001okay then the USD board of education is holding a regular board meeting tonight and we invite participation either remotely or in person directions on how to participate by Zoom are available at musd.org board the Open session of our meeting will start around 7 pm Item B public comment on closed session items before going into closed session the board is available for public comment on closed session agenda items Ms Green do we have any public comment on closed session agenda items there is no public comment on closed session items right the board will now adjourn into closed session see you around seven we are reconvening to open session good evening my name is David T Gracia and this is the Napa Valley Unified School District Board of Education the mvusd board of education is holding a
002regular board meeting tonight then we invite participation either remotely or in person directions on how to participate via Zoom are available at nvusd.org board interpretation is available for tonight's virtual board meeting our interpreters are isidra menkos and Francisco Mesa one of the interpreters will now translate the directions on our English Channel so our Spanish speaking families may hear the instructions absolutely thank you is [Music] a language interpretation interpretation gracias thank you thank you uh can we please start with an attendance roll call from Vera Morales executive assistant yes student board member Gomez present trustee Gracia present trustee water present trustee ricer present trustee shu present trustee jankowitz present trustee heart is absent tonight trustee Gonzalez Mares present Quorum present thank you thank you Miss Morales uh all right on to thank you for joining us
003tonight for our nvusd board meeting uh E1 trustee Riser do you have a report on closed session items yes I do um D1 student discipline uh do I read this part too this top part okay so d1a expulsions one case the board recommends the expulsion for student zero two zero nine two zero two three a do we have a motion so moved all right first by trustee Gonzalez Morris second by trustee Chu uh I believe we have to do a roll call vote on this so Ms Morales can you give us a vote Yes trustee Gracia hi trustee water aye trustee ricer aye trustee shu aye trustee jankowitz aye trustee Gonzalez Mares hi okay um and then we have item d2b uh with respect to items related to Personnel the board board voted to release
004one temporary teacher uh item D6 related to uh the board directed legal counsel to initiate two potential legal actions the actions the defendants and the other particulars will be disclosed to any person upon inquiry unless to do so would jeopardize the district's ability to effectuate service a process on one or more unserved parties or that to do so would jeopardize the district's ability to conclude settlement negotiations to its advantage and then D7 uh with respect to items related to existing litigation the board approved a settlement agreement to resolve a student's educational claims and that concludes the airport thank you all right item E2 flight salute uh trusty water will you lead us in the flag salute please I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which
005it stands our nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay all right item E3 this meeting is live streamed and recorded via zoom and will be archived on the district YouTube channel for detailed review of any meeting agenda item the archive video can be referenced on the district's webpage at nvusd.org the process for public comment can also be found on the district's web page item E4 approval of agenda so I moved second first by trustee Gonzalez Morris second by trustee Chu all in favor aye aye motion passes item E5 approval of minutes item e5a January 19 2023. move to approved second first by trustee two second by trustee Gonzalez Morris all in favor aye aye motion passes e5b approval of minutes January 31st 2023. move to approved second versed by trustee Chu
006second by trustee Gonzalez Morris all in favor aye aye motion passes uh e 5 C approval of minutes February 2nd 2023. move to approved second first by trustee Chu second by trustee Gonzalez Morris all those in favor aye motion passes all right E6 recognition of visitors and employee organizations uh Dr massetti do we have any visitors in attendance so I see um tonight I'd like to welcome this evening uh the president of nbea Miss Gail young Miss Young would you like to address the board yes good evening board um I wanted to say that tonight is about appreciation and I really want to say that I appreciate the hard work and the dedication that the board has in making sure that our students are recognized that they have the best education possible and support our
007employees as as as much as you do I think that it's um I think that it's a tough job I know that you've done many meetings this week last week the week before and I think that people need to recognize that and to see how important that is and that it's so important in order to make our board and our school board and and our entire system continue and Go off without a hitch so uh thank you I really appreciate it and um I hope you have a great evening thanks the only one who's here tonight okay then we'll move on to item F recognition of students of the month item F1 Napa Valley independent studies uh will principal Cisneros please present the students of the month for independent studies ah yes good evening it
008is my pleasure to introduce two amazing young ladies that um are being honored tonight so good evening uh Board of Trustees Dr massetti the leadership team that's probably there somewhere and everyone that's tuning in tonight it's a pleasure to highlight our students and the wonderful work that they're doing tonight we are going to recognize Stephanie Gomez and I have a little something from her for teacher that she wanted me to share with all of you this is from Mrs uh Ray Lucero since joining mvis during her sophomore year of high school Stephanie Gomez has demonstrated a strong commitment to learning and has worked hard in all of her classes to accomplish her goal of maintaining Straight A's her strong work ethic has allowed her to graduate early and will be finished in high school this
009spring Essie Junior her teacher Mrs Lucero is very proud of her accomplishments and we are excited to see that what the future holds for Stephanie so without further Ado let me introduce you to Stephanie and she's going to share a few words thank you so much good evening everyone my parents are here with us today our loved one Aaron thank you guys so much for coming I want to start off by thanking the board and the Napa Valley Education Foundation and taking time out of your busy schedule and being with us today my amazing teacher Mrs Sarah who I've had thankfully for two years now she's the most inspiring understanding and kind-hearted human being I've loved having her with my teacher these past few years before attending nvis I attended Donaldson Way elementary school American
010Canyon Middle School and my first year of high school was actually online at American Canyon High School the reason I've been able to achieve and go above and beyond what's actually needed is because of my perseverance and my incredible support system at home because I believe it all starts at home if you personally don't push yourself to become better you simply can't better yourself one of the main reasons I love nvis is because of the way how they help their students achieve and show them what the real world is like how no one's going to be reminding you daily okay come on do your tests do your homework how if you want to succeed in life you personally have to do it these fundamental courses that are literally going to help you achieve whatever you
011want in life I've also loved having been able to advance in all my courses which has been amazing since I've been at nvis I haven't encountered any issues or problems instead I've been able to grow more and more daily to sum it up I'm going to be graduating a whole year early because of the way I've been able to advance in all my courses this year my plans after high school was to go to Contra Costa Medical Career College and get my sonographer license I've always had a passion for the medical industry and I feel as if I would be great at making first off making people comfortable during their ultrasound I know sometimes being to the doctor it can be very scary and so why not have people feel comfortable while you're there I
012am most excited and proud of is being able to graduate early this year because of nvis and their amazing teachers and their remarkable guidance and support system thank you so much for taking your time out of your day to listen to me today thank you Stephanie I'm gonna bundle you up and share that speech everywhere love what you said our next students is Daisy Garcia Castillo she's attended mbas since the fall semester of her sophomore year since joining classes virtually Daisy is thriving academically and is dedicated to her academic studies JC has excel in this school year taking extra classes so she's able to graduate one year as a junior when the early as a junior she will be graduating this June we would like to congratulate her in her Stellar work at mvis and
013wish her all the best as she Embraces the next steps in her life so with that Daisy please share with us a few words I wanted to thank my parents for everything they've done for me and I also wanted to thank uh Miss Lucero for helping me with all my classes she's been very helpful and I'm trying to graduate a year early and she's helped me get there I also wanted to thank the board and the Napa Valley Education Foundation and I've attended Irene Snow Elementary School Harvest Middle School and Napa High School and now Napa Valley independent studies I wanted to say thanks to my teachers parents and family members because I am where I am you know I started attending mvis due to covid and I started online classes and I was doing
014better than in regular school and I liked it more so I stayed at mvis I have volunteered at the animal shelter and the local food bank I want to go to the Napa Community College After High School and I want to try culinary classes I'm proud of that my grades have improved in mvis and for being the student of the month thank you everyone for all your help [Music] thank you so much Stephanie and Daisy and congratulations on behalf of mbas we're very proud that you're representing us for the month of November and December thank you to everybody all right thanks uh now we'll move on to item F2 Napa Valley Adult Education uh will Laura Leonard brawl please present the students of the month for adult education hi my name is Laura Leonard Grohl
015I'm the instructional supervisor for Napa Valley adult education and I'm thrilled to introduce our students of the month I'm proud to introduce students from two of our programs we're highlighting the adult secondary education program one of our students and a student from our English is a second language program our first student is Gloria Parada she is enrolled in our Spanish GED class with Keva peshko Gloria is a dedicated student who is working hard to obtain her GED we look forward to seeing her at graduation this summer according to Tava Gloria Parada began working on her GED at Napa Valley Adult Education in the fall of 20 2022. she was able to pass three of the four exams and is currently enrolled in a math course in order to finish her diploma this spring in addition
016to taking classes with Napa Valley Adult in she Studies English as a second language at Napa Valley College and she's a dedicated mother she has been an excellent role model for her peers and an inspiration to her instructors it's my pleasure to introduce Gloria Parada congratulations she's going to share a few words with you in Spanish look see okay um when I started this um foreign [Music] so interpreters um help out with that Gloria will that be you I'm sorry are you asking me no no no um I'm asking one of the interpreters oh okay can you come on to the main channel here and and help so we need the board to be able to um understand what she's sharing I think we have isid via or Francisco here tonight so can we do
017it that way here in the boardroom but you need to oh hello hello yeah they needed to stop the interpretation channel in order for us to interpret in the main room so now we can do it they just stop the channel okay sorry about that technical difficulty but um okay great okay thank you um Senora um gracias my name is uh my name is Gloria Ester Parada I am married and I'm the mother of four children I live in Calistoga for over 20 years almost a year ago I started attending the Napa Valley Adult Education school in order to learn English anos before that I worked at a company for 15 years and I decided to let it go a year and three months ago um education and I started attending the Napa Valley Adult
018Education School I saw it as a great opportunity foreign and once I was there I also enrolled in the G GED class es because I saw that as a big opportunity for my own um excelling both uh educationally and personally okay I put a lot of hard work into it and what I've seen is that every effort was worth it education I feel very motivated to continue and I'm very grateful to the Napa Valley Adult Education School um because he's a free service I also am grateful to the staff because they helped me accommodate my schedule foreign because she motivated me and she believed in me yes I've had a lot of challenges in this time but I'm going to continue to persevere and to trust that I'm gonna make it I want to thank
019this school for all the support that I'm receiving thank you very much okay we should now start the interpretation congratulations that was really beautiful and I think the most important part of this process is that you hear from the students and hear what they have to say so I really appreciate your um taking the time uh Dr massetti to facilitate that translation so thank you so much um the next student of the month our other student is Maria Munoz she is enrolled in the English as a second language uh class and the integrated Education and Training Program for IET program with Wayne Gilbert Cynthia Ott and Michelle Keegan Adult Ed is just a little background adult it is encouraged to enroll ESL students in Career and Technical education or CTE programs and this particular CTE
020program is the office assistant training where students can learn how to use Google applications in Microsoft Office programs so Maria was enthusiastically nominated by her teachers and the Ia and these are some things that they shared about her Maria works as a head custodian at an elementary school in our school district last year she attended ESL classes at Napa Valley Adult Ed to improve her English skills which will help her in her workplace as well as her personal life she worked really hard especially to improve her writing this school year she is challenging herself even more by taking the office assistant class for ESL specifically designed for ESL students the computer skills she's learning are all new to her and she has had to miss some classes for various reasons and health issues she's expressed
021a strong desire to persevere despite these difficulties she is a pleasure to have in class because she's she always tries her best and has a good attitude and does not give up Maria has greatly improved her computer skills due to her persistence efforts and positive attitude congratulations on your award Maria you deserve it she'll say a few words to you now in English Maria you need to unmute would you like me to read what she has to say she may have trouble some tech technical problems would you like me to should I go ahead yes that's fine okay so Maria um sent me a what she had to say and she she very simply said um my name is Maria Munoz I feel very happy that I made the decision to go to the adult
022school and have the Good Fortune to have my classmates but especially my teachers Cynthia Mr Gilbert Michelle and Nieves and all the Personnel of Napa Valley Adult Education thanks very much to everyone and thank you one more time for being very patient with me and that's Maria Munoz thank you very much all right uh we'll move on now to item G which is public comment on non-agenda items trustee Reiser did we receive any public comment on non-agenda items via email no public comment on non-agenda items were submitted by email before 8 AM this morning thank you trustee riser right now we'll move on to item H which are I think we have somebody here or online that's true Ms Green do we have any public comment online yes um 17072 please state your name go
023ahead are you able to unmute good evening are you waiting for the audit report oh my God yeah maybe not what was that hello hello this is Sheldon Siobhan are you guys ready for the audit report no not we're on public comment let me know there we go go ahead all right sorry my my uh I was having a connection issue there and it was breaking up on us I just want to make sure I'm on the right item I think you guys are ready for the audit report now in 30 20 22 audit report no we're not ready for the auto report we're trying to get public uh comments to happen my apologies I'll be quiet my okay person with the number 17072 on YouTube okay Ms Green do we have anyone else online
024for public comment no there's no other public comment at this time okay moving on to H reports Board of Education and student board representative reports Mr Gomez would you like to share with us yes of course so given that this is a really nerve-wracking uh but also exciting time for high school seniors as college applications are being submitted and decisions are coming in I thought that this would be a good time to congratulate all of the seniors in the district who are on track to graduate high school this year um Advantage we have a student center which has a large glass window where students are able to write their names and list the schools they've been accepted to and the number of names in schools are growing every day which is really exciting to see
025but regardless of if you decide to attend college next year or not congratulations to all of those seniors and that segues nicely into my next note which is for any student who wants to build their resume for colleges or employment while also helping our community the Napa Library Napa County library has numerous volunteer opportunities currently available one such opportunity is as a photographer they're looking for someone passionate about photography who would like to take photos at the numerous large-scale events that they facilitate throughout the year the library is also looking for new social media account manager and for this position they would like someone willing to post their events and promotions through digital marketing with someone who's comfortable with Photoshop as well as creating short video clips and they would love for high school students
026to do these jobs and you can contact Melinda Mathis who runs the volunteer department at her email at melinda.mathis at countyofnappa.org then for Black History Month the banned books Club at the library will meet at 6 pm on Thursday February 23rd and begin reading the hate U give by Angie Thomas additionally there will be a pop-up exhibit from the 21st through the 27th where you can explore African American history culture and community Through artifacts that tell the rich and diverse stories of African-American African-American experiences and that's at the Knapp County Library as well and that concludes my report trustee Gonzalez Mars sure um looking at our calendar of activity since our last board meeting um I um fortunately was not able to participate at the employee of the year presentation but um I heard it
027was really great and and everyone felt pretty special so I look forward to hearing what my fellow trustees um because I know some of you went um participated at the board studies session for secondary literacy programs it's recorded I highly encourage you to go back if you uh did not participate um just we were students for an hour I think maybe three hours but a good chunk of it um we were participating at that level so thank you for the staff for dedicating tremendous amount of time do um to to to um go over that with us um and then we did have a series of um of many other board Duty hats in addition to our board meeting so um really busy weeks uh and um and again along with my colleagues in our
028special meeting where we um participate in our superintendent midterm evaluation where we cover our priorities for this year and obtain a status of that and so it was really great to be part of that um and then our also special meetings and um part of our governance best practice to um welcome not only our newest trustee member to our to our board but go over some of our norms and meetings and guidelines that we follow in order for us to Be an Effective of governing board and be able to understand our roles and responsibilities and do our due diligence um in uh create a be part of that path of clarity and focus that we know it's important and critical to um to to navigate the school district and I and I think are what
029um Gail young our NBA uh president to for her words because that's part of that great work is um in Partnerships that we have and um and then here today so I'm sure lots of us will repeat the same things as we put together a lot thank you trustee jankowitz I'll go quickly um congratulations to the American Canyon decathlon team the team won six medals came in fifth out of 17 teams it was their eighth consecutive year in the top five a great deal to be proud of so shout out to those kids um in the audience um I want to thank you to the uh Express thanks to the Boys and Girls Club for their acknowledgment of Youth of the year we are in a special board meeting workshop last night and were unable
030to attend but we thank them for listening and appreciating the stories our community teams have to tell uh participated in attended facilities and Technology board advisory committee meeting notes attached at the end of the board agenda I too thoroughly enjoyed um the nvisd employee of the year presentation assistant superintendent Paige hosted an amazing event what I really appreciated was the celebration of excellence and the opportunity to acknowledge those that are so dedicated impactful and truly passionate about their craft we had review calls with our csva governance consultant a bond campaign to brief measure a meeting and Ed Source Roundtable discussion reading by third grade an assessment of the state's reading dilemma which was fascinating nbusd board studies session on secondary literacy programs these sessions as trustee Gonzalez Mara said are invaluable and they really do
031give us an understanding of approach content and execution we had a special meeting for the superintendent midterm evaluation attended an event for the horn Heart Foundation in conjunction with Elena's voice creating kindness opportunities in elementary school settings had a meeting with one of our Consultants who is assisting the district with leadership services and learned about the strategies being used locally and Statewide attended Stu two special board meetings good Beginnings workshops with my peers conducted on Tuesday and Wednesday evening a lot of high-level governance discussion conducted a call with the Bay Area board president to discussed governance procedures utilized by nbusd and continued with community outreach that concludes my report thank you trustee Chu so um I won't be repeating all the um meetings we've had as a board but I will report out other things
032that I've been doing since then last time we met which was January 19th um on the 20th I attended the Filipino babayan presentation wonderful art form that some of the young artists are doing um using an old uh Filipino language which they thought that it was almost lost um due to colonization so it's really great to see that the the evolution right in front of us as their perfecting their art and bringing back language um I attended on the 23rd the Asian Pacific Islander School Board member association meeting where we passed some new bylaws um I also attended to appoint employees of the Year celebration which is beautiful highly recommend the replay of that um I met with American Canyon City council member Mark Joseph to talk about some of their plans for Earth Day
033festivities at this at the city I attended uh two achs drama one act performances um greatly done by their drama one and drama two students um really really talented students that we have I met with assistant superintendent Rob Magnolia to talk about the inter-district transfer process which will have a little bit of that presentation today I actually attended in person the achs Academic Decathlon Regional competition some of them are here and they'll probably talk about that later but congratulations always a pleasure to see the highlights of our academic Pursuits of our students I went to the Sonoma County Office of Education with County Board of Education trustee Cindy biederman to attend the csba budget perspectives Workshop on the 30th um in February I actually listened in on the mvusd secondary family learning session on dual
034enrollment um I think that's what a lot of people want to hear is what what can they do now as a as one of our high school students so I think that one is now online on our YouTube page so the really good information there I attended the Canyon Oaks coffee with the principal that was held in conjunction with the elac meeting on the third um and I got to go into the classroom to present on Chinese New Year and the last day of the Chinese New Year celebration on the Chinese Lantern Festival and got to kind of talk a little bit about um the differences and how different Asian cultures celebrate the New Year it's the year of the rabbit in Chinese culture but actually in the Vietnamese culture it's the Year of the
