001Okay, we'll officially call to order then this special board meeting for the Colton Unified School District Board of Education on uh what is today? What is today? Today's the the October 1st. We're already into October. That's right. Um we'll begin with a roll call. So I'll ask Miss Fina if you'll please call roll. >> Mrs. Flores present. Mr. Mr. Fuentes >> present. >> Mrs. Sandival >> present. >> Mrs. Haro. >> Mr. Flores >> present. And then we'll begin as we do each meeting with our renewal of the pledge of allegiance. I'm going to ask Mr. Fuentes if you'll please lead us in the pledge of allegiance. >> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and
002justice for all. >> Thank you for that. >> First item on the agenda is the adoption of the special meeting agenda. At this time, there are no recommended changes to the agenda. Is that correct, Dr. Miranda? >> That's correct. >> All right. So, no need to take action on item 1.3. The agenda will uh stand as presented. And that takes us to item 2.0, which is our public comment. I do not have any public comment speaker cards at this time. Miss Medina, do you have any cards? All right. Anybody wishing to speak at public comment? All right. Hearing none, we'll go ahead and close public comment. And that'll take us to item 3.1, our board workshop for today. And I will turn it over to Dr. Miranda. >> Thank you, board president. Uh good evening
003everybody. Uh and first of all, uh happy Wednesday, first day of October. Uh hopefully stays cool like it's been. Uh and so uh as I mentioned, Miss Dorno is not going to be here this evening. Uh and so but I appreciate uh all of you being here uh to uh go over or to have a discussion about my goals and so looking forward to the discussion this evening. Dr. Beckler. Uh he's going to uh facilitate and I I know he'll do a a lot better job than I would facilitating this because I I want to listen. But he did ask me as he'll be here uh pretty soon here. Uh he did ask me to start the process here this evening so we don't uh waste the board members time. Uh so we're going to
004start with an activity called keep stop continue. and uh and so he'll uh you know we'll we'll get that going. So we're going to ask uh each board member uh we're going to pass out some cards, three cards uh per uh keep stop and continue. So, example, each of you get a card or post-it and uh all you need is uh we'll do three things that you want to keep for this year for 2526 can be anything you want. Uh and then uh three things three that you want to you want to stop something you just feel like we have to stop doing. uh it can be anything you desire or you want and then the last one uh area is or is to continue. So three. So you should get you should have at
005the end of this activity six uh posted cards or nine rather three. I'm a math me I'm a math three. Yeah three. So it'd be 369 three per category for keep stop and continue and take your time with that. Are there any questions? >> Just real quick Dr. Just to clarify, are we working from an existing list? I know we did have some identified goals >> um as part of our our last process, the evaluation, or are we looking at existing goals or this is really just really across the board right now even if it's something we're not doing but you would like us to do? So, >> yeah, starting from scratch or >> Yeah. Yeah. This is absolutely uh this is not what the goals or anything like that. It's anything that uh as
006a district or myself uh that that's happening right now that so it's not related to the actual goals. The the second part of the uh when Dr. Beckler gets here, he's going to go through a process of uh coming up with the goals and so uh I hope so. But uh but it could be anything you you want and I know you got the goals there. I mean if you want to use as reference point or anything that we're doing as a district too. Uh just an example just I just throw this out there like community cabinet right you know uh something like that. I mean uh that's just an example. I don't want to influence all of you on what to put down there, but I just want to provide an example there. So,
007>> absolutely. Yeah. Oh, I got you. All right. Sorry about that. So, what uh the obviously Dr. Beckler and I did not work on this together. He was going to facilitate, but he's late. But so, I apologize for that. So what he wants us uh to do is since it's a small group get we'll get into groups of uh three and two and then you'll combine uh the your keeps your start your stops and continue and select your per group will select the top three per group. >> Uh I think Dr. Beckler would uh he would probably give you an if we did that. No. >> So just sorry again. So you once we're in the group we're doing what now? We're >> so >> have our nine if you will. >> Okay. So what
008are we doing? So you're going to com So uh in your group you'll com select the top three per keep that you guys decide as a group the top uh three per stop and the top three per continue per group and what I should have done I should have done mine so I can join uh maybe this group we can have three and three uh so u so do Dan um Bertha and Benish you guys want to get into a group and I'll get in a group with Israel mishara and uh that way it's kind it's even >> okay and okay so I'll join this group over here for our keep uh we identified the 1010 9595 plan uh our pathways CTE the career tech education um pathways that we have and then we identified
