School Board Meeting- October 23, 2025 (Open Session)

001Good evening and welcome to the October 23rd, 2025 meeting of the LBUSD Board of Education. The open session is called to order at 6:13. Sorry, um, close session went a little longer than expected. I before we start, I want to take a pause to reflect just for a moment why we're all here and bring to mind and to your heart what you really care about. Can you tap into your sense of caring? caring for the community, for the students, for the lives impacted, for the values you want to support. Everyone here cares, wants the best, is someone's mother, father, daughter, son, sister, brother, and is trying their best. Can we begin from a place of care, speak with respect? Can we dig underneath the anger and find the caring that fuels it and speak from

002that place? Can you look around this room and really see each other? Speak to each other remembering the basic humanity in each one here. And recall the golden rule do unto others. Now is the time to cultivate connection, not division. To listen deeply and remember that we are all connected and how we speak to each other matters. The Brown Act guarantees the public's right to speak and I will protect that right tonight and always. At the same time, I ask everyone on the dis and in the audience to direct comments to the board as a body, avoid avoid personal attacks and remember that students and the community members are watching how we handle disagreements. We can and we should debate debate difficult issues strongly and still model the professionalism our district expects of us. >>

003Thank you. Now Logan, would you please lead us in the pledge? I pledge allegiance to the uh to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, >> indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Thank you. Um report out of close session on a motion by Howard and seconded by Sherry and a vote of 4 to one with Dr. Kelly voting no and all other members voting yes. The board authorized the superintendent or their design to employ the law firm of DWK to provide legal services to the district for one for a one-year term effective whenever the start date is to handle litigation matters and general legals issues as needed. on a motion by Jim and second by Dr. Kelly and seconded by

004board member Malchesky and a vote of five to zero. With all members voting yes, the board voted to deny claim number 2025 26002 in its entirety and authorize staff to provide written notice of the board's action to the claimant in accordance with government code section 913. Now for public comment on non-aggenda items. Clerk Hills, are there any speaker cards? >> Yes. >> How many? >> We have We have Heather Hansen, we have um Haketta Brown, and we have Jeb Brown. And so I'll just call those three and then call more later. >> Okay. I was just making sure how I was trying to find out how many we had, but Okay. >> Oh, that would it would be a six alto together. >> Oh, okay. That's great. Okay, please come up. >> Hi, uh Heather

005Hansen. I teach at the high school. I just wanted to urge the board to work collaboratively with our union leadership so we can have a positive relationship going forwards, especially on resolving um the union issue. U but just on all issues going forwards. Uh, I think there were a number of bylaws that were going to be coming up tonight. Um, I think that's not happening now. I would urge you um to have that in regular session so we can all come and have our voices heard. Um, not all teachers managed to get here on uh, you know, live in person, but we're watching at home and we're invested and we're united behind our union leadership. Um, and while I'm up here, I just want to say to our student board uh, representatives, I've said this

006in class to you, but um, I'm so impressed with your maturity and your poise and your professionalism. And I just also want to thank you for your commitment to public service. It matters more than ever. And so to model that your age to show how important public service is, I really just want to thank you. Thanks. If my memor is right, you are our commencement speaker and you did a superb job. Thank you. >> Good evening. Um, you made this agenda posting deadline by 90 minutes on Tuesday. That shows utter disregard for your fellow board members and the public at large. A 43page agenda with backup takes time to digest and process. Many folks have a day job, including some board members, and squeezing the interval for them to prepare is anything but transparent. That

007said, I understand that you've removed all the policy um uh agendas issu items for this agenda and I highly urge you to make that either in a regular meeting, a very well-noticed special meeting or a study session. I know it only 24 hours notice for a special meeting. That is absolutely inappropriate in this case. I'm Yeah. Thanks, M I I I did hear your comments, but but I think uh my comments honestly are are my what I'm going to say is important as well. I I want to acknowledge, you know, the the damage that Mr. Hills is doing to the board and and to the district. He he mocks students, insults the staff, and harasses the administration. If you don't believe me, read the 27 pages of comments that were submitted to the last board

008meeting. There are 27 pages of comments criticizing his behavior. This board, as many know, has a history of healthy disagreement, but in the past, those disagreements were always resolved in a in a collegial fashion. To to Dr. Glass, Mr. Whitop, and Miss Zuzak, I want you to know that we're behind you a thousand%. It may not seem like that because you're I know that you're in harm's way and in the line of fire, but we're behind you a thousand%. My final comments and again, Miss Perry, I I heard yours are directed to Miss Hills, Mr. Hills um personally. You you got what you have sought for such a long time. You sit on the board at the deis as a member of the school board, but your term will eventually come to end and your

009legacy is up to you. You can elect to be remembered as a man who was bitter and served grievances or you can be someone who rolled up their sleeves, put their nose to the grindstone and did everything they could to help the education in Laguna Beach. It's up to you. We're we're all watching. >> Thank you. >> You need to call some more people. Clerk Hills. Erin Bryman, Shaheen Shik Sadal, and Steve Mintosh. >> I just want to shout out good things. So, I really tried to always do this, D. Um, so that's what I'm going to do tonight. Best practices and good things. First of all, we have an award-winning director of communication. Since their hire, messaging has been clear, succinct, accurate, and full of heart because this award-winning director of communication cares deeply

010for this community. So, let's rely on that expertise. Um, I'd like to shout out the stellar principles who deal with challenges on a daily basis and attempt to work really hard to provide positive experiences at each campus site. I'd like to shout out the counselors vertically from my kids doing PALS and students in Elmoro to the four plus years at Thirstston in that same kind of role and helping them with their academic journey. And I just had my freshman's orientation counseling session on Monday. Um, it was informative, it was positive, it was reassuring for my kid and as a parent. We love our counselor. So, you know who you are. You rock. But I've been very impressed with the entire high school counseling team. They are awesome. I'd like to shout out the folks since

011my kids are involved in sports at Thirsten and the high school for providing positive sport experiences for them. I'd like a big big shout out to the site supervisors and the custodial staff who literally and figuratively clean up our kids' messes all the every day and the details um are often in scene but I want them to know that I see them and many parents see all their hard work. Um the student board reps are the best part of these meetings. I would like to give a shout out to the frontline workers. That's the front office staff people and the nursing staff who get crazy things from kids and parents on a daily basis. Thank you very much. I would love to shout out each individual staff and um teacher that has had a meaningful

012impact on my kids' lives. Um I just don't have the time to really elucidate all the details. Um but you know who my kids are and you know who you are. Thank you. Um I would actually like to give you a shout out D. I appreciate I I thanked you privately but publicly I want people to hear it. I noticed the clear and concerted effort on your part to try to bring decorum back to these meetings. I appreciate that you're working hard um to have these run efficiently and civily. That is best practices. I want to keep seeing best practices going forward, whether it's keeping anonymous submissions for public comment. Um because best practices is what's best for students and what's best for the staff who support them. And I'm using your words uh Dr.

013Glass because you have brought up best practices. So, I'm going to cheerlead anyone standing up regularly for best practices all the time. And so, I urge you to get out and see all this good stuff happening on campus. So, you don't have to take my word for it because you will see best practices and action every day by this awesome staff. And so, um, again, I will continue to stand up here and cheerlead staff, board members, superintendent who are doing that, standing up for best practices on a daily basis for our kids, for the staff who support them, and for the district as a whole. Thank you. >> Thank you, Aaron. >> Good evening. I'm Shaheen Shake Settle. I have two kiddos here in the district. I just wanted to make two quick uh comments.

014One is to welcome Mr. Roy Chowri. We're wishing you all the best and we're all behind all of you all here as parents supporting the district. And also a deep thank you to D. I I know I've done this privately with you over email, but I really appreciate you all the efforts you've taken to try to bring order and discipline to these meetings and will happily give you credit where credit is due is not easy. It certainly hasn't been easy. It's been a rocky nine months. And so I just wanted to take a moment and and and say this in public on camera that we really do appreciate everything that you're trying to do for the kids and to try to keep this board meeting going forward smoothly. Thanks. >> Good evening. Steve Macintosh here.

015Um since I probably can't pronounce your last name, I'm going to call you MJ. So, um, good evening, uh, President Perry, board, and staff. Um, and I'd like to say a greeting as well as Shaheen did to, uh, Minaj. It's wonderful to have someone with your experience and knowledge here in Lagona. It's much needed and about time. As I said a few weeks ago, with you joining Dr. Glass, and with the commitment of this board, we have the makings of a fantastic leadership team. We have a great district here, but we have plenty to do and plenty of room for improvement. As you have seen, we have had plenty of issues with procedures, processes, transparency here for many years. I'm hoping that you're looking at this as an opportunity to use your expertise wisely to

016get these challenges cleaned up ASAP. The community is looking for results and accountability. Working with this board will be paramount to solve these issues and for the continued success of our district. I look forward to seeing the fruits of your efforts. Um, as everyone knows, we are in the top two or so in the state for the amount of money we spend per student. In a recent article, there was a comparison between Laguna Beach and Irvine school districts. On a district-wide level, both were neck andneck in academic performance. However, spending is another story. We spend 35,000 per student and Irvine spends 15,500, less than half. They have 36,000 students and we have roughly 2,300. So, the latest CAPS test scores have been released and appears the unheard of magic 16 point increase that our high

017school math scores had last year um were just that, magic. This year's seniors tested as juniors in 2024 had a score of 59 in math and 57 in science. That means 59% met the standard in math and 57% met the standard in science. No one, and I mean no one, should be happy with these numbers. Everyone will say that we're doing great compared to the rest of the state. Who cares about the rest of the state? It's that attitude is one of the reasons why people have taken their kids to private schools in other districts. Uh if other dictives are getting equal results results for far less than half the money, then obviously that's not the issue. We tried to tell the last administration board there were problems uh and third party consultants have said

018the same thing yet nothing was done. It was all ignored. It's time to take a good hard look at what's going on here and get it fixed now, not later. I feel the proper people are in place now. So it's let's get to work. Quit patting everyone on the back. get rid of the dead weight and get the job done for the kids. Thank you. >> Thank you. Any more? >> Okay. Thank you. Um CSA, would you like to give a report? >> I'm speaking for Scott and I. Um, we did have a report tonight, but unfortunately with the emails received this afternoon through Laboua and CSEA's public records request, we have been now told that we have no comment and we are meeting with their union leadership and attorneys next week, unfortunately. So, I'm

019wish we had something positive, but thank you for your words earlier, D. It truly are trying to help make things better, and we do appreciate it so much. >> Thank you, Thesa. So, Scott, that's for both of you, correct? Okay. Um, Dr. Glass, thank you, Madam Chair. Uh, since our last meeting, our administrative team has been focused on moving from listening to action following the release of the 100 day report, which you all have u paper copies uh at your um seats. There are a limited number of paper copies available that I've been using to go around and share uh the lessons from that 100 day report with the community. That effort will continue. I'll talk more about that process with you later tonight. We've been working together to prioritize the report's next steps, identifying

020where we can streamline initiatives, clarify roles, sequence the work across the next three years, and that started just yesterday with our administrative team, including our building uh site leaders. These conversations are helping us focus on what matters most. Uh strengthening trust and coherence, supporting our people, ensuring that every decision that we make keeps students at the center. I also want to recognize and welcome as other ha others have our CEO manage. Welcome Minaj. Manage has quickly brought become an invaluable member of our leadership team. In his short time here, he's brought thoughtful analysis and strong financial acumen to our business services operations, working to strengthen our internal controls. refining our reporting systems and working hard to get acclimated to our district. He said that I had 100 days and he's had 100 hours uh to

021try and get caught up. But we appreciate his calm and collaborative approach and that's already made a not noticeable difference and I appreciate the positive impact he's having on our team in our district. In facilities news, I'm pleased to share that our pool replacement project has officially received approval from the division of the state architect, a major milestone that allows us to move confidently into the next phase of construction planning. This reflects months of design, review, and collaboration marks a significant step in delivering a real quality, high high quality facility for our students and our community. Also, Madam President, I echo your calls for respect, and you did a fantastic job with that. It's clear that people here care deeply about our schools. This board can engage and should be engaging on challenging issues. The

022very toughest issues that we face should come before this board. And we can do that in ways that value other people in our community and work toward fair and respectful solutions. Our ability to listen even when it's difficult shows our students what civic engagement should be like. My commitment is to is to continue providing a space for dialogue while ensuring that ensuring that our meetings remain safe, respectful, and focused on the interests of our students and community. As we move forward, our focus will be on implementing the 100 day priorities. I'll talk more again about that with you later. Um, thank you, Madam President. I look forward to a meaningful student focused meeting tonight and I am always grateful for the opportunity to live and serve this wonderful community. Thank you. >> Thank you, Dr.

