SPECIAL BOARD MEETING

001i just want to honor all the women you know for me uh all those that i come from my abuelitas my dias um all the women in my life and all of our sheroes around us um that have paved the path for many of us right and actually for all of us who have given us birth um for each and every one of us to be here today so just want to honor the women in our lives you know we all have you know those women so i want you to think of them i want you to honor them um and just smile you know for what they represent in your life thank you for this time now we'll move on to um item 102. um we'll go ahead and get started we have a

002great group joining us today and so who are going to help us frame uh the work that we'll be doing today and moving forward in our district um dr bauer i'll go ahead and pass this over to you and then i'm sure you all have the next speakers thank you so much and good morning everybody and i believe trustee chavez is with us on the phone um just to for the records um i'm very excited today i think that this is a a great moment for alumrock in our path of resetting our narrative and moving our district forward to the next level and i'm very pleased to welcome the glenn price group uh they will be our partners in helping us with this endeavor i want to also acknowledge the santa clara county office of

003education who through dr the one has been a has been very supportive and uh allow us to uh through their financial support to be able to connect with uh this great group and be able to to provide for us the ability to have this kind of work done in our district just to let know ever to let everybody know that this is just the beginning this is the or the the that kick off of the effort of framing the work for the district for the next three to five years there will be a lot of work around this uh community you will be reach out people will be um part of giving the the input that we need to really fulfill the vision for the district that the board set up for us so very

004excited about this i'm gonna turn it over to either glenn or aaron to uh introduce the work and i'm very excited uh for this morning thank you thanks dr bauer and good good morning everybody um just a couple of of notes at the uh the beginning today and and we certainly will have much more to get into as we get to item three um but just building on what what dr emphasize that you know today we're hoping to have some time for for listening and learning and thinking together um it's not a decision-making uh time and and we really want to have some collaborative conversation discussion about guiding principles primarily as well as potentially getting into some priorities for for the for for the future work of the district and i want to just briefly

005look at a purpose statement and some objectives for for today's meeting so building on that as a purpose for this retreat we want to collaboratively identify guiding principles and potentially also start identifying overarching board priorities for the district's work moving forward and we also will provide more information uh kind of an overview of of the planning work ahead that dr bauer referenced and this will serve as as a key launching moment for for that more in-depth planning process coming down the line um and so that really is is the the kind of covers the objectives as as well we're going to have a focus on those those guiding principles those those uh beliefs those those tenets that should be upheld uh in all of the districts work moving forward that should be a part of

006every decision um that's that's being made into the future that should be embedded into into all programs so that's really going to be the primary focus for for today's work and we're really looking forward to getting into into that discussion with you all in a little bit here glenn wondering if if there's anything that you would like to to add at this point thanks thanks sarah i think you said it i guess number one i i want um uh or president herrera i also want to just especially note uh the special role that my abuela hana played in my life and uh thinking of her a lot today and your remembrance of uh international women's month uh really brought that brought that forward for me so thank you for that i also want to thank

007um all of the trustees for spending some time with us individually in interviews we really appreciated that time and we're going to uh fortuna due to that uh be able to draw on that data as we as we move forward today and just want to as we get started here just thank you for this opportunity to engage with you around these these critical strategic directions for alan morock we think you have a bright future thanks thanks glenn um i think that's that's all we have in terms of initial framing so uh we'll pass it dr barron a few additional comments before we close this item no i'm thinking you know totally ready for the next step i think uh board president if you want to move to i think we're ready for that absolutely thank

008you so much excited to move forward here so we'll go ahead and move on to public members who wish to address the board at this time any members of the public so i'll have the opportunity to address the board of trustees on the agenda items identified um in our agenda and so i know it's a little different from our usual meetings so i just wanted to um read that out loud so if we have any members of the public who wish to address us on any of the items that we will be dealing with today um let's see we have carlos actually today um mr moran who will be helping us with our facilitation of public comments um yes good morning good morning welcome do we have any members of the public we do we

009do have five but we don't have any with their hand raised so i don't know yeah great so at this time i know you know technology might take a little bit more time usually i wait five seconds to give you time to find the button and press on it um so i'll go ahead and count to five to give you that time any mr monon no there are none okay great uh well welcome to our general public um with that we'll go ahead and move on to item three uh 301 um and at this point uh i'm assuming i'll go ahead and pass it back to mr uh aaron or glenn price thanks for president and and um happy to get us started here on on item three i'm gonna go ahead and sharing some

010some slides so as mentioned earlier i'm going to provide some additional background on this planning work that is is being uh introduced and really launched today and as glenn mentioned a few moments ago share some some of the notes coming out of of the interviews that we had the opportunity to conduct with with uh board trustees uh leading up to to today's meeting so dr bauer referenced earlier with support from the county office of education we at the glen press group gpg have been engaged to support a planning process over the next nine months so this really starting in in march um is the the first month of that of that period and it'll focus on first establishing a set of guiding principles for the future work of of alum rock and then clarifying some

011challenges clarifying opportunities that are available to and facing the district and then based on that identification and exploration of those those challenges and opportunities thinking through what are the strategies that that the district first might pursue uh kind of getting into the realm of possibility what what might be done to maximize those opportunities to to help address some of those challenges and then uh figuring out which really should should be proposed or or put forth for serious um consideration the work is intended to provide a guiding compass for something that will will help inform and complement various other planning efforts that the district is engaged in the lcap um reopening efforts et cetera i know there are many um ongoing and and forthcoming um that that this is not intended to to be a replacement

012for um but rather to to have some alignment with to to be a support too the current uh vision and mission we wanted to provide a little additional context uh beyond just the the planning process itself so we want to put up the current vision and mission statements vision all alum rock students will be ready for the future in a diverse and competitive world and the mission statement together with stakeholders we provide alum rock students with high quality 21st century learning that builds upon our culturally diverse community to prepare our students to be lifelong learners and compete for the careers of the future so we're we are not having as a focus for today uh revisions to the these statements um but but there will be opportunity for that down the line as we move

013forward with this this planning work so for today we want to really be looking to these statements as as context uh for for the discussion around guiding principles and priorities we did also want to elevate uh some previously identified priorities and as you can see in the bottom of the slide there these kind of taken out of the 1920 lcap the the plan summary section so the three the three that are listed there are all english learners will attain proficiency in english within three years in our district redesign of middle schools with a college and career focus and third increase parent engagement so before i move on here uh that that's kind of the the basic just level setting um in a minimal level setting that we wanted to do before moving into maybe a

014next step of level setting uh drawing on some of the of what we heard in the interviews with with you all the the trustees over this this past week so i'm going to start this off um we're really going to focus first on on on items that we heard about alum rock's future and what it might look like then uh getting into some strengths some some challenges or areas that might be uh in need of of strengthening and opportunities so i'll start this off just with that first one and then glenn i'll pass it over to you in just a moment to take us through some of those those other other items i'll note that we did not include every every um statement um from from the interviews here but we're intending to uh bring

015over some some key points some of some of what we heard across uh different interviews to elevate as as a starting point for discussion today uh and after we go through this we'll have some time i will really invite reflections uh ask about things that stood out to to you trustees and um here i think that will also be a time if there are things that you feel are are notable omissions that you could could elevate at that that time as well so when we think about envisioning the the future for the district looking a few years down the line what would we we like to see some of the things that we heard were growth in in educational development of students and specifically in terms of academic proficiency enrollment being stable and increasing expanded

016dual language emerging capacity that's kind of building building on some of the ongoing and recent efforts there students achieving their desired college and career pathways including uh being admitted into top universities facilities all being operational and meeting the needs of the students and teachers stable finances and a proactive focus on on curriculum and teacher support so again that's again a few years down the line what will we if if things go as as we hope as we imagine um what would the district look like at that time go ahead and pass it uh over to to you to talk about strengths and challenges and opportunities great thanks aaron so once again we asked uh each trustee and thank you again for taking the time to talk to us we we understand how many incredible demands

017there are on your time um in your trustee roles and we appreciate the ability to have held these interviews particularly on relatively short on relatively short notice and we asked each of you what you saw as being strengths challenges and opportunities facing the the district and as aaron mentioned there was a great volume of response that came back from that so what we've attempted to do in these next three slides is summarize or theme that a little bit particularly if there were items where more than one trustee identified it if there was a strong outlier we we included that as well and it was particularly just inspiring to listen to you all talk about the the strengths of of the district and we envision this planning process being an asset based or strength based project

018process one that where we look to identify what are the things that we're doing really well and and build on those given all the research that tells us that building on assets and building on strengths is the way not only to further the the growth of our our children and youth but also to further the growth of us as as an organization the the diversity of the community was cited extensively and we are fully hoping that this planning process will really build on that diversity as a strength uh we want the plan that's ultimately developed to truly reflect you um as a as as the community so we're not coming into this work with a preconceived cookie-cutter notion of what this plan might look like and really hoping that it reflects that that that strength

019the resilience of the community um you know the the ellen rock community has has been through a lot and yet as has come through has come has come through um uh i'm thinking of uh the words of the new united states um secretary of education miguel cardona from connecticut when he said in in in la union is la fuerza uh and i think that's that's really indicated from alum rock as well the richness of culture uh with within the community uh and the ability to draw upon that as a strength the land uh or the the physical assets that you that you have um and i know when when when i served um i as some of you know from the interviews i had the opportunity to serve uh as well for nine years as

020a trustee within the west contra costa unified school district and i i sometimes had to step back and and and thank my my predecessors on the board over many years who had accumulated these great assets and these great sites where we had all of our schools it wasn't easy work that they engaged in to do that and it's obviously our our responsibility uh to make sure those assets are are utilized in the best way possible the uniqueness of each student and the ability of students to meet challenges was was was cited and you know that reflects back obviously to diversity and and resilience as well um the the comprehensive education program and provision of a well-rounded education for for students um many of you cited the the incredible commitment of your your teachers and staff

021um particularly in this pandemic period but also for for for many years hanging in there with with the district continuing to provide uh high quality work day in and day out to deliver the meals to provide the online education and everything that's come with that and then the the strong board leadership um which is meaning you as a board as a whole as you as you are now emerging as a strong voice for public education in the community and a strong lighthouse of inspiration for moving this whole enterprise of public education forward and i think that's going to be really critical as we as we move forward with this with this process so as aaron said there there were more strengths that were indicated i'm sure each of you can think of some that you

022may not see reflected here but i hope you see at least some of what you told us reflected in this in this in this list of strengths so i want you it was to the uh the challenges um areas for improvement so um we know that there are also significant challenges facing facing alum rock and and again using the same process uh we've aggregated some of the ones that that came up um out of the out of the interviews uh so either challenges that are coming externally or or areas for improvement um declining enrollment um obviously is one that you you've wrestled with a lot um i heard um an interesting fact in a statewide meeting that i was part of the other day which i needed to corroborate which but which indicated that either

