Board Meeting

001ship of these lands go ahead and proceed to the Pledge of Allegiance please [Music] all right moving on to item 1.02 is there any discussion and or modification of the agenda the airport colleagues interested in I'll go ahead and note that item 8.04 is being pulled by staff so that item is no longer the agenda or will not be heard is there any other items that you wish to move if we're comfortable with the way it is do I have a motion to adopt the agenda with that as uh second I have a motion by board by further five seconds um is there any public comment related to this particular item on the agenda uh in particular hello Mr World president uh we do have uh one attendee uh two now waiting to make public

002comment the first one uh excuse me if I mispronounce your name A-frame [Music] uh you have two minutes please submit yourself when you begin speaking the timer will begin hello members of the board uh I'm I was just following the directions on the email that was sent to me I thought I was supposed to just log in and raise my hand I was just kind of waiting for the um open Forum so I don't have anything to add to this issue I'm sorry for raising my hand uh we'll uh thank you for for your question we'll get to uh public comment at item 2.01 awesome thank you sir Mr board president at this time we have no more requests for public comment okay all right uh we'll go ahead and uh proceed with the vote

003um I'll go ahead and call you as I see you um board vice president aye report aye uh board member aye and with the board uh member Chavez has not been here motion passes four one uh four um uh four four in favor and uh one absent okay all right um we went out to item 1.03's welcome explanation to the audience you all can read uh the language here um we have an explanation from uh Spanish language interpreter um was there an explanation in English or it was not dessert no okay so we need the explanation okay uh yes uh it's Carlos are you able to help us with the explanation for translation services thank you all right thank you for that explanation program we went on to item 2.01 at this point we'll go

004ahead and accept members of the public who wish to address the boards on matters not on the agenda but that are uh the purview or germane to the work that's being done here at Alum Rock School District so at this point I'll go ahead and accept all the comment uh public speakers are limited to two minutes to maximum two minutes per speaker it's Mr bro prisoner we have two speakers uh Mr Ephraim you have two minutes please submit yourself when you begin speaking the timer will begin uh good evening members of the board thank you for the time I am asking to I'm asking the district to consider dropping the mask mandate due to the new Public Health orders and the ineffectiveness I I believe the health order is always related to higher risk settings

005which relate to Skilled nursing facilities Healthcare delivery facilities jails and other congregate shelters but not schools I reached out to Dr Barr who was kind enough to provide clarification and some reasons why they continue to go with the ordinance but the graph that she provided clearly states that the data does not necessarily mean that one area is less or more safe than the other and also it says that there's other instances that a high number of tests could also affect the numbers the fact that it's located next to long term Hair Care long-term care facilities also negate the count too so I'm just I'm just I I was kind of asking you guys to drop this because you guys really don't have enough facts to back it she also said that you guys are experiencing

006a 10 rate of absenteeism a higher rate than normal pandemics uh than the pandemic but I would like to point out that you guys are experiencing a high rate of cases while wearing the map so I think it's it's one could argue that the masks aren't doing anything and that's case in point because the CDC recommends the KN 95 mask and not the clock mask um unfortunately the Santa Clara County Office of Education called me right when this meeting started so I didn't get a chance to speak to him and get their follow-up but I'm just asking you guys to drop the orders because the county orders don't Supply it uh support it the state orders don't Supply it the numbers that you are providing as justification clearly state that these data do not necessarily

007mean that one ZIP code or neighborhood is more or less safer than the other so I I recommend that this school drop it because it is inhibiting the children's ability to learn we are in an area where their English is a sacred language or in my case when my daughter's trying to learn Spanish and you guys are and you're making it hard with the communication barrier thank you for your comments our next speaker is Richard Tran Mr Tran you have two minutes please send me yourself when you begin speaking the timer will begin good evening Dr Bauer members of the board and members of the community uh my name is Richard Tran I am the general manager for working together's bare air region uh proudly supporting Alum Rock students and families um we've seen the

008power of after school really change kids lives not only by providing them a safe safe place to go after school but supporting them in their Journey towards College and Career this October we will once again shine a light on after school programs with our lights on after school celebration uh this upcoming Thursday October 20th will be inviting families and districts and school leaders to join us in one of two ways at McCollum Elementary we're hosting a Baptist showcase we're from four to six where the students will be putting on a performance that they've been practicing with and showcasing some of the fun arts and crafts that they've been working on this year option two is by tuning in to our virtual celebration we'll where uh we'll be joined by Miguel Cardona our U.S Secretary of

009Education um and that again will be this Thursday the 20th as well from three to 4 P.M um and and this year we're really focusing on highlighting our incredible staff who are working with our students every day helping them with homework guiding them through our enrichment and being there for them as mentors most of these staff members are from San Jose they've attended Alum Rock schools themselves and are here back giving back to their Community um so especially in today's work environment where so many people get to work just in front of a screen at home um you know our staff are out there showing up every day for our students and the Alamo community so um I will be sending an email with um details to Sandra Garcia director of federal programs to so

010graciously supports our partnership and programs and we hope to see you there thank you everyone thank you for your comments our next speaker is Janet Mista and that you have two minutes please send me yourself when you begin speaking the timer will begin aren't uh calling on you once twice speaker is Janet correct what's that correct yes that's correct president all right at this point then we'll go ahead and move forward our next speaker is Adrian Bain Miss Bain you have two minutes please send me yourself when you begin speaking the timer will begin all right hello can you hear me thank you um hello my name is Adrian vane and I am a teacher at Joseph George middle school and I would actually like you to keep the mask policy um I have Crohn's

011disease which is I'm immunocompromised and I have been completely vaccinated yet I've gotten covid twice and I am scared that if we take off the mass I'm going to be sick again and continue to get sick and I am losing time with my kids I was out for two weeks both times and I'm hoping that you will also maybe create a policy where I can get my sick leave back because I'm trying to be here at school I'm trying to be here for my kids but if I get sick I can't be here for my kids and me not being there for my students hinders learning more than wearing masks and I feel a lot safer the kids they don't have that much of a problem with it it's not that big of a deal

