9/20/22 -Azusa Unified School District Board Meeting

001well good evening and welcome to this combination regularly scheduled board meeting as well as study session that we have on september 20th 2020 the time is now 5 30 pm and we will call this meeting to order and we will begin with our flags we'll then move to our roll call board member rodriguez pena president board member beau here board member adianas present and i board member greer m here uh board member cruz gonzalez will be joining us short with that we move to 2.0 and specifically 2.1 approval of the agenda is there a motion to approve nitrogen make a motion to approve moved by board member rodriguez pena seconded by board member arianes any discussion hearing none we will move to a vote i remember cruising his house is that a yes so the

002motion passes five uh five yes uh to zero moving on then to item 3.0 and specifically 3.1 items from the floor public comment on agenda or not agent items this is an opportunity for the public to address the board of education on agenda or non-agent items individual speakers may be allowed up to three minutes to address the board of education on any agenda or non-agenda item when the public wishes to address the board of education on an agenda item they may fill out a blue card stand at the podium or raise their hand while in zoom attendance the board will take blue card requests first followed in order by speakers at the podium and then those in zoom attendant do we have any blue cards this evening no and it doesn't look like anyone to

003speak at the podium lika do we have anyone online leave a comment we do not do not thank you then we will move to 4.0 study session uh in 4.1 presentation of azusa unified school district educational services programs and we will turn it over to miss norma come on good evening board president greer board of education superintendent ortega and cabinet tonight we are sharing azusa unified program design and plan for high school middle school elementary and early education our planning approach begins grounded as always in the vision and mission for what we want all students in azusa unified to experience educational programs that offer a strong foundational experience at preschool elementary middle and high school we we frame our plan with our district vision and mission that each student will be a problem solver critical

004thinker effective communicator and positive contributor to the community to equip every student with the knowledge and skills for college and career to positively impact society instruction in all of our courses and programs are grounded in our student success drivers which include collaborative practices academic rigor and academic discourse tonight we outline the current courses programs and classes that we intend to sustain those we will enhance by providing added benefit and opportunity and those we will continue to explore as we shift into implementing community schools on all of our school site when we consider california's vision and framework for community schools the framework outlines that a community school uses a whole child approach with an integrated focus on academic health and social services youth and community development and community engagement as a school improvement strategy community schools

005enable the district and school to work with educators students and families to address the unique needs assets and aspirations of our school community we will begin tonight with azusa high school and we have with us mr gabriel fernandez who is our principal at azusa high school good evening board of education so in terms of uh the programs we're looking at for next year and moving forward at azusa high school as we're bringing the two schools together we're looking at what current courses we offer in the advanced placement program we're looking at maintaining those moving forward our avid program we're looking at ways to build the excitement around the college bullying culture we're looking at returning to those trips we used to take a long time ago before covid um those college trips where they could

006go and see places they haven't seen before to build a program for avid our athletic program we're looking at three levels and all sports making sure that they're competitive with the larger schools in the valley um early college program i know mr chang will speak more about the early college program work that we're going to be doing our ethnic studies just getting to see the excitement of the kids in those classes we have three sections of ninth graders in our english ethnic studies lit course right now and you can tell there's a difference in energy in the room with the teacher and the students same with the race and gender in us history we're seeing something there that i'm glad we spent the time doing the work last year to build those courses because you

007notice a difference already with the type of learning that's happening in those rooms i'm looking forward to us really keeping that going and building up those opportunities for more students um our ib program mr chang will speak more about we currently have jlrotc at both schools and seeing the impact of that in student leadership and it's not just about the military it's also about developing those leadership skills that are vital to success in indie industry in the future we have some very good mentors and teachers in that program so looking at keeping that going our leadership we're going to have one asb class next year with one asp teacher there's going to be some decisions we have to make there um also combined with leadership is the work that our students are doing with link

008crew we have mentors from both azusa high school and gladstone high school working together this year to kind of shepherd uh juniors and seniors from both sides working together to create that welcoming environment and we're looking at building on that initial success we've had this year into out years next year particularly and then moving forward to make sure that everybody feels that welcoming spirit and continuing with a shorter hike then we have our our upward bound with that's the partnership with uh apu we have small well we have 60 students i think are looking to build up to 60 with the grant that we have with apu is the the opportunity that students have with the upward bound program it's kind of like avid just you need that extra support and math to make it

009i really think that upper bound is a great thing that we keep going for azusa and gladstone kids at azusa next year yes ma'am regarding upward bonds sorry yes so the difference between actually i just learned that myself when i went to the back to school night was the word bound is after school and avid is a class correct students that cannot participate or doesn't fit in their schedule you have it they go to the upper round after school so kind of to differentiate um upward bound is like you said after school and avid is is during the day but part of what the avid curriculum has is those two days a week where they're doing tutoring and particularly when you step into a high school avid class or a middle school habit class you're

010seeing a particular focus on math and then when you go to upward bound after school you generally see the students getting extra support math because one of those barriers to college admissions for our kids unfortunately is algebra and the basic algebra and art and making sure they get extra support in mathematics particularly is one of the things i see as a strength of the upward bound program so what about think together i think together does offer tutoring as well but that's a generalized tutoring they don't i mean they're all college educated and degree possessing employees in the think together program but they don't specifically focus on math like i've seen up about not that they can help a student in the math area and up and think together but it's just i've seen upward bound

011in action and i've seen uh avid in action when it comes to mathematics and that's something i think just looking at our our math needs it's something that do they also meet on saturdays upward bound did they do right i attended a parent meeting what two weeks ago where they were like they have parent support and then they do have weekend workshops for the kids and then they do summer programs like uh what they call them experientials where they're spending a couple weeks on a campus of a college just to give them that feel for what it feels like to be out of college and again without lining up with avid it says how do we get that college-going culture and that's just it's stuff that kids have to feel and i think that the

012upward bound program does it just like the avid program does it for that summer they stay in the dorms if i'm not mistaken correct they do thank you you're welcome and then uh one more site with me is just looking at our our cte programs in particular i know uh mr chang and myself and the cte teachers and the counselors are looking at our enrollments in these pathways we know that california changed the rules regarding what's a completer used to be three years and now it's two that that change took place a long time ago and where we've changed our approach to how students are scheduled but if you've been a counselor for a long time you know like you have a certain habit of mind and getting kids through classes and we they're adjustments

013still that are being made in terms of making sure that everybody's a completer we have solid pathways where we've invested quite a bit of money in in capital i would say like nice things are going into the high schools i hear that we're investing in our middle school program for next year in terms of getting kids excited for the pathways at the high school and the other main mission that we have here is looking at who's participating in the pathways i know when i came to work here they talked about equity and i believe that's true to the core of this mission in this district is that we're looking at does everybody have a chance in these pathways and we're looking at in particular our automotive to our female students are they participating in that

014pathway when we look at the metal academy you'll notice when you see the pictures and you go to the events you see a lot of female students in the middle of the academy it's like how do we increase our participation rate with our male students in that pathway so that's something as we're sustaining these programs is looking at who's participating also our special education students like how to what extent are special education students or any english learners being able to to participate successfully in these programs and go off to um nice paying jobs in the future uh just a quick question um so do we feel that that with the the uniform the consolidated high school that we we will be able to support eight pathways okay we had a conversation about how many pathways

015is the right number of pathways for the school that we're going to have on my early estimates we have healthy numbers in all these pathways right now so i would say yes unless we see dramatic downturns in student interest like these pathways up there have high numbers in their classes so i would say that that inter student interest is not going away anytime soon okay and then the other thing is um when i went to the clsba conference um there was a dual enrollment um presentation and it was cincinnati valley and they've actually just focused on their career pathways not like our early college so just put that to think about as well i also was going to ask regarding the medical pathway our freshman how many students do we have enrolled there at this

016time at azusa high school yeah i was looking at that number getting ready for the presentation we have 147 enrolled in the early i don't not all freshmen i take that back so there's a couple of 10th and 11th graders in there but i think at least 120 which was a little bit of all grades that's a little bit no 120 just ninth graders is that you asked me what yeah yeah freshmen yes freshmen so we we have that medical academy is going to be sustained for sure and then once jenny shows up and the rest of the squad shows up it's just going to build on itself but again that's not just jenny are we going to have uh space for them um yes you know they need a lab and yeah where all

