001Morino Noa >> present. Mr. Flores >> present. Thank you for that. Um and then we'll open with the pledge of allegiance as we do. Again, I apologize I didn't have a chance to give somebody a heads up in advance. So I am going to call on somebody. I think principal Bill here is from Lewis. So I'm going to ask if she'll please [laughter] lead us in the pledge of allegiance. So, Great. Thank you, Miss Bill. Principles always got to think on their feet, so appreciate that. We do have translation services available for anyone wishing to utilize Spanish language translation services. Uh, our translation our translator today, Miss Arador, is here to provide those services. Ada. Okay. Thank you. We appreciate that. Our first item in the agenda is item 1.3. This is the adoption of
002the agenda. Uh and currently we actually have no proposed changes to tonight's agenda. Is that correct, Dr. Do? >> Yes, that's correct. >> So, no need to take action item 1.3. The agenda will agenda will stand as presented. And before I go further uh get too far along, I should note that Dr. Miranda is not sitting to my right as usual. Uh we have Dr. Dade who is sitting in today, our assistant superintendent of human resources. Dr. Miranda is uh recovering. He's doing well. Um I'm sure he's listening to the meeting wherever he is. Um and so appreciate you taking the time to be here with us and we wish him a speedy recovery. So our school showcase today, we're really excited to welcome the students uh student leaders from Washington High School. We have
003our principal Torres uh with us today. Principal Torres, will you please introduce our amazing student leaders? >> Board President Flores, board members, Superintendent Dr. Miranda, and members of the audience. Uh, our two outstanding students who be presenting tonight are Charlie Tatum and Patricia McGregor Bass. Good evening board members. My name is Charlie Tatum and my name is Patricia McGregor Bass. We are students representing Washington Alternative School. Thank you for the opportunity to share how our school helps students like us build responsibility, respect, and resilience while creating our own pathways to success. Our independent study students also receive opportunities to connect through hands-on activities. Even when learning independently, we still focus on building friendships, communication skills, and a sense of belonging. These are essential steps and becoming respectful community members. In our cooking class, we use
004vegetables we grow ourselves. This teaches real life skills and the value of healthy choices. It also shows us power of teamwork. When we work together, when we create something meaningful and lasting. During Hispanic Heritage Month, we participated in activities that helped us appreciate culture, history, and diversity. Respecting others backgrounds is a part of becoming effective leaders and friends because we grow by understanding others. We also celebrate September birthdays because every student deserves to feel valued. Creating a positive environment encourages students to show up, try harder, and believe in themselves. Washington Alternative School is proudly part of the Colton Joint Unified School District, celebrating its 47th annual pencil, paint, and brush poster contest. Within our district, we have opportunities to shine, such as contributing to poster art and districtwide events that showcase our creativity and resilience.
005During pumpkin painting, we practice fine motor skills and creativity. This activity teaches us patience and perseverance, reminding us that resilience grows even when we're trying new things and even when they're challenging. For Halloween, many of us created our own costumes. Projects like these help us realize our abilities, strengthen problem solving skills, and build confidence. Each costume represents creativity, responsibility, and pride. Our partnership with the Wellness Center continues to grow. Thanks to the community support and a grant from Whole Kids Foundation, we're expanding our garden and wellness initiatives. This shows how much our community believes in our potential and how teamwork can transform a school. We celebrate academic success during our quarter 1 award ceremony. Recognizing hard work helps us stay motivated and encourages resilience. When students feel supported and celebrated, we become more invested in
006our learning. As the season change, our partnership with Calresh teaches us to cook new recipes using garden ingredients. These lessons strengthen our independence, responsibility, and ability to make healthy choices that support our well-being. With support of the Royal Gent Association, which donated 20 Thanksgiving meals to our families, we learned the importance of giving back. When others invest in us and see our value, we are inspired to become positive contributing members of our community. If I could share one personal reflection, it would be this. Washington alternative school gave me a second opportunity. An opportunity to rebuild my confidence, refocus my goals, and become someone I'm proud of. Here we're not just I'm sorry. Here we learn not just academics, but how to be responsible, respectful, and resilient individuals. Looking ahead, we are excited for new opportunities,
007new experiences, and new possibilities. We have a wellness fair and two upcoming field trips that will help us learn, connect, and continue becoming the best versions of ourselves. Thank you board members, for supporting Washington Alternative School and believing in students like us. We invite you to follow us on social media to see our progress and continue celebrating our journey toward success. >> [applause] >> Well, first of all, fantastic job on the presentation. I don't know if it's your first time speaking before a group like this, but you did an awesome job. So, I want to offer an opportunity for my colleagues to ask questions or comments because you shared a lot of awesome information about the different activities and events going on. So, are there questions or comments from board members? Sure, please. Board member
008Fentes. First of all, I believe in you, both of you, and all your your peers there at Washington. You ladies did an awesome job. Your presentation was great. All the great activities that are going on at Washington academically. Uh I mean, wow. Uh you're doing such an awesome job and the way that you express yourself today. We all make mistakes, which is part of learning. Uh which is really good. Uh you guys did just an awesome job. continue doing what you're doing. Always think positive because remember there's seven of us and a bunch of others that believe in you. Have a good day. Other comments or questions? [laughter] >> Yeah. Well, let me and I want to thank you. you did a great job not only presenting the different events and activities, but I want
009to say thank you for sharing that personal note and that means just as much to us as any of the events and academic uh excellence and activities. Your personal story um is very valuable because it not only not only obviously shares with us, you know, what you've been through, but it inspires other students and we want you to know that the education that you're receiving right now is first class and we are so proud of it. um Washington High School and and we feel the same way about Slover as well. These are awesome schools where kids um it's all about learning differently. It has nothing to do with better, worse, more or less. It's just different and it's a style that that fits you and I want you to be proud and to share that
010story with other students who um are going to be following in your footsteps. So, thank you for sharing that personal note. We appreciate it. So, Oh, yeah. Please. Board member Ibara. >> Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, give him a hand. [applause] Yeah. Excellent. Excellent. Uh, I agree with all my colleagues with the the words they said. Excellent job. But one of the things I just wanted to highlight that came across throughout your whole presentation, the feelings that you have for Washington High School. It definitely showed how your experiences there have helped encourage you, give you confidence and and it showed just in the words that you said and how you portrayed everything that was happening there at at your school. So, uh, it's evident to all of us that you really feel deeply for your
011school and for the staff and for the principal and everyone that's there to help you. And uh, I just want to make sure that you understood how you came across and uh, so that everyone could also see the importance of what you're doing there at Washington and what it means to you. both of you. So, I just want to say thank you to both of you. >> Well, we're going to give you one more round of applause and then you can come on up and shake our hands. [applause] again ladies for that great presentation. Well, this takes us to public comment for tonight's agenda. We do have um a number of public speakers for this evening. Just a reminder to all public speakers that you do have three minutes to speak to the board on
012matters either on the agenda or not on the agenda but when the per within the purview of the school district. Um and again our board bylaws are listed. Uh there should be a timer and some lights and when you hear the buzzer your time is up and I apologize not trying to be rude but we do need to keep everybody to three minutes. So our first uh speaker for this evening is Tyrone Neely. Good evening everyone. My name is Tyrone Neely and I am the choir president. Music has always been important to me and my fellow cabinet members along with having a teacher that's willing to connect with their students, take their time to learn about the program, and guide us through whatever we need. When I came in as a freshman, I wasn't sure
013what I like. I knew I liked to sing, but there was no place for me to express that. I ended up doing sports, and although I enjoyed it, it wasn't where my passion was until choir showed up, of course. until Miss Deleion offer offered me a place to express who I am. She gave me a chance. She loved her job, her students, and when we felt like there was no hope or we were doubtful, having a teacher that believed in us pushed us f further in our performances and our connections. Not just with our choir colleagues, but for the world around us as well. For the past month, our choir has been without a teacher. Still going about our music, of course, but with no structure and the balance of the class entirely kept on
014students. It's it's challenging. Rightfully, having a teacher would relieve us of that responsibility, keeping more balance to the choir class and continuing that con that connection and support. Although I am in my last year of high school, I would hope that in the same experience I got to have with my choir teacher could be shared with others and having a committed teacher would make that a reality. Thank you for your time. >> Thank you. Appreciate that, Tyrone. Appreciate it. >> All right. Our next speaker is Bianca Rules. I am Bianca Relas and I am the secretary of the choir program and I have been a part of choir for four years now in high school. Despite being in the choir for four years, I only started doing solos last year. This year at our annual
015coffee house choir performance, I really grew more confident and brave. This wasn't just because of me, but through the support of my classmates that was made a family through my old choir teacher, Miss Deleó. Choir has become more than just a class for me. It became a place where I learned to be brave and confident in myself. Choir is where I learned that my voice matters. Not just when I am singing, but also when I am speaking. Before I used to sing quietly to make sure no one would be able to hear my mistakes. Now I stand in front of people and give them everything that I have. That confidence didn't come from nowhere. It came from being surrounded by people who supported me, who cheered for me, who made me feel like I belong
016somewhere. Choir gave me a place where I felt safe enough to grow into someone braver than I ever thought I could. This growth happens when the choir has stability, guidance, structure, and someone leading us with a purpose. A choir teacher doesn't just teach us basic music theory, but they also teach us courage. They teach us how to listen to each other, how to breathe through fear, and how to turn our emotions into something beautiful. They give students a place to feel seen and believed in. A strong teacher turns a room full of nervous teenagers into a community and their impact spreads far beyond just the classroom. Miss Deleó let me experience all of this. And I hope that future students get the same experience I did. I'm asking from the heart. Please help us. Please
017give us the teacher and support we need so future students can experience the same growth, confidence that the choir and Miss Deleon has given me. We love this program and we ask for someone who loves it enough to lead it. Thank you. >> Appreciate that. Well said. Our next speaker is is it fallen pon. Thank you for allowing us this time to speak about our choir program. My name is Fallen Pon and I am choir treasurer of our program at GTHS. I am a senior and have been in choir for four years now. As some might know, we haven't had a teacher since October 10th. And because of this, we have been leading our program by ourselves, which should not be happening. We are teens, not teachers. Two days after our choir teacher left, our
018piano broke. And when we told administration about this, they told us that they'd get it fixed as soon as possible. Now, it's a month and 10 days later, and we still have not gotten an update on the issue. Not having a working piano has made rehearsals challenging, which makes it difficult for our choirs to reach their full potential. We still do not have access to our m own music library. Instead, we have to go around asking other teachers to unlock our room every day. We are also unable to access the money that our program has funded even though we have an adviser. That means we cannot purchase the materials we need that these are basic things that we need for our music program. And without them, we are falling behind. We want to perform and
019grow, but we can't without the administration support. Students who are kids are the ones leading the class. One of our juniors has been taking the role of student teacher as she is the only one with piano experience. She has 12 years of experience and we are so grateful for her but this is not fair to her or us. This has also happened last semester. We were given a stub with no music experience and we were student led for one of our annual concerts and again we are fully studentled for our upcoming winter concert that we have decided to continue planning in order to showcase our choir's work. We are doing this because we care. But as a program, we cannot be run by student labor and passion alone. We understand acquire precision is a niche
020job and getting a qualified teacher takes time. But at this point, our program has been without a teacher, has been underfunded, and has lacked support from administration. We need your support. This burden seems to have been placed on our students entirely. Thank you for taking the time to listen. My hope is that with this information, you our solution can be solved. Thank you. Our next speaker is Aiden Comfort. How many of you have a connection to music? Hearing that one song, we've all done it. Singing in the shower, singing in the car, humming that tune on your way to work, your go-to karaoke song, or the first dance at your wedding, that song you sang back in high school, or the instrument you picked up in middle school and put back in its case. Mr.
