001Good evening and welcome to tonight's meeting of the board of education. The meeting is called to order at 5:00 pm in open session. Roll call, please. Student board member Suknnet. Miss Armstrong, present. Miss Cron, Mr. Critchfield, present. Mrs. Garza, present. Miss Stewart, present. Tonight, we do not have requests addressing close session agenda items. Is there anyone else that would like to speak? Hearing none. At this time, the board will recess to close session. Open session will resume at approximately 6 pm. Welcome back, everyone. Tonight's meeting of the board of education was called to order at 5:00 p. p.m. in open session. The board then adjourned to close session at 5:00 p.m. and will now reconvene the meeting in open session at 6:03 p.m. Board Clerk Crutchfield will update us on close session topics. Thank you,
002Madam President. The topics discussed in close session were anticipated litigation, pending litigation, and labor negotiations. The board took no action in close session. Thank you so much. Um, for tonight's pledge of allegiance, we have Miss Cassandra Wada from Frankie Woodruff and she is a first grade teacher. Thank you so much. And she's going to lead us in our pledge of allegiance. If you could hit that button and it'll go green. Thank you. Please rise for the pledge of allegiance. Place your right hand over your heart. Let's begin. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. So, just to clarify, we do not have replacement pages and we do not have
003amendments to the agenda tonight. Correct. That is correct. All right. Do we have recognitions tonight? We do. And I'm going to ask Mrs. Carter to assist us with the recognitions this evening. And I'd like to ask the board members to come down in front of the DIS, please. Okay. This evening, the board of education is pleased to recognize team and individual student athletes who earn the distinction of league champions during the spring season and our student board member. Staff and students, as I call your name, please join us up front and remain for a picture. The board of education would like to recognize our 2025 spring sports. And we're going to start off with Mayfair boys tennis doubles recognition. Could we please have Mayfair High School boys tennis coach Chris Tran come to the front.
004Tonight we are congratulating two students Dominic Caljone and Anthony Quo Quoros. Can you please come to the forward? We're recognizing both boys for earning boys tennis doubles gateway league champion. The team received a remarkable accomplishment by completing an undefeated season with a perfect 240 record and also went on to be crowned league individual champions for the gateway league. The team also earned a prestigious spot in the CIF southern section indivi individuals tournament this week. Congratulations, gentlemen. Do you have anybody in the audience you'd like to thank or recognize? A That's wonderful. Well, congratulations again and congratulations for the spot in the CIFF uh Southern Sections. And Coach TR, we thank you for your hard work and dedication to the team as well. Thank you. Next, we're going to be recognizing Mayfair baseball. If we could
005please have coach uh Frank Rallo come forward, that would be great. Joining coach, we are going to call up a few seniors. We are calling up Nolan Fox. Josh Van [Music] Fosen, Jeremiah Lonar, Josiah Gomez, Dallas Montalongo, and Tyler Brim. We'd like to congratulate the entire team for winning the Mid Cities League this season. They finished the season with a 20-9 record overall and a 13-2 record in league. They earned a spot in the CIF Southern Section Division 5 playoffs where they unfortunately lost to a very talented Long Beach Poly team 2 to one. Let's give them a round of applause. Thank you, Jeremiah Laneir. Let's give him a round of applause. Gentlemen, are there any people in the audience that you'd like to recognize tonight or thank Let's give all of them another round
006of applause. And thank you, Coach Rall, for your hard work. Next, we'd like to recognize our student board member. So, come to the center. So, we are recognizing our 2425 student board member, Alyssa Zodianet. Alyssa started her journey in Belfare Unified District back in kindergarten attending Albert Baxter Elementary. She was involved in various programs and clubs throughout her years at Bellflower, including ASB, Link Crew, PMed Club, Thespians, Apex, CSF, Early College Academy, Cal Apps Health Occupations, and CTE course medical assistant. Having a cumulative GPA of a 3.7, she has taken three honors classes and 13 dual enrollment courses throughout her high school career, as well as completed a CTE medical assistant pathway. Her favorite course was health occupations because she then realized what she wanted for her future to become a doctor. After graduation, she
007plans to attend Cowpoly Pomona to pursue her interest in the medical field to become a pediatrician. Thank you for your countless contributions. We wish you continued success in the future and everything that you do. Let's give her a round of applause. Okay. And that concludes tonight's recognitions. Alyssa, is there anything you would like to say to anybody here or anything just in general on your last night? Oh, well, I just want to say just thank you for everything. This is an amazing experience and it's not everyone that gets to experience this. Um, my family couldn't be here today or like my friends and anything, but I would just like to thank them for constantly supporting me. It has been a long four years, but I'm really glad I get to end it off here saying
008that I got to contribute. Thank you so much. Thank you. We're very grateful for the student voices and for you. So, thank you so much. All right, we're moving on to employee representative reports. Tonight, BTA does not have a report, but can CSA um Anthony RmIrez, please come up. Welcome and thank you so much. Well, hello uh board president Stewart, board members, Superintendent Abedo, Cabinet, BTA and PTA leadership, members of the public. Good evening. My, as I was said, my name is Anthony Ramirez. I'm the CSEA chapter communication officer, and I'm here to give you a brief update on recent CSEA classified activities. As you know, this week is classified school employees week. We classified employees are proud of the hard work we put in every single day in every single school site and department
009here at BUSD to help create the best possible learning environment for all BUSD students, their families, and the teachers. Thank you all for recognizing the value classified employees bring to this district. On behalf of CSEA, I want to recognize BUSD's very own communications and public information officer, Esmeralda Cisneros, back there in the corner. So, everybody turn and look. Hi, Esmeralda. I want to thank her for helping us showcase uh through digital and social media many of the classified employees this week and the work they do. It was a very kind gesture for her to put all that up online for us. Thank you. Uh yesterday was C CSEA held its classified employee appreciation week lunchon. This annual event is was organized this year by our chapter vice president Joanne Chain along with a committee of
010volunteers. Lots of CSEA members showed up, shared a delicious lunch, socialized, and some even won raffle prizes. Not me, someone else. Right. We also raised funds for a chapter scholarship fund which is awarded annually by a committee to unit members and their dep or their dependents to help pay for their higher education costs. So, thank you for everyone who contributed to our um scholarship fund. Some administrators who are here today attended yesterday's lunchon and I wanted to thank them for joining us. Board President Stewart, Superintendent Ozedo, Deputy Superintendent Dr. Smith and Director of Classified HR Dr. Frankos back here. Thank you. Thank you all for attending and we are grateful for your time and your donations to our scholarship fund. So, thank you for that. Lastly, this past Monday, CSA leadership, myself included, attended the
011inaugural BUD retiree social. It was great to join with teachers and administrators to celebrate the careers of a group of very dedicated and skilled people. Some of them are in the room tonight. We wish all those retiring this year a happy retirement. You earned it, so enjoy it. A lot of people turned out for this event, administrators, teachers, and classified. And we are excited to be a part of a new tradition here at BUSD. Hopefully, it's a new tradition, right? We got to keep it going. That's all I have to report tonight. Uh, thank you for this opportunity to update you on CSEA happenings. Thank you so much. All right. Next, we have PTA Communications and we have our president. This is going to be her last one. Is it your last one? We're here
012to celebrate that. Um, President Linda Morgan, thank you so much for being here and everything you've done this year. Oh, thank you. Very kind of you. Um, board president Stewart, board members, interim superintendent of ado, cabinet, community members, um, everybody in attendance or watching. Um, so yeah, this should be my last report. Um it's been difficult but it's been a blast and I am honored to every month um share you know all the hard work that our units uh do for our students and families. So um I have a few more pictures to share this time. Um it's been a busy month. Uh council hosted our what we call our historian mixer um celebrating and sharing our achievements throughout the year. Um it's a opportunity for our units to share uh with each other as
013well as themselves. Um it's like a recap of the whole year. So for some of them it was like, "Oh yeah, we did that. Oh, I forgot we did that." Um we get so busy. Um so it was fun to see um everything that we've done. And then uh the amount of hours that our volunteers put in um we put a total of 35,317 volunteer hours um into this year. And um you know thank you um it's a collaborative effort um and we know you know the value of what we do uh but there is an actual monetary value. So if you take you know the California uh value of volunteer hours and you multiply that by the amount of hours we put in um it is over a million uh dollars worth of volunteer
014hours. So I want to thank each and every one of them for all their hard work. Um we also held our honorary service awards um recognizing the very dedicated special individuals that go above and beyond uh for our students and our families. It was a very fun evening. We had Mayfair's choir uh perform for everyone um obviously recognize some of our honores and um it was a very fun evening. So thanks for everyone that was able to attend. Um this steward um Dr. Smith and Myra Garca and her husband. Thank you. Um all of our units um hosted their uh teacher and staff appreciation lunchons. Um these are just a few pictures. Again, like every month, it's just a little bit of what um our PTAs do. Um and then some of the other activities,
015um a Tao drum assembly at Lindstöm. Um, some of our PTAs did crafts for uh, Mother's Day cards. The BMX assemblies have been very popular this year. Um, many of our PTAs hosted a BMX assembly. I think that one is from Steven Foster. Um, the senior scholarships. Um, our Mayfair and Belfower PTSAs as well as our feeder elementaryaries provide scholar and council as well provide scholarships for our graduating seniors. Um, let's see. That's a lot more activities. I'm sorry. And I know I just put this on Tuesday, but I already forgot. I can't even remember what I did last hour. So, um, there is a reptile assembly, a college and career fair, um, and some other activities going on at Ramona Woodruff. Um several sites still did a fundraiser that their fund runs whether it's
016a bubble run um dogathon. The um trying to remember here Washington the um the ones that raised the most money got to pie a teacher. Um so that always makes for some fun photos. Um and then another um reptile or zoo assembly at Lindstöm. Um, so a lot of assemblies. I know during the back to school night, the open house. Um, a lot of almost all of our sites hosted uh their book fairs. We've got six rate promotions coming up. Uh, year- end activities. Um, again, it's a busy but exciting time and we're finishing strong. Um, this being my last one. Um, sharing the incoming board for 2025 2026. One more time. Um, I will be stepping down. away. Um and um on the right is the theme for our reflections. Uh it's a little
017early, but some of our schools like to send uh some summer work. Um so the theme for our reflections arts program is I belong. Um you know, have students go out there or paint, draw, write, um anything having to do with what that theme means to them. So, and I think that is it for me. Happy Memorial Day and have a wonderful summer, you guys. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you for everything you've done. You're amazing. Okay, next up we have our superintendent report. Mrs. Oavdo, thank you. Good evening. Uh the month of May, as you are hearing from different individuals, is a very busy time of year. It's a really nice time to be able to celebrate our students and staff with lots of different things going on uh celebrating
018their accompl accomplishments throughout the year. It's been a pleasure to attend so many of these events and see the pride in all our seniors faces and they've dawned their caps and gowns during scholarships and awards ceremonies. I want to extend a special congratulations to the students of Somerset High School and earning multiple spring awards. Uh their achievements reflect their dedication and perseverance. I'm also incredibly proud of the Belfro High School first cohort of students to complete the Cerrito's early college program. Um that was amazing. This pioneering group of 23 students set the standard for future cohorts. Among them, Sophia Jones deserves a special recognition for completing not just one but two associate of arts or associate degrees. So congratulations to her. Very special. So that program provides our students an opportunity to complete a significant
019number of college credits while working on their high school diploma. So it's a really unique um program and we're super proud of those kids. I'd also like to congratulate our CSEA members. It is classified employees week as mentioned earlier. We thank them for all that they do. um they are unified in purpose to ensure that everything that we are all working on at all times is to benefit and support our students. So, thank you for everything that they do. I look forward in the next couple weeks here to our elementary and middle school award nights and promotions. The first week of June will be an exciting time for the entire community across the district. Every staff member plays a vital role in preparing our students to graduate ready to excel in college careers and life.