035Cat so I think that was the biggest surprise for a lot of students um and I had an opportunity to be uh interviewed by former New Tech High School student and current doctorate student in nursing at San Jose State University on California Assembly Bill 19 on requiring public schools to keep two doses of Narcan on campus that happened yesterday and I also attended a CHS climate rally which was always fun because it is student-led student driven and doing great work for our communities and that concludes my report thank you trustee Reiser yeah thank you um I too attended the employee of the year celebration it was um just a wonderful event and I learned or I guess maybe I knew and had sort of forgotten that that was didn't exist until we had assistant superintendent
036Paige to organize such a beautiful event and I think um It's a Wonderful example of the way we front and center value um the people that are the center of our Endeavor here because education is a human endeavor um so thank you for that and a lot of gratitude for all of our employees including the ones that were honored that night uh I attended the also with trusty chew and water uh one night I was only able to go one night of the American Canyon High School drama Festival we saw the drama two um night in which there were was a longer production and then a short musical um really impressive and great to see the Kids In Action um I think it was student directed as well which is always really cool um I
037attended uh the American Canyon High School choir crab feed which was a beautiful event um I had a lot of walking do to walk off all that butter but it was worth it and um the Highlight was really getting serenaded by the choir students they did some numbers during the Milling around kind of appetizer portion and then at the dinner they they stood in a circle surrounding all of the tables and sang three songs and it was just very you know gave me goosebumps um so many thanks to uh to Jamie Butler the director of the choir and to the kids for their hard work because they were also the servers um and very gracious at that um I participated also with trustee water in the Napa high school wasc committee meeting um they out
038they wanted to speak with uh staff and also a few trustees so we came in and answered some questions for them on a Sunday afternoon um after they got toured around by some Napa High students they came in smiling um the board study sessions on secondary literacy um well that was only one session but then also the superintendent mid-year evaluation and our good governance new good Beginnings Workshop those were um were excellent experiences and then I'll end by saying that I attended on last Saturday night the acapella Extravaganza at the Uptown Theater uh which really spotlights the Napa High choir uh not choir local Music Workshop the Vintage High School vocal music workshop and achs um their acapella group is called PDA public display of acapella along with a few College groups and then a
039professional headliner from La so it's a lot of acapella in a row but it was really it's a great event um it was great to see my daughter and her friends from the Napa High group but it was just very fun and festive um that concludes my report thank you trustee water okay well lots of community community engagement uh and uh letter writing I too went to the employee of the year event at the at Evans Auditorium excuse me which includes or nominations for Teacher of the Year and you know Awards to many other employees across the board uh went to the Nampa High School wasc um one of their meetings on Sunday the 29th I had a meeting with Darcy Ward the activities director at Napa High School I too went to the Uptown
040acapella and I am a non-singer and I was astonished at the talent that our students from all over the district I just couldn't believe it it was just a wonderful wonderful show I the next day I went to the Napa Valley College youth Symphony and I had no idea we had that many youthful violin players in the community and that was a whole lot of fun and it's run by Sylvia Regalado in uh American Canyon and I visited the Napa High School choir class Duncan's class and uh and uh chatted with the students for for a bit and I too attended under governance meetings two of them superintendent evaluation board study session on literacy went to the achs drama performances many meetings I attended so many meetings including one to which I was not even
041invited um I staggered in by accident but uh no one threw me out so that was fun and uh that's the end of my report thank you all right so January 24th I attended the employee of the year presentation uh which was held in the first in person for the first time since covid uh and it was very well done uh on the 27th through the 30th I attended the csba board of directors meeting where I was sworn in as the Region 3 director for csba representing Napa Sonoma Solano and Marin counties uh on the 31st I attended a board study session on literacy on the second I attended the midterm superintendent evaluation the third I met with uh assistant superintendent manuala regarding enrollment issues on the seventh uh the good Beginnings Workshop part one
042and on the eighth good Beginnings Workshop part two includes my report um now we are on to superintendent and executives oh no we have to do I'm sorry we have to do the uh board representative reports h2a special education and advisory uh committee um but she's not here so we'll skip that h2b city of American Canyon Representatives we have not met h2c city of Napa we have not met nh2d town of beyondville we have not met okay now H3 superintendent great thank you president Gracia um good evening nbusd trustees staff and Community I continue to dedicate time to conduct conducting my mid-year School visits with our site leaders I've enjoyed visits at Alta Heights Silverado Middle School Bel Air Browns Valley West Park and McPherson one of the observable common themes across the school sites
043was the commitment of our School site staff from our teachers our site leaders our principals assistant principals and our classified support staff demonstrating tremendous dedication to creating what Dr Victor Rios calls the ecosystems of Carino lots of Care at our schools you can really notice the relationships our staff have established with both students and families at this point in the year one fun highlight was being at some sites while they were celebrating the 100th day of school earlier this week at the elementary a level I helped fifth graders solve math problems about how many days they've spent in school during their entire Elementary career and I even saw kindergarten and first grade students dressed up as adults who were 100 years old it's pretty adorable I'd also like to highlight that while I was at
044McPherson Elementary I had the opportunity to meet the members of our new preschool assessment team I was very proud to learn that our new preschool assessment team is already diving deep into the work of assessing our preschool age children for the special education needs as we aim to successfully transfer the program from the Napa County Office of Education to nvusd for the 23-24 school year this of course this of course being a key tactic articulated in our board annual priority number three focused on strengthening our early learning programs we believe the earlier the students start with us the better we will be able to serve them and meet their needs thank you to all of the principals for their time and attention as they hosted me during these visits I've also been focused on visiting
045central office departments and committees that are doing work to advance our key initiatives in the district I want to thank director director Monica Reddy for inviting me to quickly check out the work the ethnic studies committee is doing to review various curricular resources for the ethnic upcoming ethnic studies course that we are designing earlier today I had the pleasure of visiting the Central Kitchen it's always great to visit the facility it's a reminder of how much progress our district has made to dramatically improve the quality of the food we're serving our students for both breakfast and lunch every school day um I also wanted to share that Dr Barbara nemco I'm the ncoe county superintendent and I hosted leadership Napa Valley education day last Friday at three of our schools Pueblo Vista unidos Middle School
046and Napa High School we featured nvusd's K-12 Spanish Immersion pathway the visits of the school were a great success the leadership Napa Valley cohort participants were very impressed with the Spanish Immersion pathway and we're grateful for the opportunity to learn more about it thank you to miss Jill techel for leading the program and for offering an education day for the cohort participants lastly I wanted to inform the community that January um was it or was National School Board recognition month um and I think president NBA president Gail young must have been hinting at this in her earlier comments um demonstrating gratitude to the school board for all of their hard work the legislator honored California school districts and Coe County Office of Education boards with a pair of resolutions both houses of the legislator approved
047csba sponsored resolutions praising the contributions of service and Leadership from all California school trustees I personally want to thank the six of you who are here tonight for your commitment dedication service and Leadership I think the community underestimates the level of commitment this position requires I also think it's one of the most difficult elected positions because you have to balance the needs of so many stakeholders who have varying sometimes competing interest when it comes to educating 16 000 students while balancing so many needs polarities intentions you have to make decisions and sometimes very difficult ones that impact the educational lives of children something everyone feels a tremendous amount of passion about so thank you I'm grateful for all of your service I wanted to run down the line really quick how many years trustee Gonzalez
048Maris I'm on my seventh year yeah um trustee jankwitz trustee Chu starting my third trustee Riser starting my third trustee water starting my fifth president Gracia fifth yeah great so thank you for all of those combined years of service I also want to thank trustee Hart who is unable to attend tonight after starting her own School Board trustee Journey as our newest trustee this position requires a tremendous amount of time energy and commitment you attend regular business meetings extensive training and professional development opportunities advocacy days on the state and soon to be National level a couple of you you engage and lead the superintendent evaluation process you're constantly being expected to deepen your knowledge about school Finance instruction school facilities School nutrition demographic Trends Etc the list goes on and on you're required to serve
049on advisory committees conduct School visits and to respond consistently and frequently to your constituents I want to end my report this evening by sincerely thanking each and every one of you for everything that you do for our students staff and fam and to recognize you in honor of last month's School Board recognition month and lastly I want to give again a special congratulations to president Gracia he's really stepped up his leadership as a as a school board trustee because like he said he was recently appointed to serve on the board of directors for the California school boards Association and I don't think anyone from a school board the school board in Napa has ever served on the board of directors for csba so this is a tremendous honor he will be representing like he said
050Region 3 which includes again Napa Solano Sonoma and Marin counties so all of the school districts across those four counties so um thank you for that leadership as well um I want to just lastly wish everyone a very nice and necessary three-day weekend that we are going to be celebrating on Monday honoring President Lincoln's birthday so um I hope you enjoy that Sam I know you will right okay with that we're going to toss over to the assistant superintendents we'll start with assistant superintendent Dana page who oversees the Human Resources Division all right thank you good evening president Gracia Board of Trustees student representative Gomez and Dr massetti um well first you guys have been really busy and so I just want to say again thank you for attending the employee celebration event that really
051helped honor everybody with with your presence and I appreciate just hearing how busy you guys really are making the time to come that's very special um I also want to highlight the fact that not only were we able to hold it for the first time in person but we were also able to live stream the event so we had you know hundreds of people watching uh from their homes or wherever they were and we were able to record it and since then have had 589 views so that's kind of exciting it's not quite the Grammys but it's getting there so um tonight I do want to highlight again our participation in the employee assistance program which is offered by the California Department of Education this is an opportunity that's available to us and we've chosen
052to participate as a district for the the last five years since it first began I've been reporting on this program every year so a lot of you may be familiar with it but for those who are not the EAP program provides eligible classified employees with additional dollars to match the money that they set aside for a summer paycheck and then they give up to 100 percent match and it just depends on the state budget we recently learned that there'll be a hundred percent match for funds that employees set aside during this 22-23 school year so we're on track to receive an additional 587 thousand dollars to go to our lowest paid classified employees to help supplement their income we've seen a steady increase in the number of participants over the years most recently we went
053from 216 participants up to 254 so that's a 17 and a half percent increase and I think that's because we're doing a better job educating people about the opportunity and getting the word out and I just want to thank Cheryl Anderson and Elizabeth Gonzalez from the human resources department who administer this program every year and right now they are collecting applications for participants for the following school year 23 24. it's really simple and fast so if an employee who works less than 12 months and it's classified employee who works less than 12 months and earns less than sixty two thousand dollars annually can go ahead and sign up for this opportunity and get a little boost in their summer paycheck so thank you very much and this concludes my report thank you miss Page next
054we'll have assistant superintendent Mike Pearson who oversees operational services uh good evening president Gracia musd Board of Education trustees Dr Mercede student board Representative Sam Gomez and members of the mbsd community uh thank you for the opportunity to provide you with an update with operational Services as usual my comments focus on strategic plan goal number four which is tactical proactive and efficient asset management and additionally my report also addresses board annual priority five which is specifically leveraging potential State funding opportunities to offset our expenses which will allow for improvement of other facilities uh however this first one does not do any of that this is a recognition of a welcoming back director of food service Kristen tcale who has returned from maternity leave although I've enjoyed my time the last six months working closely with
055food service I'm extremely thankful to have Miss Tico's expertise and Leadership back on a regular basis I will continue to work closely with the food service program but have transitioned the reins back to miss tkill welcome back Kristen uh under facilities um under the facility staff and I have been spending considerable time studying projected enrollment Trends and School site capacities with a Keen Eye on portable classroom use message and permanent classroom availability additionally I've been meeting with site principals to review their projected enrollment and the usage of their classroom facilities with the goal of minimizing the use of Portables on certain sites and upcoming board meetings I'm hopeful that I'll be able to bring the trustees action items on the removal of Portables from some of these aforementioned School sites with the growth of transitional
056kindergarten next year and Beyond staff and I have been assessing the condition of the the traditional kindergarten classrooms at certain School sites looking for opportunities to enhance and improve the learning environment for our youngest students which may include new carpeting flooring furniture and Furnishing storage and lighting and again I would anticipate bringing feature or items back to the board for approval on these expenditures and then finally many of our special education classrooms are housed in Portables again my staff and I have been assessing opportunities at some School site where some special education classes can possibly be relocated to a permanent classroom versus a portable one as enrollment Trends suggests permanent classroom availability thank you and that concludes my report for tonight thank you Mr Pearson and next we'll have assistant superintendent Rob manguala who oversees
057Business Services thank you for the opportunity to update the board in the community the data and assessment team is gearing up as the spring testing season begins the Alpac window uh testing window opened up last week and a team of 20 District trained lpac testers have already begun assessing students at various School sites a total of 3 600 multilingual students will be tested by the end of May physical fitness testing is also already started for fifth seventh and ninth graders in a couple months cast testing in English language arts Math and Science will also begin the enrollment center is continuing to enroll new students and is seeing an increase in newcomer enrollments TK and Kinder are impacted district-wide with two TK seats open and four Kinder seats open district-wide so we have had um kind
058of a sudden increase of students over the last couple weeks and we've actually seen an increase in enrollment since our cow pad today which is which is quite unusual the team is getting ready to provide professional development for classified staff on enrollment at the March 10th PD day later later you will hear a presentation on the outcome of this year's open enrollment that will include data on open enrollment participation enrollment projections and the impact of open enrollment on some of our schools the physical team is working on second interim reporting as well as preparing for the development of the 23-24 budget you're in preparation is also beginning in anticipation a fiscal year closing the technology department has resumed our Network upgrade with infrastructure improvements for five more sites planned for the coming weeks the testing
059season meaning the cast testing that I spoke about earlier is upon us so there's even more of an importance in ensuring that we have working devices and the network is stable across the district our team is part at work ensuring devices are repaired and readily available for any student that needs one as we head in the spring this concludes my report thank you Mr manguala and we have director Sarah Knox who will be providing um the report from the instructional services division on behalf of assistant superintendent Andrew Jennings thank you Dr Merced good evening president Gracia or trustees Dr massetti student representative Gomez and the student and the mvusd community tonight I'm representing the instructional Division and we'll give a brief update on some of the work from our team last Saturday our expanded learning
060opportunities program team made up of program manager Audrey Chubbs an academic specialist Debbie Baldwin made history by bringing together the three partner agencies that make up the nvisd expanded learning program for a day of learning and Carino over 50 staff members from the ncoe cool school program Boys and Girls Club and mvusd Child Care Program engaged in line about our elementary SEL program toolbox project and how the language and strategies of toolbox can be used to ensure a consistent experience for students throughout the school day and into the after-school programs team members working with TK and kindergarten students learned about developmentally appropriate educational and behavioral practices for that age group all of the participants were provided with training on building an inclusive ecosystem of Carino for students and staff the strong alignment ensure ensures a
061smooth transition and positive experience for students participating in our after-school expanded learning programs on Saturday February 4th parent engagement coordinator Viviana Loretta and migrant education coordinator arisbeth Coro traveled with 98 mvusd high school students and their parents to the steps to college fair in Sacramento it's the largest bilingual and bi-national University fair in Northern California with over 60 colleges in attendance students connected with with college representatives and attended various workshops all in Spanish the topics included mental health the FAFSA FAFSA process and information on attending private universities and studying in Mexico students and parents were able to have one-on-one support during these workshops as well we would like to thank the middle and high school families who joined us during the first secondary focused family learning session on February 1st Napa Valley College presented the
062pathways and opportunities to engage in college-level coursework while in high school mvusd high school students are enrolling and succeeding in college-level coursework check out the mvusd family newsletter that just came out today to learn more lastly on Wednesday January 25th the district English multilingual multilingual learner advisory committee met and elected a new executive board current president Elba Marquez led the hybrid meeting ending her two-year term thank you past president Marquez Marcus past president Rosario madragon and past secretary Cindy Ramirez for your service during our tenure nbusd adopted the master plan for multilingual learners and nbusd is grateful for their service to our multilingual Learners and their families and our their partnership with our schools and our district we also want to say congratulations to the incoming board members president Cindy Ramirez vice president Roberto Hernandez
063and secretary Alba Marquez the eat the d-lac executive board presides over d-lac meetings and partners with d-lac members from each School site to advise mvusd leadership on issues relevant to multilingual Learners and their families the new executive board is excited to get to work monitoring multilingual learner progress and supporting the ongoing implementation of the master plan for multilingual learners later this evening I will introduce the team from Napa County Bicycle Coalition and I will also present on mvusd's Amazing Wellness programs along with this amazing team behind me over here thank you that concludes my report I just wanted to I omitted something from my board report and because it's an opportunity this Saturday for the community I just wanted to quickly jump in this Saturday from two to five at the crosswalk Church the Napa
064Valley's sixth annual Black History Month celebration is taking place it's co-sponsored by people before policy and first five Napa County um and organized by Mr JT Thompson who's a Community member here um it's two to five and include speakers it's family friendly and then there's a dinner um and tickets are available online foreign by way of reminder we do have item M which is for additional suggestions and comments from board members that you can use in the future uh approval of consent agenda background information on these items is provided to the board prior to the meeting common motion takes action without discussion on roll call vote unless a discussion of items is requested by a Boardman um like can I pull an item from there um I for a okay by 4A is pulled otherwise
065I will move to approve second first by uh trustee two a second by trustee Reiser um I believe this is a roll call vote yes trustee gross uh student board member Gomez hi trustee Gracia hi trustee water hi trustee reisers aye trustee shu aye twisty jankowitz aye trustee Gonzalez Mares I'm thank you all right and now we will do I 4A we do have some public comment on this item um I will ask Alma Gonzalez to come forward exactly sorry uh thank you school board for your time my name is Ariana and I'm here with some of my team members to represent the American Canyon Academic Decathlon Club our club competes in seven different subjects math economics science social science art music and literature as well as interviews speech and as well as interview speech
066and Essay I'm happy to report that we recently competed at our regional competition and placed 5th out of 17 teams we will also represent Napa County at the state competition for the sixth year I am proud to be a decathlete because of the skills I've learned such as time management and being able to effectively study and we thank you for your hopefully approval for our field trip to the state competition thank you thank you trustee two and with that I enthusiastically a motion for the approval of this agenda items yeah I guess I should also say that one of well one of my sons is also on the team so and in the boardroom and in the boardroom and all those kids are just fabulous they have been studying for this since May of 2022