021Fuentes, I even heard you were a DJ. My point is, music is everywhere and it's everything. We all have a connection to each other through music. My name is Aiden Comfort and I'm the vice president of the GTHS choir and glee club. I come to you today to speak about the performing arts at Grand Terrace, just as my fellow C choir cabinet members did. I would like to share a quote with you that sits very close to my heart. People haven't always been there for me, but music always has. I've played piano for over 10 years, been in various musicals, concerts, even band. And I found a family within the performing arts, especially choir. But not only that, I found my home and passion in music. And it's not just me. In my hand, I
022have over 15 handwritten letters from my classmates regarding what music means to us. And some of you might ask, why music? Music is a science, math, foreign language only a handful can read. It's history, physical education, and it develops insight and demands research. But above all these things, music is an art. The 15 students who wrote these letters chose to be in choir every year over every class offered. and we teach music and we choose music, not because we expect to major in it or because we expect you to play or sing your whole life. But so you'll be human and you will recognize the beauty within it. So you'll be closer to an infinity beyond this world and you'll have something to cling to. So you'll have more love, compassion, gentleness, more good, more
023life. There's a light that comes from music and it's a flame that never dies. Please join us in bringing that light into our homes, schools, and community. With your permission, I would like to come forward and present these letters to the board. Thank you. >> Sure. Feel free to come forward, please. Thank you. Thank you, Aiden, for those uh comments and and thank you for the letters. Um while we're not able to really get into a conversation on my items that are not on the agenda, I want you to know that number one, we hear you. We appreciate particularly when students come forward. Um it takes a lot of courage and leadership to step up and speak on behalf of your fellow students. So we we very much appreciate you doing that and we do
024hear you, Dr. Obviously, a number of concerns were raised about the program. There are certain things that obviously that are take time and can be challenging like filling a position, but there are other things that sounds like we may be able to address. So, what I'm going to ask is we'll ask our our staff to follow up. I believe Principal Neighbors is here as well. And that we'll make sure that we follow up with the students and some of the parents. So, I know your parents are involved as well, just like I'm involved. My son's in marching band. We're very involved in that. They'll want to know what the plan is for for the the class, the program, and the resources. So, we'll make sure that they follow up with you. So, thank you so
025much for that. And thank you for the letters. We'll re definitely we'll get copies made and make sure the board members have access. >> If I if I may also can we get a report on what the the status is and what is the plan to to address some of the issues you know get the piano fixed and all that and kind of give us an idea you know why it's taking it so long for that to be taken care of because we need to have all that. >> Absolutely. >> Thank you Dr. D. Thank you board member Bara. All right. Uh well, our next public speaker is Lawrence Jenkins. Jenkins. Thank you. thoughts. Is that better? All right. Thank you, ma'am. Uh, I'll briefly introduce myself. My name is Lawrence Jenkins. My wife and
026I, we have lived in the Bloomington community for over 33 years, and we have been blessed to raise both our daughters and we have established a cordial relationship with our neighbors in the area. Over the years, I've sort of kind of noticed that quite a few of my neighbors, they walk their dogs and they're walking their families and they're in the streets and they're on the sidewalk. Um, and so that brings me to today's topic. And I believe Joanne may have passed something to you. Um, don't expect you to look over it all right now, but look at it in your time. Um, but I'll just briefly go over it. is pretty much some pictures that I've took the initiative to go over of the oversight. You guys are aware of the the land on
027valley and um cactus. Again, I'm we're right behind that area and so I just took some snapshots of the area. I'll go through that. It's right across the street from Joe Baka Middle School and I sort of made note of that also. And then on page four, I believe it is, it's just briefly my vision and not totally mine, but just a thought process of what we could have there. Um the recreational facilities like maybe two basketball courts, uh maybe some pickle ball, some tennis, some child areas to play. Um a designated area for the soccer that can be put up during the soccer games and be taken down during the soccer games. uh restrooms, parking lots, grills, things of that nature. And the recommended name of it would be Joe Baka Park. That's just
028my thought because it's right across the street from Joe Baka school. I think it would be very very related and things that nature. Soft track to walk on. That's a thought. This thought has come to me ever since 2023. Um everything takes time. You have a life. I have a life. But I was fortunate to find out that you guys are having a meeting tonight. So I said timing is everything. So that's why I wanted to come here and u just sort of talk. I also been fortunate enough to share my thoughts with Miss Jennifer Woo. Um she's been very very helpful. Every time I call in, she'll direct me in certain things. I'm very very grateful that she takes my call and she helps. Um I've been very grateful to speak this with uh
029Mayor Joe Baka senior uh just briefly because I periodically I go to the city council meetings also have shared this with county supervisor Joe Baka Jr. and that's my time and I respect the time and so the last question is how can we move forward on this? Don't expect to answer now but you have my contact. >> Appreciate it. We do. Thank you Mr. Jenkins. We do have your contact information and and we'll certainly follow up. We appreciate that. Thank you. Wonderful. All right. And those are the only uh comment cards that I have for this evening. Miss Medina, do you have any other comment uh speaker slips? All right. So, we will go ahead and officially close public comment. And again, thank you to everyone that came out to speak tonight. We appreciate hearing
030from the community. Um and we will certainly follow up. >> Oh, did you wish to make a public comment? Please uh come forward. All that I'll ask is afterwards if you wouldn't mind filling out uh a card afterwards. We'll grab a card. commentary. Are you ma'am? Are you going to translate for the or or would you just because so that folks can Yeah, let's do that. >> I actually Yeah, I don't speak Spanish. >> No, no problem. Miss can actually >> Okay, not a problem. Miss, would you mind just translating that way we can get it in chunks and that way we can get through. So, and and just for the record, uh for the time because of translation services, uh it's six minutes. We double it. That's the that's the rule. >> Good evening.
031My name is Jasmine Garcia. I'm a parent and member of the parent committee at Lincoln. Uh we've been here before and we've met with the principal before about um how dirty our school is. Uh we've asked before that if the doors of the cafeteria could be open because there is a smell of trash and um they were we were told they were going to be cleaning it every 3 months. Okay. Um forchech. Um, another incident that occurred at the school was while we were attending a parent uh workshop. There was a drill that happened at that time and while the school was on lockdown, we saw as the kids were exiting, we also saw some beer cans and the trash cans where the emergency kit is supposed to be. I think this is a very
032um severe incident that should not be happening at our schools. >> Um my name is Priscilla Aas and um the I have um two kids at Lincoln Elementary. Um this was my first um well actually since October um I just started getting involved in the school. Um I was very excited to do so. Um it was very exciting to start and then and then coming together with the parents and and hearing some concerns um them feeling like um they're not welcomed and you know I don't speak Spanish so there's a language barrier but I'm going to support the parents you know um so they just feel like they're very um they're not welcome there and um yeah that was our concern. concern >> and I would ask if you would please uh fill out a
033form and include your contact information so that way we can follow up because obviously these are serious concerns and we want to make sure that we can call you and follow up. So uh Dr. Thank you. Okay. All right. Okay. Those are the uh last public comments for this evening. So we'll go ahead and and close public comment and we'll uh head into our administrative presentations. All right. Our first administrative presentation is item 4.1. This is our dashboard presentation. So I know it's a a dual effort from our ed services and student services division. So we have Drs. Peterson kick off our dashboard presentation. Good evening board. There we go. Let's turn it on. Us assistant superintendent Dr. Uh and members of the audience, it is our pleasure tonight, Dr. Ortiz and I, um to
034present our 2025, um California dashboard, u for our school district. And so, uh, we're going to tag team tonight. Um, tonight's presentation will include some basic information for this year's dashboard, our California dashboard results, um, some information on differentiated assistance, and then the work in progress and what we're doing, how we've been addressing um, our results this year. >> All right. Thank you. Good evening, everyone. Uh, the dashboard was released on November 13th. uh science isformational only. So we will have status and change in color. Uh but CDE is still working on what those numbers actually mean. Uh eligibility for differentiated assistance always is based on status. So any combination of red and or orange in two or more priority areas uh will get a subgroup or u uh focus area uh in uh differentiated
035assistance. When when you think about uh what does the state base the colors on the percentages if you look at that chart uh the left hand side is chronic absenteeism. So there is a chart for suspension, chronic absenteeism and then the academic indicators. The column on the left uh indicates what's the school or district's percentage for that current year. So uh in chronic absenteeism it goes from very low to very high. Academic it goes from very high to very low on the left hand side column on the top column. uh for chronic absenteeism and academic it is how was there an increase or decrease from the current year or from the past year to the current year. So you'll notice on chronic absenteeism it goes from increase significantly to decrease significantly and on the academic
036from decline significantly to increase significantly. So that just gives you an idea of what how do they determine where certain groups and districts fall. So I think that's Dr. Peterson. >> So here comes our results. So for English language arts and again um for English and math indicators are for grades three through eight and 11 are the the levels that are tested. And so on the left side of these I'll kind of set this one up and spend a little time on it and then go a little quicker through the other ones. On the left side the first thing you'll see is our color on the kind of rainbow slide there. And so the arrow is pointed to the color uh as a district. So as a district we were yellow um 40. Then below
037that you'll find our status. So the status is 46 points below standard. Um a lot of times you'll hear us say um and on the other column um you'll hear see the minus 46 DFS. So that's distance from standard. Um so we talk about it in that in that respect. And then below um the status is our change. And so the change is from last year to this year. And so for this year, you'll see an increase of 4.2 points. Um the expectation um in order to keep your color or move ahead of color is to increase each year by by a minimum of three for the academic indicators, three points. And so uh this is a positive another year of positive growth. I believe three years in a row of moving moving up. And
038so that's good news for our our district. And so on the right hand side we have our student groups and you can see the colors there um along with the the score for each and whether they increase or decrease with the plus or minus. And so um if you for example our English learners you'll see the - 76.9 DFS and increase and plus 8.9 so nine points. And I'm going to come back to that one especially in a later slide to kind of kind of show a a little juiposition with our English learners that happened this year. And then you can see the other our other subgroups there that are listed. Um in red we have only one group which is our homeless group. And even with that group we maintained but unless you're growing
039that 3% um they usually they drop a color um unless you get the the three points. Um, and then you'll notice occasionally um some colors that are in gray. And so what those those mean is that there's less than 11 students, which means they don't um they aren't considered necessarily statistically significant in the scores. Um but they do affect the scores overall um for the district. And so u but they don't want to single out. They think with less than 11 students, you might know who those students are if they gave a gave a score for that. And the other thing is you may see a gray with a points listed there plus an increase or decrease. In that case it's there's between 11 and 30 students um for our subgroups and then for LTELs
040it's up to 50 students before you get an actual color. And so moving on to our math um again we are in the yellow category which is we want yellow, green or blue. And so that's that's a a good place to a good place to be at 84.6 points below the standard. Uh we increased 3.9 points. If you remember last year we were at 2.9, very close to getting getting that yellow. So we're we're happy that we were able to um get that growth this year um to push us up uh push us up a color and continue with the work that we've been doing um across the board. You'll notice a few more um reds in this column and so that will factor in uh when we start when I give you a little
041bit of information about differentiated assistance as we move forward um on the right hand side and you can see the other our other subgroups that are listed there for science and as we said earlier science isformational only um they instead of distance from standard they changed it this year to science points and so they haven't quite figured out what that what that looks like across California and so um they were able go back to last year's numbers and at least transition transition those to points to show an increase or decrease in a color, but this does not factor into differentiated assistance or anything of that nature. Um, again, they're they're still um discussing and talking about what this actually means and where to go from here. And so once we get that information over the
042next few months, we'll get a clearer picture of of what these scores um look like and what these scores mean. And so you can see again each of the subgroups are listed on the on the right and what you will see is again you see maintained or increased. So the positive is there's at least no not a decrease in those um scores over the year. And then the next category is our English learner progress. We also call that the LP and that is the um based off the other other scores were based off the CASP and the CAST. Um English learner progress is based off what they call the LP and Um this year we showed 44.2% making progress, it's a decline of 4%. And then for our ELTEL, which is long-term English learners, um
043what that means is that they've been an English learner seven years or more. And so they they have their own category um this year and they declined 2.6%. And so that's where the the kind of juxtiposition lies with the English learners in ma in sorry English and math rising yet our LP went down. Um so we really dug into this data and kind of tried to figure out is there a standard or something that was missed. Um we talked to some principles about um why they decline and the two things that kind of stood out the most we had a few sites that tried something new. um we always like to you know try something to try to improve it and they said it didn't work and so they were um switching back and making
044adjustments for this year and the other part is I think when the test was given um we had political political upheaval started in February and that's when the LCAP was given and so I think you had more inconsistent and worried students at that time not that they're not worried um with immigration and things like that as in in May I think it kind of at least became a little bit more consistent u for them to be at school. And so that's right when that that occurred. And so um we feel like those two those two things have u are kind of the explanation for that. But again, we don't want to make excuses for this. We need to do better with this. And so uh but we're proud of what the what the academic side
045of it in English shows is that the work that we've been doing in integrated um integrated EL with our teachers and our students in all the classes is actually working. So it shows that that information. And so um the next one is our college and career indicator. Uh we are in green which is great. um love to be in blue, but we're getting there. And so prepared at 42%. This is an increase in seven of 7.1%. Um you'll notice on the right side we have um only um students with disabilities in orange um but also an increase there. And so you'll you'll see um you'll see uh mostly increases. There's a decrease in foster youth. So foster youth, our foster youth and our two or more races that we'll talk a little bit more about
