Banning USD Regular Board Meeting, January 14, 2026

001Welcome to the January 14th, 2026 regular board meeting of the Banning Unified School District Board of Trustees. The time is 5:30. Please be advised that a recording or broadcast of this meeting is being made at the direction of the board. Clerk Troutman, please take role. Trusty Angiano >> present. Trustee Martinez Laura >> present. Trusty Nollis >> present. >> President Ruiz >> present. >> And I clerk Tropman and present. Please let the record reflect we have a quorum. >> Item 1.2. We now invite our cadet core to present the colors ahead of the pledge of allegiance. Left, right, left. Mark time. March color guard. H left face and colors. Please place your right hand over your heart. Ready? Begin. >> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic

002for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Please forward march. or going to be one of those nights. Laura Item 1.3, adopt agenda. Are there any changes to the agenda? No changes to the agenda. >> Are there any board requests to change the agenda? Joe, I have a motion and a second to adopt the agenda as posted. >> I move. >> I'll second. I have a motion from clerk Troutman and a second from trustee Martinez Lara. All those in favor say I. I. I. >> All those opposed say nay. The agenda is adopted with a 50-0 vote. Item 1.4 student presentations. I would like to invite Dr. Cosy Bush to the podium to introduce this evening's student presentations. Good evening, President Ruiz, Clerk Troutman, distinguished members of

003the board, Superintendent Davis, Executive Cabinet, and the Banning community. Happy New Year. And we are very proud and excited to welcome some amazing speakers this evening. I would first like to begin with our youngest speaker, if he is here, from Hoffer Elementary School, Leonardo Valdivia. Good evening, board president Ree, members of the board, Superintendent Davis, and members of the banning community. My name is Leonardo Valdivia and I'm a proud Banning Unified student and a very proud Appaloosa from Hoffer Elementary. I am excited to be here tonight and relieved this isn't a math test. This year at Hoffer has been packed with learning celebrations and a lot of fun. We kicked things off with a back to school barbecue which brought our families together and reminded us that school events are always better when there's food

004involved. In October, we held our first ever steam day where we got our hands on with learning and sometimes learned that experiments don't always go exactly as planned. We celebrated our success with trimester awards, raced through the turkey trot, some faster than others, and shared our talents during holiday performances before enjoying a very well-earned winter break. We've also had monthly attendance celebrations like a hot cocoa party, my favorite, and a neon dance party. It turns out showing up to school every day is much more exciting when there's music and chocolate involved. Coming up, we're excited for 100 days of school and I already growth celebration, kindness week, and read across America, which will include a fun community event with visits from several authors. We're also preparing for state testing and we're ready to do our

005best, especially since we know this means ending our year strong and celebrating our promotions with our families. Thank you for letting me share a little glimpse of life at Hoffer Elementary. Have a wonderful evening and if you're ever nearby, please stop by and see all the great things happening at our school. Thank you. Well, to our upper classmen, you may have a hard act to follow, but I know you can do it. Um, coming up next from Nichollet Middle School is Yoritzi Morales. Good evening. Board President Ree, distinguished members of the board, Superintendent Davis, and members of the banning community. My name is Yudi Morales, and I'm proud to serve as Nicollet Middle School's ASB president. The past month has been full of exciting events and school spirit. We started with our winter dance, Frosty

006Starry Night, on December 12th. The night featured glowing lights, fun photo opportunities, and popular vendors selling unique and colorful hot chocolate. Students had a great time making memories with friends. On December 15th, we held our second food day, which offered a wide variety of options, including noodles, mini pancakes, Panda Express orchata, hot dogs, and the dirty soda truck. It was another successful lunchtime event. Winterfest followed on December 17th and brought our community together for a fun-filled evening. There was a beautiful photo opportunity, games, and plenty of food such as hot dogs, hot chocolate, cotton candy, and nachos along with vendors like the dirty soda truck and caramel apples. The turnout was great and the event was a big success. In athletics, football wrapped up their season. Boys and girls basketball are beginning practices and cheer

007continues to bring energy and spirit to campus. Looking ahead, we're excited for Pinkout Day, Jersey Day, our first pack track event, and our Valentine's Day dance. Mask your way into my heart. Thank you for your continued support of ASB and our school community. Representing Kum's alternative this evening is Cruz Aranda Sarina. Good evening board president Riz, distinguished members of the board, Superintendent Davis, and members of the banning community. I am Cruz Deserna from New Horizons High School. I am honored to share our Kum's district message and some of our recent highlights. Congratulations are in order for the January student of the month for New Horizons, Vanessa P. Vanessa recently completed all of her graduation requirements early in her book about me. She credited her family support for all her success. She wrote, "My parents hard

008work and sacrifices have given me the strength to keep going and chase my goals. Theirs is a story of gratitude, hope, and determination, showing me how love and dreams can help build a better future. Her grades and contributions truly remind us that we are Benny. Congratulations to all of our second quarter honoral award winners for New Horizons. 13 students achieved gold, earning 28 or more credits. Two students achieved silver, earning 24 to 27 credits. and 17 students achieved bronze, earning 20 to 23 credits. For BIS, over 80% of high school students achieved honor role, earning 25 or more credits. Great job, Stallions. Picture day is coming on January 20th. Life Touch returns to Kums this time for senior portraits and other students can schedule makeup and retakes. Shout out to Mr. Preventure and live stream.

009Together, they will host our second Kums blood drive on January 21st. Students will volunteer to help and to donate, earning community service hours and a $10 In-N-Out gift card. On January 27th, students will complete their ASVAB. This test reveals areas of strength and ability in science, math, and language. Students will also complete a career interest survey that matches their ASVAB strengths with possible jobs and career pathways, helping them plan for the future. In addition, many kum students continue our music program with Jason Nutter, experimenting with songwriting, guitars, keyboards, drums, and vocal performance. And Mrs. Pacheco is back with her spring art class lances. Currently exploring painting methods and paper mint sculpting. Thank you for allowing me to share our Kum's alternative report with you. And representing Banning High School for remarks this evening will be

010our student board member, Mary Bridto. Good evening, board president Ruiz, distinguished members of the board, Superintendent Davis, and members of the banning community. Well, this is Liliana Andere and she is a senior and she says that it's an honor to serve ASB president at Banning High School. As students return to the campus, there has been a renewed sense of energy and motivation. Many students came back feeling refreshed and ready to re-engage which had a positive impact on the campus. Classrooms felt more focused. School activities are well attended and there is a strong sense of connection among students. The culture at Banning High School reflects growth, respect, and pride in our school community. The positive atmosphere is especially evident as we approach several upcoming senior nights for wrestling, basketball, and soccer. These events provide an important

011opportunity to recognize seniors who have shown dedication, perseverance, and leadership throughout their high school experience. Senior nights bring together students, families, staff, and community members to celebrate the commitment and hard work of our athletes and to honor the role they play in shaping the school spirit. Serving in ASB has allowed me to see how student leadership contributes to a strong campus culture. Through ASB, students gain valuable skills such as event planning, marketing, organization, and teamwork. We also learn the importance of paying attention to small details. Understanding thoughtful planning and preparation can greatly impact the success of school events and student engagement. These experiences help us prepare for the future of academics and professional opportunities. Overall, it is an exciting and meaningful time to be a student at Banning High School. Our campus environment is supportive,

012students are motivated, and opportunities for leadership and personal growth continue to expand. On behalf of the student body, I would like to thank the board and the district leadership for your continued support in helping to create a school environment where students feel valued, encouraged, and inspired to succeed. Thank you for your time and support. That concludes our student and school site remarks for the evening. Mary, you want to go ahead and continue? As I said again, good evening board president Ruiz, distinguished members of the board, Superintendent Davis, and members of the Bannon community. My name is Mary Adberto, and I'm a proud member of the associate student body, the senior class, and so much more here at Banning High School. I am truly grateful for the opportunity to stand before you today and to represent

013not only my senior class but the student body as a whole. First, before getting to what I want to talk about today, I hope you guys all had a restful break and happy new year. Thank you so much for taking the time to listen today. I'd like to share some observations and ideas that students have been discussing related to school climate, understanding, and belonging. Students have noticed that bullying can sometimes target peers because of their ways of communicating, learning, or expressing themselves are misunderstood. This can include students on the autism spectrum, students with ADHD or anxiety, and students that are part of the LGBTQ plus community. These situations often include subtle are often subtle but include teasing, exclusion or repeated comments, but they can still have real impact on how safe and how included these

014students feel in school. Some students have shared that they have seen classmates being treated unfairly for these reasons. Often this behavior isn't obvious which can make it harder to address even though it still affects this even though it still affects the school community. I have personally seen how awareness can make a great impact. During my sophomore year, a student who was autistic led led a presentation for our ASB class. Through that presentation, I learned that autism exists on a spectrum. I also learned many things that I have never been taught before and it genuinely changed the way I understood and interacted with others. That experience showed me how powerful education and open conversations can truly be. Based on experiences like this, students have suggested exploring ways to increase awareness and understanding across campus. Some ideas

015include holding assemblies or visiting classes, especially during Autism Awareness Month, to help students understand that many may have experiences or ways of expressing themselves that may be different from what they expect. And that understanding can build empathy and make our school community stronger. Students have also shared the importance of conversations around bullying that affect students in the LGBTQ plus community so that everyone can feel included and respected. These ideas are shared in spirit of collaboration. Students care deeply about the school community and want to work together with educators and administrators to create an environment where everyone feels understood and supported. Thank you so much for your time and continued commitment to listen to student voices and supporting a school community that values respect and love. Thank you. Thank you. Item 1.6, opportunity for community comments,

016close session items. Did we receive any community comments for close session? >> No comments for close session. >> Item two, close session. The board will now go into close session. The time is 5:48. We are back from close session. The time is 7:09. Clerk Troutman, please take role. >> Trusty Aniano, >> present. Trusty Martinez Lara, >> present. Trusty Nollis >> present. >> President Ruiz >> present. >> And I, Clerk Troutman, am present. Please let the record reflect we have a quorum. >> Item 3.1, report from close session. Clerk Troutman, please share. >> Item 2.1. In close session, the board received information and was updated. In session, the board of trustees denied the expulsion of middle school student case 2025-26-7. In closed session, the board of trustees denied the expulsion of middle school student case 2025-26-8.

