Azusa Unified School District Board Meeting - February 1, 2022

001open session at 7 00 pm and we're going to begin with our flag salute i believe that we have camila from longfellow camila are you are you here with us i do not see her signed on okay then in her stead you you'll have to settle for me let's stand and face a flag brings us to item 4.2 which is roll call board member rodriguez pena president board member bo here board member cruz gonzalez yeah board member audionas president and i myself a board member i'm also here we'll then move to item 4.3 which is approval of the agenda is there a motion on the floor motion to approve 4.3 moved by board member arianes second second by board member rodriguez pena any discussion hearing none we will move to a vote and the motion

002passes 5-0 moving on to item 5.0 report action of closed session matters there are no uh items or matters to report which brings us to the highlight of our evening which is recognition and awards dr mitchell good evening board president greer board member superintendent and cabinet my name is dana mitchell and i'm the assistant superintendent of education services in the asus unified school district it is both an honor and a privilege to present to you the 2122 azusa unified school district parents of the year tonight we recognize the parents elected by their schools as parent of the year these parents have been selected for the outstanding ways that they have supported all students staff and other parents tonight you will hear about our outstanding parents and the ways in which they positively impact their school

003communities we had an opportunity to meet each parent and spend some time getting to know them during the selection process for the district parent of the year selection each of our selected parents are truly phenomenal individuals and we are grateful for their support and excited recognize and celebrate them this evening i would also like to thank several people who assisted with the process laurie ray sandra banuelos julie mcgowan natalie beltran yvonne mario lisa allen diana ochoa and annette compost thank you so much for all of your help with this process we super appreciate it tonight's parents of the year give back to our community in numerous ways which contribute to the development and well-being of all the children in our ausd community our parents of the year volunteer and serve on numerous school and district

004committees have a strong sense of community and also support all children in our district for community service our parents make a positive impact on our community by leading by example they have gone to extraordinary measures to take the time to reach out to other parents and have helped connect parents resources our parents of the year are a voice for our families they're not only devoted to their own children's education but they're also devoted to all the students in our district we want to thank all of our parents in our district and all the caregivers for all you've done to support our students in the azusa community we believe that parents are our partners in this work and we're so grateful for your support also like to announce that we do have translated speeches that are

005posted on our website so without further ado we are going to begin and we will start with dalton elementary laura clark principal good evening my name is laura clark i'm the principal of dalton elementary maricela miranda is not only a teacher at dalton she has also been a parent of dalton students for 10 years her son roman is in high school now but her daughter lucia continues to attend dalton as a fifth grade student maricela has been an active member of the pta and has served as the president for over six years our pta is a very small but mighty group it is mighty because maricela is a dynamo with only a few others to provide support she has driven our fundraising efforts and raised thousands of dollars orchestrated multiple special events for students and

006families and provided special materials and resources for students staff and programs each of these activities requires countless hours of her personal time and she does it with joy in addition to her drive to make a difference in the lives of dalton students maricela has been an incredible parent to her children her children are not only kind well-adjusted and good students they have been able to pursue their interests and compete in multiple extracurricular activities including baseball and dancing her encouragement and support has given them the ability to become well-rounded young people who are multi-talented and successful in everything they do congratulations maricela this honor is so well deserved good evening i'm victoria velasquez principal of victor hodge elementary school and it is my pleasure and privilege to introduce to you i hope you can see her

007picture melissa wilson perkins she is our nominee for parent of the year and in these pictures which appear to be foggy she is represented with her husband and her two children who are also members of the dual immersion community at hotch mrs perkins is known for her energy she is such a positive and passionate person with so much compassion her smile is radiant even behind a mask it can't be hidden she's committed to building a warm and safe community for all she demonstrates a really deep desire to affect the lives of others in a positive way through service through friendship and through hospitality she has a heart for others and loves to bring people together through her example and representation on district committees melissa has encouraged numerous parents to participate in shared learning and leadership

008opportunities she also leads the way as a volunteer virtually and actually and encourages others to join in mrs wilson perkins is warm and generous in spirit her desire to build our communities demonstrated through her activism positive energy and effective organizational strengths she is an all-around leader and was a major contributor to the team of the isuzu unified school district reorganization team in addition to all these aforementioned skills and attributes melissa is really a dearly respected representative on site committees especially our pta she brings people together for a common purpose our children she is truly a helpful person volunteering as i said in the classroom virtually at this time but also delivering articles personally she's truly a helpful person decorating the front of the school with her team preparing gifts for faculty organizing prize bags for

009the pbs system in classrooms melissa is always willing to help her selfless service is valuable and we are so proud that she represents the hodge cougars as a truly caring respectful productive member of our team congratulations mrs melissa wilson perkins next we have principal rojas from lee elementary good evening i have diana rojas principal of charles h lee elementary school and it is with the great pleasure that i present mrs melissa fajardo rivas as our parent of the year mrs fajardo rios is a model parent her respectful positive supportive demeanor is exemplified each morning when she drops off her two sons liam and adam at school with a smile on the cheerful good morning mrs fajardo rivas is not only dedicated to her son's success in school but also to our school community for the

010last two years she has been an active member of our pta and has dedicated much of her time to making our pta successful especially during a time when it has not been easy to do due to school closures online events and coded as our pta president this year she continues to engage parents on our campus and find ways to fundraise for our school students and teachers she truly goes above and beyond for our league community with everything she does and has great rapport with our parents at charles d the elementary school we are truly blessed to have mrs melissa fajardo rebus as a parent partner and are so proud to recognize her as our parent of the year good evening my name is jenny lee director of the azusa unified school district early childhood education

011program thank you very much for the opportunity to present to you long fellows parent of the year mrs alyssa pelosa this evening her husband leonardo their children ivy avion and vida are here with us to help celebrate her mrs lolessa dedications in support of our programs continuous growth and improvement as well as her advocacy for all children and families have gained her their trust and respect of other parents and a great appreciation from our staff mrs lodeza's takes on multiple leadership roles to support longfellow she is currently on the district preschool advisory committee and the superintendent roundtable she participates in training that will allow her to be a trainer for other parents such as cabbie project to inspire and families in school reading roads mr loessa's generous gift of her time and effort extends the

012young long fellow in december she was appointed as a library commissioner for the city of azusa in that role she will continue to advocate for diverse books and programs while working to reinstate the non-profit friends of the library group the family has built a small library in front of their home to give other children in the neighborhood free access to diverse books through her actions mrs louisa is teaching her children to be kind and service oriented just like herself thank you mrs louisa for your dedication your support of our program our school and our district b [Music] is good evening board president greer members of the school board superintendent ortega cabinet members and members of the zusa community my name is antonio flores principal of paramount elementary and it is my pleasure to introduce to

013you paramount elementary's parent of the year mrs angeline morillo tonight mr murillo is joined at home with her husband arturo carranza and their children arturo who is a student at slauson middle school nathan sophia and reyna who all attend paramount i've had the pleasure of knowing mrs morillo since i arrived at paramount mrs murillo has proven to be a great person and a very involved parent she along with her husband teach her children to strive for the best and that anything can be achieved with hard work and dedication she believes she believes the role they play in their children's lives is what will define them to become great adults and spread positivity throughout the world mrs murillo has also demonstrated her commitment to the particip to the participation and involvement of our school by attending

014school workshops and performing performing her duties as paramount elementary school side council representative and superintendent roundtable mrs murillo is not shy when it comes to motivating and sharing her ideas with other parents to get them to be more actively involved in our school meetings and functions and for these and for and many other reasons is why i am proud to once again announce paramount elementary's parent of the year mrs angeline morillo thank you now principal jenny weavey from powell elementary [Music] estudiantes next dr anthony contreras center middle school are you there can you turn on your camera now we're good when that's not um a perdamo foothill middle school good evening my name is sam perdomo and i am the new principal of gladstone high school but i've always been the proud principal at foothill

015middle school it gives me great pleasure to announce miriam hernandez as foothill middle school's parent of the year i'm joined tonight by her husband martin hernandez who is an employee here as well and ian who's an azusa high student and isaac who's here at foothill middle school miriam whatever activity meeting event that is occurring at fms you will be certain to see mrs hernandez at one of those functions miriam also participates and attended all coffee with the principal school side council and superintendent roundtable meetings mrs hernandez amazingly is involved with parent participation while juggling her work schedule moreover with respect to mrs hernandez being involved in her children's education miriam feels that she must always be involved with all school activities in addition mrs hernandez feels being present in her children's social and educational development

016but is of the utmost importance finally miriam also promotes healthy discipline and feels it is a key to productive decision making in particular where shared intelligent and responsible decisions should be practiced fms is so lucky to have miriam mirandas here as if as a fms parent volunteer we are lucky to have her for another year congratulations mrs hernandez principal walker lawson middle school good evening i am yvette walker the principal at slauson middle school i am pleased to have the opportunity to speak proudly about mrs jamie greener mrs greener has volunteered much of her time at slauson as part of the school site council she has attended many parent meetings as well as school functions and fundraisers here at slauson mrs greener's input is well respected and valuable she is friendly as a and has

017a genuine personality it is evident that she has established positive rapport with staff students and other parents mrs greener and her husband mr greener have two amazing children sela and caleb greener who were adopted from ethiopia her loving relationship with her children reflects a sincere desire to not only parent but to also be collaborative and work towards what is best for all students mrs greener has also volunteered much of her time with her church who works closely with azusa's homework house and has been actively involved with a food pantry outreach program we are truly honored to have you as a panther parent mrs greener please join me in congratulating miss jamie greener slauson's 2021-2001 parent of the year thank you dr gomez high school good evening it is with great pleasure that we recognize christina

018castaneda as the azusa high school's 2021-2022 parent of the year miss castella has two daughters and one son the oldest daughter is in college and like miss castaneda is a proud aztec alum the second daughter is a ninth grader at azusa high and her son is an eighth grader at foothill middle school she is supported today by her kids husband and family along with the azusa high school administration team ms castaneda has made several contributions to azusa high school and the district over the past years es castaneda supports azusa high as parent representative for school site council she has attended parent meetings and she has been highly involved at azusa high's competitive cheer ms castaneda has also been a volunteer for the city of azusa for many many years she has coached chair for the