067so it is a much well deserved congratulations to them foreign we have a first by trusty two and a second by trustee Riser uh Ms Morales can we have a world 12 vote please yes student board member Gomez I'm festi Gracia aye trustee water hi trustee Reiser aye Christy shu hi trustee jangowitz aye trustee Gonzalez Mares hi thank you okay that concludes our consent agenda we can now move on to odd J presentation and discussion items J1 Business Services j1a review of the 2223 open enrollment processes results and Napa Area High School demographics we're we're attempting to break the length for the longest presentations we have three people up here tonight so we're hoping that we get lots of really good questions you'll quickly thank you so much uh again thank you very much for
068the opportunity to update the board in the community and to be able to discuss open enrollment and and some of the demographics that we're seeing it right there perfect thank you so much and so um in terms of alignment with strategic plan so this this presentation tonight is aligned with Goal four which is proactive uh tactical proactive and efficient Asset Management next slide please wrong way there you go it will take a lot longer if you go backwards Peter okay there we go so in terms of uh presentation objectives we have quite a few and again feel free to ask us questions if you need anything explained along the way um first one is understanding enrollment Trends explaining the Open Enrollment process and timelines um exploring the structures and systems of open enrollment reviewing Lottery
069priorities examining the results of open enrollment considering how we navigate the polarity of parent choice and balancing our schools especially in our declining enrollment environment understanding the shifting demographics of the Napa community and investing investigating the impact of open enrollment on Napa area high schools in particular next slide please and so this slide does show um are the enrollment in the Napa Valley Unified School District so in this school district our enrollment over the next five years is projected to decrease by 1704 students this will impact facilities Staffing School programming and after school sports programs also next slide and so enrollment projections typically only go forward for five years the reason for that is enrollment enrollment is primarily driven by birth rates so that is by far the biggest driver however if we're just going
070to look at enrollment at the high school level we can look at it for 10 years or slightly more when you look at enrollment at the high school level you can see enrollment in the nap area high schools is depicted to decline by 1137 students over the next 10 years so very substantial declining enrollment happening at our high school we just actually in the last couple years we're at our enrollment Peak so you will start to see a lot of the enrollment decline happening at our high schools at the elementary level it's been going on person for for some time but again as a smaller cohorts work their way through the system it will especially hit the secondary level next slide so enrollment in Napa High in particular it's anticipated a decline by 494 students
071over the next five years or about 100 students a year next slide sorry 10 years sorry 10 years I said I did say that wrong sorry it is 10 years um thank you enrollment Advantage high is projected a decline by about 540 students over the next 10 years uh American Canyon uh interestingly enough so it is initially anticipated to decline but they are doing some building which will offset the decline but still over the next 10 years it's it will decline also by about 117 students excited new Tech High School This Is An Open Enrollment school so we do have a little more control over the enrollment there their enrollment is also anticipated to decline by decline also by about three by about 37 students the reason that this is happening is the pool of
072students that they're pulling from is also decreasing and typically their enrollment has averaged about 386 students there's some been some years where it's been a little bit more than 400 400 it's about the high you know about the highest but again we anticipate that new tech enrollment will also decline over the next 10 years next slide so value same factor we have some control or replacement in Valley Oak but Valley Oak is also expected to decline the reason for that again in the pool of students they're pulling forward from will decline next slide Susan at The Minister's side good evening um thank you so I'm going to begin by outlining the steps that were taken to prepare for open enrollment the preparation began in late August and was primarily focused on communication and Community engagement
073next slide please um so first thing we did was to make an improvement to our in-person supports um so in response to some feedback I received it from the community and from stakeholders and the initial preparation that we did was focused around making sure that our digital tools and our in-person supports were easily accessible to families as I observe families registering for school in August I saw that the technology needs of our families were not being met by the iPads that we were providing access to so in response I coordinated with the technology department to install eight computer stations in the enrollment center that were equipped with printer access and scanners these stations are available for families to use with or without an enrollment staff member as a complete registration or open enrollment the stations
074allow for staff to very effectively and efficiently support multiple families at one time which has really reduced the wait time for families when they come to our office for help next slide please so our next step was to make sure that our digital tools were easy for families to access the nvisd webpage and the schoolman enrollment portal were reorganized to ensure that all messaging was consistent that FAQs were readily available and easy to navigate and that our translations were high quality and that the access to the portal was streamlined so families could find it quickly next slide please adjustments were made to the registration and application window to reduce confusion for schools and families as well in past years open enrollment has begun several weeks after registration open which is often left families wondering which
075process they needed to engage in and it's made it more difficult for sites to answer their questions so this year a single date was identified to open registration and to start open enrollment for the 23-24 school year registration and open enrollment began on October 15th with open enrollment closing on November 30th this year open enrollment was two weeks longer than in past years which allowed extra time for families and schools to engage in the process registration of course for new students remains ongoing is open next slide please collaboration took place between the communications department and the enrollment center the Communications Department led the reorganization of the enrollment webpage they created advertisements advertised registration and open enrollment in the community and they created engaging advertisements and videos Outreach materials were also created by the communication Department
076to support us in the enrollment center next slide please a big change that was made this year was the identification of specific groups of students in our system who are automatic participants in open enrollment additional Communications were sent to these families the first group of automatic participants were our DLI students so in order to support the K-12 DLI pathway in our district and to remove unnecessary barriers for families all DLI students were automatically matriculated to the next DLI level families were informed that an a formal open enrollment application was not needed and they were given instructions as to how they could opt out if they had a different choice next slide please so additionally any of our K TK students who had been placed at non-resident schools any students who had been overflowed some of
077our students at Browns Valley and sheer middle school programs also received extra Communications and the option to stay at their current placement families of Fifth and 8th grade students who had a sibling who had open enrolled to a middle or High School were also contacted these families were reminded that open enrollment was required if they wanted to keep their siblings together staff offered support in this process and followed up with families who were non-responsive each of these groups had a specific point of contact in the enrollment center and multiple Communications were sent to these families staff offered support in the process and followed up anytime we didn't hear from someone this approach almost completely eliminated families missing the opportunity to enroll for programmatic reasons or to keep their siblings together attending the same school next
078slide please so something that really emerged for me as I stepped in to lead this department was the need for alignment in the enrollment processes Acro and practices across all School sites so this work really began with open enrollment I utilized the October 15th professional development day to train Elementary office managers and secondary registrars I provided them with an open enrollment handbook collected feedback to get a better idea of the practices that were working for sites of practices that weren't working the feedback allowed me to really assess the needs of sites and provide them with additional resources to adequately support families during open enrollment this increased consistency across sites during the open enrollment period resulted in very few families expressing dissatisfaction with their open enrollment experience next slide please so after all of this preparation
079registration and open enrollment began for the 23-24 school year on October 15th and next I would like to share about the open the actual process of open enrollment next slide please so open enrollment provides really foundational support to a number of nvisd programs and priorities such as our magnet Grant schools our K-12 DLI pathway and new technology high school next slide California Ed code requires school districts to adopt the rules and regulations that establish a policy of open enrollment for their District residents next slide and in nvisd open enrollment Is Anchored in our board policy 5116.6 which lays out the priorities and guidelines this policy guides the priorities applied to students when they open enroll and directs us to use a non-arbitrary method for determining which students are offered seats during open enrollment the priorities
080which have the most impact on open enrollment are programmatic priorities such as DLI socioeconomic status and the placement of siblings so during open enrollment all of these priorities were verified prior to being assigned to a student data services supported in the verification of students who receive free and reduced lunch and the enrollment staff confirmed Pro all program participation and siblings so we finally ran the lottery on Monday December 12th and all students who had submitted an open enrollment application were either offered a seat at that time or they were given a waitlist number next slide so once our priorities were set our next step was to determine the number of opening of seats that were available at each grade level and at each School site and this process was really supported by our data services
081department and we used initial roll-up numbers to guide the identification of those available seats next slide so after the the lottery was run we offered seats in three different rounds the first round of seats offered supported board priorities so all of our DLI students all of our students who received free reduced lunch and all siblings were placed first families were given 48 hours to respond to their open enrollment offer and they were sent a reminder at the 24-hour point we made phone calls to families if possible if they did not respond to their offer um so the process of modeling the results after this initial set of offers was complex and that's due to the fact that families are able to choose two schools during open enrollment they can identify Choice one and a choice
082two so depending on the combination of their choice students may have received two offers during that initial round they may have been placed on two wait lists they may have been possibly offered a seat at their second choice school waitlisted at their first choice so because of this complexity we adopted a multi-round approach of offering seats in order to mitigate the risk of making mistakes or over enrolling schools next slide please so new new roll-up numbers were generated after that first round um in collaboration with the data services department round two of seats offered focused on the ability to Grant parents parent choice and also the stabilization stabilization of school size uh the third round was to move wait lists as much as possible and to finalize numbers so everyone who could be placed was
083placed before the start of the spring semester and here are the results of open enrollment participation next slide thanks so uh 1161 families K-12 participated in open enrollment 961 of those families accepted seats 43 declined uh 72 canceled or were non-responsive and 85 students were left on a wait list next slide please so we have wait list still at a few schools three of our elementary schools Browns Valley and vla and Pueblo Vista next slide and then we have a waitlist at three of our secondary sites Redwood unidos and vintage next slide please uh students from outside of nvusd also participate in open enrollment and here you can see what our current near inter-district numbers look like currently enrolled next slide um so during open enrollment we had 79 new families submit applications outside of
084the district family submit applications each one of those families has received a waitlist number and we hope to be able to offer those seats starting later this month any of our currently enrolled inter-district families who are moving from fifth grade to sixth grade or eighth grade to ninth grade have been placed um and I am now going to pass this back over to assistant superintendent mengola thank you so much Miss Miller over the next series of slides I'll be discussing some of the demographic shifts that we're seeing in Napa next slide so before I jump into that a little bit I wanted to talk a little bit about some of the polarities or some of the tensions we're seeing within the community as we try and balance open enrollment so parents have a desire to
085have students attend to school their choice this also impacts our declining enrollment when we have when parents have the ability to choose a school they want to go to we do keep more students within our school district and we see that they're not leaving for other choices the district tries to balance this need by keeping the enrollment at our schools as close to together as possible so at our high schools in town especially we do our best to keep the enrollment as close as possible declining enrollment does make this very challenging them keeping the school balanced depends on whether you have students applying from one school to the other that want to leave so it's not always possible to keep it perfectly balanced another issue is housing density so in town we is where we
086see the vast majority of the population on Highway 29 As you move further north in Napa the the population is less dense and less people are available next slide this slide depicts um low Moder and moderate income housing in Napa you can see the vast majority of low and moderate income housing is below trancus Road and so this also greatly impacts what our schools look like so again the vast majority of the low to Modern income housing is below trancus and along Highway 29. next slide so this slide we wanted to go back as kind of as far as we could in terms of time so this slide depicts our high schools going back to 2009-10 right before American Canyon started American Canyon High School started I should say to be more particular so you
087can see as they added a grade level again starting 662 in the first year 2018 in the next year 13.99 you can see that the enrollment in the Knapp area schools began to drop as we redid the boundary So High School enrollment peaked I I think I referenced this earlier in 2021-22 so just a couple years ago at 58.92 and since then enrollment has declined by 298 students um American Canyon High School enrollment has gradually increased this is largely due to inter-district transfers from the outside so pretty substantial number of inner District transfers at the high school um I think I mentioned this earlier new tech average enrollment is 388. uh and then Napa High School when you look at Napa High School and vintage Napa High School has been bigger than vintage 13 out
088of the last 14 years next slide please so this slide shows some of the changing demographics that I mentioned that I'll be speaking about so you can see going back in time when you look in particular at the Napa area schools Napa High versus vintage um and Napa High has always had a greater percentage of second language Learners you can see that it started at about 12 percent uh and has increased from 12.84 to 21 um vintage has also increased but it started at a lower number but more importantly when you look at the lines here the green line in the middle is the average percentage of el Learners when you're looking at numbers and comparing you can see that the slopes of the line kind of they move in tandem so when you look
089at Napa High yes Napa High has always had a higher percentage of second language learners but you can see that it's it's moved up in tandem the way that you can see that is the distance between the two lines essentially is the same in changes in tandem same the same thing as occurring Advantage the big outlier here is new text so you can see new tech historically had a very low percentage of second language learners but it's dramatically increased to the point that it actually has the second highest percentage of second language Learners in the district so the school is definitely Diversified quite a bit next slide so when you look at our schools in terms of socioeconomic status we see a similar pattern where again looking at American Canyon starting at about 30 percent
090going to 34 so not quite the big change that we've seen in some of our other schools it's fairly stable Napa High 34.9 percent going to 57 percent so definitely we see an increase there vintage 32 percent to 40 so it's also increased but Advantage has definitely increased at a lower rate next slide this is you Peter thank you right uh good evening uh trustees Dr mercedi and student board member Gomez uh we know that there are sometimes questions from the community about the impact of open enrollment on the Napa area high schools and we wanted to take this presentation as an opportunity to describe the demographics of vintage and Napa High Schools based on the students who live within the attendance boundary and those who are actually enrolled in the high schools you can
091see from the slide that there are 1726 current high school students who live in the Napa High area and there are 1596 students who live in the Vintage area the percentage of students living in the Napa High area who qualify for free introduced lunch meals is 68.4 percent and it is 57.9 percent living in the Vintage High School area next slide please the demographics do shift slightly when we look at students who are actually enrolled at the at the school sites there are 1714 students who attend Napa High and 1693 who attended vintage and included within those numbers are 85 students who attend Napa area high schools but do not live in the attendance boundaries of either Napa or vintage you can see that our open enrollment policies allow both of our Napa area high
092schools to be closer in enrollment size you can also see that our open enrollment policy does increase the free introduced lunch rate at Napa High but only by 4.6 percent advantages decreases by 3.9 percent next slide please this slide summarizes the students who are placed at Napa and vintage over this last open enrollment period for next year's 9th grade class and we followed uh the priorities that were outlined in director Miller's slides earlier in the presentation uh first to 28 dual language immersion students were placed at Napa High 16 of these students qualified for free introduced lunch and 12 did not uh next we place it into an additional 24 free introduced lunch students at Napa High and 45 at vintage after that we placed siblings one at Napa High and 18 at vintage and
093finally we were able to offer spots for any remaining students a total of 12 were placed in up high and 57 at vintage so a total of 65 students were accepted into Napa High and 120 into vintage and so 55 more students were placed at vintage than placed at Napa High this year and next slide please after the Open Enrollment process was complete we did an analysis of What's called the roll-up numbers and these represent the students currently in our student information system who we expect to matriculate into the next school year you can see that the 9th grade classes are very close in size at 443 and Napa High and 435 at vintage and even though an additional 55 students were accepted into vintage Napa High is still expected to be larger by 63
094students next year okay next slide please accepting siblings and remaining students from the from open enrollment was key to ensuring balance between the two schools you can see from this slide that if we stopped accepting students after processing requests from DLI and free introduced lunch students that the size of the ninth grade classes would have a significant discrepancy Napa High's ninth grade class would be 505 students and vintages would be 373 with a 132 student difference and the overall size of the two high schools would differ by 187 students next slide please I also want to recognize that our open enrollment processes contributed to an additional 22 students in our district these are students currently living within the district's boundaries but who do not who attend sorry who do attend school outside of the district
095so these additional 22 students represent over a quarter million dollars in expected additional funding next slide uh we know that sometimes there are questions in the community regarding Athletics programming and open enrollment although we're unable to control for athletics programming through the Open Enrollment process we wanted to share some Athletics data with you this slide shows the number of students who participated in a fall sport this year 209 students participated in Fall Sports at Napa High representing 11.9 percent of this total of the total enrollment and a vintage it's 258 students representing 14.7 percent of the students there so there's a difference of about of 2.8 percent between the two schools in terms of fall participation next slide please of the students who participated in Fall Athletics there are 61 who live within the Napa
096High boundary and play for vintage and there are 37 fall athletes who live in the Vintage boundary and play for Napa High and this is a difference of 24 students in vintages favor across all fall Sports and next slide and since we are sharing athletic data with you we also wanted to share academic data with you here we summarize a few key data points you can see that in some areas the English Casp the Science cast and the UC acceptance rate the Napa High surpasses vintage and in the math Casp scores and and graduation rates Vintage High exceeds Napa High the difference between each data point is minor and in general both high schools perform academically at very similar levels and with that I will pass it back to director Mill um to wrap up
097I do want to share with you some of the next steps that we're planning to take as we plan for open enrollment for the 24-25 school year we'll work to continue to align our system to educate families and to make data-driven decisions there will be continued efforts to increase awareness and engagement with Outreach to our families who receive free and Roost lunch and our Spanish-speaking families I'm also planning to hold some enrollment events in American Canyon collaboration with data services will continue an enhanced pre-lottery modeling will occur as well as ongoing monitoring of demographic shifts Clarity will be created between schools with the launch of an enrollment toolkit for sites and training for all elementary office managers and registrars in August and I'm now going to pass back to assistant superintendent manuala for your questions
098thank you so I think we need to see if there's any public comment on this item is there any public comment Ms Green the first speaker is Rosie go ahead Rosie can you unmute yourself this is green perhaps we can Circle back to Rosie um can you give us is there more public comment there is no additional public comment then hearing that I have no speaker cards on this item so I'll go so I will go to uh board questions this is jankowitz um I appreciate the 10-year High School enrollment projections it gave us some comparative trend lines and and the Delta difference or change between the two things such as our schools and what stood out to me were the boundary and housing concentrations they became important data points the enrollment versus boundary data