017Item 2.2 in close session, the board received information and was updated. Item 2.3 in close session, the board received information and was updated. Thank you. Item 3.2, opportunity for community comments. We have received one comment. At this time, I would like to invite Maria. Oh, wait. Go ahead. I go ahead of her. >> Individuals who wish to address the board on matters which affect the district and its programs are requested to complete a request to address board of trustees card and submit it to the administrative assistant. Speakers are asked to limit comments to 3 minutes while the board welcomes input from the community. They will not respond or take action during public comments. The board may decide to refer matters to district staff or take under adisement for a future meeting. All speakers are reminded

018to be respectful and courteous. Thank you. Sorry. At this time, I would like to invite Maria Lopez Torres or President Ree, board members, um, and Mr. Superintendent Davis and members of the community. I am here um because I wanted to bring attention to a one of our great staff who works here at um Central School. Um I was I had the privilege of being a volunteer at Central right before Christmas break and um was able to help our counselor at there at at Central. um during her um sorry I went blank uh dur what during one of her things that she does to have kids kind of check in her safe space that's what it was during her safe space events she um one of the days she brought in toys and had some of

019her kids come in um to to come and look at be able to get toys and so they can have toys for their to give as gifts on another day um she had hot chocolate that she paid for out of pocket and um she served to the kids. She had them sit there and have hot chocolate and all these kids were enjoyed it and uh when I was asking her I said why did you do these things and she said because central school has so many kids they have 800 and it's just well I don't know how many exactly but around 800 but they have so many kids and it's only one counselor compared to how many students our high school has our middle school. She says it's hard for her to be able to

020check in to all her with all of her kids that she normally gets. So, what she does is she does things like this and she does pay out of pocket for a lot of stuff, but that way she can have them come and check in to see how her students are doing, how to see that if they're okay, making sure that everything is going with them or if she needs to do follow-ups. But some of the stuff I comments I heard from the students were for example one of the kids said I've never had hot chocolate before and it made me emotional thinking like wow this is something that I have for my kids and other you know there's a lot of kids in our community who don't have these things. There's some kids some

021of the toys um were gently used and some of the kids were like wow I've never had this kind of toy or this is this is a new toy and another kid said this is the best day ever of my life and just seeing the excitement that the kids brought um I just thought wow the some of this great stuff in it. So, I wanted to just if you guys can I just wanted to say thanks to this is Miss Gardinas at Central and all the great things that she does and some of like a lot of our counselors do but again that's just one counselor that we have and trying to check up with so many students is hard but so just wanted to bring attention and make sure that she's getting gets the

022support that she gets but also getting the the praise for everything that she Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Item 3.3, BTA comments. I would like to welcome BTA President Anthony Garcia. Uh good evening everyone. It's getting I was getting harassed back there. Um I just want to welcome everybody back from vacation. I hope everybody had a good uh good good vacation and got to rest and uh have time with their family. Um nothing much going on. Just want to say um we will be sunshining here in the next month and I hope that uh looking forward to a good round of negotiations this year. Thank you. Item 3.4 CSEA comments. I would like to welcome CSEA President Mario Kadina. >> Good evening. I'm sure in the future I won't need a paper, but

023for now I'm going to need one. Um, good evening, President Ree, Clerk Troutman, board members, Superintendent Davis, and Cabinet and community. My name is Mario Kino Rico. I am the new CSE chapter 147 president, a proud Banning High School alumni, and a current I currently serve as the League Custoonian at Banning High School. I look forward to working with the board and administration to help our district continue the growth in a positive way. I would like to leave you with this message. Imagine a day without a classified employee. No custodians, no maintenance, no grounds workers. Schools would not be clean, safe, or ready for students, no bus drivers. Students would not have a safe way to get to school. No food work, no food service workers. Many students would miss an important daily meal. No

024instructional aids or pair of professionals. Students and teachers will not will lose important classroom support. No office staff. Schools could not run a day today without records, payroll, and communication. No campus security. Keeping our schools safe will be much harder. Kalasifa employees are the foundation of our schools and we are essential. We show up every day to support our students, staff, and families so learning can happen. Thank you for your time and for listening. Skip it. Item 4.1, superintendent comments. Good evening, President Ree Bert Troutman, members of the board in our community. Thank you, Mr. Baria. So, before I get started, and this will be relatively short, I just want to give our our coaches and our student athletes a shout out, and that is our wrestling teams, our basketball team, and our soccer teams.

025And um soccer, you know, they they play in wintertime. It's the coldest time of the year. I don't they're out there late. I just it's not just the students, it's their parents, it's the coaches. And now I am a um a parent of a basketball player at high school. And I didn't realize that these games are late in the evening and they're on week nights like Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, they have to after the game, then they go home, then they have to get back and up and go to school. I it's it's crazy. So I just want to give a shout out to our sports. And talking to Mr. Mason, it sounds like our sports teams are doing a great job this year. Looks like we are uh headed towards being at the top of

026the league this year in all our sports. So that's great for our winter sports. Next, I just want to go back over our vision and our goals. And I want to do something a little bit different in that uh this is our mission and everyone's seen that statement. I ask our team to always put our mission, our vision in front of us, LCAP goals, because if we don't have our goals in front of us, the question becomes where are we going? Because we're always going somewhere. We're going home. We're going to school, we're going to the board meeting, we're going here, we're going there. When are we ever going to our goals? And we can only go toward our goals if it's in front of us. So that's why I asked for it always to

027be in front of us. So you've seen that. What you haven't seen is this. This is posted in the district office conference room and this is uh from an activity that the leadership team did back in October. And so we had a solution tree. Someone come in and provide some professional learning for the team. And what I want you to focus on is what is on the left, not what's on the right. But this is our mission. And we talked about what it looks like. What does our mission look like? Looks what does it look like? It looks like when we're engaged, when we're respectful with our interactions, when we collaborate, when we set high expectations for each other. And I think that's happening. I I see it every day when we're culturally responsive. That

028goes back to our right, our mission, respectful, responsible, our vision. Now, this pitmanship was done by a super pitmanship person who's in the room, the last name down on there on the right. Um, so everyone wants her to write because she's always very fancy. Next, um, this is our vision. And again, looking at the left, this is what our vision looks like when we have people engaged. So when we have meetings and everyone's in their cell phone and everyone's on their laptop, that is not engagement. We have engagement when people are looking, they're listening, they're taking notes. And that is the type of culture, that is type of the that is the type of environment that we want to create. Uh we're working really hard on our attendance. I know our attendance rates are up.

029So we're doing a good job on certain things, but we still have a long way to go. A through G completion rate, I know we're working on that. AP classes and we're trying to just build the capacity of our staff because once you stop learning, that's when you're in trouble. So, we're trying to pick that up. And on the on the recent Banning Real Talk podcast, Miss Cole talked about the complexities of more and more training. Sometimes when you get hit with so much training, you're like, "This is too much. I need to breathe back up." Anthony advocates for that. Teachers advocate for that. And we have to listen to that. And at the same time, we need to ensure that we're building our capacity. And finally on this point, I want to turn our

030focus to learning because that is our focus. How we narrow our f focus to instruction. How we have a cleared vision to move forward. And there's something in here uh that I saw that was starred down at the bottom. It says admin in classes, principles, meetings focused on instruction. And we are definitely experiencing that. As I sit in those principal meetings and I start to hear and listen to all of the expectations and what's required, I say to myself, I cannot do that job. There's no way. It's almost impossible. Then I start thinking about the teachers in the classroom and what they have to do. It's a lot of work. So I just wanted to share this to say that is our focus, but we're here to support you in this journey. There's no perfect.