019junior all-american azusa raiders foothill middle school and is currently the competitive cheer coach at azusa high school she has also supported many local fundraisers volunteers her time at city events such as golden days parade veterans day and wrapping presents with the mayor i have witnessed firsthand how ms castaneda motivates students to be team players while teaching them good principles and character by giving them her time throughout the years she has played a role in many students lives in moting them into adults that they become today she is a member of the community that the old and newer generation can depend on the effort energy and ideas that miss casino brings to azusa and the community as a coach participant volunteer and advocate helps to create a positive experience for our students and parents within the

020azusa unified school district her mentor was the late mr dave lewis the drama teacher and counselor at azusa high school she has shared with me the impact that mr lewis made on her life she has never forgotten his guidance compassion and the generosity he had for her students and promised one day to pay it forward she is doing that now miss castinera acknowledges her husband her children and her faith for giving her the energy and strength to move on all of these services that support our ausd scholars while doing her best to also manage work and life christina castaneda's efforts are truly valued at azul high school and she is deserving of this recognition as the highest parent of the year for her contributions to our school and to our beautiful city felicidades christina mr

021fernandez gladstone high school good evening uh board of education superintendent ortega and cabinet we are here with uh my name is gabriel fernandez the former principal at gladstone high school and i would like to introduce our parent of the year miss cecilia ford she is here with her family her mom pat her daughter raeleen her son philip is the current gladiator and her uh nathaniel her nephew over the past few months cecilia has been a mom on the move she's been everywhere for her son supporting our asb the band the interact club the dance team she's a member of our school site council and she's also moonlighting as a security guard here too making sure kids will get into class she is tireless in her support for all children here at gladstone and her perspective

022about the programs at ghs and all the kids are always positive cecilia is a great member of the wider community here and that wants the very best for all the kids in azusa unified her work ethic and love for everyone's kids makes a difference daily and in gladstone as well as the wider community and we think that she will all be able to make a difference daily for all this all the kids here in the community she is a huge benefit to our school and all the schools in azusa unified and we are definitely glad she is with us thank you miss cecilia mr stout sierra high school buenas noches my name is high school in delano um yay thank you so much congratulations again to all of our night parents of the year we

023are so grateful for everything that you do and have done to support our students our staff and our families one more round of applause for all of our parents thank you and now i would like to invite principal adrian acosta to come to the podium principal of ellington k8 and now please join me in recognizing and congratulating the azusa unified school district 2122 district parent of the year from ellington k8 ms anna valencia ready come on up for president greer honorable members of the school board superintendent ortega members of cabinet and everyone present today and at home good evening my name is adrian acosta and i am the very proud principal of ellington k.a school on behalf of our school staff students and parents it is a great honor that i present to you anna

024valencia ellington's parent of the year and the 2021-2022 azusa unified school district parent of the year most children have two main educators in their life their parents and their teachers parents are the prime educators until the child starts school and they remain a major influence in their child children's learning throughout school and beyond the school and parents both have important roles to play and their roles are strengthened when they work in partnership at ellington mrs valencia is our storing eagle a person of integrity who is a positive role model for our parents students and her 20 grandchildren six of them who are former students of ellington tonight we have the privilege of honoring mrs valencia who is accompanied here with her family her husband fred her son freddie along with his wife donna her three

025daughters alyssa linda and michelle who is presently a member of ellington's pto and her grandson caleb mrs valencia has been an active grandparent at ellington for the past 14 years while her six grandchildren have been enrolled at our school often leading up fundraisers planning events and serving on ellington's powerhouse pto mrs valencia has assisted with many activities including collecting food organizing baskets for the canned good drives organizing our lost and found so that students can find their missing items setting up our stage for lunch special lunch on the stage which is a pbis incentive and supporting staff with students morning drop-offs and dismissal mrs valencia is always actively around ellington in the mornings mrs valencia is often in the front of the school talking with parents and answering their questions she volunteers whenever there is

026a need decorates the office doors and bulletin boards and assists other pto committee members with their path while on campus anna valencia watches out not only for her grandchildren but also for all of her ellington eagle she helps monitor students in the mornings and direct students to always follow our school and motto that is treat others with dignity and respect encourage other never give up and do your best the ellington community greatly benefits from having anna valencia on campus her commitment to our students and parents is tremendous thank you anna for the literally hundreds of hours that you have provided support and service to student surveillance thank you for being a great mother to your children your grandchildren and for being a positive role models to the ellington community ladies and gentlemen please join me

027in applauding mrs anna valencia ellington k8's parent of the year and the 2021-2022 azusa unified school district parent of the year i want to say thank you to everyone i also want to give a big thank you to mr acosta the students staff and parents at ellington school my family for pushing me to be the person i am today this is definitely a night i will cherish always thank you ellington and go eagles at this time i would like to have melissa alcantar from foothill federal credit union to come on up have a presentation good evening my name is melissa with foothill credit union and we are a proud supporter of the azusa community so i'm proud to be here and present this 50 gift card to azusa's parent of the year ms anna villain

028all right i'd like to go ahead and invite board president greer to come forward so and i want to present you with a couple couple of items here this is a certificate uh from the azusa unified school district board of education says azusa university school district 2021 2022 parent of the year is proudly awarded to anna valencia in recognition of your support and commitment to our district students and community we present you this award and express our appreciation for your dedicated service to the azusa unified school district dated uh this evening we also have for you this plaque uh which says azusa unified school district congratulates anna valencia parent of the year 2021-2022 thank you and just to add to that yes congratulations uh to you anna and and for we are we're grateful for

029your commitment for your dedication for the ways that uh you have faithfully served uh this community the ways you faithfully served not only your own uh students but so many others and we want to extend also congratulations and thank you to all those other parents who are joining us virtually from their school sites and some from home we we appreciate you and again uh recognize that you are uh just a tremendous part of what makes this this district and this community great so thank you um any of my colleagues yes i want to congratulate all the parents and recipients uh for for their award and i want to thank them for volunteering their time at their school sites i've seen many of you on google me but i still miss having the casastito with the

030panduster right and maybe hopefully soon we'll get together again um i want to congratulate of course uh anna varentia from okay to a ellington parent of the year congratulations to all parents guardians family members for your support of students mrs valencia congratulations to you on this very special award your work is recognized by all of us in the azusa community and i would be remiss if i didn't i'm say that tonight makes me remember my mother as a parent volunteer and looking back i always wondered as a child why she was always at school and now sitting here i realized that's what it takes it really is a labor of love over a period of years and so thank you mrs valencia and to all our parents and guardians and family members that support our

031students oh and grandmother right your grandmother yeah i also want to congratulate all the parents of the year um i think it's i think it's so important that we recognize um a parent at every single school but that we also recognize that all of our parents um really support our students and really make their education what's valuable um and um to you anna valencia i want to thank you so much for um the support that you give both your kids your grandkids and our schools um our our families are really multi-generational we need each other to support right so really to see that how strong you've been there at ellington with just not only your grandchildren but also other kids i just really appreciate that your commitment to our students our schools and our community

032i would like to go ahead and take this time to congratulate all our parents that were honored tonight and our parent of the year miss anna valencia and i've been a parent of this district for 13 years and volunteering when you volunteer it's not only for your child it's for everyone else's children it's to help out the office staff it's to help out the teachers there's there's an immense of love poured into it and i can i can see that our our district would not be the same with without parent volunteer grandmothers volunteering aunties sisters taking that time to volunteer in our schools to make things run smoother for the students so i want to take this time to thank all of the parents that were honored today our parent of the year and for

033those parents that you know what you didn't make it this year please keep on volunteering please keep giving of your time because guess what the more that we are involved in our child's life the better education our child and other children will you know will get in the classroom so thank you guys for all of that and so once more then for all the parents out there in the community um to the the winners the the the who were awarded parent of the year at their respective school sites and and especially for you anna valencia um a round of applause okay as we transition on into this next portion of our meeting and actually before we move into our public comment there's a statement that i have uh prepared that is on behalf of the

034board and also includes some of my own personal comments and reflections but i'd like to take some time to read out to you all so when i graduated from gladstone high school in 2004 there were twelve thousand one hundred and thirty four kids enrolled in the azusa unified school district today our district's enrollment sits at seven thousand eighty four students that represents a forty two percent decline in the number of students populating our schools now than when i attended some of this is indeed due to families who have chosen to send their students to neighboring districts but the vast majority of this reduced student population is due to fewer and smaller families from a declining birth rate as well as many of our friends and neighbors migrating further east three years ago the board the

035azusa board of education realized that in order to ensure the best possible opportunities for our students we would need to consider creative ways to maximize our resources through a number of options including the consolidation and reconfiguration of school we then voted to consolidate two of our campuses into surrounding ausd school site after this decision we tasked the district of going beyond kicking the fiscal can down the road to the next year and instead zooming out to consider the next five 10 plus years of the azusa unified school district instead of merely asking what do we need to do to not fall off a cliff today we shifted the question to how can we reimagine the best possible version of our school system here in azusa and set out to do the hard work of bringing

036it to fruition we made a commitment to seeing azusa arrive at that reimagined future while also accurately assessing that when we got there it would not like it would likely not look how any one of us individually would have hoped or preferred along the way there have undoubtedly been decisions that have been that have disappointed you the same could be said for each of us on the board who have at one time or another found ourselves voting against a decision that was carried by the majority most of us on the board have either attended azusa schools ourselves had children or grandchildren who have attended azusa schools or currently have children who attend azusa school i myself attended longfellow mountain view elementary slauson middle school and gladstone high school i had hopes and dreams of my

037child attending some of those same schools with some of the same teachers but of those four schools that i deeply loved and which richly shaped the person i am today it has been decided that longfellow will be the only one that remains into the future though this decision was a painful one for me it was worth the opportunities that will be available to our students and the generations to come as a result as we're sure you've all heard by now the board of education recently voted on a number of challenging topics in recent weeks since then we've seen a tremendous amount of inaccurate information spread throughout the community so on behalf of the board of education i'd like to use this opportunity to provide clarity and accuracy while we have your attention first we have

