Special Board Meeting

001okay I told place Sandra just real quick you don't have to up regarding your know that's like that I'll check you see yeah what's our Forum 529 what the Happ he stepped up from I know he was theree that was funer that was nice I I walked in right at a oh thank you okay so all right yet it's Thursday October 24th 2024 uh we are now going to start the meeting at 5:30 um and for the record this meeting is being recorded anything you say will be on there okay so be careful uh Miss marel can you please do roll call today is a special board meeting of October 24th 2024 at 5:30 pm members of the board in attendance president Linda Chavez presid vice president Andres Kinto he's not here yet clerk mam

002present member Cordina Lera presid member Andrea Flores Shelton she's not here and members of administration superintendent Herman Sera presid that was loud make sure you're here okay can you all stand for the Pledge of Allegiance please the United States of America to the stands Nation indivisible andice okay we do have Quorum um and moving on to 2011 Bo president may I make a statement sure regarding the agenda sure yes uh first and foremost I would want I want to apologize uh it was a uh I inadvertently left off the land acknowledgement and so what I would like to do is um ensure you that it will be at the next board meeting and and moving forward uh there was a resolution and uh being new to to this position I didn't realize that it was

003not on there so I just want to apologize and I want to read it for you so the land acknowledgement Board of Trustees of the alumrock Union Elementary School District does hereby acknowledge that the district's schools and Facilities sit on the traditional lands of the MMA alone people and the board of trusties further acknowledges with respect to the MMA alone people tribe of the San Francisco Bay Area for their stewardship of these lands so thank you uh uh president uh Chavez and uh I'll turn it over to you thank you thank you um moving on to 2011 report of overall Capp and the lcap data from the 2023 2024 school year uh Miss Sandra can you please speak on that that one hello and for the record and for the record uh vice president came

004in at 5:33 um this evening I'm going to ask um Tara Bickford um she's director of academic services to uh provide a report to you on our Casp results from Spring 2024 and elpac as well some um preliminary lpac results as well as some of our um action items um um responding to the data thank you and also let the record reflect please sorry uh the trustee uh Andrea Flor Shelton is here at 5:34 yeah good evening President Chavez trustees superintendent Serta Community tonight I'm pleased to be here to share with you the results from the 2024 Casp and elpac results from this past spring in front of all of you up here I put a packet because the one in your book had a few edits to it after the fact so I apologize

005but your packets should have that all there for you um as you'll see this past spring students in grades 3D through 8 took the esac assessment also known as the cast um for language arts and Mathematics and you'll see on this first slide that 27.8% of our students met are exceeded in language art while 20.39 met or exceeded in mathematics you'll see the breakdown of the different bands in different ways as I share these slides with you um our next slide is going to be looking at the year-to-year comparison of overall performance data it is evident that our overall performance has not demonstrated significant growth but rather has stayed rather stagnant if you look from year to year this next slide um looks at the grade level bands from year to year so I've put

006a line between each grade level band and so you can see within the grade level the growth from 2022 to 2024 or if you look at the third grade band and then look at the fifth graders that's the same cohort of students and we did show that those kids are growing um when you look at that cohort of students so we do know that students are growing it's just the way you look at it just depends on how that looks on the data um our next slide here looks at our Middle School the same way sixth seventh and eighth grade and you'll see a similar comparison of our sixth grade 2022 students to now last year they were our eighth graders and they similarly made about a 6% growth oops oops jumping all over um

007our next slide here talks to our race and ethnicity comparisons with our biggest subgroups within our district so we have our Asian Filipino and Hispanic students and the year-to-year growth here um and we can see that our Asian population had a um couple percent growth there and then also to our Filipino while our Hispanic youth they are one of our bands of students that we have been identified as under CSI and we'll continue to see similarities across some of these performances where we know we need to focus on that subgroup of students um as we look at at student group comparisons here this is looking at our English Learners our homeless youth our socially economically disadvantaged students and our students with disabilities again we definitely see the need to do some strategic work within our

008subgroups here it's also really important to note that some of this data can be a little interesting to look at because if you look at our Ela data we know that we had a huge increase in newcomers last year and we also reclassified more students out last year so that's going to be a different group of students from the year prior same with our homeless youth we actually increased our homeless numbers quite a bit last year so that also increased the numbers of students within those bands not just the percentage an really interesting layer to this is when we look at the those students who are continuously enrolled with us from 2022 to 2024 and what you'll see is in ela the majority of our students fall within either continuing to maintain a Year's growth

009whether it's below or on grade level but they're maintaining that same year-to-year or exceeding while 16% are um declining so that tells us that that we are at least maintaining them we definitely want to look at how to accelerate them more than one grade level to make up that growth so I'll talk to that in a little bit as well now we're looking at math math follows a very similar Trend in that we are pretty St stagnant overall um didn't show much growth or decline either way you look at it however when we start to look at grade level bands again you're going to see within the bands different things here math actually doesn't show the same cohort of student growth but instead from year to year within that grade level we're seeing that growth

010happen um and that might be many factors something that we definitely need to dig into a little more but definitely math standards accelerate each year obviously um but that's just another data point that we are growing within the grade level is just not the cohort s meth and now 6th through eth we do see sixth grade here growing um we do not see that same cohort growth as well right and seventh grade we show a dip and a decline that we definitely want to look at what is going on in seventh grade and what can we do to increase that this year and I'll talk to it in a little bit we're doing a lot of work with our eighth graders around gear up to make sure they are ready for high school math and

011so that's been a big initiative that thanks to Manny and the gear up Grant we've been able to do a lot of work around and again I'm bringing us to now math and race and ethnicity so again we see our Asian population grew about 3% um while our Hispanic population more or less um maintained where they were at still not performing at the same level of their peers um and again our elel homeless SED and students with disabilities um again these are groups that are identified with us under CSI so we know that these are already groups we need to work with and just to reiterate we did have a bigger band of newcomers coming in so their language access to math is definitely going to be a factor and then our homeless population we