031It's not going to happen tomorrow, but it definitely is a journey. And with that being said, I'll say that uh a year ago to date, January 15th, uh there was a group of group of us that went to Compton Unified. I talk about it all the time. It was almost a year ago. And as a result of that trip, we drastically changed the trajectory of our district. And I see it happening in front of our faces. I see it happening. Let me tell you what's happening. This year, we made a commitment to use student data to continuously improve teaching and learning. I had to catch myself because I kept saying for so many years the district did not focus on instruction. And in a context that may be true, but that's not the words I

032should be using. The words I should be using is we're using data to drive what we're doing. And so I will be changing my language because I need to honor what we have done for years here in banning and that's why we are banning strong. So we're just shifting our focus to look at how we're performing to indicate what we need to do to get better. And so what has occurred since then? There's three points that I want to make and then I'm done. Florida Street Discovery Center, Miss Burgess, and I'm sorry. I'm just going to call you out cuz I just have to. So we have completed our third data chat. A data chat is when you sit down with the principal and you review the academic data of all of the students at

033the school. The teachers do that. And so I want to say this is the first year that we are looking at all of those assessments in our last meeting that was last Monday. I'm getting goosebumps already. We're able to see where TKers have started not knowing how to write letters and their names. And now here we are mid year and they've made drastic progress. That is going to benefit all of our students for the long haul. So I'm just really proud of the work that you're doing, Miss Burgess, with your teachers to look at the existing data to focus on what they need to be doing. Next is Hoffra Elementary. And I'm not going to spoil their presentation, but I'll tell you this because I already saw it and it's in the presentation. If you

034walk into any classroom at Hoffer, you will see where that class is performing based upon academic achievement. So students know where they're performing, teachers know where they're performing. That's what we saw at Compton Unifi. And as a result of that, they continue to make progress. And finally, just overall, our focus is more sharpened on where we're going because all of our jobs in this room, no matter what you do, is to ensure the success of our students. But we can only ensure the success of our students if we support each other. So, I just want to thank everyone for their hard work. what's happening. It is, you cannot deny what's happening in our district for our students and our staff. I'm just really proud of that. And it takes all of us to make that

035happen. So, thank you. >> Item five, consent calendar. The recommendation is to approve consent calendar agenda items 5.2 2 through 5.5 as provided. All matters listed under the consent calendar agenda are considered to be routine and enacted by one motion and vote. There is no separate discussion of these items prior to the time the board of trustees considers the motion unless a member of the board or administrative staff requests that specific items be discussed and or removed. >> Do we have a motion and a second to approve the consent calendar agenda as provided? I'll >> move. I second. I have a motion from Trusty Nolla and a second from Clerk Troutman. All those in favor say I. I. I. All those opposed say nay. Motion passes. 5-0. Item 6.1 Huffer Elementary School presentation. I would

036[clears throat] like to invite Mrs. Ramirez and team to share tonight's presentation. Hello and good evening, board president Ruiz, members. members of the board, Superintendent Davis, cabinet, and our members of the banning community. We are excited to share and thank you for getting us ready and highlighting some of the things. And yes, they are here in the presentation. So, we are here for Hoffer Elementary. As Mr. Davis said, everything starts with the mission. Where are we going? What is it that we are aiming to achieve? And just as the banning USD has their mission, so does Hoffer int. It is a reflection of the district mission. Our goal is to ensure that all students are motivated and empowered to realize their full potential. So for this evening, we're going to focus on the three goals

037that we really work towards. That's the academic achievement, the safe and healthy learning environment, as well as our parent and community engagement. So the slides that we're going to go through is going to talk about what we've been doing, some of our achievements in the areas, and then where we what we're looking forward to. The first goal, accelerating student academic achievement. What we've been doing, we really put a strong focus on high quality tier one instruction. With that, we've had data chats. We really look at the data. We started the school year off with posting the data from the I Ready assessments. We just held our second one and I've already been into classrooms and noticed that the teachers have already put in put in the results of diagnostic 2 onto their chart. So students

038see it when it's visible. It's there and you you stay reminded of what it is that you're working for. And so we do have that up and there's a picture on the next slide. Um, actually there's a picture here, the AVID one in the corner. You can see how one teacher did it and they each take their own. We brought in core learning and so they've really helped to strengthen our teachers understanding and work with the phonics because that's where it starts to get our students ready to read. We also use right score as an assessment because we have this beautiful Jane Schaefer writing program that the teachers are using and this just gives us a rubric an unbiased assessment or review of the students work so we can see where the students are and

039to be able to measure it. So we really have a big focus on the data to support what it is we're doing in the classrooms. We also have our targeted interventions through MTSS. We created a UA block which we call Appaloosa Academy. And during that time, we get support for all of our diverse learners, whether it's our English learners or our students on IEPs or just students needing that extra support. And the beautiful thing about it is that they don't miss out on their core learning. So, it's scheduled so that they have their core learning and they have that extra support. We also have we we we were blessed with three new SDC classes. this year. So, we do have the IBI program now at Hoffer. We added a fourth MOD severe program and we

040have the mildmod SDC program. So, our school is growing and we're excited for that. And we're very thankful for the special education department who brought in a new curriculum for our mod severe classrooms, Teachtown. And so, they've been learning that and implementing it in their classroom. And you can see the growth that the students are making. Um, we've also received new, not received, we have new staff and they have monthly trainings which again we are thankful for because it's growing our educators. We also incorporate specials. So we have our PE and music and library time and then we have art and steam and a LEO is gives that extra physical education time which allows our teachers to get together to look at the data to get some of the training to do walkthroughs whatever it

041is that they need in order to help grow our students. And we participate in the district events such as the spelling bee, the science fair and history day. And then we have our own little special fair which is the reading fair coming up in March during ReadAcross America week. Some of our academic achievements this year would be increasing our ELA scores by 17.8 points. We are super proud. And our math scores by 6.2 points and now that science is measured, we've increased science scores by 8.8 points. One of the achievements I'm super proud of is that we have the wonders sound spelling cards in every classroom because as students are learning their letters and the sounds, it's very beneficial and helpful when they have the same picture. So A is apple. And one thing that

042we're working on is having a gesture. So the kinder and first second grade teams, they're going to work on what the visual is for it so it looks the same in every classroom, every grade level. We have data posters in every classroom. So in the top right corner once again you can see another example of a teacher a teacher's classroom. We have more focused ELD instruction. So we heard we saw that that is an area the LP score is an area to work on. So we, Miss Traml and I really looked at what can we do and so we've put some pieces in place for our English learners and we hope to see those scores next year. We held our first college day and we'll be having our career day coming up in the spring.

043That was super exciting. We've been having very focused walkthroughs. So, taking our EL coordinator through every classroom, the AVID coordinator through every classroom, the core learning um trainer went through every classroom, our PBIS coordinator. We everything that we are doing, we're doing the walkthroughs, we're gathering the data, and then we're looking at what is it that we need to do, building an action plan, a very focused action plan that's attainable, and then we're measuring it. So this spring we'll be going through doing a walkthrough to see our progress with what we've planned as either the the team or as the school in in whole. We're also working on this year vertical alignment. It says with the high school because it started there. So the Lion King play the theater teachers have come out and done

044an assembly with the students to get them excited to sign up. But this is the first opportunity that elementary students can participate in the play and it's like yes sign us up. So they've come out and I can't wait to see how the play is. We'll be there. We also have this Friday a crossage literacy. So some of the high school students are going to come and perform some of the books for the authors that will be at March 4th. You'll hear more about that later. And we have first college day twice because you know what? It's important. That's what we're preparing the kids for. So here's some of the action, our students in action. This was our first steam day which we held in October and we are actually working on steam day two

045for trimester 2 right now. I know that Mr. Yang, our coordinator, just sent out the emails to the teachers to start having the students see what uh activities that they are planning for the students and then the students will select which activity they go to. and we held our science fair and if you see in the bottom right hand corner that is Leonardo who just spoke today and he got first place on the individuals. So super super happy to be able to highlight him but we did have our top three group and top three individual and right now they are preparing for the district science fair. We also had a history day fair but we just had that yesterday so we didn't get those pictures up quite yet. And now we're going to move to

046goal two, which is the safe and healthy learning environment. All right. So we know that positive school culture is a cornerstone for us here at Hoffer. So we are actively implementing PBIS and this year we are going to be applying for certification. We are hoping to get silver or gold because we have done so much work around PBIS. We have um implemented a really fun ticket system for our students to earn raffle tickets and then they get to come to our Wednesday flag meetings and they get to spin a giant prize wheel and select a prize. So that's been very motivating. And we've also been using the PBIS rewards points and our teachers reward points every day. They get a point for attendance, a point for being prepared and ready for school and getting their

047work done and then they get a point for having positive behavior. So the students get to go redeem those points about once a month at our um school store. So that's been really fun. We are also participating in morning circles. We have counselor lessons with our school counselor small group support. And we have our new incentive room that we opened up. And if you guys have not seen our incentive room, we'd love for you to come by and check it out. We have um air hockey in there. We have basketball in there, board games. We have so many fun things for the kids and we open it up for them from time to time and let them go in there and have a great time. We work hard and we play hard. Yeah. And also

048we have had a Banning Police Department partnership. We had our 911 safety presentation. So um our SRO officer Antonio came and did a really fun presentation with emergency awareness, responsible use of 911 and community safety. And I believe that would be all for that. Oh, thanks. This one. Cool. Okay. All right. Let's talk about our achievements in our learning environment. So, we are really proud to say that we've decreased our chronic absenteeism by 12.1% from last year. So, part of the way that we've done that is having our monthly attendance challenges for our students. So, we send out a little flyer at the beginning of every month and post on social media. We let the students know what the challenge is and then they are so excited to come to school. We've celebrated with the

049hot cocoa party, the neon dance party or like neon glow party, sorry. And we've had our incentive room. We have a goodie bag this month. Every month is a different prize and so the students are super excited about that. We are also growing our student council group. Last year we only had a few of our fifth graders participating. We have about 20 kids right now on our student council. We have fourth and fifth graders now. So, we are bringing those leadership opportunities to our fourth graders as well. We're hoping to develop actually in the future a little leaders program as well where we're incorporating that with our kinder, first and second, and third graders. So, our student council members do many things. Um, they help with Is that the next slide? That might be the