009our wellness centers as well that we have not only at the high schools but now at the middle schools um under stop I'm going to strain myself a little bit here stop except accepting excuses for why we can't improve student achievement at all levels. So, we really want to focus on not uh allowing ourselves get to fall into that trap when we break our kids into those demographics and saying, "Well, you know, that group just struggles to learn or that group has difficulty." No, we we want student achievement across the board. Stop making excuses for why we don't have clean campuses. It's something that's really important to us. We talk about and uh certainly appreciate this, Bertha. uh lobbyed for this stop distractions that keep us from our main focus, student achievement. So, there are
010lots of self-made distractions and exterior distractions that can pull our focus away. Under continue, we want to continue our early literacy initiatives, uh focusing on on that, particularly the reading at third grade level at third grade. We want to continue our fiscal responsibility and accountability, especially going into what we know is going to be a challenging budget year. And then we want to continue the expansion of our dual immersion programs which have been very successful. >> All right. Uh for keep we did a community cabinet. Let's keep community cabinet uh CTE options beautififications of our campuses. And then I got to get closer. I'm getting too old. Uh it says here ineffective leaders. Let's stop the ineffective leaders. clean up online programs, trips, uh not believing in students that they can learn. You know, I
011think that's kind of like what you guys said at the beginning of here. Stop making excuses. Uh what is it? Stop accepting excuses for why can't improve the students. And then continue, let's continue the wellness centers, the community cabinet, the 1010 9595. it's under our stop. I think it was stop making excuses for why we don't have clean campuses but essentially >> the key was seem to be opposites. talk about that for a second. >> Yeah, I actually let me ask for clarification on the beautififications of campus. Is that along facility improvements? So, I think it's that's more facility improvements. We're speaking just to the daily maintenance and janitorial uh cleanliness of our campuses. >> Well, that's pretty important because if you pass Um, so what I'm going to have Frank do is, uh, with
012his cabinet is to, um, put the, um, all the the management team, both certificated and classified, have a list of of who they are and then meet with um each one of those individuals in a group. So maybe you have if you have hypothetically 50 management team members then you probably would have five groups of 10. But um and Frank can figure that out. But um what what we want him to do is to do this exact same exercise with his management team. And I don't want them to see what you guys wrote. I want them to go through it and then they'll do the top three and then we'll see Frank will come back with what's the what is the com comparison what is the alignment is the management team in step with the
013board and the board with the management team or do we have drastically different start stop and continues those are important because that's where the focus the focus will come from the management team because they're out in the field and they have a lot of influence So after you do this a few times, what you'll start to see is really good alignment between everybody, but I'm not sure you'll see that right off the bat, but we'll see. I'll have Frank do that in the next couple of uh in the next month. Now, um let's think about um leave that on one side. Now we go to another side. What would you think if you thought if you think about the top five um priorities in the school district from your vantage point as a board? What
014are the top five? And and we're just identifying areas, not specifics, just an area. So, one of those one of those five would be student achievement, right? That would be a top um that'd be probably your top one. What would the other four be? And you can pull off from u up there or you can just kind of think through. What would your other top four priorities be? Student achievement was one. >> Yes, wellness is two. Fiscal responsibility is three. you couple them together, the the investment in our facilities and the maintenance of our facilities. So the the not just a reflection of the investment the voters have made in taxpayers, but also that goes hand in hand with student achievement, right? A clean classroom >> goes hand in hand with being fiscally responsible. >>
015Fiscally responsible. Yeah. So that probably What else? So what we have so far is we have wellness, fiscal um responsibility or fiscal health or how about which one? Okay. Did I what else? Have student achievement, right? Um, I I think I would add I I think I would go wellness and safety. How about um relationships? We're building um culture. I mean, relationships, I'm assuming that's uh pretty important for the group. Is that right? Okay. Equity. What does that mean? Okay. All right. Um what I what struck me up with one of them was the um the identification of u maybe poor leadership or what what was that one? I think the second group up there you guys talked about um moving on leaders or what was the >> ineffective leaders? >> So um so maybe
