001Afternoon. >> Santa Cruz Valley Unified School District number 35 governing board calls this meeting to order on January 27th, 2026 at 5:00 pm in the governing boardroom district office 570 Camino Alindo, Ririco, Arizona. Please join us for the pledge of >> allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Adoption of the agenda. Uh just one recommended change. um under the presentations the strategic plan Miss Amy Kemp could not be here today so Mr. Dominic on behot to approve the agenda with the recommended change by Mr. Second. >> Any further discussion? Mr. >> All those in favor? >> I I car. Thank you. >> Roll call. >> Thank you. >> I knew I
002was going to mess something up. >> Okay, we got your back. >> All right. Roll call. >> Present. Mr. Beach >> present. Mr. Ramirez >> here. Penerero here. Mr. L Vasquez is not here. >> Call to the public. >> Presentations. Governing board recognition appreciation. Mr. >> Thank you. I'd like to invite Andre Bo to come up. Today is or this month is actually board appreciation month. Um and we wanted to thank each of you board members for your service. Um we know that it is a elected positions and a nonpaid position. So this is our way of thanking you for all the work you do. You can see we have a lot of students here. Um and I want to thank the parents for bringing their students. But I'm going to turn it over to
003Audra who has the presentation um as well as the gifts from each of the school sites for you. >> Yes. >> So good afternoon. ing board members. On behalf of SCV35, we would like to wish you a very happy school board appreciation month. Thank you for your continued dedication to supporting our students, strengthening our district, and ensuring that our families are cared for. While I could stand here all day and share positive words about our board members, we thought it might be even more meaningful um to hear directly from our students in the district. So, with that in mind, we've prepared a small surprise that truly reflects how grateful we are for your efforts and commitment. Before we go to the video, I'm actually going to have students stand up one by one and introduce
004themselves. Just say your name um and what school you go to. And we'll start on this side. >> My name is Stephanie. I go to My name is Francisco and I'm from >> Hi, my name is Nova and I'm from in elementary school. >> Hello, I am proud of you. >> All right. G message loud and clear. Yeah, my name is Roas. I am from Sakai. >> My name is Ethan Gonzalez and I'm from >> Hello, my name is K. I'm Middle School. Good afternoon. Thank you for having me. I'm Castro from High School. >> Good afternoon. My name is Randes and I'm from High School. >> Now we're good to go. We're going to cut the lights. Feel free to look at the nearest TV. I think there's like where the people that always
005Super high school I feel like like they help people. I think the main job of our school board is to keep our schools growing. He says, probably thinking. have like some sort of school case and like a lot of recess came through. So like a long time another who >> I think is someone who likes to compassion and someone who likes to listen to people's opinion and to figure out situation support. >> I think other skills like responsibility and a lot of so they can make decisions that they want to happen that makes the schools better. So the students feel like this school is would be able to help anyone with the right question. Super excited. Thank you to school for gun for instance basketball this rural community to feel Wonderful. I saw you. >>
006Thank you. Happy school board appreciation month. >> Happy school board appreciation month. Happy school board appreciation month. appreciate. >> Thank you to our students for participating in the video. I don't know if board members want to comments or move on to >> Thank you. That that is wonderful and your answers are are all correct. I love that. It's my heartfelt appreciation for this wonderful video and it's just very interesting and wonderful to know what you feel uh about us, what you feel that we do and what you would do as a as a board member. So, it's it was uh great to listen to those those comments. Thank you. We really appreciate I really appreciate it from the bottom of my heart. Thank you. speech. Yeah, >> I'm gonna take you through a little bit
007of history of Ru Rico High School. Back in 19 I think 95 96 I I taught here, okay, with Mr. Ramirez. Ben was one of our students. And when I when I applied here, I got in my classroom and I was a science teacher. I taught biology and earth science. And I went to the principal and said, "Where are my books at?" And he goes, "Mr. Beachch, we don't have any books." And I go, "Well, where's the the teacher that taught the class? Did she leave any notes? The one that taught the class was a history teacher and she doesn't have no notes. So, I had to rely on my college notes and college labs to actually teach the class. We go down to the football field. Mr. Guerrero played football. It was just a
008dirt field. There was no grass down there. Bunch of rocks. They got beat up every single day. Uh my football players would say, "Mr. Beach, why isn't there any grass?" And I said, "Well, first we got to have sprinkler systems." Okay. There was no water down there either. So we came such a long way. Uh this this school when I walk on this campus and Mr. Ramas can attest and Ben, we just look at it from where it was to what it is now. So I have to thank uh the parents for supporting the bond uh to provide what we see and how far we came and what we have now. Uh I heard it in the video. We have a pool of probably the best football stadium in the state of Arizona. We got
009computers for every students. We got teachers, great teachers. We got a great administrator, admin, uh, all around to help you guys succeed. You have everything at this school when you walk across that stage to become anything that you want to. It's because your parents supported the bond and Mr. Verdoo for having that vision of of where we're leading you guys today. So, I want to say thank you for appreciating us uh board members, but I also want to thank I appreciate all you in here for for representing our community and our school district. Okay. Thank you, >> Mr. Beach. >> You are my student and you were funny kid and I remember those days. Well, when I look at you too, I think it would have been really cool to have taught you and done
010the things that I did. I I did I wore a lot of hats. The kids of Germany. That was my big thing. That was my gig. I loved Rio Rico High School. Those were the best years of my teaching career. And I finished over there. Now, of course, I went on and I now work down in Ogalas, but I'm on the governing school board still. Still have some say. Getting back to one of the things that one of you mentioned, one of you really hit the nail on the head when you said talked about safety because that is our number one concern is your safety and everybody's everybody that works here as well. So, and then you mentioned education. Well, we do the best. We're like kind of the guardians to make sure that you
011get the best education possible. Well, when it comes to the things that you mentioned like the pool and all of those great things that you had mentioned the you said young lady the the stuff on the field that you like and uh you know that comes down to to superintendent having a vision and he has quite the vision and I I learned that really well you know by getting to know him especially when I was the president of the governing board and you know he's real modest about everything. But if it hadn't been for his vision, we wouldn't have all these great things. Now, the governing board gets a little bit of credit because we have to prove that. But I mean, we do that as a group, not as individuals. And if it weren't
012for his vision, we wouldn't have all these great things. No matter what he's going to tell you afterward, hey, but it's right Mr. Beach says it. We got a great superintendent. And of course, he couldn't do those things if he didn't have people like Isella making sure that we have the money to do such things and helping us with, you know, the bond and all the complications of finances, if he didn't have somebody on his right hand side over there guiding him along the way. And sometimes she does a lot of the dirty work, you know, and so I kudos to your team as well to Dr. Lunderville and Miss Brown. So, but I was thinking about Adma. Adma started, you know, when Beach and I were there. You were with us and then moved
013over to district and then look at all the great things you did. And she is awesome. She's an awesome governing board member, but she was an awesome secretary, too. She's so patient, so loving, so kind. I mean, you couldn't ask for a better person. So, you're a wonderful colleague, too. I say that. And same with you. even though you're my student. He's he's a great guy. So, we have a really good team here. It weren't that we had a good team. We couldn't get a lot of these things done, but I appreciate everything that you guys said. And anything else? No, we don't have any mind control. I'm sorry. Not like that movie Scanners. So, but we do our best. We try our hardest to be patient. As one of you said, we try. It's
014very hard, sometimes very taxing. Thank you for all that you did because boy, that presentation that's original. >> Definitely original. It was awesome because it came from your heart. We appreciate it. Thank you so much. >> Thank you, Mr. Ramos. >> Yeah. Thank you. What a what an awesome video. It was pretty cool. Appreciate everything you guys said. It's pretty impressive the understanding that you guys have. So, we really really appreciate that. Audre, thank you for helping put that together. And uh I would agree with whoever talked about the superpowers. If I could choose two, flying and smartness would be at the top. >> I'm right. So now we'll pass out the goodies with the kiddos. So if I can have the Calabasa students come on up. Mrs. These goodies are for you on behalf
015of the school sites. One, two, three. >> Next, if I can have Mountain View come on up. Okay. Look at that. Mr. Guerrero, these are on for you on behalf of the school sites. >> Wow, we're good. Perfect. >> Next we have SO And these are for Mr. Ramirez on behalf of the school sites. >> Okay. >> Hey, can I get these guys in the high school guys in there, too? >> I taught high school. Ready? >> It's okay. He's my best friend. All time best friend. That works. >> And then high school. >> Hers over here. Yeah. >> Are we diving them up or >> you lose? You snooze, you lose. First gift I've received in my life. >> Come on over. One, two, three. >> Thank you. Appreciate you guys. >> Thank you
016to our students for participating. You guys did an amazing job. Um, I don't know if want to stay or if they want to exit out. >> I just wanted to thank you again for presentation, but we all want to thank all the parents who showed up to support schools and your kids. We appreciate your support. >> We really do. from the bottom of our hearts. We're a small community. I've always felt that this is the heart, not the only ones. This I feel this and my colleagues do too. This is the heart of our community. So, we appreciate you. >> Thank you. Appreciate if you do want to exit. >> You guys want to >> exit stage left. >> All right, guys. So much for the presentation. Congratulations. >> You got to go. >> Thank
