Board Meeting

001thank you Carlos marel can you please go over roll call today is a regular board meeting of November 18th 2021 at 5:30 pm members of the board in attendance president Cora pres vice president Andres kto clerk Eno Beano here member Linda Chavez present member MF present the members of administration super than you I think our YouTube is catching up can you repeat that Mar sorry I had to put it on mute um members of administration super intendent Dr B pres thank you uh now we'll do the Pledge of Allegiance please join me I pledge of allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to the justice for all thank you okay and today's meeting I'd like to dedicate it to uh all of our veterans I know uh we just

002celebrated Veterans Day um all those that have served um to make our country better and one way shape or form um thank you so much for your uh service um to making our present and future better for our country um and with that we'll go ahead and move on to item 102 any uh discussion or modification of the agenda at this time Dr brow Madame President I would like to ask you if we can move um item 6.01 right after 1.03 it's a special presentation and the other item that I will ask um to be pulled is item 106 okay so 601 after uh the special so 2011 so right after that and then 10:6 uh we're going to pull that out of today's agenda yes please any other changes to the agenda recommendation discussions

003okay seeing none um anybody against um changing the agenda at this time any of those changes okay okay so we'll go ahead and move on with those changes um and then just on 103 a reminder to all of our uh public that uh we will be giving two minutes after each item for public comment so uh everybody will have two minutes in order um in order to give your public comment if for whatever reason we have um way too many uh that we might adjust the time um otherwise we uh give the two minutes per member of the public for agenda item uh with that we'll go ahead and um start with the special education board overview presentation to a one um Madame President I would like to call Mr Anthony Colona there he is

004he will be bring presentation thank you good evening Board of Trustees and uh superintendent Dr Bower my name is Anthony Colona and I'm the director of the alumrock special education department and I'm here tonight just to give a brief update and a status update of our special education program in Alam Rock so I'm G to share my screen can everybody see the PowerPoint we good great yes so I wanted to start by just giving you an overview of our staff and how many students we're currently serving um as you can see just things to point out we have 72 special education teachers we have Behavior Specialists occupational therapists we have 98 pair of professionals with 26 openings so that definitely is something we're working on very thankful though to our HR department who's recently worked

005with cs CA to increase the hours we offer our pair of professionals with our hope that we get more applicants for these openings we currently have 19 speech therapists 13 School psychologists we have Abba we offer a wide range of services especially for a district of our size and we have one special education nurse this U doesn't include the district nurses we currently service 1,114 students has of today um we do currently have 130 students pending so this is the first year you know declining enrollment I know you've heard about it it is we are seeing it also in special education which is sort of a first for us um but at the same time we're now in the process of assessing students sorry there we go just wanted to give a brief overview of

006the programs um it is really unique for a district in our area to offer so many specialized programs so it's something we've always been proud of in alumrock because we really make it our Focus to do all that we can to service our students within our district that's always been my priority in the few years I've been director um I just think it's really important that we service our own students and we do that by offering resource specialist programs at both at all of our schools so elementary and middle um we've really expanded it in middle school because we want to look at not having having special day classes at the middle school when possible so we've expanded our resource programs at the middle school but we also do offer special day classes where students

007receive their services for the majority of their day in a special education class we do two types we do non-categorical and then we do something that's a little bit more restrictive we have specialized special day classes for students with autism we have therapeutic programs and then we offer basic programs we also offer a preschool starting at age three it we do offer services through our preschool program and then we have students in that only receive speech so our speech only students they're at every site and then this year we' have started our independent studies program program and unlike some of the other districts we are doing it in house so we have hired independent study uh special day class teacher a resource specialist and a speech therapist but special at is a Continuum so we're

008not always able to offer what our uh students need in District so we do utilize County programs basic autism programs medically frag mod programs and then therapeutic programs and then we also have some students in state schools School for the Deaf and School for the Blind and then as a last resort um we do offer services to some of our students through non-public schools that is something that you know not post pandemic but after our return we have seen an increase in having to place students in non-public schools hopefully it's only temporary but we've had some move in students and we've had some that we've needed to place but we're still well below our Target and the state um caps on that and then the services we offer through District specialized academic instruction is what

009happens in our classes with our teachers we also offer speech and language adaptive physical education and we offer behavior supports through um counselors our therapists our psychologists and our onetoone par professional and we do have special education Behavior Specialists that support our students in our program and then applied Behavior anal analysis or ABA for our students with autism we do contract out for some services so we contract out for these individuals to come into the district and offer occupational therapy we have an ABA consultant that manages our ABA program and then we do contract out for our marriage family therapists and um service plan support which is service plans if you have we have students who attend private schools within the district we do offer a service plan and that we have somebody that goes

010into the private school and works with those students and then through the Sela we get Vision Services orientation and Mobility Services and then they have a we have a de and heart of hearing teacher that we work with through the Sela again you know Alam Rock we've really been at the Forefront with our special education department for years now we were one of the first districts to offer intervention curriculums in this area and we currently use three of them we use readwell is for our elementary K through3 students that are in our special day classes it's a phonics based program we use language live for our fourth through eth grade and our Middle School all our middle school students we've recently piloted and we've started using transmath which is a math Intervention Program in our

011middle schools and we've used steps to advance uh which is a aligned with Benchmark which is our Core Curriculum in General Ed steps to advance is being done in our elementary RSP programs and then we have additional curriculums we use unique for our basic classes and then we give students access to striving readers and then there's very I want to say dozens of online programs that teachers have access to preschool again we use math shelf is a preschool program that we use that's very technology bace and students use tablets and complete activities I was in a class today and they were using it it's great to see we use some it's called get set for school curriculum and it teaches foundational skills getting our students ready for Kinder and then they would transition to readwell

012if they still require a Intervention Program and then we also continue to use Handwriting Without Tears so I think what's really led to all you know one of the benefits of getting these curriculums and keeping things standardized is that we do see positive impacts and this is one that I'm really proud of is that we've worked with academic Services Under Mr Sanchez he's brought all the Departments together and we really spent really I want to say years working on how can we get our special students into general education classes because research shows they do do better in general education so we want to really include students whenever possible and one of the indicators the state looks at is indicator five and this is one where we've made significant gains and we now have met the

013state Target and we do we've met over 52% of our special ed students spend 80% or more of their time in special education really proud of this here's an area where we still are working on it we've made gains but we're not there yet of getting our more impacted students so if you have a student in a special day class perhaps we really want to see them at least 40% their day in general education we're making gains we're not there yet though but this is something we continue to work on and as I say the goal is to increase mainstreaming opportunities and inclusion for all of our students again I want to focus on as I said earlier we really do strive to keep our students in District so we've clearly met always have met

014this target uh sending students to separate schools such as NPS we exhaust all resources within our district we currently have students at some of the achieve Beacon and then spectrum and Pine Hill but again we're meeting the Target and then this is a parent involvement indicator that the state looks at as part of an IEP meetings parents are asked do you feel like you are involved in your students education and this is one that we've consistently met this goal all of this you know all of this hard work does have a payoff and we want to because at the end of the day it's about student achievement and this is something that again we've seen pre pandemic we were on an upward trajectory very proud of you know it's been a lot of hard work

015but we have seen gains in our esack testing hopefully we're going to test again this year we want to see this continue but we've seen these gains in ela and maass but you know there's still work to be done right so we've come back um areas of focus that my goals and things I need to work on with the department number one is something we're seeing Statewide is Staffing probably you know the m a big chunk of my day is spent on really looking at solutions for our staffing shortages whether it's par professionals we've had to contract out for spee teach therapist we are doing better than some of our surrounding districts but we still it's still a stressor for us finding qualified staff when you know we've getting students are back in person which

016has been great but it's been a challenge for a lot of our students and they need the academic social emotional and Behavior Support that typically you maybe would use staff to do that so some of our shortages have really impacted this where we would have put staff in to support in a classroom we have openings and then always always always our focus is inclusion so we'll continue to work on that to address some of these things we have been you know there are monies from the State we did formulate a learning recovery plan it outlines how we plan to address students with the impact of school closures and how we're going to support them so I wanted to we developed a plan that addresses our areas of focus as far as supporting students academically we

017want to get additional training for our staff on udl Universal Design for Learning credentials my goal goal is to have all staff trained with associate credentials we'll work with the county they offer that support we're looking at targeted software interventions that we can use because of Staffing concerns we may need to use some software interventions with our students so they have that extra support things they can do at home along with that school and then as I showed you in the beginning we're currently in the middle of assessing 130 students so we are we did recently uh through your actions you've approved a contract that we are bringing in support to assist with assessments and then our social emotional support working with the inclusion collaborative through the county just to offer additional trainings and support

018for our staff along with oural Department how how are we supporting students emotionally their social growth making up for some of what they would have gotten over the past 18 months and then we have brought in additional contracted support staff to offer Behavior Support in our classrooms especially in our intensive support programs such as for our therapeutic program and our autism programs this you know I wanted to put this in because this is something I'm really proud of and I'm proud of it that we for the first time in my knowledge my experience and I've been with the district and special ed for over 20 years we did we passed our compliance review this year we were 100% compant which as I said I've never to my knowledge has have we done this so I'm

019really proud of this especially during a pandemic time so our when the state comes in they review IEPs they found us 100% compliant with our board policies and our student level IEPs so something that I'm really proud of I just want to end it by saying you know I really believe that it takes a village and I couldn't have done this or we couldn't have done this and all the gains we've made without our students and our families they truly are our our partners my not my staff but the District staff and the special education staff teachers par professional really a team effort because and they've just given us invaluable support resilience hard work and dedication so I'd like to thank you and I'm available if you have any questions thank you so much Mr

020Colona um that's amazing and before I open it up for comments and um questions or uh from the board I'm gonna go ahead and open it up for public comment at this time and then we'll come back to the board so Jose if you can please help me with the public and see there's any members of the public wishing to address a board on this item hello Madam president yes we have two speakers uh first speaker is Miss daa Gonzalez Miss Gonzalez you have two minutes please unmute yourself when you begin speaking the timer will begin hi good evening my name is s Gonzalez um I am a parent of two students in D BR school district and today I'm here as a parent um first of all thank you for the amazing presentation and

021all the work that you're doing second I do have a questions because I saw some of the trainings that the teachers are be getting but for those teachers that are having our special Aid as students inside the classrooms as a regular classrooms what kind of training and support are you giving them um and I'm saying this because I know that right now these of the classes have at least 25 to 30 students and for a teacher to be able to handle with meltdowns um fidgeting it could be a little bit H it's an extra or challenging work so I would like to know what kind of work what kind of support you're giving them is there a a part assisting them when our students are in there is there um a Special Ed training that

022they receive to identify when they when they student is doing a meltdown and how to support in during that crisis um the last thing we want to do right is to um ask a student to leave the classroom or call for or call for help when we have um teachers that could be training in this area um but thank you for that amazing work I am really proud like I said I am I have a student in the special a I seen how teachers um are um there for my for my son so um thank you for that but those are my questions because I did not see that on the presentation thank you have a good evening thank you Miss mades our next speaker is Adrian B Miss B you have two minutes please

023unmute yourself when you begin speaking the timer will begin unmute can you hear me yes all right hello my name is Adrien Bain I'm a teacher at Joseph George middle school and I just wanted want to say that our specialed teachers Rock um right now they've been pushing into our classes and they've been doing a phenomenal job uh not only helping our uh specialed students but helping us regular Ed teachers uh not only deal with the specialed students but how to better accommodate them and so I am so appreciative of our special ed program and all I wish and hope is that we can retain our special ed teachers because they are so needed and if we don't settle a contract soon I'm afraid we're going to lose them so thank you very much you

024guys are doing an awesome job special ed department and I appreciate you so much thank you you thank you Miss F Madam president at this time we have no more public speaking thank you uh so now I'll open it up to the trustees any questions comments concerns anyone uh I see vice president gto's hand up welcome I'm sure you probably in were in earlier uh but we hadn't seen you I'm glad you're here more than a question just a comment I want to thank Tony for uh the great work that he's been doing um we uh on a personal level have been able to observe the the DraStic change in in the department um and um yeah at the policy level we've been able to see that uh things are are going great and you're

025you're moving forward in in the right direction so obviously you know there's always room for for improvement and you know continuous Improvement should always be applied but uh as somebody who's he's been here for a while I've been able to observe the significant change and so I think credit needs to be given to those folks that are who are who are doing a great job so thank you very much to you to all your staff teachers everyone uh who's uh who's helping support some of our most for vulnerable students some of the students that have highest needs that um and without your services would definitely um suffer qu or or or would have difficulties later on in the future thank you very much thank you thank you vice president and I saw the three hands

026up go at the same time so I'm just going to call you as I see you on my screen uh trusty Beano okay thank you can you hear me yes right there we go okay um so first of all again um also I want to I guess really congratulate um and thank Mr Cola and and all of the team that has been working on on this I continue to find it amazing that through all the adversity that we've had not just the pandemic but just the things that are really specific to our district and our community and yet in spite of all that you know we find a way as trusty kto mentioned and as we quite often say there's always room for improvement in every area that we work with but to see those

027dashboard numbers creeping up you know I I I would rather kind of see um slow and consistent growth in those dashboard indicators than like a big jump because to me that indicates a sustainable progress that that's happening as opposed to just like a kind of oneoff thing that we may see when it jumps like from red to Green so I'm glad that we're seeing that um increase um I did have a couple of oh the other thing I wanted to just say is um you know I'm actually really proud also of of our board um and our you know our administration because I know month after month when we you know when we have contracts come in and and things that we need to provide for special education those services are not cheap you know

028Services it's it's quite costly um to provide the services that that these students deserve every single day and so I'm very happy that we with all the challenges that we have you know with regards to to our budget that we're still able to provide these very um you know costly or these services that that that are not cheap I'll just say that but the kids deserve it so I don't want to put even a price tag on it but I'm just glad we continue to be able to support that work um a question that I have one of them with regards to the Paras that you said that we've been working towards getting their hours increased um what what is the and I don't know if this is actually a question for you Mr Colona

029or maybe for Mr changen but in terms of budget and and the difference in funding for the previous amount of hours and what we're trying to get to entice some pair professionals to sign on with us what does that look like what is the budgetary impact of of that um modification or change that would be something that I'd have to defer to Mr Chang on and I don't know if he's of all areas is that money that we already have had built into our budget or are we how is that working yes so fortunately um you know the the state and also the FED has given us some additional funding for this specific purpose if you call the um elop Grant I'm sorry the ELO grant that was approved by the state back in the

030spring um allocated um a percentage I believe it was 10% um of the total funding to go towards Paris um and then also in the um in some additional uh federal dollars we were able to use that money as well um to go and increase the hours from I believe four to five Tony yes yes yeah um but yes yes those those those funds are in our budget so it's additional funding that we're receiving specifically for this purpose that is correct yes okay thank you for that and then another question I have um this one I think is for Mr Colona so the the connection with the work that you're all doing already and our social emotional learning team um I mean I know there's a lot of connectedness and you guys are doing you

031know very interconnected work so could you you just give a brief description of what that teaming process is looking like at this point so so all of our you know the social emotional team has offered trainings for teachers for General Ed and all of our teachers participate in those programs and those trainings so they get the support like that and then we piggy back on it for our special ed teachers with our Behavior Specialists who go in and train not only our teachers but our bus drivers and they offer that daytoday support and then we've also brought in additional staff through Behavior text to support on an individual student or program need well I'm really glad to hear that particularly with the bus drivers I know my dad is actually a driver in another district

032and I know that the interface that happens on a day-to-day basis with these students is you know a lot of it occurs at that point in time and so that's I'm really glad to hear that we're we're doing that um the last question that I have uh is just kind of I guess maybe a little bit of speculation or um the question is what lessons Mr colon do you think that we're learning at this time um as we move into possibly a new reality with regards to Staffing this whole um you know what is it called the big resignation or whatever that I'm drawing a drawing a blank on the term but with what we might see potentially as a different reality what lessons do you think we're learning now obviously you're you're getting a

033lot of great work done and are there things that we think might move forward as we move into this I mean I'll be honest in the middle of it right now haven't had a lot of time to think about you know the big lessons but I think one thing that I go back to is that you know it's teamwork we need to look at how we can offer services in an inclusive setting so instead of having you know all where we're pulling out kids and needing to have separate staff would it be more effective we know for on the student level it research shows it's more effective to have them in General Ed but Staffing wise could we get more bang for our buck if we were servicing more students in General Ed you know

034which we did during closures really because of the online aspect of it we did have a lot of kids push in and teachers supported in a different way during closures so I think looking at that we're always going to need our specialized programs I think but um just I think that it's going to become more of a necessity that we're just not going to have if this stays like it is we'll have to look at alternatives for yeah for shortage staff shortages okay well thank you again I'm glad to hear the progress we're making and I look forward to continuing to support it thank you thank you trusty trusty Chavez okay um actually he took one of my questions but I did want to ask uh but first say that since you have filled the

035position Mr gulan that you have done really good results so congratulations on that um I did want to say that um I heard I thought I heard you say that the state has given 10% um and so when Mr Beano asked the money question um on the additional funding would you say we've been the district has been given 10% 20% and is the other percentage say the the 90 or 80% is that coming out of the general budget and I have one more question after that's answered please that would be a Mr Chang I think he was referring to yep okay Mr Chang please sorry I had I was on mute yes it'll be coming out from the restricted um general fund um the the the two components of the funding is one is from

036the state and one's from the federal um the federal did provide some additional funding related to learning loss that we're able to use to increase services for uh student for special Aid okay so percentage wise what percent would you say that the state and fed Federal are giving us and how much percent is coming out of the general fund um it's hard to calculate the exact percent right now especially on the federal side um and also you know we just came to an agreement to this mou so we still need to figure out how many employees currently are going to opt in to increase their hours from four to five and so we don't have all that finalized number yet until we do then we're able to calculate um the the additional increases in costs

037okay thank you um and another question is um I heard that you with the preschoolers they're three years old and at what age group do you assess them at third grade or do you assess them um zero to two years old because I seen that in Contra Casta over in La yet that they were already asking the ones who were in daycare from zero to two years old to a assess them would it be wiser to assess them earlier to know what our budget will be when they do be hit the age of 3 four five can you please tell me a little more on that yeah so we assess by their third birthday is when the district takes over prior to that there's Early Child through the county they do are on an infant

038IEP and ifsp it's called until their turn three and then by their third birthday we assess so we have a preschool Assessment Center that's been relocated to Chavez and that's they assess approximately 300 students a year okay thank you yep of course thank you thank you trusty fam okay uh then just uh you know before I move on to my comment question to uh Tony here uh so how does the the preschool assessment work uh well I I just remember when I I don't recall I I I have memories of being three myself and so I've never recalled a assessment however I do know that I did attend a A Private Preschool so uh you know uh would would you be so kind as to watch me through the the assessment at age three yeah