017those little bodies we are we're doing the hard work facilities as we speak yes good evening here to talk about enhancing our current programs and in particular two items the ninth grade dual enrollment and the ib so as the board knows we currently have the early college program in which students have been earning as much as 34 transferable college unit the program starts at the summer or incoming juniors during the summer before they are actually on campus as juniors they start the early college program it's a two-year program once they graduate hopefully they will have as much as 34 transferable units we are moving towards enhancing this program by starting a dual enrollment opportunity for incoming ninth grade students starting fall of 2023 students will be able to earn what is known as their igetc

018credential and hopefully even work towards a aaa degree which is usually around 60 unit and when i say hopefully that is if they persevere through all four years they can earn an aaa degree so this is an exciting program exciting because our ninth graders get the opportunity to essentially take college level courses in their ninth grade year and going back to the question earlier about cte pathways embedded within the dual enrollment that is an ultimate goal to ensure that we have dual enrollment courses that are either articulated or in fact a dual enrollment course taught by a college professor that can give bill bread moving on then the iv certificate opportunity currently we have the ib program and students can take the needed ib courses in order to earn an ib diploma we want to

019enhance this opportunity by providing students the chance to take courses individual courses that are part of the ib program and then earn a certificate an ib certificate for completing the course it opens up enrollment to students who might want to be challenged with the ib curriculum and allow students to explore the ib curriculum without going full bore into getting a diploma the requirements are simply to complete the course take the exam if you pass then you can also get you see csu credit for the course if you pass the exam with the five or higher while a diploma student needs to take the full board of courses which is at least six courses as well as completing the tok class or theory knowledge class this cass which is a community service project um extended essay

020which is like a 4 000 word research paper that's the bloom diploma for certificate students they just take the course um the course of study that you complete same rigor same classroom but then take the exam at the end and if you complete it you get the ib certificate that's something that we want to enhance for our ib program in order to expand upon it i have a question yes of course so to take this course what a grade would you be able to start this course well currently the courses are only offered because it's part of the diploma program it's only offered for 11th and 12th grade and so and how long would this course state it's just like what a regular course would be for example a higher level course would be like

021a two-year study of a course so they would take that course for two years so for example a student who'll be going through a diploma track well let's say take biology higher level two-year study of biology a diploma track student will be taking that course in the same room and a certificate track student will be taking that course so once the certificate track student completes it they don't if they choose not to pursue any other courses they can they just have to make sure to take the exam and they take more than two courses sure they can take as many as they want and not being in the ib program will not be in the diplomacy they are still part of the ib pro i think similarly when we're talking about like access um uh

022and i know that this is not we didn't speculate this way but as we're thinking about right now at azusa high school sierra high school there are opportunities for students to take a dual enrollment course or courses um at glaston high school we have the early college program which is a built program just like we're talking about the diploma so as we're building uh a program at azusa high school around dual enrollment these are opportunities as well for students to pop in take a course take two courses and not have to be locked into a a a big program if they if they so wish to not to do foreign and what are we going to do to basically um let our middle schoolers write to to let them know that this is available what

023is the campaign that you guys will be rolling out to promote this right so um we will later on talk more about how we are exploring the nyp program um maybe as far down as to the middle school um but the course options and selections happen really at the 10th grade year so any of the ib courses when they choose to take the ib courses will be definitely done at the 10th grade year but in regards to promotion of our programs that's something we will continue to do with counselors with our teachers our principals our such gung-ho and positive in regards to their schools that will continue in regards to promoting all programs to both you say continue but at this time right now the low enrollment ib program does not reflect that so what

024i'm saying is is there a you know a major campaign as we're moving forward in this transition as we are combining both of the high schools to um excel more of the promotion of this program uh i cannot say specifically what the schools will do or what um the future will hold for the ib program because we have to explore the nyp um but i definitely want to publicly say that we want to build the ib program and every program that we have we want to build and so the challenges of ensuring that the students have the information in order to make a good decision about their future depending on the courses that they enroll in that's something that i know counselors are very aware of doing and will will definitely continue to aspire on

025all of our program we want to build up that's one one of the things that we want to do is just to make sure that all of the programs have a successful enrollment um so i have questions on each one of those i'm still with the dual enrollment going into the ninth grade are you talking about just like options for kids to take are you talking about um expanding the early college program so you're starting at earlier grades so and when i say that i'm thinking of like the west coast model right where they have a self-contained early college program and so what what where we think what are you what are you thinking right now yeah we're expanding and enhancing essentially the early college program we're not going towards the middle college which is

026a satellite site essentially um brought by housing on a citroen let's say a community college campus we're not going towards that model we're going toward enhancing the program of our existing early college students and the opportunity so at the 9th grade level and we're already planning with citrus i've met with citrus multiple times we're planning to see what would be a reasonable course of study for our ninth grade students coming in and then what would be the courses that they would take during 10th grade and then it would seamlessly flow into what we already have existing in an early program so i guess i think i think i'm asking a very similar question to gabriella and that is really around like um how are we i think that's really great um i for me i

027think about how are we going to be communicating that to 14 year old children who are maybe making decisions about where they're going and maybe not understanding if they don't take the court like this set that course study that that we've laid out that they're not mentally going to end up with potentially an aaa right so just thinking about like how do we design the program so that it's it's easier for those students to be successful so i think that that's just my opinion on that piece now with ib i i do have questions in terms of so if we're going to now allow certificate enrollees right um two questions one how are we going to going to continue to um recruit students to to to enroll in the full program right and not just

028think oh it's just easy i can just drop in and out take certificates right that's number one and then number two um do you have examples of other schools that that are doing what you're saying what your recommend what you're saying so i'd like to know what like what schools you've been looking at for them yes we we have other schools um it is actually an option within ib they call it the course option and even within uc and csu's they make reference to those students who are specifically just certificate trap i was a principal at a high school that offered that um and that was a local um high school in hosting high so is that the school you're looking at i think i was looking for names of schools they were looking at

029oh okay glenda wilson high school okay yeah um diamond bart high school has that um so that walnut um high school has that um i didn't look specifically at our surrounding areas um in regards to like where do you have it in mineral behave but i do know other schools haven't um we've had i personally have had conversations with principals in regards to those kind of options that are presented to students well i think you having personal experience with the principal at a school doing that i think that to me is probably probably more important than maybe pointing out the models for me and then my other question around like recruitment strategy to be able to build up that ib cohort program cohort right not just certificate enrollees but students enrolled in the full program

030most definitely yeah um i i understand that the need to ensure enrollment in programs um but with the choices that students have what is specifically outlined and laid before them they will get to make that decision but we have great programs we have the early college program available at the 10th grade uh currently right now for students to choose we have ap class we have ibs so the plethora of options for them um they can make good um educated guests with some decisions and their parents stand with them as to which program put their needs okay so gabriel have you thought about that i was at ib training over the summer getting ready for my position and i spoke to some coordinators up in northern california elk grove area and they talked about i described

031what we were building here in azusa and i said well that they said that sounds like granite hills reports or something like that i got the coordinator's email on my files where they have a very specific programmer about recruiting students to particular classes as a la carte courses so you you you're thoughtful in your approach to imagine this student who wants to go to a uc or an ivy league in azusa because we have those kids and they're going to be fed that diet of the academic confidence i think the one of the things that is kind of driving to or remember audiences question why do we see the low numbers our kids got a serious gut check confidence in the last two years and we the program when i talked to mr claire about

032it over the summer i said bob how do we get to the numbers i think we can get and he said you know they really did struggle and we were on a decent trajectory with our ib program about two years ago and then the pandemic happened and we've seen a kick to the gut with with numbers going down like you see now we can't hide that but um i think with being back in person and pumping up the kids with the culture i think that that that does do some of those things for persistence that our kids need help with and we know that the ib program what is it's not just getting into a four-year it's staying in a four-year i mean i think you know the numbers about what happens after the first