020So watching each graduate walk across that stage is a powerful and heartfelt moment not only for our board members but also for our educators that are standing there watching and participating. So it's an honor for all of us to share in this celebration and we congratulate all of our students. So thank you for allowing me the few minutes to talk tonight about this special time of year. Thank you so much. All right, moving on to our committee updates. We have a lot of committees. Um some of them we have not met. We are finished with our alliance committee. our sped ad hoc has not met. Our foundation is finishing up. We've chosen the members of that um that board and so they're going to be following up and start to do their own thing as
021we separate. Um I don't believe declining enrollment and facilities have met. Correct. Okay. Um safety ad hoc. I'm going to go ahead and give that over to Mr. Kitchfield. Thank you, Madam President. We had a meeting on Tuesday, uh, board members Centron and I and and district cabinet, and we actually went over, um, two different, uh, presentations, which I appreciate the work that went in those presentations. We had a Evolve, they're a they're a not a metal detector, it's a weapon detector device. So anyway, it was really impressive and we're going to have more information on that and hopefully the board will consider that when it comes up. Uh it's really great. I think they use them at Sofi Stadium, but for the purpose of keeping our campuses safe and secure. Uh we also got
022a presentation. I want to say uh thank you to Christian. I don't think Christian's here, but for giving us a presentation on uh a company called Halo, which does vape detection. We get a lot of calls. I know I do. I'm sure my colleagues do as well. And uh the excessive uh vaping in bathrooms. So uh there's new technology to help uh uh alarm uh vape usage. So cracking down on that a bit I think is going to be really important. So again those are two things in committee that we went over and hopefully they come to the board for consideration in the near future. Thank you Madam President member Centron. Anything to add? It's not funny. It's not. But one thing that I thought was extremely just kind of opened my eyes is one
023of the things when we're talking about Halo and vaping is that our facilities have such a problem because the students decide to flush the vapes. And so we're constantly having to like rework our the sewage and the pipes and the toilets and the bathrooms. And then the students don't have access to the bathrooms and they have to run across campus because the doors are locked to one on their side and things like that. But it's all because of the vaping problem on our campuses. So, um, echo with, um, Clerk Richfield is that, yeah, I'm looking forward to bringing some solutions to these difficult problems that our staff deal with across the board to um, hopefully make it a better campus experience for everyone. Thank you. Anything else? I see you want to talk. I I
024know. Uh, it's my first time out of the house in a while, so I want to talk. Uh, no. Uh but I I will say and I know more information will come out uh later but in addition to some of the things that we didn't even know about vaping causing a problem with the facilities and flushing uh also these devices they will uh also for security uh they'll alarm if uh you know if there's a fight that breaks out it can actually track how many people are in a certain area. So addressing problems before they happen. If there's like a grouping of kids in a in a bathroom, it'll alert. There's so many things that it does that I and I I know I think Anaheim just uh installed these. Um I I just want
025to applaud uh staff for being forward thinking and this is a newer technology and getting ahead of it and uh so again, I hope it comes before the board uh soon, but I think it'd be really great and thank you for all the work that went into it. Thank you. Um our culture and climate um committee, we're going to be meeting next week, so we'll have updates next meeting. Our athletic subcommittee, we met this past week. Basically, we um we finalized the student code of conduct. Um again, we used to have um some very severe consequences and we tried to tear those consequences as I stated last meeting with um interventions as well. not just giving kids blanket consequences, but also giving them interventions to try to help them get back on track. So, we
026have like a one, two, three-step process. So, that was really good. Um, we also went through our parent code of conduct and we finished that. And then we looked at our spectator code of conduct and we've talked about we're going to get some signage up um at some of our facilities just reminding you our spectators that it's it's kids, it's sports, and you know, how to be on our best behavior. So, that was pretty much all we talked about with the athletic subcommittee. Um, legislative action committee did not meet, correct? Okay. And then I guess um Cal Apps, we had our spring recognitions and so I just want to thank Arlene Whitney and her staff. That was amazing. We had so many people. I think we had over a hundred that were supposed to be
027there to get awards. So, there was just a lot of celebration of some very amazing programs and amazing students that night. So, that was pretty awesome. Do you have Laxa update at all? I do, President Stewart. Okay. Thank you. Go ahead. So, on the 19th, Laxa, we had our um our annual dinner meeting uh that's hosted none uh by none other than Leo and we celebrated this past year's um body of work while also electing next year's leadership. And uh we re we encourage all board members and superintendents to enjoy what locka brings for our benefits to make us uh stronger advocates for our children. Of the 91 school districts in LA County, we had 75 members to sign up. So, we we we had a a campaign trying to get all the districts to
028join Locka. Like, like all of us are members. It's just that all of us don't flock here, but we can. And um so that's why I I always come back and and report. So next year we're going to try to um get those other 16 districts that didn't join um because the you know we found out is you when we get together we bring different talents, different strengths and we can advocate on many levels together and be stronger. Um uh as Locka we submitted a letter of support for AB 1390. Um and that's for the board member compensation. Uh we individually submitted a board member survey uh that USC is doing is hosting is doing. Um and then um CSBA came in CSBA came in and shared bills that we will need to support uh
029upcoming bills that we we will need to support in the future. So that's my report for locka. Much board member Armstrong. All right. Public comments. Tonight we do have requests addressing open session agenda items. While meetings of the governing board are not public meetings, they are open to the public. Individual speakers will be allowed three minutes to address the board on each agenda or non-aggenda item. The board will limit the total time for public input on each item to 21 minutes as per board bylaw 9322.2. Can I have Miss Marbel Vega? Marbel Vega. Thank you so much for being here with us. Um, if you could hit that green button or the person button. Good evening members of the board. Do you want to lift this up a little bit? Okay, there you go. My
030name is Marbelle Vega and I am a parent the parent of a child with moderate to severe special day class at Washington Elementary. I'm here tonight because I strongly disagree with the district making decisions that directly endanger my child like others like her. Decisions made without our parental consent, without our input, and without basic respect for our roles as parents. My child is a runner. She eloped. She does not yet have a concept of dangers around her. In every environment, she's in need to be secured, supervised, and equipped to keep her safe at all times. Washington Elementary is the only school that currently provides a level of safety my daughter my daughter requires. May I add that my daughter was going to school in LA County. Couldn't find any school to meet her needs. So
031I have to I had to move her here to Bellflower. She was out of school for about three months because LA school was putting her in a general ed class which was really hard for her. Kept the teacher running after her. They had to It was it was really out of control for her and the teacher. Sorry, it's just so stressful. Um, so the Washington has actually been a secure school for my daughter. The staff knows her. She knows the staff. They know how to respond when she runs. And the school is secure enough to prevent her from getting out. The schools where the district is proposing to move my mod or the mod severe program, it does not have the level of security. They are not fully fenced. They do not have the same
032training and they are not prepared to handle the behaviors and safety risk for our children or that our children face daily. My daughter, for my daughter, a move like this isn't a small change. It is a threat to her safety. If she gets out, if there's even one moment of distraction or oversight, the consequences will be dev devastating. Ernie Pile does not have a safety drop off and pickup location. That is her home school and I already got a letter that that's where she will be going. I am very disappointed and very upset and I'm considering homeschooling her for now until I or for next year until the district either changes their mind or could provide a safer school for her. Ernie Pile is not for my daughter. If something happens to my daughter, nothing
033will bring her back. I have to take care of my daughter at home 24 hours a day. Every day I have to make sure she stays safe. She doesn't understand danger. I have my my I have cameras around the house. I have all the doors secured in and out. She's ran from me. When she started walking, learning how to walk, she's ran to the main street. Getting her to school was really hard and stressing stressful for me. But when she came to Washington, I found peace and we were both in the same page. One last thing I please take our kids safety into consideration and think about us as parents. If you were in our shoes, how would you feel if they wouldn't take your consideration or opinion when moving your children to another pro
034to another school or program? Thank you for your time. Thank [Applause] you. All right. Um, this next name, I believe this is Yam Sora. I hope I pronounced that correct. What is it? So I know it is Yummy. My name Logan's mom is how everyone knows me. Okay, we have Logan's mom. Thank you so much for being here. Hi. Um, bingo. Right. Which button do Oh, it's on. It's on. Okay. Sorry. Uh, good evening board members. I'm here for the same reason as the parent before me. My name is Yam Leoria, which you will remember, but Logan's mom you will. I'm a parent to a child in the Monteir SPC program at Washington Elementary as well in the Buff Unified School District. I'm here because pretty much I'm I'm not going to lie, I'm very
035disappointed that um decisions were made without us. Um um the way recent decisions have gone about in this district, it just goes to show that maybe no one cares about our little ones or our opinion. Um so the decision uh to change a location of my child's bed program without informing parents in advance, speaking as a parent who didn't even get an email, I had to request one uh without import informing parents or seeking our input without obtaining our consent honestly is a violation of our parent rights and probably a violation of federal law. I'm not going to lie. The IEP is a legally binding con document that that cannot be altered without meaningful parent consent and participation. um that's literally in our parents rights that we are handed off every single time when we
036have our IEPs um idea or the individuals with disabilities education act has safeguards. So that's literally like how the government would, right? It's checks and balances for us so that way you guys can't make decisions without us and we can't make decisions without you, right? Um our children's education requires us to be involved and this should be a team effort at least on our part, right? Um the fact that this decision was made without us and only informed us after the after the fact, right? With no discussion, no opportunity to weigh in clearly shows that our voices clearly don't matter. And pretty much our kids don't either. This change isn't just a movement of location. These students have profound needs who rely on routine special supports and safety measures so they can thrive and succeed
037in this school. I'm very afraid that the schools which you have chosen have a lack of essential changing facilities, adequate safety measures, and do not have the mild moderate classes. I literally spoke to um the school that my son was assigned to. They will not have mild moderate at that location. Um sorry, I lost my voice. Um uh so the the students cannot have a full continuum of services. This is very this is like a giant dangerous combination and it's setting them up really to struggle which they already struggle as it is. I would love real answers about how mild moderate classes will be integrated to provide a continuum of services at these sites um like I said before as some sites will not have them at all. Is it that the district plans to
038maybe violate the IEPs and and that require a full continuum of service? Some of these uh parents have classes that integrate the mild moderate classes and I hope my kid will too at some point but that won't happen when he is moved because it just doesn't exist. Sorry, that's all I got. Do you want to continue? You can take the time to finish if you want. I mean, if you guys Yes, please go ahead. Okay, so the special education administration were expecting us not to read the parental rights and the laws and and pretty much not know the laws and that we wouldn't understand our rights. But that's wrong, right? I'm up here and so is other parents. Um, I'm here to ask the board not to move our children to schools that are not
039safe, not equipped, and not appropriate. Some schools have not clarified if they have enough teachers. I've asked I I would really not like a sub for my child. That's all I've had at the BUSD um district, unfortunately. Um, I ask that you protect the most vulnerable students in this district. Uh, to ignore this issue would be to knowingly violate our parent rights. And I would really appreciate if you guys just kind of, you know, have us weigh in, have us give our opportunity to just talk. We have to come in here to say something or else you guys might not know about us. So, thank you. I appreciate your time. Thank you so [Applause] much. Um, a few things, Mrs. Oavo. One, all three of these speakers have left their phone numbers. So, can we
040please make sure that we contact them and that we answer any questions that they have? Yes. And then secondly, can you please just update the board on our Friday memo with making sure that we have reached all of our parents and how the communication is going with our parents and how they're being notified. I know we've spoken about this before, but maybe just an update tomorrow if you can. Yep, we can do that. Thank you so much. Okay, so our last speaker is going to use a translator. Um, it's going to be Miss Maria Zamarano and she's going to be using Janette Martinez for her translator. Thank you for translating. We appreciate it. And so if we could at least double her minutes. Thank you so much. Hello. I'm a parent from the same as
041the other two, three parents that came up from Washington and I have a son there in the special needs program. His name is Aaron Hernandez. [Music] Washington fire. [Music] I just want to talk to you about how when we attend our meetings, we are always reminded that we are part of a team and I feel that the team did not inform me. I found out about my son being changed to Ernie Pile Elementary through another parent and then I confirmed that in fact my son was on the list to be [Music] transferred. Fore school. [Music] So, my son has attended Washington for the last five years and he has found a true home there. Uh, he has a lot of special needs. One of the things that he regularly does at school and at home
042is that he's a runner and he requires a lot of supervision. Home school, Washington. So, I took a walk over to Py Elementary School just to take a look at the school and I was not um happy with the change. Um I'm being told that my son is being moved to that school. But I also want to remind you that he will be a sixth grader next year and my son doesn't do very well with changes. So he would have to change for sixth grade and then again when he moves on the following year for the middle school. So Washington. So, I'm here just to share this information with you because my son needs a lot of safety uh net and I know that at Washington he's safe. I just don't feel that he would
043be safe at pile and I wanted to share this with you. Thank you so much. All right. Our next speaker is Anna Hernandez and her numbers also include on this if we can reach out as well. Thank you so much for being here. Good afternoon. Uh my name is Anna Fernandez, mother of Jesse Morales. currently at Washington Elementary and the reason I'm here, I'm here to speak for my son. I know you guys are making changes. Um there I recently received the email that he was going to be switched to Pile Elementary. I did went over and I see the parking is way different than Washington. My son does have a lot of issues, you know, uh with changes and everything. Um, back then there was issues where they were changing the substitutes in in
044his class and everything until Mr. Tansa arrived to uh Washington and his behaviors were wild. He got aggressive. He didn't want to go to school all kinds of things. And now he's basically like more mellowed down now that you know he he knows very well Mr. Tensa. He gets along with him. And now that you know they're making all these changes, I think, you know, it's it's unfair for them as well because of those changes because they're special and they don't understand those changes. And well, um I believe that Mr. Chanca is going to Woodruff and they send um they sending my son to pile. So my thing is just you know I wish you guys didn't make the change just because our kiddos are special and you know not everyone understands that only the
045the parents that have special kids. So I truly ask I'm asking you know my son's voice and you know it'll be better if he stays at Washington and um you know because he he is I mean I recently got surgery on my leg and as a runner, you know, the the parking at Washington, it's way different than pile. And you know, right now with my leg that I'm not walking well with this changes, I know it's going to be even harder for me to drop them off at school. That's it. Thank you. Thank you so much. Is there anybody else that would like to speak? Yes, please. Yes. Go ahead. And if you want them to contact you, if you want to fill this out later and hand it to them with your number, then
046we'll make sure they get a hold of you. Yeah, I filled one out already. Oh, okay. Um, I'm so sorry. I can't stress enough about this situation. Um, we didn't know and we felt I felt like many other parents, we were just bombarded with this information. I please ask for you guys to review this. I my daughter It's like you guys are taking the best part of my daughter right now. She found stability, security, and Mr. Tanza is her teacher, too. She loves her teacher. She loves going to school. She does have her days and her moments, but I feel like we're being selfish, or at least whoever made the changes was being selfish and didn't think about our our our kids' feelings or consider or even consider speaking with us. Nobody knows our kids
047but us. Um, my daughter, April, once she gets to know you, she taunts you. She will try to see how far she could go with you and she'll try to run from you, and look from you. She hides. She hides from every She hides from you. She locks doors. She She cannot go to Ernie Pile. Sending her to Ernie Pile is like putting her in life in danger. That's how I feel. I I cannot risk my daughter getting hurt or, you know, even getting, you know, losing her life. There's been situations where kids with special needs have eloped and were either found drowned or, you know, life lifeless. And that's what terrifies me. Please help us protect our kids and help us be their voice because us as parents are their voice. I'm here for
048her and for all the kids in her shoes because without us, they have no voice. So, we have to speak up for them as their parents. Thank you for your time. Thank you so much, Mrs. Oto. One last update. If we could get I know we're we well we've been working on staffing. I'd like to know that we have enough teachers in those classrooms and that we're not starting the school year with subs. If you can somewhat give us on that Friday memo a look at wherever you're at. I know we might not be finished with that process, but if you can give us a look of how many teachers we have for classes and things like that that have been brought up tonight, please. Yes. Let me just clarify. Are you specific to the
049special education programs? Yes. Okay. Okay. Thank you so much. All right. Moving on to our discussion items. We have three discussion items tonight. The first one is item 12.1, reading difficulties risk screener, RDRS adoption presentation. Mrs. Oavdo. Yes. And I will turn that over to Mrs. Carter and her team. Thank you. I'm going to be turning this presentation over to our director of elementary education, Dr. Reyes. Thank you. Good evening, board president Stewart and board members, interim superintendent Lisa Asdo and cabinet and everyone in attendance here this evening. It's a pleasure to stand here before you this evening and share the reading difficulties risk assessment screener that our teachers have selected and the process they used to come to this important decision. I would like to start by introducing our committee members that are here
050this evening to represent the larger committee and all of our teachers in kindergarten through 2 grade. We have Joyce Severs, an intervention teacher at Ramona. Cassandra Wada, who you saw earlier, first grade teacher at Woodruff. Lupe Moran, kindergarten teacher at Ramona. Georgina Saman, intervention teacher at Ernie Pile, and Dr. Janette Martinez, coordinator of dual immersion English learners and multilingual services. And they will walk you through our presentation this evening. So the first slide here is just an overview of education code 530008 which outlines the requirement to screen all students in kindergarten through 2 grade for risk of screening difficulties at the beginning of the school year. This will go into effect in fall 2526 and we had to select the screeners from a list of approved screeners and the choice must be approved by our
051board of education. The screener will be part of our overall assessment system and support for foundational skills in the primary grades. The overall purpose of the screener is to identify reading difficulties early and immediately intervene to ensure all our students learn to read. The results of the screener should not be used as a diagnosis of a reading disability but as a flag for potential risk for reading difficulties. I'll turn it over to Miss Stevens. So the first step in the adoption process was to select a district committee to review the screeners. The committee heard presentations from three vendors and then went back to their sites to share that information with their colleagues. After that they brought that information oh at the sites we gave them our information and then after that we brought that information
052back to the committee. So the committee this shows the makeup of the committee which includes kindergarten teachers, first grade teachers and second grade teachers of general education and special education as well as intervention teachers and dual immersion teachers. At our first meeting, we worked together to establish what is important for us as a district. We agreed on the areas shown on the slide. All of the topics relate to the English screener and the Spanish screener for dual immersion. This is a breakdown of the ethnicities of our district. It was important that the selected screener was piloted with a similar population of our students in the Bellflower Unified School District. It was also important to analyze the languages spoken by our students. This graph shows the top five languages in BUSD representing our multilingual learners. Spanish
053is the language spoken by most of our students, but Arabic, Cambodian, Tagalic, and Vietnamese are also represented in our district. The committee also examined the current foundational skills assessment in B USD and the funological awareness and phonics skills that are assessed in kindergarten through 2 grade as the new screener will be part of our overall assessment and intervention system. Alignment will be very important for progress monitoring. And here are the funological awareness skills as you can see on this slide. And here are the phonics skills. We already test using our NWA at the beginning, middle, and end of the school year. Let's return to our original headings and see the specific details for each one after the committee reviewed all of the information on the previous slides. For example, you can see that administration of
054the screener is important and we wanted a screener that's easy to navigate, has small and large group options, and provided sample test questions for students. We combined all of this information gathered by the committee and we created a vision statement for our work. I will let you read through the statement for a moment. This statement outlines our belief in quality early intervention to support student success by using an efficient and effective screener. So once we established our crit criteria as a district, we turn to the four screeners. The four screeners were screened were um the screeners came from an expert panel based on criteria that was approved by the state board of education. They were selected because they met the following criteria description of assessment battery psychometrics and communication and resources. So here were the
055four screeners. It was a miraclass multitudes and roar. As you can see, ROAR only assessed first and second grade students and it was only in English. So, the committee eliminated that right away, which left us with three committee presentations. So, we heard from Amamira, McLass, and Multitudes. So, we used a rating tool to assess the screeners. We evaluated each screener and we had the opportunity to go into each platform and try them ourselves. We took notes and then ask clarifying questions at that at those presentations. You'll see those are the tools that we used and then the Google form was used to gather the data of the committee. And here is here are the results of what the committee thought of the screeners. So this one is MCL class and the orange is what it
056adequately met the needs of our district. Um but it was limited in some areas such as administration and accommodations. It also was not very closely aligned to our current system that we're using in our district. So you'll notice that multitudes now lots of orange again it also adequately met the needs of our district. But the difference with multitude was it had some areas of strength. It got strong ratings for immediate results, family reports, and the compatibility with our current system that we're using. This is a mira. You'll notice that the blue was a very prevalent. Amira received a very high rating in most areas that were most important to the committee and our district. Based on the data and discussion during our committee presentation, MClOS was removed from consideration. Committee members returned to their sites
057to share the presentation and demonstration of the platforms of both Amira and Multitudes. We share this information during our PLC meetings where teachers had the opportunity to log in and become familiar with both of the screeners at the site. At each school site, every kindergarten, first grade, and second grade teacher had the opportunity to complete a Google form to provide input and select one of the screeners, one of the two screeners. Here are the site level results for multitudes. Although we strong support in some areas for school sites, most teachers rated multitude as adequate or limited in key areas. The main the main points that teachers made when rating multitudes was that it allowed students the freedom to click throughout the task and then move on. Part of the test is administered one-on-one and teachers
058felt it would take longer and impact instructional minutes. Multitudes also require two devices to administer the assessment. Additionally, most of Multitude's presentations and trainings are virtual and teachers would prefer in-person trainings for this screener. Here are the results for AMRA. In every category, the majority of the respondents listed Amira as strongly meeting the needs for Belfflower Unified School District. When teachers responses to Amira were analyzed, they fell into four main categories. On this slide, you can see the first two themes. It's easy for teachers to administer to their students, and the information provided is valuable for instructional purposes. In addition, there's a strong alignment between data from Amira and our current foundational skills assessments using our NWA. There was also strong support for the Spanish assessment for our dual immersion and English learner students. The
059overall results show that 98% of our kindergarten, first, and second grade teachers stated that they strongly support or can support Amira as our new screener. So based on the data and feedback, Amir has been selected by B USD teachers as the screener we will use at the beginning of the 202526 school year. Let's take a close look at our screener Amamira. For kindergarten and early first grade, Amira focuses on the basics like recognizing letters, understanding sounds, and beginning to read simple words. These skills are important for building a strong reading foundation. As children move into first and second grade, the screener looks at more advanced skills such as reading fluently and understanding what they read. This approach follows well-known reading development stages, ensuring students get the right help at the right time. Now, the nature
060of a screener is to administer brief assessments on multiple early literacy measures. Amir takes between 15 and 20 minutes to administer. Students are led through the assessment by a mira so they don't have to click to go on to the next task. Each student will be on their own Chromebook with headphones and teachers can monitor students as the class tests. The students can speak uh directly into their Chromebook. Now, how this is possible is Amamira's AI systems. Amamir's AI systems are designed to be fair, accurate, and effective for every child regardless of background or speech patterns. The system recognizes and accepts diverse accents and dialects. It accommodates developmental speech patterns. It shows equivalent accuracy across gender, racial, and ethnic groups and English language learners. It undergoes continuous testing to ensure no bias against any student
061population. And Amira adapts intervention strategies to individual learning styles and needs. Regular evaluations show that Amir performs consistently across all demographic groups with accuracy rates exceeding 95% for each subgroup and intervention effectiveness that matches or exceeds what would be expected from skilled human tutors. Amira Spanish or Amida Espanol is a researchbased tool that helps teachers check for key reading skills in Spanish speaking children. It was created specifically for Spanish readers and it's not just a translation from English. The screener helps identify reading difficulties early on using an approach that respects both the language and culture of Spanish-sp speakaking students. It gives accurate and fair results, ensuring that all children get the support they need to become strong readers, no matter their first language. Amira espanol is designed to assess reading skills in Spanish, focusing on
062the unique way Spanish works as a language. Since Spanish has a clear and consistent connection between letters and sounds, the screener emphasizes skills that help children read fluently and accurately. Overall, Amira espanol is designed specifically for Spanish speaking children, ensuring that they get the right support to become strong and confident readers. After the screener is administered, parents are provided with a very comprehensive report in English and Spanish that gives an overall score for their student, but also breaks reading into subcores. So strengths and areas of improvement are easy to spot. Here are the next steps in our screener process. All kindergarten through 2 grade teachers will be trained by admira to administer the assessments and analyze results at the beginning of the 2526 school year. Parents will receive a letter explaining the purpose of the
063screener before it is administered. and there is an option for parents to opt out of the screener in writing. We will then administer the screener and as is our usual practice, results will be discussed in PLC's and instructional decisions will be made based on student need. Reading intervention will begin at the school sites and students will be monitored to track improvement in reading skills. Parents are kept informed via parent conferences in September, academic intervention plans, and progress reports. Early and targeted intervention is key to helping all of our students become proficient readers. Thank you for listening to our presentation. Are there any questions about the process or our new screener? First off, I want to say when I got this packet, I was like, "This is going to be long." And you guys are amazing.