012it makes us feel safer we all feel safer please please keep the mouse policy because I don't want to keep on have to keep on taking two weeks off when I get coveted I think it's a lot less of a chance for me to get covered when students are married wearing masks than without and the reason I've got coded the last time was my AC went off and so the kids couldn't wear their masks that's how I got covered last time thank you Miss vane our next speaker is Janet Mista Janet you have two minutes please submit yourself when you begin speaking the timer will begin hi good evening sorry I was having microphone issues um I actually wanted to talk about the mask issue as well as an equity issue and I urge you

013guys to revisit this policy there are other school districts nearby even in 95127 Mount Pleasant elementary school district that are not requiring masks that students can still choose to wear them or they cannot some students you know health issues breathing issues or if they're learning languages masks are a deterrent and there's also um so I think it's an equity issue if you have nearby school districts that aren't masking and you're forcing this school district to mask when they're nearby based on the numbers from Santa Clara County covid case rate the whole county is under 200 and the CDC has even identified Santa Clara County as a low-risk community I understand that people you know get sick and that's not you know my my thought as a parent I'm looking out for my child who does

014complain about having to wear a mask indoors six hours a day that she gets a brief moment outside when they have recess or lunch but for her trying to be in class having people hear her the mask inhibits that she yawns the teachers are getting upset with them because they're they're constantly tugging out their masks and to me that's not really effective that a true um masking mitigation effort would be an n95 and that's not what kids are wearing half the time when I go to the school the kids aren't wearing their masks correctly and I just urge you guys to look at this as an equity issue that students at this school district same 95127 as Mount Pleasant have stricter rules and there's no real clear um kind of metrics to look at when

015the masking mandates were you know when you guys would remove the mask requirements so I'm that's what I wanted to input thank you for your comments our next speaker is Ms Delaware missed otherwise you have two minutes please send me yourself when you begin speaking the timer will begin hello um yes I would like to ask if we could consider keeping the mass policy because we no longer have testing at school and we are not able to notify families as we were doing before about the potential risks for students so I feel like masks are are one and only safety measure that we have left right now um and even though cases are currently down we all know that during winter months the potential for covid Rises and also the flu is also something that

016is at as a big risk during the winter time so considering to keep mass is not just about covid but also about flu and making sure that our students um are safe and our staff are safe and with all of our vacations coming up and people traveling I think attendance has become an issue for both staff and students this year and with lack of Subs the risk of anyone getting sick students or staff it becomes more um for us to kind of think about the availability of subs and for our students to not fall more behind on work so if you could please consider keeping the mask policy I think that would benefit both students and staff thank you for listening thank you for your comments our next speaker is Veronica tallative Miss Sultan you

017have two minutes please send me yourself when you begin speaking the timer will begin good evening Board of Trustees superintendent Bauer Alum Rock community members and staff I'm Veronica Talton I'm speaking tonight as an individual and I'm a proud member of the Alum Rock Union School District at Lindell Elementary and Joseph George Middle School I would like to reiterate um the importance of masking as my colleagues have mentioned this evening I also would like to address what a parent mentioned about Equity as a leader who has worked in equity both in my Teachers Association as well as in my community Equity is everyone getting what they need to succeed what they need to survive and I'm very thankful that Dr Hilaria Bauer has taken into consideration what the pre-k through eight students need in Alum

018Rock yes we have surrounding districts that may have different policies but Alum Rock Union School District is doing what it needs for our students to survive for our staff to survive students are able to wear the facial mask they're able to wear n95s but we also want to make sure our students have the funding for things as well and I do want to take this opportunity in my final seconds to urge everyone to please support the Arts Alum Rock Union schools has Arts but we want all of them Mariachi fire piano ukulele to get the sufficient funding that it needs and prop 28 supports funding for all arts school in schools in California without raising taxes kids in the Arts are five times less likely to drop out of school four times more likely to

019be recognized for academic achievement and 30 percent more inclined to perform to pursue a professional career the Arts matter and we are thankful for our superintendent who allows masks in our schools thank you very much thank you for your comments Miss Talton Mr board president at this time uh we have no more news speakers all right uh moving on to item 3.01 the Alum Rock administrative Association do we have somebody here to speak on behalf of Ara um all right foreign okay thank you all right if uh if they do show up shortly then we'll go ahead and call them out of order uh next do we have anybody from Teamsters I'm 302 I think since we're not going to be able to make it okay all right um CSH uh Sharon are you here

020and Sharon have a little procedure so she excuse herself she sends her greetings to the board all right I see Jocelyn's here so area uh Europe 3.04 thank you good evening Board of Trustees and superintendent Bauer I finally started my in-person visits to each of the sites this week I've only had the chance to visit one so far but um hopefully I'll get to all the rest of them within the next few weeks it's the first time in three years that I've been able to do this in person and I'm so grateful that we have the mask mandate for indoors and that it's still in place because it's really good to be back in the school environment and without the masks I did not feel safe if Alum Rock wasn't requiring masks indoors my visits

021would still be limited to zoom there's just some things that you cannot see or feel when meeting through Zoom it's a different experience out of curiosity this week the area organizing team sent out a survey to our members asking how they felt about the mask mandate indoors at school it was not surprising to see that a great majority of the teachers are very supportive of the Mask mandate in Alum Rock and would like it to continue particularly since we are going into the cooler months ahead when we are spending more time inside and obviously there's more more viruses going around in the winter months another thing that was brought to my attention as I drove over to Shepherd on Tuesday aside from The Dumping Ground across the street from the school where I saw a

022refrigerator laying on its side and other major appliances laying around I noticed that there is absolutely no fence around the school site to keep trespassers off there is a fence around the outdoor field but not around the classrooms and the buildings on the site it was actually surprising since Shepherd campus Shepard shares a campus with painter and last week when I tried to get onto painter's campus I had to take a route through the shepherd cafeteria and then be guided on painters site by another teacher because of the fencing and the locked Gates all around it in fact I couldn't even figure out how to get to the painter office but that you know that was my problem that I eventually managed but my point being is that it definitely feels like a safety issue