023now or in the next couple of years about 65 percent of districts in california will be facing uh declining enrollment so you're not alone in that regard uh something that many districts are facing uh but it is a a deep challenge there's there's no denying that uh declining enrollment is a very difficult challenge for for any school district to face the encroachment by charter schools um which maybe links up into some extent with the declining enrollment but the the the extent to which charter schools have have um absorbed or taken part of the ada of alum rock was was cited as a challenge the a highly mobile population that you serve one that is moving around to some degree uh particularly maybe impacted in in present days in the in our pandemic period with the

024incredible economic pressure that our our state and many of our families are facing and is certainly present in in alum rock um you have some challenging local political um dynamics in situations um you know in which many of you cited uh and particularly during this pandemic period when so many of us uh and particularly political leaders are are are struggling to find the right role that they should play in wanting to make sure our children are safe and and back in school uh and some of the pressures that that's resulted in locally uh from local political leaders in in the area on on the board uh on district leadership and and in the community um building community trust um was cited by by many of you and and i think i mentioned in one of

025my interviews and and since i already brought up my abuela i'm going to bring her up again one of her favorite sayings was that trust walks in on foot but gallops away on horseback meaning it's very difficult to establish trust but you can lose it quickly um and is also something that that is built on on action it's built on on results um and going back to one of the strengths it feels like you have the leadership in place to really take that that community trust to a new level um the structural disadvantages the systemic inequities the structures of of racism oppression of economic uh inequity that are faced by many of our students uh is is clear and is is really a a a fact of life um within alum rock and it it

026just is a a a reality that is something that makes your work um start at at a disadvantage and provides a significant challenge um a need for stronger a stronger focus on student performance in its relationship to district staff expectations so we're are how are we focusing as a with the laser focus on performance of our students and how does that relate to the kinds of expectations we have for for our district team and then perhaps related to that into some degree but also independent uh the issue of of teacher and and staff retention the the churning of teachers you have obviously many teachers who have been here for a long time and are committed but it's also been difficult to to retain and allow teachers to get on a thriving career pathway within within

027alum rock obviously you know it it's it's it's always very very interesting and it's to some degree inspiring with with alemron to look at each of the of the strengths having almost this mirror image and a challenge so it goes back and forth there's a there's a strength for each one of these challenges as well but let's let's look at the opportunities that were brought forward and then we will stop talking we're getting to the close of this talking heads part of of of the day here and really open it up to to board um reactions to uh both the the kind of the outline of a vision for the future the strengths the challenges and and opportunities so when we asked you what opportunities you saw in alan rock's future these are again some

028of the the key pieces that came forward again not all but the ones that seem to be coming up multiple times or were really kind of inspiring outliers um the opportunity that we have now and and some of you mentioned your your excitement around this this planning process uh that we have the opportunity now to be creative and defining alum rock's future um the strategic planning process that you're engaging in is not mandated um it's it's not it's not something that someone else is telling you to do it's coming out of you know your leadership for the district and that gives you the opportunity to be creative um in defining the future and thinking about where is it that we would like alum rock to be in in three years and in next year and

029in 10 years um a strengthening of a college and career focus and that came out in in in a number of different ways um really looking at that that that that that cradle to college and career pipeline uh that several of you looked at it and the deep expertise that you have um gained and are continuing to gain in early learning and bringing that all the way forward into getting your students on a rocket ship career pathway to a college and career future implementing an ethnic studies curriculum and program and some of you cited the the key decisions that you've made around moving forward in that direction and really providing an opportunity again to to manifest within the district the diversity and and the voices and culture of the of the community um some strengthening

030of some specific programs such as the visual performing arts and also career uh technical efforts as represented by some of the outstanding facilities that you have like uh some of the metal shops and other uh facilities in particular in your in your middle schools um i think the i know that the dual immersion program came up in each of the interviews that that i uh engaged in and it's clearly from for many of you something that you you really really want to build on going forward and that's just as you indicated in the in in the interviews just a key piece of of alum rocks in california's future is is that dual and bilingual capacity you know do you think they're thinking of of all of us as being emerging bilingual or multilingual people um

031the better leveraging our student potential to provide a great educational experience that that potential that's within each and every student who presents to to alum rock the strengthening relationships with with parents and families you have done so much already to engage in parenting engagement and but how do we take that forward and and just make that even greater inherent part of the the dna on the volume rock is a question that you were you were posing and then um the opportunity to work with a community that's that's receptive to new ideas your community is ready uh you feel to to move forward in some new ways and to make ellen rock the district that they all can be proud of and are ready to support in many ways um to the ex according to their

032abilities so i feel pretty excited looking at this set of opportunities and also the the helping to think about ways to meet the challenges and and build on the strengths and we could have said a lot more obviously there is a lot more material but i think aaron now would be a good time for me to turn it back over to you to facilitate a a board discussion around these four key pieces thanks glenn for um talking us through those those summaries i know we have content on on those different slides so as we get into this discussion if it's helpful to go back to any one of those slides um just to review just just say so and and happy to to jump back there but i want to invite uh trustee reactions responses

033you know with this focus question here on the screen what stood out to you in the summary of of those results about strengths challenges and opportunities coming out of the the interviews erin um just real quick if i can i know uh i i was just i i believe it's important that we're all here and i know that uh linda was having um some issues so she may or may not just checking to see if she's on the phone dr bauer do you see her she on the on the audience side of this she i can't see we cannot see her in the panel um is she able to um like respond and participate she and i that's why i'm i'm concerned because she needs to be able to participate perfectly so um i'm hoping

034that she's listening to us because she's on the computer now okay but she's on the audience side so after in my event i don't know how to guide her to jump into this other she she's telling me that she's listening it's gonna be important for her to be able to participate thank you dr bauer uh i just promoted her she just came back in i just i'm in now perfect welcome back i'm like where's linda okay i i didn't see you in this part and i'm glad that we caught that to bring you back in this important piece of participating so i'm happy you're here thank you so much glenn for the patience and i'll hand it back over to you thanks for president and and so um that we're we're all all here i

035want to invite comments reactions things that stood out to you um in in hearing and seeing that summary of some of the things that we were hearing uh in the interviews with with you all so wondering what what stood out the most anything that was surprising or or anything that you want to kind of go back to to to clarify and have some further discussion on and madam president just want to clarify is it your custom for people to raise their hands or um we have been but i know it's you know it's a smaller meeting today um i'm open to you know people discussing i'm not able because the screen is on so i'm not able to see everybody so i would just invite you all to to chime in and if that doesn't

036work then i'll you know we'll go to the raising your hand um so yeah so if anybody has anything feel free to chime in at this time well i'll just start talking just to test out the the process here um but i guess a couple of things that i would comment on uh first of all i i thank you for for aggregating all of our well for meeting with us and and aggregating all of the the feedback that you receive from us um and i think for me it's encouraging i'm assuming you know if some things made it to the slides that you know they weren't one-offs there was at least some form of a theme i could be wrong on that but um if it's true that there was multiple people that spoke to

037those items i'm encouraged to see um some themes come across particularly for me um just the recognition and all acknowledgement and i think we talked about this even back when we did our vision and mission of the the strength of the diversity of the community the the challenges of it and the reality of kind of the socio-economic diversity that that we have all within our district but also you know the the strength and opportunity that that that brings to us so that i'm glad that's captured there um i'm also glad that that we captured the the college and careers thing i know that's um you know several of us have been thinking about that for a few years now and putting in some work um in that direction and i'm glad that we're continuing to

038move you know to kind of just have that as part of our our discussion as part of how we're framing things um there was one other thing left for a guy i might come back to me but the the only one piece that i would i don't even know if quibble is the right word but i just you know caused me to think a little bit maybe in particular just because of my own personal experience that i'm going through right now that we were talking about prior to starting the meeting there's i think on the first slide um there's a reference to the the term top universities like something about our students having the opportunity for career technical opportunities but also opportunities in top universities and i i just you know that concept of top

039universities i think is something that that i think about because i guess i knew before but it's come into focus more for me recently that a top university really is independent of the individual student and so you know i might get accepted to harvard and san jose state and some people might say harvard is the top university maybe that's there's some truth to that obviously that's a big thing but maybe for me that my top university for what i want to do for what my plans and vision for my future is is actually san jose state and so i think for me at this level i'm more concerned i'm not concerned but i'm more focused on like building a foundat at this grade level and at this age building a foundation of kind of like

040the pursuit of knowledge the pursuit of information how to learn how to think and then the focus on the university part um maybe that we we would want to lead them into that in their in their high school career so i don't know if i um expressed that how i necessarily was thinking of it but i think the subjectivity of top universities for me was one thing that uh kind of stood out i get the sentiment of why it's there but i also again from my recent personal experience maybe that's where it's coming from is just that you know that's subjective i think to to the individual student so yeah that's it thank you everyone that's very helpful um yeah i um i'm not surprised by the similarities that a lot of us had um

041i had obviously i shared many of those things and so i saw them and i was like all right it wasn't just me um seems like uh many of us are on the same page i share trustee behrano's concerns as well uh with that one thing um we've had because of the fact that we've had many of our competitors out here in our community use top universities as a way of of pulling in students and they'll guarantee your kid will go to harvard if you if you send them to our charter school and stuff of that sort so um yeah i believe that the focus needs to be on on building good citizens that are critical thinkers that can be successful regardless of where they are where they go um i think that needs to

042be the focus so those are my comments thank you mr pham or linda before i keep mine well uh yeah am i on yes yeah okay very good uh you know what i mean you know um you know i would concur with trustees quintero and uh bay hirano on you know on that point too but you know uh you know something that that you know uh stood out was the you know uh alan rock gets underestimated and in the notes you know we we we have we have one award-winning uh spanish language dual immersion program and we're embarking on the launch of a vietnamese language dual immersion program and you know it shows that you know we we are capable of putting out you know an educational program that you know that is in demand

043as well as something that's relevant to the lives of uh you know those we serve within our so i you know uh you know so you know as i met you know mentioned in my interview with glenn you know that's sort of something you know that i think you know where we are able to we we should be able to expand upon you know as a you know as a means to you know uh counter the message that that some of some of the charters have you know uh you know it you know i know that the choice of a college is you know highly personal and i say that as someone who works in college admissions you know uh you know as my day job so you know something that you know what you

044know uh something that says that you know we we have something that improves your child's chances of getting into uh the college of their choice you know i think is something that you know that gives us something to kind of fight back against you know charter encroachment but at the same time uh you know as we all know this you know allen rock has had some rough patches in its recent history and you know it's something that we we can we can promote uh to you know um build you know again build community confidence in our district once again and to attract families back to our schools thank you linda said go ahead um you know what aaron can you go back i think it was maybe the third um slide uh i agree with

045my colleagues you know and all the things that we agreed on um and i'm not surprised uh so thank you all for participating in those um maybe it was the next one uh uh on challenger this one this one yes um and i didn't want to you know focus on the challenges but of course our eyes just go like huh you know to that one thing um and it's not you know bad other than for me it stood out you know you asked about what stood out um so all those amazing things that my colleagues already mentioned i won't go over those so what stood out for me was that statement about the need for stronger focus on student performance and its relationship the district staff expectations um of course i don't think any of