099slide I thought was particularly compelling that 85 students are out of the Napa boundary and the percentage changes under 10 about 8.5 percent I believe that was what the site said then they and um the Napa High Vintage High open enrollment roll-up total being 633 is really equates to 3.55 so that was a relatively small percentage on a comparative basis um I thought the presentation in its entirety getting through all the data supports the importance of the balance in the lottery criteria um I did receive correspondence about Open Enrollment and its relationship to Athletics and looking at the fall athletic participation differential was only uh 24 kids under three percent so the most compelling slide to me was the second to the last one student academic outcomes and the data supports the success of the
100enrollment work that's taken place today so thank you thirsty too so I really appreciate this just to illuminate what it looks like up in Napa um especially since I know nothing about what it what it actually looks like in Napa since I'm down in American Canyon so I'm gonna Focus my questions on American Canyon so American Canyon is very different when it comes to open enrollment because when we talk about American Canyon we only have one high school so and most of the families don't bring their kids up to to Napa for high school or middle school even there's some mainly to take advantage of the DLI programs so for us down in American Canyon it's mainly about inter-district transfer students and I'm glad to see some of the numbers um so I just wanted
101to clarify that all students who enter District transfer into our schools they stay in her in our system until they decide they want to go back or they go somewhere else is that correct that is correct there's a little bit of how you can just a little Nuance there is a little bit higher of a bar to stay in the district you know if there's an extreme discipline issue or an extreme attendance issue we do have the ability to revoke and Industry transfer but that that rarely happens and that revocation is any time or during the Open Enrollment how does that work like generally speaking Yeah well you know generally speaking there are all the students are ruled up if we notice that there's a pattern but you know we give families a warning letter
102to give them a huge Advance warning so usually that resolves resolves the issue so technically it could happen at any point in time but it's very very rarely exercised and the 34 current inter-district students that have been already placed in Sixth and Ninth um for them to go on to the next school that's all of our introduce students that wanted to stay is that can you can you repeat that no on I don't know what slide number is it under under District students you said 34 current inter-district students have already been placed in Sixth and Ninth Grade that's all of our interdistrict students no there's way there's a lot more than that so I want to say across across the district there's about um 650 enters across the district with 420 or so in American
103Canyon and the rest coming out of Napa area okay I just want to make sure because I read it and I was like 34 I don't think I don't think it was that at all right it was just a little confusing just wanted to clarify uh these are just families that um chose to participate in open enrollment as I find great and I guess my last question is I'm glad to see that there will be an enrollment event um down in American Canyon for the next time um going forward I I thought we had I thought I heard maybe before I joined the board that there were going to be some Outreach or some marketing efforts with um trying to get people to enter District transfer is that something that we're working on or is
104is it needed I I don't know what what what's the what's the um desire I guess to come into our district and this I guess is not just American Canyon but across I just see it more in America you know and and you're corrected the the demand to come into our district is much higher in American Canyon and I have started uh working with principals to talk to coordinate a little bit about what Outreach might look like uh make sure that they're consistently letting families know our consistent information about our practices um and then also collaborating with data services to make sure that I have an accurate number of how many seats we have to offer so I can let families know in a timely manner okay yeah because yeah it'll look different down there
105I think than up here in terms of what the event actually yeah absolutely absolutely and marketing is there any um you know I have not started I've seen that on Facebook by the way of other school districts and I'm like why is it popping up in mine yeah no it's something that um I need to coordinate with our Communications Department around to see how we can Outreach to families outside of our district absolutely yeah thank you thank you trustee Reiser yeah I just wanted to thank you for this presentation it was really Illuminating to get all of the data points gathered together there it really paints um an important picture and as a Napa resident I know I mean I hear a lot of scuttlebutt and there's I think there are a lot of misconceptions
106about how that flow works or how things are balanced or not balanced so I just um I don't know if there's a way to to further disseminate this to the community or just have it available for anyone that that comes and inquires but um it was very clarifying so thank you just do water well this isn't I enjoyed this it's good to have it all in um one place it wasn't a a huge surprise to me I do live downtown and you look at the map you'll see that that's where many rentals are for the for the um multi-family housing is for the most part you know there's some in Westwood too but um really you know um the area close to downtown is where it's all concentrated and these are results of decisions that
107were made by local governments not us planning departments plant planning commissions and um it's a it is it's it's a bit of a conundrum when some schools I'm thinking of elementary schools have a much have a high concentration of low-income students and they're fundraising efforts are you know dwarfed by the by those of the wealthier schools and this is something that has been uh spoken about it's a Statewide issue it's a Statewide issue I mean they're they're disparities like this in in Marin County because not everybody in Marin County is extremely wealthy so um it's something we need to think about because um you know the extracurricular activities uh you know depend on on fundraising and I guess I was talking about it with uh trustee jankowitz and what you were in charge of a
108big effort Advantage High and you said that what um you had to do was go beyond the school it's true I think one of the um challenges always and this was from a community building um engagement Outreach was that I had we as a community had to extend outside of the Vintage community and we did a lot of community outreach um we went to meetings and presentations and events and really engaged with our greater community and it was um challenging when I first got involved with vintage we had American Canyon had just left and we didn't have any real Financial assets we had about God Mike helped me was it I guess that was a year after about six thousand eight thousand dollars in the bank and we had fall Sports still to fund so
109it was it was a lot of community outreach and having to kind of recreate School culture and there are challenges but it's certainly doable it's not um you know it's not what kids go to you School you serve all kids and um equity in schools really translate to making sure that they have access to the same opportunities and I think we do a very good job of that it's understanding what Equity really means in the context of education and I think that this presentation spoke to that and how we serve our students we've done a lot of talk about demographics over the past few years um after all we closed four schools I've got the scars to prove it and there's um it is a there's a there is an incessant Decline and again this
110is not just us it's all over the state and um it does have implications for um the future of two high schools in Napa I think or you know three new tech eye counts too um if we keep um if we keep having declining uh enrollment perhaps there will be more consolidation of in the secondary schools and uh the other thing that struck me about when I'm gone of course um the other thing that struck me was in American Canyon um the high school even even you know when we had Peak population there it's never been filled the high school um you know and I know the reasons why it was um there were uh there was a depression on it was after you know 2008 uh people really wanted to um work on our
111school and a lot of Real Deals were offered and you know the idea was okay we're American Canyon was feeling very optimistic it's going to go go go forever and so we built the big school was built and um now it would it we really do need the students who transfer in from other counties and the facility is still under enrolled yeah so um so uh when when the new um when the new housing comes in those students can maybe we will not need these students from um outside outside Nampa but I kind of think we will I kind of think we will so it is it is really curious um I I wasn't [Music] um there I know that there's this um you know I've been hearing from uh from people who are involved
112in athletics about this issue and I just keep thinking this is a cyclical thing I remember when um I taught at Napa High people were you know clawing their way into the place for a variety of reasons and um I remember uh I gave an assignment which was to draw a map of your neighborhood I think we were reading uh To Kill a Mockingbird and I realized that the kids who didn't live in the area didn't want to draw their didn't want to draw their neighborhood and I said look I don't care where you live you know just do the map okay I mean I'm not the police and um it was funny but the results here were the academic data um I think that uh with even with um I'd say uh Napa's um
113students which are who come from families many of them come from families that didn't go to college were doing a pretty good job of getting them ready for college and I'm looking at from the academic data um vintage and Napa High are doing it's comparable you know it's a few points here it's a few points there but basically they're um both doing the job interesting Gonzalez Mars yeah um my comment is that I think when we look at enrollment and at the high schools there's a lot of um assumptions you can kind of um as you're visiting the campus or as we're all um live and and Napa um kind of follow some of the comments or ideas or whatnot so it's really good to see the data not just one particular one in isolation
114but just how it all connects and I think that's what was really great about today's presentation is that you're looking at all the different layers that make up the the high schools um in our in our schools um but you know it I I can't help but um keep thinking how Napa High continues to be um the high school where there's always a high percentage of low-income free reduced and maybe because it's been a pathway um and right now maybe it's because it's also the pathway for our dual language immersion program you know but but that's happening now but before what made that decision right and we know that our boundaries can impact like that and we're always trying to find ways to balance that so that our schools don't have that segregation that's been
115occurring across the state where you have your brown kids here and then your white kids here and so and I think some of the times it we don't see the breakdown of the ethnicities but we know statistically when we're looking at free reduced majority of those kiddos are your multilingual speakers are your Latinos are your Mexicanos and um and so it you know and being a an alumni of Napa High um it's uh you know I think were trending in a way where we're always we're looking at the data now more carefully where we can constantly look at it and try to balance that as much as possible and also follow the trends of what our students or families are going to because they're also choosing in in some ways to attend some of these
116high schools and sometimes it's either well both ways either by choice or that's because that's what's nearby them you just mentioned right uh geographically anything below trancus is a large concentration so where you're going to go to your nearest school because you can send your kids to by bus or walk there right I took the bus to school um so just um what I'm what I'm trying to say is I'm glad that we're looking at the data that we have quality data as well um that's coming our way um to be able to understand and keep an eye on that flow um in order for us to respond to it in the best way possible so that we continue to have our schools be diverse and that there's Equity um and you know when you
117when you add more free reduced lunch um uh eligible kiddos to a particular school it impacts also the funding there and so just all of these things that we have to think about so um but I really was really glad to see the academic data too and kind of see how the two are are just hand in hand so that's really great um to be able to see that um so just I I really appreciate that I appreciate the um again the the quality data being presented that we're not just making assumptions that they're and not one data point is just being looked at in isolation but how it all connects so that's something that I appreciate today but it continues to um the decline enrollment makes everything real but um it's interesting how some
118data points are still not surprising to me uh to see that in here um so yeah no particular question just my comment thank you trustee Gomez did you have anything to add um I just had a couple of quick comments it looks like there's not a very large Delta here in changes between high schools we're talking 50 some odd students and that's not all that significant uh in the grand scheme of things when we're talking about enrollments of 1700 students or so um I think that well presentation tonight has demonstrated that um a lot of talk sometimes in the community it portrays open enrollment as this Boogeyman that causes all these ills but in fact what we've seen tonight is that's just not true it's not the case that we have huge problems based on
119our opening moment and it achieves many of the policies that you outlined earlier in the presentation like balancing our spoons and trying to keep programs alive so I thank you for tonight's presentation and I believe documents something has a couple of comments yeah it's just to sort of summarize some high level points that I think have emerged through the comments and reactions from the trustees so I just for clarity if you go back to some of the slides and I don't want to rehash the presentation too much but I just want um everyone to just you know take a look at slide 38 please so this is the slide that just shows the natural difference between the two schools within the boundary and so we Dr we see that they're again due to the demographic
120Trends and the the housing density we can see that Napa High School has more density in the boundary so the number of students that naturally live within the Napa High boundary is it's there's a significant difference there's a Delta there and just to be clear because there has been a lot of scrutiny around open enrollment and I you know I can be compassionate empathize listen to that I will continue to listen to that and remain really curious about that because I think it's probably based on maybe some past practices some history um you know I can't go backwards all I can do is make sure that we're in compliance today that we're yeah it's a um that were in compliance today and that we're following the that we're following the law the Education Code that's
121laid out the board policy that's laid out and so the purposes of today's presentation is to make that very visible explicit and clear that we are following um what's laid out in board policy in the Education Code and we work within these constraints there's really not tremendous flexibility it's not we can't bend these constraints I just want to make that really clear so something to just illuminate here that I want to make as sort of a statement is we've been very committed and this is historical this is this has been a trend and a commitment you know again when it was implemented before you know I the explicitness around following uh policy and Education Code I can't speak to I can speak to it today but what has been consistent um and what we know
122what's been a historical expectation and remains Our Truth um is that we have been aiming and prioritizing maintaining our two high schools in the Napa area numerically balanced why is that we've been dedicated it in our history and in our current practice to not have one school be a thousand students while another school be 1500 students throwing out random numbers just not creating a scenario where there are districts I've worked in them where they're not paying attention to numerical balance between the schools they'll have a high school of 900 they'll have another High School of 1900. I'll have a thousand student Delta between two uh high schools you know on the different ends of town which does create a tremendous disparity in the programming that you can offer at the two schools just because of
123the sheer volume or lack of volume of students at the respective schools so we have been really committed here historically and in current Uh current practice to keep the schools numerically balanced right so as long as that remains a principle um you know the declining enrollment is going to be intertwined into all of this open enrollment practice because declining enrollment is going to affect the boundaries differently for the two schools and we see that that's happening when you look at the 10-year demographic Trends you see that vintage is going to have less than a thousand students in the boundary so if we're going to stay committed to this idea of keeping the two high schools numerically balanced open enrollment will continue to be a mechanism for creating that numerical balance and we just have to
124continue to monitor that year to year in a very volatile environment where these demographics are shifting dramatically compared to how to to trends that used to be much more stable we're going to have to continue to monitor it we're going to have to continue to assess like what do we value do we continue to value that the schools stay numerically balanced is that important to us as an organization as a community and so I just want you know to keep the conversation alive and going as the demographic shift occurs we have to stay really curious about all of these Trends and what the various implications are um I didn't ask staff to prepare anything historical you know we are looking at the results of open enrollment this year and I think one of the reasons
125it's been triggering this year is because our wait list is very short so that for at least for the two high schools in the Napa area where there's been some scrutiny and a lot of curious questions which we totally appreciate there's a short wait list very short wait list that's correct which means that most of the families the the majority almost all of them all wanted to open enroll um were allowed to go because of this overarching principle of keeping the two schools numerically balanced in a previous year which was last year and that is because why because there's spaces at the school because declining enrollment is happening we had a situation last year where dozens of families were actually not allowed the Open Enrollment seat why because of the same overarching driving principle what's
126the overarching driving principle we want to keep the two schools numerically balanced and had we allowed dozens and dozens of students to exercise the Open Enrollment process and attain the seat the schools would have dramatically been imbalanced so this is a year-to-year basis and so just to note I think it's important to emphasize despite the movement that you see and that is articulated on Slide 30 or slide 40 where there's a difference of 55 65 students going into Napa High and 120 going into vintage map uh vintage is still 63 students smaller exercising all of the Open Enrollment we still have a smaller student population at vintage and this might continue to be the reality is declining enrollment continues to impact the demographics and the two attendance boundaries so it's an ongoing conversation it's going
127to be an ongoing analysis you know I would argue we probably need to do this presentation annually to see what the outcomes of open enrollment are the outcomes of the Open Enrollment process annually and how it's interplaying with the declining enrollment and demographic shifts being caused by the declining enrollment in the background so thank you to staff it was a lot of data it's a lot of information and I'm also very proud of the quality of work in the execution of the policy that we are following it with integrity and fidelity so thank you thank you all right thank you very much and now it's time for a five minute break foreign hey and we are back we are on now to j2a Safe routes to school oh is there thank you um I'm I'm
128back once again um and I am pleased to announce um uh or please introduce to guests that we have from the Napa County Bicycle Coalition so I would like to bring up Kara Werner the executive director of the Napa County Bicycle Coalition and Carlotta synotto am I saying that correctly uh from the program manager of Napa County Bicycle Coalition who are going to present on one of my favorite things as an elementary former Elementary principal safe routes to school oh perfect thank you and then Mike is on hi uh good evening um president Gracia trustees student representative Gomez and Dr mansteady thank you so much for having us here tonight I'm Kara this is Carlota and um uh the mission of the bike Coalition is to make riding a bicycle throughout Napa County safe convenient
129and accessible for all ages and abilities however we also do a lot of education and advocacy around pedestrians or together active Transportation essentially walking and rolling the Steve Austin School initiative if you aren't familiar with it is actually a national initiative and it's designed to um create more students who want to walk and ride to school and to make it fun safe and convenient to do so it aims to improve safety help students meet recommended daily physical activity and develop healthy independent students so students get a lot of sort of self-efficacy and independence from being able to transport themselves to and from school there we go um safe routes programs have been studied and found to be effective at their goals essentially increasing the number of students who walk and ride to school and reducing
130traffic dangers and therefore improving student safety there's quite a few benefits of walking and writing to school which is why we enjoy it so much and are so passionate about it so really quickly it does increase daily um physical activity and exercise which also lends itself to improved emotional and Behavioral Health and even social connections so a lot of times students will do that together they'll feel more connected to their Community because they're out of their cars they're seeing their neighbors they're seeing their environment it helps improve academic performance students arrive to school more alert and ready to learn and also reduced hearties and absences there's a lot of congestion around school sites and so they're not held up in that traffic and trying to get to school as well as they're not dependent on
131a parent for transportation so if the parent can't make it then the students can still make it to school it can lower Transportation costs I'm sure everybody's very familiar with the cost of gas right now so that can be a help it decreases traffic congestion in school zones and decreases air pollution which can be particularly harmful for developing young people's lungs and and what does this look like in Napa County and how can we benefit it we uh contracted with EMC research to conduct a survey of Kate's relate parents throughout Napa County in 2021 and found that 77 of students use non-active modes to get to Schools they're going in vehicles rather than walking or riding on the flip side of that 76 percent of parents would like their students to be able to walk
132and ride to school so it's a very popular initiative and very widely supported in an idea however there's lots of barriers that we're trying to work through in order to increase the numbers who can feel comfortable doing that they can contribute to um reducing the percentage of students who are considered overweight or obese it can help reduce the number of students who are considered chronically absent which is high not only in Napa we understand that's actually High National especially since the pandemic we think we have a lot of ability to help reduce traffic congestion and have more students ride to school because 31 of all North County trips within Napa um are two miles or less vehicle trips and so that's a really sweet spot for transitioning especially to riding a bicycle and decreased air
133pollution is really key here the number one greenhouse gas emission source is on-road transportation throughout Napa County um so lots of benefits here um specifically as well as sort of nationally just uh as a little bit of background the safe routes program was started around 2011 and was led by the Napa County Office of Education and the shape of the program and the Partnerships have all sort of evolved over the years in the core Partners were ncoe ourselves and Napa Valley Transportation Authority and we say core Partners we really mean those who are connected and receiving the funding the partnership is really wide so obviously we we partner with school districts in in schools and law enforcement and others so um it it's really a it's really a program that exists because of Partnerships um