046have somewhere about between 40 to 60 students. And so we have a lot of each year um one or two students can affect those numbers a lot. And so um so you'll see some of that um along the way as well. And then on the academic side, the graduation rate, um, this is, so we're at 91.7%, we talked about 92% before. Um, the 92% was for last year's class, but the dashboard does fourth, fifth year cohort. So, it's last year's plus this or two years ago plus this past year's class. The graduating class is actually it should be 20 24 and 25, not 23 and 24. Uh so you'll see 91.7 an increase of 4.3 u percent and then notice on the right side a lot of the green there a lot of work done
047um with our school sites um the tell project um working with our records texts working with our counselors on their handbooks um shoring up some misreporting um within our cowpad system as well as the work done on school sites with credit recovery and getting our students um getting our students to um pass their classes and get into summer school and and do all that work has definitely showed um some good results um for our graduation rate. And then now Dr. O. >> All right. Uh the next slide uh shows suspension uh rate and you'll notice that uh you're somewhat looking at over a four-year period because uh where 2023 begins uh there was a maintained at 02. So that's coming off of the 22 school year. Uh but you'll notice a natural progression uh de
048uh decrease over time. Uh so we're really proud of that. And even when you look at the bottom the equity report uh the numbers in terms of where our student groups are uh is is moving in the right direction. Um but um having said that uh when you look at this chart again this is the colors over time. So from 2023 2024 and 2025 you'll notice again good progression in terms of colors. Um so obviously in this uh indicator uh decrease is good. Uh we noticed that if you'll notice African-American that was the that group subgroup was in differentiated assistance. Uh we are in yellow for that group and that has been a focus for us. Uh if you'll notice and it's going to be a trend I think in chronic absenteeism as well. Uh
049foster and two or more races is going to be show an increase and in red. So we'll have to look at that. But it the the good news is that all students decrease seven subgroups declined and only three subgroups increase. and th those subgroups while while important represent a small percentage of our overall district uh population of students. Uh the next one is uh chronic absenteeism and same thing you're looking at somewhat of a 4-year trend uh starting with where we declined 9.2 in 2023 for compared to 2022. Uh and we had a you know 11% decline in 2024 and just this past year 1.7. I I would anticipate that as we get closer to uh 20 and below 20, it's going to get harder to move that dial. Uh so we will continue to
050work on that. And then we also I also have a presentation later on, so I'll get a little bit more into detail. Uh the next slide though, um there it is. All right. Very good. Um, same thing. It looks a three-year trend. So, from 2023, 2024 to 2025. Um, you'll notice I it's really easy to get stuck in the colors. Uh, and so that's the first thing that stands out. Uh, but you'll notice this is another indicator where decline is positive. Uh, foster youth declined significantly and that has been a focus for us. We had six subgroups which are highlighted all the way left in yellow. Uh, the decline, but you'll also notice seven subgroups and Dr. Peterson kind of mentioned the same thing, change color even though there was a decline. So Hispanic, for
051example, was in yellow last year, but uh and due to ink decreasing significantly, but this year there was only a 1.7 decline. So we didn't move enough points to move to the next colors, maintain that color. So again, it's difficult because like she said, if you're not maintaining that decrease over time, the color will change, but but still you can see the D's which is decrease. That's what we want to see. So uh both a victory and a little bit of frustration on our part. And then you'll also notice like I said fostering two or two or more races increased uh with with chronic absenteeism. Uh when you look at our local indicators which this is uh measures that uh reported out from our uh local climate survey uh parent and family engagement and access
052to broad course of study. Uh this was the the information collected from our LCAP and school climate. All of those indicators were met based on the results of those uh surveys. I think that's Dr. Peterson. >> All right. So go into a little bit um more detail on different differential assistance and the overall outlook with regard to that. So our overall results as a district and I kind of pulled science out of this since um it'sformational only. Um again you'll see um all students this at the all student level um very positives there um as Dr. O said on chronic absenteeism um because it's a 3% you need a 3% increase there but also under 20% would move you automatically to yellow. So once we get under that 20% threshold it'll move a color as
053well regardless of the the uh percentage. And then um again our other decline is is with our LP or English learner progress. And then it's nice to see green um a lot of green on this this which is is good news for our college and career and graduation and suspension rate as we move forward. Um this is kind of the picture of all of our subgroups across the district. So be before I come explain a little bit of this I'm going to go to our next slide and then I'll come back to that. Um these are the categories that we fall under for differentiated assistance. So our long-term English learners are going in this year. our students with disabilities. Um they've been in since two 2023. Um it should say 2025. Sorry for that typo.
054Um foster youth um went in last year. Um so this will be uh or ended with last year and then our African-American has been in since 2024. Our homeless 2000 they'll in this year and two or more races are in this year. And if I go back to the other slide, I'll kind of explain what that looks like. Um, one thing that is extremely positive and very proud of the work that's happened across the district, um, hopefully what do you notice with English learners? No red. And so, um, that's a that's a great thing. We are actually out of differentiated assistance with English learners. And so, we were in there in that for three years. And so, that's, um, very happy to have that that um, group come out. And again, that goes uh basically
055to the hard work and efforts across the district um from our students to our teachers um to our admin um our directors and all across the board um for that focus uh the past few years on our English [snorts] learner and we hope that continues. We need to continue that growth and so that we don't um end up back in it. But if you look at the numbers there too, plus 8.9 plus 4.6 six plus 5.1. Some some very steady growth there. Um our long-term English learners um in math and math, English, language arts, and LP count as one category for differentiated assistance. So you'll notice that the red and orange actually put you into a differentiated assistance category with one other red. And so you'll see the chronic absenteeism um as the other red.
056For foster youth, um again, you're you're talking about 50 students. So that has a wide wide jumps um each year and so you'll see some like college and career um and then graduate a college and career decrease a large percentage but graduation increase a large percentage and that can be you know upwards of three to four students where that where that's that's making that those numbers. Um and again you see because you see two reds um that's why they're in differentiated assistance our homeless um students um Again, you see uh math and English uh they maintained um didn't drop it but maintained on the academic side. Um but also chronic absenteeism um increase. So you have have that um our students with disabilities um notice that there's not two reds and so that's a positive
057that's one year of growth. In order to get out of different assistance you have to have two years of growth. So if we show another year of growth um this year uh we we will come out of differentiated assistance for that group. And if you notice our African-American group again no red and so again that's considered the first year first year of growth. And so again we as we focus on on those two groups again this year um we hope to bring those out of out of differentiated assistance next year. And then two or more races again uh for suspension rate and chronic absenteeism. Um they go in that. And one of the things about suspension rates I don't think was mentioned is that you can have a student that's in your school at the
058beginning of the year that's not at the end of the year and they still count if they were suspended at some point. And so that's where sometimes you see higher rates as far as foster youth because there's a lot of transition in and out. And if there's more behavior issues, um if there's behavior issues, and you'll see sometimes a higher number because some of those students were in our district all year, but but some of them were not. And so, but we still have to we still um we still get we still um get their data and their info. And so that leads me back to this. And you'll notice I've highlighted the um the students with disabilities and and our African-American group. And so um those are the the groups that are in year
059two um with one year's one year's growth and the other groups are considered in first year. Um we're happy not to have anybody in third year. So the fact that we moved English learners out and that we show growth with our students with disabilities and African-Americans means we don't go to that next step of differentiated assistance which is which is um is good. So um and that so what are the requirements of our district in that? So we'll attend a webinar on December 3rd. Um and then we have a team meeting uh February 5th and um as in the past it's based on improvement science. So we'll pull um we'll determine which subgroups we're going to focus on and then come up with a game plan there as to how we're how we're going to
060address or do more to address than what we already are. And so and then again the goal is to show growth for two years. And so how are we addressing these results? And again, this is not something we're just starting right now. U we get a peak at and can kind of take a a pretty good guess as to where we're going to be um based on our cap scores over the summer. And so we are we already as we start the year um are planning for um where we need to focus and and the work that we're doing. And so we're continuing our focus on lesson planning. a lot of the top top uh parts there for elementary um that have to deal with literacy a big focus on literacy um continued letters training
061uh or QTEL and glad strategies continuing to provide professional development in that and then another one we've added this year is called UFly that you'll see around the district over the last two years and so we're really um focusing in on the on those happening in the classroom and then for secondary the focus on building thinking classrooms and AVID strategies across the district and then that continued work that we're doing with our integrated and designated ELD um professional development for teachers and really the the inclusivity of all of our students that we're focusing on with our principles this year and that we've focused on the summer institute with our teachers. And so for the college and career indicators, we're continuing to expand um our dual enrollment. Now, I will give you a heads up that
062this they're making changes to this next year. So, I don't know what those changes necessarily are yet um or what they're going to do to our numbers, but um they are changing the state is changing the the the rules. Um they tend to do that every few years with some of these. Um we have our early college at all the high schools. We're continue to focus on A throughG which which uh had a good increase this year as well. And then we're working that work with our counselors and records clerks. And then we have an emojia pathway that we're scheduled to begin that focuses on um our subjects u focus with a focus in African-American studies um that begin in 2627 at Grand Terrace High School. And then graduation rate we continue our mission 220
063which is our 220 credits to graduate. Uh we will continue to work on those differentiated instructional strategies in the class. continue credit rec our work with credit recovery and um the work on our TE project with continued our records now have a handbook. Our counselors are almost finished with their handbook and so a lot of structures and systems we've put in place so that um everyone's can that there's consistency across the board with how we um what we do as a district in different positions. Uh yeah, as far as uh suspension, I I put this slide in just to give again context of uh overall where we've been and where we are. Uh if you notice, uh our suspension rate for 2425 is below even back uh to 201617. So again, you've seen that uh
064decline and then we saw that increase uh after COVID and we're getting back to even lower than what we were before uh and little bit higher than than Fontana, but uh still right there with Rialto. Uh this this one just breaks down not just uh students, our suspension rate on the right hand side. So we're at a 1.2% right now in quarter 1. Uh but also when you look at the number of students with suspension right now in quarter one, we're significantly lower at least where we ended off last year. So uh hopefully that number stays low. And then uh below there's just a breakdown for our uh major uh subgroups. Uh but we did and I didn't add in there and I should have but uh like special students with disabilities has declined uh
065as well. So that's good news. Um, a lot of the things that I think we're doing, uh, as far as suspension, uh, on the left hand side, you'll see what what I believe that the school sites are doing really good at is the PBIS implementation, uh, expectations, assemblies, uh, incentives for appropriate behavior. Uh, I think, uh, obviously our counselors being there with SEAL lessons and classrooms helps. Uh, our wellness centers at the high school and middle school. I know there's probably a couple elementary schools that have some quasi uh wellness centers that they're trying to start there as well. Uh our training with uh restorative practices and that conflict mediation helps. Uh no contact contracts uh helps and and getting students to help u ma manage their own behavior. And then I think also utilizing
066other means of corrective action is also helpful. From a student services division uh we've had a variety of different training provided. Uh the big one that I think is most important is the restorative practices. Um the uh kindness campaign that we have. Uh also the involvement of Antonio and his team uh of them providing uh services and support as well to the school sites. Uh in addition to our counselors there at the elementary schools. Uh behavior support from Rob and his team. Uh where he can can support he does. uh our security staff, John Saxs, brought in Dr. Clark to uh uh provide uh equity training for our DSOs. So, they've gone through that process as well. And and also in terms of behavior, Antonio has also done his part to train the team in
067terms of interacting with students and trying to mitigate behaviors uh before they escalate. uh and just overall our focus as a division on on uh behavior management uh and trying to find get get to the bottom of the problem because sometimes just suspension is a short-term solution to a long-term problem. Eventually they're going to come back from that suspension and what what is the plan? So I think we have a lot of support for our students uh our students with disabilities in terms of what we're doing. Uh I think we're proud of the work. You see the uh increase in ELA and when they maintained in MAP uh they decreased in suspension and there was also a decrease in their chronic absenteeism. Uh Rob and the team uh really focusing on um trying trying to
068support our special ed students in the gened classroom. So how are they doing that? Uh supporting the co-eing models at Grand Terrace Coloulton High School and Terrace Hills. uh supporting increasing mainstreaming at the elementary uh reviewing the effectiveness of our RSP support at the secondary level. Uh we normally have uh learning centers and that sometimes isn't always the most effective way to provide services. Um supporting our mod severe and physical education classes is also very helpful uh and supporting our preschool inclusion. Uh as far as our uh preschool, uh we were uh in uh intensive monitoring for preschool. Uh and one of the things that again Rob and his team are doing are trying to find uh students supporting students with IEPs in in the GenEd classroom. So they created a a SIM plan, a
069compliance and improvement monitoring plan which they completed and working with uh the team to make sure that we're supporting students in the GenEd classroom as much as we can. And I do believe it's not the only reason, but the the improvement that we've seen from our students with disabilities, I think those those actions help. >> I I will I'm going to end off with these amazing students uh because we keep students first, achievement, equity, and wellness. Uh Tina was mentioning that she's gonna next time she does this presentation, they're going to be seniors. So, uh, but if we can answer, uh, any questions, we'd be happy to do that. >> Well, thank you, uh, Drs. Peterson and Ortiz. First of all, it's a that's a lot of information that you kind of threw at us.