046us here disagree on you know focus on student performance we get to you know lift their their grade level their grades and their test scores so looking forward to that i guess for me it was uh a little bit like the relationship and maybe i'm just understanding i'm wrong and it's not to ask any one of you guys what did you mean right it's just for me in my um observation of of how and i reacted to that comment because personally obviously i don't believe that it's you know relationship between the district staff expectations and the um student performance but more you know all those things we talked about right like inequities that we experience here in our communities um and all those things we talked about in our interviews so just personally for me

047that just it didn't make too much sense and i'm sure you know again you know we'll discuss a little bit more and um this is the beauty of all of us coming together maybe bringing some experiences that maybe i experienced as a you know as a student living in in an area you know experiencing inequities and how that related to my maybe performance compared to somebody else living in another area and not just i mean and i agree right like some of it yes district staff expectations that's important absolutely uh and it's not the one thing that um i think relates to student performance so anyways that's what stood out for me i i just quickly would like to um concur with that as well i that that actually was one that caused me to

048kind of think give a little um thought too but i appreciate thank you uh president ederlota for bringing that one up because that that one also was a a little bit of a a point of focus for me as well thank you thanks for some great great comments and and feedback and certainly some uh some some shared thoughts around this framing around top universities and while i've got the screen share up i think um just to go back to that one for a moment i think the first part of that one maybe captures not all of but some of of of the the comments that were made about achieving desired college and career pathways um which which you know as trustee vegeta mentioned you know that the top university can can be specific to um

049the individual so framing it in that way i think some other good good thoughts too around um building uh pursuit or thirst for knowledge and and the abilities to to realize that can i comment now please go ahead trustee chavez um i think we've been um complacent with mediocracy as far as the students achievement goes and i think that we have a board by law that says that the parents have to engage more in order to turn this district around we all have to work together especially with the parents because they're the ones they're at home making sure whether they do or they don't do their work until we really set the focus on the student and parent and get them on board with that we're all one team the teachers the administrators the everybody

050in the district with their child then until we really cement that in their heads that hey you have to make sure your kid comes to school prepared with his homework done until we get that desire in that parent's heart and student um then we can turn this district around but if we don't then it's gonna be the same status quo is what my belief is there's a lot of different ways that you can mentor them and it just has to take a lot of people willing to put extra time and effort into doing that and i asked before how can we haven't implemented that board policy and it just you know kind of went away there i was told that you know you can't make the parents do it but there needs to be a

051bigger focus on the parent making sure that the kid is doing his work at home i mean this kovid brought everything out that the students weren't logging on a lot of the teachers were telling me they gave students f's because they were logged on but they didn't participate or do the work there has to be a way to reach these people to mentor them to get them on board because they're not on board a hundred percent it's it's sad that's all i had a president yes i was going to say something no i i'd like to speak to this i think that the code pandemic did a lot of stuff it hurt people got people sick but it also opened up the eyes to many people who used to hold those same ideas that everybody

052can achieve oh my god you know we're all living in a ward cleaver type of leave it to beaver society no the fact of the matter is that this pandemic demonstrated that the east side lives in an entirely different world than the rest of the silicon valley and that the vast majority of the people that are out here are hustling and are exposing themselves at different levels than anybody else because we have uh the least ability to go out there and work um in terms of not not not everybody like myself i i'm able to work remotely but the vast majority of the people out here aren't and so those are things that need to be taken into account before we're gonna before anybody on this board starts making very irresponsible comments like that the

053fact of the matter is that um our our folks out here are facing way different things than let's say people out in palo alto and this is not to create any sort of uh you know division or whatever but it's just a fact um i can i can guarantee you that there's a heck of a lot more people out here having to deal with okay now we've moved into an rv now we're living next to guadalupe church uh a heck of a lot more than they're dealing with over there in palo alto and so to come out here and start uh you know see we got to turn the ship around and this is a we are facing some very significant issues that are very different in other places so what we have to start

054doing is recognizing the strengths that people are bringing already from the get-go and stop trying to have people be measured by these uh sorry about that i'm having to continue myself here um be measured by these artificial arbitrary standards created for people who are living a hell of a lot different circumstances than we are out here in the east side and so the point i'm trying to get at is we we have to start from a different angle and saying here are these strengths it's a miracle that a bunch of people kids who are whose parents are traveling four or five hours and these mega commutes are still coming to school here because they don't want to leave the place that they've known they're going all the way to to merced every morning they're coming

055from from other places and before when we used to be in school um people who are moving like i said into rvs and they're still achieving and they're still able to move on whenever when other people in other places would have crumbled a long time ago so i apologize for the passion um but um i think it needed to be said no it's okay mr quintero um you know i would concur for the most part with everything with trustee quintero said but what i will say um to kind of uh you know maybe approach the middle ground i i certainly do think that there is always the opportunity to to encourage parent involvement to encourage increased involvement and things like that and and having been a parent um of students who came through the district

056and interacted with teachers and other parents and stuff i know that there are parents who um you know i have personal relationships with who have the ability to maybe even increase what they were doing in terms of parent engagement so i think it's it's not bad to have that thought or that goal of you know doing what we can to help support parents to engage in their students education however i i do think making blanket statements about you know these people and making them accountable is is a little in my opinion a little on the irresponsible side simply because we know as trustee quintero already um stated that the socio-economic realities of the families that we deal with i think there's a reason why you know we in our district dedicate so much time and

057energy and and financial resources towards social emotional learning and and things like that is because unlike other districts and areas potentially we have other factors that we need to tend to with our student population and our families before we can even think about getting to you know what their math homework was because they didn't have anything to eat for a couple days or they don't have a roof or over their head or there's violence going on or things like that and so it's you know it's it is as already was mentioned a very different dynamic it's spoken to in in some of the comments in terms of the challenges of of the community that we have um and so again i just would say that i don't agree with the i mean i do agree

058with the sentiment of you know trying to move towards increased parent engagement and supporting that thought but but to you know state it as a blanket statement that i felt it it's kind of being framed as is um i don't think it's accurate to the reality of of what our district is is comprised of so thank you thank you thank you and i see linda you raise your hand again and mr pham i'm gonna go ahead and go with mr pram and then i'll go ahead and say something and then we'll come back to you linda go ahead mr fab okay uh thank you board president well first of all uh you know i you know uh you know parenting you know where we can engage where we can encourage parent engagement and involvement we

059should but you know uh you know just as i you know agree with my colleague the board vice president you know the fact of the matter is that you know our our community represents a very different social economic constituency so i i certainly think that you know uh you know uh in many cases our family should be congratulated for you know providing this far and i you know i think the focus should be on uh you know uh helping them out uh in way you know in whatever way we can you know within our available pool of resources uh you know um you know it's tough to help you know i you know it's tough to to get you know i you know i review college applications for a living and you know there are

060parents who you know i've seen who were you know two or three different jobs and you know when they call asking about their child's only why their child was rejected for you know admission to a state college you know you know part of the fact was you know they were so busy that they did miss a report card or two uh but the fact that you know they're still committed to making sure their their child going to school is a you know something to be lauded uh and you know and you know we we want to encourage them you know uh secondly i also kind of want you know expand on that a bit you know some of our you know many of our parents don't have the same you know uh are not we're

061not fortunate enough to have the opportunities to pursue higher education or a well-paying uh job into skilled trades and you know sometimes it you know without you know some you know solid educational background it is very hard for a parent to uh help their kid with the math homework or the english homework or whatever subject they're being me may be and i i kind of wanted to use a you know uh in the early 2000s when i was a teenager at independence high school you know uh you know the their you know the old valley title building off the off ramp of 680 and allen rock you know their youth you know the district had a family uh literacy center there and the whole purpose of it was to you know the you know to

062help you know help you know help some of our parents and actually you know uh learn how to read more effectively in order you know so that they could help their children with you know with their score and so you know i you know of course that you know was a product of a you know better economic time but you know you know and so you know those are some you know where we can we you know we we may also want to think about uh strengthening our parents capacity to participate in in the education of their children as opposed you know as opposed to you know giving them this uh well very rough pep talk thank you so much mr fam uh and the only thing i'll add is you know i think many

063of us here are examples of that right like my dad only got to third grade um and it wasn't that he didn't want to help but there was a lot of traumas that my dad experienced right for um his inability to really support me through school um and so anyways just mentioning that and and look at us right like i know i'm an example i mean i'm sure many of us can give several examples um and we were poor right and i say we're you know luckily i now have a good paying job and um but i experience you know poverty and all of those i mean i can go on and on of how that affected my schooling um and so linda i really appreciate your comments because it really tells us to how

064we all think and that you know that's important in our society we all think differently and that's a beauty right we're not all here to think the same um but it's important to know how we're all thinking because um i think that's also reflective of our board right when the majority of our board you know believes in one way what that causes for our students in our communities and so um we're at a great place right we're all here we all represent different thoughts um and so i really also want to you know bring us back to here bringing us you know even though maybe linda i don't agree with a lot of things you might say you know we're still trustees we're one of five and we get to move this district forward um

065and so i'm really glad that you talked you know the way you did because it helped me realize like oh that's right not everybody believes the way i do and not everybody has the experience that i do um and so but we still get to move forward on behalf of our children and our communities here in alum rock to make and continue to have uh alum rock be the best of the best and so i'm linda with that i'll pass it over i know we have a lot of work to do and then um we'll go ahead and pass it back over to mr price okay so there's also students helping students and other parents helping parents and i'm not saying that the one who can't do it um should do it it's like when

066my kids were growing up i would help other students they would help other students we would take in and pick up kids to go to events i'm just saying everybody working together i mean you can ask them but we i don't think we've done enough asking it's like hey you know we we've asked them but now it's like maybe we should ask what can you do come you know call them you know what do you know how to do you know and it's like well you pick up your son can you also make sure you know that this kid is taken care of and then maybe the parent can switch off i mean help each other out i'm not saying that being poor shouldn't be an excuse because you have to remember that the five

067strongest performing uh schools in this district are also in this district and they're on historian king which is the very economically low and very impoverished area in san jose so i have never seen i have never used not having money as an excuse because the child can apply himself whether the parent has money in the bank account or not i'm just saying that we all need to and it's not just a pep talk or a rally it is continually trying to tell these parents and students everybody work together you know if you can do something for your neighbor or your other kids classmate do it help each other out that's it thank you thank you mr price i have a question about the process not moving away from that topic uh president herrera if i

068can ask a different question is this to mr price yes and moving the process kind of forward to your point previously so so with regards to this process um either either of our mr first of all are we are we looking at brothers here or or brothers-in-law or something nephew uncle okay okay i thought there had to be something there it's not a coincidence [Laughter] but uh so um oh with regards to the process of what we're doing here i think a lot of our responses uh were with a few exceptions i think a lot of us are in the frame of mind naturally of like kind of um either recent past or or near future um but in terms of this process of strategic planning um i don't i'm wondering if you can help

