AVUSD Regular Board Meeting June 01, 2023

001sure all right right hand of your heart ready begin I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all right oh thank you public comments do we have any public comments not pertaining to closed session okay well so just what we're doing in closed session pupil Personnel expulsion cases number 18 22-23 expulsion number 19 22-23 conference on litigation government code section 54956.9 current litigation nine cases cibds 1907-172 cibds 201183 cibds202-2956 cibds202-366 cibsb211303 civsb22-0303 cibsd221-8676 cibb 2304865 civsb2304865 government code section 549-54.5 and 549-56.9 ipated litigation one case 2020-2105 public employees discipline dismissal release reassignment transfer leave number four Public Employee appointment resignation retirement reduction certificated and classified number five conference with the labor negotiator agency negotiator Dustin Conrad employee organization Apple Valley Unified Teachers Association

002number six conference with labor negotiator agency negotiator Dustin Conrad employee organization CSEA number seven conference with labor negotiation agencies negotiator Trane Nelson employee organization California school number seven yeah number seven conference and with labor negotiator agency negotiator Renee Nelson employee organization unrepresented eight conference with real property negotiator government code 54956.8 negotiated parties Matthew Schulenburg Apple Valley Unified School District public session immediately following the closed session so this is what we're going to be doing and um we should return this building right here you got it all right second second all in favor aye okay thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you

003foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you okay we'll bring the meeting to order um CSEA communion rep Nicholas Garrett not here Apple Valley Unified Teachers Association Karen sabers you know anything okay comments Trinity Nelson our superintendent I'll wait till the end of the meeting thank you okay board comments Rick nothing right now thank you Amanda I just want to say what a joy it was for all of the graduations that we were able to attend but I will wait for the next set of comments Gary no comments Maria not yet okay and I'll pass also closed session reports our clerk Maria will an expulsion case expulsion number 18 22-23 to amend the hearing panel recommendations to read to be placed on a suspended enforcement of expulsion to

004High Desert Premier Academy for one calendar year from the date from this date the student is to complete the terms and conditions of their Rehabilitation plan prior to June 1st 2024. expulsion case number 19 22-23 be placed on a suspended expulsion enforcement of expulsion to Phoenix Academy for the remainder of the 2022-2023 spring semester and the 2023-2024 fall semester the student is to complete the terms and conditions of their Rehabilitation plan as amended prior to the end of the 2023-2024 fall semester in closed session the Board of Trustees took action in support of the following recommendation from the superintendent Public Employee appointment an emotion by Mr RC and seconded by Mr bender on a vote of 5-0 the Board of Trustees approved the following appoint Ronald clabo as dean of students Apple Valley High School

005range 7 column 5 under certificated management salary schedule 195 base days effective July 1 2023. can you stand up [Applause] Public Employee appointment on a motion by Mrs opara seconded by Mr RC Board of five zero the Board of Trustees approved the following appoint Andrew K Robbins as high school assistant principal range a column 1 on the certificated management salary schedule 210 base Duty days effective July 1 2023. all right thank you very much adoption of the agenda the board May approve the agenda as is or add or pull items do I have a motion to approve so moved second I'll second the motion all in favor all right recognition presentation there's none at this meeting discussion information number one ethnic studies Mr Gary RC uh board member yeah I just just wanted to bring

006forward for a discussion um so that we we all have this at our Forefront in 2021 the California legislature passed assembly Bill 101 which stipulates at the California high schools must begin offering their ethnic studies course by the 20 25 26 school year students in the class of 2030 will be required to complete an ethnic studies course as a graduation requirement the ethnic studies model curriculum adopted by the state department of education stipulates at the course should focus on the histories cultures struggles and contributions to American Society of people groups who have traditionally been overlooked in previous history courses particularly blacks Latinos Native Americans and Asian Americans the development of an ethnic studies course in the Apple Valley Unified School District will be a lengthy and thorough process that will involve the input and support

007of all stakeholders in our district including parents teachers administrators students and community members therefore it seems prudent that we as a board of begin the process of developing this new ethnic studies course and what it will look like in our district the San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools has expertise in this area so it would seem uh prudent and it would seem a useful first step for the board to schedule a workshop perhaps in the fall perhaps in August to allow the county to come in and help us in the development of this new course and Mrs Nelson I think you might have some some additional information on that yes I would be looking for direction for the from the entire board to schedule a workshop as soon as the county is available most likely

008Late July early August that would be a Workshop which would be public in nature it because it is it would have to be a posted board meeting and so if it's the desire of the entire board I can get working on dates um Christina Pierce who was the director of the department that worked directly with school districts regarding the tool kit has actually taken a promotion and she's now working in a school district as an assistant superintendent there are other people within the department that are very well versed and ready to do that work with us I just need to get some direction from the entire board and then invite them in based on that information and then once we have workshopped it would be my desire and goal to bring forward some kind of

009a agreement with the county office to facilitate that work in our community can Mr President can I it would now be an okay time for me to speak yeah um so I first want to just say thank you so much to Mr RC for bringing this forward because it's definitely something that's very important and our community is very diverse and so it is very important that we have all of the voices that are in the room and I did do some research over the last week so I just wanted to pass some of these to you guys here I've got four that way I'm sure I'm gonna miss count because I'm a teacher and that's what we do there's a couple so I uh see we need three more down there okay um and then

010I have two more also um I don't know Mrs Tucker would you like oh no wait uh Mr Campbell then I don't know if one other somewhere in the audience as well there we go okay so one of the things that I was looking at is that as a district we have an excellent system that we've utilized um on the first page here I would like to make a motion that we do create a task force that would report back to us within one year just as he mentioned to address that that um assembly Bill and that we're going to go ahead I would recommend us use the collective impact strategies which we were one of the first districts um to adopt in the county to adopt the Cradle to career pathway so we're already

011using that and so I would I would recommend just like he said we go ahead and we have that ethnic studies toolkit additionally that we are we would utilize the literature approval request form process for approving literature in our district if you look on the second page um this is all information that I just took off of the front page of our website you know we do service just over 13 000 students we provide a safe encouraging challenging learning environment in which students are given the opportunity to reach their full potential one of the things I love about our mission statement is that it says um that we will serve our community with dignity by meeting the unique academic behavioral social emotional needs of all students all of them every single student so that they

012may thrive in an ever-changing world I did go ahead and include a graphic below about the the Cradle to Career roadmap which again is what we're already um connected within the district to utilize one important thing here on that page as well is just that and I'm not seeing it off the top of my head but um that we are we're connected with we have AP courses that we offer we have Avid we have all of the a through G we cannot go outside of whatever California is setting forth we need to make sure that we have all those voices and that we are recognizing that um the collective impact is a powerful framework for achieving sustainable social change that relies on a collaborative multi-sector and data-driven approach again everything should be best practices data

013driven with social studies they're using a lot of the uh project-based learning or I know AP is heavy with um I can't think of the word that's it I could only think of the BQ DBQ and I couldn't think of a b yes the document-based questions all of these things that they're things that we already use within our district um we have the five conditions of collective impact the um on page four or so that we will you know come together with this common agenda of meeting the needs of assembly Bill 101 and putting that into place for our school I did miss somewhere in here I had suggested that we set up this this task force within that first month when we come back because right now all of our Educators for the most

014part are off for the summer and this is not a good time to start something this important and that's valuable within our community so if we can you know start to put together this task force and invite every Community member that wants to be a part of it any parents you know everybody's voice matters in this process I personally would recommend two board members to sit on this task force I feel like Mr RC for sure you should be on there because you obviously like this is important to you um and you can extend your voice and then trustee akpara because she has been speaking about this since either Mr RC or I joined the board and it's important to her um so I would just I would suggest that we put those two but

015that's up to the rest of the board because I do not speak for the board on my own um furthermore uh we have the responsibilities of the task force on page five I showed a number of these I'm really sorry um but it's it's just that it's going to be the diverse members everybody is going to work together on this common goal and we're going to look at the best practices and we're going to use that the community or the toolkit that we have from the county um and I know the county is looking forward to partnering with us on this as well just from some um research I've been trying because I was trying to put together something so we could make sure that we do not miss out on anyone's voice in the

016process um I at the bottom there's some more information about Collective impact um in the United Way which is locally important as well as Statewide um the last page here this is actually taken just from our agenda today it's just one of the books that is on our agenda for us to approve and there's so many people that go through the process before it gets to us our job is to approve the recommendation our job is not to write the course and so for this example this teacher this professional educator She's Come forward with what she wants she's an expert in her field of math and science she's highlighted the Lexile level to show why it would be appropriate at that age group from there it went to the district or the department chair so

017then the department chair had to review the material they had to sign off then and I um it went to a panel of Educators because I noticed there were lots of pages in there of people signing off on them from there it then went to the director of curriculum and instruction and the assistant superbed Services there was oops and before that there was the notice of public review where they were on display so that anybody could come and look at it but then it's so it goes through that whole process before it ever comes to us and so I would just suggest that we continue to to follow along with that process that we already have in place because we do have these professionals in our schools as well as in our community and they

018all can come and participate um the last or not a second to the last page the ethnic studies toolkit I just kind of took some of that off of the website and you can see there there's the I pulled out the um the six steps to actually creating this curriculum and so we've got the six steps on there Step One established the committee I don't know if we can actually vote to do the committee today but I would definitely appreciate um that that gets put on our next agenda so that we can begin to establish the task force to move forward and then on the last page is just the motion that I would like to make so you're correct the the proper way to do this would be to request so um we would

019have to have direction from the board of a majority to add it to the agenda for next time with a action as an action item to process and move forward and our next board meeting I speak no go ahead regarding ethnic studies we have been having this conversation um long before we came out of covet and it is not a secret that history has been very unfair to certain groups of people and it is not a secret that some of us who came from another country learned the history of United States Without Really knowing where United States is but we wanted to know and so I don't see why we are all concerned about ethnic studies just because a group of people now finally want to know about their own history so having said that