134in 2022 that became a core partnership between the bike Coalition and nvta and um and they then transition to law enforcement which I'll talk about um in a few minutes but that's kind of been the evolution of the primary Partners over the years uh the the safe routes program is Guided by a few different um elements and they all happen to start with ease the the E's that are sort of pronounced here and Napa have been things that um encourage students to walk and ride to try it so bringing incentives and having a big push around certain days rock and roll to school day uh bike to school day also education so in class education as well as community-based education evaluation and engagement we're going to talk a little bit about our walk audits that
135were extensive evaluations of 31 school sites and the community engagement involved in those and then another E the is really foundational to our work is equity so we're looking at what we know about disparities and how we can design our program and seek diverse input to shape our program so that it's most relevant and impactful for the most number of people um so the walk audit reports were done over a few different years and I I understand trustee water maybe joined one of them ditchy and I'm not sure if anyone else did that's what I heard anyway oh excellent excellent um so uh this was a process that brought together stakeholders the students parents um School staff the uh observed drop off and pick up times um and sort of site circulation and infrastructure walked
136around the schools um and then those groups looked at the biggest barriers and the biggest Solutions and prioritized those we matched those to other information and data that exists as well as other plans and this resulted in 31 detailed walk audit reports they're all available on our website you can download if there's a particular school you want more detailed information about they are all there on our safe routes page and together that resulted in 655 infrastructure recommend Nation so you know changes in the streetscape for example or facilities at school and 119 programmatic recommendations so things like education Walk and Roll Wednesdays Etc to give you just a quick sense because I know I know you probably don't want to be here all night so we're not going to go into all of them but
137just to give you a sense of some of the recommendations there were five that were Universal to all of the schools and those five Universal recommendations included installing high visibility crosswalks all around the school zones and so those are ones that have more striping and are more visible to vehicles implementing daylighting strategies at intersections around school zones and daylighting is when you reduce obstacles to sites so sometimes that requires moving a parking back um putting in a red curb there but it can also be more creative you can put in bike racks in that space for example or planners or other things but it helps um motorists and pedestrians and bicyclists see each other better widening sidewalks that lead to school entrances so they're quite flooded especially at certain times and that can be a
138barrier to walking and you know using a wheelchair for example traffic calming treatments those are changes to the streetscape that through engineering tend to slow traffic and that's especially important in those segments that uh are asking motorists and bicyclists to share the road so there's no designated bike lane but you see those sharrows and you see the share of the road signs so the shares and the signs don't really do it without the engineering that also calms traffics and then with all of the changes applying Ada um compliant curb ramps whenever possible so those are just sort of a sampling of some of those um where we are today is that um we're continuing the um primaries here in Napa so we're currently um visiting different schools and doing bike rodeos at those schools we
139formed a safe routes to school advisory committee and have representation from all of the jurisdictions and sort of a School Staff Law Enforcement Public Works parents Advocates just a great group of folks ncoe we're doing safety Summits at seven schools and that's where we're engaging parents in talking about the results of the Walk audits that we did thinking about what might be a way to increase walking and riding at their school sites given what they know of um their sort of community and and what's most accessible to them and um we're doing a newsletter as well so we're building a sort of network of safe routes champions of parents and school sites and doing just a monthly sort of blast about best practices and upcoming events and um new data and that kind of thing
140uh on the education side we're doing bicycle rodeos in the schools um and in bilingual family biking workshops on the weekends uh and then we're continuing the encouragement activities the two I mentioned as well as some Community rides moving forward um part of the reason the the program has changed so much is that there are various funding streams and I'm sure you're very familiar that some role for a while and then they stop and then you you re-sort of look at it as well as changing needs too so where we are with that is that um we have um worked with all of the various law enforcement agencies in the county who are willing to say that through an mou they wanted to continue the program um with uh the application lead being Napa Police
141Department and the bike Coalition being the implementers of the program and so we have sort of in coordination with all of the agencies submitted this application um and so and it will be some time before we hear but doing it that way will allow us to provide the services county-wide and I think that actually relates in some to some extent to the previous um presentation because we know so many students don't necessarily go to school in the neighborhoods where they live and so really being able to to provide that county-wide is the best way we think to encourage walking and biking and to make sure that that's safe moving forward what we would also like to do is do more in school classroom-based education so right now we're only able to go in and do
142the bike rodeos which really teach bike handling skills and some traffic safety um but we'd like to be able to dive into that a little more in the classroom before moving on to you um onto the bicycles we want to experiment with helping to build some walking school buses and otherwise continue with a lot of the elements continue to build that parent Champion Network in particular let's see is there anything else you explain what a walking school bus is yes absolutely I did that sort of fast because I wanted to be able to allow time for questions but walking school bus is when the community meets at a certain spot and then walks to school together and so um a it builds in time to get that exercise on that daily activity but it can
143also really help relieve congestion in a school site if other folks are driving and you know because again not everybody lives in the neighborhood where they are then they can kind of create a meeting space place and then walk together and it helps a lot of people feel safer doing it because they're not just doing it by themselves absolutely constantly they're probably tired of hearing from us um but we do see changes um they're Staffing up you know their Pub their public works department has really stopped up since the the pandemic they've just gotten a lot of great Grant news um so things are really looking up for infrastructure changes and um as they've done that they've um you know moving forward they're making changes for example when they go out and do the the
144crosswalk Paving replacement they are going to be doing everything they can to put this high visibility crosswalks in school zones they probably are not going to be able to do every crosswalk in one year but that's really what they're moving towards um I think primarily in their in their streets and um sidewalk program yes um I'll also add that they were involved in the walk audit report development um they looked at the reports when we were going through the drafts and they have all the walk-out reports they know they're there we like to remind them they're there so they have those infrastructure recommendations available to them and us to talk about it at all times and so we like to refer them to those reports when they're doing work in school areas thank you very
145much I have um just a couple of questions um well first a comment I did notice that um the city of Napa is going to be reducing speeds by five five miles per hour on quite a few streets the list is in today's paper and that has to be um really something that will make people feel a lot safer about cycling and then the the other one is um and do you all work with the city on that are you are any is there any crossover between the um slow down Napa Drive 25 miles 25 saves lives do you all coordinate with them at all um we Department are pretty constantly um we're you know we're separate groups um but we are in touch quite a bit well I I like the um wide wider
146sidewalks of course in some cases it would be any sidewalk because we have um we have a lot of section well we've got the county Pockets within the city that don't have sidewalks and um but I think that the uh I do support this I mean I live downtown and you know everything's flat and really Napa does have the ability to be a real bike town because we have relatively few few Hills and um and I used to ride my bike um occasionally to Napa High when I didn't have to drag too much stuff with me and um when I taught summer school I rode my bike fairly often um no it's fun it makes you feel like you're not working but um in the summer but uh and my kids are Avid cyclists and
147my son rode his bicycle cross country once but um it's um I think that the slowing slowing down and at the and that's a good move um opening up areas so people can see better because the growth of the SUVs in this community you know when they're bunched up on a corner you just can't see them and but I think people are getting they're getting more conscious about bikes and walking you know we've got the illuminated crosswalks we've got the blinking lights that you know actually are kind of scary so um good job uh this is this is um this is really uh great for children's health yeah I had a question and then some comment uh I you said that you were interested in pushing into classrooms in order to do some teaching in
148those classrooms do you have credentialed teachers for doing that work um we don't have credential teachers and so I I used to have a credential I know that doesn't count because I let it expire but I did get a teaching credential um so we have a lot of background in presenting and teaching what we do have is we are both League certified instructors so it's a national credential for teaching bicycle safety um so we don't have a traditional teaching credential but we certainly have teaching in the realm of bicycle and to some extent pedestrian safety as well just so long as the teachers there yeah it's it's not a course right it's it's a class but it's a presentation it's a training yeah and like it's not something that's part of the curriculum or it's
149it's a presentation that replacing no no no no no um and uh you know when you look at it we are probably so if we are awarded this grant what we're going to do is look at all of the sort of best practice curriculum that exists out there the office of traffic safety has one for example and um then at that time sort of compare it to this the especially the PE standards and C is do as much sort of cross um work with those standards as possible to just to make it as relevant as supportive to the the district's goals um in that way so what um I know that you've gone to our school so have you gone to so every elementary school every middle school every high school or what's what it
150has been your um work in our schools yeah so it's a rock audit reports um that evaluation and assessment was done at all of the sort of viable School sites that we could so that was 31 of them um but this all in the account yeah sorry um and so you know this happened over the course of the pandemic too and schools closed and moved and so um so we we reached the Far majority um in terms of what we're funded to do now or in the K-8 um so we the encouragement days um we do work with the high schools as well and this past year we worked with a group of students who are our bike month ambassadors and they hosted the Energizer stations at their schools if their school signed up um
151so what we're currently funded to do we're not able to reach every single school um and so we're trying to sort of space that out and prioritize higher needs schools so for example at our safety Summits we're partnering right now with the Family Resource Centers at Jefferson and Shearer and um Phillips and we'd did I say Jefferson I met McPherson I'm at McPherson I'm sorry it's the street I was moving that way on Jefferson to go there in my mind um and well it's like yeah but it's like um and the bike rodeos have been a smattering so we approach people but there's certain people who have the capacity to take us up and you know feel like they can talk to us about that and arrange that and others don't so it's a little
152bit um site dependent yeah how often would you be trying to come into classrooms to make presentations um so the the sort of program model that we developed with the advisory committee um it is proposing to provide basically an hour and a half of classroom-based education at a school um once a year followed by a Bike Rodeo so that's about another 40 45 minutes um targeting fourth and fifth graders primarily and I appreciate tonight's presentation um but it looked like there were 655 recommendations that were made over which we as a school board have no control right the it sounds like the appropriate place for some of those is the Napa city council but as a district we certainly can get behind programming that supports students exercising and increases social emotional health and certainly connection
153to community absolutely thank you and say thoughts is really you know on school-based side especially when we're doing those safety Summits we're talking to parents about programmatic things they can do um and on the infrastructure side we're really working with electeds and Public Work departments and I'm trying to raise awareness and advocate for those infrastructure changes on that side so I I absolutely hear you and understand thank you I have so I I have seen a lot of your programs because I have kids in Canyon Oaks Elementary where when I first started working with the ptos um that you guys came down to Bike Rodeo I got volunteers for you guys and I was like oh this is great because all the kids were really excited for that day because they knew they were going
154to get to do something fun something different um you know there was always um you're asking about the walking School Bus we have a couple of that each year where everybody gets dropped off at the local fire station and everybody walks over that's always fun I don't think I've ever seen so many kids walk except on those days which is great and I guess the most recent thing about the collaborations with the cities is um so over by where we live over by Canyon Oaks they had just redone some of the streets and so they put in the bike Lanes right I don't even know what class they are but they're very class two okay well thank you it definitely slowed the people down there were some grumblings in the beginning but I think people
155understood that that's the reason why is because you want to slow down traffic that was the intent right and definitely I mean we walk to school every day and we we love to be able to walk to school because we see all those cars backed up and I'm like Hey we're gonna beat this car when we get to that that crosswalk so it's been it's been great um really enjoy all the work that you guys do because the kids really appreciate that ability sometimes just to be independent when when they can do that I mean my son's always asking well can I just walk to school I said sure go ahead and they like it when you know they can get their kids to walk with them so and thank you well thank you for
156your help with that and for walking yourself to school with your child oh I'm making a list of all the schools that need sidewalks and I'll go down and make myself popular with County Public Works I'll say you sent me so we got them listed out okay I just want to thank you for your advocacy on this it's um and the way that you're bringing together all of the related agencies because it really does cross over um and it's really a pressing issue I mean I I um there have been multiple incidents where kids have been hit you know and um not just going to school but also it just seems maybe it's the American Canyon happenings Facebook page but I feel like I'm seeing things all the time about pedestrian or a small community
157pedestrian problems and and so the more what highlights it and I know that you know they're in pedestrian um pedestrian accidents here in Napa recently too and so just to get in early and plant that seed with kids that when you're on the bike or walking you know yes the car should be looking out for you but whatever the curriculum is that is planting that seed with young people that um you know it's on you also to pay attention and follow the rules um because kids can get a little spacey and distracted and you know and so what you know we're talking about their lives on the line literally um in addition to all the benefits the health benefits that you're highlighting and I do think it's interesting that your presentation followed our enroll open
158enrollment presentation because you know sadly that's one of the downsides of open enrollment is that elementary kids are often much farther away from their school than they would have been with the neighborhood sort of Zone boundary area model that we you know have had in the past so I appreciate the ways in which you are endeavoring to still encourage that even though kids are farther from their schools recognizing that challenge and and looking for ways to address it um so thanks great thank you and that um actually really aligns with what's called The Safe Systems approach which guides a lot of our work and one of the tenants is that everyone is responsible for safety right so um you want to build things right you want to engineer them right you want to enforce them
159but at the end of the day every single one of us no matter what mode we're using is is responsible for safety too so that looks like it thank you for coming thank you so much for your time okay j2b student Mental Health and Wellness in nvusd I'm back welcome back once again good evening to you all and to our community here with us tonight um and those at home watching if you're not already asleep so um I'm gonna begin um this presentation with a quote from the surgeon general's recent um advisory on protecting youth Mental Health every child's path to adulthood is different and difficult many face added challenges along the way that are often beyond their control there's no map and the road is never straight but the challenges of the challenges today's
160generation of young people face are unprecedented and uniquely hard to navigate the effect these challenges have had on their mental health is devastating mental health challenges in children adolescents and young adults are real and they are widespread but I'm here to bring good news they are treatable and often preventable and I'm incredibly proud of the work that mvusd has done in support of student mental health and wellness throughout the most challenging of times I'm grateful to be able to share that work with you this evening alongside my esteemed colleagues who are still here even though it's late I appreciate them laughs um also I want to give a shout out to Kristen Nelson our coordinator of student wellness and support who unfortunately is ill this evening and unable to be here and it's breaking her
161heart I know she's on the call right now I'm watching and we'll give her a chance to pop in and say hi at the end it really is the work of her heart and over the past eight years she has built the wellness programs here in mvusd alongside the vision of Laura moiman when she was here so I just want to give Kristen a shout out at home yes so here uh tonight with me I have like I said um a few of my amazing colleagues so we have Sarah Berry who is a social worker at Vintage High School and unidos Middle School we have Melanie workner who is the peer support coordinator of Vintage High School and also a teacher we have Wendy Summers who is a counselor at Napa High School and we
162have Daisy Zamora who is the youth Outreach coordinator in the wellness center at Napa High School we also had I want to say a student who is here with us but she has early flight and so she needed to leave um but we are really appreciative that she the youth are so passionate about mental health and about wellness and we actually had another student who wanted to come and talk but they had they couldn't get off their work schedule so the youth are passionate about mental health and they want to share it with all of you uh so um I want to thank you all the trustees for elevating mental health as one of our annual board priorities for this year um you have been Visionary and recognizing and responding to the the Mental Health
163crisis that we're in right now and so I just put up um on this Slide the four success indicators that you all identified for this school year around annual party priority number four so train all staff in social emotional learning in the ecosystem of Carino and the scholar system work provide integrated and designated social emotional learning pilot a high school social emotional learning program and maintain our mental health professional resources despite turbulent funding realities and with the ultimate goal that you identified to improve the mental health of our students so tonight we'll be addressing the progress related to these success indicators also provided analysis of the current data metrics that we have around student mental health and talk a little bit about um the future of of what we're looking forward to um to continuing
164to build with our mental health programming so just briefly um this is data from the 2021 surgeon general's advisory Nationwide data one in five students have a mental health need eighty percent get no treatment and the those who do get treatment 75 of those students get it in the school um and the reality on on the Personnel side is that there's 500 students to everyone mental health professional in a school in Napa we in Napa unified we have identified um the need of our own students with a mental health screener that we've been doing since the start of the pandemic to get a dipstick into what's going on with our students who may be internalizing right some of their their feelings so we give it at the beginning of an end of each year all
165students in our system um do the sdq for the students who are in the primary grades the teacher is reporting on the students wellness and then in grades 4 through 12 the student self-report and it's categorized into these five components so there's questions on emotional systems or symptoms conduct problems hyperactivity and inattention pure relationship problems and they're phrased in things like I often have difficulty making friends right they're phrased in kid-friendly questions um and then there's actually it's called the strengths and difficulties questioner because there are questions around pro-social skills as well so the four scales at the top are added together to generate a total difficulty score and then we use that score and we actually our mtss teams triage students this is our screener and we are able to triage students who need
166tier 2 or secondary or tertiary you know tier three supports based on the screener so overall in our school district one in 10 students in grades 4 through 12 scored very high on the strengths and difficulties questionnaire from this fall um so it gives us a sense of the need in our system on the spring of 2022 California healthy kids survey which is administered to students in grades five seven nine and eleven Every Spring um and this is an anonymous uh survey that they take the sdq we do um want to triage the students so it's it's confidential but it is not Anonymous California healthy kids is anonymous you can see the state average for chronic sadness and suicide and you can see that we're slightly elevated in mvusd in both of those areas [Music]
167is that in percentages yes yeah wow yes am I going too fast tell me okay um and we use the we use the California healthy kids survey sorry I'm going the wrong way we use the California healthy kids survey to look at Trends and Analysis and and to help with developing programming that can support those um trending needs that we see with um student mental health it also gives us Beyond just mental health indicators it gives us School connectedness indicators as well and and whether you have a trusting adult on the campus and so it can give cultural um implications as well for our schools and teams we have partnered since the beginning of the pandemic thanks to um thanks to the board approving the carousel's contract um we've partnered with carousalis which is a