069us as we move forward to clarify like in our thoughts and visions are we thinking in a time frame of like the next five years or the next 10 years or the next 50 years like how how how in your estimation should we be framing this conversation such that maybe it's not reflective of just what might occur during our terms here but it sets up um a culture or or a process that that will be reflected in in beyond when our time is up here yeah thanks trustee vegerano and and that's a great segue uh we're responding to that as a good segue into our next session here which is i think a place where some of the conversation has started to go so it's um happy to to take us there um as we'll

070see when we get into guiding principles and where we're starting today is you know the the intent is the guiding principles have some some serious staying power um that could they could certainly stay you know remain um they could have some changes over time overall to be to provide a little bit of a more direct answer we're looking at kind of a two to three year um period when we get more into the challenges and opportunities and the strategy development uh in in the later phases of of this planning work that's that's kind of what we're we're thinking um there's there's room to shift that there may be some stuff that comes up that feels longer term that feels like there's a ten-year area of work or initiative that needs to happen so we're not

071excluding that possibility but the overall framing that we're coming out with the starting point is is kind of a two to three year frame so maybe with with that uh we i'm going to go ahead and share my screen again just to to move us into talking about those guiding principles and and priorities and some great discussion um just just now about how are we supporting uh students and and parents and and families that i think may maybe something that can continue as as we move along here so i wanted to share a couple of definitions for guiding principles and priorities we're not uh we're not intending to be very strict about these definitions as we move into a discussion and and really part of our role is to help to to take what is

072coming out of the discussions and and provide some suggestions as to whether that might fit as a guiding principle whether that might might fit as a priority but to just be clear about what what we mean when we say those things cutting principle is an essential element or a belief that wouldn't be compromised that we we don't want to lose sight of we don't want to ignore and in in not ignoring we we really want to make sure is included in in every decision that we're making is embedded into all of our our programs all of our discussions some organizations you may place together guiding principles and and values so similar um guiding principles may be more along this this kind of belief or tenet uh statement versus values which not always but but often

073are more single word oriented and then priorities which maybe is is uh maybe both of these are well known to everyone but um priorities issues or areas of focus that should be addressed through specific and and targeted action and to the question uh about timeline the priorities are are going to likely change over time i think ideally if progress is being made new priorities may emerge that require the attention that was previously directed towards the earlier one whereas guiding principles again may change but kind of have longer time horizons of their change the idea is that they would would have a bit more more staying power so uh we we took again some notes to as was referenced earlier not comprehensive of everything that we heard in the interviews but some some um themes key

074ideas that we we thought would be helpful to provide a foundation a starting point for discussion that we're going to go into so i'll briefly go through these and then go ahead and hand it over to you to to launch us into that that discussion so some of the guiding principles and i think we'll see some connection back to some of the earlier items around what are the strengths and opportunities in particular as well as what do we think about the future alum rock what does that vision look like um alan rock is the foundational educational institution of the community it serves i think that connects in some ways to some of the comments made earlier today about uh what what resources are available to to to families that are being served by alum rock

075and that uh the the district and the schools uh in in some cases and maybe in many cases are that primary source of educational support support the academic achievement of students connecting back again to some of those both opportunities and challenges discussed previously supported students to achieve a high quality and dignified education maintaining the ability to provide an education in the community so some similar some similar items maybe some nuance differences here maintain control of assets for community use and benefit kind of a connection point back to those uh some of those assets like like the land that the district has for example cultural competency is something that we want to potentially be thinking about as a guiding principle nested into all work incorporated into all decision making taking care of employees i'm leading by

076example and being the change that we want to see i think in some ways similar to that but in some ways um has other elements to it providing leadership and then uh having respect for each other as you can see at the bottom it's kind of the starter list that we um really that we put together based on what we have heard so so far uh and hope will provide a helpful starting point for for the discussion so glenn i'll turn it over to you if there's additional comments here um that you'd like to make and then launching us into to that discussion thanks sarah and again i'd just like to congratulate the trustees for coming up with this this starter set and and this is exactly what we see is it's a starter set

077that we work on refining today kind of get a sense from the board which ones really resonate with you we're not looking today to make decisions about finding gundam principles we'd like to work on them based on your input today and then bring them bring them back to you there's just so much good good content here about alum rock serving as the community's essential public education resource you know i see this idea of of a cradle to career college continuum emerging growing the district's cultural competency the respect for and inclusion of all as was mentioned in the earlier discussion um student and educator well-being in utilizing our assets to sustain and grow the the district's capacity for service to the community so thank you so much for for bringing these forward you know i think

078as as as we go forward into the discussion uh we just want to keep recognizing that diversity of thought is is a really good thing and uh that it's just we grow and are strengthened by diversity of all kinds including diversity of of thinking and then maybe as as you provide feedback um the since these are basically statements that are taken directly out of some of your comments maybe not to focus so much on wordsmithing per se but what you see as being some of the the key ideas that you'd like to bring forward into um the the the district's guiding principles as we adopt them and i mean as you adopt them in in the future and as aaron said you know this could be one of the pieces of the plan that has

079a very long lifespan obviously future boards could review and modify them that would be their prerogative but they provides a great opportunity to leave them as a as a legacy a set of strong guiding principles for the future so maybe i want you to flip to the next slide with the um the the focus question uh there and the the the basic uh discussion that we we we want to have and we can pop this question into into the into the into the chat um is you know what what you see um as being the most important guiding principles for for mild marks work into the future and um i see some hands raised madam president do you want me to call on people or would you like to uh we could just go i

080saw uh miss chavis raise your hand first and then mr vegeta um i think we also need to put uh with under or or maybe in the same line where it says support the academic of students or maybe an additional line to also support the teachers some of them may need a pair at a certain time but they come cheaper but to move them around i don't know how that's being done and um so i'm just saying the teachers have come to the board meeting saying that they need support whether it be in a different curriculum or you know they're always have said that at board meetings so maybe we should add that as well and and have that as a focus as well that's it thanks thank you mr hedano yeah mine is i

081think on its face it may seem like wordsmithing but it's it's really not i hope um that's how it's taken so the in terms of the the phraseology of cultural competency so um you know i'll also recognize that this is national social worker month and and my profession is social work and so in social work um there's there's this ongoing discussion about cultural competency versus cultural humility and um and so we talk about competency suggests that you learn about a quote unquote culture you know everything there is to know and now you can make a decision or have a thought based on your complete knowledge of that culture whereas cultural humility is more grounded in the concept that um you know we don't know everything you'll you can never know everything about a culture number

082one because cultures are dynamic and you know there's so much to know but also cultures like that we would assume are like maybe someone might assume that trustee quintero and myself were the same culture and we even grew up like in the same neighborhood and we both attended mount pleasant high school at some point so people might assume that our experience is very similar but it's i think it's quite different from what i know of trustee quinto and so so i think for that particular bullet point um for me what i would want to see more as a guiding principle is to kind of have an ongoing curiosity about our the the cultures within our district and also recognizing that culture could be a like an ethnic culture but could also be you know kind

083of more subcultures whether it's uh you know maybe a recent immigrant culture or recent arrival um or you know it could be a you know there's a number of different cultures that we could define and also recognizing the fact that was already pointed out that our individuals in our district you know the population changes over time and it's a a very mobile district so i think um we need to i guess to cut it short to bring it back to the point that um that i would want us this board as a guiding principle to be curious about um our our population and not necessarily confident in our competency of what the makeup is but um continuously questioning and making sure that we understand the current cultural dynamics or whatever however you want to call

084that so that's it thank you uh linda i see your hand's still up i think it was from the previous one right we're good you're fine okay i was just checking um mr fam or mr quintero would you like to add anything well uh you know and uh you know what aside from cultural competency i guess uh my my bugaboo is the uh you know and i i i i think i you know i distinct you know remember sharing it with glenn in our interview but the the the the point about the alum rock as the foundational educational institution uh of the community is uh you know something that i think you know uh you know it kind of like the guide star uh for for alum rock you know as it you know as

085it moves into the future you know faces new situations inform its decisions and i say it because you know you know it it is an appeal to to both history and you know its long role in this community uh you know you know uh you know um you know uh was in that you know kind of like a a big twist you know uh i guess in a sense you know it may be our uh you know given our geographical location it it's kind of like our uh destiny of sources you know we've served you know the the blue and the working class we we served the working class community of san jose since our inception you know we go back to you know this district was in in many ways found founded by those

086who uh you know uh who worked the farms when this was still the valley of hearts delight and to this day we're still serving the the people who you know they may not work in in high tech but they're the ones who keep our infrastructure run you know keep the lights on the water and temps running you know the you know the the you know the the laborious work that you know keeps this city running in more ways than one so you know i you know you know and in you know and we've you know we've been around in you know multiple recessions a great depression a world war and uh you know now with with a pandemic and you know and you know even to this day even as we're still you know encroached

087on by charters you know it it is food from alum rock kitchens that you know that are feeding people and just you know feeding our students and families in their time of need so you know i you know you know uh you know we you know we've been here for so long you know for you know you know we're a community school organization we've been here for you know we've been here for this long and there's a reason we've been here you know for you know the better part of a century which you know because no no one else was willing to serve our community and so uh you know as we you know plan strategically you know we need to sort of keep in mind that you know jobs job number one is to

088be around because you know uh you know at the end of the day uh you know the charters haven't been around for more than 30 years you know we've been around for you know uh the better part of a century and we you know go back to the original palace school district you know that's a century and a half of local history here so uh you know what you know whatever we do uh you know my my hope is that we we take into account that you know uh you know at the end of the day you know we are still a vital service to this community and that we you know uh you know we work in a manner that preserves that you know that pivotal role as you know the the you know

089the the place where you know the play you know the place that ensures that our our local community can provide an education for their children thank you mr pam uh mr guiterro would you like to say anything before i speak ah go for it okay so i'm coming into this you know i i try to prepare myself and write some notes and you know i caught myself writing phrases and then i caught myself writing just one words so i'm going to kind of you know mention some of that and and what we've been talking about i think in regards to the phrases right like i really see definitely our landers as assets right financial right something that you could put value to financially and then we have our culture that there is no value that

090you could put to it right but it's as or sometimes even more valuable um i feel and so you know seeing that as you know believing that our community culture you know along yeah with what we have financially but just that we that's that's our valuable most valuable assets our children right like them just walking you know it's almost like that seed you know and like a tree just all the uh beauty that they carry each and every one of them you know i see that as as our most valuable asset right like our child um every child that sits in our classrooms um and of course we're all important you know from the teachers and staff and all that but i think you know really seeing that child as the most valuable and i

