution as well as a proper s new money's resolution and what we have shared at the time we indicated that we're still doing some work with our underwriting team and we have those folks here with us this evening that we're looking at some considerations with the two thousand nine progress on capital appreciation series looking at some state considerations and some legal aspects. And so that work's been done. And so what Mark's going to be sharing here in the next few slides. uh...

134it's giving a little bit of background and those specifics there are some items here that we have need to share publicly uh... since there's going to be a superintendent martin mentioned an action item so that we can move forward with the resolution for the new month for this particular refunding and what the agenda also includes is a resolution also approving the preliminary official statements for the three issuances in total. Because we would like to, with our financial team here, issue the preliminary official statements to the market by tomorrow so we can start the marketing process for these upcoming transactions. Did you just point to the whole financial team over there? Yeah, I think so. We've got the team here. So if there are any questions throughout this presentation, but Mark will go into the specifics.

135And it's brief. We've just got a couple of slides. So we just want to point those details out. Thank you. Mark? Great. Thank you, Jenny. It's a pleasure to be here this evening. As Jenny said, the last time we were here, we had two resolutions approving the issuance of Prop MM refunding bonds and Prop S new money bonds. We did do a brief presentation about this particular item, but the chefs were still in the kitchen, the ingredients were out there, and we were trying to figure out, is it going to be vanilla, chocolate, or strawberry? And I think we're here tonight to lay out in detail the structure for the refunding bonds. And we're gonna highlight two very specific findings that the board needs to make that give the tax lawyers and bond counsel comfort

136that what we're doing complies with IRS restrictions as well as state law restrictions. So the first slide we have here, in 2009, the first series of Prop S bonds the district issued, a portion of those were convertible capital appreciation bonds, meaning they started out their life as a capital appreciation bond, they spent their teenage years accruing interest as a cab, and then when they graduated from high school, they became a current interest bond. So you can see here what ended up happening. We issued $73 million of bonds. They converted over time to another $60 million. And then beginning in 2020, they pay interest at almost $8 million a year. And the bonds were issued with an optional redemption provision so we could prepay them. And that prepayment date is 2024. And the bonds were issued

137originally with an interest rate that both compounded, but then paid currently at 6%. The following page describes what we're doing and the previous refundings that we came to you with were considered current refundings. Meaning we were issuing the bonds within a 90 day window before they could be prepaid. And there were some federal tax law reasons for that. These bonds actually will be advanced refunding bonds. And that's because the original bonds were new money. We're allowed under tax exempt IRS guidelines the ability to advance refund those bonds once. Meaning we'll issue bonds today. We're going to set aside money in an escrow to pay the interest on those bonds to the first call date and then redeem the bonds on the call date. And again, that redemption date is July 1, 2024. Our refunding bonds

138are going to be issued as current interest bonds. So one of the benefits and the beauties of this refunding is we're gonna take cabs, convertible cabs, out of the district's portfolio and we're gonna replace them with current interest bonds, which is always a good thing and has been a, particularly with your Proposition Z, was a stated objective of the Board to not utilize capital appreciation bonds. So that's a very positive. Our ability to do that though, because the original bonds accrue through 2019, so we don't have any taxes available to start paying current interest on our refunding bonds. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna set aside money out of our refunding issue to pay a portion of the interest on the refunding bonds. And that's a unique feature that we had to, I

139don't want to say struggle with, but we had to work with the tax lawyers to get them to say, yes, we can issue a refunding bond that not only pays interest on the old bonds, but interest on the new bonds. And there were some other state law issues associated with that. So one of the findings, the new findings, we'll be asking you to make. as a board is that in determining the size of the refunding issue you're going to make a finding that setting aside money to capitalize interest on the new refunding bonds is reasonable and appropriate. And again, it has to do with the fact that we don't have tax revenues today to support the current interest bonds, so it's our way of meeting the tax rate pledge, but also being able to structure

140these as current interest bonds. On the next slide, we highlight the sources and uses. Right now, we're estimating we'd issue about $145 million of bonds. There'd be premium that would be generated that would be contributed to the transaction. But also, one of the findings we're going to be asking you to make is we're actually going to draw some money out of the tax rate reserve that was established to protect the pledge to the district voters and taxpayers that the combined tax rate between... PROPS WOULD NOT SEEK 6670. WE HAVE ABOUT $54 MILLION IN THAT TAX RATE RESERVE RIGHT NOW. And we need to take some of that as a contribution to pay interest on our current interest-free funding bonds, as well as a portion of it will satisfy some federal tax law IRS issues. And

141again, we have a representative from ORIC, your bond counsel, who, if you have any questions about either the federal tax issues or the state issues, can address that. The uses will deposit money into one escrow, which will pay the future interest and principal on the original prop S convertible capital appreciation bonds. We'll deposit a little over $18.7 million in the capitalized interest fund to pay interest on our refunding bonds. And the balance will be cost of issuance and underwriter's discount. On page six, we lay out the benefit of doing all this. And at the end of the day, the cash flow savings associated with doing this and the present value of that is over $14.5 million. Now, we reduce that by the fact that we took $5.5 million out of a bank account. and contributed

142to the deal. So if we don't take that into account, we're overstating the savings. So in the current market environment, we're looking at $8.6 million of PV savings, which is roughly 6.5% of the conversion value of the bonds we'll be funding. So we're roughly double a traditional minimum 3% present value standard. Another issue that we look at is we look at the efficiency of issuing money today and putting it in an escrow account? And are we realizing and maximizing our investment potential? So we look at the yield that the IRS will allow us to invest at. They'll let us issue tax-exempt bonds. They'll let us invest at our bond yield. But we can't make money off of it. In our case, we actually can't earn our allowable yield. We can earn about half of it.