064You guys are like the model presentation team. I want to say that right now. Um, colleagues, do you have any questions? Um, Vice President GarcA, thank you, Madam President. Um, I do have some questions with this presentation, although it's amazing. Thank you so much. Um, will we still be giving the NWA? So, it's in conjunction with this. Okay. So can you explain to us what is the difference between the NWA and the purpose of this new Amira screener? Um if I may. So the NWA fluency which we normally would use beginning, middle and end of the year is it tests all of those uh basic skills and funological awareness and phonics and it does the the flags for the students. So it's really something that we have already been uh doing. Um Amira is a
065a screener. So it's a lot of those uh same tests on those particular skills. They're they're brief and they're done quickly because we're trying to look at fluency with the skills and also we'll give the the red flags um so we know those are the students that we really need to to focus on and in what specific area we need to focus on. So that's why when the committee looked at um the screeners, they really wanted to find one that aligned as closely to NWA as possible because that's Amamira is just our screener and we're going to continue using the tools we've always used throughout the year to monitor growth and see that students are um are improving and learning to read. So that alignment uh was crucial. It's just that the state had their
066list as you know and that we are bound to select from from those. So we did our job. Um you guys did an amazing job. The committee was much larger than this. They're representing the committee and the alignment was one of the the biggest pluses for our teachers so that we can continue working our intervention the way we always have. So um not all of us are teachers on this um day. So can you please explain what is a screener? What is it used for? What's its purpose? So a screener is um a a series of of short tests. So for example um it could be on uh identifying letters and letter sounds and then putting words together. And it's to find out if students can do this with ease and and fluency. And then
067it will tell you okay there's some areas of strength here. This is where our students are are uh solid, but there's some areas here that are uh need work. And it's important that all areas are solid because they're all the building blocks of learning to read. And our students need all of those for us to get them all to that 100% mastery in reading. So once you've screened, then you're going to take those results and you're going to plan your instruction. Um you'll work obviously tier one is whole group. teachers do that, but then you're going to pull small groups. And the idea with a small group is it's targeted skills that they're getting that double dose, that extra practice in so that they uh can catch up when they're back in the whole group
068there. So, that is the purpose of a screener. I have more questions, but if anybody wants to jump in, go ahead. I just have one and then I'll kick it back to you. This um screener will be used at all elementary sites, including our dual immersion. Yes. Okay. Go ahead, Vice President Garcia. No one else. Okay. Um I'm going to continue then. Thank you. So what you're telling me then is um when would you be administering these screeners? Three times a year, at the beginning, at the end. The screener will be administered at the beginning of the year as is in in accordance with the education code. um at elementary with foundational skills. We also have we also um benchmark it in December right before we leave and then we've just finished our spring. So
069we will continue to use NWA um in the uh winter and in the spring. So the screener is just at the beginning of the year. It's not intended to continue for that growth. So once a year and I did remember you mentioning it as um used for progress monitoring but it's not going to be used for progress reports for parents or to complete um achievement reports. No. Um our progress monitoring will continue to be done by NWA, but the screener um what will happen with parents is the screener will be done when we first come back and by the time we have parent conferences that's something that teachers can share and they also have very nice reports for parents. That was another plus for air that they can share with um parents at conferences and
070say this is what we're looking at. These are the skills that are strong. These are the skills that need work and here's what we're going to do about it. and here's what you can do at home to help that as well. And so the teachers have already seen that these the NWA results mirror a mirror because if there's a discrepancy and they're going to use this for progress reports or conferences for parents, they're going to get their achievement report which may say something but then the may see something else and then there will be a dispute. Well, as I said, there's strong alignment in what they're what they're testing. um the skills that they're looking at uh with the mirror at the beginning of the year. So if I'm saying I I'm working with a
071student and I notice that there's some deficits in funological awareness, there's some deficits with blending and segment segmenting, phmic manipulation, all the things that we need to hear before we can uh read and write. Um and Amamira tells me that then that's what I'm going to work on. That's what I'm going to intervene with. um NWA provides progress monitoring and that uh December benchmark which we consider very important because we want to see where are we at this point in the year on those same skills. So what you're really looking for is growth and that now with the NWA assessment when it comes to blending and segmenting and all of those things that that student is now approaching grade level or on grade level. But Amamira as the screener that the ED code is mandating
072is telling us where those areas are. So I don't believe does anyone want to add to that? I don't believe there will be a discrepancy. Um that's one of the reasons that we we chose it. Okay. And so then um sorry I lost my last question. But um we're going to be testing kinders in dual immersion as well. Yes. So and this will be in Spanish, not in English. I'm going to let Dr. For the dual immersion students, it will depend on their home language because we do have bilingual students and we also have English only students and Spanish monolingual students in the dual immersion program. So, we will be looking at their home language to decide whether or not they will get it in English or in Spanish. How what level of difficulty and
073what type of developmentally appropriate um behaviors need to be developed for these students in kindergarten to be able to take this test? Well, the way uh the the assessment is developmentally appropriate for K through second. Um, so we didn't see any discrepancies with what the students would need to perform in a regular uh assessment like the NWA. So we didn't see any difficulties with our kids or developmentally um discrepancies that would be a problem for for our kids to perform well or to show if they have a problem in their reading skills. So all students will be able to access the information that they're supposed to understand and give answers to in kindergarten. Yes, I can speak from experience because we've been um testing our students at our site and learning a lot uh with
074our experience with our current system and um the tests the the NWA and the Amir screener are both adaptive assessments and we've watched several student you watch a student take a test and if the information becomes too difficult or if the test becomes too difficult it gives them something at their level so they don't have to continue. they feel successful and both of them um they explained Amamira as that she's the teenage Dora they explorer so the student in the NWA has a worm as the the character for that assessment so it's an they're both engaging engaging assessments for the kids and the best part is that they are adaptive okay thank you um my next question um is going to go more towards the what do we do next with next steps after you've
075gotten the screener, you've got this information. So, what is what are you doing with the data? So, the the data determines our grouping and which students are in need of intervention in their classroom and also which students need that tier 2 uh intervention. We have the ability being a reading intervention teacher, we've now been able to target more than ever using the data from the NWA assessment. And um from what I've seen with Amamira, it's just going to en enhance what we're already doing because there is a multitude of resources, lots of resources that Amamira has that we'll be able to access as well. So after the students, I think let me explain the process. So after the students are assessed, we look at what skills what skill area that they um might need some
076additional support in and then those become our groups. And then um we have a progress monitoring piece with NWA where we're monitoring along the way. We're not waiting until those benchmark assessments. We're uh giving that progress monitoring assessment to make sure that our targeted interventions and our targeted tier one instruction. Um that they're responding to both of those those things. Um thank you for that answer. My last question, sorry. No. Um, is geared more towards do our teachers, and maybe this is more towards our cabinet, do they have the strategies, skill sets to be able to appropriately after they get this data put steps in place so that way they can do this small group assessments and work that needs to go into it. I can defer to them, but what I how I would
077answer is that that would need to be part of their training. So when they get the air training, I think part of that's going to be the transition of what's next and how they use that in their classrooms. Anything to add? I I would like to add that the when we looked at the reports, they were very specific and they showed all the different areas of deficit and I envision that we would definitely discuss all of that at our PLC's. Definitely our teachers are going to be by the but we also meet as teachers we segregate we analyze the data and we decide then our next steps and as uh my colleague Joy had shared we're not going to wait because the areas align with the NWA when we assign the progress monitoring for those
078specific areas then we could see and track the progress and all of that information is available to the teachers and a part of what we're doing as intervention teachers is making sure that the teachers are empowered to use the system and to navigate it and to access that data to make sure that students are making growth. And then if students are not making growth, then we have a discussion and we go into other um steps. I'd like to piggyback real quick off my colleague. Um how are the teachers going to be trained? How long does it take? How many days does it take? And is this a part of our plan of the PD days at the beginning of the year or is it throughout the year with PLC's? What are we planning with our
079training? Yes, Mirror will provide training to for the teachers. So, we will be um looking to provide that training at the beginning of the school year when we come back. So, all our K1 first and second uh teachers will be um trained to use Amira and um to have some planning time just to get ready for this first assessment. Um it's just the screener that's different. Our teachers are used to um doing all this at the beginning of the year. So, looking forward to the training and learning more about it, but it's very user friendly. So, okay, go ahead. Yeah, you want to go ahead. All right. Uh, Cler Kersfield, thank you, Madam President. Thank you for the presentation. Um, and you kind of already addressed this, but I just want more clarification. I know
080uh the head code uh 5308 that was uh to for early identification of reading problems, in particular, dyslexia. And I think one of the concerns with a bill with uh this is the possibility of overidentifying special needs and further draining a resource when you have you know 1,800 already identified with IEPs. Uh is that something that we're going to be making sure like the those tier one and tier two obvious you spoke about it they're going to be there uh but just make sure we don't uh this doesn't cause an overidentification problem. Is that something that's been talked about? Yes, we discussed that in the committee and then our committee members when they went out to back to their sites to work in their PLC's. They also emphasized that really when you see a red
081flag in the screener, it means you need to intervene and do something now. And if you don't, this is still going to be a red flag at the end of the year. So, this is our opportunity to intervene early and specifically. So, that's been a big point of discussion throughout the committee. Great. Thank you, Vice President GarcA. Thank you. Um, I want to point out um and highlight that uh Scarboro's reading rope does talk about what you're saying, but my real concern is that our teachers are not maybe um fresh on their skill sets to really um address these very specific issues that you're going to be finding. So if are we planning to at least refresh their inter their knowledge for teachers who haven't had this for a very long time and new teachers
082who are coming you know onto Belfare Unified will they be trained as well and it's not the same in English as it is in Spanish. So we have to be very very careful that we're not just doing direct translations for these students. It doesn't work that way and it's you don't teach reading that way. to students of you know a different language. So just to answer your question uh we are providing the science of reading training for our teachers our TK3 teachers next year. It will start in the beginning of the year. We are required to give this uh screener. So more to your question specifically um it will not be on those two days the 13th and the 14th of August but it will be in the beginning of the school year that professional
083development will be um provided. um and to speak to uh more of the Spanish side of that and how you teach that language. That's part of what um we're working on as well. Uh Janette is involved in all of those pieces. So, it is something that we've got planned and moving out for the remainder of the year um for next year. Okay. By any chance, do you have any idea if we are going to be able to move this um training to um I'm sorry, what you call it? the science of reading. It's the Yeah, it's getting reading right. It's the Lego science of reading training. Okay. So, are we thinking of also involving our middle school and high school teachers at a certain point, but we wanted to make sure that we uh targeted
084TK through three first. So, we have sort of a plan to hit all the grades and as well as uh and you'll hear about that more in the LCAP presentation um but as well as English language learners and our dual immersion students. Okay, perfect. Um, I'm also going to well recommend that you look at um that I think I've said it to you before the strategies for fmenting um vocabulary. Yes, glad strategies. Yeah, you'll hear that in the L. You're taking all of my LCAT presentation staff, Miss Garza, but you'll hear that. That is in our plan for next year. Awesome. Thank you so much. You're welcome. No, you're good. Any other Barb member Armstrong? I just want to say um I I know you guys been working on this since January. Um uh I
085started to train. It was funny. I was like I that name is that's funny. I Bonnie Carter. Wait a minute. How is it that Bonnie Carter and DJ Ra is on the same you know uh workshop that I'm going through also? So um I'm so glad you guys finished. I know it was a lot of work and I think you did a very good job especially figuring out that Amira is the best one for us. So thanks so much. We have a lot of work ahead of us but the thing is we're going to identify these children earlier and we're going to provide the interventions that they need. So yay every since January. So yay. Thank you. Any other questions? All right. Thank you so much. We appreciate it. And I would just like to
086echo my thanks to to the committee and also um to public publicly acknowledge all of our kindergarten, first and second grade teachers who also participated, took the work very seriously and I think um this is going to be uh great for us next year. So thank you so much. [Applause] All right, moving along to our second discussion item. 12.2 World Language Instructional Materials Adoption Presentation. Hopefully you guys were taking notes on that first presentation. Mr. Castanada, thank you so much for being here with us. Thank you. We definitely did take notes. Good evening, Buenosardes, Bonois, Wan Shangha, Board President Stewart, members of the board, intram superintendent Lisa Azdo, cabinet members, and community. It gives me great pleasure to be here this evening to present an update on the world languages textbook adoption process at Belfflower
087Unified School District. Our adoption process ensures our students have access to highquality culturally relevant language instruction that prepares them for global citizenship and academic success. With me this evening are world language teachers part of the adoption committee from BHS, Miss Martinez and Madame Vaughn. From MHS, Miss Garcia, Miss Barto, Madame Falin, and Miss Luo. Thank you so much for all of you being here. At Belfflower Unified, our world language program supports students in fulfilling the A throughG requirement, also known as the language other than English requirement for college eligibility. Currently, Belfflower High School offers Spanish and French, while Mayfair High School provides Spanish, French, and Mandarin. These courses aim to build multilingual proficiency, cultural understanding, and global awareness. Our language programs are guided by the California World Language Standards which emphasize what is being taught
088and the framework which focuses on the how of language instruction. The standards and framework promote active student participation in meaningful real world communication. Instructional shifts in the standards and framework place a greater emphasis on learners taking an active role in the communicative process, engaging in realworld communicative activities, and participating in interactions with target language communities around the world. The standards call out 15 key instructional shifts. The adoption committee identified three key shifts to guide their approach in selecting new materials. Moving from teacher centered classrooms to student centered environments where students learn to use the target language which fosters authentic cultural connections. Students engage in tasks that reflect real world language use and diverse cultural contexts. The teacher's role as a facilitator or collaborator during instruction promotes active student- centered communication. Students are doers and creators
089of language, not just passive recipients. There is an emphasis on interpersonal, interpretive, and presentational communication. The three modes of language use. The seal of biiteracy is a key motivation for our world language programs. It highlights students who have attained a high level of proficiency in two or more languages, showcasing their linguistic skills and cultural awareness. To earn the seal of biiteracy, students must demonstrate proficiency in English through coursework or assessment and proficiency in another language through similar measures. English learners must also achieve a score of four on the ELPAC to qualify. This recognition is a powerful statement of a student's ability to engage in our global society. Our adoption timeline began in late 2023 and includes multiple phases. In December 2023, there was an overview of the framework and a materials fair to see the