016leadership development. Okay. So, um what um I want you to do, we're gonna put together five, excuse me, five charts. Um there will be wellness and safety, fiscal responsibility, student achievement, relationships, and leadership. What I'd like you to do um either as a group or individually is think through um a few things that go underneath that that that identify those things. So, under wellness and safety, what would be um a couple of the highlights, things that you think things that have gone well so far this year under wellness and safety, under fiscal responsibility, under student achievement, under relationships, and under leadership development. So, we'll identify things that are working well, the highlights, but then we will identify for next year. This becomes a focus area be on this item right here. That make sense? So
017for each one of those five, what is a what are a couple highlights and what are a couple focus areas? And then Joanne, if I can get you and a couple folks to um help, if you would put up those five themes and at the top of each one um put one of the um >> The heading. Yeah. The pillars. >> Frank, they can get that. >> You you you don't have to do that. That That's their job. Sorry Frank. >> So you two highlight under each one of those and >> yeah I want you to do that too. Absolutely. >> So one thing or >> it could be one or two or three >> of things that we have done that under that we've accomplished >> like things well not so much accomplished things
018that are highlights. Yeah. We have done these things and we've done these things well. >> Okay. >> One or two or three whatever the number is. And then um focus the focus is we've not done this well and we need to do this we need to re-engage in this. That make sense? >> Don't worry about covering the start stop and continue. We can still refer back. Yeah, >> thanks for stepping in there. Relationships and leadership development. So, while we're uh waiting, um Tina, on under student achievement, uh put down one or two highlights for the year and each each one of you pick an area and from your perspective, put down a highlight. Just one or two. No more than two. Okay. Are we almost everybody almost done? So, let's um let's have the staff
019um call out what they did first and then we'll have the um go. So, which one of you wants to be kind of lead the process up there? Great. Take it away. So, under wellness, we have um our wellness centers at our middle schools and then um just being recognized, our mental health program for a golden bell award. um student achievement um an increase of approximately 5% in our graduation rate to 92%. And our math increases of two to four points distance from standard is our expectation. So we've been struggling in math and so that's a um seen it go in a positive direction. fiscal responsibility, u positive interim reports and a strong fund balance. And then relationships, our community cabinet and our different parent committees such as DAC and APAC. And then under leadership
020development, we have an assistant principal academy, our principal meetings um that are split now between instructional and compliance, and then our executive leadership team meetings. things that that I jotted down that I think are also relevant for relationships. You know, the fact that we've been able to have very healthy negotiations with our um our unions is is really important. It's one of the most important relationships I think we can have is is honest and good conversations with our unions. So, relationship. >> That's a great one. Tomorrow's Leisure Foundation and [Music] So yeah, I said uh tomorrow's leaders foundation relationships also with uh outside stakeholders like Amazon uh is a big one for us. Uh and I also had put down the unions highlight would be I think for fiscal responsibility the the measure BB and
021the plan to implement that and I also think a highlight is is the the improvement are of our facilities. I mean you see a lot of activity at when you drive by the schools. So it's uh you know we are improving our facilities and uh for the highlights for student achievement you know we have the u successful implementation our training for teachers for our letters training which is has been very well received and is having a positive impact in our classrooms. So, we'd like to continue that. Um, and also I I just, you know, I know we talk about early literacy all the time, but we also, it can't just be put this on the K3 teachers. Um, we need to address literacy at all levels, even at middle schools. Uh, you know, it's it's
022very important that we continue support to support students um at all levels in their literacy journey. Oh, sorry. >> Well, highlight. Sorry that I went over to focus areas without meaning to. So um the wellness I think u the staff that oversees that get needs you know to get a lot of credit. We give them a lot of credit for that. So just the staffing you know with beginning with the director uh and >> wellve yeah >> and again um facilities, the the directors that make make the improvements to our camp to our uh facil to our campus. I believe they are balance budget uh for fiscal strong fund balance and measure BP passage relationships. I have as unions and uh wellness and safety. I had wellness centers at the high school and at the