023Class. Dr. Mayberry, >> thank you. Um, I just first of all, I just wanted to recognize Dr. Julie Hatchel's not here tonight because she is in Washington DC being recognized as a two 2025 uh National Association of Elementary School Principles, National Distinguished Principal. just a handful of those in in across the country and our own Dr. Hatchel is being recognized. So, just a really exceptional award for her and and her team at Elmoro. Uh I also just wanted to there's a lot of really good visual performing arts events going on right now this last couple weeks. It's really picked up. Um we did have a camp readalot family literacy night at Top of the World recently. Um we have family art night recently at Top of the World as well. Uh wonderful dance clinic at

024Elmoro last Friday. Uh the TMS band and choir had concerts recently. High school theater play Emma uh starts this week. Um the Laguna Art Museum has some lessons scheduled for next week. So just a lot uh programs going on in our in our arts u that our students and staff are really excited about last week, this week and next week. So thank you >> Mr. Conlin. >> Thank you President Perry. So, several members of the HR and business teams attended the inaugural 2025 business and human resources conference hosted by the Orange County Department of Education this past Monday uh with representation from all OC districts. Uh the sessions f focus on best practices and how to navigate new legislation impacting OC school. So, that was a great opportunity for our staff. And then special thanks

025to the entire district office team who put together an amazing potluck breakfast for Boston appreciation day last week. It's a it was an amazing event just to come together and break and break bread. So, it's another example of how lucky we are to be part of such such a special family. So, thank you. That's all I have. >> You Mr. Roy Chadi. >> Thank you. Good evening, board president, members of the board, superintendent, and members in the audience. I'm excited to join this district, and this is my second week. I just want to thank uh my colleagues and superintendent for the warm welcome that I received and we are in good place. I have nothing more to add than what Dr. Mayberry and uh Mr. Conloone added and superintendent. >> Thank you. Um, so now

026we'll go on toformational items, instructional services, progressive discipline and restorative practices. Dr. Mayberry and the staff will present. >> Good evening. Thank you. So tonight's presentation focuses on a district-wide shift, our districtwide shift from traditional discipline model to a more human- centered, integrated, and progressive framework. Um, this has been an intentional and ongoing shift over several years to foster skill development and accountability while promoting growth mindset and opportunities for redemption. Uh, we'll have myself, directors, school principles here to present to the board. Uh, we'll share the framework for this approach, some current data snapshots, uh, as well as some school level implementation. Uh, the goal is ultimately a safe and respectable learning environment. Um, we do this through a very human- centered approach. Uh the core to this is really three key pillars. Uh we're

027strive to provide a safe learning environment where we actively respect the rights of all students. Uh we work to cultivate themes of belonging, respect and kindness for all individuals in the classroom, curriculum, across schools and the campus. And lastly, uh we seek to promote a growth mindset. Ensure that those are those opportunities for redemption. Uh redemption is really a core tenant to this approach to progressive discipline. want students help students see that mistakes are opportunities for learning uh and repair. This is a well-established best practice approach around progressive discipline um that is widely adopted across some of the top school districts in the state. Uh our practices are grounded in federal law, California ed code and board policy 5144 and 5144.1 which guide both student discipline and restorative justice and practice. Uh we also integrate

028mandated reporting laws, behavior threat assessments and response processes to ensure safety and fairness. Uh our most concerning stasis cases such as child abuse, threats self or others, we take immediate action to assess and deliver uh a duty to protect the student and potentially others. Um we ultimately know this is about we are trying to respond to students and sometimes in a very intensely vulnerable time when it comes to discipline and intervention. Our staff seeks to understand and identify root causes of concerns as part of this approach. How to support each individual student through discipline process with interventions and consequences to develop skills and change behavior in the future. Um ultimately we're focusing on building skills in students um that need to be so they can be successful members of our community. Skills like empathy, self-regulation,

029and social problem solving. So that provides a general overview. We're going to kind of get into some Dr. Keller will get into some of the details around those systems and then we'll have the principles come up and share some of the site level examples. >> Good evening members of the board. Thank you so much for having me. Uh, President Perry, members of the board, Superintendent Glass, I'm just happy to continue the conversation around positive discipline approaches and restorative practices. Uh, this approach is embedded into what we call PBIS of positive behavior interventions and supports. That's really a systemic focus that's datadriven. And that information and the systems that we create over time helps to inform the practices that happen not only in the classroom, but they happen across the school and AC across the grade

030level and across the entire school. And really, we're trying to mirror best practices across the district. Um, we continuously look at that data for systems improvement and try to be reflective on how we are meeting the needs of students at any given time. And our goal really is to have students engaged and ready to learn in class. But we know that there's certain barriers that some students might bring into the situation, whether it's internal or external. And so we want to be responsive to those needs. We also embed this within our multi-tered systems of support. And so we think about schoolwide approaches. We we have to be able to provide some level of instruction across classrooms and across the school as best first instruction. And when students need more, we have this the the qualified

031personnel in place to provide more services and counseling services or behavioral support services or other specialized programs through an IEP or a 504 program. Those are those are other opportunities to think about how we can accommodate and support students to be engaged and ready to learn. We'll talk a lot about more about restorative practices, but really I think Dr. Mayberry mentioned it really nicely. It is an opportunity and a a systems approach to be able to think about not exclusionary discipline as a or or um punishment as a first response, but really to think about pausing and reflecting and trying to make that experience a learning experience. There may be some consequence that is a natural consequence of that behavior, but really we're trying to make it a learning experience so we don't have students

032having continued difficulty in those situations. Also, we have a trauma-informed approach. That means that students bring in lots of different things from their existence into the learning setting. And that could be substance abuse in the home. It could be abuse situations. It could be those are external things that students might bring in. And they could also be internal um concerns that that we need to be able to be responsive to in the school setting. I want to highlight our social emotional learning program. That's really the the what I was talking about with best first instruction. At K5, we're implementing the SecondStep curriculum that's really important to teach students about self-management, social management, how to get along, how to how to implement social problem solving. We have well spaces at the middle school and high school

033and our school social workers are really instrumental in partnering with our school counselors to go out into classrooms at various times to focus on that self-management, self-regulation and those soft skills that are really important not only for learning now but but later in life. These are the foundational emotional intelligence skills for learning. Also want to just highlight our middle school and high schools are are working to in the fall of 2026 to have designation as a recognized ASCAN school counselor association model program designation. There's so many different data points that would be that they're seeking to be able to live up to to demonstrate that they're meeting the standards as a high quality program. They already do this work, but getting that designation is really solidifying the excellence that they're bringing to to their work

034every day. And over the past several years, we've strengthened and integrated restorative practices approaches across all school sites. This represents a significant shift in mindset, like we've discussed, from reacting with immediate consequences to engaging in reflection and dialogue. Our focus is on understanding root causes, repairing relationships, and fostering collaboration with the student. It's proactive, responsive. There's a formal framework that we use that supports belonging and improves school climate. And as research research shows, it reduces suspension rates. And I think you'll see that in the data that we're going to be sharing. You'll hear more from our school principles about how they're implementing restorative practices and their approaches. And I'm excited for you to hear from them. And then this is a snapshot of our suspension data over from pre- pandemic era 18/19 school year. You

035can see LBUSD at the top there at 1.8% suspension rate. And then we have since after the pandemic 2122 up to currently the most recent full school year 2425. Our overall district-wide suspension rate last year was 1.7%. that represents that includes 40 students that were involved in a in a discipline related situation. Some of those students were involved in multiple situations that resulted in suspension. But of the students suspended, 67% of students were not suspended a second time from school. We don't want to use suspension as a first response. That is not that is not our desire to have that happen. But when it's appropriate for the situation and required by law or part of the part of the consequences based on other uh means of correction that we've implemented for the student that is

036an appropriate approach to help support that student in through that situation or the other community members that are involved in that situation. I also just want to highlight of the suspensions from last year, 17 of the incidents, the top three areas were were caused or threatened to cause physical injury. So that's 17 of those that of that total of the 60, I'm sorry, there's 60 total discipline suspensions. 13 of those were uh use of tobacco or tobacco related products. And we know we need to continue to do work on tobacco use prevention. That's part of the work that I'm doing with our teams. and then 13 incidents of hostile learning environment. So those are the top three areas incidents of hostile learning environment and foundationally we have worked really hard to create a school culture

037and community where students feel safe to come to school and I think Dr. Dr. Mayberry mentioned it really nicely when he said we want to ensure that students rights are protected in the school environment and that means your right to be safe in in school. So we measure perceptions of safety in school and through a variety of different means but I'll but showcasing uh this data up here this is from the California healthy kids survey. It's one of the most widely administered surveys that we administer every other year. We administer in sixth, 7th, 9th and 11th but most commonly we've historically implemented in seventh, 9th and 11th grade. And this is the responses for students who are saying they feel safe or very safe in school compared to the Orange County average. And notably, our

038students in seventh grade all the way up through 11th grade, there's 19% higher perceptions of safety to up to 32% perceptions of safety compared to county averages. So that's very positive. We have room to grow in middle school in particular, but certainly we we're reaching very high levels. In our annual ELCAP survey, fully 89% of the 1,223 students surveyed indicated that they feel safe or very safe at school, which is really impressive, with another 8% with a neutral response. And then 3% of students said that they don't feel safe in school. That's an anonymous survey. So, we don't we don't know who those students are, but we do want to make sure that we're we are having everybody feel safe at school. And then lastly, we also every other year administered the challenge success survey

039of student experiences. This is a survey that's administered across the country with similar schools like L that we have in Lagona Beach Unified. schools that have high achievement culture, lots of pressure on being successful in school. There's a variety of different areas that this survey measures. Um, and that and one of the areas is do you have an adult at school that you would turn to for support? And the other one is do you have an a fellow student that you would turn to for support? And at both Thirstston Middle School and the Gun Beach High School, our stu our students report significantly strong agreement that they have a go-to adult at school. 75% of students at Thirstston and that was an increase from two years previously. Um indicated that they have a go-to adult.

040Well, and the 82% indicated that they have a go-to peer at school. And that's right in line with the the comparison of 17,000 other students who took the same survey. And then very impressively at the high school, 86% of students are reporting that they have a go-to adult that they would go to if they have a problem. And that was an increase of 9% from the previous cycle. I know Dr. Alman and his team, the teachers, the staff, the counselors, the social workers, they work very hard to cultivate those personal relationships and supportive relationships. And then of course 93% of students are indicating that they have a go-to peer. And that's an increase of 11% from the previous cycle. So, we are having students experience really positive support in school, which is a foundation of

041perceptions of safety and really feeling like students belong and that they can be successful in school. I'd now like to turn it over to Mr. Joe Vidal, the principal of Thirstston Middle School. He's going to share a little bit about about their work in this area. All right. Good evening, board. and I'd like to thank you for the opportunity to share a little bit about what progressive discipline and restorative practices look like at Thirstston. Um, but before I start diving in, I just want to express my gratitude for the district's ongoing commitment to the whole child. Those investments are very visible every day on our campus through additional counselors and social workers, professional development for our staff, and as well as um experts who help provide us and help us see our students through a

042more broader compassionate lens. As we know, the whole child support became very evident following the infamous year of 2020. And like many schools, we saw a shift not just in academics, but in how students relate to one another, handle stress, and manage conflict. The developmental years that were disrupted by the pandemic showed us how vital it is to teach students the human side of learning, empathy, communication, resilience, and self-regulation. We realized early on that a single system like PBIS, which focuses on teaching and rewarding positive behavior, while important, wouldn't be enough to meet every student's social and emotional needs. So when I joined Lagouna Beach, I introduced a partnership that I had previously built with the International Institute of Restorative Practices. Through this collaboration and over the last few years, every staff member at Thirsten

043received training in community building circles. These so-called circles are structured conversations where students and staff sit together, listen to one another's stories and build understanding. These circles aren't just about solving problems. They're about building community before conflict happens. For exa for example, a staff member may ask students a simple question like, "What helps you feel respected in this classroom?" or "What's something you're proud of this week?" These icebreaker moments create trust and connection, which makes it easier for students to have harder conversations when conflict does arise. And with and when mistakes happen in middle school, and trust me, they always do. Restorative conversations help students reflect, take responsibility, and repair relationships rather than simply serving a consequence. As we know, punishment and isolation does not change behavior, but education and empathy can. A key difference

044between punishment and growth. That said, we also realize the importance of natural consequences, especially in a middle school where it's a sandbox to learn about the boundaries before the stakes can get higher and potentially impact post-secary options. If we can teach those hardships in sixth through 8th grade with natural consequences and restoration, we feel that we are helping students be better prepared for high school in the real world. So by combining positive behavioral intervention and supports with restorative practices, we've created a proactive relationship centered framework that emphasizes connection, accountability, and reflection. Both systems complement each other. PBIS sets the expectations and res and and restorative practices teaches empathy and communication skills needed to uphold them. The results speak volumes over the past few year past few years. Our culture data, things like student belonging, sense

045of safety, and respect among peers has improved. Positive reinforcement has dramatically increased and our suspension rate has gone from 7% several years ago to 3% last year and a very tiny half of a percent under 1% this year. Please know these district investments are paying off in both measured and unmeasured ways. Both those numbers though only tell part of the story. What's the most powerful in how these people or how these things feel on our campus? It feels calmer and we see students become more reflective. They use words like making it right. I own that and we agreed on that. Words that show they're internalizing the process and most importantly have a voice in it. And while I'm incredibly proud of our staff for leading this work, it's much more than the school. We recognize

046that schools mirror their communities. the values, the challenges and conversations happening in our broader community. While unfortunate at times, it inevitably shows up within the walls of our school. That's why I want to thank our PTA and school power for families and families for walking alongside us, partnering to educate parents on a variety of social issues like healthy technology habits, empathy, and most recently resilience. Together, we're creating a shared investment in developing in student character, a foundation that supports all parts of learning. And yes, we see some of the many faces, same faces of our parents coming out to these amazing opportunities. But what we also see is that it's a growing into a common language that is also broadening our efforts in our community. So how does this system operate at the site level

047and in real time? At Thirsten, our approach is comprised of teaming which is datadriven and collaborative. Multiple teams monitor trends and adjust our tiered supports throughout the year from from broad schoolwide practices tier one to more focused interventions tier 2 and finally individualized supports tier three. For example, our tier one team is made up of teachers, counselors, administrators, and support staff. We consistently meet to review data and identify emerging trends. For example, at the beginning of this year, we noticed an increase in technology related referrals. Instead of responding with stricter rules, we reframed the problem, how could we teach and reinforce appropriate use? So, we launched a campaign where teachers rewarded students who modeled responsible tech behavior using our five-star point system, which is a dig digital token platform that students love and use use

048those things to buy things on a weekly basis in our student store or at our student raffles. Administrators like myself would check classrooms for consistent phone collection routines, share morning announcements reminding students about expectations while recognizing students of the day who demonstrate good values. We also communicated to families through weekly newsletters about healthy screen time and sleep habits so that we could align those expectations at home and at school. The result was a 50% reduction in technology related referrals. But most importantly, it invited better conversations about respect, focus, and balance. And every month we shift our focus based on the data that we see. So for example, this month is focusing on reducing classroom disruptions by positively reinforcing ontask behavior. Please know this focus changes on a monthly basis depending what trends we see as

049they currently happen. And when some students don't respond to our universal supports, we move to tier 2 targeted intervention. These are more p personalized and a more hands-on approach. This team is comprised of counselors, a social worker, a school psychologist, teach teacher intervention leads and administrators. And the support we assign might look different based on the unique needs surrounding that particular issue. Counselors might visit a specific class to facilitate a restorative circle on how certain behaviors affect learning. In these circles, students share how how they feel when disruptions happen and even scale how much they contribute to them and then altogether the collective effort. We create shared norms on how that classroom is going to move together, students involved. For smaller groups of students who need extra coaching, counselors lead small groupoup self-regulation sessions where

050students identify potential triggers, set weekly goals, and practice on strategies to stay focused and manage their emotions. And beyond small groups, individual students may participate in check-in checkout mentorship programs daily meeting daily with a staff mentor to review a personal goal, track their progress, and celebrate their growth. This process builds accountability and connection, two key drivers of behavioral change. For students with more significant challenges or repeated conflicts, we offer restorative alternatives to suspension. One of our most powerful examples of this is peer court, a process we also call student success panels. These panels bring a small group of trained student leaders and a counselor together to meet with that student who made a mistake. Together, they talk about what happened, who was affected, and what could be done to repair that harm. The student then