017you so much. He's got a jacket in there that I'm jealous of. >> Nice jacket. Which one is it? >> Wow, this is nice. >> This is awesome. >> Let me see. Let me see. >> Thought that was the best. >> Ready? I have to to tell you guys >> one gift from from Angie how not to be a terrible board member. >> Yeah, I didn't get one. >> We come out on every page in there. >> Do not do this. Do not do this. Yeah. >> All right. CV35, Mr. >> Thank you. First, I wanted to acknowledge the committee. So, has been a very long process of creating a new strategic plan for our district. Um, and I just give a little bit of interesting order. So very fortunate to have as talking about
018our great team. But um one person that we didn't mention was um Miss Beg who the the leader of the CLA but also the leader of the strategic plan. Most people would say that the superintendent does that. Well, she came to me and said I think we need to to work on our strategic plan. And I said what's the plan to do that? And So she said what she wanted to do and uh she says you know it's going to be a long process and and um really wanted to look at all aspects of what we do as a district um to create the strategic plan and so I want to thank her for all of her hard work. You'll see the work that that the committee put in uh was very extensive. Um and
019so I wanted to thank the the committee itself uh Mr. Dr. Garo, Mr. Bradch, Milo, Rebecca Caba, D Chavez, who was our our student who told me he's gonna have to speak tonight's hair from the district office and listen now Mr. McFersonson, Michelle Meyers, Miss Leia, Carolina Sello, and Mano from the high school as well. So, a very broad, extensive group that participated. Um, some couldn't make it to every meeting, but again, everybody participated in some way throughout the entire process. Um, so first thing just would give you an overview of the strategic plan. Um, again, the plan is a clear multi-year road map that outlines where the district is heading and how it will get there. Um, and so you'll see there's just so many different aspects of it. Um, and what is also
020included that you'll see tonight is a a new proposed mission and vision. We're not going to tonight. We wanted to give you the information. We'll bring the mission and vision portion of it back for board approval because that's something that we have in our policies. Uh so we'll bring that back at a different time uh to have that board approved. But tonight you'll see what the proposed um mission and vision are as well as updated goal. Um but again it was a very long process in the sense that um we wanted to be very strategic with it to create the strategic plan by looking at all kinds of different data. We had a futurist come in um spend some time with us talking about what the future trends are going to be look like um
021not only in education but in our community. Um so we looked at um all kinds of different aspects of how we're doing things currently and how can we do them better. Um, so you uh the thing that I would say we really appreciated Jason's work, you know, and I wanted to point him out just because being a student um amongst all the adults um sometimes you you don't want to speak and he had no fear speaking. someone to say thank you because it is very important to have that voice and one of the things that we're working on as a district is student agency being able to advocate and speak and he did an outstanding job so I wanted to thank for for doing that and I won't put him on spot come up but
022I did wanted to point him out specifically and again all the board members um that were uh you'll see tonight as what we did as a committee um and again thank for that so with that I think the next thing that we're talking about is the mission and vision. >> Yep. >> So, Mr. Army Miko is going to come up and and share that, but I'll turn over to Miss Ba first. >> Thank you, Mr. Reugo. Good evening. Um, uh, governing board member, clerk, I'm so you said, you know, president. So, and board members. Um, >> he is the president. >> You are the president. >> Standing president. >> Thank you. I'm very pleased to present this uh to you all tonight. As Mr. Berdugo mentioned, this has been it's actually been a year in
023the works. And so uh Mr. Berdugo already kind of talked about the overview of what a strategic plan is. But one of the things just practically speaking, a strategic plan helps us know what are we putting our resources behind in terms of our money, our people, and our time. And so um I just wanted to share that that that is you know of course we want a vision, we want a mission but also having these goals really going to help us know does this align to the strategic plan. It helps us with that litmus test. So just a little bit of background of how this was developed. Our committee met 12 times throughout 2025. We looked at our current data. We looked at assessment data, A throughF data, demographic, program participation just to get a
024sense of what is our data telling us at the moment. We also reviewed strategic plans from other school districts so that we know what's included in a plan. You know, we have people on the committee who might not have ever taken place in any of the strategic planning. And I had done some mission vision work at school site, but it often um you know would be fast, right? and it's just for that school. We wanted to take our time since this is a district-wide plan. We also worked with a futurist to understand some emerging trends in education in the workforce both locally at the state level and nationally and globally. We looked at um after looking at other districts strategic plans, we had a lot of discussion about so what do we want included in
025ours because not every district plan looks alike and it needs to reflect your own local context and that's what you'll see tonight. We also designed and distributed a stakeholder survey where we had more than,200 responses to that survey and that was really the the biggest voice behind what you're going to see tonight represents our survey respondents. So I have a couple of our members who at our final meeting I said oh who wants to help with the board presentation and so you'll see the gentleman who is now presenting and thank you to Mr. I said oh today you know come in and uh cover vision mission and values so um I'm gonna turn it over to MrO and then Mr. Lopez will speak to um a few of these changes and then I will come
026back to close us out. >> Thank you for that. As Maya said, she uh she called me today, you know, a couple hours ago here. Um board clerk, I'm one of my first patients opportunity. As you hear this vision, you see up here how important it is to have a vision. I know what makes my uh my job as principal future like well I know where the gire to do and we want to get there and as you look at it as you read it I know there's a few words in there that stick out to you that stick out to all of us where there is where there's positive where the world is there and that's what we want that's go back and look at alumni how they've affected the world how we have
027and that's where we want to keep going. Um so as you see there it's a wonderful vision that we have going to our um same thing same thing as you look at that of a safe and inclusive learning environment where every student is inspired to learn to excel and in order to confident And the purpose is everything. There was a lot of work. What do we want to stand for? Where do we want to go? Next up, our values. Um, you know the bottom left there, compassion. The student did mention that video too. Like again, this was definitely tied to our culture, responsibility. uh we thought you know we could trim it down from what we had in the past down to six um gives us a greater sense of of a focus of what
028we want to do. So just want to pro that mission and our values there. >> Thank you. Um I'll cover a couple of things and then um try to when we discuss mission and vision um and really starting to make it pragmatic where it's practical. Um the the intent behind all of this is that it can apply in any of our any of our classrooms, any of our schools, any of our programs for that matter. That everything we do is founded on on these con this next um item that I'll review. First one is our beliefs, which is fundamental convictions. And I think that's those two words together are so powerful because if you look at these three couple things that jump up at me is the first one is that believe that all students
029can learn and thrive and I believe that that is something that we have the conviction and we've spoken about it in this district over a couple decades. Um I think that conversation has happened. However, part of my involvement in this process, I've really been very excited to see this coming to be the foundation of work that is also memorialized in writing because I think it's important if it's not memorialized and really is that driving force that should be there. And the second one is maintaining high expectations, right? We speak about it all the time. So that should be a belief and again going back to the fundamental conviction, right? It's not an opinion. is not something that might comes and goes. That's how we as a district we feel and being part of the task
030force coming together that should be of all of us teacher code whether board staff office students lastly innovation right and and I feel that there was some there was a lot of referencing to that in the prior segment where you as a as a body as a governing body were being thanked for the innovative changes And we heard from Mr. Beach where our foundation was as a district or at least some school that this is also important to also look at it with our pedigogy with our instruction being innovative and we've been very fearless as a district over the last few years to change the grading system to really make a very intentional move and shift towards being learner centered and having students really be at the center. And this really takes us to our
031next one which is guiding principles. So our guiding principles, the first one speaks to that students are at the heart of every decision and not only at the heart of every decision. We spoke a lot about how they're also included in the decision making and giving the avenues and having the student be part of it did a fantastic job and Mr. Duo mentioned, but as well as in the surveys, those responses from students were valued and that feedback was taking just like the feedback from any other stakeholder who filled out that survey. Um, student successes share responsibility. It is not just the teachers said it's not just the counselors, just the administrators, it's all of us, the district office. It goes all the way across, but also it's our families, right? Involving them, empowering them
032to also be part of that process. that by having them be that voice and one thing that we feel we had a lot of discussion about having this be a mandate from our community say this is what we expect because that was very prevalent in our questions so that was important to recognizing that that is a very very much so shared responsibility the last thing I'll cover before we bring back um wrap up our presentation is really looking at the three priorities that we felt now we go down to even lower really getting to what does all this mean? The the mission, the vision, our values, looking at our beliefs that really grounds on the next three priorities. The first one is academic achievement. So this is, you know, and the way that we describe
