001okay well the time is 5 30 and we will go ahead and call this meeting to order of the board of education for the zeus unified school district on march excuse me april 12 2022 we'll begin with our flag salute and begin i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all right on then to item 1.3 our roll call uh board member rodriguez president remember here board member cruz gonzalez here hi bourbon greer i'm also president but remotely and board member audianus is uh sick this evening and will not be joining us i will move on then to item 2.1 approval of the agenda is there a motion to approve make a motion
002to approve 2.1 i'll second by board member rodriguez pena second by board member beau any discussion hearing none you will go ahead and and i i apologize i'm not i'm not logged in you'll take me a second um board member rodriguez pena yes remember yes board member so the motion passes four yes to one absolute that brings us to item 4.1 approval of resolution 21 22 27 a resolution of the board of trustees of the zeus unified school district for claiming for president yes um i believe we're on uh 3.1 thank you very much for that correction 3.1 which is public comment on agenda or non-agenda so this is an opportunity for the public to address the board of education on agenda or non-agenda items individual speakers may be allowed up to three minutes to
003address the board of education on any agenda or non-agenda item when the public wishes to address the border on any agenda item they may fill out a blue card stand at the podium or raise their hand while in the zoom attendance the board will take blue card requests first followed in order by speakers at the podium and then those in zoom attendance and again just remind everyone that you have three minutes if there's anything that you'd like to to say and we'll go ahead and take any any commenters that we might have for this evening we have anyone uh salisa yes thank you good evening superintendent cabinet and a student board firstly i want to thank you all for your work and efforts to meet the needs of our students and the present while also
004making decisions and taking actions for the future of our district i've reviewed tonight's presentation pdf and i'm excited about what's to come i look forward to having our middle school and high school students benefit from the abundance of resources on one campus as opposed to having resources split and thus taking away opportunities i see the district making efforts to create base programs that make all elementary and school elementary schools desirable and equitable with expansion of steam and visual and performing arts programming this is what i hope to continuously more of the ability for someone to enter azusa know that no matter what elementary school they choose their child will get an incredible experience is a dream i hope to see come to fruition i'm aware that not every program can be at every school but
005if the choices between schools based on programming versus equitable programming schools across programming across the board i choose the latter as the district moves forward to making decisions i hope questions are answered and systems put in place to address the marketing of our schools and programs if i were a new parent to the district logging into the website today i would be unclear on which school offers what under about us our schools i would be able to see some district highlights but might feel a lack of clarity on which schools and where if i were a new parent looking for a preschool on the website current information might lead me to believe that longfellow is the only available preschool creating successful programs also means successfully promoting so our family knows the abundance azusa offers and
006doesn't feel the need to look elsewhere finally as programming is selected how are we setting up systems to best support our teachers what incentives will be made available for trainings and our extra time put in how can programs be set in place to be sustainable in the long term and not be dependent on a single staff member or teacher meaning the loss of that individual would mean the loss of the program or activity so in conclusion the three questions i pose for board members to consider tonight is how can we make sure our programs and schools are equitable and sustainable across the board how can we best direct staff to plan and implement marketing in a way that ensures clarity and accessibility and how can we best incentivize and support teachers and staff and making
007programs successful and sustainable for all involved once again i thank you all for your work i hope these questions are taken as a caring nudge to not only dream about what our district can be but consider how we can ensure it happens and that no one falls through the cracks thank you for your time thank you miss louisa are there any other um anyone else in attendance there or anyone else on zoom no other hands raised on zoom thank you ben now we will move on to item 4.1 which is approval of resolution 2122-27 a resolution of the board of trustees of the azusa unified school district proclaiming a local emergency ratifying the proclamation of the state emergency by governor newsom dated march 4th 2020 and authorizing remote teleconference meetings for the period of april
00813 2022 through may 13 2022 is there a motion to approve make a motion to approve 4.1 a second i bought remember rodriguez pena second by board member uh cruz gonzalez and i'll i'll just add this is something that's typically done in consent calendar but just due to the fact that uh just the timing uh that is the one item that we did bring into this study session uh to to which which allows for um us to continue having uh these the option of having remote teleconference meetings are there any other comments questions or discussion and then we'll go and the motion passes four yes to one absent which brings us to our our feature item of this evening for our study session which is presentation of the azusa unified school district programs dr mitchell
009all right good evening good evening board president greer board of education superintendent ortega and cabinet as we plan for the future design of ausd programming our planning approach begins with the vision for what we want all students in ausd to experience an innovative rigorous relevant culturally responsive and engaging learning environment with educational and extracurricular programmatic offerings that begin with a strong foundational experience at our preschool and elementary schools and a middle school experience that aligns and supports high school programming with all programs and grade levels at support and nurture our students sense of wonder excitement creativity and critical thinking skills that open the doors of possibility and opportunity for all students at this point in our design thinking process we've begun to get input from multiple groups secondary and elementary academic advisory and articulation committees
010the high school student advisory committee that consists of students representing all of our high schools our site and district administrators and it's important to note that these initial conversations as well as conversations from a school reorganization committee have helped to shape the beginning of our thinking behind the planning and as we continue to develop our plans we will get additional student staff and parent feedback we're going to present our initial plan tonight to the board of education and get any input or feedback that you might have and then continue to get input from our partners in education again including student groups parent groups act plus and staff before we talk about our programmatic offerings we're going to begin our presentations with the expectations of our learning environment that all students will experience then beginning with
011the end in mind we're going to share high school programming followed by middle school then elementary and then our early childhood education reorganization process has enabled us to not only dream big but also to create plans to make these dreams a reality for our students and we're super excited to share these plans with you tonight we do have a team approach as you can see in the audience tonight we have several of our team members who are here who uh share with you our programmatic planning so we will begin i will invite norma camacho who is the director of multilingual services and categorical programs and aaron kramer our director of special education who will begin and talk about our student success drivers okay thank you thank you for letting us start out um so as