051creates a restitution plan which might include writing an apology letter, volunteering at the school, or participating in school interventions through tutorials, after school support, or even short-term counseling sessions. The result is accountability without isolation and learning without shame. I'll never forget one case where a student involved in a cyber bullying incident went through this process and weeks later told his counselor that was harder than being suspended but it helped me fix what I broke. This year with our recent partnership with solution tree and thank you for that. We are in the process of creating behavior specific learningmies. For example, a hands-off academy for students who are repeat offenders with physical horseplay or a civility academy for students who show difficulty maintaining civil discourse with other peers or adults or an upstander academy for students who

052demonstrate or participate in bullying type behaviors. In thesemies, students review different vignettes and are advised on what are the right and wrong ways to handle conflict and then students develop their own vignettes and tie them to potentially circumstances around their own lives. We hope that thesemies will then eventually allow these students to generalize those strategies to things that are happening around them and we look forward to getting that more off the ground in the second semester. So in summary, each layer of this tiered support from universal teaching to individualized intervention allows us to meet students where they are, support their needs, and help them learn from their mistakes rather than be defined by them. Our goal isn't just fewer referrals or suspensions. It's about helping students gain the skills to navigate challenges, repair relationships, and

053rejoin their community stronger than before. When that happens, we don't just improve behavior. we and strengthen our entire school culture skills that will serve them well beyond middle school. And with that in mind, I'll hand it over to Dr. Alamman who will share their work at the high school. >> Thank you, Mr. Bidal. Good evening, board. Uh it's an honor and privilege to cover our progressive discipline plan at the high school. Um and I want to make sure that we highlight the fact that we do ground this in student centered and restorative approach. um where we focus on learning, accountability and most importantly growth in our student our young adults and working with them through difficult and challenging process. Um obviously it is sometimes targeted around the specific behavior but we use this as opportunities

054for reflection, dialogue and of course added support as needed. Um and it often occurs in collaboration. So, President Perry, I appreciate what you said about cultivating connections because even in some of our most difficult times as as families and parents as we navigate behavior issues and challenges at school, we can c cultivate collaboration and connection. And really, the ultimate goal here for us is to support the student and family through the entire process, take advantage of learning opportunities along the way. And we recognize, as Dr. Mayberry said this could be a vulnerable and challenging time for families that um we attempt to work in a collaborative manner and and really help student growth and not let a particular incident define who a student or a young adult may become. Um, a critical part that I'm

055really excited to talk to you about tonight is, and you've heard me reference this before, but more in a frame of maybe academic support and socio emotional wellness, but we think when we talk about the whole child that all of this um comes together. So, a critical part of our process is the student needs assessment. um it helps us identify issues early um and provide additional supports uh around all of the items you see on this slide. But what I really want to focus in on in um the help that the student needs assessment provides uh around the restorative process for us. um the results and issues that come of the student needs assessment really helps us do what I believe are the steps before actual restorative processes are in place. And it I look

056at it as more of a responsive and empowerment model for our young adults. Um because based on what we can uh gleam from our needs assessment, we can build hopes around good practice habits, effective behavior, and skills that we can provide our young adults in their own coping arsenal as they move for through their high school experience, not only around behavior, but also just dealing the the trials and tribulations of high school, life after high school. And um we really appreciate the work that our counseling team does around the student needs assessment and gathering a lot of data for us to really drive that work. Um what comes of that oftent times is uh really as you heard referenced earlier tonight uh tied into our multi-systems uh multi-tered systems of support for our students. Um,

057this can be all our our tier one through three approaches include individual counseling, group counseling. Oftent times it's just general pow-wows with uh our support team about how to uh specifically provide good support um for our students. Um, of course, what we set out to achieve in those processes, whether it's small group counseling, individual counseling, is monitored. We want to make sure it has an impact for our students. So, does it set out um to do what we achieved or we intended it to achieve? Um as an example, uh needs assessment results from our past student body have really focused on help and assistance with student peer-to-peer relationships, uh how to build positive friendships. Um sometimes it's around around how to navigate conversations with family members. So oftent times we'll have our support staff develop

058programs for small or individual uh settings for students to help really build that arsenal um so that students can be successful in navigating really positive relationships as they go through their young adult life. Um so ultimately for us you've hear you've heard a lot about how we respond in a tiered manner. Um prevention, intervention, restoration. Uh obviously those supports include uh socioeotional lessons. Uh we have a lot of opportunity in our schedule for uh students to self- select potential supports and skill building opportunities in tutorial um and really build connections with each other on campus and with the staff that are here. And I want to highlight in closing um in a postcoid environment the CDC began assessing students feelings of closeness or connectedness um among high schoolers. In 2021 as a nation 62% of

059our seniors students across the nation reported a sense of closeness to staff or peers on campus. Interestingly enough, in 23 the number went down to 55% of students nationwide with that closeness quotient. Um I think it's important to us to highlight in our school community um once again because you've seen the statistics before at the high school 86% of our students report they feel supported by a staff member and 93% of those students feel supported by peers. Um, that's all done in community, right? That's done with our faculty, our staff, students, and parents alike. So, I think as a as a school community, it's important for us to celebrate that, especially when it's compared to not only the national average, but even our our state and county averages. Um, so again, thank you for the

060opportunity. I'll turn it back over to Dr. Mayberry. So, I'm just kind of wrapping up um as we're thinking through continuous improvement. Um it's really important that we maintain this cohesive district-wide system um where prevention, intervention, and restoration are all connected. And I think we kind of heard that a little bit tonight as Dr. Keller discussed. You know, this work isn't isolated. uh it's in integrated into our district systems around MTS MTSS positive behavior support model the learner profile I mean a key component is uh wanted to mention tonight is professional learning uh that's something that every staff group is a part of teachers instructional aids administrators counselors mental health experts all are continuing to have professional learning uh experiences uh and training around restorative and trauma-informed practices um we've also as as they mentioned

061earlier uh the dedication to spaces, the facilities to support this, right? The well spaces where students can go and reset or recharge or recover. Those are really important components to this system. Um the partnerships, local partnerships help us extend this as well, such as the California News Services. There's several other that we work with closely to help our work help our families and students. This is all part of our continuous improvement. Uh looking at data and reflection is also important. Uh that learning cycle helps us continue to improve. Uh within our system, we analyze key indicators. They've mentioned several of them here. Whether that's interventions, suspensions, attendance, um climate data, all patterns and trends that help us inform and improve the system. Uh not just uh district-wide, schoolwide, and even at the individual level, right?

062There's different every these all these situations are ultimately unique to that student uh and the and the adults that may be involved with uh supporting them. uh and our teams regularly meet to look at those and adjust their trainings, adjust the way they support their students. Um it's an ongoing process that we continue to work towards. Uh and then lastly, um looking ahead, um as we mentioned earlier, like we continue to focus on strengthening that tier one, how are we helping all students grow through social emotional learning, restorative classroom practices, restorative circles, uh within the classes, even not just at the middle and high school, but also at the elementary level. Uh it's a important part. uh staff continues to work towards reducing exclusionary discipline where appropriate really emphasizing the teaching and the opportunity for

063redemption where students can learn from their mistakes because ultimately uh relationships are at the center of learning and discipline. Uh our goal is to provide that safe and respective learning environment where students continue to learn and develop um and have that level of accountability where they can learn and continue to grow and not define have an incident or a situation define who they are because we know that there are um we want to help them become the most successful in their life beyond our time here. So with that, we'll wrap it up. Um and if there's any questions for the presenters tonight, we'll happy to take them. Thank you very much. Are there questions from the board? >> Remember Morgan? >> I have a lot of questions. >> Well, why don't you do like three

064and then let's give somebody else a chance. >> So, I appreciate this report. I know that it's um it's an ongoing process. It's a lot of work. Um, our kids are fabulous no matter how you say it, but they also lack a frontal cortex, I think, which was uh one of the first runins or experiences that I had here at Thirstston was when uh the principal at the time walked into the gym and said, "Your kids will do things and you'll look at them like they're crazy and you'll ask, "What are they thinking?" And the answer is they're not. So, with that, it's good that we have um a process. I'm curious because I'm I'm there's a couple of comments that came in in um the public comments about the process of what how we

065get from the student action to the final result and what determines the tier one, tier two, tier three, when are they excluded and when are they not? Because if we have a process that's been outlined that very well in this report, but when we look at our policies, our policies talk about how um we have multiple steps of um intervention of um like you said the peer circles, the peer court, I thought peer court was related to forensics when my kid was in forensics. Maybe it's changed. I'm not sure. Am I wrong? Separate. Um, so can you explain that process of how we get from the students actions and when what conditions would lead to a suspension and when we would employ um some of these other tactics because I'm kind of hearing a little

066bit um that this is really terrific but it's not always how things are approached. So I want to offer this opportunity to kind of understand that better and see where there might be a disconnect or what we can do to continually improve. >> I think it just really depends on the the behavior and the intensity of the behavior and and the ed code violation, right? And so um based on the the infraction and um the intensity infraction and the impact, I think we're always navigating like do students feel safe? Do staff members feel safe? Right? Right. And so there's that kind of looming too because as an advocate of having a positive culture on this campus, we're weighing in on the impact, the violation, and then trying to make a determination on whether it would

067be a suspendable offense. And some EDC code violations um offer discretion and others are mandated in regards to suspension. Um but regardless um I think that I think that the the restorative conversations the restorative practices uh can happen even with a suspension right when we're talking about reintegration and we have more reflection pieces too as well. The difference between the peer court uh and the the forensic are two separate things. Um we were trained last year through the international institute of restorative practices. They came in the spring of um last year to train students to help us um support alternatives to suspension. So in cases where as an administrator we had more discretion to um determine whether it was going to be a suspendable offense or not, we would leverage those opportunities to do. It

068also takes the student has to volunteer into that process, right? because it is a very vulnerable situation in which you're going to be there with other peers talking about an infraction. Um, and most of the time, actually, surprisingly not, mo more kids chose into that process than others. In fact, I would think it was like nine out of 10 or something to that effect is fairly high. Um, so we're glad to have that additional tool um in our disposable as well. Did I get all of your questions? >> I think so. I mean, I have a whole bunch. So, so if um because I I this is something I know that I have um talked about for quite a while. I know um having kids in theater, one of the programs that Alexa Carroll, who's

069the teacher here, implemented for at the high school at the time, was writing a and I've I've spoken to all of you about this at one point or another. Writing a letter to their future self was the project that our high school students participated in and it was based on her M's program which I think Dr. Keller had talked about. We mentioned this at um at the uh community coalition last week. Uh it was based on her masters of doing a letter or writing her obituary with the idea in mind of how do you want to be remembered? What do you want to be remembered by? So, I'm curious if if we have a an a process that eliminates a student from a situation, if it's if if it warrants that, up until what point

070are we taking that role of putting our kids into these programs where they are learning about how they're impacting others? So, when are these circles h are they the circles or are they because you mentioned a couple different things. You mentioned circles. You mentioned um the peer court, which I'm curious about if there's ever been retaliation on that. >> Themies. Yeah. So, when are we doing these things and at what time of the day? What um and you know, like maybe an example of >> what it would look like if I were there because I threw an eraser at the teacher. I I don't know. I don't want to pick anything too, you know, we have a lot of bullying situations. So, maybe a bullying situation or, you know, disturbing the class learning environment. Um,

071I know we had a teacher one time that somebody was a teach parent was complaining about how their start their child was called out in class because they were disrupting the class and I thought, well, is my kid in that class trying to learn because that would be something to at least discuss with them. Not certainly expold them, but but discuss with them. So, I'm just curious if you could. >> Sure. So, I'll give you an example of like a a tier one circle and then when we might use like a tier 2 circle. So, you know, our counselors, they they'll go into um throughout the month, and they've been doing this every Monday in through our ELA classes over the last few weeks, um teaching students through circles, you know, about peer-to-p peer empathy

072or, you know, depending on what grade level it is, it might be something about um challenges or stressors around schools and transitions to high school, things like that. Um and those just hap happen standard. There is no data that that's there that's telling us whether we need to go and do this or respond to that. In another situation, let's say it's behavior specific. So, we will our our tier one uh behavior committee team will look at the particular data and we'll drill down. So, we have this beautiful dashboard that talks about these are the times of days in which we see the most referrals. These are the types of behaviors that we're seeing and these are um uh the maybe the motivation behind these particular uh behaviors. And then we get this very pre precise

073problem statement that says that we see um from 12:00 to 3:00 that most students are having disruptive activities in their classrooms to uh obtain peer attention. So then our group will create a plan to positive like as I mentioned to you this this month's focus will be that we're going to be looking and reinforcing on task behavior. Um and so we'll have a whole month of teachers that will be positively reinforcing students in class. We'll be having morning announcements. I'll be sending information home through our weekly weekly newsletters just kind of talking about the challenge that we're working on. In some cases, when we're sitting down as a committee, we don't see that it is across all grade levels. We might actually see that um I'll just throw a random teacher out there. We might

074see that there's disruption in Mrs. Martinez's classroom. That we see the bulk of these potential referrals that are coming from Mrs. Martinez's classroom. So in that particular case, we will look at that data. The tier one t team will recommend to the tier 2 team to create a solution to help resolve this particular issue because it's not technically a systemwide issue. It is more of an isolated issue. That particular team, a group of counselors will say, I'm going to go into that particular room and we're going to have a restorative circle around norms and disruption in this particular class. And then they'll go around and they'll talk about what does that look like in this particular class on a scale of one to five. All of you just show up a hand of fingers. How

075much are you really contributing to this? Let's be honest. And you'll people will scale that. And then the students will go around the room and talk about what they're going to do to restore the norms in that particular class. What are what is are examples of that? The most interesting part about that discussion is that the teacher or the counselor may say, um, what should we do if people violate those norms? It's interesting the punitive list that they create on their own about themselves more so than what any adult would do. We're not going down that path, kids, but these would this seem like a reasonable thing. So, they create their own norms of within a class. So, that's when that particularly might happen. For example, if something were to happen where the disruption and