012I believe came close to doubling last year right so that has a big impact on if the kids have the right Resources with them too that we're going to be looking at and then I bring us to our continuously enrolled students for math so again this shows that 8 82% of our students who have been enrolled with us since 2022 um through now they haven't moved out moved back back in um they have 82% of them have increased or stayed the same in the levels they're at which when you think of levels from year to year that means they are growing one year right but whether it's below level oneyear growth every year is probably what we're also seeing there okay so now we're moving on to our lpac data and I will say that

013our lpac data has a couple layers to this remember that um lpac is assessed on all English Learners within the district and so any student that would have reclassified last year won't be factored into this score um versus students coming in newcomers are definitely factored into these scores so we also see some data where we've made some movements and it's showing but here you won't get that picture per se but we did hit 41% of our level three and fours um our El's are level three and four excuse me and when we look at that from years the threee comparison it looks like we haven't made a huge change from year to year however I do want to highlight some of the stuff that's been going on so our intervention specialist last year really targeted

014our English Learners and last year alone they completed 3,252 intervention plans together as the 15 of them that met and that was about 22.1% of the student population were involved in some sort of intervention cycle um some of those were not focused on elpek but those that were really honed in on what skills the students needed to increase and get to the proficiency rate and we see a really big increase in our level fours um in oral language from the year prior to this year and then we also saw a huge significant increase in students who reclassified um throughout the year last year so in 2022 23 we reclassified 206 students last year we increased that to 362 students that we reclassified and this year we're already on a good track where we've already reclassified

015124 two months into school so we're confident that we will continue to reclassify at a really high rate um and continue to move those kids to be able to get access to to the courses so we have work to do we know this so we have been working this year on many things and we have more to go um I ready we brought that in as a new assessment this year and we're really trying to hone in with teachers and sites on hitting growth goal targets and what the growth goal Target is it's taking a student's typical year-to-year growth and saying within three years if we break that down into doable bands this is how much you can grow to get proficient within 3 years so I already has calculated statistically what a kid needs

016to do to hit proficiency within three years if they're behind so that means that students are growing a year and a half two years um growth at any one point and that's where we're really honing in to get them to do it with all of the I ready assessments and lessons that the teachers are pulling to hit that um standards Mastery and targeted instruction we also really honed in on our mtss our multi-tiered system of support tier one instruction with the in our classrooms we said we need to really hone in on those standards and make sure teachers are teaching with the curriculum first that hits the standards and then looking look at the tier 2 and supplemental programs from there in addition we brought in hegerty districtwide to do foundational literacy with our TK

017second grade teachers we were seeing loud and clear that our students really needed some more um phonics and ponic awareness work so I'm happy to report all of our teachers in TK to Second are diving in with our foundations and really building up student literacy um again we have our intervention Specialists back we have reduced to 10 versus 15 and they're only at our elementary sites this year they're focusing on all of the students who are near proficiency and really boosting them into proficiency as well as our long-term English Learners um we have we're in differentiated assistance with the state as a district uh for our students who are homeless and also our African-American students in the areas of academics and attendance so we have two separate Cycles going on currently one for attendance looking

018at our foundational literacy programs and then the other really honing in on our chronically absent processes for our homeless students we figure if we can't get the students in they're not learning we need them in their seats in order to learn and be there um and then we are also doing CSI work with nine of our sites nine of our sites got tagged last year from the state for comprehensive strategic Improvement um I hope I got that right uh and they are honing in on academics and attendance overall we have one site that has a suspension rate they need to bring down but um they are also doing cycles of inquiry around around these subgroups and these pieces they're working intently with ir doing more datadriven um PLC work with their staff and they're bringing

019in other intervention programs to help site leaders are also um running and engaging themselves in cycles of inquiry within our leadership group and they're taking that back to their leadership within their site to do some plc collaborative work around data together our Middle School actually has a cohort of Math teachers who have willingly taken on the lead to lead a collaborative group of Middle School Math teachers to look at data best instruction and really making sure that all of our middle school math has the right supports in place to meet our students where they're at and Beyond I talked to our Gear Up resources earlier for eighth graders making sure they are College and Career ready going into high school and Beyond so how are we preparing students for high school math is a big

020one because if our students are going in in high school below grade level they are then behind on their a3g requirements so we want to make sure that we are lining them up for those a3g right away we also have Foster and mckin vento students being supported by counselors across the district who are doing case management with them um and we have tutoring opportunities for all students in the Extended Learning Time space expanded learning time um and of course we're doing professional development constantly I just got done with a literacy task um Zoom with 66 teachers which was phenomenal um really honing in on Literacy for our students so every week you can see PDS coming out of our office really honing in on math literacy and um framework um work and standards Mastery for

021our students we know that we still have work to do and we're continually reflecting on everything we're doing so in our next data Cycles we're going to be comparing the student I ready diagnostic data this is going to be our first set of comparison data with high ready we're going to be leveraging the dashboard which the dashboard releases in December um and we'll be presenting on more of that information come January to really compare that one big factor there is going to be our LP growth and seeing how the kids performed within those English learner bands um and then cycle of data inquiries continuing with our da work our CSI work and all the different plc's going on around the district so that's our presid presentation around Casp if you guys have any questions thank

022you very much for the presentation does any of the trustees have uh questions for Mr ter bford Mr um excuse me superintendent s what I wanted you to there's a lot of acronyms in in yeah in the presentation so if you could just expand on what Alp is right um so that because there's so many acronyms in education is kind of like ah so if you could just expand a little bit more on what that means yeah so elpac itself is a English learner performance assessment um and then within that every year they they give you four bands of placements and one being is your introductory level to english four being you're pretty proficient you just need to show Proficiency in our state assessment on English to be able to reclassify um um and then

023LP is actually the performance index for the English Learners and that's based the dashboard uses that one and what they've done is they've looked at those four bands and they've broken them into six and they've broken it into in a statistical way that shows if a kid is making the proper year-to-year growth they're hitting those markers within the lp so so the state doesn't expect a kid to go from a one to a four in one year they expect him to grow a little under one band it's broken into six year six years of growth and that's why by year six in school if they're still not growing they're considered long-term because they're not hitting those growth targets so language development takes several years so LP just refers to that they're hitting the marks within