090available materials. In January 2024, publisher presentations were held and teachers selected two sets of pilot materials. From February to May 2024, teachers piloted the first set of materials. From August to November 2024, teachers piloted the second set of materials. In December 2024, teachers met to review both sets of materials and select the recommended materials for adoption. In April 2025, we presented to the citizens task force. And after board approval, the next step is to provide professional development and training on using the adopted materials to ensure successful implementation. Our teachers utilized a robust feedback tool to evaluate the pilot materials. The feedback focused on alignment with the 2019 world language standards, realworld language use, differentiated supports, and student centered learning. It also considered digital resource integration, cultural authenticity, and effective scaffolding for diverse learners. Now that
091we've reviewed our approach to evaluating instructional materials, we want to share insights from the teachers who piloted these resources. They will walk us through the strengths and challenges of the various programs we considered and explain why we ultimately selected the recommended materials for each language. During our review of the Spanish pilot materials, we evaluated several options. Senderos was evaluated for Spanish levels 1 through 4. This traditional text relies heavily on vocabulary lists without comprehensible input, includes numerous grammatical errors, and has a poorly designed online platform that limits student engagement. For Spanish speakers, we review MAPAS. Um, this program was found lacking in regal for heritage speakers and had a challenging underdeveloped online platform. We also review triangul for AP and while it provides some important AP content, it lacks comprehensive coverage of the required AP
092themes requiring significant supplemental resources. For our Spanish courses, we are recommending the following materials for adoption. Reports for Spanish levels one through four. This textbook stands out for its diverse perspectives, authentic visual supports, and rich digital resources. It presents real world contexts that engage students in meaningful language use with a strong emphasis on culturally relevant topics and student centered activities. For Spanish speakers, we are recommending Emboss Ala. This text is designed specifically for heritage speakers. It provides rigorous content that challenges students with authentic materials. It has extensive literacy practice and preparation for AP level work. It also includes grammar and vocabulary practice in context supporting the students as they strengthen their academic Spanish and cultural connections. Uh for AP we are proposing teas. We want to adopt teas. This comprehensive text is fully aligned with
093the AP course and exam description, ensuring comprehensive coverage of all AP themes. It provides authentic resources and is rich in cultural and multimedia integration, offering a wide range of activities that encompass all three forms of communication, interpretive, interpersonal, and presentation. For our French programs, we reviewed Roanopon, a program that aimed to engage students with authentic culturally rich content. However, it had several challenges. Technical issues with our online platform, limited authentic cultural resources, and multimedia support, insufficient differentiation for diverse learners, overwhelming vocabulary without sufficient scaffolding. Overall, it lacked the flexibility and support needed to fully prepare students for advanced proficiency and AP readiness. For French course, French courses, we are recommending the following materials for adoption on culture levels one through four and AP pron. These programs are selected for their strong alignment to uh standards
094and comprehensive support for both students and teachers. Key features include the textbook structure with six manageable units, flexible pacing, can do statement, integrated context using personalized visuals and immersive resources. The student support has differentiated assessment, interactive online platforms, uh real world task that build proficiency in all four modalities. It supports students voice and selfreflection through digital portfolios and progressive tracking. And the last one, teachers resources includes lesson plans, scaffolding uh strategies and cross-disiplinary connections for seamless uh classroom implementation and AP readiness. For Mandarin Chinese, we reviewed Goar with Chinese integrated Chinese and step up to AP. BAR faces our opinion too quickly and introduces complex reading early on, making the jump from level two to level three especially tough. Integrated Chinese, originally designed for college students, moves at a very fast pace and includes advanced
095content that can overwhelm our high school student uh learners without a strong foundation. All these three programs present challenges in pacing, accessibility, and cultural relevance for our high school learners. To better meet our need, the needs of our students, we are recommending the following materials for adopt adoption. Authentic Chinese for level one to three and e Chinese for AP. Authentic Chinese focuses on student centered learning. It uses relatable themes and story lines that connect to high school students life, encourages participation and build practical communication skills. It also integrates modern cultural elements and offers strong AP preparation. EC Chinese for AP is designed for advanced learners. It includes simulated AP exams, interactive tests, and real world projects that develop fluency and deepen cultural understanding. Together, these programs provide a well-rounded approach, supporting students from beginner to
096advanced levels and preparing them for both the AP exam and real world communication. This textbook adoption process is a critical investment in our students linguistic and cultural competencies, ensuring they are prepared to thrive in an increasingly interconnected world. We are confident these selected programs will provide meaningful real world language learning experiences that align with our district's mission, vision, and instructional focus. Thank you for your time, and we welcome any questions you may have. All right, colleagues, any questions? Vice President Garza, I promise it won't be as long this time. Um, so what grade levels will we be looking at for these adoptions? So the adoption is for uh all secondary uh grades, so grades 7 through 12. Okay. Um, so am I I'm going to assume that these or maybe I'm wrong to assume that
097these textbooks are also going to be used for the dual immersion students or is it completely separate? It will. So the uh Spanish speaker series will also be utilizing the um the envos envosalta and have we um kind of done a test on those students at this time to see if they're going to be challenging enough for them? Miss Garcia, would you like to speak to it? Uh we are discussing that because we did the piloting and um the best option was in Bosalta for the the materials that we look out there. Uh but then afterwards we went to visit a middle school with the dual immersion program very middle school and uh we found an very good option there. So she is working on that uh with the district and seeing if it's possible
098for us to get this um pilot another option specifically for dual immersion. She's not here. She left Miss Martinez but she's working on that. Oh she's [Laughter] here. So you can speak you can stay up here. So yes so that was the question that we had this year. We wanted to make sure that adoption uh would be appropriate for the Spanish speakers but we know that our dual immersion uh Spanish speakers a different type of population in a sense. So we are looking at that this next coming uh year to see if we can identify not just one but we want to have a few more options that we want to review just so that we can have some alternatives some choices that we can make that are going to be appropriate for the dual
099immersion students at the secondary level. So, that's something that we are gonna be coming back to you later on as soon as we have a a new uh idea in terms of what will be appropriate for our kids in the dual program. Okay. But for now, this is what they're going to be using. For now, this is what they're going to be using. This they are using the same curriculum that they're using or the same textbooks that the Spanish for Spanish speakers are using. But we know that there might be a need for a change in the future. And we I'm I'm teaching right now to an immersion. So, I'm using emboss ala I've been using it for two years piloting so it is a good book but we can um see if there's better
100options for room for growth perfect um so how are um for all of these new adoptions how often do we have to go to to adopt new textbooks so there's a cycle there's a timeline established by the uh department of education and so we usually wait for that uh guidance uh usually for a list to come out. Um and Miss Carter, I believe you can probably speak more to that, but um I know that the uh this one specifically um we had updated standards in 2019 and then the framework was updated in 2020. So a lot of the publishers were starting to update their materials uh because of the shifts in the framework. It's typically eight years, but because of the shifts, they then needed materials to match that. Thank you, Ed. Go ahead, Miss
101Garz is taking all the good questions tonight. Um, that was my question was, uh, California school districts update books every eight years minimum, and I was more of a question, and if you don't know this answer, it came from a community a community member asking this question, you can get back to us, but um, what subjects are next for adoption, and which books are over eight years old? I would have to get back to you on eight years old, the textbooks, but we just recently did our social science adoption, so those would not be eight years old. Our uh English language arts, we're renewing. They are eight years old, and we have brought back our teams for um updated training from uh in the elementary right now, and we're working on secondary next year. Uh
102so we'll have those for at least we're thinking at least four more years because the next adoption is math and so we'll do framework training next year and then these those titles will not be out until Novemberish which is when we'll start to get an adoption committee together and adopt um do the um adoption committee the following year. So science is probably um getting close. We're probably at about six years, but that's a guess and I'd have to get back to you. Okay, if you'll get back, I would appreciate that. And then my last question was, when was the last time we adopted world language books? 2015. Oh, you said that. I should be listening. I'm sorry. I apologize. Um, Clarkfield, thank you, Madam President. Uh, two questions. Uh, one, I know, uh, first of
103all, thank you for all the work that went into this. Really appreciate it. Um the the cost of each probably vary, right? Does that factor in at any point? Not saying it should shouldn't, but at what point do you know the cost of what these books are? Do you know before you do the assessment like the I would say that the committee does not know the cost because it is not a factor on why we would pick a textbook and it should not be. I was just curious if it was like a blind kind of assessment. Okay, good. Um sec second question. Uh, at what point do we not use textbooks and we go digital? Do do some districts go digital? Because I mean it's a lot of money and I feel like I don't
104know it's kind of we're noticing that a lot of the publishers are uh very heavy online now. I mean I think we were talk uh they all spoke to some component whether the platform was uh sufficient enough and there were some that were really stellar. obviously the ones that uh were selected and then there was some that struggled um and so we are kind of shifting into that space as well um but um like for example in the Mandarin Chinese the AP is fully online um so that one specifically is all online so um I think as we as time goes um that will be a shift but um you know it wasn't a factor for our selection okay thank you and do we know are there surrounding districts even not so certain. Have some
105districts gone to digital when it comes to textbooks? There are some districts that have gone digital. Okay. And that's something that we're open to in the future as we kind of we'd have to take it on a case by case basis. Absolutely. Okay. Thank you, Vice President GarcA. Thank you, Madam President. Um my next question is when students are falling out because they need some more support, what are the support systems within you know these programs. So for world language I know our teachers are very um you know I think the biggest shift is um there's a big focus on CI on comprehensible input. So I think one of the focuses that they've done is I think immersing them into the these real life experiences but I know each of them in their own respective
106content areas do provide support. Um I know that um you know shifting to uh the block schedules at the secondaries for example does allow for just that extended time to be able to work with students and so I know within each of those uh each of their classes I know that they integrate that those supports during that time period as well. If any of you are wanting to explain further you absolutely can. Well thank you for that question. Um in all our classes one of the we have is also through u immersive readers. So um we have um we're building an online uh library which will provide any additional assistant that we will need to give to our students and of course that will help us know what we're going to do in terms of
107informing our instruction and cater to whatever needs the student need at that time. Of course, we want to keep it relevant and interesting because that's what we strive in doing in our uh classrooms. So, am I okay to assume that you're also doing small groupoup instruction in your classes? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um in terms of uh different uh teaching styles, we love the social interaction and this focuses on um collaboration, collaborative and so we have a lot of um um activities that uh cater for um interpersonal exchange in terms of interpreting in terms of critical discussion etc. because that is what makes language um life. Language is not writing. It's first of all speaking. And so the student have to have this opportunity of uh exchanging uh information based on what we have taught
108them and then they have to use their uh critical thinking to show that they can solve problems. It's not because we're teaching languages. we have the same um goal to make sure that our students are ready to face the world and I may add with the digital component um our textbooks really cater for that and um we moving on with AI I know it's still a problem base we're doing that too thank you wonderful and just to add to that I mean um the framework really calls in those 15 shifts it is really addressing I think the biggest piece is that before it was a very traditional model where it was the teacher just giving instruction and there was really no stopping. Uh really now it's very student centered taking into account the differentiation that's
109needed to address students needs. Perfect. Um my my student just finished their AP exam and they told me that you know we do carousel so so it's like student talking to each other. They're interactive. She said that was that really helps them because language should start from speaking and then other things follows. Yes, thank you so much for that. Um so here the seal by literacy I just want to confirm is this the only way that a student can get that seal by literacy? No. So uh students can also take other exams. So well that is the basic criteria but they can take other exams that are listed. So uh either the AP exams the through coursework uh there are other special exams like the IB exams but um those are usually through an IB
110school system and then there's other certification exams that students could take to uh meet the other language requirement as well. So they don't necessarily have to go through our you know our world language program. They do not necessarily do our students under know that. Um we've done a better job of uh communicating that. So I know that at the school sites um last year we received uh posters for each of our world language classrooms. Um they're in each of our counselor's offices. Um they're in the counseling office just in general. They're posted all over the place. So in terms of communicating the requirements, we have done a better job of communicating that to students. I know that the world language teachers uh really pride themselves in communicating that and there also has been a big
111shift in world language department in terms of ensuring that students continue through that four-year sequence whether it's for four years or that they get through AP and pass the AP exam to meet that four-year equivalency. Okay, perfect. And I'm I'm assuming parents also are involved in this process too. Absolutely. Yeah, they are. Okay, thank you so much for answering all my questions. a great presentation. Thank you, Clerk Critfield. Thank you, Madam President. Um, question. How much of uh, so I think we talk a lot about our students being global citizens. I think it's uh, yeah, I spent some time in Europe and most countries in Europe require at least two foreign uh, you got four. Is it four? I mean, yeah, four languages. I know when when I spoke to people was requirement of at
112least two languages, foureign languages they had to speak and I feel like we kind of struggle in knowing like the cognitive benefits especially at an earlier age of like of a bilingual uh education and uh I love the work that we're doing with our dual immersion. Um but what do what is the requirement uh of um do they have to learn one or is it all elective? are are for world language to be in world language or yeah like are because I know we have like the the the uh the biiteracy uh you know uh designation for students um and we're always you know trying to get that up but do other districts or is there a reason why we don't just require proficiency in another language? So uh we will be looking at our
113graduation requirements um and aligning it more to our A throughG requirements so that way uh it really addresses that component. Uh right now our graduation requirements um do require either world language, fine arts or CTE as one of the requirements but that is something that we are looking to address in the future to ensure that students are college and career ready uh should that uh you know should that be their choice. Um, I know that both schools have uh kind of shifted that way anyway in terms of practice and enrolling students in world language starting in the ninth grade to really set them up on that trajectory even uh uh if they have not uh signed up for it. A lot of our students do sign up for it in middle school. So, if they
114haven't already started, uh the the practice now is to um register them into a world language starting in the ninth grade. And really the uh again the the extended schedule, the A periods really allows that to happen starting in the nth grade. Cool. Thank you. Any other questions? All right. Thank you so much. We appreciate your presentation. Colleagues, I know we have LCAP coming. Do you guys want to take a short break? 5 to 10 minutes. All right, we're going to take a short break. Um about 5 to 10 minutes at 7:51. All right, this board meeting will reopen into open session at 806 and we're going to continue on with our discussion items and we're on to 12.3 review of the proposed LCAP 2526 local control and accountability accountability plan. Mrs. Oavo, thank you.