023at Shepherd Middle School particularly in light of the terrifying events that are taking place around the country there um I understand that there is an expense involved however our student safety is worth well more than the cost of offense so if that's something that can be dealt with soon I think that um it would be well worth any money that it costs I would also like to address another issue of liability that has been brought to my attention it's not a new problem but in my opinion it's a critical one that wasn't on my radar until recently as we are all aware Alum Rock has an award-winning phenomenal and highly sought after music program that has maintained its respected reputation throughout the years it draws attendance to our school district and deservedly so obviously it

024doesn't happen without the dedicated students parents and teachers putting in the hours of rehearsals both during and outside of school hours however what I recently found out is disturbing on several levels our students practice at one School site several times a week after school which requires many of them to find transportation from their homeschool site to where their rehearsal is about half of our students do not have a parent that can transport them so it has been left up to the teachers to give them rides in their own personal cars to rehearsal and then back home several days per week because the district does not provide transportation for them this was literally shocking to me not only that it is allowed by the district but that it is even expected this issue is not just

025limited to rehearsals but includes performances where the district is asking for their participation that's just wrong it's wrong to expect teachers to assume the safety liability that comes with transporting students in their own cars not only is this a safety issue but it also opens the door to false allegations against our our accusations against our area members again we live in different times and it's more important now than ever that we do not place our members in precarious situations if the district is going to boast about its incredible music department it needs to provide adequate ongoing support beginning with providing basic transportation of course there's a price to it but that cost should be borne by the district and not by the individual teachers if it is a program sustained by the district obviously there

026is a cost associated with doing so please deal with this Transportation problem as soon as possible because I know that there are dates coming up where the district wants the music department Department to perform do not count on or expect area members to provide that transportation lastly the School Board elections are less than a month away area has exercised its process to vet and endorse candidates who we feel would be the most effective in making decisions on behalf of this District to meet the needs of all students of all of everyone of all students parents District staff and teachers both on our local school board and at the Santa Clara County Office of Education Board District Six the voters in this community should have already received at least one mailer listing the candidates that the

027teachers in Alum Rock are endorsing it is gener a generally accepted notion that the community trusts teachers teachers want what is best for educating our students and that includes wanting the best school board members to make decisions affecting our students so please follow the lead of the teachers of Alum Rock and vote for the candidates that we have endorsed and most importantly just remember to vote thank you all right um we're downtown 3.05 uh superintendent do you have any comments yes uh for members and Community I'm very happy to remind everybody that we have parent University coming up on October 29th it's we're looking forward to that um we haven't had the fall parent University for three years so this is going to be coming back um we're very excited and for um Everybody we're

028also going to have a mini student camp for children so that when parents are attending their conferences the students are going to be the kids are going to have their own little mini camp in painter parent University is going to be hosted in Shepherd Middle School and um the student the children Camp is going to be hosted in painter and Elementary with um care even for the littlest of children um three and up and um our partner kidango is going to be providing activities appropriate for the little ones in preschool so I hope everybody um joined us in Shepherd Middle School on Saturday October 29th for parent University thank you all right uh comments for members of the board well first of all uh thank you Mr President uh we have very event a very

029eventful month I want to thank again our staff uh for putting on back to District night at San Antonio the first in since the pandemic it was great to see everyone out there and to see our kids perform and to see us uh connecting with each other again I wanted to also congratulate the our kids at painter on a job well done at the Moon Festival at Yerba Buena High School it is our return performance and we were able to put on an even bigger bigger performance for the community uh you know it goes to show uh our Vietnamese immersion dual language program from his grown a lot in its second year and I'm so very excited to see that we are offering a a program that is attracting Vietnamese families to to Allen Roth

030district from uh across the city I also wanted to note that I had the the pleasure of visiting 10 of our schools uh Meyer Renaissance at Fisher um how was it the the Visual and Performing Arts cluster of Linda Vista Lindale Puritan Joseph George middle and uh our northern part of the district McCollum and they call them painter uh Shepherd and Russo mcentee wonderful things are going are going on in our district our kids are doing things we're planting gardens and I had I had fun taking questions from third graders uh you could say kitty version You Meet the Press um you know uh see seeing the band the practice at Joseph George middle seeing our uh you know our shape our newly installed shade structures uh wonderful things are going on in Alum Rock

031and we hope that you know uh when the time comes you you know Alan Walker so uh Pro and trust their kids to our schools and uh before I can you know in you know in concluding I also wanted to note yes this is this is our last regular board meeting prior to uh prior to the election and I know and you know maybe my colleagues know that we we are about to face our own final exams here so uh you know I I too would like to encourage all all of our community members to make their voice heard and to come out and vote and to wish all my colleagues who who are who are facing our final exams including myself uh the best of luck so on that note thank you very much

032Mr President uh anyone else uh so also um with uh for trustee here um vice president Memphis uh was great to be out there with him and uh president Andres Quintero at the back school night and San Antonio um it was wonderful to see our students from Adelante Folklorico um smiling and dancing and being in community as well as all the families and parents that were there and then also our students from a Vietnamese dual immersion program um I was able to see them at both the Moon Festival and they're just excited to perform and seeing um so it was great to be there thank you to everybody who was able to be there and all the staff that coordinated um the food the activities the resources that were there to support our community um

033and also just wanted to give a shout out to my daughter who's in opening night tonight and Macario a play in our community at the Mexican heritage Plaza school of arts and culture um a beautiful story based out of um the Mexican culture I invite everybody to go out there we'll be playing this weekend Thursday through Sunday and the following weekend um yes go check it out also I want to remind folks to vote uh if you have the ability to vote please vote to be received our ballots it's as easy as grabbing it and you know circling the little uh Circle that you know you want to vote for whoever it is that is your choice and that's the beauty of being um a citizen here and being able to vote you know some

034of us get to vote on behalf of those that couldn't um those that came before us that only dreamed of doing that um so please exercise your your right to vote um you should have received your ballot in the mail you can just fill it out and put it right back on your um your box there and um have it picked up from your own home you don't even have to leave and or go to one of the sites um in the community to vote so please vote um you have from now till November 8th um again whoever you vote for and whatever you vote for just please exercise your right to vote thank you four more Choice uh I want to just say that um excuse me my kindness I was at an event