050next slide. Sorry, I'll wait for the next slide. >> [laughter] >> All right. Um, we talked about the PBIS store. We talked about the walkthroughs. Margarita discussed that. We have our school safety team that are all volunteers at our school, classified and certificated members that all come to afterchool meetings to discuss being a safer school. Everybody's got a job. We're getting into all the roles and what that entails. So, that's been kind of a first for Hoffer because hadn't really been done in the past. So, we're really proud of that and we're really proud that our team is volunteering to make that happen. We've got increased field trips this year. Our goal is at least one trip per grade level, but all of our classes did already go to the banning library and all got

051library cards. So, that was really great. But we also have Sofi Stadium coming up. We have Oak Glenn coming up this Friday for our third graders. We have Legoland coming up for our second graders. So, there's a lot of fun opportunities that are coming our way. We've got some school clubs, assemblies, and themed school events. And you can see some of those things on the slides. One of the ones that we had was our drum perks assembly, which the kids got to actually play drums and learn how to um have teamwork and collaboration and it was a really great motivating event. >> What was that? >> Every student. >> Oh, every student. Yes. Every student got to play drums and it was really awesome. Here is our fourth grade student council members. So this is

052some of the things that our student council members do. We have our new student welcome crew. So we have certain students that come up whenever we have a new student. They go and show them around the school, give them a little tour and kind of make friends with them and make them feel more comfortable and walk them to class. We have our morning greeters that stand at our front gate and greet all the kids and they get to help take the kindergarten kids down to their playground or to the MPR. They help with our holiday gram deliveries. They are schoolwide event assistants. They help us with our event advertising by making posters as you can see the trunk or treat poster in the corner. They have monthly meetings. They also help us in the morning

053with our morning announcements. And they are our Wednesday flag helpers. And they are always asking for opportunities on what else they can do. So, we are coming up with more ideas all the time. And here are our fifth grade student council members. And of course, Leo is we're just really highlighting him tonight. There he is. All right. And I'll turn that over to you. All right. So, goal three is a really exciting one to speak on for a few reasons, but this is our parent and community engagement goal. So what we are looking at for family engagement events, we have a spring fling dance, the first dance that Huffer has not had a dance for a while. So we are working, in fact this Thursday, our saddleup squad will be working together to help plan

054that. Um, but we are looking to increase the family events that happen at Hoffer to give them those experiences. We celebrate student learning. So, of course, they're always invited to our awards and we're looking for ways to award students just for anything to have them be able to come. Our families come and all of that to strengthen our relationships. We work on our homeschool communication. Miss Traml works make sure that that parent calendar is out every month and then as well as a weekly message. And we're bringing in the community. I know that we've had Blue Zones come in, they donated some PE equipment or recess equipment. Um, whoever it is, if they even mention they will volunteer or offer, it's like we're here and we'll find ways to connect them with us. And of

055course, we always want to have the welcoming school climate. And so if you come to the office, you'll hopefully you feel that uh we've worked really hard to not just have the people but the space itself inviting and warm so that anybody who comes and visits feels valued and respected and encouraged to return. So some of our achievements with this goal is we implemented the saddleup squad. Uh bu we're building our volunteer list. I know I just signed one today. So, we're always asking our parents to sign up and volunteer and then we're finding things for them to do. All of our students took a field trip to the Banning Library as Miss Traml said, and that helps bridge the community because we want them to know what resources the families as well, what resources

056are in the community and what they have to offer. And we got them, we were able to for every student to get their library card, which helps the parents. And Miss Castillo, our librarian, worked really hard on that. That was her her thing that she worked on. She did a beautiful job. We are looking to we've increased community involvement. The banning book mobile mo I can't say that word. Mobile came to our trunk or treat night and they'll be coming March 4th. Blue Zones also came to our trunk or retreat and they've donated the equipment and they'll be coming March 4th. March 4th, our librarian is already setting up our readers. Some of you may have already been contacted to come out and read in the morning and then we've had our SRO do the

057911 awareness. Now, the exciting piece is that our school was selected for the community engagement initiative to kind of help get things started here in Banning. And so, we really look forward to helping build the family and parent and community engagement for not just our school, but for Banning Unified as a whole. So, we're I know there's more coming up later in regards to that. Um, and then the vertical alignment just bridging with the schools. I was just talking to Dr. Thomas today about having the middle school come and do some AVID training with their AVID students. So, there are a lot of things that we have done and there's still so much work, so much work ahead. The top corner here is actually our fourth graders going to the Craftton Hills Native American uh

058learning opportunity. And Leo's in there, too, FYI. Um, but looking ahead, we have the district science fair and history fair competitions. We have our I Ready Growth Celebrations, I believe, next week. Those are coming up this week. The Great Kindness Challenge Week is coming up. ReadAcross America Week and our Scholastic Bookf Fair. During the month of March, we have LA Palooa, which is that March 4th event, and it's a district-wide literacy event. Our spring fleeing family dance in April because our families have been asking and we hear them, and we we want to make sure that happens for them. Career Day will be in April and it will be our first one. We have CASP testing as Leo let you know and then we have field day and promotion. Before I say thank you, I

059just want to really give a shout out to the team at Hoffer because the successes that we've experienced could not have happened without the passion of the team that we have at Hoffer. They deeply care about our students. If you ask any staff member, they will always say they do it for the students. They love our students and you can see it. It shows in the work that they do. So, shout out to our Hoffer team. Thank you. Any questions? >> No. >> Thank you. Thanks so much. >> Item 6.2, two district and community relations coordinator presentation. I would like to invite Mr. Me to share tonight's presentation. It's weird. All right. So, I'm going to try and keep this to 10 minutes because that's what I promised Terrence. But good evening everyone. Uh my

060name is Angel Me. I'm the district community relations coordinator. Um today I'm going to be giving you an update about um the communications department and the efforts that we are exploring with community engagement districtwide. Um let me just make sure. So I I do want to just highlight real quick before we get any more into the presentation. Um because a lot of people say this, but these are not stock photos that are in this presentation. And I just want to point that out because these are our students. And one thing as someone who's a PR professional is that every um picture tells a story. And specifically within every program or school that we have in our district and exterior um outside of banning our city and our district, people are seeing this and it's really

061creating a brand for our district and really changing that narrative of who we are. So um to continue I um want to start of course with our mission and vision. So uh the Banning Unified School District's mission is a diver diverse community that collaborates to develop responsible, respectful and prepared students to achieve their full potential. And our vision um is to prepare, inspire, and to educate. And my hope as uh communications department is that wherever you go throughout our schools or through programs that those three words are remembered by our community that we are really here to prepare our students to inspire them and to educate. Um so and I also want to mention um our district-wide goals again the first one being accelerating student achievement uh cultivating a safe healthy learning environment and three

062increasing parent community engagement. And so one thing that the communications department is really tied to is goal three. And with that, um, the way that we try and advance, uh, goal three is by moving the district from an information sharing to an active engagement. And what I mean by that is instead of consistently telling them about open house and um you know attend this sporting event is how do we now make that shift to creating an active engagement for them to participate to create two-way communication to receive feedback and what we can do to collect data to essentially help uh the programs and for us to make decisions. Um our work focuses on ensuring families easy to easily access information, engage with schools and participate in district in initiatives through intentional systems, structured engagement opportunities

063and data informed strategies. Um we are building the trust and increasing the participation districtwide. Um, one thing I do want to say though is that um, community engagement um, is not necessarily an operational item. I think sometimes we think of it as something separate from the classroom and in all reality it starts in the classroom if it or it starts in the classroom and it also starts when they enter the campus. Um, and so if they are feeling that, you know, engagement right away from the security officer or the principal or whoever may be outside with them right when they enter the campus or going into the classroom if they know them by the name or they just say, "Hey, how was your weekend?" That's engagement right there. And it's kind of building that relationship

064with student to want to come to school and to also want to participate in school. So some of the examples of the alignment that the communications department has done to really increase this goal three is centralizing the family communication done through parent square. Um and there's a couple other items that have really helped with that. Um and the way that we're using engagement data to inform how we do outreach. Um so a little bit about the communication department. some quick fast facts. Um it really shows a snapshot of the engagement across a district across districtwide on different platforms that we use or consider as communication channels. Um these numbers reflect how information is being accessed and where families and community members are engaged at. Um the key takeaway is that our communication systems are being

065actively used and provide a strong foundation for engagement efforts. Uh there's three of them that I really want to highlight. And I know last year when I came uh we had just launched the district photo library and it was just a way to store our public photos. Um so at least in the last 6 months we've had over 500,000 views. And for many they're just kind of like oh they're just photos. But parents that's what they want. like they go on there and they're like downloading it, you know, like now they're putting on their social media or the whole purpose behind it is so that it continues to build our brand as a district to be like, "Oh, this steam day happened at Kabazon or hey, this dance happened at Nichollet." And there's moments that

066are captured that are continuing to be shared in a positive light. Um, the other one that I want to highlight is our district websites. So, um, in the last 6 months, I mean, we've had over 700,000 views. And I'm going to talk a little bit more about some of the data when it comes to the website. Um, but that is very significant for our district. Um, when I came in here and I started looking at these data points, um, we have, if not tripled our analytics in the way that we are engaging. Um, the other thing I want to say is that engagement is not just in person. As we continue to be innovative with technology and the way that we access parents, engagement is also becoming a digital form, a digital relationship essentially. So