070But, as we're digesting and looking at it, um, obviously overall seeing seen improvement in growth, and I like the year-over-year comparisons gives us a sense of where we are. I feel like the stake in the ground really is is the COVID year, that 2020 year when everything sort of fell apart and we're starting to rebuild. But what's interesting is to see in some cases we're not only catching up to where we were prior to 2020, but we're we're doing better than than before. So, I certainly appreciate that. Let me let me ask if there's comments and please board member um Flores. >> Yeah, thank you. It was a lot of information and uh we'll probably be talking about this later. Um but um as far as the indicators uh that you know that show positive
071growth um you know that's something we can celebrate. Of course there's a lot of work still that we need to do. Um, one thing that I I recall, um, you know, with as far as positive growth, it shows where we've put our focus, our groups that are that needed to have a focus like uh, students with disabilities, EELs, African-American, that it shows when we focus on on something and we actively implement and and uh have a plan in place, it gives us the results that we have today. So, um, one thing that I I I did have a question on on, uh, slide number eight, which is the mathematics. Okay. It shows a lot of red. Uh, right there, there's a little clunk of of of red. Do we know if it's okay, it's als
072foster youth and homeless and then the [clears throat] students with disabilities. Um do we know if this is um what grade levels or um >> I don't have the I can get that to you and be >> you need to whack it. break down for um um for our our for our school sites. So they have another uh file that breaks down each of this by subgroup and um so that they have that and then they go f they can go further with our um our data coordinators um to re go down to the teacher level and student level um with their information. And so that's part of the training that we do with the school sites is how to break down that data um as how to break down the data at their school
073sites with either the principles and or teachers as we go through this. That that would be very telling um on where we need to focus uh for the year. Um also the students we have a ELA intervention I believe at the secondary level correct the reading read 180. Yeah we have um so I think um if we are to show growth in those classrooms I think these reading intervention classes have to be extremely rigorous and we need to see a lot of student engagement. um we're not going to get the results that the kids deserve is if if um these reading intervention classes are not rigorous and uh you know this is probably the last class that needs to be in rows with uh no interaction, no student engagement. Uh they need to talk. I
074know and we've seen really really strong classrooms that are uh these kids are interacting and they're engaged and Um and then we have seen some you know where you know they are sitting in rows and quiet you know for 45 minutes uh 50 minutes sitting. Um so I would say we need to really zero in and have a laser focus on these kids so that they show the growth that that we want. Um, gosh, there was a so many. Okay, it was good to it's good to see the prog the progress with our English learners um, you know, the long-term English learners. I mean, for years and years that have been, you know, our hardest uh, group, you know, and a lot of times these are the kids that end up in these ELA intervention
075classes. So, again, focusing on those kids, but uh, thank you. this is um you know very promising and um you know the the positive growth of where we're going uh is is what we want to see. So uh we'll be talking a lot about this. I mean I you know ask questions here till 10 o'clock but I won't [laughter] >> thank you question please. board member Thorna. >> When we look at the um dashboard results for the um student groups in mathematics and language arts, um is it possible to draw from that information the students in each category who are have chronicle chronic attendance issues? So we can identify how what percentage because one or two of those kids can bring that number right down. Can we is that possible to do that because I
076bet there's a huge correlation there. >> I can talk with our data data folks and and see if we can do something like that. I'm sure we can. >> A few kids can pull this down so much and we need to really focus on those kids and figure out another way to make those kids come to school or get the parents to get them to come to school. I'd appreciate that. Other questions, >> comments? Um, it's a great question, Board Member. Throwing ahead. I know that we're gonna we'll jump into the the absenteeism issue in the next presentation, but I would I would take it one step further and saying it's if it's possible to even, you know, map where these students might be, uh, I was in a presentation with Sanified School District. They
077actually have somebody on their staff who's now they're much larger district obviously, but he's an expert in GIS mapping and he can literally put on a map within the school district the hotspots of absenteeism. And so you realize these aren't just issues um that are halfhazard. They're in neighborhoods, right? And so and let's, you know, let's be honest, these are the socioeconomically impacted neighborhoods, but it tells you where they are and then where we need to send the resources. So those are those are the types of things and again we'll talk about it here in the next presentation but using technology to really help us identify where those challenges are and then how we can go and and and send in interventions but um but with respect to to the dashboard which this has always
078been you know the state's always been tinkering with ways to to visually show uh progress of schools right we all remember you used to get that the score every school had a score and you needed to be at this level or above so it changes periodically I apprei appreciate the visual uh approach with the colors, but the colors can be a little bit deceiving because they they do focus on on growth, which may or may not necessarily mean you're doing a great job or not. And again, and growth is important. We want to look at growth, but growth alone doesn't necessarily um identify success. Just just as an example, because it caught me off guard earlier in the week, we were looking at my son's MAP test scores, and he scored on the low end
079of growth. he wasn't making a lot of progress from the fall to the winter and I thought uh oh what's going on here and then I looked and it's because he's in the 97th percentile already for math. So it's like okay well at some point dad like I can't like you know you get to 100 like that's which was shocking because neither his mom or I are all that are that great at math so I don't know where that comes from but but it's a reminder of that with with data like this you have to be really careful how it's presented and how you interpret it. Um and same thing with the foster students. Just taking a look you we have 94 foster uh kids in the district total. So you're right a handful of
080those do really well or struggle that whole because it's an average right that whole cohort can shift one way or the other. So um yeah it's it's it's really in all how it's presented interpreted but you've done a great job helping us really understand it and put it into context and I and I appreciate that. And again identifying those subgroups that we know we want to focus on that we don't leave them behind and that's really important to us. So, um, but if there are no other questions on this, I know we're going to roll right into our absenteeism, uh, presentation. So, Dr. O, you're up. >> Thank you, uh, board president Flores, uh, members of the board, assistant superintendent Dr. Dae and members of the audience. Missy Kingston is going to be up here,
081uh, helping out. So, um, we're well, I'm going to, like I said, I wanted to go into detail about chronic absenteeism, but I know, uh, there were questions at the last board meeting. Uh, so I just wanted to give everyone an update. So, uh, the kind of the flow of the presentation, we'll talk about what chronic absenteeism means, how it's defined, give you some relevant data that I think minoa asked for, and hopefully we can, uh, meet your expectations of what you wanted or wanted to see. um talk about SARD and SARB because I think that was one of the questions. What's the process and what do the numbers look like? What is the story that's being told out there? Uh and then some of the action steps that I think are making a difference
082and again it may not show it necessarily in the numbers. Uh but in individual families and students that that in those successful cases uh what we're doing matters and then I'll give some time for questions. So, we know that chronic absenteeism uh students that are 10% or more of the instructional days uh are that who are absent are considered chronically absent. Uh we want to obviously get that decline uh so that we continue to improve. Like I said, I think it's going to get tougher and tougher as we get closer to where we were precoid. Uh this indicator is not reported for high school and you have to be enrolled uh 31 instructional days. So one of the things that again that I try to uh present is just the story where o over time
083so when you look at this slide the gray columns on the left hand side are precoid uh but when you notice coming out of covid uh we we have increased 22 decreased 22% from 2122 to uh and if you notice other than this last year we've had the highest decline amongst the districts who are surrounding us. So um you're you're it the the neg the minus 9.2 minus.11 is is difficult to maintain. At some point in time it's going to slow down the growth or the decline in this case. Uh but this again gives context on where we've been and where we are and we are getting closer to where we were before but it will become more challenging. But that's okay. It's not an excuse. We're going to keep pushing forward. Uh this slide
084gives chronic absenteeism rate. The most important one that I want to point out is quarter 1. Right now we're at 18.63 which our goal is 20%. We'd love to be at 15. Uh but we'll take 18 at the end of this year and continue just to move the dial. Our 88 which uh Dr. Mandanda still asks us to to track. Uh it's not reported on the dashboard. Uh but you can see right now in quarter 1 we're at 94% but even compared to uh 2223 we were at 92.49 49 end of year last year. So that that is good. Every percent counts for ADA. Uh when you look at the bottom o overall in 2526 right now we have 3,300 students a little bit over 3,300 students who are chronically absent. And again that's about
085half consern consider where we are now half of where we were a few years ago. Uh one of the questions was how many SARS have been held? uh when you look at where we are uh 144 as of today uh right now uh so hopefully if that trend continues we'll match or probably surpass how many we can conducted last year. Um home visits right now the division has conducted 115 home visits. So again if that trend continues we we'll we'll surpass where we were last year. Uh and I'll get into those home visits because I think those make a big difference. And then the number of SARB contracts. So the last column in 2526 currently we have 90 SARB contracts. Uh but there's 263 active. So when you go into Q that means there are
086263 active SAR contracts. So that includes students that we are following up with that may have started last year but they're continuing over. So we have not closed that case on those students. But as of today, we've conducted 90 SAR contracts. Now, uh Mr. Flores, today and then last board meeting, you mentioned the the heat the Yeah. So, I couldn't do that, but this is just as good. Trust me. Um we at least broke down with Colton by cohort just to give an idea of how many chronically absent students there are by cohort. So, that 3,300 is broken down by cohort. And then you'll see uh Missy and her team were able to pull a graph of how many chronically absent students there are by cohort by school right now. And then we also added
087in the number of total enrollment for that particular cohort. Um so it just gives a a a general idea. Uh the next one is the chronically absent the subgroups. So when you look at the top row that's the number of students in that subgroup that are chronically absent. The percent is that subgroups percent of the total 3,300 students that are chronically absent. So again, looking at our foster youth, uh, 18 students, that's only 1% of that chron total chronically absent number. And then just a graph p picture of what that looks like. So in terms of SART, um, SART is really meant as a tier 2 intervention. It's mostly done at the school site level, but um our team in our department helps out with SART as well. So the purpose is really just to
088meet with families, meet with students to find out what's going on, what are the barriers to attendance. It is meant as a positive intervention to discover, okay, what's the why behind the absences to talk about uh m and establish positive relationships with the families and really link them up with services and just to get to the why. Um, and so part of that process is they're having meetings with families. Sometimes it's on the phone, sometimes we go to the house, sometimes they're coming down to the school. Um, but really just to talk about what's going on. And so, um, the CWA team, the community liaison have gone out. Um, so in 2526, they've already done 61s. Um, and the total there's been 144. So, we're trying to help with our team. If a family is
089having a barrier to getting down to the school to discuss attendance or maybe they can't get a hold of the family, we're going out to them. How can we help support the school sites um in terms of SART contracts? Also, home visits. There's already been 115 home visits plus 33 other visits. So, our community liaison are following up not only with families at the home, but with students that are experiencing difficulty with attendance. So maybe they're on a SARB contract or we're trying to prevent them from becoming um chronically absent. They go out to the school and meet with the students kind of uh quasi mentorship program just to encourage them, provide incentives and things like that and really just try to get to the why behind um the absences. It also we just listed