143So what that means is we have to issue about $6.6 million more in bonds. to cover that negative carry, negative interest. So when we look at our present value savings, we typically want to at least earn as much as the dis-savings in the escrow. And in our case, the dis-savings is about 6.6 million. So we satisfy that test. We're earning more than the negative carry of that escrow. So in the final slide, in terms of the board determination, we're asking you to approve the resolution to pay for the principal interest redemption premium on the refunded bonds, to pay capitalized interest on the refunding bonds. And in that, there will be a new whereas that specifically says it's in the interest of the district to set aside funds to pay interest on the current interest refunding

144bonds, as well as to take money out of the tax rate reserve to contribute to the escrow to solve the federal tax issues. And so usually we wouldn't go into this great detail, but since we are asking you to deviate from the normal whereases, we thought out of complete transparency, let me come up here and spend seven minutes of your time, walk through what's changed a little bit, why we're doing it, and the benefits that it has to the program. So with that, again, we've got Mary Collins from Oreck if you have any reservations or questions on the legal issues. But we're available, your entire team's available for Q&A. How much of the reserve are we going to be spending? About $5.4 million. Okay. And we think it's actually, if we were in the market

145today, the savings would be greater. We'd have about $2 million more in savings. And that actually would have the effect of reducing what we need from the tax rate reserve by about $2 million. And I'd like to just stress again, when we talk about reserves and sinking funds and the nature of these tax revenues, these are all accounts managed by the county of San Diego. Right. So there's not within our general fund or anything in that sense. So again, it's going to be a work in progress where we have to coordinate with them so that they're aware of this. Again, it's part of our work that we do through the process anyhow of letting them know this is what we're going to need to transfer out of this account because they have specific accounting to

146track these funds. So we'll be working with them in that regard. Any other questions, comments? So it's a very complex transaction, but again, I think we tried to put it as simple as we could, given all those parameters with IRS. Yeah, I just want to thank you both for all your work, because the bottom line here is we will have no more cabs. We'll only have current interest bonds, right? Well, you're still in Prop S just because of the way it had always been sold that it would be structured around the existing Prop MM. So from day one, when we went out and we did our workshops to the public with Prop S, we always contemplated issuing capital appreciation bonds. So as last year, when you approved about $100 million Prop S, Those were capital

147appreciation bonds, but they're structured in compliance with AB 182. So they had a final maturity that did not exceed 25 years, and it had a 10-year call on it. We are constantly monitoring the Prop S portfolio to look for opportunities to either refund with current interest bonds. or on a going forward basis, try to structure the debt in a way that in the future can maximize current interest bonds and Prop S. But where we are right now, unless we saw astronomic growth in assessed valuation, you're always going to be issuing CAVs as part of the Prop S program. Okay. Where there's the opportunity, we're certainly putting in those current interest bonds, and that's what's new, given last year we were starting that effort. the net balance will result in about $8 million in savings to

148taxpayers? Yes, and what we plan on doing, and we mentioned this back in February, is we will, the window of savings that gets created any time we do a Prop MM or a Prop S refunding, immediately creates capacity to do new money for Prop S. So, sitting here today, if we can get the $10 million, of pv savings in this prop s refunding combined with the prop mm refunding we'll do two weeks later we will then generate um right now approximately 41 million dollars of current interest bonds for prop s new money that's music to lee's ears because we were conservatively saying 25 million dollars for right now yeah and it's still 25 million lee So again, it's whenever there's opportunity, it certainly results in addition. And that way, the program can also expedite projects

149by having this new influx of new revenues. It's getting better return for the taxpayer's money. Again, it goes back to the board's and our collective approach of being very proactive in monitoring the debt portfolio. Yes. Excellent. Any other comments? Discussion? Motion to approve authorizing the resolution as presented by staff? Oh, you did? Just waiting for me to vote? Cool. All right. Thank you, Mark and Jenny, the entire financial team for being here for this presentation. We really appreciate all your support. So we have H. I'll move item H2. Second. Discussion? Action? Vote? H2 passes unanimously. We have item I-15 was pulled from the consent. Do we have a speaker? Do we have a staff first? Public speaker. Sure. Good. All right. Lance, heard your call. You're on. Thank you. Good afternoon, Board of Trustees, or