067a like, a view, an impression, sharing it, that's all engagement. And although it's done through social media or just um on the websites or on the web, um that's engagement that our our district is having and if anything more externally than just within banning. And then the last one that I want to um highlight is the social media. Um all of this data is really from the district um accounts and not including our school site accounts. This year um I am starting to record what that engagement looks like per school site so that we can start to see that. But just alone in um our social media we've had over 1 million um views which is again very significant. So um some major communication projects that have recently happened that have really changed pretty much

068the trajectory for staff, students and parents is um parent square and final site. Parent Square is our new mass communication system and final site is our website provider. And again um before these were combined with aptagy and we had made that switch over the summer. Um it was a little bit of a tight um turnaround but we were able to do it and provide get these systems up before school even started. Um and I want to talk a little bit about parent square. So right now we have close to 5,500 parents or guardians on parent square that are accessible with um sending out communication. Um, parent square is what I like to call our like a three tier system or three levels of communication and it starts in the classroom. So the teacher that is

069communicating um to the parent directly about hey this is what's going on in the classroom during this week or this is what we learn. Um the secondary level is a school site. So that comes normally from the school administration of letting them know hey we have open house or back to school night or we have this school activity that's going on. Um and then also the district level. The district level is the top one. And a lot of times that comes with like hey here's parent advisory committee or DAC or science fairs happening. It's very um informational um and we're experimenting with trying to change that from being informational to active engagement. So how do we um get parents to provide feedback and making it accessible for them? Um, and as you can see, uh,

070we have well over 6 700 staff that are on there. That includes substitutes as well. So, when we do have long-term subs that join, um, to either take over for maternity leave or medical leave, um, they're inputed into the system and then also given access to continue that communication with parents. Um it has been I think a very great game changer for our district and it was obviously very much requested um and is doing very well. The next one is uh final site and again this is our website provider. Um I mean if you just go to our district website right now you can just see the major change. Um, it really came to more of a professional level of a unified school district um, website and easily accessible information. Um, allowing us to have

071multiple translations other than just Spanish. Um, as well as accessibility for ADA or anything like that. Um, and although those may sound like more mechanical things, it it does make a big difference. um and providing some data for you guys. From last November, uh we had about 45,000 views of people going to the district website and recently we had 88,000 for this past November. So again, double. Uh but also keep in mind in November we lose a whole week of school. So it's only really three weeks of data. Um, our parents, our staff, our students are actively using the district and school site websites to find information. Whether it's to learn about afterchool programs, to do Saturday Academy, to find out what's on the lunch menu, or where the bus routes is very essential to

072our district in our schools. And that was something that took a lot of work to provide that structure, but it is benefiting our parents very well. The next thing um so beyond communications um I this year we're really focusing on community engagement in the communications department and so going from those systematic things to now relationships. Um back in June, uh me and Terrence had met and we had talked about goal three. How do we continue to improve that parent and community engagement and we had seen an opportunity with the California statewide system of supports with the initiative of community engagement init uh community engagement initiative which u Margarita had mentioned earlier. And so with community engagement, um, basically what it is, it's to help build authentic partnerships with our parents, our students, and our community

073members to ultimately, uh, to ultimately make our students successful. And so, um, we started right away in August and we're about 6 months in. and it really has changed um a lot of the things that we're doing here in the district and what we plan to do. So, I do want to say though is that banning has a very unique um opportunity because we are so small that we are able to see um these changes effective right away. In a much larger school district, it takes sometimes years to actually see the difference. And with uh us being so small, you can see it pretty pretty fast. Um but I do want to also say is that by participating in this what we are realizing is that other districts small and large are also struggling with

074this. Um and a lot of that just has to do where we are in the society of having um parents really be involved or guardians in our school systems. So uh what is CI? So again, it is part of the statewide initiative and so we are in cohort six along with about 20 or 30 other school districts. Um this has been going on for quite some time now. Um and I don't believe that they're going to be doing another cohort. So we had gotten just at the right moment. Part of this program though we had to identify a school as the primary school for it and that was Hoffer. And that was really selected based off of the the feedback that we were having um of lacking community engagement. And it has really already changed.

075Um with participating in this community engagement initiative though what is happening is that we are getting um peer learning and leading um network is what they call it. But it's basically training of how to have um proper and effective community engagement within our schools and within the district. uh because community engagement is a two-tier thing. It's or three really classroom, school and district and the secondary school is Nicolet and that is to really try to help close that gap between the fifth and the sixth grade. Um and again we're doing this all on purpose, right? To help continue to maintain to have our students here but also give them that great experience. Um, but just because we have those two schools identified as part of the program, it does not mean that we're excluding our

076other ones. The the program itself is only two years for us to get all this training and try to implement it. Um, but we're taking a different approach in trying to do a little bit of each part of the program. We have to have a district group. We don't call it a committee. It's called the community engagement collaborative. And we have representation from every school. And it's not staff and it's not, you know, the principles, there are parents, there are students, we have community members. Blue Zones is part of it. We have some other um organizations that are there because they see the benefit of having this increase of community engagement within our district. Um so, um the program does require us to have a a 12 member team that does go to the state

077to get this type of training. And there are certain um roles that do have to be fulfilled with within it uh such as district leadership, district staff, school staff. So uh you can see right here that we have a well-rounded um group including our BTA president. Um, so we're trying to we understand that this is very crucial for our district and so we want to make sure that we have the key players there so that when we do go to get that training that we bring it back to that district group and ultimately help affect it in all of our schools and um you heard Leo's name a lot because Leo is our student that is part of this and it has really changed um I think it has really humbled us because we're at

078this training And you know, one of the prompts was, "What is the ideal school or what is the ideal district?" And you know, you have a lot of staff on here. We're like, "Oh, we have to make sure to have, you know, these safety measures and academics and these type of tables and all this." And Leo's like, "Can we just have like a playground or a slide?" And it just kind of humbles the group to be like, "You're right, you know, like we need to just not be so serious at times and just kind of go with it." And uh I I mean Margarita attests to the just greatness that Leo is bringing to the group and just being um I would say like a little district leader. Um and he's going to make a

079great fit at Nichollet and because Cammy is part of this, it's going to continue and that's the hope of it. Uh we do have two parents that are part of this group as well. Um and their input has been very tremendous. Uh it's really breaking those barriers of being vulnerable and being just honest. And uh one of the parents, you know, during these trainings, they mentioned, you know, I was really scared to go talk to the principal. And not until I got there and I realized that she was a person just like me. It changed everything. I want to be involved in my in my students um schooling. So what does community engagement, you know, what are the next steps? And so a lot of it does have to do with uh providing spaces for

080dialogue and for feedback. So um in communications we utilize this thing called ARPI and it's research, planning, implementation and evaluation. And we tend to have a hard time getting the evaluation piece for community engagement and that's because we really never understood what we should be measuring for community engagement. And so by participating in CI, we have identified five metrics um that we will be um gathering information from students and staff and ultimately parents of where we are as a district so that we can at least um know where our starting point is and then continue um building on that. Um last night we had our parent um our incoming Pelamino parent meeting at Nichollet Middle School and that was well attended. We have almost 120 attendees there of parents and students it was really great

081and to be very honest for somewhat of a district event that's probably the most parents I've seen. Um and so we did something that was very different. instead of just informing the parents to be like, "Hey, here's this." Uh, we h made them register to go and that was kind of a tactic that we learned in in the CI is that by registering you kind of commit to going and so we kind of feel that was part of it. Obviously, also I think we have a lot of nervous fifth graders that are want to talk to Cammy and understand what is middle school like but those are just examples. Um Margarita did mention lit a Palooa on March 4th and I believe you have a flyer. This is going to be part of our CI

082um project essentially. And so the whole purpose of it is to identify these district-wide events that will bring in the community. And although it is at Hoffer, um it is not a Hoffer event, it is a district-wide event where all of our students are going to be invited. And the way that we're doing that is by having all the schools participate uh by having booths or reading books. We have I know we have well over 15 authors um and we're working really closely with our district librarian Kelly. She's been doing a lot of the work of finding these authors to present and all an effort of what promoting literacy. It all comes back to goal one right um pushing that academic achievement. Um, and although we are still in our first year of community engagement,

083we're already finding other ways to create those community events. And one of them is going to be our back to school celebration that's going to be happening on August 1st. So, make sure that this will be on your calendar. Um, and that'll be opportunity for the community members to get resources, meet the principles, and so on. Um this is not a communications um sole communicationsled thing. It does include a lot of our other departments especially u student services our other schools um because it's just me. I can't do it by myself. And so uh we as a district or I would say as a leadership team have really understood that engagement is low and we need to um help improve that. So, um, other than that, um, is there any questions? >> I don't have

084a quest. Thank you so much for this. It's amazing. Um, there is another author and I don't know if uh, Linda Vieiraa has talked to you about maybe this event. I don't know. Um, >> can you give her phone number and everything to them? Yes. Yes. Absolutely. >> Okay. Because I she is an author and I think that this would be she's a community member and so this might be a >> and and we're having a lot of local authors join us and um I should have elaborated a little bit more but we have like our district our banning district library is going to be there. Our Riverside County Public Library that's next to Capazon. They're going to be there. So there's all these different um community partners, blue zones, uh the sheriff department, police