035right now and I actually was finding out about some of the things that they're doing to support our community and um I found out here that on the key and capital at the key in Capitol square there's the Santa Clara Health Plan and they're celebrating 25 years uh it's gonna be on October 22nd from 10 a.m to 3 and um Blanca Alvarado 408 North Capitol Avenue San Jose I hope that you guys can attend um and also um I was at the October 8th Saturday thank you America Day event I thought it was wonderful it's the Vietnamese Community saying thank you to America for everything that they've done for the Vietnamese community and I can't when I went I couldn't believe how patriotic that they were towards America and when they come here they come

036with the mindset that they're going to be here and prosper and they do really well with their children and educating them and I just want to give a shout out to them and thank you for inviting everybody very pleasurable event and they had music and all different languages Spanish English Vietnamese and um they also wanted to invite everybody to the weird Museum and I hadn't been I've only been to the county park with my kids when they were younger but I'm going to make it a point to go there again and visit them when they're not as busy as they were that day and I want to thank you again Sam Ho and everybody involved with inviting everybody and having such a wonderful event and they said Don't expect any Perfection on the invite but

037to me I think they didn't have to put the disclaimer because it was thank you uh whenever you have your hand up did you is there any technical issues uh yes I wanted to say that trustee Chavez can put her mic close closer to her um because I can't really I couldn't really make out what she was saying and I don't think the interpreters could either so you can do that please all right thank you for the heads up on that for the comments all right there's hope for the comments and I'll go ahead and wrap up with my comments um very appreciative of all the work that went into the back to school night it was very fun to go back to my old stomping ground San Antonio elementary obviously a different different building

038but same same location and uh it was a great event uh glad to see everybody out there having fun and interacting and putting this and God willing to put in this pandemic behind us it was uh great to go to the to see our kids for feature at the Moon Festival my colleagues have already mentioned it and it was there's a lot of energy a lot of excitement really really fun and I encourage everybody to go it's it was a blast they have lots of booths and different things that are going on Beyond just the the entertainment is taking place it's all around great event encourage all of you having the opportunity to go um and uh yeah parent University looking forward to it it's always uh very very exciting to see people as an

039educator who's in the classroom who uh um you know interacts with students it's always great to see our our parents go back to the classroom and get to see uh how it is just be reminded of what their kids are doing uh every day when they come to school which is learning and the information that's provided is always very uh welcome at least as a parent myself I've I've seen a very very work very like great presentations with good information that's uh given to the parents to empower them and help them be the best advocates for their children at our school sites and ensure that they are able to get the most out of the spoon that they're going through so I'm looking forward to that all right there's no further comments and I'm going

040to go ahead and jump over to 4.01 uh discussion consideration approved resolution number 18-22 tour slash 23. uh do I have a motion on this item motion um all right there's a motion on the item itself but yeah hold on give me a quick second all right so um yeah let me go ahead and call public companies Mr board president at this time we have no request for public comment all right all right uh so there was a motion uh is there a second on that one all right there's a motion in a second um and there's no public comments so um I'm gonna go ahead and call you to see you um all those in favor oh no I guess or vice president Trump aye Ford uh clerk aye Ward a member aye or

041rumor Chavez aye all right well myself we're not in motion passes so at Five Point uh board president just to be clear what we just passed in is the ability to authorize remote meetings for the next month yeah we give ourselves the opportunity to do that if necessary we can move in that direction okay yeah that way if something pops up we can't come in person we always have that um in the back of our pocket to make sure that we can okay thank you Mr President to clarify you know but uh barring any any other you know events uh you know the resolution the state that the war and the superintendent in common necessary staff shop meet in person so all right so that aligns with the comments that I've made that this is

042a it's uh we have it all right that way we don't have to go call everybody approve a resolution in special meetings I also wanted to uh make a comment if I could on that item I don't think we had time all right go for it I just wanted to um you know I mentioned at the last meeting that I was going to go home and take a look at the YouTube uh feed or other YouTube uh presentation just to make sure and to verify that the um the audio and everything was up to par and and I was based on what I had heard from people and and what I thought it it was so I think I at this time I just really want to um give our team here that's been working

043hard to get this set up for us um the some accolades I think you know it's it's not an easy thing with the resources that we have and the kind of hybrid situation that we have also to set this up in such a way that um you know it provides for a fairly smooth process so I think our team has done everything they can my personal opinion I think it's a diminished experience for the public visually but that's just the limitations of what we have right now um but the audio works well and I think in terms of communicating the content of Any Given agenda that um it works well so I just again really want to thank our team for for taking the time taking the effort to put this all together and and

044have it run smoothly to the best of their ability so so thank you staff for all your hard work here here thank you to our Tech folks and our put in the work to make this happen um all right item 5.01 approval resolution number 18-223 to establish the parcel tax oversight committee and bylaws uh do I have a motion on that I don't know there's a motion Bible verses if I'm second by board member Chavez do you have public comment on this item Mr board President we have no requests for public comment all right uh there's no further comments from my colleagues I'll go ahead and um all right go for it thank you Mr President well uh you know give me a quick second um do you have your hand up is there any

045other technique well I just he found my we couldn't hear him really well okay put the mic closer please take care of me now yeah we can hear you now no I just wanted to say you know uh you know this is a you know we are I don't you know Alum Rock is uh what is it that for less than their term uh you know the community the Alum Rock Community has uh you know shown its continued faith in our district by approving measure I and this is our you know this is our commitment to uh maintaining that trust we are you know uh we promised uh transparency in regards to the parcel tax and uh this this oversight committee is a uh commitment uh a symbol and also tangible action of this District's

046commitment to uh transparency with our parcel tax here you know making sure that you know uh your your hard-earned tax dollars are going to be education of our children and this committee is uh going to be there to you know oversee it and make sure that we're living up to our to the commitments that we promised to this community so uh you know I urge my colleagues to to to approve and uh you know uh into the future appointees I wish wish them all the best as uh as they you know eventually take up their positions on this committee all right this is no further comments from my colleagues and I'll go ahead and I'll call for the vote as I see you uh board member aye board Clerk of Alora aye board arrest president