038actually been discussing reconfiguration details at school board meetings for over the past two years now in addition over the course of 11 months the district held 16 meetings consisting of parents teachers classified staff and administrators who met and discussed dozens of different versions of this preferred future for azusa schools collectively at board meetings and school reorganization meetings participants weighed in on topics including but not limited to which schools are to remain open or closed how many high schools should ausd have if our mascots should remain the same or change what our sports programs will look like as a result of these changes which programs will be at which school sites how many administrators and support staff will be at each school site which of the various facilities and infrastructural investments should be prioritized and so

039much more on the other side of those heated and impassioned conversations from those highly involved and knowledgeable committee members they sent forth not one but two potential options for the board to consider and every committee member we spoke to implored us to please not accept either of them because each one of them on their own they considered flawed in some way so again we recognize and celebrate the fact that so many are now tuning in to the conversation but contrary to what might be widely believed this conversation didn't just begin a couple weeks ago it's a conversation we've been having publicly for years and one that has required each of us to make nearly impossible decisions second it is accurate that we voted two weeks ago for the aztec to no longer serve as azusa

040high school's mascot there have been many who have shared loudly and on public forums the great pride they sent from the aztec warrior having served as a the ahs mascot it's important to note that there have also been many from our own community though not quite as loud and not quite as widespread on facebook who have for years communicated the deep pain and harm caused by the misrepresentation the tokenization and the caricaturization of indigenous peoples for centuries if you tuned in to our last school board meeting you might have noticed the dozens of individuals who spoke some from our own community and many who are not from our community i'll speak for myself and i'll say much of what they shared that evening and much of what was contained in emails sent our way prior

041to that meeting had little to no impact on my vote rather it was the personal conversations with the zusen's specifically ones from the indigenous community which prompted me to dive deeper into the history and scholarly research documenting and revealing the real negative impact of using indigenous people groups as mascot i would encourage everyone who has an opinion against changing the mascot just as i once did as recently as december this past december to also spend time looking into this research and hearing firsthand testimonies themselves of those who have been negatively impacted my faith compels me to always look out for the marginalized the disenfranchised and the underrepresented experience has taught me that the loudest voice isn't always the right ones and history has shown us all that sometimes the right decisions are met with tremendous

042backlash before they are broadly recognized as being right in the long run as far as azusa high school's colors we've asked a group of parents uh students and community members to make the decision on whether to retain blue black and white or if they recommend that we bring about new colors during the reimagining of this new azusa high school and we encourage each of you to participate in that conversation lastly the cost of changing azusa high school's mascot was never projected to be anywhere near two million dollars the most recent conservative estimate was set for 890 000. of that 890 235 000 was allocated for fresh paint and 500 000 was allocated for brand new sports uniforms both of which were upgrades that in many ways were already overdue as we looked into the needs

043of our schools and what our students deserve this would lead the remaining cost of 155 000 for other items strictly as a result of our decision to rebrand this makes me recognize how powerful information and communication truly are because had you heard that the azusa unified school district allocated 500 000 for brand new uniforms for all of our sports at our new centralized high school or that not only will our new high school have a new feel field as you've already seen but a new gym with new new bleachers new flooring new locker rooms fresh paint and murals this news might have circulated over these past couple of weeks but for very different reasons also as all of our high school students move to the azusa high school campus and we consolidate all of our

044middle schools into the gladstone middle school campus this also means that for our middle school students they will have access to a new field tennis basket baseball field a gymnasium science labs new bus routes and much more there will not be another middle school in the area that will be able to rival what the azusa unified school district will offer sixth through eighth grade students with this merge the school also decided to keep our high school name as azusa high school because it's who we are we want all of those around us to know exactly where we're from when they hear about us the strength of our community lies and our commitment to challenge encourage sacrifice for and support one another as we continue to make tough decisions our hope and challenge is for each

045of us to not stop tuning in when the controversy dies down and when the news cycle draws our attention to something else as the azusa unified school district board of education we have the incredible task of making decisions for azusa's greatest resource the children of this community we need your engagement we need your perspective we need your impassioned public comments at school board meeting we need your attendance at town halls and online coffees and on campus conversation we need you involved in ptas and ptos and school site councils and pac plus committees we need you to run get elected and find yourselves sitting up here in these seats making these decisions and we believe that on the other side of some of these incredibly difficult decisions we will arrive at a place of peace unity

046hope and continued pride in our city our schools and our community with that i do want to shift formally then to item 7.0 and specifically 7.1 public comment i want to remind you all that 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 address the board of education on any agenda or non-agenda items when the public wishes to address the board on any 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 blue card requests first followed in order by speakers at the podium and then those in zoom attendance i do want to remind everyone about the three minute limit

047and i i apologize in advance and ask that you please keep track of the time because if you go beyond the three minutes i am going to interrupt you and stop you um as i'll do for each each commenter so please keep an eye on the clock so that i don't have to to stop you if you pass the three minute oh do we have any blue cards diana choa good evening board members superintendent ortega cabinet and all intended my name is diana o'chow and i'm a parent employee and secretary to our classified employees union csca here at azusa unified school district i am also an alumni of azusa high school and a very proud aztec mom to david ochoa who was the aztec warrior from the class of 2020. it was very disappointing to

048hear the quick decision you made regarding the aztec mascot but he was even more hurtful when the comments were with the comments being said you voted you were voted in this position to represent our community and students and to hear all our voices how could you allow an outside group to come to us and speak badly about us you didn't even mention about the pride and spirit you all have seen that we have carried in our schools and community for over 66 years we've never disrespected any of our school mascots i understand 100 110 when it comes to tradition family respect and honor but after seeing this group postings on social media saying that we won to me it was offensive and contradicting to their cause our students classified employees teachers managements deserve the best

049now you've taken funds that we could have additionally added to what we already have to make our facilities look even better to improve our programs to remodel those restrooms and locker rooms and put water in our pools add lights and upgrade the fields with nice bleachers and stuff and give raises and health insurance increases to our very well-deserved classified teachers and management we've heard at several board meetings that if we change one high school then it's only fair across the board that you change the other now we're hearing it's too expensive to rebrand two well isn't it still too expensive to rebrand one i ask that the district or board members um create a chart to break down to show us the funds that will never be that we will not be impacted negatively to

050us to our students and to the community and in closing i'd just like to say one synastic always an aztec thank you for your time thank you dino next we have angie wright good evening azusa unified board members cabinet and community my name is angie wright i'm a 5th and 6th grade teacher at magnolia elementary i'm here to give a voice to the students parents staff and neighbors of magnolia elementary as our voice was not given the chance to be heard when you have roughly voted to close our beautiful school at the board meeting on december 21st just two days before christmas break a vote that was made without discussion or to be more specific transparent discussion without consideration of data without considerations of families staff and neighbors without any consideration at all allow me

051to take you on a trip through the beautiful campus that is magnolia elementary that some of you have never even stepped foot on our beautiful campus when you walk on to magnolia you'll be welcomed with the aroma of roses as you stroll through the rose garden that was planted in the memory of beloved teacher charles lawson as you continue on to the sprawling landscape rounds you'll pass through the brand new wrought iron fence that was upgraded by the taxpayers only a couple years ago opening the doors to our modernized classrooms you'll observe students engaged in learning and accessing instruction through the upgraded technology and installed and purchased with one hundred thousand dollars of federal money this year our students especially our emergent bilingual students have benefited greatly thanks to the state of the art top-of-the-line

052speakers that are installed in the middle of our ceiling these speakers are connected wirelessly to a microphone voice lift allowing for all students to effortly hear instruction and the voices of their classmates as they engage in discussions presentations and videos are displayed on enormous screens which have also just been installed in every classroom providing all students to clearly see presentations regardless of where they sit brand new smart board projectors further engage all students in learning and access the standards our school site council voted to install the same technology into the unused classrooms to prepare for an ex possible expansion but that plan was terminated with your december 21st vote what student parent or teacher wouldn't rather be in this learning environment as opposed to one that hasn't been touched moving on to our vibrant cafeteria

053which is painted and wallpapered lovingly by staff it was it has also been upgraded with a brand new projector screen wireless mic and sound board for student assemblies presentations and parent ed opportunities finally when you leave and walk by the newly constructed planners that frame the office you will walk by a time capsule that was sealed by the 5th grade class of 2015 and is scheduled to be opened in 2035 as commemorated with a plaque with all the students names on it how heartbreaking that they won't be able to carry that out have you considered the negative impact this decision has caused did you even consider the students families and staff members who just three years ago had to experience a school closure when you closed gladstone street everyone was uprooted to a new school

054to be sent home on quarantine that very first year then to spend a year on distance learning this is technically our first full year on campus and the adjustment has been challenging but together we are persevering thank you miss wright next we have stacey munoz hi i'm cece munoz the kindergarten magnolia previously that's great i'm gonna with what um so she was talking about gladstone street now you want everyone to uproot and move them again um that seems cruel and thoughtless have you considered the logistical impact of your decision you have left the entire community of azusa east of cerritos without an elementary school we serve students in the county areas of glendora and covina as well many of whom have already requested transfer schools furthermore have you reconsidered how many students are enrolled in

055magnolia on an intra-district transfer or through open enrollment approximately 30 of our students attend magnolia while there is an obvious need to consolidate schools the decision you made should have the best interest of students in the community in mind where was the transparency in demonstrating that closing magnolia was in the best interest of the city the decision made by the board left the community blindsided and confused the students and staff of ausd deserve a modernized campus with the amenities that magnolia has to offer not to mention at least one school on the east side of the city how do you justify keeping open facilities that need modernization unnecessarily spending on exuberant money amount of money that may or may not exist to upgrade and just and disrupting educational programs throughout the lengthy process make it

056make sense to us please the community of the eastern corridor of azusa deserves a reconsiderization of this this thing thank you miss munoz next we have johnny ramos good evening can you hear me um i am a third generation azusa resident i went to i'm a product that was unified school district i went to longfellow dalton foothill in missousa high um and now i also work as a maintenance worker for the district um i want to first off say that i respect what everybody at the last meeting spoke about and as much as i respected i also strongly disagree because being a student there for four years my sister went there for four years before me family and friends after it has been nothing but honor and pride and unity and i think that speaks

