001Uh um item number one or item number two is closed session. Are there any comments on the close session agenda? >> There are no public comments. >> Okay. The board will recess to close session and return at 6:00 for open session. Uh good evening and welcome to this meeting of the governing board of the Sequoia Union High School District. Um we'll start with item number three which is our reconvene to public session. Just to give some explanation to the audience, members of the public who wish to remotely provide comment during the meeting can use the raise hand feature during their agenda item. Speakers must raise their hand during agenda item 8.1, the public comment portion of the meeting in order to comment on topics not included on the approved agenda. To speak about an item
002on the agenda in person, please fill out a speaker card, indicate the agenda item, and hand the card to Laura at the dis. When the requested agenda item comes before the board, the speaker will be called forward. Um, item number four then is the roll call. >> Student trustee. >> Okay. Present. >> Student trustee Lang >> here. >> Student trustee Ping >> present. >> Trustee Cruz here. Trustee Thompson >> here. >> Trustee Gin >> here. >> Vice President Coup >> here. President Nory >> here. >> A quorum is present. >> Thank you. Um, next number item number five is approval of the agenda. So, is there any changes to the agenda or if so, could I get a motion to approve? >> Motion to approve the agenda. >> Could I get a second? >> Second.
003>> All in favor? >> I. The motion passes unanimously. Um, next is item number six, report out of close session. There is nothing for the board to report out of close session today. Um, moving on to item number seven now, which is special recognitions. I'll turn it over to Superintendent Leech. >> Great. Thank you. So, tonight we are excited to recognize Carlmont High School's student ambassadors for their 8th grade transition team. These dedicated students work closely with their administrative team and PTSA to lead campus tours in the fall and spring for students and families interested in learning more about Carlmont High School. to share more about the team's outstanding efforts. Please join me in welcoming Carlmont High School's principal Gay Buckland Murray to the podium. Okay. Good evening to board president Nory, members of the
004board, Superintendent Leech, cabinet, teachers, staff, students, parents, and community members. My name is Gay Buckland Murray, and I am the very proud principal of Carlmont High School. I don't know how many of you have ever been to Carlmont. Did you know that we have two zip codes? We straddle Belmont and San Carlos. This is important to know if you are ever ordering Door Dash at Carla. Use Belmont. There is a household in San Carlos who has gotten more than one delivery of Pod Thai. So when you walk from the F-wing to the U-wing at Carlmont, you are actually crossing into a new town from Belmont to San Carlos. It is a substantial distance to do the colloquial named FU walk. And in a weird sense, I'm here tonight to celebrate some of the most renowned
005FU walkers at Carmine. You see, all of our excellent high school sites in the Sequoia Union High School District do student outreach. We want prospective students and families in our community to learn more about our schools before metriculating as ninth graders. We all host 8th grade information nights. For example, ours is a webinar tomorrow night for anyone interested. Tonight, however, I am here to recognize the team that makes student outreach at Carlmont so successful. I have a group of 43 students who do that FU walk. Actually, they do the UF walk with prospective students and families. They are Carlmont student ambassadors and they do a wonderful yet realistic job of describing life at Carlmont. In teams of two or three, they meet new students and families, usually in a group of 12 to 16, and
006walk them on a preset route all around Carlmont, sharing information and answering questions. They are professional, they are positive, and they make Carlmont look good. They are proud of their school. They are proud of their role at the school. And I, of course, am proud of them and want to recognize them here tonight. Ultimately, schools are not about the adults. Schools are about the students. And that's why their messaging about Carlmont is so vital and so important. They can share authentic experiences and lived realities. So, I appreciate their willingness to give up their time to give the tours, two in the fall and two in the spring. In addition, some of them are presenting tomorrow night at that webinar and some of them are doing Zoom Q&A with prospective students. A small side note, a
007former student ambassador was just hired at Vanderbilt to be a tour guide for Vandy and he mentioned that doing the tours at Carlmont was excellent training and that was why he got the job. So these students ambassador student ambassadors were organized by some fantastic parent volunteers and I want to recognize their efforts too. That's Hannah Heler, Karen Dempsey, Michelle Ferrell, Legiel Rodriguez, and Hazel Stinsky. and I don't think any of them came tonight because I think they're always too busy organizing. But I so appreciate their efforts and helping our community know more about Carlmont. So, thank you to the students for being here tonight. Thank you for representing Carlmont so beautifully for your perspectives and your positivity. That's all important to me and to all of our future students. So, um I'm going to read
008the names of the 11 of the 43 who are here tonight. I'm going to have them come up and we're going to have a photo op if that's okay with everybody. So I would like to have Declan Emberly come up. Jacob Ma, Candace Chararma, Avi Devidovitz, Ryan Ever, Jacob Heler, Olivier Condo, Sienna Lee Gem, Piper Wyn, and Sahana Patel. I think I got everybody. Yes. [Music] Sorry [Music] behind you. Oh, there's All right. Everybody two. [Music] Thank you guys so much. Are you guys glad? >> Yes. >> Item number eight is now public comment. So the just for some quick reminders, the board does not act act upon any matter that has not been agendaized except under limited circumstances as permitted by law. It is a policy of the board to refer matters raised in
009this forum to staff for investigation and nor action where appropriate. Board policy ordinarily limits the time to be devoted to any single agenda topic to 10 minutes and individual speakers are ordinarily limited to 3 minutes. The board decides to expand the amount of time to be allocated to a particular agenda item because many speakers wish to address that item. The board may reduce the time allocated to individual speakers to two minutes or to one minute as appropriate. In order to more speakers to comment, the board will announce the amount of times to be allocated to each speaker before public comment on each particular agenda item begins. We ask that all speakers keep within the time limit. So, are there any public comments? >> I have two in person and three online. Okay, we can give
010it another second, but Okay, I think we can call it there. So, we have five public comments. So, should we since we have 10, should we do two minutes each? Okay, we can do two minutes each. And let's start with the ones online and then move to the ones in person. >> Okay, first up is Danny Malieri. >> Yeah, good evening board. Um, first of all, Mr. uh Nory, when your principal is speaking, do yourself and everybody a public service and stop looking at your phone and laughing to your ex other board member while your principal's recognizing children. That's a disrespectful act. Having stated that administration still continues to fail. This is directed to the union, the teachers and the parents and you two new board members because I'd hate to see you fall into
011what Leech Hansen and many others as well as the past board members have made had happen. Stevenson, the ex uh uh president, resigned. She was smart. She knew she needed to get out and she was upset because her child's educational file was shared to people apparently. However, that has still gone unnoticed. The Codwell matter continues. So when you sit there, there's nothing to discuss. You're spending millions of dollars back there trying to defend a bunch of criminals and that's not acceptable. The newest filing of the Molairi matter have been effective filed and it reads as following. Michael Molieri reported to his concerns, his good faith, the reasonable belief that improper, unethical, and illegal actions were occurring at the discretion of the school union district employees, including but not limited to administrators, manager, board members, directly
012to the union school district. None of these persons took action to correct these violations. Instead, they retaliated against him and placed him on administrative me. and my time is running short, so I can't finish the rest because you've already been served with that. The union needs to immediately take action to protect its members. You cannot continuously get phone calls every single day trying to cover up a message you guys have created. Please stop hurting the teachers, the children, and the parents. And all of you have a day. I'm >> sorry, your time is up. Thank you. Next is Laura. Uh, good evening everyone. Um, my name is Laura Nunes and I am a teacher at East Palo Alto. Um, but that title isn't enough. I wear a few hats there. I am a math teacher.