039so it's really happens in two ways the first way is if a student has been assessed previously for early Ser intervention services they have an issp we get a list of those students that are turning three and we reach out to parents and do a transition we do an assessment and a transition IEP by their third birthday that's one way and then it's through parent they come in a parent comes in writes a letter they have concerns about their student um and they request an assessment okay and that helps and that's very nice that we we are intervening early as I mentioned when I was when I was three I never remembered uh that you know that that type that kind of I forward approach right uh so moving on uh I I want to

040thank you and every teacher who works under your division for uh everything you do I say this in part of I was once a special education student myself although not in the way you think I have a problems with uh hand eye coordination and all and dexterity and all that so I so it would be the Adaptive PE program that I am most personally uh intimate about the balance beam and the trampoline and the the what is it uh the velcro dart board and all that uh but in all sort but but in all sorts of areas of special end my had the pleasure of visiting uh special ad at uh 19 out of 22 schools and I hope to finish my site visits by the end of the year but uh you know from

041from occupational therapy to all the way to uh autism at Lindale and that Russo mckinty for example uh very proud of the fact that we are you know through your work and uh you know the work of uh the teachers in your team to provide a a a leg up to to our students who are uh you know uh struggling to get to get to swing the bat you know we have you know some some students we have at third base some students we have at second base some at first base these are our students that we're trying we're trying to get them to step on the home plate and swing the backat and so I uh so I thank you a and all the teachers very much for for all their work and I

042as I like to say uh teacher for Teacher the the finest Special Education team in the county I agree thank you thank you so much I see trusty Chavez is handing back up TR Chavis thank you um so I heard Mr uh Tony mentioned that the parent has to ask for it uh is it just the parent or the teacher also has to recommend it and has a parent been denied in the past we typically don't ever deny I know it's something that we're able to do but if a parent feels there's a need you know my thought is that let's assess and see so are we talking for students earlier than three we do get some teachers we have you know students that are in Head Start kadango we've occasionally have teachers reach out

043but ultimately the parent has to consent to any assessment thank you thank you all right seeing no other hands thank you so much Mr Colona my questions were answered and I just want to highlight you know the fact that you're doing an amazing job I agree uh when I first came in uh you weren't leading the department yet you know and so in the little time that I've been here I've seen a huge difference I can only imagine you know over time so thank you for your leadership thank you for each of your staff that are in your team um and basically I think switching it no not on your team but on our children's team ensuring that they have what they need that they're successful and I really like the idea of really shifting

044it to uh regular classroom and that all of our teachers have those the training needed in order to serve our children all children better um I know one of our parents talked about training and I'm in agreement I think all of our uh staff should be trained um for whatever can come up in any classroom and so I like that idea I know it won't happen overnight uh but I look forward to being able to um serve all of our children because as we know as parents at least you know having had uh you know a time where um I wasn't sure about my daughter's needs you know is it special ed is it not um I think if every teacher was trained then it might even prevent you know some of our parents from

045um from even having to go through that is my you know student special IDE we're all uh treating all of our students um the same and um with the training that special ed can also come with um then some of our children might not even have to be um assessed which is important absolutely but um I think also it teaches our children when they have a job in the future you know um they get out of our schools at about 13 14 two years later they might be in a job and so um it teaches them how to be in community um with you know all of us um and so I I really love that idea I look forward to having more discussion about that to see what that can look like um and

046again Pat on your back too for the work um and everybody in your department thank you again thank you and I just can't leave without really a special thanks to my two program Specialists I really could not do this without them so I wouldn't want to leave without calling out their hard work but thank you everyone for your support thank you Mr Colona all right um moving on to next item um item 601 and I believe we have Erin here who will be presenting for us on the Strategic Plan update information only welcome Mr Price both Mr Price Glen and Erin thank you so much Madame board President and Vice President Kinto and honored members of the Board of Education superintendent Bower and team and everyone that's here online woohoo we're just so happy to

047be with you tonight to talk about this topic super appreciate that we were able to be here for that outstanding special ed report and we want to add our congratulations to that all team that whole team and also just extend our appreciation to the tremendous effort that everyone at all levels and parts of elmrock are making at this time from your administrators teachers classified staff and especially students to continue the extraordinary word that you all are are leading and given that context given these extraordinary times that we're living through we super appreciate the above and beyond efforts that you're making to start the strategic planning process which is the subject of this particular agenda item and in so doing we also want to acknowledge the critical support that this effort has received from Dr Mar

048and Dewan and the San Clara County of a education in supporting this work so tonight um we're very conscious of the time constraints and and the agenda that you have in front of you but we're really looking forward to your to your feedback and guidance and we're going to make this report to you in in three sections um first of all and just FYI for those of you who are listening at home and may not have access to the screen uh the the PowerPoint slides are going to be presented begin on page 28 of the of the board book um and as we start out in these three sections of our presentation tonight three brief sections um I will start and discuss the purpose of this work um what we have done to date where

049we plan to go um as well as U board members of draft guiding principles that emerged from your retreat earlier this year that we're we're delighted to bring back again bold facing underlining that their their draft um following that piece my colleague uh gpg president Aon price will present some of the themes emerging from our our initial stakeholder engagement and many thanks again uh to everyone who helped us arrange that we're very appreciative of the bodies like the Dak and deac and others with being so generous of their time and getting us on their agendas and the kind efforts of Sandra Garcia to arrange those opportunities following um President Aaron Price's presentation of the that stakeholder engage those stakeholder engagement results we're going to hear from gpg vice president Caitlyn vakara who's going to outline

050several areas where we're really excited about getting some feedback and guidance from you all on the on the board and we will then turn it back over to you Madame President to to facilitate that discussion um so with that in mind uh if we could move to our our first slide we start going through where where we've been and onto our guiding principles so what is the purpose why why are we doing this strategic planing process um when there's so many plans and and things that that you're engaged in and what we're looking at is providing support to elmrock Union School District to develop some guiding principles frame key issues and opportunities and identify some strategic options that you all can use to address these so it really provide you with something of a I'm

051sometimes tempted to replace the word strategic plan with roadmap really a road map that you can be using to help help help gu the future and unify and provide a lens for all the different kinds of planning efforts that you're engaged in so that's our project purpose can then hit the uh the next slide what we've done so far um in fulfillment of that project purpose um starting in March out to now um is we we had a series of interviews with you all and again thank you for your time with that uh we had that excellent Retreat where we focused on developing guiding principles um we took the opportunity to review excellent background material you all have available your lcap demographic study uh materials coming out of the facilities repurposing committee and other district

052and and and and Community data um we then were able to contuct 22 interviews with folks from the district offices office from schools your bargaining units parents Community Based Partners um and others and we want to express our appreciation to them as well well for spending time with us and really helping us understand and get a full picture and that data is going to be coming back to you tonight as I mentioned uh we had input sessions with spark uh Dak and daac and again really appreciate them uh giving us time on their agenda and being so honest and open and forthcoming with us and then we've started to engage and have identified members of a coure planning team that's going to convene monthly starting in January to support the and guide the development the

053plan which obviously will be brought back and forth to you um as it iterates and goes forward for your uh guidance and uh support as well as that as that's developed so that's what we've done from March until now if we can look at the next slide we'll U talk about where where we're going next so we're I guess moving to the to the the Finish Line we're hoping to be able to provide you with a a completed strategic plan a road map that you can be uh looking at in May of of of next year um so as we move towards that some of our Milestones are taking all the information and resources and data that we've gathered so far and providing that to The District in the form of a discovery report and

054some of the key findings uh that will be Amplified in that Discovery report will be discussed tonight uh we'll be putting together this core planning team that I mentioned representative of different parts of the district and the community to provide guidance um and support as the as the as the plan or Road M map is developed and that team is going to start meeting monthly uh with the launch meeting now scheduled for less than a month in this time January 11th and that should read 2022 um is when that will occur um and as we go forward we're going to be seeking um opportunities to come back to you like we are now and report on progress as we move along to make sure that what the worth that's proceeding is aligned with board policy

055and and strategy so we anticipate working closely with that planning team the board um to revisit and revise the guiding principles that you began working on earlier this year uh and then using that Discovery report as a foundation uh look at some of what these key strategies will be for for moving forward so it's ambitious but we think um given the the strengths of the district and the the strengths of the work that's been done so far we can do it and we're very excited about continuing to move forward with these these these Milestones so let's look take a brief look at the draft guiding principles that can have emerged from the the board retreat earlier earlier this year you know and and some people will say well you know why why in the world

056do you want to spend time on on Guiding principles you know why why do that uh when time is so precious why take time to develop guiding principles and the the reason that we've brought it forward and prop propos that be part of your strategic planning process is that those guiding principles can be used when issues come up that maybe haven't been foreseen at this point or when there's a North star needed for where we're going to be moving as as as a district and these are some of the draft ones that emerged from The Retreat earlier this year can think of a guiding principle as something that you hold dear to your heart um that you would never give up um it's something that's that's that intrinsic for you that that's that's important um

057so I'll just Briefly summarize these uh that we would serve our families and Community as our essential and foundational public education institution we safeguard that sacred almost uh institution that is public education in our community that so many rely upon uh that we focus on a successful future for every student seeking equity and justice for all they really make that part of our North Star that that destination of equity and justice for all uh as we do that we support our education team including staff teachers and administrators to grow and Thrive uh knowing as a guiding principle that our team uh is the central way that we make progress towards that that NSTAR um we think about our opportunities and assets as the basis for growth in other words we're we're not building on deficits

058uh we're building on what we see as opportunities and Assets in the in in the district and as part of that um the culture of our communities is probably the biggest asset that we have and we maintain number five cultural curiosity and humility recommend realizing that our communities cultures are a course strength or major asset that's available and last but not least uh we seek to work with open minds respect compassion empathy and integrity we're not always going to agree on every issue it's it's um it's often not the the the reality that people of Goodwill will disagree on the same issue even on the same set of facts uh but in doing so recognizing our children's interest or at stake we work together as with respect compassion empathy and integrity so we lay these

059guiding principles on the table for you for for discussion they're not uh it's not an action item tonight but we'd like to continue to work on them with you and the core team as we move along and with that I'll turn it over to uh eron price to uh talk to us a little bit about in the second portion of the presentation about what we've learned so far thanks Glenn uh and as as Glenn had mentioned in one of the earlier slides we we did about 22 uh interviews with a variety of of representatives from from different um different different groups internal and external to the the district as well as some some listening sessions and and the themes that follow which which are emerging are in uh of draft uh State and and we're

060going to be building on and and carrying forward in that Discovery report which will then serve as a a basis for the work of the core planning team moving into the uh those meetings taking place in in 2022 so we've organized these into as you can see in in the the slides you have them in in front of you different uh areas for for emerging themes there's strengths and assets there's challenges there's opportunities and finally there's some uh emerging themes around what is the vision uh that that we've heard what are the aspects of of the the Future Vision for the district that we've heard coming out of these these interviews and input sessions so in the area of strengths and assets of the district the board uh District leadership and staff principles teachers and

061site staff heard that from many uh interviewees that the people current leadership um as at at the district level at the site level as well as uh teachers and and staff at at schools are a a major strength the district's commit m to the community and commitment to serving the community specifically this commitment to to multilingual Learners dual Learners are multilingual Learners came up um and specifically things like uh the the dual immersion programs and strengthening and and interest in expanding those uh the whole approach whole child approach and this emphasis on social and emotional learning uh focus on early care and education which will I we'll see some of these come back around in some of the opportunities as well Labor Management Partnerships which is listed here as as a strength that that there's

062a sense that we've heard from some that that those relationships and that Dynamic is is in a healthier place than it has been at at times in the past also um is on the next slide around around challenges areas where there's still further opportunity and room uh to to strengthen we heard a a number of stories and and um appreciations for the district's response to covid really rapidly responding to the community's uh needs and and coming to the table with devices food other supplies and and being quickly uh responsive to to the situation um the real asset of of school properties came up as well and then the community itself as a strength and as an asset and I think this ties a little bit into What Glenn was saying in the last slide uh

063around some of the The Guiding principles that that you all have have informed that there is cultural and linguistic diversity as a a strength and that the community has a commitment to the education and and success of its students as we think about some of the the challenges declining enrollment and that and its impact um financially uh kind of as a direct Financial impact including this reduced Revenue as well as the impact of of Distributing resources across sites with with fewer students so kind of being stretched in the human resource and facility resource spaces that that comes along with with that staff turnover and shortages and some of these items have come up already in in in tonight's meeting um including for substitute teachers a shortage or challenge in securing uh sufficient numbers of substitute

064teachers aging school facilities so while those School fac sites and school facilities are an asset there's also some challenges around aging infrastructure as I mentioned on the previous side Labor Management Partnerships being both an area where there's some success and strength to recognize as well as an area where there's further uh opportunity for for improvement Broad and meaningful family engagement we heard this um quite a bit elevated as an area for for continued and further attention um and and not necessarily that it's for lack of providing opportunity or for lack of uh uh trying and and effort um but that there are some some some disconnects uh you know that that that's not always Landing with the intended or hoped for results and so exploring those a little bit more where can can that uh

065approach be strengthened structural economic inequalities facing the alumrock um Community specifically the the cost of housing came up quite a bit for uh the the community that the district serves and then the impact of covid on on the community as well so while the district was uh had appreciated efforts um to respond to that the covid-19 pandemic had and continues to have um know significant impact on the community as a challenge as we move into opportunities we've we've there's a lot of text and we've we've kind of tried to categorize them a little bit into these four different Main buckets of opportunities again that are emerging through the work so far so the first major area being maximizing services for students and families some of the specific ideas there that have come up around uh

066expanding the role as a community hub for various services and activities potentially with a focus around Early Learning or Andor expanded learning out of school time before and after school programming this idea of establishing kind of an early childhood focused Hub or center location with child care and preschool and other services that families with young children um may be interested in or or in need of similarly establishing additional or or expanding this community center uh footprint with services for for a variety of different populations children families but also adult community members perhaps um you know adult education services as one example expand bilingual immersion programs uh Cas that suggestion and idea has certainly certainly came up a lot in the work to date as well as career pathway planning and thinking about how does alumrock

067as as a TK um a tk8 think about career planning and and strengthening and a lot of um uh attention to to the possibility um to to to build on what's already uh going on there as well as um steam learning as another theme that came up and then finally and I think this is a one worth calling out specifically as well is is clarifying indicators of of Student Success how are we Mo monitoring how are we um thinking about Student Success and and including within that but not limiting it to academic assessment as well as measures of social and emotional learning measures of critic critical thinking teamwork skills so that that seemed like an area from what we were been hearing where there could be some additional Clarity or some additional Clarity there would

068be would be helpful um increasing enrollment so kind of in some ways a direct response to the declining enrollment suggestions there around focusing on branding and Communications efforts and um and and addressing facility utilization low facility utilization in a way that provides additional value so some of the suggestions above for example around Early Childhood uh education hubs or other community services hubs of adding on more services to those facilities where there is space to to do so the other two uh kind of main buckets of of opportunity here one focused on family communication and put in engagement and then maximizing um resources so in the first one here kind of building on that that challenge area around Broad and meaningful um family in input in engagement uh some suggestions to have more dedicated Staffing for

069family engagement across all Sites uh pursuing a range of activity types to engage different audiences and certainly to to a a degree that's happening already so I think um the recommendation that we've heard coming out of this is to to go further in that direction a broader range think about what that range looks like and and um which parts of it are working well which parts of it might be modified um and then communication uh of of particularly decisions and decision-making processes clearly and and and quickly um was another item that we heard finally in the opportunity section maximizing resources so some ideas around seeking more flexible resour sources from private uh or corporate donors and Foundations potentially looking at Partnerships with other um school districts that may benefit from some sort of shared services

070joint professional development or other other shared services and and resources and then uh this idea to of where there are tk5 and and and six grade six through eight schools to think about what combination of those might might look like we inter inserted this additional slide it just felt like we we it would be helpful in in immediately after talking about some of those opportunities to raise a a few of the aligned State Investments and these I think some of these already came up earlier in tonight's meeting so I I don't imagine they'll be particularly new but it does seem like uh the California budget for this fiscal year includes some considerable Investments uh in areas that are aligned to some of the opportunities that uh were were identified through the workto date specifically in

071Early Education the universal transitional kindergarten um program expansion over multiple years to have all four-year-olds eligible for transitional kindergarten and this California prek planning and implementation grant program providing some funding to uh assist with that expansion of services the expanded learning opportunities program I think that might have been one that came up earlier to provide um additional time outside of the school Services uh outside of the school day and then the California Community School Partnership Act um considerable funding for for um the planning and implementation of Community Schools finally as our emerging themes um we we did ask uh some questions about what do you see as being different a few years three to four or five years down the line the district and thought it would be helpful to also Elevate some of those

072items so continued stability of leadership there's a lot of appreciation for um the current that current stability and and desire to to Really ensure that that is carried forward that that is institutionalized to the extent possible stabilized enrollment um increased reputation and recognition as a district dedicated to whole Child Development and Community strengthening so that the wording of that is specific or or intentional in that that is that uh dedication um was elevated as a strength and this is about being recognized known for that for that to be more more broadly known uh improved academic performance continued emphasis on early childhood and further integration of some of these services particular on early learning expanded learning family services and and school day programming so with with that I'll pass it over to um my colleague Caitlyn

073just to to put a few questions out there um you obviously you all are invited to and welcome to comment and ask quite any questions you like but we wanted to put a few out there for um for as food for thought for you thanks so much Erin so the next slide uh we offer some questions for your consideration and discussion in relation to the emerging themes that Ain just reviewed we'd like to hear which emerging themes stood out to you and are there key strengths challenges or opportunities that you think are missing from the emerging themes but that you didn't hear tonight that are top of mind for you we'd also are eager to hear your guidance and have some quests related to the upcoming work so earlier Glenn presented the slide of kind

074of what's coming next um so we'd be eager to hear your your feedback related to these questions what Guidance Do you have for the core planning team in its upcoming work to refine guiding principles frame issues and opportunities and identify strategies what key questions do you think are most important for the core planning team team to address and finally how would you like to hear updates on the work of the core planning team and provide feedback and guidance moving forward so perhaps Ain we can keep these questions up on the screen and um I will hand it back to you Madame board president but thank you so very much for the time to to provide these updates to you we're we're really honored and excited to be engaged in this work and very much look