057loudly with the petitions that were signed over three thousand were signed within hours to keep the logo but what i want to get across is i don't understand why it has to be this or that yes we get rid of it no we keep it or however but why can't we educate why can't we come to an agreement why can't we represent the right way that the tribal people bill that it should be represented i don't think it should be eliminated i think we should educate where we our crest says excellence in education so why can't we educate why can't we represent in a positive light be the change so because there are many there are many teams and schools that maybe are misrepresenting um the tribal community i feel we should change that be

058the change and represent the right way if there's things that need to be changed we keep the logo but we represent in the right light and have her spend with the most utmost respect have education be brought in to see to show the kids what it is to educate our future you know on what the what what the heritage is and the gentleman that spoke i don't want to mispronounce his name but he taught us that the aztec definition is the people of harmony so he said you cannot call yourself an aztec if you're not a person of harmony well why can't we teach harmony why can't we be harmonious why do what does it have to be like two lines strong or line drawn and people on each side why can't we work together

059and compromise so that the community that wants to keep the name can be happy that the tribal people can be happy with what we're representing at the school that i mean i don't think it should be black or white i think there's a gray area and there's a compromise that i don't think should have been decided that night and i don't think it should be decided tonight i think this is something that needs to be addressed through the community to the students and i mean i think it should be democratic have a vote you know let's see what the community and the taxpayers think because that is a lot of thank you next we have gloria sanchez romero good evening my name is gloria stash's romero this is the high class of 1974. my family

060and i are lifelong residents and all attendance is high classes in 1965 66 72 78 91 and many more my brother albertson was an aztec warrior 1969-1972 my daughter lisa romero zamora was a banner carrier carrying the u in the 90s i am here to speak out about the changes that the school board is making yes i'm very upset you five board members i make life altering decisions without considering our community the alumni the people who have worked and volunteered hours for our students of this is the high same on you you called in outside energy from pomona behalf of our school and they sounded like they were scripted didn't our community make that decision our community knows glass marketing our community knows the person responsible for bringing the pomona education coalition i have never

061known anyone to respect our assets as a matter of fact our community has a lot of pride in aspects if this decision becomes our new reality how much how much is this going to cost perhaps one to two million dollars to rebrand our school coming straight out of our general fund so many students and parents have left this negligence of this nation why not use that money to improve our schools yet our elected board members keep allowing things like happen time and time again if you proceed with the rebranding of our school you will leave us no choice but be with petition of removal of each of you and a vote of no confidence there will be only one high school azuza one middle school gladstone but don't change our name our mascot and our

062color our surrounding cities have their high schools with their city name why who are you today we should change azusa high canadian city high or change the colors green yellow or gold also let's bring in pomona education coalition so we can change the mascot hey as well since they're changing all the nfl teams it would be so easy unlike the nfl teams we don't have the resources to make the changes in this scale we are working class people we don't have millions of dollars laying around this castle alternate uh pomona stay out of our business take care of your own town this is a high it has a 66 year history board members you do not mr romero sorry but thank you your time is expired thank you next we have ann bottling i hope

063i'm please correct me sure actually we're going together good evening aos and good evening ausd board members superintendent and distinguished death my name is ann goffning and i'm a teacher at magnolias my name is eugenia benafar and i am also a teacher at magnolia elementary actually if i uh you you need to take them one at a time uh so you can have three minutes uh and we can we can give you a couple extra seconds here but and you would go first and then eugene you can go second okay on wednesday morning december 22nd a group of teachers were in the work room when a fellow teacher came in to share that our school was closing we thought she meant that our school was closing due to the increasing rising covenant when she said

064it was a permanent closure we were stunned my colleagues and staff felt like we were blindsided by this decision the committee and the school board kept saying they wanted transparency throughout this school closing process magnolia school was never at the forefront of any list therefore we did not feel the need to express these facts beforehand also no discussion took place around the closing of magnolia so please take these back into consideration number one malaya school has been modernized the taxpayer money was spent to make the campus beautiful and make it a place where the parents students and staff to feel pride and value every classroom office the library the work room the teachers lounge the playground and the parking lot within the sidewalk for safety who are all updated the schools that have not been

065modernized will take millions of dollars to upgrade to the same standard also going through modernization is a very disruptive to the viral environment number two mammalia school has added a hundred thousand dollars worth of federal money in technology in the last year each room now has smart words and the capability to make curriculum and lessons much more accessible for all our students this is an integral part of our azusa students getting the quality education that they deserve number three i'm sorry gladstone street closed two and a half years ago displacing the students parents and teachers we had eight gladstone teachers join our staff which made up about half of our magnolia staff at the time we also had a clerk a librarian and an aide transfer to our site we had a large population of

066those godstone students join our campus as well we have tried hard to make the transition smooth for them even during a pandemic for a magnolia family we now have a sense of bonding and magnolia pride these families and teachers are going to be uprooted again is this really what is best for our azusa students parents and teachers thank you ms kathleen um miss venom venomfar eugenia and i'm also a teacher at magnolia point four magnolia school also has the adult education program on our campus and has used taxpayers money to accommodate these buildings to meet specific needs of these students number five magnolia school has a sprawling campus that has room for growth if need arises number six there will be no azusa elementary school on the east side of citrus avenue if magnolia closes

067this leaves an absence of a community school for the families in this neighborhood so again to reiterate no discussion for us took place about the closure of magnolia school throughout the process were all these facts taken into consideration before it was voted on we were very disappointed that there was no transparency in this process if there was a reason that you decided to close magnolia school please let us know because it does not seem to take into consideration what is best for the students parents staff and the community please come and visit magnolia school it's not too late to reconsider this monumental decision thank you for your consideration and time thank you miss benifar next we have louis pedraza good evening board members my name is louis pedrosa and i'm a 1992 azusa aztec school

068alumni i've lived in azusa for 47 years i currently have a daughter and son there senior and a junior my daughter is currently captain of her varsity basketball team and softball team and was captain of her volleyball team and my son is head manager in the aztec band and pageantry regiment changing the aztec name as a mistake as a registered half koila indian i've never felt a disrespect to me or any of my family with the aztec name nor to any other tribal names or to any other tribal names whether it be graves chiefs apaches redskins etc i've actually felt proud because of the indian culture that is around this area and our school adopted a name that represents this the azusa unified school district is going through some major changes with the drop of

069enrollment and the upcoming closure of schools within this district which are going to lead to loss of jobs and with the loss of jobs comes loss of health insurance during a global pandemic is the change in the asca mascot is the changing of the aztec mascot name an issue that needs to be addressed i understand that these times we are facing with society are challenging the me too movement blm far right or far left our nation is battling itself changing the name appeases one group while leaving the other side defeated can there be a compromise the money that is going to be spent on this name change i'm sure is going to be substantial couldn't this money be put to better use new book school supplies keeping a teacher's aide on longer or a school

070office employee to be known as the azusa high school aztec is an honor i'm proud to call my children azusa aspect they go out and represent the school as proud aztec ausd board members i ask that you read the azusa aztec alma mater or better yet if you know the tune sing it never before has it meant more to me than now some powerful lines from it i like to share azusa high or alma mater glory is thy name we're forever true that was the email that i shared with the board and i wanted to share it with everybody else now a few more words as elected officials i encourage you to listen to the citizens of this community and not some outside group that won't be around to hear when this is over do

071not listen to a lone wolf listen to a tribe the aztec tribe because if you don't hear us now you'll hear us at election time to all the incoming high schoolers from gladstone i understand why you'd want the name change i feel you should continue to be known as gladiators and graduate with your gladstone gladiator name on your diploma because the pride and passion you have for your school we have for ours thank you for your time mr president uh board president i would like to go ahead and motion for us to be able to finish off all the cards we've gone over 20 minutes i would like to go ahead and motion um to extend our public comment that way we can go ahead and hear every what everyone has to say thank you

072do we have a second second and then we'll uh take a hand vote board member rodriguez pena yes excuse me is there any discussion and board member rodriguez pena yes board member beau yes remember cruz gonzalez yeah board member ariana yeah and i'm also a yes um sarah serrano please continue hello i'm a product of the azusa district i went to magnolia foothill and azusa high three schools that will unfortunately cease to exist in the new in the near future i'm long past this district but as a member of the azusa community i cannot turn a blind eye to what this district is doing to its students this is not my first time speaking to the board begging for the district to put students first i have been up here before asking to keep programs

073like fashion band and art because at some point those have been on the chopping block before because in this district we struggle to have the money for students we do not have a computer lab aids anymore we no longer have accelerated reading programs we have one vice principal for three middle schools and we're even at the point of closing six pools i think it's completely absurd of you to even consider spending that much money on brandy rebranding azusa high throughout my time in this district we beg for new jerseys a nicer field and even a pool and we were always told that it cost too much and to pay for it the district would have to take away from something else beyond the money is truly upsetting to me to see the school board members

074flip on azusa high so quickly last meeting i cannot believe none of you have stood up but none of you stood up for the school you're supposed to represent you could have explained that at azusa high the aztec is more than a math spot i don't even think we've ever called it a mass spot because we've always held pride in it it has culture and history and there was never any malicious attempt behind it myself as an indigenous woman i understand that times are changing and we need to be more culturally aware but whenever i was faced with the problem while being a student in this district whenever there was something in front of me that i was doing completely wrong a teacher never took away the white paper and said i couldn't do it

075anymore it never happened a teacher would always educate me on how to do it the correct way this situation is a learning lesson a chance to teach azusa high to do better and to educate themselves on aspect culture and how to honor the asset correctly the truth of the matter is there's over the over five thousand signatures on petitions from the azusa people to keep the ass deck at azusa high because it is what the community wants to the people here tonight and to the people watching on zoom i would like to remind you that we vote for the azusa school board we vote for these individuals to represent us and to speak for us three of the school board members gabriella arianis sheila nina cruz gonzalez and adrian greer all have terms that end

076this year if you are not happy what they are doing for the district vote them out thank you miss serrano next we have patricia sanchez good evening board members superintendent ortega and cabinet my name is patricia sanchez born and raised in azusa and an employee of the district and a descendant of mission indians and mexico tonight i would like first like to say congratulations to all the parents of the year unfortunately tonight i would also like to talk to you about bullying here at ausd there is zero tolerance for bullying within our schools bullies threaten and push their weight around until they get what they want victims of bullying are victims because they have allowed the bullies to bully them the victim doesn't have to be a victim if they stand up against their bullies