013I am the math department chair. I am the advisory TOSA. I am the site union rep or one of the site union reps. I am the athletic director. And I'm also a district coach in the pack program. And on the side, you know, because I have so much time, I'm also the school board president at Ravenswood City School District and a mom to three kids under five. So, I guess you can say I know how to juggle and I don't really complain because I love what I do and I love my community and the people that I'm serving. Um, first I want to sincerely applaud our union bargaining team for the huge strides that they've made this year. Their work has made a real difference for educators across the district. But at East Pal Academy,
014where over 90% of the teachers and educators are people of color, we are still being asked to work an extra unpaid hour each week. That's not just an inconvenience to us. It's an equity and sustainability issue. Our teachers already do so much. We serve as adviserss. We meet with parents twice a year. We mentor our students. We translate for families. We help kids get to college. Kids that never thought they could or would want to go to college, we get them there. It's no surprise that we see high turnover because the load keeps getting heavier. This year, about a third of our staff is new to our site and only two of the teachers who join the district under the current contract language are still at the school full-time. This issue is something the district
015can fix right now. It doesn't need to wait for next year's negotiation. A directive ending staff meetings at 3:40 would make us consistent with every other site and show that equity isn't something that we just talk about. is something that we practice. So, thank you for your time, for supporting our teachers, and for helping us keep great educators where they are needed the most. Thank you. >> Thank you. Our next speaker is Chris Beetley Haggler. >> Hey, good evening everyone. Appreciate you taking the time. Um, yeah, thanks Laura. My name is uh Chris Beley Haggler. Uh, I'm a teacher over at Redwood High School. I'm going to uh share some a similar uh message that that Laura just said. Um you know, really excited about the productive bargaining process between STA and and the school
016district uh and the many uh accomplishments our bargaining team was able to achieve. Um also we're excited about, you know, uh future more progress, right? And we're hoping to get a chance to address this specific issue uh that that Laura raised, right? And and I know it's an issue that a lot of us are aware of. Um, and you know, this is it's the fact that EPA staff members are are being forced to basically work an extra hour per week. Uh, that's that's unpaid. Um, you know, I I think there's a lot of common ground for us to reach on this, which is that we don't feel people should have to work for free. We don't think there should be unpaid hours as a part of people's job descriptions. Um, and I think we we've
017also heard a lot about uh other priorities that I think we share, right? not wanting to burn out our educators, the the idea of sustainability of our educators and specifically as Laura mentioned, right, prioritizing the um uh the retention of BIPO staff members, right? Um and so while there's a lot of nuances and and intricacies, right, of EPA being a charter um and there are extra duties that these these staff do take on, we think that this is above and beyond, right, and it's it's it's gotten to the point where it's not it's not fair any longer. And so we're optimistic that we can come to an agreement on this. Um uh but and again as as I would echo Laura's comments, this does not need to uh go on much longer. This this could
018be resolved quickly and we hope that the the parties involved could address it uh im immediately so we don't have to continue to uh take our time on it. So thank you for the time. I appreciate it. >> Thank you. Our next speaker in person is Caroline Cuddle. >> Okay. Has the timer started? Can you hear me? Can you all hear me? I don't like having my back to you, Miss Hansen. Okay. Uh, Caroline Coleman, veteran teacher at Sequoia High School, education specialist, biology co-teer, mother of two former Sequoia students, and married to another loving educator at Roy Cloud. Um, I've had the privilege of working with Morgan Marchbanks, Bonnie Hansen, and Shawn Priest, and also Miss Nunees when I was um studying to be an administrator in 2023 24. I had the honor of
019observing the beautiful community at EPA um community on that campus for 10 months. Um, I witness such dedication, compassion, um, and care for every student, ensuring that each one has the opportunity to be college ready and truly thrive. Um, I want to thank SCTA bargaining team, the district, and the board for working together in the spirit of equity and collaboration. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. As an educator over 28 years, I've weathered the challenges of the pandemic, served over summer school students for more than a decade, and I plan to continue surveying for many more years to come. Um, I am also mindful of the importance of maintaining balance, caring for my own well-being while supporting the needs of my students and colleagues. We know that across the field early educators uh early field
020educators are leading at alarming rates nearly 13% within the first year and almost 20% within two. As we continue these important conversations, I hope we can uh keep our focus on sustainability, supporting the mental health and wellness of both students and staff, and ensuring that our colleagues at EPA are recognized, supported, and valued for their incredible work they do every day. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Our last speaker is Abby Cormmy. Sorry, Abby Corman. >> Good evening. I'd like to thank the bargaining team and the district for their work in negotiating our contract. We're hopeful that when you meet again for reopeners that you specifically focus on making sure that all teachers have the same paid workday or this could even come before a reopener and we could direct admin to remove this
021extra hour. I feel I hear a lot about the importance of sustainability and retaining teachers, but it is unequitable for EPA teachers, 90% teachers of color, to have to work longer for the same pay. Their structure is unsustainable and I personally will never move to EPA because they have to do so much more work than I do. Not only do they have this extra hour of staff PD, they have to teach during their advisory period, which I do not, and they meet twice a year for parent student conferences. Probably other things, too, that I don't even know about. While some may believe that to work at a charter just means you have to do more, the EPA teachers are not even asking to be paid for all of their unpaid labor, just this one hour.
022What a low bar they're asking you to meet them at. Only five teachers remain from the 30 who wrote the original charter. Only two of them now are full-time teachers. It's unsustainable. We're in a different place as a district and EPA is in a different place as a site since the charter was made. Our district literally has a goal to retain teachers. Changes need to be made. Otherwise, EPA will continue to lose veteran teachers who can and do easily re relocate to another school in the same district for the same pay to work less or just leave the district because it does not value their needs. >> Thank you. That concludes public comments. >> Thank you. Moving on is item number nine, student trustee comments. >> Thank you so much. So at our last meeting
023um the student advisory council discussed how we are really grateful for the amount of diversity we have across the high schools. So at Carmont we have a large variety of clubs on campus that are available for students to join and a lot of culture clubs that are really inclusive. Um we are also super grateful to have so many different class choices in the school. >> Hi everyone, my name is Adia Aggerwal and I'm a junior at Carl High School. I'm Asteris. I'm also a junior at Carmont. >> Um I'm Michelle and I'm also a student at Carmon. >> Continuing off Michelle's point, Carmon students have also been engaging in more discussions across classes with teachers hosting classwide debates and discussions about books, muse, and more that we would like to appreciate. Um, also as we
024move into the holiday season, Carmelan's Associated Student Body recently launched a slightly tweaked holiday goods drive to provide staple foods such as pasta, rice, hygiene necessities such as toothpaste, lotion, or shampoo, as well as gift cards for families in need throughout the school community, especially amid rising levels of food insecurity this school year. >> Yes. And then during the last um student advisory council meeting, we also talked about how students feel um that there's a need to establish some vaping regulations across the high schools. So we have noticed that a lot of students vape in the bathrooms during school hours and disrupt the campus environment. The vaping in the bathrooms also deter some students from using or going near the bathrooms and we think that's an issue. Um and then we believe that this issue
025can be solved by applying strict vaping policies in schools. >> Um also at Carwa in collaboration with Stanford's Deliberative Democracy Lab, Carl also created one of the first ever deliberative democracy clubs earlier this year. >> The Deliberative Democracy Club is planning on having their first nationwide deliberation with other deliberative democracy clubs on the topic of the environment and healthcare later this month. One issue we've noted at Karma is that students rarely sort their trash from recycling, which is partly because of the lack of recycling and trash bins close to each other. Many students also do not pick up their trash, which leads to litter around the school campus. >> Um, also at our last student advisory council meeting, um, across multiple campuses in our district, student advisory council members have voiced growing concerns about the
026lack of clear guidelines surrounding AI usage in classrooms. Um, students are unsure when and where they're permitted permitted to use AI tools, especially as they observe teachers integrating AI into their lessons and instruction without consistent communication or expectations. Um, this ambiguity has led to confusion and demonstrates a need for clearer policies that define appropriate AI use for both the teachers and students. Um, and in in addition to concerns about AI usage, students has have also emphasized the need for clear outreach and engagement surrounding campus phone policies as students have frequently seen peers loitering in bathrooms and hallways, often using their phones during class time. And um, some members have hoped to see more proactive communication and consistent implementation to ensure that phone policies both support students learning while also providing clear expectations. At another one
027of our previous student advisory council meetings, we discussed how SHSD campuses can be made safer after the recent secure campus incident on Menllo Athethertons and Carmon's campuses. We discussed specifically how we believe it might be beneficial to have more safety drills for the big five, especially for the lockdown barricade and secure campus drills so students know what to do in the event of either of those situations. SAC members also brought up the alternative that if there's not in time to run a whole safety drill, it would be helpful for teachers to show students within the first few days of school where they could hide in the classroom or where to evacuate from in the event of an emergency. Um, despite the student concerns, we proudly recognize that the Carmont sports teams have been doing great