033this in this document is major areas of focus. Ma, there we are. Major areas of focus that drive strategic actions towards achieving the mission. So academic is the core what we do, right? We cannot we're not preparing our students for whatever is next for them. Whether it's um four-year university, college, trade school, vocational school, whatever it is, military, the workforce, that's us as a system. We failed our students. So, I think we need to continue to focus and that academic achievement doesn't necessarily mean outstanding achievement for one particular type of students or group of students, but it's all students based on what their goals are, based on their skills. And that takes us to our second priority which is career readiness and durable skills. So here you'll find a lot of referencing to not just
034academics but also a lot of elements of pathways. In our survey it was very very evident and some of the highest rated areas had to do with our families expect us to train our students for what not just necessarily academic academic but what they need. What is it that the industries would require that their job maybe their first job would require for them to have? A lot of times we refer to this as soft skills. So career readiness and durable skills speaks that a lot of times we speak to them about transferable skills, but really they don't need to be transferred if they are being applied and used in the school setting as well as outside then they're just those skills that we're developing on a daily basis. And the third and final priority is
035safe and supportive learning environments. Mr. I mean as you you made a a very good point earlier about how that was a priority for this body to the students right their safety so this was also very very very much so a priority from our community said keep our students safe and I feel that the task force did a good job of bringing that feedback and and listing it as a priority as well so having safe supportive learning environments across the board in all of our schools in all of our classrooms in our playgrounds sporting events across the forward. So those are the three priorities as as I mentioned this is us trying as you go through the strategic plan you look at this aspirational that a lot of times the vision can be but really
036coming down to be more of the nitty-gritty and of course there's a lot of bullets there that you guys can review and obviously we'll be happy to you know feedback as this this comes back but that really is our the intent of the task force to make it pract pragmatic that it can be used in the classroom that it can be referenced that it can be shared with the families and is very straightforward in the sense of this what we hope to do and this is how we're hoping to do it with all these different elements. Okay. So bring it back to Miss >> Thank you. >> All right. And then um I don't know if Angie or Audrey who's at the computer with controlling the cursor. Can you click on where it says measurable
037outcomes really quick? So one thing I wanted to share with you all is how we plan to show this data and make it transparent right for our community. Is it does it work right now? Okay. Well, at some point maybe we can share it as an FYI because it will be this is public information. But for every priority, we wanted to say what's the measurable like deliverable, right? We can give our community to say this is the evidence, right, that we are making academics a priority, that we are making those durable skills a priority. And so where you see all of those um bullets, there's a spreadsheet and each there's a tab for each priority and then where we're at currently as our baseline data. You can see that and then the goal based on
038what we're saying that we're going to be measuring. So that will be the plan for this is that it would be shared on our district website and so that anybody in our community, anyone going to that website, they can click on there and they can see how we're progressing with those goals. All right, the next thing we wanted to share is a um obviously you guys know our logo uh for our district has had our vision on it for years. educate everyone every day. Well, our new vision does not fit right there. It's a little bit longer than educate everyone every day. And so we thought about could we create a logo and the task the uh strategic planning committee felt strongly like yeah let's have a little um motto right uh for that kind
039of summarizes bringing together our vision and our mission. So from our vision it talks about students dreaming boldly where you get the dream right we know in our mission that we have about they're inspired to learn right and challenge to excel and then we know going back to the vision that they will be leading with purpose and so that's where dream learn lead comes from. So thinking of our students starting with that dream, right? As as early as you are, when you think about what's that dream I have for myself, right? Or even when you're a senior in high school, what's that dream I have for myself? Well, we want to take that. We're going to help you learn and we'll help you lead. Whether you're leading in the world, your community, your household, whatever
040that looks like, we're all called to lead at some point. So, um, that's that I guess maybe it's more of a slogan. I'm not sure what to call it at this point, but that's what we're also proposing. We did a vote on from the colors to should we use periods between these. So, we're definitely, you know, open to feedback, but our committee, this is what we voted on. Um, at the end of the day, we could go back and forth with how to design something, but this is what was preferred. So, we like to keep that little I call him the grad dude all the time whenever I'm trying to explain it, but we do like that symbol and then keeping that district, you know, Santa Cruz at the top, but then adding in that
041dream, learn lead. And Audrey said there is someone that we would work with who would really make it like right now it's a little fuzzy when you look at it or if you looked at it on a computer and somebody will make it they'll do a professional job with it so it's nice, clear, crisp and using the exact same font. you want to say something? >> I was just gonna say that that again this will be brought back when we formally approve the mission vision for the board, but it'll it be their decision to make that our official or not, but we this is what the committee is presenting. >> Yes. Yes. Thank you. And then finally, I know this isn't necessarily part of uh the the strategic plan. However, it's very much connected. our
042district's portrait of a graduate. It's very much connected to all three of our priorities, but especially priority two is the career readiness and durable skills. Our portrait of a graduate lays out those durable skills. And so, one question we discussed at the end when we were kind of winding down our task force or our committee, I said, does our portion of a graduate need to be updating based on what we're now, you know, scoping out in this plan? And so we reviewed the four attributes, the different competencies within it and we feel strongly as a committee that our portrait of a graduate attributes and competencies are still very much relevant. So just wanted you guys to know we did a review of that just to compare you know is that portrait of a graduate still
043holding up to this updated proposal and it is. So we'd also like the portrait of a graduate to go along those same years where we're proposing that this is for 2026 through 2032. So that is it for our presentation. >> Thank you. I'll go ahead and open it up for questions or comments from somebody survey. Was it 1,200 responses that you received total? Was it 1,200 surveys that you sent out or is it 1,200 out of a larger number? >> We received 1,200 responses total >> and it was sent to every >> We sent it to everybody. Yes. >> Every family and >> it was sent via email. >> Yes. >> And I believe it was posted on social >> emails, social media newsletters. >> Oh, okay. Good. All right. Uh, no, I I I
044like it. It's very, you know, there's a whole, you know, it's very explicit. It it tells you in detail what you went through and what we are looking uh forward to. And uh I agree with it 100%. >> No, there's no, you know, no question about it. >> Working in the in the in the right direction. Going in the right direction. Thank you, >> Mr. Beach. Thanks uh Miss Padilla for uh all you did for the committee. I know is a a long process about a year I'd say and uh so thank you for leading us through it as part of the committee along with my other colleagues over there. Yep. Uh it did take a long time. We had input from all stakeholders and we had to look at a lot of data from
045uh our our our state data the surveys over 1,200 everything was sent out and to get a vision of what our community what our schools what our students what our faculty and sort of condense it into uh this vision. They helped us refine our our mission, our vision, our goals. Uh how are we going to achieve them? How are we going to assess them? Uh what are the outcomes that we're looking for? And of course, financial backing. You got to put some money behind it because in order to achieve that, uh something has to fund it. Okay. So, I think we do have skin in the game to say. Uh having all our stakeholders involved, I think we have that collective efficacy. I heard that at the conference, that big word. And I think we
046all believe in this uh in this strategic design and we can embrace it and it gives us something to to hey we believe in it. Let's put all our resources behind it and let's see if we can achieve it and we can always monitor and adjust as we go along like we always do and again just uh data driven as we move forward. Thank you for your hard work and the committee's hard work and for everybody's input into this. This is a long process. >> That's all I got. >> Thank you, Mr. Beach. Mr. >> Yeah, I want to thank my colleague too here, my one of my best friends because he was part of that committee as well and the rest of you, Megan and Daga, Dominic, for being a designated hitter tonight. We
047appreciate all you guys do for you know the tender loving administration otherwise known as TLA. She that's a great presentation. The only note that I have here is that I like what said because yeah I did mention safety but he put it really well. He said it well I'm try to remember this. He said supportive learning environment which I think is really good. So it really wraps it up in a nutshell. >> I appreciate that. It was a really safety. The word safe from our parents and our students came up a lot. >> It's an excellent presentation. I see you guys did a lot of hard work. We appreciate all your hard work because as you said, all of you said, you can't spend money on stuff unless we have some kind of, you know,
048justification for doing it. And this is providing us that justification and it's all you guys hard work. So, we appreciate it. Thank you, >> Mr. And I just like to echo what they said. You know, thank you all who were involved and thank you all for the hard work. It was a great presentation. I do want to take >> I do want to thank obviously every committee member who showed up here tonight but you know there's a lot of time and a lot of just even the brain power of thinking and the pressure of making sure that this does wanted it to represent who we are right now because who we are is excellent too. We don't want to forget about that. We also want to say how can we push ourselves to what's next.