075forward to your feedback back thank you so much um thank you to the entire team for helping guide us and uh you know bring all these all these uh strengths out and areas of improvement um and I look forward to you know may I mean it's just around the corner so I know there's a lot of work to do but we're all committed so um to make it happen uh so I guess um what we could do I know that um you know I'm I'm going to open it up for public comment if that's okay first and then let kind of our thoughts I know we have some questions also for you all um that's my thought what do you all think um is that are you all in agreement I'm also looking at my

076board let me uh I agree okay okay so we'll go ahead and um open it up for public comment at this time Jose if you can please help us out with that uh yes M President we have one speaker our speaker is Mr Michael poing Mr ping you have two minutes please unmute yourself when you begin speaking the timer will begin yes um good evening can good evening um I'm a teacher at Joseph George and I see some very ambitious plans here I think uh you're getting way ahead of yourselves though your school district is going to my school district is going to go into a death spiral if you don't start to take care of your teachers I know of one teacher who um 17 years in the district he's bought a home in

077uh the Sacramento area and you won't have them next year you've got to pay us enough money so we can possibly afford to live here and raise our own children here you spend all this money on grandiose plans and I don't see how you're going to do any of this without a teaching staff that is knowledgeable and experienced driving good experienced teachers away good new teachers are going to look at this district and its bottom of the barrel uh pay scale and frankly it's fairly dysfunctional history which is getting a little bit better I'll give a few of you some credit for starting to reach out and do things a little bit better but it's not enough yet we should have had that contract a month ago well actually we should have had it a

078year ago and you promised it a month ago and you haven't gotten your stuff together yet we were on the street yesterday we were on channel uh 14 News you don't want that public you don't want us to to end up having to be on the streets again and again and going on strike we know we can't do that just yet but you're pushing us there you need to give us a contract now our next speaker is Miss Adrien vay Miss vain you have two minutes please unmute yourself when you begin speaking the timer will begin hello uh I was watching the presentation and I liked a lot of what I saw but I'm very worried about the projected three to five year plan because I'll tell you right now without a contract without a

079pay raise what you plan for the 3 to 5 years is is not going to happen we have Educators that do not want to stay here and they want to quit and I'm very concerned about this because we have the you have this three to five year plan I don't see how it's going to happen when people tend to come here just to get experience until they can go to better paying districts this is something that you need to consider and that our Board needs to consider we the plan that you guys presented I we have been doing good things but what happens when all of these people that have working so hard for these things leave we need to think about that thank you and I appreciate everything you guys do thank you Miss

080V our next speaker is Toby neelson Toby you have two minutes please unmute yourself and You Begin speaking the timer will begin all right thank you um I'm Toby neelson I'm a teacher at aptitude and I was very pleased to see that in the plans um the concern about teacher shortages and turnover was addressed um and I would like to say that that would be significantly reduced the concerns about shortages in teachers we would have more teachers and teachers would stay if we had an equitable and fair contract settled instead of having to work without a contract over and over and over so I again encourage you to look at an equitable and fair contract settlement to maintain the teachers we have um rather than having continuous teacher turnover which is bad for students and

081bad for Learning and bad for morale um when we have a stable Workforce at a site the students feel confident they see the same faces over and over and over it helps them feel confident in their learning and it helps them be more feel more safe and ready to learn um so I would appreciate your consideration of that matter and again thank you for this presentation and for all the forward-thinking goals I hope we can reach them and I'm sure if we settle our contract when we settle our contract soon we will be able to reach those goals thank you miss neelon our next speaker is Jessica leod Miss Lei you have two minutes please send me yourself when you begin speaking the timer will begin hi um my Jessica leod I'm a teacher in

082alumrock um I'm glad you guys got to go on a retreat um and talk about what the the district needs it would have been wonderful if you actually came to our school sites and saw the packed classrooms and the the infrastructure falling apart and the teachers uh you know overwork and underpaid without a contract and you're driving us out and I I love the forward thinking I think all of these things are wonderful but what was missing from the plan is the word Educators and it and on-site administrators like principles in those plans um without any of that none of these great ideas will come to fruition so I would have loved that you interviewed us and asked us what we need because we know what we need we're in the trenches every day doing

083what you put on paper and we don't need more trainings or more beautiful language we need staff we need a contract we need classrooms that are safe and come and see what we need ask us what we need um you know and observe our schools um so the three to five year plan is a wonderful idea um but right now we're in emergency situations here and we need a fair contract we need safe schools and we need help thank you thank you Mr V our next speaker is sewi Mr swis you have two minutes please sub me yourself speak yes um can you hear me I guess I unmuted but hey yes we can hear you um I'm GNA talk about just this program I'm a teacher at dorsa um I I like the program

084um I will talk about the labor stuff later but I didn't hear one thing I didn't hear from this is where's the funding coming from this is the funding coming from the state of California to this your company or is the St funding coming from our district because our district keeps saying we don't have the money so could you address where the funding is coming from um all right that's all thank you thank you m Madam President we have no more public comment thank you so much now I'll uh turn it over to our trustees um any questions comments concerns and answers that we can maybe put the uh the slide back up with the questions and maybe some of us can uh we can go through and answer some of them I do see

085vice president Kino's hand up uh feel free to take on the mic yes um thank you very much for this uh presentation uh it aligns with what we've heard and I really appreciate the fact that it's brought together a lot of this information that we've seen in different areas through different uh um through different committees different reports that we've we've we've uh received and so I do appreciate the fact that now we have it in one place so we can start focusing on how to how to move ahead uh so the themes um are things that I i' I had I had heard but uh not they were not as well packaged as you have thank you very much for that um the question for the administration the question was raised as to where the

086resources came to to do this this um strategic plan can you uh provide a response to that ch chimy um man through the president yes please Dr Bower yes this was a generous uh support from the Santa Clara County Office of Education Dr Maran the one um when uh we approach her uh with the need of resetting our district um prior to the pandemic she uh approved the uh funds necessary for this kind of work so nothing is coming out of alumrock funds vice president is it okay to clarify something on that because I don't want there to be any misunderstanding um Dr Bower was the funding provided for the um like cpg to come and do the strategic planning or for the work that comes out of strategic planning for the gpg to do

087the work for us to put this together to facilitate the process all of that but not for the what we identify as a need I just want to clarify because I the work that follows is the work of the district right a strategic plan is kind of What Glenn mentioned is a road map and so it's always very helpful for organizations from districts to hospitals to counties right to have to know where we're going to set up the North Star and we um the presentation that was brought before you uh represents a number of St stakeholders including area um uh president Joselyn MERS was part of the individuals who were represent uh interviewed and providing feedback so we do honor our teachers greatly and we uh as well as CA and Teamsters they each each

088of those uh organizations were interviewed to provide their position their views about what we need need so this is again kind of What Glenn said this is a road map and the facilitation the writing all of the the process of a strategic plan is being paid by Santa Clara County Office of it does not come out of alumrock funds the work that we together are going to generate and continue to do because a lot of those things as many of the speakers mentioned we um are beginning to do some of those things I think Mr swis mentioned uh where at the very beginning and Mr bowling mentioned that and he they're right so these more robust plans will allow us to um concretize a lot of those initiatives in a you know in a path

089that we will be able to measure at the end of of of this process so um that's where the fun the funds came from for the work of the process of the strategic planning thank you Dr bar I apologize vice president GTO I'll turn it back over to you uh no that was I I like I said I appreciate the work that has been done this far and I'm looking forward to what uh what's to come in the future thank you very much for your work and to all those uh stakeholders that participated in the process thank you uh trusty fam okay yeah so I'll I'll have a qu question to Super endent Bower before I move on to my comment uh you know uh since this was a uh this was Prov since uh

090the services of the Glen price group was provided uh in part by these uh Santa clar County Office of Education was it a grant that uh the county office uh Awards to districts or did this come out of some I mean uh development budget that the uh County Office of Education has the County Office of Ed is charged with supporting districts specifically those districts that are that struggle and rock um if you know we had um a number of challenges for for a number of years and we're just coming out of that and so in order to stabilize and to continue with the work of institutionalizing some of those changes to develop a stable system I reach out to Dr danan as a result of multiple interventions that the County Office of Ed had to

091come specifically around our budgetary practices so uh the County Office of Ed in their role of supporting districts like ours uh graciously um approved this kind of support for Alam Rock uh thank you very much so I uh you know so I wanted to thank the The Glenn price group for working with us to uh put together this outline of thing uh of things to do as Alm Ro moves forward you know uh uh you know Rec we recently celebrated our 90th year anniversary and also I I wanted to make note that you know uh as a member of the board I have gone to the school sites and I am you know I know that our district had you know a as our district moves forward you know I the dis Alam walk has

092uh you know challenges to work on just you know at the same time that there are opportuni ities of uh you know improving what we can do H though I wanted to to kind of uh you know make it clear to to our public that you know first of all this this you know the you know this work was not something that you know the board paid out this was something that was you know provided by the County Office of Education to help our District uh you know uh keep on making progress as we uh move to a better place uh and lastly uh you know I I want you know uh put it out there that you know I've been going to the school sites I've responded to teachers emails and uh I hear

093all the concerns that that uh that are being made and uh believe me when I say that you know I I hope to be a bridge uh to the differences that we are having now and find a way uh you know find a way where we can come together and move forward I think that part of you know part of this is part of this is building on the outline that uh was uh worked on by The Glenn price group to get us thinking about areas that uh uh we can improve upon as well as areas where there are opportunities for us to seize and so I you know wanted to to stress that you know uh that thankfully you know this is something that you know that was not done out of Ward funds

094and also uh hopefully we you know we have an opportunity to uh flush out this outline and uh bring uh bring to fruition uh you know the fruits of our labors thank you very much thank you trusty F trusty yes thank you can you hear me because I switched microphone so okay yes we can hear you loud and clear all right thanks so I I guess I have um some comments that maybe are a little more I guess specific to the responses and guidance that questions that that we have up on the screen um before that I do actually though obviously want to thank the Glen price team for for compiling all of this from all the feedback that they've gathered and that work that's been done and also to Dr Bower and Dr Dewan

095uh because I know when we were trying to initially identify how we would move forward in this process we were looking at options that were like in the you could correct me if I'm wrong but like in the5 to $10,000 range to to try to um you know get someone to come and do this work and and so the very um you know we're just so appreciative of the Glen price group and and Dr Dean for making this happen for us in a way that is um that maximizes our our budget and and doesn't affect our budget actually so one of the things that I wanted to um that I guess kind of jotted down as as the presentation was happening was I think that for me uh one of the key principles um is

096is just the fact that that are the environment at least right now and in the most very recent past is very is so Dynamic like within the past two or three years I mean from everything from enrollment to covid to to large you know more macroeconomic conditions in the in the country and in the world world like all these crazy Dynamics are happening um and so with all those changing the changing environment that seems to shift daily um I think that it's key for us you pointed this out in the presentation that we have those kind of guiding principles or or key principles that we can revert to and look to when we are making a decision it you know we might be thinking in a certain way right now but as the environment shifts

097it may cause us to have to think about it completely differently and we'll need to kind of lean on those whether it's a mission statement or a vision statement or key guiding principles we or anyone because it may not be us you know the the five of us that are here now could be a different five people you know come a you know a little bit of time from now and so those individuals or the ones after after that should be able to have you know something to lean on so that work of the work of the district can remain consistent can remain um kind of can move forward in a in a coherent way so I think those key principles are are key but not only that I think one of the things that

098we may need is some kind of mechanism again whether it's for our five board members that are here now or whoever may be here in the future that kind of triggers us when the when it's needed to go back to those principles because I think in our Zeal to find Solutions and collaborate and do all these things I think it's a natural process that individuals or organizations just kind of have that um what is it called mission mission stray or Mission drift or whatever it's called and so I think if it were possible to have some type of mechanis ISM built in such that when those times occur when big decisions are needed that it kind of reminds people to that those decisions should be based on our guiding principles because that's really what the

099district is trying to do from a very high level so so I think that was one of the things that um that kind of stood out for me um the other thing is you know it addresses it it ties into the dynamic nature of how things are going on um and and it you know I kind of asked a similar question in the previous presentation in that we don't know right now whether this current reality is close to what a future reality may look like I think whether it's teachers or social workers or police law enforcement um at this time it seems that people are taking a look at their their careers their professions their Futures and and making decisions based on what's best for for them and their families I know I've certainly made

100those considerations and you know as a social worker by by day my profession I know that in my work we have had people that have made decisions to to leave that you know this where we live obviously is not easy for people even you know professional people that are kind of at a a higher Pace scale much less people that are you know not as fortunate to be in those types of roles um and so that being said I think that first of all we need to respect the decisions of those people who decide to that whether it's in our district or you know a city office or whatever if if their opportunity is not allowing them to live the life that they and their family want to live and deserve then I think we

101have to respect that from them and and and acknowledge that that is a reality of of the condition for all of us and so with that being said I think that it's wise for us to plan for that as a potential reality and and think about in all of our processes and as we're working through this how efficiency plays a role and and you know whether it's talking about repurposing of facilities or you know how we Al staff or whatever it may be how can we be more efficient not only you know we've talked a lot about efficiency in terms of trying to be fiscally um responsible but I think a big larger concept that maybe will weave in through through all of this work that you've done already is looking at efficiency given the

102fact that people are struggling and and may not be here you know with us like I said as it is in a lot of jobs right now and I could you know maybe things can turn and we go back to how things were and it becomes more stable but I think it's wise to at least consider that there may be a new reality on the horizon um so that's another thing uh let me see if I missed anything on that and I had one more point after that um I guess yeah this takes me to the final point that I had is just that um you know I think because of a lot of what I've already talked about I think that the draft guiding principle I don't think that they're necessarily in any order

103of um importance or anything but number one serve our families and Community as their essential and foundational public education institution I think that for me is key because that as a board guides Us in what we really can do you know how can we remain solvent how can we remain competitive how can we remain um you know efficient and increase increase efficiency so that that number one draft guiding principle is really important to me because um you know there are certain decisions that we need to make or any of our boards that are are here in Alam Rock in the the near future will need to make that UR that we are the the foundational public institution here in this community and so um you know I think that will help us guide help guide

104us in our many difficult decisions that we need to make with regards to facilities and you know Staffing and programs and everything that is key for me that we do make those decisions in such a way that we can can perpetuate the 9 plus years that um trusty fam has referenced and and we can move forward to another 90 years so I think for now th those are kind of the things that stood out for me and hopefully they're kind of helpful to the process thank you trusty Chavis uh oh I did see her hand up so um give her some time to cough and to come back no not yet okay sorry I got a cough can you take the next person I'm gonna try and stop if there is yes uh hopefully maybe

105you can get some water trust uh vice president Kinto um I have a few but go ahead and then hopefully trusty Chavez is back after your comment uh um sure well I already went so if you want to go go for it um I can wait trusty Chavis how are you doing not yet I think I got it all right we can wait okay so from the emerging theme um one thing that keep standing out to me is we should have been doing this back in December 2018 when the superintendent and I when I was President tried to bring this to the board but um the key strengths and the challenges and opportunities that we are missing from the emerging things this needs to get done and it should have been done long ago and

106I'm thankful that blend price team is on board to help us um do this process and we do we need to find Opportunities to find solutions to strengthen the District budget and in turn we can offer better pay once that is done but first we need to put these things in order and the strategies that we identified we should start there first as far as the repurposing of facilities and then um one of the last questions when do you want to hear about the updates I would like to hear the updates every two weeks if that's possible or the next day after the core planning team meets thank you thank you trusty Chavez um and I'll go ahead and go and then we'll come back to you vice president kto um so some of the

107emergence uh emerging themes that stood out to me um you know in reading them I uh I um really liked the fact that I think you all initially got a good uh picture of um of what we're going through right it's not I mean I feel like you're a part of us you know so that I mean the fact that it's all here um and even you know some of us mentioned that we didn't see it or you know but it's all in here um and the only things that I would add for example in the draft guiding principles on number three where it states support our education team including teacher staff and administrators to grow and Thrive I would add parents as the um support supporting Education team because we are a part of

108the Education team um so that I mean you know and it doesn't mean there has to be in there these are just some thoughts when I was reading you know that I highlighted because parents are you know again a big part of that education te team and when I saw these guiding principles um you know we are a school district absolutely and we serve our families um and communities um but I didn't really see them as a part of uh of the um of those that were're serving for example maintaining cultural curiosity and Community recognizing our community's culture as core strength I like that we're recognizing it but I don't really see them a part of the process if that makes any sense um and so you know on number three support our education team

109including teacher staff and administrators to grow and Thrive um as you know Dr bow did mention you know you did talk to um Joselyn and other members but it was just the beginning right of all the work that's going to be done and one question in regards to the continuing um process and the team that will gather in January a question that I have on that core planning team is how how are you going to identify the core members of that team is it going to be somebody that's picked how are they identified to be a part of that team so we're in the process of of of that identification working with Dr Bower and closely with Dr Bower and and and her team and there's a few different ways so there's some direct invitation

110of um bargaining unit leadership and then from uh as well as um external Partners uh after school providers Early Education providers and then um there are and Dr Bower please weigh in as well to speak to some of this process um request for representatives from spark Dak and deac um to participate in the core planning team um with part of the thinking being that they can also be kind of bridging some of the communication between those groups and the the core planning team Dr bow anything you add answer that and then just to add to that question Dr Bower um are these folks from those groups that you will pick or how will that work if you can explain that please thank you so much for president for the opportunity to clarify for everybody so

111the groups themselves select their uh representative including the units so I had um last night during the spark meeting the parents themselves uh you know kind of selected who's going to be the spark representative in the spark alternate to the to the committee and the same process was followed in DC and deac those are the main parent groups uh in our district that represent all the parents uh each of the units is going to be uh selecting their own person that they are uh representing um and uh at this point I have spoken with CCA and area and they will be sending those names to me um for the December board meeting the hope is that during the December board meeting we will share with the board who as an update who the core uh

112committee members will be we cannot have a very large committee Because by the nature of this work we're trying to come with a plan with a very short amount of time and so um we are expecting to have a committee between of between 15 and 18 people representing all stakeholders in the district thank you um and you know in regards to challenges it's no secret that the cost of living is a challenge in our Silicon Valley for all of us across the board so I think that alone you know um hits number one right declining enrollment our children are leaving to other you know communities where they're able to to pay for rent and I you know can't be mad for that staff turn over for many reasons you know including finding a better job

113I can't blame them for that either you know if I were to find another job I might uh you know put a application elsewhere you know then that that pays my bills but really I think the cost of living is huge and unfortunately it's not something that our small school district can change but you know as leaders in our community we could definitely be involved in different conversations so knowing that you know as as a a leader here um you know I I am being a part of some of these conversations um with other entities that might have be able to to do something about that um in regards to emerging things um that might be missing um again it's not missing you know but I think really um centering the coming together as school