024those six segments of year-to-year growth I hope that makes sense yeah and the way the the way um because I visited some of the sites and some of the principles were actually they had it they had the English learner progress indicator the lp some of them had it in their office I was at Jackie montenegro's uh school and she actually you can actually see some students some actually do grow from one to four but it's it's it's how the sites are monitoring uh at the individual level right which student is actually showing progress from one to two right one to two low one to two high yeah which are the six broken bands and it it's it's great data to look at especially when you're comparing it to you know the programs right the curriculum

025that you're implementing and the assessments and whether the assessments and the instruction is actually moving students forward uh and it's it's it's great to see because then teachers can you make adjustments right the district also can accommodate the professional development that they're offering at uh for for the site so thank you ter because I know it's it's when it was when I went through that I was like wow this is great and so I'm just continuing to monitor that we'll be sharing the actual LP the performance growth of that in January with the dashboard because that's when we get those official scores given to us oh trusty Flor something thank you for all of this a lot um so I'm going to try to pick my questions out of all the questions my brains thinking

026of um on the the breakdown so like the the the actual number of our homeless students is very small compared to let's say the S for S kids right are you looking at like the SE kids by race and ethnicity as well so we've done that as well and if that's something the board wants to see we can also bring that back too because we can look at the Dual implications of things and yeah the intersectionality of it all and because I at the end of the day we have all this data to help drive right that intervention so what I'm so what what does the the um race and ethnic data plus you know the sort of this situational factors tell us about because I as I'm seeing all your interventions I'm also trying

027to figure out what's the um cultural component or the parent leison component like what are the other what does all this tell us that we are we would we might use as an intervention are we using the race and ethnicity we do in our da work and our CSI work we're looking at those multi-layer of identifications okay the comprehensive strategic Improvement that's CSI okay yes see that's like I'm sorry what does it mean mean lingo talk comprehensive strategic Improvement and da is differentiated assistance so those are both basically saying this group of students needs support they're disproportionately performing compared to their peers in California or in our district they've hit a red on the dashboard we need to give them support and if you guys remember the dashboard presentation um from last year we talked

028about to get a red you basically Decline and you have a low score so it's two factored to get out of red you need to show growth and a higher score so I yeah so I guess what I'm saying is is you know it's kind of like so we're going to go all in right because of these disparities right so yeah so then we should see movement because the other folks are doing they're doing okay right we love for everyone to be a meet at ored but we're going all in so that's I guess it's um it's just kind of hard to tease out kind of with the jargon and then the other thing um oh gosh I just had it they lost it there's a lot can I just add to what your question

029so I just wanted to say that a lot of um like you said the teasing out the the um digging into the data a little deeper was done um at the end of last year when we um knew that our schools were um identified as CSI and also our district Asda and so we as a team got together looked at the data and actually did Fishbones and digging into the the cause you know anal cause analysis a root cause analysis and you know why are our kids in these different subgroups not performing at the level that we need them to and why are they not making progress and then plans were made based on um those um root cause analysis good context or you know sort of we hear about it like in okay in

030a wellness center and a this and a that you know and so it's just that context of wrapping around for the academic growth so and then you reminded me of my two other questions so um you talked about comparisons right I know you know everyone's struggling but have we looked at what our neighboring districts like is Mount Pleasant seeing are our Mount Pleasant Andor varas or S they kind of in the same boat not that we have time to do all this analysis but um there there's similar comparisons in some of our districts around us there's some districts that actually showed baresa had some pretty good growth last year and so we had a discussion with their assistant soup of instruction um one day at our differentiated assistance meeting to try and figure out what

031their key was right and we've also been meeting um with all of Eastside districts um through SBF Silicon Valley Education Foundation has been hosting our East Side Alliance where all of the district leads come together instructionally and focus on math instruction um and that's been at the center of our discussion as we go into adoptions next year year is how do we ensure kids are also getting prepared um across all of East Side in our districts because every District's struggling in different ways I think yeah and it just depends on what those factors are last year in the county the county increased the amount of districts in differentiated assistance exponentially they had to like go back to the drawing board and refigure out how they were supporting because they had such an increase in districts

032needing extra support okay thank you my last question is just um and I'm sorry if I missed it but if CSI is by becoming CSI is that like like oh if we hit 60% then we're out of CSI or something like where where does that line like I guess like seeing all this it would be good to see like a goal line or a Target line so it's like okay we're so close we're really far away what's it going to take like yeah I can bring that information back it's very dependent on Ela has a different Matrix than math does and it's called a 5 by five grid and it's based on score like scale score numbers plus growth so they Factor those two pieces in to get out of it you generally have to

033have about a three to 5% growth from year to year but also you have to bring that bottom score up too because it's really a line like that yeah and and let me also add that um we have nine schools that are under comprehensive support and intervention um and they each had to submit a plan on how they were going to um make Improvement at their School site to move out of CSI that CSI um identification and so um we definitely could bring back a more detailed um report on CSI and different ated assistance so the board can understand a little more about how that works and how we move out of that um identification still trying to like there's so many M right and so it's like what are the key three you know

034three is a magic number like what are the three things that this board should be like hoping you all you know what should we be measuring every because then there's another dat board there's because it's the so I'm just trying to figure out is this the one that so if so if our so if our schools move out of CSI then our district itself is closer out moving out of differentiated assistance because they're they're correlated right um so definitely what we're looking at is our tier one instruction which is our core instruction right and how do we strengthen that for our students and how do we provide proide those supportive interventions for the students that aren't making the grade and get them to where they need to be so that that impacts CSI and then