049So, I thank really the committee members who are here and who couldn't make it tonight because without you, we wouldn't have this plan. And so, it was really great to work with um I haven't worked with many of the folks, you know, on anything like this and I just loved hearing all of your perspectives. It was really great. So, thank you. >> Of course, Jay, bring it home, Jay. But Jace did really I'll speak for you, but at the last meeting he we you mentioned that you really liked being part of this and that he felt like as a student it was something that he could also support when he was on campus. Did I am I quoting you somewhat paraphrasing you? Okay. Okay. And so yeah, this is something again kind of going back
050to one of the beliefs in here is the shared responsibility. So just like our students learning is a shared responsibility this plan is also going to this is a shared responsibility right once once we get approved or you know through that phase. However I also want to mention the next steps would be our site integrated action plans are aligned to these data outcomes you're seeing. So while we might want 20% improvement in certain aspects over the next five to six years that our schools and our district plans would how do we break down that 20% can we grow by 4% next year 4% the next year and then for departments too thinking about action plans and what part do I play in this strategic plan and how can you know my department support and what's
051department support this plan so we also plan to implement it through that shared lens as well. >> I would just say that the part of it is is measurable that we put the measurables in there so that it's not just words because I think a lot of strategic plans are just words and now we actually have some that will hold us accountable that we're actually doing what we say we're going to do. Thank you. >> High school and presentation. >> Thank you. Yeah. So, in next in our our line of school sites presenting their letter grade and their and where they're at, we have Mr. Lope right. So Jim's here members of the board the time to share for our school. So I'm extremely proud to be up here not just as a member of
052the best class that's we have one competitor here in the room. Um but I'm excited to share a lot of of the great work that has been done. As you guys know, there's, you know, 11 grade. There's always a little bit of that lagging time, right? Graduation, we're not necessarily looking at last year. We're not looking at this year's data, some of them, but the reality is the system is established as such. So, we're making a lot of reference to the work that was done um before I became high school and I want to thank both and Mr. Kumar for being here who are also members of the administrative team as well as they were there during the last year. There's a lot of great progress. So, first you're familiar with this pi and the
053pi is how the grade the letter grade is distributed. What you see there is 50% of it comes from purely connected to the ACT assessment. Um when you look at it, there's 30% that comes directly from um the proficiency. You have the 20 that comes from the growth. So that's already half of the pie. The other half of the pie come from graduation, which is 20%. And it's very interesting. We'll go into a little bit deeper in a moment about how it's split. It's really split into two. One of them is a four-year graduation and the other one is five, six, seven graduation rate which I'll explain in a moment. But that's 20% and that leaves the other 30% where 20% comes from college and career readiness. It was part of a strategic plan. So
054obviously, you know, makes a lot of sense that it's also here and we make that connection and that's data that we report. the data that we capture, we monitor and I'll review in a moment. Actually, that'll be the first portion that I'll that I'll review. And then lastly, we have um our English learners, which is the last 10% which looks at both proficiency, looks at growth and how they do. So, that's the PI and that's what is used for 912. Um a little different from K8 to K8. It's um has looks a little bit different. Um but that is what's used across the state. So the next slide what you have before you is you have the chart which it breaks down for each of those slices of the pie um the numbers that the
055school earned both school earned this year as well as prior year. So you'll see that to the right of the of the of the chart you're going to see the prior year. So we see the proficiency um 12.35 which was last year compared to that 10.81. So there was growth in that category. The next one being um growth 20% of it total 17 points compared to the 15.68 prior. So there's also growth there. So in a moment we'll see some graphs that will specifically delineate a little bit of that growth and also comparing our school and our students and how other students in other schools in similar um looking at percentages of free and reduced lunch how they're performing because I feel that that's also an important element for us to consider. Obviously our goal
056is to be have those high expectations but really understand and also find out what other schools what other schools who are similar to us um that are performing well and a lot of conversation this year that has happened even at the district level of you know what is going on here because we engaged in this process as a district first before it starts going down to each of our sites the next one we have e proficiency that one there was there was a drop seven points compared with nine points the prior year but I'll make reference to a couple things that we've implemented today that are excited for this year. Um and some structural changes to to the program. Um then the next one is graduation which as I mentioned split into two 10% or
05710 points come from four five six seven we earn all the points in that category. Um the comparison though in the four-year which is right right below it we earn five of the 10 points and the reason for that you see a note off to the side that for the four-year graduation that only counts students who graduate on year four meaning in May of that academic year they graduate in summer or beyond they fall under the five six7 graduation rate. So that's where the difference because even when you look at that class the class of 2024 their actual the graduation rate officially for the state is 92 it's over 92%. However of those students who graduated in 2024 is 88 and if you're below 90% then at that point that's when we start not earning
058all the points. I am happy to report though that the letter grade that we'll earn for this year, next year, we will be earning because as a class of 2025, we'll be earning the entire points because the graduation rate, the four-year graduation rate for the class of 2025 was over 90%. So, that's mentioned. It's a little tricky, but that's how it split down um in that situation. Um CCR points, that's the last category I'll mention here out of the 20 points. Um slight increase from 14.6 6 last year to this year at 14.8. I'll speak briefly to some of the things we're doing with CCRI. Uh we're excited with our seals program. We really are looking forward. We've had 56 diploma seals in the class of the last graduating class. We're excited. We're being very
059strategic. We're being very intentional and very aggressive with increasing the number of diploma seals. not necessarily for this purpose, but the reality is that we want to have it and goes back to equipping our students and as relieve our school with the best preparation possible. So we're looking for example under um the club using Spanish we can use we can use um the for the biliteracy seal that one is students who are leaving our campus and they're speak more than one language right more than one so there we are really looking at a lot of intentional strategic plan to use maximize the club that's something that we're really great work that was done over the last two years to provide our students who might not have engaged in the AP program to earn those college
060um credits they can take the club and working towards increasing the number of students taking the club which is that they can be in Spanish and number of students you know maximize the fact that majority of our students are bilingual and they can take the club and it's a benefit to them because they'll earn college credit as well as from this purpose is going to um and you know give us a benefit in that area in the area of the field that I'll speak to briefly personal finance signs did a great job of really spearheading the efforts last year, but this year we found out that Econ, Miss Lynch, she's already using the state approved curriculum. She's already doing it and their students already going through it and we can meet that requirement as well.
061So, Mr. Gumar has really this year taken lead in um one of the areas that he has under his administrative duties is overseeing um dual enrollment, a lot of those programs. So he's really been very hard at work working with all of our teachers who are doing um a lot of fantastic works. Um in the our proficiency our department Miss Kadasco went through the application that is the one that we have to have pre-approval in the state and she did the leg work to get that happening and it's a lot like our for our teachers where it's an independent action research project where students are really doing a lot of independent they're really digging in and doing their own based on their interest. It could be arts, it could be in ceramics, it could be
062a theater and they're really doing the work. So that's an area that we're also working on. Um the couple areas that also fall under FA we really we partner with uh move moving forward Arizona. We have aspecting this year which is um we I'm very thankful for this administration to support us in um entering an MOU with them to be able to it's a in essence a data sharing. So, we actually have access, our counselors can go in and we can find out which of our students have actually started filling out the FAFSA, have filled out the FAFSA, or they fill out the FAFSA, but they haven't signed it. Maybe it's the parents. So, before if a student said, "Hey, I filled it out. It's good to go." We would take that at face value.
