Azusa Unified School District Board Meeting - September 7, 2021

001well good evening everyone and welcome to the regular board meeting for the azusa unified school district on september 7th 2021. um we're going to go ahead and open up our session with a flag salute we have a student from ellington uh liliana arroz peggy i hope i'm saying your name take it away liliana hello everyone my name is liliana and can everyone please rise to do the flag salute and can everyone please put their right hand over their heart and then we can begin i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all you're getting a lot of waves and a lot of love from the school board crowd here thank you okay moving

002on to uh item 4.2 roll call uh board member rodriguez pena president board member cruz gonzalez here board member beau here board president arianis is not here will not be here uh this evening and i uh board uh member greer am here moving on uh to item uh 4.3 approval of the agenda i am actually going to i would love to entertain a motion to approve the agenda with the exception of 9.2 i make a motion to approve 4.3 a second and that was a motion 4.2 with the exception of 9.2 seconded as well yes okay and discussion i'll just say uh in seeing that board president adianas is not here that is the item to discuss having uh our legal counsel here present at each board meeting and i think it would make much

003more sense for her to be president when we have that with that let's go ahead and move to a vote and the item passes four to one absent moving on to uh report and action of closed session matters uh item 5.1 student matter final sentiment settlement for office of administrative hearing case number student number 21 2201-03 make a motion to approve we have a second so moved by board member cruz gonzalez seconded by board member rodriguez pena any discussion then let's move to a vote and the item passes four to one absent [Music] moving on to item 6.1 public comment on agenda and or non-agenda items um do we have any any blue cards or anyone present to the fair comments mr falcone am i on now we go good evening board management and staff

004of business unified uh the reason i'm here tonight is to uh discuss benefits uh on behalf of a lot of us employees especially myself i know it's been a tough year with covet and everything going on um but you know fact of the matter is that prices are rising everywhere uh gas is up groceries are up um you know just to try to make a decent living everything has gone up um except uh you know with our wages you know um i do thank you for you know the money that we received over the summer it helped us get through a lot of us get through uh what we needed to um in these tough times but the fact of the matter is is that um employees need to make a decent uh decent wage

005make a decent living i'm a father a husband a grandfather a provider for my family and in these times i've had to do what i thought i would never have to do is i've had to take a second job with the for the neighboring district just to try to make ends meet so i'm asking you board and management to please take a good look at numbers and see what we can do about uh some sort of a cola because we haven't had a coal in a long time or even benefit because honestly i'm working to uh a second job to you know to offset the cost of my benefit benefits are expensive for everybody and i understand that you know things things happen but um you know if we're valued as much as you say

006we are please take a look at the you know take a look at the numbers and see what we can do for us thank you mr home i defer my time to max bella mr can you hear me yes okay thank you i start i i just like to make a comment i i appreciate the sign-in and safety measures that are outside but it wasn't posted on the on the website that there is limited capacity and so there are a lot of teachers that are outside that thought they were going to get to come in and are not so i just think it would be a good idea to clarify that so that everybody's kind of aware you know but good evening uh billboard district cabinet members and family those of you that got in

007the door um last week aea did a survey of all the sites um through the site representative and as of friday the survey revealed some really alarming results we know that there are 21 classrooms in our district without air conditioning and therefore without proper ventilate this directly affects the filtration of airborne germs possibly related to covalent and that's insane and that's unacceptable did you know that there are 16 classrooms as well as all of hodgkin that did not get their supplies before school started forcing teachers to buy basic supplies like pencils and paper and tissues for their students and that's unacceptable did you know that 47 classrooms do not have one-to-one plexiglas test field for students or they actually have some shields but they're sitting in piles on the floor waiting to be installed and

008the district might say and this is true they're no longer required to have those and that was a safe precaution that we all instituted to make our kids even more safe and i applaud that um we advertised it to the parents that we were offering that protection but that's not happening everywhere and that's unacceptable because that's not following through with what we're seeing did you know that hundreds of thousands of dollars to be spent on technology is not being viewed 48 classrooms district-wide do not have the one-to-one ratio of chromebooks as advertised for students all of lee's school as a matter of fact has to share two chrome cards because they were as when the teacher put it one lead teacher put it neglected in the ordering process and that's unacceptable did you know that

009since the first contract day back there have been three elementary sites that have had multiple days operating without a side administrator instead a designee usually the resource speaker who is neither trained or certified has been left in charge and responsible for running the school many times not knowing the answers to questions or how to proceed in difficult situations with parents and students because that's not their job and that is unacceptable we understand that these are extraordinary times we understand that it weren't great and patience and perseverance but where and when do we draw the line and say enough is enough there's got to be a minimum threshold of accepting far we strongly feel that many of these problems are existing because people are not being held accountable right and that is a frustration the mou