035CSI impacts da so they're all related um and I think that if we had to set a goal for ourselves is that we truly strengthen that core instruction in our classrooms and meaningful interventions that support the students that need that extra support istics see the pace of grow right it's like needing to be realistic about and I I'm just making it might take 10 years or is it five right like we're hoping it doesn't take 10 I know I know right but it's just like if we look at PACE or things that are out of our control that we need to understand right that um so like having something to shoot for and being realistic about the resources to that yeah and and you're asking a very very good question because that's something that I

036think uh would be a conversation in a workshop so that when the board does meet or a retreat because I know we've we've mentioned that we can look at the data and then we can you know have a conversation around okay what are the goals where do we want to be in six years if it's going to be a six-year strategic plan or a fiveyear strategic plan and what is the actual right let's break it down into five years or six years and how what's the growth going to look like year after year so that we get to the goal that we want to set where we want to see all our students and so so you're asking some very good questions but I think yeah we can definitely come back with another presentation around

037which which is actually good because it will keep you informed and we can provide you with data that we can then when we meet I I believe that's a conversation we've talked about meeting possibly in in February when we hold our Retreat or even sooner January was it January yeah thank you president CH is reminding me January don't forget so January when we do meet we H have that Retreat you won't be here unfortunately but and we can you know then we get the other thing chronic absm right like if we can bring chronic and down and this should go up right so it's trying to figure out how all those dos can you go back to 2022 2024 math comparison yeah Daniel see J got it this one orace sorry so I I have

038in front of me I think it's important to look at yeah the numbers are incredibly sober the largest number in the district correct students at Approximately 80% roughly and are are a number un acceptable um have can we I know that every year State gives us something to shoot for it's different so it's difficult to do a apple to Apple or orang orang comparison but if we were to go back for example a decade ago where would we find ourselves if we tried to figure out how to find metrics that sort of communicate with each other as a district yeah it's really hard to compare that because it's a completely different test from 10 years ago yeah um so it's not comparable in a data set you could look at if we were making Target

039or not um and we've always struggled a little bit to meet Target at a high rate we definitely know that we went lower during the pandemic and we're struggling to get back to where we need to be so I think if you did a meets from one test the meets now on this new test you're going to see a significant low lower number and we don't know if that's due to pandemic we don't know if that's due to the new blueprint um of this test you asked a very good question uh vice president Kinto uh during covid they did modify the esack a little bit and so you are you know it's not going to give you uh the results but I think it it would be good for us to look at three years

040three years right so if we go back three years which is we're sharing the three years with you but I think moving forward we can then show you the four years right to see how we're we're we're growing or not and what adjustments are we making or changes we're making to address it one of the one of the interventions or actions we have in place is the svmi work you want to explain a little bit about what we're doing there with our teachers and our principles yeah so that goes back to our East Side Alliance work across all of easts side districts we're working with Silicon Valley math initiative who are training up lead teachers across the district to be model classrooms in math practices getting kids really engaged in complex math um critical thinking

041skills and practices engaged in the classroom and then that's coupled with another training for other teachers around math framework work within so those Two Worlds Collide and then we're having teachers and principes observe these model classrooms happen and ideally that's eventually folding out and folding out year-over-year as we build more robust lead teachers in the math work this year was the first year we're engaging in that and we're about depends on the grade level some grade levels have done two trainings some have done three where the teachers are being released for a day to go collaborate learn with teachers from across all of East Side to learn really strong practices for math instruction when you do break down the math data it's apparent that our students are really struggling with what are called performance tasks

042and those complex task problems that they have to break into multiple math problem sets to be able to accomplish the task and then they have to be able to explain it and describe what was happening so it's not just the old algorithm a plus b we know that they're also struggling to get that descriptor out which also when you have English as a barrier that's also going to come into that as well so we have the S the Silicon Valley math initiative happening in coupling with our English learner work with constructing meaning continuing um to build those English development skills with our math programs as well but we do have stuff going on to try to help support that but hopefully we'll see an impact thanks thanks for permission um and I get it there's

043no Apples to Apples if we go that far back but I'm sure that we do have the data and whatever it is that they determin to be proficient if I request that I get uh that uh decades worth of of data so even whatever it was that they deing to be proficient then because I remember com here to alrock more than 10 years ago and we were signing on these big boards and pledging to have all kids Prof and so I just want to see where and and I commend the work that's being done I also I do believe that it the lockdown really messed kids because I saw it as they were coming out in into Community College and there was a a couple of years where it was like something really left them

044really that that whole lock down really me really did something I finally started to observe that that's been going way little that's just my observation no sort of anecdotal it's based on my observations not some sort of study that I mean you can look at our third graders who did take their test last year and the third graders last year were the ones who started the pandemic in kindergarten so you built all your foundations on distance learning so we know and then kids in those foundational years Kinder first second third are all having holes because whatever they didn't get through distance learning we know that that's not the best practice for our students and what they need so we're happy to be back in place and we're looking at where that growth needs to be

045hit harder we want all kids to keep growing but we definitely have some areas that we I think can pinpoint and highlight and find those big leverage points for us if I get the DAT both Matt as well as really appreciate it Mr s can you share that the request with the whole board absolutely yes I'll share with theard question thank you um I have some questions but before that I'll uh make a comment since there wasn't any other space to do it thank you so much uh superintendent said that for um taking accountability for the oversight of the land acknowledgement um it means a lot I know we worked hard to get that on um and hopefully um I'll do it here requesting that since next month is National Native American American heritage month

046I know we have a family in our um uh Atlanta Community who's moak Malone um Mom Julie um and her son maybe we can invite them to come and do um the formal land acknowledgement um since uh you know that one we're you know regrouping we'll never do it again and I think it's appropriate for the month if that's um okay with my uh peers as well um and then in regards to this thank you so much for the presentation it's heartbreaking I can only imagine as you're creating the the you know um slides and just where we're at uh but it's important to know where we're at right so we can move forward um and in addition to some of the data that's been requested is it possible to also break down by school