028this season. Um the cross country girls and boys varsity teams as well as the girls tennis team were both PAL champions and qualified for the CCS. Thank you. >> Thank you. Um, we'll now move on to item number 10, which is comments from SDTA and ASME. I'd never thought about it before Miss Coleman brought it up, but now I'm concerned about having Bonnie Hansen behind me, too. I don't think >> I'm sure that is not how she meant it. Um, I want uh to thank Associate Superintendent Hansen and the members of the district bargaining team, principal principal Murray as well, and uh um the rest of the SDTA team for um coming back together last week, last minute to come up with a tentative agreement that um we think is a very good settlement. though,
029as you heard in public comment, not as good as it could have been or that we hope the 2-year contract may be eventually. Um, we are going around to our sites to have conversations, explain the um intricacies of a very large agreement. Um, and we will be voting starting this Friday and uh with our results available Tuesday afternoon. So, we're very much looking forward to that. Um, and I also I don't know what the official results were, but I am really impressed with the number of students who were at school on Monday with the Tuesday holiday. And I think that is saying something about our students, our school community, and the value that they put on school. And um how uh exciting that your teachers must have made those classes for you to make it
030to school for a one-day week um before a one-day holiday. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. And um is there anyone from ASME? >> Okay. Um with that we can move on to item number 11 which is approval of the consent agenda. Board action to approve the following items is taken simultaneously with one motion which is not debatable and requires a unanimous roll call vote for passage. The action indicated on each item is deemed to have been considered in full and action taken is worded therein. Only members of the board and the superintendent may remove items from the consent agenda. Members of the public may provide comments at the start of the consent agenda item which may convince a board member or the superintendent to remove an item for further discussion. So, are there
031any um are there any public comments on the consent agenda? >> There are none in person. Are there any online? Please raise your hand now. >> I see none online. >> Okay. So, with that, the motion is to wave the reading of the consent agenda, accept the reports, adopt the resolutions, and approve other items. I move to approve. >> Second. >> Roll call. >> Student trustee Agal. >> Yes. >> Student trustee Ling. >> Yes. >> Student trustee Ping. >> Trustee Cruz. >> Yes. >> Trustee Thompson. >> Yes. >> Trustee Gen. >> Yes. >> Vice President Coup. >> Yes. >> President Nori. >> Yes. >> Motion carried. 5 Z. >> Great. Um, now we'll move on to item number 12. Um 12.1 is a presentation of the strategic plan progress and updates. Are there any public
032comments on this item? And then in person, are there any online? Please raise your hand so far. I see five. I see five. >> Okay, we can give it another second, but if there's no one else, um I think we can do two minutes too for them. Okay. So, I guess those five is the final call. Oh, we have one in person, too. >> What's that? >> Oh, yeah. >> Okay. So, just the five online. >> Okay. Two minutes. Our first speaker is parent. >> Can you hear me? >> Yes, we can. Go ahead. Thank you. Uh >> good evening board of trustees. Over 1,200 parents, students, teachers, and community members have been advocating for the restoration of honors/as uh classes since spring of 2023. We were told to wait for the strategic plan as
033the board didn't want to discuss this matter and vote until the strategic plan was completed. So, we did as you asked and we waited. You adopted the plan in June of 2024 with strategy number two included. It is now November 2025, a year and a half after adoption, and we are still waiting for a board discussion and vote. In April 2025, we invoked our legal right under the California Education Code to add an agenda item. You heard public comment but held no discussion and no vote on the honors as class restoration. You committed only to removing only to not removing more courses without board review. That's not alignment. That's maintaining the status quo that contradicts the strategic plan. Tonight's 27 slide progress presentation outcome doesn't discuss strategy number two or progress towards expanding availability of
034rigorous courses. In fact, the 27 slide presentation never mentions any one of the eight signature strategies. How is SUHSD reporting on outcomes without discussing the strategies meant to achieve them? As our elected officials, we ask that you provide direction to staff to ensure alignment to all the signature strategies, especially number two. And we look forward to hearing your discussion and vote at the next board meeting. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. Our next speaker is Christine Arnold. >> Hi. Uh, can you hear me? >> Yes, we can. Thank you. >> Good evening. My name is Christine Arnold and I'm a parent in the SUDD. Uh you will be presenting data showing progress on your academic goals tonight. But let's look closer at what the data actually shows. Three of your four metrics are going
035in the wrong direction. CTE completions by literacy seals and college coursework are all declining. Only APIB participation is up. But here's the problem. Your update shows no breakdown by student race or ethnicity for advanced courses. You only show demographics for standardized test scores. So, we put some publicly available district data ourselves. What we found is alarming. At Melo Athetherton, just 9 to 10% of Hispanic students enroll in AP courses, and that number hasn't budged in years. It's lower than Carl, lower than Woodside, and far below the state average. Nationally, Hispanic AP participation grew by 29% over the past decade at Medton. The gap is getting wider, not smaller. Why wasn't this in your update tonight? Here, what? Here's what your metrics actually measure. How many students who already made it into AP classes scored a
036three or better on the exam? What your metrics don't measure are more underrepresented students getting in these classes in the first place? Your strategic plan says you will increase enrollment in rigorous courses for all students based on their readiness, but you're only measuring success for students who already made it through the gate. Maybe some students aren't ready for AP, but with the right support and pathways, they could have accessed the honors level courses you removed. Those were the middle rungs of the ladder. You cannot improve what you don't measure. And when the data contradicts your strategy, you need to adjust your approach. Please agendaize a discussion. Vote on restoring as English, bio, chemistry, and physics for 2627. Our students deserve the options your strategic plan promises. Thank you. >> Thank you. Next is Diana Bloom.
037>> Good evening. My name is Diana Blum and I was one of the 13 parents on the core planning team that built the strategic plan you're presenting tonight. I'm a physician and I attended meetings during work hours because I believed we were building something meaningful together. Our team focused on signature strategies and highle goals. Staff teams develop the sub goals and metrics. Signature strategy number two, participation in advanced coursework, calls for expanding availability of and enrollment in rigorous coursework aligned to student needs, interests, and readiness. But the metrics staff develop measure only participation in existing programs such as AP, CTE, and biiteracy. Nothing measures expanding availability. Meanwhile, current practice goes the opposite direction. AS English and biology were removed from most sites. AS chemistry and physics are gone except one school. These removals happened quietly
038before the strategic plan was adopted, which is exactly why the plan provides the framework to revisit them. Now, your consultant's first slide said, "Alignment means getting people, programs, and structures moving in the same direction. If existing structures contradict the plan, alignment requires examining and adjusting them. When you discover a practice contradicts your adopted strategy, the question isn't who removed it. The question is, does this practice align with our strategic direction? If not, what do we do about it? I'm asking you to agendaize a discussion and vote on restoring these courses for 2026 27 before scheduling deadlines pass. Over,200 community members support this, including many who helped build the strategic plan you adopted. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Sheree. >> Can you hear me? >> Yes, we can. >> Yes. Um, good evening
039board members. I am a teacher. I teach privately. I have for over 20 years. And I've seen the sad decline in the skill levels and critical thinking of our students in English class classes, uh, critical thinking and essay writing and the absence of reading literary classics. It's so important that students have access to honors classes. We've all heard the saying, robbing Peter to pay Paul. But how does robbing the most ambitious students, the ones who work the hardest or have the most aptitude for STEM and English classes, how does that help the less ambitious students? I'd suggest it does the opposite by removing the incentive to higher achievement. In other words, it helps no one, but instead serves to stifle and set back the most ambitious. And the result will inevitably ripple through the nation
040when these students reach adulthood and compete for jobs, begin careers, or endeavor to start a business, assuming all ambition hasn't been drained out of them by then. I think it was Plutarch who said that education shouldn't be about um filling the mind but about igniting it. Igniting it is something that I try to do in my private uh essay seminars and igniting it is the point of the honors classes. Please restore them. Thank you. >> Thank you. Our last speaker is Joseph Monoredto. >> All right. Um, can you hear me? >> Yes. Sorry. I think our next speaker speaker was Joseph Munarto. Is that you? >> Um, I'm Michelle. >> Okay. I think we lost Joseph. was number six. >> Uh yeah, I'm I'm a a parent of two uh students in the district and
041um I just also wanted to advocate for the restoration of honors courses. Um I think that the removal of honors courses is absolutely devastating for our students. There are so many parents and teachers that I I I know agree with me here. um there are so many students that cannot reach you know the AP level uh for coursework but to remove honors courses is to remove an attainable goal uh to achieve higher learning and so uh for many students this is this is this is the gateway to them uh for them to you know improve their learning and achievement uh so I think you know in line with the strategic plan it's really important to listen to your community about restoring these honors courses. Thank you. >> Thank you. That concludes public comments. >> Okay.