033year come out of an area where there's a high sociodynamic economic disadvantages like they typically drop out in that first year but not ib kids it really is just like an overall program beyond ib is how do we promote persistence in our high school kids board member bill thank you i think um i just want to add my thoughts around recruitment into programs and promoting all the elements that make us an attractive district as superintendent ortega has said um i myself as a first generation college student um a big source of my information however limited that was came from my parent and i want to just also champion how we're interacting with parents and families and caregivers so that they have that information in a way that um that they can that accessible and digestible

034them so that the conversations that happen with educators and you know teachers and counselors is also echoed at home and i think as we bring those conversations down into middle school and upper elementary it's going to take that investment of time so that when you get to high school you've been hearing about these high quality options for several years um yes i think that um we have great programs but i feel that if it at some time i'm not sure if it's too premature at this time or until they merge that you know the board members would go and visit the school sites or visit the programs and not only board members but also parents it's effective when you see it happening as an rop uh board member i went to diamond bar uh high

035school west covina and seen their ct courses and to see them in production was very impressive but also we sell it to the parents like um sabrina bo mentioned you know parents getting involved in knowing what their children are doing i think it's important that we also go and visit these programs and see the effectiveness in them and and i'm very surprised when you see a lot of the students they're very indulgent in in their projects or what they're doing thank you so moving into exploring our community schools interest holders will support in examining input and data to provide additional guidance in the exploration of programs that we will be considering and bringing in to our schools as well so with this framework and understanding of the input necessary from stakeholders we are beginning to

036explore the nyp program for 9th and 10th grade nyp students they need to take certain courses as outlined by ib and these courses include language acquisition language or literature individuals and societies was usually something pertaining to history science math arts physical and health education as well as a design course they also must complete a long-term project so these are kind of the requirements necessary for students in the 9th and 10th grade to be part of the nyp program that will hopefully feed into our diploma program when they begin their 11th and 12th grade so ideally the students that are as you mentioned recruited as well as encouraged to participate in along the ib path will get the background needed to become what is known as a profile ib student there is a specific profile for

037ib students that include many things such as being a personal service being a critical thinker etc that will prepare them better for the type of thinking that is involved in an ib class and that they can either pursue the ib diploma or choose to become a certificate track student so that is one option or one thing that we are exploring the other thing is to explore more certificate options for our students we offer i would say a more limited scope of ib courses because we want to make sure that the students who are in those courses can succe and do their best to try to succeed to get a diploma but if we offer the certificate track as we want to now we can explore offering more courses that are not necessarily what diploma track

038students might want to participate in but certificate can choose too for example we can explore classes such as information technology computer science psychology visual art currently not offered with our diploma students but if we expand with our the certificate track we can offer more options okay um i'm going to pass this on then to i'm a first director especially good evening everybody since i'm not aaron um i'll introduce myself i'm krista fairley i'm the new director of multilingual and categorical programs here in azusa and i'm just really grateful to be here um and i get to talk about gladstone middle school so as we look at what's going on at our middle schools now and how we'll sustain that effort we have a really exciting opportunity to merge our schools and serve our sixth and

039through eighth graders in a different way [Music] we'll continue to offer program choices and elective choices but as a bigger school we're able to offer more variety of those choices so an example might be we'll be able to offer advanced courses in band advanced courses in art um additionally we'll be sustaining the programs that i have listed is there that as well there our art our avid as gabriel talked about the middle school years building into our high school years our athletics our band choir drama our dual language immersion course will be offering that pathway for our sixth and seventh graders next year which is really exciting as they merge from elementary school and middle schools to one cohesive middle school and we're also looking at sustaining those expanded learning programs after school i will

040continue to have our mariachi program um provide support there as well and we'll continue also on the next slide with our leadership programs and asb our navients or naviance programs project lead the way as many of you know dalton currently hosts that program and those innovative program project-based learning that are focused on the stem will continue additionally spanish and as many of you have heard of our studio 26 um from slauson so we're excited those opportunities um that we have now it's you i'll have oh yeah i have a couple questions um so and you made this view man i built answers but in terms of like the offerings right how are we going to ensure that that students will be able to access the course that they want i just heard recently from a

041middle schooler who just went in seventh grade and wanted to be in stem but was put in band because it wasn't room for him right and so how are we how are we going to make sure that kids can have their first place i think that being a former middle school principal you can never guarantee the first choice but i think what a large middle school affords us is the opportunity to have more teachers and more variety of electives so when you build your master's schedule you build it first for your core content areas and then you add your electives in so that means more teachers with more elective offerings and hopefully a better chance of getting that top choice because i understand when you want stem and then you have to take band it

042might not be your ideal so we have a lot of opportunities and a lot of offerings here but of course i can't guarantee that your first choice i wish i could but i can't guarantee that it's a good question and our counselors i'm i don't want to misspeak but again from my experience counselors will work really hard with students to get those voices okay and then my other question is around naviance and so what's our sense in terms of how how deeply we're utilizing that project the reason i ask is because i just saw a presentation from california colleges so our our statewide data system cradle to clear data system is building out something very similar to naviance right um from middle school to high school and it's free because it's it's built by the

043state so i'm just curious in terms of how we feel naviance is really is how deeply embedded it is and how vested our our our staff in using naviance that's a really good question i won't be able to speak to that answer but but obviously i think it's something for us to look into and to report back frank do you have a sense of that thank you so uh all of our 7th through 12th grade students [Music] complete activities that are already determined myself and the counselors and working with naviance i determine the appropriate activities that everything from interest profilers to career awareness to college research all of that is mapped out from seventh to twelfth grade it was originally done even for sixth grade but when we get to middle school we already had

044the activity we signed a multi-year contract a few years ago with navia we are committed to whatever program we have before us but we also are exploring other programs that are helpful that may be not as prohibited so we are actually having california colleges present at one of our counselor meetings this upcoming year we already scheduled that i've worked with california colleges at my previous district so i understand their capability they've actually improved and expanded their resources and they are actually directly aligned with what the cde is asking for so we are exploring california college good evening i think it is my turn i am aaron cramer the director of special education so um i'm really fortunate to work with my colleagues on these projects and so i wanted to talk a little bit about

045as we're bringing our middle schools together into one um location how we're going to be leveraging and enhancing the programs that um we're focusing on and that are important to support our students and our communities and our school sites so one of the areas that is being focused on is our athletics program specifically that historically our middle schools have enjoyed competition across the street from one another with our local middle schools competing in various sports um with one another as we combine into one middle school we are actively pursuing joining the east san gabriel valley middle school league which would provide opportunities for our students to join as one middle school team to compete with local districts and local middle schools here in the general area so that's an exciting opportunity that we are pursuing

046a second area that we are focusing on is are those expanded learning opportunities and we do have a lot of foundational um experience with those after school opportunities for our students to offer places to go things to do programs for after school that are in conjunction with really important partners such as think together the city of azusa other partners that work with us to make sure that our students are connected and have community after school hours and so we're looking to make sure that we are not only sustaining our current partnerships but expanding those and enhancing them as as we say in the title a third area i think goes back to that elective component and one of the things that we're looking into is the concept of a sixth grade elective wheel and so

047many districts have that that concept in place and that's where students when they enter middle school will take instead of a semester-long course more or a trimester more of a six to eight week experience in various electives and that positions them to kind of have a sense of what they might enjoy signing up for for a longer period of time as they move through the grades so that gives them a chance to try out things like art drama stem music you know so maybe they're not having to choose right off the bat but they get a taste of things and then when they go into the older grades um they have more of a sense of what they might be might be interested in signing up for so that is something that will be looked

048into in terms of developing for our middle school we're also looking at expanding the link crew concept and so this is through the web program which stands for where everyone belongs and this is really with the intent of helping students connect beyond the classroom with peer models with mentors and to support their social emotional well-being outside of the classroom helping them connect to the school through activities through those um expanded learning opportunities through sports through activities and programs that might connect with their interests and that really is important because it helps build that school community concept and help our students feel not only connected to the school but the community and the family and families and it also results oftentimes an improvement in their academics and access to academics and so we do anticipate that