090how many Saturday school academy recovered days we've had 3526. And then we do send out truency notices. Those are required by the state and also RAWI uh which is an attendance program emails are sent to families just letting them know hey here's how many days your students missed so far. Um in terms of start meetings these are the numbers of how many students in those cohorts are on SART. So um as you can see Colton has uh a few more and there was a heavy focus in the last few years. So when we came back from COVID, we really looked at what areas of the district, what school sites specifically were having a lot of chronic absenteeism and we focused on those schools. So that was really good for the focus on those schools, but
091we've switched it up this year because some of our schools that had lower rates weren't having any students uh brought up to SARB or we were having difficulty getting to those families because there, if we're real, there's only so many days in the year and so many SAR meetings and hearings. So we've tried to increase those. So that's why you'll see that Coloulton cohort, they did have more chronic absenteeism and we were focusing on those schools. In terms of SARB, um SARB kind of has a negative connotation, but SARB is really a tier three intervention and it's meant to be positive. So, it is part of um a whole system of meeting with the family and a multid-disciplinary team that sits in there and talks with the family to really get down to the the
092why behind the chronic absenteeism. And every single family that comes in, there's a different issue going on. Sometimes it's health or mental health or just life or the parent is struggling or there's grief uh going on with loss and things like that. Um, but the purpose is to re-engage the family into the school community. So, we want to re-engage the students back into school and we want to help the family get linked up with services in the community. We we're trying to mitigate those barriers to attendance and really find out why for whatever reason when families come to SARB really all of everything comes out. They they finally disclose like what's going on. We've got a big team there. Um and we want to keep the students away from the the juvenile justice system. That
093that our goal is to have them in school, not in the justice system. Um so when families are recommended for SARB, that means the students are already on a SAR contract. There's been interventions at the school site and it's still not working, right? There's still something going on that's preventing the student from coming into um into school and they're still missing school. Our whole focus with the families is really when the students on are not there for whatever reason. The state is looking at chronic absenteeism. They're just looking at the students missing instructional time. They're not connected to school if they're not in the classroom and they're they have a higher probability to get behind academically. So our focus in SARB is really that connection back to school and the missed instructional minutes for the
094student. Um, and so we pretty much provide whatever it is that we can for the family and if it's something that we cannot do, then we link them up with services in the community. Um, and that multidisciplinary team that's in there, myself, I'm in those meetings. Carla Vermont, who's the student services supervisor, our community liaison who serve the different cohorts of schools, the deputy district attorney is involved, our probation officer, we've got a nurse, we've got mental health um interns in there, and our attendance specialists. So, we we try to have that multipi multiddisciplinary team so that whatever issue comes up in SARB, we've either got an answer or we've got somebody that we can link them up with. Many many times we've linked families up with case management. So it's not just addressing the
095attendance problem for the child but whatever barriers the entire family is facing. >> Um one one of the things I'll mention I think um Missy mentioned the multi-disiplinary group of folks um is is what what's provided there. It's not just mental health, but we the the team will get provide uh gas cards, school supplies, clothing, resource guides, tutoring, mental health, case management. Uh we do have a contract in a partnership with IIEHP. We have an actual what they call an IEHP health navigator who connects uh families. So she she is uh working specifically in the Coloulton cohort, but she will go all over the district and IHP has said the more students you need or the more you you students you bring in, we we can and we'll provide you with another health navigator. Um
096we we even had uh just recently the November 18th we had SAR meetings. Uh our district the district attorney was there. She actually went to her car and got two alarm clocks for some of the families from her car. Um, so lots of lots of uh need out there and I think that that's the important thing is is SARB in general in the in the past has had a negative connotation. I think like Missy said our focus has been how how do we address the barriers to getting to school. Uh we just at that same SAR meeting I heard uh that one of the parents didn't show up. That parent called to inform us that uh his wife had passed. So he the student had not been attending C school. we would not have known
097that if that meeting hadn't happened. So some sometimes changing mindset of of of why aren't you coming and coming down on the family if we aren't providing support to them and understanding what is the reason. Um I I meet with all of the community lessons, not just the three in our division, but those around uh in the district. And it's interesting because one of our uh community liaison was working uh with one of our high school students who was missing first and second period when when she met with that student to ask why. One, first period was advisory. So there was a little bit of well it's Tom tire and it doesn't matter first period. But the other the more important reason was period two was math. when when the community leaison would sat down
098with a student to meet with her the concern was I'm not good at math she struggled so connecting that student with tutoring and support because it's it's avoidance she didn't want to go because of math class so again there's an assumption there that parent doesn't care she doesn't care but there's a need there and that tutoring that connection I think is more really important we have an amazing probation officer who replaced Lorraine Alman Reyes Garza he he is it's been seemless less with him in terms of engaging with our families with our students. Uh Antonio has his folks sitting in on SARS again to connect families immediately. So lots of things that happen I think in our district that I I am confident don't happen in other districts. So and if anyone out there in
099other district prove me wrong. So um the other one SAR meetings thi this you'll see the top number uh gives current SARS that have been held for those cohorts like Missy said and it's one of those things when we focused on Colton cohort uh because that was the greatest need. It's like h how did how do you beat Goliath? I don't know. You have to attack them at some point and and have a plan and you hope that plan works. But they redid their their focus and now we hit all cohorts. Um, and you'll notice just in this recent uh November uh SAR meetings, we we had a few parents that uh uh elevated in there because they're not used to being called into SAR from a certain cohort and I won't mention which one
100that is uh but but it's there. So, we are reaching all families. Uh and then you'll see the second row. Those are active SARBs. So, again, these are SARBs that were started either last year, a couple years ago, and those cases have not been closed. So, that's the 260 there. And then uh uh how many SARS uh per school site for each cohort. The one of the things that I asked the team for was the stories because again it th those are the things that are missed. You look at the total number and like oh 21% chronically absent but you miss the stories and this is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what happened. So we had a grade five McKinley student SARB was held in 2023. Probationer officer Alimman conducted SARB.
101So there was a SARB. There were check-ins over two periods. So, she provided incentives. So, gift cards from Target and In and Out that came out of her own money. And the student was exited from SARB in 2025 with a 96% attendance rate and still has a n right now has a 99 attendance rate. So again, that's that connection of bridging that gap. Same thing. Grant grade 12 grand terrace high school student SAR was held in 2023. Al probation officer Alimman checked in. student utilize a wellness center. Uh she had a start at the end of this 2425 school year 95% percent attendance rate. She is on track to graduate and still holding right now at 95%. And last case grade nine BHS SARB held in 2024. Student finished the school year with an 87%
102attendance rate slightly improving but our community leaison our CWA community leaison visited the school. uh the family attended the school resource fair and that student currently has a 98% attendance rate. So again, that connection to make them feel part of the district and important and connecting services got them to the school resource fair which which helps. Um, so there's just a lot of stories like that and like I said, we could be here until 10 o'clock at night telling and I think those things get overlooked, but there's just time time to connect with parents and I think that's most important when you think about what our division is doing for the students. Missy and her team with the attendance awareness. So September we did an amazing thing. We had over 3,00 4,000 students with perfect
103attendance. That's no early outs, no tardies, no nothing. and you were here every day. Um, our personalized outreach through our home visits with our community leazison, the probation officer, Antonio's folks going out there and they are conducting home visits for certain students. Um, our our uh follow up with the SARS because I think that was the other thing in the past that we didn't do. We'd have a SARB but not follow up with that family. So, the team is doing a good job with that case management in our own student uh site visits. Uh as far as the school sites, how are we supporting them? The attendance awards obviously the home visits, Saturday school. Uh but one of the things that I wanted to talk about was uh the last few bullets uh le leveraging
104our probation officer. So again, we we don't we asked them to go out, but they just do that on their own and they are visiting not just at the home, but going out to the school sites and visiting school uh students there. And that makes a difference because again that one-on-one connection. Our community leaison the same thing. Uh they create relationships with families. They visit schools. Uh they they too go out to visit individual students and just make that connection and try to do what they can. Antonio's mental health interns attend SAR link families with resources and the overall goal is to remove those barriers for them. Uh long term I think what's the most important thing that third bullet. Uh second it first is just removing those barriers and that could be an alarm
105clock or that could be tutoring. It it it really doesn't matter and I think there's a need to make sure we're connecting students with any kind of service. But the one that I want to hit on is the uh enhance the relationships and connections. Uh there was a recent study done by the new teacher project that schools with stronger pre-existing family engagement and family engagement was defined as trust between teacher and and parent. parent involvement and the parents influence over school decisions had chronic absenteeism that was six percentage points lower. Now the interesting thing is uh that the that study showed that the the parent engagement um had better than expected those schools had better than expected attendance, achievement and school climate. The interesting thing was those benefits applied regardless of race, socioeconomic status, and
106the type of school, whether that was urban or other type of schools, those schools and those students perform better with that family engagement. I think that that's where it is. That's what it comes back to. So, all of the coffee with the principles, the assistant super the principal, the directors, uh Rob does a donuts with with parents, uh donuts with the directors. I think it's those connections, all of the trainings that we do that that's going to ultimately I think make the biggest difference. This is question I also we'll take any questions but this last picture uh this is Rogers Elementary. These are the students that had September perfect attendance at Roger >> the class the class with the highest. Thank you. Um so we'll we're happy to take any questions. >> You Dr. Ortiz
107uh questions from from board members. Again, lots of information. It's very helpful. Please board member Thornoha. >> Thank you. Um it was a lot of information and I totally agree with everything you've said. I have a concern about um a few things and wonder if we can improve it more. We have 3,362 habitual no 3,743 chronically habitually chronically absent and yet we have students in some sort of program to get them to go to school. I mean official, you know, 144 um Sarts and 90 SARBS, that's only 234. That's like not even 10% of kids that are we have anything documented on. Um I I I know we those contacts I agree they're they work. They're we this was a personal thing of mine when I was at my schools. And so um that is
108how you get kids to school. And I totally agree with you Missy. There's so many families that they have issues. The alarm clock, you know, mom mom doesn't get home from work. I have this. I mean, there's so many things that we can help them with, but there are a lot of kids who just don't go to school and they don't really get anyone to to um make the parents make that happen because it when when they start with little kids, by the time they're in high school, it's development as a habit. And I really don't see a whole lot unless you can make a huge uh connection with those kids. But it's especially in the elementary level, we need maybe we need more support. I know you have a lot of people helping. We
109had the same in Fontana. Um, and I just I think we need to do better because every year these kids don't come to school gives them one year less to prepare to have some kind of a future. There's a lot of kids, especially since uh the pandemic, but there's a lot of kids who are not coming to school every day. And it's not they're not getting the followup in some in many of the schools. And it's not because they're not trying. I don't but I think we need to put more teeth in what we're doing. I don't think we need to threaten parents, but at some point if the parents just aren't doing it, are we how many of these kids that we're not monitoring have parents who really aren't making kids go to school?