010that aea and the district had on kovid related health safety and working conditions was exactly that a piece of accountability but it expired on june 3. and since then i have asked uh superintendent ortega an assistant superintendent from eo multiple times for us to try and get back to the bargaining table get an mou taken care of prior to school starting and quite frankly i'm going to use the word strung along you were strung along throughout the summer and through august and did not get to meet until the end of august at our regularly scheduled party these actions by the delay and often hearing words like we're not required to do that anymore or the mou expired on june 30th these actions significantly decreased complete confidence in the district's interest to keep employees as well

011as students healthy and safe if the district's really taking measures which you are to keep students healthy and safe keep employees healthy and safe then why not codify it in writing that doesn't make sense that other than forcing accountability this attitude feels to us like it's also ever present at the bargaining table it reflects that them versus us approach district employee release it's adversarial and it's unproductive we don't understand we hear from you the school board and we hear from the superintendent constantly we work together we have collaborative decision making we're a theme and i believe that you all believe that truly i do because i have talked to all of you individually and i feel that from sarah i know where that comes from but honestly it's not happening at the bar is it

012because you're directing your team that way i don't think so you're the boss but we're not getting that we've been asking for two years to return to interest-based bargaining but again to no avail why continue to hold on to traditional adversarial bargaining if we're really a team that makes sense again has that been your direction to stay with traditional i don't think so but where is that coming from because we don't know i'm choosing to believe that you're not that reason behind why these things are happening this way and that's why we're here tonight we want to make you aware where do we go from here we're going to continue to believe that being a team working together and making decisions collaboratively is the best path forward best for our children and our community and

013our employees continue to believe that interest-based bargaining is the best way forward for meeting the interests of both the district and the association we also believe that continued open communication is an integral part thank you thank you uh miss sanchez uh good evening superintendent ortega cabinet members of the board of education my name is patricia sanchez and i am the first vice president of csca chapter 299 and i represent the classified employees i am speaking tonight on behalf of all classified employees that contribute to ausd health insurance plans and to those that qualify our district prides themselves on caring for all classified and the contributions classified has done to the success of our students we hear the speeches we've seen the presentations especially during classified week and to those who are awarded classified of the

014year about how valuable and important we are but we never seem to see that reflect our pay and health benefits ausd challenges themselves in a competitive world of education from the dual immersion program to the latest in classroom technology however when it comes to the competitive world of employment compensation the district falls behind looking at surrounding districts ausd contributes the least amount of funds towards health benefits did you know that the district job posting states to potential employees to please review health benefits before applying what does that say about ausd how many of you pay into ausd benefit plans how many of you take advantage of your significant other's benefit plans because it's cheaper this weekend i found out that a former employee of ausd was just hired full time with covina valley school district

015and took advantage of their health benefits for himself and his daughter he fully he is fully covered under their ppo their top ppo dental and vision plan and his out-of-pocket cost is only 35 a month compared to an asausd employee contribution of one thousand one hundred four dollars and thirty cents per month please think about this thank you for your time and good night thank you ms sanchez i see that we also have zoom user there's there's no name listed would you please date your name uh for for the record i believe are you talking to the zoom participant zoom user yes yes hi my name is amanda martinez i'm sorry amanda martinez yes sir uh ms martinez please continue thank you sir um hello my name is amanda martinez and i have three children

016to attend paramount elementary i want to talk to you tonight and express my concerns about the mandatory mass for my children why i'm glad the kids do not need to wear them 100 percent of time during school there is no logic that they need to wear them in class versus not in class to reiterate what the guidelines are the kids do not have to wear them during race tests nor during lunch however they are required to wear them in class walking through the hallways and in the restroom that makes zero to no sense at all as to why cobia will not be able to be transmitted during lunch or recess however it's open season during class i've talked to the kids and teachers i've talked to the kids and the teachers and the children are

017getting distracted with the mask they cannot hear their teacher because of the muscle and the plexigas they cannot be hurt this is not an ideal learning environment all the while the virus is a 99 survivor rate not afraid of the food nor the sun i'm asking at the board to look at how recent accurate scientific data has been released that states that allowing our students to return to school without harmful unnecessary policies like mandatory masking excessive quarantine ineffective routine asymmetric testing children are less than three percent severely affected by kovic and less likely to spread it in addition it is their constitutional constitutional right and a free and to have a free and meaningful public education this coming school year without political play kuba needs not to be looked at as a political public health

018issue away from singular lens limiting clovid 19 cases and instead weigh the consequences consequences of public health restrictions on healthy innocent children who have suffered immensely as a result of harmful school closures and other needless restrictions but teachers staff and other adults all have an opportunity to be fully vaccinated the perceived risk of children spreading their virus to adults has been removed therefore there is no public health justification for forcing children to wear masks in school but balanced when balanced against the physical and mental emotional harm that is now becoming evident it is clear that mass do more harm than good studies have found that mass cause anxiety depressive feelings and impaired child social development and ability to communicate i want each parent to do what they feel is best for a child i do