063We're good to go. But now with Ask Veggie, with this that we have them, we can go in there and say, "You're actually not done. Go back in there. You need your signature." So we've been um very happy to have that partnership with um with move forward Arizona and especi that our counselors are having and then um dual enrollment credits also falls in this category and um we're very excited we have our last meeting with FEMA we're actually right on the cusp of being able to offer because puma now removed their hold or their free dual enrollment classes. So, we're able to add new courses and based on what our initial analysis and thank Karen and the HR department for sending us a list of those teachers who they, you know, held the degrees to
064be able to potentially teach. Based on that, we're able to create a list of courses that we added that that was approved um back in in the winter and December, but we're a few courses away from being able to offer a full agent at Rico High School. So that's exciting because I know the vision of the district and Mr. Wood has been very very ambitious to say we want to be able to offer students the ability to leave here with a diploma plus and to be able to say that it it looks at things we're going to be able to have a block of Ajek offered at Rico High School to all our students. That's exciting because that's progress in that direction and that also helps us with our CCR. So it's a one more
065now we move into assessment data. Um I'll scroll through some of this. you know it's data that that again it's a lot of that after the fact the spring data that we go back to to last year first one is Cella where you see there there there was growth in in one grade level um there was in general when you look at the proficiency and again we had two points that we that we dropped compared to you know from 9 to seven but in this category we're excited this year because we we've made some structural changes to the program we actually have two SEI teachers um and the The way that we've structured the program is one of the teachers focuses on ground writing for one of the hours that they they have the SEI
066program and then for the second hour instead of going back to the same teacher they have another teacher who's focusing on speaking and listening. So we're excited for the resulting teachers are excited and to add to that program this year came to us and said hey there's this grant that we might you know let's apply and let's see what happens. through that grant was having a pair professional who was going to be directly supporting SEI and thankfully that that grant was approved and we were able to add through that work from the TLA office being led by Megan and we added a parent pro and not just at our site I believe it was also at Calasses. So we we're excited for that and and that individual being able to support both teachers and also
067the split, right? Sort of like bringing up that that time that the student and the teacher spend instead of two hours they have two different teachers with two different focus and then looking at the strengths of the teachers where they felt stronger to teach writing versus listening and speaking. So we're excited for that confidence you. So there you see the graph where you see that dip there from 42% to 33 um for a school. So I need to look up because mine is not colorcoded. Um and then we have proficiency because and then one thing I'll point out quickly is when you look at that line right above it that's the state right and again it's not making excuses most of us I think one thing that I appreciate about our district is not about
068making excuses it's a reality and acknowledging that there are things that are also happening in other parts of our our state as well because we see that trend line um for the state line as well then we get to our spire nth grade uh one thing I'll be very very clear here it does not this data does not impact letter grade. However, it's important to know and be very familiar and aware of it because those are the students that in two years their data is the one that's going to pretty much do that 50% that we saw. So 50% of our data comes from our in this case this letter grade from our seniors who are graduating this year because they were juniors last year. So keep that in mind. But ACT Aspire obviously it's
069it's data driven. We have to be data driven and the data is up there. And then we see first we have um English percentage data. It's very similar trend for both the Arizona and Ringo High School. A little bit of a dip there. And then we have a fire reading that is broken down into two English and reading very similar trendy. It's then you know drop of one percentage point science proficiency drop of two points. However, word we'll see in a moment that technically we are in that area we are uh performing better than the county not the state but the county we are so that's one highlight um math percentage you see that that's an area of focus that I'll discuss here when we get to our AP with our action steps now we
070get ACI and our students do take the ACT and the science portions of the of the ACT as well as the Arizona science assessment um I'm not sure if that will change or always been a lot of conversation about it but for the time being our students do have to take that decide they will be taking it again this year. So we see there are three lines. In this case we read high school in red, county in orange and Arizona in blue. You see that we high school just above that county line. So that's of course we we don't settle for these schools. We want to continue to work towards improving but you do see that trend line you know that's sort of stable for the state a little bit of after 21 for the
071the state as well. Now we get to the data that really drives um and the 50% of our both proficiency and growth come from and that is ACT data. Um very excited to share that first slide. So that's a significant increase that our juniors had last year. You see that what that increased from 20% to 29% last year. And I think that's fantastic. The school missed this school by one percentage. The goal of the school was to increase this particular metric by 10 percentage points increase by was by nine. So that's fantastic. One thing that I want to take it to a little different level also comparing it to the state. So all of those dots that you see on the screen represents a school. The colors represent the proficiency where they landed. So you
072see the purple in the at the top, blue in the middle, gold, and then it might change. Not sure if it's reddish to the b towards the bottom. And then you see the line, the diagonal line right in the middle that starts higher and then it drops as it moves across. When you see on the left the metrics, that's proficiency. So you start at the bottom and move your way up the top on the left. That's increasing or higher proficiency. As you move across from the bottom from the left to right you see free and reduced lunch metrics. So as we move further all those odds that are further to the right 100 being the furthest right line would be stu the schools that qualify based on their percentage. So what you see there is
073high school's ELA proficiency at 29.91. It's a comparison to the average at the state level which is about 30% for schools that have similar or the same reduced lunch metric for our school last year was 82%. So that's what that represents and that go that dot that you see right in the middle right on the line that is near. Then we get to math. So math you see an increase as well. We see a 2% increase not as significant as ELA but an increase nonetheless. The goal of the school last year was to increase 10%. But there was an increase and I think that's important to to register and to discuss and percent and share and celebrate with those teachers where we we've already had a chance to do as well as now looking at
074continuing to to grow in this area because math you see in the state very very stagnant line there across the top that it's 30 30 to 32 but in our case you see that between 22 to that increase. So we're working hard continue to increase that trend. So the same graphic now for Rico High School in math compared. So the average for free and reduced lunch similar which is again 18% is 18% for high school 13.2 the number is not rounded up but here is 13.3. So you see high school slightly below that line with compared to other students with comparable or similar free reading. Now I wanted to include briefly um just discuss put put that in perspective of those three. So again just we're looking at those two metrics ACT only juniors over
075the last three years. So want to highlight that incredible increase there for ELA that we see from 22% up to 29.91. So I think that's impressive. Um in math you know I think we always conversations we always had with the TLA department and other other principles other sciences. Unfortunately, we do see a lot of that yo-yo over data over the years. So, anytime you either we we can't be happy with sustaining it, but it's always important to sustain um versus that yo-yo where we consently have because it's harder as we work on that yo-yo as we know as that drop. If we have that drop, how do we overcome it? Then the analysis becomes harder, right? Because we have intentionality behind our strategies when we try and then there's a dip and then we have
076to really peel through the layers to see what it was. So I wanted to just highlight both ELA and um and math. And then the last portion that I'll briefly go through is we had Rico High School. We have three goals this year. Um goals one and two the same as every single school in our district and every single school in the state has to be ELA goal and math. So our ELA goal, mathematics actually is the first one. Mathematics goal was to increase 10%. the action steps right below it. What we'll speak to to briefly some of the things that we've been working hard on, not just the admin team, but all of our teachers is really being very intentional. So, we built on the work over the last couple of years of our
077ACT plan. We have very strategic schoolwide ACT plan, which really you see ACT embedded in our lesson, especially starting second semester. In some classes is daily, in other classes, depending on the content is weekly, couple times a week where they're exposing our students to the items. Because a lot of times we have our students who are coming into our our classrooms and then they walk in to take which is a time test. You have 45 minutes for 45 items in math and they've never taken a time test. So that's another element that it's part of our ACT plan which is empower students with the opportunity to experience those settings of that testing environment where they're being trained. So that's a big part of this. Um all of our departments this year they have developed their
078own plan by departments so that it's in line with their curriculum of course but also in line with how they can support during that time um students in regardless of the content level. So every single department in our school has an ACT plan which directly supports a schoolwide plan but then also built on their own. Um then we have our second goal which was ELA similar goal 10% increase uh running across curriculum was a schoolwide that in comparison to math is a little bit trickier sometimes across the board. forward running across the curriculum is a big element of our school plan and that comes through the school which is focused on the LA um and some of the things that I'll build on and I wanted to touch on here versus in the first one