115I'm going to turn it over to Mrs. Carter who's going to walk us through the updated LCAP. Thank you. This evening, I'll be providing you some foundational information regarding the LCAP and the process we have engaged in this year to review and collect input for possible revisions. Before we review the document itself and to support you with knowing the requirements of the LCAP, I'll be sharing how the state LCAP template is formatted. It's important to keep in mind that annually the state updates the instructions updating the LCAP requirements and this year is no different as there has been some changes that continue to increase accountability and the compliance included in the LCAP template this year. The LCAP is the district's plan for student improvement and is the guiding document for schools as they develop their
116school plans. This plan along with the California school dashboard were developed as accountability tools in response to the local control funding formula that was signed into law in 2013. Although only the LCFF funds are required to be included in the plan and align to expenditures, we include a majority of our funding sources and attempt to provide the community with the best picture of how our funding is allocated. Structurally, the LCAP must include goals, actions, and related expenditures. New this year are proposed expenditures to expend learning recovery block grant funding. The goals and actions included in the plan must target support for student groups listed and must align to the eight state priorities that are listed on this slide as well. LCAPS are developed to be implemented over three years. This year is the end of
117the first of the three-year plan. Throughout the year, we have met with educational partners to solicit input and identify priorities based on their feedback. This slide references the current section of the LCAP timeline wherein we met with all educational partner groups to review the LCAP survey results and solicit input. On May 15th, we met with these groups to review the draft LCAP and solicited final input from these groups. After tonight, the public will have an opportunity to provide written comment or participate in the public hearing on June 12th and the final version of the LCAP will be brought to the June 18th meeting for final approval. The first part part of the LCAP includes an LCAP summary which describes the demographics and information about our district. We currently have approximately 9600 students across 15 schools
118with approximately 79% of our students meeting the criteria for unduplicated students which means that they those students are either English learner, foster youth or lowincome students may qualify in more than one of those categories. However, the percentage references the unduplicated count of students meeting the criteria. At the time this data was collected in October, almost 18% of students qualified for special education services and close to 16% of students were English learners. This slide shows at a high level overview of the LCAP showing that the LCAP has four goals, 27 actions, and each goal is supporting one or more of the eight state priorities. As we review the revisions made based on feedback of educational partners, it is important for us to ground ourselves and what our beliefs and goals are as a district. All groups
119and individuals have input and ideas that are based on their personal experiences, which can vary widely between people and groups. One way to help us have a similar lens when thinking about and sharing ideas for improvement is to remind ourselves of our district vision, mission, and core values. Decisions that we make as a district should emphasize our belief in equity, achievement, and community. Our current vision reminds us that BUSD produces globally competitive learners, and our unified purpose is to build futures for students to compete in a diverse world. At the beginning of this year, the superintendent and board established goals that connected to the LCAP. When reviewing these goals, it's important, excuse me, um, for us to reflect on what has been accomplished or is in progress. This summer, modern, flexible seating will be provided
120to some of our classrooms districtwide. PBIS training continued this year, as were services or social emotional learning services. Coach Rudy's finding the calm training was offered to all and conscious discipline training was provided to early childhood and transitional kindergarten teams. Wellness centers were maintained and standards aligned instruction continued. Providing relevant learning opportunities is still an area of needed focus. However, there are some sites that are providing this type of instruction. foundational work uh foundational work has been done to ensure that all of our secondary sites will offer college uh credit courses next year with Mayfair starting an early college cohort and Los Flores and Somerset offering counseling dual enrollment courses that help students build college readiness skills. Los Flores is also focusing on developing a pathway for students to earn a California law certificate and
121Somerset students will be piloting a professional softsklls dual enrollment course in the spring. We have two sites with a parent resource center, one of which is still in the development process for next year. And because of the contract that Dr. Smith brought forward to bring factor to our district, we've had an increased opportunity for our parents to access workshops. Translation interpretation services have continued and have been added to our board meeting live stream. Personnel is working on a plan to fill the instructional assistant vacancies. Combos at the elementary level were not implemented this year and middle school assistant principles were hired to help provide focused support for our middle school population. Analyzing whether implementing advisory at the secondary is still under consideration. However, in the meantime, a voluntary transfer process has been developed to provide
122students with alternative options for enrollment. And in an effort to accelerate learning, two programs that are aligned to ESPback claims and targets and ELPAC domains are currently being piloted at select schools deterine to determine effectiveness of the programs. The advisory groups also developed a draft definition of a Belfflower graduate to help maintain a focus for the input provided to our overall plan. As we go through the LCAP this evening, I'll be sharing the priorities that were identified by advisory groups individually and overall as funding is finite. In order to increase in one area, there need to be a decrease in another. We did ask our advisory groups to prioritize actions and the LCAP. You'll notice as we share the priorities that each group has different experiences that shape their perspective and input provided. Although not
123all of the input may be incorporated into the LCAP, identifying the themes of the input helps inform any revisions or changes that may be made. We do need to keep in mind that not many changes to the plan are expected to be made as we are currently in the first year of this three-year plan and the level of consistency with which we implement our plan impacts our effectiveness of outcomes. This slide shows the priorities of the individual advisory groups for goal one. On the right side of the slide, you can see that uh for this goal, the top priorities for each group are a bit different. However, the most supported actions for all groups was safety and custodial maintenance and behavior support for this goal. LCAP survey data revealed that there is a high agreement
124that there are clear rules and procedures in place at schools and the community is engaged in regarding school safety issues. However, the data also suggests there should be an increased focus on effectively handling student discipline and ensuring facilities are clean. Among the groups completing the survey, behavior management is ranked high and student connectedness and sense of belonging is low with 59% and 63% of students agreeing respectively that they are connected to school or that they feel like they belong. This is a summary of the input provided by all groups referencing areas in the LCAP that groups felt should be maintained and possible areas of focus. For goal two, the overall themes for the groups were to continue to provide supplemental academic support and professional development. for this school. The LCAP survey revealed that professional development
125is supported and there is a clear vision of strategies teachers use during instruction, that there should be an increase in training for technology use and opportunities for teachers to observe effective teaching. The survey also revealed that more information regarding college career opportunities should be provided to students at an earlier age. This is a summary of input from goal two. from our advisory groups. For goal three, the priority is parent communication. The summary of input is referenced on the right of the slide. The LCAP survey revealed that there is a high agreement that the community and parents feel welcome to participate at school and their concerns are responded to in a timely manner. It also revealed that people get information from the website and more people get information from Instagram than Facebook. So, I'm going to
126give our team a minute to bring the LCAP up. And what I'm going to do from here is go through the LCAP to give you an idea of what's been updated, but also give you an idea of the format of the LCAP so that if you have questions in the future, you'll be able to reference those. So, I'm going to start off on page one and I'll let you know what pages I go to or paragraphs I'm at. And if you need me to stop because we're not on the same page, just let me know. Okay. So, since the posting of uh the this LCAP, we've been able to provide an updated document, which you have um that includes projected allocations for each goal for next year. These numbers are preliminary as sites and departments
127are still finalizing their proposed budgets for next year. Starting on page one, revisions were made to the update uh to update the demographics included in the general information section of the plan. Moving to page three. Um this continues to provide information about our core values and vision and mission in paragraph 1. The remaining paragraphs on page three and four describe the critical components of the LCAP and each goal. On page four, paragraph three, the priority areas for the 2526 school year are listed. These priorities were informed by the highlighted priorities that we just reviewed on the previous slide deck. Towards the middle of page four, this also includes the annual performance descriptions. You'll notice there is a description for the 2024 and the 2023 dashboard. As this is a three-year plan, we're required to keep
128the description of performance for the 2023 dashboard. as the outcomes included in this section are the basis for the creation of the three-year plan and actions and metrics are connected to these outcomes and will remain for the duration of the plan. In comparison to 2023 dashboard, there were less schools on the 2024 dashboard with student groups earning red in math, college, career, and suspension indicators. No schools earned red on the suspension indicator. However, there were more student groups overall earning red in the area. On page five, this page includes a description of the propo proposed plan for spending learning recovery grant funds. A needs assessment was completed to identify needs for the 2526 school year where in school site outcomes were analyzed in the areas of ELA, math and chronic absenteeism and whether or not
129schools identified as high need were improving. If schools were improving, they will not be targeted for support. There was no schools that met the criteria in all three areas. However, five schools were identified for support in English language arts, four schools for math, and two schools for absenteeism. As a district, long-term English learners and students with disabilities were identified as student groups needing additional support. This paragraph references the goals and actions that were revised to provide additional support to these schools and to these student groups. On the bottom of this page, you will see it says reflections technical assess assistance. In this description, which continues on the next page, it discusses that annually based on the California school dashboard, schools and districts are identified for additional support for district, county, or state. Uh we were
130identified for differentiated assistance for specific student groups in the area of pupil achievement, college career readiness and suspension rate. Although these areas either maintained or improved on the dashboard, um different student groups were identified in those areas. A summary of the current and future focus for improvement is included in this section. In the area of ELA, coaching and professional development was provided for fast forward. Uh the platform targeted to support English learners and students with disabilities and literacy improvement. administrators um were participating in the science of reading training through LEO and TK through third grade teachers will receive the training next year and additional training is being provided on the core instructional materials in an effort to support highquality instruction in English language arts, Spanish language arts for dual immersion and English language development for
131all math intervention tools continue to be utilized. However, an analysis of the effectiveness of the tools used in the upper elementary and middle grades is being conducted and a pilot for nextgen math, which is the platform that Compton utilized and is aligned to the rigor of the state test, has started with a few elementary sites and will continue next year to determine the effectiveness of the platform and whether implementation should be expanded. To support improvement in the area of suspension rate, implicit bias training was provided and if approved, there will be an emphasis on building positive climate and culture through implementation of capturing kids hearts training. Additional and more timely professional development for staff to understand and support our foster youth population will also be provided by our child welfare and attendance office next year.
132As previously mentioned, there has been and will continue to be a focus on increasing dual enrollment opportunities for our students to support them with graduating prepared college and career. Also being provided next year is additional training for our counselors with implementing a four-year plan for all incoming freshmen and communication efforts about our career technical pathway options will be increased next year. Annually, schools are identified for assistance. This year, three schools exited assistance in comparison to last year and two schools remained. These schools have collaborated with their school communities to identify and revise actions um of areas of need and have made those changes to their school plans. On page seven, this describes how educational partners were engaged throughout the year to review and provide input to the plan. And page eight describes how this input
133influences the revisions to the plan. As we review the goals and actions, um I'll highlight these areas that are referenced on this page. So, starting on page nine, this is goal one. And the format of the LCAP is that there's a description of the goal and then the metrics are listed after that that are used to determine effectiveness. It's important for us to keep in mind that the metrics in this plan were established last year when the three-year plan was developed. The year one outcomes include data from last year as that's the most recent information available for some metrics. For example, state test scores included in the plan are from last spring as we're at the end of our testing season this year. Although we review the LCAP annually to monitor our progress uh toward
134meeting our goals, actions and services planned last year were meant to be implemented for three years prior to making major changes. as it takes um time to see results with consistent implementation. This year the far right column has been um added. It's uh calls current difference from baseline. And so what you see there is um the difference between the baseline and the year one. Overall for goal one approximately 62% of the metrics maintained or improved in comparison to the baseline. after the metrics, which is about page 13. And I'm not going to go over most of these metrics because they were part of our midyear review and you've had the document before. There were not too many um updates to those since that midyear review. So on page 13, um this section describes the this
135is the goal analysis and you're going to see this after each goal that we have and it's broken down into four areas where we look at were there any differences in comparisons to actions and we need to explain material differences in budgets versus actual expenditures, effectiveness of actions, and then a descriptions of any changes that are going to be made moving forward. So you'll see that goal analysis after every goal. Starting on page 14, these are the actions that are listed for goal one. There are five columns for each action that includes the number of the action, a short description, proposed funding, and whether the action is identified as one that will support increased and improved services for our unduplicated students. So you'll see that pattern throughout. What I'll be doing is not go over
136that pattern again, but then go into each action that has any revisions. Action two, uh, this has been revised um in reference to prioritizing target schools for additional instructional support and providing high impact tutoring for sites as well. Although a personnel is working to streamline the process for hiring aids by reviewing and revising job descriptions and reaching out to colleges and the high schools to advertise job opportunities. Um as it was difficult to hire this uh these positions this year, we are looking to support with high impact tutoring um utilizing the learning recovery funds. Action five will continue to increase security and custodial efforts and was revised to include reviewing work order flow and prioritization of projects. Uh we are working with Black Knight who will be um working with the sites to develop a
137comprehensive safety plan and the district safety committee is looking at a variety of other resources and services which you talked about a little bit tonight. at the bottom of that page. Although action 8 was not revised, it is a priority and PBIS professional development will continue with an increased focus on developing site discipline procedures and practices as well as a focus on improving climate and culture districtwide. Moving along to page 16 is where goal two begins. approximately 56% of the metrics maintained or improved for goal two. And as you move through those metrics and get to page 21, this is where the goal analysis section starts for goal two on page 23. So starting to look at the actions and updates or highlights. Looking at action three, this was updated to support expansion of math
138and long-term English learner intervention at targeted schools. Over the last few months, Washington and Mayfair have been piloting Summit K12, a program that supports long-term English learners and newcomers with additional practice aligned to English language proficiency exam. We have received positive feedback so far and we'll be expanding the pilot to three more identified sites. Also, three sites recently embarked on a math pilot of nextgen a platform the platform aligned to the rigor of the state test and we've received positive feedback regarding student outcomes for that so far as well and will expand based on site need. Action five is on page 23. This updates uh with a reference to um looking into additional um math expanded learning opportunities so we can try to bring some real world math um experiences to our students in the
139afterchool programs. Page 24. Action six was updated to include professional development planned next year to support English learners and students with disabilities through implementation of select GLAD strategies. The focus for this professional development will be grades four through eight. Also, next year professional development on the updated math framework will be provided to support future adoption of the math instructional materials. Although not specifically called out in the action, professional development to increase knowledge about AI is being planned for the summer institute and throughout the year as next year a focus on developing guidance and use policy practices will be implemented. Action seven was updated to reference the expansion of dual enrollment courses, maintains a focus on implementation of AVID, improves communication and articulation of career technical pathways aligned to core content, and supports counselors with refining