076defiance or things like that raise to a particular level, um we'll just use the throwing the eraser at the teacher particular thing. We may rather than go through a suspendable offense, um have a conversation and go to peer court. What are you going to do to make things right? Would you go in front of a conversation with particular peers that would happen during the school day? Typically, we find these things that align perfectly within tutorial periods um and um and work among their peers to create a solution to making things right moving forward. And as I mentioned to you, that might be being a helper in Mrs. Martinez's classroom if she was the one that was the recipient of this eraser. That might be writing an apology uh letter to her. That might be um

077helping and supporting in other capacities on our campus. So that would be kind of an example of that. And then there was another aspect to your question that I don't think I addressed or did I >> primarily >> not all the time. I mean it really looks at the the schedule. So we have um 25 or so trained students that that volunteer and they rotate through these peer courts that we get all have an opportunity and experience to do it. So we look at the schedules of those that would be available to do the peer course based on that rotation and then we look at the schedule of the particular student and try to have the least amount of impact on their core instruction. If it happens to be that tutorial works out great perfect

078we would try to leverage that but we'd also look at other core subject areas. So part of this peer court piece too which we call student success panels because peer court has these negative associations with it um is that we look at the grades of the particular student. So the student is not just repairing uh harm based on the behavior. It's a whole child kind of solution. And so peers will say, "Hey, I know you have this behavior, but I also recognize that you're not doing well in math, and I also recognize that you really love this sport, but you don't actually participate in any sports on campus." So, not only you going to have this um remedy for repairing harm, but part of this restitution plan is also going to be that moving forward,

079you're going to be um following and signing up for tutorials in mathematics. and by the next time that we meet I want to hear about three or four surfing programs that you are interested in outside of school. So it is not so much behavior specific. It is more about a supportive lens for the whole child and the child goes through and checks these things off and I think they're given you know two to three weeks depending on what the infraction is um to work through that and our counselor will then meet with that student periodically to follow up and see how are these things going how can I help you to accomplish these goals. Um hopefully that brings a little bit more information with that. Oh, great. Should I get a chair? >> So, I'd

080like to circle back in. >> Do we Okay. Um, Mr. Hills, >> then I'll just >> Is it just for me or should I go back? >> Shorter questions and get shorter answers. Uh, the great answers that I have, but um I I don't want to take up everybody's time too much. Um first of all you were talking about the peer the process that includes the peers and working with the student who needs restorative um attention. Um and you made a very important point. It's easy to say yeah let's have a peer counseling program or let's have the peers a peer process. It's very easy to say that but most important thing you said about that is that the student has to consent >> to be um in a situation where he's giving both information

081about himself plus authority to his peers to affect his his um situation >> 100%. And um uh I remember uh I' I've been for years I've been talking about um I'd like to see the the whole student government process uh in this school district be strengthened quite a bit. And I've I've done some research and I've looked at some other school districts and how they approach student government, empowerment of students and the student voice. One of the things that you see about some schools and we actually had this at Laguna Beach High School a long time ago. you have a student court and so if you have a problem the the vice principal calls you in his office you have a problem um vice principal can say well this is what I'm going to do

082about this and it can be restorative it can be supportive like I really liked your example of when a when a student likes a sport but isn't playing it I had one of my own kids had that situation where um I couldn't understand why she wasn't playing the support the sport she liked But um one of the things the vice principal would say is um but if you don't want to have me be the sole arbiter of your destiny here, you can go to student court. And so you have to agree and volunteer to go to student court. The student court can be part of a student government structure uh that you get students involved in the judicial function and not just the legislative executive functions. So I I I but the thing I wanted

083to ask you um since this is a question period is um you know um have you looked much at um our um bylaw 9150 which is about our student representatives and I I really want to uh um uh bring the bring this to the attention of our student representatives. Um and if you look at uh uh education code 351 uh12 35012, one of the restorative tools that we have is that the board can authorize its student representatives to engage in restorative justice, peer restorative justice um process with the board where they act. But the student has to agree that um he he or she wants the pe the the student representatives on the board um to uh engage. And if they do engage um the board can actually give the student representatives information that would

084otherwise be restricted to the student board members about the facts and the situation and stuff that would m material information that would otherwise be um confidential. So, it's a it's a what I'm asking you is um are you interested I would hope you're interested in and and other people here including um the assistant superintendent on really activating because we're talking a lot about student representation and student voice and um uh really activating this mechanism that we have under the law under both our bylaw and the statute um where you can actually empower the student representatives to participate in the restorative process. For example, if a student is going to be expelled, the student the student representatives can meet with the board when they're dealing with an expulsion issue and they can make suggestions for what

085might be the best things to do for this the best things to do for these students. So, I I don't know if you're familiar with that. Have you been exposed to that? And what are your thoughts about that? >> No, I I'm not familiar with that. Um but thank you for sharing that. I I will say um the the peer court idea that you're talking about in regards to what used to exist at the high school sounds very similar to what we kind of resurrected in in the spring of last year. And as we went through this training, one of the key tenants of it which I thought was very powerful was that that when we went through this the selection process of training these particular students, we wanted to get not just the PAL

086students or the ASB students. We wanted to get a true representative sample of students that are on our campus. And I think that there is a lot of power in students that own the same community as the other student, the potential offender, to be able to help them within that community. And I think that that is really what for us drove us to pushing that forward because a lot of times they just have adults making decisions for them. And I found that it was very empowering, not only empowered this trained students to help their peers on their own campus, in their own village, but I also saw how the benefits of these students that went in there feeling like they were very vulnerable, right, in their own space, and maybe their only willingness to go

087was because they might have been peers that they bumped shoulders with in the in the in the hallways only to see that it strengthened some really great relationships. maybe relationships that that um that they didn't have before but just kind of knew in passing. So I find that based on that particular experience that I'm very biased in um in wanting to um see that within our own community, right? and and and be accepting of our own community because I think a lot of times when you do have exclusionary discipline, let's say the behavior is very egregious. There is this level of concern about those individuals coming back into and reintegrating back into the very community the harm was done. And I think there's a lot of power in and comfort and having peers that you

088know kind of help and support you through that process. >> I'll just say thank you very much. I'll just say this. In my experience, when there's a peer process, the person who's subject to the the cognizance of the peer group, they often end up becoming friends with the peers who um made choices or helped them make choices about their situation. >> Completely agree with you. >> Yeah. Thank you. >> Yeah. Madam Chair, just a >> um Madam Chair, just to directly answer Clerk Hill's question about the appointment of the student board member for restorative advisement to the board. The question is really for the board. Um the board is the one that makes the decision to authorize the student members to provide that council to the board. So it's it's really more appropriate that the

089board deliberate that on that and it's certainly something we would support if you were interested. That's why I asked question you have a opportunity there. So I appreciate your appreciate your comment. >> Thank you. Okay. Now Dr. Mjeski, >> um I think this is a quick question. I I um support the whole restorative justice program and I just should add that um you know I have a middle school kid. Middle kid middle school is not an easy time in terms of a lot of disciplinary issues and I think that we're doing a really admirable job. So I thank you for that. Um my question is relates to something that will make me sound much more traditional though just because I'm curious about it and that's that when you look at like research on school discipline

090and um uh you know outcomes for students some of that research says that students don't mind strict discipline including suspensions or referrals whether major or minor if they understand that it's applied fairly and consistently, right? So, if they get a major referral for when someone got a minor referral or they get suspended and um another student who did something similar did not get suspended or we have processes that change somebody getting a referral and then it's overturned or whatever. That's what's really complicated for students is that when students don't feel like the discipline is fair and consistent. So, I guess the question is when you try to integrate, you know, we have an ed code around suspensions, for example. I'm sure there's school policies about referrals. Um, and I can't speak for the high school

091because I'm not there, but I is there is it possible or or is it possible isn't the right way to phrase phrase it, but can restorative justice undermine that sense of fairness and consistency that students want to see in discipline? Because it's it's really a question. It's not a leading question or any kind of judgment, but does it lead students to feel that it's less fair and consistent because there's not always a clear outcome. And do we have systems in place to ensure that the policies we do have around discipline are always fairly and consistently applied because then students don't mind discipline, right? So, I think that was an answerable question. Sorry if it was inarticulate. I'll try to answer. Um I think when we talk about restorative approaches, there's a variety of um things

092that we have to consider as a team at the high school. Um first and foremost, as I think my colleague Mr. Bodal mentioned, it is dependent upon the incident. Um and I think more importantly at times it can be also dependent upon the impact that it has the specific incident has on others right so we have to gauge the other maybe we can call it the other side of a of a of an issue or challenge um often times we really take into consideration too around the restorative piece um uh the supports and services that students have previously participated in right and if they were impactful. It was kind of like when I was sharing the process of being reflective on what we set out to do and how it impacts a student. Are we

093hitting the mark or are we not? Um sometimes in most cases we are hitting the mark around some of our restorative practices but the other part of that is not only are the supports and services being accessed by the student. Have they previously participated? But more more importantly in the related to the particular incident along with the discipline is are they open to the practice itself. So we have and I think sometimes we think these things are mutually exclusive, right? It's either a suspension or a restorative practice, but they also can coexist and oftent times when a student is suspended on our campus, we'll have a re-entry meeting where we specifically cover the topic, what brought us here, what's bringing us back, and the supports that that student and at times even the family will

094have in in the process. So I think those are two important parts related to your question around consistency because um like I said these can be challenging and vulnerable times and processes for parents and families to navigate. So we always want to make sure um that we you know remind parents especially being one of them myself and you know having some of my own students in my family going through some of the minor discipline processes at school is that you know being mindful that it doesn't necessarily have to define who you are as a young adult. However, it is a great learning opportunity and if we get in community agree around that opportunity for learning, nine times out of 10 the outcome is really positive and and like uh Trustee Hills has mentioned it. It

095it creates a more of a sense of community either between two students, sometimes between the parent and the school. Um but that opportunity is there and and I think I agree with you that consistency around that is very important. So in every incident that takes place at the high school where it might be a suspendable offense, we are really, you know, coming together as a team to discuss every aspect of the case and really make our best and hopefully final decision. >> Great. Thank you. >> Yeah. >> I'm just going to add add one thing um to your question. um yes that restorative practices can definitely um if poorly implemented right so if if you have poorly imp implemented practices and I found that you know for example um if it's poorly communicated to as

096well um I think sometimes there is this vigilance that comes from the community and maybe the victims of some of these particular things and and and sometimes it's perceived that if they're not off of to the campus then nothing was done and and sometimes as administrators we're bound by a lot of confidentiality that we can't share all the aspects or all the different types of supports that we're providing these particular students which puts me in a very difficult place and sometimes I talk in parallels sometimes when this happens these are the types of things that we do to help support students and hopes that people understand that there are many layers that are there and when things are poorly implemented um and we don't have whole staff have discussions about the fidelity of practice and

097why we do these particular things then yeah maybe staff members might feel under undermined throughout this process. So I think in my learning curve as we've gone through this process I found that communication is very important um and as well as having a fidelity of practice and everybody understanding what the system looks like and how we approach it knowing that our laws that are surrounding us require us to be restorative in nature. So I hope I hope that helps. >> Thank you. >> Add madam chair just to quickly um and I think for just clarity for the public because I think you know all the all of these things already um the decision to apply exclusionary discipline is governed by state law. Um so and again um Trusty Malchesky I know that you know this

098but we don't just get to make up for a reason that a student gets suspended or expelled. It's in the law what are the criteria for that. When that happens the school also according to the law has to consider a restorative step. Is that appropriate? As the principles have stated it's highly contextual to the situation. Uh sometimes that makes sense and sometimes it doesn't. And so we rely on the professional judgment of our school uh administrators to make that determination. Um and specific to the question of is it unevenly applied there is um both or in state law in the board's policies and in the district administration uh administrative regulations there's a process there's due process available. Uh so student feels like we have made an error in applying discipline there's a process that we

099can take the student and the parents through to have that reversed. And so all of those are available. So just to lay out the full context, I know that you know all all of this. >> What kinds of behaviors will result in what, including referrals, right? I mean, that's a minor thing. And then there's major things like expulsions. But thank you. Yeah, >> it's >> correct, Dr. Kelly. students have any questions since they may have even experiences with restorative justice >> from what I've heard which is by and large the majority of the complaints I have heard about the discipline system has been from thirsten and the m majority of the complaints I I personally have talked to the teachers who were behind the complaints um and none of them seem to have an incredible

100amount of validity where there's like I mean, massive amounts of injustices going on. So, I think Mr. Rall, you're you're doing a good job on that front. Um, and then from the high school, I I also have not been aware of any um students having like at least very real or um I don't I don't want to discount the reality of the students experiences, but I haven't heard any like incredibly valid disputes of um the the justice system at the high school. Thank you. And before I we're going to come back to you, Mrs. Morgan, for more questions, um I just had a couple. Um Dr. Keller, you told us about the three most the three top reasons for suspensions. Um, was that I I wasn't sure if that was for this year or if

101we look back to the 23 24 year at Thirstston when there was it was 7.4%. >> Yeah, thank you for the question. That was for that was last year's data. I can I don't think I have the access to that previous year's data right now with me, but be happy to report that information as well. Just give >> curious if it was the same top three. I can generally say that those those areas are generally so hostile environment. Um the other one was tobacco use and then um and excuse me I'm blanking on the other one and then and then the um cause or threaten to cause physical injury which would be almost like causing a fight essentially. So yeah those are those are primarily the top three generally um historically. though, but I can

102we can give you more information in our weekly Reddit. >> Okay, I appreciate that. Thank you. And my other question was I know that um with state law some things you have to suspend, some things you can do restorative justice or you can do something else. What What are the things that you absolutely have to suspend? >> That is a wonderful question. I'm going to I although I'm an administrator, I'm very knowledgeable about the ED code. I'm gonna f Is is Betsy here? >> Betsy, the director of assessment and accountability, highly trained in this area and our leading in-house expert, and she's not feeling very well tonight, but I sorry to disclose that, but uh but >> Oh, Betsy, I'm sorry. >> I don't have any information on me, so I'm going to go off

103the top of my head. So there are certain things that require exclusionary discipline and that typically is when the health and safety of students are compromised on campus. So an example of that would be physical assault. Um that is not in the case of self-defense. If students are selling drugs on campus, they have to be immediately suspended pending expulsion. If students are bringing explosives, if students are bringing guns, if students are bringing a weapon um or an unsafe object of no reasonable use to them, >> if they're bringing a knife to school, um it that one's a little bit bit discretionary in that if they are wielding a knife at another student or we call that brandishing, that's an automatic recommendation for expulsion. Sometimes kids might have a camping knife in their pocket and not