012we come forward thank you mr sanchez as we start to share we want to highlight that azusa has a standing commitment to prepare our students for college and career readiness this commitment is aligned to access and equity for all of our students we are grounded in guidance from state resources such as our california state standards our state frameworks the english learner practitioners guide or english learners with disabilities the english learner roadmap and the state literacy plan among many other resources that support our work our learning and our professional learning opportunities together also our internal work utilizing a lot of these resources in implementing azusa's student success drivers with a focus on language and literacy through collaborative practices academic discourse and cognitive rigor early childhood education begins a coherent educational program that is aligned with college
013and career readiness standards college and career ready students exhibit capabilities which include demonstrating independence building content knowledge responding to the demands of audience tasks purpose and discipline they come to comprehend and critique they use technology and media strategically and they comprehend and come to other come to understand other perspectives and cultures this is reflected in instructional practices that encourage curious learners who are engaged and excited to come to school it is evident through project-based learning activities in which students engage in scientific discovery art and music experience and collaboration with peers to encourage creativity and rigorous rigorous conversation that help them think deeply thank you we would like to now bring up um mr gabriel fernandez high school principal to talk to us about high school programming good evening so above here are our current pathways
014that exist both at gladstone and azusa high school uh we have two courses in our automotive pathway we have two courses in engineering that is confused with project lead the way curriculum we have two courses in computer science the ip and then it culminates in an eighth course in principles of computer science there are three course path uh course sequences so to speak in public services they are fire tech emergency medical tech and forensics slash admin justice which would prepare students for a career in law enforcement our graphic arts and digital media coursework is two courses that leads kids through video production uh web design and uh podcasting our award-winning uh medical academy has four courses in their sequence to prepare students for careers in the medical profession and we have four distinct areas of
015arts individual performing arts we have our visual arts we have music performance we have drama as well as our award-winning programming for music we also have these current programs at both gladstone and azusa for our advanced placement we have 19 ap courses district-wide at azusa and gladstone currently we currently have four levels of avid through 9th through 12th grade our early college program that exists currently at gladstone but will be coming over to azusa is for juniors and seniors that is up to 12 courses for students in the ecp program with citrus college that culminates in about 36 credits of transferable college credit upon graduation our international baccalaureate program there are 17 courses available to students at the junior and senior level at azusa high school our upper upper bound program that's a partnership with
016azusa pacific university gives a cohort of students in each grade level the chance to get specific support and tutoring after school twice a week with tutors that helps them especially in advanced math course work or math coursework one of the main barriers to college success uh we have four levels of jrotc currently at azusa and gladstone uh four years and that's not just to prepare students for military service it also gives them leadership skills that prepares them for other careers as well and we also have 16 sports teams that our males and females can play on as well as a leadership class at both course both schools all three schools that prepares them for many opportunities to lead student culture here are additional supports and programs that we have in place in the district that
017can support our student needs and family needs so first right off the bat our big one one of our big ones here is our community school partnership with laco that has four pillars that organize that program the first one being integrated student supports where the school works with the community and the committee to service sel needs mental health and also material needs such as housing they do work in partnering are leading our parents to housing assistance when necessary a second pillar is expanded learning time and opportunities which involves tutoring supports and third one is using activating family and community engagement there are parent workshops being planned for this year or next year along the lines of technology and how to support students for college success and then we have a good partner that last pillar
018is collaborative leadership and practices which is really honed in on our community school advisory council which is a partnership of community resources parents teachers staff the laco people who are part of that program all looking at data robustly uh they committed a needs assessment at the beginning of the year looking at data to see what our kids truly need to be successful in school and that's not just a school-led initiative that's really a a whole team approach to meeting the unique needs of our of our students in this time now that advisory council really is an important part of developing the school's culture and making sure we have the right resources in place to meet the needs of their students secondly we have a partnership with the los angeles department of public health the well-being
019centers that are available both at gladstone and azusa high school do provide services twice a week to our students along the lines of again sel supports mental health referrals they do do some reproductive health education where students can get uh information regarding reproductive health and lastly uh bringing back the link crew to azusa high school next year to really hone in on that key aspect of connection and relationship uh looking at developing a three half day event for students going into azusa high school this spring we will be recruiting link crew mentors from the junior 10th and grade 11th grade classes at both azusa and gladstone to work together to mentor our ninth graders at asus because we want our community seeing as the one school and they're gonna start working together next year to
020mentor students along their high school uh experience and that's awesome collaboration i've reached out to azusa beautiful to help us with uh outside of school event to occur as part of the link crew orientation was different from link crew but we really are trying to engage our students in the community and see their culture as as a plus and build up their identity and build up their their dreams as they come into azusa high school next year thank you mr fernandez oh yes um dr mitchell would you like us to ask questions along the way or yes i would absolutely uh mr fernandez i had a question about the early college program could you talk to us about um what the difference is between the early college and a middle college program and if we're
021thinking about moving to middle college it's been a while since i know the exact particulars about middle college in terms of what grade levels it services i can tell you that the early college is 11 through 12th but i would defer to maybe mr ortega or dr mitchell on the grade level found for middle college and maybe frank can expand on this but we have been in conversations with citrus a middle college program unlike an early college program right now our students are graduating at a high rate with their high school diploma and about 36 transferable units so technically around one year of college completely done for free a middle college program would double that and so when students graduate from high school they're graduating um with a a double diploma field or they're getting
022their high school diploma plus an aaa or an as um if they if they subscribe to the program and they get through the program all the way because it is double uh typically uh those students are starting in ninth grade uh starting to take uh those courses and being part of that program and again i don't know if frank and our data want to add anything else but we have uh had conversations with citrus about um how this would work and how we might introduce something like that in our district do you have anything else to add to that actually that summary was perfect um but it is is um the incoming freshmen will start and often times that the incoming freshmen will take courses that are more introductory like a counseling class something to