085department that are all going to be there in effort to provide resources, but also really focusing on the literacy piece. >> She's a reading specialist that is um has been a professional for 35 years and is an author. Yeah, very excited to join in the community >> and that's what we're looking for is to provide that forum and create that partnership with those members to continue that. So when we do have our welcome back celebration, we already know who we need to contact to bring them back. >> Thank you. So, I just want to say thank you for your presentation and I don't feel like you get the credit you deserve a lot of the time because from all the pictures you've taken, you're everywhere. Like, I see you at the football games, I see

086you at other school events, and I just want to say thank you. And I'm a little concerned. I don't we don't want to burn you out, you know, you because you're everywhere all at once. So, thank you. But, you know, at the same time, take care of yourself, too, you know. So, but thank you. You've done a excellent job thus far, and we're we're very grateful to have you. >> Thank you. >> I second that. And it's really weird to call you Mr. Me. [laughter] >> Make him wait. I'm gonna make him wait. >> I'm sorry. >> Okay, that's what she Okay, you're slacking. >> Item 6.3, school attendance boundaries. I would like to invite Mr. Herrera and Dr. Merllo. They will be doing a presentation and then we will open the floor for the

087public to comment. And we're just falling here. Mr. Me steps here and being proactive and engaging. So, good evening board president Ree, clerk Troutman, district board members, superintendent Davis, members of the Bannon Unified Leadership Team, and the me the community here at large. Today, I am presenting on the elementary school boundaries, attendance boundaries rather, process. This is anformational item. We'll be providing an update on what has been a three-month process thus far. And so, today I do have the assistance of Mr. Isawu Hoya, project manager with MGT, our district demographer. Dr. Mercedes Merllo, director of student services, and yours truly. The process here that has been going on for 3 months does help us support our organizational statements, mission, value, and vision statements. And so the overall agenda for today taking through the road map

088here is talking about what is a nutanis boundary study. What needs to be considered and why we should be considering a boundaries study here for our elementaryaries overall timeline of events. Talk about some scenarios also implementation considerations in addition to a tenative deadline and next steps. So what is an attendance boundary study? It is formulated based on geographical areas known as study areas in order to identify a home school based on a student's home address. It is generally applies to general education students and a boundaries does not eliminate parent voice or school voice. Also um it does not override any specialized programs such as special education or dual emergent and does not prevent any intradist transfers. Why to consider an a study boundary, excuse me, a boundary study? It does provide clear enrollment guidelines overall

089consistent enrollment practices throughout the district, especially with our specialized programs uh and support also our expanded dual immersion opportunities and continuing to grow the program. School capacity is usually one of the biggest challenges when we talk about um enrollment staffing and there is a difference between say seats available versus classrooms available because we do have a lot of staff that are supporting students outside of a regular conventional classroom in the form of people services such as counseling psychological services and also uh multi-tered um support structured rooms as well. Um, last but not least, looking at some of the operational components such as transportation and it will help improve overall arrival times help maximize field trip opportunities for students at is as it is a part of the educational experience and also continue to provide um

090the opportunities for students to attend 11-hour programs and also provide transportation as early as 7:00 a.m. and a.m. and as late as 6:00 p.m. and overall just facilities planning as well. It is also a standard at most districts. Banning Unified School District has not had any st uh any boundaries here in some time. There may have been um some set of boundaries um years ago, decades ago as a matter of fact. However, uh Banning Unified is one of the few districts that do not have established school boundaries. overall time events of what got us here today is that uh we back in November had two sessions working with the executive team, the extended cabinet team as well. Uh there was a third session there where we continued to work through the different scenarios alongside uh

091Mr. Hoya. There was a community engagement meeting back on December 15th where most of the leadership team attended in addition to some committee members. Uh today here we're providing informationational um update on this process and then a recommendation will be made at the February 2026 February 11 2026 board meeting u for implementation in for this new school year. So now I'll hand it over to Mr. Isawu Hoya who will be providing some basic and brief information as to how the different plans were developed. >> Thanks Victor. Uh good evening uh Superintendent Davis uh board members and cabinet and staff. Yeah. So I'm here to present the the scenarios that that we're proposing here and we came up with as a team as part of this process with a with the committee and overall just trying

092to make it as an as equitable as as a process as possible. Um I'm here to present three plans basically taking different um considerations. um and and just walking you through each of the plans here um and the geographical consistency of each of them and uh Dr. Merlos will eventually talk about grandfathering and how that's going to be uh present itself as minimal impact during this whole process. But let me um present the the plans to you. So series of three plans. Um, plan number one balances enrollment amongst the schools. Basically, all plans balance tries to balance enrollment. We have to take into account the capacity at each school. Can't have any school over capacity. Um, and that's always a standard. And just we took a look at other um factors that we took into

093account as well. Um, and plan one mainly focuses on balancing enrollment. um also considers a shorter distance from uh students homes to their school and mainly um considering which schools are attending. So where do the students live, where do they attend school and try to assign them to their closest school and the school that they're attending. Um so that's that's what we took into consideration. Again, there's going to be these uh grandfathering that's going to be taken into effect here um which will present itself as minimal impact during this whole process and once these um attendance areas are implemented, but this is just one one step um beyond that as well. And then uh plan number two considers and allows for extra room at Central and Hemerling. Um Central being the the the site for

094the DLI program. And so we took a close look at DLI students and where they live as well as what the enrollment of DLI students are at Central and potentially um that's what we did with all three plans, but we allowed for a little extra room in and um in plan number two at Central. And of course at Hemerling um just taking into account balance and enrollment and specifically within Hemerling taking into account um any potential growth or shifts that could happen um within that area being the um area furthest to the west of the district and any potential um demographic shifts that could happen on that that end of the district in the future. So again, plan two allowing extra room at Heammerly and Central. And um lastly, plan number three, which we'll go

095over here, I'll go over here, um allows for extra room at Heammerly Central and also applies at um a 3/4 of a mile walking distance. So literally we took a look at the geography um around the school district and accounted for a three 3/4 of a mile uh walking distance and try to assign all the the areas within that 3/4 of a mile around that school to that particular school to kind of um promote that neighborhood um school concept if you will um where kids could walk to school. So, what you'll see in the next couple slides is the geography or the what the potential boundaries could look like. Um, three different options. Um, one at a district-wide level, one at a zoomedin level, and the orange represented by Hemerling, purple is Hoffer, green is

096Central, and the uh blue bluish green is is Cabazon on the uh furthest to the east. So as as Victor mentioned, we split the district into neighborhood area level um poly neighborhood area polygons, neighborhood level area polygons we call study areas. Um and then we assign those study areas to either one school or another. And so try to balance out the the enrollment that way at each school. Um taking into consideration all that different criteria that I just went over. And what you'll notice on the furthest on the far east there is Kabazon Elementary and the composition of that attendance area um staying the same and consistent through all three plans. Um so it stays the same takes into consideration the um absorbs the Morango reservation neighborhoods along with the cabon um community as well.

097Um and so it basically remains the same same because of its of of because of the location of where the homes on are and the street grid layout. What definitely shifts between the plans is Hoffer Central and Hemerling. And just looking at the zoomed in version of of the um of plan number one, again, this is considering where school where students are already attending school. Um you could see that in this plan everything south of of of uh the 10 freeway is actually assigned to to central. So that's one of the key highlights here. Um the line between Hemorrh and Central mainly runs along 8th Street. Um the line between Central and Hoffer um runs along Hardgrave North Aleandro and North Sangonio Avenue. Now, taking a look at scenario number two where we're taking into

098account balance in enrollment as well, but also allowing for extra room at Central and um Hemerlink. Um this is where you see some some some difference here between one and two is where comm uh the different neighborhoods south of the 10 are split along um halfway south of the 10 there between Heammer and Hoffer mainly using um mainly using the the creek that's right um that that goes up against the um 10 freeway there as the initial starting point and then runs along south there And some of the main um main geographical attributes beyond that is Hammerling and Central being divided mainly along North Charles Street, Central and Hoffer along Hardgrave North Aleandro North and North Sanonio Avenue. So there being some there's also some variation between plan number one and two along the streets

099that are running east and west. So the the streets that I just mentioned, Hargrave, Allesandra, and Sagonio are north south streets. Um there's also some variation between one and two um along the streets that that run east and west there. Here's a zoomed in version of that um of that map. Lastly, plan number three or scenario number three. This is where we took into account leaving extra room at Central and Heammer as well as accounting for that 3/4 of a mile walk buffer. And what you'll notice is that Central again similar to plan number one is assigned um areas south of the 10 are assigned to Central Elementary. Um Cabazon again remains consistent across the board across all three plans. Some of the main geographical um attributes are the line between central and hard uh

100and Hoffer running uh mainly along Hargrave Street in North Aleandro. Um and then some variation between um plan one and three with the streets that run east and west. Uh between plans one and three. If you were trying to debating like what is truly the difference between one and three is basically in terms of geography is basically some of the boundaries running along different streets um that run along from east to west. So with that, um, this is a zoomed in version of that plan. And with that, I'll I'll leave it with Dr. Merlos. Thank you. Uh, good evening everyone. So when we do boundaries, one of the items that raises the anxiety level is the fact that, hey, do I need to attend a different school next year if this happens? Uh, so I'm