023middle schools. or funding um to continue these successful programs. So just make sure that >> Yes. >> Oh, sorry. mental wellness of our teachers and staff also. Um, you know, we focus on our students, but sometimes our teachers and our staff need a little bit of a little love some. And I think that's a a key point to our success. If I may, uh, our graduation rates continue to write make, you know, continue to implement the graduation rates, you know, of our students. Uh, it could be because if they're not in school, they're not learning. So, >> ADA >> Yep. like us to um see positive gains within those subdemographics that we know that we're challenged with, whether they be special education students, uh EL students, um African-American students, where we see where we've seen
024some challenges. We'd like to see those keep pace with the other um demographics. I I think it's in how we measure that because if we're just looking at the average, it's possible for the majority of the students to push the average up. But if we're losing subpopuls in that, I just want us to be cognizant of that because if you're just looking at the overall number, and yes, we're seeing that number go up, but we've got to dissect it because if we see a sub population falling behind um EL students, which is an example, that's not acceptable to sacrifice a sub population just because our overall numbers going up. I think I just identified um positive increases in um math and English for all subgroups or positive gains. that they're safe and they're Okay. expect.
025Yeah. And I also think um that our teachers deserve to work in an environment where they can freely, you know, teach and and uh in in clean classrooms, vacuum, Clean. Don't drive my by my house. >> Okay. So, how about anything else under fiscal responsibility? >> Sure. >> Okay. Um, I think we need to for not just this next year, but the the next few years, we need to address declining enrollment and have a facilities plan to to make sure that we we address, you know, declining. We have schools that, you know, have 300 kids. >> Let me ask a question. Do you lose >> lose mainly Fontana. >> We talk about declining enrollment, but we talk about declining enrollment in such a way where we think we don't have as many kids or um
026folks have not moved and so kids are not moving into the area. So, we think that's the declining enrollment. The reality is in a lot of school districts, the declining enrollment is tied to the fact that kids can now and families can now move around and and attend school wherever they want. And so if your declining enrollment is part of that is losing kids to Fontana, that would be something to spend some time on. If it's um if you want to increase enrollment, then become a district of choice and and you start pulling kids in from other school districts. So you have defined enrollment. >> Okay. What other focus areas under fiscal anything? >> I would just say address the the deficit that we have coming this year. Yeah, not to get too much into
027the weeds, but it is something that is incredibly important. We've got to address um we've got some structural issues in our health benefit plan that are costing us a lot of money and will cost us even more money. So, we need to we need to address that. have it in both places. So, um Pat and the group talked a little bit about ineffective leaders. Um let's put that under leadership development where um we want to um what do you want to do for in ineffective leaders? Um I'll give that to the staff here. What what should we be doing with folks that are in leadership positions that and they're ineffective? Okay, >> good. Yep. Thank you. but it's predominantly led by business leaders. So folks outside of the district that are investing in the district
028and our students focus areas under any of these five. Say again. Okay. So, um Tina, can you just kind of read through each one of those the highlights and the um focus areas for each uh area and board as she as she does that think about um have we left anything out? So um just go through each one. >> Under leadership development um the bottom or all of it both. Under leadership development we have um the positives the AP academy principal meetings instructional and compliance and the executive leadership team meetings. Um we have develop or move out leadership. Um and then training one of the trainings is Nissle training. um training for English learners mentioned was Cabba and QTEL relationships um community cabinet was identified our DAC APAC parent committees relationships with our healthy relationships
029with unions the tomorrow's leaders foundation and relationships with outside businesses and communities and improve improve relationships with unions um parent engagement and continue working with the TLS tomorrow's leaders foundation sorry >> stop just for a sec. Um where on there do we have the um working with ineffective leaders to either improve or um be moved out? >> Okay. >> Developer move out. Developer move out leadership and Nissle is one of the places we've sent them. >> Perfect. Thank you. Thank you. Fiscal responsibility. >> Fiscal responsibility. Positive interim reports. A strong fund balance. Measure BB and the plan improving facilities and our facility staff. And then under the line we have increase expectations for cleanliness at school sites, inside campuses, classrooms, and then curb appeal. Um address declining enrollment, address deficit spending and structural issues and