049registration for the web conference will open this month for us to continue to pursue that opportunity for our middle school so those are some of the areas that we are focusing on for enhancing our programs as they stand and then expanding them into the next stage um so i just have a quick um question about the expanded learning opportunities so as we look at those in the middle school year what are have you started thinking about where where there was those who would be where those would be come from sorry absolutely i think it you know definitely begins with our current partners of course in terms of what we have strong right now and how to build on to that and i think we're open to as we move into the community schools thinking about

050the community and what their input is in terms of those partnerships and what would be of benefit for our students and what our families and community members feel would also be a strong partnership i think that's the first step yeah i think that's great i think i mean i i would hope that we're going to look at at things at activities that attract kids right so for example you think about the poet amanda gorman that we all heard right she started in a program i know there's one called get lit in la but there's several of those programs that are high quality the kids love it they i mean those kind of opportunities i think those are the kinds of you know i i know i talked to gabriel already about like pomona used to

051have this program where one of our local djs at azusa would go over there and volunteer over there i'm looking over here um and like let you know kids my son kids would love to have an opportunity to be like to have a dj class right like so you know i know another azusa resident who does really amazing like dancing right like hip-hop dancing like let's think about let's think about like trying to pull these people in who would love to who are from here love love azusa and want to want to participate though absolutely my question was regarding the um sports the students in the middle of mega middle school they would have to keep their grades up just like in high school i think that's a great idea that is my understanding and

052someone can correct me if i'm wrong but um i'm looking at the former middle school principal sitting over here and i'm getting a nod absolutely that's a great i think that's great to do that we continue that because then when they go into the high school they will always be already be set right and they should check on their attendance too and be in school on time and all those things well and we don't get the whole child the whole child and we don't get tired of the concept of student athlete um i think that's really critical in terms of how we navigate the talents and interests of our students as students and then working with the whole child to connect them you know a lot of our students don't even realize the talents they

053have man esports may be singing maybe dancing like we mentioned but we need to give them that opportunity to have that chance board member audience as you you guys are are presenting you guys are saying you know um the community rollout model right and so that with this link crew web where everyone belongs do we have anything in there where we are connecting our students to mentors within our community businesses right um the different venues uh being able to connect them to their own community as part of web and link crew i would have to defer to my colleagues here i do know in my small special education program we do have a grant that in terms of work and transition we do connect with our local community members for work opportunities and that's a

054small grant that we have through workability and but i would have to defer in terms of those other mentor program opportunities and maybe that's coming i'm not sure but um if you don't have that maybe research it or i don't know get back to us on that i think i hand this over to mr chang again i feel horrible they got me right but i didn't get them right thank you um so a couple of months back i had the opportunity to present to you how we are enhancing our cte pathways with the college and career ready lab and that is going into the middle school and i am excited for this opportunity for our students and happy to report that we are on schedule to have the right lab ready for late winter early

055spring the lab will engage students in authentic hands-on problem-based learning experiences as they discover interests in their app now yes we are building a program that is going to align with our cte pathways at the high school such as engineering design nursing computer science and computer graphics however we are also embedding units that for students to explore but also for their long-term benefit for example we are embedding a personal finance unit in which students will develop a budget track their transactions calculate credit understand taxes um that's pretty important there's also a home maintenance systems unit students can learn how to unclog a drain basic electrical wiring installing a light picture when they own a home in their future these basic maintenance things are something that they should learn how to do so very excited to

056bring this um college and career don't forget to change the tire hopefully they'll go into the automotive tech pathway and be able to definitely learn so excited to enhance our cte pathways with this option so i'm going to any questions regarding that okay i'm going to turn this back to framework so not only are we enhancing things that we already have and expanding those opportunities we're also exploring some new areas and we've mentioned this is in some of the previous slides but the first one is the middle years program and that is something that um through our shared leadership and our engagement with community school we are going to start exploring the middle years program this would align to the ib program and go to really setting the stage or the experience for this program

057as an instructional framework so it's a little bit different than iv in that it's not coursework it's more of a framework that is implemented school-wide for all students um so it's within all of their classes this framework provides foundational learning opportunities that could that will and could position students than to participate in the ib program when they transition into the high school when they begin their high school experience so that is something that we are looking into at this point in terms of that middle years program not only for the 9th and 10th grade experience but also potentially for our middle school secondly the on track program is we are exploring expansion of on track for eighth grade that would align with our existing work with education with ed partners and in our work on

058on track college the focus would be to increase success for our eighth grade students in the areas of english language arts and mathematics so that they are more ready to transition to their high school experience and do well in their a3g courses in order to be eligible for some of the colleges they may be interested in currently our improvement team working with on track is testing and refining early intervention strategies so that we can think about how similar work can be done at the middle school remember cruz gonzalez um uh two questions one um or three questions one so when you when you i see now a couple times we put community schools and put things underneath it does that mean that we're thinking that we're gonna invest those community schools dollars in like things

059middle year program is that why it's under or why so why is it connected to community school so to support the framework of the community schools and that engagement of how we bring together all of the interest holders to provide their input as to what we bring to our programs and utilizing that interest group to support the exploration of these programs but not necessarily we're going to like fund no no no no no okay um and then for middle years program um thank you for for being clear about like it's a framework so if would is there space for the dual immersion the middle school dual immersion program in that framework if we bring in middle school middle year program like across the school like how did how would that dual immersion program that we've

060committed to those families fit so that would be part of the exploration process as we look at the middle years program and how it would come together with our dual immersion program okay and then on track so when you say on track that's connected to the ed partners project looking at dnf rate that's correct okay and i hear you're talking about the innovation team so at what point do you expect to right to expand it like across like the eighth grade or whatever grade you're looking at ninth grade um or is it like how long do you intend it to be like sort of a like opt-in volunteer approach for for our staff so we have our we have our convening um this thursday on friday and that's part of our work as we come

061together on those two days to think about those timelines and begin planning for those okay yeah so it'd be great to hear back at the board level like when you have you know even if it's rough with the timeline we will provide a draft to the board after our team meeting to be able to give you that input all right i will hand this over to our director of ed services adriana garcia medina and right before that board member vote question i think yeah um i think you just answered the question but because i was thinking my own question you were talking my focus got lost um my question was around what would be some possible timelines and more like due to two to three years or three to five years in terms of what

062we're in terms of implementation um i think what we're considering is two to three years we want to give our existing programs sometimes to settle as we reorganize and begin to take root as we begin to explore further options so those would be looking at two to three years down the road as we move forward in the coming together of our schools thank you good evening so as we are looking at the elementary level we're continuing the pattern of looking at what programs were sustaining what programs we're exploring and what programs we're enhancing here you see our programs that we're sustaining a guaranteed and viable curriculum in all core subjects uh we'll continue to work that we've been doing to ensure that our preschool through 5th grade elementary mathematics curriculum and instruction is coherent focused

063across grade levels that it's rigorous and it develops students conceptual understanding fluency and application we'll continue sustaining our extended learning opportunities at the elementary school level we'll continue to sustain our gait program and our meet the masters we'll offer planning time and both music and pe at the elementary level as well as sparks pe our focus for sparks pe is to develop healthy lifestyles motor skills movement and knowledge and social and personal skills about rce so can you walk me through is is that would that be a class would that be just the um a lot of time for the week um what does that look like typically uh for pe it's a required minutes right that uh teachers uh have to develop deliver these lessons so um they would plan their lessons uh there

064are sparks lessons already created uh they have the sparks equipment at each of the school sites that the teachers have access to so typically these are lessons that are provided by the classroom teachers um and that is different than the planning pe that they're receiving at the upper grade level from the specific pe teachers that we have uh at the district board member cruz gonzalez i just took a question about meet the masters right so how does that um where do we see that going in relationship to the fact that we're now hiring art teachers right so that's number one um and the reason i say that is well that's it the reason i ask is because um the masters is a very packaged curriculum very eurocentric artists that we're looking at and so um