020I am not coming from a place of saying ethnic studies is is something that we have to all Panic about uh because we all have to know there is nothing greater than having a student see themselves in a history that is being published there is nothing greater than seeing the history books being written by the same people who have who actually are walking the road so I do I do appreciate my my colleague here Mr RC for putting it on the agenda because regardless of what the situation is this is going to be on the agenda it's not going away by 2025 we should be having this conversation very clear in our heads so we have jumped ahead of it thanks to Mr RC by putting it forward that we need to have this conversation

021but in in putting it in this conversation I'm a little bit concerned that it came up in the summer months when the teachers are not available to even participate and I'm concerned in the summer months when we have on our calendar to hold board meetings at one o'clock it's a it's been on the calendar so if we are going to begin this this conversation we need to have it in the calendar when we are on a board schedule of seven five o'clock or seven o'clock so that more people will participate and in going forward there are steps that we have to have in this ethnic studies toolkit the governor has signed it into law so it's not going away and it's the state is going to approve whatever is is set aside the state has

022already given us a blueprint of what it needs to be and we are going to follow that blueprint this we we don't have a wiggle room out of it so we are going to follow the blueprint but we are going to tailor it to our community but the community does not exclude anyone and I would like to see everyone included anybody that wants to be part of this process they need to have the option to be in it I also would like to see the people heading this not to be part of us because we people will never believe that we are doing it without bias so get somebody from outside that's going to be the lead person for this committee so that they can report back to us as a board what are you

023doing in the in the team so that we don't have people thinking there are biases out there that will that will be a problem for us um we know that the county has people who are trained in this let's use them we are part of this San Bernardino County let's use the county to do the work that we want them done we want it done and we don't want it done correctly we want to look at all the textbooks that are being used we're going to look at the Publishers of those textbooks we're going to look at who's presenting it we're also going to look at the training of the people who are going to be teaching it thanks to Mr RC he's pushing it so we're going to push it a little harder and

024make sure that our voices are heard this is not it when we think of ethnic studies it's not ethnic studies for just the the people of black students there's the Asian Americans there is a Pacific Islanders there are the American Indians that those are specifically stated and the Hispanics we all have to come on into this and start paying attention believe me I have had this conversation with many people and I've said why did I even have to study Sheikh despair what did he have to do for me what do I know about Shakespeare am I going to move to Rome and speak in that language no why did I have to learn Trigon trigonometry what am I doing with it so why can't I give other people the opportunity to learn about their their

025history a based on Research not based on all the ideas that we have the state is very clear and I'm going to go over what the state says before that we don't confuse it with what we are saying for ourselves the state says that it has to be approved by the CDE it has to be the State Board of Education must approve this curriculum that we're putting out it's not a curriculum that we are starting afresh but that that we already have and now we are going to you know revamp it it's brand new so having it as brand new we all have to participate in the process there's no you there's no back door I'm gonna be sitting in this seat and if I see a back door you better believe I will let

026you know there will be no back door the truth will be told and that's all we're trying to do here so that we can get this ethnic studies I agree with uh uh um trustee Buchanan let us have a task force ready to go so the task force can report to us and every time that task force is ready to report we'll put out a call to everybody so you can hear it from from them firsthand that's all I'm interested in thank you well good we have amazing local history as well um so I brought dirt this is from I know I brought dirt um this is from the the Murray Dude Ranch which is a very important part of Apple Valley's history at one point there were only 2 000 residents in the entire

027town but the rodeo that they would host would bring 10 000 attendees and so it was huge for our country I remember being um and it was uh owned by African Americans and used in many video or many movies that like Hollywood would come out here and record and our kids need to know that like Apple Valley although I think it was called Victorville so technically at the time but I'm claiming it as Apple Valley you know it's we have a rich history and I was out hiking with my kids one time and there was a sign that said like early man hieroglyphics I had no idea that we had that here in our desert these are the things that we we want to make sure that the people who know can put input so

028that not only are we meeting the state but we're also tailoring it to our community that's it I just realized I forgot my dirt so we would like to have have this so that we can go back into the what are we going to do going forward starting today so that we this the people who came today they want to know what are we going to do next if I'm if I may bring up uh just a on what Amanda said how task force could possibly work just an idea having been involved with task force before and and uh so what could happen is there's five of us board members each board member could we could either appoint maybe two people from the community uh to the the task force but it's open to the

029public as well but then that way that the the information could be gathered for an outline on what our goals and objectives are in the in different topics that we want to put together so I would to amend a little bit what Amanda said and just maybe uh a habit where we appoint one or two persons people we could actually even put out um an application process for that um to pick from because sometimes people will want to be involved and they'll they'll apply and weaken a point so I think uh as that moves forward we have a lot of time and like Maria said too as We Gather in to the later guitar part of the new school year in the fall would be really a time to start putting that together and getting

030the wheels going moving forward well I'm going to say one more thing about that that the committee the committee roster that this state has put out for us or the county has put up for us um it's not a committee of us to be appointing is a committee that has to have it facilitator and that's where we bring somebody from the county from the county and and an administrator administrators are involved uh history and social studies teachers are involved and those are people who actually live it not people who are history and social studies but they're teaching it to the wrong group of people they are living it they're walking and walking uh history teachers uh teachers representing other subjects great span of K2 3568 and 912 parents and families instructional um Specialists people with

031the expertise um students families California Native American tribes and tribal organizations that is specifically stated in the state the county requirement so we have to look at who the who is that person that will be represented in that group um higher education institutions people who are working at the universities mind you ethnic studies is required for any student who is going to be going to California State University or a UC system coming from year 2030 that they must have this course so you have to bring the same people who are requiring that those students must have the course to sit at the table to guide us to tell us what we need to make sure that our children will have the opportunity to go to those universities my children all went to University and I

032do not want any child not to be able to go because of a decision we are making relevant Community organizations so Community organizations that are relevant to this are invited to this table County Office of Education they are all listed I took the time to read up on ethnic studies I don't have a problem I'll make you copies anybody that wants it so you can read up on what the County of San Bernardino San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools put together and the state of California has put together they've told us what the committee needs to look like and that's what we're going to be looking at if I could I would like to leave if I can well if I can get a second I would like to leave my motion as it is

033because I don't feel like it is our place to be appointing people because then we're I mean to be black we're four white people up here we can't we okay sorry we can't we can't disappoint we can't it has to be open to the community and if we have a facilitator from the county then that facilitator would make the decisions following the toolkit and the best practices for how it is created might I suggest that um we move forward with a board agenda item for the next board meeting or the August board meeting that could be your decision as a board but to move forward with a workshop for the board with the county allowing you to as five board members come together on what your expectation of the process looks like so that each

034of your voices they can take then and they can help establish next steps and timelines to get that completed which then is inclusive of the community and everybody else that would be I heard a few things such as holding this during an evening board meeting so I want to be sure that whatever we do meets the that criteria too so if it's a workshop that you want to hold and you want to hold it in the evening so that the public has access to it then I suggest that we I'm going to need some more information in order to to make sure that I've covered all of the basis and Supply what you need as a board as a whole I do think we need to have to schedule the task force um or to

035schedule the the training the workshop but I do think that we should commit to starting the process of there being a task force and committing to getting that established during that first month of school when we come back okay can I get consensus from the board to move forward so that I um one what I I believe I've just heard is agenda's uh um a works well agenda is the emotion for next board meeting to state that we are moving forward with a workshop utilizing the County Office of Education to do the workshop and consider them for our task force moving forward and then looking at our regularly scheduled board meeting potentially in August as a timeline for making decisions once staff is back meaning teachers and other staff that work in Apple Valley Unified

036School District to also be part of the process when I'm reading this motion that um becoming has he says her motion is to create a task force that will report back to the board in one year to address California Assembly Bill 101 on ethnic studies the task force will follow to the steps of collective impact strategies by December you know County ethnic studies toolkit Additionally the task force will utilize the literature approved request form process for approving literature in Apple Valley Unified School District that's how emotional on the table for next board meeting I can place that on the agenda I need direction from the board I would I would like a motion first to be approved today so that we can now place it because that's what you're putting to be place it on

037the next board meeting for the training for the board is not as important as studying setting getting ready for this committee to get started okay because the board will get the training we're waiting for the the finished product is when the product is finished and you present to us then that's when we we actually get involved but right now the people who are going to get started on the process are the people that we need to get set up so that they can start the process and we can come along and figure out what what what the state wants us as board members to do okay so for the purpose of emotion it would need to be agendized as an action item for next board meeting to add it means the public it's posted for

03872 hours prior to the board meeting and the public knows that they can comment on that um item as a motion and an action item so I would still propose that this motion that this as a board item be placed on the next board meeting with consensus today from the board to do so that's what I'd need in order to place it on the agenda I sat down the motion okay but for the brown act for the purposes of the brown act having direction for a board item is all I need in order to put it on there then you can take action at the next board meeting when the public has the transparency of being able to comment on that item it's not you wouldn't be taking an official vote because if you do

039you have not posted for 72 hours to have the public know that you are going to make a an actual discussion today yes it is a discussion so in order to move forward if I can get three board members to give me a direction for all of you to I agree Amanda agrees and the board president just said yes so weird I think you have consensus everybody's on consensus to move it forward Mr RC okay so I will add it as an agenda item for the June um eighth board meeting it will be the board meeting is for the public at one o'clock just as this one was the two summer board meetings are always at one o'clock we go into close we will be out at three all other board main meetings during the

040school year begin at five o'clock two-hour closed session and we come out at seven and we cannot come out and do any public action prior to 7 PM in any of those meetings next year okay so I will do that and then I will get some dates from the county um that they're available for a workshop just so that I can have Kylie contact you as board members perfect that's what's good okay we'll move this along number two annual English learner program evaluation District English learner advisory committee Mr Patrick Schlosser yes that's good foreign Torres and her representative committee members from the district English language advisory committee will be coming up to do this presentation there are a whole lot better at this than I am sure thank you everybody um today's presentation is part

041of our federal program monitoring requirements which basically state that we want to make sure that we have transparency not just in our language programs but also in making sure that everybody's informed of the progress of English Learners and how we provide some of the feedback not just to our parents but to everybody that is interested in those um in those programs and the information so in our annual report um I I get the uh you know it was funny because Mr slasher is usually the one that has to do all the numbers and has to do all of the things and I always say no that's really actually to me that's interesting but as I was doing this and I was listening to our d-lac parents and the the feedback that they have to do