114staff as Community um and you know for our children right on behalf of our children on the center like that North Star um and just reiterating that um because I think you know I have I have my own things that I'm bringing in but when I think of children then then the conversation might shift a little you know um and then in regards to uh the way that I would like to be um updated is um you know at our board meetings um that we have set aside already you know that we can provide a update there as to what's happening um I get it in January you'll be convening for the first time so not much will happen um so there might not be an update in January and I'm not sure when that

115many might happen but that you know um February March April we have an update and then it looks like we're you know looking at May to to finalize something um so that we're not surprised you know at the end um so I would like one monthly if that's possible um and you know another thing that really stood out you know that I think you know our teachers as a parent our aging school facilities that need a lot of work right I've gone to all the schools and I've seen that myself but I think as a parent is where I really experienced it you know my daughter trip the friends breaking bones you know things that it's like it's not something that I can change overnight but if we work towards this three to five year

116plan that it's something that you know um we we can we can change one of the many things right so I'm really excited I mean of um the direction we're heading into um you know we've we have shifted our ship in in the right direction year months ago now and so this is just kind of adding gas to it you know um I feel like um and I see I see our destination um you know we're almost there and so this is really exciting thank you all for helping guide our work here at alen loock um I did promise that I would bring it back to truste kto and then I see trusty Viano vice president so my question is for um for gpg uh with regard to guidance and requests do you have have

117a framework that you or you've seen somewhere else or best practices with regard to um the guidance and requests from at the board level because what I don't want because we've already heard U multiple requests some monthly another individual said give me a report right after you're done and so my concern is that we're going to wind up getting in the way of of the work that needs to be done so if you do have a sweet spot because also I'm also concerned that that you um that that the that the if this moves too far ahead the board is not made aware and it's it's you know it's already kind of just getting life of its own so would you have like this this goldilux where it's not not too far out but you're

118not your your work is not it's not getting in the way of your work because you're having to report out every five minutes I hope I hope I was clear and that I'm not completely confusing you oh vice president you're you're completely clear and and we have had a lot of experience and I think you're right to use the metaphor of the the Goldilocks approach um we're going to need to this is as you've seen this a very rapid process that we're engaged in and we really want to honor that and get back to you with something that you can be looking at in terms of a plan by uh May 2022 so we're going to need to be in very close communication with the core planning team anyway and developing updates and reports for

119them so it feels to me like a a um to Winer situation it might be difficult to do as the morning after the core planning team meeting but certainly getting to you updates for every board meeting should not be a problem and I think that's that feels to me anyway if you all agree I like the right Cadence great thank you that's exactly what I was looking for trusty wano yes thank you um so another thing that um I remembered actually that I wanted to also bring up um it was under the emerging themes opportunities number two with regards to increase enrollment um and the first bulling point is improve branding and Communications to attract more students and families so without a doubt I think that's something that we need to be doing all the

120time um and I think we do a decent job of that but there is room for improving that um however that being said I think it's becoming more and more clear that the enrollment issue is for for sure a regional issue if not a Statewide or even national issue it's not necessarily um something that was is within our Locust of control um or at least in any significant way I think obviously the um you know the the patterns of people migrating in and out of our region um dictate a lot of what we've been seen and and I think that that we need to be cognizant of that but I think that to it ties to another Point somewhere in your presentation I think that we do still need to improve branding and Communications but

121I think potentially one of the things that we may want to do is have an eye more towards um communicating out the positives of the district communicating out all the progress that has been made all of the Milestones that we've reached all of those things because we do tend to get um and I don't think it's uh necessarily particular to our district but it feels like it's sometimes we do tend to get um media uh stories or or things that are that don't quite communicate the at least in my perception the reality of what's happening in alumrock and so I think that improving our branding and communication with an eye towards getting that message out and not again to fabricate this but I think there are real stories to be told that would that creates

122um or that shifts the perception of our district to the reality of of what it is with all its challenges um and I think that's key and that's important because one of the points in here that I know and we've talked about for any number of years is bringing in P private Partnerships and corporate Partnerships and all of those types of um collaborations and resources that we would like to bring and we do a decent job of already but I think when we can create or or not even create when we can reflect The Narrative of the the actual alumrock the reality of of all the positives and demonstrate the stability demonstrate the the the positive things that will help us to bring in those resources because you know if I'm a Google or a

123Facebook or whatever Corporation you want to think of and I'm going to invest my resources into a district or whatever I want to see something that you know I'm going to get a return I'm going to see a positive impact and that will be demonstrated to me through seeing that this is a a district or an entity that that's moving that's progressing and so um so I think that's key I think that's one of the things um that we should focus on so number one the enrollment thing we should always keep our eye on that ball and potentially I look forward to reassessing um you know our demographics in the near future to see what the actual impact of covid has had on that um but I think secondary to communicating that um branding for

124purposes of enrollment is I think for purposes of demonstrating the true story of alam Rock in order to bring resources to the district so that was another thing I wanted to add thank you trusty Bano any other hands uh okay seeing none then uh thank you so much uh cpg team look forward to continuing to see you and excited for the continuous work to come thank you for having us tonight hope everybody has good has a nice break thank you too all right coming back to item uh 301 members of the public who wish to address a board on matters not in the agenda uh Jose can please help us with that item M yes Madam President we have um two speakers first speaker is Danielle anderas I believe it's Danielle deos Miss Danielle you

125have two minutes please unmute yourself when you begin speaking the timer will begin okay got it good evening can you hear me yes so yes my name is Danielle de Ambrosio and I am a fourth grade teacher at Lindale school I am also on the areas's bargaining team so I've had the privilege to sit in on all of those sessions so this is my 21st year of teaching in alen rock I would like to start out by saying that when the state gives you the cola which is public knowledge which is at a 5.0 0 7% ongoing the intention is that you pass it along to your employees it is not a good feeling that you make us beg for the cola every time in fact it's insulting let's get our salary schedule out of

126the bottom third in the county that is not a good look when teachers fresh out of college are out shopping for jobs all we are asking for is safe schools for the students smaller class sizes and attracting and aining great teachers with a livable wage board members and Dr Bower I really hope you're listening we are valuable we are worth a fair contract invest in us and stop dragging this along I look forward to meeting again on December 2nd because that is when we are meeting again thank you for your time I really hope you listened to all of my points thank you Miss Ambrose our next speaker is Sandra rera Miss Riva you have two minutes please unmute yourself when you begin speaking the timer will begin good evening members of the board and

127Dr Bower I'm coming to you tonight as one of your Educators and I know that I have a lot of other colleagues that will point out that we're working for small class sizes safe schools and to retain my colleagues so that every year we can have a launching off point rather than a starting over point tonight I wanted to bring to you some frustrations that I've been receiving in my classroom I'm been told as a TK teacher that TK through 2 is supposed to be doing an Imagine Learning tool where the students are to log on 15 to 20 minutes every day the the first thing I want to point out is that the district has three different icons related to this program making it extremely confusing and difficult for teachers and students to navigate

128why can't we streamline it I was told by the representative that it's because the tech has not updated our systems secondly I've been asking repeatedly to get my devices working TK is using iPads so is Kinder yet every time I put in a work order to get my iPads up and running it never contacts me they just release the ticket because they think that everything is fixed I have 25 iPads and only 10 cords so I can only charge 10 iPads at a time if one of those iPads isn't working that means I only have nine the programs are thrown at the teachers without sufficient knowledge of what I'm doing why I'm doing it if this is such an important program Direct your principles to have Tuesday staff meetings that delegate time for us to

129learn about it one of the last things and the hardest part is that why are all the TK students being judged on kindergarten standards with some of those lessons being solely in Spanish that's not supporting all of our Learners thank you Mr R our next speaker is Michael ping Mr ping you have two minutes please unmute yourself when we begin speaking the timer will begin yes uh good evening again uh the long range program 3 to five years that you um have been looking at earlier again there's very good things in there but as other uh people have stated I'm not sure we're going to get to three to five years you're you're creating a a situation in which there's uh turnover of experienced teachers people that have been with you for uh 10 years

13017 years and you're not going to attract new teachers as the previous speaker uh mentioned we don't function well the previous speaker with the her it issues um all sorts of things like that happen regularly in our district and I don't quite know why why that is it it just doesn't seem that there's any uh coordinated effort to really get things done just on the ground just on a respect of nitty-gritty day-to-day issues and that's because you don't really talk to us as teachers and say what do you need what do you want um and you make us spend way too much of our time worrying about you know are we going to get a cost of Ling increase uh what are you spending the money on and more often than not it seems it's

131getting spent on chasing the latest fad the latest new piece of technology uh when you just really need to invest in your teachers we'll do the job you need to give us enough money and you need to give us a contract instead of stringing us along stop stalling thank you Mr P our next speaker is Adrien B Miss V you have two minutes please onute yourself when you begin speaking the timer will begin thank you I appreciate uh the time that you are giving me uh first off somebody said um I can't remember who is cost of living is something that you guys cannot change yes in the Bay Area you cannot change the fact that cost of living is extremely high but the district got a 5.0% from the uh State of California for

132cost of living why is that not coming to us we have gone 2 years without a pay race which is we none of the other unions in the Bay Area have done that we have been helping you guys um president uh uh Herrera Lorena you said that you've gone to all of our schools I haven't seen you at our school school at Joseph George I'm sorry I've I've seen uh board member fam uh I've seen uh Dr Bower I haven't seen you at my site and I would love for you to come and see my site and see my kids the other board members I have never seen you um and uh board member uh Bano uh you were talking about our students achievements at Joseph George Middle School one of our kids got accepted

133to Harvard and that he didn't do that alone he got that from us so please don't sit there and think that we have nothing to offer our kids because that's what it feels like board member Chavez I would love for you you to pretend that you care about us thank you thank you Miss V our next speaker is Sean swis Mr swis you have two minutes please unmute yourself when you begin speaking the timer will begin okay um first of all I feel disrespected when I'm talking to the board because I can't see any of my other teachers or anybody else on the thing second of all I can't even see all the board members I really get I watch in nesto he turns his camera off every time a public speaker speaks it's it's

134bothers me honestly if you're gonna be on the board why don't you let us see your face honestly that's number one you can start being there number two Dr Bowers you posted the other day about the update about the how things were going or not going and you posted on November 3D that you met at F for five hours with the bargaining team but that only lasted 58 minutes so I don't know if the board knows that it didn't last all five hours um in esto all those programs that we run at that the school runs they they succeed well because it's all of us teachers on the ground doing the programs for them honestly you should know that yes they're great programs but mirror the ones in the trenches with the kids I have

135I have 17 kids reading first grade level and third grade I have two at grade level and two at at um I'm sorry I have three at grade level and two at second great honestly it's going to be a tough year and by having no money it's going to be hard I'm running out of time I have so much to say and I you only give us two minutes so last but not least least is that we we honor a man named Caesar travez in our district you guys to me you are acting like the farmer the ranch owners with us you really are you treat us like we don't know what we're doing um you know we are we're on the grounds toiling the soils with the students we're making them thank you Mr

136s next speaker is Erica Grant Miss Grant you have two minutes please unmute yourself when you begin speaking the timer will begin hello my name is Erica Grant um I just want to check you can hear me yes we can hear you awesome thank you so much for giving me an opportunity to speak um I want to Echo the comments that have already been made by other alen Rock teachers that we are working under a lot of difficult circumstances this year due to distance learning due to the covid-19 pandemic and also due to the fact that we live in the highest cost of living area in the United States it is imperative that if you want to retain quality teachers if you want to support students in your classrooms if you want to make the

137initiatives possible that you have so wonderfully outlined in the previous presentation you are going to need to pay your teachers what we are worth consistently and with Fidelity and you are going to need to meet with us in a way that allows negotiations to be productive and to give us what we are asking for thank you thank you Miss Grant next speaker is D gonalez miss gonalez you have two minutes please send me yourself when you begin speaking the timer will begin good evening members of the board once again I'm here as a mom um I've been hearing all these teacher speaks and to be honest as a stu as a former student from the Alum school district and as a parent of Alum Brock I know firsthand how much we need our teachers how

138much our teachers are value and how much support they do not only academically but mentally and social emotionally with our kids as a parent having 30 plus students per classroom in a in the middle of a pandemic when we are about to go into search because numbers are shown that we're going up instead of going down again with this um pandemic we need a smaller classrooms I agree with the teachers on that one we do um I know that district is doing everything they can to provide mask hand sanitizers but we could do better that's another thing and when we talk about this and living we our teachers serve that too they deal with our kids every day I heard comments like we can't solve that the leing the rent increasing we C we have

139to show that good about our brck but we also have to talk about that bad and have those difficult conversations why because that's how we've been growing as a as a as a district that's how we' been growing as an Educators in the during this pandemic and years before that we had to know about the problems so we could solve them I heard great ideas about partnership Partners ship with um companies and other people let's do that let's look for Partnerships together parents District staff board members so we could actually help and support our teachers and our students students we need good teachers for so our kids be successful in the future think about that let's work in Partnership let's bring that money to home thank you Misses our next speaker is Miss Tanner Miss

140Tanner you have two minutes please unmute yourself when we begin speaking the timer will begin hello this is Miss Tanner I hope you can hear me and I Echo what my uh colleagues have said but the purpose for my speaking today is because I know if I speak to the board I'll get some action I have a student that on the second week of school was unable to log into mobimax to do an assessment and I have put in work order after work order after work order that same student cannot do Assessments in MO ma cannot get into Google Classroom has not been able to do our assignments has not been able to participate in things at home because he has no access there's something wrong with his account I have put this in over

141and over so now I bring it to the board so maybe it will get some action thank you for your help I appreciate it and this young man will really appreciate it that's all thanks thank you Miss Canon our next speaker is uh in the system as Community member you have two minutes please unmute yourself when you begin speaking the timer will begin hi hi everybody um this is Brenda SAS um I had my zoom for another account but um I just want to say that seeing everything um just makes me really sad that our teachers are out there they're out there by the gas station you know I've seen them through the CTA NA national page they're fighting for a living wage and I'm here to say that it is not okay and we

142have to do better our teachers have put their bodies in the front lines through this pandemic because covid 19's still out there I want to tell you that because I myself have been battling with it and it's not something to take lightly to expose your body to this it is this virus has doubled in strength and to have these classes as 30 kids and rainy day seasons are coming and stacking them together it's not okay you have to look out for the safety of your teachers and staff and the children because this attacks kids as well it attacked my kid as well and just even recovering has been very long haul right now so think about that when you're thinking about classes we're low on staff we can't get subs because Subs are scared to

143come in right now because they're a lot older we have to figure out something to work with our teachers because they have done so much through this pandemic and I'm here to stand with them today and I know it's not an easy job for all of you guys because we really are low on staff and we're not the only District this is everywhere so we have to put our heads together and see how can we support our teachers and how can we get subs and how can we keep our staff safe it's just not okay and I'm just here today to support our teachers as a mom you know and I just want to let you guys know as my testimony covid is still out there it is real thank you mras Madame President at

144this time we have no more public com thank you uh at this time I'll go ahead and move on to item 401 Alam Rock administrators Association AA if we have a Our member here um J say if you can help us identify them and unmute them yes we have Mr Man great good evening good evening Al Community Trustees of the board superintendent Dr Baron the rest of the district team involved tonight I'm Joseph manuco the proud principal of Ben painter Elementary School hosting our growing Vietnamese dual language program I'm here tonight to share some updates with you all regarding the programming at our school sites and District on behalf of the Alam Rock administrators Association as a newly elected ARA treasurer uh first up we have some updates from our academic Services team uh this

145morning administrators across our district engaged in a three-hour instructional leadership collaboration to focus our work around the district vision mission and core values with a special emphasis on Student Center practices uh principal Jackie Monahan wanteded uh newly assigned to academic Services shares that we are excited to share that thrive an on learning online Gam ified learning uh PD platform is being launched across the district this platform allows people to access resources of choice and incentivizes asynchronous professional learning we hope that all of alumrock celebrates the virtual professional learning through the Thrive program our vapa coordinator denell finnen has been setting up a uh several contracts to really engage our students with Visual and Performing Arts uh tonight coming to you at the table will be be a contract with the get down dance studio we

146look forward to partnering with the get down uh with schools across our district to bring musical art and dance to our schools under the vapa programs thanks to our partnership with the Community School of Music and Art based out of Mountain View nine elementary schools have visual Visual Arts instruction for students in TK to fifth grade this year uh additionally the vapa Showcase will be virtual again and will be sent out to the community in December uh we continue to uh our work with concentric to increase weekly covid-19 testing participation across sites in the district at painter we've specifically increased parti uh participation by 50% since the start of the year and we hope to continue to increase uh our our families and student participation throughout the winter as trust and confidence uh with our

147testing provider increases uh multiple States throughout our uh sites throughout our district have begun serving our community with covid-19 vaccination clinics for students ages 5 through 12 uh Ryan Lindale Renaissance at Matson and atalante 1 were our first schools and upcoming we'll have mullum on November 16th Meer November 18th uh George kurtin and Linda Vista cluster November 20th based out of Jo Joseph George the San Antonio Lucho cluster at San Anton in their Cafeteria on November 22nd uh Chavez will join Renaissance at Madison during their second dose uh the rest of the sites are to be determined uh Okala families will be directed to the East Side YMCA and Okala had a vaccine event when teens started to get vaccinated uh we encourage all of our community to engage their sites uh to get that

148specific date and time information for youth vaccination as more information continues to be shared with our communities uh also many of our sites are proud to announce uh the resumption and Adoption of a variety of programming initiatives uh Dr CIO at adalante 2 shares that their fifth sixth and seventh grade students were able to engage in a science camp uh with the collaboration of PTA parents teachers and staff who made it happen in less than a month she sends a huge thank you to all that made that happen for adalante too uh PR principal story B Basu at Lindale shares that Lindale vaccinated more than 90 students and 35 adults in their first round of vaccination on November 4th with their second uh vaccination drive on December 2nd she also shares that Texas Instruments engineers

149in coordination with high-tech heels of Silicon Valley will be supplying snap circuits kits and batteries for every fourth and fifth grade student in their after school program and share pre-recorded videos of Engineers teaching snap circuits projects uh every student at Lindale will receive a steam toy for the holidays courtesy of two Bay Area nonprofit organizations uh at painter Elementary hosting our Vietnamese do language programs we're proud to share that uh We've begun a Genentech funded partnership with science from scientists and Dr Esther an ecology PhD C graduate from Cornell University has begun teaching science labs and our uh developing lab space to third fourth and fifth graders uh with over a dozen Labs each assigned throughout the year uh we're one of the schools that also have the Community School of Music and Art we're