023get them understanding the rigors of college but then they don't take the real rigorous con um core classes until probably their sophomore year because um the community colleges feel that the syst the ninth graders are a little more immature in regards to taking college-level courses but mr ortega was correct and um saying that it starts at ninth grade and moves all the way to twelfth grade and they usually graduate if complete with um an aaa or an as and success rate of our ecp students have been fantastic over 93 um with at least 30 credit and aside from any um i mean the challenges of just implementing a new program are there um economic or political considerations when trying to offer a middle college here saying that our student could get their a or a
024s through a middle college program instead of enrolling at citrus or another community college so it my question is there is there a fight over dollars or enrollment no uh because the way the the way the programs work whether that's the early college program or the middle college program uh the students are actually enrolled at both schools um and so there is no um that's not a that's not a barrier and so how are students um funded as citrus college enrolled it's a college student if you're not paying tuition sure um so when they're in college at citrus and i know they don't call it 88 frank you know that term up apportionment yes they receive their apportionment when the students are attending their courses uh typically that will be at the ends of a
025day so for instance uh first and second period or uh fifth and sixth period um and so when they're with citrus citrus is grabbing their apportionment and then when they jump back on our campus so third fourth fifth and sixth then we get the ada i i have a couple questions um so with the pathways that were shown are they all complete pathways they are yes and i noticed you didn't have um the um the early childhood is that still at zero do we still have that or not anymore i know this was just azusa we just listed azusa and gladstone as they were combined um over at sierra we still have child development production we have the medical career pathway as well as um the friends again admin of justice all right great um
026and then i just wanted a request could i get a copy of the list of who's part of the community schools committee it is just a high okay thank you very much all right let um let's talk about uh middle school six through eight um we this idea of combining our middle school programs are going to offer our 6th through 8th grade students with an opportunity for choice as well as an opportunity to provide programmatic programmatic alignment to azusa high school in addition to our core instructional programming students will be able to select from a rich variety of educational programming offerings and you can see uh the programs that we currently offer now we have project lead the way studio 26 we've got choir and band avid and art drama leadership we've got uh spanish
027as our world language uh something else we'd be able to do with the larger middle school is to offer beginning and advanced band uh and that would be something that we would be able to do because we would have more students at the at the middle school the middle school will also continue to host the district mariachi program like to bring back mr chang to talk about a very exciting programmatic implementation with the gladstone middle school stem lab yes very excited about this um a couple of years in the making and now we have great opportunity to bring this to glaston middle school in 2023 this is essentially a stem lab but focus on career and college readiness mainly career and it is a completely new lab environment there will be new furnishings new equipment
028et cetera we have um an idea of where we want it in regards to what location on the gladstone middle school campus and it is truly an engaging and authentic hands-on experience and it's problem-based learning in which students team with another student they go through a customizable content that lasts for about two weeks and then they rotate to another lab sitting so they go from station to station and if we want to do it like a nine week window an 18 week window or a 36 week window we can custom create the lab environment that they're going to be participating in can i ask the question on that place yes of course is that is that similar to what central middle school had when they had their lab when they were going from station to
029station right right and so center is using pisco right now it's a little older and we're trying to adapt as technology has technology needs have increased but another thing that is more that is different about this lab is we're going to customize it to feed into the pathways we'll be offering at it was the high school right now the pisco offerings are a little more wide and varied um which is good in relationship to understanding basics of needing stem but now we're going to customize it so that the students get a taste of career exploration in the fields that we offer the career pathways that we offer the students really enjoyed enjoyed that going from stations to station yes right learning about the rocks they're learning about the brain or even their cooking a little
030bit there when i went to visit them right oh yeah you got it right there exactly yep um and so this will be hands on entirely and it's really going to be teacher facilitated instead of you know lectures or anything of that nature students really learn by doing it and i want to show you a video it's only a 50 50 second video and you get a sense of what i mean um with this lap so um hope if you can just um or don't know who you know can click on the collage of pictures right there yeah [Music] so that's just a taste of what they're going to experience i've went to multiple schools to look at how it's done and i've talked to the teachers they have these internships they are thoroughly excited
031for the students and you can see the excitement of the students that they are engaged regularly the teacher says i don't really need to tell them anything um they come into class then they go straight to work and um during that time there's a bustle and in the classroom and the hustle in the classroom that really makes that noise level um that kind of noise level you appreciate in the classroom you know so it's exciting to see um to give you a sense of what that classroom would look like um we put together a mock-up i met with the pax and paterson people and we did a mock-up of the classroom and we picked out some of the curriculum um it is not finalized yet because we want to vet it with each of the
032teachers who are leading the pathways to high schools but they do have a sense of what they want i've been talking to the teachers they're telling me we i wish we had more students who are interested before we are the ones who are talking to them and this is exactly what this will bring so if you can go on to the next slide just one quick minute and we're back yes thank you and so as you can see this is a mock-up of what the room will look like and it will be all new furnishings it would be new equipment equipment purchased specifically for each of the two-week curriculum and you can see the different types of pathway exploration that we are investing in for example you can see intro to computer science intro to
033engineering uh intro to child development uh computer graphics and gaming forensic science et cetera these are all going to be aligned to our high school pathways so this is a career exploration opportunity for our student you also see this is not rows and columns facing one direction these are pods created um specifically for students to work in tandem and you will see then a rotation basis as the curriculum correct as the weeks progress um don't worry this is all grant funded we were able to secure grant funding with a lot of hard work from dedicated people to be able to secure the grants the cost is anywhere from 75 to 100 000 depending on which content areas we choose but all of it will be paid by grant we expect to start construction in that
034classroom um sometime in the fall target date is october of 2022 and then completed early spring of just in time hopefully for a showcase event to bring incoming sixth graders to the lab so they can see and possibly to bring the parents so they can also see the lab before they select um which they will select lasso middle school as a school they're going to go for middle thank you okay mr uh mr chiang why you are there uh we want to continue to talk about um other programmatic offerings will you talk a little bit about the naviance program yes naviance has been with our district for several years we have already in place a lot of exploratory activities that allow students to look at career exploration activities as well as college choices interest surveys