042Good evening, board of trustees and superintendent Leech. Sequoia Union High School's district strategic plan is for the 2024 to 2027 school years. Resulting plan that was created by staff and community members is that all Sequoia Union High School students will belong, expand their world view through diverse connections and graduate ready to pursue their dreams. This will be done through three unique goals. Um the major focus areas are student learning, instructional effectiveness, and empowering infrastructure. This is going to be our very first strategic plan update since it has been implemented. And in trying to create this update for the board, we did learn a few lessons um about the strategic plan and how to best update on the strategic plan. And so a few things came up as we were planning for this presentation. and some
043of it very good in that it was able to give us direction and we were able to pull data on specific things. Others were a little bit glitchy. Um, one we realized the best time for this update may not be in the fall, but we wanted to go through this exercise activity and bring this to you this evening um because we are we are learning the strategic plan as we go and how to best dive into it. So there is information you'll find throughout the presentation where sometimes we're giving 2023 data, sometimes 2024 data and it it may look a little bouncy around and that is because of information that may not have been released yet that's still embargoed. For example, we have embargoed dashboard information which actually comes out tomorrow. So this would then
044have new information to present to you. Um so you'll notice that some of the dates may be off and to us this is a aha moment for next year. we would do this in the spring. Um the second thing we've learned from digging down and exploring and really looking through the strategic plan to see how we could present it is that um it it there are areas that were a little bit vague in the data and how we would find the data and what data to dig to best convey how we're meeting goals and actions that were actually in the spirit of what the community meetings were about. whether that was with staff or community members. And so while we did our best to gather data to present at this meeting, um it may feel
045a little bit vague and it may feel kind of open-ended. And so we really want to spend the time moving forward after we do this evening's presentation to really think about how can we pinpoint what would really capture the spirit of what that piece of the strategic plan was about. So any feedback that you have this evening would also be welcome because we can take that back to our data teams who have put information together tonight to really bring back in the future what you want to see with the data moving forward. Um and those were those were the big pieces of it. So there you'll see some great areas where we've really succeeded and where we can highlight what's being done with his strategic plan both through data and through actions. and you may
046as you're listening this evening for to our presenters here where they ran up against some pitfalls and some areas of wonder um that they may be looking for your guidance on as well. So with that I will turn it over to our wonder wonderful presenters. We have Jared Douly and Steven Emmy here from student services presenting and from educational services we have Dr. Diana Wilmont and Janelle Bugarini and they will all be presenting on unique goals. >> Thank you Dr. Shapone. Um for all um good evening is the slide. Um so the three goals of the strategic plan framework include safety, well-being and connection number one, number two academic growth and mastery for all. And three readiness for career, college and life. Um the first goal is safety, well-being and connection. And more specifically 1A
047is um increasing students sense of belonging, safety and positive relationships at the school site. Um and as you can see um SUSD has an annual survey and the results show positive gains in safety and belonging. Um so students reporting feeling you can stay on that slide back to No, not down. >> Not down. Up. One more. Back there. Stay there. Okay. So, students feeling students who reported um feeling quite or extremely nurtured um increased 15% in the 24-25 year. Students reporting feeling quite or extremely valued increased 12% in the 2425 school year. Um students who um reported feeling quite or extremely safe increased 5% in this last survey. Um, and students responding yes to having positive peer relationships increased.16% and students reporting yes to being involved in school activities increased 2.9%. Um, so as you
048can see there are some noteworthy gains around um, sense of belonging. Okay, moving on to 1B and attendance data. Uh this is where we did find uh a little error in the established baseline from 22 to 23. Uh baseline was 89.6% of students attending school more than 90%. Uh that date that data was incorrect and it's actually 78.6% which you see in that first cell um updated to reflect from 23 24 school uh school year. You can see an increase in 2.1% rate there. Uh also part of the data indicator was same um data set for English learners which you can see relatively steady although a slight decline. Uh and then additional data includes the percent of uh average daily attendance rate that's the number of students uh attending uh on average on each day
049from 78.9 to 80.59. So a bump up there in our ADA rate. And then also one of the data points for average days absence uh declining from 44.2 to 13.2 over the same time span. Uh as you can see we're also trying to use the same year of data and in specifying 23 to 24. Uh some of the data years were all over the place as well as um resources of data. So we're working on um in the next updates looking at streamlining that in addition to uh also having to update our uh target for year three based on the error in that baseline. So a little bit more work to do there. Next one. All right. Uh 1 C and our suspension rate. Suspension rate for all students uh you can see declining by
0500.5%. Seems like a small number, but that is statistically significant. Trust uh me when I say that. You can hear all about that from our um school site and reduce our school sites and reducing suspension rates for all students from 23 24 and then specifically Pacific Islander and African-American student subgroups declining by 9 9.4% and 5.8%. Those are um that is you know a lot of work done to do that. That is significant reduction. and suspension rate for those two subgroups. And what contributes to that is our next slide. Um, in addition to all of the positive things we hear and celebrate uh happening day in and day out at our school sites. Uh, on top of that, we just added some additional information up here from student services department um talking about our community
051liaison. We well aware of that. those staff members, working on improving attendance um amongst other things with our students and our um families in our communities. Uh expanding our social emotional learning um pathways in our district uh which Stephen and um our team has worked really hard on uh moving into this year and really trying to uh move that and expand that. We hope to see additional um gains in the 1A data on belonging and safety. And then uh some partnerships with community organizations. That's our Fresh Lifelines for Youth, expanding um participation and collaboration with them uh through two of their very uh unique programs, Pure Point and Law. And then a lot of the other things in our last bullet, our restorative justice implementation, our tiers of intervention through our MTSS, um, you know,
052focusing on mental and physical health, student and staff sa staff safety, as well as trying to examine alternative ed placements for students that, you know, just need something else. So, a lot of work happening in this area. We could go on and on, but I'm not. We're going to go ahead and turn it over to uh, goal two. Dr. Wilmont and goal two. >> Good evening, board of trustees. Superintendent Leech. Uh there are three uh areas of goal two. One is improving the proficiency and growth of our students in uh academic courses and ELA and math. The second is looking at advanced coursework and um specialized programs. And the third is about English learners. So I'm going to take you through 2A and 2B and then Janelle's going to come up and talk about 2C.
053And my understanding is I can move this myself. So I'm going to All right. So um so the baseline data when we started this strategic plan was that overall students were in the green in English language arts and then the yellow in math and we uh set a goal to improve um up to the blue in ELA and up to the blue in math. So that would have been increasing two levels in math and the one level in ELA which was the highest possible we could get. Um, in addition, the um the student group subgroups that we had at the time on the California dashboard when it was released, we had five subgroups in the red in ELA and five subgroups in the red for math. And the goal was to move all of those
054subgroups at least up to the yellow um by the third year. So, I'm going to share with you our progress in year one. And by year one I mean everything up until today because tomorrow there's new data. Okay. So um in year one which is English language arts and math we maintained green in English language arts which we were before and then we increased to the green in math. So, we went from yellow to green and you can see we increased um 8.1 points in both ELA and math and we increased 19.9 points in sorry we increased in both areas and um you can also see in the equity report below how many subgroups were in red. Remember we were at five in both ELA and math and now we remained two in ELA and
055zero in math which means we made significant progress in math for our subgroups and um as well as in ELA and the specific subgroups that we uh showed the progress in um so in the year one we uh was um English learners, homeless, socio disadvantage and students with disabilities all went up to the orange um from red from the prior year in ELA and then all the subgroups that we had in red in math moved to orange and so that is uh what I want to share about that. Um again the goal is to get them all the subgroups to the yellow in two more years. Okay. And the next goal is about increasing participation and success in the advanced and specialized program. So this was an interesting um metric where we were looking at
056the number of prepared graduates. Um so this is coming off of the California dashboard college and career measures report uh that exists. And so it's it's interesting the way it's presented and and might be something we want to reconsider how it's presented. Um but I do want to mention here that in the baseline there were 1389 prepared graduates. That's our denominator there 1389. Um and in the next year we increased it I'll sh show you quickly to 1421. So just whole number of students that we increased that were prepared did go up from 1389 to 1421. And so then you look at okay what are the percentages of ho how what areas were they prepared in where do they increase where did where were they before so the it's a little like disillusioned to say
057that we went down um in CTE pathways however we did we do see 244 students out of 1389 meeting the CTE pathway and the following year there were less 198. So in fact we did go down. Um I think the um the area where we showed the most increase and I and I do want to say one thing actually more about the CT pathway and I know only have two minutes per slide but the CTE pathway criteria also means that you have to also meet the smarter balance of assessment and complete college coursework. So this is this multi- complicated um metric that again we might want to reconsider. Um the one that seems pretty straightforward however is the students who are prepared via the advanced placement uh score of three or higher on two AP
058exams or four or higher on two IB exams. We were at 57.4% and we went up to 63%. Um, I did a little bit of digging just to kind of see like, wow, that's a that's a pretty significant increase. And so I did a little digging on our personal local dashboard to see what are our kids doing for AP. Um, while I was sitting over there and you know the biggest increase in AP exam taken taking is amongst our sophomores in the last four years. the number percentage of sophomores who took AP exams went from 20% to 33%. So, one out of every three sophomores in our district are participating in at least one AP exam. And I think you've seen the graphs. I'll show you the graphs again next time I come on the
059AP exams. And I probably should have included them in this slide deck. Um, and I will next time, but the passing rate's still 92%. Um, we had 6,50 tests taken last year and 2,438 students took at least just took at least one test. So, I definitely think that this area is where we see the largest growth and I can speculate why that might be. Um, it could be the number of AP offerings that we have at the at the high schools. um as well as the need for students to showcase their readiness for college without showcasing their SAT score as we still live in a AP uh SAT blind UC admissions policy and a SAT optional in some cases um among many of the other other colleges. And so over these years, more and more
060students wanting to take AP to showcase uh their their abilities uh when they apply to college. Now I'd like to invite Janelle. >> Hello everyone. Thank you. Um so I'm going to I'm here to talk about our key focus area of increasing our English um learners of the students who reclassify every year. Um, as you see the baseline that we have here is 15.7 in the 22 23 school year. Um, that year we were able to reclassify 205 students. So it was like a really really really good year and that's our baseline number currently. I'll show you a graph in a little bit just to see how like we are like sort of currently doing. Um, so this year was a culmination of the ongoing work with our feeder districts through the SEOA Stanford collaborative.