150in our fourth week again thank you to uh vaffa coordinator denell finnon for setting up this Arts Grant uh we're we're just having so much fun here with students engaging in media uh different media art we're also in uh week four of 10 for our uh first round of after school intervention up to 4 four days a week uh we are targeting students uh who are performing below level and are English Learners and specifically we've had teachers in our vdl program step up and offer those uh services to our students to provide that primary language intervention after school uh among other things we have our interelement uh Sports League that we look forward to H hosting uh and and that's under coordination by Sandra Garcia little Heroes and Dr Montes we're going to have inter

151Elementary Sports to really get our students active and focused on Fitness and active uh Healthy Lifestyles uh Renaissance Matson and fiser schools with principales Vince osaki and Doug Klein hens uh hosted their vaccination clinic on the 6th uh they really appreciate all the hard work that went into making that possible for the students at the Renaissance campuses uh they also ran a joint PD led by the restorative uh justice practice facilitator seeds um who came out of Berkeley uh this through this work staff are developing their skills and building relationships with students who are struggling often to due to the stagnation of their social skills and the isolation caused by the pandemic so good good work to all of the teachers at the Renaissance sites especially in building trusting relationships with students uh after coming

152back to school uh after a challenging time uh lastly the alumrock administrators Association wishes you all a safe and restful Thanksgiving holiday thanks for allowing me to share thank you so much for such detailed report uh now I'm gonna turn it over to Teamsters do we have anybody here from Teamsters yes uh Alan Dory with Teamsters 150 welcome I was hoping I was going to be able to get on uh we just want to tell you that we very much recognize the many challenges that the district faces with declining enrollment with the covid with bargaining and while the solutions may be very challenging if there is one I am very confident the teamsters will work collaboratively with the district as we have in the past and we'll find that solution I am C certainly sympathetic

153to everyone that's talked t oh no we might have lost you if you're able to come back on please uh return and uh we will pick up from where we left off um let's give it a couple seconds see if they come back on did I lose you yes there you are you're back I lost you did I say anything before I got you did you did you said that you were confident that we would find a solution and then you cut off soon after that well the rest of it is I'm confident we will find a solution if there is one to be found we'll work collaboratively with the district but we understand that the challenges are all real just as people have said from both the district and from the different you know

154groups such as the teachers and the parents uh but if there's a solution to be found teachers te Teamsters will work together with the district as we have in the past and we'll find it thank you so much thank you um and now we'll turn it over to California School Employees Association CCA and I see Sharon here welcome good evening Dr Bower members of the board board president first I would like to say a big congratulations to Dr Bower her daughter son-in-law and family on the arrival of their new grandson being a grandmother of three grandsons I can honestly say let the fun begin because it will be a blast and then moving on I also wanted to thank um Teresa Smith and the management team that worked with us CCA to put together the

155two US that we ratified these last couple of months increasing the hours for our special ed Paris and our health assistants we truly believe this this will be a great benefit for both the district and the members as the we'll give help to the teachers in the classrooms the students in that come in and with their little um boo boos and ouchies that fall on the playground the health assistance will be there that extra hour to give them that extra care and they're very excited so we we do want to thank the the management team for working with us and putting this together and on the board and understanding the need and and accepting the mlus as they were presented and just one more thing I don't want to take up a whole lot of

156your time but I do want to wish everybody a happy healthy safe Thanksgiving enjoy your families enjoy some much needed vacation thank you thank you so much Sharon uh now we'll turn it over to Alam Rock Educators Association area we'll say if you can help me identify anybody's here on behalf of area I don't see any raised hands at the moment Madam president okay I'll give it a couple of seconds if anybody's here to speak on behalf of area any nowos Dr bow I see your hand Madame President uh Joselyn mentioned to me earlier on that she was running late I I told her that we were going to modify the agenda a little bit to see if she made it back I guess she didn't um but maybe we can continue and then wait

157at the end perhaps sure um if we do see her maybe can she just texted me and she says that she's here so there she is sorry okay great welcome Joselyn thank you that is frustrating when you can't see who's on and and I'm trying to wave and say I'm here I'm here anyway um I would like to Echo what Sharon said to Dr Bower uh and congratulating you and your family on the arrival of your grandson uh I too as you know we spoke earlier today have a grandson that's um so let me just tell you there's your life will never be the same again it changes permanently anyway um I would like to uh ask for all of you to listen very carefully while I provide you with some numbers four four four

1587 7 2 3 3 3 4.5 and three these are the salary increase percentages that the other districts in the county have recently settled for for this year I will repeat them now so that you know what they represent four four 4 33 2 4.5 and three together they have average a 3.7% ongoing increase to the salary schedule and just so you know many of these districts also are experiencing the same type of declining enrollment That alen Rock is now I have a couple more numbers zero and zero not too hard the significance of those numbers that's what the Alam Rock certificated teachers have received for the last two years in a row as an increase to our salary schedule zero we were the only District in the county that received absolutely no increase to

159our SC salary schedule for two years in a row not exactly something to be proud of and definitely not something to attract or retain teachers in this District the next set of numbers 28 out of 34 what do this referred to Alam Rock has dropped to number 28 out of 34 districts in the county when it comes to starting salary somebody mentioned earlier the bottom third actually just since last week we dropped down one more on on tonight's agenda you will be voting on an increase to the substitute rate for retired teachers and the contracted substitute teachers increasing it to $300 a day obviously we are in desperate need of Subs but are you aware that our first five steps on the salary schedule only paid $25 more a day than that what will be

160paid to the subs next set of numbers 5.07% and 5.35% I think we all know the 5.07% is what the district is receiving for this year's cost of living increase from the state did you know that the next year it is expected to be even more at 5.35% the next number 6.2% this reflects the US consumer price jump in the month of October the highest surge in more than years the next set the next number is 3% not 6% not 9% but 3% is the state required Reserve that the district is required to maintain for economic uncertainty alen Rock's Reserve is at 14% And is expected to increase that is far above the required 3% Reserve I can continue on with many more numbers and statistics but I think you're getting the clear picture teachers

161cannot afford to work in alumrock I need you to ask yourself what efforts are you making to even try to keep them here and or to attract new teachers to our district the other aspect of the picture though that I do need to fill in is that once again our teachers are tired they are worn out they are feeling used and oftentimes abused they are feeling disrespected and dissatisfied but rather than continuing on and on our teachers have had enough and we can't take it anymore so as you probably are aware yesterday after a long hard day of teaching our area teachers rallied together with parents and students to let the community know that it's time to stand strong together we had an estimated 200 people United together carrying signs and making loud noise at

162the corner of Capitol and mcke for 90 minutes spreading our word that area is United for our students we are united for safe schools for smaller class sizes and to support our teachers we are united what was really ironic though I have have to point out is that we were gathered in front of a gas station that displayed today's gas prices reaching $5 a gallon for the cheapest gas our salary is still stuck during the time when gas was just above $2 a gallon don't hang your hopes on the mediation process we've been there many times and it probably isn't what you think it is ultimately it is up to the parties to come to an agreement please choose to work with us rather than against us to reach a fair settlement because we won't

163give up until we have one we will do whatever it takes for you to realize that you can't run a district without the teachers but we'd rather put what little energy that we have left to better use than to constantly be battling over working conditions and a Better Learning environment so please let's get this over with let's move on we have other things to focus on you've got many plans in the future but they're not going to come they're not going to happen without teachers and we're losing them fast and it's not just because of the rising costs in this area they're going to other districts around as well because they can thank you thank you uh and now I'll turn over to superintendent Dr Bower thank you Madame President and thank you Sharon and

164thank you Joselyn now I am part of your club and um I am looking forward for those you know I started it's magic um I also want to thank um the county of Santa Clara for reaching out to alumrock and and I'm going to use my comments to highlight and the the work of a very uh important person who pushed through in the middle of a lot of um a lot of um uh challenges himself Dr Marty fener shy and his assistant Teresa shagya um as you can imagine when the um pediatric covid vaccine was available um Alam Rock was already kind of first in the list but there were a lot of other districts that immediately wanted to jump in um and so one of the things that I reach out to the county

165and I said well you guys told us Alam Rock was going to be first and you know I understand the county they have to serve a wide variety of populations across our County and it's a it's a big County but um Dr fener shy and Teresa um who are the second in command with Dr Sarah Cody um made it happen for an alumrock brought back to the calendar the covid vaccine clinics for our children so from the bottom of my heart and I know that each of you board members who know how important this is for our community and for your support in this I want to thank you on behalf of the family releas of alumrock um because as you heard from Mr manuco we had a very fantastic turn up to be vaccinated

166I also want to highlight Elizabeth ree from the county Maria Solis from the county jesuso from alamro in student services and edal from mot to making things happen so thank you so much Team all princip were immediately um welcoming and saying whenever whatever the day whatever the time we're ready to go and that's the spirit so thank you so very much everyone because we do want to turn the needle on this silent killer thank you thank you Dr bow uh now I'll turn it over to the trustees anybody um would like to go first uh trusty fam getting used to this I keep forgetting to unmute uh alrighty uh first of all uh congratulations as the superintendent on becoming a grandmother uh though I'm a bachelor you know uh I I I can certainly understand

167the great joy that uh you you have in in uh seeing your child have their child you being a part of their life uh aside from that I also wanted to highlight the you know opening of vaccine clinics across our uh District I highly encourage um parents to get their children vaccinated and if they're not vaccinated themselves you know please parents go get your vaccination this is the uh as you heard from people who have uh uh commented this is the only way to keep our classroom safe uh and turn the page on the pandemic the quicker we we get the shots over with the you know we we can look forward to uh safer classrooms and yes family gatherings dur uh for the upcoming holidays um in addition uh I I had the uh

168pleasure of being uh part of the Santa CL County School aards Association dinner along with my colleagues board president board vice president representing our uh District as well as uh representing myself representing Alam Rock I think for its first time uh at the Asian Pacific Islander school board members Association mixer uh last week and I'm glad that we're you know our district is uh taking steps to become a member and I believe it's a great place for for us to have an informal Forum to discuss issues with uh other board members especially with our neighboring districts in the east side who are also part of the the Asian Pacific iror school board members Association uh you know uh next up uh you know though though it has passed I wanted to uh validate the uh

169you know thank you uh to Veterans especially veterans who work in the alen Rock district for serving uh serving our country uh you know your sacrifices are you know uh you know uh what makes uh it possible for us all sit here today uh and on that board vice president and I had a uh great time at the opening of the battle of Quang tree Memorial at history San Jose Park uh over uh the Veterans Day weekend uh it's a a memorial to The Valor of H the South Vietnamese Marine Corps and American veterans who fought to uh retake take the province of Quang tree against uh the com against the Communists and so uh you know it was a pleasure to and an honor to uh commemorate uh such courage and heroism um I

170also wanted to uh provide an update I've uh since the last board meeting I've had the great pleasure visiting uh Kon George my my old school Lindale dorsa Meer hubber Cassel and a lante to and uh you know as I've said the these are uh long and uh in-depth visits and I'm always I'm grateful to meet you know all all walks of life at our school site and as I you know from the classroom teacher to the cafeteria cook uh I full well know that uh inside and outside this district has challenges but we've also got opportunities too and you know visi the schools is uh what helps me do my job better you know it gives you know to gives me an insight to know that you know uh the good things we're doing

171but also areas we need to improve on uh as to the uh you know uh in in rem you know uh in shouldn't say but in acknowledgement of the public comment I I want to say uh I understand the frustration and I certainly hope that you know uh where I can uh to bridge the differences and to uh bring agreement where there is this agreement and I wanted to conclude on you uh with the upcoming holiday to wish everyone in the district a Happy Thanksgiving thank you very much thank you trusty fam vice president kto uh yes so trusty fam mentioned some of the the events that we were able to to where we where we went to and so um the Quang tree Foundation memorials is a great event and very enlightening and I

172appreciated the opportunity to have been able to join um the uh Vietnamese American Service Center a very festive moment very festive occasion and so very excited to be there and sharing the joy that clearly everybody was was feeling as a result of having that great asset to uh be unveiled to to the public it was very um great place uh with a lot of uh um amazing services that are going to be provided to the community uh there um aside from that uh as a part of my service on a nonprofit board I serve on the hate uh prevention and inclusion task force uh as part of the working group and so um I received an invitation to a hate crime Roundtable that was hosted by attorney general Rob B very much appreciate uh the

173Attorney General's uh Forward Thinking him uh coming out and and is part of a 13 City Tour uh where he is going out to various communities to hear directly from the communities as to what uh the concerns are what things are going uh what are the positive uh views of things that are being done right and then where are the deficiencies and where where we have to work and so there's a lot of great input from a lot of uh various groups uh that were gather around that round table so very excited to have been part of that and U it was a great opportunity to provide some feedback um had the opportunity to head out to the EAD Union High School District Hall of Fame uh dinner is a great opportunity to see uh

174how will the feeder districts go ahead and provide those individuals that eventually go on to do great things and are recognized by uh the the the area high school district and so I'm very happy moment always people being recognized for going above and beyond and doing great things and so it's always uh always appreciative of the fact that we can gather and recognize those folks from from our area that are are doing great work um also happen to attend the Veterans Day Parade and so it's always great to go out there and recognize the work uh the the the sacrifice and the service of those folks who gone out there and done this for our country so um um yeah um in addition I have the opportunity to stop by the uh ribbon cutting for

175the Carpenters uh training center it's an apprentice uh it's a place where you can go where Apprentice can go and get trained and continue to build up their skills and eventually become carpenters and so uh I would encourage everyone uh who's uh considering um who is still thinking about what career path to take that this is a great opportunity while paying opportunity and a a job that cannot be outsourced so uh it's a beautiful state-of-the-art facility we're able to put on devices and masks um to learn how to weld and to do all kinds of stuff and so if you're in in in um still thinking of what career uh for all folks out there uh this is a great opportunity right south of us right here in Morgan Hill and U you know get

176out there with skills that uh uh lead to a job that cannot be outsourced so uh those are my comments thank you uh trusty withano thank you uh I'll just have a couple of comments first of all I want to um thank vice president kto for reminding me and and um indeed not letting me know about an opportunity yesterday to speak on behalf of our um families in our district with uh at a one of the the city um committees that there was an item that was regarding the city's project labor agreement the pl um and expanding that so what that basically um what the what we're speaking to was that the city should expand the scope of these plas and what that actually does is or what it would do um is increase the

177ability for for skilled laborers for Working Families to be able to have more opportunities at at um at jobs in in the area and to have more protections when they're in those jobs and so we know that um a number of many of those laborers and and skilled workers live in our district in our community and so you know trusty ketto and myself um were there to speak on behalf of of those families additionally because we know that when we have families in our district who um are able to have job opportunities and are able to have their wages be safe and their conditions be safe in those um job opportunities then that trickles down to our students be you know the social emotional learning um that that area of our district is impacted by

178the Home many times by home conditions and when you have um parents who are able to have that stability at work it trickles down to our students performance and indeed their social emotional well-being so so I was happy to um be able to join vice president kto in speaking to that yesterday um the other thing that I want to mention is not directly District related but um it's definitely connected um and I kind of alluded to it in comments earlier that um you know we've had ongoing discussions and we'll continue to have discussions about our enrollment and the challenges with the Alam Rock District enrollment but unfortunately you know we've seen more and more other districts all around having similar scenarios and and you know one that was It was kind of shocking to me

179um was I believe the I don't want to misspeak but I believe it was a copertino school district you know one of the districts that's considered to be you know one of the I don't know what you would call it most desired or highest performing districts and they um I believe Clos one school and are considering closing another and so the the reason why I bring that up is because I think at this point although we continue to work at doing what we can to um protect our enrollment and increase our enrollment we do need to at some point also realize and validate that this is a a regional issue if not bigger than that um and so we're not alone as a district so I sometimes I think we all feel that you know

180alen rock is this one District that's just bleeding off or losing students and and you know we need to do X Y and Z which we certainly do need to do things but at the same time it's important to understand the bigger context of what is going on with regards to enrollment all over the place um so I think that that was something that's kind of stood out to me and the the other thing I just wanted to say um so when you know I was given direct feedback by uh two community members and in the you know past months that that having our cameras on during their public comment took attention away from the commenter so I that's the reason why I took off my take off my camera when people speak because I

181was given the feedback that it distracts from the comments but I certainly have no problem with leaving my camera on um during public comment um if that's you know if that's the desire of the public it's not a problem for me at all um I wanted to respect the the feedback that I received about making sure that um the focus at that time was on the speaker but if it's not an issue for the public is not an issue for me so I will you know leave my camera on it's not a problem for me so thank you I appreciate that feedback and that's it for my comments thank you trusty Bano uh trusty Chavez do you have any reports at this time I keep coughing um I'm gonna try uh I also want to

182thank all the veterans and um all the work that they did and I hope that we can do more for them since they did they laid their lives on the line um I have two uh that are veterans my kids son and daughter uh Afghanistan Iraq and my husband Vietnam and his brothers Vietnam and Korea my grandfather my father Frank's father his fa grandfather everyone uh we owe a debt of gratitude to and I also want to bring up uh when they touched on the subject of having uh these classes I've gone to the one that's over there in San Jose and I remember Alan Rock uh one time I think it was O Garcia who brought this to Alan Rock years ago uh maybe a decade but they had like Saturday classes and these

183little kids came up and they showed up with their parents and it was very successful and all of the classes were filled to the max they were teaching them carpentry work and everything if we could ever get something like that and ask the unions if they could possibly uh work with us and maybe bring that to the kids um I remember my husband was on the board at the time when they did that and he said that they were so happy the kids to be there with their parents and knowing that you know the little skills that they learned that day uh not only did they get time to bond with their parents but it was very informational for them as well as looking towards those uh jobs in the future I think if we

184could bring something like that to Alam rock that would be great thanks thank you so much trusty Travis um now I'll give mine um I want to start off by thanking our parents for taking advantage of the vaccine clinics that Dr Bower mentioned um as another hat that I wear in the community public information officer Dr bar I want to thank you for jumping on the opportunity and highlight Rosio Luna's name that um was left I know there's so many people to think uh but when she contacted us and said I want to make sure that our clinics are at your schools at alumrock um and we made that connection and and you made sure to connect the staff so um thank you for making that happen um the importance of having leaders right that

185do not forget our families and our needs um here um and with that uh I also want to thank all the principles for allowing me to come um I've been fortunate enough to go onto every campus not as long as I would like um but you know I've been able to go on to every campus and um you know I I love when teachers invite me to the classrooms please let me know and I'll make time to go impossible to go to all of them but I will do my best um but with that I've been able to sit at the parent meetings at the schools um to update our families as to the need of why it's important to have our children vaccinated um um and I'm glad that one of our community members