042today I kind of felt like man I get the boring part I get the I get the ones that that we should have to discuss numbers now mind you uh I think this is a specifically or um especially um hard year because last year was rough and we are always about a year behind in that reporting so when we were looking at truancy we were looking at truancy rates and we were sending kids home so they were not in class we are today thankfully in a very different place so some of this data will look very different in the fall and we will gladly share that with you again when when that takes place so uh one of the things that we want to highlight is the fact that our English Learners have grown our

043district has actually been in a been adding students all the way across every single one of our populations and English Learners are not um are not far from that we are a little bit over about 10 percent uh last year we were about 1348 this year we're about 15 31. and one of the processes in which we measure this is through the lpac which is the English language proficiency assessment in California so um as we as we do this every single year and we test our students we want to make sure that we're keeping an eye on that LP which is what level indicator we have so as you can see and one of the things that you want to look at is that we had about . I want to make sure I say

044it correctly 37.9 percent that made either a gain of at least one level or they were able to actually go ahead and maintain that level four now remember where you're behind so when we're looking at about 50 percent of kids that were not in in class as much as they should have been that's still pretty good they were still trying hard and they were making progress now our reclassified students in 2021 were about 50 students that we were able to redesignate and in this year currently we're already at 69. so we're hoping for a couple more as as we go through the other side of this is that we are hoping to continue to grow in our biliterate seal we want to make sure that we have the opportunity to to continue to grow not

045just in English and Spanish but we have the opportunity to to do French Korean German or expanding programs and offering services so that however and wherever you want to learn we want to make sure that we give you that opportunity so a big important part of this is really to look at the long-term English Learners because those are the kids that have been in the program for more than four years and so whatever services and supports we're providing they still need a little more and what that looks like could be a little bit different so right now we're about even in a hard year two percent lower than we were in years past we were at 15 now we're sitting at about 13.7 percent but we have 500 students in this District who have only

046been enrolled in California three years or less so that takes a little bit of time just imagine learning another language we don't do it overnight so some of our um some of our state testing takes a little bit longer and so it shows you how our English Learners are doing how our reclassified English Learners are doing and are English only so I'll leave it up so that you can look at and you can see how on the other side of this program are reclassified English Learners are actually much closer to standard which really goes to show how much work and effort as they go through this process and the program and they come out of the other side and they redesignate how that's working for our students you can see the same thing in regards

047to our math even though our math really took a hit this year foreign now in our graduation rates we have 92.1 percent graduated for all students in our district and um wishes went to 86.4 percent which by the way before covet you know those olden times that we kind of don't remember sometimes we were at 83. so even in all of this uncertainty um California is at 73. we're working on getting towards that 90 percent and making sure that all of our students are able to do what they need to do so the fun part of this I am going to give the mic over to our d-lac rep so that I can talk a little bit about what it is that they have been doing and Miss Silvia Banuelos is going to be translating

048a um good evening my name is Felipe Hernandez I'm a single parent of two children um if I've spoken or I have spoken with you in the past I mean I don't want to talk about numbers or percentages but rather my personal experience as a parent um in 2010 my first child became kindergarten at Rio Vista school and I see the uh the then director of Rio Vista here so thank you for all your hard work yes [Music] on the first day of school my child not speaking any English was lost he got lost in on campus on his way to the bathroom opportunity foreign but that day I too began my process of learning English classification when he entered the fourth grade he was reclassified foreign I became a parent representative for elac as

049well as dilac and also and I participated in the process for reclassification within the district um back then the thought of a dual immersion program was just a it was a dream it was a dream back then and now um we're happy to say that beginning this next school year that dream has not become a reality Padre Escuela District through this path and my children being in school I learned to become more involved with the school more involved with their activities and more involved with my children um I know that it is your job um and it's a process throughout the year to go through numbers to go through uh the progress the academic achievement of not just of one student but of all students within the district classes I am grateful that I had

050the opportunity to be a part of that process of the decision making when it came to the surveys and the needs of our students and that you allowed me to voice uh my opinion in my ideas and you you took them into consideration semana is the Golden State is my son just graduated this year with the sale of biliteracy with the golden state seal as well and um having taken four AP classes his senior year [Applause] less gracias gracias gracias is I can't thank you enough for all of your support um during these years and also we don't know the discussions that you have behind closed doors um the difficult decisions and the signatures that you have to that you have to sign for but um I'm proud of my children but I am more

051proud of all the support that we have gotten from you sorry not my speech but I get emotional um good evening to uh the members of the board staff that's present all parents and general public that's here tonight good evening my name is serum my name is Marissa Aragon and it is an honor for me to speak uh speak in front of you here tonight um as uh elac and dilac representative Paloma I came to the Apple Valley District as a parent when I enrolled my six my daughter in sixth grade at uh yakaloma Elementary School um [Music] I have three children a 22 year old daughter a 15 year old son who's had his first year at Apple Valley high school and a 13 year old daughter who's going to begin her eighth grade

052year at Vanguard is [Music] after my sixth grade daughter's initial enrollment at yakaloma my two younger children enrolled or started kindergarten at Vanguard Vanguard prep foreign promoted promoted from Vanguard last year and as stated earlier my um my youngest daughter is going to start her eighth grade year at Vanguard yeah solicitadas por Los Padres Hijos tengan Los recursos neces during my time here I've had the opportunity to participate in several surveys that have been sent out to parents with the intent of uh asking or inquiring what we thought were the needs of our children and what our kids needed what type of resources are children needed primaria pero Vietnam my son my son who just finished ninth grade was reclassified in fourth grade however my daughter who is moving on to 8th grade this year

053is still in English still identified as an English learner and I'm hopeful that she will reclassify this year mental going back to some of the surveys that had been presented to us in the past I can say that um and I know I can say and I know that some of the results from that have been the addition of bilingual counselors and therapists that have been provided to our uh to our students India these uh this this Personnel was added um before we knew what the code pandemic was going to bring so I'm happy to say that we still continue are still our children still continue to receive these services to this day [Music] escuelas classes some of the other services we have received from the surveys are the addition of or the opening of

054additional family centers um additional parent education classes as well as the Friday disbursement of um from the food pantry foreign I'd also like to mention some of the uh classes or or courses that have been added um at least for our middle school students such as the AVID program and I believe specifically to Vanguard the AVID program as well as French and Spanish classes and it's my understanding that these courses will also provide our students with college credit when they move on to the university futur and as mentioned earlier by Mr Felipe the addition of the Dual language immersion class which has been a long time coming it's something that we've been uh discussing and asking for for many many years so it's it's wonderful to see that our students are not going to have

055this additional opportunity for learning is Silvia gracias I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank everyone um everyone who's been involved whether past or present including Miss perine Miss Torres are now director for always uh backing us and supporting us in what we what we felt we needed um and we just want to thank you and we hope to see this program to continue to grow in the future and only get better thank you [Applause] [Music] the the last part of this was really shiz to mention some of the things that we're going to be working on as we go back into our normal every day hopefully knock on wood um next school year we are going to be looking at reaching 85 percent that is where we need to start a hundred percent

056is where we want to be but it does take time and it does take work and it does take parent support and teacher support and everybody else so we are putting designated and integrated ELD supports in place and more PD and we have a wonderful teacher on assignment on ald that's back with us and we're very happy to have we are finally in four years we have our bilingual pair Educators fully staff so definitely big shout out to HR for being able to do that we have bilingual counselors at each of our high schools we have biliterate clerks to facilitate and make sure that we do have those translations and consistency and make sure that we can get that out there we can do this in 210 languages if necessary so we want to make

057sure that every single person is included and beyond that I just want to say thank you for for taking the time to to sort of have a review and and give everybody an opportunity thank you foreign didn't translate was that she was also among those thanked in that speech and and she's a deserving of that recognition as well but she's so self-effacing so [Applause] there hasn't been an lcap or District advisory meeting where the district English language advisory committee doesn't show up in force and give their input it's wonderful to have and we can always count on them to ask wonderful questions and really push on those ideas so we appreciate that it's astounding to think of the progress that's been made um I'm going to ask I think I'm the next item should I

058wait for it to you introduce okay I'll ask Miss Theta Smith to come join me here and we're going to go over some items related to um uh student acceleration of learning so give us just a moment to get connected to the to the um screen there foreign [Music] okay are you ready we're ready you're ready we are ready okay glad you are because I'm not okay so I'm Theta Smith I'm the director of curriculum and instruction and I'm here to talk to you today about what Apple Valley Unified has been doing um to address unfinished learning sorry the micas [Music] so is that it okay so on confronting this challenge our goal is to find ways to accelerate student learning so how do we know what works best there are two main resources that

059have been guiding our Direction the first is the California collaborative of learning acceleration this is a project whose goal is to support Educators with the task of accelerating student learning in order to mitigate the impact of covid the second is a large body of research called visible learning which seeks to identify what works best to enhance student learning visible learning research measures the impact that certain influences have on student learning these Studies have included over 300 million students from around the world each influence is ranked on a scale that you see here starting in the red some influences have a negative effect on learning an example of this would be bullying things that fall into this category can result in true learning loss then we have developmental effects in the yellow which is the rate

060of growth in learning that would happen simply because kids grow and mature regardless of whether they are at school or not next in the orange we have teacher effects in the classroom that have an average impact on learning the 0.4 that you see is called the hinge point and it is equivalent to one year's worth of growth finally in the blue you'll see the zone of desired effects these are approaches that we can take that have the potential to significantly accelerate student learning foreign there are four main points that I'll be talking about and how they relate to our District's mission to serve our community with dignity by meeting the unique academic behavioral and social and emotional needs of all students so that they may thrive in an ever-changing world the first topic is addressing

061unfinished learning versus The Learning loss narrative next we will consider how child Wellness impacts academic success then we'll look at some of the evidence-based instructional strategies we are focusing on and that are proven to accelerate student learning finally we'll look briefly at concentrating on key standards to provide instruction in areas that are most critical for our students achievement first it's important to begin with addressing unfinished learning versus The Learning loss narrative during the last few years we have been bombarded by very negative messages in the media about the long-lasting impact the pandemic will have on student learning and success in school these were actual headlines early on and we continue to hear similar messages look at the quote in green oven 19 and student learning in the U.S the hurt that could last a lifetime