035etc what they do within naviance is they're given tasks of activities and throughout the districts it's consistent all sixth graders all seventh graders all eighth graders will be doing these activities naviance is also at the high school um so throughout um currently we have seven through twelfth grade students doing the same activities across all middle schools in high school from there we're able to gather the data and determine next steps for possible career pathway changes but the benefit of naviance is also to give our students a sense of what challenges or rigors that they should expect moving on to high school as well as college so these kind of interest surveys that are given career guidance surveys that are given they complete these in their middle school years and then prepare them for the tasks
036ahead in high school as well as what possible majors they want to explore in thank you uh we also want to talk a little bit about athletics at middle school um we in our our current middle school configuration we have um a ausd middle school athletics league and so um our four the four schools play one another in a kind of inter-district league so they have softball they have volleyball there's football and they've been able to play uh one another in this situation now we have an opportunity for our students to play sports at a beautiful facility number one and number two it provides us with an opportunity to seek out other middle schools to join a league other middle schools do that they have them they actually have a middle school athletic league and
037so they play uh schools all over the place and so we are looking to do that to provide that for our students as well so uh we're super excited about that opportunity for our students another possibility that we're exploring and this is something that was brought up in the secondary academic advisory articulation committee they talked about really thinking about offering what's called a sixth grade wheel and so for sixth graders they would have an opportunity to possibly take a mini course with electives maybe six or eight weeks and it would give them an opportunity to try different electives and so then by the time they become seventh and eighth graders maybe there was something that they really liked um that they didn't have an opportunity uh to try before so they could try stem for
038a few weeks and they could try music for a few weeks so something like that so that's something that we're very interested in uh exploring what a sixth grade wheel where students would take these different uh opportunities on a rotating basis um another uh program that we would like to bring in is called web and web is where everyone belongs and this is the free uh link crew program and mr fernandez talked about uh the ninth grade link crew program so webb is the same uh organization as link crew and it's the same philosophy so this is a program for mentoring for the sixth grade students to come in and you have your seventh grade and eighth grade students uh uh are their mentors to the sixth graders you do a really big orientation and
039you welcome the students and then you provide different activities throughout the year to make sure that students are feeling connected and feeling that they belong so it's an outstanding program so we're excited about that one well also like to bring up again ms camacho to talk about dual immersion so our dual immersion program our pathway will continue on through the middle school our students will have the opportunity to take two of their courses um in spanish they'll take their sla course in addition to another content area in spanish um to continue our students along that pathway of being bilingual by literate and bicultural thank you we're also very interested in making sure that we have lots of opportunities for our middle school students to participate in after school activities we have think together programming there's
040athletics opportunities but what about other things our middle schools offer programs such as the feminis we have other clubs and different things after school but we want to make sure that we have a very full offering so students have an opportunity to continue on after school one of the things that we've also done is we have been meeting with the parks and recreation department at uh at the city and we reached out to them to explore um a partnership what would what would an after-school uh partnership look like and we're thinking teen center activity um what would be things that they would like to you know have our students participate in and possibly could they come over to uh gladstone middle school and um and have some programming there um we would work with the
041city and what in conjunction with think together they my understanding is that a couple years back there was some conversations with everyone together to talk about how we could collaborate so we're very interested in that and we're interested in really building a very strong after-school opportunity for our students i have a question sure um may not be regarding programs but i would like to see a well-being center at glaston middle school um you know these students especially conducting the pandemic they have faith you know death and their family or illnesses even losing homes losing jobs and now the high gas that's probably going to really wonder why they're not going anywhere but i think it's very important at this age level especially all the students coming together i think it'd be nice that we had
042a well-being center somewhere where they can go and speak to someone um and feel comfortable yeah i agree with you that's a great idea um we just submitted our application for community schools and we applied um for the rest of our schools so um the middle school would uh would also be a part of that um so part of that application is having a well-being center at all of our schools so fingers crossed that that that we can have that happen but i agree with you i think that's an excellent opportunity to provide again additional services for our students dr mitchell yes there's a question on the well-being center yeah um would the community liaison be a part of the well-being center staff at each school and does each school currently have its own full-time
043community liaison that's a really good question and so we have we do have community liaisons at our schools and i'll i will have um norma camacho talk to us about the community liaisons um with the community schools initiative um that would be an opportunity for our liaisons to be a part of the um i want to say the committee right so i'm actively involved in working with families and connecting them to services at the well-being center so um yeah ms camacho can you tell us a little bit about the community liaisons there are currently our community liaisons are three-hour positions at elementary and middle school and eight hour positions at our high school so will that change um because there's going to be more students at the olympic center um gladstone middle school would you
044know there are more students there so it doesn't go by the enrollment how many hours they give to a staff member yes so we will be looking at how to proportionately staff our middle school with the appropriate hours for our community liaison so that students and parents have access to the resources our community liaisons provide thank you now i want to talk a little bit about what we're exploring so right now we are exploring what's called the middle years program the nyp and this is a program that aligns to the international baccalaureate program that's currently at azusa high school the uh the middle years program is not a curricular program rather it is an instructional framework that's implemented school-wide for all students in all classes and so as we explore gladstone middle school becoming an
045nyp we would we would gather a committee of students and parents and staff to learn about the program and the implementation components and the requirements and then we would have the committee participate in visits to schools that are already implementing an exemplary nyp program so again the purpose of the committee would be to study nyp and to make a recommendation to the board for implementation and what would be the timeline for this uh the timeline would be we would begin this in the in the fall we got to explore it and to get a committee together to do that all right let's transition to our elementary k5 base program in ausd based programs at the elementary level include a guaranteed and viable curriculum in all core subjects and as we are looking to the future