065you know is there a transition plan to think about or this is we're going to continue investing and meet the master well we are sustaining the program because it's a program that we have access to and we want to continue as we transition into the new programs and developing art through other avenues we want to make sure that our students still have access to our instruction so meet the masters does provide they are canned lessons on certain artists but it does provide that opportunity for our students to experience the arts as we move into the exploring and the enhancing we will be taking a look at how meet the masters is utilized how the art teachers that we do have planned on hiring will be using either that curriculum or other curriculum that's that in

066the exploring and enhancing phase and then today as a matter of fact as we saw our teachers working on seal and their launch day as they were planning their second and third grade lessons um they were integrating arts uh into their uh planning so you know we want to continue to provide that as a resource um as they're providing arts instruction i guess i see it when i think i i mean i equivalent i make equivalent to worksheets it feels like worksheets for art right for me so like you know am i you know thinking about trying to move away from that approach to me i think gives a richer experience to students absolutely hey and we are going to continue sustaining some of our specialty programs at some of our schools our dual language

067immersion program at hodgen valley dale our project lead the way program at dalton school we are in phase two um as uh miss garcia garcia medina just shared we have begun training our second and third grade teachers teacher cohort in seal um from hodge murray and valley dale as we look at reorg look forward to reorganization and the new boundaries that [Music] will be shifted from powell school to lee we are looking at moving the teal technology enhanced arts learning program to lease quote is it i have a good question um so it but is there going to be a getting back to earlier about having a guaranteed and viable curriculum right so is there going to be sort of a base curriculum across the schools like is it going to be something similar to

068still is it going to be something else what where is the base going to be so looking at you know as we talk about exploring if it is the interest of the board we would absolutely explore expanding seal to all of our school sites we um and i know that um uh dr fairley and miss garcia medina had the opportunity today to work with um the steel trainers and everybody that has had an opportunity to come into those classrooms to see the teachers come together and you know roll up their sleeves and do that real work of you know identifying essential learnings and these integrated units we see the power in that and we are absolutely interested in expanding that across all of our school sites yeah so i just i heard talk to a

069parent who's so excited because her first grader i guess the teacher brought in like um squid like actual squids and the kids were actually able to touch it and like do something with it so they were super excited and that's the magic right that is what engages the kids in learning and it's it's very powerful all right and this next slide you'll see uh programs that at the elementary level we hope that we will enhance we hope to continue to enhance our art program our band and choir coding and robotics of course our expanded learning opportunities and stem we're enhancing the art program by adding art teachers these positions are already flown at join and we're looking to fill these positions with quality teachers for full implementation in fall of 2023 uh for teacher professional

070learning in the area of stem we want to support their professional our our staff's professional growth and learning by implementing these types of activities throughout the school year we're going to be offering modules that will be flexible they could be in person or through a virtual platform with the support of our science tosa and pilot teachers who began the training last school year we also this year offered both before school and after school extended learning opportunities at the elementary grades and we'll continue to enhance this these opportunities by offering intercession opportunities during for example winter break and spring break again as we continue the model of things that we are exploring further down the road we are again looking at potentially primary years programs and also how we might include after-school enrichment opportunities as we

071think about our art teachers that we will have and maybe having them start a little bit later to have some during class time for art instruction which would allow for after-school art enrichment and clubs for students that would be able to rotate to all of our school sites and then extending that out to some after school stem clubs that would we would be able to utilize our innovation labs for these after-school enrichment stem opportunities and really again thinking about how do we continue growing and developing these rich resources that we are going to be bringing to all of our elementary sites to really you know again going back to that that framework of community schools provide the learning and that whole child integrated peace and again looking out to the community what kinds of resources

072what kinds of mentors do we have um out there i know um you know i think of miss herrera's daughter who does so much work you know and inviting her to come into our schools but again really thinking about these partnerships and how do we utilize this amazing grant of community schools to begin continue to exploring all of the great things that we could bring to to our elementary schools this is so great like i'm envisioning what you're saying and it it's great but the one question that i have is uh staff right with this be in partnership with think together or would this be in partnership of hiring um more staff or utilizing our current staff it could be a combination of all of those things thank you i have a question about the

073primary the primary years program so i mean in terms of timeline are we thinking that we would identify this school year where at what what point are we going to identify which schools would implement like for example the primary years program um we haven't gotten that far down in our planning but thinking about you know as we bring together interest holders for community schools and we start to bring these bodies together i think those are the conversations that we want to engage those teams in having and and where you know we begin to to look at that and what which schools might fit be a good fit for that kind of program i'd like to introduce our director of early childhood programs miss jenny lee good evening i have the opportunity to share with with

074you the what we're doing in early childhood education what we're doing to sustain to enhance and what we are exploring currently we offer a variety of early childhood education programs to our community this is for children ages three to five this includes the 13 california state preschool program or csbp morning and afternoon classes currently heard serving 213 children at most of our school sites i would like to add that this is our highest number of enrollment for this time of year since our program implementation in 2016. by fall 2023-24 cspp will be offered at all of our elementary school sites we also offer two dual immersion preschool classes and two dual immersion transitional kindergarten classes at two of our school sites ptk and tk classes are offered at all of our sites in ausd the

075six special education classes that are housed at longfellow we serve children with exceptional educational needs at our site the ece teaching staff which includes preschool and etk teachers and tk teachers and instructional aides are highly qualified they are highly trained they have been trained in research-based teaching strategies that center around our student success drivers we are aligning the work in ece with what we're doing with the with our district enhancing how are we enhancing our program we are happy to announce that the california department of education has selected to award ausd funding for the implementation of full-day full-year csp the implementation will be up to three of our school sites full day full year is something that ausd has been working toward for several years so this is exciting and it's an exciting milestone for

076our district we will continue to provide exceptional professional development opportunities including still training your ece staff to ensure the early childhood education staff continue to be highly qualified to meet the diverse needs of our youngest students as we expand our ece program what are we exploring we continue to strive to expand and to seek opportunity to implement new programs we will this will allow ausd to serve all families in our communities the california state preschool program whether it's part day or full day have income or needs eligibility requirements some of our families do not need these needs or these eligibilities therefore we are exploring the possibility of implementing a fee-based program to serve these families we look forward to continuous growth and improvement in our ece program danny i have i just have one question

077um i'm glad to see that i know i know we as a board got an email from somebody asking when you know when is this going to offer fee based preschool so um but i have a question about that so are we are you thinking about having a separate feed-based program or are you thinking about how do you braid programs so we can integrate i know there's some now models and there's flexibility out there now that you can do that and so what where we're right now where's the thinking we're exploring different options and working directly with the uh financial um analysts at the cde level to see how that would look like in terms of fundings uh we are also um looking at um regardless of which program whether it's based or whether it's

078a preschool or special education we we always want to make sure that our children uh in whichever program they are enrolled in they are receiving the same the same learning opportunity so these teachers will be trained as um in the same way that rcsp teachers are trained so it's the quality of the program regardless of which which model it is will be um at high quality i just i think you know as we think about like the economic segregation of our of our society right like the more that we can do to integrate and if we know we're putting cspp over here and paid over here we're we're separating them right so thinking about how can that be a priority for us and how can we try to make sure that we're we have that

079economic integration across you know of the families in our in our community i think is valuable i also want to encourage just to think about right now the the dual immersion preschool programs are all funded out of lcf el cap right and so thinking about like if there are opportunities because i've heard examples of other districts where they do use csvp to fund those programs so if there's opportunities for us to think about that i mean that frees up more dollars locally so you can do more right so i think those are things for us to think about as well yes that is correct i read about um doing immersion um funded through csvp as a different language model but the only thing that i would add to that would be maybe not making all

080of the dual version so that way others have an opportunity to that second language um as well um but when you say it be you know a fee based um are we looking at a model like options because the the income bracket right we're looking at our uh at our communities the ccp is has a different bracket than options so have you explored those options as well right that um it's a fee based income right how you're going to charge and so forth and just looking at that model as well how it's different so all of our community can have it to be in our program thank the board of education for the opportunity to share our planning um and how we move forward with programs and now we turn it over to you for