047I would like to see that um definitely if we don't have that but if you can uh provide that um and then curious I ready we've already um that's a program that we use correct we just started back on it this year we had it so we were doing it and then we're long time ago we got rid of it for four years and we decided what we had was not giving our teachers what they needed so we went back to I ready this year after listening to our teachers big time and um go back into it so we just have one Diagnostic in December they get their second diagnostic so we'll get to see our first set of growth with I ready okay yeah I remember as a parent I'm like I think I

048remember hearing that okay um and then I mean just thinking back and looking at the numbers like you know was it were we really doing that good when we had I ready four years ago I'm not saying you have the answers now um that we get to invest in and bring back was it really that good and my guess is yes because you know we all wouldn't be bringing it back if it didn't work um and you brought up another good point I'm curious about um you know I know you've been meeting with teachers and the team um and then hearing you know that I already work for them so I'm interested as to what the teachers are saying about this data the why um and not just teachers but the students and the parents

049uh you know because we can set all these goals and put it on the walls but if they're not engaged right if we're not listening as to why why why do you think we're here or not even that how can we move forward because then they'll tell us what they're not getting um as teachers students and and parents um I think that would be good I know creates more work but I think it at least gives us that feedback as to what they feel they need in order to move forward and come up to goal and just so you know that is part of the needs assessment work that all the sites do at the end of the year with especially those CSI comprehensive strategic intervention schools um they have to do A needs assessment

050not just with their staff of teachers but they have to bring it to their school site Council and parent Community groups and if they're a middle school they should be also including their student council on it they should have a student council member at least present on their School site Council so they should be getting some of that voice but I agree we can also get more information thank you for that and I think it's important right my um I'm guessing that this uh student um is somebody that comes to school that's probably meeting you know standards I want to hear from those that are not and I'm glad you bring that up because actually now that brings up in our differentiated assistant work we did empathy interviews with students and with parents and teachers

051so we had different people talking to different populations we specifically honed in on our homeless student population last year with our differentiated assistant work um it was more focused on attendance but also that impacts our academics we know so um it was really honed in on why they were feeling like they weren't welcome in school or weren't coming to school what factors were going on we did intake meetings with new parents um who were reporting they were in a homeless situation so that we could understand what factors we could help with um but we'll continue doing that work and getting into the field and getting more of that qualitative data going on to understand no thank you um and I I've been working with um a couple different uh districts who actually have people that

052have been hired to literally go and pick up students and support them in getting out of the house into class um and I you know I thought I thought about it and I'm like wow right like and and the difference that made in the attendance and so it's like of course it's investing in a position however the investment of getting those students to class and then what that means for you know the data right and then the Ada um so just thinking of you know those things I I saw that and I'm like you know what a great idea uh because it's working in these districts um and then you know also grateful to that as you mentioned already the East Side Alliance and their investment in our eighth graders and also you know um

053when I asked U Mr Barbara about moving Upstream right and moving towards our third graders and then eventually earlier um I look forward to more of that so um it was great to be out at the tech you know a couple weeks ago with the eighth graders um and just grateful for for those Partnerships um and then also Early Learning Center that we recently open right pandemic so hopefully we see the movement in our data in the years to come with all of these things um so and I'm looking at you but obviously you know talking to all of us as we move forward yeah with this thank you so much problem uh TR Nan we have a problem with our Hispanic students and [Music] Ian new so newom another obvious you know lack of

054that it's it's one big giant culture shop to move learn the language get this the shine of light what are some of the challenges that our district has educating students right because it's like math type language and kind population of students swim at the same time right so all of our English Learners have to have designated ELD in their day in a middle school that would exist as a full period in elementary it's a designated time where the teachers working with those level of students and they very much um differentiate to the needs of the level of language proficiency they're at um but I am happy to announce that we just brought in U another intervention specialist we were able to hire a teacher to replace her in the classroom and she's coming in to

055support newcomers across the district really honing in on our high population areas of newcomers and she's going to be doing intervention Cycles Beyond um what is happening in their designated ELD time and in addition our sites are individually doing um after school interventions Beyond as well for a lot of our newcomers and we also have that tutoring available for many of our students so there's work happening we are happy that we just got that tosa brought in so she'll start that work next week and we'll see some great growth happening from that and the other part of that is you know May me oh aside from the you know we we we expect a level of uh suboptimal attendance from our homeless student because that I mean that's part that's part and parcel of of

056you know being unhoused is sometimes life gets in the way but uh you know we we have a mole our Hispanics in population obviously has has L mobile population right so it's not like they uh is there anything that we're doing to to help encourage uh attendance with our Hispanic students yeah we're encouraging attendance across the board with many of our students we're looking at those chronically absent students our principles have been tasked with they have to hold by biweekly attendance meetings where they're looking at those students who are either at risk or have started to have too many absences appearing I think it's three if they hit three then they need to be having those parent meetings finding out what's going on what interventions are needed in addition to that there's incentives going on

057left and right so some sites are doing kind of like house systems where they get points for the percentage of attendance they have going others are individual point structures like I'm going to use another acronym PBIS positive behavior intervention supports um you have attendance um recognition going on where I know at hubard she was just talking to me about if a kid gets perfect attendance from one week to another they'll get a special prize and get a certificate um each of our sites should be doing something special for recognizing a attendance and they're encouraged to do so it looks a little different though at each site because of how they've structured their systems and their houses or Point structures and stuff but yeah well thank you know thank you very much Tara thank you very

058much for the informative report as well and it leaves this board with uh was it a lot to think about going forward yep thank you round two um I actually as we talking about 10 years um I was thinking about what I saw at hubber with the um holding on to the phones during the day so is that also an intervention that we're thinking about expanding because I think in the last 10 years this has gotten the way of having a book in your hand or a love of reading instead we're like and our you know tension Bans are all s all now all of us YouTu included um so thinking about the Yonder y Yonder pouches y are we gonna are we looking to expand that thinking about the little ones I don't well