061Um, we ensured alignment across the reclassification criteria with our feeder districts and also make sure that students were reclassifying. It was a lot of work to make sure students were reclassifying prior to entering our our high schools. Um in addition that year, we also were streamlining um efforts among our staff. We wrote a reclassification bulletin to ensure that we we're all following the same process along the way. Um we also removed barriers to reclassification by updating our own reclassification criteria to include a menu of options for students to meet that local criteria assessment. So students were had a variety of options rather than just having to meet a specific Lexile level. they were able to um demonstrate that um that local criteria by depending on their grade level in English or um their SAT score
062or different other um the different other menu of options. So that was like that um 22 23 school year where we were able to reclassify a lot more students. Um but our goal for year three um by 26 27 school year is to reach 20% of reclassification. So, some of the things that we're doing to uh to move towards that goal has been to continue to work on several strategies, including a concerted effort to strengthen communication and collaboration with their special ed department to support reclassification efforts to reclassify our duly classified students. Um, we're building a stronger understanding of how to pro provide the appropriate accommodations, ensuring English learners have equitable access to the assessment. Um, also with a reclassific with a a bulletin for how to do all this vet work and all that.
063um reclassifying our SPE students. Um we're also uh launching our reclassified Canvas scores, get RFB, um to support our long-term English learners to learn more about the reclassification process and how they can meet all of the requirements. Um this year we've designed several PD release day opportunities for our EL teachers to collaborate and align instructional practices around the ELPAC writing. We saw that the ELPAC writing section was one of the sections where students could do a lot better. Um and so we're really focusing on that area and ELD u one and one two and three students are completing pre and post assessments focus on that alpac writing to measure growth and also guide targeted instruction. Um some of these actions are really designed to better support student growth and move um our student our English
064learner towards reclassification. Overall, we're taking the systemwide approach in strengthening instruction, improving alignment, and expanding collaboration to ensure English learners have language support and equitable access that they need for the proficiency and reclassification. So, just um to show you the next slide here, um no, I think I have to scroll. Um we have our so in 2223 are the that's where 15.17% of our um eels were able to reclassify 205 students. So when 23 24 that's when we saw a high number of increase of our newcomer uh more newly arrived students to um to um to our to our district. Our demographics changed also. So we had less long-term English learners, more students that had reclassified prior to entering high school. So we had to reclassify all the students that would have eventually reclassified in
065the nth grade with us. And um and so we're working like now we've stayed consistent between the 23 24 school year and 2425. So, we want to continue to see a growth, but we might remain around around those numbers that we're seeing. So, also another opportunity to revisit the the baseline um focus on that super high year that we had um and um and thinking about how we continue to continue to have that steady growth that we've been having. Thank you. Pass it back to Diana. Okay. So now I'm going to talk about goal three, readiness for college, career, and life. And so there were three four main goals here or metrics that we use to evaluate whether or not we are preparing students to be ready for college, career, and life. The first one
066is the percentage of 10th graders on track for on-time graduation. At the time we did the strategic plan, there were 74% of our sophomores on track at the end of semester 1 sophomore year. Well, we can't report that right now because we're still in the middle of semester 1. So, what I'm reporting to you is juniors at the end of their sophomore year. What we have is their transcript grades from last year. And so what we can report is that 81% of our juniors at the end of their sophomore year were on track for graduation. And so it's a little slightly off in terms of the actual time for the metric. Um and again it speaks to what Liz was saying earlier that maybe we would uh figure out a better time to report this
067particular metric, but I wanted to give you the most current metric I could. um and um that actually um exceeds the target for year three which means uh we're doing well in this and I think that one of the areas that we've been working on uh particularly in my department is trying to make sure that we have systems in place and data dashboards and ways for our counselors and our administrators and our teachers and our students and our parents to see where they are on track and off track for graduation. um being able to kind of log in and and at in the moment get live data and see where they are. Um and it just it's an evolving process and but it's I think I'm hoping it's it's making a difference in terms of
068giving students early knowledge and giving our staff knowledge about interventions that may need to be take place. Um another one we had talked about was A throughG completion. This is something we look at um over the years. Um it's we typically do it as reporting the A throughG completion of our graduates in a four-year cohort. Um I do want to say that I did identify an error that I made on this um report um not too long ago, like an hour ago. Um so I did update it on this report and I will share you the PDF. Um it's a small error, but it's an error enough that I think it's worth mentioning. Um the baseline said we were overall 66% in the me the and that's correct. All of this is correct on the
069baseline data. Um but the year one progress I had oh yeah 61% and that's what's still here. Um this denominator is wrong right here. um it's the incorrect denominator. The denominator is the number of students in the cohort, not the number of graduates. And the number of graduates is like I can't remember off the top of my head, let's say 237, something like that. Um so that number is actually 65.9% or 66%. So we didn't actually go down even though I reported that we did. So that is my mistake and I'm sorry about that. Um all the other numbers are correct and I've checked them. So um A throughg completion is flat from year one to the baseline to year 1 and the goal is to get to 71% still. So we still are looking
070to increase at least 5 percentage more and increase every subgroup accordingly. Um the graduation rate on the dashboard um again we were in the green overall uh but we were in the orange for homeless Pacific Islander and um we were and then in the green and the blue overall for the baseline. Um the hope is to get everyone to the blue from green to blue and move all the subgroups up at least one level. And in what you can see here is that we did we we incre we have our we're still in the green overall. We're at 90.7%. Um African-American and Pacific Islander moved to the green and uh Pacific Islander was in the orange before African-American remained in the green. Um but Pacific Islander did move up and um there's nobody in the
071orange. Um all the remaining uh subgroups are in the yellow that were of note and the goal is to get everybody up higher higher higher and lastly the college enrollment projected to increase to 78%. Uh sorry I know okay um so 70 we were at 74% for the class of 21 enrolling in a two-year four-year college. So, we talked about this last time I was here during a board study session. Um, and the data was released since then. Um, and the goal was to get to 78% and we are at 77% now. Um, and so I think that, you know, we're we're a lot closer to the goal and we may want to re-evaluate and move the goalpost and make it higher. I don't know. We can talk about that, but that's what the the
072goal is right now. Um, and interestingly, it both in four-year and two-year colleges, they both went up slightly. And that's all I have. So, as you can see, we stuck the best we could to the spirit of the strategic plan and what it was asking, knowing that there were a lot of a lot of vaguess to the way that we could pull the data. And as all of you know, if you've ever been on our data platforms and as we reviewed in the last study session, there are a million ways we can dig this data and so many directions we can take it. This is the direction we took it for this evening. Um so that we can show you where give you a snapshot of where we are on the dashboard and also just
073get a feel for is this should we continue down this path or is this data missing the mark? And so that was what we have for you this evening. And with that, I'll open up to questions or comments. >> Any of my board colleagues have questions? >> Well, I thinking about the AP and the 20 to 30%, one-third of people taking uh uh AP courses. I was just wondering, we could look at the breakdown of who's taking those AP courses, right? and and and who of the 20 of the one out of three taking those AP courses in our um dashboard. Correct. Okay. I want to look at that to see who are the one of you know what is who are the groups that are taking these AP courses that have increased. Yeah. Thank
074you. [Music] >> I had a question going back to goal one. Um I first of all before actually my question thank you. I know that these reports take a ton of time and a lot of tired eyes staring at computers and going into data and numbers. Um so thank you. It was very thorough. I the question around goal one and and it goes back to the study session that we had and that 8% um and then I think and I look at our ADA and yes yay it went up but 80% is is still low for ADA. Um and I'm thinking back to I'm thinking about just like the days absent. Yes, it went down from 14 to 13, but that's over a day a month. That's more than at least one day a month
075for for our students on average. Again, that seems high. And I'm thinking where is that contributing to like the eight%. And then I'm thinking back again to that wonderful um recognition of our community leaison when they were here and and how much incred and we got to hear how much incredible work they do particularly for some of our most vulnerable population. And so I'm my curiosity just kind of stems from where are we going with that? I know it's only year one of year three, but um I just feel like we're leaving stuff on the table. >> It's with attendance with attendance ADA. Yeah. >> What what data point in the in the future if we were to come back and present what data point would one I'd like to drill down on too to
076see if there's correlation between our missing 8%. I'd like to figure out if it's the where what demographics what what are where are people that are because not everyone is taking off 13 days that's if that's an average number that means that there are people we know who are our students who are missing quite a few um so yeah I think I want to drill down on the data on there and kind of figure out where what are some of these root causes and then using some of these incredible resources that we've started to establish like community liaison to see if we can keep and get get that 88 back up. >> Thank you. >> So, just a follow on on that. I think maybe um Dr. Co, you can comment on there's a we
077get a um attendance report usually once a year where you talk about making just remind us what are the things that are covered in the attendance boards. I don't know if the attendance report would address >> your concerns. It might be that what she's asking is >> the attendance report, but I don't remember all the items that are in there. I don't know if you know. >> I think we do. We both we get both the it used to be attention to attendance and is now called school attend. Do I have that right? Oh well thank you. So uh and those reports we just have on the regular we can pull from the data that we get day-to-day but the official one we have on CalPADS usually shows up at about this time of year.