104realize it. So then that's that's where the certain things are more nuanced. Okay. >> But essentially um the big ones are drugs, alcohol, violence, explosives, and weapons. Now I had I have heard from other schools that students with drugs aren't necessarily suspended. If you're selling it, it's something different. Is that true? That's >> so if you're caught with drugs or you're, you know, smoking weed somewhere on the campus, you might not be suspended. >> Would you believe that's another one that's nuanced? There's actual about like how many ounces might be in a vape. Is it a first offense? Is it repeated offense? What kind of drugs are the drugs being shared? Are the drugs being sold? Um, so it's that's why when we say that we discipline within the confines of the law, that's what

105that means. So while certain situations are contextual or more nuanced, I just want to reassure all of you up here that our principles do take these considerations very seriously with their teams. If we're ever in a scenario that is complicated and some of our situations are very complicated without going into detail, I want to assure you that we have legal experts um that we consult with whether through our own in-house legal counsel that we consult with who are experts in the area of discipline and what that means within the confines of the law and uh disciplinary actions whether exclusionary or non-exclusionary. We've also consulted with the Orange County Department of Education legal experts because it is complicated. That's the that's the simple answer is that it's complicated. But when we're talking about an expulsion, there

106are two reasons that a principal would recommend expulsion. And as you all know from going through the process before, only the board has the actual authority to expel. The principal can make a recommendation, due process follows, and then ultimately it's in the hands of the board. what the outcome of that recommendation is. But if the principal feels and has uh evidence to show that um all other means of correction have failed to bring about a change in behavior. That would be one reason. Or is the presence of the student on campus causing a threat to the safety of other students? Those are reasons. One of the two or both would be a reason why a principal would feel compelled to recommend expulsion because we have to think about the rights of the individual who has

107committed the act or who is accused of committed um committing the act and that's where that due process comes in. They always have the right to tell their side of the story. There's always a very lengthy and indepth investigation that follows any claim of discipline. interviewing witnesses, teachers, speaking with students, written statements, interview statements, SRO involvement many times. So, it is a very long and involved process before a decision is made, which requires gathering a lot of facts and information. But of course, for any decision that's made, um, sometimes there's people on one side who might think, wow, this consequence happened to my student, that's too severe. whereas the family of the victim might think it's not severe enough. So that's where it really is this delicate um consideration of taking into account both sides,

108but really number one, health and safety of our students always comes first and is the driving force for any of those decisions. >> Thank you very much. I hope you feel better. >> Thank you, >> Madam Chair. Um the everything that Betsy, as usual, everything that Betsy said is accurate. Um the full uh ED code is in uh section 48900. It lists a whole slew of reasons for exclusionary discipline practices. Uh we'll cite those and put them in the weekly update for you. So we don't have to go through them all tonight, but we'll make them available to the board. >> Good. I didn't expect you to go through them all tonight. Thank you. Um board member Morgan. >> Thank you. Um, so I want to go back to just the implementation and um asking

109so is it our social emotional staff as well as our counselors and such that are trained in these different um um in these different behavior academy type situations are teachers involved as well. How is our is it a requirement of all of our teachers to have this training or is it optional is one question that I have if any anyone can answer it's totally fine. Well, just the the whole the discipline process and these tiered supports and and referencing the kids. So like so if a child is referenced to tier one, who's recommending that? How many how are st is all of the staff trained in this process or is it focusing on the department of of um student and social emotional health um behavior counselors? Are they the ones that are trained or is

110all of our staff trained as well? and what do they think of the training and this process? I mean, have we done like surveys or anything to say, okay, this is really working well because I with all respect, um there's mixed reviews about whether or not what we're doing is effective or not um and if it's consistent or not. And so I think that's what some of the questions are and I and I I appreciate the responses of it's really going to depend on the ve the level the impact. So, and I know it's it's not a black and white solution, but I'm just curious as to the the broadness of the training, who's trained, what teachers are trained, what staff, and how all that comes together. Because you've mentioned circles and references and being

111done in the classroom. I'm a little worried about the fact that we do restorative behaviors during class or during school because we're supposed to be using our admittance to educate, not remove a student and and discipline. So, I'm curious as to a couple of those things. teachers that are trained when it I had asked before when it happens and you said during the school day primarily. So that's kind of a concern. So how is it excl you know if we're not if we're removing them from the classroom and we don't want to we don't want to impose exclusion exclusive exclusionary behav you know practices how does all that work together if we're removing them from the situation to do the restorative practice or suspend and who's involved? So there's a couple different layers there. >>

112Yeah. Um so the just in general PBIS and restorative practices I mean the research the research I mean we all want we talked about best practicing wanting to leverage evidence-based practices and so the foundation is there and the research is there. It's not just some sort of shiny object that we think might work. There's has a lot of history to it. >> Um in regards to being a PBIS school um geez it was before my time as an assistant principal. Um and so that's that's been a part of it in my time still. >> Yeah. Right. Absolutely. So that's been around for a while and and so there's been many layers and evolutions of what PBS looked like then and and how it look now. >> When I arrived uh in 2020, there was a

113lot of conversations about that PBIS process being very centralized. And so what we were talking about in a little bit about just fidelity of practice and taking ownership and positively reinforcing students at a frequency that is higher than the consequences that are being issued was very important. But we also wanted to get teacher voice into the process. And so that's why we created uh committees to review this information following the very specific fidelity of what PBIS is. We have it's like a pages and pages of rubrics that talk about do you guys do this on a consistent basis? Are you meeting monthly? Are you reviewing this particular data? Do you have a a composition of a particular team? So yes, our staff is well aware of the the PBS process, what it entails, the measurement

114of progress, how do we improve in certain areas of of the process. And so when you do these fidelity checklists, these kind of like if you do this then you should see the outcomes improve too as well. And if not then you go back and revise about well maybe we're not targeting the right maybe it is more um of the motivation behind the behavior might be different you know. So that's that. And and in regards to the when do you do circles and and staff being trained in circles, uh it it took us um I want to say two two full years. So we did it in cohorts. We took on our early adopters of who wanted to participate in this process as well as our as our counselors and then we did residual um

115staff members that were trained in the process. Um that was just and and it's instructional. So community circles aren't just talking about like what are things that are happening in in the classroom norms, things like that. You can do it instructionally too. It's really more of a structure to having and facilitating student voice. Um I will say though that that there is much value when you do do it in a classroom about behavior because if you have disruption happening all the time and you don't ever reset the norms with those particular kids, learning is not going to happen. Right? It's kind of like the the hierarchy of needs, right? is you have to have a good safe trusting foundation in that classroom before the learning can actually take place. So Tom sometimes it reaches the

116threshold of us wanting to take the time to circle everybody up in that moment in that particular classroom and it doesn't take the full class period but enough for everybody to get to some agreements to be able to feel like they're involved in the process to remind people of norms. Sometimes we use advisement to or tutorial to push out something that has been a concern of ours on a campus or a morning announcement where teachers will just naturally so it doesn't always necessarily take up class time and the the emphasis of PBIS is to reduce the amount of times in which kids are actually out of their seat losing instruction because of referral-like behavior. So, um, hopefully that addressed and then there I know it was pretty there was a couple other questions in there.

117I'm not sure if I loot those in, but >> Well, I think this is a really important topic and I think that, um, you know, we've had, you know, I mean, bullying is is um I would like to think it's not on the rise, but I do feel like I'm hearing more reports of bullying. Um, and I feel like it's um broader than just our students. Um, and so I'm just curious. So, so this is what's spawning some of these questions. So, when we have um these when the processes aren't working, how or because the results are saying that like we had a spike in our in the behavior one year and then now it's down. So, what was done to determine that those like how do you determine that the process isn't working just

118beside the student data? Is there um or the the number of suspensions? Is there um feedback? Are there reviews? Are students participating that have received some of these disciplinary actions? Are they given a voice back of they felt that it really worked or that they felt that it was that they felt safe being disciplined in in and amongst their peers that there was no retaliation that the teachers are um were super supportive which I I mean I know they are so I'm not questioning that but I'm I'm asking just the student you know students can have a different perception of things. So, I'm just curious as to what um the if the students are allowed to come back in and maybe comment on if they felt that it was effective or not, those that were

119involved in the discipline and those that received the discipline >> always. Yeah. I I mean, I think that communication is is very important throughout the whole process and in order to be humble enough to talk about like the problems that we've experienced and being reflected enough reflective enough to say that we want to address them to get better. Um, I think you have to be open about making mistakes in order to improve and you're g the only way you're going to be able to do that is by listening. >> I've been very thankful uh about this particular district and the sheer number and the variety of surveys that we get from and and and I think our students probably could tell you that they sigh when they hear that there's another survey that's going to

120be coming down to get their opinion because it's like I think we over survey sometimes. Um but like whether it's what uh Dr. Keller was talking about the healthy kids survey, our panorama social emotional learning surveys. Um we had our educational um uh as elements that came out before they did a lot of surveying around student feelings. There was conversations there that um just to give you an example of where students felt like things were happening in front of adults and they weren't being addressed. And so that offered us an opportunity as a staff to circle up and have conversations about fidelity of practice, making sure that when you see these particular things, these things need to be addressed, even if it comes off as sarcasm, right? And so I think that there's opportunities for

121all that to happen. And I feel like my job is to create a space for that dialogue to happen, whether that's in professional staff meetings or student focus groups. >> So if so for the students now, what about so reversing that? And then I actually have a question about the suspensions and the um um u the statute for that. What what so the teachers do they do they have do they have the same opportunity to be able to maybe anonymously contribute their opinion to the process and and how the processes work in the sense that you know maybe they're not comfortable announce saying something out loud or um I I know personally when I've spoken out against something that we're doing it didn't sit very well with people and it was always kind of an

122opportunity where I thought you know account being able to fix being able to be honest about what's working, what's not, gives us an opportunity to always be better. And so I guess maybe that's trying to what what I'm trying to get to here is is this is wonderful and it's a great report. And I know in practice everything that we do is um done. But I but do we have this ability to circle back and and offer maybe an anonymous opportunity for people to really give their opinion on what is happening and if it's supporting or working because I mean you know honestly there's been concerns that maybe things are reported and not acted on whether it's the students that are reporting it and it's not acted on or it's staff that's reporting it and

123it's not acted on. And so I'm kind of concerned and trying to be very careful how I select my words, but I think it's really important if we offer some sort of an anonymous way, and this goes back to the tip line that I had asked Dr. um Dr. glass about in being able to allow staff and students and families to make commentary based on their experiences so that we can improve our processes. not just assume that because our theories are great and because we work really hard to implement our practices, that doesn't necessarily mean that everybody has the same opinion and if we aren't giving a free path for that opinion or an easy path for that opinion, we're not going to get better because we're presuming that everything we're doing is great. And

124>> I'll never presume that. >> Yeah. I I just want to let you know how I operate as a leader. Um, I feel like if I can't have staff um, come and talk to me about particular things, then I'm not being an effective leader. But I will say that regardless of how wonderful my I think my gestures might be and in being inclusive of staff members. Um, I do hear about anonymous things all the time. I think that's why we have such great union representation. We have staff members that may feel like there wasn't enough. Maybe it was because of a lack of communication about particular thing that we did or the amount of support that we were providing a particular student um that didn't get quick enough to the solution that they wanted. Often

125times um exclusionary discipline. Sometimes our staff feel or would judge that this particular behavior is very unsafe unsafe to them their learning environment or particular kids. And these are small examples. They don't happen often but they're they're real. And when they do that, what you're saying becomes true in which that we do our very best to explain the laws the type of restorative practices the what I think Dr. Glass talked about is that we have to provide um various levels of support and progressive support too prior to exclusionary discipline for some discipline and sometimes that isn't expedited enough for that particular teacher who happens to be working with that particular student every single day and I get those frustrations right and so we look at within an internal staff like how can we add additional

126support or communicate with the staff member that we now have these things in place to ensure that they're to ensure that they're uh more comfortable. But when they're not comfortable coming to me, I will hear from my union site reps who do a great job maintaining confidentiality, having those discussions with me about how particular incidents on that campus may feel and then I do my very best job to address those, you know, not only with that uh in more in a general sense because I don't know who it is, but to kind of explain those particular things maybe through a liaison of a union rep. And oftentimes those those conversations are this is what this staff member would hope for >> with parents we and students and I don't know if you want to chime

127in on this Dr. >> I'm not trying to put you on the spot. >> No more generalized questions of just things to kind of keep in mind >> that I have. So I apologize if you feel like you're putting >> No, no, no, no. Believe me, my my response is very much just I'm projecting about my own experience to kind of tell you what it looks like in real time here. But um I feel like we have a very comprehensive responsive program and I think some of these natural consequences it's a discipline is a very lonely place. You're not going to make everybody happy >> the board sometimes. >> Yeah. And and like Dr. Cannonburgg said some people want this and other people want that and we're trying to find a reasonable middle and we

128do the very best that we can. And I will tell you that if we can't solve it here, I don't know who else can because of the sheer amount of resources that we have and the supports that we have, the investments that you might give into us to make us better educators and the reflective processes that we have. Like I I don't know. I feel bad for anybody outside of that. But yes, I feel like we're reflective leaders in addressing it. And and hopefully I got to some of your questions. >> You did. Thank you. I actually have just one more and that's about suspension and >> I just wanted to jump in real quick what you said that um I agree I I wish there would be um an anonymous way for families or

129students, staff um to be feel feel safe calling in because some of the things that we hear about are because they're afraid to call in. There was so many wonderful things being done, but you could do more if you knew everything that was going I'm sorry, I got water. I shouldn't talk. >> Um, Madam President. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah. >> Take a five minute break. >> Yeah. Do you need a recess? You okay? >> Yeah. Okay, thank you. >> Just uh quickly on the uh item of the um anonymous reporting, we do have the we tip line that's available to students, staff and families. It isn't it is anonymous or student can disclose or parent or staff member who they are. And uh when that occurs, I get notification of it as do the um

130uh other off district office administrators and school level staff and sometimes the SRO's uh and we follow up on all every single one of those. >> Yeah. Thank Thank you. And I'm sorry to I'll give you a a second here. Um I do also want to thank you. I agree. I think that and that I just want to just like part of that feature of that system is that it's it's unddable like there's no there's a permanent record in that system and so just you know if something comes in we're all obligated and teameing to respond and if it's critical of me then I somebody's holding me accountable for that situation. Anonymous reporting is also unique in the sense that we also want to make sure that we have information to follow up that's evidence.