019not want my child to be wearing masks during class um i read that pretty quickly i'm nervous i have a couple of minutes left um i think i read off of a script i'm not a script but i prepared and this is kind of a free speaking um i i'm calling i'm concerned because again uh the the mass on the online children and specifically mine have had a negative impact on them the guidelines are very very confusing as why it would be necessary during class and not while they're eating lunch um i ask that you guys look at the data of the teachers are being vaccinated the children have less likelihood of getting severely ill that you let the opportunity for the parents to decide whether their child wears a mask or not um i

020would thank you for the time for for tonight and opportunity to speak and that would be it thank you ms martinez and then lastly it appears we have patricia dorsey hello good evening um superintendent cabinet and board members i'm here representing some frustrated teachers i teach it as a high school i've been there for 28 years don't often come and see frustration is to that point um in our reopening guidebook it says hvac systems have been serviced and inspected across the district to ensure proper operation and circulation of outside i had to get my classroom ready with nowhere it was extremely frust um since i think two days i had air conditioning and since august 21st i haven't i am given another i was given another classroom no time to prepare it um desperate disarray

021and um the technology just kind of support what has been said i teach computers and i t and there were several students without device we ordered 30 laptops they were received here in january they still weren't ready so the frustration is definitely there i don't think that i know it's ovid but it's been covered for 18 months and definite these things should have been addressed for two weeks or i don't even know if they would because when we came back we were asked check if your rooms have really effectively rooms have air i was i was appalled bad for our community that expects down here that brought me because that's the biggest bet and that's why i'm here because it shouldn't be it really shouldn't i also quote for 25 years i've been coaching cross

022country we hired a athletic director in august this staff member why wasn't he hired in june country asked for one thing you have a site to run i was told that because district paperwork can't get done that our league can't get a site we don't require equipment any so everything as a teacher as the community member has been frustrated i don't get easily frustrated because i can handle this doesn't bother me i can do it but i shouldn't have to if you start to feel totally under underappreciated and just undervalued that really really didn't i'd appreciate it if something was done i was told when my air is going to be done right just wanted to let you know thank you miss dorsey moving on to item 7.1 comment reports and request by the board

023of education board member cruz gonzalez thank you um i think arthur i mentioned it to you briefly earlier but i would like us to have a conversation at some point around surveillance testing and how we can test um or even beyond that just i see examples across the state where they are testing students like regularly like daily or twice a week to be able to avoid quarantine um and so i'd like to get more information about about that and the potential that something similar to that in our a board member hi everyone thank you for being here both in person or tuning in from your preferred location um i wanted to quickly share one high and one low from last week um wanted to share my personal tribute on the passing of the azusa councilman

024uriel mistias uh he was a really good friend and mentor and uh just a really a person of high integrity and i wanted to use my time here to share my personal tribute to him and my high for last week was um my site visit to longfellow and director jenny lee was really gracious and generous with her time um i got to see all the classrooms um got to get down on the carpet with um some of the preschoolers and talk to them about rayne manson um and that was really invigorating and um it's always a good reminder of why we do this work so if you're ever feeling a little low i encourage you to spend a few minutes on campus and i know all of us do from time to time thank you

025board member uh board member rodriguez yes um good evening everyone it's nice to see real people and real voices in the audience and um i just want to welcome everyone back in person um first of all i went to the uh welcome back lunch at glaston high school it was great to see everyone i would like to thank superintendent ortega assistant superintendent rankino mr mall and dr dana mitchell nutrition services and all the secretaries that are always working behind the scenes is hope yvonne and melissa they're always running around and they're always working and i really appreciate that it was a great luncheon and i want to thank you for that um i did have suicide visits at the beginning uh the first week of school it was good to see students parents and all

026the staff excited to come back to school in person it did look a little different but it was very well organized the first day took a little more time but after the second day i noticed going through the schools that everyone seemed to be in the right location i visited 16 schools including the um night adult school in six days um i went to the glaston high school football game and they won 19 to um eight and the other school was webb i think webb isn't from claremont it felt good to see the students the parents so excited to be on the beautiful field on glaston high school the spirit was definitely in the air the changes that have been made at glaston high school made a big difference in the school morale i can

027see it throughout the whole during the whole game i didn't see i did i don't know how many people were there but it was very crowded and um i want to thank the community again for their vote on measure k the school bond i went this weekend to the azusa rotary sixth annual feel the glory in front of the city hall honoring the courage and the sacrifice first responders the 20th anniversary of um 9 11. proud of our students from ausd the advanced tourist foothill trojans the center forest mariachi de azuza jrotc and the gladstone high school and azusa high interact club they decorated and dedicated 13 flags to the 13 falling men and women that died in on august 26th in afghanistan they all did a fantastic job and i want to thank the