062that just kind of hurts the heart right there many of these headlines read as if students will never recover from this and we are surrounded by this deficit thinking but we cannot allow the pandemic to Define our students or their potential headlines and labels such as these damage are learners when we label them away such as struggling at risk low confirmation bias can affect the opportunities that we give them we have many students who have unfinished learning and how we perceive them and communicate about them can have an enormous impact on their success evidence shows us that simply by removing those deficit labels we have the potential to accelerate learning by a year and a half just by removing the labels we have to change The Narrative of the learning loss we have to believe

063in and leverage our students strength so they can truly live up to their potential and begin with the expectations that we hold them we hold for them our students have no less potential than they did prior to the pandemic and I'm going to say that again because it's so important that our students have no less potential than they did prior to the pandemic so in order to accelerate we must first hold our expectations high so that students can reach their full expectation we need to find ways to eliminate labels these are some more positively framed expressions and examples the language we use can have an enormous impact on our mindset which in turn can have a great impact on our students learning when we talk about accelerated learning and addressing unfinished learning we are recognizing

064our students power to rise to the challenge and finish that learning this thinking aligns with our vision of treating all students with dignity so that they can thrive in order to address unfinished learning we need to meet students where they are take a moment and read this quote to yourself this quote gets to the heart of the difference between two different approaches to addressing unfinished learning remediation versus acceleration remediation is essentially about fixing something that is broken while acceleration addresses the learning you need just before you intend to use it a student may not be reading at grade level but that doesn't mean that they can't think comprehend or discuss ideas at a higher level our students need Equitable access to grade level content with the right support in the past we have sent students

065to an academic assembly line where they are expected to master standards at a set Pace regardless of their individual needs if they don't fit exactly into this mold we label them as low or behind but they have no less potential to learn than they did pre-pandemic if we try to fit them into this mold we run the risk of seeing them in a deficit light which will have an even greater negative impact on them so we have to stop thinking about our students as being behind they are exactly where they are in their learning evidence from Decades of research shows us that tracking an ability grouping does not work this involves separating students by academic ability into groups for some or all subjects often reducing the rigor of curriculum for these tracks again when we

066take this approach students are placed in remedial groups and don't have Equitable access to grade level content this can result in them feeling discouraged about themselves as learners however when we take the acceleration approach it is shown to have the potential for a year and a half's worth of growth and I'm going to turn this part over to Pat the second portion of this is don't go too far the second portion of this has to do with attending to the whole child and uh that's because we aren't only attending to learning we have to get Learners ready to learn and so we're going to talk about kind of that portion of it the consideration to accelerate learning means we have to make sure that students are feeling a sense of felt safety a sense of

067belonging to school and connection then attending to like sort of those higher level learning targets but we know that students during the pandemic did feel um greater stress grief and Trauma um some of the information that we have been uh given from local studies from Dr Powell include things like um the the listed barriers that students are reporting both locally and in the county about how they're feeling about school this is of course not just uh Apple Valley or San Bernardino or even a California problem it's a nationwide issue attending to students uh social emotional needs their sense of connection allows them to come overcome some of those listed targets if we only focus on adding more rigor without attending to their sins of connection to school we won't be able to accelerate and remember

068this is information from the adverse childhood experiences study for our local area what you see there are some graphs California and green our County in red on the far right and essentially what you're seeing is students who report having one the far left is zero there's there are some students report having zero adverse childhood experiences remember that includes things like childhood trauma like an incarcerated parent drug use in the home poverty in the home um any kind of abuse or neglect and a list of 10 factors in our area children who report one two or three or four or greater is greater than 60 percent which means these children are overcoming trauma now this is a pre-pandemic number and we know the pandemic did nothing but add to that number so what happens again remembering

069that John Hattie barometer of that visible learning barometer the students who feel any of these listed items they actually have negative effects it not only slows learning down it can reverse it right it can reverse the sense of connection to school their sense of felt safety so attending to these issues means that we can help to reverse those negative effects how do we do that we consider the brain it's important to kind of keep in mind essentially what you know is probably Maslow's hierarchy right first they must feel safe they've got to have that it's why we keep asking that question in our youth truth survey it's why that we ask that parents both of parents staff and students then a sense of belonging that comes second am I loved and cared for at this

070in this place finally we can address the learning we must attack it in that order we must attend to those needs so once we have those things together here's what we can do that will actually does work remember anything with that 0.4 or greater effect size those influences can have a greater impact so enhancing sense of belonging you hear these students when they come to the podium and they talk about their school and they talk about the things that they love about their school and sometimes those things they talk about are their lessons but sometimes the things they talk about are the things that are extra after school fun things they do field trips they take all the things we do to help them feel connected and belonging and you you can't help but hear

071the things like Esports something I would never have thought to put in a school on purpose but they absolutely feel connected those are students who maybe would never have done anything else teacher student relationships huge effect size you can see the love the rest so the other things we're doing with safe and civil schools we're attending to all of those social emotional components their sense of connection to school we're making sure they talk about integrity and responsibility there are three main aspects to that actually a group that finished today talking about school-wide attendance issues so we have um classroom management school-wide foundational supports through PBIS type work and then of course you know making sure that we have the capacity to coach and support teachers as they have needs in those areas and we also

072have social emotional learning teachers on assignment who have not um and they do not add a curriculum they take our current curriculum our current adoption they go through the stories and they find ways for teachers to add into those less into those stories lessons that highlight things that show kindness discipline character traits and the kinds of things that allow students to voice and name emotions and appropriate regulation and so next we're going to talk about some of the instructional strategies once we attend to those that sense of safety and belonging that then do help us to really accelerate learning for all students foreign going to my part okay so key standards and priority content we must focus on on areas that students need to know versus what might just be neat for them to know

073not everything students missed in previous grades are critical the bulk of time should be spent on standards that will be most important for Student Success in life after school this takes us to the California standards guidance the recommendation is that 70 percent of instructional minutes should be spent on key standards identified in the California standards guidance by focusing deeply on fewer standards we can save time cons by concentrating on those standards that students will truly need for success in life and accelerating learning our district has also provided professional development to each of our school sites related to this document which gives teachers time to identify those key standards and consider instructional implications so along with the key standards literacy plays a critical role of focus some of you may have heard about the science of

074reading This research has been around for decades I'm pretty old and I think it's even older than me but it has hit the media most recently the science of reading takes into consideration evidence-based practices for a structured literacy program according to the science of reading to meet the requirements of a structural literacy program it must have these five pillars notice that phonological awareness and phonics are the foundation of successful reading we here in Apple Valley have a strong very strong adoption in this area and have offered over a dozen trainings on these topics this last year alone when we were adopting our new well a new language arts program we required at the time that any potential language arts publisher have all of these components and this was prior to the science of reading currently

075being highlighted in the media so we were on it we just didn't know we were on it but we were really on it we also offer a level literacy Intervention Program known as lli currently we have placed two lli teachers at each of our sites these teachers work with students in small groups and they work with them on comprehension vocabulary and reading strategies here you can see how a structured literacy program aligns clearly with the visible learning research as our district focuses on these components our data shows evidence of growth which you will see in the next slide and I am so excited about because it's really cool so each trimester our students in grades first through eighth grade are required to take the I already diagnostic exam this test is an Adaptive test and

076it's designed to help teachers help teachers support their students by personalizing their instruction this data truly guides our instruction so what you're looking at on the screen up here is third are current third grade across the district in language arts for the entire school year they just finished taking this test this is fresh data it's maybe about two weeks old you can see that our growth in the green is beginning to increase while the red and yellow for the at-risk are beginning to shrink this is just one grade level the data across the board shows growth this year in both reading and math with our iready diagnostic so the first triangle is that from the beginning of the year and the second triangle is the most recent the end of the year other things that

077we've been doing is we offer an elop program that stands for Extended Learning opportunities at each of our elementary sites so we have before school and after school activities that we offer with our students we offer support academic support in all subject areas we offer the art music physical education lots of electives and lots of technology so you know that Esports fits in there somewhere we also get support to operate this program from our high school peer tutors I believe we have like 70 something High School peer tutors that go to the elementary sites after school and they work with our students in these programs and they are paid yes and they're trained also [Music] we also get support from of course our Apple Valley staff that we couldn't do anything without and also we

078have developed a great friendship with the town of Apple Valley who we support them with our ASAP program and their day camps so we've had our students participating in the winter day camps the spring day camps and right now summer day camps as well as having ASAP at our summer school sites okay so when accelerating we must also consider de-implementation this is the process of abandoning existing low value practices we are focusing on skills that students will need in order to thrive when they leave Apple Valley Unified School District the implementation may involve weeding out some things that have been in place for many years but are not as impactful and they are not evidence-based so we are in very different times than we've ever been in before and so our students need some different

079things approaches we have always used may not work as well or may not be connected to the key standards we can't teach everything and still address unfinished learning but we can and we should remove things that are not critical to Student Success the challenges that we face today will take time but our students truly have every bit as much potential as they have ever had and the approach we take to unfinish learning absolutely makes a difference in their achievement there are any questions [Applause] I do have a question we're ready um I I know that pandemic has caused some havoc in many households and it has also opened the eyes of many households so having said that I do also know that there are so many students who because of pandemic they've accelerated academically they

080have learned to read ahead of their grade levels and they have also learned to do their math ahead of their grid levels and I know we are talking about uh what we're doing to close the gap but what are we doing for those students who have already exceeded where the Gap is where do we place them what programs do you have available for them we have an ILP process which is an individualized learning program and so we have had a few parents come to us this year whose students were they felt that they needed to be academically challenged and so we take them through this process we meet with them gosh I'm going to say like maybe every other month we'll sit down and we have a team with the teacher the current teacher and

081then the teacher at the grade level above and the principal and myself I've been a part of a lot of those um I think one of them you know of and we accelerate their learning we challenge them sometimes it's they will go to another classroom we set goals for them when they go to the other classroom they're working at a higher level and we do set goals we check every other month are they Meeting those goals and if they're not Meeting those goals what can we do differently to keep them moving forward because that's what our main goal is I did in the slides I skipped because I went too fast I did want to mention that and it was mentioned at the end that there is of course um intervention programs in the school