081any input feedback thoughts that you may have about what you heard this evening a question that um that i have is our our after-school tutoring right we have all these great things coming and i'm super excited like oh my gosh we're going to be a model district i can't wait like for you guys to come together on thursday and friday and bring us back whatever you know you guys are are cooking up over there and and right to get our community excited about this our community you know our other communities to get excited about coming to our district um but the after school tutoring right um being able to support those families that do need those resources um what does that look like i did not see that in the program so we have um

082some contracts coming to our board in october for after-school tutoring models that is part of our planning with some of our sr3 funds was to provide after-school tutoring to help to mitigate some of the learning challenges that many of our students experience so there will be um one particular contract that is um tutors that push in during the school day we also have apu tutors who do that during the school day and then another will be after school tutoring programming and then again we also have some tutoring program um tutoring programs that are offered through think together program for students who are part of that as well great thank you for sharing that with yes i have a question regarding um it was a very great presentation thank you very much everyone from the middle

083to the elementary into the middle school high school and um what i'd like to see in the future is the enrollment of these programs my concern is are these programs being productive i mean are we using our money wisely are we thinking at any time in the future to add any different programs to be competitive to our other districts you know we have students leaving and they have reasons why they're leaving you know is there any way that we can that's something different and how long have we had i well as long as i've been bored a lot of these programs have been in the festive you know how long have we had these or any of these programs that we have i'm really interested you know that and i think at one time and

084i'm not sure if we ever received it like what schools you know have which program who have so many districts we have so many schools i meant you know would schools have these programs i would be interested to know that okay so um we saw some of the the specialty programs for our elementaries um and then we have um programs that we outlined at the high school but we can put something a little more cohesive together so that we have maybe a brochure so that the community can see here are our schools these are all of the things that we offer at our schools as a way to promote um beyond you know that would be great that that'd be great you know um i've seen other brochures in other districts that have very beautiful

085brochures bright brochures again as an rlp uh board member i have visited other schools and seen others uh programs at different schools i am very impressed with that and i'm like hey how come we can have it at our school but then again we had one minute and we showed the medical pathways the other board members from other districts were saying why can't we have that at our school when we showed also the media you know uh center the art with mr um pig you know they won why can't you go to their school so you know it's you know we're never gonna be happy but i'm glad that we're doing good yes and and we we are looking at enrollment numbers but as we shared previously we do want to give all of our

086programs an opportunity to take root as we bring our programs together and then as as we move move forward look look at you know what what are the things that we will continue to sustain maybe we need to change course further down the road and look at other programs that maybe students are interested in um so those are definitely things that that we are thinking about and we also think about 21st century what programs can we have to you know move our children forward to ecology career career ready absolutely and i'll add just a couple of comments i know that in conversations that i have had as i interface with school board members from other districts and educators from from other districts oftentimes i hear them describing their desire to launch into certain programs and

087it and i i can't help but recognize that oftentimes when it happens it's programs that we already have in existence and so there there's there's quite a collection of of this menu of options and menu of programs like diverse programs that i think is incredible i'm i'm very excited to see us um some of some of the items especially that we have listed under the enhancing section because i think we have a lot of programs but how can we how you know on the uh kind of the continuum of you know uh continuous improvement if you will as we look at that how do we bolster some of those programs uh how do we build the those frameworks and ensure that there's proper you know training and understanding collaboration and promotion there's a number of

088things that we can do but i hear and understand that we have students we have families that look to other districts or for other programs but i gotta say i mean there are there's so much happening within the azusa unified school district and so um yes let's always you know keep our eyes open to what what additional programs are available but i'm excited just to see us enhance and bolster up what we currently have um because i think it's already an incredible menu of opportunity i asked most likely but i just think i think i have just more uh a more like generalized comment and that's really around the the timelines and the funding um i think we have a rare opportunity right now because we have so many one-time dollars to think about right

089and whether it's the professional development or these the ib programs that are generally very expensive one time fence is very they're very they're very expensive to bring in right that like i think i won't be here adrian will be here but i think i mean i i hope that we think about how do we accelerate decisions and and implement initial implementation to be able to utilize those dollars that that i think latasha might say may not be here in a couple years right and we won't we don't have this opportunity that we have right now and so it is our opportunity to reimagine our schools um and the other thing to adrian's point right i mean i feel like the groundwork has been set for all of these rights so it's what you're presenting most

090of it is not new so it's really more about how are we deepening our work right how are we are we i hate people hate the word fidelity or implementation right but how are we ensuring that we have really high quality programs that that meet the needs of our students and make them i think those are my global observations you know being with the district for a long long time as an employee over 20 years and being a student here for i've been here 40 years right seeing programs come and go um programs come and fail right programs not being assessed correctly like kind of two board membership liens point um and you know teachers staff not being trained correctly they're still in that fog okay what are we really gonna do and and so

091forth and so as as we're transforming and innovating this district right we're going through so much right this is the time right this is exciting and i just would like to see a follow through right as you're presenting this it right it's not set in stone this is just a projection you're going to go to the drawing table and right you're going to work at the kinks and there's going to be key absolutely right but being able to address those kinks and being real like you know this program we could do this this that and it can excel this way but yet this program we've tried it for you know two to three years i heard right and it's not working in our community right to be able to face that reality you know and

092being transparent about it in our community with the board and just with teachers right getting that teacher input that parent input that child you know the child has a voice as well right is it working out for that student right at the middle school high school elementary you talk to the parents right just engaging again that community on what's working and what's not working and bringing it back to the drawing table but not just not just not letting the committee know what happened to that program kind of like you know i mean saying okay this program i'm just saying it's not that it's gonna go away dual immersion is just not you know which it is working but i'm just giving an example right my kids are a prime example of that my daughter will

093be getting this deal this oh that's another question the seal on by literacy in her diploma this year and she's super excited right um with that being said um at the high school are we going to continue to pursue that by literacy deal absolutely that's not going anywhere we are committed to that um you know and we're very proud of our students who earned that and our goal is always to continue to grow that um but to your point and and i think the idea behind the framework that we presented for the conceptual framework of this idea of sustaining and enhancing and exploring is exactly what you described and how do we engage with partners but we also want to give as we move into this reorganization that's going to take place um we'd want

094to give an opportunity to all of our programs have an opportunity um to take some route at their new site with new staff with students all together and then as we continue to move down the road being able to with our community schools interest groups really begin to dig deep into the data and the interest and and hearing the voices that's that that's the intent well i'm excited thank you oh so there's there's three other things that i wanted to bring up and that um what that that i think maybe for us to think about some more um one um thinking about like the social emotional learning aspect i don't i don't see that i saw that in there i'm thinking about like restorative justice how that's embedded um i will tell you as a

095parent now think pbis right i think people i think there's a there's a feeling of um feeling success with that but it feels very much like a reward system right the kids are all focused on getting the little ticket right it's not about relationships and mutual respect right which i think is i think more sustainable i think in terms of um individual learning as a person how to act interact with other human rights so that's number one thinking about that piece number two i don't see anything about here at ethnic studies i really appreciate arthur you're talking about how we're i mean maybe viewed as a leader in terms of the high school piece but really thinking about there there are met several districts across the state who have already committed to k-12 ethnic studies

096um and it doesn't mean that you have a course right it means more about how are we embedding the cultural relevance piece how are we integrating just knowledge about the historical background of our country like starting at a young age and so i think that i don't see in there um and then the third one i didn't write it down any other questions board member cruz gonzalez did it come back to you yeah no okay well thank you to the whole team incredible work incredible presentation thank you good job right well as we had stated earlier this is a study session but it's also combined with a uh one one item for i remember we're not we've not shifted yet just really quickly no so i feel like when the pandemic hit there was a

097lot of excitement about project-based learning and doing that kind of work and i don't see that in there right i think i think it's maybe implied in some of these approaches but you know like there was a lot of movement in a couple years so where you know how is that continue to be part of just sort of the that core based curriculum right so with that we will shift to 5.0 which is general functions and specifically 5.1 discussion of appointment of a board member from trustee area one due to a failure to elect and so with that i'll turn it over first to superintendent ortega thank you board president um so tonight um our intent is to discuss uh and seek direction uh regarding the process [Music] for appointing a candidate a board member