028music director mary turner mariachi teacher mr carlos rodriguez rios darla elliott interact advisor at glaston high school and first sergeant they all came out on a saturday afternoon and you know brought their students and that was very good to see and i like to close in memory of rina gonzalez dustin high school community liaison he was a very beautiful and caring person and the parents in the community are very sad on our studying passing thank you i remember rodriguez and then i have a couple of comments one uh just i do want to thank those who are here in attendance and who and those who are are defending virtually who take advantage of this space to share uh your comments and your concerns uh it is that is valuable that's needed that's how we work

029as a district and as a as a community-led organization so thank you for for your courage and willingness to come in and share um another kind of request i notice online as i'm looking to access the board agenda i know that we have discussed in the past uh the that it's most appropriate for us to have a direct link from the website to the current agenda which i know that means then someone's got to go in there and update it regularly um as i've tried to go in there and access that i noticed that it links to a list or to a page where you have to click a couple more buttons before you get to the current agenda so if we were able to ensure that that link does indeed go to whatever the

030current agenda is to to uh mitigate any type any barriers that that members of the community would have just saying what we're currently discussing uh i would i would like to have and then yeah similarly let me echo um comments that were already stated um uh and and just expressed my condolences to the family of uh late honorable ariel macias uh with with his sudden fasting and uh as our our community mourns um we i can say personally my prayers continue to go out for uh his family and just the community that loved him and i would even ask that we tonight that we adjourn our meeting in honor of uh moving on to our student board members we do have with us crystal amino who is here with us virtually can you guys hear

031me yes we can good evening board members gladstone high school welcomed visitors for from blanco rubio's office and east san gabriel valley rop on august 26th they toured our cte programs and saw the great work being done in our medical academy our digital media pathway and our emergency medical services classes we are we are proud of our students and our teachers our gladstone high seniors had their senior sunrise this morning many members of the class of 2022 attended seniors are enjoying their last year together so far we look forward to more memories being made last week asb held their first spirit week of the school year with monday being jersey day tropical tuesday class colors wednesday phantom thursday and gladiator pride friday our anatomy teacher mr dolter's fourth period class stays at the top with

032the most spirit for three years in a row now with a slow start for participation it increased significantly significantly by the second day lastly homecoming is our homecoming is september 18th from 8 8 pm to 11 pm the theme this year is space aka out of this world and will take place in our outdoor lunch area we are in the process of awaiting inventory and tweaking the final plans thank you so much crystal and board member bo you were absolutely right forgive me for going a bit at a border there uh that was within item 8.1 and prior to that typically we would have superintendent cabinet so forgive me for for being at a border but let me turn it over to superintendent uh to share your comments thank you i'm not mistaken i think

033our definitely our in-person student board member had a game that went into overtime so i thought it'd be way over by now so much perfect they're still playing as we speak there again and they are winning um i was gonna welcome our student board members uh from sierra high school we have annette camacho we just heard amino from a glassman high school from azusa high school uh it is hannah hamilton um so we're gonna continue um with kind of what we started and so we'll have a student board member present but they will be here for one approximately one third of the board meetings but the other two board members will still log in and do their uh site update um and then rotate them rotate them through so just uh welcome and thankful that

034you uh have joined there we go as part of our extended learning opportunity grant funding plan our elementary instructional age received professional learning from julie mcgowan who is our elementary mathematic teacher on special assignment the focus of the learning was on three ways we can accelerate student learning and math they talked about accounting collections i ready tools for instruction many lessons and math games for fluency support and it was very well received thank you and good evening board of education staff and community happy belated labor day i hope all of our employees and families enjoyed their well-deserved day off yesterday uh just a reminder that the years of recognition event is right around the corner if you recall i announced on august 3rd at the board of education meeting that we have scheduled our years

035of recognition also known as the desert social uh for monday september 20th at 3 15. while we initially planned on hosting this event at our sierra high school campus we have decided uh to change the venue to zoom the date and time will remain the same i'm being september 20th at 3 15. we will be communicating this change widely in the days to come thank you good meeting um the business department and collaboration nutrition services we are currently um working to explore to have a curb type offering either at gladstone high school or murray elementary um additionally we are currently working with outside agency to provide all of our custodial team with certification training on proper handling so that way we can just ensure that everyone has a clear understanding of the expectation thank you

036thank you so moving on to 9.1 uh we will now convene a public hearing to receive public testimony concerning the composition of potential trustee voting areas associated with the district's transition to a buy trustee area election system in advance of the preparation of draft trustee voting area plans by the district's demographer under california elections code section the board must hold at least two public hearings over a period of no more than 30 days at which the public is invited to provide input regarding the composition of the district before drawing draft maps of the proposed boundaries of the district may i have a motion to open the public hearing i make a motion to open a public hearing uh motion by board member rodriguez pena do we have a second seconded by board member bo um