140practices for supporting students with course selection and goals and implementation of college guidance um initiatives that help students identify their interests and investigate college and career options. Uh it's proposed that a counselor on special assignment support the expansion efforts in this area to help support us with college career readiness um for next year. Page 25. Action nine was updated to support paying the cost of AP exams and implementing PSAT and SAT prep courses for students. This action also supports the implementation of steam or science, technology, engineering, arts and math activities that are happening at sites currently in isolation. It will be a focus to support increase resources for sites to work towards integration of these activities. Although action 10 was not revised, this action still remains a focus for additional support next year. Our coordinator
141of multilingual and dual immersion services has and will continue to support dual immersion programs at both ILC and Mayfair Middle next year. This year, teachers and administrators were able to visit showcases uh schools in San Diego, received Mavas instructional materials training as well as English language development training. They recently participated in a vertical alignment meeting focused on transition from sixth grade to middle school. and they visited a local dual immersion middle school program that incorporates dual enrollment classes as part of their pathway. In collaboration with the secondary ed department and Cerritos College, we're working toward implementing dual enrollment opportunities for our students as well. Next year, we will be looking to provide coaching for the sites to support collab collaboration around instructional practices and improving instructional program articulation. On page 26, this is where we
142begin goal three. Approximately 78% of the metrics showed improvement for this goal, although not included in the plan last year as we had just established the PIO position and we're determining engagement metrics. We are monitoring engagement metrics for both Facebook and Instagram. If possible, these metrics will be added to the plan and will be monitored throughout the year and included in the annual update section of the LCAP. There has been an increase in uh Facebook and Instagram followers in comparison to last year. 11,000 content interactions on Facebook and 27900 interactions on inter uh Instagram have occurred. 91% of the views are for Instagram or are organic and 9% come from ads. Whereas 81% of views are organic on Facebook and 19% come from ads. A YouTube channel has been created with 335 hours of content
143with over 4600 average views and over 130,000 impressions or clicks on content. There are currently two archive videos on the channel that combined have 586 views. Part of this goal is also parent engagement and in to support that the um educational opportunities provided by sites through factor and family literacy project will continue next year and the enrollment campaigns and communication efforts will also continue. Although not an update to the actions, additional support was provided to our dual immersion program this year during enrollment, which has resulted in an additional TK classroom being added to ILC, resulting in three classes projected for next year for TK. Also, to support meeting the needs of the whole child next year, we will be investigating expansion of community schools within our district. Page 30. Goal four starts on page 30
144with a description and explanation of the goal. The only changes made to this description is the removal of Los Flores Home Independent Study Academy as they no longer qualify for the funding. The metrics for this goal show approximately 67% of the metrics listed um meeting or maintaining improving. The actions for this goal will remain the same in order to support continuity and consistent implementation of these services. On page 34, this is the start of the increased and improved services section of the LCAP where the actions that are designated to support unduplicated services are described. Changes to this section consisted of updated metrics in the identified needs section and additional information in the third column um relating to effectiveness. These services will continue to be monitored for the remainder of the three-year plan. And finally on
145page 36, um this identifies additional funds that we received due to our high population of unduplicated students and it references the additional personnel including instructional and behavior aids. Um this section was modified to update the percentages by school sites. And if we can take a minute and go back to the slide deck, the for the final slide, I'll let you know what the um approval timeline is for the LCAP. This slide identifies the timeline after tonight. Oh, we were right there. Okay. So, this timeline shows you that um in the beginning of June, the LCAP will be posted for the public to provide public written comment if they so choose. An updated LCAP will be posted for the June 12th public hearing where the public may provide comments regarding the LCAP and the finalized LCAP
146will be posted and brought to the board uh for approval on June 18th. The county has until August 15th to approve our LCAP. However, they may decide to ask for clarifications regarding any portion of the LCAP. And if they do, you see the timeline there and our responsibilities if that happens. And the dead the final deadline for approval would be October 25th. And that concludes the presentation for the updates to and revisions to the LCAP. Um Mrs. Carter, before I open it up to my colleagues, I just wanted one clarification question. Um it was on the percentages that we maintain or improved on each of the goals. I got three of them. I know goal one we improved or maintained 62%, goal two was 5 56% and goal four was 65%. Can you tell me
147the goal three percentage that we maintained or improved? Yep. I believe it was about 78%. Give me just a second. Goal four is 67 and goal three is 78. And was I right? 62% and 56% on the other two. 56 is goal two, 62 in the first one. You got it. Okay. Awesome. Okay, colleagues, any questions? Okay, I'm going to go ahead and start. Um, my first question is goal three. Um, I know we've done really well in this goal, 78%, we've had some major changes, but just one comment is that we definitely want to get parent input before we make some major changes. And I would just suggest that like obviously with some of the changes we're making recently um we should talk to parents before and not and be a little bit more
148proactive. Um one question I had um I know we had talked about a TK to3 best program um at Washington. Is there any discussion on that and where are we at with that program? I'll defer to Miss Aua. Yes, we're currently planning for a program. It's an alternative to a best because we're trying to keep it within the gened programming. So, we're currently working on the pilot program to launch for next school year. Okay. And will that be at Washington? Yes, that's the plan. Okay. Awesome. I'm sorry. Uh, we have a 46 best program there. So, we would just plan on doing the first or is it one through three or is it K through three? So right now what we're trying to do is we're trying to focus on our younger elementary kiddos because
149that's where we're having a lot of difficulties. So we're trying to be proactive and preventing the special education identification. So we're focusing on a gened programming for our younger TKK students possibly one as well. Okay. Um one thing that I've noticed in these schools is one you know major thing that we're trying to do is improve our climate and culture. Can you guys tell me why we are eliminating the deans of climate and culture at our high schools and what was the rationale behind that? So, one of the things that we considered was the new addition of the assistant principles and the job due job duties currently being done by the deans of climate and culture and the job duties that would be done by those middle school assistant principles and determining if uh those
150job duties would then overlap. So there was a thought that the um possibly the particular duties that were being done by the deans of climate and culture because they focused so much on attendance and um some of the discipline issues that it could be distributed amongst the assistant principles. Okay. And I love that. I think I've heard really good feedback on our APs, but I also would like to reiterate that our deans of climate and culture are supposed to be there to improve our climate and culture. And I do understand that attendance and behavior is part of that, but there's a lot more that I think we can do to utilize. So, I hope that when we're talking with our APS that we try to brainstorm and collaborate so that we can come up with
151some great ideas for them as well. Um, I'm going to go ahead and save some and I'm going to go ahead and pass it off to Clerk Critfield. Thank you, Madam President. Um, question. when you're reading the social media analytics. I don't see that on my paper with the YouTube and the looks like you had different Yeah, they're not added on to those metrics yet because I'll need to add them on as a a draft. So, they're in the presentation now and if I can get it into the next draft that you guys will see, you'll have them. But I can provide them to you. So, this isn't the the current draft. This is no you have the current draft that we uh provided to DAGP pack um those metrics were not part of um
152goal three and so they weren't able to be added in there but when we're building when we're adding the new um met if we can add the new metrics for next year we'll add them in there I'll talk with LEO about that and if not I'm going to include them in the annual update section so we continue to monitor those as we go forward. Okay. So, you already have ideas for additional goals for all of those metrics that I said are things that we're going to monitor uh moving forward that we've have for this year and then we'd monitor moving forward. Okay. Um yeah. So, the So, would we be removing uh some like with this? Do you remove goals? Because I mentioned last year about the just starting an account for Instagram should not
153be a three-year goal. It's a 10-minute goal. And the response I got was noted and it still made its way into this one. So, are we going to keep are we going to keep it? Because I know I understand I'm just one board member, but when it's something that makes sense and that obviously made sense, it didn't seem to like make it into the LCAP. It is in the LCAP. It's the Yeah, it's updated as it being 15 out of 15. So, let me clarify to see what I think you're asking me. And that is if we've hit it, would we remove it out as a metric? Is that what you're asking me? Because it's not removed out. It's still there. No, I know it's still there. It's a goal that was very easy to
154hit. So, would it be something that would be removed and we would put a new goal in? We wouldn't necessarily remove it out because it's a three-year plan. We'd leave it there. But if we have another metric that we want to monitor, that would be input that you could provide or advisory could provide or we could add in there. So that one's going to stay because it's got to stay there for the three-year plan. But if we want other metrics to look at. So at what point does this board see the final these are the modifications that we're going to have? Is that at the next meeting? this. Yeah, this is the meeting where you would provide us input and then that uh final draft is going to go out uh before June um to
155the public for uh private comment. Okay. Um another question, the do we so I've noticed the CTE pathways decreased uh from 17 and a half% to 13.3. Do we have a a good idea of why? I know this is kind of was it called lag data or but do we know what happened there? Clerial, what page are you on? I'm sorry. Sorry. This is on It's right at the bottom. I'm I'm looking at this. It's on page 20. Thank you. So, we started off with 17.4% of our graduates completing the pathway and Now we have 13.3%. I don't have a definitive answer for you. I know that we do definitely have less students and so the ratios would change. It it's not too much of a difference. That is one of the things that we're
156looking at when we're look uh for next year. We look at our graduation rate as well is CTE pathway completion. Is that something that those CTE course I know a lot of them are uh provided for by Calabs. would like the programming and collapse affect kind of how that goal would kind of roll out or no that metric. No, it wouldn't change because it is it's a course the pathway that they're completing, right? Okay. One more before I throw it back. Um, so I I'm curious because I I think it's come up before the when reclassific so for English learners and our re our reclassification data seem to go up uh but then the proficiency for English learners went down. Is that one of those statistical things where when you reclass you kind of it's
157going to have that effect? Is that what we're seeing? Um yes, yes and no. Um, so basically, yeah, the reclassification did increase and when you're reclassifying a student, they're that four, that high level, so they're going to now be out of the testing environment. So, um, our proficiency could go down. Um, one thing to think about with our reclassification as well is we made a concerted effort in that. So, we're still stabilizing what that will look like moving forward because it's it's high now. Thank you. Um, I'm gonna ask a few more questions because I don't see too many. Um, I had a question on the limiting of combo classes. I believe that was the same wording we used last year even though we didn't have combo classes. I've had a few questions. Are we
158having combo classes? Just to clarify, we are still trying to limit them as much as possible. Correct. Absolutely. And do you know how many we had this year? Did we have any this year? I believe it was zero. Okay. So that's the goal for next year, but we just Okay. Um, another question I had uh was about tutoring. I noticed that we have focused on five sites for tutoring. Um, the prioritizing the instructional support and the high demand of those. Um, is there still a push to do tutoring on all campuses? I know when we were in Washington, we were talking about this and I know I'm the one that's always preaching tutoring and teachers doing their own tutoring, but they were just talking, you know, at our conference about how this is so important
159and I still don't think that the teachers really understand that we push it. What can we do to improve or can you give us your ideas on what we're doing for tutoring this year? Just specifically tutoring. Well, we're going to continue paper tutoring because there has been a a continued increase in that. um we will continue to advertise it and we'll continue to um help teachers know the benefits of that. We do know that we have some teachers that really access it uh utilize it in their class utilize it for uh papers to be um uh looked at and given feedback before it's turned into them um and utilize it for the reading and math challenges some of the new things that are happening. So, we're going to continue with that next year and um
160try to increase continue to increase our um use of that. What we're looking at is we're looking at um we have high dosage tutoring that we're doing for expanded learning this year. So, our uh summer academy we're sort of piloting there. So what we've done is we have our think together staff and um we are training them in the programs that they are going to be utilized in summer academy and I think that's the piece that we were sort of missing in the past was training our tutors to work on a certain um content program or um thing that the teacher needs. So what we are looking at and um we're looking to um connect with Compton as well is see uh if we can bring that high impact tutoring into the school day versus
161just after hours as basically a type of intervention. It's like an intervention. So you would have a trained person in your classroom being able to support you with that. I would really like the next time that we send this out to teachers about tutoring or ELOP or any of those if you could please copy the board on it. I would really like to see what we're saying to them because I still don't understand why more people aren't taking us up on that opportunity. Um I know we've talked about it. We talk about it all the time, but I I'm not understanding why they're not utilizing that. So I would like to see like how much the pay is for the tutoring after school via ELOP. um who signed up for ELOP and what we're communicating
162with our teachers that they just don't understand why they should not or why they should do it. I don't I don't get it still. I can tell you the last time that we talked about this at the board meeting, we pushed another push out for um for the afterchool courses, right? So that's the course that you could be doing intervention or you could be doing a passion project, whatever it is. And there was an increase. So more teachers did. Yeah. Um, and I should have given you an update. Sorry. But there were more teachers that did participate in that and take advantage of that. So, okay. Um, hope that helps. Okay. Thank you. I'm going to go and pass it off to Vice President Cara. Thank you, Madam President. Um, my question um is off
163of page 14, the number action number eight, positive behavior interventions and supports. So um most teachers um are implementing this during our their school day, but what types of supports do you have for our students who don't really have any um this doesn't work for what type what are we doing for those teachers? Are we helping them? Are we giving them different strategies? Is there a different program? What's the thought? Well, I'll answer and then I'll defer to Missa. Um, PBIS is at all of our schools. Um, it is a process though, not necessarily a program as you fully know. Um, and what we are looking at is trying to um be more concrete about what those discipline, policies, practices, procedures are, what those tiers are. um they've had training uh this year, but we
164are looking at um possibly updating that training for next year so that they're looking at sort of discipline policies and practices and are all in alignment. You want to add to that in anything? Sorry, that's that's exactly what we're planning on expanding. Um we've done a lot of work towards PBIS, but we want to kind of take it to the next level and aligning uh procedures and expectations. So, are you going to be giving them something new that they haven't had before or is it just a refresher course? Because I I mean, I've been taking PBI since I was employed here and you're still doing it. So, I I'm wondering what is going to change now? You want me to? Um what uh we're looking at is the possibility of looking into Safe and Civil
165Schools, which is an organization that will is very well known and very structured and um will be supportive in um helping the school sites come to those commitments about what it is that they're doing on their campus, whether that be the the same um interventions, the same rules, the same expectations in the same areas. Um, and those are all things that we've been looking at in our PBIS trainings before. Um, our our idea though is is that this organization will help us um really have a solid system um for our schools moving forward. So, that's what we're looking into for the next year and following years. And as part of that safe and civil um are you going to request that they look at what do they do or what is their um process for
166students that because it only works for about 75% of the students but the other 25% what are we doing for them? What do we do for the kids who are throwing chucking things at teachers and me that's me right now. So, what do we do for them? And I and again, I'll defer to you, but I I believe that that's what this is going to help us do because you're talking about tier three, but if we don't have our tier 2 in place, we don't have a positive behavior contract in place that we're working and we're looking at data consistently, then we're going to have a harder time with tier three. Um, so you want to add into that? Yeah, so we are looking at additional supports throughout the district. Again, the program that I
167mentioned earlier, that's exactly the focus that we want to have is we want to focus on the students who are having those really disruptive behaviors. Um, so developing a program that will support them, but also in addition to that, having staff that will assist throughout the throughout the um the schools, not just where we're having that program to deal with those more severe escalated behaviors. And you'll see that coming through later. And that the program we're talking about is the TKK BEST program. We're not calling it best because we're we're focusing on the pro proactive preventative. Um so you'll you'll see it coming through. We're working on the planning right now and planning to launch next year. So you'll see more information coming through on that. So I'm going to have some follow-up questions right