030health benefits. And then under student achievement and increase in grad rate, our math increases and letters training. And then underneath address literacy at all levels continue increases in grad rates and attendance positive g thank you gains and subgroups or uh thinking of our African-American special ed um positive gains in math and ELA for all groups and then under wellness um our wellness centers at middle schools golden bell and quality staff and then ensure funding for Our wellness should be centers and then wellness for teachers and staff. >> Great. Did we leave anything out >> under leadership development? I would add our classified academy because I think it's important to note that it's not just the certificated folks we're developing, but we have to make sure our classified folks are developing and getting leadership training. Can
031I ask for clarification on one thing and just looking at the fiscal responsibility piece because I think the piece on uh what is it the maintenance piece or the beautifification or or how does it stated over there Tina >> increase expectations for cleanliness at sites inside campus classrooms curbs appeal was brought up >> and I'm just saying would that fit better under wellness or is it fiscal No matter you can put it wherever you want. >> What subord Yeah. >> Usually usually carries that because of the cost. >> Because of the cost. Okay. >> Have the other facilities items there. >> Okay. Yeah. >> It's it's something that is not just a matter of having the resources but having the culture >> in the organization and the commitment to to get it done. So I
032think that I agree with you Dr. Miranda that >> both >> yeah in our district I think it I think both apply obviously have to have the financial resources but we also have to have the culture >> and commitment from staff to ensure that they're >> where you were wanting to put it under wellness >> uh well I was thinking wellness u I mean you can go to leadership development I mean I just thought of wellness because also of the safety aspect of uh schools and cleanliness of schools. That's a wellness piece because when kids go to school uh and they have clean schools and they're safe and modernized and all all that they're you feel really good about you feel students feel great, staff feels great like Breth was talking about clean classrooms, teachers.
033So it's it is part of wellness in my opinion. Obviously there's a huge fiscal component to that. There's no doubt about that. It's it's huge. I mean and so yeah I mean I just figured it can be in both. >> Said you said safety. I don't see that up here. >> Could be wellness and safety. >> Yeah. Well category. >> Yeah. Okay. >> Yeah. That's kind of where I was going with that. So, um, any other comments? >> Okay. Um, I'm looking at the list of, um, compiled board goals. Um, in the middle of the page, there's a biggie E there that we have not addressed. And then, um, basically, it's saying that, um, too much instructional time is lost due to classroom disruptions that are sometimes repeated every day throughout the day. I know
034we have PBIS um but how can we I really think we need to focus have a focus there because if there's you know discipline problems teachers can't do >> I like that um I think you can um you can probably capture part of that under student engagement because if students are engaged in the work they are less likely to um be acting out and then I think it's also a um probably a classroom management piece on the part of staff. There's probably an expectation piece there uh for students. Um >> yeah, >> I think monitor the effectiveness of how we can improve on uh the PBIS. You know, I know our schools were recognized, a lot of our schools were recognized for the implementation of PBIS. Um but I think you know we can't lose
035focus of that monitor PBS would that be under wellness or under student achievement could be under both but that's what I'm well with >> I think when Bertha was talking I kind of thought of like pro you know student achievement under student achievement like protecting instructional. Did you put that in instruction? >> Yeah, class disruptions. So, protecting instructional time. >> Yeah. >> Right. Something like that area under um I can't see the where it is. I'm assuming relationships where we talk about parent engagement or parent involvement. But I was not that long ago I was working with the school district and on a couple of things and one of the um parent advisors or um president for one of the clubs act no actually she was a board member she said Kent um do you