101here to let our board and our community know that. No, that that's not the case. Uh creating boundaries is something that will uh provide us with a lot of benefits, which is uh something that uh Mr. Herrera went over in slide five. But it cannot be disruptive just overnight. Uh the dividends will pay over years because changing boundaries really impact individuals that are moving into our area, new enrolles for the future years. Uh to put into perspective, this year we've enrolled um a little bit over 750 new students that are new to the district. Uh the bulk of those were already placed at schools nearby by where they live. So we've been doing this for about a year and a half already. Um assuming that we have the same amount of new enrollies next year,

102then those individuals will be placed based on the boundary lines for current students. And keep in mind that we're talking a very small number of kids. Uh so for example, K through 14, we have about 4,100 kids. Uh take away your seventh grade on up, take or sixth grade on up, take away your fifth graders that'll be moving to our middle school. We're really just talking about our kindergarteners through fourth grade. Well, those individuals will have the option of being grandfathered into their current schools. So if you're attending Hoffer this year and you want to remain at Hoffer, you will be able to remain at Hoffer. And the reason why we're able to do that is because we already have the staffing for that. So, no surprises there. Now, when it comes to TK's, keep

103in mind that our TKs will go to one of our four elementary schools. Uh we will be looking at siblings. They will have priority. So, if you have a sibling that attends Hoffer or Hemorrhling, you will have the option of going to that school. Uh the other one will be our programs. Uh for example, our dual immersion program. Uh if you are already in the program, you will be going to Central because that's where the DI school is at. And if you're a current TKER who is not in the DI program but will be joining the DI program next year, then you will also be able to go to central. So we will have those systems in place. Um the grandfathering really is just for year one for the most part. But we will also

104have the second option for our parents which is called the intra district transfer. Now, most districts already have this in place. We don't because we don't have boundaries. Our kids can go anywhere. But an intradist transfer is basically a parent requesting to go to a school outside the boundaries. And it could be for any reason. It could be that, you know, they were an alumni or the grandparent who's going to take the kids to school is closer to that school. So, we will have a formal process to be able to allow parents to do that. And we already have an informal process. In this school year, for example, we completed 10. Uh at this point, we call them ENTs, but uh moving forward, they're going to be called intrad district transfers. And again, so it's

105very minimal. Uh we again, we're we're a district that really caters to our community and ensure that uh we provide our community with the resources that they need, but there will be priorities and there will be deadlines. And as you can see on the slide, siblings will be a priority. We want to keep families together. Our dual immersion program will be a priority. special education programs will be a priority as well. Uh but at the end of the day, our parents will have the choice to be at whichever school they would like as long as there's room and we fit these criteria. Um the other thing that I want to emphasize here is that we our focus on instruction, our focus on student achievement, on parent engagement, uh is very apparent. Uh Banner Unified is

106the place to be. Um we're going to be getting more students. My my predictions for next year is that we're going to continue to uh inch up. And one of our biggest uh flexes, I should say, is the fact that within a 30 mile radius, we will be the only district that's offering a full day kindergarten and a full day TK. And we're going to you're going to see a lot of that being promoted because it is a flex. And we already see the dividends this year that we're actually getting an increased number of kids. And the reason why we're going to promote that is because we also know that there are a lot of three year olds, four year olds and five year olds that right now are sitting at home and they need

107to be in school. So we're going to be asking our community, let's get those kiddos in there. Uh we all know what preschool can do to student and you know student achievement can kindergarten and TK. So we will be doing quite a bit of a blitz to ensure that our parents understand these rules that understand these guidelines and that we support them. So timelines are going to be very important. The goal is to start what we call our intra district window and open enrollment session March 2nd and we will be closing that um towards the end of at the beginning of April. So basically entire fiveweek period to allow parents to say yes I want to stay at this school or no I want to move to that school. And that allows us to get

108that data, pull some numbers and say, "Hey, we have x amount of kids that want to move from this school to that school or x amount of kids that want to stay there." So that way we can look at staffing, we can look at resources, and we can try to make it happen as often as we can. Uh, and of course, you can see that in this timeline, you also have the transportation plan that will be coming in March. And of course, you have when we will be notifying our parents regarding their intradist transfer notifications, which will happen in sometime mid mid April. and we should be ready to go for the first day of school in August 6. And I'll turn it over to Mr. Herura. >> Thank you, Dr. Mlo. In terms of

109the next steps here is to continue to inform the public and continue to receive the input uh with uh the help of Mr. Me is working on the district website landing page. I know we've already done some work in that area. Just continue to promote this and put this out there to our community. Also, there's a parent survey. There's a QR code here at the next slide as well that's been receiving a lot of feedback. We've had about 62 responses already. Also, social media and Paris Square being other avenues for communication with our community. Um, also finalizing the introduc process through conversation and discussion with the team and making a recommendation on the February 11th, 2026 board meeting. And, uh, I know Dr. Melo's mentioned briefly the annual transportation plan. One of the considerations here

110is transportation as it implicates our students that may be requesting uh the intra district transfer process and embedding that into our annual plan. And then that way we can then update our policies to better reflect the u the boundary or excuse me the walking distances for our students as well. And again thinking about just maximizing our transportation efficiencies does not mean that we're providing less services. That means that we're shifting those services to other areas of focus such as field trips and providing an 11-hour um enrichment opportunity day. With that, are there any questions? >> I have um two questions. U one is for Dr. Merlo. um students that are in the um IDT process, if those students are not uh have attendance issues, will they be bumped so that other students can go to

111that? Is there some kind of criteria? >> Yes, there is criteria. So, IDTS meaning interdist transfer and then you also have the intra district transfer. So the interd district transfer are the kids that live outside our district boundaries that want to come here. So we will have a structured system which we already do. Uh and attendance is one of them. Behavior is another criteria. Academics is another criteria. And basically what we do with kids who don't belong to us and they're not meeting that criteria is that we give them a warning letter so that way they can you know give them a little time to fix those concerns. And if they don't then we revoke their interd district transfer and then they get to go back to their home school. So right now we are

112working on those letters >> so that way they get mailed out around the same time because again this March timeline is really important. So we need to know who's also being uh sent back to their home district and so that way we make room for our own kids as well. >> Okay. And then I had one question about the busing uh just for clarification. So let's say I want my student I want my child to go to Kabazon and I'm living in Hemerling. Does that mean the district is going to pay for that? >> And so that's one of the considerations in terms of developing the structure of our transportation boundaries as well. Um just off the cuff here uh that would be a no. The parent requesting an intrad district transfer to a school

113not within their home boundary would then require them to provide their own transportation to that school. >> Okay. Thank you. >> I'm curious, [clears throat] how many students do we have coming into our district from another district? >> It's a great question for Dr. Milos. So currently we have about uh 850 kids that are from outside the district. Now keep in mind that we do have a a high mobility rate in our area. So some of those kids may have started as an intrad district transfer but now they belong to us. So that's part of the data cleanup that we're doing right now to ensure that we are uh communicating the right information to the correct parent. But yeah, it's closer to 800 kids that we have. and we welcome more. >> Okay. So, at

114this time we would like to open it to anyone who has comments or questions [snorts] like public comments. Mr. Davis wants me to clarify. Come on down. We're not responding. You can ask one question. Hello. >> Um Oh, hello. Good evening. Uh one of the questions I have in um when it came up about the busing um what about the students who have um who are part of the programs such as dual immersion uh who is this central is the only school. Also, if they live outside of the boundaries and parents who cannot drop off th those students, will they lose busing as well? >> So, this section is just to receive the information and not to respond to. So, this portion is here's the information. We take in all of that information and then

115the next board meeting then it will be before the board in terms of what the boundaries are. So we'll take note of that >> to ensure that we can provide that information in the future. >> All right. Thank you. Last call. No. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Herrera, Mr. Merlos. And I don't want to say your name wrong. Mr. Hoya. Are they giving us good to know? All right. Item 6.4, business services, establishing a citizens bond oversight committee, appointment of applicant. First, we would like to invite Mr. Herrera to the podium to introduce the applicant. >> All right. Well, good evening again. Today I do have the privilege of making a recommendation to the board to approve an additional member of the Citizens Bond Oversight Committee. And as a reminder, back on October

1169th, the board did approve four members. The member that's being recommended tonight did attend the meeting back in September. However, wasn't available on that October night. And so I do want to appreciate uh her patience not only throughout the process here but also tonight I know she got to learn a lot about communications a lot about Hoffer Elementary and our boundaries process wherein will facilitate committee. So, not only um is it that uh she's dedicated her time in that process and tonight, but also moving forward and like we did with our other uh recommended members is thanking them for their time and volunteering with this process and helping our community meet the um obligations of measure O as it relates to ensuring that the district is spending the dollars that are were intended in the

117project list as approved by voters. So without further ado, I would like to invite Miss Joselyn Garcia Roas to the podium to introduce herself. >> Hello. Hello. Good evening. And first and foremost, my apologies for not being able to attend the previous meeting. I wasn't a strict deadline to uh for an application submission of a workforce grant, but I'm happy to be here. Hate public speaking, but um so my name is Josyn Garcia Roas. I grew up here in the beautiful city of Banning. I attended elementary, middle school, and high school here. Um, I went to Cal State Long Beach for undergrad. Um, went, yes. Um, what are go Sharks? Back then it was go uh dirt bags. Um, I got my master's degree in education thinking I wanted to be an educator. Um, I