077and say i will not allow you to make me feel weak afraid or small i have to say it takes a lot to be in the position you sit in today it is not easy and there is pressure from every angle to make sure you are doing what is the best for the student body and community of azusa i give you credit running and making a hard decision to do every what you do every time you sit and come to order azuza you unified school district teaches our students to be problem solvers innovators stand up against bullying and be proud proud of who you are proud of your school proud of your team proud of the work you do proud of your family and take pride in where you came from and who you will

078become but at our last special board meeting our board members were victims of bullying and the bullies won for the first time our board members were bullied into something they should have stood up to and tabled it until the board did their homework to make a final decision instead it felt as though the board made a decision to avoid more bullying and threats from an organization that should be educating and keeping the aztec pride alive if you would have done your homework you would have seen azusa come from a long line of aztecs not only the high school aztec but the mexican aztecs if your family is the first generation or the 10th generation from mexico you are more likely most likely a descendant of the aztec the olmec the toltec the zapotec mystic the

079maya to name a few our own sister city zacatecas is part of the zapotec chichameka group named after the aztec indigenous tribes to this day still have counsel a neat talk and come to an agreement but you didn't why why did you allow bullies to come in and take away pride the stories can go on but it won't because you your decision has ended it and the bullies won know this it is never too late as we tell our kids i ask you along with many others to please reconsider your decision and give back what already belongs to us thank you for your time and good night thank you mr sanchez next we have loose fields lika do we have loose with us i no longer see her in zoom attendance okay we'll check back

080and see if she joins us again later in the comment robert ortiz i also no longer see him in zoom attendance okay uh hope do we have any additional we do next we have ron tressel good evening board members uh assistant superintendents and superintendent excuse my rescue voice uh still raspy from coaching yesterday my name is ron tressel and i'm a teacher at gladstone high school i come here speaking on behalf of my teachers two weeks ago our school board voted five to nothing five to zero to change the mascot of azusa high school ever since this vote our board members have received hate email been bullied and have been called names even native americans who spoke out at our board meeting two weeks ago have been called outsiders to many this is seen as

081derogatory this is also taking place on social media platforms i understand that there are those who are passionate and angry at the school board's decision to change the mascot but expressing yourselves through hate email and name calling is not going to change things often the message is lost when this happens now there are times when i have spoken to the board and have written to the board on matters that i have disagreed with but i have always tried to do it in a professional manner i have never once sent hate email or called them names our board members are human beings have a family and have a life outside the school board they have a tough job and most of their decisions do not come easy the process of school reorganization i'm sorry the process

082of school reorganization has certainly not been easy this is a process that has been going on for over a year when the school reorganization committee made up of parents and school district staff began the long arduous task of reorganization now that the boat has taken place it is time to come together as a community to name a new mascot and school colors i would ask that if you'd like to discuss the decision email the board members in a respectful manner it is okay to be passionate and angry with them but please refrain refrain from the hate email and the name calling in bullying please think that please think about our students and about your own children on how you expect them to think critically behave and treat others once again i understand your frustrations and

083anger especially azuza high school alumni you will always be an aztec that will never change no one can take that away from you however please respect the board's decision and consider the long process that has taken place thank you mr tressel next we have emily ruiz good evening president greer board superintendent ortega and cabinet i'm a student at azusa high school and a community member i would like to begin by congratulating all the parents that were recognized this evening thank you for your support for supporting our schools and making a difference in the lives of students like myself i was saddened by your decision at the last board member meeting of changing the mascot our beloved aztec is a high school as i listened to the meeting it was clear that at least one of

084you for at least one of you this was very personal i would like to remind you that this is not azusa high school's fault that you had to make the hard decision of closing one high school it was a decision that had to be made in order to make our district fiscally responsible and if i can add a decision that you should have made a long time ago after the committee and many board study sessions it was made clear that gladstone high school's campus simply cannot accommodate all the high school students in our community i listened to your awards at the last meeting and i could feel the resentment and hostility towards my school our aztec warrior and our beautiful colors i would like to ask you to reconsider your decision the aztec civilization was

085amazing they lived around the 13th century they were advanced in architect and architecture astronomy and art they were agricultural innovators they were the dominant forests in mexico they discovered chocolate they developed the complex political social commercial and religious organizations in the region by the 15th century they were in control of the central mexican region sadly ornan cortez brought down the brought about the downfall the aztecs and our beautiful mexico was colonized i understand some of the points that were made about the dressings but i can assure you that our warrior and warrior wore them with much pride and respect with every achievement and victory of my fellow aztecs the aztec warrior stands tall and proud we are proud and happy to represent the aztecs if the aztec warrior mascot stays i propose we make sure

086we are all well informed as to who the aztecs were and what a privilege it is to represent them we would also be able to use those funds to better our school it needs a lot of work we don't have anything against the gladiators but since we are bringing context to who our mascots are than reality gladiators were not seen as productive members of society we are so backwards gladiators were usually criminals slaves and prisoners of war that were forced to fight other men and animals to entertain the romans if you are not willing to reconsider the aztec you should also remove the gladiators since you're going to waste the money anyways don't punish us because we want to keep our city's name don't take away our aztec warriors and colors because of the inaction

087of past school board members like mr ramos said earlier we have to take away this mentality of taking away from azusa high school because you closed gladstone is wrong you're not being fair you're being petty thank you miss ruiz okay next we have alan french hi are you able to hear me yes sir all right good evening everyone my name is alan french a proud graduate of azusa high's class of 2001. i wanted to take a moment tonight to share some interesting findings in relation to the school the first is how the aztec came to be associated with the campus it turns out that the aztec was voted on by the students over the arabi and the cheetah those were the three finalists and the students chose the aztec the school yearbook which is called

088i apologize if i um don't get this name right the turquoise happened to be the name of an aztec chief the aztec sun the school newspaper received its moniker because the aztecs worshipped the sun i also read about the sun calendar which was selected because the aztecs used a calendar of this nature with the face of their sun god on it it was a symbol of the aztec sun and the colors of the school which have remained unchanged were deemed and i quote an overwhelming choice you might be wondering where i found this information well yours truly came across all of it in the 1957 azusa high yearbook which is the first annual the school produced in addition it should be pointed out that turquoise is a significant part of aztec history my research has

089found that turquoise has been a part of aztec poetry and rituals and it was used in the making of items including mirrors and jewelry and as we all know turquoise is one of the colors of azusa high based on these findings it is quite clear that the aztec was held in great reverence during the school's early years that has continued through subsequent decades in the present day in the last couple of weeks many alumni have declared how proud they are to be in azusa aztec and individuals who are of aztec descent have also shared their pride and happiness that the aztec is part of the campus and i can tell you that i've read accounts from gladstone high alumni saying the aztecs should remain likewise i feel the gladiators should be continued should continue to

090be a part of gladstone high as do many others contrary to the opinions of some who spoke two weeks ago the aztec has nothing to do with racism only respect and pride the aztec is synonymous with azusa just like the foothill drive-in sign the shopping center near apu and the big a we see in the mountains the pride surrounding the aztec is nothing short of extraordinary therefore i am asking the board to reconsider its position on changing the aztec and azusa high colors and to also listen to those who hold the aztec deer it is not a caricature it never has been nor has it been mocked it's been a symbol of pride for countless students and i can tell you scores feel that way and a class on the history of aztec culture would

091be a great addition to the school curriculum and it would rightly honor the aztec the saying is absolutely true once an aztec always an aztec and also i just want to say congratulations to all the parents uh honored tonight you all should be very proud thank you mr french next we have christina castaneda hi thank you guys for um for allowing me to speak can you hear me yes ma'am okay thank you good evening my name is christina castaneda i've been a part of ausd for the past 33 years i'm first and foremost a pal panther i was completely devastated to hear that my school a borderline school is about to be shut down i was actually a product of being a borderline student without this school my brother my sisters and i would have

092never been a part of ausd and let me add that my brother sister and myself were named parent of the year for ausd my sister was also named district parent of the year and the school that made us is about to disappear i'm devastated for all of our schools i'm also a proud ahs alumni an aztec parent and a current coach for azusa high school i hope that when i speak today that i'm speaking to a committee that is fully committed to being transparent with its community because although we knew of the possible changes we were not prepared nor advised that our aztec was an issue we're asking for an opportunity to learn with all due respect the aztec has never been a caricature as a cheer coach i know firsthand what the aztec warrior

093means to our students and our community we hold our warrior with the utmost respect if you attend any of our games you would see the love and pride that we have for our aztecs please educate us connect us with a proper indigenous organization so that we can continue to respect the culture and as some of you know san diego state went through the same issue not that long ago with their mascot they stood their ground and they made the decision to keep their aztec not as this mascot but as a spirit warrior i know this wasn't an easy decision for the board um to make or the the committee um to make but i do hope that you reconsider our aztec not as a mascot but as our spirit leader as well one's an aztec

094always nasty thank you ms castaneda next we have alex munoz good evening i'm alex vignes and i'm a senior at disney high school the aztec has been isis our highest mascot for well over 60 years and we've been proud of it there weren't any major complaints until now and they were from outside our school district students and their families have never felt anything but honor when it came to this form of representation as a largely hispanic community like ours like to trace back our ancestry to the mexica how often do you see schools do this to have this form of representation it's rare on top of this rebranding can cause the district i don't know how much money money that would be much more useful to help our high school grow i still don't see

095how changing our mascot to satisfy another group's demands benefits to students academically i'm sure the situations were reversed and gladstone had to rebrand they would be people trying to stand up for the gladiator they would be people who would be taken taking initiative against that waste of money thank you for your time and i hope you make a decision that will actually do something to impact our school instead of squander money thank you thank you mr munoz next we have margaret g i'll get you may i meet your mike can you hear me yes we can okay thank you good evening school board members my name is margaret guillen and i am a teacher at magnolia and formerly a teacher at gladstone street elementary i am here to share my concerns about closing magnolia elementary

096school and i'm also here to give the voice to the community of medvela's parents and students closing magnolia would be detrimental to the city of azusa and its residents with the closure of gladstone street and now the closure of magnolia and powell there will be no elementary schools east of cerritos this will cause many current students as well as future students to go to glendora or covina schools concerned parents have already begun to search in other cities parents have stated that they feel blindsided as magnolia elementary was never originally or fully discussed as a potential closure they were never fully given the opportunity to present their feelings to the board magnolia was not the recommendation of the organizing committee therefore this decision was not made by the majority of the stakeholders but by three individual