082day some of them though in some places the need is so great that essentially it's a retooling of the entire program because it's all tier one needs now if 80 of the students need a thing that's no longer sort of intervention it's ever it's what everyone needs to do and that's you know really the program adjustment that has to be made but the tutoring after school does exist summer school we should mention there's thousands of students in school today across the district doing you know sort of additional learning that that we provide for them I have one additional question as you all know where I am also a university instructor and I go out to the schools to see teachers in this in their classrooms and the one big thing that I I have noticed

083along the way is the amount of instructional minutes that I lost due to announcements uh during instructional time do we have anything in place as a district that minimizes the amount of announcements um during instructional time so that the students will get the maximum amount of instructional minutes that is allocated to them we don't have a district policy but a certain something certainly something we can talk to principals about this summer I think we will be talking about it with principles this summer prior to the panda limit and just like everything else that happened after the pandemic people have a memory loss about that and we will bring it back to the table as a reminder that that is disruptive to classroom learning yeah thank you [Music] you want to let the screen go so

084I can grab it please great thank you I should have worn my glasses okay [Music] no I'm gonna stand back so I can see um thank you Mr bender and board as you'll notice on the agenda later on today there is a public hearing on the proposed budget for next year so this is some information to arm uh yourselves in the public to make any comments or ask any questions either now or during that particular public hearing for next year we utilize a lot of information and putting the budget together for Apple Valley Unified School District including the first point there which is the 2022-23 estimated actuals that's how we that's what we are currently predicting how we're going to end this year um we still have a little bit of this year left but

085we have a pretty good idea what's going to happen during the month of June so our estimated actuals are just that they are estimated and when we close the books I will be back in front of you in September with what's called unaudited actuals where we will go again over last or this year and update next year's as part of the budget cycle again we use Governor newsom's January budget proposal proposal that may revise the lcff calculator School Services dartboard and of course the common message so in a nutshell this is this year this is our estimated actuals you'll see on the revenue side we're looking at approximately 275 million dollars of Revenue both unrestricted and restricted approximately 278 million dollars on expenditures and transferring out about 1.9 million those transfers out are from fund

086one to other operating funds in the district so you'll see that does end us with a estimated just under five million dollar deficit so that takes our fund balance from 40 million to about 35 million and then there's some components down there on bottom that make up the ending fund balance a little bit of expenditure detail you'll see of that 278 million dollars in expenditures a little over 80 million is uncertificated salaries that does include both teaching staff and administrative staff as our classified salaries includes both classified bargaining unit employees and classified management employees and you'll see the line items for benefits books Services capital outlay and other outgo totaling 278 million dollars the transfer is out I mentioned you'll see there on the bottom I just wanted to detail that out fund 14 is

087our deferred maintenance fund we do contribute about six hundred thousand dollars to that each year that money goes towards significant maintenance projects ones that typically aren't funded through our regular routine restricted maintenance fund 11 adult education is requiring a contribution this year this is the first year in a long time we've had to contribute to adulthood it's a great program it serves the community great serves a lot of the community so it's a wonderful investment that we're able to make for uh for our community and of course the 1.2 million for our goes to fund 40 are reserved for Capital outlay that's that RDA Revenue that Redevelopment agency Revenue that tax increment that we get that is only for facilities it comes to us in our fund one we move it over to fund 40.

088moving forward 23-24 you'll see here some assumptions we are still utilizing the three-year Ada average that the state legislatures gave us through um through next year unfortunately our multi-year we are predicting a slight decrease in our Ada for year two the three-year average does mitigate a little bit of that but we're still predicting a slight decline mainly due to our lower attendance rate not our enrollment because our enrollment is up but the kids aren't coming to school as much a leftover of us sending them home during coven the statutory Cola is at 8.22 percent the governor has pledged funding that for next year uh the impact on the lcff of course we're budgeting our lcf Revenue at about 179 million moving forward that's our unrestricted that's our biggest piece of revenue from the state it

089flows to us unrestricted a portion of that of course is the supplemental and concentration grant funding which is very Works in harmony with our lcap where you'll also see that public hearing later on the agenda and our federal revenues we're budgeting that down to about 27.5 million because the federal government is not giving us any more additional one-time or short-term stimulus monies since the pandemic is over on the revenue side again the TK and K3 we are Staffing that at 24 to 1 so we're assuming full receipt of that we do staff art we do a fund our routine restricted maintenance at three percent of our expenditures and the lcff add-ons that Transportation add-on is when something they brought as a piece of the lcff when they started it and it had never been increased

090we received about 1.4 million dollars since the onset of the lcff but finally they're giving that a cost of living adjustment recognizing that transportation is an expensive program to run now keep in mind that 1.5 million who goes towards funding about a a program that costs about 6 million to run and we have an add-on for our transitional Kinder based on the number of ADA about seven hundred thousand dollars so there's a quick snapshot of 2023-24 our budget production projection you'll see our revenue is down to 231 million and that's really a reduction of that one-time Revenue we're not receiving any additional one-time revenues our expenditures are slightly lower but still 247 million so you see a significant deficit almost 18 million dollars next year that's reflected both on the unrestricted and the restricted side

091of the budget the restricted side of the budget is mainly spending down revenues we've already received so the revenues were booked in a prior year we have them but now we're spending them on the unrestricted side it's a little bit different story that's ongoing unrestricted expenditures unfortunately with with a reduction or not as big of an increase in Revenue because of our lack of ADA or our loss of ADA moving into 2526 this is commonly known as our out year one remember we have to do a three-year budget the budget year and two more years foreign actually I skipped some slides yeah yeah well why didn't you guys tell me are you just letting me talk so I'm gonna back up a year 24 25 which is year two actually there's our budget year I

092talked about that one right yes great skipped this one this is year two of our myp our three year average is 12 227 slightly lower than budget year statutory Cola has been revised to just under four percent and of course we are assuming the great span adjustment revenue on our TK through three and and I'm going to call it a back to normal for federal and state revenue because there's none of that one-time money flowing in um all that Federal stimulus money the state stimulus money that was attached to the pandemic they gave us lots of years to spend that but all of that money expires in September of 24. so we're recognizing that all being expensed in the budget year 23.24 the one I didn't skip expenditures in 2425 of course we have steppen

093column for all of our units we have negotiated some compensation increases we have some shifting of some staffing costs out of that one-time money into our ongoing resources we include all of our lcap expenditures as ongoing expenditures and in that second year in our multi-year projection we have built in eight million dollars in reductions as yet to be identified a couple meetings ago Ms okpara asked if we were going to start a budget committee we will be starting that budget Committee in the fall and one of the tasks of that budget committee will be going through the budget and identifying possible reductions that we can build in during next year to um to accomplish cost savings moving forward 24 25 you'll notice over on the right are expenditures 219 223 about a five million dollar

094deficit in year two of our multi-year projection with an ending fund balance um just over 12 and a half million dollars in 24.25 come on so this is moving and that's there we go 25 26 are budget assumptions our Ada slightly up over the second year of our multi-year projection um and we're actually off of the three-year average at that point because now the single year Ada with our increased enrollment has now caught up and surpassed what our average calculation would be um no adjustments to the federal and state revenue very minimal there the expenditures again we do compensate for all step and column for all units as we move forward that says employees move up it's years of experience on our salary schedules we have no compensation increases as currently negotiated for the 25-26

095year and again El capsule there and I guess I already I didn't talk about this but I went through some of that but this is 25 26. this we would consider a balanced year because we do not have a deficit in fact we have an excess of about 1.3 million dollars on 227 million dollars of expenditures um if this comes true that'll be wonderful um predicting what's going to happen in 25 26 is very difficult and I've often said as I'm up in front of the board of giving budget presentations this is wrong as soon as I print it and give it to you because things are always changing in our multi-year projection but as a snapshot in time as we have the budget for 23.24 this is what we're projecting for 25 26. so

096concerns for the future continued enrollment increases but unfortunately the the attendance rate we've been normally historically about 94 94 and a half percent attendance and what that means is out of a hundred students across the District 94 and a half of them show up every day we're around up to 95. they show up that's a 95 attendance ratio right now we're a little over 89 so fewer kids are at school every day and that does directly impact the revenue the state provides to Apple Valley Unified on the lcff funding the governor is doing something that they've always told school districts not to do never use one-time money for ongoing expenditures the governor is proposing that as part of his budget package because the state is facing I don't know what their deficit is now something

097like 30 billion dollars so he's taking one-time money or proposing to take one-time money that many school districts have already received and spent and put it towards the lcff to bridge that year Bridge next year so with the May revision the legislature has their own plan so the Senate and assembly have proposed modifications so there's a lot of negotiations going up on going up going on in Sacramento right now of course there's some deadlines June 15th and June 30th for the governor at the biggest what if and the biggest question is economic recession the legislative analyst office which is the advisory body to the senate in the assembly has come out with some of their projections and even if a moderate recession hits the United States particularly California the state could be looking at an

098additional 30 to 50 billion dollar operating deficit over the next two years and that will directly impact Apple Valley Unified School District so I imagine you will see me in August talking about the adjustments that we've had to make to our budget based on what the state adopts here over the next four weeks any questions yes I always have questions because I listen to details you must have provided yes my first question is since we service I'm looking at fund 11. since we provide service to outlying areas do does the other districts that have those people contribute to this fund 11 to in their own budget or is it just us I'm going to defer to Mr Schlosser on that one we are part of a Consortium of districts that work within uh the region

099served by Victor Valley Community College several other districts are in our Consortium and so as a result that money flows through the Consortium then flows to us we do accept students who live really in any boundary but we do prioritize Apple Valley residents however for this particular um excess this contribution that's being made we are not asking other districts to to foot the contribution however this will be a one-time contribution it is the the um adult education program uh did not because they mostly work by providing their education system using current our staff after school the change in the negotiated salary rate for hourly employees was quite a bit more than she had budgeted for and so she just went over she will adjust her program to have lived within the budget she gets from