131And so it's it's important to be able to have two-way communication at some level. And that's a feature of that system too, even anonymously. Um, and so we encourage people to to come forward. We we try to to the greatest extent possible make sure that there's confidential processes in place so people's dignity and respect and confidentiality can be honored in that situation and then bring forward legitimate concerns around personnel or how we're handling situations. We certainly are committed to getting better. >> I I appreciate that. Like I said, I'm not trying to target anybody in specific. I'm just asking some questions and there is a little sometimes a little difference of opinion depending on who you talk to. So, I just want to make sure we're flushing everything out that we can when a student

132is um so a couple different questions and they're going to lead to a suspension. So, if so, what is the process if a student repeatedly >> um board member Morgan, I'm sorry, I thought you said you had one more because I was going to then um Dr. Kelly has a question too. >> Sure. I you use you use the u the concept redemption and I wonder where that came from. As someone who went to 13 years of Catholic school, I know a lot about redemption, but but I just never thought that I'd see it as far as in public school uh documents. >> Actually, it's something that uh certainly is a part of education and learning and the experience of learning states. I will say one of our most important partners in that work is

133challenge success the program out of Stanford uh which really talks about providing experience where students feel like they can belong and be connected and part of that is having opportunity to learn from your mistakes and so when we've done that we've had that partnership now for six >> since 2018 >> yeah six six seven years now and so um we've continued to try to identify opportunities for students for redemption for learning from their mistakes whether they're small or large whatever severity of it whether they're repetitive or first time. How do we set that up? And they've been a really good partner with us in finding different ways for students to to have that to have that ability. >> I thought challenge with success was related to grades and things like that. Go ahead. Yeah, I

134I just wanted to make a quick couple of comments about the WET tip thing because from from a lot of students, especially at Thirstston, this actually probably at least what's been advocated to me is like one of the number one complaints has been the WETIP system of that kids feel like it has it either there have been false reports sent in through WETIP and then just just like um what was mentioned about how a downside to anonymous reporting is that you can't have someone come in to give you more information. So then this someone will just get dragged in to the office and they're claiming I didn't I don't even know what this issue is. I don't know why I'm here and there's no further issue around it. So I've heard that as a major

135complaint with it. I've also heard and I think this is something that um I think there's a really strong positive correlation to especially at the high school of students who feel like they have a uh adult that they can confide in at the high school and talk to with um like they then feel safer to talk about the issue as opposed to doing it anonymously. I feel like I for at least from what I've heard, a lot of the people who feel like they have someone to talk to and like an adult that can back them up in a situation, they they feel safer bringing it to the administration's attention as opposed to just doing it anonymously. So, the the WEIP system, although it does have its benefits, I just I just wanted to point

136out that a lot of students do have a lot of concerns about it. >> I very much appreciate that and I'll validate that. I think that we get a lot of false positives or things that we So last year scale-wise we had 60 we tip submissions. So like that doesn't sound like a huge scale. We have 180 days of instruction. So um every one of those are followed up in the that business day or the next business day. So within 24 hours for resolution. If it's a serious issue and a safety concern they're followed up immediately and we partner with Lagona Beach Police Department on that. And um but the vast I would say I I don't have the statistics. I can I'm happy to summarize them, but we we do we close those cases

137out and as we close them out, we identify whether or not they were closed out with some action taken. And so um the majority 75% are generally just it's it'sformational at that point. And so but the 25% are real cases and some of those are really serious cases. And so, you know, our philosophy is that we, you know, I want our team members to go home at night and not worry about the safety and wellbeing of their kids. They've left and they've left their the students transitioning in a safe way. But if they've got a concern about a safety of a student, whether it's harm to self or harm to others, I want them to take action. And so, they're not going to leave until that action is taken or transition to somebody else who's

138a qual support provider that can provide those supports. So, we don't want to miss the single case. That's that's the threshold that we commit ourselves to >> anymore. Okay, go ahead. >> So, regarding suspension. >> Oh, sorry, >> Ivy. Go ahead. >> Thank you. Sorry. Um, I just wanted to say that there seems to be a general consensus among students that WETIP isn't actually anonymous. Um, I'm sure like Logan has heard this, but um, I remember specifically at Thirstston where people would go and we tip people and then the next day everyone would find out who it was that we tipped. So um, I just wanted a question like how do you guys make sure that it's anonymous and um, for the people that like text in because I know you can text the number

139for we tip, how do you ensure that their personal cell phone number like isn't traced back to them? >> Yeah, that's a great question. It's managed by an external >> um organization. So I see all of them that come in. Um unless the student discloses who they are, I don't get their information. Um that is kept with the outside firm so that they can follow up with a student, but we don't see that. Uh so if someone sends in a we tip line anonymously and then it gets around that they sent it in, it could be that the student has disclosed to someone that they sent it in. So, but I I can tell you that if a student doesn't disclose who they are, we we don't ever see that information. >> Thank you. I

140didn't know that. >> We also get reports as an example. So, we'll get a report on bullying, but it's a third party reporting on bullying from another student. And so, there's just a variety of and that's being an upstander that, you know, we want people to stand up and report things. So, and we want to have students feel safe and connected and that they belong at school. So, we'll address those. And sometimes through that investigation that gets you know people are called in the office to be to answer questions. >> So I wanted to ask about suspension and when a student is suspended you you you commented that they can be suspended and receive restorative justice services at the same time. Isn't our process and our policy state that we are supposed to do those

141things se like sequentially if not multiple different times before we reach an exclusionary practice? >> Yeah. And if we do, how sorry if we do suspend, how long does it stay on their record? Is every instance of suspension stay on their record? Or is there a process of which a student could receive the discipline and then have it removed from their record? Because at the end of the day, that's not just board, but at the end of the day, right, these are students. They are beautiful human beings that are still developing and so they're going to do things that might not um be wise. So is it make sense if we're really thinking about the whole child? Does it make sense for us to leave things on their record that could if nothing else give

142them a feeling of maybe I'm not a good person because this is now on my record. Do we have a pro a process other than straight like is there a process that we can remove it from their record without it where they're still receiving the discipline area part of it and if they do certain things it just comes off their record rather than having to go through the appeal process which I know we do have in place. Is there other methods of which a student can possibly receive suspension but not have it on their record? >> Which of those questions would you like me to answer first? suspension. How do we suspension if they're doing suspension? And then if we reach that point, how can they remove it from their record without having to go

143through the appeal process? Because they we have all these other tools in place. >> When a student is suspended from school, that's that is an absence from school and that's part of a record. So there's a discipline record and an attendance record. That's part of it. And that's part of a student's record. >> Their attendance. Yes. I'm talking about the suspension. >> Yeah. the suspension is part of their discipline record in history. That's really informative information, especially when we're talking about students. I mean, we often have students have one discipline situation their whole time in education or zero. So, it's informative to know when we're thinking about other supports within the MTSS process, if somebody's having two, 3, 5, 11, 20 different situations, that's a really important pattern for us to be noticing in the

144in the pattern of the whole child, academics, attendance, social emotional wellness, things like that. So, when we're looking at the whole child, that data is really important for us. We're not condemning individual students who have 50 discipline incidents. We love the kids that come to school and want to support them. And we design programs to best meet their needs within the resources that we have available in our district. Sometimes students require very intensive programmings when they have very significant needs that that are individually designed very costly and they're designed to help support that student to develop the self-regulation skills, self-management skills, and the social skills to be able to function not only in that current school year but in life. And so that's likely through an IEP or some specialized program. And sometimes leading up

145to that, they'll have multiple discipline incidents. And that's a really important piece of information. We're not communicating that information externally. It is part of that student's record and student's story. The student would have access to that information as they turn 18. They can request their record. They can look at that, review it. It may be impactful in some areas of their lives if they wanted to go into the military or some other aspect of a career, but that that information is not reported on a transcript per se. >> Not on a transcript. >> Correct. >> So, how is then then why would a family want it off the record? Why is why is that even a process then? If nobody knows about it, but it's on their record, why would parents want to have it

146appealed and taken off their record? >> Well, I I think that there are many situations where individuals feel like the the consequence of that situation were not appropriate based on their perspective. And so that there's differences of perspective. The site principal is doing the best they can with the information they have under the law with all the investigation information to make a recommendation that's in the best interest not only of the student but of the school community and then that decision is made and creates a record for that student which is the suspension. There is a there is a process for appealing that and and should somebody bring that process forward there there are remedies under under our processes to be able to address that >> possibility to look at what processes do we have

147that they could possibly remove an incident obviously if it's so many I would think if there's so many that leads to a different record right we're talking like a oneoff or a two off I mean >> again the state law governs the process of amending an educational record and under what conditions we disclose it too. U so they're both federal and state laws around confidentiality of student records. So it's not something that we provide to anyone. There are specific circumstances where we would disclose a student record if a court ordered us to or there's a law enforcement investigation or if the parent or the student gave us permission to those situations, the student record would be disclosed. But it's not they're they're uh tightly held confidential records. Um, the reasons a a reason that a

148parent or a student who's over 18 might want the record amended is if they feel like the discipline was inappropriate or inaccurate or didn't reflect the full circumstances or that the administration made an error in applying the discipline. So those there's a process around that that's available to students to amend the record. >> So one last question and I so thank you so much. I know there's a lot to this. So there's um but but there's a lot to it. It's not a simple thing. Um when a student has an IEP and they're just and their actions that are um not when when we have a student that has an IEP or learning challenges, etc., and they have a disciplinary action. How is that student's discipline differ than a student that doesn't have an IEP?

149>> That's a very good question. So, it depends on the type of program that the student has, but the education code is the education code. So, students who have IEPs can be suspended from school similar to students in general education or with a 504 plan, which is general education. And that information from a discipline incident will be fed back into that student's individualized plan. That's what's really important. That's actually an additional process piece. All the other pieces are the same restorative pieces, learning from the experience, doing all all the all the work to try to prevent that from happening. But should that information um from that discipline incident be really important for goal setting or program design, that will get fed back into the student's IEP. And then from there, they might get different services,

150they might get different accommodations, they might have somebody working with them to try to improve that behavior and work towards that goal. It's not always going to feed back into the IEP, but should there be something that's relevant and not already addressed in the IEP, that might be that might be a program option for that student. Do we give more consideration for >> follow up on that? Yeah, there is a consideration. So, it's called a manifestation hearing. Um, so in the course of applying the discipline, the student or the parents can request that uh the students uh disability is considered as the reason for the action. So that's called the manifestation hearing. And so that's the process whereby we would look at the student's IEP and see what the nature of the disability is, look

151at the behavior that caused the suspension, and then there's a determination made as to whether or not the disability caused the suspension. >> Okay. Do we have the same cons? I mean, so in essence, then if student has an IEP and they have a disciplinary issue, they might have a different path of restorative processes than a student that doesn't have an IEP. So are we actually disciplining equitably? >> We are. uh we are disciplining equitably because a student with a disability uh has a reason that caused the behavior if if the manifestation is upheld. So that is that is available to any student with a disability. If a student doesn't have a disability, there is no manifestation hearing. So it is it is a fair and equitable process. But uh the outcomes can be different.

152If you have a disability and that led to the behavior that caused the exclusionary discipline to occur, that is taken into account by and that's federal law. That's IDEIDA. >> I really appreciate all your time. >> There's one there's an important threshold there though too. It's for a pattern of behavior that mean that means that the students being excluded for it's 10 10 days of 10 or more days of exclusion from school. So one suspension, one day of suspension, two days of suspension wouldn't trigger that process necessarily. So it's important to know that in in general, we're not trying to exclude students and when they're excluded for a really long period of time, we have obligations to continue to educate them, especially with students with IEPs. >> Thank you. Yeah. >> Hills, do you have

153are there any um public comments? >> Oh, okay. Yes. Thank you very much. I'm really encouraged. I love the news about the high school and so many students um having peer-to-peers that they would go to besides um an adult. Thank you. Can we take a two-minut break? I'd like to call the meeting back to order. If everyone could please take their seats. We're going to hear um a wonderful report from the superintendent briefing on his strategic planning. >> Okay. Dr. Glass, are you ready or no? Okay, that's fine. You could scroll up where you see the three phases. Yeah. Thank you. Um, thank you, Madam President. Um, as the board knows, the next major step following the 100 day report is to engage the community in developing a new focused three-year strategic plan for the

154district. So, I wanted just to walk you through that process tonight so the board's aware of what I'll be working on uh between now and early March when I hope to bring back that strategic plan for you. And of course, you'll be involved in that all along the way. >> Will that be about a 200 day plan then? >> Maybe more than 200 days. Yeah, we're getting close. Um, the goal is to create a community vetted. Um, so as this whole process has been, I really believe in involving the community and the staff and students in the creation of the strategic plan. So because it I think it makes it stick, it makes it last. If the community says this is what we want for our kids in our schools, uh, it's something that we

155can all stand behind. So it will be community vetted, student centered. Um, as this work as the feedback that we got in the 100 day report was very student centered. uh and thinking about what's in the best best interest of our students and also practically achievable. Um I don't believe in putting things forward in a strategic plan that you don't have the will or the ability to really accomplish. So it'll be things that we can pull off. Uh and it will be sequenced into three years. We'll be thoughtful about in what order we're getting at things uh and making sure that we we uh sequence it in a way that we can accomplish these uh goals. Uh the things that we heard about trust and coherence and community pathways, student voice, balancing innovation with well-being.