150good evening, actually, Board of Trustees, Superintendent Martin. I am Lance Wren, President of CSEA Operations Support Services, Chapter 724. I'm here to ask you not to extend the contract with York Services to provide workers' compensation for an additional two years. York has been horrible for our membership. We hear nothing but complaints. about York from our members who have been legitimately injured while at work. We hear complaints of automatic denials, delays for approvals, services denied, and delays after delays to our members are out of all of their leave balances. Many workers just throw up their hands and tell their doctors they feel better and go back to work while still injured. and which makes them even get even more severely injured, then they are back on workman's comp again because they were never properly treated in

151the first place. I'm gonna tell you right now one case that I've been dealing with lately that York has been providing services to. Had a member went out on, he injured because he injured his knee. His knee was swollen to the size of a cantaloupe. The delay started. It has been a year and our member has just had surgery on his knee. He has no leave balances, all exhausted. No medical benefits for him or his family. As our member and his family were on the verge of becoming homeless with no medical benefits, he actually called me and I got him a lawyer to force York to start compensating him so he could stay in his home. More delays. It was months before York got our member to a specialist to decide whether he needed knee

152surgery. I could tell that he needed knee surgery by the way he walked and the size of his knee. And I'm not a doctor. More delays. When surgery was recommended by the doctors, York approved the surgery but denied the aftercare. Denied his medication and denied his physical therapy so he could recover. causing yet more delays. His original surgery was canceled, and again the lawyer had to step in to make York do the right thing. This is one example of many, and I know I'm with operations and I have the trades that I represent, but I have members constantly calling me, if not weekly, almost daily, complaining about York. We have brought our concerns to human resources and labor relations in our monthly meetings. We have brought this up at our monthly meeting with the superintendent.

153We ask that the district put out a request for a proposal to get a more compassionate administrator for our members who become injured on the job. We were told the district would look into it. I guess not. We ask that the extension for your risk services be denied until a request for a proposal can be put out to see if we can get a better working... workers' compensation provider. Thank you. Yes, thank you. Trustee Evans, I'm happy to address that. First of all, I'm not sure why this issue is pending before Human Resources and Labor Relations. The Risk Management Department reports to me. It's in my division. I have never, ever heard the story or any story like it. I conferred with Ashley Fenton today, who's our Risk Manager, who tells me that we have

154few, very few, proportionate complaints about York. Historically, the prior... third-party administrator was not viewed favorably by our trades and we went out to RFP and this is how we got York. It appears that there are maybe one or two cases where things are not going smoothly and I'm happy to look into them, but I would strongly recommend that you approve the agreement and allow us to work on the issues rather than throwing out the administrator. for among other things changing tpas at this point would impact the availability and choices that employees will have for benefit coverage because we they work so closely aligned with our carriers and they have certain procedures that are set up to mesh with those carriers procedures we simply don't have time within the next two years to put that all

155together and change carriers I would also offer that York as a third party administrator does not make determinations about what injury treatments are going to be suggested or recommended. That comes from the medical carrier, so if there's an issue there, it's something that we can talk about. But again, without ever having ever heard these stories, I had no way of addressing it, nor did risk management. I suspect that this is specific to a certain... Group of individuals who are unhappy with the way that their claims were processed I don't know as I sit here if that's because they just didn't like what the result was or whether it was that there was an error Again happy to look at into it, but we simply can't buy the this summer change TPAs So have the capacity

156excuse me. So so if we were to approve this You're saying your office would be willing to look at any list of complaints of service by York? And I think there's probably an issue there, too, of the medical carrier, not just the York administrator, because the medical carriers also put their... impediments in some time, but at least for us to know that your office would investigate what those problems are and if you find any pattern or situation that you could address those. i'm always happy to do that and i will do that tomorrow um i will tell you that um again this had not come to my attention before but our employees who are injured on the job and unable to come to work should be entitled to industrial accident leave for a certain period

157of time so that they're fully paid they're also provided with fully paid health insurance while they're on i'm sorry industrial accident leave so it's frankly unclear to me as we sit here how someone would be out of work not being paid and lose their coverage i'd have to look at that as well Trustee Breyer? Yeah, can we ask for Superintendent Martin, Council Donovan to sit down with certainly the OSS bargaining unit and any of the other bargaining units that wish to be a part of that conversation. And I would say by the first board meeting in April, report back to us with a... you know, an analysis of, you know, some of the issues that are arising. I'm happy to do that. I'm happy to do that. I would also mention that this contract would

158expire in another two years, which gives us time to investigate these issues and make a call on whether we want to start to make a change. Thank you. So I'll move to continue the item I-15 to the board meeting in April. I believe that it expired in February? No, it expires this summer. But whether we continue it to April or not, we still can't make a change by the summer. Okay. But we would just approve it. You're suggesting your motion is it would be approved at the point that we have that report. Right. My motion is to continue item I-15 until the first board meeting in April. Is there a second? Second. Second. Any further discussion? Vote. Passes so item I 15 will be continued and placed on the first board meeting in April right

159with the expectation All these matters would have been investigated by then Do we have any other Worth through any other public comments Great this meeting is adjourned and it's before 8 o'clock