100the Consortium for next year thank you Pat my next question is on the federal revenue as we all know special education um is a huge uh puts a huge dent in in our budget and the federal government did promise when they had the idea that their wolf they will contribute 40 percent how much of it are they contributing at this point in time I don't have that exact figure Miss Oak part but that's some research I'll be happy to do and bring that information back to the board as to the exact percentage of the program funding that we receive from the federal government yeah because when we went to Washington DC that was one of the things we presented to the lawmakers in Washington DC to inform them and they did make a promise to

101um fund fund special education at least to their 40 and at the point in time when we had that conversation they were contributing nine percent and on top of that nine percent they're giving us all kinds of guidelines that we need to follow to be able to service the students who are receiving special education and we are qualifying more students in special education that takes it you know goes into a budget where we didn't plan for but we can't deny the service absolutely of those children so it is very important if we have parents who have access to lawmakers in in Washington DC to begin to have a conversation with them about paying what they promised thank you any other questions thank you appreciate that try Kylie do we have any public comments we do

102we have seven okay Wagner Mr Wagner hello board members and community members my name is Nehemiah Wagner starting next school year I'll be a junior in high school today I stand before you to advocate for the urgent need to incorporate ethnic studies classes into our educational system the richness and diversity of our nation the United States of America lies in the tapestry of cultures traditions and histories that shape our society by embracing ethnic studies we can we can bring forth a deeper understanding and appreciation for the contributions of different communities fostering unity and empathy among our community among our community students ethnic studies empowers our youth to develop a stronger sense of self-identity by exploring their own cultural heritage and those of others students can gain a profound appreciation for their roots and the experiences

103that shape them through such courses they can Embrace their unique backgrounds while fostering respect and understanding for the experiences of their peers regardless of ethnicity furthermore ethnic studies equip students with the critical thinking skills necessary to navigate and increasingly interconnected and diverse world by examining societal structures biases and inequalities students learn to question prevailing norms and engage in meaningful dialogue about social justice issues they become active participants in shaping a more inclusive and Equitable student body ready to challenge Injustice and promote positive change if you take one thing away from what I've said today let it be that incorporating ethnic studies classes into our schools is a crucial step towards building a more inclusive and enlightened student body by providing students with a comprehensive understanding of our nation's history promoting self-identity and cultivating empathy for

104those different than ourselves we Empower our Future Leaders to dismantle Prejudice and Champion social justice these courses will work to create a brighter future where all students can see themselves reflected in their education enabling them to reach their full potential and contribute positively to our diverse and vibrant Nation thank you thank you okay good afternoon board cabinet Community my name is Hardy Brown I am I actually served on many of those committees that you all were talking about with ethnic studies I served on two two terms for the San Bernardino County Board of Education now you're probably asking yourself well why would somebody from down the hill want to know what's going on in Apple Valley because you're 13 000 diverse students also a part of our 400 000 diverse students in San Bernardino County

105and all these voices the things that you all talked about are things that we support but I wanted to talk about really what it was like for me to become a lifelong learner I attended the nation's first historically black college owned and operated by African Americans that's Wilberforce University in in Ohio but that is there's more to that story because when I grew up I knew about Wilberforce but I didn't know the full story William Wilberforce was an abolitionist from Great Britain and in 1807 they abolished the transatlantic slave trade but as I got through and I started to do more research I realized that I brought a couple pieces from my collection I realized that Thomas Clarkson Thomas Clarkson who's a student at the University of Cambridge in 1785 goes to school and they

106ask him a simple question should it be legal to own one human against their will Thomas Clarkson did his research these are real slave shackles of a mother and a child that were on people where a child was sold for five hundred dollars Thomas Clarkson did these interviews talked to people like oliday equiano he talked to people like John you talk to people like you can grab Bill Sharp and they took this to William Wilberforce and they changed the world a small group no larger than this room and so when I looked at that story I realized there was people who did not look like me who fought to tell a story and when I look at this room today I realize that we can also do that same exact thing we can come together

107and learn each other's story as another part of that a couple of years later you start to realize that in our policy here in the United States that we had things like the Virginia code of law this is 1860. in 1860 in this book it says that it's illegal for me to read and write with the punishment of lashes on my back and for any of your teachers out there if they decided they were going to teach us to read and write they would go to jail for six months and be fined a hundred dollars for every time they teach kids just like this for every time that young man stands up here for every time those parents advocate for their kids being reclassified six months in jail I look at this and I realize

108that because of all of this that resilience of Who We Are we've been able to come through that and we have great organizations like Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority that was founded in Howard University in 1908 that was founded for the for the for the embodiment and the growth of African-American women but also they're leading the educational change to Howard University these organizations are part of our bigger story so when I look at Wilberforce University a nation a college named after a white British abolitionist I realized that together all of our stories can come together but we need to be able to tell it and that's what ethnic studies can do so thank you so much for having me today thank you [Applause] do you know I wrote it down my son made me promise not

109to Rabbit walk so good afternoon everyone for those of you who don't know me my name is Deanna clima and I've been a teacher for avusd since 2001. I'm here today to talk about the extreme behaviors we are expected to deal with daily and the effect these behaviors have on the other students that are expected to deal with it in silence I've had a few conversations in the last month with different groups of teachers completely different places um and we came to the same conclusion that there's no the sorry that led to discussing how not having consequences for the students who throw chairs they throw shoes they shout out obscenities at teachers and their peers is teaching the students who are watching all that that verbal abuse and or violence is acceptable the somehow it

110is the fault of the ones who are being yelled at or having these things thrown at them is okay and that we should have not done what we did to cause it some examples from many different teachers is a teacher asks a student to pick up trash the student left on the ground and was called a stupid FNB by the student the consequence from the admin was for the teacher not to talk to the student because it was aggravating the student teacher asked the student where they needed to be because they were in an area they shouldn't be in and that was my class and I was told to shut up and mind my own business in front of my entire class nothing was done um I don't know what the consequence was let's just

111put it that way um my students were totally traumatized by that by the way um a teacher was shoved by another student and when the teacher was trying to de-escalate a fight and no consequence to the student that was known student was throwing chairs at others and was sent to the office and was sent back because the students were making him mad and so that's why he was throwing the chairs and that's just a few and it's not just our school you look on social media it's everywhere you know there's there's pictures it's the same story and it's the same story it's a system-wide issue not just here not just my school um I'm here because these examples remind me of my first marriage I am a survivor of domestic violence and I don't want

112to go into details because I have survived it I have gone past it however and I'm thankful that I was able to get out um I'm reliving that constantly when I'm told I need to do things differently so I don't set off a student my ex used to tell me it was my fault that he hit me because you know I made him mad I did something stupid it was my fault I'm the one that needs to change what's happening out there so I either need to be quiet or I need to change it would any of you expect your sister your brother your cousin your child anyone you know to stay in a relationship with someone who is physically or verbally abusing them and I'm pretty sure the answer is no you would be

113encouraging them to get out but yet here we are teachers not only being expected to stay in that relationship but we're also teaching our students that it's up to them to keep the peace so that violence doesn't happen we're told that many things that are not are not suspendable offenses and I understand that that's Ed code I get that um a lot of times I've heard from lots of people that administrators are changing wording from um you know it was a fight they were hit to horseplay they were just playing um we're told that we are the problem that we need to teach our students how to be kind and caring but yet when they aren't we're told that we need to offer rewards to give them incentive to do the right thing um all

114of this just to show that they can disrupt the learning all over again and it's amazing that I was here on a day that we're talking about learning and accelerating learning and how when learning isn't happening when you have a child that's being violent and destroying the classroom the entire class is learned is losing that learning time and then you have the child removed and I do want those children helped I'm not saying that those kids don't they they need that but what about the kids that are still in the classroom and the time it takes to come back three minutes can you wrap it up yeah um anyways my thing is we're not teaching the children that are silent the right thing we're teaching them that it's up to them to make sure that

115they do the right thing so that we don't set off the children that are disrupting the learning but yet their education doesn't matter thank you Anita Tucker [Music] can you help her with the mic [Music] good afternoon the steam board member superintendent executive cabinet teachers students and Community my name is Anita Tucker I'm here to speak regarding ethnic studies this room brings back memories to me I spent many days here in this band room when I attended Apple Valley Junior High School with Mr Tran I went to Mariana Elementary School and I graduated from Apple Valley High School the faces in our district have changed dramatically from when I attended there was a glaring absence of diversity when I graduated and went to school here I'm pleased that Apple Valley Union Unified School District is

116working towards developing an ethnic studies program in accordance with the guidelines set forth by the state I hope that the board will continue to ensure that they follow the protocol set in place and involve all stakeholders as a retired history teacher I know how crucial it is to provide a quality education for our students based on using the social studies framework primary sources and allowing our students to be able to think critically and write critically as Apple Valley Union Unified School District begins the process I am happy that our diversity and all our voices will be reflected in this process and I hope that you continue to do that and as a retired teacher I have lots of time now so I'll be watching you thank you very much for your time [Applause] all right

117next Karima hope I pronounced that right now Karima okay [Music] yeah thank you yes uh thank you um good afternoon board my name is Kareem abdulkabear um attendee of Mesquite back when it was still Mesquite before it was Vanguard Apple middle Vista Campagna before it was Phoenix Apple Valley High School still the same some things never change I guess um yes so I'm here today to speak about ethnic studies I'm really glad that we're getting a ahead um and figuring this out and getting the community together um but also I have some concerns and some issues as well because I know this has been ethnic studies to get past has been um in committee with teachers organizers activists legislatures have worked on this for years to get it to this point and to get it

118passed and I would like to thank the state legislature and Governor Gavin Newsom so that we're even able to be here and have this conversation today so so I was looking at the task force plan this one sent around by Miss Buchanan and I had a few questions about the committee and the task force which I know there's still going to be additional meetings about and things I'm just going to go ahead and put those questions out there so we can go ahead and get started thinking about that um okay so for the curriculum I see that there's um looking at having lesson plans um looking at it at that level end up level and my concern is we're going to have standards from the state of California we're going to have textbooks very soon