097members of the school board also children who moved to magnolia due to the gladstone street closure will be moving again after only three years one and a half of those years being virtual learning students are now just feeling connected to their magnolia school site is this the message we want to send to our children a message that their school homes are unstable magnolia is also a modernized school other schools that would be remaining are not modernized this will cost the taxpayers millions of dollars to upgrade will the community vote for a bond for these upgrades when they have already had an upgraded school to go to also magnolia just put in one hundred thousand dollars of new technology into their classrooms this technology cost ten thousand dollars to install per classroom is this another message

098we want to send to our families that our students do not deserve the upgraded facilities or state-of-the-art technology don't they deserve the same quality of equipment that surrounding districts enjoy what is the reasoning behind closing magnolia what information is there that shows that closing three schools east of cerritos would help azusa retain its student population where is the data from this committee that supports this decision as a 22-year veteran school teacher of this district it is very hard to be a part of and witness these changes that deeply affect students and their families the decisions that seem to be made with no supporting data to back it these decisions impact the lives of students teachers and the future of azusa district as a whole i urge you to reconsider the closure of magnolia elementary school

099thank you miss margaret next we have michael a michael you may have mute your mic hey you there yes we can hear you okay if we're going to close the schools then we should go ahead and make it welcome to azusa high charter school and we should make all the charter schools to make all the schools charters get rid of all the teachers and bring in the ones are going to be knowledge and be there for the children yes we can hear you and also they should put a bridge from azusa high to foothill school and go ahead and put some stuff out there for like an rop for all the students to learn because i know all the students that going to go from sierra madre all the way to gladstone before they even

100get there they'll probably be high or drunk we're just saying forget about schools too far and they're going to make it more harder for all the single parents and that's going to have to drive all the way down there drop off their kids and come back back on the freeway it's going to be ridiculous there's not going to be enough buses all these buses here sometimes they speed down the streets anyways they don't care either you should go ahead and put them mod be monitoring them on their speed but putting you should be monitoring you know on like they said earlier giving them better benefits giving them better insurances raises fixing up the schools more for their education and if you're if you and you graduated with twelve thousand twelve thousand students and there's only

101seven thousand he should have said something a long time ago because you guys are just there getting free money it's all right well i look at it and also if you see it if oh you're gonna go do all this stuff everybody who went and added on to their houses and went and had to pay so much to the schools they should all be reimbursed their money back since they're not in a sense they're wasting money well they may they should be reimbursed all their money and not even have to worry about it no more also it's also you guys are just over here wasting money more just having all this stuff over some little kids from pomona like they said this is all ridiculous you know you should be focusing on education like i

102said before about all the children who are having problems from the pandemic not able to go into school and educating themselves or losing value of time we when we went to school hey we went to school with teachers that molested got loaded by drink beer at school and look at what happened hey they got rid of them you got to keep on going better and stronger and all that equipment you said that you guys lost you guys had some ripped off baseball somebody ripped it off and you guys got that reimbursed anyways somebody went and donated or gave your guys all the equipment baseball equipment a couple years ago i don't understand how you guys are over here saying that they're gonna the money's gonna go to this this and this and i i would

103like to see a breakdown of all the items to itemize everything to show everybody and all these people that are voting it should be the people that are voting who are back in the 60s 70s 80s not the ones that come over here come and get an education for a couple years and then fly back they should have no vote it's going to be it should be the residents that's been here for years that who are aztecs i don't understand why you guys end up go ahead and let them you know get let them get votes if that's the case then we should bring other people in to vote thank you mr michael so my three minutes are yes next we have yvette valdez hello i am an alumni a parent of current ausd students

104and a current employee of the district i participated in the reorganization team as a parent and rebranding was never something we recommended i understand completely that what cultural appropriation is and i can tell you that the azusa mascot the aztec is not a caricature nor a fashion statement the aztec is more a symbol of pride and strength than it is a mascot i attended gladstone high school and although the gladiator was my mascot growing up the aztec was an image i knew and gave me a sense of inclusion because it was part of my culture and i recognized it by removing the aztec from this community you will not only further alienate the people of the community being affected by gentrification but also newcomers who come here to meet their families and seek a welcoming

105new start if you do move forward with the rebranding make sure you do it right because everyone will be watching for the hypocrisy of the decision such as rebranding to something like canyon city high mountaineers hikers or whatever the mascot might be make sure you don't aid in the gentrification and alienation of the people of this community who have lived here for generations the 800 000 is better spent in upgrading the aztecs image to an accurate representation and or teaching our students of the indigenous people who were here when it was associated thank you ms valdez next we have andrew hi good uh good evening my name is andrew alvarez i'm a teacher at foothill middle school and as such i've had many opportunities to visit the azusa high school campus and i was always

106stunned by the beautiful artwork honoring the aztecs uh all over the buildings um you know some of it's student done just uh i never thought of the use of the aztec as offensive and i am aware of the controversy that has been brewing for decades over the concept of naming sports teams after native american tribes and i got me thinking are there any examples of places where this has been done well and it turns out there are quite a few the one i found that was most striking was florida state seminoles who have they don't call a mascot but they have osceola who was a historic osceola leader go out to the football field and start the games the costume he wears is made by tribal leaders and they have the blessing of the tribe

107now what i find interesting too is here in azusa as some of our other speakers have said more eloquently than i there is a strong ethnic connection to the aztecs going back hundreds of years and i think this pride is not just limited to students who have gone to azusa high school and gone on but it goes deeper for many of these many residents of azusa i would just suggest that maybe putting this to a vote to the students without having the aztec removed from the list maybe there's enough ground swell among azusa high students that don't want the aztec mascot for the reasons that were said last week maybe or maybe there's enough pride in the aztec from the students as students of azusa high school but even going deeper than that allow them

108to decide allow the stakeholders to decide that seems to be the most fair way to go forward with this discussion thank you for your time thank you mr alvarez uh linka there were a couple other uh folks who had their hand raised one was loose fields i don't remember the name of the other have they returned by any chance i do not see any of them in the meeting at this moment okay then we will move on to uh 8.1 comments and report reports and requests by the board of education uh board member audianus again i would just like to congratulate all the parents that were nominated and won and our parent of the year again um all the parents watching tonight you know five ten minutes when you come help out of school is

109goes a long way and for those parents that um always volunteer the hours the long hours and boosters and everything that you guys do again thank you again because our students could not have what they have because of you and that's all i have thank you oh wait and chinese new year happy chinese new year to everyone who celebrates it uh it's the eye of the tiger so happy new year thank you board member adianas uh board member cruz gonzalez thank you um just a couple things again thank i really appreciate that the parent of the year um celebration i look forward to when we can have that back in person and we can see people interact i think many of us want this pandemic to be over um i'm one of those people um

110i i will speak to and i'm just gonna be very careful because it's not on the agenda so as we as the board are not really supposed to be speaking um to items that aren't on the agenda but i do just want to talk a little bit about um what we did last week and i appreciate adrian you framing the conversation at the beginning of the meeting i think you accurately reflected the um what um the process and sort of what went into it and some of those pieces i i do want to say um and those of you that have been paying attention know that i've had mixed feelings about this from the very beginning um and i still do um and so i do think i appreciate what andrew alvarez just mentioned because

111that's sort of that's what i that's the direction i've been going and thinking about that there should be the consideration of being able to keep the the aztec as um as the name of the school um i think i'm glad that people pointed out san diego state the aztec is actually not their mascot any longer right it is the name of the of the they use that name but they're actually developing a new mascot um and so i think i think that there's value in finding ways to do that because i also i and most of us i think all of us can agree that we have seen respect in how our community shows the aztec right um i look when you look at san jose they had monty montezuma you know we don't we

112never had that right we have always had an asthma warrior so i do think that there's value in thinking about at least having the opportunity to keep the warrior um as as the symbol of azusa um i also just i think about my own college that i went to we were called the engineers but our mascot was the beaver right so we had a name of what we were we were the mit engineers but our mascot was a beaver that was out on the field so um i i just want to put that out there um because i do think um we as a community need to grow together and this is going to be a process and quite a long process in terms of changing and consolidating schools and we want to make sure

113that we're staying together as a community so um i will i'll just i'll leave that at that um and then i did want to request that we just changing the subject now i'm not not related to that at all um i did want to request that um we have a conversation around parent volunteers i i learned very recently that there are some school districts that are allowing parents to volunteer um obviously right now just we're coming out of this omicron surge so probably right now i'm not saying suggest now but i do want us to start having a conversation about what would be the process to be able to bring parents back in classrooms right because you know we know that kids need a lot of attention we know that that um parents um are

114very valuable in the classroom so i would like us to be prepared for when it becomes the point of us being able to have parents come into the schools and volunteer that we have really clear criteria that we can have across the district um and so then we can be um consistent about how we do that so that's that's my other request thank you board member cruz gonzalez board member bill no comments tonight or remember rodriguez pena yes uh good evening everyone um i just wanted to uh announce that um i wanted i want to congratulate the students or thank the students from the azusa rotaries interact from azusa high in glaston high they volunteered their time with azusa beautiful and we planted 290 tulip behind the city hall by the gazebo they should be

115blooming in the springtime i did go to murray school elementary for the pbis pride accelerator reading assembly over 100 students received an accelerated award uh from grades one to sixth grade so it's kind of great to see how many students are reading at this time and i also want to congratulate um daniel soriano he's a counselor at azusa high school i'm sorry i'm thinking azusa high school see i meant azusa adult school and he received an award for excellence in support service certificate uh certificate award it is well deserved daniel has been so much and so much passion for the students they're adults but he's always helping them you know get ahead by by taking their um their tests and and being sure they're placed in the right classrooms i really also like the new

116look of the new flyer that they send out here they have a calendar here and they have um this little link where you can just put your phone on it and know where the classes are at so this is a really good idea also for my calendar i did the virtual woods lawson middle school in ellington k28 and also the seventh and eighth graders uh they had the ceremony award the students of the semester teachers choice honor rolls principles honor rolls and i want to congratulate all the students in principal acosta walker and all the seventh and eighth grade teachers i went to the dentist the other day and it was kind of um and i went to the dentist and this young lady was there and she said do you work at a zoo