046the base program will be supplemented with integrated equity-focused project-based units of study at all grade levels that incorporate english language arts english language development science history social science and that's incidentally exactly the kind of model that we're learning in the seal model in support of our diversity equity inclusion initiative our teachers on special time assignment team our team posa team as well as classroom teachers have been compiling a list of just over 150 a5 books with themes of diversity equity inclusion and social justice and are matching them with integrated units of study as well as for our classroom libraries so our next steps are continue to work on building out supplementary units of study and continue to provide professional development on project-based integrated equity focused lesson design and implementation how do you see that rolling
047out how do i see it rolling out in terms of moving through the yeah so um so right now uh with our especially with our steel implementation um they are doing and i guess i could also have norma camacho come and talk about the professional learning that they're doing with that so um currently our teachers are in fact we have two unit development days this week um our teachers who are working on implementing the cl model are developing units of study around um different themes and they include social studies science english language development and in the course of their work as they learn these high leverage strategies um there's six modules altogether they continue to add elements to their units of studies so those units of study actually don't become fully complete units of study
048until after they have completed their two years of professional learning so if you will as they go through a module they then add other elements to their unit of study so by the end of next school year our kinder and first grade teachers which are the first cohort will have their six fully developed units of study to implement so it is a process well so at three how many schools we're at three schools and so if this is the base program across the district and what how would that roll out then so we would have a similar professional learning and uh implementation with the rest of the grade level so we already have some teachers who have been implementing this and are willing to do some professional learning um and help us with this but
049this is something that we want to see in all of our all of our classes so i guess what i'm saying is i want to see a more concrete like plan like okay this year you're doing k1 and 2 in these schools right and and then next year or whenever you start the upper grades and then are we talking about across the district then are we talking just these three schools we are across the district that's what i'm asking about in terms of like okay so then when do when do the other schools start do they all have the same base program yeah so the ad services team has been working on our professional development plan so we've been meeting to um to work on exactly the rollout for everything for all of our all
050of our um uh our curriculum our instruction and our plan so we're working on it i don't know what do we expect to have a draft plan i would stay before the fall the other piece um that we've been working on is a coherent mathematics uh program and so this is work we've been doing with edu california education partners with our preschool through third grade mathematics coherence project and so uh we've had a a team of teachers pilot teachers who have been working all year on developing different ways to implement mathematics strategies in our classrooms in preschool through third grade uh they've been collecting data and uh really finding some uh some i would say um some concrete instructional strategies that we've been able to see in the classrooms and so we're continuing to scale
051up that work but we've had gosh i want to say at least 20 20 teachers i think it is that have been participating um in this pilot with something called counting collections and so again this is something where we're working really hard to make sure that we have a coherent program in all of our our grade levels especially our preschool through third grade all right so now i want to talk a little bit about um steam and so another piece of this base programming is that we want to make sure that all of our students again have access to a base program that's going to enhance and extend science and visual and performing art and so the base program includes all students dk through 5 having access to steam education which stands for science technology
052engineering art and mathematics you have you have heard of in our other presentations that we purchase materials for all grade levels to have coding and robotics program that's coherent and develop skills and knowledge across our grade levels and you did see some examples of that at our last study session we have our preschool and our pk students are learning robotics and coding through blocks that represent an action and each block contains a movement code for their robots and they create a sequence for their robot and they use the robot to scan the codes and watch the robots move and the kids love it it's super super engaging um we also have both beginning and advanced a robotics program that's called ub tech robotics for primary and upper grades all year long our teacher on special
053assignment uh randy goode our science hosa has been providing professional learning for teachers on how they can uh facilitate the robotics instruction during uh during the day and how they can integrate that into their instruction as well as provide after-school robotics programming for our students as well here's something that's also pretty exciting our next step so as we continue to provide training on our robotics curriculum we also have another piece and our next step is the 3d printing design and if you see this photograph right here there is uh that is one of our uh ultimaker 3d printers that we we've set up one and we have one for all of our schools and so as we're integrating technology and math into our instructional program one of the best ways to apply a mathematic concepts
054is uh through 3d design and kids really learned about things like surface and volume um through 3d printing and so uh this is one for example we just set this one up at valley dale but we put a couple of pictures on here for you um that these are things that you know students can design they can design 3d printing on the ipad cart that we purchased for the innovation labs and then there's filament and they can print out these um these really neat things um the the program that they used is part of the autodesk series it's called thinkercad and it's the beginning of the autodesk and autodesk is something that the um you know 3d mechanical designing and engineers and design communication they use the autocad product and so um it's it is
055going to be a very exciting opportunity for students to apply their mathematic knowledge so we're super excited about that for our students and all of our sites will have that speaking of innovation labs um so we have uh we've ordered all of our um all of our equipment and furniture we're very excited about this as well and this again base program all of our schools will have the lab and so here's an actual model of one of um one of the labs and we'll have the 3d printer in there the robotics and so here's just an example of a very flexible design um you have um the tables and chairs that have wheels they can move them around in different configurations uh there's a place for flexible feeding so um it's gonna be a it's
056gonna be an awesome are those green things bean bags yeah they are they sure are yep got bean bags you have the soft seating um you know they can they can move around the table so when they're ready to you know have their their robots do different configurations they can you know move out of the way and come back and forth and it'll be it'll be a very um a very fun space so wanna talk about um another very exciting opportunity so this is um we we are planning to expand our visual and performing art um as part of our strategic uh plan so beginning next year we are planning to hire four elementary art teachers uh you provide arts education in all students pk through five uh next year it'll it will include grade
057stick i can ask you a question regarding the um so i do know that it was an apu that was the performing arts or how yeah would they continue are you talking you're talking about the teal program or oh yes yes they will next year yes uh-huh yep and i'll talk a little bit about that too when we get to some specialty programs what are what our plans are for that a good point um so we will be we're working with um our visual arts coordinator um for uh the secondary arts and uh the the team is going to begin to work on some lesson planning and design for arts education we are interested in our in all students receiving art instruction and things like drawing and painting and sculpting and so while the art