110That's okay. And I don't know. I don't have a solution, but I think we need to do better. at at the elementary level. Uh it's not their fault. Most of the students obviously it's it's a it's a mom and dad or uh it's a it's a guardian issue because there might not be a mom and dad in the house. So 100% agree. We will continue to push forward and reach every kid. So I know we don't want to go and threaten and threaten their parents, but on the SAR contract, do we know how many kids are on SARB? Now, you said that there we we have some students that were still maintain maintaining on a contract. My understanding was once Sar's over at the end of the year, you start over. So that's not happening
111anymore >> on SARB until they're making progress. So we review a few times a year every student on SARB and if they've improved and they show a pattern of positive attendance and they're no longer chronic, then we exit them from SARB. If not, then we're reviewing and we're giving letters and feedback to families of, hey, attendance is improving. They're they're still chronic, but we see improvement. you know, please continue to send them to school or we're starting to see tardies or hey, we're reminding you of your SARB obligation and your SARB contract. Uh because it is a contract, right? It is a piece of paper and it is a conversation. But the reality is despite that, there are some families that don't send the students to school, right? Or that have so many things going
112on that are getting in the way um of students going to school. The other hard thing is the numbers don't exactly match. So right now there's 263 or whatever it was on a current SARB contract. And when you look at the chronic numbers when they when we take a student to SARB, they've already had interventions from the school site um been on a SAR contract, there has to be time to see some change. So the 3,300 and some odd kids right now that are chronically absent, they may just not have had enough time. It's only November. We've done 90 students on SAR already. That's twice as many as we did in like 22 23 in the whole year. So we >> good for us for doing that. >> And so um when you look at
113the numbers, it's also 10% of the days enrolled. So if a kiddo just enrolled and the the school enrolled the student and then the student got sick for three days, they're chronically absent already. It doesn't mean that they've all been here since the beginning of the year and have missed over 10%. So sometimes the numbers are a little bit deceiving. Um to answer your question about sort of the teeth um the the world has changed, the state has changed, the direction in ed code has changed um to the point of even uh truency notices that are required from the state um are not allowed to have specific verbiage about citations and things like that. The deputy uh the district attorneys do not take that approach anymore. So it's just a different world. Um, luckily that
114wasn't a huge change for us because we've really always since I've been in student services for whatever 12 14 years, the focus of SARB has been an intervention and um, mitigating those barriers to try to make those connections with families. Um, in the past there were, you know, more things in the community and with the police department and the district attorney, but that that's a change uh, in the law in California. So real the extreme situations are not going to court anymore. Is that what you're saying? >> They will if a district attorney is willing to file on the family. It's extremely rare. It's extremely rare. Seen huge results when that has happened. Um and it saves a kid and gives them a chance. All right. Thank you. >> Thank you, Board Member Thora. Other
115other questions and comments, please. Board memory bar. >> Thank you. Thank you, Dan. Uh, first of all, I just want to say thank you for the report. I mean, we're we're talking about uh a situation that is very very difficult to deal with. um trying to get our students to come to school on a regular basis. And when we have certain students that don't have the encouragement or are not motivated enough to come to school, then you know that takes it to a different level. You know, over the years, I've seen our district try a variety of different type of methods to try to get students to come to school. You know, we've uh made our schools safe. We have provided them with the needed information. We've brought in nutrition and we br give them
116lunch. We give them breakfast. Uh our educators are there for them all the time daily. Uh, I've seen a lot of our schools greet their students as they come in. So, we've tried everything as far as getting them to feel comfortable coming to school. One of the things that though I've uh had opportunity to talk with many students over the years I've been in education is the fact that when I ask them how come you never wanted to return to school, a lot of them will say because they've gotten so far behind in their classes, they just don't feel like they're going to be able to catch up. And so that keeps maybe some of the older students from coming to school as as the time goes by. I don't think that our elementary school
117students at that particular point in time understand that fact. But I'll tell you, our middle school and our high school students do. So my question is, [snorts] you know, we make the efforts to get them to come back. we, you know, we bring in the parents to the best of our our ability because that's what we're doing because not every parent and we've seen them over the years, uh, a lot of times when we had parents come in close session for certain issues, you know, right away, you know, which is, you know, not funny, but, you know, sometimes you could just watch the individuals come in and you know why the student is the way they are and that's just very unfortunate overall. But uh you know, one of the things that I I want
118to ask is as a district, we're looking for reasons why and how we can uh get our students to continue coming. The key element is that if we get them to start coming, we have to somehow figure a way to support their educational uh education so that they feel comfortable coming back to the point that they're going to be able to compete in each one of their classes, to be able to catch up in each one of the classes. uh right away they're they're behind. You know, sometimes, you know, I have my thoughts about double blocks. If they don't get in the first block, the second block doesn't really help much because if they get the first time, they're not going to get the second time. But what can we do? And I'm not asking
119for an answer, but this is a more of a, you know, question. What can we do to when we do get the students to start coming back to help them catch up with their education? What can we help them with the areas that they're failing in? The reasons why that maybe they cry because they don't want to come to school because they don't feel that they're able to, you know, compete with the other students that are there. And so they either act out, they withdraw, or they don't come. And a lot of that is things that happen at home. They fight their parents for not coming to school. And sometimes the parents, depending on their individual situation, will give in and say, "It's easier for you to stay home than for me to go through
120this." you know, we deal with a lot of young parents also, you know, that don't don't know how to handle these situations. So, I think that yes, I think that we're in the right track in trying to get our students to come back where we're looking at the right things to do in order to to try to pull them back to our district. I think that but once we do what's the plan for us to make sure that they're able to uh start doing well with their classes start feeling like they they are able to be in school and be able to do the work because number one when we have teachers who have 30 students per class very difficult to get to the one that is what four five months behind. realistically. And uh
121so I think that that's some of the areas that we need to actually take time to look at because if we don't address their ability to stay in school and want to stay in school and thrive in school and do well in school, then I think we can and I'm going to say we could bring back a percentage and that percentage will stay. Now there's going to be the others that you know are going to have other difficulties but that's one of the areas that I think that and I've heard that from students who uh you know for most of you you know what I do for a living. So I deal with a lot of individuals who want to start up their life again and they they want to re re-engage in their education
122and I hear them saying I wish I wish I wish I could have but there were circumstances and I got behind in my education. I didn't feel like I would be accepted going back to school. So there's a lot of issues that young kids go through their minds because as we well know, you know, a 12 12 year old will think like a 12-y old. You know, if they had hindsight, they would say, "Hey, maybe I could do more." But a lot of them once they get behind, they feel behind. And that's not a good spot for anybody. Any of us get behind on something, we don't feel comfortable, let alone a child. So, just want to throw that out there. I think that's a element that we need to take a look at. You
123guys are doing a wonderful job. I've seen what we've done over the last years to try to increase our attendance and it's shown we've increased our attendance. But I think that if we're looking for retention, we need to really address those students who come back and try to see what is the extra things that we can do to make them successful and be and want to stay in school and not get behind, not get further behind and you know and then they'll leave again. So I just wanted to make that comment and and just address that issue too. Okay. Thank you. One one more. Um I know you mentioned when you were speaking Missy about um the schools and the SART process. Do we know how many SARS each school has? I know we know
124how many kids, but do we know each how many schools each have active SART meetings going on? It just seems like we should have more than a 144 SART contracts. I know we've sent letters, we do this, we do that, but once they get to 10, how many how at how many absences do they have to have a S contract at least? >> Usually they'll start five six% of the enrolled days. Um, and then it's dependent upon the student, right? If we know the student had surgery, >> Right. A kiddo that's just not coming or something like that. So, in looking at the SARTs, those are the number of kiddos that are on a current SART contract. >> Correct. But we have other kids who probably missed a whole lot more. Have we notified all
125the parents of these 300 3,000 some kids? It just seems like we would have better results if we've put some pressure on or at least we've talked to all of them. I just >> Yeah, there's there's would be some sort of notification, but have do I think every single one of those 3,000 has had a meeting? Probably not. And like I said, each one of those is a different situation. It could be a kiddo that just enrolled. It could be a kiddo that missed the first 10 10 12 days of school or what have you because they didn't have their immunizations. I mean, there's so many different reasons. Um, and the schools really focus on trying to get the family in um, to have that conversation because it's not punitive. It's meant as an intervention.
126So, can we just write a piece of paper and say, "Hey, parent, you're on a smart contract." Sure, we could do that, but it's not going to make a difference. >> I understand that, too. I just >> Right. But they I don't think every one of those um students have they they haven't been able to have meetings with every single one necessarily. And some may need it and some may not. So we'll continue to focus on the importance of SART. >> Guess what I think about too the teachers in the classroom. Kids come in, they come late, they don't they're don't show up for three or four days. They're way behind. They're trying to teach. The kids are out of and and it's cumulative each year as they go to the next teacher, that poor
127teacher has now three or four grade levels they're teaching in each subject because the kid has missed so much school. And then we're getting teacher burnout. And that just we need I agree with Mr. Um, with Frank, we we need to do we need to do more. And I know you're doing a lot, but we need to figure out a way. We don't have a magic bullet, but we need to do something more to get more of these kids in school before it's too late for them. I mean, we don't we it's wonderful what we're doing. We had Washington this morning, kids who didn't find a place in school. But as this attendance issue gets worse and worse and worse with kids or prolonged with all the kids, we're going to have bigger problems down
128the road. And we're going to have a lot more kids who aren't being successful. And those kids are going to be homeless kids, adults. And I just I want to see I really hope we can come up with something that can make a difference for more kids than just what we're doing. Thank you, board member Thor Noita. Other other questions or comments? Um, I'll just uh well, I'll have a quick question about uh some of the barriers that you mentioned that we work with when when it comes to the parents and obviously it's unique. Every family is different, but I was just curious, are there trends that we're hearing? Are there one or two or maybe three common themes that we're hearing when we're talking with parents that they're they're struggling with right now as
129far as getting their kids to school? uh most of it uh I would say the biggest one is mental health um like anxiety um even with the mental health in the schools a lot of the students are receiving those services but that takes a long time um and so they're still struggling even though they're they're receiving services um and so that is probably the biggest barrier I would say that would be followed by um parents themselves that are struggling whether whether it's working multiple jobs or just frustrated or loss or trying to maintain the household and children and everything together and just struggling and if they have a student um I think Mr. Lingo hit it like you mentioned the the student doesn't want to come to school and sometimes the parent is just frustrated
130and they're at their wits and that they don't know what else to do. Um and so I think those are the two biggest ones. We're not hearing a lot of like transportation issues. We're not hearing a lot of um things like that. It's mostly the anxiety or depression um or just some of what you said Mr. Abar is true of students feel like they're getting behind. One thing that we do really focus on in SARB is because it's an intervention we're looking at what's the best place for this kiddo. Is the comprehensive school the best place? Do they have a better fit at Slover or Washington? Um, is it a student that needs independent study? Do they need credit recovery? And just trying to look at what's the best fit for that particular kiddo. I
131wish we could do SARB all day every day. Uh, because the students that come, we do see a lot of growth. Um, but it is it's the focus and those individual stories. Now, those stories that you hear, especially this year, we we could we held SARB the other day. The students already chronically absent for the whole year. They're not coming off the numbers, but we can see improvement with that family, and that's really what we focus on as well. So, it's hard because the numbers just look, they're so glaring. Uh, but it's the improvement of those individual kiddos and the individual families and linking those people up with services. And it's kind of like the starfish analogy, like I I helped that one. Um, we can't help every single one necessarily, just time constraints. But
132I agree with you. I wish we could do so much more to to serve the students and the families. mentioned uh mental health and anxiety. Is that in reference to the student or the parent or both? >> Both. Okay. >> Both. There's been a lot of case management referrals. Um there there is a benefit in California that the stigma has been reduced around mental health, but the infrastructure is not there. The people are waiting months and months and months to try to get into services outside in the community just simply because of the the huge amount of need. And we hear that a lot. um parents that really need help and we had Dr. Ortiz mentioned the health navigator. We had a connection with a family who had lost their health insurance, couldn't get it
133hooked back up, had moved from this county to that county and it was a hot mess. And so that person actually helped the family get connected so that the parent could get the mental health services that she needed and then we were helping the student. Um, but that snowballs at home when when things are going on with the parents and they're not in the right space, it makes it even harder for them to support their child's education to they're dealing with with things themselves. So, we we see a lot of family need >> and I think there's some connection there. I think Mr. Flores because the one student that I gave the example of the math class that the the anxiety of going to class caused that also. So one one problem compounds the other.
134So it it's kind of a combination of things that are going on. So >> well I I appreciate you sharing that and it's interesting you talk about the both the challenge of of needing support from a health and mental health standpoint but also the challenge of getting services. So this is what we do you know on a regular basis at at at Mary's Mercy Center. I have two full-time community health workers and their job is to just get people into services and support um with healthcare providers. And you're absolutely right. Uh transferring from LA Care to IHP can take months. It's actually easier to get somebody enrolled brand new from scratch into managed medical plan here in the county than to try to transfer from another county. And again, I've got two full-time people who's
135dedicated to helping our moms in the case of the the the domestic violence shelter go through that process. And it's ownorous at times, the paperwork that's required, the documentation, and if you don't have it, you've got to get it. Um, but it's interesting to note that because I think then this is good food for thought. Whereas, you know, in my experience, for every one person that eventually asks for help, there's 10 more people that need the same thing that don't know how to ask, aren't sure to ask, not sure. So, we may need to get more proactive rather than waiting and identifying it through a SAR process. Maybe we start looking at some health navigation stuff on the front end. Medical, I can tell you right now, it's getting complicated. There's obviously changes coming down
136the road. Parents are scared. uh uh families are scared. Uh they're hearing about people getting kicked off medical at some point. That's coming and maybe we become a platform. While it's not our expertise, but working with IHP, working with Molina, we can and there's a whole lot of health community health navigators, you do the same through through your organization, Izzy, that you work with. Um you almost can't have enough of those resources. So if our schools become places where people can come and get that information, we could hold seminars here in this room to ask questions, English and Spanish, other languages, just to make sure they get support and access early. I I think that's going to be the future because we're going to see more and more people worried about losing access and care.
137>> Ultimately, Mr. Floyd, you just described community schools. >> Yeah. >> That have the grant will have that because that that is the essence. it needs to be built into our schools. And so again, San City Unified doing lots of innovative things. They're going to have three clinics uh integrated into their schools tour and school sites. I think the third is going to be at their new um uh enrollment center uh which is gorgeous, beautiful building, but they've gotten to the step of actually having clinics on site. Um now clinics are great, but can you staff it with the specialty care that's needed? So again, we won't get into details, but you're absolutely right. Uh, Miss Kingston, you talk about it's one thing to have insurance, it's another to get an appointment with a specialist.