037let's go ahead and vote and that passes four yes to one absent and with that our um uh turn it over to mr mr ortega uh thank you uh as board member career uh stead uh there are two public hearings or three free map hearings that are uh to take place and so at this point in time i'd like to invite jonathan salt uh who will guide us through the second meet thank you good evening members of the board district staff and members of the community i'm jonathan salt with f3 i'm joined by justin rich of cooperative strategies you may remember us from last meeting let me just uh share my sq screen quickly and see if we can start the presentation are you able to see the presentation on the screen okay so at

038each of these public hearings we're going to give background in case there are new folks attending or folks want a refresher so a lot of this will seem repetitive if you were here at the last meeting but why is this happening and what is the california voting rights act well the cbra took effect about 18 years ago and it prohibits the use of at-large elections if that system impairs the ability of members of protected classes from electing candidates of choice or influencing the outcome of an election there's no intent requirement so it's much easier for a plaintiff to bring a claim against the government entity in california than it is under the federal voted rights act because there's no intent requirement meaning the district having an at-large system need not intend to um discriminate against

039a protected glass it's just just by merely having it it's possible that the system itself discriminates against protected classes so another reason why you're seeing this issue pop up around the county and state is that the cvra allows a prospective plaintiff the right to recover attorneys fees or expert fees but if a school district or a city were to prevail and successfully defend itself against a cdra claim it would not be afforded that same right so a buy trustee area election system is the only system that's safe from a cvra claim and it's where the district will be divided into five roughly equal population areas and a board member will be elected from each area only by the registered voters who reside within that trustee area but importantly all five current trustees were lawfully elected

040and so everybody will serve out their full term regardless of where they currently live right now we're on step two of the process this is our second pre-map public hearing where the community and board is invited to provide feedback to the demographer before the is even allowed to draw any of the potential draft map options so i'll hand it off to justin to talk about the district's demographics and kind of some of the factors that go into this map making process good evening similarly we find that it's helpful just for background to provide some maps and data uh for those that uh have input and feedback to share and perhaps to to stimulate some some conversations so we have a few maps that we've included and then we'll talk about what kind of feedback is

041helpful for us so on this first slide here we've included data that comes from the 2010 census um on the left hand side you'll see a map of the district's boundaries and underneath that we have the various jurisdictions in and around the district are are highlighted as well in the table again this is data that comes from the 2010 census and um what we show is the ethnic composition or or breakdown for the district as you'll see the largest protected class in this case is that the the hispanic latino population which is about 70 percent of the total population as of 2010 next slide can i ask a question or should i wait to the end sure you can ask a question uh so are we going to be using the 2010 census or the

0422020 census that that was the purpose of waiting yeah that's a great question no we will not be using the 2010 census we'll be using the 2020 census data it's not yet available although it has been released there's a procedure where it goes to the department of finance and is validated by the department of finance we expect that to happen by the end of september so by the time we actually start drawing maps we'll have that data to be able to do that so we would have this an update from the uh 2020. that's correct thank you very much you're welcome we've also included a map we call this a graduated color map and what it allows us to do is to look at the concentration of certain protected classes in this case we've we've

043included the the hispanic latino population based on citizen voting age population uh this is collected by the american community survey over the years 2015 to 2019 and this is relevant just to ensure that we have a snapshot or a picture of who is likely to participate in an election so we will look at the trustee areas that are drawn and the composition of the hispanic latino voters uh to see whether we are splitting communities perhaps or were impairing the ability of this protected class to be able to to elect the candidate of their choice so just as background we've included this but that's part of our analysis as we go along so i actually have a request can we go back um so this is great um i just want to request that you also

044um show us the the api data right i think i mean obviously it doesn't reach the same threshold as the latino data but it's a very i mean it's grown tremendously since the last time and so anticipating over the next 10 years it will continue to grow i would like to make sure that we're thinking about that as we're drawing the line certainly we will do that i didn't intend to mean that we won't look at that we will look at all of the ethnic groups within the district and have statistics that show the composition in each area next slide and so really the purpose of these pre-map public hearings is to solicit from the community and board thoughts on how the the line should be drawn um so again kind of zooming in here

045on really where the population lies in the district um we're kind of looking for you know i would like neighborhood x neighborhood y to be in the same area or i think gladstone street makes sense because it just makes sense geographically or it seems like a natural boundary or some other considerations could be you know i want to try to keep elementary school attendance areas intact or we should try to be splitting up attendance areas across multiple trustee areas there's no right or wrong answer here this is just you know you you all live here and know the community better than anybody else does and so this is the kind of feedback that we're looking for before justin draws the maps when the census data is fully released and justin i have another question on

046that yes um so do you know if the line is going to be horizontal or vertical or the the lines will be based on um census blocks which are sort of like the lego pieces that justin's going to use to draw the maps and they're going to be ultimately based on equal population uh between each of the five areas now the lines may be vertical they may be horizontal they might be curved it just depends on the shape of the census block justin you want to add anything to that i would just note that that's exactly right and i would note that we are going to provide several different scenarios and i imagine throughout this process you'll have feedback for us and we'll incorporate that into new scenarios so whether they're north to south or