058teachers are implementing art instruction that's going to provide an opportunity for our classroom teachers to engage in data plcs professional learning and collaboration as well so dana with four are teachers um how much time do you anticipate a child getting of direct interaction with the art we think we've done a little math we think we can have each class have one art uh art period a week so the you know the older children it'll be a little longer but the the younger ones will probably be able to maybe 30 minutes or so um so here's the thing about this is that the we are planning to have these four art teachers be on uh like a nine to four schedule um we do have teachers in the district who right now who have that kind
059of a schedule and what that would do would allow us to be able to have art programming after school it's built in right so the teacher would be doing arts education you know during the day it wouldn't start until nine o'clock and so that would mean that we think at least two days a week at each of the schools when we reorganize we'll be able to have at least an hour of after school arts art club so that would not be like think together that would be a separate like art class correct the an art class not by the credential teacher with four of them then how would it rotate around then or yeah it would rotate around yes and then dr mitchell how does that incorporate music education i'm glad you asked that and
060so once once we reorganize the plan is to we'll take a look at our our vocal music instruction to see how we might be able to expand that as well so right now we have uh vocal and instrumental music for fourth fifth and sixth um and so as when we do the reorganization we'll take a look and see how we might be able to expand that and how how are they to um the mariachi program they started fourth grade they sure do yes and so does orchestra okay so where is it where is it going to be housed so how the students can get there to practice yeah so right now we have the orchestra program is still um is still at the high school azusa high school and the mariachi program is at foothill
061which the mariachi program would just move to gladstone middle school well in terms of the the music program so would it be would there be opportunities within the school day for these students or the i mean and is it all students that will be learning music or yeah it'll be all students yes during the day all students will play at least one instrument yeah and um one of the things that we did with one time finding this was a year ago we were able to purchase um really wonderful um well-made instruments um for our students so our fifth and sixth graders right now are playing we we have and we've got flutes and horns and tubas and all kinds of instruments and so um our our students have access to that they're able to check
062out those instruments and anybody can play they want to purchase transportation wise the parents we need they take them now right already yeah that's correct yeah for mariachi and for orchestra they do take them to the after school that's that's correct i just want to clarify something you said any anyone can play so is it an optional thing or everyone does does like yeah so right now um students have an opportunity to when they're in fourth grade it's vocal and fifth and sixth grade is instrumental but they can choose between vocal or instruments in fourth and fifth and sixth grade okay i want to transition to a base program still physical education um we currently have a program called spark pe which is a research based program that promotes lifelong wellness to improve the health
063of children one of the pieces with our physical education program and this part this curriculum in particular they have updated the curriculum and now it aligns to castle the castle framework which stands for the collaborative for academic and social emotional learning which supports um students social emotional learning um as they are developing their their physical education as well so we're going to update um that program as well because they have new components to align to that but so then does that take away from the physical piece of it it doesn't um so what it does is that um while they are engaged in um you know physical activity they also incorporate the social emotional learning as well so cooperative um you know participation getting along with one another you know working in teams those kinds
064of things all right so um wanna uh talk about after-school programming and enrichment we're still going to continue to offer our after-school programming with our think together partners and we will be adding before school programming offered by think together and this was uh we have one-time funding that can support that but eventually we would transition to um our lcap funding uh for that uh this is would be at no cost for families to have both before and after school uh programming how early would that be that is gonna be six thirty yeah six thirty thirty yeah and it will be all grades at all schools it will be all grades at all schools right elementary or element elementary yeah um we talked about the district mariachi and orchestra program so we we will continue with
065those programs available to all students beginning in fourth grade um and again we're we're continuing to offer um opportunities for after school steam programming um we have uh we have several schools and it's it's it's catching on like wildfire we have lots of uh teachers who have been trained and now are wanting to provide the robotics and the stem programming after school in addition we've all we've also purchased other stem curricular programming so it's not just the um it's not just the robotics and the 3d printing but we also have other stem activities where students can learn things for example there's hits where they learn about force and motion they learn about um you know anatomy there's all kinds of different kits that we're gonna that we've already purchased that we're equipping in the in
066the in the innovation lab so um will be a great opportunity again for students to have um you know again very enriched interesting innovative after school dr mitchell as as we look ahead to the shifting start times for um secondary you said that there was before school programming for elementary our elementary campuses is that something that we are looking at or considering for secondary for middle and for high school correct it's possible that something we could uh we definitely could look at um at uh high school we do have uh zero period offerings uh middle school we have zero period offerings as well um but that's something that we that we could definitely look at and consider thank you for that question dr mitch i have a follow-on question so for the before school programs
067will that be staffed by district staff or think together or another group of adult think together all right now let's transition and talk a little bit about uh the possibility for uh or specialty programming uh exploration so we're going to continue to offer what we refer to as specialty programming at specified sites so for example uh we talked about teal right so we have a teal which is the technology enhanced arts learning project currently that's a powell and depending on how the boundaries uh the attendance boundaries are finalized maybe that moves that would move to another site maybe it would be lee we're not quite sure yet but that would definitely move uh we have dual immersion of valley dylan hodge we have project lead the way at dalton and we have seal at valley
068dale murray and hodge and so um these are programs that we are going to uh to continue and in alignment with our plan to explore the middle years program which is the the uh alignment of the um international baccalaureate middle school we would include um a primary years program for consideration as a specialty program and so um same thing we would have a committee of parents and engaged uh you know families and students um sharing the data sharing the research really digging into the program let's learn about the program um and then take a look at uh our sites that don't have a specialty program to consider what we might want to add at the sites that don't have them so you're saying next year you'll have this conversation right maybe in conjunction with the
069creation of the community schools initiative with that with that engagement would align so when would we when would we anticipate thinking about which schools would have the primary year program the primary years program yeah so i think the first thing that would happen is we would once there you know that we start thinking about um the again we know which schools don't have the specialty program so we would want to uh get a committee together of our staff and our parents and students um to begin to talk about here are the options and here's what we have um do the same thing we would do with middle school um and go visit exemplary programs i think it's important that we have a committee to really take a look and dig in um and and you