138And when we try to make that happen for one of our clients and they tell us it's six months out, what do you do? You know, so that's the other problem is the Inland Empire. We don't have enough primary care provide or specialty care providers. So IHP and Molina are working on that, but there's yes, lots of challenges around the health and mental health. But I appreciate that. I would have thought maybe transportation. I know housing sometimes certainly can be a concern, but to hear that that mental health component is probably the predominant one gives us an opportunity to think about ways that we can we can intervene. So, um again, thank you for that. >> Yeah, please. It's real. >> And I just agree when you have Antonio's team part of this and that
139just makes a big difference when you have someone who has that knowledge of wellness, mental wellness. You know, as Dan was saying about uh community health workers, I I actually just got certified a few months ago as a community health worker, and it is true to be able to have and bring resources to these families. I currently I have 30 30 cases right now, and I can't say names, but I have 30 cases right now, and I think five or six of them has to deal with their student not going to school, and what resources we can find for that student. So, it is something out there that we can work on and and maybe bring to the table uh in our district and maybe get it to that point where where we can help
140them as we're we're doing their SART or we're doing their SARS, whatever it is, you know, give them those resources at that same time because a lot of times, like you said, Dr. Ortiz, it could be just an alarm clock or it could just be the student needing a little more tutoring to be able to come back to school. Thank you. Last thing is just a trauma. Trauma is a big issue as well. And then I think you said it Mr. Floss like how how do people some some families don't know how to ask for help or resistant to do that. So it it's a lot of bridging that because once you get them in then that's the good thing. Now we have the resources obviously to help them. So >> and I appreciate that
141and I you know there's one more point I wanted to make because board member throwing ahead I think touched on this. Um, and I fully believe this is about incentivizing and supporting. Uh, but at some point you get to folks who simply just don't want to do it. And so, yes, believe in the carrot, but there has to be the stick. Um, and I'm glad to see that our deputy district attorney attends. I was going to ask the question, and you you answered it somewhat in terms of what's the disposition of this particular district attorney's office because they have a lot of discretion. They're an elected official just like us. They're accountable to the voters, the taxpayers, and those of us that put them in office. Um, they have a lot of discretion as to
142whether or not to pursue things based on, you know, the evidence in front of them. And it's sounding like at least this iteration of the district attorney, because I know the previous district attorney was much more active, I believe, in in doing so. He made it initiative, at least through some of his campaigns. The current district attorney, he's been in office for a number of years now. Um, so we have a pretty good track record. What What's the disposition there? Is it really? Because if if there's no follow through, if there's no, well, what are you really going to do? Because I'd work with those guys, too. What are you going to do? Well, you know what? You can talk to the guy with the badge and the gun and he'll escort you to another
143location. >> In the past, we saw more of that where local law enforcement could site. Um, once the citation had been issued, the district attorney would would take the case. We had gone to court before and things like that. Um, currently we're not seeing that. Um, it is even our most egregious cases, law enforcement isn't citing or if they're citing when a couple years ago there was a a case where we went all the way to to court and then it was just have mediation with the family where we were exhausted every resource we possibly had. Absolutely would not file. I think the the trend right now is that the the teeth that you're talking about must throw and go oha at the at the district attorney level or the law enforcement level isn't there
144and I agree like sometimes that's what kind of triggers people. Um so because we can't control that that's why our focus has just been in terms >> interventions. So let me let's be clear. So there's because there's multiple levels of law enforcement. You have our local police and sheriff's departments that do have the authority to to site that hasn't changed. I mean the law hasn't changed, correct? They can still site >> they can site under ED code for very specific reasons after X amount of time and interventions when the SARB contract isn't being followed. So they they can do that. The trend right now really is not in the punitive mindset. It's really we're we're not seeing that just to be be honest. and and that's a conversation then that we would have to have
145with because again that's a policy decision made with our police chiefs in concert perhaps with the city and we have good relationships with our chiefs um and and with the sheriff's department. So that would be something I'd be interested in talking to them about. But then there's the other level like you said they could site all day but if the district attorney's office isn't going to take it anywhere then it stops there. And again I I think that's I've see I've seen what you just described. this particular district attorney really hasn't done much in terms of enforcing um you know truency and and this issue. I would like to see more of that, but the only way that happens is school districts start talking about it together and make it known to the district attorney
146that we really need your support to back us up. Again, we're not trying to criminalize um this and and and be unfair. I'm the last guy to want to criminalize poverty. I'll be honest with you. I fight for the impoverished every day. But there are instances where we have just folks who are being hard-headed and refuse to follow through. Yeah. And and think, well, what are you gonna do? That's when we need their support. So, we'll have to discuss maybe as a board ways that we could work with other school districts that are equally frustrated and wanting to see some more action um from our district attorney's office. So, appreciate that. Okay. All right. Thank you. Any other questions, comments? This is a really good conversation. Yeah, please. board. >> I just want to thank
147you very much for doing this because I've wanted this for a long time and I just haven't said anything about it. But it's it really is something important to me in my heart and see to see kids that had who are smart who had a chance who just don't get there for whatever reason. And sometimes it's because they're the only ones that really want it in their family. And I want to see kids coming to school, teachers to be happy about what they have to teach every day and can get to every subject because they're not having to always try to get other kids that are so far behind and then don't have the behaviors that they have because kids aren't frustrated. So, thank you so much. I do appreciate it. >> Welcome, Mr. We
148won't give up. We're going to continue. We'll talk as a team to see what what new ways we can what we can do. So, thank you. >> Thank you. appreciate that. [applause] >> It's a tough job and you guys do an excellent job of it. We appreciate it. >> All right. Well, thank you. That concludes our pres presentations for this evening and that takes us to our action session uh action items. So, today we have uh items 5.1 through 5.36. Uh are there any items that board members wish to pull for separate consideration? >> Yes. 5.13. >> Okay. 5.13. Any other items? All right. Hearing none. So, what we'll do at this time is I will ask for a motion to approve items one point, excuse me, items 5.1 through 5.36 with the exception of
1495.13. Is there a motion? >> I'll second. >> Okay. Have a motion by board member Haro and a second by board member Fuentes. Any other comments or questions? Hearing none. All those in favor say I. >> I. Any oppose? Any abstensions? Hearing none, it is so ordered. And that takes us to item 5.13, uh, approval of Cal State University, San Marino for direct admission partnership. So, is there a motion? We'll start with the motion. >> I'll make the motion. >> Absolutely. All right. We have a motion by board member, uh, Bertha Flores, second by board member Fuentes, and comments. Board member Flores. >> I just wanted to uh, congratulate staff for bringing this to our approval uh, for for board approval. And this is uh a partnership with Cal State University Sanino and our district
150for our students uh to have a um be proactive be proactively admitted into um Cal State Sanino. And I think this is great. This is uh something that we need to celebrate and um and thank you for for working on that over there. And uh yeah, this is our commitment to um equity and our students success. So >> you know, I'm glad you brought it up uh Bertha. I appreciate it. This is a pretty incredible uh agreement actually. I mean, we're talking about automatic uh elig automatic admission for eligible students. So just out of curiosity, um I mean, who notifies the student? Because in some ways, the student basically you you've been accepted to college, you may not even know it. So who's notifying the student? Is it us? Is it Cal State? I see
151that they they have a responsibility to um notify but I assume we do as well >> through the um CCGI process. Cal State Sanino will notify the students and then they'll follow up with our counselors. So it's really the backwards they get accepted first and then they go through the application process and but it gives them time to do that and time to um make sure that it that it's done correctly. >> So So how is that notific? And again may not have the answer right now. will work through this. As a parent of a teenager, if you notify my teenager of something, there's about a 20% chance I'll actually hear about it. And it's we need the parents to to to to know that this is happening so they can follow through because you're
152right, there's applications, there's FAFSA, there's all kinds of things that'll need to be done. Um, and this should be done in English and Spanish, quite frankly, given our population. So, I just want to make sure that because when a parent hears, hey, congratulations. Your student's been admitted. They have to follow through with these steps. for parents who may not be thinking about college because they're not familiar with it themselves. They're not sure. They don't know about costs. I think that that that changes things. That triggers something. It's like, wait a minute. So, it's it's it's real. It's already happening if we follow these steps. >> I need I need to look into it. And so, but we can find that out and find out then how we can get make sure that the parents are
153getting that message as well. >> I appreciate it. Again, on behalf of parents of teenagers everywhere, I appreciate you letting us know. So, okay, great. And thank you, Bertha, for pointing that out. This is a pretty amazing opportunity for our kids. All right. Well, we have a motion and a second. Any other questions or comments? If not, uh, all those in favor say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Any abstensions? Hearing none. It is approved. It's an awesome awesome agreement. Thank you for that. Okay, that takes us to administrative reports for this evening. Uh, any questions on items 6.1 or 6.2, our dispersements or uh the change order? No questions. Okay, we do not have a facilities update. Uh this evening I don't believe we have an ACE update. I don't see uh pace. Okay.
154Do we have a cse update this evening? No update. All right. Thank you for that. Uh MAC update this evening. No update. All right. Ro. >> Okay. >> Um we did have uh the last two counselor road shows for uh CJUSD. We had BHS and uh Grand Terrace High School uh this last week and they both went really well. The students were very articulate when they spoke and it was um really exciting to see uh what the students are doing in their RO classes. Um, I also wanted to uh mention that [clears throat] we have our Colton High School welding students competed in welding wars held at San Bernardino Valley College. Our students from our welding class got some of the highest scores there and they won some new equipment for Coloulton High School. So,
155which is pretty exciting. And we also have um uh we have started uh well we haven't started we've been doing them but we've added another pre-apprenticeship program and it's through AMR ambulance company and uh Grand Terrace High School uh their EMR program is going to be um be able to participate in it and also the criminal investigation program at both uh at uh Bloomington High School. So, I just wanted to share that. >> Awesome. Thank you for that. >> Okay. This takes us to superintendent's communication. So, I'll turn it over to Dr. I'm going to channel your inner Frank Miranda. >> Try my best. >> All right. >> Well, thank you board president Flores. Um this evening we have a lot of things to celebrate. Um like to first start with our bus grant that
156we received recently. Um, South Coast AQMD um gave us 26 electric buses. Um, so that equates to approximately $5.8 million. >> Yes. Yes. I heard they have TVs and No, I'm just joking. But um um outside of that, we received four additional buses from the CAP program, which is approximately $1.4 million. So for a grand total of 30 buses. So that's awesome. like to say thank you to um our director Kawahu and her staff. Um just in just to give you a little bit more uh data points, out of 34 districts um between LA, Orange, Riverside, and San Bernardino County, we received the second largest award. So LUSD got the largest award, but that typically happens. They're bigger. And so, um next, I'd like to go ahead and highlight our Bloomington High School ribbon cutting
157ceremony we had the other evening. Um thank you to all the family members that came out and all the staff. Um, we really took that opportunity to showcase the newly renovated um, varsity baseball and softball fields. That equated to approximately $5 million uh, renovation project. And so we're so excited for our Brewing athletes. Um, it included upgrades to the field lighting, which is now LED, a fully renovated varsity softball field. Um, we added synthetic turf turf, I'm sorry, to the f and fencing improvements um, on the varsity baseball field. if you haven't had a chance to get out there and see that. Um ultimately it is now a collegic level type of field and so so happy for the Bloomington community. Um we did get some help and funding in regards to um the American
158Rescue Plan. They that that pretty much brought us about $1.8 million and we want to give a great and a big thank you to our fifth district supervisor Joe Baka Jr. who was very instrumental in that in this process. So between the $1.8 8 million and about $500,000. Um, when you add that together, that's $2.3 million that Supervisor Joe Baka was able to help us with. So, thank you so much. Um, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention and give a shout out to Director Owen Chang and his team for facilitating the process. [applause] During the process, he ensured that all stakeholders had a voice and a part in the process. And you you you can hear that from the both coaches at the site. Um and our Bloomington community once again came out. It
159was a little bit breezy and cold, but um they were there and just just so excited. So, thank you, Mr. Mr. Chen, for facilitating that great process. Next, like to go ahead and celebrate and and give a little highlight on our county sila by literacy. Um last night we had uh numerous students um approximately 175 students who were recognized um for their um seal of biiteracy and so um we had some two uh keynote speakers um both for seniors one from Bloomington High School and Grand Terrace High School. Um we were there to be able to congratulate, celebrate. The house was full of parents and we we also have a great um we had a visit from Ted Alejandre um which he left another event to come to our event because he felt it was
160so important to be there to congratulate the students and families. So we appreciate that. And last but not least, my favorite holiday because I love food. Um I deep I deep fry a mean turkey. So, if you, you know, if you'd like any pointers, go ahead and text me. Um, but, uh, >> yes. Nope. Haven't burned my house down yet. But, um, just want to say thank you to all on behalf of the board of education and superintendent Dr. Miranda. We wish you all a happy Thanksgiving. Um, I don't know if you hear it enough, but we really appreciate every employee in this district because like like you've heard us say before, it takes a village and every family member in that village um plays a vital role in what we do. So, we just
161appreciate you from the bottom of our hearts for all you do. Now, please get some rest. Eat plenty of turkey. Go for a walk or two in between meals hopefully. But, um just please get some rest and um our our I was talking to my daughter and my kids um the other evening. They're going to miss their students and their students are going to miss them, but they are looking forward to the naps and all of that as well. So, um so, thank you once again and please enjoy your time off. And that concludes my communicate. >> Thank you, Dr. D. I appreciate that and thank you for the update. the it's a nice surprise to hear about the buses. Just a note on that. Um Colton Joint Unified School District was one of the
162first school districts in the South Coast Basin um AQMD to receive the grant when we went to CNG. We went all full CNG. We're one of the first school districts to go CNG. Um I was that a Rick Feinstein thing did he actually go after? Yeah. >> Uh and that was a major grant from AQMD. So again, you know, kind of a, you know, we're out here in the Inland Empire, but we're making waves across the the the Southland. And so to see that now we're one of the large recipients of a new grant, it's fitting because I think we've been a leader, and I I really appreciate that AQMD sees the value in that. So that's awesome. We come full circle. Um, great. Well, this uh gets us to board member comments. So apologize.