047east to west that's information i think that is helpful for us and if there's a natural dividing line that makes more sense we will incorporate that we're not attached to any uh any predetermined uh direction let's say um i think what what we're going to try to do is provide a starting point um and we will do that based on some considerations that that go into this the most important like jonathan said is the equal population uh and then we'll take it from there and we're we're hopeful that you will provide us with with input and feedback the community will and we will go ahead and make adjustments based on that and to be clear i put these streets on here just as a suggestion as a starting point of just here's the kinds of

048things that we're looking for um this doesn't mean that these lines are going to be drawn based on the streets that are on here this was just kind of my 40 000 foot overview of the district what looked like from above to be a major road or something like that this does not mean that uh this is how the maps will be drawn this was just a discussion point almost now i just have a second question regarding um so how do you determine how many districts if you have four districts or five districts or um [Music] how did you determine that it's based on the number of trustees so if you have a five-member board you'll have a you know five trustee areas right so one trustee area so that each trustee will be uh

049in theory voted in or at least representing an equal portion of the district justin thanks jonathan so uh as was previously mentioned we will be using 2020 census data uh in in order to draw our initial scenarios that information is important for the balanced population requirement we will also be using that citizen voting age population this is well established as a proxy for who is likely to vote in an election uh and so so we will be using that information i'll note that in in terms of balanced population there is a certain amount of deviation that is permitted um and generally that's taken to be a ten percent variance between the smallest and the largest trustee areas next slide and there's additional criteria that i alluded to that will go into our uh our initial

050scenarios that that we will prepare um we we not only have to have balanced population uh we also need to be in compliance with the federal voting rights act uh when i showed you that information related to citizen voting age population this is what that is intended for to make sure that we're not dividing communities in such a way that it's uh that it diminishes or impairs the ability of a protected class to be able to elect the candidate of their choice a protected class in this context is those groups that are racial and language minority groups as defined by the federal voting rights act uh additionally we need to make sure that the areas are contiguous uh and that there's not islands that are created as as a result of drawing those we also

051focus a lot on the communities of interest so whether those are uh municipal boundaries or neighborhoods and communities one important outcome of this public hearing is to make sure that we can get that kind of information about what is a community of interest they're defined as groups that have shared social and economic characteristics uh but as jonathan said we don't always have that information and it's helpful to hear that from from you all we also look to create areas that are geographically compact meaning that they're not oddly or bizarrely shaped uh and when when we're drawing areas we also take into account incumbency that can't be the the predominant factor but it can be a factor and and we try to preserve incumbency to the extent we can uh while meeting the rest of these

052criteria so with that again just a reminder that the creation of these trusty area maps have no impact on the district's overall boundaries has no impact on attendance boundaries or where students attend school it even it doesn't even change how the board is governed it's just basically how board members will be elected every board member still owes a duty to the entire district and still one district with common goals and challenges as a reminder this is our second pre-map public hearing and as justin mentioned in a few weeks the 2020 census data will be fully approved by the state at which time he and his team can begin to prepare map options and i suspect sometime in early october he will have a few options prepared they'll be released on the district's website for community

053and board review and then the series of public hearings in november and december where folks including the board can discuss what they like or don't like about each map option or offer suggestions as long as they meet the criteria those suggestions can be considered and possibly create new map options before ultimately in december the board will vote on one of these options another reminder for the community to stay in touch with this process if you click on the district's website click on board of education and buy trustee election there's information faqs and other information will be there including the maps once they're drawn so with that we're going to turn it back over to the board for the public hearing and we're happy to stand by and answer any questions thank you so as part

054of this public hearing members of the public may submit comments on the establishment of voting area boundaries for the new trustee voting areas that will be established as part of the district's transition from an at-large election system to a buy trustee area election speakers will be given three minutes to make comments on this matter and this matter only if you wish to address this subject please step to the podium or make sure to raise your hand in zoom is there anyone here that would like to make a comment or lika do we have anyone online we have no hands raised in zoom attendance and then i'll also turn it over and ask our fellow board member hi jonathan and justin this is sabrina beau i just have one question if you could elaborate further on

055the meaning of contiguous voting district and i asked this question because i am aware in one of our neighboring cities their council district say it's district one as a piece here and a piece here and those two pieces of a single district are not contiguous so can you elaborate for both the board and the public yeah the definition that i'm aware of um that would not meet that definition of being contiguous um they they should be joined and and if um i've i've heard an analogy that you should be able to walk continuously from one side of that area or that district to it to the other um and still you know be within the district the entire time um i'll i'll pause and let jonathan add in if he has any other thought i