186came on to you know be testimony in that covid is still very real in our communities um and the importance of having that vaccine because the symptoms are no fun um and I don't say that as somebody that's gotten it and I will Lo knock on wood here but I have lost my godfather to covid-19 and so I would hate to have anybody else you know um affected with it and have the severe symptoms um and even end up in the hospital at some point or dead so continuing to you know um ask our community to get vaccinated if we haven't um and you know also get your um booster shot if you haven't um if you've gotten your vaccine in our County more than six months ago um then you're ready to get your

187booster so please go go to our clinics and get that so important I also want to thank Dr almasan and Dr artigas for their amazing work work in addition to all the teachers and everything everybody's doing in the classrooms they you know often stay at the late hours ensuring that um CPS calls are made that children are being taken care of that their emotional well-being um are put at the front line because we all know that if our children aren't um safe they can't be in class they can't focus so I want to um give a big shout out to them and their entire team um and I was fortunate enough to sit on a uh uh panel um this last month that uh council member soia Arenas LED um and invited us to um

188to highlight what is happening when child abuse reports are made um and how we can improve our systems right we all know that we can all improve in anything that we're doing um and so looking at our systems in place police department social services um school districts and how we can improve on behalf of our children so thank you so much Dr Aras and Dr alasan for being there and providing the amazing um presentation that you did and all the work that you're doing um also it has been my pleasure to serve you all as board president this is my last uh report as your board president at a you know regular school um board meeting uh so I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart um you know it's been tough

189times um you know as we all know when you sit um alone and you don't have people around you it does something so literally I've sat in this boardroom here alone um and I you know it's it's indicative of the times and the pandemic um but really you know it's not something that I'm dealing with alone I know we're all dealing with this in one way shape or form right um and it hasn't been easy as a leader thank you trust Bano for saying what you said in regards to you know you've been asked to turn off your camera now you're being called out for you know not turning it on and that's just the reality of what we're going through as um board members you know and always learning always doing our best and

190saying you know maybe now the shifts Chang and we need to have our cameras on or um but know that we're all doing our best you know um and I know that you whether you're a parent whether you're a teacher whether you're Community member that's invested in our district we've all gone through something difficult at um you know during this pandemic and so just want you to know that it's truly been an honor to serve you as your board president um know that you have my commitment as your trustee to continue to govern the best I can as a mother of a seventh grader s soil Ortiz um here in our district always keeping her as my nor star and the reason for every action which also represents all the children that we serve here

191in our district um so I'm always open for feedback you know there's always area of improvement um but know that I can vouch that um you know not only myself but each and every one of us here we're doing the best with what we have and what we know um you know some of us a little better than others uh you know and I speak on behalf of some of those especially that have been here longer you know um I appreciate your your leadership during these these tough times especially when um we're having those difficult conversations about you know salary raises and knowing that every teacher deserves a salary raise but also knowing that it's uh under our responsibility to ensure that our district is here for seven generations to come and Beyond um to

192ensure that we provide the emotional wellness support to ensure that we're providing the intervention programs to make up for the loss that uh the learning that was lost during the social distance year all of those things right um and just doing our best with what we have um and at the end of the day that really it's just pennies you know we hear that you know the state has poured money down and at the end of the day it's really pennies with what our needs are and so I uh look forward to continuing to unite with our community um to advocate for what we need um and not necessarily we but that our children need um as an adult responsible for for them um and with that I'll go ahead and end my report and

193go on to item 51 at this time I'm gonna yes before we move on I I really apologize but I wanted to use my experience uh as a PSA for asking I know that everybody else has mentioned it but I went ahead um took my son in because he wanted to get his his uh vaccination he finally qualified when the um when they lowered down on the the vaccination we walked in uh it was really fast filled out two forms and I was able to get my booster shot right right there on the spot I happened to have gotten covid before the vaccine was developed and was being um administered and it is not fun um I have permanent damage to my lungs and as a result of that uh nasty horrible vaccine I have

194loved ones uh very close relatives who now are going to have to go on vac Co right we got not the vaccine I got Co um last December and it was a bad it was really nasty situation that has left left permanent damage to me uh and and some of my loved ones are now having to move uh move around with the oxygen tanks as a result for life it's not just a short while they're they have permanent damage to their body so uh and they are publicly telling everybody please get the vaccine this is not a joke this is very serious um so that's why I'm out I'm sharing it myself because they are very public about their desire to uh not have people go through the same thing that they did that they

195went through um but as I mentioned uh vaccines at our schools really fast we were in and out in a few minutes it took longer just to have the observation uh just to make sure that we were all okay than than what it took to to go through the process and they were packed uh it was a full house but it's such a great uh process that the county has that we're able to move through really quick so thank you to our partners at the county for the great work that you're doing in uh bringing in this very much needed vaccine to our community thank you and I apologize Madam president um if I could do something similar in support of your comments with regards to that ugly disease not the ugly vaccination um but

196you know tonight I am actually well I I missed tonight A Rosario a rosary of a family member who passed from covid um recently and you know the young father father of three and you know he his family believed that you know they could Ward it off with peas and you know different remedies that they thought that would work and unfortunately it didn't so 12 hours from now I'll be at a funeral for that so really this is a a a plea um to our families and I'm not want to tell people what to do or what to believe but please just consider if you or your family are not wanting to get vaccinated please know that you know those of us who have had it those who all of us who have had these

197negative impacts you know can tell you stories about how it impacts so consider it please families and spread the word to those you know um to consider getting the vaccination and we have it accessible here so um I just wanted to share that because it is very real and we know that and we want our families to be safe from that so so thank you president um Loa for your service this past year but also for allowing me to support your comments with regards to um vaccinations thank you trusty wano it's free you don't need medical insurance you don't need to be documented you just get to show up and get it so um it's available at all of our or most of our schools uh if you haven't checked the date near you please

198um please do or at your school all right um now we'll uh move on to the um the public hearing Teamsters Local 150 initial bargaining proposal uh open negotiations with the alumrock Union Elementary School District for the period of July 1st 2020 through June 30th 2023 opening the public hearing at this time all right um Dr bow remind me public uh comment okay I'm like I'm so used to it I don't want to miss it I make sure that the hearing is the public comment if anybody have something to say they can so if there's any hands up right now is that a good time to open it okay so uh Jose can you please uh let me know if there's any members of the public wishing to uh make any comments on this item

199uh yes M President we have two speakers first speaker is Gonzalez Miss Gonzalez you have two minutes please unmute yourself when you begin speaking the timer will begin good evening members of the board once again I'm here as a mother of two students I just want to say um and at lift the work that um the district has been doing with this vaccine distributions and making sure that all our kids are getting vaccinated I myself have two students one of her was able to get her vaccine because she's over 12 but the other one just got it actually this week he autistic and I had to share that needles it scared him and we had to hold him down but when he find out that we're giving and the district was giving that vaccinations he

200got so excited because he saw a sense of relief a sense of um this is getting better and I need to get it so he was the first one to jump on it and tell me mommy this is ready we had to go get vaccination so thank you very much for hearing our community when we said that we needed testing when we said that we needed um the vaccinations to be on our on our schools so it could be accessible for our families and our kids thank you for um the Departments that came and reach out to you we as a mother as a community member as a person that have seen how much this has impacted our our um Community negatively I am really thankful I want to cry because I know that um

201we've been talking a lot about the bad things that have that can happen right but this is extremely good thing this is something I am proud to say I am a mother of the AL BR School District my kids go to the AL Brock district and when I say when we work in teamwork we could do these kind of things for our kids our communities and our and our families so once again thank thank you very much thank you for that great work thank you for all those Partnerships that allow this to happen and um like everybody said go get out get vaccinated we need this our kids our most vulnerable little kids ages Z to five need us to get vaccinated for their own good thank you and have a really good evening I

202I don't know if there's any more Jose let me know if there is yes M President we have two more okay I just want want to remind our public um thank you uh daa but um we are only hearing uh comments on the public hearing Teamsters Local 150 initial bargaining proposal to open negotiations with the Alam Rock Union Elementary School District for the period of July 1st 2020 through June 30th 2023 um so that is the only item that we are listening for public comment at this time I just wanted to remind our speakers um go ahead Jose and any others yes we have one speaker Mr Michael poing Mr P you have two minutes please unmute yourself when you begin speaking the timer will begin yes so I I don't know why we're getting

203this feedback are you able to fix that on your end no I can hear you clearly with no feedback okay I was getting I'm getting I'll just speak through and hope everybody is hearing me um you need to deal with all of your districts uh uh bargaining units your teachers your Teamsters uh everybody needs to be taken care of and treated with respect and that starts with honest and uh Speedy negotiations not the the standard tactic of this District to delay and delay and delay um it's basically union busting technique to just slow things down so much that the union seems ineffective because you uh just refuse to to have a a quick and fair negot negociation waiting two years for a contract is is uh just wrong and please get this done uh get

204it done with all of the partners so we can be a functioning District so the tech teams can come and get stuff fixed for teachers that needs to be broken I mean if I was a tech person and waiting for my contract too I wouldn't be terribly motivated to jump through all the hoops and everything thing um the frustration is palpable you saw it if you looked at Channel 14 News uh we were out there for nearly two hours they covered us for about three minutes on the news but that's getting the attention of the public and they're going to be putting the heat on you as politicians soon enough so help yourselves out by getting things right with uh your teachers bye-bye than you Mr B Madam president at this time there is no

205more public com thank you uh now I'm going to open up the public hearing for District's initial bargaining proposal wait any do we take questions comments from the board on this item yes if there are any okay I don't see any hands all right so I want to make sure all right now opening the public hearing District's initial bargaining proposal to open negotiations with the teamers 10 uh50 for the period of July 1st 2020 through June 30th 2023 all right now I'll open it up for public comment at this time Jose any members of the public wishing to address the board on this item no public comment at this time I will wait a few seconds any now still none okay all right any questions comments from the board all right seeing none we'll go

206ahead and move on to 602 discussion consideration to approve resolution 122122 authorizing remote virtual teleconference meetings of the board and the district committees subject to the brown act for the period of November 18th through December 2021 move to approve move to approve by tryano and I don't know if it's your mic trano but you sounded really low but I could hear you to approve thank you yes second second by trusty Chavez all right um any members of the public wish to address the board on this item I'll say uh we yes yes Madam President we have one person Mr Michael ping Mr ping you have two minutes please send me yourself when you begin speaking the timer will begin yes um i' I'd like you to consider uh if we're still going to be in

207this world of virtual uh that you try uh letting some of the public into your room see what you feel how how comfortable you feel with 30 people in the room with you and see if you want to continue to do it that way um I have to do that every day sometimes 32 sometimes 33 people when the special Educators and the par educators are in the room it's up to 34 so uh we're doing a hell of a job right now and it's still scary for someone like me who is dealing with cancer and uh I'd like to see you guys face to face I would like you to see the anguish and the fatigue and the frustration on my face I'd like you to see all the rest of the teachers that are

208just just plain tired okay and some of us are angry and some of us are just ready to walk away and that's a Pity because they're very good people and some of them are just going to walk a few miles down the road and get a great job in another District uh and you could have kept them the cost of living is not great here but some of us have spouses and we can find a way to make it work uh but the disrespect that is shown to us as teachers uh needs to change um I'd also suggest that you increase the length of time that you let people speak uh no one else wants to talk now because most people probably dropped out of this meeting a long time ago you guys talk a

209long time and you give us two minutes and then that's it maybe you could talk a little bit less and maybe we could get four minutes to speak instead of two have a good evening good night thank you Mr P Madam president at this time we have no more public com thank you uh any questions comments concerns from the trustees on this item uh trusty fam we can't hear you your on mute again one of the one of the difficulties of Zoom you know keep for thinking I'm on and turns out I'm muted but uh thank you madam president uh you know I I I I've had you know I had to think about this item quite quite a bit and uh you know before we move on eventually to a vote I'm going to

210you know um you know the the Board of Trustees is the governing board of the district and you know as the collective leadership of the district U you know we we have a responsibility to to those who work in the district and um you know it is a fair point that you know if we're asking teachers teach and janitors to clean and secretaries to uh you know keep the office running uh there is a fair point about you know the board returning to an in-person meeting however you know um you know there there is an import you know important display of uh of leadership uh that that I think at some point will have to be addressed but uh given the situation I can understand uh the reticence uh the second part is that um

211you know last uh at the last board meeting which was a special board meeting I asked the question of uh a trustee and a trustee uh citing continual technical difficulties never got back to answering my question and I think it presents a issue of accountability you know if a trustee is asking another trustee a question I think that trustee has an obligation to answer the question I understand that you know in the virtual setting there may be technical difficulties but when the technical difficulties are uh resolved that trustee ought to answer the question and the uh presiding officer you know should take take care to ensure that uh questions are answered um so on so on that note uh for for this month uh I will reluctantly vote Yes uh however uh you know if

212I I mean uh ask the superintendent uh for an estimate if in the event that we we may need a larger venue in the event of a return to an uh uh a traditional in-person board meeting you know is there a uh exact exact number or dollar amount that that would that the district would incur if the district chose to have a board meeting at a cafeteria in one of our school sites that could accommodate uh crowd you know um a crowd of persons uh to safely hold an in-person board meeting thank you thank you is that a question for Dr Bower or yes yes that was a question I I did Administration if there was a exact uh cost if if the if we were to choose a a temporary seat for the board

213at one of the school one of the cafeterias at the school sites Dr Bower about $33,000 for meeting it's overtime it's equipment it's it's it's a a a lot of things we don't have um things that are that you can move easily and it's not your traditional you know when you're trying to house even even in a cafeteria trust if you know and you been around the schools we have to limit the number of kids that are in the cafeteria because so it present the same challenge plus the added equipment and overtime and moving things and it needs to be ready for Friday because we are on a Thursday night and we need to disinfect and get everything ready for Friday and with the environment that we have and the board meeting length of time

214that the meeting takes when sometimes we we leave you know we close the meeting around 12:30 and we have to have staff waiting for cleaning and disinfecting I just think that I'm I I know I wish I can tell you yes we're going to snap our fingers and we're going to in the past I you know my team my wonderful team will always say well make it happen but I also have to be mindful of the you know the late nights that we have our meetings and that it will have it will require for us remember the cafeteria staff shows up early in the morning to get breakfast ready so those are the kinds of things that I have to be looking at I I can't wait for for all of us to be face

215to face it's a wonderful Community event um but it's just at this moment we don't have the bandwidth and and that I just gave you the approximate cost yes and and that's completely fine you know but I you know part of it is again you know I think that uh you know as I mentioned the the situation as such is that you know I have expressed that I do intend to vote for the extension of the resolution that's presented but uh you know um as I say there are certain you know uh you know the sometimes the captain of the ship or I should say the admiral of the fleet has to be present at the bridge and in this case uh you know I wanted to to have at least an estimate of what

216it would take you know to have the the captain up at the bridge of the cruise ship thank you very much thank you for your question justif always good to know the uh information right and at the end us make the best decision um on behalf of the district so I've been here at the boardroom captain of the ship presidenta uh and you know I mean we've been making a work but um yeah just to see what our options are moving forward I do see uh vice president K's hands up um so I pass it over and then trusty Lano yeah I have no issues uh going to in person I you know welcome it uh at this point however I'll defer to staff and they're letting us know that this is a a better

217way to continue um I'm assuming that it's also it factors in that we need to hold meetings in order to get things done and improve things and where we not to have this um flexibility we might might we we wind up limiting ourselves to be able to to continue to do the work of the district so uh I if if this provides us greater flexibility then I'll support it but I I'm I'm happy to return to in person as soon as it's um possible I'm here in the district office right now uh the only reason why I'm not in the boardroom is so that we won't have to be wearing masks because there's multiple people in the same room and so looking forward to to the time when we come back and in person get

218together thank you trusty yeah um you know I certainly understand the sentiments of of you know public comment that we've heard in the past um you know as one as a person or I know several of us and others you know go to go to the office and there's upwards of 60 people at any given time in the office so I understand The Angst that that can bring and the anxiety when you're Milling around and there's air flowing around from you know 40 50 75 people in this office in an office building and so I get that um at the same time you know to to the point one of the things that doctor bar mentioned or she she gave a estimate of about $3,000 per meeting um to to go ahead and and do

219it in person and I one thing I want us I would want us to remember is that we don't always just have one meeting a month so I know I just got you know a a message today from marel about my availability for a special meeting and we continue to have special meetings so if we have two three you know meetings a month which is not uncommon for us that's 9,000 times 9,000 time 9,000 month after month and so I mean who knows what that would actually look like but it I kind of would if there's other Solutions I kind of would rather dedicate those let's just say 10,000 monthly dollars to other resources um and so that's one thing and the other thing I think that Dr Bower alluded to is also the a

220there's a limited capacity in a cafeteria or any facility that we have to bring in individual people who may want to see us face to face and see our faces or whatever it may be there's a limit to that in addition though we would need to if I'm correct I believe what we learned um from the the legislation last time was that we need to still provide kind of like the live access virtually to be able to have those who can't come into that cafeteria or whatever to have access to the meeting and and see and participate which I don't know if that Dr B was including that in her cost but that's you know that's an additional um whether it's equipment or or I don't know what services would be needed to set up

221the streaming and live broadcast and things like that so as just I think for me um and that's significant because that again I don't want to limit the ability for the public to participate although it may not be optimal that they're doing it on on Zoom or maybe it is optimal um for for people I think in some cases it is but for the time for myself as as long as the conditions remain as they are with regards to the cost of our um you know having in-person um meetings the number of or frequency of meetings that we have per month and the limited access that potentially the public would have you know I I as I sit here tonight I believe that I'll continue to support this until such time as we can have

222some significant change in at least one of those areas if not a number of them so so I'll be supporting this tonight thank you trust each other uh yes uh thank you um I remember when I was born president in 201819 everybody kept saying how they wanted for us to take the show on the road so uh we went to maton is that right Mr uh Dr bow that when we went to Matson I uh in August 2019 can you hear me Fisher yes Fisher sorry close um Fisher when we went to fiser there was no new participants there was actually less and it was a lot more work for the staff a lot more hours for the staff and I tried to oblige the community at that time and I also took pictures that

223day because I thought we had first said we were going to do two meetings and then when I seen the turnout at those meetings I said why are we gonna do all this extra cost if nobody knew showed up and as a matter of fact we had less participants so on the zoom meetings we actually I have always watched the numbers of how many participants we have we have a lot more people participating and not just the same old same old people that always uh will put their two cents in I'm saying we had new ones we had others that don't really speak up or won't go to those meetings so as far as hearing from the whole Community I think we've had a better sense of what they wanted and I see the different