070know make some recommendations on what they might like to have and we would start that in the fall okay now we're going to transition to we've got mrs jenny lee who is our director of early childhood education programming and she is going to talk to us about early childhood education and i'm going to show i show the video first if i can hang on one sec [Music] here at azusa unified school district we understand that early education is crucial for student development and academic success which is why we offer early childhood education programs for children as young as those who turn three by december 2nd of the enrollment year preschool early transitional kindergarten transitional kindergarten and kindergarten classes are offered throughout the zuseon unified school district the california state preschool program classes are offered at
071elementary school sites throughout the district our district offers a full continuum spanish dual immersion program to prepare students for a global future immersing students in both english and spanish from an early age develops their speaking reading and writing proficiencies in multiple languages students will also develop positive attitudes towards speakers of other languages and individuals with diverse cultural backgrounds it's so exciting to see how they change for the better and become more compassionate more flexible and excited and confident there are multiple benefits academically socially emotionally culturally it is a fulfillment of the promise of public education really i've seen great things happen in azusa for children who attend the dual immersion program we have children who speak spanish going into our spanish really immersion program as well as english only and you can see by mid
072first grade both group of students they are quite fluent in spanish there are many great programs and practices in azusa unified school district one of these practices is our work in aligning learning objectives instructional practices assessment and programs including robotics from preschool to third grade aligning early childhood education and elementary education ensures a smooth transition and continues success as children move into kindergarten and beyond in azusa usd we strive to provide high quality early education in a positive caring learning environment that supports student development of age appropriate foundational skills and prepares them for mastery of the california state common core standards [Music] thank you dr mitchell good evening i would like to expand a little bit on the information in the video as well as share the plan for ece our early childhood education programs
073regardless of whether special education preschool or your immersion or tk follows the california preschool learning foundations which describes competencies knowledge and skills that most children can be expected to exhibit in a high quality program before entering kindergarten chilton's progress is measured by the desired results developmental profile or the drdp our tk report card aligns with the measures in the drdp and that's fully intentional in addition to the strategies provided by the preschool curriculum frameworks our ece teachers also use sobrato early academic language project which is still pneumatic units for preschool and for tk we have four units and they use the strategies these strategies and play-based math and county collection strategies to support children's age-appropriate development as well as academic skills our early childhood education program strives to provide a high quality and i keep
074saying that because that's what we're shooting for always and always i'm improving and growing that is in alignment again with the k through third grade program in terms of teaching strategies for work women and assessment our ece teachers also use word of world of wonders or wow and em4 curriculum which is the districts language arts and math programs in their planning of the curriculum as well as instructions and they work collaboratively to plan within their grade level early curiosity and development in coding and robotics are recognized and supported with hands-on activities opportunities in addition to the um the tibos steam robotics we also have purchased coding express trained by lego that teachers can use to model coding a new component to our program this year is the amaze work program this is designed for early
075childhood education it is a literature-based supplemental curriculum that our teachers have been trained in our tk teachers as well as our preschool teachers and that would foster social emotional learning throughout through the lens of anti-bias education this is to support social emotional development in our youngest scholars ausd offers multiple early learning programs to meet the needs of children as well as provide parent choice and we would like to continue to do that and to grow for the school year of 2022-23 we would like to continue to offer the california state preschool program at all of our elementary school uh sites including the sites that will pose in 2324 uh except for hajj at this time i mentioned i'll mention in a bit this will allow us to continue to serve families who will have continued
076to have children all the children attending elementary school that will be closing the cspp program is not bound by district boundaries nor zip code so therefore parents do have a choice to enroll or their child or have their child attend a program at another site we have also looked into the possibility and we have found a location at hodge to implement cspp so that in the very near future we can say that all of our elementors school offer csvp um preschool now licensing can take some time that's why i couldn't commit to saying that it would be next year because licensing can take up a year or longer so this is based on my conversation with our licensing analysts at the uh for who oversees our program but sometimes if things come through and quickly
077or quicker than we anticipate so as soon as we get it licensed we can actually move some of the spaces that we have csv spaces at other sites which we have plenty of over to hodge and open programs there so it can happen that you're depending on uh when licensing occur and when interest um parents interest warrants the do immersion preschool program and transitional kindergarten do immersion will continue to be offered at longfellow and at valley jail the eece program also oversees part c and part b with the special education that offers six classes or sections at longfellow serving children ranging from mild to severe disabilities they also follow the california learning foundations next up modified based on their needs specific needs early transition of kindergarten and of course transition kindergarten program will be offered
078at schools that will remain open um and that um that i would not be designated close so ausd we are actively seeking opportunities that are working on expanding our program to include full-day full year we're excited that there is a grant that has been released and we are pursuing background thank you all right let's um let's transition now to additional programmatic support and i will ask for uh miss norma camacho and mr gary creel to come on up and talk to us about that okay so i shared a little bit about community liaisons we will continue to offer community liaisons at all of our school sites along with our parent centers to support our parent and family engagement at all of our sites and continue that learning that we have been providing through cobit as
079well so that will continue along with the other supports that we have in our site we have a myriad of support um our largest i think partnership is probably with mckinley children's center that's something we've had for approximately six years i think and in many ways it's a cutting edge partnership that we have in the beginning when we started partnering with the children's center they had uh clinicians on each of our campuses and those clinicians were sort of embedded at the campus and so there wasn't any of the stigma that students may have felt the clinician or therapist but not because they're on campus and the pandemic happened and so they like schools had shift and mckinley children's center then went to a different model where students were meeting on telehealth and but and so