091don't know even asset is the right word but you know i think you know what i mean um and then you know working as one right like again i mentioned that tree that we all are different colors and part of different leaves and you know in branches but that we work as one um so with those things comes respect right like this is where the one words um respecting again you know each other um having compassion you know i might not understand what you're saying but i have compassion and i can you know at least empathize or um so anyways compassion was another word um integrity uh accountability accountability definitely you know in ourselves and each other um which all this obviously has a ripple effect to our entire district right we want to again

092um i think it was on one of the slides of um acting right acting in the way we want to see others act and i'm sure i'm not um reading it or quoting it word for word but you know that just having that account accountability um where you know maybe let me look at myself first before i point the finger and say it's somebody else's issue i think if we all come from that like where can i as a board president improve before i say you know it's that person or that person um or that's the problem or the teachers are the problem or the you know uh superintendent is a problem so we come from like starting with with oneself um to just you know have excellence right nobody's perfect and nobody's excellent but

093that we strive um for that especially if we want our children to be to be the best of the best um so those are some of the things that i thought about that kind of combined with what you presented aaron um yes that's my feedback for now i also i kind of wanted to um to echo trustee pham's uh comments because i do think as we're going through this process that that is an important thing to have as a kind of a non-negotiable is is that we see ourselves as the foundational educational um institution or organization in this community i think you know with external forces as we've already talked about coming at us and and different forces trying to undermine what we're doing um as a district i think that it is important that

094we constantly as a as a district team just recognize and reinforce that we are the foundational community educational organization and we should act in such a way we should make decisions in such a way and and you know who we are should reflect that knowledge um and then the other thing that i think i just wanted to to also in some ways echo what trusted was saying in terms of just words i think you were basically saying it but i wanted to um to put it out there also is is that word of transparency um you know it goes along with accountability i think and and some of the things you mentioned integrity um but i think um you know i think transparency is key also especially with the history recent history that alan rock

095has had but i think just in general obviously for good governance um with our community we we should be transparent i think you know not everyone may agree but i i truly believe 100 that in the in the very recent past we've been very transparent in everything we've done from the appointment of board members to um budgetary decisions and so i think that's um that's a non-negotiable too that that kind of ties in with integrity and accountability is is that concept of of transparency so i just wanted to throw that in there also great this this has been a really valuable discussion and i don't want to anyway cut every anyone off because i would definitely want to hear more from the trustees but maybe just to recap back some of the things that that

096we've heard and checked for understanding on how well we're doing as far as our our note-taking um we're hearing a lot about um as was just mentioned alum rock as as the foundational educational institution of the community and how we move that going forward that we're looking at making student-based decisions um both in terms of student achievement but also as around a successful future for our students um that we incorporate within the guiding principles around how we're providing support for our educators uh our teachers and our team that we recognize and draw on culture as a strength in getting away from the idea of cultural competency to one more of humility uh ongoing curiosity on honoring our families cultural and socio-economic assets and then a fair amount about how we how we work together as

097one as a board as a staff team as a community coming to the table with an open mind are respecting each other having compassion and empathy the ideas of integrity and accountability and transparency that were just articulated in this idea of being the change that that that you want to see that's a lot around what i just said is our and our hope is to distill these into a set of of concise statements but i just want to check back and see um if there's anything else that we um may want to just emphasize at this point and maybe we have we can then have a moment to think about um uh district priorities mr price and i'm wondering i know it was a three hour meeting but i know we all have bio uh

098break needs as uh needed i'm wondering um should we i don't know how the board feels should we take a five minute break before we jump into the next thing or should we continue and then people take a break as as we go how do you all feel uh i'm in a break i i would like i just want i'm curious to mr or mr price where we are in terms of their process and and time wise how do we look this would be a a good spot for a break um maybe we could just quickly see if there was you know anything i missed in my little recap and then we can take like a five maybe even a ten minute break and then come back and and jump a little bit into district

099priorities i think five minutes is good but yeah let's uh did we miss anything anybody want to add anything before we go on a break i have one thing but i don't know if trustee quintet i think he's been cut off a couple of times no i was just gonna agree to a break uh that way none of us mis missed out on anything okay so the only other thing that i will add and i don't i don't know if it gets incorporated in here but i just think um the concept as in talking about what's non-negotiable and something that always has to be there as part of our guiding principles is just to me the concept of um using our our challenges as opportunities i think you know we've talked you know fairly extensively

100about some of the challenges that our district has socioeconomically and and those things but you know i think the challenges of this diverse socio-economically challenged community can also be assets if we kind of flip it around and frame it in such a way and so i think it's important for us always to not um this is not the right way to say it but i'll just say it like this to not kind of victimize ourselves or put ourselves like you know make ourselves feel that we can't do anything or that we're limited but actually we should look at those challenges and and say wow this actually sets us up to do this or you know this provides the opportunity to go in this direction and so i think to me that's important that we that

101we look at our challenges as opportunities and you know in that way move forward with kind of always that in in the back of our mind so that's just the other thing i wanted to add excellent that's that's a great addition and then i'm ready for a break sounds good i think five minutes should be sufficient okay five minute break or we'll be back at ten uh this five and a half 10 40. perfect okay see you at 10 40. you um so okay it's uh 10 43 um calling us back to order you can hear me yes yep okay uh it looks like we're all back mario do you want to um take roll call at this time or we need to i think that last time rogelio said that you we didn't need

102to okay um i see quintero back um family if you could just raise your hand let me know you're there um linda's here and i don't see vegeta here yet i just want to make sure we have quorum to continue this meeting so i know well we do we're good um details back linda's here and i'm here okay um and i see both hands raised so thank you uh mr fam i see you're back uh we'll go ahead and move forward um i know that we also need to give time for public comment mr price and so i don't know if this is a good time to open it up to see if there's anybody that has public comment or if there's anything else to discuss before we open it up what i would suggest

103madam president with your discretion is maybe we we tie up this guiding principles and priorities discussion and the other topic that we want to get in today just immediately following that is around stakeholder engagement so maybe between those two would be a good time for public comment perfect yeah if that works for you yeah okay thank you thank you so we we wanted to just just wrap up a little bit this discussion of guiding principles and then take a brief moment to look at district priorities as well so over the break um aaron and i took that that list that i i articulated to you verbally just before the break and made it into a document that we'd like to just maybe share and we just take a quick gander at it and see if

104there's um items that we that we missed again we we fully intend to um a uh better ex word these and bring them back to you this is not a decision making moment but we just want to see if there's if there's anything that that we missed out of the discussion looking at alum rock as a foundational educational institution of the community making student-based decisions supporting teachers and staff using challenges as opportunities recognizing and drawing upon culture as a strength working as one and obviously there's some sub points there uh just wanted to again see if there's some key items we miss recognizing there'll be additional opportunities to comment and modify these as we go along and feel free to jump in if anybody has anything to add to that no i think we're good

105i can't see your hands so i just yeah and again there will be more opportunities to look at these particularly as we as we as we refine them and thank you for that that excellent discussion around around guiding principles so let's take a moment to just think about uh how we're feeling at this point in terms of district district priorities and aaron if i could ask you to maybe uh bring about the the slide where we provided the dis priorities um identified in the in the 2017-2020 lcap again um there will be many opportunities to to revisit priorities as we go forward in the planning process but wanted to check in with with board members as you are you know currently looking at the conditions in lm rock current and potential for the future um

106how these priorities areas sit with you if there are modifications that you would make at this moment or other priorities that have emerged coming out of the pandemic or coming out of the current conditions or looking into the future that you think should be really prioritized as we go forward the current ones are around english learners attending proficiency in english within three years redesigning middle schools with the college and career focus and increasing parent engagement you know some of these have come up in our discussion as well as others but with this particular kind of priority area focus wondering what you would add delete or or modify around these at the present time i would like to put um number three up to number two and also i know this is going back but on

107the preliminary notes where it said on number three support teachers and staff could that also be teacher development during the pandemic a lot of the teachers didn't know how to do the online learning and um and and some of the areas where the kids aren't learning maybe the teacher needs more help in moving the student curriculum forward so that that's in the preliminary notes on guiding principles sorry i i put my hand up but i i didn't get called on and i didn't want to speak out no problem so just making that one inclusive of teacher professional development okay thank you thank you anybody else mr gerano go ahead no i thought you i saw a hand actually i have one more thing sorry um as far as everybody being at grade level and above

108uh number four thanks that's it are these trusty chavez were you indicating that as a as a as a priority or for a guiding principle guiding principle gotcha are these three items in any particular order or just we didn't have that sense that they were in prioritized order um so correct me if i'm wrong but we we took these from your from your out cap and i i assumed that they were all equal priority um but um you you all correct me if i'm wrong maybe dr bauer could clarify that what president can i jump yes please so this is these are i feel like this is something that has some of you know this this there are knowing any particular priority this was at the very beginning of my tenure as a superintendent when

109i went out and checked with community staff stakeholders the boards number one was very at the very front of the work and in order um to even you know begin the work on grade level to be on grade level and above we had to set up a foundation and that was something that the district had can really struggle for many many many years and so when we when when i started we had about 70 of our students a little bit less about 63 were english learners many of them long-term english learners so when you are never reclassified it's very difficult to be on grade level right you can't really attain a proficient score in reading comprehension if you don't understand the language so that was the reason that we focus our efforts academic efforts on

110really accelerating students in their acquisition of english that one has been institutionalized so we are now i believe short of 40 percent of english learners most of them are you know recent arrivals and students who have been with us less than three to five years in the district um so i think that as a system we understand that peace i do agree with striving to be on grade level according to the college and career milestones to to have that as a goal you know or or as a priority area in terms of third grade fifth grade and eighth grade those are the milestones in terms of college and career pathways and the whole thing around being on grade level by third grade allows us to it does the whole thing of having a very robust

111early learning program in alum rock just wanted to bring a little bit of context to the board we um number one is really can can be kind of moved away and and and begin to talk about being on grade level i think that that will be very helpful for the system thank you i see mr bahrano with his hand up yes actually um i'm glad thank you dr barr for saying that because i i was going to actually ask about the um i know we've had in recent years your reports about um you know the successes of our the the english proficiency of our students that are trying to be reclassified and so i was going to ask and also i was going to um talk about early learning and and having that as a

112priority i think we've without even having it as like a state of priority we've done a lot of work to to build that and i think uh there are opportunities in the near future um and hopefully in the longer future too of you know of resources and and the desire and need to have early learning and i think we've set ourselves up actually in a position to be somewhat of a model for other um districts to to look at and so i think i i just wonder um what my colleagues think about that as a state of priority early education again back also to the role of at least how i see one of the main um drivers or or charges of our district is to create that foundation of learners and critical thinkers and

113i think early education it we know so many of those later on um you know successes of students are the indicators are like by the second third grade in terms of literacy and social emotional learning interactions and so i think that's that's key for us um and then the other thing that's you know i don't know if this would necessarily be there but i think it's at least part of the converse could be made part of the conversation is the um visual and performing arts i think that you know it's another area that that we separate ourselves in many ways from other districts and and and i think that it's opportunity for children and students in our district to to get a very crucial and important type of learning that um you know that's kind