078Jared is that right? For what? for the previous year's attendance official attendance reports from that. So th those should be coming in where it's official but from last year. So there's always a little bit of lag time with the official but with the unofficial the the school attend reports. We could potentially look up a, you know, find out that 8% and look up their attendance specifically and do that vin diagram between what is the impact on or where where's the overlap with a student's attendance reports and dropout rates and and dig down that way. So, it is possible to look at it in in that those reports. I'd be interested I mean in that >> I was remembering that we get a like a report called the attendance report that is presented to the board
079where we talk about like chronic absentee rates and the number of people are chronically absentee and I think if I remember there was some amount of analysis between chronically absent students and the performance of the students that we've seen and that may be you may have not come up >> had that yet or Perhaps not. Next month will be my year anniversary here. >> Oh yeah, I see what you're saying. In the governance calendar, the attendance report is in the spring. Yes. And I see. Thank you. >> Feb fe February 11th in the governance calendar. Mr. Douly will be talking about attendance and could potentially wrap in some of that AP. >> Yes, I look forward to that report and perhaps we could include some of this information in February. Thank you. >> Any others?
080>> Are you done? >> So, um I appreciate the that this is the first time and that there's learning and that you acknowledge that and addressed it and look forward to seeing how you what adjustments come from that. Um, I was part of the core planning team and attended all or all but one of the meetings where the parents were in this room kind of working on the plan. >> And one there's a couple areas of mismatch. Um, from what I remember and from what I from what's here and one of them has to do with the word safety. Um, I think the student trustees talked about safety. I think there's a line in the in this presentation about student and staff safety. I think the only thing that was mentioned about safety was how
081people feel. >> And I know we talk about safety being our number one thing. I know that's more than just how people feel. Um, so I don't know what would be the right metric and maybe there isn't a good metric, but if there were something to say like how are we doing on safety? Um, maybe the equivalent of, you know, 200 days without an injury on the job or something, the equivalent of such a thing. I don't know. I don't know what it would be for for this case and maybe there is no appropriate metric. But I just bring up that what the people in the room meant when they said the word safety was not just people feeling they meant >> in incident wise as well. >> Yeah. Like >> Okay. >> So I
082mean that year there were some incidents at some of the schools that had people really thinking about safety. If you remember what was going on a few years ago that when people were saying that word it's a little different when there hasn't been anything for a while. Um, and I don't have an idea for a metric, but I just bring up that what the parents on the committee who are saying the word safety meant and the metric that presented aren't completely aligned for you and I don't know I don't have a recommendation for that's yeah that's good feedback >> I just share that um can can we review what what was the data that was presented on CTE >> CTE >> if you want to go ahead and ask your I find it go back.
083She has a question on CT. >> No, no. I Well, I I had written that down as well that I I think I was confused by the language. We we as some of our public comments and emails that have come in have had mentioned CTE and then you had said it didn't go down, but it was sort of disillusioned, but it did go down. I think I got confused. >> That's fine. I think it's I think it's the part of it is it's a confusing metric in general. Like I think um you know we're we're trying to get um systems in place to actually track how our students uh make progress towards completing a CTE pathway period. >> I think this is the one that has that really crazy flowchart, right? >> Oh, sorry. >>
084College and career ready. It it is it is it comes from that college and career readiness indicator which is what we decided to use in this um description of prepared graduates. So right here like this this box right here. So it's what we presented on was the the the number of prepared graduates that met through a CTE pathway with a C minus or better in the capstone course and they also met the smarter balance with a level three met or exceeded and a level two. What does that say? I mean this is directly from the California dashboard. at least a level three standard met on English language arts or math and at least a level two standard nearly met on the other subject area. So I guess you have to get a three or two
085on the ELA and math [Music] >> or it says plus one of the following. So if you don't get that, you have to have taken one semester, two quarters, or two trimesters of college coursework outside of the completed CTE pathway with a grade C minus or better in an academic CTE subjects where college credit is awarded. And I think part of the challenge of this is the way that the state identifies what it means to be in a CTE pathway and and also obtain college coursework because most of our CTE pathways, correct me if I'm wrong, dual enrollment is um you know a college a college course we may be embedded in the CTE pathway. >> Yes. >> Not very often. >> Not correct, but not. Yeah. >> This is where I need Tiffany. Is
086she on Zoom? >> I'm here. >> Oh, Tiffany, fantastic. >> Gosh, please chime in. >> No, you you were you were spot on. Um, and part of this is also CDE kind of keeps changing this metric a little bit. For 2324, it said that the dual enrollment course had to be outside of the CTE pathway. and then 2425 they changed it so that it could be in the CTE pathway as long as it wasn't the capstone course and information we're getting now is that they may be going back to the previous metric. So, it's been really kind of hard to track exactly what they're counting and what they're not counting in addition to completing the CTE pathway, but completing the pathway isn't enough. So, is that safe to say if that's um CDE doing that
087that if we were to look at u com comparable districts that they too would have some wonky numbers around this metric? >> I see her nodding her head. Yes. >> Yes. Um yeah, and I think as we've and that's why we started to build out like our local dashboard and started to build out local systems for tracking CTE um within our internal school litics dashboard because we want to track how many kids are meeting a CTE pathway regardless of whether or not that it was college course work or not. We just want to know how many have met each of the courses um required to meet the CTE pathway. And so we started to build out systems like that so that we could put in our own metrics and could design u metrics that are
088more relevant to us and not rely completely on states kind of wonky definitions. Right Tiffany? >> That's right. And the other issue is to in order to complete a CTE pathway, students have to be able to take a CTE class for two years. And as we started to look at the data and when we were breaking down, we were finding that most students in our CTE classes were juniors or seniors. um and many of them were taking it in order to meet the graduation requirement. So, as part of the it ties into our ELAP goals, um part of what we've been working on is trying to prioritize students at lower grade levels. Um really looking at 10th and 11th grade in particular. Um 9th grade gets a little challenging with all of their other course
089requirements. um so that students have more opportunity um in their schedule in order to take the two years of a CT pathway and complete the pathway. >> So what I was going to ask CL slash say about CT was I get that we must or should absolutely report whatever the date the state has as their metric because that's their metric and we should report it. I'd be interested in including some other metric related to whatever our CTE goals are are. I heard something about um completion rates or certificates. Um >> so I don't want to like prescribe some goal, but I'd be interested in there being a CT specific specific goal that isn't linked to all the other things, but is just >> makesense >> CTE related. Um, I'll point out that what you said
090brings back somewhat of the discussion about options for nth grade students. So, currently 9th grade students can't take CTE. And if we did prioritize CCT completion rates, should there be something offered for nth graders, that would make that goal easier to achieve, should we decide that that was a goal that was meaningful. But I'd be interested in CTE related goals. Maybe it's completion rates, maybe it's certificates, maybe it's both. I I whatever it would be and that have that be something that's included as part of our next report and whatever baseline year you think is relevant or whatever but just so it's something that that we see and and talk about. >> Sounds great. >> That was my CT comment. >> Great idea. >> Thank you. And then my last comment is more for my
091fellow board members. um that we heard from a few speakers tonight about course options and the parents who were on the committee who were part of the words that went into this plan and talking about advanced coursework. What they meant when they said those words was honors classes and restoration of honors classes. Just so some of you who weren't here didn't know that that's what happened. We've we had several of the people who spoke tonight were on that committee, part of the core planning team and that's what it meant to them. I know that people in the district have interpreted those words differently, but I know that the people who spoke interpreted those words to mean that and wanted to be sure that at least I shared that for those of you who weren't here
092for all that to know that that's what those people meant. >> Well, I was just going to say thank you so much. So, some of our takeaways as far as where we can maybe shift some of the way that we're digging down, um, break down who is taking the advanced placement courses, drill down on the correlation between the 8% student, um, and and attendance and what some of the root causes there might be. And we may learn more about that when we have the February 11th attendance meeting. uh when it when we talk about safety maybe just talking more than feelings about safety that we survey about but like what are some actual other things that we can measure safety with and present that as part of it and then finally with the CTE metric
093not just presenting in a what in with CDE requirements but metrics that are relevant to us including some of the certificates um yeah specifically with certificates and maybe data around that >> there's a word I heard completers and I I don't know if that's if that exactly matches certificates or if that has a different meaning. I'm not sure >> that will help us. Yeah, that helps us guide to what we'd look for for the next report. So, thank you all very much. >> Oh, there's more. I'm sorry. >> Although it was a good summary so far. Yes. Well, I just had a general question in terms of uh what was the process for setting the target numbers? Um because I know there was some comments of hey, we've already met our target. Um should we