224meetings um as far as the parent groups have gone because we have the district has been able to put zoom on for them I think that's been very successful and I will be support I will be supporting this thank you trusty Chavez and trusty I know I'll go to you after I say a few comments uh so I'm I'm in agreement with you all um you know I wish that we all could be back here but the reality is it's not we're not in the clear yet so I really appreciate um the fact that you know we have this coming back in December because it's not you know for the next three months or the next year but that we're able to assess it on a monthly basis um you know at this point I

225don't feel comfortable coming back um like trusty Chavez said I also see a high number and you know there's a couple meetings where I've seen it at 150 or more and there's just no way that we're going to have it here or at a school where we can fit that many um people um you know but I did think about you know what if we start with our uh board members and you know our staff we're all here I mean not we are all but most of us are here in the district office somewhere in the office or in the other room or in the conference room um so you know if we start like that um that was a thought and you know nothing that we need to vote on today um but just

226you know I agree in the sense of you know asking our teachers to be at the front lines I get it and be in classrooms I get it and not just in our district but across the state and Nation um and for us you know at this point they have this um and really I'm thinking of the safety and health of our entire Community because I would hate for you know one of our district meetings to be a spreader event um and then you know our children be affected and next thing you know you know it it just that would be bad but you know knowing with what we have now knowing that our children are getting vaccinated um knowing that when we have a certain percentage of our children being vaccinated then things will

227open up more and it will be safer to come back I think we're pretty close I think we're close I think we're months away and that's my hopes and what I see um I could be wrong but at this point I'm you know I am not ready to come back so I will be supporting this month um this item it could change next month and it you know or the following month uh but at this point you know that's some of the reasons I will be supporting um trusty Bano I know you had your hand up also yeah um I just also though did want to speak to I think um trusty fam makes a very valid point I think this digital environment that we find ourselves in and it sounds like we will at

228least for one more month um find ourselves in um I think along with that still though is an obligation for us as as a board and and staff to to still be responsive and accountable to to the community um you know similar I guess to you know the request to turn my camera on if that's what you know at this time that what the request from the community is then you know it's my obligation to be accountable to that and so in our meetings you know when there are acknowledging that you know all of us have been in parts of the district where it feels like it's a dead zone with um you know with equipment or with access but you know I think that that's certainly understandable but that's but even given that all

229of us as board members I think need to be accountable to our to at least to our votes um so we should um you know once in a while things are going to happen and they just can't be avoided but I think we just all need to be very cognizant that we still have the the obligation and the responsibility to to put our voice on the table via vote um and all of us need to vote all of us need to be able to respond to questions um to to ask questions and so I guess you know acknowledging the challenges that may exist and the times potentially that we just can't do anything about it I think we just need to re remember that we still have the obligation of accountability to our actions as

230Representatives here on the board so um I just wanted to add that part thank you just um any other questions comments concerns before we go to the vote okay seeing none I'll go ahead and take the vote I'll call you as I see on my screen trusty fam hi trusty Beano hi trusty Chavez I vice president kto Hi and myself I passes unanimously all right going on to 1102 announcement and public comments regarding items to be dis wait am I reading that wrong I think that was uh are we sorry I I I'm on a different one and no we're not there yet M pres I believe it's 7.01 the literacy support block grant for uh aptitude at GS yes thank you so coming back I was I was going forward I'm like no we're

231not there there yet all right so item 701 as you mentioned M California Department of Education expenditure quarterly reports from aptitude Community Academy at gos early literacy support block grant elsb and literacy action plan information only Dr Bower yes this is uh I I was looking to see if Mr Sanchez was here this is just for information only uh the board uh approved the this plan um back in October 26 and because aptitude is that District dependent Charter it requires to have a uh basically the same plan so that's why we're not planning to do any you know any speaking about it because you already approved the plan am I getting that correct Mr Sanchez yes um this is just uh to update you on the expenditures um as a requirement um for the grant

232um we are to present those expenditures to the board so you have a report there and this is just an information item only thank you very much uh so no presentation okay thank you uh so I'm gonna go ahead and open it up for public comment at this time Jose any members of the public wishing to address a board on this item no public comment at this time okay we'll wait a couple seconds any now uh still n okay uh Dr Bower I just want to remind the public that all of this is available on our website if anybody wants to see how this monies were spent they're welcome to check the the report on our website thank you very much uh trustees any questions comments concerns okay um seeing n we'll go ahead and

233move on 272 approved California Department of Education agreement for child development services at dual emerging preschools adante one and adante move approval second second move to approve by kto second byano um all right we'll go ahead and open it up for at this time po do we have any members of the public wishing to address the board on this item no public comment at this time Madam president okay we'll wait a few seconds seconds any now still none okay thank you uh any members uh of the board wishing to ask any questions comments concerns on this item all right seeing none we'll go ahead and take it to the vote I'll call you as I see you on my screen trusty fam hi tro yes truste Chavez sorry yes vice president kto yes and myself

234yes passes unanimously moving on to 703 addressing the whole child academic progress interventions and social emotional supports Dr Bower I'm gonna turn it over to Mr Sanchez thank you um I'm gonna ask Mariel and Jose if you could let uh Sandra Garcia Barbara Campbell Amy alazon um Dr artiguez and and uh Dr George cidon into the group um I know that last uh time we met at the board meeting uh there was some questions that came up regarding students academic progress and we wanted um there was a request for data from our trustees so we wanted to be able to share with you um not just a glimpse of students academic progress and that data but also a more comprehensive look um at the work that we do here in alumrock and I know that

235you've seen some of some of these pieces um in presentations uh in the past but I think what we wanted to show you is how all these pieces work together and how the team works together to ensure that we're addressing the whole child um Mari if you could allow um either Miss Campbell to be able to share her screen so she could share the presence ation with the group and so um again we wanted to be able to share with you not just how students have been doing for the last few years um we wanted to share with you how we're addressing their needs both academically and with regards to social emotional needs and mental health so um with that I will turn it over to Miss Campbell yourself I see the scen good evening

236can can you see my screen yes all right so good evening board president era loera board member superintendent Dr Bower we are going to present tonight about supporting the whole child and looking at what we're doing as a in a holistic approach so um the academic Serv the instructional Services team has been working in collaboration throughout this school year to support our students focusing on the whole child through monitoring student progress providing academic interventions and supports as well as addressing their social emotional needs so it is a three-fold piece where it's it's all pieces working together to support the whole child next I would like to introduce Dr cidon Who will present on monitoring student progress all right good evening board president board members and superintendent Dr Bower we're going to talk about we're going

237to go over assessment overview here is a recap of what has happened in assessments over the past two years uh some highlights I want to point out spring two spring of 2019 is when we last took the state esack assessment in the spring of 2020 we used the flexible guidelines set by the state to not give the esac assessment using the flexible guidelines set by the state in the spring of 2021 giving districts the opportunity to use a local assessment as a measure of progress Alam Rock rech chose to give the standard aligned fastb assessment in lie of of the state assessment espac in the 20 2122 school year we are continuing to administer the fast Bridge assessment three times during the year the fall the winter and the spring and later in this presentation

238we'll be going in digging deep into the fall data next slide please here is a look at some of our local assessments that we utilize this school year so TK through first grade it's a series of foundational skills assessment ments called esgi we talked a little about fastbridge fastbridge is the screener assessment that we give students in second through e8th grade in math and reading we also give another assessment to students in kindergarten through fifth grade uh it's a reading level assessment it provides teachers and students and families with their students independent reading level and we also dig into some seal data for students in third through 8 grade we not only do we get data from students also from families and staff two times a year in the fall and the spring next slide

239all right so here's the overview of our fast Bridge assessment this slide shows you about the skills that are assessed during these assessments the students take a reading assessment and a math assessments after each fast Bridge assessment academic Services team comes together with our site leaders to analyze schoolwide data and develop site specific plans which support student interventions and the learning as well as site administrators going back with these plans and working with their instructional leadership teams and the rest of their teaching staff so let's take a look at some of our of our assessment data for the fall so how did our students do academic with this fall in the fast brige assessment so this slide here shows you how our students did in math districtwide grade 2nd through 8th grade you'll see standard

240exceeded in green and you'll see standard met as we go through our data points in yellow overall as a district 37% of our students made ored standard in the area of math next slide here is a different view to segregating the data by grade level so same thing standard exceed is in green standard mid is in yellow this is in the area of math second grade through 8th grade and you'll see how our students did uh throughout the grade levels now let's take a look at how our students did in reading so in Reading 38% of our students met or exceeded standard in grade second through 8th grade as a district you'll once again see the data desegregated by grade levels 2 through 8th grade now you may be thinking how did our schools do

241academically this fall on the fast brige assessment let's take a look at that data so here's our middle schools in the math a fast Bridge assessment so this graph identifies standard exceeded and standard met so this side shows the percentage of students meeting or exceeding standard as you'll see our traditional middle schools seem to have a similar number of students meeting or exceeding standard in this Slide the next slide shows how our students did in reading so this graph this graph uh this graph shows the percent of students meeting or exceeding standards in reading now let's talk about our elementary students so this graph here identifies how our students did in math well you'll notice is 11 of our elementary schools have over 30% of their students meeting or exceeding standard four out of the

24211 elementary schools have 40% of their students meeting or exceeding standard in math thank you this slide also shows the percentage of how our students are doing as far as exceeding and meeting standard in reading so you'll notice that nine of our elementary schools have over 35% of their students medary ceeding standard four out of the nine have over 40% of our students meor exceeding standard in reading so how does this overall academic data compare from Fall 2020 to fall 2021 let's take a look so the data here gives you a comparison over time on how our students did starting with the last time we took the esac assessment in 2019 the data shows the percentage of students are who are on who are on or above grade level for each of the assessments so

243we have the spring 2019 esack data we have the fall 2020 fast bridge and this year's fall 2021 fast bridge data some some elements I'd like you to consider while looking at this data is we the fall 2021 fastbridge assessment was taken remotely and we were still in the pandemic the fall 2021 fastbridge data is was taken in person as we have all come back to school sites so there may be some additional factors which could have influenced some of these results connectivity supports logging in multiple times and attendance in some can I ask a question to this slide in particular before we move on sorry yes um is there any here to the best of your estimation that we could consider kind of apples to apples I know we've there's so much change and

244different um variables that have gone into these numbers but is what would you say is the closest thing to Apples to Apples that we could kind of compare here if that's possible if I can respond um remember we're using we're looking at cast data right so this is the local assessment which was state approved right so all of the all of the assessments that um we utilize are are standards aligned so this is as close as we can get in terms of being able to share with that with I mean without really taking into consideration all the other factors right when we took the last time we took espc these were students that had been on track here on campus campus all year long when you're looking at these last two assessments this is students

245having missed out being face Toof face and receiving that direct instruction on a regular basis um for a year or over a year so it it it's it's hard for us to say you know this is a a direct comparison um but this is as close as we can get based on um the parameters that the state gives us in terms of what um what we can utilize to gauge student academic progress so we the fall 2020 and fall 2021 fastbridge assessments were they both were they both administered in a fairly similar environment or given that those were within that kind of pandemic range or still too different to put too much um stock into well not really because if you look at the fall 2020 right these were students that were do that were

246taking these online at home 2021 this was after a year in the pandemic taking them here in school um and and this clearly what this clearly shows right that they're is a significant Gap in terms of the learning that has happened right and we're going to talk a little bit more about what we're doing to to address some of those things so it it's really hard to um say Apples to Apples in any of these three assessments um but it is a way where we're monitoring how students are progressing giving all the challenges um that they're being faced with and and it's important for us to gauge where all those students are at so that way we can provide the the additional supports necessary to to bridge those gaps okay thank you sorry about that

247no problem no no no problem yeah the fall 2020 uh fast bridge data is giving us a new Baseline that we'll be working with this school year also we we're in line to take the esac assessment this spring they have modified the assessment as well to a short form um that was just announced about a month ago from the state of California so in summary we know how challenging has been the last two years for our students academically uh it involved finding ways to navigate new platforms the use of technology and learning in a different setting or through Zoom um and coming back to campus has also been uh you know a difficult time for our students and our families to to re-engage so next I would like to introduce Miss Sandra Garcia who will

248share with you all the wonderful things that we are doing as a district to support our students in Bridging the achievement Gap Miss Garcia good evening everyone um to begin um we've we've had an opportunity un this year to provide additional learning opportunities for students through our lcap and supplemental plan such as the expanded learning opportunities Grant or the elog and the sr3 um much of this information has been shared already at previous board meetings but it is important to share again in the context of this holistic approach sorry so the following are some of the support services um we are able to provide this school year to support the learning recovery of our students the first one is that all schools have uh been designated a budget allocation to provide a homework Intervention Program

249tailored to the unique needs of their School site the second um is the working with think together and EnV visioneers um have they have worked with us to increase services to offer additional push in support during the school day uh at the schools that they support in addition to Site Services we have secured contracts to provide centralized tutoring programs to our foster Youth mckin vento and migrant ed students other students are served on a referral basis by principal um or you know the site we've also expanded our services and I think U Mr manuco spoke to this earlier that we've expanded our services with little Heroes uh to offer an Afterschool youth sports program at our elementary schools the hope is that this program will provide socialization and movement opportunities for our students as they

250return to school from the isolation they encountered during um distance learning um and we've also used Imagine Learning um for English learners for many years Imagine Learning is an online support program that supports foundational skills for our students this year we expanded that support for all of our TK through second grade students um to support their learning recovery um one of the um one of the biggest um Investments we have made is in the nine new counselor positions uh that we have uh added to the budget for um our elementary schools to provide support at our elementary schools we all know um you know we've heard from so many different people uh the need that is there for our students as they return to in-person um learning and these um counselors are are definitely um

251needed at these sites and I know that Dr Ortigas and Dr almazan will speak um to this uh during their presentation a few more support services in the works are um some type of targeted school day intervention that we will be um funding through the eser3 Grant and um the addition of a few behavioral specialists um to support with student reintegration we know that we're having some difficulty with some of the behaviors um students are coming back to school with so um we're looking to add those um Services um in the near future another important service we continue to enhance and improve is our summer programming uh despite the challenges of the pandemic we ran successful and meaningful summer programs this past summer um we uh were able to serve a total of 1,853 students

252at 10 of our district schools seven Elementary two middle schools and one tk8 school we offered 16 different programs between those 10 schools um we and we were fortunately able to continue with high levels of parent participation although virtually but we still had Parents participating um in our springboard and Bridge to kinder parent workshops which is a great success uh we continued meals in the community for all children under 18 years of age um and the other thing that we were able to do was um increase the number of support staff that we had on every campus to ensure that we had um safe schools um you know in relation to covid protocols this is a snapshot of what we were able to offer based on the um different programs we offered this summer and

253you can see the um the different programs the number of students that participated and the grade levels of the students I'm now going to turn it over to uh Dr um artigas and Dr Alazan and they will be sharing some important information on the social emotional learning and mental well-being of our students thank you Miss Garcia good evening everybody um I wanted to open by bringing our attention to the following slides that we're going to um share with you um if we can move to the next slides please so we wanted to talk a little bit about the pre-co trends that we saw from a national EST State as well as a county level um and as we look at the first set of slides so there's going to be a total of three that

254are connected with one another what we're going to see is that um there is a similar pattern of maltreatment across the ages of 0 to 13 with the highest number being Z to less than one um and the reason that this is of special significance is because the reality is uh for us within our district and with our in our community with the F frc's we are serving children from zero all the way to 13 and so uh this is the national uh data if we can go to the next slide please this is the state level data next slide please and this is our county level data and so like I said what we can see is this emerging pattern of children between the ages of 0 to 13 uh being um victims of

255Mal treatment and again this was uh pre-co in 2019 if we can go to the next slide please and what you'll see uh in this next set of slides or the second set of slides is um that they represent male treatment types for the first two which is the national level as well as the state level uh if we could go to the state level as well and then when we go to the county level the data that we were able to gather was actually built off of a collaborative that was done by the District Attorney's office and uh DCFS um and this was connected to uh the calls that were received uh by DCFS um during 2019 uh and and what you'll see at the very top are the number of cases that were

256actually referred to the district attorney's office um and this was the county data that we had for 2019 you can see that um there is a small percentage that was referred uh for child abuse or neglect uh with the largest number at that point in time being referred to the district attorney for sexual abuse next slide please and uh at this point in time I do want to hand over for uh the presentation to Dr Elan to talk a little bit about our current trends here within elmrock School District thank you um I I want to share some preliminary data on our current trends that we're seeing on campuses and before I do that um I'd like to acknowledge the work that all of our middle school and elementary school counselors um have been doing

257to support our students um they were a tremendous help in assisting us to compile um this data and additionally our counselors um have been uh you know helping students and families as well as staff with various concerns that are presented and it is very evident um that our counselors are critical School Personnel um you know that students and their families trust and feel safe with in Sharing um sensitive experiences and so next slide please on this particular slide um these incidents were reported during our first quarter uh which was approximately 51 days of school and so after 18 months plus of distance learning um we need to take into um consideration the physical and social distancing and re-entry stress that our students um have been uh experiencing because they have habituated uh to an indoor

258way of life um from relatives friends classmates and rituals and um and uh routines uh with school and so the pandemic has uh impacted students both developmentally as well as emotionally and so you know returning from this traumatic uh experience you know some students have reported heightened levels of uh Stress and Anxiety which may have manifested in various ways um such as physical aggression abuse grief and loss um so next slide please so here is what we are doing uh to assist students um in order to um in order to to support them to acclimate to school and reestablish you know uh rituals and routines and so miss Garcia um mentioned earlier that we have uh additional um counselors and so with the help of state and federal and our business uh office departments um

259we have been able to to do that in our counselors um have been uh hitting the ground running in terms of one-on-one uh counseling um small group uh curriculum implementation um guidance lessons Etc um we continue to work with existing communitybased Partners um as well as seeking new Partnerships to expand our uh connections to resources for our students and families and we are continuing to offer umal parent trainings as well um and to our staff uh you know we're we're also continuing to offer various training and the most recent one that we are looking into right now is the Cognito training which is a suicide prevention training for um for for educators and uh finally We are continuing to build our structure with our multi-tiered system of support and our current um our our current

260steps right now um are doing some resource mapping and and needs assessment in order to determine um strengths and opportunities to enhance our tier one tier two and tier three supports um for our students and so um I'm going to hand it back to our assistant superintendent uh Mr Sanchez for our closing comments so um I hope this gives you a glimpse of the tremendous amount of work that um not just the instructional services but but our teachers our principles are engaged in on a daily basis um and the approach isn't just looking at the academic gaps right that are very evident uh but it's truly addressing uh the needs of that individual student uh because as you can imagine it's very difficult for a child that's having anxiety or having some challenges at home