047Trump aye board uh member Chavez aye myself when I have the motion process all right moving on to item 6.01 an approval of resolution number 16-122-23 the national family literacy month promotion uh motion bar board member Chavez second by board uh vice president fam uh is there any public comments at this time no requests for public comment on this side of Mr World president all right if there's no further comments from my colleagues which I don't see you then I'll go ahead and call you as I see you uh board board member about I don't know aye aye or vice president aye board member Chavez hi motion passed unanimously out of 6.02 the approval consulate approved consolidation application and Reporting System cars yeah and you can see the dates there there's a motion by boardroom

048Chavez there's a second by War vice president from uh is there any public comments this time no request for public comment on the side of Miss World president all right uh so further comments from my colleague then I'll go ahead and call for the vote as I see you board member aye aye report vice president aye board member Chavez aye myself for another motion passed unanimously all right uh item 6.03 do I have public confidence item no request for public comment on this item Mr World president all right uh this is a presentation as for information only do we have a presentation all right Dr Amazon uh the floor is yours foreign good evening and thank you board president Quintero and uh good evening Dr Bauer Board of Trustees and our Alum Rock Community my

049name is Dr Amy Amazon and and I am the director of the social and emotional learning department and my colleague Dr Anja artigas who is the coordinator of mental wellness support services is joining me tonight to present to you the learning communities for school Success program and the annual report for the school year 20 2022. and let me bring that up foreign okay is everyone able to see the screen thank you okay um tonight we'd like to um to give a little bit of background of the LC SSP Grant which I will refer to from here on out which is uh the learning communities for school Success program and the annual progress report and we'd like to share some data uh with you exciting data that we'd like to to share uh and our next

050steps so the background of the grant the lcssp grant provides funds to local education agencies to support programs at improving student outcomes by reducing truancy and supporting students who are at risk of dropping out of school or are victims of crime and so the lcssp is the result of proposition 47 which reduced the penalties for certain non-serious non-violent offenses and allocated 25 percent of the resulting Statewide savings for Lea grants and for the Alum Rock Union School District we were awarded um uh 1.1 million uh plus over the three years that you see there and as mentioned earlier tonight we are reporting on year two um of the grant and uh our annual progress report includes many of the grant activities that you see here on your screen and last year was the first full

051year of the SEL Department in operation and in collaboration with state and federal and our business office our district was able to add nine additional elementary school counselors and through our our department and under this grant many other activities included parent workshops on the castle framework which is uh the social emotional learning competencies that um our schools are are providing implementation and education around we were also in collaboration with the Santa Clara County Office of Ed to bring a Wellness Center at aptitude Academy at Goss and we're really excited about that and we also partnered with Aaliyah to bring trauma-informed practices and well-being groups as part of our professional development and last year our counselors we're using a Data Tracking tool under node counselor for the very first time which captured their work and we

052will be sharing that data in just a minute and we also had ongoing implementation of our scl uh curriculum which is komochi's at the elementary school and we were able to complete professional development for the following departments that you see there around social emotional learning and uh with the adults um as well and uh we also took on monthly counselor professional Learning Community facilitations for the very first time and then we also responded to multiple crises uh and and we responded and supported schools with those as well as expanding our Partnerships which again we will highlight that in our data section of our presentation in terms of our budget expenditures under this particular Grant um we have these areas that we use the funding for in terms of Staff salary extended Duty curriculum materials and

053supplies contracts and services with our partners as well as licenses and now I would like to turn it over to Dr artigas Who will share our data with you thank you Dr almazan good evening board president Quintero Dr Bauer Board of Trustees and the Alum Rock Community as Dr almazan shared earlier this was our first year as the SEL department and during the course of the year we were able to accomplish a lot of powerful and wonderful things on behalf of students as well as staff and families and we wanted to be able to share this data with you moving forward we wanted to open first by talking a little bit about a collaborative that we had the fortune to connect with this year um in years past we have done a lot of work

054with the healthier kids Foundation that work has been more focused on hearing and vision tests as well as connection with dental dental health for our students this year however we were able to partner with them to do Wellness checks across our fifth grade class of students in the district and we wanted to go ahead and share some of the data that we were able to collect um go ahead to tell you a little bit about what we were doing this wellness check was being conducted and this was us uh trying to get a snapshot of the last seven days for the students that we were sitting with uh how they were doing in terms of their social emotional Wellness um and so the way that we built it out we partnered with healthier kids foundation

055and they brought screeners as well as uh pediatricians and school counselors partnered uh we partnered with our school counselors and we provided the wellness checks and if there were students that were presenting with any kind of concerns if they presented with a certain uh scoring then we would proceed as the school counselors to do triage and assessment and then connect them back to healthier kids who would work with our SLS supervisors just wanted to give you kind of a snapshot of what it looked like this is not the entire um assessment but this uh just to give you an idea what we were looking for was uh to see how many of our students may have been experiencing symptoms of anxiousness or anxiety or symptoms of depression um and we were looking like I said

056at a seven day snapshot um and these were just some of the questions there was a total of 13 questions 10 of the questions were likert scaled um and the other three questions were uh open open-ended answers quality and this was what we found and so as we began to collect the data um and for the students that were triaging this is what we began to find we found that there was a high percentage of students that were presenting with uh anxiousness or symptoms of uh anxiety we also had a percentage of students that were dealing with various group issues um and then as you can see these were some of the other themes that came up there were a number of themes um But anxiety or anxiousness was the one that that had the

057highest percentage as I said and what we were finding as we were talking with this with the students was there is a variation in their responses uh some of the anxiousness or the anxiety was being caused by family issues basic needs concerns uh particularly around covet impact um and then there were some pure problems and academic work so it was a variation in terms of what we found for the wellness checks through healthier kids Foundation and we had last year we had 910 fifth graders of the 910 we were actually able to conduct the wellness checks for 676 of them so that was about 74 of the population the fifth grade population at that point in time and as I said earlier uh students that were presenting as being borderline or imminent borderline risk or