114of not often spoken to when we talk about areas of priority but you know i think i think it's at least part of the discussion it could maybe be woven in with college and career or i don't know if that's that's separate but anyway i think it's again another area where we have built a very good strong foundation we've put time resources efforts into that and and maybe it's something that that again is is something that we've done and we could use it as an asset or as an opportunity going forward uh with all the challenges coming our way thank you go ahead i'd like to um uh piggyback on that um that visual performing arts but also sports is something that we've maintained that other schools tend to um just completely shave off because

115you know it just doesn't make money or it costs too much and so i think that we could really uh call this out as a comprehensive education that alum rock still provides you'd be surprised i've been i've been to i've been in meetings with other districts where they completely got rid of music um and their you know sports are minimal or they're done on a volunteer basis and stuff of that sort so that's something that puts us in a complete um it uh it differentiates us but it's also something that i believe is super important so that our children can get that comprehensive education that goes beyond just a couple of areas that are going to be on tests and you really really want to drill on but instead keeps them well-rounded thank you i'm

116going to say something before we go i see a few other hands um on the increased parent engagement i feel that as of like very um just simple phrase and i would like to see a little bit more in that um and i don't know what it is yet but you know something that covers i mean i remember being a parent myself right a new parent hungry to be involved and do what i could for my my daughter thinking back when she was you know preschool and kinder and first grade um and i didn't feel like i was invited into giving um providing uh input or even participating you know again i'm remembering my early years which was a part of what encouraged me to you know be where i'm at now um so i

117think with that you know increased engagement but i think there's something missing right um where um we don't just you know hearing also some of our rich conversation that we had earlier that we don't just put it on that it's the parents that don't want to participate um and i don't know what it is i would cover that you know when i read it whether i'm a parent or stakeholder um where i can read it and feel like yes it feels good right it's it covers the district's responsibility as well as that parent responsibility um to bring in the parents and to have that strong relationship with our entire community um which includes the parents and so um i don't know if you can help me maybe along with that and i and again maybe

118we're not maybe we're even looking at this list and not going with this list you know we're creating a brand new list um if we are going with this list that would be my piece on that that would be missing and then i see mr pham and uh linda we'll go ahead and go with mr fam and then linda you can go so uh why is two parts so um you know first is to you know ask superintendent bower here so how did we so how did we develop and so how was the priority area of regarding english learners develop you know you know uh you know attaining proficiency in english within three years in our district may i respond uh board president yes i also see your hand thank you and i'm just very

119quickly gonna say you know these priority areas serve their purpose a long time ago right and uh it's time to revise them and come up with new ones and i just want to encourage the board to now i will never feel anything less than you know and thank you for your question trustee fam this had to do with data gathering and and uh talking to a lot of parents um and under and bringing um that parent feedback and also the board at the time um one of the things that kind of the district was stuck right in this rod of you know we we everybody kept talking about student achievement how do we improve student achievement but people were not looking into the root cause of why this was happening and you know some of

120our competition is very good about creating narratives right and um how do you really put aside the the negative narrative and look at the real issue academic issue for our students to be able to address the academic challenge and when you look at our data for the you know from 2000 to about 2011 12 there was a lot of efforts around reading first right and and and there was really not understanding this other piece about language development in reading is a linguistic endeavor you can't really perform in reading and in language arts and even in any other academic areas if your linguistic proficiency is not enhanced and we had we were very good we were creating long-term english learners so students were kind of always just kind of moved along without really making an effort

121to say you really need to learn english and engaging parents and understanding talking you know when word president was talking about giving parents a voice and giving parents the information so that parents can come back and ask us questions that was a big effort from the district part as we look for the root cause of the lack of performance in academic areas so understanding what generates a long-term english learner because a lot of our students were there a lot of our students you know they they would just come up go through the in back it was the the former eld test the celt and not really understanding you know how do we able to achieve there so that you can move on when you're an english learner and you still have that label you're not

122able to take a comprehensive education in middle school that you you you know you have you doubled up your english language and all of that is state mandated we don't we have very little choice so no access to electives no access to a lot of things that our students love and so addressing that piece of saying it takes about three to five years for any student to be able to learn a second language when you arrive or whatever your um your your circumstance is so we now as a district know what it takes and we know that we have to pay attention to that in order for our children to move on and that's why we have been able to reduce the number of yields so that particular one i feel that as a district

123as an institution we have institutionalized that piece and we can now in a better way focus on grade level achievement kind of building on the milestones of the uh that we talked about in terms of college and career um you know a trustee fam that was that was how this became one of the priorities okay well i you know so i you know thank you dr bauer and you know and uh thank you know congratulations you know for our district for you know work you know working very hard to to get to that goal there i think the second part of my comment is you know piggybacking on the board president's remarks regarding uh beefing up you know the the term increased uh parent engagement and i think uh kind of like to also you

124know uh address the concerns that uh trustee chavez did bring up is i think we we could kind of expand it to uh encouraging increased parent engagement by supporting organ you know supporting organizations that uh uh engage parents and you know this made my my example may be a little dated because this dates back to when i was a young child at goss and later lindell elementary but you know there used to be a thing called you know the the pta uh weeknight spaghetti dinner you know the principal used to you know we used to kind of put send out to notice with you know with the kids you know and about the you know hosting the spaghetti you know bring the parents down to dinner you know spaghetti dinner at the school cafeteria you

125know and you know uh you know i i know that you know there are a lot of competing demands on the time parents these days but i think that you know some you know maybe a combination of a school site council or the parent teachers association something that you know you know build some sense of community with the school you know the school you know the elementary school as a you know community unit of sort so i you know i don't know if that you know some you know but something along that lines that you know not necessarily you know say you know you have to engage because some parents can't always engage to the extent they want but something that opens the door for them to you know build up to that kind of

126increased parent engagement thank you mr found miss chavez i as far as the uh parent engagement goes there's already a board policy and it already has all the language we should just refer to it and then implement it um and then as far as the music goes in the teacher contract there is the language there for the music program and that's how come we have such a robust music program um so those things are already there uh we just you know need to try and roll it out to the to the kids more and also let the parents know if they do do this it also does help with their learning if they do take music and arts thank you um and and i see mr harana your hand um just real quick um just

127want to remind us that there's going to be a lot of strategic planning to do right even with the community this is the preliminary um talk where we get to include also what the rest of the stakeholders have to say i think um in our all and and i know mr price you know you mentioned that that this is all preliminary um trustee [Music] i can't hear you we can't hear you sorry just real quick um to trusty chavez's comments first of all um i agree you know there's there's certain things that are in that are in the contract or they're documented elsewhere but i think you also did state at trustee chavez that it's they're there but we just have to emphasize them more or or make you know encourage it and i think

128that's actually the purpose of this if if we identify some of these areas that already exist somewhere else sometimes but if we in terms of strategic planning if we put them in black and white in these kinds of areas then it's to you kind of reinforcing what you're saying it kind of guides us to rein to reinforce what's already written somewhere else so so that was i just want to quickly respond to that but then uh dr bauer i guess maybe kind of a question to you i know you spoke um mostly to to kind of the that we've institutionalized a lot of the processes and for english learners and the gains that we've made there i wonder um just the the number three as a whole in your estimation or obviously open to my

129colleagues as well here have we come to a point where parent engagement opportunities have been increased and not that we would eliminate it from what we do but i wonder if maybe some benchmarks or or some institutionalization has been achieved in that area such that we can now put it maybe in a goal or somewhere else in this process and put something else in there i know that when we you know we've had we have done a lot we've done town hall town halls that have been very successful the surveys i mean i'm halfway through reading like 2 000 comments i think that that um i think we received so i'm just wondering is parent engagement one of the core priority areas that still exists um and if so fine and if not maybe it's

130still it goes in a different section and we can put something else there but it's more i guess is more of a question than an opinion or a statement at this point so i just um may i respond yes please oh sorry so yes board policy to a 6020 i think is the one that um uh trustee chavez has been quoting so i'm saying that so that everybody has access and know to go back and review i think it's very useful to know you know what she's quoting and i think um we have been able to address all but one you know issue there uh the policy reads that um parents uh have to volunteer 30 hours and with 10 of those hours being in the classroom and i'm just telling you that the one

131all of the other pieces we have been able to implement that's you know if you read the policy uh the work that we do in terms of school site councils and the parent involvement there we have been able to bring back many ptas when i walked in we only had a handful of schools with a viable pta and now we have increased the number of ptas throughout the the the district including that the principles have a goal for themselves around parent engagement so it's kind of integrated into the district uh fabric of what we do it's it's it's a it's an expectation for everybody parent university has been a huge catalyst for parent leadership because this is a a university a parent university led by parents they the parents are the ones that design the

132curriculum and all of the activities around that it's easy to forget because you know we have had we have spent 51 weeks virtually but we held um virtual parent universities parent meetings parent engagement i think that i do agree with board president in the sense that parents that kind of engagement needs to go to the next level and i gave an example around the english language development piece pair we made it very clear that we um inform parents about the process of reclassification and some of you have been on the board when parents come and they ask us you know i need my child to be reclassified i need my child to need more support i don't know if you some of you remember that right that some parents come to the mic and they

133say i need more tutoring for my kid because my kid has not been able to be reclassified that's a result of parents knowing what their students need and how the process work and that is a result of parent training so we need to do more of that and i agree with that you know i'm not sure how the board is going to choose that but it is around parent information at all levels of district life um and also parent leadership i think that that's the the um something that when board president was talking about you know i was a new parent here and this is the way i felt so i think that us as a district being able to hear how sometimes parents feel and translate that into policy transl translate that into specific

134action is very important because also um our family our families evolve in terms of their needs so what was uh needed you know seven years ago might not be the kind of things that families need right now so i think it's important to kind of figure out we're always going to have to to to build a strong partnership with all of our families uh to be able to bring uh student achievement thank you uh mr brad i know anything else before we move on i did actually um the the last follow-up that i was going to say and it was kind of depending on dr bauer's response and i don't i don't know if it um well i'll just say it anyway so i think that back to my question of the time frame that

135we should be considering and the response was like two to three years essentially for for this part of the process and so thinking in that way knowing our current financial and facility situation that's going on um can you hear me yes okay sorry i'm wondering if an area of priority again considering the two to three year time frame is something or or additionally is something around you know responsible stewardship of our facilities or our properties or maintaining autonomy over the decision of our i mean that may be very immediate but i think even within the two to three year time frame knowing the decisions that may be coming down the pike for us that that could be more reflective of the that time frame than than maybe some other stuff that we have currently thank