156Those will all be considered. There will be a process uh in phase one uh that's listed up here that's really around validating the things that I heard in the listening effort as part of the 100 day report. So, I need to validate are those accurate? Are they things that the board I'm sorry, are they the things that the community really wants us working on? So, there's this validation phase, a prioritization phase. Uh, one of the things I said to you in my report is if you if everything is a priority, then nothing is. And so we're going to have to boil down distill down to what we really think is important and prioritize uh and then start uh defining that sequence. And so that's really the first phase. The uh second phase is uh sequencing

157and drafting. Uh so that will place take place in early February. So once we've done all of that validation, again, continued community outreach, continued staff outreach, continued staff uh student input, um uh our team at the district will start formulating a draft strategic plan uh for you. So that will that will take place in uh late January, early February, and then what we hope to bring back is into February and then into March um phase three, which is where we bring the board in uh to that. So you'll get to see the the result of all of that validation, listening work, an I a concept from me around here's how I think you could lay out a strategic plan. The board will have an opportunity to weigh in on that um and imprint your priorities

158uh what sequencing you want us uh working on and then ultimately we'll be asking for the board later in March to approve that as the strategic direction for the for the district for the next uh three years. So, everyone is involved from the community to the staff to the parents and students. Uh, our district administration and school leadership and ultimately the board is involved. So, we hope that we can bring you something that that uh you're proud of because it's vetted and and built upon the aspirations of our uh community. Uh, and it is something that you all can stand behind and then for the next several years we put our energy and resources into accomplishing. So, with that, I'll turn things back to you. I just wanted to briefly let you know the next

159phase of this listening and strategic planning process and what it looks like. >> That sounds wonderful. But that was really brief. I was settling back to listen. Thank you. Um, okay. Are there uh any questions from the board about the Yes, >> clerks. just wanted to say I I read this uh over the weekend or whenever and uh I really appreciate your report. Um I really am glad that we have a superintendent finally. Um, I think I'm gonna have to spend less time working on these things because you this is you're going to have to do all the work. And uh that's a relief for us because for the first six months that we were here uh the number of hours per day that we were putting in because um there wasn't really the kind

160of leadership that you're providing um uh was pretty demanding on us. And um I'm not saying I'm going to go on vacation or anything, but uh I really just am really saying um in as friendly way as I can that I really appreciate that you're taking this on, taking seizing it as we say in the equestrian, you know, taking the bit in your mouth and really running with it. And I look forward to this process and I look look forward to not having to do uh more work than I want to on this, but being able to work with you to and the board to get it finalized. So I really appreciate it. >> Yeah. Thank you, Cler. It's a delight to do this work at this community. It's a great place to live and

161work. >> Any other questions? Okay. Board member Morg, >> I don't have the mic. Oh, there it is. Okay. Um, this is great. Thank you so much. Being able to see your plan and lay it out into a timeline is really super helpful because you know I I love the the overview but how it gets done in process is something I actually find to be very um helpful for me um as well as everybody around you because I think it then gives us all a direction. So with that my question is I have a couple questions but the first one is LCAP is due every year July. So, how will this plan are is the is the idea that this strategic three-year plan will be implemented and infused into the LCAP? Will it replace elements

162of the LCAP? Um because we have LCAP committees in sight at the different sites and then they come together and do a whole district LCAP. So, how is this plan going to incorporate into that? >> Yeah, excellent question. Um and I will play one of my California rookie cards because I haven't gone through an LCAP process with you yet and so this is something that I need to learn about. But the goal would be not to have two divergent and separate processes. They should these should align. And so we know that we have a statutory requirement around LCAP. So we'll need to work to make sure that uh the goals that are in our strategic plan are also aligned to the work of the LCAP to the greatest extent that we can. We don't want

163to create duplicative extra work, extra bureaucratic processes for people. But um also we don't want to be constrained by something that's man by the state in terms of our aspirations and direction. So if there are things that come forward uh that we are passionate about as a community that may not fit into the um boxes and check marks that LCAP provides. Uh our strategic plan is not bound by that. But I I have a lot to learn about how these two things work together. But my pledge to you is that we will work to put them together. Well, I think one of the things that's that I always took away because I sat on two LCAP committees and was invited to the district LCAP is that it is a local control accountability plan. So, it's

164allows the districts the opportunity to say if this is the ed code, these are the goals that we have to get to. How we get to those goals is really up to us. if it's elevating our our our test results, if it's, you know, improving our social emotional, all these different elements to it, we have that opportunity to have to navigate and narrate that in the best way that serves our community. So, I certainly encourage you to lean into that and and and seek exterior support to help you pull all that together so that your plan is as successful as possible. >> Yeah. And I I I want to be clear that I not casting any aspersions on the work around the ELCAP. No, not at all. >> It was terrific. I've I've read through.

165It's one of the documents that I looked coming into the district to learn about and think about how we move forward. So, have a very competent team with Dr. Mayberry and uh Dr. Kenberg that that lead uh that effort. So, it will be trying to bring this future strategic plan into alignment uh with that. And uh I also speak from some PETSD of having spent about 12 years of my life working in state agencies of some kind. So, I know how bureaucratic that can be. That may not be the case here in California. >> Oh, I'm sure it is. I'm sure it is. >> That that drew a laugh from our president. >> You spent a lot of time on this report. You spent a lot of time talking to the community, and you spent

166a lot of time talking to all of our different stakeholders, and I don't think that's been done in that way in a while. I could be wrong, but I don't think so. I think our LCAPS are are are they're elected, but they're still within the scope of what we have currently. This is some of the elements that you've introduced are taking us in in a new direction which I think is one of the jobs of a new superintendent. It's a job of a new board. What and and with time things you know things have changed. So and we have you know our our um budget is going up. Our enrollment's going down. We have it's a perfect opportunity with a new superintendent, new board, new um business officer um to shift the ship a little

167bit if not a lot. It just depends. I mean each topic is a little different. So, I applaud this. I think it's great. Um, I want to know how it's being communicated um out to the community. Um, that was one question. And then, um, I have another comment, but let me think about how I why I wrote that in line with this one. >> The star of it is right now. Um, so I wanted to bring it to you first. Um, and vet with you what I'm thinking and get any feedback from you on things that you think I should be doing differently. I hear a lot of support for the phasing and the direction. So, I'm um intending to carry that out. But this conversation is the beginning of that. But, um it contemplates

168a communitywide validation. So, there's lots of work in in the different levels of our community for outreach uh continued um uh town hall formats and face-to-face discussions and conversations and uh and looking at data and visiting with uh classified staff and teachers and our admin administrators. We actually began some of this yesterday with our administrative team, the district and site level uh leaders looking at the 100 day report and start to think through what what is what can we validate? What's the ordering? We didn't get as far as I hoped because it's a lot. It's and it's complicated. Um but we we started that work with them. But but directly to answer your question, the sharing of it starts tonight. Are you is one of the plans to meet with the different departments like the

169from a staffing perspective? So I know the unions would be involved but like the whole arts team, the whole math team, the whole English team, the whole athletics, you know, physical education team, the you know arts teams, music band. I mean to see how and I know it's all part of the original 100 day report but then how there those visions that you've put into the report can be part of the execution. >> Yeah. Um there's there is a this validation process will involve meeting with multiple stakeholder groups um inside and outside of the school district. So uh I haven't defined exactly what that looks like yet. Um but I um really appreciate the partnership we have with our associations. I think they can be of a support to us uh in helping create those

170opportunities. But also, just as was the case with the 100 day report, a lot of that data was just gathered with conversations. People wanted to talk to me about it and I took the time to do that. So, I hope to have more of those conversations. So what you saw in the 100 day report was a combination of um qualitative interview face-to-face focus group qualitative type data and um qualitative data that came from the start stop cube survey along with qualit quantitative data that came from the validation survey and quantitative data that came from looking at our performance metrics uh LCAP information state test results financial information so there was a combination of all that that resulted in the 100 day report. The validation phase will be similar, not quite as deep because I' now

171I've got concepts. So I'm not going out and asking what do you think? I'm asking what do you think about these specific ideas? Which of them resonates? In what order do you think we should prioritize them? So it'll be more focused than it was the first time through. >> Great. Thank you. I appreciate that. >> Any other board questions? Are there any cards? Not on this >> not on this topic. Okay. Any any other comments? Okay. Thank you very much. >> We've all got PTSD from being on the board and hopefully it's not contagious so you won't get it. >> Mine came from a state agency. It's a different thing. >> You Hey, let's move on to approval of consent a consent calendar items C through G. Does any board member have any questions on

172any item within the consent calendar that does not require this item to be pulled to be voted on separately? >> Madam President, I'd like to pull item F for discussion. >> F. Okay. >> Um Oh, yes. Sorry. No, there's no cards. >> Okay. Anybody else? Okay. Okay. Does any board member wish to pull any items within the consent calendar for discussion to be voted on separately? >> Oh, that was F for a separate vote. Okay. >> Excuse me. >> Um I was wrong. Um there's a public comment on 9F if that's in the consent calendar. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> So, we should vote first on everything but F. Okay. Um, may I have a motion to approve the consent calendar items C through G except F? >> Sorry, I have a question on D.

173I forgot. I don't need to pull it. Can I do that still? Yeah, I meant. Yeah. Okay. So, I just have a quick question on item D. Um, and maybe you can get back again. I I sent a message to um, uh, Dr. Glass and um, President Perry. Um it was a very busy week so I didn't get um my questions ahead of time so I apologize in advance. Uh but I'm curious about um in the staff report in the personnel report and it's just just again probably a learning need or just to understand how it works. How are the extra hours calculated specifically those for that have an extra project hours or pay? So like we have extra we have cur we have um curriculum minutes that staff is that's been all part of

174the negotiation. Then we have some of these extra projects. Um so how is that calculated? How is that determined? >> It's determined by the uh district administrator that has you know created the project. So for instance, if you think of um go with I just saw it um so Melissa Catel >> what page >> uh page three so she has been assigned as our our dyslexia lead. So she's participating in a in a program with the University of Lever and being trained to be kind of an expert of experts and a trainer of trainers. So Chad working in conjunction with Jennifer Moss will determine exactly what what what the need is and and the scope of the work and then identify how many hours are needed to to complete that work. So it's got it's

175done on a case-by case basis depending on on the size and scope of the of the project. For instance, there's some summer work related to AP environmental science prep. Again, that's through instructional services. They determine okay, what is the scope of the project? How many hours are needed to to complete that? And that's that's how it's determined. >> Okay. And then are the and then once that's determined and it's added in part of the pay, then that is part of what's reported as their is that included in what's reported like to calisters? I'm not 100% how that works. I'm still trying to figure out. >> Yes, it would it's still it's it's creditable compensation, but what they would do they they would submit a time sheet and they might not do all 26 hours. That's

176just not to exceed amount. So they'll submit the time sheet that shows the days they worked it and the extra hours outside of their workday. >> Got it. that gets submitted and yes it does it falls into there's like two buckets from a pension perspective but it is it is considered credable. >> Okay, cool. Thanks. >> Um so do I have a motion? >> We did a motion. So we can we can vote now. Okay. Uh all in fa all in favor of approving the consent calendar items C through G except F. >> I opposed. All in favor? Oh, sorry to ask you students for your vote. >> Uh yes. >> Thank you. Okay, let's now go to item F. Tell me we did questions, motion, speaker. >> We did a motion >> questions first

177then motion then discussion. >> Okay. >> But the speaker has been coming after the motion. >> Okay. Okay. So, uh questions about item out. Sorry, Ken. So, I actually pulled this um not because I'm not supportive of it. I'm extremely supportive of it. I just have more questions. Um so, the first contract that we had for October was specifically focused on the 100 day report and it's wonderful. I'm grateful and I'm so glad that you were able to call someone to come in and step in um at the last minute to finish that for you. Um with the new contract, what are the scope of the services that are being provided? the as you mentioned the first contract was squarely focused on the 100 day report. Uh following the board meeting um I was informed

178that our um very capable talented um communication director was going to be out for another month of leave. Our communication needs continue um in uh through the next month. And so um Dr. Tammy Schiff with Gray Matters is someone that I trust and have worked with before. uh I asked her to continue those services uh over during that period. Again, it's listed as temporary and not to exceed. I want to be clear that I have no intention of outsourcing our communications efforts. Uh we need to have someone that's embedded in the district and in the community. This is really val vital and important work. Uh so this is not an effort to permanently um replace uh a a dedicated onstaff communication uh individual. It is temporary. It is limited. Um, but the scope of it

179will be supporting us with the communication needs that we have in the time period we're in right now. And so, you may have seen press releases that we've put out over the past week or two weeks. Uh, Dr. Schiff was involved in those. Um, Dr. Schiff is watching tonight uh to help with the um publication that comes out following the board meeting. It's a wrap. So, she's the one who's doing the um um uh writing up the summaries of those uh that we'll work with President Perry on uh tomorrow. Um she is uh also working on a review of our current communications practices and some recommendations uh for us in the long term going forward. But again, just want to stress that this is not uh outsourcing of communications. It's to meet a need that

180we have presently. >> No, I I appreciate that. I just I mean this is a world I function in as so I'm just curious as to what the scope of services was because we've extended the contract and then the price is the same. So I just am curious as to what kind of services it bring. >> The 100 day report involved a lot of editing, marketing, uh layout, design, all of that. And we we do uh Stephanie Romero as the communications assistant. Very talented. Uh and shout out to her. The all of the photography that's in the 100 day report is Stephanie's. And so it's she's an incredible uh and talented photographer. Um u but we we really need someone that is a seasoned u a veteran communications expert and Dr. Schiff provides that. >>

181Yeah. No, I totally agree. Um so so you answered a couple of my other questions. So um the uh Gray Matters is handling so they so they were involved in the write up at Stew News this week as well as the um as well as the it's a wrap and I know there was concerns last week or two weeks ago mentioned by um Dr. from Chesky as far as the validity or the accuracy of it's a wrap. So, I appreciate that they're watching again and um uh helping to develop the communications from the board perspective from the president. Um, can the can this contract cover more um a focus more on what the board what's it's going to be in its ARPA, but then in getting its a wrap out to the community based on

182what we are accomplishing. You know, we haven't really talked about the transportation committee, the arts committee. I mean, these are some really great things. Your 100 day report and the strategic plan that you're putting together. Can Gray Matters help um direct some of those actions as well in the course of the next month? All of those items you mentioned are in development right now. >> Terrific. Um and then um so if in this time of this month, I think working with somebody that you're very familiar with is key. I'm curious as to the longevity of the need and the importance of having a local connection. as you said, there's a lot of nuances within the community that having that relationship would be good and I think it's um awesome that to use gray matters and

183I'm just wondering if we need to address it again down the road if at some point we want to locally. I understand what you're saying about not you know that our communications are great. I agree. I don't think it's come up since January when we first asked just about the policy. that was really a policy question and it turned into some kind of assumption that that there was something not being done right and it was really uh wanting to evaluate the policy and if we are indeed doing all of the things that our policy talks about. So I appreciate that they're going to do an overhaul on our communications as well or at least >> recommendations >> and make recommendations. Um >> so I think that's my only question was the scope of services and

184and what else can what else included and is it got board? Uh, as I mentioned before, it's it's temporary in nature uh and time limited and funding limited. So, there's a limit to all of those things. It's not intended as a permanent replacement or change. I um certainly going forward uh always have a preference for vendors, contractors that are local. Uh the reason that we went with uh Dr. Schiff a month ago was because it was a really time urgent. No, I'm grateful that she's >> I needed somebody I could trust somebody you trust and that she's stepping in to help you. I think it's awesome. I'm 100% supportive >> going forward. Um uh we will we will look toward local providers to the extent that that's possible. I I believe in that and support