058imminent risk were the students that we then had went ahead and triaged so of the 676 students that we did assess we found that 39 of those students actually presented as borderline or imminent borderline and then we found that uh 0.03 presented as imminent risk and then we also wanted to share the school counselor as well as the intern data with you so last year we had a total uh attendance of 8 222 students of the eight thousand two hundred and twenty two we served a total of 3 899 students via school counselors as well as school counselor interns that means that we served almost 47 percent of the population uh and the services for them was done uh via individualized uh support Counseling Services small group as well as guidance lessons and then in

059terms of the students that we served 2956 of the 3899 students that were served were under and duplicated with identifiers of English language learner Foster youth beginning vento uh SES and spend and these were our findings in terms of the data as counselors were working with students we were beginning to collect data in terms of what were some of the commonalities or some of the themes that were coming up as students were beginning to get connected and disclose more information and so what we found there was a correlation between the findings for the fifth grade students as as well as the findings we had for the students we served with the counselors and that that correlation or that the commonality was the issues with anxiousness or anxiety um and then the other uh piece that

060came up for us as well was grief and loss grief and loss was also scored a high in terms of the wellness checks so that was another commonality and in terms of the grief and loss what we were finding as we were working with our students was that the grief and loss was happening uh in a variety of ways there was either issues with abandonment deportation incarceration and uh death and death due to covid or other disease and then we just wanted to tell you a little bit about the counselor internship program it's actually been up and running since 2017 um and from 2017 to 2018 uh we had 18 school counselor interns that we brought on board they served 300 students uh with with guidance lessons and 318 students were served via individual counseling

061the first year well the first half of a year and then the second year uh 2018-2019 we had 26 school school counselor interns we did 102 guidance lessons but we served 461 students via individual counseling and this was across Elementary as well as middle school and then 2019 2020 we had 25 school counselor interns 100 students were served via guidance lessons and 329 students were served via individual counseling the numbers would have been higher but um that was when we went into a shutdown and there were some issues with us connecting uh via technology and then 2020 2021 distance learning 19 school counselor interns 96 students were served via guidance lessons and 182 students were served via individual counseling again some of the challenges for us were connected to uh technology um or having students

062get in front of their computers at home as we were trying to work with them and then 2021 2022 we had 13 school counselor interns uh we did 571 guidance lessons and 137 students were served via digital counseling uh this year we are well on our way to finishing training and they should be at the end of October and we hope to serve more students across the grade levels um and bring support and in terms of next steps our work will continue in these various areas that we have mentioned but also you know supporting schools in improving and strengthening their culture and climate as well as you know working with the County Office of Ed uh to bring PBIS which is the positive behavior interventions and supports um piece to our schools and continue the

063professional development and training uh for administrators teachers and staff under scl as well as to maintain and establish more Partnerships this coming year again to help support social emotional learning and mental health and I I just want to say before we close out our presentation that this work would not be possible with you know without all the other departments helping us as well as the work of our school counselors and our school interns that are helping our students and Families you know who who have various needs levels of needs and we just wanted to say you know and uh publicly say our gratitude to each and every one of of them and our district departments uh for helping us get this work um done and uh have our community taken care of so that concludes

064our uh presentation and uh thank you thank you for that excellent position uh we have a very eager board member behind us ready to go yes that's correct um I am very eager about this item and and proud I guess um because I guess to start just for some perspective you know um some of my colleagues mentioned um the upcoming elections and it's you know the four years has has gone by quickly for some of us on the board and and yet it seems to have lasted forever but in that time I I just think back to where our Focus was as a board four years ago um with investigations and Audits and all those types of things that we needed to clean up and that's where our Focus was that's where our energy was

065that's that's where our work was and now here we sit four years later with this you know excellent work that I really don't see um in a lot of other places the focus that we have on the well-being of our students and how we see our students not just as a report card or a test score but as a whole student as part of a whole family as part of a whole community and that's the work that that I think is reflected by this report and it's just I mean I get I get chills just thinking about what as I mentioned where we've come from four years ago to where we are now and where we're putting our focus and energy so first of all thank you to everyone um who's doing this critical necessary

066work here in Alum Rock secondly I just I have a couple questions and I'll ask them at once and you can answer however you choose uh the first question obviously um it you know it stands out in terms of what we're seeing with anxiety anxiousness and I want and I kind of think based on the methodology um this there might not be an answer to this but are we um able to determine or do we have any idea of if we're kind of breaking those two up anxiety you know typically sometimes presenting as either more intense or longer duration or long versus anxiousness temp potentially like temporary I'm feeling so do we have any way or any thoughts about how that is presenting for our students and again given the methodology that we use maybe

067we can't get to that and then the second piece of it is um also given that high percentage that's um showing up with anxiousness anxiety are we with all the programming that we do have and that that has been developed over the past several years are we doing anything to specifically with those Partners to kind of specifically tailor maybe some of their curricula or what they're doing to put a little more emphasis or direction towards that prominent area of anxiousness and anxiety so thank you that that's my comments and my question okay so I'll start with the first question um trust people hit on those so in terms of the anxious and anxiety we were super hesitant to label it as anxiety because what we were seeing in our students was high levels of worry

068high levels of fear um particularly you know I'm gonna reference the healthier kids Foundation Wellness checks uh the questions uh directly on there like I said there was a total of ten they uh asked things like you know in the last seven days have you have you been worried in the last seven days have you been scared and so again we were hesitant to really call it anxiety because it's not that it was diagnosed but they were showing anxious symptoms and there was a high level of worry uh and in terms of what the levels of worry were um the the most constant theme was the wellness and the wellness or well-being of families at home a lot of our students were really concerned about uh what was happening with covid they were worried about

069losing more family members or losing family members uh some of them were contending with issues around family members being hospitalized at that point in time and so a lot of what was representing at that point in time was was built around that piece um and then in terms of what we're doing with Partners to address I know that we've been working with our partners particularly Lee from Alum Rock Counseling Center I know that they have done um some work in our middle schools doing guidance lessons lessons in the middle schools I do know however at least from a School counseling perspective because I can speak to that uh with a lot more knowledge um with our school counselors there's been a lot more work to get into the classrooms and teach kids how to use