168now with if is that okay? um with that. Um so are we going to be then I'm thinking in my mind we're going to have to have new people who are part of this team that are going to travel around. Did you did you have something you wanted to add? No, I would just suggest um I know that we're focusing on our younger students, but you also have implemented a brand new procedure and process for admin transfer for our older students. So, I would also I know right now we're focused on primary, but at some point we need to talk about those older students as well. Yes. So, yes, in addition, we do have some some additional staff that we're uh looking at specialized supports. Uh what we're looking at, we're not looking just at
169the behavior. We're also looking at the mental health component. So, we'll be working with uh a capacity grant that we just got to to implement those supports. And that will be coming out of that same um pocket of money. Correct. Okay. Thank you. Um before I pass to Cler Critzfield, I want to say it's really exciting. I'm on my safe and civil team and it really is building procedures and it concentrates on really the focus of the main students and then you have that top tier which is your 5% I think they say, but it's really where we have a cohort on my um at my school and there's eight of us and you have administrators, security guards, secretaries, teachers. It's a combination of all different employees and you basically make the procedures and protocols
170and stick with them. Like this year we're focusing for next year on our discipline um how teachers are writing and sending students up and so it really gives you guidelines. I really enjoy it. I've been doing it for a long time. So I'm excited that you guys are exploring it. I think it's a really good program. Um Clerk Critfield, thank you Madam President. Um so I believe last year we were talking a lot about uh hiring our own aids and uh the difficulties in that hiring. Um I noticed on the summary of input uh for goal one we put provide consistent instructional aid support possibly modify the support due to difficulty hiring. So, does that mean we're not going down that route that we've talked about of like hiring our own aids and and really
171the question is what do we need to do to fix that? Thank you for that. That um section of the PowerPoint is input from our stakeholders. So, what they were saying uh they were actually giving suggestions of modifications. We're still looking at hiring our own aids, but they were giving suggestions such as u maybe prioritize who gets the aids. Maybe TKK gets um you know uh an an aid for every classroom, but first and second, maybe they get three and they split them across the first and second grades. That was some of the input they were giving. So that's what that means. As far as um what we're planning to do, we're fully planning to or expecting to hire our own instructional aids and our personnel division, Dr. Almos, has been working um diligently on
172that. He's also working on that other piece of that feedback was um consistency. He's looking at um ensure trying to work on a subprocess as well so that can get filled. He is updating the job description. He's communicating with colleges, uh, reaching out to the high schools. Um, so he's looking at another platform to, um, uh, post the positions on something that, um, other, uh, classifications might, uh, uh, access more than Ed Join. So, those are some of the things. Does that help? Cool. Yeah. No, it definitely helps. And I I know there was some talk like that the pay for the aid sometimes it's less competitive therefore like it's harder to get. Is that also something we're kind of looking at and doing the comparables to see if we're and I can defer to
173uh Dr. Smith but I believe that's something that we look at but we would have to look at um the classification and the the change in what it would need to be. Okay. I know it's an ongoing process. I I just want to make just been It's so much talk. I know it's a lot of work, a lot of hurdles and uh I appreciate uh you know, Dr. Almost frankly with the work you're doing. Um I just want to make sure that happens because I have heard people being afraid that we're going to actually uh contract out more at the when it when the hiring is difficulty and people being afraid that we're we're actually going to lose our aid. So, you know, people, you know, they get afraid of things from time to time,
174but I just want to make sure we're still on the same path to really inhouse that. Um, can I jump in on that real fast? Um, I had the same type of question on the instructional support. I know it's action two. Um, I was just a little confused by the writing of that. It says that we will provide additional instructional support to early grades to support the early literacy and math, but it says that there's really a focus at the five district schools. I know we had talked about placing them at all schools. Is that what you're talking about of trying to divide and conquer and kind of or how is that going to look? No, that's a structural thing of the LCAP. So we are looking at them for all of our schools but
175based on our data we're required to target schools as priorities. So that's what that means. Got it. And then are is there any thought process of our half-time aids versus hiring some full-time aids? So yes, that is something that we are taking a look at now and and Miss Carter did a great job of kind of summarizing a lot of the things that we're doing to ensure that we move towards having all our own aids as opposed to agency. We're not interested in expanding agency usage and service. You know, we want to have our own people with our students. We think that's what's best for the district, but we definitely think that's also what's best for students. Uh it takes time to get us there, but to answer your specific question about this part. Um,
176that is something that we're in the process of looking at with uh, Ms. UOA and also with the P, our executive director of classified personnel as well as Renee. We're also taking a look at um potentially thinking through how we can also take for example the number of hours that those aids might work and potentially have some flexibility during the week for so you know there might be people that are interested in working longer hours but they only want to be three days a week or something like that. So we're toying with a lot of different configurations to see what we can do to expand the pool of interested applicants. So this way it's not just the run-of-the-mill three and a half hours with no benefits, that kind of thing. So, we are working on
177all of that. Okay. Thank you for that, Clerk Hersel. Thank you. Um, just one when the LCAP the uh the titles of these are they standard is it like because I just have it like when we talk about uh uh number five under I think goal I think it's two maybe uh the safety and custodial operations and services. I just feel like oftentimes even like with like our our job titles and descriptions like custodial and security are always like like together and in this role in this uh item it just makes it really hard like we have an increase of uh from the last LCAP increase of two million in that uh in that action. Um but it's like lumped in with you know security, safety, technology um custodial and maintenance for facilities. It's just
178kind of like all mushed into one. So, it's hard to say like what and I would guess that like the budget would just be a clear like breakdown of that. But c can you speak is this standard? I can speak to that. Um that is a general uh action. And so when the the um LCAP was developed, we did have custodial and uh security in the same bucket. If we move forward after our three-year and we want to separate that out, we could do that. We could take input to have separate actions for that. Um I feel like it would make sense. I think it's reconsidered. Um and actually on the custodial part, I know last year we uh we started to implement I think was it worker dude the uh the software for um
179uh the work order process? I'm gonna defer to Miss Arcus. Okay. I was library was not working with you. I think that's what we use at the college. It's it's similar. It's similar. Um but we did we implemented that last last year, right? Yes. Yes. We started using that system for all of our maintenance tracking work and we're looking, you know, into what other areas we might be able to expand that system into or other systems too. Okay. Thank you, colleagues. Any other questions, Vice President Carza? Um, page 12, number 17, chronic absenteeism rate. Um, what where are we at right now? What types of resources are we placing in this area? This is actually an area that has continued improvement which is um a good thing and then also reality that our number is
180so high so not a good thing. So um I the school sites have made a concerted effort in uh making additional phone calls and um holding their um their meetings for attendance. um the child welfare and attendance office. There's a couple of things that they're working on and uh they are working on their start and SARB process and what that um process is going to look like moving forward. Um they're looking at trying to make sure that there's a meeting at the school site prior to the actual SARB process happening sort of preventative so that we can connect with the families help them with resources before they get into the the bucket of being chronically absent and they are also working towards the our foster youth in that area as well. We had some training
181come out this year um later in the year for LEO and we included individuals on um identification and supports for foster youth and the child welf attendance office is looking to do that earlier in the year and expanding who they are going to bring in on that professional development. So it's um not merely just administrators or counselors, but it could also include like our CSWS because they are the first connect to our parents um registars. Um so they're looking to expand that out a little bit. Okay. And so then this would be falling into the lap of our APS now that we're no longer having the um the culture and climate people. It would be administration. So at the secondary, whoever they're designating for that, at the elementary, it would be the either the AP
182or the principal. And teachers are part of this process as well, right? They have their um they're probably the first line, I'm assuming, to make that first contact with parents. Um I would defer to Miss Aua, but um they the teachers should be part of the process of interventions and supports. Do you want to add in? So they are a part of the process in terms of the communication and I know in terms of special ed teachers we communicate with them on a regular basis as well so that we can hold amendments to address it also with teachers. So they are part of the communication piece but a lot of it we work through counselors site admin as well. Okay. Um maybe is this also done for the general education students as well? Okay. So
183there also our conversation I I what I'm looking for is maybe making sure that there is a ve well delineated process for teachers to go through so that way they understand this is what I do first this is what I do next have I turned this in already any type of maybe followup that has been done are they logging it in somewhere so that it's shown that these teachers have done their due diligence in logging in those contacts with parents and that's part that's part of the PD that we're working on as well. Okay. So, it it's not there yet, but you're developing it. We're working on on consistency in how we're doing those communications. Thank you, Clark Kitchfield. Thank you, Madam President. Um when we're when we're talking about uh the safety metrics um
184I so I noticed that our for our secondary students uh students that feel uh safe at school went from 50.75 to 46 which I think is a shame because we really have tried to implement things and we have implemented some really good things but um if that's how they're feeling I think it's a it's a good important metric but in addition to that I I think uh what we would want to consider is some objective uh metric on incidences at our campuses. You know, we get daily memos and bright and there's seems to be, you know, there's uh fluxes sometimes of incidences that are happening on our campus. I would love to have a year of data to see like if the the things that we're putting in place really are having a positive effect
185on this. It it would be really hard to tell with just uh you know how students are feeling. I think that's an important metric, but there's got to be some, and I don't know what it is, but there's got to be some objective. Uh maybe it's like, you know, how many times does, you know, have we been on lockdown this year? Let's get that number down. Uh or, you know, weapon incidences or uh you know, there's a lot of different metrics we could do. Maybe just find one of those metrics that are a consistent problem and uh see if in you know, so we can see these investments that we do to see how we can get that number down. I would just like to see something with safety that has a more objective uh
186touch to it and maybe even like quarterly um updates on our discipline if they're putting them in. And I know we've been working on that. Um maybe getting the board like a quarterly or at least at worst case semester of what are kids being suspended for and where are we at with those different discipline, you know, the consequences, the interventions, the things that we're doing. I think getting some discipline data would be really amazing. C can I ask Madam President is that something that would be most appropriate in the LCAP you think Bonnie or is that something that would be uh aside but um or somewhere else? Where do you think that data should live? Um I think that data is probably outside of the LCAP. Um we could look at maybe adding referrals into
187the LCAP, something like that. But I think you're talking a little bit more deep and detailed. um looking at the types of suspensions and those sorts of things. Um so I would say that that's something that you probably would want an update on in your quarterly or semesterly update. But it should also be something that's happening at the school sites, right? Is that something that we can do as a board? Because I think we've talked about having those like annual updates on incidences on on our sites because it is hard to keep track and to know which direction we're going. Is that something that we could consider as a board to get like those annual up whether it's quarterly or annual? I would love to see it because in all honesty, I was having a
188discussion with Mrs. Oavda the other day about just do we have gang awareness in our schools? We used to have grip. We used to have all those things. Do we need it? I mean, that's the data that we want so that we can implement some of these things. You know, again, we're getting proactive and implement some of these assemblies or mentors or people in places that we need, but we don't really know what we need. So, I think it would be great to do at least quarterly if if you guys are okay with that. Myra, how do you feel? I agree. It would be really helpful data as we go forward and making this big decisions because at this point I I kind of feel like we're just throwing out solutions, but we're not sure
189exactly which ones are going to be helpful. Yeah. We'd be able to track it. Yes. And it may be something that they can um create or talk about and collaborate at the safety committee. What do we think would be the best data to get? You know, obviously we don't want all of it. There's not time enough to do all of it, but what might be those pieces that are really important that we should focus on? I think that'd be great for the for the committee to go through and see which metrics and, you know, I think that'd be great to have on the next uh safety committee meeting. Bar member Armstrong. Yeah, I just want to go back. Thank you, President Stewart. I just want to go back to the the absientism. even though it's
190we've been making improvements but it's still high and I just talked to Miss Alma about that. Is there some type of way that maybe maybe just maybe you could see if there's a correlation with their attendance and with the way that they are performing in schools uh in their classes because sometimes you know you know I'm I'm big on that mental health piece but if we have a kid that's truly struggling and those are the ones that are causing in a sense the chronic absences and you know like you say we're we're seeing improvement but it's not a number. It find a correlation as to those particular students, how they're performing and what interventions we could possibly um provide for them because we got to we we if we don't meet the students where they
191where they are, they're going to feel like no matter what they do, it's not good enough. And so school is not exciting to them. it's not a place that they want to go to if they're, you know, if they're failing. And so in, you know, looking to some of the reasons why they're absent. Now, me, I, you guys know I'm early intervention teacher. Sometimes my kids are absent, but they're absent a lot because they are they're ill or they may have appointments and different therapies. But if we have a student that's not performing and they have FS, I wouldn't want to come to school either if I feel that why I'm failing. So, thank you. So, that's all I wanted to say. And, you know, I already had a lot of my questions answered, but
192I wanted just to put that out so my colleagues can know what I'm thinking about. colleagues, any other questions? Um, one thing I am excited about is to hear that the ILC is expanding and that those TK is going to grow and that's pretty awesome. Um, another thing that I was going to bring it up during committees and I forgot, but we've talked about AI and we're looking at, you know, 21st century and things like that. I know we talked about starting an AI committee. I would really like to do that. Are we have we started? Have we thought about it? Um, I don't want to step on your toes, but I would like to form a committee if it if you would like it to be a board committee. Um, I definitely would like
193to start an AI committee or something where we're looking at that technology. Um, and I I can I can tell you where we're at and then you can jump in. Um, we had a team sorry u we had a team that went to a conference and we are looking to bring that team back. Um, timing with the end of the year sort of got in our way. Um but that's why we are also looking to collaborate with LEO. So we're going to bring um the trainings and professional development to um we're looking to have uh summer institute so before the uh August 13th and 14th. So we're looking to bring some professional development there. But our secondary um director is definitely um putting together a team for next year so that we can work on
194guidance, policies, those kinds of things. So that's in the works for next year. Okay. I don't want to step on toes, but I'm going to ask because you guys know I'm going to ask. But if you guys create a committee, are board members allowed to be on that committee? Because I really would like to have two board members on that. That's something that's just future. It's up and coming and I really would like board members on an AI type of committee. So, would we have to form our own or could we join yours or Mr. Sur or anybody? How would that work? um as a committee that wouldn't have necessarily an end date and it'd be ongoing. It' be a standing committee um basically subject to to the Brown Act. Two board members can serve
195on that committee. Um and it would just be perpetually going forward dealing with the issue until such time that new technology emerges and a different committee will need to be created. So we would like to create that committee. Um is that okay? I mean I know you guys have a committee planned how does that impact your plans um let us um like all committees if you would like to the board would like to create one you just give direction and staff will will create the committee and I think I'm asking where if I say I want to create a committee could we basically I don't want to take over your committee but collaborate with your committee because we don't need two committees I guess that's what I'm asking Yeah, you you can combine the two
196if you want and have two board members on there. Okay. So then can I do that now? And it it would still be a standing committee. Okay. So I would like to create a standing committee for AI and technology and and I would if if you're taking uh I would like to be on that committee if well the president appoints the committee members. I'm just I'm just telling I would like I would like to I'm letting you know and and also I would say I I don't know if I know you mentioned like PD on AI but I've seen a lot of Frank's stuff on LinkedIn and you're killing it with AI. I don't know how involved you are in that committee but uh keep it up man. He's already offered to his services. Yeah.