136you trustee before we go to trustee chavez i just want to mention and i apologize i was so excited to jump into this uh strategy um or our uh retreat here today i just want to remind our public that we do have translation so um if you prefer to hear our meeting in spanish please click on the bottom world interpretation symbol there and click on spanish mosquito de carlos espana [Music] those of us who are here for english that we mark english um thank you for uh letting me do that uh trustee travis uh sometimes i guess in recruiting and you're trying to recruit these parents on but um you are i think you also have to ask them you have and and how they can help and how can you help your student the

137most and then we need your help and have them sign up but you need somebody actively recruiting the reason that charters are so successful is because they're always recruiting and we should be doing the same not the same but better um and but if you don't do the ask then you ain't closing the deal you need to do the ask to the parent to each and every parent um thanks that's it thank you and i'm just thinking of the strategic planning again with the entire district is this something that we will revisit uh mr price glenn or erin yes indeed and so we just wanted to have an initial discussion today we want to in a moment here recap what we heard and then we'll be bringing it back to you but then also bringing

138that out to the community for for feedback before it comes back comes back to you again we see it coming back to you multiple times maybe uh with your permission madam president i could recap what we've heard in this priority discussion and we could take a a a moment for for a public comment and then we have one additional piece that we want to discuss as part of our agenda today which has to do with that very topic of stakeholder engagement perfect thank you yes does that work yes thank you okay so um just uh what we heard um from you all on that very rich discussion and thank you is is thinking about um moving the the focus on english learners per se to a priority around students all students being on grade level

139per college and career milestones particularly third fifth and eighth grades we heard the thinking around in a new way of thinking about parenting community engagement um that that could be more of a 360 approach thinking both of the parents and the and the system side a lot of conversation that we categorized under a comprehensive education or that we might want to frame in terms of whole child development um around uh visual and performing arts sports um and uh career technical education and then we heard two other key priorities emerge around early learning uh and that linkage into a cradle to career or created a college approach and a a major focus on stewardship of your assets and and fiscal stability moving forward are some of the key themes that we heard coming out of the

140discussion thank you yeah um and at this point are you okay with going into public comment okay perfect so uh we'll go ahead and move on to public comment carlos moran welcome back is there anybody on public um comment anybody that's wanting to speak to us at this time yes board president we have brenda sandejas great um ms sandejas welcome and um we'll go ahead and put the two minute timer up as soon as you begin speaking uh the timer will begin give us a second i'm not sure if um there we go perfect okay thank you uh miss index go ahead and talk here you go hi i'm board um and president corinna today i heard a lot of things that are vital um in our district transparency accountability integrity um i didn't see

141respect towards the community in there and i think that's something that needs to be put there because we've seen ernesto vergerano attack community members create videos to depict on situations to make and defame and make them look bad and he still has not apologized or removed those things i have emailed the board president and all of you and i yet to hear from you guys he has continuously shared this and it was me a picture of me and an audio of someone unmuting me while i was in my house and using that to create a video i see no accountability and no respect towards the community abusing his power to get clips of edited videos to share i haven't seen superintendent or anybody speak about this or ask them to politely remove it so i

142think we should include respect towards the community um you can't hold yourself accountable if you don't want to realize you are hurting the community in the integrity of the community when you do these types of things so i think respect towards the community is something that should be there you can't have a board if you don't respect the community these are the people that put you there and these are the people that vote for you and they need a voice as well so respect to the community should be something that should be there that's the foundation that reflects you as a person ernesto vegeta thank you thank you miss mr moran do we have anybody else for public comment no board president that's all thank you so much so i'm gonna make a quick very

143quickly uh when you say clarifying are you just saying in general to the statement that was made yeah as long as as you know know back and forth that we're not you know legally able to do simply a clarified statement that anything that may have been referenced was with reference to a candidate um as opposed to a general community member and so that's the only clarification this was uh an election candidate related um thing that's referred to so that's all thank you trustee veterano and at this time mr price will go ahead and move on to our next item on the agenda um if that's is that correct are we ready to move forward here that's perfect okay um item three oh two correct yes our stakeholder engagement yep exactly thank you madam president and

144and um i'm gonna go ahead and share my screen we have a couple slides here but as as was mentioned before really moving into a focus on stakeholder engagement and thinking about what that stakeholder engagement component of this planning process should look like we mentioned at the beginning uh nine month period so we're really just at the outset of that have some fantastic ideas and um notes coming out of out of today but we're really going to be carrying a lot of this forward to various stakeholder engagement activities to bring in other voices into the conversation as well and as glenn mentioned a couple of times having touch points checkpoints with with you all to continue bringing some of those those reactions those new ideas to the table and being able to discuss those so

145there's a couple of specific um some specific and some more general ways that that we have outlined stakeholder engagement happening as part of this process and what we would really like to to hear uh your guidance around is the specific stakeholder groups and and to the extent that there are individual organizations or or individuals who who should be on our radar as we think about crafting a stakeholder engagement plan in more detail um for you all to take a look at that's what we would would like to hear about so before we get to that piece um as you can see up on the screen here one critical activity that we're planning and this this work really being the first and and this core planning team being the second um major activity in the in

146the planning process so formation of that core planning team to guide the work and and we're envisioning that that would include representatives from different stakeholder groups the board administration teachers other labor groups student potentially parents and family members other community members i think we're kind of coming at it with a fairly open mind about membership for that that team but wanting it to have a diversity of stakeholder groups represented and that group is going to be meeting throughout the process to help guide the work help review and provide feedback on draft ideas and content coming out of other activities in some cases develop some of those drafts for others to comment on so it will be pretty centrally involved in in the work moving forward uh hence since the the name around core planning team

147there in addition to that we're planning to do interviews focus groups and surveys or some combination of of those to inform the identification of issues and opportunities so so just jumping back for one moment framing the overall process around guiding principles and high level priorities as discussed today identifying challenges and opportunities and then thinking about strategies in relation to those so using those interviews focus groups and surveys as one key way to inform what those issues and opportunities and strategies are and then as a general principle wanting to we don't want to re reinvent wheels we don't want to bring together folks that are already meeting uh for for other purposes and just adding another thing to their calendar so if there are existing structures that we should be or could be utilizing to get

148that type of stakeholder input uh we would welcome those suggestions so i'll move into the next slide we asked about this as well in the interviews that we were able to do with with trustees and so have some initial an initial list both of groups and of individual organizations want to put on the screen and then take a moment to review those together and then really open it up for additions comments on those lists suggestions for how we might best engage any of those groups or individual organizations um so parents families and parent organizations um thread from from i think all of the conversations today labor associations administrators teachers support staff community organizations particularly long-time organizational partners and some of those may be the ones listed in the right column here around specific recommendations local

149government agencies and neighborhood associations and then as you can see in the right side the si se puede collective labor partners specifically called out somos mayfair uh first the local first five county commission as well as catholic charities so again wanting to uh hear any suggestions for additions on on either side of categories or specifically and and if there are pieces of guidance that you all would like to share with us about how we we go about engaging these different groups and entities that would be quite welcome as well can i speak now yes linda you may speak now um one of the ways of engaging the parents is when they are on the zoom right now um present that a question to the parents you know what they see you know to write down

150how they think that the uh school could improve and you know it's free and and and for them to come up with ways that they have seen also that were effective but they didn't cost anything and i i've talked to other board members throughout california and as well as superintendents and the key question i always ask them is uh what improvements did you see right away that didn't cost you anything and then they they've told me and they said one of them in particular down south said it was very effective when they started like some of the parents when you go to to the drop-offs in the mornings it was it gets kind of crazy some parents aren't running late they're they're rolling by faster than they should and there's a bunch of kids there

151so what they were doing was they were telling the parents look you can drop them off earlier and we're going to walk them around um the yard and as each one comes we keep walking with them and they'll be parents walking with them and in the meantime the parents that were there as well as some staff teachers before school started started mentoring to these kids and before you know it before they knew it they just had all these this big group coming every single morning they did that for a year and it made such a difference in the school because they all felt more connected it didn't cost them anything and the parents didn't have to worry about rushing off to work they knew that someone was there to pick up their kid and they

152got more involved because they knew that they were taking care of their children while they dropped them off early and they were more willing to get involved in other things because they now had more time that's it thanks thank you trustee travis uh bauer do you have something to add i was going to recommend other engagement stakeholders i was thinking about students and recent alumni people who uh have you know um maybe graduated from alam rock within the last 20 to 30 years i think that gives us a you know when trustee fam shares you know his experiences recently he remembers you know being in in an elementary campus and in a middle school campus and i think it will be valuable especially for those who have uh successfully completed their careers whether it's you

153know uh in a university in a technical career i think it will be helpful for the system for us as staff to hear from them and students current students you know i think fifth graders and middle school students can give us huge feedback around you know our system thank you thank you trustee vacarano uh yeah with regards to the specific recommendations um so i think in like with the labor partners um you know i think that's a given um but with uh with the specific organizations um you know we have the ones that are listed here we i i feel that we can count on their engagement already they're um very engaged already in many ways with with the work that we do and so i don't mean to to remove them from the list

154i acknowledge that they are you know engaged at this point and we would want to continue that but my statement is more along the lines of i think there may be other entities or or organizations in the kind of i don't know about outer reaches of the district but other areas that we haven't traditionally engaged they may be neighborhood associations or or you know smaller less traditionally connected with the district organizations but i think there are voices from other parts of our district that aren't traditionally served by some of these organizations in in us geographically at least that i think we should consider i don't have any off the top of my head to specifically recommend but i just kind of want to throw out there that if we're looking at specific organizations to to

155engage that we might want to at least think about and consider those organizations that we haven't either that we even don't even know that they exist but they represent our our parents our students our community and or we just haven't traditionally kind of made a connection or reached out or or whatever that may look like so i just wanted to throw out that about other um organizations that represent our students thank you trustee but before we move on to trustee travis i just want to add uh thank you um mr price and that covers both uh for creating this list you know i think uh in what trustee vegeta's stating um you know in regards to others i do believe that you are not you know i know that you're not from our community so

156that this helps you make sure that we engage those folks um even though you know we see and we work with them all the time you might not so i appreciate making that list and then um trustee because the rest of us right ensuring that obviously today we might not think of all them but that we come back to them with names that um eventually were like oh yeah that one needs to be a part of it um so i appreciate this list to start off with um and with that uh trusty travis you'd like to add anything yeah i think that the point that dr bauer said was excellent in asking past alumni and especially um you know just like the colleges do when after you graduated they're constantly asking the ask can you

157contribute you know and there's so many different ways to contribute and especially since they came from here um we should be doing that as i believe to to to whoever they are and even though yes those groups and those categories they're busy but if you ask a busy person to fit one more thing in they'll do it uh especially since it is for the for the kids that's it thanks thank you any other uh trustees who'd like to add anything yeah i think that uh we should yeah i'm uh my comments are in line with uh uh board member um that we need to view this um exercise that we're engaging in as an opportunity for outreach and so beyond the typical stakeholders that we've been engaging in there's an opportunity here there's a lot