168care uh concierge or care coordination service to provide free uh care coordination for all of our mbusd students staff and the families of our students and staff and what I wanted to show here is just a snapshot of the total cases appointments that have been able to be booked with external therapeutic providers and also the time savings to our in-house mental health professionals this is critical that 5 000 emails and 3 000 phone calls were made by carouselis so that our mental health professionals can give Direct Services to students and spend their time with students um and and supporting them but this also gives us a sense of the need in in our in our system so one of the recommendations from the surgeon general's advisory was to create positive safe and affirming School environments
169in order to support student mental health this alliance with board priority our board priority success indicator one which was to train all staff in social emotional learning so we have been training throughout this year um all of our staff and leaders in the risk to promise uh scholar system training which is creating the ecosystem of Carino in our classrooms and in our schools we also have continued to support positive behavior interventions and supports with our be safe be respectful be responsible cultural that we're building in our classrooms in in the different areas of our schools and since the pandemic we've been really focusing on our three signature practices of social emotional learning for integrated SEL which are to have welcoming uh warm welcoming activities at the beginning of time together brain breaks and engaging strategies
170during and then the last is an optimistic close at the end and I'll be modeling an optimistic clothes for you all at the end of this presentation as well we have thanks to your support been able to expand social emotional learning programs with the toolbox project that you heard about earlier and also with the scholar system we have been able to expand second step and and bring in the digital aspect of second step to all of our elementary schools and middle schools and we have two high schools who are using character strong as a pilot that's Valley Oak High School and American Canyon High School and um they both have advisory like sort of parts of their day where they're able to deliver that social emotional learning program um I'm just gonna skip forward this
171is just sort of an overview of what what social emotional learning programs do they they teach empathy they teach problem solving they teach emotion management they talk about bullying and being an upstander right um and they also teach students how to calm down and they teach mindfulness strategies as well another recommendation from the um from The Advisory from the Surgeon General was to recognize signs of students who are at risk and take action and so oh I didn't mean to press the laser sorry if I got anyone um so another thing that we have done in mbusd thanks to um your support is to expand our Suicide Prevention through a partnership with mentis this year we have been able to train over 350 staff to be Gatekeepers of QPR and we've been able to train
172over 40 students to be Gatekeepers and so QPR is like the CPR of mental health right it's that emergency response to someone who's in crisis we also are going to be offering on May on March 22nd a community QPR training on Zoom for families and community members who would like to become certified as Gatekeepers and I spoke earlier about carousels and how carousels allows us to do that warm handoff um for students who are needing something that's beyond the scope of our ability or something that's more regular in terms of therapeutic support we're able to do a warm handoff to a care concierge who can take the time take do all of the communication between the provider and the family to make sure that that student gets put into care we wouldn't be able to
173do all of the work that we do without um the collective impact of Our Community Partners so I just wanted to recognize um some of them today so we really have this network of care in Napa that is unique I think we are fortunate to partner with many organizations many community-based organizations with including mentis the up ballet Family Center St Helena um Saint Helena unify we have a coalition a wellness Coalition that meets monthly um that includes all all of these people ncoe the county of Napa 10 000 degrees aldea and news just to name a few um and really aldea and mentis and um and on the move are spotlighted here because they work on our school campuses in our wellness centers to provide um to help us provide that that care to students
174who need higher who have higher needs who need that tier two or tier three support um I also wanted to just Spotlight that our specialized student services Personnel teams and that includes our social workers and counselors we meet monthly but then they also meet monthly in plcs so all the social workers that work with the middle schools and all the counselors that work in the middle schools they all meet and have a whole agenda to talk about different things that they're seeing pop up so just like teachers have plc's we have our own mental health professional plc's and yesterday we were fortunate to all be together and hear from a grief counselor from Calabria hospice and so she was talking about grief counseling and you know what are things you know we all think about
175the stages of grief she was actually talking about the reality of of grief is that there's not a clear path that people follow so great professional development for our for our staff right so um next we're going to jump into the to the really fun part of the program where I get to bring up my colleagues to talk about our amazing wellness centers so our wellness centers in Napa provide a Continuum of supports and a Continuum of supports is another recommendation from the surgeon general's advisory we serve over 450 students every day in our wellness centers at seven School site locations American Canyon Middle School Redwood Middle School Silverado or like losing your breath calm down uh unidos American Canyon High School Napa High School and Vintage High School and Napa High School in Vintage
176High School are two newest on the centers so our Obama centers really provide that Continuum of supports through screening that's Universal providing early intervention and prevention triaging the students who comes through the door and also who we see through the data need extra help through a tiered tiered Service delivery model so tier one tier two tier three that you've heard me talk about before I'm in the targeted interventions at each level so check in check out mentoring cognitive behavioral therapy bounce back and individual and group counseling and then we also um as I mentioned connect those students with uh community-based organizations within our wellness centers and also without coordinate services on campus and we have an amazing intern program that has allowed us to hire people who we've been able to train up right as
177soon as they're done with our internships so why Wellness this is data from our this is a pre-pandemic data on our Middle School wellness centers that was conducted by uh outside evaluator external evaluator that saw a 55 Improvement in overall School competence and students who were accessing the wellness centers and then 20 increase in preferred social behaviors or pro-social behaviors or reduction in referrals and suspensions behavior problems and an increase in peer preferred social behaviors we often will attach um student surveys to our sdq to the schools that have wellness centers so that we're constantly evaluating our programs and how we can improve them to serve students depression is also increasing our wellness centers and we've also seen a reduction in suicide consideration because of the wellness centers and now the good part I am
178going to turn it over to the dedicated professionals who are doing the work on the ground at our school sites I'm going to start with my friend my friend and colleague Melanie markner yes I will too thank you good evening my name is Melanie merkner and I have I have the honor of following in the footsteps of these amazing Educators Harris news bomb Rich Anderson Matt Denny and Ted Ward as the teacher and coordinator of the VIN of the peer support program for nearly 50 years at vintage Heist the I'm sorry it's late you guys for nearly 50 years the Vintage High peer support program has provided peer-to-peer mentorship for students who need both social uh both social emotional and academic support serving students at vintage as well as all three Napa middle schools beyond
179mentorship the peer support program helps young people to grow their mental health awareness prevention and Leadership skills as they wind their way through the challenging times that can come with adolescence the idea of a Wellness Center has been a dream for both me as well as my predecessors for decades a comfortable and nurturing space where all mental health services are Under One Roof easily accessible for all students when approval and funding were finally made possible I went straight to the peer support students to gather their ideas and interests with their help along with a ton of research along the way we were able to design a space that was truly student centered and this these are all pictures of the um the Vintage High Wellness Center and modeling are many of the peer support students
180uh the peer support students collaborated with one another as well as with the Vintage Graphics Department to design the space they wanted Beyond providing ideas and plans they quite literally helped build the wellness center by physically painting the walls assembling the furniture and organizing the layout while the peer support classroom is housed in the same building as the wellness space the students also continue to be an integral part of the actual Wellness Space by creating monthly or weekly Wellness activities designed to invite all students to take part in and learn from here's an example that appeared in our weekly video bulletin at vintage this clip is a collaboration between our peer support students and our digital media production students [Music] are here to resume and talk to Montgomery let's talk about another question is completely
181College if it sounds like something that you might be interested in you would like to do um Center is located in hm6 the wellness center is a place to calm down reset or find someone to talk to however there is enough for example so you have to put your phone up this is just so you can extremely detach and de-stress this one's Wellness activity is to write on the Gratitude about anything that you're grateful just make sure it's school appropriate anytime I'm always here to support you they're so cute I cannot tell you how proud I am of those two students yes please anytime come in um okay so lastly I just want to say how proud I am of our students continued and deep desire to support others spreading mental health awareness while at
182the same time managing incredible workloads and many times overcoming their own mental health struggles their passion is infectious and it is an honor to watch them lead the way I want to thank all of you for prioritizing the mental health and wellness of our students and supporting the hard work of myself my colleagues and my students thank you thank you Melanie next I would like to bring up Daisy Zamora who is our youth Outreach coordinator at Napa high school and she's going to talk about how what our wellness centers engage our youth I'm gonna bring this down a little hi everyone hope you're having a good night I'm super excited to be here with you all today so I'm Daisy Zamora I am one of three Wellness youth Outreach coordinators at the high school Wellness
183Center so for over eight years on the move and voices have been working together with the Napa Valley Unified School District as an organization we have been serving students in Independent Living Services and we recognize the importance of wellness and the role in place of students transition into adulthood which is why we were happy to partner up with nvusd in the opening of the high school wellness centers it has been a collaborative effort between nvusd voices School staff and youth to create an environment that not only addresses students Wellness needs but is also safe and welcoming so actually in the images you see the murals that are in the background were both designed and painted by students so they got to physically build the space alongside with us staff everyone on the the wellness team
184so it was physical labored but also just like the designing and the behind the scenes students have been involved in the whole process and if you can go to the next visual please so uh each of our wellness centers we do monthly activities or even weekly activities with mix it up Monday Wellness Wednesday and fun Friday and part of this is so we ensure that students are both involved in the creation and what they want to see at the wellness centers but also that students have a space to connect with other students and especially those students that maybe new on campus and need a space to go in my role I get to see students visit the wellness center every day each with different needs students will come into the space to practice decompressing or
185to connect with the mental health services we offer on campus when the wellness center first opened our team was overwhelmed with joy just seeing students engage in this space best of all students have taken pride and ownership of their space even connecting their peers I got to experience the impact of the wellness centers including seeing them walk out each day with a smile and feeling supported and I actually want to share out messages from two of our students one who is here today and one who was not able to make it so first a message from Brianna Ramirez a Napa High Junior she shares there's a gratitude wall at the wellness center when I first wrote my gratitude there must have been less than five notes on the wall we're coming back weeks later I
186saw more than 30. I read each one the one that stood out said I am grateful for being able to wake up and thankful for a new day as students we not only keep up with our classes and grades but we each hold different pressures I have seen a lot of students spend their break in lunch alone most students separate themselves by grade level or friend group I was happy to see at the wellness center that students are just together to connect there's no groups and no one is alone and then a student who was here earlier name is Dominique hunt and she wanted to share out as a freshman she is new to nbusd she was homeschooled for middle school so when she first came on campus she didn't know where to go to
187to connect but she heard about the wellness center through being connected with her counselor and she went in there just to reflect on her day and reflect on what was around campus but it was actually the wellness center that helped her find the courage to connect outside of the wellness center and now she comes in both to connect with friends but then they connect outside of the space too so that to speak to the impact that the wellness centers are having and this work really couldn't be done just us as individuals we're really a team in a community working on this so I'm super grateful for that thank you thank you Daisy and thanks to the students who who voice we got to Sharon thank you for sharing their voice being an advocate lastly I
188want to bring up uh two of my other amazing colleagues Sarah Berry and Wendy Summers who actually work in the wellness centers along with along with Daisy and our other youth Outreach coordinators and so they're going to talk about how we build a wellness Hub in our wellness centers and Sarah you confirmed it's past your bedtime yes I was saying hi I'm Sarah Berry I'm a school social worker um this year I'm at Vintage High School in oneidas middle school and earlier I was like oh they're gonna have so much that they're going to we're going to do a big deep breath to ground and relax and now I'm like no I we need to take a big deep breath to bring in some fresh air and wake up because this is way past my
189bedtime so I invite you all in the spirit of bringing you into the Wellness Center take a deep breath with me and then let it out okay and now I'm awake I am not going to speak first though all right Wendy will be speaking hi and good late evening to you all um my name is Wendy Summers I am one of the counselors at Napa High School and my primary role is overseeing our new Wellness Center and providing internet uh intervention support for students um like uh Melanie and Daisy and have said I am so incredibly grateful to be a part of this process um I'm getting a little emotional just listening to Daisy and and hearing from our students and seeing one of our students it has been just a true pleasure from beginning
190to now just to see the center and all of the people that have worked so hard and just the true care that has gone into every detail and working with the kids and our staff our counseling team our Wellness team Sarah Kristen everybody the county um your support it's just been incredible so um just really happy to be a part of it um Sarah and I are going to discuss the benefits of co-location um having all of us in one space and the day-to-day of what it's like to access and be in the Wellness Center so first we need to understand how students find the Wellness Center have heard about it so we have many paths to our Center depending on the needs of students we've done campus-wide campaigns via um announcements social media posts
191posters around the campus and videos like you saw the example from vintage and we've done one with our leadership team at Napa High as well we have online forums for our staff to refer students if they think that students can benefit from Wellness Resources they submit a referral form that comes to me and then I triage from there students also have access to the referral form they can do a referral for themselves or for a friend that they feel could benefit um so we have that as well um and also because our services are channeled um through the wellness center some students are referred VR mtss product uh process which um Sarah alluded to earlier by looking at the sdq data and attendance data and everything else that we do as an mtss team so
192um we bring students in through that way as well and connect them with the appropriate staff or Community providers and of course with all of that information we get a lot of student drop-ins we our day is filled with students dropping in whether break or lunch before school after school or during class so I'm gonna pass off to Sarah hey I am back again so I'm going to talk about two things one is literally how do they get to the wellness center and what is it like to walk through the door and then I am not gonna do I think it's gonna be job as Daisy but I'm going to try and paint a picture of maybe what it looks like at any given moment if you were to join us they're what you would
193see so the fast part call slips we actually call students in right myself and the intervention counselors as well as our providers we're calling them in and we're seeing them on a regular basis some of them different varying degrees of different things um the other way is they get Wellness passes from their teachers so they say I need a brain break right or I need a pass to the Wellness Center and they come and visit us that that way and then the other way is just breaks and lunch so that's the other way that they come to us so that's the physical once they get to the door they step in and they are welcomed by someone like Daisy Dahlia at vintage but Daisy at Napa High if it gives you any example of that
194that warm welcome when you first come through they immediately start to assess they really meet the students where they're at and hear from them what they need and what they came to the wellness center for at that point we have them fill out a little brief form on a Google you know a Google Forum on a Chromebook we just take a few pieces of information and we do that for two reasons we do it when they come in and we do it when they leave as well and we need that for safety right we want to know where all of our students are on campus at all times the attendance person has access to it so she can verify that as well the other is to get some usage data right starting to build that
195usage data who's coming in how frequently and what are they there for right now if a student comes in crying Daisy's not going to make them fill out the form I just want to assure you of that that's the beauty of our youth Outreach workers they can pivot and adjust and they will immediately meet them where they're at and get them to where they need to be whoever it is that they they should be seen in that moment and I I bet Daisy does this too but Dalia over at vintage she'll go back and she'll actually log him in um again we don't want these students to be missing on campus so um we kind of all work as a team to make sure we're communicating with teachers and with staff um sometimes actually sending
196email as well letting them know that a student is with us so let's see we've made it through great now what maybe would you see right on any given day so maybe we have a student who comes in in the morning and shows the past and tells Daisy I need it I just need a brain break right my teacher gave me some time I you know she maybe she just finished a math test and she knows she's got an essay in her AP English class second period and she needs more than that little passing period to regroup herself right great so she signs in and Daisy will remind her of the no cell phone policy in the 15 minutes right and if she hasn't been there maybe Orient her to the space you know we
197have puzzles over here we have you know coloring materials over here we have books over here sand trays here's the the mindfulness great gratitude for the for the um for the month we even have tea and snacks and things like that so just sort of orienting them to the space they settle in right at the same time we have call slips going out right so we have um students coming in to see their mentus therapist or maybe they're doing a drug and alcohol prevention group or Mariposa group or um coming to see me or coming to see you know a Wendy um so those students are also kind of coming through also going to see the nurse right so they're coming in to see the nurse as well um and maybe even there was a
198student who um was sitting there at the very beginning right so maybe myself and a counselor had gone out the day before to do a home visit we have a student who has been struggling with attendance since day one but maybe since break we'd only seen him a couple times they stopped responding to phone calls and emails and parent squares and text messages so we went and visited the family we know they've struggled with homelessness and job insecurities in the past but we talked to the students we kind of we get them some help the family and then we realize that stepping back on that campus after you haven't been there for that long is not an easy thing to do I don't know if you all have ever maybe not gone to the gym
199even for a couple months and then it's time to go back it's kind of scary Imagine School right on all of that pressure knowing that the the assignments have been piling up right so Lisa why don't you do a slow entry go visit your counselor tomorrow Monday morning amen that's we just want you on campus make that step they will Usher you over to the wellness center we'll set you up you can open your Chromebook look at your Google Classroom start communicating with your teachers prioritizing Maybe by second period you'll be ready to go back to class right um and then maybe they'll come back for a third period but it's that slow entry so that student's quietly working over there at the same time right remember the student who was taking the 15-minute brain
200break right so before the yeah in between in between right so um Daisy realizes oh 15 minutes is up and they're still quietly sitting there so she approaches them just to remind them so okay it's been 15 minutes how are you feeling are you ready to go back to class A student was very hesitant right I just I I don't know well then we have someone you can check in with um if you're not ready to go back so we kind of give this this or that kind of thing right it's we understand you might need to be here longer but we want you to check in with somebody then maybe at the same time I peek out my door because my door is open if I don't have a student in there and I
201kind of smile and wave I am available for a check-in she sees the couch in my office um and decides to come in right has a seat at this point she's been in the wellness center for 15 minutes maybe that's her first time maybe she's been there several times she's watched the way Daisy and Wendy and Dalia and myself have been interacting with students you know they say the vibe and the wellness center the vibe in your office Sarah and they've noticed that they see that right and so maybe in that moment she decides to say the things she hasn't been able to say before right and that's important right because now we can keep her safe right and we can do what we need to do and work with the family um to keep
202her safe so that's sort of an example a little bit and then you can you know and then of course during breaks and lunch they're coming in and they're doing things and they're interacting with each other and they're eating lunch and they're writing on the chalkboards and being together right so there's many ways that they can actually come into the Wellness Center also can you go to the next one this is Oh I thought there was some data but it wasn't my data so that's okay you know how I am there yeah that was do you want to speak to that yes okay thank you I think that was I think that was it Sarah if you can pause for just a sec we do have to extend our meeting it is now 10 30.