118was a substitute teacher for one semester and I realized it was not for me. Um, thankfully I had the opportunity to start my career six years ago with uh the Los Angeles JobCore where I did case management with Opportunity Youth for a career technical education and currently I am the supervisor for procurement and contracts for workforce development for the county of Riverside and um I'm a proud product of Banning and I moved back here established roots. I do not have kids, but I really want to be involved in my community and that includes the school district that I owe so much to and including the educators I had throughout my my education here. Yes. Any questions? And again, I hate public speaking. A lot of my work is contracts and procurement. I never have to

119be in front of anybody, which is part of the reason I love my job. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Is there a motion and a second to open and discuss item 6.4? >> I'll move. >> I'll second. >> I have a motion from Trusty Nollas and a second from Clerk Troutman to approve item 6.4. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> All those opposed say nay. Motion passes. 5-0. Item 7.1, Educational Services, School Accountability Report Card. >> This item is for the board to approve the school accountability report cards. >> Is there a motion and a second to open and discuss item 7.1? >> I'll move. >> You guys are killing me on that side. >> Second. >> Any discussion or questions? No. Okay. I [clears throat] have a motion from Trusty

120Martinez Lara and a second from Clerk Troutman to approve item 7.1. All those in favor say I. I. All those opposed say nay. Motion passes. 5-0. Item 7.2 educational services disposition of e-waste antiquated and nonoperational hardware. This item is for the board to approve, excuse me, the electronic recycling e-waste of non-operational, obsolete, and damaged hardware. Is there a motion and a second to open and discuss item 7.2? >> I move. >> I'll second. Any discussion or questions? I have a motion from Trusty Yango and a second from Trusty Nales to approve item 7.2. All those in favor say I. >> I. All those opposed say nay. Motion passes 50-0. Item 7.3, Educational Services District Quarterly Report on Williams Uniform Complaints. Information only. Are there any questions or comments? Item 8.1, Business Services, annual financial audit

121report for fiscal year 2425. This item is information only. to accept the annual financial audit report. I would like to invite Mr. Herrera to the podium to share information about the report. That was confusing. No, cuz I want to answer a question first. It says that it's information only, but then it says to accept. So the acceptance of the financial audit report for fiscal year 25 or the 202425 year is anformational item that just needs to be presented to the board in the form of a report. We have t typically done a presentation today. I'm just providing a brief overview and I can see how that can be a little bit counterintuitive um in terms of you know again the acceptance and theformational item. So do apologize for that confusion. >> It's okay. Hey, so

122with that, let's go ahead and share some great news on our financial report, which again always likes to start with a big thank you because the financial report is not just looking at financials and reporting the district's financial posision as of June 30th of 2025. Just to for folks to understand, this is the fiscal year 202425. This is last year's books that were closed. The board approved the unaudited actuals in September. Yes, it's a little bit behind schedule. However, we're on schedule based upon just the statutory deadlines. And so, great news here. We went from 11 findings back in 2324 to now down to two, excuse me, from 9 to2 findings here in fiscal year 2425. The two findings were in the areas of state compliance as it relates to the after before school educational

123safety program also known as ACES where attendance was under reported and we're working through the process of updating those attendance reports in conjunction with the support of the student services department. Also, the school accounted report card has had some mismatching information as it related to the facilities inspection tools. And so, we're working with the team to ensure that the SS that were approved tonight had the right information so that we can avoid this this finding. And so, the goal always in trying to uh look at metrics, look at how we can improve year-over-year is hoping for zero findings. Of course, that's always the goal and we look forward to that uh review soon. >> Thank you. Are there any questions or discussion? >> Thank you. >> Item 8.2, Business Services Resolution 26-008, intent of the

124board of trustees to grant an easement to Southern California Gas Company. This item is for the board to approve resolution 26-008 to grant an easement to Southern California Gas Company. >> Is there a motion and a second to open and discuss item 8.2? >> I move. I'll second. Any discussion or questions? I have a motion from clerk Tropman and a second from Trusty Martinez Laura to approve item 8.2. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> All those opposed say nay. >> Motion passes. 5-0. Item 8.3 business services pack theater and lab lighting retrofit project at Banning High School. This item is for the board to approve phase 2 with Avidex Industries LLC for the PAC theater and lab lighting retrofit project at Banning High School at the PAC Lab and Performing Arts Center

125utilizing the National Cooperative Purchasing Alliance contract number 01-97. Is there a motion and a second to open and discuss item 8.3? >> I'll move. I'll second. Any discussion or questions? >> Yes, I have a question. Um, Avidex Industries is an LLC. Um, are do we have a bond for that? >> We do. >> Okay. Thank you. No other question or discussion? Good. I have a motion from Trusty Navalis and a second from Clerk Troutman to approve item 8.3. All those in favor say I. >> I. I. All those opposed say nay. Motion passes 5-0. Item 8.4, business services, notices of completion. >> This item is for the board to approve notices of completion as provided. >> Is there a motion in a second to open and discuss item 8.4? >> I move Oh, I second.

126Sorry. >> Everybody, any discussion or question? No. I have a motion from Trusty Martinez Lara and a second from Clerk Troutman to approve item 8.4. All those in favor say I. I. All those opposed say nay. Motion passes 5-0. Item 8.5, business services monthly fiscal services reports. This item is for the board to approve monthly fiscal services reports, bank reconciliations, purchase orders, warrant summary, and commercial warrant registers. Is there a motion and a second to open and discuss item 8.5? >> Sorry, I'll second. >> I love it. Any discussion or questions? >> I have a motion from Trusty Yango and a second from Clerk Troutman to approve item 8.5. All those in favor say I. I. >> All those opposed say nay. Motion passes 5. Item 9.1, board members comments. May I go? >> Uh,

127good evening everyone who's still here and thank you for for being here. Happy New Year. Um, one of the things that really is um touching my heart is the statement that we are banning and Mr. Davis, you you've said it very well. So I won't say some things that I was going to say but um one of the one of the things that we are trying to work very hard on is community building community and it's not just parents and um and students but it's also everyone that works here um every community member because we all have a vested interest financially, emotionally, socially. a vested interest here and I know before it was you know our student and it all revolves around our students. Everything that we do is for our students. So anything that

128we uh that we contribute um measure O all the people there uh any one that volunteers um this last uh month well this month Mr. uh Scopanic uh prepared a presentation for my community and I it's not just my community, it's all of our community. Sunlakes community is is in the Himmerling or or Central, I don't know. It all depends on where we're going with that. But anyway, um Gloria gave the presentation, but thank you for that presentation. It was so wellreceived and it was so well prepared. Um, people were excited. People that have dedicated their years to community, have dedicated their lives to students are now feeling like they're part of our community. And I think the it will really help our students be better and and understand their community. I love the fact

129that our partners now are parents and students equally and teachers and everyone that works here and the community at large. Uh that partnership is going to be very very important. Um one of the things that we are doing when we support our community and we support our students is good communication, communicating with each other. And I think I see that happening with the students when they're coming up and speaking public speaking. I see it with um with Mr. Me um with like communication um with our with our teachers and how excited they are to you know to get out there and and collaborate with each other. um our our financial department, u our maintenance department, um security, everything that we're doing. It it's so exciting to see and I see a lot of improvements. Um

130supporting each other with the issues that we have in a positive way is incredibly important. Making sure that we involve everyone is incredibly important. And so I just want to commend everyone for that. I know that as we navigate the challenges professionally and personally, we're going to do it with positivity and coming up with good ideas. And so, thank you all. Uh, I'll keep it short. I just want to thank everyone for coming out tonight and staying as long as you have. It's always appreciated and and um we're obviously all grateful for the hard work you do all day every day. And I hope everyone had a really good restful holiday season. And I'm I'm glad we all hit the ground running with uh going back to school last Wednesday. Oh my god, it's already

131been a week. And um I hope everyone has a good night and a safe drive home. I just want to say happy new year to everyone and thank you for everything that you do for our kids and our community. I just want to say happy new year to everyone and thank you to everyone staff and community everybody that shows up not just to educate our children on a daily basis but to keep them safe. As a parent, as an aunt, and a community board member, I deeply, deeply appreciate the work that goes into keeping these babies safe. So, thank you very much. Good night. I'm going to switch it up. Instead of saying happy new year, I'm going to say happy second half of the school year. Um, so I did have a chance to

132attend the Winterfest at Nichollet. And then before I went back to school to work this week, I attended Nichollet and walked through. I saw the new gym with Mr. Herrera. Thank you for taking me. Um, one of the things I heard tonight that really touched me was all the positivity, all of the wonderful things that are happening, and that's due in large part to all of you that are here tonight, as well as our parents, our community, and our students. Um, I also like that our students are while they're looking to the future, they're also thinking of ways to make banning better, to make other students better, and just make life better. And I think that has a lot to do with all of you in this room and their teachers and their parents as

133well. So, I want to thank you. Have a great night. Item 13.1, adjourn meeting. Do I have a motion to adjurnn? >> I move. I second. >> I have a motion from clerk Troutman and a second from Trusty Yangiano to adjourn this meeting. All those in favor say I. I. All those opposed say nay. Motion passes 5-0. This meeting is adjourned at 8:52 p.m.