163Let me jump to that. We'll begin this evening with uh board member Ibara. Well, uh I think I'll take uh Dr. Day's uh advice on taking those two walks. I'm going to try to avoid ga gaining those uh holiday five pounds that uh they say you catch every time uh holidays come around. But uh with that, I just want to say to everybody here and those that are listening and those who are not, just wish everybody a wonderful week off because it's welld deserved. You know, I I know that everyone in our district works real hard in every capacity that they work in and do a wonderful job. You know, I I've mentioned this many times. You know, I I would put our our staff up against any staff in any district anywhere in California.
164So, you we have some wonderful people that do a lot of wonderful work. So, just want to take this opportunity to wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving. Enjoy whatever you do. Uh I had a chance to talk to my staff at work and you know, it's interesting because a lot of people uh celebrate Thanksgiving a lot of different ways. I even uh had one one intern from Cal State San Bernardino tell me that, you know, they're going to barbecue uh ribs for Thanksgiving. I go, "Okay, that's a first. I haven't heard barbecue ribs." You know, I have my ham, I have the the turkey, you know, basically that's kind of what we do. Uh you're going to get opportunity to make some tamales this weekend. Get together with some relatives and do that. So, uh, I
165don't know if any of you have ever tried to mole and, uh, they're really good. Really good. So, I think we're going to try our hand in making some of those as well. So, just want to take this opportunity to wish everyone wonderful time off. Enjoy sleep in. Uh, don't forget uh, you know, the Christmas parades that come up and of course everybody's favorite, the Winchester Dog Show. [laughter] So with that, just want to say thank you for being here and and football. Oh yeah. Yeah. Go SC. [laughter] >> Nice. Right on. Thank you, board member Bar. Board member Haro. >> Yes. >> I have just a couple of things I want to share. Um be before the uh ribbon cutting. Um yesterday I stopped by uh Ruth O'Haris Middle School and Miss Gayton did
166there. It's that time of year the first science fair and so I had to stop by there and visit and see what the kids were doing and it was great to see science fair back at Ruth O'Haris. So, yeah. And I told her she did a great job and um you brought up the ribbon cutting and um I just want to say thank you uh to everyone here who had a part in putting that together. Um, you know, the community of Bloomington, uh, is, you know, going through a lot with all these warehouses that are popping up and all these things that are happening out there and all the turmoil and the community really needed something to celebrate and um, our staff here, Owen, your team, when putting it together as far as the actual
167uh, construction and all the things that were involved and and then uh, Bloomington High School for getting everything ready along with our staff for the ribbon cutting. It was a wonderful event not just for our students but for the community. um you know uh so I just wanted to really say thank you because um I know a lot of the parents uh had come to me about what was going on and and afterwards they told me that they were very grateful to see that uh their um concerns were heard and that um no more students will get hurt and and uh no more cars will get u ball dings on top of it. and they were just very grateful that we listened to them. So, I just wanted to say thank you to everybody involved
168in that. Um, I also want to I just want to bring up um a concern. Um, I've had several uh teachers uh when I'm out there who have spoken to me about uh when you know we we say that we want our staff to go to uh get uh conferences and learn more. And and the problem that they're finding is that um when you apply for a conference, you know, they have to fill out the paperwork and it requires um to pay for the room or to pay for the conference itself. And what's happening and then the district has to approve the conference. Well, they put in the paperwork and then um the I guess the deposit for the conference or paid for has to be done by the by the district for these conferences.
169And a lot of times the time that it's taking for them to go through because maybe I I don't know the maybe the credit card is full or I don't know what what it is. Okay. what the what the reason is, but they're not the conferences aren't getting pushed through and teachers are having to if they really want to go to this particular conference, they're having to pay for it themselves and get reimbursed. And in many cases, you know, the hotel rooms could be, you know, hundreds of dollars and then the the conference itself is, you know, another uh amount. And so they're unable to go to them. And uh so I'm asking if we could um look into into a better way to accommodate our teachers who want to get additional uh learning and
170and and uh and because um I understand it's a big problem. It's a big problem and it's been happening consistently and so I just wanted to I told them I would bring it up and see if we could look into how to um help them out. And my last thing is a happy thing and it's just to say happy Thanksgiving to our staff. Um, as my colleagues have already said, um, we we do we, you know, everything that you know, we sit up here and and make decisions to help you, but you all are the ones who make it happen. You all are the ones who on a daily basis have to deal with the good and the bad. And um and I just want you to know as as you know board member Ibara
171said that we truly truly appreciate everything you do. But um it's not for us but it's for the kids that we serve and um our kids deserve the best and we believe here up on this dis that people we have working in Colton you are the best or you wouldn't be here because we you know we we strive to have the best in this district and I truly believe that uh each one of the people we have working here um is the best And I hope you have a happy Thanksgiving, a blessed Thanksgiving. Um, that you do take time for that rest. I know many of you have little ones, so rest is kind of a, you know, kind of iffy thing. You probably rest more when you're at work than at home when you
172have those little tiny ones. But I just want to say thank you and have a happy Thanksgiving. >> Thank you, board member Harl. Board member Fuentes. >> Thank you, board president. I'll be real quick, too. First of all, we've heard about the seal of biiteracy. Congratulations to our students who received that. I think there was a variety of uh second languages, Spanish, Arabic, Mandarin, French, I think it was uh that these students received their biiterate seal. And it was exciting to see as they were coming up and shaking their hands, you know, you know, it takes a lot of work to be able to get that seal. So, it's not just I'm going to get it. No, it it takes time. And the reason I say that because both my daughters did get the seal.
173So the other thing is I wanted to congratulate one of my favorite well all my all of the my schools are favorite but one of my favorite elementary schools. They got the best elementary school for US News 2026 which is Grimes Elementary. And congratulations to Grimes for receiving that award. They also got honor roll for the educational results partnership. they got honor roll an award for that. So congratulations to Grimes Elementary for receiving those two uh awards. Uh I know there's a lot of things going on uh a lot of positive things going on in our district. A lot of great things that are going on in our district by literate seal ribbon cutting. If you get an opportunity to go out to Bloomington High and see the field, you will be amazed. They got
174a new PA system. They got everything out there. It's like I was going to the Dodger game, you know, you're going out there to see this and it's just beautiful to see all of that. So, I just want to just end right there. I want to thank everybody for what you do every day with our students. Continue doing what you're doing, but enjoy Thanksgiving. Lot of tamales, ham, turkey, gravy, stuffing, all the good stuff. Whatever you do, barbecue ribs, wings, all that stuff, it all it all counts. So have a great time with your families. God bless each and every one of you. Thank you. >> Board member Fentes. Board member Har said you had just one quick comment. >> One more thing I forgot and it was it was kind of important to me.
175Um at Bloomington High School uh when we uh went for the uh ribbon cutting uh we then after we did the ba the baseball field, we went we were taken over to the softball field and um the board members were taken over in the little cart and um I met a gentleman from Bloomington High School that impressed me so much. It just brings me to tears. Um uh in my in the uh golf cart that I was in, it was also Supervisor Baka and uh I don't know the gentleman's name that was with him. Um it was one of his u workers. Anyway, um and so as we're going to the the other sta the other stadium or the uh other field, um he was talking to supervisor Baka and he was telling them his
176story and his story touched my heart because this story was amazing. When this gentleman was 17 years old, he came from Mitoakan, Mexico and he was 17. His parents didn't want to come, but he wanted to come to the United States because he wanted to have that dream. He believed in that American dream and he wanted to come here and he did. He came at age 17 by himself. He slept for two years on the floor in various buildings and went to school. And he is now um the learning specialist at Bloomington High School. And he thanked um he thanked uh Supervisor Baka because he participated in the Baka scholarships. And I remember those many years ago. we we when we had the Apple scholarships and Mr. and Joe Baka had the the Baka scholarships
177and I remember uh being on the interview panel for them and he talked about um all the questions they answered and asked him and that he got this award and that award is what propelled him to he was going to go to college. He said I made it here this far. I'm going to keep going. And I just wanted to share his story because it was just one of hope and that um in the times that we're facing right now and and what we see happening uh he it just it just touched my heart and I knew telling his story would um further fuel what we do to give people hope. So thanks Dan for I forgot. >> No no no worries. Uh, it's a great story. That's awesome. Um, board member Bertha Flores, >>
178no comment. Just happy Thanksgiving and enjoy your families. >> You, uh, board member Thorinoa, >> thank you for sharing that, Pat. It really does give us hope and it's a wonderful way to start Thanksgiving because when we have people who do things like these scholarships or all of what you do in the classroom, it does give our kids hope and there's nothing better than hope. Um before [clears throat] I want to ask one thing if we could get some information. I know we're going to get it, but I would appreciate getting background and information about the choir situation at Grand Terrace High School. If we could have that before Thanksgiving so I could we had know what's going on, I'd appreciate that. Um, and I agree with everything our my colleague said about um that
179happy Thanksgiving. We have a wonderful district. Colton Joint Unified does care about kids and I'm thankful that we have the employees that we have and that we have the results that we have. Kids know that we care and I know you do each and every day um so many things to make our families and our our community a better place and I thank you for that. So, I too want to wish you a happy Thanksgiving. Enjoy your families and come back rested because only a couple weeks of Christmas and then you have another break. But don't forget you got a couple weeks to come back too. So, thank you very much. >> That board thorn hit it. And I just want to wish everybody a happy Thanksgiving. Um, enjoy the time off, get rested, eat
180lots. But um in addition to enjoying all those wonderful meals, know that there are lots of folks out there that may not be um so blessed. So if you would be so kind as to consider whether it's donating your time or donating food to a local food bank organization, uh I can tell you firsthand those meals go a long way in helping families that truly need it. So there are lots of good organizations out there from Feeding America um to some of the local food pantries. So if you'd consider that, uh I would appreciate it. With that, we'll go ahead and journ into close session. Okay, we'll reconvene our open session item 10.1. We had two student discipline items presented in close session. Is there a motion to pull the expel expulsion orders as presented?
181All right, I have a motion by board member Thor Noa. Is there a second? >> Oh, sorry. Board member Hara with the second. Wonderful. Okay, all those in favor say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Any abstensions? Uh, hearing none. It is so ordered. Uh the board voted 6 to uphold the expulsion orders for the two student discipline items as presented for students number and student number 1080690. Item 10.2 uh on a motion by board member Bertha Flores and seconded by board member Fuentes and carried on a 6 vote. The board voted to approve the personnel public employee appointments as presented on the agenda. And item 10.3 in close session on a motion by board member Fuentes and seconded by board member Ibara and carried on a 60 vote. The board approved appointment of Megan
182Scott, assistant principal at Ruth O'Haris Middle School. Excited for that. And item 10.4 Four in close session on a board uh excuse me in close session on a motion by board member Bertha Flores and seconded by board member Joanne Thorinoa carried on a 6 vote. The board approved the appointment of David Ortiz, assistant principal Joe Baka Middle School. And that is all that we have to report out. So everybody, we'll see you after Thanksgiving. Have a great Thanksgiving.