056i agree with justin the only time i've seen pieces of a district would be if there was an island or some kind of a peninsula that as long as there was a road that could connect or even if there wasn't a road but that was the closest area of land that could count but i agree with justin that you know if there's a large population center and the northwest corner is area one and then separately a corner in the east section was was also area one it doesn't seem like it would make sense to us i know that justin will will draw them in how we understand the lot to me thank you so much any other yeah i have a question by superintendent cabinet how are we notifying the community on our public hearings

057i'm just quite surprised this is our second public hearing and we've had not anyone come and address um yes sure and uh i'll ask lika to jump in if i miss any but um uh one of the things that we do have to do is we have to post in the paper um and so in the uh this gets published in the newspaper that we are holding uh meetings around cbra uh we also take advantage of all of our social media channels uh to advertise and to let the community know uh that uh this is there lika is there anything above the newspaper uh we also post i think in the library if i'm not mistaken uh is there anything else because i i personally have not seen it on facebook or on our website

058or a beach jar wherever they put it i personally have not seen it maybe i missed it but i haven't seen it anywhere yes it has been on facebook and it's been a headline on our home page it's also on the section of our website that's dedicated uh to this topic mr salt i see your hand raised do you have something to contribute here oh you're on youtube i mean it would be good if we can put it on the ask the um city of azusa to have a put it on their website or you know advertise it more more broadly i feel we can definitely uh not everyone has facebook or not everyone goes on our website if they don't have children that attend ausd they don't necessarily go on our website so i'm

059talking about the community that is do not have children but they are still taxpayers here in azusa i would think they should be would have an input i was just going to add before that i think it's an excellent idea to reach out to the city and have them promote the district's transition um or even have have them share a link or something like that to the district's webpage i also believe the district sent a letter home in english and spanish to um however the district outputs that information and then lastly just generally um the process tends to get more involvement once the maps are actually drawn it's not uncommon to have a little participation at this stage usually folks are waiting to see what the maps look like before they share their thoughts doesn't

060mean that the district can't do more outreach it absolutely can and should but just be aware that usually folks interests aren't peaked until the maps are out any other comment i will i'll just add i know we have to look at the data and see what what you know information we get back from from the census and and where those those blocks of [Music] the voting population is it it does make sense to me for us to look at some of the just some of those major geographical like uh whether it's streets or freeways that makes sense to me as a as a starting point uh that we would look to and then kind of go from there if we need to kind of ebb and flow to ensure that there's uh within that ten

061percent parity difference uh with the different districts but i i would i would suggest that we look to some of those major in the community any other comment okay then hearing none thank you for those that did share the public hearing to receive public testimony concerning the composition of potential trustee voting areas is now closed at 7 57 pm now moving on to 10.0 consent calendar and specifically 10.1 approval of constant calendar all matters listed under the consent calendar are considered by the board of education to be routine 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 the consent calendar and considered separately do we have a motion to approve item

06210.1 i have two items that i like to pull from from the consent calendar uh 10.4 and 10.11. that is a motion to approve the consent calendar um except 10.4 and 10.11. yes i make a motion um do we have a second four and ten point eleven are the police contracts in consent or not that they were not right for a second so moved by board member rodriguez pena and seconded by board member cruz gonzalez any discussion the question i have on the 10.4 regardless actually if we can hold off on that real quick we'll approve the others and then we'll we'll move on yeah so looking at uh what is on the floor then we'll go and vote is the approval of the consent calendar minus 10.1 and 10.11. that's the the vote on

063the floor now the board member greer i believe it was 10.4 and 10.11. unless i'm mistaken 10.4 and 10.11 yes we're ready to vote and the motion passes uh four yes to one absent and now we move to item 11.0 items pulled from consent calendar and item 10.4 now becomes item 11. is there a motion to approve item 11.1 moved by board member rodriguez pena seconded by board member cruz gonzalez any discussion yes my discussion uh regarding the this item is on on the borrowing does does the money that is being borrowed is it all going to the general funds or where is this funding going to yeah so um thank you for that question so this resolution gives us the authority to borrow from fund 14 25 and 67 in the event that fund

064one is short on cash and we have not had to um borrow from any of these funds but this is a typical routine nature to put step districts up in position in case we have deferral like last year we had a deferral of almost 10 million dollars if we didn't have enough cash the last year's resolution would have given us the authority to borrow up to uh 10 million dollars if we needed to but we would have to repay the money back to those funds fighting okay but it's not specifically for a certain nominee it's just for general funds just a general fund cash levels are low we could borrow from these funds just to make you pay those bills such as payroll and other important expenses thank you you're welcome any other discussion then

065we'll move to a vote and the vote passes four yes to one absent and now we move to item 11.2 which was formerly item 10.11 approval of the advancement grant program agreement between the zeus unified school district and los angeles county art and culture we have a motion to approve 11.2 make a motion to approve second moved by board member cruz gonzalez and seconded by board member rodriguez pena any discussion yes my question regarding um 11.2 is on this grant the um what are we using this brand for and what programs are we going to use funding for i'd be happy to answer that question so this is the second year in a row that we have received this grant um we are a part of what's called the arts elective network and so we