079is the first action step has to do with PD although PD has been very intentional starting back in leader academy right after the kusha school year and then leading into the start of the school year we had two days right after school year ended and then we had one day in July where we brought back our instructional council, all our department leaders to finalize our PD. That was really the one pending thing that we had and we were very intentional providing choice when appropriate with coupled with accountability, but also ensuring that all of our sessions were in line with the needs of our teachers, curriculum needs. We have some new curriculum that was um rolled out this year with math. So, we're excited to have a new curriculum, but we can be excited as well
080as then we couple work learn the curriculum. We need to learn the curriculum resources and Judy has been great in in in being available and supportive as well as the TLA office, the PD calendar as a district adding a new day which we have deep curricular deep dives where our teachers just have time to just learn your curriculum. Just log in, learn about it, what is available, what are the things that are available, what is useful, what are the things that maybe are not available and are there other resources and of course we can navigate those corners if we get there. So that's something new that we're not just every high school across the board that we found very useful because then we're having those conversations about we go about the skin and game you
081mentioned Mr. each the district invests a lot of money in a curriculum materials. It's important that we that we're using them and we're maximizing because they're based on research. They're based on literature versus something that me as an educator, this is what I've been using, but I don't have the time to conduct the research to conduct and read all that literature to so we're excited for that. Our RPD calendar has the last goal and I'll bring it to the the end of my presentation. Our third goal which our optional goals called by the state was the attendance and our goal was to reduce chronic absentism by 5% and tardiness by 5%. Um we have not met the goal. Our goal was by the end of first semester. Unfortunately we did not meet the goal but
082we did decrease a little bit in the chronic absence and and it's it's it's high like the chronic absenteeism for our school last school year was 37.90. So that means 37.90 of our students had is 10% of or more of school. So and that was the end of the 100 this year 37.29. So there was a slight decrease and I always ask this Mr. Kumar and do the math and he looks at me like don't ask me math question but it just gives you the look. It was a slight decrease. Now in tardies we've seen a very very that data it's it's a little bit harder to capture and quantify but when we look at graphs we're actually looking at graphs today and we see similar to that average line I declined at the start
083of semester too with tardians and molano has been very strategic she's um sacrificing her lunch and she's holding we have lunch attention turns for lunch attention it's starting to do the trick because we say you want lunch attention then suddenly students start to go to a power walk to the class. So, we've been very intentional that we see that increase and again it's not the decrease is important to um it takes the entire team. So, it's also some of the other action steps as we discussed. We have a task force called the A team. Well, they call themselves the A team but it makes sense tennis team but there are a team on our boat a tennis clerk parent leazison um a counselor. We have Missia helping out and we have Mr. and Mr. Solano
084and they're meeting regularly, reviewing the data, monitoring the data, being creative. What are other incentives? How can we promote not just the tardy sweets, what about students? Um what about ways to continue to promote those students who are already making the conscious effort to be on time to be punctual? How do we reinforce that instead of just being punitive? But we have to have those and and and they've done a fantastic job to not just meet and discuss the data but action steps and implement things that we're seeing are having effect. So that brings us to the end of the presentation. We're going I think that's the last slide. I forgot to add a slide about questions. So I'll open up for any questions you guys may have. >> Thank you Mr. Lope. is very
085well presented and yes, I can certainly see where attendance and tardiness can is going to affect the students students grades is certainly going to bring growth. So I can understand and the fact that you Kumar and Mr. Lano are working on that. I'm sure it's going to make a difference. We could already see that difference from last year you know to this year. So uh and if I if I read the graphs right did go down a little bit in some areas when you compare it to the state then we're most where we're supposed to be if you come yes um LA we're right there comparing to school similar bunch numbers math a little bit below that um really the the drop in points society really came from graduation because again we didn't sustain we
086if we drop in graduation percentage four year graduation but it does not drop below 90 we earn the the points that the full points but because we dropped to 88 now those that cohort they ended up gra reaching over 92% but that was a year five year six year seven right the key is if it's 90% at year four when they need to graduate or they should graduate >> they graduate then we earn the maximum >> and then the other 10 points is from the year five year six% graduation >> thank you thank you >> thank Y uh >> Lopez, I was wondering about uh ingenuity and Mr. Verdugo. Also, uh a lot of the individuals that are in Ingenuity, they're behind in credits, maybe a year, maybe two years. They're trying to play catchup.
087Is that included in our overall graduation rate? >> Right. All of our students who are to graduate if they are cohort 2024 let's say for example this year they're cohort 2025 that will be counted in that in that fouryear graduation if they should have graduated last year then they'll be included in that year five six seven beyond I think it's >> it is included in in the data okay it is >> and I was wondering if we had that as an alternative school where because alternative schools withenuity uh they're not deemed for them graduating in five, six, seven years. So I don't know, Mr. Verdul or Do you >> I'll speak to a couple points and then M. I I think that I'm glad you brought that up because one thing that that it was
088not part of the presentation, but that bit to that point is we made some very strategic changes for students and our hybrid program which is where students can go and take a class online, right? They're in person, they take they choose to take algebra one online. We're actually made some changes that we feel are in the best interest of the students. Um students have to be credit current to take an engineering class if they're taking not if they're not in a sea of Mr. class one. And two, we're saving those spots for upper classmen. Students who are a little bit more independent, you know, more driven to prevent because it prevent that perpetuating that achievement gap and they go in there and they maybe continue to struggle. We're convinced that as we all know, the
089number one driver of learning outcomes is effective instruction. So we made some of those changes in that area and we're actually piloting a program that you know TA office again this district was very supportive. We're pil piloting subject which is alternative to ingenuity and we're excited to see what that data. So we have a a small group of students and actually happening in in Calabasas to to see if that might be a better product because it's not just about credit recovery. We should we want to really bring it about the learning right in terms of the when back in my prior life when I was in team and brief time part of the coordinating alternative pathways 6 to 12 there was a lot of conversation when AI AOI came along the challenge with it is
090creating a CTDS number separately had a lot of challenges that at the time it did not seem appropriate to know about now and if there's an appetite for that to explore that but I know that we've had that conversation over the years but we didn't feel that it was the right one at the time. >> That that's what we could have that discussion again if if that's what we wanted to do is create another school, but it's really a school within a school. Um and we've done it because the attraction uh for many was that they graduate with a regular high school diploma versus an alternative ed diploma. And so to be honest, I don't know if that really makes a a difference to to to future college or employers, but that was one of
091the reasons that we made that decision back when we decided to have Sim Vista was to keep it as part of the regular high school to receive a regular high school diploma. >> Appreciate that. Um, yeah, I know also something with the success of of our schools is teacher retention. You know, I do see a lot of long-term subs uh in our classes. uh uh and I think uh retaining our teachers is is very important and I know we've uh increased raises, we've given stipens and a lot of incentives to to bring teachers here. Uh but we're still having problems retaining them. And I think if we concentrate on that, that would also help our test scores. I know when Mr. Kumar first came, he probably said like, "Oh my god, what's going on? I
092want to go back." No, but uh it does take a little time to get used to our culture the way things are done down here. But I think if we can, you know, embrace that and right now I think we're growing our own teachers here. We got programs to develop them that are from our community. I think that's going to help in the long run. Uh tardies, thank you Mr. Lano Kumar for that. That was one of the big things last year. Uh Mr. beach. It's the same kids every day walking in five minutes late. I'm, you know, that's the time I introduce my my topic and nothing's getting done. So, I'm glad uh you you heard uh that the their voices and that you guys are addressing that. So, appreciate that also. And uh
093these highstake tests with the state testing, I I know they're hard. Uh I've taken the practice of Zela test. I thought I was going to ace it and I failed it. And the reason why I failed it is because no one told me how to take the test. I got on there and the, you know, you have your little headsets on and what is your name? My name's Brad. You know, uh, that I said it correctly, but when I took the test, I just said Brad. And as a result, you have to say it in a sentence. If >> the students aren't told that, they're probably going to answer the same thing just with their with their name. So, I know uh test taking strategies uh very important on taking these tests. Now, it's a