197Yeah. Okay. So we like him on the committee and a few others on the committee. I I just want to put put in there, you know what? If if I could nominate somebody, I would nominate Brad. I had already planned on it, but let's just leave Brad in his space right now. So, um I need a motion. Yes. Sorry for motion and approval. Uh yeah, I would like to make a motion to form a AI and technology standing committee. Can I get a second? You got a second. Um roll call, please. Student board membernet. I Miss Armstrong. I miss Cron. I Mr. Pritchfield I Mrs. Garza I Miss Stewart I and if you guys do not object I would like to put Brad on the committee and I would actually like to be on that
198committee if that's okay with you guys. Yes. Yeah, I'm good. Okay. Do we need votes for that or no? Okay. So, myself and Brad. Okay. All right. Any other questions on LCAP, you guys? All right. Moving along to major action. We have one major action item tonight. 13.1 the waiver of conflict of interest in legal representation of B USD and Cal ABS by Surgo Law. Um do we have any questions or comments? Mr. Sura. So just wanted to to make sure I advise the board. Um this waiver would be um to allow me to provide legal services to Calaps as well. Um one thing I would like to note is that If a conflict ever did arise, um I would basically represent the the district and KAPS would have to seek their own counsel. And
199there are certain situations where I'd be conflicted out of representing either party at which point both parties would have to seek outside counsel for representation. And the most important part of any waiver is informed consent. So there was a letter attached. Um that letter outlines all the the provisions of the waiver and signature of the board would constitute informed consent. Questions or comments? Vice President Garza, can you give me an example of when you we neither the board or the board of education or calaps board will be able to use your services? Uh so if I were to obtain confidential information regarding Calapse um and then the two would come into conflict because of some incident that arose that ended in litigation because I have that information about CLAPS um I would not be able
200to use that and so I would be conflicted out of representing the district because I have that information and so both would be required to get outside counsel. Thank you. board member Armstrong. So, could you give me some examples of how you would be used um um serving both power and CLAPS? Yeah. So, um CLAPS has, you know, much like the the board of education, they have uh policies, different uh contractual issues that arise. um they would be able to basically call upon me to assist them with developing contracts, developing policy much like a city would have resolutions and ordinances. Um generally legal input is uh well advised in those situations and so I would assist them in pretty much that capacity. I would not be handling any uh litigation matters. Thank you. Uh one
201other question. We have to increase your pay. I I appreciate that question. Um, clerk. No, go ahead. I I would say uh no, I appreciate you doing that because Calabs having such a significantly smaller budget. We don't have a uh in Calabs a regular attorney. So I think it's very beneficial to our partners at at Calaps and uh I appreciate it and just want to clarify um any agreement with Calabs would be a separate agreement uh between my firm and them. So it would not uh in any way impede or mingle with the uh with the district contract. Any other comments? All right. Can I get a motion to approve item 13.1? Motion to approve item 13.1. Can I get a second? Second. Roll call, please. Student board member Snugnet. I. Miss Armstrong. I. Miss
202Cron. I. Mr. Critchfield. I. Mrs. Garza. I. Miss. Stewart. I. All right. Moving to the consent agenda. Do we have any items to withhold from the consent agenda this evening? All right. Hearing none. Can I get a motion to approve the consent agenda? You have that motion. Thank you, Board Member Armstrong. Second. Second. Thank you, Clerk Critzfield. Roll call, please. Student and board member Sugnet. I. Miss Armstrong. I. Miss Cron. I. Mr. Critzfield. I. Mrs. Barza. I. Miss Stewart. I. All right. Board communications. We're going to start with our amazing student board member from my amazing alumni, Miss Snubnet. Thank you. Uh, good evening everyone or almost good night. Um, May has been really long. Um, but it's also going by so fast. Um, in early May, um, our theater group had their spring play,
203Radium Girls. I had the honor of being both backstage and on stage. It was really nice. And during that time as well, there was two weeks of state testing, which early college did keep me from not getting to sleep in, but it's fine. Um, then the last two weeks we had AP testing. Very grateful that I didn't have to take any of these tests. Um, Ensemble had their last concert last week. Um, it was I didn't get the chance to go, but I got to see a lot of videos and they sounded amazing. Um, so we have a strong emphasis on mental health at our school and since May is mental health awareness month, um, there was a day that we had booths for a self-care day where students could go to different act go
204to different booths and do activities. Um, two of the activities that I actually got to do was meditate on the floor with like these little like eye patches. It was actually really nice. And also got to create buttons. And yesterday we have like a little wellness bunny and there was a whole photo shoot with um her. It was actually so cute. Um now it's just really just coming up to the final parts of the year. It's going by really really slow, but um yesterday was senior awards night. I was it was a really nice experience to get a lot of awards and get stacked up for graduation which there was also performances from band and ensemble. Um earlier last week there was the early college banquet where we re received a little stole for graduation
205and a medal and two certificates one from Critos College and one from Belfflower. Um then this week was senior finals. I still have one more final due at 11:59 today, but then that's it. Tomorrow is senior celebrations for all the seniors who are attending a 4-year university, as well as earning a little cord for completing A3G requirements. Then coming up, we have grad night next Friday. Then we have our legacy walk um the following Tuesday, golf and stuff and graduation. And on that following Tuesday, eighth graders also have their universal trip and soon to be promotion. That's all I have for today. I'm feeling kind of bad. You have 11:59. Shout out to the teacher. Please maybe give her an extension or if you do want to leave, we understand that you have academic requirements
206that you need to fulfill. So, please feel free to not listen to our board reports and go work on your studies if you need to. Okay. All right. Um, board member Armstrong. Thank you. Thank you, President Stewart. Um well earlier uh earlier in May has been a long month but anyway um I um la was it last week last week or no it was beginning of of the month that we celebrated teacher um we had okay I'm sorry y'all I'm tired okay anyway we had a te I I attended a teacher appreciation event that um that was that was hosted by um a radio personality. Her name was Sheila Baker. She was a former personality uh radio personality and that was on May 9th. That's why I was so confused. It was so long. So
207May 9th that that happened and she uh we had the event at the Miram which is formerly known as the French Quarter right here in Belfower. And she herself is a teacher. She's retired now. And you know, she continues to elevate other teachers for their dedication to education. And she honored many teachers from LA Unified and Compton uh um you know, with certificates and proclamations from our local representatives and city leaders. And I just wanted to to thank uh thank Sheila Baker for her love of education and to teachers on and on the front line. Um, and now we're on the the week for classified staff. You know, I am that teacher and classified staff really is the reason why I am the teacher that I am. I can't I wouldn't be able to run
208the class as I do if I didn't have classified staff to to help me uh you know create a rich environment for my children. So, um, classified staff, you know, you you're you're so needed and and and I know I appreciate all the efforts that come from classified. Again, I couldn't I wouldn't be able my students, not even myself, would be able to thrive without classified staff. So, I appreciate you all. Um, I attended the awards night at Belfflower last night. Um, and you know, every year, every year when I attend the awards night, it's just it's just a beautiful event, you know, bringing together all of our students that that have excelled and be and recognize that it's, you know, it's only the beginning to something bigger in life. Our seniors have worked diligently
209to to earn the awards bestowed upon them. And the journey, as most parents know, is not easy at all. It's demanding. It's tough. It's taxing. And and we, you know, teachers, parents, families, friends, all of us, we must continue to inspire and to stimulate and encourage them to continue to test their abilities and grow because see, they're they're going out into the world now. And uh I I'm in awe of our awesome seniors. And I and I'm also delighted and beaming with pride for for my own daughter, Cynthia. You know, Cynthia, I'm very proud of her. It wasn't easy for her. And for the teachers that know her, the counselors that know her, the principles, they uh you know, with all of the teachers here at Bellflower and the counselors, it made it possible for
210Cynthia to be as successful as she is. and I'm I'm very proud of her. Um so anyway, um I do want to um um you know, again, May is mental mental health month and I was really trying to exercise and do a lot of the little things. I got this little calendar. You guys probably got that calendar, too. I'm I'm not sure. But anyway uh you know we can practice you know keeping oursel me mentally healthy by you know writing down self-care goals and you know spending time with nature with journaling uh with reading and or reflecting on causes that are important to you. Uh you know creating a a calm space in your home. uh take time to do breathing ex uh exercises and that's something that I do with my students you know
211you know when they get upset I'm like practice your breathing you know and you know another way you can help your mental health is to go somewhere that you've never been even if it's taking a a different way home. Um some people use pets. You know if you have a pet go ahead and give more love to that pet. If you don't have a pet find a friend who has one. Um, and of course, you know, make sure you drink your water, stay hydrated, and uh take a nap, you know, um, reflect on your boundaries. Set some boundaries for yourself. And, uh, don't be afraid to say no. And it's it's just a lot of little different things that you can do for yourself to make sure you're mentally stable. So, um, that's all I
212really have to say right now. Thank you. Thank you, board member Armstrong. Board member Centron, thank you. Uh, just quickly, I just want to say that um, well, let me just begin by saying, so I went to the Somerset High School Awards ceremony and I thought it was really, really nice. I love to hear the cheer behind me because we we sat in front and I attended it with our president and our superintendent and I'm sorry, interrum superintendent and um it was just a really good experience and to see the effort and to see those students glow on stage the way they did knowing that they put in so much effort and they had a chance to kind of reflect and had the input from the te like side notes from the teachers. It was
213really nice to hear. A lot of it was um goofy and funny and you can tell that uh Somerset is a really good place for those students who really need it. And I I really um appreciated hearing it, seeing the families just elated and everybody's cheering for everyone else. So um that was really great. I also had a chance to um attend the um retirement social with our vice president, our vice chair. Um and that was also really nice event. it. It's incredible how many of our teachers have been around, but also are just still so passionate and want to like give information to the other teachers that were there like don't forget this and do this. It was it was just really nice to hear it and be around that kind of climate. I
214don't always get to be around all the teachers, but I really appreciated it. And I want to say a special thank you and congratulations to all those that are retiring. Um, I also want to say thank you for all of uh our uh teachers and our committees that came out to present to us tonight. It was a lot of hard work and their recommendation is extremely important to the board, especially since they're the ones that are going to implement it. they're the ones that are gonna, you know, be with our students and things like that. And so I just wanted to give an extra little shout out. Maybe they can see it later. Um, and just a thank you for all their hard work. And I truly appreciate to hear their feedback and be able
215to answer the hard questions that we give them. Um, including our cabinet. we give you guys really hard questions and you guys are always ready to to hit the bat, you know, or hit the ball. Um, but I also do want to say please for those that are watching and those that are still here in attendance that want to give input for the LCAP, I'm a huge advocate. Come out and and make your your uh any recommendations or something that you don't understand. get your questions answered. This is what that time is, June 12th. And I'm sure we're going to have more information for those that want to attend or participate or however, but bring all the information and bring all your comments and your concerns. do that so we know what's going on because
216when we're up here, there's only some parents that are, you know, emailing us or calling us or texting us, but there's so many of you that don't get a chance to do that. And so I would um invite you to please participate in any which way you can whenever you can. So June 12th, keep that noted. Um, but lastly, um, with that, I want to say a special thank you to the parents that came out. Excuse me. I came out and spoke tonight. Man, do I remember being on that dis and being a voice voice for students and it was very, very hard to keep a straight face to hear them talk. But I want to also emphasize to all our community and our parents that our cabinet is not um shutting their ears to
217you. They are listening and they are making plans and there's always room for improvement. Our cabinet already knows. Our teachers know. um our board members were always ready to listen to you and make sure that even if we don't say it and even if you don't see all the mechanisms in place to make that change happen, your voices are being heard. So, I just want to say thank you and uh the appropriate people from our cabinet will be reaching out to the parents that spoke, but also extending that to all the other parents that have concerns or that need a little bit more information. We are ready and willing to give it. Um but with that, I look forward to participating in my first round of graduations. Uh, it's three beautiful days of hearing. I'm
218I'm sure I'm going to lose my hearing with all the screaming because mine graduated last year and we were the loudest section. Um, and it was fun. So, I look forward to that and um, yeah, have a good night. Thank you, board member Centron. Clerk Crutchfield. Thank you, Madam President. Uh, first of all, happy classified week. Shout out to my classifides. I'm a fellow classified over at the college and I appreciate all the hardy work you guys do here for B USD. Um second, I' I've been kind of just chilling uh since the last board meeting um since my surgery. It's a height adjust. I'm trying to get taller. So I got a surgery because I want to be the same height as my wife so people don't make fun of me. So I I
219think I got a quarter of an inch now. So I'm getting there. Um, but I I have been just kind of hanging out. Uh, I was able to still do uh the thing like even when I'm like I'm supposed to be resting right now, but um I I believe the work that we do here is is very very important and I could have uh you justifiably like missed a meeting, but when possible like I'm I'm always going to try to make it just like my colleagues were we're very uh dedicated and determined to serve. So, um, you know, I'm not I'm in a little bit of pain, but I'm happy to be here. Uh, couple things I want to bring up. One, uh, one of our very own, uh, Annayia uh, Greenwich is going to
220be, uh, she's going to get a recog certificate of recognition at the Compton, uh, Founders Day event. Um, and that's coming up May 31st, uh, from 12 to 3 at the Compton uh, city hall. uh her mom reached out and invited uh the board and uh I'd say anybody else. I think it's really important that we celebrate our students not only here but when they're getting recognized elsewhere. I think it shows an extra layer of just love and support for our students. Um couple things. One, uh thank you, Miss Alma. I I I like my colleagues have gotten a lot of emails similar to what we've heard from parents tonight. And uh you know, me being a a parent of a child with special needs, I totally get it. Change is so difficult for our
221kids with special needs and it's very it can be very jarring and it's scary. Like even me with my daughter, it's scary. Um and I think you taking the time to meet with me and really break everything down a second time uh is very helpful because we are your mouthpieces in the community. The more we know, the better we can communicate to our parents and ease some concern and also bring some optimism to the table too because at the end of the day, the changes that you're making are for the betterment of our district and uh for the benefit of our kids and you know like uh uh my colleague Miss Centron mentioned, I think we all agree we could do a little bit better on communication and it not just on like the positive
222happy things. I think we've really come I mean we've come a long way since uh before I got on the board as far as communication between social media, the website, YouTube, we've done a lot. Um but I think the part that's missing Hey, quiet down over there. Um just kidding. Uh I think the part that we're missing is communicating the things that we don't want to communicate but we should because it's it's the right thing to do. It's going to ease. I think we've done really good at pumping ourselves and highlighting some of our successes, but now we have to really lean into that transparent other side where we're meeting challenges headon and getting ahead of them and really breaking down this is why these changes are happening. So, I have every confidence in the
223world that we'll get there. I think this is a a big reminder that we need to do that now starting right now and even before, but we're going to get there. Um, and yeah, and I I like all my colleagues are very accessible and we always encourage everybody. I try to I respond to every email I get. Um, and I try to comment on social media when these things come up and I know my colleagues do as well. So, we're accessible. We hear you and we're we're with you and we're one of you. So, keep coming to the meetings and reaching out outside the meetings as well. Um, last thing, actually, no, that's it. Thank you guys. Thank you, Clerk. Clerk Crutchfield. I hate that. Vice President Garza. Thank you, Madam President. Um just happy
224classified week. Um and happy um upcoming Memorial Day this weekend. Please enjoy your rest. Um so that way you can come back and finish off the week. I think you're we're almost done, right? So, keep looking towards that. Um, I was able to attend the student board member interviews on May 12th um with President Stewart. Uh, we have a really good candidate for you guys. I'm we're really excited for this next school year as well. Um, I also was able to attend the Mayfair High School senior scholarship night. I wasn't able to stay with uh to see the actual awards ceremony, but I was there for the half of the first part. Um and then also I was able to attend the Somerset High School annual spring awards with um President um Stewart and board
225member Cron and our um interim superintendent. So that was a really nice um event seeing them just walk up there and get their awards and be celebrated by their families and their colleagues their um on May who was that um oh yes and then um I just want to kind of piggy back on what board member Critchfield was saying. Ayanna Greenwich um amazing amazing student that we have in our district. She actually was my student, my English student in an ILC dual immersion classroom. I can tell you that that family is unique. They're a very unique family and it's very heartwarming to see her grow up in our district and become such an amazing young lady. She is not the only one that we have. This is only one story that is being highlighted, but
226there's so many of our kids who do this uh day in day out. So when we can celebrate them and we are aware of them, we do want to support. Um so very very proud of her and her family. Uh thank you for representing us and you know showing and showcasing what Balfl is all about. Um thank you so much and hope you have a nice weekend. Bye bye. Thank you, Vice President Garza. All right, it's down to me. The last few weeks, I've been to a lot of events. I know it's a busy time for our employees and we are almost finished. So, I thank you guys for a great 202425 academic year and I hope that everyone has a restful and exhilarating summer off. Um, I look forward to our upcoming graduations. Last
227week, Vice President Garza, Dr. Smith, and I, we interviewed the student board members and we went through their applications for next year. There were five amazing students and it was such a difficult choice. All of them would have been great choices, but we cho chose one of our students from Mayfair and we're really excited about that. And we also asked that Lost Flores be represented in our student reports for each school. They had an amazing candidate that was on our panel as well. I attended senior award nights for Mayfair, Somerset, and Bellflower. All of these ceremonies were so beautiful. I am so proud of all of our 2025 graduates and I wish them nothing but positive energy and success in their future endeavors. I met with CSEA President Michelle Quayer. We discussed things like our
228sped changes, the positive impact that the summer saver program has had on our employees, communication and the aids and our desire to continue to hire district aids and not use um agencies. Monday I went to the Dodger game for union night. I am not good luck. I'm not going anywhere. Um, I am sorry that I missed the retirement dinner, but I heard it went really well and the retirees I spoke with were very thankful and I hope that more people will participate in the next one because I've heard great things. Tuesday we had our Calap Spring Awards. Thank you again to Miss Arleene Whitney and her staff for making this event so beautiful and congrats to all of our Cal Apps award winners. We are so proud of you. And yesterday I attended the CSEA
229appreciation lunchon. Um, thank you to Michelle Quayer and her staff, Anthony, Joanne, Angela. I know you said there were a whole bunch of others. I'm sorry I missed, but um it was a fabulous event at the Kowani Hall and it was just really nice. I sat there for a few hours and I was just able to sit down and talk with some of our employees, celebrate everything they do for us, listen to any concerns they had. So, it was a really cool event. So, thank you to CSA for putting that on for your own employees because that was awesome. Um we appreciate you guys all so much. And that is it for me. All right, informationational items. Do we have any um questions on any of the information items tonight? All right, long meeting, but
230we got through it. Um, hearing none. If there is no objection, the meeting will be a ad ajourned at 9:46 p.m. and the next board meeting will be held on June 12th, 2025. And that'll be a special board meeting. Thank you.