070breathing strategies teach kids how to ground themselves there's been a lot of work done with bubbles and feathers and different things to just teach kids mindfulness and how to be present uh and also how to use breathing like I said to help regulate their nervous system so there's been some professional development around that for our counselors we've also been starting to introduce a little bit of strategies from dialectical behavior therapy which also brings in a lot of the mindfulness and grounding so that's how we've been beginning to address it we are working with Partners uh to hopefully build out capacity to do more of this work one-on-one and we're hoping to add more Partners into the space right now we're working to build a contract with Pacific Clinics so that they can come into our

071classrooms and provide more supports as well so that's kind of some of the things that we've been beginning to do to address this a lot of what we've been doing has been training our line staff our school counselors so that they're more prepared to support the levels that are coming in the door okay thank you thank you again both of you and and please also give my regards and our regards to the entire scl team obviously very thorough and intentional work that you're all providing based on the needs so so thank you very much thank you thank you [Music] thank you um I also want to commend uh both of you Dr uh Amazon and Dr artigas I know Dr almazam we've met more recently but I really want to highlight it's interesting because uh

072the other day I called um Dr Bauer and I was like gosh our uh Department you know Dr anmasan and Doctor our biggest are doing so much you know all of our staff are and I think of those things that maybe you know we don't think about when we think of schools you know Fast Math Science those things it's like this is huge and uh Dr artigas I just want to highlight you know I know you and I met each other way before uh you know I thought it would be a trustee way before I was a mother um you know doing the work in the community um and I know that you've been growing at it for over 21 years at least I can count and I have been with you out in the

073community um so I do want to highlight that and honor that um if nothing else at least with my words you know I don't have a fancy award now or anything like that but I have seen you I have a witness to the support the youth the families coming to you trusting you I know it starts there you know and so personally as a mother as well you know of an eighth grader in this uh District I know that personally you've supported us and our family um so thank you thank you for saving lives and uh Dr almasan as well you know for joining the team and doing this work um at this level right uh like uh trustee Gerardo mentioned in these past four years we have grown so much in these past four

074years as a district you know with the leadership of Dr Bauer and your work we've been able to just grow immensely um and so thank you for leading that um and I I also have a question slash maybe more of a comment and thought for the future um I know that it all takes resources right and if we could do it all we would um and I did see that you know we we started with this I would call it like a pulse check you know emotionally uh for with the fifth graders and I'm wondering if there's any way that we can do you know district-wide um and you know and you don't have to answer today but maybe in the future I'd love to maybe hear about some of the thoughts and ideas there

075um yeah and I'm just so excited thank you so much um and you know any way that I can be a support um we're here to do the work together thank you thank you all right thank you Dr yeah guys um I did that there was one percent isolation one percent substance abuse and one percent food into food that's good numbers but um the one percent of students food insecurities one percent to me is two months agreed um but so what is the what I want to ask is what is the follow-up when they say that they have those is can is that Offline that that has to be said or no no not at all not at all so um for the food insecurity that that you're speaking to that was connected to the

076healthier kids Foundation piece um and so what was really brilliant about this collaborative was that when we were working with them in real time the healthier kids Foundation folks were making phone calls to families and getting them connected with resources as well as rerouting them for other needs um that may be more counseling based to our SLS supervisors and so all of this was done in real time we made the phone calls day of after speaking with kids with students um and then our our partners from the healthier kids foundations were making phone calls to the families that same day and getting them connected with services so we were trying to do everything as much as possible in real time um so thank you for answering for asking that question um and then in terms

077of growing it next year we're going to do fifth and sixth grade and we're going to keep working with our partners to expand it hopefully into the higher grades yes well first of all Dr Ortigas and Dr Amazon I want to thank you for your work and also your team for for setting up you know a full-fledged social emotional learning uh Department here but I think I I'd like to take sort of a a going forward type of perspective here and I think it's the uh you know as we make our way out of the pandemic and uh we're still plea uh we're still dealing with the after effects even though we are back into in-person learning uh well and I say this because guidance counseling is my day job actually yeah of course uh

078it takes time it takes effort to unwind uh the effects of uh isolation that we've uh had uh you know uh being the distance learning has put our kids in uh you know I would say more than Cabin Fever it's the law you know for one and a half years it's the loss of uh social skills and also academic skills that are dependent on the interaction between uh student to student and student and teacher and um you know this is you know uh you know this effort is a recognition that uh academics does not exist in isolation alone you know we would like to think that you know math and science and English language arts and history can be can be taught but it can be taught but there's also uh I've always said in

079public that education is a partnership between school and family and um there are a lot of things in children's lives that frankly have to be uh have to be worked upon before a child is ready to to engage and succeed academically and so this is you know a huge commitment for our district to uh to address uh you know not not just those everyday everyday social and emotional issue but also uh you know dealing with the after the the social effects of distance learning as we move forward hopefully is uh what is it the old term Time Heals all wound and so [Music] district is working on and have worked with will will get there we'll get there for our kids so thank you so much for you know both of you and your your

080team for all your uh all your work for on behalf of the keys in our district thank you it truly is a collaboration and um we thank all of you for your support in this and again this work cannot be made possible with everyone uh especially our counselors our teachers and our site leadership so thank you for acknowledging uh the work that everyone's doing for the benefit of our our students yes uh and I'll conclude with my comments I want to thank you all for the work you're doing the All-Star team that you put together uh to carry out this work I know that the information that you've uh provided is essential and I think it brings to life many of the things that we Face here in Alum Rock as a district um and

081so you know similar to some of the comments have been made many people tend to attack attack the district attack their staff attack our children uh because you're not stepping up to the level of somebody on the other side of the ballot well when you take into account all the things that our kids are going through that uh some people because of others because they have access to the wealth that they have or the resources they have aren't having to go through Alone um and they have the support uh I've heard time and time again people from our side of the valley right here in East Temple said trying to get access to therapy access to different resources that somehow are not provided on this site and somehow are all provided west of 87 and

082downtown and the west side of the valley and so those are the things that we need to take into account uh and so I think the information that's been provided uh the work that's being done is essential in order to level the playing field in order to not even level the playing field just acknowledge that the disparities do exist and that we need to meet those needs before we start trying to tell our students you're not achieving at this level um because that's not fair it's not fair heck even at looking at our own uh neighbors to the South and to the north of us the wealth in each of those districts doubles just they're right next door to us you know several by the street and then now when we look at some of