094change the target? But I just wanted to step back and kind of understand how the targets were set to begin with. Well, I'll share my perspective as a member of the committee was that the consultants had a big hand in looking at data and setting it and it was sort of a somewhat of a circular strategic planning process. There there were different groups that would meet independently. There was the core core planning team and I think there was an administrative team and an education team. Maybe there are different groups and and things would kind of go in a circle, but uh between as it evolved and I believe that the consultant had a pretty >> heavy role in picking specific dates and I think that that's partly what we're learning today is that the dates
095when things become available, the dates that they selected and that there's um but it was part of I think >> I would say that the consultants played a heavy role in facilitating the target conversation with staff and leadership. Okay. >> Yes. >> Okay. >> But the particulars the particulars I don't like I don't remember but I I I do recall you know specific conversations is like okay so like we're moving the needle what's achievable. Um you know I I think on some of the targets we we we probably you know didn't aim high enough and I you know I think that we can we can revise those things. Um it is I I think it's very in interesting looking at where we are now and then remembering that process and actually seeing how much movement
096we have had and even with the development of school litics which we didn't have at that time and then really being able to drill down to the students to actually see all of the movement and great things that we have been doing over these uh last couple years is is pretty remarkable. >> Yeah. because it does seem if we want to relook at some of the targets um we can also add in some of those drill downs because it could be more specific. Yeah. And then um I guess the other question I had was related to um I think actually it was more in goal two because I know in goal three um we talked through some of the different things that were being done to affect changes. Um, but I wasn't quite sure on
097goal two what what exactly were the changes being done and then is there anything being done to close achievement gaps because we continue to to see differences. >> So just in the sense of goal to actually list out more of the specific actions happening. >> Yeah. Because it's not clear to me like what we've done differently. >> Okay. that is because that could also stem back to is is what we're doing differently having the intended result or um are we targeting certain groups of students in a different way. So >> that's it for me. But it was a good job trying to pull together all the data, especially the crazy chart one. And I'm assuming the crazy chart one, the denominator is only of the graduates. So those 8% that didn't actually graduate are not
098included in those. >> Okay. >> Is that accurate Wilmont? >> No. No. The uh CTE, you know, college career crazy process flow one. >> Yeah. Prepared graduate. >> It's only the graduates. Okay. Yeah. >> Oh, no. But the denominator though is of only the graduates, right? Because I I think the denominator keeps changing in different ones. So I guess some are all students, some are graduates only. >> Sorry. I don't whatever. Okay, there we go. Um [Music] the denominator in 2B of 1389 is the number of graduates who are prepared. So it's not even the number of graduates. Oh, okay. >> It's of all the graduates, let's say roughly 2,000, there were 1389 prepared graduates and then within that graduate pool prepared graduates, this percentage met it through CTE pathway plus this percentage met through
099state seal by literacy, this percentage met through um college coursework, this percentage met through AP. And so again, like I definitely agree that we maybe should, you know, rethink using the C CDE's um definition for this particular metric. Um but yeah, the the denominator is confusing and so the next year it was um 21 prepared graduates. So yeah, in essence, if you if it's out of 2,000 students, and I'm just saying roughly speaking, then you could do the denominator of a what percent were prepared, but we kind of know at least A through G wise 2/3. So like that's my proxy usually for the percent who are prepared for uh um UCCCSU is twothirds of our students are prepared. Um but then we have these other indicators. So we could kind of use the same
100if we use the same denominator across the board of graduates and then you have the P the number who met A throughG, the number who met CTE, the number who met AP, you know, we could we could come up with a more clean definition of what uh this means. >> So >> thanks for the explanation. Yeah, >> no problem. So, I think my board members covered all the questions that I had, but thank you once again on behalf of the board for this presentation. I'm sure a lot of work went into making it for us. Um, with that, why don't we take a 7 minute break before we proceed to the next item so we can come back at 7:45. >> She's Okay. So we can move on with that to item number 13.1 which
101is the first reason of revised board policies in AR's student services department. Is there any public comment on this item? >> There are none in person. Are there any online? Please raise your hand now. >> I see none online. Okay. Is there a pres if is it presentation? >> Good evening members of the board, superintendent Leachch and audience. I am here before you this evening to wrap up better work done before me last spring when it comes to a whole bunch of CSBA work around um board policies and ARs and a few cases exhibits that go with them. So once upon a time in a galaxy far far away. There we go. Um it was January, it was uh 2024 and in 2024 the department of education took what had been done in the area
102of title 9 in the year 2020 and they said we're going to make some updates to it. So those updates were made. In our case, our state put those updates into um the BP and AR recommended language under which we govern or you govern and I follow, we follow and we went forth. And then in January of 2025, a ruling came down that vacated what happened in 2024 because the courts decided the Department of Education had overstepped their jurisdiction. And because it was a magic time, they didn't give any leeway for districts to turn around and go back to their prior practice. They were told the 2025, the 2024 changes are vacated immediately. We're back to the 2020 Title 9 regulations. Now, CSBA did not come out with language to match those changes until this
103past summer. Dr. Liz Shaone and her department, because they are no sloughs, said, "We're not going to wait that long to give board policy and AR direction on this topic to our school district." And so in consultation with council, they rewrote the BPS and ARS based on going back to the 2020 language. Now the new recommended are you follow Thank you for nodding your head, Laura. I appreciate how you're following with me. Um there now they have that language is out and so we took the language recommendations from the state and from our council went through us with it again and we now have the verbiage before you this evening that Liz gave you the content for last spring. So I want to thank her profusely for that because it was a lot of changes
104and she explained them to you in March and you approved them in April. So what is before you tonight is cleanup, the moving around of some of the decisions for clarity and the different policies and ARS but not a lot new. So I am going to highlight the most major changes for you. So the first one is BPAR 5145.3 non-discrimination harassment and it updates two sections of the proposal about the importance it puts into language what has already been our district practice which is when uh harassment happens you need to have some sort of restorative or it encourages us to have restorative practices for both uh the victim and the perpetrator. So, we were already doing that. Kudos to Jarrett and team. Now, ED code says thou shalt or excuse me, board language. The next
105one is BPR 5145.7 sexual harassment. And this one is really, really good news for us because it clearly separates complaint processes. So uniform complaint policies procedures are to be are for anything discrimination discriminatory and there's a wide range of areas I think there are about 20 of them um that can be different types of discrimination and that includes sex discrimination. Um but what it does not include is sexual harassment. Title Nine is where sexual harassment is investigated and sexual harassment is for things like assault, stalking someone. It is now two clear separate set of guidelines. So we're not trying to investigate both. It's not murky about which qualifies under which. It's much more clear. So it's one set of parameters in investigations which is very very happy news for people investigating. The next policy AR5145.5.71
106uh is title 9 sexual harassment complaint procedures. Again it separates it from the sexual harass discrimination that we see in the uniform complaint process along with 19 other forms of discrimination. And it explicitly states, although I think it has long been implied in most places, that if you remove an accused perpetrator from a setting, you cannot give it cannot be considered a disciplinary action until an investigation has been completed and it has been determined that something wrong was actually done. So basically being accused and being removed from the setting just in case you did it so that the alleged victim is not really uncomfortable does not automatically districts cannot say this is going on your behavior record. You have to wait until the investigation is done. The next one ones are more BPS and ARs
107around sexual harassment. Um, and it's it's it specifies that somebody can be harassed under more than one group, more than one um type. And you you can't pick you can't say we're going to investigate these, but we're not going to investigate those for protected classes. The next one, the BP's ARS for 4119.12 etc. ARS and exhibits requires that we follow the Title 9 grievance procedures for sexual harassment. This comes up so much in BPN ARS. It's clear that there's no case history behind this, but here it is again that we follow the required procedures and that we indefinitely keep records that we have district insurance and that we have had district insurance for sexual assault. That's it. >> Any board questions? Oh, I just had a question because some of the the red lines were