158of people that because of the the covid pandemic a lot of organizations that used to not be active and not be engaged all of a sudden became um out of necessity groups that started providing resources to the community in which they're in and so these folks um are our are our organizations that we can tap into sometimes we're really large groups um you have massive uh places of faith on white road and um they the people might not all live right around the community um but they would love to come and help out if given the opportunity i'm almost sure of it because that's where their their place of worship is located and they want to be a benefit to the community so we may be able to pull in people that want to support

159obviously their separation of church and state and i get that i'm not i know i'm talking about that i'm talking about opportunities for partnership where it makes sense for the school district and those organizations and so just want us to view this as an opportunity to go beyond the folks that we work with because we have excellent partners we've been working with them for a long time um this is an opportunity to expand um and to bring in resources from folks that might be from even outside the district that want to invest in our community so uh thank you for bringing that up uh a board member i don't know i'm really excited about this opportunity to expand our partnerships out there thank you any others thank thank you for the the um helpful input

160here and i think the helpful framing of of uh we may not know who some of those or what some of those organizations are yet and certainly one thing that we could we could consider doing is as we we start with some of this engagement work in in the doing of that um you know ask about who else we should be talking to um and sometimes that can can help to to surface those organizations or or community efforts that um that maybe aren't as as visible uh at the present time i add one more to that that um trustee quintero just kind of brought to mind that i don't know if it's right for this particular list but maybe um i think we've us we've established in the past some some good relationships with kind

161of our silicon valley technology um partners and and and i i guess it's a matter of considering whether or not we would have hold them as stakeholders per se but i mean i'm just throwing out there i guess the the concept of of thinking about technological silicon valley type like we have you know good programming with nasa i know that that we've have a partnership there and we have a bunch of stuff google has come in and so again i don't know if it fits here but i think as we're talking about looking at new opportunities and and outreach and bringing in resources you know the consideration i think we we do have a name we do have a reputation with um some of these companies that we can build upon and and you know

162especially we're talking about equity and and the digital divide um those things have come up very very clearly and so again to trustee quintero's point it may be another opportunity to forge some some relationships and get engagement from those kind of business or silicon valley entities dr bauer so i wanted to share with the board and in terms of these uh stakeholder groups also um about um a year and right before the pandemic um i reached out when trustee beherano was talking about our nasa uh connection um we i gather a group of different professionals that mimic our student population to just ask them we brought to the around the table about 10 professionals most of them latinos just like our students but you know very diverse about how they have gotten to where they

163are uh andres martinez from nasa was one of them santiago um miguel santiago from the county uh office of the uh executive was another one a couple of physicians a couple of them leading big health organizations you know engineers lawyers uh just to say you know how what was your path and how did you just to kind of you know get that i think that they were um very useful in terms of uh sharing with a group and aaron and glenn i have not shared this with you but i think we do have some of those people um that um that are willing you know to provide uh feedback in terms of how to set up a system that creates this um [Music] you know the the the right circumstances for our students to develop

164their own agency and their own path in in a number of of professions um so they're all part of that group of you know connections with us the county um the nasa you know all of these major partners that uh in their staffs they have uh people who reflect the diversity of alum rock with very similar backgrounds to our kids thank you dr bauer and just looking at our time i know we have one other item left i'm not sure if there's um anything else i don't see no more hands up right now um mr price just yeah i think we're we've got some great guidance there so i think we are we are good to uh to move on great and um we took public comment uh on this we need to go into

165public comment thank you so carlos moran uh can you um help me identify if we have anybody in the public would like to speak to us at this time board president i'm looking after this uh actually we do have one that just put their hand up yes we do have one okay um and who is it uh miss cinderhouse great thank you uh messendejas welcome as soon as you begin speaking the timer will begin thank you i was looking at the organizations there is also an organization called city team that has partnered with some of the schools at linda vista to provide pantry turkeys and over the summer when everybody was close they were the only pantry that was providing food because everybody was scared during the pandemic and they were the only organization that

166was continuously working with this district and with the river of life family church that's also an organization that has worked in the school district with kids club providing free after school program for children this program has helped not only students increase their grades but mentally and behavior these kids have also improved a lot and i didn't see them there but these are some of the partners that the district has as well so i just wanted to point that out thank you sorry thank you mrendejas anybody else mr no that's it board president okay thank you um so we'll go ahead and move on to 303 closing and next steps grace thank you thank you and really wanted to just take a few minutes that we have remaining and invite any reflections um thoughts about this

167this process that the work that we we and most of you all have done today um and and any reflections on that work and and this process moving forward so i would like to just kind of open it up to see if any trustees would would like to um to share any any such reflections and beyond that any closing comments um adam president that you would like to share and also would like to invite dr bauer to share any closing comments uh if that that is okay any of the trustees trustee uh yeah first i just want to um thank uh oh i'll ask permission to say gp and ap just glenn and aaron price um thank you for your work thus far and for guiding us through this and i also want to thank

168um you know the district staff for getting this going here on a saturday and particularly my my colleagues here for for our discussion and our you know thoughtful um opinions from all different angles i think you know it's it's helpful to have that kind of uh you know diversity and thought and and see how we can bridge the those perspectives to come up with something um which leads me kind of just to my i guess question to um glen or aaron if you don't mind me calling you that um the my experience has been that um kind of you start with the vision then mission and kind of what you've been doing going down but things always like you know connect back or tie back to those top level vision mission statement things so um

169in as part of your process is that how you typically go about it like we'll work through this and then make sure that some of these more granular specific things then tie back to the vision and mission or or in our comments you know on going forward should we be commenting keeping vision and mission in mind um i guess the question essentially being um how how uh intentional should we be about connecting or will we be about connecting vision and mission with all of these more specific pieces of strategic planning thanks trustee bahrano great question and overall yes we want to be connecting more detailed work down the line back up to those higher level pieces like vision mission i would i would also put in guiding principles which i know we just had some

170preliminary discussion today about but the the intent is that those would be something top of mind and really um lifted up for consideration as part of of the discussions about those more more detailed uh components i don't know if you want to add anything to that okay well just then that being said um i think you did an excellent job like i already said but as we continue this discussion if we if in your estimation if we as board members in our comments are you know are drifting away from those vision mission guiding principles then you know i would i would appreciate your reminding us or bringing us back to that and like i said it's i think you've done a great job so far but i just want to make sure that we're staying

171having fidelity to that model of constructing a strategic plan thank you appreciate it thank you trustee fam okay um you know i too would like to uh thank glenn and aaron price for you know guiding us uh you know on this meeting today as well as uh district administration and members of the public you know say saturday mornings are not nor the normal time that we think as uh you know board meetings uh you know so uh you know i i certainly appreciate that you know we're all here uh to do this uh you know i think that you know it's for lack of air term it's a little bit of cathartic today you know we you know i spoke a bit about you know our hopes our aspirations uh you know our you know

172uh you know our the background of this district and you know in the meantime we we've had you know some spirited debate on certain you know uncertain ideas that were expressed today also so you know i you know i i certainly you know i do want to close by who you know certainly hope that you know we you know this is just the first step in our strategic planning and you know like like any you know human organization where you know we're going to evolve you know and adapt to the circumstances as they come up but it's you know important to have you know the the basic foundational plan you know as we move forward so you know thank you again for that you know i'm moderating today's board retreat and you know and hopefully

173we you know i you know we continue to work together to to you know uh re you know refine you know the our mission you know our vision and our mission as we you know seek to educate the children of the alan rock community thank you mr fam anybody else for president yes i just want to thank the board and i want to thank the gpg group uh for this i'm very optimistic that we're going to end up with a very solid uh document you know we're trying to be very mindful of of what needs to be created in this but in terms of leading this district into the next level i just heard uh tremendous ideas and and i think that believe it or not i do feel that we're a lot closer to

174each other's vision as than we think you know and i echo uh trusty fans comment in terms of being cathartic sometimes it's it's it's important you know to express um the different views but at the end it allows us to begin to galvanize and to come together and and hear each other also and i'm very hopeful and very optimistic that this is going to be very very productive for our students because this is all about them thank you thank you or president yes i just wanted to thank um everybody who's involved her staff gpg group um you know all my colleagues uh for the very robust discussion that we've had this morning that's allowed us to kind of focus on on um and how we move ahead and so looking forward to future discussions i

175also want to thank um dr dewan uh dr bauer correct i'm i'm giving appropriate credit for dr duan's investment yes in this process and so credit to where credit is due we have a true partner uh at the county uh office of education who's looking to support alan rock's future so i do want to express that uh gratitude uh towards um doctor one and her leadership thank you any other trustees no okay see and then i'll give my statements yeah one more trustee travis i just want to thank everybody for being here this morning on saturday and all the work that everybody's doing and i'm just hoping moving forward that everybody's going to be putting their input and everything is going to be positive and if it's negative oh well we'll still move on thanks

176thank you trustee chavez uh and with that i just again want to reiterate and thank uh both glenn and aaron uh for being here on the saturday morning so short notice for you as well uh we had come up with this date you know months ago and uh we told you a couple of weeks ago are you are you available and you said yes so i appreciate that and uh mr glenn price i see um the beautiful picture in your background um and i recognize it as our weedarika we chose nation medicine so i just want to thank you for that you know because this is a part of the healing and there's no accidents right in this in this work that we do and i know that you know we're all in that picture

177there you know it's interconnected with it all so um sometimes the most beautiful things come out of this cathartic you know uh like uh mr found mentioned work uh where sometimes it just doesn't feel good but just like a caterpillar will just grow and and continue to flourish and be beautiful um so with that um i know that we have a lot of work to do uh this is just a preliminary as we've mentioned uh you know i look forward to hearing from all the different stakeholders that we've mentioned and those that we haven't even thought about yet um in this process um including our children and our community um and all those that really care about moving this district forward um and also you know those i might not you know it's important to

178know it all so so we know what we're dealing with um so with that i don't know if there's any closing remarks before we move on yeah so i just wanted to echo the thanks for the board's time today really appreciate um your your uh the gift of your time for for this conversation and um and the richness of discussion that that uh that you all engaged in earlier um guiding principles and priorities and stakeholder engagement so i really just want to share our our appreciation for for each of you and in particular madam president thank you for the additional time just helping to to plan this this session out and dr bauer as well thank you for um the time spent just getting as as uh was noted uh kind of a rapid start

179to this work so we're just excited to be moving forward with with you all on this planning process um and really uh happy to to launch that work with with today's meeting so um just wanted to share our thanks thank you and then i know that we came up with a beautiful list at least preliminary of our guiding principles as a board so maybe if you can email that to us i love what trustee nano mentioned with regards to just returning back to that you know um you all were all here today but you might not be here for future meetings or you know discussions that we might have that we can use that to guide us here as a preliminary that we will eventually finalize so i look forward to continuing to move our

180work forward um have a beautiful rest of your weekend and uh with that uh we'll go ahead and adjourn our meeting at 11 57 see you all on thursday night thank you have a good weekend thank you you too thanks everyone goodbye everyone