119they are all in the works so my concern is um what is going to be the position of the local committee versus the the approved textbooks and the approved um materials so that's what I'm kind of concerned about is placing a teacher in kind of a dichotomy where they're trying to figure out you know what they can teach and how they can approach the subject and them having different voices and not just being able to um use their professional expertise use their local knowledge to um Implement ethnic studies so that was one of the questions I had and also um I'm glad we're talking about the budget and it seems like hopefully the budget will be better by the time we Implement ethnic studies so so hopefully there will be room for enrichment um guest

120speakers field trips uh the primary sources the um the artifacts that the other speaker brought up hopefully all of that will be um funded for and fully um fully implemented so that we can have a really good strong program um yes and what is the my last question is what is oh I'm at my time um what is the standard process for curriculum to be approved and um I'm just wondering why it's deviating so much because I know we have new classes new courses every once in a while they go through a process and I'm just wondering why that seems to be deviating so much from what this course subject is and that's all I have to say thank you sir foreign Mr Campbell a Christmas candle okay well you have to bring it up

121here you're more than welcome this is democracy at his best [Laughter] okay director yeah I'm okay good afternoon my name is Sandra garenken I serve as an instructional coach right next door in Hesperia couple of questions so I was excited to hear about your um uh look let me back up I'm from Georgia so a lot of the things of California I'm learning I've been here six years some things don't quite make sense to me just yet but work with me so um your District elac representative shared today coming to California I had to take courses to be able to support our emerging bilingual students to be able to support them in a way that was very different from my expectations in Georgia I thought it was amazing but as I've been here again for

122six years I've noticed that they we lack that same type of intentionality as it relates to our black students um coming from the south and again in districts very similar and structure as far as demographics um I'm wondering where are we or what is the direction of the districts with supporting our black students specifically with literacy when I look at your California dashboard I see that our graduation right rates of our African-American students is about 89.2 percent um that African-American students represent about 8.3 percent of your students overall but of that 89.2 percent that are graduating from high school only 37.5 percent are College and Career ready so when we think about our students and what they can contribute to society our students ready to be active citizens in Apple Valley in the high desert

123period and what are we doing to retain them if they are making that that 30 excuse me 37.5 that our College and Career ready are they going to college and returning to contribute to this community from my understanding and when I talked to students of color many of them are not wanting to return um superintendent I don't want to mess up your last name but but I I when you were speaking about um SEL in the schools I noticed that you didn't mention cultural competency many of our students are searching for a sense of belonging part of that is seeing themselves and understanding themselves but others seeing them too many of our students are seeking to be seen heard valued when they have that sense of belonging where they are seen heard value it increases

124their attendance rates so you also mentioned attendance as an issue and that attendance also affects funding so we you know create an environment where our students want to be in our schools they will come and so will the funding and then again if we create that sense of belonging in our schools hopefully it'll impact our communities where they actually want to return when they do go off to College and Career you know different careers and lastly and I know I ran out of time but I do want to emphasize a high emphasis on hbcus my student my oldest son was a recent graduate class of 20 um 22 and he just completed his first year of um College a lot of our colleges excuse me high schools in the Southern California don't emphasize hbcus as

125an option there's a high emphasis on a through G requirements a lot of the a through G classes are black students are not registered for our counselors tell them that they probably won't be successful in those classes their acts to register for something different to open that slot for a student who might be more successful well a lot of our hbcus will still provide an opportunity for our students regardless if they meet that a through G requirement and again if you're telling that student that they should not register for that a through G required course but you're wanting to have that sense of belonging and wanting them to return to this community and contribute as a valued citizen that's why they're not returning at least from My Lens thank you for hearing me [Applause] superintendent

126comment yeah I think um you saw some of the best of the best today with our it's okay no worries um the best of the best with our d-lot committee members getting up and presenting um they are often worried to get up in front of others to speak they have been committed to our district for many years um they speak very well in English but they come to everything they are at every meeting and they contribute to Our Success with our English Learners which was a starting place we had to start someplace those kids have um increased graduation rates uh FFA just this past week so I'm going to go from academic to something a little bit funny for those of you that don't know Apple Valley Unified School District snow Lane Joint Unified School

127District and Lucerne Valley Unified School District have an FFA program um three years ago prior to the pandemic and then this would be our third kind of annual because we had to take a short break we were asked by the FFA programs superintendents to come and show animals at the fair in front of the kids to understand what those kids go through and what that process looks like the first year we showed a lamb I would have said it was a sheep it was quite large and we did fine as a district I think we swept that year and first second and third place the following year when we were able to come back that would have been last year we showed a pig not my favorite animal to show because there is no you

128have a little stick and you have to guide it with the stick and I wasn't really good at it and I didn't have a very complaint complacent yeah so um we took first thank you to Mr Schlosser for his skill with the pig last year and I took third but Mr Dr Holman with snow Lane joint put a wager down at the beginning we don't bet in education but he did say that he would wear if whoever was the loser must wear the other District's colors at a board meeting so last week while we were at a graduation Dr Holman domed a district um shirt during the entire board meeting with our logo Apple Valley Unified School District then he explained the BET and he then stood up and put the color orange on with

129Apple Valley Unified Apple Valley High School's logo all over it and finished the the um the board meeting um next year around that same time Apple Valley Unified School District and I'm not just going to do it by myself I have a team those three men at the other end of the table will also be wearing snowline Joint Unified School District colors because although we had second and third um we did not win this year so it was not a sweep and we will be doing that it shows the kids that we do a little bit understand what they're doing this year we had a calf um my calf was named Tiny and Tiny did not want to walk um Miss apara showed up it was ugly uh my feedback was that I should not

130pet the calf it was not a pet but so I got eliminated um but the reality is is it's all in fun to support the kids and anybody that's out there that is interested in um helping to support the program they will have an auction this weekend you can participate with online and then um I did believe that Mr Schulenburg had a copier issue I did not believe that he intentionally skipped slides I thought maybe they were in the wrong order in our pocket so next time Mr Schlosser or Mr schulenberg we've got it we will tell you you're on the wrong slide yeah and I and I do believe there's some other issues with the budget including the tax extension that will cause us to wait a little bit into October to know what

131the actual deficit is for the state um and then finally in I know that there were questions asked we will address those questions at a later date having to do with ethnic studies and I appreciate the questions because that gives us some guidance um and the comment regarding um lcap or well regarding what we're doing for our students we do have an lcap goal six this year Miss Williams is in the audience she participated in that process and helped us to formulate that goal and it is directly impacting our African-American students in this District so I appreciate the comment um we are thrilled that we have a goal in as goal six in our lcap so thank you and you're wearing green so I thought you were actually from Victory Union High School District you

132sure and young man I don't know what school district you go to but um amazing amazing speaker good job board comments Rick yeah I don't have comments but I thought I'd take my time here I wanted to agenda is something future uh meetings and it was um about the safety on on the campuses and uh it was brought to my attention that we did have it one time I remember it was a Safety Committee and I'd like to bring that back and then have reports uh to the board uh from the committee on what's being done to update and it's not just uh the disrespect but it could be uh you know you know violence towards other students uh you know what's our protocols for active Shooters the whole gamut on safety in the schools

133so I think it's very important and we kind of don't hear about it as much as we should on what's occurring in our district other than the negative stuff so I would like to see uh the committee bring bring be brought back and then a report from one of the from the superintendent's office every meeting on some progress and what some um what's being done to improve okay we'll do that yeah so I I have direction from the board I'm going to keep asking those questions just so that I know that well I'm just as a board member I'm asking that uh I got it and it will fall under um Mr Conrad in um Human Resources because he is in charge of um safety protocols at the police department and risk management it's perfect

134yeah and I did I do know Karen slept she had mentioned that Safety Committee it is in our article with uh Buddha that we actually have that and it's scripted on who they will have as representative so it is absolutely something that is going to be moving forward from sex school and then we'll have to work on what the actual report looks like yeah what kind of thing just to get an update so that's all I have Dennis thank you okay very good Amanda um I'll try to keep it short because I talked a lot already but um was it Mr Wagner was that your last name amazing like I I thought you were a grown-up when you came up and started talking I was like you said you were a junior and I'm like

135oh I wonder which college but yes that was excellent um and then just thank you to Mrs I wrote it down I know it started with an a what was the Aragon and then Mr Hernandez um yeah they were just so eloquent and even in another language like they did not sound shaky at all um I love hearing from the parents of what's going on and so it's it's always a treat when when they do come and speak with us um and then as far as the other questions that were asked I definitely think that whenever there is a task force that they are given those as well to look forward to um I swear there was one other thing but I don't remember so thank you everybody for coming and sitting through a really

136long meeting in the summer especially when you're on summer break so thank you very good Gary I just like to Echo those same comments thank you for the the comments that were made on Netflix studies I know as we utilize all stakeholders in the district parents teachers community members administrators I know that we're going to come up with that with an outstanding program that will meet the needs of all of our students and uh just just look forward to going forward from there I know we're putting all of our heads together I know we're going to come up with something outstanding for our students they're going to meet the needs of all students so thank you for your participation and we look forward to your continued participation in the future that's all right um I'm

137going to start with the 37 percent of College and Career ready students um and we need to do better how they say when you know better you do better so we are hoping that uh this is driven real hard into our psyche to let us know that although we are showing up we are not showing up in the right direction and we need to pay better attention um and we have capable staff members who can make sure that that happens that we begin to encourage those students from the day they registered to let them know that the future is so bright for them and they need to go forward in terms of Safety Committee I am the I'm of the proponent of if a student misbehaves it should be a consequence those misbehaviors are not

138allowed in their churches so why was why should we allow it in school and we are supposed to be the people that paved the way for them to become good citizens out there and if we cannot do it and we are wearing down our teachers we are not doing what we need to do then we go to ethnic studies it is very dear to me obviously I did my son I have five children when I came to this country I I never knew I was different until I came to Apple Valley I went to school in this country but not in Apple Valley and in this school in the school campus we were all foreigners and we were all treated with dignity we were all given our respect and people were willing to know who

139we were I came to Apple Valley and that all changed so when I have my five children here I did my son degree that's Injustice because nobody could translate my language for him so I made him stay in that class for English to learn to speak English as if he was not an it was a natural English speaker and that was unfair and when my son graduated from this school from this District I knew he was not prepared because he was told he would move on from great to great regardless of what happened my daughters did much better because I found ways to educate them but my son did not so when ethnic studies was brushed during pandemic wasn't even pandemic it was during George Floyd I said this is my opportunity to do the