059we don't have all of our middle schools using the Yonder pouch pouches yet um so I think that would be the first step is getting it across all of our um middle schools but but it is pretty costly um for each Yonder pouch and we were able to use some um emergency covid funds for those last year so it would need to be something that is built into our our budget at some point but I agree with you I think that um pulling that distraction away from the students would um would definitely support with the learning in the classroom and I guess I probably the first question I should ask was has it made a difference at hubard it has it has they have definitely said well academically we would have to look at to

060see since they started they just started it um at the end of last year yeah I think second second half of last year and I was also at Shephard Shephard um also is is doing it and they're doing a very good job I was actually there and I was like wow well and you know what the Prince Po it was it was pretty interesting because we're over by the the track right the they have an intramural sports and a student came to the principal and actually gave her the the cell phone when can I collect it because she took it out and the principal is right there so it's like okay pick it up after school and we're going to contact your parents so Sheppard I know is doing it but that's something I I

061think the other thing we need to look at is uh I am I've asked my my uh executive team we're going to be looking at board policies so we're going to revisit the cell phone electronic policy uh that uh to see if we're up to date and see if um we need to update it so you may be seeing some new board policies coming your way and I just wanted to just double down on the kind of the old school to be the TR officer kind of model but you know in a a 2020 you know era version of like how can our parent lisons or something play um a deeper role in that but um I do think we have to sort of Get Back to Basics with knocking on doors and figuring out

062how to get people to school so I like that yes okay thank you justy um bring back tabs which one um so excellent point on uh the the device uh the bully pulpit by the governor was one of the most amazing things I saw actually used it bam and immediately you guys went ahead and did something and it it got down to the school site level and with I I I get it it'd be good to go out through technology and these very costly things but good management good uh Administration uh can get well obviously it's not going to be exactly the same but it can achieve the same goals at with no cost at all um I i' I've observed it and I've seen uh the effectiveness of somebody who laid down the law

063and uh the cell phone is no longer going to be available during school in front of uh in front of the the School site staff so uh with given our our financial situation I would suggest us go out through and look for the mo least costly yes and and a very effective way of going out there and saying hey no more cell phones I I saw it happened and it was fascinating to see the governor go out there and make this pronouncement I don't know what you guys did somewhere but I saw it at the Grassroots level at the line staff it it started being implemented and there new rules out there there's no more access to cell phones and uh and it was it was it was very fascinating to see it happen and

064roll out immediately it was well in government speak it was immedia but it was good so my suggestion is we go out there and look for these P pouches unless we get a a grant or something like that I would suggest us just figuring out some good strategies administratively on how to proceed yeah we we actually I just want to add to that to your point um high school districts are the ones that are struggling a little bit more and again I come from a high school district and so we implemented re you know just came out with some guidelines you know and and also guidance for teachers and for administrators so that they could enforce the electronic devices policy and uh there are some that principles got very creative and you're right they looked

065for the least expensive way to enforce it and they sell these lockers Amazon 50 bucks for like 60 and so there there are ways so we'll definitely look into that so thanks for the uh the recommendation Just One Last point I realized that there's no going back with um unfortunately all the horrible incidences that are happening Nationwide every parent wants to know that they can shouldn't something happen they they know how to get a hold of their child so I'm not please don't been true my words of saying let's get random all the fils uh I don't I personally wouldn't U agree to that given the nature of our the reality that we're facing in 20124 thank you very much for all the presentation and since everybody pretty much asked all the questions and I'm

066racing as I'm going you're like scratch scratch yeah that's what that's exactly what I was gonna say next okay so seeing that there was 102 missing on the agenda I would also like to say that the discussion and or modification of the agenda uh the board may change the order of the business including but not limited to an announcement that an agenda item will be considered out of order that consider ation of an item has been withdrawn postponed rescheduled or removed from the consent calendar for separate discussion and possible action the reason I'm doing this is because I believe that we should be on record that we're allowing the public to speak even though there's no public comment right now I am going to ask for public comment right now on this item seeing there's

067none hold one second please uh seeing that there's none just wait and that it'll get explained please don't interrupt um and so I wanted to add um 102 for the um modification of the agenda because I did w to uh take uh okay I did want to take a comment if if anybody at this time wants to uh move anything um vice president kto I'll number one we're on 2.01 uh 2.01 102 actually there was no 102 so I'm just asking for to I can speak that okay go ahead wait so wait wait just stop for a second go ahead fin okay so um finished go ahead uh I did and there's none all right make com go ahead Madam chair I would ask that we open the agenda okay and I would ask that

068uh we move item 3.01 to after uh the the close session okay right before I get right after 6.01 6.01 okay so I have a motion do I to to move uh what vice president gto's tion was so do I have a second uh second by Min famam um Miss Maribel did you get that um what uh Mr kto just said yes that he wanted to move um item um uh 301 to after 601 okay thank you now go ahead okay I'm sorry I wanted to reind back to the formal um the the previous item that you read and just went through quick what was the item before was the public comment so um we just did the presentations 2011 but seeing that there was no 102 I felt because we in the past have

069been dinged by the state and I want to make sure the public comment is uh there's a record that we did allow for public comment so I get sorry so my question is was it that and I was confused so I don't know if our audience uh was confused there no there until those two just walked in there was no audience other than us here so I just a wanted to uh I it was me not making sure that 102 was on there is it okay to open that now that I understand it's already I just I just felt like you rushed through it and I wanted to ask what was happening uh because I didn't think it was going to you know create you you not um knowing what I'm doing but we already

070have a motion in a second and uh is there any public comment or discussion I'm taking in public comment first on the modification of agenda yes uh seeing that there's none uh any think you allow people to now would you like to come well I don't think you allow people to stand up it looks like she speak is this about the item that we're talking right now about the modification of the agenda yes okay uh sure Julie Dominguez so I'm a a tribal member for the M Malone tribe and I'm also a parent um of a student within the school district so um you know it was brought to my attention um not just for this meeting but even previously that there has been discussion to remove the land acknowledgement from these board meetings and