108in red and others were in green. And so I I recall there was a section that was in green that was pretty lengthy and I was told that the green meant that we created it versus adopting it from CSBA's templates. >> That is correct. Do you know where it was? >> Ah, you want to come to the mic to get a recording? >> Sorry. >> No. Thanks Jarrett. And is not feeling great. >> Yeah, it's in 5145.71 edition of definitions that was uh advised by council to include very specific um language uh especially because definitions have changed which is under title 34 of the code of federal regulations. And I can't even believe I remembered that but yes I did. But yes, that's the major uh green section which was I think two pages. Yeah,
109>> that's helpful. So, we're just giving additional detail over what CSBA's template had. Okay. >> Yes. >> Any other questions? >> If not, um can we bring these back on consent? Okay. Um, moving on. Now we have item number 14, which is board of trustees correspondence. There is no board of trustees correspondence. So, we'll move on to item number 15, which is board of trustees and superintendent comments. Um, are there any comments? We'll do committee reports after. I'll just >> forgot to turn on the mic. Um, so I just wanted to share with folks that I joined a couple uh other people from the district to go to Stockton um in late October to visit an AVID National Showcase School. Um, so this was Edison High School in Stockton and um, yeah, I was just
110curious what schoolwide implementation of AVID looks like versus a more elective approach. Um, so it does look pretty different. Um, twothirds of the teachers are trained in AVID practices. And so the classroom setup and even the tools, they really foster those AVID principles uh, and and study habits, group work. Um, and it was interesting that I said, "Well, what if the students are not in the AVID elective? How do they learn the avid kind of processes?" And actually, the non-avvid students often are helped by the AVID students in learning how to do things in the kind of AVID way. Um, and for me and my takeaway was, you know, I was surprised that students by their senior year are actually able to independently form study groups and support their peers. It's almost like um critical
111skills for college and career success because um I find sometimes even if a student performs well in high school, they may be doing it in a brute force manner, right? they might not have the good study skills, study habits, or even be comfortable studying in groups. And and then once you get to college, that's when it shows up and students start to struggle because uh the the information overload is pretty immense. And if you really try and do it, the brute force method, it doesn't always work. So, I thought that was very interesting, you know, like uh I I could see how these skills would apply in college. Um and then a side benefit, um Stockton's school board just approved that all their ethnic studies courses would count towards US history graduation requirement. So, I
112think Trusty Gin would find that interesting because if we're talking about trying to free up time in the schedule, but they don't have just one ethnic studies course. They actually have five different ones and it drills down to like Filipino American studies and Latino American studies. So, different flavors of ethnic studies, but they must have structured it in such a way that it fulfills all the US uh history requirements as well. So, I want to do a little research maybe ask the school board members how they uh how that actually went about. So, I'm kind of curious. Um and then uh I also signed up to be a mentor for Sequoia's healthcare academy and so I've never tried doing that before. I thought it'd be very interesting to get to understand students a little bit
113better. Um so went to the mentor orientation last week and it was actually very helpful with many of the skills and um tips that they shared and a lot of the attendees were thinking hey these are these techniques for communication might be helpful with our own family. So, I'm looking forward to seeing who I am matched with and how I can try out those communication skills to, you know, sometimes teenagers aren't all that vocal. So, we'll see if I can build a relationship. >> And any other trustee have comments? >> Thank you. I find that interesting about the ethnic studies. I'd love to learn more about that. Um, but uh in another note, I did go to unofficially officially went to the MA football game on Friday. It was really cool to see the JV
114come back uh and win Will Cox. I think it was 14 to 17 or something like that, but they came. I mean, I'm not big football fan, so I don't keep score of everything, but I I saw my son and saw people out there and they just did great. The kids were amazing. It was just amazing for them to come back. Um they were losing and I thought, "Oh my god, are they going to make it?" And they did. So yeah, go Bears. Thank you. And um yeah, adding on to that, I was able to go to an MA game and also um um talk to some of the athletic directors at MA regarding their perspectives on academic probation. So I think that's also something that might be worthy of a board discussion at a
115future time. So yeah. Um now we can move on to are there any committee reports before we finish this item? No, >> I do have a committee report. Um I'll I'll mention technically I have two committee reports. Um I'll mention that Trusty Coup and I um along with Superintendent Leech did go to our 2 by 2 by two um with BRSSD. Um and it it was it was really I felt actually like this was one of our our more productive meetings that we've had. um really got to kind of look under the hood, figure out what's going on there, what's going on here. Um interestingly enough, they they had a I believe they had an external firm do um looking at enrollment and trends because that's a big topic right now. Um and one of
116their external firms like really did find that like there's just the birth rate is just low. Um and that and so that was um that was interesting. They talked about spending and such. Um then we I I had asked a question. I'm bringing this up particularly because I know that our student trustees now have brought it up twice. Um and it will be a future agenda item. Um I asked about questions about AI and and how um digital literacy is is showing up in the in the our our feeder schools because I'm curious about how digit digital awareness and literacy can turn into um uh actually using it and fluency. um uh in the upper in the high school. So, it was it was a good it was I thought it was a really good
117two by two by two. Um and then on behalf of Trusty Den and I, I have another report. Um as most of you, you all board members know that um there we are also part of a board committee that was reviewing enrollment and program offerings off offerings and the long-term fiscal health of our district. So this is I'm pivoting now to that committee. Um so over the past several years the district has been looking closely at its structural deficit and at enrollment patterns throughout the district and at our small schools as part of the broader effort to understand how our resources are being used and whether we are able to sustain strong equitable programs for students at all of our schools. Um, as a board we have a responsibility to make sure that every student
118in Sequoia Union High School District has access to strong, diverse, and sustainable educational programs. What we are seeing with Tide Academy is that because it is such a small school, it requires a disproportionate amount of resources to operate. Over time, that means students will have fewer classes, electives, and program options that we can offer when resources are better aligned across the district. So, our committee is recommending that the board ask the superintendent to develop and bring forward a clear plan for how the district would discuss and consider a possible closure of Tide Academy. That plan should lay out how and when we will communicate with students, families, and staff, how the community will be informed and invited into the conversation, and what information and data will be brought to the board as we deliberate deliberate.
119I want to be very clear, no one on the board wants to close a school. We understand how deeply that possibility affects students, families, and staff. And we do not take that impact lightly. At the same time, we have a duty to look honestly at our overall financial picture, including our structural deficit and the costs of operating very small schools and ask whether we are creating the best possibility or opportunities for all of our students, including those currently at Tide. So, Trustee Gin and I, as the two board members on the committee are going to bring forward during the future agenda items portion of tonight's meeting, a future agenda item relating to Tide. We would ask the superintendent and her team to develop a process that includes all legal steps required to consider the potential
120of closing Tide. The plan should include plenty of opportunity for input from students, parents, employees, and community members, as well as clear communication to all stakeholders about what the potential impacts on each of them will be if a decision to close tide is made. We will ask that at the December 10th board meeting, the superintendent present her proposed process. The process should enable the board to make a decision by the end of February about whether to close Tide after this academic year. Any other committee reports? >> If not, um, we can move on to item number 16, which is future agenda items. So, Mary, Beth, and I just brought forward a future agenda item, and we'd ask if we have support from at least one, but hopefully all three of our colleagues to move forward
121with that presentation in December. I'm in support of that. [Music] Um, I can go ahead but just the discussion itself I would be in support of. >> Yes, in support of the discussion for sure. >> Okay. Okay. So, I guess I'll turn it over to Superintendent Leech to coordinate that for December. Um, any other future agenda items? >> Actually, well, not for December 10, but two things came up in the discussion today that I just will touch on. I heard each of trustees C and Cruz mention an interest in exploring something related to ethnic studies. And so, if that is something you in fact want to do, I would support such exploration. And I so I just I don't know specifically what you said you were interested in exploring. You commented you shared her interest.
122>> So I would also share the interest. So if that would be three people if either of you would like to clarify what your interest was. >> Yeah. I I think I was personally just going to look at their website and talk to some of the school board members. So not necessarily involving the district in anything because I'm just curious. >> Yeah. And I was curious. >> I was curious too and like looking at researching, right? looking at what they're doing and what's working and how it's working before I bring it to an agenda item. Yeah. >> Okay. And the second I heard you mention something about academic probation having an interest. So I I don't know if you're interested in a future agenda item around that or not. >> I am but um we
123can wait on that. Like we don't have to discuss that now. So okay. Any anything else? If not, um, can I get a motion to adjurnn? >> Motion to adjurnn. >> Second. >> All in favor? I. Okay. Motion passes unanimously. This meeting is adjourned at 8:07