140right thing my son is not in his 40s but it's now my opportunity to do the right thing for children coming behind I will not be sitting here if it wasn't for God thought that whole idea that children must hear about who they are where they came from the challenges of their ancestors I don't have those challenges I was born overseas I knew my ancestors I know the history of my ancestors I can trace my ancestry down to 20 Generations I can trace it but there's so many people who do not have those benefits they don't have it they don't know it and it's not just for the black American it is also for the white American there are so many people who just know the bare minimum of information that is passed on to

141them verbal information they need to see the research that says this is who you are it was harder for anybody to break me living in this country because I know who I am and I have no apologies for who I am but I will not sit here as a board member to allow anybody to make any child feel less important that's my job and the day you decide that I am no longer speaking on behalf of all children please get me out but until then my job is to make sure that every human being that comes in my path I will know their history I am not interested in single stories that's the problem we have in the society we live in we live in a society of single stories people think of Africa as

142a country it is not and I want people to understand that we are human beings and we are entitled for our stories to be told in the language of that story we don't want the story to be told in a different language I sit here and I speak seven languages and how many people have I've actually bothered to want to know me as a person and we need to get to that point when we sit and when we have the cover of authority I sit here because there are people that I have had to be on their their shoulders to be able to rise to this point when we sit here and we are doing the people's work let us always remember that we are doing the people's work not our work and we must

143make those people feel important from the moment we see them till the moment we don't see them and when we don't see them we pray for them we lift them in our prayers and I am so torn I have never been more torn about this whole subject of ethnic studies because America should not be a country that worries about what people talk about in their history I learned about American history living in Nigeria the Americans weren't worried that I was learning about them before I came to this country I had no idea about steel industry but I knew that it was in Pittsburgh before I came to America I had never seen snow but I've learned about it it's okay the only way we are going to grow outside of ourselves to grow out of

144outside of the pain that we Harbor is to be able to allow people to see it in the total nakedness let people see it and let people say you know what I understand you much better I see you you have a name you mean something to me there's nobody in this room that I am sitting now that will need a kidney and mine is functional and it will work for you that I will not donate Mindful and I won't ask you if you're white or black I will give it freely that's what family is about this is what Apple Valley has been for me and that's why I sit here every board meeting and I look in the audience and I say I thank God for the opportunity to sit here to represent Apple Valley

145I don't want a Melting Pot I want a salad bowl of Apple Valley I want Apple Valley where it says you are a carrot you are lettuce you are celery you are radish you are whatever it is but you all have your individuality and if you just throw a few a little salad dressing that's the harmony we can all live together that's all I want sitting here as a board member and I'll continue to do the same thing every single day as we discuss this ethnic studies because it is very important that everybody's voice is valid thank you thank you Maria I had one of her daughters I could just do it she was brilliant I just like to comment on the graduations the students were well behaved a couple of gymnastics they pulled off

146were actually pretty good and uh but in one word it was cold but anyway so the expert I think we're gonna we're gonna move on here we need to conduct a public hearing regarding the 2023-24 local accountability control plan we'll open the meeting at we must stay open for at least one minute if so many people that came to speak you want to leave now we're just going to go through a bunch of regulatory stuff and it's yeah we need to don't hurry out yeah yeah because one minute for the hearing we're almost done but don't leave so that people can say goodbye give us a sec 24. New York Minute [Music] and go ahead and say we're closing at 5 20. time close and you're going to take a break yeah we're going to

147take it right now [Music] thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you back rolling ready okay we'll bring the meeting back to order um conduct a public hearing on the budget if there's anyone present who wishes to provide comments regarding the proposed budget conduct a public hearing 2324 budget I think I think you need to go back to um the approval appointment of Brian Goodrow we didn't we didn't or no oh we're up there I'm sorry go ahead okay all right we're opening the meeting at what time 531 we haven't been here that long is there anyone president who wishes to provide comments regarding the proposed budget for the 2023-24 school year if no comments are given after one minute of being open will close that's a that means we're out of

148time okay at 5 32 we're going to bring this meeting to an end discussions session I need to approve the appointment of Brian Goodrow principal and Christina Celia assistant principal for Apple Valley high school and Adam Powell principal and Daniel Rincon assistant principal for Granite Hills High School as a designated CIF representatives for the 2023-24 school year I moved the item all in favor aye approve an increase in the compensation of board members beyond the limit deleted in the head code 35120 in the amount of five percent based on the present monthly rate of compensation effective July 1 20 2023. second I'll second any discussion I'll point out that's the first raise in 20 years and it's not right first raise in 20 years but you're not in it for the money all right all

149in favor aye aye approve the recommendation of the administrative hearing share person effective immediately on expulsion case number 18. as amended yes amended on favorite aye aye do you need a mission all right excuse me I'll move it all right second second all in favor aye expulsion case 19 2022-23 as amended as amended do you have a motion second all in favor aye approve the certificated and classified Personnel action that's listed second oh second all in favor hi approve the recommendations for requested leave as noted to have a motion all in favor aye authorized Award of the Professional Services for architectural and Engineering Services for the district Granite Hills High School Athletic Facility project to SGH Architects wait a minute thus authorizing the assistant superintendent of administrative services to commence contract negotiations with a selected

150consultant motion I'll move it second one second all in favor aye aye um yeah I'd like to point out this is a great moment for the kids that were at Granite are at granted and are going to be at granted this baby is a long time coming consent agenda we can do this all at once all right I would like to withdraw items item number seven for discussion okay one through six eight through sixteen all in favor I need a motion second I was taking it all in favor aye all right we pulled seven any comments there uh numbers uh item number seven regarding the reading lists there was a one book there on that list The Immortal Life of Henrietta and while the the storyline the subject matter is very positive and students in

151me again kind of in line with our ethnic studies discussion story that that deserves to be told this particular book I just although it's I think there was a pre-approval and it has already been used um and I think Mrs Nelson come speak further about that just as a point of transparency hasn't come up for another round of approval just uh for means of transparency just want to note that and this is has been used in a 10th grade classroom and um just again just for public transparency I have a concern whether this is age-appropriate to to a student in 10th Grade there are 17 derogatory names the f word is used 11 times there is a description of a sexual abuse and then an improper meeting of a naked man with an underage woman

152so although this this book has previously been used in our district Has Come Around again and so I just have a concern and concerned enough that the public should know if this book is being used yeah and so we have audited our process by which um books had public review and made sure that there is a match to those public review processes um as noted in previous lists that have been going back to the board for approval they go under public preview they're posted this particular text was asked for by a teacher at High Desert Premier Academy there is a class set that is utilized there and she did so after seeing it as part of the ERWC program the expository reading and writing program that was developed by Cal State San Bernardino and utilized

153for seniors um in in an effort to not have them have a um remediation when they attend um Cal State system this book so in our process to be completely transparent it has been discovered that this book was previewed and reviewed when we adopted ERWC however when another teacher is trying to utilize it and somebody goes and tries to pull the document for public review they don't find it as a single text because it was approved as a curriculum to support ERWC so it was approved at that point that is something that was caught today after a question regarding this text and we will go back to our process and verify did it get approved and previewed as a curriculum or was it approved and previewed as a correlate separate and on its own so

154I just want to point that out it did go through its preview many years ago when we adopted ERWC it was acceptable at the time and you're just seeing it because another teacher has utilized it as a class set so it's a program sorry I also thought it was interesting that in going through the lid the approvals I found it interesting that only um three out of ten reviewers could give an enthusiastic approval seven out of ten of the approvers on on the committee were not enthusiastic either questions at the grade level or outright disapprovements yeah and so for the purposes of our district and in our policy parents have a right to opt out they um nobody came and previewed the text that was sitting out there here in the room and will continue

155to show up every time we have any text so it's totally at the direction of the board as to what to do with this it's an optional tax date is not the required is it possibility to approve the rest of the books and hold on to this until further information is gathered you as a board can do whatever so you're saying trene that as a board we can we can uh or I I can agree with uh Gary's assessment on this and and pull this book from approved list if you do that you want to be cautious of the fact that it is part of the ERWC program what I would recommend is is if you are uncomfortable with it being used any place else that that is what your um what your recommendation would

156be to be to be allowable under ERWC because that's how it was course approved and then say in any other courses this is not um a text that's being approved does that make sense because it was previously and it's it's one of the options that works yeah I agree with that that is probably not appropriate just put the language alone and some of the descriptions for that page group so will you continue to research and find whether or not that it was just the text or whether it was the curriculum for which the original approval the original approval was ERWC with the list of books this book was part of eowc right the original so moving forward we will not be bringing back any text for ERWC if it's already approved by the district in

157this case it came back so you would have to have somebody come forward and say this was a book we didn't want which is one of the things I sent out regarding um what the series the day before yeah totally unrelated to this but it is a topic Across the Nation so not this particular text do we need to get legal opinion on it um because we don't want to go against the Department of Education either that's for sure well this is one single book you know when I'm I'm hearing what you're saying it's one single book but it has the same kinds of things that we don't want our students to say or do so if it has the f word 11 times I you know I had to learn the alphabet soup when

158I came to this country because they're all everything has a different meaning so if he if it already has the f word and has sexual abuse which we don't want our students to learn and it already has the naked and underage whatever you describe I have not read the book could we hold off on this particular book and approve the rest of the books and gather additional information before we add this as a new book it's not being added as a new book that's the part I'm trying to explain it is part of ERWC expository reading and writing that is a adopted course in our district and that is part of the optional curriculum that Cal State has provided as that and has for years so it is this when we're approving the the recommended

159literature is it an all or nothing no it is not an All or Nothing what I was recommending was I don't believe you would be um contrary to what the um email from the state that I I forwarded yesterday about censorship and different things I do not believe it's contrary to that to say that you are not approving it for use outside of ER WC the ERWC course has multiple options which can be used outside of that place you just have to have to younger yeah we're not taking it down to the third grade yeah okay so I need somebody to make a recommendation to Amendment okay all in favor all right all right thank you a little more closed session signing of documents so all I need is um anyone want to do that

160all in favor aye we'll come back in here at nine o'clock thank you foreign