203okay um I'm hoping to get a motion to extend to one so that we don't have to do this again second a first bite trustee jankowitz a second by trustee Gonzalez Morris all those in favor thank you you may proceed do we do you need to take a break though no no okay just so it's on the meeting okay okay yeah no breaks yeah I had that growth line so we did have um we did have just a briefly review um for these two new wellness centers um and this may be a month old or so we of the 400 of the 545 students who have checked in and accessed the wellness centers 415 have needed mental health support um they so that's 76 um we the other students and and there could be some
204duplication here other students have um needed Wellness workshops or wanted information about Wellness workshops leadership opportunities like clubs and groups employment support educational support and we also have hygiene supplies and things like that and food and and tea in there as well but the overwhelming majority have have been there and visited for mental health needs so that was our little data snapshot yes yes um I was trying to keep the slides clean with the with the beautiful photos that that we have of our kids and the and the centers so um this is all all wonderful um but it wouldn't be possible without our mental health Workforce and so um just wanted to give you a snapshot of our current ratios of mental health staff to students so we're at 480 to one in elementary
205we have a 50 increase this year in social workers at the elementary level so that we can be proactive and preventative um to those students and and their families um and at the middle school level we have gotten it to 300 to 1 um with nine and a half counselors uh two social workers and three interns and then at the high school we're also at currently at 300 to 1 um we have 16 and a half counselors three social workers and three interns lemon as Wendy mentioned thanks to support um from uh covid funding and relief funding and also your leadership we've been able to provide additional fifth counselors at our high schools and we have some of our middle schools that have traditionally only had two counselors we now have additional counseling support at
206those schools as well but that fifth counselor is critical the non you know the non-academic I mean she obviously helps with academic stuff as well but the intervention um counseling support is really critical and some of our amazing counselors and social workers are pictured there at the PD day in um in October so how do we sustain all of this work in a um in a environment that is you know declining enrollment and we have instability with the funding the volatile funding reality that you all identified as a as a um a concern and we have a success indicator around it with boarding annual priority number four so along with Kristen and um in collaboration with the Napa Valley Education Foundation who Jennifer Stewart in her leadership has been incredible um in in helping us
207support um this work and mvusd she's she's very passionate about it um we've been able to apply for and receive over 10 million dollars in Grants current grants um and some of them are mentioned there that will last us through 2027 right now um we've received covert relief funding the Ed foundation and the wellness conference have spotlighted mental health and brought additional funding through just awareness and we are currently working to expand our medical reimbursement through being able to bill for social work services and things so that we can sustain and be sort of self-sustaining and not have to only rely on on receiving grants from external support we also have our mental health intern program to grow the workforce that we need to be able to do all of this work and it has
208been an incredible um incredible source of staff that we continue to pull from on the horizon um we would love to be able to sustain our social workers all all of their social workers but two are funded with temporary grants or or um you know one-time funds so we want to be able to sustain them in the future we have four community schools that are being built as we speak at uh Shear Elementary McPherson Elementary Phillips Elementary and Snow Elementary School so you'll recall we received the California Community Schools partnership program grant for over five million dollars to support that work and that includes hubs Community hubs Wellness hubs family hubs at those schools so we provide wraparound support for those families when they're in elementary school Medi-Cal billing and then at the high school
209level director ready and I are exploring a partnership with challenge success who which is an organization that can work to do some um I wrote it down here I don't wanna speak it's partners with schools in a year-long process that leverages student voice and data to create a healthier more engaging School environment and the reason that we wanted to partner with child success and we're exploring that and we'll of course bring it to the board for approval when we are ready is to allow schools instead of saying we're gonna We want you to Pilot this SEL program we want you to try this do this we want the students and the school and the stakeholders to do some introspection and some reflection and then design what they want to do for their for their schools
210what's going to be the best for their schools and so that's going to be our next step with the high schools also um you're all cordially invited to the Napa Valley Wellness conference I know some of you are already registered to attend um so it's on March 16th and 17th it is going to Spotlight the two wellness centers at Napa High and vintage so all participants are going to visit one of those two wellness centers and then listen to a panel at each of the two high schools before going and seeing um a film at the film is race to be human the keynote is Sean genre who's the author of the four pivots um and it's just gonna be an amazing event so I look forward to spotlighting um our community and hope that
211you can attend if you're able we also want to invite you to join us at two forthcoming open houses that will be on May and you'll get formal invitations of course but this is just an FYI like a heads up May is mental health awareness month and so that's why we're choosing to um to do these open houses in May and so um the first will be at Napa High School and then the second will be at Vintage High School later in the month and you'll get to see all of them again all these wonderful people all right so our optimistic closure for you for today is to consider this question which is when is my next influencing conversation about mental health youth mental health and with whom um now that you've been updated on
212all of the amazing work of the professionals and and staff in our organization um it's our belief that if we seize this moment step up for our children and their families and their moment of need we can lay the foundation for a healthier more resilient and more fulfilled Community thank you so much thank you all right before we take questions and comments from the board I want to ask Ms Green do we have any public comment on this item there is no public comment on this item thank you do I have any board members with common sword questions trust advisor you um well and I'll end with my appreciation but I will hint to the fact that I am incredibly appreciative of all the work that you're doing um it's just monumentally important in the
213lives of our kids um I'm going to start with for some of you probably not a surprising question but um I'm wondering because there's such an overlap between access to Firearms unsecured firearms and youth suicide and also school shootings we know 80 percent of School shooters access their weapons from their own home or the um home of a family member so I I know that um in nvisd we have so many fail-state you know so many uh Gap closers and you know the mtss program and the way we're tracking students and and the tools that we have are are will go a long way in preventing things that happen in other places you know there was the incident a few weeks ago um at an elementary school in Virginia um so I asked this question
214as the parent of a student and as a former um School employee I just would like to know sort of what is the district protocol and how are we handling those questions and are we asking kids about access to weapons and what are the protocols if there were to be a situation in which an unstable student you know there was was thought to potentially have a weapon I know it's a little bit of an offshoot question but there's such an overlap with mental health in our schools so I just wanted to highlight that topic thank you for that question um absolutely so we have queer protocols in place for if there are obviously threats made to the school or if there are concerns brought up by um by staff or or teachers but in terms
215of related to mental health um and I could speak about the the protocols for for threats I mean it's it's pretty standard um protocol to for the administrator to contact law enforcement who then can do a check and check for access to weapons at the home to to it's a threat assessment protocol that that we follow we wouldn't have a situation in which there were multiple reports of a threat and an administrator would ignore that threat that was as what happened in the other school site right we would just underscore who we are but we would not all administrators are are trained um and work closely with our sros to follow threat assessment protocol carefully and promptly um in terms of the relation to mental health so um all of our administrators and and mental
216health professionals are trained in the suicide risk assessment protocol that we have for mbusd which um is is clear in you know when after you give the Columbia suicide severity rating scale you depending on the level of the threat can then act upon Wellness checks that are done you know by um they can be done by law enforcement they could be done by the mobile crisis you know where you're going and you're checking to see if if there is access if the student is safe at home if there is access to weapons um and that is something that we want to do to make sure that we're again we're preventing tragedy from happening um I don't know if anybody wants to add anything related to protocols no okay um really if one of our professionals
217that works in the wellness centers or that works directly with students has a concern their first step is to go to an administrator who then can can work with you know um either themselves or or with our sros to determine if there is a you know something that is a threat that would need to be identified in the home thank you so much for answering that um and I'll be brief because it's late but I just want to um say that it's trans we're transforming the culture of our schools and of our communities but I mean you said I wrote down earlier you said um the youth are so passionate about Mental Health and I'm so um I agree and I'm so grateful that our culture is Shifting so that there is such more such
218a level of openness um you know we're sort of driving the shame where it's a process but we're driving away the shame of struggling with your mental health because it's a health problem um so uh I'm just really grateful for the suicide prevention expansion that we're doing the QPR training um the numbers are really incredibly impressive and I you know uh the more people you know what is it uh ask a question Save a Life is the tagline for that program I've done the program I encourage anyone who's available to do the community one I will also amplify that availability um on my platforms and I just wanted to say that um when Daisy when you said they walk out of here with a smile um feeling supported it's gonna make me cry but um
219to know for these kids that are vulnerable and it's so many of them I mean so many of our kids are vulnerable for them to know that in whatever chaos emotional chaos is happening for them that if they need a spot they can get it at any time during the day like the culture and the protocol of just us saying to your teacher I need a wellness pass and that there's no questions asked is just incredible to me and I know firsthand from my own child the benefit the sate the emotional safety that having that Refuge offers her um and to know that you're doing that for so many hundreds of students every day is just um incredible so thank you so much I'm grateful thank you Robin any other trustees I'm I'm on the
220same boat just thank you I've known Sarah for some time now and so um I love the I my I love the thing about being in that space and putting your phone away just I mean it just that it's a battle but I just I all I will say is that ever since I got off social media I sleep so much better at night I didn't you know for me I didn't even know that was impacting me even though I was just like whatever but I love it when I'm just it just it was like that was the thing I didn't realize it but so that's why I love that um even though it's 15 minutes only or whatever long but I think I just um anyway I just wanted to highlight that piece but
221everything is just it's wonderful to see um just a lot of our hard work on our end and then see um this beautiful um display in in such a short time while we're tired and trying to get oxygen into our heads to finish the night but just really tremendous gratitude and just thank you sure so for grades four through twelve it's actually the same questions um it's it's a it's a standardized um it's actually used in a lot of um treatment uh facilities they use it at Kaiser like as an intake and and mental health is pretty standard um the for grades T we we use it with TK as well so TK through three the it's the teacher answering questions and and the question is this is actually a statement and this and the
222teacher will say somewhat um the teacher will say always um sometimes or never um and so it's a statement about the student as opposed to I right the I statements are in grades four through twelve but it is standard the California healthy kids survey has different questions for elementary and for and for secondary I have one clarifying question so for the elementary different version where it's kind of a likert scale or whatever um is the teacher reading the statements and the kid is marking or the teacher is doing her own assessment of where she thinks yes and so it that's also standard for for example um if you have a child who's been evaluated for like ADHD or something they have a um a version of it that is for the parent or teacher and
223then they have a version for the student as well if the student is of age to be able to answer it and so um it's designed not to be administered to a student but just to it's a survey about a student and that the teachers do and they actually have a spreadsheet that they're that they're doing so they can go through and do it for the entire class and kind of go through and and think about it holistically in in relation to the to the whole class but then individually for each question does that make sense yeah so they're not sitting with the kid and asking them that question yeah trusty water thank you so much um you know the numbers of um the young for uh accessing this is kind of surprising that's that's
224a lot and then I I was surprised when I read the slides and then I thought you know what the um the last three years have been really weird and personally I'm tired I got tired of living in unprecedented times and um that's all yeah and that's a word I don't want to hear uh anymore so um thank you very much for everything you do it's that's good um I feel sad you know when I think of uh you know a young person being so depressed as to consider suicide that's really extremely tragic it's very tragic so um let's uh let's help them absolutely and remove the stigma to talking about it you know which the wellness centers do people young people are really powerful um advocates for each other's Health you know I mean
225when the uh when the teens connect people spoke with us um last year I was just uh blown away I was so impressed I have a couple questions so you stated earlier that all students at certain grade levels take the sdq and California healthy kids but don't some parents opt out of those surveys yeah so it's passive consent for both of them um which so the for the seq it's incl the um consent is included as part of our data confirmation process and then for the California healthy kids survey there's actually a paper that gets sent home with every kid and I don't know student and I don't know if they're doing it digitally now through parent Square um this year since we've gotten so Adept with parent square but it used to be a
226paper that would go home and if it didn't come back then everyone who you know who yeah it's a yeah um so majority of our students and and our goal with both of them is 75 at each school in order to have a a good um it's late I'm trying to think of the word a good representation yes thank you um we push the schools to make sure that we get to 75 and especially for the California healthy kids survey the data becomes much less valid if it dips below 75 especially at an elementary school there's not that many kids so do we have an idea of how many people do opt out I could give you the numbers absolutely I could I could tell you that all of the schools are above 75 percent
227for both sdq and healthy kids survey okay yeah thank you and then you said that we're going to have a community QPR on Zoom will we be recording that and then posting it on our district YouTube channel we absolutely will and Memphis is going to be um leading that training as well as they have for our other QPR trainings sounds great um and then I just wanted to highlight what slide you had that seemed to indicate that there was a 55 Improvement in student culture at the campuses where we have these wellness centers that was an impressive stat to see that it was making that big of an impact by having this on our campus which was kind of cool um the other thing though that I wanted to mention is uh around the Medi-Cal
228reimbursements I know that's um a topic that's coming before the legislature to try to it's being pushed by csva to try to streamline the reimbursement process um and to that end I thought it might make sense for us to take some of our data and uh send it to our lobbyists to try to push this issue in Sacramento so that we can get maybe some more reliable funding for these programs that would be more than happy to collaborate on on presenting data to them um in a way that can help support that because we've only been able we've been limited to billing for services that are traditionally held in special education with um you know I'm again it's late I'm uh trying to think of some specific ones School psychologists um there's some nursing speech
229and language Pathologists that were able to build social worker and counseling support is not traditionally been able to be um billable so really looking forward to and I think the state is seeing the need there so more than happy to collaborate on that but we have to stick about 75 like to 75 of kids who are getting in the schools school that's where we've taken on so many different but we do have our own lobbyists so perhaps we can engage their services in this area absolutely yeah I can follow up with that okay president Gracia is it okay if I if I see if Kristen is still here if she just wants to give a quick um hello if she's still on I know assistant superintendent Andrew Jennings I think also wanted to okay something
230thank you Dr massetti good evening um trustees board president Gracia I also wanted to clarify for the California healthy kids survey it's active consent for fifth grade students so parents have to actively opt in and for uh for the rest of the grades it is a passive consent so just to clarify that information and make sure that we're aware of that um pardon me oh I just want to take a moment to um one thank the wonderful team that presented tonight and also to acknowledge Kristen Nelson who um we're gonna allow I guess to say a few words since she's still up that to acknowledge the work that she's done in the eight years that she's been a part of ndust and the wellness centers at the high school are true Testament to the work
231that she's done and she will now be moving on um uh this is her last um our last board meeting with us and she will be providing technical assistance to community school programs throughout the state of California so we're really proud of the of the work she's done for us but also proud that she's going to go on and support multiple school districts across the state of California and with that I will pass to Kristen Nelson um and see if she has any words that she'd like to to give foreign thank you thank you Pat I really appreciate um those comments and just uh and filled with emotion um and gratitude for this time I'm really disappointed not to be able to be there in person this really is the work of my heart um
232but also grateful to be here virtually to watch this team that we've built and grown um provide this information and deliver um this work to you and and I just am incredibly proud and and grateful for the work um we've done together and also just deeply grateful to the board um Dr bussetti our community our students and nvisd staff um it really has been a true collaborative effort it just this work just doesn't live with one person um I think tonight's presentation exemplified that beautifully um and just thank you so much for elevating this work making it a board annual priority um I think neighboring districts are watching um and I think the entire State of California is as well so thank you thank you and uh with that I will be closing my eyes
233and getting some sleep thank you foreign trustee Gomez um yeah I think I'll wait till the additional suggestions and comments to make a comment but um thank you to you guys and all that you do because it's it's critical what you guys are doing so thank you thank you so much thank you right and with that it's now time for our next break yay foreign okay and we are back uh now we're on to action items k 1 General Services k1a 2023 California school boards Association delegate assembly candidate appointment move to approve second verse by trustee Chu second by trustee Riser Mrs Green do we have any public comment on this item there is no public comment on this item student board members all in favor hi hi motion passes item k1b adoption of high
234school graduation requirement policy I'll move to approve hang on uh excuse me yeah I support this but I just have a could I ask a question uh director ready okay I don't know where director ready well she was okay you're here you'll work you'll do all right I'll do my uh okay I have one question a minute ago it's fun this is her this is why she's here but she didn't think we'd be done this fast well let's move on to the others and then um we can double back Canada and amend the agenda she's in the bathroom okay well I'll try go ahead okay or isn't is Andrew oh there she is hey welcome back trustee water has a question for you right um this is this is uh I just uh got an