098to area trustee area number one because there's nobody running in that particular area which then provides the board an opportunity to appoint someone um so kind of partial this up into three sections uh today uh number one just kind of want to talk about the proposed draft timeline then also have an opportunity to look at two different documents one is the the announcement and then number two is the application again to seek input and feedback and uh direction uh in those in those uh particular documents so kind of those three uh those three uh areas so i'd like to start off with the proposed timeline again this is a draft and so seeking some input here but the proposed timeline begins next monday september 26th which is when we will begin to advertise and market

099the board of education's intent to make this appointment and to provide information on how to apply so let me dig in a little bit deeper into that and so uh the idea here is that on monday september 26th on our website on our social media platforms and in the san gabriel valley tribune uh we would announce uh that there is this opening and that we are looking for candidates uh and again it would guide them to uh to the actual application that ad would run for three days in the san gabriel valley tribune that week in our weekly communications to our community we would also include um this announcement um that that we're looking for uh people who are interested uh or who might be interested in this in this opportunity everything would say that

100october 11th which is a little bit more than two weeks october 11th at 5 pm would be the deadline for people to submit their application two days after that per our board bylaw a committee consisting of less than a quorum of the board of education uh which right now the thinking would be the uh board of president and the board vice president shall convene to ensure that the applications received are eligible for board of education membership this is not a convening to discuss strengths weaknesses likes dislikes this is a literal convening to say are these are these folks that applied are they eligible and by eligibility uh that is outlined in education code 35107 and what you will see in the application is we went ahead and put those things on the application uh to

101make uh that uh easy once it is determined that said candidates are qualified um then we would communicate with those folks to let them know that on tuesday october 18th they would be invited to a regular board meeting where the board of education would have an opportunity to interview the candidates in open session um just like any other interview to make sure that it's equitable and fair all the candidates would receive the same exact questions then that night by a majority vote the board of education would select and appoint a new board member for the upcoming the upcoming sessions so that is the proposed timeline right now and i want to open it up to questions feedback um you know consensus yes this works this doesn't work um so we can uh open it up

102for that board member rodriguez so would the questions be asked of the candidate in public uh that is correct uh the interviews would happen in public during open session how would the questions for the interviews be developed um the idea here is if this if the if this proposed um process uh is agreed upon uh then we were we were thinking that uh on october 11th we'd have another agenda item uh with maybe some suggested um questions and we can determine uh those questions uh or we can do if the board desires the board president and myself or a subcommittee can develop so three different approaches on how we can come up with that so when you talked about the president and the vice president what is their purpose what would they be doing creating

103these questions or what exactly is their duties all they are doing is doing a little literal interpretation of the requirements and all they're saying is they're looking at the application and and saying does this person qualify to be a board member if the answer is yes they put them on this pile if the answer is no they put them in this pile but that's it they're not discussing are we looking for does it matter we we have no idea if it has one application if that's 20 applications uh we don't know i don't know at least but how many will be to be presented to us um as many as people apply oh okay so there's no like limit correct this this subcommittee would not be again ranking or dismissing it's just literally are you

104qualified uh yes or no and if they if they are yes they can move forward if they are not then they uh they are notified of their disqualification so what would be the non-qualified if they don't fall in this category of this application that i'm looking at if absolutely uh per the education code um some of the things that a board member a a person who is interested in becoming a board member uh they must be a resident of trustee area number one all right so if they're reside somewhere else that would disqualify them they have to be a citizen of the state they have to be 18 years of age or older they have to be a registered voter and there's one more they have to certify that they are not disqualified by the

105constitution or laws of the state from holding a civil office and they cannot live excuse me they cannot work in the usd they cannot be employed this is unified school district so a little nuance there just to be utterly uh clear they can be an employee when they submit an application they cannot continue to be an employee if they if they are actually voted in by the board of education uh two questions um so adrian what's your preference on how the questions get developed do you have a preference well i i think it probably makes sense for the quest for the questions to not necessarily be developed in an open i i i think it would make sense if those questions were developed with the subcommittee i i don't know that i necessarily feel that

106i need to be the person that that's on that subcommittee or but but i think it would make sense that there would be a subcommittee that uh developed this question i mean i think it makes it just but how many questions are do we do we need that's and i and i'd say the subcommittee could also assess those with with the superintendent as well i i mean i think i'm comfortable with if you're already going to be vetting that the two president vice president developed those questions to but i think that it would be appropriate if each ward member would give a question to the president and also would be good i think that we all we were all included in the question superintendent are there um is there any precedent either within ausd or

107neighboring district for the appointment process and would we have any access to their sample questions to use as a baseline maybe i'm asking this because maybe if we circulated if we were able to find that circulated that and then we had the opportunity to suggest a question just to get our thinking started yes i already have uh that in my possession i i think with that um each district is different in our district is different also than what you say bonita so i think our questions may not be the same as other districts right now i hear if i hear you directly board member beau you're saying if we look at that that set of questions as a as a template as a starting point and if that was circulated to the board as a

108starting point and then board members can consider and weigh in on excluding these questions or adding additional questions so just using it as a as a template as opposed to but the csva have anything like that um i can definitely explore that i don't know off the top of my my head but what i am hearing is that maybe through the weekly board packet hey here are some possible questions if you have an interest in a question or questions please submit those to board president or myself then when we come together to um decide on the eligibility of candidates right then and there we can say okay well we got two recommendations from here one recommendation from here that's three questions maybe we should choose two more and then that way everybody has a question

109or you know 10 or whatever that may be and if i could ask if you could just send it send it to the both of us as opposed to one or just to ensure there's eyes on catching catching any so if there are any questions send them to both super antenna or take it and myself and then i just have a couple things um just just more just in terms of the actual application so that question number one please share any prior experience you have serving on a governing board comma specifically a school is confusing to me i don't know what that is it we're trying to ask have you ever served on a governing board of a school district is that what that question is because below there's below there's a question about school

110committees just selectivity yes i think the intent of that question is to say have you ever been a school board member before i would just suggest maybe we say please share any prior experience you have serving on a governing board of a school district or other elected office elected elective one right yeah i would i would maybe maybe that as if they were a school board member if it pleases the board um i can actually put it up live and we can make whatever changes um may i request that now this first or do you want to jump there and then come back to the process um i can't wait well i don't know that i would say i i hear i don't want a word smith yes i just i'm just pointing out that's

111a very confusing question and and i and i i would i would agree that that as you're bringing it up that question could be phrased differently so i think that that's a sufficient input unless unless someone feels really great about the question that shouldn't change um i think that's sufficient to just yeah wordsmith it later yeah you could do whatever you want so and then my other question the other thing is um i when we hype when we hyperlink something in a document we're assuming they're going to click on it and be on a computer so if it's a printed document you need to have we should have the actual url available like so i'm looking at the letter and the application and it's hyperlinks the link for the trustee area one so we need

112to actually put a hyperlink in there um as um in that um i mean you can use you can there's there are 508 compliant services you can do to make sure that you're accessible but i i think that needs to be fixed that's the only that's did you have your hand up bordering yes when we have this signature and i'm looking at the bottom where it says sign below i certify that i that i'm not disqualified by the constitution or laws of the state from holding a civil office so we we get a signature but what actually are we doing to make sure that they are not felons that you know what are what are the constrictions right like are we gonna you know is it somebody who has a previous rest you know record

113i i mean what are those those constituents what are those boundaries right what are we gonna do in our part like to let them know exactly like hey you know even if you've had like two arrests you could still be a school board member right because this right here doesn't tell me anything if i if i'm i've you know i've had two felonies or whatnot and well now i'm a good you know a good uh samaritan's samaritan right like i i think we need to be straightforward with that because it could be kind of confusing as well right and whatever and then the next thing is what are we doing when they when we do share these uh you know these uh boundaries of what a constitutional law actually in states right what are we

114doing our part to make sure that we you know we don't do fingerprints so what are we doing our part to research who these people are i'm looking at to that though uh none of us have been fingerprinted we're here right right that's what i'm saying we we haven't been so how do we know right but i know that l.a county runs i was going to because you're repairing oh wait we did i had to do it twice after years apparently on the school board so so i know that l.a county does some research as well as we submit our papers and so forth we go through this uh so kind of like find out what l.a county does um and then see what we could do yeah and and and again uh just like