094time test. So, you're going to have to implement that in your uh classes and with the practice and all these gadgets that they have now. They have calculators, they got this, they got this. So getting familiar with how to take these tests and I know it's only one one test uh well three state tests but I know we have a holistic approach to projects in class and stuff like that that all success. So uh thank you and thank you for your presentation. >> Yes sir. Well going back to what Mr. Beach said which I agree teacher attention is extremely important and many times it's kind of hard. It's it's even hard for us, Mr. office as governing board members and probably for the superintendent and everybody that works under him. all the way down. Sometimes,
095you know, you run into people and they may not agree with you or maybe they're not, you know, we always use that trite term, you know, on the same bus, you know, I can't stand, but you know, when people don't agree with you and the philosophy, you know, tend to encourage them to go and we I think that we should really refrain from that and maybe try, you know, the old saying about you can what is it about you can about convincing people to do stuff through sweeter ways is that old saying about you can collect or something more bees with honey than you can with vinegar or whatever the saying I can't think straight but I think that we have to try to be more positive with those people who maybe initially you don't
096you feel like hey this person isn't part of the group or you know so I think we have to be more patient with them because sometimes it's good to have those people that give you that perspective and remind you that maybe things do need to change and or maybe we have to accommodate them in such a way that they we still continue on the same course. But you know, we have some really strong teachers who are very highly opinionated and as you guys well know and so and so I just am asking for more patience with them because we have people that do some great things in our district. really great things, but you know, they could have an edge to them or some that that just doesn't doesn't click with us so well. So,
097I'm asking everybody to be more patient with those people regard to that because we can't afford to lose good people and like Mr. Beachch said and we all know in this room there's such a teacher shortage right now. So, and we don't have people banging on the door, you know, to work in the district. At any rate, I agree with Mr. Beach. This is very well said. The grad rate, as you well know, that's a sore spot that we have to work on, but I I like what you said. I feel that you're confident that you're going to do something about it. Very confident in you, Mr. Lopez. I I know you'll take care of that one. So, um, but I I can't help but mentioning it again because of course that's where some of
098the points were lost in. And thank you for your explanation, by the way. I'm 567, all that stuff. You know, >> 67. Yeah, I'm a rebel. 76. So, yeah, the Klep the Klep test. That's another thing that I really like that you said. That's awesome because I'm a firm believer and I used to give it. I never realized all the people that had passed the club. Not to toot my horn here, but we had a lot of people that passed the cleft for German and it was never really incorporated into the scores back when because, you know, it wasn't so big. It wasn't I don't think it was even part of adding to the score of the school. But now we know that it does add to this the score of the school. And beyond
099that, what's even more important is that they get college credit for for having done this. And you're the first person I've heard that mentioned how we have all these kids who speak Spanish fluently. And you're right. You're absolutely right. We really need to to to um cultivate our garden, you know, and make those kids take the test. And you're the perfect person because you're a good role model for them. So, I would just ask you to please get out there. I'm pro probably sure you're doing it already, but the more you do that, I go personally with those kids, the more they're going to want to take that test, especially when you tell them that they're going to get college credit for it. Because I've always wondered myself, why in God's green earth haven't we
100we done this more often? And at my school, yes, that's NHS, okay? I I got some kids to pass that test and they got college credit. And listen to this. I only had them two years. Two years. Okay? And I was getting kids to to pass that test. So it helped increase our letter grade a little bit. You know, I can say tremendously, but every little bit counts as you know. Even the bonus points count as you know. And I used to bring that up to Mr. Estrada about how we could have bonus points like getting people to sign up for the military. That's another one that that we could do maybe put some more uh emphasis on. So, but I really liked your presentation and and I want to say go going back to
101something that Mr. Beachch touched upon. I like how Mr. Verdugo again going back to your vision. He's pushing dual enrollment and that's awesome because nobody comes close to us in Santa Cruz County when it comes to dual enrollment. And we've been fortunate because my understanding you have to have your master's degree to be able to do this. So knowing that maybe we should be mining for those kinds of people in the future, finding the ones that have a master's degree and really pushing hard for that because there's quite the premium on those people. And so we need to really do everything that we can. I don't know how much else we can do. I know Dr. at Landerville that you guys do everything possible to try to recruit people, but there's got to be I'm
102a firm believer that we can still do more. You know, making that second and third effort. Those are the kinds of things that that make people terrific, make them stand out. Those second and third efforts that they never thought about. So, we need to do more to not only retain the people like Mr. Beach said, but also to find people who have their master's degree and can push dual enrollment. And it was really cool how you mentioned that uh they've relaxed on their on the freeze now. That's cool because now we can offer new courses. So, thank you for that information. I didn't know that. That's really cool. Super cool. And attendance. The last thing I'll end on is on attendance. I've always been a firm believer of detention as any of my students could
103tell you. So even when Ben would come late to school, I would make him serve detention that he still owes me if he came. >> But in s in all seriousness, detention works because kids, as somebody mentioned here, they they don't like that kind of stuff and they don't want to go see Mr. Orlando during lunch. So as you Mr. up as you mentioned that they don't want to go see her and that that's a good thing you know and we have to put the the fear of God in in these and the kids you know uh what what's the what's the Hindi god Shiva >> with the there we go with the fear of Shiva in them you know so >> she want to destroy >> well I don't know about destroying her but
104but we we really have to be serious about that because we have that where we are at where I am at NHS. We have Saturday detention for kids who come late. And I've mentioned that at governing board meetings before and it works, but it'll only work if you have a person who's there and is really serious and tough on them and makes them not want to come in. Also holding them accountable because if you got kids who don't want to who are just making fun of the thing and throwing the slips away, we know we've lost that battle. So there has to be accountability by the admin too which is really hard because you got so much on your plate already that you have to worry about. That's god that's like the last thing you
105want to be worrying about you know getting these guys to come in. So you need a lot of help and buyin from the teachers to do that. You need some help from them because you can't do it by yourself. There's no way. So and are you Mr. Lana I mean you're being a real hero in here but >> thank you. Yeah, but you we appreciate you too doing that. Giving up your lunch. Really? I know you're smiling, laughing about it. It's not funny when you give up your lunch, you know. It's not >> It doesn't get to have her lunch after. >> So, but we need something like that because let me tell you something where where we are. Parents don't want to get up early in the morning to be bringing their kid at
106600, 6:30 in the morning, whenever it is, to to school. Imagine the the conversations in the car on the way over there or even in the house before they even get in the car. So, you know, that's a deterrent and that would help us out a lot. As Mr. Laro said, you know, the attendance is important and that's getting them there and getting them there on time is half the battle. So, we need to really really hammer away at that one. I don't know what the superintendent can do, know what your team can do, but you need to be firmer with regard to the tardies, especially the tardies, so they get the hint. Otherwise, they just keep, you know, they just keep on on the same same course and do the same things. We're going
107to get the same results as been said many times. So, but great presentation. I mean there's one thing to your point and echo I think it's important to to both there's there's a deterrent because at the at the core of this is we have students who be punctual but most importantly is the learning right that they're there on time prepared and the lesson starts as you mentioned Mr. reach a day and obviously those that important part of the lesson. Um but we're we're very happy with our data. It's close to a 50% decrease of that chronic tardiness in that first portion of of you know the year. So we're excited for that. It's looking we don't want to celebrate yet it because obviously we have >> is a real thing and getting somewhere but we're
108excited about the progress and we're looking forward to continue to work on it. I want to thank also Alex from TLA because he's done a great job of capturing that data and showing it to us in a way that is very easy to you know navigate and and look at and find some matching stuff. And last thing I'll mention to some of the things that you mentioned Mr. Rides is we're actually working with UOVA also to add an engineering dual enrollment starting next year. So we're we're close to it. We still have some uhou documents that we're waiting we're waiting to receive from them that are in line with with their district administration that is actually going to be free of charge to them. So the engineering class that every student in the U of
109takes to be able to be go into engineering they would be able to take it here free of charge. Um as well as you know adding a lot of different electives and we had 80% of our sophomores this year take the AD ready. The Ed Ready is Puma's placement test. It used to be ACUPPLACER. So we did that for the reason because a lot of encourage those students maybe never thought about signing up for a dual enrollment course. So our goal is that student that cohort doesn't have a test. So we said let's give the ed ready good data tells us which students in the 10th grade are ready for college level work already and it's great for the counselors be hey you did great what about taking a course. So a lot of movement