235email from a parent how can a parent uh Supply input um for this course or the musical oh sorry for the um ethnic studies for the ethnic studies course uh director Eddie we're on k1v the adoption of the high school graduation requirement policy so the we plan to have feedback sessions for each of these for the ethnic studies of health and the graduation committee that will look at the graduation requirement so as we develop the plans there will be opportunities to provide feedback additionally when the instructional materials on the course come to the board because this is a policy so when the instructional materials and the course come to the board per any course or curricular adoption parents have the opportunity any Community member for that matter has an opportunity to provide feedback as well
236as a review the the reason why our instructional instructional materials come twice to the board is so that they're at that time between the first introduction and then when it's moved forward for an action item there's opportunity for Community to actually see the materials and the instructional division of the district office okay thank you I apologize for not being in the room it's okay I needed some tea I'm gonna be honest that's why she's here [Laughter] all right do we want to get emotional have some discussion um I'm I'm motioned okay so we have a first by trustee Chu and a second by trustee riser Ms Green do we have any public comment on this item there is no public comment on this item okay on to board discussion so I'll start I am not
237on board obviously with the new graduation requirements I still don't believe that an independent health class is appropriate as we used to have a separate health class and it was not useful but rather was a check a box waste of time however if we're going to pass a health class and combine it with ethnic studies then I don't believe we should be rushing to mandate it we still have time before we have to mandate both one semester classes rather than pilot for just a single year why not pilot it for two in order to truly refine and improve these classes and make them the best we possibly can the answer I got from the last meeting was that we needed these things sooner rather than later but that answer misses the point that by piloting
238them we will have them available sooner rather than later people just have to opt into them so it isn't like these classes wouldn't be available under a two-year pilot they very much would be therefore the answer that these are not needed immediately doesn't answer why we still have them available if we pile it for two years I believe we should be taking the entire time available to us to refine these new classes before we mandate them much to my chagrin I hear over and over from the district that we need to slow down and have patience with whatever improvements we are seeking to make and yet inexplicably here we are attempting to rush to mandate a class a full year before we have to that we could otherwise have spent refining the implementation of said
239class through additional piloting I don't get what makes this a special case and why suddenly we have to rush considering that we have time on our side time that I think we should be taking to get it right our students deserve the best health and ethnic studies pairing we can deliver and I don't see how rushing gets us that rushing is more likely to end up giving us a health class like the one I took of VHS that provided no value of any kind well they David excuse me president president Gracia um I bet that you know what I'm I'm willing to bet your health class uh was pretty terrible that was a few years ago um not as many years ago as my health class um you know which was you know I don't
240know Jurassic health class but um I think uh I think that there are some issues that have sprung up since you were um a teenager that uh are kind of they're they're they're rather compelling um like times have changed and I I think that the class is uh I just listened to the the mental health uh presentation I do think the classes uh we we should be working to get it out there sooner and I have to say that um the athletic director at Napa High School and I'm being parochial here but I used to work there and I knew her she taught a great health class didn't she her health class was really good and the kids uh kids learned things it was highly academic structured and um she taught a good class I
241also have a quick comment maybe not that quick I'll try and make it quick um communication that I've received from the community and faculty has been centered on the impacts that this will have on electives and continuing Pathways so I really appreciate the planning committee addressing public concerns and the implications and next steps portion of the graduation executive summary so thank you president Gracia sometimes time is a luxury that we don't have the issues that drive the need for a health class cannot be put on hold education is fluid we should create content based on in the present need of students and should respond with a comprehensive needs based curriculum that I know we can do personal experience is not a Content indicator in curriculum development in my previous comments I've advocated for a standalone
242class but I must add that I'm in support of the suggested timeline none of the following issues are irrelevant enough to justify a delay or a two-year pilot Mental Health social media influence bullying and violence prevention use and abuse of substances fentanyl opioid crisis Alcohol Tobacco sex education and awareness personal health and well and wellness nutrition physical activity lifestyle practices each of these issues has an audience in high school every single one each of these issues have has relevance to a child that currently attends nbusd we cannot compare content from 25 years ago to now as trustee water just eliminated we are addressing new issues changes in existing issues and dramatic differences in how these impact these issues impact our students so in consideration of current trends health class can be a critical component of
243our educational structure the consensus health education research summarized beautifully in a path of learning article is that students who have access to health education gain knowledge and life skills that help them distinguish between healthy and unhealthy habits so what can we as an educational Community extrapolate from that what cues can students take away from access to the in for this information they become capable of making decisions and weighing choices before deciding on a plan of action learning to understand boundaries how to advocate for oneself and discern what our risk fact risk behaviors and what are positive behaviors that's powerful stuff it's not a pilot isn't that our job in the world of Education to empower our students with the necessary tools to succeed we are currently focusing on academics Core Curriculum as we should yet
244if a child has extraneous issues that plague their ability to learn should we not address those needs in the immediate so they can Thrive mentally emotionally and academically because at the end of the day well-designed developmentally appropriate curriculum will increase the likelihood of favorable outcomes for students and yes there will be dissenting opinions some will disagree with the breadth of the content some will come before us and excuse me disagree on specific content some will disagree with Master scheduling we will have public helmet comment on the mic that does not make this decision wrong students deserve to get the most they can out of their education and for many health class can remove some of the barriers to their success so I personally can't imagine any justification to delay the suggested timeline or to rely
245on a long-term extension of a pilot class because these issues will not wait and it's also important to note that the content of the mental health presentation that was given this evening substantiates the need for support and a health class can be an additional tool in that Journey so I I wanted to follow up on the piloting of courses so when we adopt new courses like we did last meeting for um the musical theater class do we actually pilot that and how long do we pilot that because that's one of the questions that trustee Gracia had was we need to get it right and we need enough time to Pilot that so in other courses are we taking extended time are we using one year or are we not piloting at all we don't typically
246pilot a course however this is a change that all students have to take so the musical theater course is a elective that students opt into these two courses will not be optional given that and given the timeline to help communicate to incoming families around it as well as ensure that there's quality to it and work with our partners because of the number of students that are taking it we felt the need to Pilot for a year Implement some of the curriculum also because of the content it's not typical content when you're talking about identity Health mental health awareness cultural awareness so some of those components lend themselves to going a little bit piloting as opposed to just implementing a course and telling all 9th graders additionally implementing the requirements now would you can you would
247have students that we'd be communing communicating with for eighth grade so it is not typical however at times I think given the requirement it's important so basically we are extending the time that we would use to evaluate the course and I I would say that we wouldn't call it a pilot but for example if you're doing any sort of like overall three-year planning in your master schedule right decline in enrollment is a great example of when when you might do that when you come in um you look at the courses for three years and you you can see if it's an optional course how many courses how many students enroll in that course you might look at Effectiveness based on enrollment and engagement in that particular course and make decisions you wouldn't necessarily call it
248a pilot but when you I think when you implement any new course monitoring enrollment Effectiveness um you you monitor that we just didn't officially we don't necessarily officially call it a pilot and you're only piloting in American Canyon or is it also one of the Napa schools that we are we are offering the course at all schools for students to to take it may look in American Canyon um course cards so it may look a little different at some of our smaller schools so when we implement this a school like Valley Oak that already has this course offering however it's in 11th grade 12th grade new Tech High School that has a smaller student population may not be just in ninth grade we have to look at some of the the nuances of our smaller
249School environments make decisions but at Napa High vintage and American Canyon they'll be running pilots and so we've identified those teachers and are working look forward to bring more of the details of the plans pending this decision thank you I'm Church ready uh maybe I missed this but while it's being piloted and off and offered to the students um well they well the students also have um an opportunity to give that feedback to to the curriculum and perhaps that's also a great way and opportunity to get the students perspective in terms of their um just view of what the content is is it relevant is it speaking to me I'm both I guess more so on the health side of it but both of them really the intention is to get their feedback throughout this
250semester as we develop it before even bringing it as a recommendation as well as to get feedback from students as I go throughout the course and make adjustments because we can make Minor Adjustments any major adjustments would come to you all for approval I think that's very powerful when the space of the user in this case a student and you're creating that intentionally to give that feedback there's no other way to do that except to go ahead and pilot it and and see the impact and and it can be a lot of work but um it's part of the designing of it and that's actually that's a lot harder than to assume you have this beautiful product and have it not work um it's really instrumental and I think it shows the thought process around
251that because when you get their perspective and input into account up to a level right there's some parameters and expectations because it is um it is a graduation requirement so much of it needs to be established but when you do that I think that allows a lot of um a loop of input in that process so I think that's helpful additionally it allows our staff time to develop professionally in this area it allows some of our staff to try instructional practices work together as a cohort give each other feedback and grow as staff which is this is we have not had health in a while so allowing them some time and much has changed to learn the content have coaching have a partner and give feedback as well as for teachers who are teaching ethnic
252studies it allows us to build up a cohort of staff that have learned from experience and developed and then can help us as we implement it on a larger scale with more staff so we feel like it'll not only does it help the students it'll also help better prepare our staff and I I guess I have a question um related to trustee gracia's concern which is I mean from the Educators standpoint you're always refining so it's not like oh we only have one year and then whatever we have we have as I would interpret it from the educator standpoint I imagine that after the pilot year we're going to solidify and finalize a framework and materials but that would that then be set in stone that there could never be a change in materials used
253in the health course you know if three years in teachers are getting together and saying we really need something more powerful on this topic and we're going to bring it in I mean I would imagine that it's going to be um some that there will be some of that organic refinement that is just inherent to the profession right yes so I think you speaking from an educator standpoint very very well that you're constantly all of our Educators on a day-to-day basis are looking at how are their students receiving something and making adjustments because we have quality Educators in our in our front of our students I think that having a process where from year to year you look at courses additionally it we're adopting courses and curriculum there should be some ongoing look at those
254whether it's when new Frameworks come out or you have a change in Staffing or you have a significant change in something that happens right so covet's a great example of something that seriously impacted our students mental health that would impact a course like Health hopefully we don't have something like that that impacts it soon but you know you adjust and adapt to I heard I heard trustee Waters comments earlier um you you we have a course that especially ethnic studies and health they need to be adaptive they're going to be responsive to the students and responsive to I mean you know teachers never teach the same lesson exactly the same way twice so I just trustee Gracia hope that you can see that even if you're you know even if we start have a one-year
255pilot there will still be constant Improvement and refinement of the course by the educators anyone else okay then it's time to vote student board member mess I all in favor aye opposed May motion passes K1 C adoption of California School Board Association recommended policy updates September 2022. move to approve second first by trustee two second by trustee riser Ms Green do we have any public comment on this item there is no public comment on this item student board member hi all in favor aye aye motion passes item k1d adoption of California School Board Association recommended policy updates December 2022. move to approve second moved by trustee Chu second by trustee Reiser Ms Green do we have any public comment on this item there is no public comment on this item student board member I all
256in favor bye bye motion passes adoption of board bylaws 90 to 20 92 23 and 93 23 move to approve second verse by trustee two second by trustee Riser Ms Green do we have any public comment on this item there is no public comment on this item student board member uh all in favor aye aye motion passes k1f adoption of administrative regulation one one one four district-sponsored social media move to approve second first by trustee Chu second by trustee Riser Ms Green do we have any public comment on this item there's no public comment on this item student board member I all in favor motion passes K2 Business Services k2a 2021-22 annual district and measure H Bond audit reports financial and performance move to approve second first by trustee Chu second by trustee Reiser Ms
257Green do we have any public comment on this item there is no public comment on this item student board member hi all in favor aye motion passes k2b resolution number 2323 resolution of the Board of Education of the Napa Valley Unified School District entering election results into the minutes and certifying to the Board of Supervisors of Napa County all proceedings in November 8th 2022 General obligation bond election for measure A2 move to approve second first what the first fight crossed the two second by trustee Riser Ms Green do we have any public comments on this item there is no public comment on this item Ms Morales can we have a roll call on this item yes student board member Gomez aye trustee Gracia aye trustee water aye trustee Reiser aye trustee shu aye trustee jankowitz
258aye trustee Gonzalez Mares I'm thank you motion passes k2c resolution two three two four resolution of the Board of Education of the Napa Valley Unified School District establishing a measure A2 independent citizens Bond oversight committee and approving bylaws therefore move to approve second cursed by trustee Choo Second by trust advisor in the screen do we have any public comment on this item there is no public comment on this item hey it's a resolution so Ms Morales can we have a roll call vote please yes student board member Gomez uh trustee Gracia aye trustee water aye trustee Reiser aye trust issue hi trustee jankowitz I trustee Gonzalez Marx I thank you right motion passes k3a revised 2023-24 student and classified calendars move to approve second first by trustee two second by trustee Riser Ms Greene do
259we have any public comment on this item there is no public comment on this item student board member hi all in favor aye aye motion passes k4a supplementary instructional material adoptions for Middle School move to approve second Hurts by trustee Chu second by trustee riser in the screen do we have any public comment on this item there is no public comment on this item student board member uh all in favor motion passes k4b core instructional materials adoption for high school move to approved second first by trustee Riser second by trustee two the screen do we have any public comment on this item there is no public comment on this item uh all in favor I think somebody needs a name five operational services k-5a facility use agreement between Napa Valley Unified School District and the
260buck Institute for Education move to approve second first by trustee two second by trustee Reiser Ms Green do we have any public comment on this item there is no public comment on this item hi all in favor hi motion passes k5b fmo01.01.2023 Circo service support book to approve second cursed by trustee two second by trustee Reiser Mrs Green do we have any public comment on this item there is no public comment on this item uh all in favor motion passes School planning and construction K 6 a SPC number 7.7-2-3 request a surplus two relocatable classrooms at Vintage High School move to approve second verse by trustee two a second by trustee Reiser Miss green do we have any public comment on this item there's no public comment on this item and uh board member all
261right all in favor on to informational items L L1 General Services l1a curriculum and student support meeting next week I think l1b facilities and Technology committee perfect l1c finance committee no meeting l1d policy okay next business services to a quarterly investment report December 31st 2022. I mean discussion seeing none three Human Resources 3A quarterly report on Williams uniform complaints for the period ending January 31st 2023. see no discussion we're moving on item M additional suggestions and comments from board members and the superintendent yes please um so I actually have a lot to say about this uh I'm just kidding we're here if you want to say no I just wanted to say that I think the uh mental Mental Health crisis among students is a real problem today and that we need to send a
262lot of resources that way as many as we can um and there's also I think plenty of students out there that don't access these resources that we Implement um so that's just something to keep in mind so I think continuing to kind of push that through and keep these things available we'll hopefully over time encourage more and more students to ask for help and access these things um and then this is just a thought I had um I don't know it's just um a program for like late elementary students or early middle school students on like what social media is and how they can emotionally kind of navigate through that I think that people try to Target like 9th graders and 10th graders for that kind of thing for those kinds of things but I
263think it needs to be targeted younger at a younger age before that onset so targeting like the younger um demographic than kids who are already in the you know 15 16 17 because by then it's already too late they've already built habits and have these ideas of what social media is so that's just a thought I had there was uh there was um an article about a group of students um I think it was in Brooklyn and they started the Luddite club and they they're not using they're not using smartphones they've given them up that means no social media they're reading books they're talking face to face a lot of their friends think they're crazy uh they seem very happy and the movement is slowly expanding that's something in um Mrs merkner she presented um
264she tells all the kids once we pack our stuff up if it's one or two minutes before the Bell to not look at your phone and to socialize and there's still 20 out of the 30 kids are on their phone so yeah I think that's a really good thing anyone else okay uh in future agenda items seeing none oh adjournment I move to adjourn second first by myself second my trusted two all in favor aye aye motion passes