071so with that I just I would like to be present I'm not always available to come to these board meetings but I will be more present now um my child actually read the land acknowledgement for the first time ever in Spanish at the noos at adante too where he's a student and has been since TK so I'm just here to make a public comment in regards that I hope that that doesn't ever go away as you know our tribe is currently in Washington DC with my 17-year-old out there my brother um my chairwoman and they're fighting to reaffirm our federal recognition status so thank you excuse me um even though you are speaking on um what you're speaking on that is not the item that we are discussing right now we are discussing discussing about

072moving one number that's on here versus another one so but thank you for speaking and and uh we will um put the land acknowledgement on there and thank you very much I appreciate that I hope so sure okay so uh any trusty comment see one there you go uh trusty Explorer Shelton just the agenda do we need to accept the report to I'm GNA do that I'm gonna do that next I'm GNA do that next I just jumped in um be because um I wanted to kind of keep some order even though I'm backtracking uh but yes I will call for that and I just think that item on the agenda should have a correct it should it consideration like we should accept the report approve the BL very okay yeah it's a little bit

073different but uh thank you for pointing that out so so that's the end of discussion all in favor uh raise your hand so it's 5 z um and so now I will uh we we took the that we were going to modify the agenda 301 after 601 and so now I will take a motion for the re overall report of the Casp and alcap data do I have a motion okay I have a motion for acceptance report okay acceptance or report whatever way you want to put it uh any um public comment seeing none any okay and you gotta be ready you gotta give me a second um I just had a question because if you're moving item 30 1 until after 6:01 then in close session you're going to vote to appoint somebody to

074a position that you haven't approved their job description yet that is just interesting to me yeah interesting stuff here in all rock you don't have to tell me I've been here 20 years so um but yeah thank you that's any more public comment any trustee comment okay yes uh I believe you second it okay all in favor please raise your hands it's 5 Z motion passes for uh 2011 uh so we will be go ahead motion approve the balance c01 and. okay so we have a first from uh trusty minam we have a second from um trusty Corina loera do I have any public comment on item 401 uh no public comment do I have any truste comment on the entirety of the consent calendar seeing none let's take a vote all in favor of

075the entire consent Calendar please raise your hand uh so it's a five to zero vote um motion passes for the for the action of an incent calendar okay so we right now it's 6:39 and um I'm GNA give um uh yes can you on here so is kind of throwing me off so uh is uh 5.01 so announcement and public comments regarding items to be discussed in closed session uh any public comment Miss Sandra there we go good evening board I was just coming because in public comment I mean in close session I see that there is a new job description and a new position being offered in the district and area just has a few questions about that because of the fact that back in March of 24 we had a board resolution to

076have a hiring freeze here in the district and I understand that that hiring freeze went along with a number that said how many administrators we can and cannot have but right now our district is going through turmoil and everybody is on edge about whether or not their school's going to be closing their teachers are going to be here Etc you have not offered the teachers a raise which 1% is about 500,000 but we're going to be hiring a chief director which is a cabinet level position in your codes uh object code 55900 for the 2425 budget which is Communications it's over 21% increase in this year's budget from last year's budget and that's not going to include which is a $46,000 difference with a budget that's already $258,000 but that's not going to include this

077new person's salary have we thought outside the box and thought about off asking the County Office of Ed if there's somebody that they could lend us during this time of Crisis to see that if we can get this to go through before we show the community that we're going to offer a$2 to $300,000 a year position to one one person when you're not offering your teachers 1% for them to stay and are going to close nine schools thank you any more uh public comment seeing none uh right now it's 6:42 we will be back in an hour and a half is that enough time you guys feel you want an hour an hour okay so let's just say we'll be back at 8 okay if we're early we're early no on the way over there

078and he's also done the but also in the commun with thousands of people on the mic done a great job so I asked to invite you next month hopefully they're all available you give me the information so okay right thanks e e e here usually it's freezy no but it's good the [Music] back from po session at 7:58 and um Mr Sera can you please report out what have uh the decisions that were made in close session uh yes the uh Board of Trustees took action on the board director position with an approval of 5 to Z Bond director Bond director I'm sorry the bonds director took uh voted 5 Z for approval of the position so moving on to 301 um approve the job description of Chief director of community engagement um move to

079approve okay I have a motion from truste Corina loera second I have a second from trustee Andrea Flores Shelton um any any public comment on 301 see none um gonna go for the vote can I just introduce the item just give a little bit more context so so you have more information and you know the reason this is a position I just want to give a little context on uh uh the district does have a public relations and Community Development officer job description that was appr last approved in 2006 and so this position is now being updated uh to also fit the needs of our current situation uh you know we're we're going through the consolidation of schools process and closure of schools and so we do have a bond and it is going to

080take uh uh we need to improve the way we're communicating instead of Contracting out we are spending more than $200,000 in contracts in working on our Communications uh uh Outreach to the community to to to the schools and so we need to improve that and so what I'm recommending is that we approve a position and I do want to make a correction to the uh position uh job description uh the title instead of Chief director of community engagement what I want to change it to is chief of communications and Community engagement and what this position is going to do is it it's actually and I've visited almost all the sites um I need about four more school sites to go uh I've held uh Town Hall meetings I'm meeting with parents and a lot of

081the feedback that I'm getting is where are we with the communication where are we with the updates we're not getting the information that we're getting I had a a principal meeting today uh as well as the one-on ones and the the um the the one of the the feed or some of the feedback that I'm getting from them is that we're not get they're Notting getting the communication but they're also not getting the exposure that they need uh to promote some of their wonderful programs there are so many wonderful things happening in this district and we're not putting ourselves out there we're waiting for the Mercury or the spotlight to put information out that's not in our favor and so we're working on bringing in a position that will be working with the with us

082here in house to promote to also work through the consolid of schools process because if we're going to have vacant um uh schools or or property we need to inform our community uh we need to inform our our parents we need to inform uh our our faculty and staff parents about where we're at with the process so that they're consistently getting this information and so I believe that this position uh will do that and just one more I gotta ask you one question then you could follow up please um m superintendent said that earlier this year the board approved a resolution imposing a hiring fees uh if the board approves this job description and position would it still be allowed by the resolution if so and why and can you also answer how would it