185it. >> If she wants to move here, >> maybe. >> Thank you so much. Okay, now we can ask have a motion on item F. >> Okay, second. Okay, now I believe Miss Ketta can come up. >> Um, this contract would be totally unnecessary if the board majority had stayed in its lane. Your dismissive treatment of our director of communications is shameful. Thank you. Okay. Any other questions? Let's take a vote. All All in favor of item F. >> I oppose. No. Okay. Um now we're to approval of the October 9th, 2025 board meeting minutes. Oh, that was in there. >> Oh, that was Oh, I'm sorry. >> You You guys know I'm kind of out of it tonight. Okay. Board member reports. Um, let's start with Ivy. All right. In terms of Thirstston, uh

186they had this student store launch. So on October 15th, Thirstston Middle School had its first student store of the year. This is when students are rewarded for demonstrating smart behavior by having the opportunity to redeem points for fun items. The event was wellreceived and helped reinforce positive schoolwide expectations in an enjoyable and motivating way. Um, in terms of fall athletics, fall sports has just started with uh, boys volleyball and girls basketball teams actively competing and representing thirsten with great enthusiasm and sportsmanship. PALS and ASB had their no place for hate and united in kindness. So throughout October, PALS and ASB have been leading a variety of lunchtime activities to promote kindness and inclusivity. um as a part of those groups and thirst and thriller Halloween event on October 21st. Campus came alive with annual thirst

187and thriller event. This after school celebration offered students a fun way to enjoy the Halloween season together. To complement the festivities, ASB led a blackout spirit day uh encouraging the students to show up in black attire. um Halloween and red ribbon week spirit week. So October 23rd to 31st ASB is going to have um a combined Halloween and red ribbon week spirit week centered around the theme of making positive choices and promote promoting a drug-free lifestyle. The week will be on Halloween and with ASB quad event featuring games, music and sweet treats for all students during lunch. There will also be a canned food drive and the PAL students have begun the planning stages of their annual f canned food drive to benefit the Laguna food pantry. Um, and in terms of Elmoro, there is

188a boo blast this Friday. um at uh to the annual to Halloween parade will take place next Friday at 1:45 p.m. on blacktop. So for those of you who may be listening at home, the TWW is extending their welcome to you. Uh TWW students enjoyed participating in last week's dodgeball tournament uh dodgeball tournament. And then at the high school, the last uh football game theme was a pink out at Dana Hills and ASB did a phenomenal job planning that as well as football senior night was last week. And then the final thing that I just wanted to include in our report. Um Ivy and I wanted to uh personally extend our thanks to you, President Perry, for uh trying to get we've noticed your efforts in trying to get the board to operate uh operate

189more smoothly and more functionally. and we um as we as well as the students wanted to say, we appreciate how how much better we notice it's been. >> If I may, >> thank you very much. I appreciate that. It means a lot coming from you. >> Sorry. Um, I just wanted to say that our meeting today was so productive and I President Perry and um, I really enjoyed how collaborative it felt and you know it felt like you were really taking our opinions into consideration and I really appreciate that as a board member um, student board member. You know it feels great to be seen and you know yeah I had a great time. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. >> I appreciated you too. Thanks. Um, clerk hills, do you have a report?

190>> Yeah, I wanted to um mention that I went down to Rivian um and uh on a couple of events and there was one that I didn't get to but that uh um I'm very interested in. Um uh the um our county board of supervisors um uh Miss Foley appeared down at Rivian and uh the topic was um surfing and the surfing industry and how important the surfing industry is to Orange County and to the beach cities including Lagouna Beach. And um I went to a um a retrospective on the history of the Brook Street Surf Contest. And last last meeting I mentioned that in addition to how excited we all are about football team and what's going on with our football team, we also should be excited about um the Brook Street Surf Contest,

191which is the oldest surf contest in the world. And it's actually a very famous contest. And so they had a big event with all the all the um particularly some of the women surfers uh that became started in Laguna Beach, started in our schools and ended up becoming world amateur champions. And um we you know some of the women surfers from Laguna Beach schools are like the Jim Thorp and the Jackie Robinson of surfing. And this is an incredible legacy that we have that we're not really uh being good stewards of this leg le legacy. And um I participated in the retrospective at Brook Street. And then um and I and one of the things I pointed out is that we support the arts and we support um we know all about our famous historical

192artists and we teach in our schools about the art industry and we do the art festival and participate and everything, but we should be doing something comparable with surfing because Lagouna Beach is a famous world recognized um surfing community. And um so anyway, what um supervisor um uh was talking about at the Rivian that was related to that is that um Dana Point and some of the other cities are really making a lot of money off the surfing industry. And so just as in Lagona supporting the arts results in good business and good for the local economy because we have the art festival and do that. Um there are other cities now who are and the great thing is is that we're going to get the surfing heritage museum down on Broadway. Um Mark Christie

193is bringing that into Lagona. And so the point is um we should my personal opinion is we should be working um the surfing industry into our curriculum and into our school life. I mean we have surf teams at the schools and we promote surfing but um you know one of the things that Foley was um pointing out was that um there's not a lot of jobs in a lot of sports but there are jobs for the young people in the surfing industry and if we promote it and whatnot we'll actually be creating employment opportunities and improving the economy and whatnot. That was her pitch at the Rivian and I found it to be very compelling and I also saw it as being related to what we talked about at the Brook Street contest. Um, I

194also wanted to say that um uh I was sympathetic and had empathy for the representative of the union who said that um she couldn't um uh do what she the positive things that she was hoping to do tonight because of she got overwhelmed by um uh public record requests. And um there's been a lot of discussions about um the fact that we're trying to all working try trying together to improve the the order of how we conduct business. And I just want to say I empathize because it reminded me of when we came in um and there was no president of the board, no clerk of the board, no superintendent present. And um we were having to get coached by the council of how to deal with the chaos that existed in our first meeting.

195And um right when we were trying to deal with that over the next few days, we got completely bombarded with public record requests and there was this theory out there that member Morgan and member Perry and I had um been violating the Brown Act because we acted in concert, but in reality she had been in England for three weeks and we hadn't talked to her. And so the point is I know what it's like to get bombarded with all those public record requests and I have a lot of empathy for you and I hope you work through it in due course. >> Okay, thank you board member Melchesky. >> Okay, few quick things. I want to congratulate Dr. Hatchel. It was such a notable award. I'm really proud of her. Dodgeball always a blast. I'm

196really sad that this was Eli's last year, but I want to thank school power and all of the parent volunteers. It's just a great event. Um, I went to pitch day at the high school for the students who are doing the authentic exploratory research program. Really impressed by the research proposals of the juniors and seniors. I loved having an opportunity to talk with all the students. I'd like to thank Mr. Shen and for his instruction and all of the mentors who are supporting our students. Um, I went to camp read a lot at Top of the World. I'm excited to see new reading initiatives in our schools. I hope to see more developments in this area. Um, and finally, I want to welcome uh, Minaj Roy Chaerti. I I think I got that right. I'm

197delighted you've joined our leadership team. Um, as you know, you're joining us at a really complicated time. We have all the normal requirements of a CBO position along with pool construction, a potential bond discussion, and a lot of complicated issues around healthc care spending. On that latter um issue, when the union contracts were presented at the August 14th meeting, I voted to ratify the contracts with the provision that the district would get an outside auditor to review the issue and that we would work with the unions on long-term goals and planning to address the health care issues as many districts are doing across the country. We also had a second close session discuss discussion that resulted in in a motion to refer the audit report to regulatory and compliance agencies if necessary. And I voted

198no on that motion because it was precipitous. Um if I'm going to vote for the district to engage in outside agencies, I want to do so with full information so I can decide when it's going to be necessary, not give that right to someone else rather than provide a blanket and preliminary authorization. Um, I did that because I knew you were going to be joining us. And so, all of that is by way of saying that I really look forward to hearing more from you on this issue. I really have faith that you're going to be able to tell us uh the information we need to set up a plan over the longer term and in particular um to work with us on how we're going to meet the needs of our staff. So, none

199of that is a short list, but I really look forward to working with you on all of it. So, thank you for being here. Thank you, Dr. Kelly. >> I have no report. >> Board member Morgan. >> Thank you. Um, I want to also welcome Minaj Rotor Cherry. Do we say it right? Can you say it for us so we can once manag it is man? See, >> it's man. I told you it was man. I was saying manj and they said no, it's man. So I apologize for my correction. Manoj R really Okay. Um welcome. I am also very grateful that you're here. We've had um quite a few challenges obviously and I think they're all really important. Um I agree with member uh Malchesky on resolving the issues for our staff because I

200know that it creates quite a bit of um anxiousness and is very important and taking care of them is important. Um and I think we all agree on that. So, I'm not really sure why the um there's a narrative out there saying that we don't because that's not true. Things take time and solutions take time and we have to have all the information before we can make a decision on how we're going to solve the problem. So, I appreciate you being here as well and I know that you have a lot to do. Um I um also think um congratulations to Dr. Hatchel. I think that's wonderful. She is um a wonderful leader, very approachable. Um she's very wellliked in the community. Um so kudos to her. Uh I'm very happy to hear that the

201um arts programs are being um announced and celebrated and and Emma is um promoted as an event to attend in the it opens this weekend I believe. Um and then it runs the following weekend as well. Um I attended also attended the um the pitch presentation the AER roll out um earlier this week. The student presentations were fabulous. Um, I can't wait to see the research that you guys are doing and find out some of and see what some of the um, topics have led to. Um, just for those that aren't um, aware, it's a um, individual research project that the students come up with and they come up with their own um, topics based on conversations and and helping and with Mr. Shen who's wonderful. My kids have all had him and they adore

202him as do I. Um, but helping them fine-tune their topics. Some of the topics were um how will Laguna's coastline move? Um engineering sustainability, masculinity as a coping mechanism and power structure, how will orbital capacity and launch supply influence investment uh and analyzing the impact of Tik Tok and short form editing on Gen Z's attention span and film pacing expectations. Wow, that was incredible. It was amazing. I'm I was so excited. I talked to every kid. Um I think I was one of the last to leave and there was so much great information and I can't wait to watch this progress. Um I attended a very productive transportation committee uh when we also welcome uh Manoj and his knowledge and his experience and recognizing the value of the community stakeholders concerns their experiences and their

203voice. We are working on updating maintenance reports at the local level and CHP level adding cameras to the buses looking at a new bus for our late owl TK kiddos. Um, we still have high school routes, um, the app process and the cost still to work on, as well as high school transportation and CTE. Um, but I'm very, um, excited about the progress. I've heard from families saying they are amazed at how much we've been able to um, how much we've been able to get done in such a short period of time and they're grateful and very hopeful for improvements across all the all areas. Um I there was a comment that was really interesting that was made about Durham um mentioning that they've never done committee work like we're doing right now, but I

204think it's been extremely productive. Um and I look forward to continuing that work. Um I also attended the community coalition. It was the first uh meeting of the year where um they updated us on trends and um concerns. One of the big trends that's that is concerning right now is the um the nit I think it's the nitrous oxide that comes out like a whipped cream can and they're selling those pods as um a a very quick it's like a quick high I guess is what they say and and and one of the videos they actually showed a video of a person on Tik Tok demonstrating how to use the nitrous oxide noxite nitrous oxide canisters. It was extremely disturbing. Um, kids are watching it and I highly encourage um a broader conversation with our

205parent community to make sure that everyone's aware of this. Um, and I think they're doing work through the school as well through their club strength and numbers. Um, lastly, we had a standing I have a standing meeting with Jason. I set it up when he started. We meet about every two weeks, three weeks depending. Um, I appreciated the conversations on restorative justice and communications and our community and just the ins and outs of how it all works. So, I appreciate that. Um, we also talked about communication, which I know was the policy was at a future was on the agenda for later today. So, I'm going to hold off on my comments. Um, I did want to because I do think that they challenged some of the comments that were made last week. I know

206member Malesky stated that um the it's a rap had false information and it shouldn't be and that it was difficult to trust, but I found that to be concerning because member um because um Dr. Glass and uh President Perry were part of those the author of that. So, I'm concerned um because I think really when you look through our policies um to your point, member Malesky, you said that the board doesn't that the communications uh doesn't that the district that the president is not involved in district communications and I think at the end of the day what the policy says is that the um president is involved in board communications and that's so the semantics are there but I think it does change the meaning of your comment. So, um, I look forward to bringing

207those policies back as soon as we can. Um, I agree a well-noticed special meeting is probably required. Um, I know that when Keta was on the board, they did a lot of workshop type environments where the community was welcome, but I also know those were happening during the day. So, I don't know why we're opposed to having daytime meetings because they met all the time during the day to do policy. Well, they met all the time to do policy work. And so I think that we should make sure we bring these policies back as quickly as possible with a well-noted special meeting rather than trying to cram them into a meeting with all these others very important topics that support our students. Um and then there was actually a couple of comments that I wanted

208to comment on in in the public comments that came in. One of them was um science really come on it was put to rest last year let it go move on more pressing matters for our district. Well, science is something that the students brought forward and originally it was Carter McKenzie and some other students and so and I think and then Ivy Dabs mentioned it earlier earlier this year. Um, it was mentioned, it came out during the town halls and it was also the focus of a district-f funded study that was done in 2023 and revealed last year or April revealed last last year or September um and it did focus on science. And so I think that with the cast testing scores that have come out um recently, I think that yeah, science really

209I think we really need to continue to explore it and make sure that what we're doing is on point and is elevated and and the rigor is where our kids need to be whether it's at the um integrated science level, at the AP level or somewhere in between. So science really absolutely. Um and otherwise I agree with some of the other comments that we need to focus on reading and math and science and making sure that we are asked that our teachers are able to focus on teaching and that our kids are max are getting the maximum amount of um educ educational minutes that we are supposed to provide. So that's my report. Thank you. >> Thank you. Um, I also wanted to add along with Howard's report on Brook Street Surfing, we should actually

210add skim boarding in too because that started here also for doing historical things. >> Metrics of locations for the students when they get out of school, >> right? Um, my best meeting this week was actually with our two student two student board reps. It was great. They helped me. I, you know, I'm struggling with how to bring in more respect and civility, but still have differing opinions and points of view, and they were very helpful. I had uh several meetings with parents about careers, which was good, and special ed, and um I don't really want to talk anymore. I think I'm ready to go. Damn. You >> want a motion to adjourn? >> So move. I >> I Yes. Okay.