036know the difference between parent involvement and parent engagement we have parent engagement we don't have parent involvement Do you know what the difference is? The difference is at least for that particular district is that parent involvement was when parents came and they um ran off papers, they were involved in assisting um students or the teacher in doing whatever uh task that they had. Maybe they came to meetings, but parent engagement is they were part of the decision makingaking process. Um, and probably not unlike maybe your community cabinet. I don't know what you do with your community cabinet, but I think as you go forward because I've you guys have talked about parent engagement or parent involvement for the last couple of years and I think that particular goal might be um might be good for
037whoever takes that goal is to kind of address how do we engage parents in such a way that the work that they're doing is meaningful and they want to come back versus um I get to go run off papers or I do certain things. And I don't know your district and parents, but I do know that um parent involvement goes up when parents are engaged in meaningful activities. And so I just throw that out. So you have um you've come up with quite a list under each of the categories. So, what I'm going to have Frank and the cabinet do is um Frank's going to assign each of the assistant superintendents to one of those areas. So, obviously Tina's going to have student achievement um and so on so forth. And so, their job will
038be to um as individually first and then as a cabinet and then with the board identify what's our goal under student achievement. what's the what's the the general goal that gets written and then each one of those under focus areas gets turned into an objective and Tina leads that because that's her area but that's the that's the way we're going to get this done and then each of the assistance groups have their particular area. Frank's going to take leadership development and then in a couple of of weeks the cabinet will come back um and meet with you again as the board and they'll go through the the the goals that are there and the objectives and then those become not only Frank's goals and the board's goals but your staff's goal and then that gets
039shared with the um principles and then those become become principal goals. So you start to see an alignment in the district where everybody's working on the same thing because if you don't have that, you're not going to get the goals done. Does that make sense? Any questions about that? You guys have done very good work on this. This is a very good complete list, especially for the first time. Any uh questions, comments. Okay, Frank, I'm going to give it back to you. >> Okay. No, I appreciate it. Thank you, Dr. Beckler. Uh thank you, board. Um we're I think we're right on time. I know we started uh a little bit late. Uh and I just appreciate uh the conversation and the discussion. And thank you cabinet uh for being here. Uh so we'll we'll
040start we'll work on these as a cabinet and then uh the only thing I would say is that you said in a couple weeks uh and so we'll talk about how we do that with the board. We'll we'll talk uh uh Dan and so we can plan that out and uh it I think it's great. uh and then we will present those to the principles the joint principles meetings that uh we've restructured and done some great work there. So uh I know that we're we're really excited about this and thank you for the process and your patience uh especially me trying to lead the and that that was my timer. So I again thank you for this evening. Thank you for spending some time here and uh we'll get to work and we'll continue to
041uh do this very important work. Uh and I appreciate all of you. So have a great evening and uh I'll turn it back over to you. >> Yeah. No, thank you Dr. Miranda of course and and Dr. Beckler for for helping facilitate this. I'll I'll just add what's really heartening about this process is, you know, you come into a meeting like this and you could end up with a list of 30 or 40 different things. And while there's only five of us here and seven on the board, you know, everything that we individually and even within our groups put up there was really well within the same range. I mean, it it shows that we're all in sync, which is really cool to see. And even though uh Joanne isn't here and Frank isn't here,
042I feel confident that I I you know they're in alignment with this as well. I I I have no doubt that they would be like us focused on these things. So it's really great to see that we we have some alignment in principles and values. U so Dr. Miranda, hopefully that makes your job a little bit easier as we pull these together for identifiable goals going forward. But I'm I'm excited for what's to come because I think we're really uh at the verge of doing some amazing things and and this process is important to that as the district's leaders. Nobody else is in the audience because I know this doesn't always the the fun thing that you want to come to, but it is really the important work and this is where it happens. So
043I'm looking forward to that. you know, we're go oriented as you know and so uh I uh that's that's how we operate and so we look forward to making these happen. So again, yeah, >> we will get this over to if you'll ensure that um both Joanna and Frank also get once this is all kind of put together and synthesized, they'll get the the the notes, if you will, that'll be great. All right, any other board comments before we adjourn? Everybody wants to get home to see the Dodger game. Okay. Well, we'll go ahead and adjourn this special meeting.