117unified food district at night i said yes she said oh i know i seen you somewhere well make a long story short she was a student they went to the medical pathway at glaston high school and she was a dental um assistant and i kind of kind of work as she had to work my mouth right but but you know it was proud to see a student from azusa taking the course she went to the uh um citrus college to go in the dental hygienist program and she ends up working here in this in this dentist's office so i i'm kind of glad to see that she did pass azusa um unified school district to get where she wants to be i want to announce also uh hilda solis they're giving away free covet 19

118home test and it'll be wednesday february 2nd which is tomorrow at delhi dale park 5 pm until the supplies last and i want to also want to add something regarding um piggyback on chilean cruz gonzalez said you know i think you know i really don't appreciate emails you know profanity and calling me names are saying that i don't know what i'm doing and stuff for that i don't really appreciate that but just saying that um you know i think what we really should have did seriously is say okay we want to keep the aztec so what can we do to keep the aster and how can we how can we um um represent it properly you know what can we do to keep it but how can we fix it instead of all of a

119sudden saying oh you know you don't know what you're doing you know you know i mean no one is calling i haven't had a conversation but i just think that would have been the right way to go so we see we'll keep it but what can we do to keep it how can we make it right and i feel strongly about that i just wanted to say that and thank you everyone for speaking up thank you board member roger espana sorry um the the our portion for comments is has passed um i'll i'll say on behalf of board members we encourage you to reach out to us and um you know would love to converse with you about these things at the appropriate time and i myself have no additional comments uh to make this

120this evening uh that brings us to 9.0 and specifically 9.1 comments and reports by superintendent cabinet and student board members i do believe that we have hannah hamilton with us on uh online yes good evening board middle school visitations are taking place on february 15th and 17th we are looking forward to showing all of our middle schoolers what our high school has to offer our counselors will be visiting the middle schools on february 22nd through the 24th to discuss scheduling school programming and classes our basketball season ends this week our girls team will celebrate their senior night this wednesday at 5 pm and our boys team will celebrate this friday at 5 pm this soccer the soccer season also ended this week congratulations to our players and our seniors for a great season congratulations to

121our parent of the year casino casa she is an outstanding parent that supports our school and our students over the past week we met with all of our classes and discussed budget fundraising opportunities and for the seniors to grad night information we are super excited wrestling had a tournament today at gladstone high school a great job azusa scholars and cia qualifiers finally our kindness week is february 15 to the 18th we are excited to spread kindness around our campus thank you so much thank you board member hamilton uh next we have our cabinet can we double check with uh lika to see if there are any other student board members i believe we only have hannah uh lika is there anyone else no just hannah okay thank you uh just on behalf of cabinet we

122too want to send a huge congratulations to our parents we have uh the the pleasure of working uh with many of the of the folks that were named today uh and just the extraordinary leadership uh and voice and engagement and power and decision that's represented in that group is something to be extremely proud of the district parent of the year miss anna valencia was on the um on the interview on the first interview panel for the new principal of arlington and had really good feedback and comments through that process so thank you for all of our parents your engagement is invaluable to what we set out to do every day day in and day out and if i can just put a plug tomorrow we do have a school reorganization town halls uh we do

123have one in english and one in spanish and so we hope to see you tomorrow via zoom for those town halls thank you dr mitchell that was on behalf of the cabinet no additional comments thank you then we'll move on to 10.0 general functions and 10.1 presentation of paramount elementary school uh mr flores uh good evening once again everyone uh before i begin again i'd like to congratulate all our parents that were uh recognized tonight and of course uh mrs valencia for being chosen as uh this is a unified school district's parent of the year uh board members and cabinet members and superintendent mr ortega thank you so much for giving us this time to share the fantastic things that are happening at paramount elementary uh joining me tonight uh in this presentation will be

124our fantastic uh resource teacher regina views our awesome sixth grade teacher mr david hartman jr and three of our terrific pumas uh yeshua gonzalez savannah kendrick and uh alfonso talamantes i'd like to begin by sharing that at paramount we follow rigorous california common core state standards line instruction to promote student critical thinking collaboration productive discourse and problem solving classrooms our classrooms are growing in their use of technology uh we're creating equitable access for all preparing students for life in the 21st century every student at paramount has access to a chromebook in the classroom and at home uh teachers are supplied with up-to-date technology high-definition classroom projectors bluetooth speakers bluetooth microphones to help project their voices uh through their masks and online programs such as brainpop ar mayan la and other online tools to further student

125engagement and to help with student academic growth our teachers and staff are committed to participating collaborative communities of practice that support data-driven uh data-driven student-centered instruction and exemplify the idea of a continuous cycle of improvement our teachers and staff work with a purpose and passion to ensure that each and every student will be a problem solver a critical thinker effective communicator and a positive contributor to uh to the community in azusa and uh beyond and now i am going to turn it over to mrs views who is going to uh to talk about one of our main programs that we have at perma which is our response to intervention uh program right thank you actually excuse me before before we go just double check do we have a presentation to share with this oh yes

126there should be a slideshow but we're on slide four yes slide four yes thank you okay we're gonna project it in just a minute here thank you for your patience and i apologize i should have caught that before we started it works are we ready to continue yes please proceed thank you sorry for that okay oh no problem our response intervention program or rti program is one of the key reasons paramount has raised student achievement levels and test state test scores our rgi program helps every child achieve mastery in english language arts during our daily school-wide response to intervention time we provide one hour of instruction specifically based on each individual student's needs students receive specific interventions to accelerate or enrich learning during rti teachers utilize best teaching practices which are tailored to their specific

127intervention groups needs additional personnel that include an intervention teacher resource teacher and well-trained instructional aides are used to support specific groups additional personnel are an essential component of our rti program the added adults to the classrooms reduce the student teacher ratio with our basic and struggling students rti is implemented on a daily basis during a protected one hour block where classes are not disturbed unless absolutely necessary teachers within each grade level use data in the form of common formative assessments to determine students groupings during plcs assessments utilized are running records star early literacy and iready student groupings are based on students needs and abilities and are changed after every assessment period each group receives differentiated instruction based on the group's needs during the grade level intervention block instructional components of these groups can focus on

128phonics guided reading grammar and writing our struggling students are served in small group settings supported by one to two instructional aides to lower the teacher-student ratio additionally students with special needs receive differentiated instruction from our rsp teacher and supplemental support from our rsp aid students in the basic level group in each grade level receive support by one aide proficient students are provided with extensive extension or enrichment activities paramount's rti program begins during the first month of school and continues throughout the school year teachers meet monthly to discuss on common daily schedules timelines for assessments monitor student progress review data and share the best practices to help our students achieve academic success yes through our rti program and grouping students throughout the grade levels teachers say our students not my students thank you mrs views and

129now i'm going to hand it over to mr hartman who is going to discuss or share about our stem club or stem academy amy gorge president greer board members superintendent ortega dr mitchell and the azusa community i'm here to share you about exciting program that we started last year during the virtual year and as the paramount stem academy we were faced with a little bit of struggles trying to get that in virtual form and we did a great job this year we were able to start the academy live and we have it after school three days a week and these students are fabulous we have 26 of them that come three days a week giving their time and uh i'm going to let them tell you how they feel about it and why they like

130the student program why we are so proud of it uh i is yeshua gonzalez on hello i'm yeshua gonzalez and i'm mrs hello can you hear me yes hello can you hear me we can hear you yes we can hear you yeah all right hello okay thank you hello i'm yeshua gonzalez and i'm in the stem academy in paramount elementary stem is a really fun place and our great teacher mr harmon jr makes it even better in sam academy i learned mean medium mode and range in the very first two weeks i learned of that in the flight unit in the very first two weeks the fight unit it consists of just groups of two people and you throw on airplanes it's really fun i actually have with me uh my graph that me and

131my teammate have made as you can see when he started the shots were very consistent and then right here this is when i started the my shot was very low but then as soon as i went higher and higher i went higher and then i get started back with the consistent thoughts that he started with that is how i feel about stem at me in paramount elementary thank you um and in sam we were learning how to code um robots from a u-kit like box i think and um we wouldn't make like robots from an app called like ukit ukit.edu and we would after we built them we would um code them to like move in certain directions from us like certain like button like or like a control we would use um we never

132really had any instructions how to do it so we tried to figure it out on ourselves by ourselves and uh wasn't that easy though but um thank you alfonso i think uh alfonso doesn't give himself enough credit we are learning a drag and pull coding to have the robots traverse a maze and alfonso is our resident coding expert and this is the basis of python language and when he said we don't really get help what he means is that they asked me mr hartman what do i do now and i respond what do you think you'll do so we're going with the ngss style of phenomenon learning and i'm just so proud of these guys so alfonso is a fantastic coder and he shares with the other other students and savannah kendrick good evening my

133name is savannah kendrick and i want to talk about a project we had recently it was a tower building it's where you're giving nothing but a paper and you have to build supports for it to hold up a whiteboard five inches off the ground while balancing math books on top of it i personally like this task because it gives it because they let us think outside the box get crafty you know just thinking about it and mr harmon didn't give us any instructions which i think is might i think is good because he let us figure it out on our own well aren't well our team wasn't doing so well so we have to so we kind of use some industrial espionage just copy from other teams anyways my my team's hypothesis was 16 books

134and we held 43 books which is like around like 75 pounds so we were surprised and also i just want to say that stem that stem is a good place to be because because it lets me like think outside the box get crafty you know like just learn and i like that about stem academy thank you savannah at paramount sim academy we're proud that we're training our students for jobs in the future that may not even exist yet we're teaching our students to be independent thinkers to think outside the box and to be crafty like savannah said and i honestly believe who my father told me an old saying that if you love your job you never have to go to a day of work and i love my job and these kids are fabulous

135you should come visit us and you can experience what i get experienced every day so thank you very much for your time thank you mr hartman and thank you uh thank you terrific pumas uh uh for sharing your experiences with our stem academy academy but now it's time to log off and go to bed school tomorrow and so we'll continue to move on uh so not only do we offer after-school stem academy we also uh been lucky enough to partner with think together think to the student support services academic intervention program this program is offered in over 20 schools throughout los angeles and riverside counties and the program is designed to provide additional targeted instruction to support students toward achieving grade level proficiency in math and language arts utilizing research based research-based curriculum some key