110in that area. So we're excited to we're wait we're waiting so the data come back but we're excited for to move forward in that direction further in the vision of the district as well. >> I appreciate your presentation and especially your hard work. I hope that you know maybe the students get a chance to sit with you at lunch and talk to you because you're good role model and you know talking to them makes a huge difference as you know from having been a teacher, a coach and an administrator. So, >> appreciate everything that you do. Thank you, >> Mr. A lot of good things have been said, so I'll keep it really, really short. Thank you for the thorough presentation. Um, it was great. >> Superintendent report. >> Thank you. A few things. Um,
111so tomorrow morning as we're talking about chronic absenteeism, one of the things that we've been working on was trying to get some followup from the county attorney. Um, and so tomorrow we will actually have Dr. with the county attorney and the lieutenant discuss um what's happening as far as when we fill out the packet for those chronic students and why there is no followup. And so we'll find out uh tomorrow what the next steps are because we want to make sure that um if we do the work that there is going to be a consequence. um or if they're not going to have a consequence, tell us that so that we won't do that the extra work and then we'll figure out a way to solve that problem on our own. Um so tomorrow morning
112we'll have that meeting which we've been expecting. So we appreciate the county attorney with us. um talking about um teacher retention and recruitment. Um our HR Karen met and um put together a job fair for the district and so which will not only recruit teachers um but also other positions that we have within the district. So we'll be having that come up. So I want to thank them for for putting that together. Um and then uh recently I Last week I was in uh Berkeley at the uh West End board meeting which I'm on the board. Um and it was very interesting um because we have a learning session and then the learning session was related to a documentary called Counted Out which is about math and how math is the gateway to a future
113and how it um can hinder somebody if they don't finish math and what happens to students um limits the job opportunities things that you can do within your life. Um, and so it was very interesting to hear, but one of the topics was actually, and I told Meg about this, that at our district was brought up because um, across the country, um, there's a limit on a fourth year math. Um, it's calculus or nothing. And so our district is one of 30 across the country, and we're actually part of a pathway study program for um, that has quantitative reasoning. And that was a big topic of discussion with the Arizona Board of Regents um and also a lot of deans from all the universities including the the dean from uh Berkeley School of Education about
114how we are setting a trend of having a class that uh that provides that opportunity for students uh to have that fourth year of math and have it count for universities. So, but it it was very just positive. So, I wanted to share that one. >> Thank you. >> A Monty Python show. >> Beach told me I need to get in the gym. Uh yes, I attended um two weeks ago I attended the girls basketball game with uh Choya. We defeated Choya and it was a good it was a very very good game. The girls look great. So I was excited uh to be there. I also attended the boys uh basketball game last night, the game against Sawarita. That was a nailbiter. We lost by one point, but I you know I really I
115really thought we had him. I just, you know, was cheering on. It just didn't happen. But great group of kids, great coaching. It was a great game to to watch. Thank you. That's it for me. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. I just want to make sure everybody understood Mr. Ramirez said when he said the fear of Shiva that it was spelled with an instead a which in our community it could be misinterpreted. You're the go. >> Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I was down at Garris talking to some teachers and uh they were moving their feet real fast. I guess there's a step test going on. >> Okay. >> So, yeah, they're they're counting their steps. I got 8,000. I don't know how they do it, but these apps they're tracking, but our nurse has 10,000. So,
116it's uh the competition. I love seeing people get out there walking, whatever you're exercising, doing something. So, uh that's fun fun to see. Uh thanks everybody on the consent agenda that gave donations. There's a lot of donations on there and uh shout out to all our sports teams. Uh they're going into playoffs right now. So, good luck as you move forward in the next few weeks and those that make it to state uh represent our community and our school in a positive manner and good luck to them. And very interesting what you said about math. I always I hated math when I when I was a student e even in college. But it was a lovehate relationship because it actually made my brain work. Okay. I always had to go from my college professor right
117into the uh uh the student union to get tutored, but it makes your brain work and I can see the critical thinking that's involved in a lot of our higher level math courses. So, it's very interesting uh the data that what what it shows. Yep. Thank you for sharing that. >> That's all I have. >> Thank you, Mr. Beach. Mr. >> Yeah. along those lines. You should never tell yourself that you can't do something. It's just it's so negative and you have nothing to lose. As my father used to always say, you have nothing to lose by being positive and everything to gain. So, he was a real positive man. He'd always say, "No matter what your day was like and how rotten it might have been, the worst one, just remember that every day
118above ground is a good day." He used to say, and he was right. So I like to push that and like to say that in case anybody any teachers are listening out there or do you guys want to pass that back that hey you know don't give up be tough and gritty and work hard and think positive and good things will happen good message but Mr. Beach stole a lot of thunder. My thunder because I was going to say, yeah, good luck to all the teams and athletes who have gone beyond the regular season. And thank you to all the ones who were out there doing their best and trying to represent us and maybe just fell a little short. So, just work harder next year. I had a kid one time that was like
119this. Not going to mention his name, but he was overweight when he tried out the first year. He's a tall kid, right? I cut him and he was shaw shocked that I cut him and I told him, "You can't keep up with the time, you know, deep sixes and stuff like that." And so he was heartbroken, but he came back the next year and he'd lost 20 pounds and he was really fast. And he actually won a medal when I took him to Vegas to play in a tournament over there. It's called the Durango Classic. And so he won a medal. Nobody would have thought that he was going to be the one, the only one that won a medal. had a write up about him in the Las Vegas newspaper. He played against Mr.
120Though you'd be interested in knowing this, he played against a kid. It was a division one player and pretty tough and and he held him to a minimum amount of points that he had scored in the whole season and he frustrated him and uh we didn't win the game. No way. They still beat us because they were really I mean you play against division one players and you know that's a totally different story but at least he he was a spotlight for a moment you know he represent our community really well but hey never give up always work hard never know if you again if you think something is your weakness and work harder at it to be good at it but don't ever tell yourself that you're not good at something work at it
121make it your strength so but my colleagues pretty much wrapped it up. I think that was pretty neat that you went to the game and saw the girls game. That's that's really neat. So, I miss going to the games. I've been so swamped with things to do and trying to get out there and go see some of the games because I I love college basketball. So, >> yeah. Thank you, Mr. Cummings. I have another report. Moving on. information, discussion, action. >> Thank you. So again, tonight I was invite Missia up in case there's any questions. As I mentioned later in the agenda was the approval of the strategic plan and the work that uh was done to make the admission and proposed updated local. So any uh feedback or things if if you want it
122changed or if you're okay with the way it was presented um up for approval tonight or again we could bring it back but yeah go ahead. Yes. Thank you. In case there's any questions um but wanted to present that to the board as a as a possibility of approving the work that's been done by the committee. >> No questions for me. >> I have members. Um, you know, I'm a stickler for rules. So, and he, of course, is one of my all-time best friends. However, I just want to make sure that we don't set precedent here because we had a situation a long time ago with regard to that and we had the president ask somebody to not vote because they were part of the thing. So, are we entering that here? Because >> part
123of that Mr. Beach would be abstaining tonight. >> What? >> Yeah. Yeah. So just just to to clarify because he was part of the committee so he he would be recommended to abstain since it was part of his work although it was a superintendent committee. Um >> I just hope that's not grounds for never being friends again. >> No but I just wanted to make sure on a serious note we don't do that because we've had that situation and again >> once we set precedent then we can't turn down. I I know that we've had it for people who we gave liquidated damages to voted for and that's serious business right there. So, we cannot afford to make those kinds of mistakes as a governing board. So, just thought I'd mention that especially since our
124president isn't here and you're the acting president tonight. >> Mr. You bet. >> We have a motion. Motion to approve the Santa Cruz Valley Unified School District number 35 strategic plan vision, excuse me, vision and mission with the proposed updated logo as presented. >> So moved. >> Motion and a second. Any further discussion? Second. >> You were the second. >> All right, we're good. >> All those in favor? I >> I Any opposed? the committee's work. >> No, no policies this evening. >> Thank you. >> Proposals and prioritize topics and possible dates and times for future board meetings. So, uh, next governing board meeting, uh, February 10th and then, uh, February 27th is the conference for those that will be attending and then the future topics are there. So, if there's any ones that would
125like to be discussed, start to schedule some of these future topics on the next. >> I have none, Mr. President. Thank you. >> I have Remove the consent agenda. >> Have to read that little >> any matter. >> Oh, any matter on the consent agenda will be removed from the consent agenda and discussed as regular agenda items upon request of any board member. >> Does any member have >> I have nothing I want to remove. Thank you. >> I have nothing. Motion to approve, accept, and ratify the consent agenda as presented. >> So move. >> Second. >> All right. All those in further discussion in favor. Thank you. >> 659 or 650. >> Not bad. Not bad. >> Good travel.