115anybody else you would get processed we do do fingerprinting that goes to doj oh i said you say after your before like right this is after we get so is the same process okay so what is that look yeah that does that actually you at this point we we have no idea who or are the individuals who would submit an application are and so to your point board member audience especially as we look at the timeline and the process that we have and as well as certain deadlines that we have to ensure that someone there is an individual that has appointed to this area in in time yeah what i guess we would be in essence i mean provisionally appointing someone and so it's contingent upon and and what what do we do in the

116event of there being a misunderstanding or miscalculation and someone unknowingly let's say uh is somehow dis disqualified what what contingency do would we have in place to still meet those deadlines it's probably wise for us to consider that on on this side of thing for sure yes um so i knew that um i'm not quite sure how to ask this uh for example when someone is appointed to a seat correct um and i'm speaking about like city council right um they're appointed and then two years later they have to run a campaign so what does that look like for for this process good question and i failed to to make that clear because this vacancy falls under a failure to elect this is one of the rare instances uh where an appointment is going to

117be as if elected so this appointment will actually be a four-year appointment as if the person had been elected there are other [Music] there are other situations that where vacancies occur for unfortunate situations resignations those kinds of things and then those have different uh timelines and but this one is that this person would be elected i'm sorry this person would be appointed as if they were elected so this is a four-year appointment you know with that being said and this is i think the first time in history that this has happened here in asusa correct anybody anybody know from from what i i i've been in you know this just for a long and we've never had something like this and so um as we work out the kinks and um we collaboratively collaboratively approach

118this i think it would be a really good idea to kind of add this to our board um packet um you know because we've we've never had something like this so um i would suggest that as we work this out and um that we added to our board pack kind of like what you just said if there's uh you know an instance where something happens where a board member is no longer a board member for whatever reason that we have now something in place um that we can move forward with already already available [Music] mass clarifying question um just want to make sure i capture your request can you say that a different way or so i can try to understand or maybe i can start by saying we do have a board by law

119uh that outlines uh the process uh for filling uh vacancies but i just want to make sure that maybe this is something different so i can make sure that i get you what what you're requesting right we have to but we haven't actually gone through something like this this is our first experience ever his in history and this is the board members ever so as as we move forward with this collaboratively that we're able to go ahead and um capture that so moving forward i think i understand so when people ahead of us or past us that there would be something absolutely thank you yeah and i'm gonna turn it over to board member roderick's painting in one second but just want to note that it's it's uh that it's 7 14 and we're actually

120looking to uh adhere to adjourning no later than we have on our um scheduled agenda which is for 7 30. so if there are any other questions that anyone has um if you can begin spinning your wheels and be prepared to ask those or ask ask those out in quick succession that would be appreciated board member rodriguez spain mines is really quick on the application process that's going to be done online will the applicant have enough opportunity to come to the district and pick up a hard copy just uh yes so we're giving uh the online and then we're also saying that it could be paper attention uh to the front office i'm done and to piggyback off of board member rogue espana and board member cruz gonzalez um i think it would be important

121for the paper application to have printouts of the district map because even if with a url that person may not have internet access and tagging onto that you know the map it's really hard to read because there's no streets on there it just feels like you know arrow between arrow gladstone you know azusa but there's no streets in between so that's kind of complicated when you read area all of our um areas actually but there's no streets or divided only the big thank you so to address that uh the um right now it's a hyperlink which we will make sure that we are very uh transparent about that is actually to the la county uh their map that they have on the districts and so in this case ours would go directly to trustee area

122one and that one has zooming capabilities and zoom out capabilities uh as well and so that one does have street uh stream names and so maybe we can print that one out instead of the one that we that we have and just to be clear as i click the link here it takes me to a pre-sync map where there's additional kind of things that i need to click through there's not a way to directly link we tried we tried to do that and we could not get it to go directly to the map so you do have to choose area one and that takes you to that map i think then in the printed application listing out the steps of when you click on the url click on the hyperlink to the county site giving

123those instructions about select this select ta1 so that it's a step-by-step instruction and we were actually thinking of taking a step further and just actually printing out a copy of the map but i mean if someone is accessing it on if someone is just accessing online and they're looking at the the digital copy um giving them that instruction list but when you go to the county site from the drop down box yeah okay that's that was gonna happen also so if it hyperlinked to that which had instructed you know linked to a link that happened that has the instructions because i could see this being a barrier an unnecessary barrier if someone clicks and isn't quite sure what to do next any other questions from anyone and i i guess maybe carlos said while we

124have you here is there any as you heard us kind of sharing and talking about various things anything just as legal counsel you would you would add or or or advise um for us to consider and if i could invite you to the podium x thing i would offer is that you're bored by law 9223 is pretty helpful i think i would suggest that all the board members take a look at that bylaw in particular the portion of the bylaw that talks about failure to elect and that should be ready conjunct two in terms of just getting the overall process the other piece is based on the statute when you have a failure to elect meaning there's no candidate from a particular area the statue does require that that appointment that vote happened before the

125election i think the the projected schedule is important to kind of have give the board enough time if there's any issue with the appointment then you have a little bit of running room in case you have to kind of recalibrate and come back at it um and i appreciated the question about the vetting of candidates i think that is something that we're gonna have to take a look at um my thought is that could probably be fixed it like any other board member that's elected something comes up later there's an eligibility issue that can be changed but um we will look at potentially vetting candidates in advance um but i'm gonna talk appreciative are we gonna require the candidates to come attend the meeting in person that's a good question that we i know i

126know right now the only thing that we have to allow for a public input and that that we actually have to allow uh not only either in person or zoom but also in writing for this particular instance uh but i'm assuming that would be uh a uh discretion of the board to say in order to to be considered you must come in person to be interviewed if that's what the wishes of the board is yeah ultimately i think you're right i think it would be the discretion on the board my suggestion kind of thinking out loud would be don't don't raise that as a barrier because ultimately there may be a reason why somebody couldn't be there for that particular meeting but they do intend to fulfill their duties and obligations as a board member

127ultimately this is like hitting a moving target and so um board members have their own requirements to be here in person but that is divorce i i personally would like to see them in person just so the way that we have to go file in norwalk and we have to do things in person i personally would prefer for them to come for the internet you mean she don't even want to um interviewing to interview of course yeah because they may say i can go on zoom but yeah we'd rather have them here in person i agree i certainly would agree that it would it would um be my preference and and go a long way as as we consider voting to be able to kind of engage someone in person versus zoom i think to

128your point carlos um yeah because we don't know or do we run into an issue if we if we create a barrier based on our our preferences that someone has a legitimate kind of reason for i think i think we can uh still weigh that and vote that and if you personally can't get over the [Music] the idea that somebody was was over zoomed and you can allow that to be reflected in your vote uh later but but i but i i wonder does it make a whole lot of sense to prescribe the barrier on the front end as opposed to communicate i think it's you know being communicated here that there's a there's a what would be a preference to have someone uh be in person as opposed to virtually it's just a different

129feel you know with zoom interviewing somebody on zoom actually interviewing them in person and it's more personable uh approaching i would like to take i agree so just to be clear so i'm because i i know that i'm saying that i don't think we should make a requirement i think that we can make it our own personal our is but i heard it there's more people saying that we communicated as an actual requirement yes i'm okay with what you suggested adrian i think it should be um communicated clearly on the application that the interview would happen in person and i say that because we're in this time where remote participation is um allowable for a lot of things so i think people could think well maybe i could participate by zoom or call in i

130think making it transparent and clear at the beginning is important so we'll work uh can we work with carlos on the on whatever language that that may need to be within that to honor the wishes of the board sure any other questions comments on this particular item all right and we are looking good thank you thank you with that we will move to 6.0 and specifically 6.1 which is adjournment is there a motion to adjourn second moved by board member adianas and seconded by board member rodriguez pena any discussion hearing none we will move to a you're logged in move to a vote and the motion passes five to zero and we are adjourned at 7 24 p.m thank you everybody have a good evening