136features about the program are groups are arranged six to one student to staff ratio seven week sessions two daily one hour sessions which provide a total of 28 hours of additional support per session and we have seen tremendous growth growth in our students that participate in this enrichment opportunity and the data that we use to uh to support our students or to create our groups are our diagnostic assessments that we take that our students take through i-ready so we use our diagnostic diagnostic ela information and our diagnostic math information and of course moving on to the next slide our parents of course are very very important piece uh or part of our paramount community and so our parents do play a vital role in our student achievement and we have partnered with uh tony and

137liz orozco from disciplina positive to offer parent workshops with the goal to empower parents with effective and practical positive discipline tools to help their students stay focused and emotionally healthy even in difficult times we've completed phase one that focused on dealing with a child's academic and social emotional development routines during during and post-pandemic period and then beginning in on february 24th we are going to begin phase two uh and the uh focus on that is uh parents will learn to identify their child's development stages to connect better and to understand how they think and behave under stress and also to equip parents equip parents to distinguish between uh mental health behaviors and physical behaviors and changes and of course again our parents are a vital vital part uh uh to to paramount and so uh

138and as a matter of fact this afternoon or this uh this morning we had a coffee with the principal and so we did start talking about uh the first beginning stages of of getting our parent volunteers uh back on campus and we're really really excited to hopefully get that started uh very very soon and um in our final piece at paramount we believe that every student has a potential and deserves the best education possible we are committed to the academic social and emotional and physical success of every student each member of our school community takes collective responsibility for student achievement by offering a rigorous program that reflects high expectations celebrates diversity and includes all of its members our positive attitude towards learning offers no excuses for failure rather we strive to inspire excellence in education

139our high expectations at paramount promise lifelong learners who have the power to change the world and um and before we we sign off again i would be remiss if we didn't thank everyone else who was involved uh with with the uh with helping us with us achieve our goals uh like it's like they said it does take a village so i would like to take this opportunity to thank our village and and that includes our mot department mis department our directors our fantastic tosas our superintendent and assistant superintendents and of course our school our school board thank you all for your continued support in helping us achieve our goals not only now but in the future and just like the academy awards if i forgot to thank anybody i'm sorry but thank everyone i want

140to thank you all for your continued support and again thank you for this time uh for sharing what uh what's the fantastic things that are happening and paramount and of course one more thing go pumas thank you mr flores and and uh thank you to the rest of the puma family for uh making this presentation and and bringing us in on uh some of what you guys got going on uh there at paramount we'll move right on then to 10.2 approval of resolution 21 22 15 declaring property as exempt surplus is there a motion on the floor make motion to approve 10.2 second moved by board member rodriguez pena and second by board member arianes any discussion hearing none we will move to a vote and the motion passes five to zero moving on to

141item 10.3 approval of resolution 21 22 16 national school counseling week um february 7 through 11 is there a motion on the floor make a motion to approve 10.3 second moved by board member rodriguez pena second by board member ariana any discussion um i just like to um [Music] say happy national school consular week i want to thank all the um counselors they not only serve our students at ausd they don't only just give schedules they're also give provide personal college career advice and they need to be good listeners compassionate and patient and those are the traits that all of our counselors have that's making great counselors here at ausd any additional comments or discussion and then we'll move to a vote and the motion passes five to zero this brings us to 11.0 consent

142calendar and specifically 11.1 approval of the consent calendar all matters listed under the consent calendar are considered by the board of education to be routine with all uh and will be enacted in one motion there will be no discussion of these items unless requested by a board member if a board member requests discussion that item will be removed from consent calendar and considered separately is there a motion uh to approve the consent calendar motion to approve 11.1 through 11.6 second any discussion hearing none we will go and vote and the motion passes five to zero that brings us to 13.0 business and finance and 13.1 ratification approval of contract agreement between a zeus unified school district and ryland school business consulting is there emotion on the floor make a motion to approve 13.1 second moved

143by board member rodriguez pena second by board member arianes any discussion um mr sega can you please um talk about some of the changes that were made absolutely and miss latasha please jump in if i miss them uh number one um the not to exceed uh was included in the contract the not to exceed amount was reduced drastically we also were able to negotiate a lower per hour rate and also eliminate some of the travel expenses that might have been part of the contract any additional questions comments okay then we'll move to a vote and the motion passes five to zero bringing us to 14.0 curriculum and instruction and second quarterly williams uniform complaint report and i'm happy to report that we no complaints were filed with any school in the district during the quarter

144thank you dr mitchell any questions then we'll move to 14.2 approval of the memorandum of understanding mou between azusa unified school district and pomona valley american job center of california including west covina affiliate is there a motion on the floor motion to move 14.2 that was a motion to approve approve second uh moved by board member ariana second by board member rodriguez pena any discussion yeah can can you please elaborate to let us uh let the community know what uh what this contract uh includes sure um so this is um working in uh collaboration with our california community schools partnership program at azusa high school and what this will do is they will work with our students and families to provide workforce training and jobs they'll help our students to find paid internships and jobs

145while they receive training and support any other questions or comments then we will move to a vote the motion passes five to zero bring us to 14.4 approval of 2021 school accountability report card for all for president uh we're on 14.3 excuse me thank you 14.3 approval of the consent agreement between azusa unified school district and jennifer edict bryant is there a motion on the floor make a motion to approve 14.3 seconds moved by board member rodriguez pena second by board member arianes any uh questions or discussion i i do go ahead i just want to know um what what are her hours and does she have an office back over here or where we should be thank you for the question um no she will not have an office um we participate in the

146community engagement initiative professional leading and learning network and so we have um it's the plln and we have uh been working with them for a couple of years and so they uh provide funding for us to participate in that and dr bryant has been leading that work and so the funding will be paying for that so she won't have an office here but what is she working from home or actually she would become either the zoo meetings if they're online or um we've been hosting the meetings actually here in the boardroom where we bring in the participant so uh we're in person here and then we zoom in with the other district i have a question so she's an employee of ours she is not she retired oh when did she retire so so we're

147hiring her back as a consultant correct yes to [Music] so she yeah she will be um so as a consultant she will be continuing leading um the work with our professional um learning network that we've been doing we that network provides us with funding to participate but also she leads other cohorts of other districts and so um so she will be continuing that work dr mitchell it's also important to note that that commitment uh that we refer to as a cei plln year one we were participants and then we became we became mentors to other districts that expires or that's set to end um june 30th of this year so she's just finishing up that work that we started uh that she started leading really um back then just to finish it off until our

148commitment though is is over this dude so i'll go ahead let's ask there any other question yeah so arthur um in terms of the lcap piece right so i appreciate you just for continuity keeping her in place to do that work so what what's the plan for next year so dr mitchell i mean correct me if i'm wrong part of uh this contract is also going to help uh her um or help us really so that the next person uh that joins the team uh that's going to over over that's going to be overseeing our award-winning lcap process she will be there as a source of mentoring training questions ensuring that we're not skipping a beat on on those things that we have been uh successful in have we have we is have we flown

149this position is this the hr yes the position is currently being flown on edge it was flown as of last week and it closes february 11th so the the person that will be hired for this position will go ahead and take over these duties next year actually they'll take over the duties as soon as they're hired so dr bryant will serve as a mentor and a consultant to help that person um as we transition but just for full clarity not the ce ipln because again that ends in june thank you for clarifying that i wasn't sure but thank you okay any other questions question then we'll go ahead and move to a vote and the motion passes five to zero which now brings us to 14.4 approval of 2021 school accountability report card for all

150tk12 schools is there a motion on the floor motion to move 14.4 and that movement is for approval for approval of 2120 2021 full accountability report card for all tk312 schools second moved by board member arianes second by board member rodriguez pena any questions or any discussion then we will move to a vote and the motion passes five to zero bring us to 15.0 human resources 15.1 azusa unified school district sunshine proposal for the 2021-2022 fiscal year negotiations with the california school employees association so this item is before the board and the subsequent pieces related to the sunshine process which is a public hearing in a vote by the board um we are reopening the article on evaluations because we need to align or fully align our our contract with dsda to new education codes

151that change the timeline for evaluation and this article was opened last year where the work was uh was done with the exception of one paragraph that uh was not uh removed from the contract so uh we need to go through this process because we will be changing uh language within the contract and so whenever a an article or rather whenever there's going to be a change in contract language on that article needs to be open in order for the change to take place um and so psda and the district uh both agree that we need to go through this process in order for us to uh make that correction um so it is before the board um in in the normal sunshining process any questions okay thank you mr monkey then we will move to

152item 15.2 which is public hearing the azusa unified school district's sunshine proposal for the 2021 2022 fiscal year negotiations with the california school employees association district sunshine proposal is there a motion to open the public hearing take a moment to open um 15.2 seconds moved by board member rodriguez pena seconded by board member arianas so we will go ahead and open the public hearing at 9 32 p.m or president just for clarification to get a first and a second did we not vote thank you very much so we're not open yet um any any discussion no then we'll go ahead and move to a vote the motion to open public hearing carries and the public hearing is open at 9 32 pm do we have anyone there's no one here in person is there anyone

153on zoom attendance if you would like to make a comment you can raise your hand and zoom attendant we do not have any hands raised okay seeing that there is no one to make a comment during this public hearing we will close public hearing at 9 33 pm this takes us to 15.3 the board of education is required to officially approve the azusa unified school district sunshine proposal for the 2021-2022 fiscal year negotiations with the california school employees association is there a motion on the floor i make a motion to approve 15.3 second move by board member rodriguez pena second by board member arianes any discussion hearing none will move to a vote and the motion pass is five to zero bringing us to 16.0 policies and bylaws each of these uh 16.1 through 16.7

154are info only and they are the first reading is there any board member who has any question about any of these seven uh policies in biloxi hearing none we will move then to 17.0 and specifically 17.1 adjournment is there a motion to adjourn our meeting motion to adjourn second move by board member arianis second by board member rodriguez pena any discussion hearing none we will move to a vote and the motion passes five to zero which brings our meeting to a close at 9 34 p.m thank you everybody for tuning in have a great night