261and bringing them to school um to really focus on math or on you know just general learning so um our approach is to work collaboratively amongst our teams to ensure that we're addressing their particular needs and we're providing plenty of services plenty of opportunities plenty of programming for both students and families right to make sure that we are addressing whatever those challenges are um this is an ongoing uh evolving um progress right um or or system uh where we're adding support systems where we're adding Partnerships uh and we're constantly looking at different ways of addressing uh specific needs of students um um I hope that you can appreciate uh the tremendous amount of time and effort um that not just again not just this instructional Services team but every single stool school is engaged in

262um to ensure that you know we're providing that optimal optimal learning experience for students um so thank you again for the time and we hope to be able to update you on a regular basis every few months in terms of programming in terms of services and in terms of just general academic progress for our kids any questions thank you so much Mr sanchz uh what I'm going to do is I'm going to open it up for public comment and then I'll bring it back to the trustees for any questions comments or concerns um thank you all Jose can you uh please let me know if any members of the public are wishing to address a board on this item yes madame President we have H one speaker Miss camil Janis FIA M you have two

263minutes please unmute yourself when you begin speaking the timer will begin hi board trustee superintendent Bower and staff I I just want to thank you all for this presentation um I want to appreciate that it's grounded in the experiences and the voices of our families and the data that was shared reemphasizes the trends um and I just want to commend the district for both acknowledging the gaps in academic learning but that being noted to be tied to the emotional health and well-being of our kids and families and I don't think many districts are thinking about the magnitude of how these things are connected and so while we have a long way to go and there's a lot of supports that are needed I just want to really commend that your staff um in its totality

264is thinking about how these things are tied together um and how we can best prioritize our kids and families and I also want to uplift the Enrichment Services that are going specifically to foster kids um mckin avento kids um and other specific populations that a lot of these funds are very much intended to serve so thank you so much for this presentation and have a good night thank you Miss next speaker is Michael poing miss Mr poing you have two minutes please unmute yourself when you begin speaking the timer will begin uh yes I'd like to second to the fact that it is good to see this data as disturbing as much of it is um many of our kids are hurting many of our kids have had a grandparent die or um even a

265parent die uh from covid and uh that's the the biggest thing but there's the the job loss the the underemployment of many of our parents during Co it still continues for many of them and it's tough and they're struggling and the programs that um have been mentioned uh they've got one thing at their core is that they need a good teacher to implement them and uh again you've got to invest in the teachers that are there doing that job okay it's a it is a challenge it's a strain uh and I'll take a moment to not talk about teachers here for a second let's talk about the counselors it is good that you're looking to get new counselors for the elementary schools uh the uh counselors at George in particular are heroic they come in

266every day they deal with the greatest of stresses the the stories that they hear day in and day out are heartbreaking and they hang in there and it takes a toll on them and uh they need to be commended and they also need to be acknowledged and respected with the contract and with reasonable cost of living increases and all those things I've been talking about all night please support us our counselors and get us a contract soon good night thank you Mr P our next speaker is Eddie corat Mr Cor you have two minutes please unmute yourself when you begin speaking the timer will begin thank you very much uh board members and Dr Bower um I'm pleased to see the uh the work that the school district is doing to to help our children

267during this difficult time um and I like many parents uh support the uh the need to to Really um increase the the pay of of our teachers the one item that um I haven't seen any discussion about is the fact that over two years ago our libraries were closed we have thousands and thousands of books that our children do not have access to and I have not seen a plan for our school district to be able to have our students have access to these books um without having to go to the local library that's a uh incredible amount of resources that we are not tapping and it would be great to see a uh a plan I know that there are some limitations with regards to not being able to use non um contract or

268not uh Union employees but I I think um that's something that we should uh pay some some attention to so once again I uh I Echo the uh the comments of many many people here let's not delay giving our teachers uh an increase I I think the fact that we delay it is creating some animosity and come sooner or later we we will have to do it so why uh create some animosity um during this period of time and then uh I definitely would like to see uh the district create a plan of what we're going to do to uh give access to our students to those uh libraries that we have at each of our schools thank you very much bye thank you Mr cor Madam president at this time we have no more

269public comment thank you um at this time I'm going to turn it over to the trusties any questions comments concerns um Dr Bower I saw you put your I'll wait I'll wait my turn okay justo yes thank you um so I guess uh thank you for the report as always very thorough and and informative um I want to thank Dr Cen for that just that comment about I believe it was TW like using 2020 as the new Baseline that we'll move forward to kind of measure up that that really helps me to you know think about how we're going forward with that data um this question is either for Miss Garcia or maybe Dr Bower and maybe there's not an answer right now but um Miss Garcia you mentioned um that we were able to

270bring on some additional staff to help with um say schools and covid protocols um and so I was kind even it's related to that but I'm wondering I guess if that is a result of us having like significant um outbreaks or challenges with covid or it's more preventative or have we had clusters of of covid um outbreaks throughout the district with our students and I guess the followup is is that is our beefing up that staff a result of that so so my comment was for summer we did increase am of staff for summer we had additional um uh campus Paras at every site so that we could have more um supervis vision and keeping you know the distance and things like that with kids and staff we also were able to um have uh

271administrative support at every site this summer so we're very um lucky to have that and all of that helped with keeping our we didn't have any outbreaks this summer actually we we had a really um nice summer with not a lot of um cases so it it turned out really well okay thank you Dr bow do you happen to know and I if you don't have the answer right now that's fine I'm just wondering since it's related have we had any other kind of big incidences or or outbreaks or clusters we have on our website trusty Beano something called the arusd covid-19 data dashboard for 2122 and we have a spreadsheet that anybody can access um and I'm I just pull it up because of uh to answer your question um and it just kind

272of mentions the number of cases um and I am looking at you know from the beginning of the year to right now and it's very erratic in some ways for example the week of October 31st there were um 10 positive cases reported and then you go to the week of November 7 where only two cases were reported so you you know the discrepancy it's very hard to say here is an outbreak or here is not an outbreak so I think that's an that's a that's an interesting chart to look at to keep monitoring and I want to thank um uh there were a couple of parents who made that suggestion and um I want to thank them for for their suggest gestion I think it was a good thing for and it's everybody everybody can

273take a look at that yeah and thank you for reminding me of that I completely forgot about that we had access to that and it's publicly available so um that could have answered my question but thank you for reminding me um so the other couple of comments slash I guess there more comments U one is a kind of super trivial little correction or whatever but I in most counties the um child welfare department is DCFS are many counties in California in Santa CLA County it's um DFCS we're kind of an outlier so we're Department of Family Children Services but like I said super minor um but the other thing that I wanted to mention and bring up with regards to the data around the um types of Mal treatment is you know as you saw

274as we saw that you know neglect is always the you I mean I'll say usually but pretty much always the top number of um referrals and substantiations that we get as a department but one thing to keep in mind about that and this is how it pertains to us is that often times those instances Are CL that are classified as neglect um I mean in my opinion I guess I'll say boil down more to socioeconomic conditions and and the realities of certain communities and so access to food access to care after school school care um those types of things sometimes can result in a child being referred to or entering the child welfare system when really it's an issue to of resources when it boils down to it and so I think as was alluded

275to in the presentation the fact that we are continuing our commitment to provide you know meals and and you know all of our after school programming and all of the things that we offer it connects to those neglect numbers because you know in many obviously in many cases or in some cases there is actual neglect that we need to um you know address but oftentimes it is these things that can be addressed through prevention or preventive effort preventive efforts like what we do as a district so I think that's significant and it's another thing that you know amongst everything else I look forward to supporting that type of programming because it translates into bigger kind of familial and and you know CommunityWide issue so thank you for for continuing that work and and presenting it

276to us um and that's it thank you again thank you any other members um I just want to add I want to thank you I have a a seventh grader who's struggling really struggling and so I really appreciate the intervention programs that are being offered to her and also that she knows that she can go to her counseling whom she loves and you know goes by and sees um so as a parent you know I really appre appreciate it's a hard time right you know pre- teens teens um but it's a hard time for everybody and so I really appreciate that extra support um trusty fam I see that you put up your hand trust yes thank you madam president just the question to academic services and um maybe it's uh you know based upon

277my experience with testing but um why you know normally uh isn't isn't testing done in the spring cycle when you know children have an opportun you know have the opportunity to have gone through a significant length of the curriculum whereas you know we testing them in the fall and uh you know the children might not have had um how you say enough time with the curriculum to to uh you know to perform as well as they can't and they possibly could so uh could you kind of leave me you know guide me as to how you know why are we testing in the fall and not waiting till the spring for testing trusty bow trusty Bower it's getting late superintendent thank you trusty fan because that that that was the comment that I wanted to

278make uh thank you so much for bringing that question and we have um since the cor Common Core and a little before Common Core was implemented um we the states the different states that implemented Common Core need to have a Baseline and you're absolutely right it takes one year to master this the specific standard and so that's what I all I wanted to say um in terms of my comment when you see the re the the the tables that were presented those are the efforts of students as of right now so they have one full year to learn the standard so for example I I was just um mentioning to Mr Sanchez this is very promising a lot of times when we see a lot of red red sometimes doesn't look very good in a

279chart but in this particular case that means standard nearly met and the yellow and the green those are the kids that already met the standard for this gray level and this is only the fall so it looks very very promising I know that we have talked a lot of hardships and we have had hardships but kudos to the teachers and to the support staff that has been able to bring those kinds of results at this moment so right now trusty fam we have a baseline that's what the fall assessment is it's sort of like assessing where are the kids and then in the spring we measure the growth so the students need to you know kind of use the rest of the year to be able to show the growth for every student that's the

280difference from um his you know the the more historical spring testing of the students as a matter of fact we also have one in the middle of the year in January the winter so we really have three assessment points the fall to see where they start the winter sometime in January February to see how much they've grown to also reassess our interventions and finally the spring so that we know where what they have been able to accomplish thank okay thank you and I this you know my uh thank you to academic services for putting together you know the the picture of what our kids are capable of but at the same time uh what types of challenges they face and I uh I you know I want to acknowledge that uh you know this this

281year has gone off a lot more challenging than any of us had ever imagined I you know I was all of us I think we're hoping that you know by the sum by the last this past summer we would have kick kicked uh or at least Turn the page on Co but unfortunately for uh microbes keep having a way of uh changing the situation and sometimes not to not to our not to the benefit of us or any of our children and so um you know ju I just wanted to be make sure that you know if some people are looking some detractors are looking at these test scores uh you know to keep in mind that the many difficulties uh Technical and emotional and physical that that uh our students and their families face

282and that the goal of educ it it's great always great to see high achievement but at the same time uh a lot goes into high achievement it is not it is not just the classroom and it's just not the homework but uh often times uh emotional needs and uh F you know even clothing food shelter uh needs have to be met for this children are able to go into the classroom ready to learn so I you know e even though uh some people will say that these numbers are not where they need to be I want to you know uh the fact that you know uh I if I if if you know as long as we're on track we can see the vast majority of our kids meeting grade level expectations and if not

283higher while at the same time uh providing for their emotional and physical needs at the you know as well as uh filling in the gaps for those needs so uh thank you ve again very much for uh putting together you know uh this report of our children's progress but at the same time you know the challenges that they face and that we face in trying to fill in those gaps thank you trusty fam and the only thing I will add before we move on is that all of our students are intelligent and that these tests unfortunately do not test for all of the intelligence and I Know It by by uh my own experience when I was younger growing up I never tested high right I never got straight A's um you know I and

284I know many of us have have examples like that um if not ourselves people that we know and so you know we can't expect a fish to jump but unfortunately that's what they ask you know it's kind of like what they're asking sometimes it's so just remembering those things um knowing that you know there's so many other factors that are affecting our children um but remembering that each and every one of us brings um our gifts and our medicine and um you know we're all we're all intelligent in our own ways that sometimes don't fit the box that these tests try to test us at um so thank you all staff for doing your best to ensure that all of our students um you know continue to do well and that our quality education along

285with all the other programs that we have are being offered to all of our students and families at elen have a great uh time off thank you um okay we'll move on to item uh 801 resignations uh for information only um I don't know if there's anything you want to add Dr Boward to this report other than the names that we have um I'll go ahead and take public comment at this time Jose if you can help us identify any members of the public wishing to address support on this item no public comment at this okay seeing none any questions comments from the board all right see none we'll go ahead and uh move on to 802 certificated substitute pay rates effective November 19 2021 Dr approve um it's on for information only Dr bow

286correct yes it's only information oh okay yeah it's sub rates great than thank you uh Jose any members of the public wishing to address the board on this item Madam president no public comment at this okay wait a couple seconds any now still none okay all right uh moving on to 803 um and before we uh move on to 803 I want to go ahead and close uh the public hearing at this time for item uh 501 um Team team stir Local 150 initial bargaining proposal to open negotiations with Alam rocking Elementary School District for the period of July 1st 2020 through June 30th 2023 closing the hearing and uh also closing the hearing on public hearing District's initial bargaining proposal to open negotiations with the teamsters for 154 period July 1st 2020 through June

28730th 2023 closing that all right moving on to 803 receive Teamsters Local 150 initial bargaining proposal to open negotiations with Alam Rock Union Elementary School District for the period of July 1st 2020 to June 30th 2023 move to receive second both I heard both of you at the same time I think um so uh Mr fam I know right well I said moved to receive and so it's all right we can't approve we can only receive at this point so I guess it would be I move to receive uh the the initial bargaining proposal so trusty P moves to receive and uh vice president kto seconds um and uh I'll go ahead and open it up for public comment at this time Jose any members of the public wishing to address board on this item

288no public com at this okay we'll wait a few seconds any now still n okay any questions comments from the board on this item okay seeing none all right so we'll go ahead and uh take a vote at this time I'll call you as I see you on my screen trusty Bano hi trusty fam hi trusty Chavez hi vice president GTO hi and myself I passes unanimously all right moving on to item 804 adopt the district's initial bargaining proposal to open negotiations with Teamsters Local 150 for the period July 1st 2020 through June 30th 2023 move to approval approval move to approve trusty fam second second by trusty Chavez all right um at this time I'm going to go ahead and open it up for any public comment Jose any members of the public wishing

289to address support on this item no public comment like this okay we will wait a few seconds any now don't okay uh now turnning it over to trustees any questions comments concerns see none at this time I'll go ahead and call you as a see on my screen for the vote trusty Beano hi trusty fam hi trusty Chavez I vice president kto Hi myself I passes unanimously okay um let's go ahead and move to 901 um approve the contract extens extension with the chief kids for to approve by trusty fam second by trusty Chavez um okay at this time I'm going to go ahead and open it up for public comment any members of the public wishing to address the board Jose say no public coming at same okay we'll wait a few seconds any

290now still no okay uh with that I'm going to go ahead and open it up to the trustees any questions comments concerns seeing none we'll go ahead and call for the vote trusty Bano hi trusty fam hi trusty Chavez hi vice president kto I and myself I Yay unanimously again 902 approve the contract extension with Beacon nonpublic school for 2122 motion to approve please by trusty Chavez second second by trusty fam uh going to open it up for public comment at this time Jose any members of the public wishing to address the board on this item no public we'll wait a few seconds any now still none okay uh hearing none any members of the any trustees wishing to make any comments have any questions on this item okay see I'm we'll call you uh

291for the vote trusty veano yes trusty fam hi trusty Chavez I vice president kto yay and myself I passes unanimously all right consent Madam president move to approve the entire balance of the consent calendar items 10.01 02 03 04 05 07 08 and 09 second right uh any um members of the public wishing to address the board on these items no public comment at this time we'll wait a few seconds any now don't okay all right uh so we'll go ahead and uh open it up for trustees any questions comments concerns on any item on the consent calendar all right Madam president really brief I just want to app I appreciate the work that's being done uh by some of our schools with organizations like Stanford University we have world renowned institutions and so we've

292in the past uh par work with them to to um help them with their research and develop some some of the you know policies and and things that are going to guide the entire country and so so very appreciative of the work that the administration is doing to uh continue that that practice of engaging with these uh institutions um that are around us here in the area like Stanford University Sun State others uh in particular I'm pointing to the theou that is in the work that's being done at Renaissance of Fisher with stord University thank you thank you any other comments questions okay I'll just add um I also want to thank um all those I'm thinking of you know just being a parent and fundraising activities and the ptas um thank you to all

293the volunteer time that you all put to make this happened on behalf of our children um and then also all the donations that we receive whether it's $2 to 200 to 2,000 to 20,000 whatever the amount is we really appreciate it um so I just wanted to also highlight that um all right seeing no other comments questions concerns we'll go ahead and uh move to the vote trusty Beano hi trusty fam hi trusty Chavez hi vice president GTO I and myself I passes unanimously all right um I do see the time uh before we go and uh report out on um our close session or announce the items um I'm thinking we should move the end of our meeting um back because I don't think we'll be done by 10:30 any suggestions I move that

294we extend to 11:30 so that we can force ourselves to be quick and sucin second okay um any members of the public wishing to address board on that before we vote or all right any questions comments all right we'll go ahead and vote trusty vano hi trusty V hi trusty Chavez hi vice president kto Hi all right myself fine all right 11:30 um and now we'll go ahead and um announce um the items to be discussed in close session um re can you first say again Excuse excuse me can you first announce how much our break time is going to be because I got a check out right now we got to 11:30 so let's do 10 minutes break time thank you thank you when we break um okay so uh I guess we'll open

295it up now for public comments on any items on the close uh close session um agenda uh Jose you can help me with any members of the public wishing to address the board on these items yes Madam president no public comments at this time okay we'll wait a few seconds any now still now okay great um all right so we'll see you back here at 11:30 um we'll take a 10 minute bio break I'll see you all in close session at 10:20 um thank you very much see you soon bye am I on the close session link or did I click the wrong one you're still in the regular meeting oh I think I clicked the wrong email okay thank you yeah and I didn't put that up there either you're unmuted Linda I'm muted

296no you're unmuted just okay yeah yeah I I meant to unmute oh okay I didn't put that up there either testing testing one two three uh we're back in session here I do hear Andres I do hear trusty Chavez I do see trusty fam um and vice president GTO trusty M are you here well we got quum so take care business I I know I know it's late all right um so just a report out on the items that we uh voted on um public employee performance evaluation for a superintendent um that passed for um and then one no uh by trusty Chavez and then public employment um Public Employee employment extension of contract um uh to extend for two years um passed by four and one no with trusty Chavez and that is a

297report on our um items in close session thank you very much um at this time uh any future board agenda requests that anybody might have at this time to request to be on the next agenda if I don't see any um we'll go ahead and adjourn the meeting at 11:45 PM good night good night good night everyone good night the