083be funded yes uh and and it would go ahead sorry you after you and then him oh okay uh yes we are within the resolution and the freeze because uh the freeze actually or the resolution actually stated that we could not exceed in administrative supervisory positions 48 of those positions and in classified it would not exceed more than 49 this would keep us within the 49 and so but the other thing is it would also as far as like the funding this this position would not be funded 100% out of general fund it would be funded 50% from the bond and also 50% uh from general fund so it actually and there's also a salary savings because this position uh would begin as soon as we bring the person on board or when the person

084would begin which is not you're saving from July all the way to November there's a salary savings there as well trusty minan you know and thank you superintendent Serta for you know uh you know in the interest of public transparency uh what type of uh bonds related work would this position do correct and and and a lot of the work that's going to have to take place is well one we're going to have we're going to need a lot of communication on the school closure uh but also we're going we're going to have to utilize some of our F uh Bond monies or funds to now fix improve paint work on repairing some of the plumbing there's just so many issues going on with the sites that would remain open and so we would be

085utilizing those funds and so this position would work in tandem with with with you know with a bonds facility uh or bonds Chief bonds Department to ensure that we are communicating that we're putting this information out there and updating the community uh in our efforts to do so and improving our our facilities thank you and Madam president I may end with a comment uh you know part of this is you know I authored that resolution to uh cap the number of Administrators and this District given the given the situation as it occurred in March and you know uh as much as uh you know usually I am not a fan of expanding positions but my rationale on this one is that uh we do have we this District does have some Communications needs uh and

086I have one eye towards the future in in hopes that uh as as after we move through through the storm the hope is that in the recovery process we have the communications uh a good Communications person who can help us promote the district you know and the only you know my request to to to you Mr Serta you know later on in this school year is that uh you know as the board approves this position so you have this person under the team uh my request is to uh you know look for ways and present uh you know uh where else we can save in district office administration thank you we'll do trust vice president K yeah um given the circumstances that we're going through every Everything tells me don't don't support this uh further

087expansion just doesn't make any sense however um I think Alam rock is the world's best kept secret and we have a lot of stuff going on um a lot of amazing things and for a long time and the sad part is that we haven't been able to get it out there properly we at the moment are relying on a staff person whose responsibilities are completely outside of having to inform and they do this U because they're a great employee and they and they they do it um however it shouldn't be that way and so I think that if we're going to compete in in this hyper competitive education environment that's been created where we have competing with privately privately operated publicly funded schools um we're competing with our neighbors that are now uh reaching out

088directly to our kids in alen rock sending out flyers to get them to go to their dual immersion programs uh on the other side of the boundaries that they it's whether it's to the west of us or to the south of us they give it to the North uh they're sending in Flyers into our district and so with that being said I I completely understand that this looks awkward we're in the face of having to consolidate but if we're to turn this ship around we can't continue to do what we've been doing and then just expecting people to by chance find Alam Rock we need to proactively step it up and uh do so through good Communications and so um I I'll be supportive of this item because of that but I'm have every expectation

089that um the comments were very real that we are are uh expending a lot and so uh I expect to be brought back uh a plan that uh does some uh cuts to get us back into um to right sizee our our our budget situation so those are my comments trusty is next thank you um I know that we've been trying to get a Communications person or you know somebody focusing on that um for a while and um first of all I want to thank the staff that kind of have taken on these roles has been extra and they've been doing you know a great job considering um but we're definitely not at the point where we should be um and you know we definitely get to be leading the narrative about our story and

090who we are um so I'm excited that we're going to be finally be able to do that um and also moving forward um I know it's going to help bring folks um and keep families here uh you know when you don't know what's happen you don't know what you don't know so now that you know we're going to know we're going to get the stories as you know trustees we we hear we see everything that happens but unfortunately our community doesn't always get to see that so I'm excited to see um how how we're going to improve so much more somebody focused um and making sure that not just the communications piece but also that community engag engagement which for me is also a priority in making sure that our community feels a part of

091our district um and that you know they also have a voice here so I'm just excited to bring them on thank you okay um that's so in business the strategy is always you have to be advertising advertising advertising advertising because you want new clients so this is a uh easy for me because um you have to be growing because if you're not growing and others are uh taking uh your resources away um then what's going to happen uh what's going to happen is what's been happening so what we have to do is strategically put things in place not only is this position going to support the superintendent which he needs support because he can't be everywhere at all times um he stretched very thin and this is a way of supporting each school because this

092this person will be overseeing the community liaison so um I think it's a good move I think it's will bring in um a lot more benefits and the fact that we can do it right now at half the price because the bond money we can use that right now and and um think of the budget the whole time we're doing it we do need somebody there at the schools um just board members and trust trust going and the superintendent going that's great but we can't be there all the time this person will be there and he will focus on what the schools need and more importantly how to service the children better so to me this is for the children this is not just for a position for one person this is to strengthen the

093unity and the communication that we so desperately needed because if we're not telling people for who we are others are going to do the job for us so I guess I will now take the vote um when we are in close session we'll take the vote because we have to go this is the position to create the position so we're going to take the vote for the creation of the position all in favor of approving 301 job description of Chief director of community Chief Communications and chief excuse me this got changed at the last chief of communication and Community engagement what Mr s said all in favor raise your hand so it's 5 Z it passes unanimously so we will now be going back to close session at 511 we should be back excuse me

094I think I need a new pair of cheaters okay be we'll be coming back in 10 minutes so everybody can go home before 8:30 thank you e e e uh and Mr superintendent can you please report out okay uh yes the Board of Trustees I'll wait for you s uh the Board of Trustees uh voted in close session to approve the position of chief of communications and Community engagement with a vote of five to zero thank you yes 14 you want to say the do I have the name oh yes the person is Serio Travis uh Diaz Luna sorry what it's Sergio Diaz Luna so we'll see you back here in [Music] November I don't have the date on it but in November thank you very much good night thank you