083the most vulnerable uh it's not even just half of the wealth it's probably a quarter uh that they're going off of in order to just try to survive in this Valley in this one of the most expensive cities in the country so thank you for the information and for the work that you're doing to ensure that uh that we we continue to address the needs of some of the most vulnerable in our districts thank you thank you president thank you all right um moving outside of 6.04 we have a public comments item uh Mr board president at this time we have no requests for public comment all right um did we take public comment on the item 6.0 I did right at the very beginning okay motion uh there's a motion by Barbara Chavez is

084our second second by vice president mom uh any further comments from members of the board seeing none then I'll go ahead and call you the CU board member aye Ford clerk aye for board vice president aye board member Chavez aye my sophomore another motion pass unanimously all right 6.05 approval of school sponsor field trip list I'm not sure I'm gonna accept uh president bombs uh motion and uh second by board member Chavez uh do I put the comment inside them no public comment on this side of Mr word president all right is there any public is there any comment from members of the board just one short one I wish all the kids uh uh happy fun and safe field trip all right uh there's no further comments I'll go ahead and call you this

085are your board member but I don't know hi board uh hi board member Chavez aye myself 49 motion pass unanimously uh we have 7.01 do we have comment public comments item foreign president all right these are from information only feel free to review it at your leisure we went on to 8.01 um do I have uh for the comments item no public comment on this item Mr word president the motion by board member of the comments for members of the board see none then I'll go ahead and call you see but remember I don't know aye foreign no public comment on the side of Mr or president all right um second by board member Chavez further comments from members of the board see none then I'll go ahead and call you the CU board by

086board member I don't know hi [Music] quarter vice president aye board member Chavez aye myself wouldn't have the motion paths unanimously moving on to item 8.03 uh do I have public confidence item no public comment on the side of Mr board president second motion by War breast and five second by board member Chavez as further comments from members of the board seeing none I'll call you the C board member man I don't know hi more vice president Trump aye board member Chavez aye what's up 49 motion pass unanimously item 9.01 uh contract extension with Stepping Stones LLC is there any public comment inside them no request for public comment on this item is support president motion to approve second motion by board clerk second by board member Chavez uh it's original further comes and I'll

087go ahead and call you this EU board member I don't know aye aye board vice president Trump aye board member Chavez aye myself 49 motion pass unanimously all right 9.02 is approval contract extension with blazer Works uh do I have any public confidence item no request for public comment on this item Mr word president all right um motion by board member I don't know by board member Chavez um there's no further comments I'll go ahead and call as I see you all right um we'll remember I don't know hi board Clerk of Illinois hi board member Chavez hi what's up 49ers motion class unanimously all right we're on consent calendar is there any items that you want any items Mr President uh are we on item uh 10 yeah uh motion to approve the balance

088of the consent calendar items 10.01 through 07. second all right now I'll go ahead and I saw your hand up right on did you want to pull something yeah 10.05 all right pulling it out of consent and uh will you all accept that to be a motion for the amended uh yes all right so we have a motion to amend the consent calendar to approve the amended consent calendar uh with item 10.05 being pulled I'm going to go ahead and call you either see you more member aye aye report vice president Trump aye uh board member Chavez aye my software not the motion path unanimously all right moving back to item 10.05 this is approval contract for Professional Services and firms moreover you have four yes thank you I just want to really actually just

089uh to briefly recognize our staff and our team on these items I know in the past um I've made mention to providing for the purposes of uh transparency and Clarity with the board and the public a little bit more information on some of these items some of these contracts in terms of the duration of any of these contracts how many individuals will be served what um you know what's the time frame I'll just a little more details so that we can have an idea of um you know what's our cost per unit or or however we as board members may want to analyze the the efficiency the efficacy of the programming that we're providing and so I want to recognize that um from what I see and in the information that we're presented and the

090public is presented then we are seeing that we see you know a little bit more specifically what services will be provided how many what duration who will be served so so that's really helpful for me I think it's helpful for the public to know that and I want to recognize our staff for being responsive to those requests that um I know myself has made in the past so I just wanted to provide that that recognition to our team thank you all right um do you have emotional Center oh uh move to approve that item 1005. all right uh there's a motion in a second is there any public comment uh we have no requests for public comment Mr board president all right yeah I also thank the staff and that there's a lot more information

091now thanks all right great all right any other any other comments members of the board see none I'll go ahead and call you to see board member hi uh board Clerk and Emma aye board vice president Trump aye board member Chavez hi myself put another motion pass anonymously all right um at this point in time we'll go ahead and uh recess to closed session at 6 58 pm and uh we should be back or approximately what an hour um maybe 45 minutes all right uh about uh 7 45 uh so yeah we'll uh we'll research the closed session now and then we'll meet in closed session at um 7 10. and then be back here by approximately eight eight pm what's that oh hold on yes my apologies on that uh we're recessing a closed

092session however uh we have to have announcements as well as public com do we have public comments on any items that are clear on the closed session agenda I see no requests for public comment Mr board president all right there's no public comment at this point but yes then superintendent will announce uh what's going to be heard in closation so item 1103 uh significant exposure to mediation 1104 appeal of findings in investigation report 1105 in multiple cases as uh described on the agenda and 1106 Public Employee employee appointment uh title coordinators Child Nutrition services all right we'll see you all at approximately 8 o'clock [Music] it's okay [Music] he's gonna join us we're going to Maribel area session thank you huh [Music] so next meeting will be right after the elections are yeah we'll be

093receiving results hitting the update screen [Laughter] [Music] all right all right uh we'll go ahead you mean this meeting at 7 30 P.M um give me a quick second Dr Broward you want to go ahead and announce uh any announceable items from closed session yes I'm gonna be asking Mr torrico to make the announcement thank you Dr Bower procession agenda item 11.06 the board unanimously approved the employment of Daniel Zhang as coordinator of Child Nutrition excuse me services all right congratulations congratulations that's it all right uh with regard to Future award agenda items uh feel free to reach out send your request to Dr Byron she'll go ahead and process that um at this point I'll go ahead and adjourn the meeting at 7 33 P.M