080right now they're transitioning back to the program that they had before where the clinicians would be we also have partnerships with uh foothill family they provided a lot of service and even some of our trainings uh pacific clinics a new specific university we have doctoral students diabetes psychology who work with our students going back to mckinley the way that that worked is they build medi-cal so their services don't cost the district any students who have private insurance we use apu clinicians other grant operated partners that will work with with those students might have private insurance uninsured students uh they also can work with the mckinley children's center clinicians basically on a pro bono sort of situation and foothill family actually has a specific program in addition to the doctoral candidates from apu we have bsw
081interns bachelor social work they work with some of our uh lower yes not not high priority not high issues getting the badge so they would be working with students in the past um think together as dr mitchell talked about as i was thinking sitting here thinking about that he's been partners that think together for i believe 17 years they provide just an unbelievable purpose for the community that they've been you know taking students after school for years you know evening this new opportunity in the mornings to provide for school care at no cost uh for the families i think is going to be a huge draw dude because when i had my daughter i was paying over 500 a month just for that of course aaron so we're able to off and i think that's
082going to be a huge service you can see it fills the need that we had we tried to offer it at one point at a very nominal time but it was still a thought so it didn't really work now that we're funding it one time money for that gonna be something so uh think together also provides our kindergap hours the kindergartners that early bird nightbirds think together provide that that gap care for those students while classmates feature their thing together is also over the years they've been working with dr mitchell and the team and facilitating summer extravaganza our spring break program that we had this year um again and these are things that really a lot of schools don't really for districts don't offer they've been a great benefit believer in the second year of
083our partnership with western justice center they too have provided some of our staff development training for us we're getting more and more people trained at the abc's conflict resolution those sorts of things uh i was part of the panel that presented at the peer mediation invitational a few weeks ago he had some of our students there as well that we were talking about the program what it meant was unified uh just bringing in this program and great thank you can you clarify something well a couple things um so with the art is that perhaps gonna start this next year or it's starting in 2023 the art the elementary art teachers it's starting in the fall all right and then this is for you arthur and um and latasha so can we get a clear sense
084after this about what's being funded how each of these pieces is playing i heard mentioned several times to one-time funding i want to just get a sense of what's what's being funded by what pot of money for now um then we can have a conversation about sustainability and also um like what grants are we using for which program i heard there were grants many times also but what grants are we are we talking about thank you all right so we'd like to um open it up if you have any comments for us or any questions we'd be happy to i just have a question regarding the um the adult transitional um at magnolia campus is there gonna be any changes at the adult transit yeah i guess um is your question about facilities or program
085or well yeah because it's it's to me it's been the same all the time is there any going to be any change any new programs any i don't know so certainly so our adult transition program is part of ourselves but i just wanted to ask the question because i do know that when they give them lunch they bring the lunch in and then the staff has to serve them so in terms of the the lunch that is provided through our nutrition services um program through our that department and so those lunches are not grab and go but they the students pick up their lunches um and then those are accounted for and it just like when we how concerned is this is it is it i don't say edible but is it warm enough for
086them and temperatures right absolutely so i'm on campus quite a bit actually and so they are very engaged in their lunch time they enjoy their lunches i haven't seen any concerns from what i've um observed over the years in terms of what's your question about um like their program yeah their program absolutely so um for those of you who may not know about adult transition program for students with more intensive disabilities um sometimes referred to as severely handicapped we house the east san gabriel valley life skills program um as do a couple of other districts so um for example bonita walnut valley azusa offer program for students up to the age of 22. so in special education when students are eligible we start at age three and so we work with regional center to transition
087students from what's called part c to part b in special education and we become responsible for students offer of a free appropriate public education at age three and that happens quite a bit at longfellow and then we are supporting students through the age of 22 or when they earn a high school diploma so upon earning a high school diploma students end their individual education plans if they don't get a high school diploma and they're on a certificate of completion or they're working on a different pathway they go they may go through age 22 to either complete a diploma or to complete another certificate of of completion and the adult transition program services that and so we work on community based learning with the adult transition program so students work in the community as we can
088um support them through the workability grant and so we place students at some of our partner businesses in the community so that's one way that students are able to get community-based instruction we also do a lot of field trips so that students learn how to navigate their own community how to take transportation how to access facilities such as the store those types of things how to count money and how to count money absolutely that is part of the the curriculum and so they work on um we call it the dollar up method is one way that we support students who maybe um don't have that numeracy ability but they are able to count money we also have an apartment at adult transition programs so that they can learn those life skills of cooking and doing
089laundry and recreation and so there are five pillars of the curriculum that um are throughout all of our life skills programs including recreation socialization academics and so on thank you absolutely there any other questions or comments and i i will just say uh thank you so much for the incredible presentation grateful for for all the voices that that shared and just gave some uh just a snapshot really of some of the the things that we have going on and some of the things that that are coming up um i know that i for one am excited to see um this work that we're doing continue and some of these just some which seem like pie in the sky but but are happening and and where we have the the funding and what not to actually
090bring it in uh to fruition and that's exciting so can't wait to see it and can i just add to that the um i would also like to see which schools have which programs i think that would be beneficiary to even the community um even if it was on the website somewhere and and to know where they want to take their child you know where their child fits and if all the schools are open i think that'd be great too the community can know thank you for that board remember regular explain it because yeah i i would i would say with all of this going into this next season yeah can can we think about how to market how to share um this miss louise even shared earlier just just talking about going on the
091website what are the things that we see or that that are made um kind of known more publicly knowing that we have all this coming how can we how can we again to eternal question we continue to ask ourselves how can we market and share in more effective ways and in growing ways in better ways and some of the same ways the many things going on okay then if there are no other questions or comments i'll give one more second one more pause then we'll move on to item 5.1 which is adjournment is there a motion to adjourn make a motion to adjourn by point one for a second a second so moved by board member rodriguez pena and second by reporter vote i can't imagine there's much discussion but is there any discussion anymore
092is gonna want to know why i'm home so early that's all what are you doing here where can i go now all right we'll go ahead and and the motion passes four yes to one absent and so we are adjourned a few minutes early at 6 57 pm thank you everybody