066were able to apply for this money um this is a matching grant funding opportunity and so we will be funding um one section of a visual arts coordinator and that's what we did last year it will also provide funding to support a mentoring program that we've had with our secondary students right we started that right before we shut down with covid and so we had a partnership with um zeus pacific university and uh had begun a mentoring partnership and so uh part of this would go toward um you know continuing with that that partnership as well um and also uh for professional learning and continuing a plc um across um all of the secondary um art teachers the middle and high school and then it there's even plans with our strategic plan to um to

067begin to incorporate some of the strategies and programs with our elementary students as well so is this you know art would be music and art right actually yeah music but this is this is for visual arts and we already have a music coordinator that's funded by our lcap um and some funding that goes along with that so that's what we're using this matching grant money for thank you very much so i just um i i really appreciate this i appreciate that we developed the the art our vision i know yolanda ortiz sat on that committee um i do think right now we're at a really opportune moment to think about how do we double down and invest in art and i think just an example that i think of is i appreciate that we've invested

068in what is the elementary program that we use the art masters or made them i appreciate that but that's a package program that we deliver right like right now with a lot of one-time money is an opportunity time to invest in professional development about maybe around art it gave our teachers the capacity to be able to embed that i mean obviously it would be even better if we could have art teachers but i think i want us to think creatively about those one-time dollars that we're getting to recover from the pandemic and think about how do we how do we build the capacity of our staff so that we can just that we can continue to improve what what are what our students get right i think i think about a reference earlier something about

069like what is par for our community right i think i think i i want us to always be thinking about what can we do better educationally and so that's i just want to put that on the table for us to think about and think about how do we double down on art especially thinking about social emotional learning and you know how important is students and thinking about maybe that's one area that we could focus on any other comment okay then let's go ahead and move to a boat and the item passes for yes to one absent moving on to 12.0 business and finance and 12.1 2020 the 2021 unaudited actual financial report thank you before i begin i want to take the opportunity to thank um bennett norris director of physical services and her team

070for the hard work um this is a direct reflection of them digging in deeper we're still going through the process of cleaning up the budget but i'm proud of what we're presenting tonight and i'm going to go forward so thank you again so here we are unaudited actors the unknown actuals is basically a culmination of the 2021 fiscal year so we're going to present to show exactly what our total revenues were what our actual expenditures are and what is our current independent amount an audit actual is a requirement by edcold so we have to have all of our reporting for all of our financial activity through june 30th of the 2021 school year to the county office of education by september 15 this is also used by our external auditors which is when they come

071in in december to give us a thumbs up thumbs down on work that we did in our efforts to present these numbers today so here is our total general fund revenue for both unrestricted and respected resources so we have that we brought in 121 million dollars for the entire 2021 school year this includes all one-time funds and all ongoing to give us a breakdown of what this looks like 70 percent of our revenue comes from lcfs services which is how we also fund our lcal we have six percent comes from local revenue eleven percent state revenue and thirteen percent comes from the federal government any questions here and this is our total general fund expenditures both unrestricted and restricted and we spent of the 121. 21 million dollars that we received we spent 114 million

072here is a breakdown of those expenditures so about 78 of our funding went directly to our employees with 15 percent going to classify salaries 39 certificated salaries and 21 going to employee benefits any questions here later on but i'm very simple it might be you might okay no problem so here's how you determine if your deficit spending or if you have excess revenue so that is based off your current year revenues minus your current year's expenditures so for the 2021 school year we did not deficit spend we actually uh finished with a surplus of 7.4 million but you will see that i'm going to that has been assigned at our any fund balance on the next one any questions here so here we're at our ending fund balance we are ending out the year with

07320.9 million dollars of that 5.9 million is being assigned for unspent supplemental and concentration funds that will be carried over one million is assigned for the aea reserve we also have revolving cash which is required for 25 000 we met our 3 reserve by having 3.4 million and we also have our unspent leo friend uh 2.7 for expanded learning and also 291 000 for our paraprofessional any questions here yeah so this is actually exactly what thank you this is what i was going to ask i'm just 30 about where these where these unspent funds are in so can looking at this um just really broadly um so how much of this is connected to then i guess one time dollars related to ovid that would be expanding learning opportunities pieces yes just those two so

074that's like around three million yeah and those need to be expended by when we have until june 30 to spin though and we think we can go to july because we could have one more extended school year summer okay and then my second question is around the elk supplemental concentration dollars that's a significant amount of money right 6 million so um how do we have you thought about how we're going to spend those dollars and are we going to continue to keep them under supplemental concentration and expenditures what's our intent with that with that money i will start but we are going to keep it assigned we started this trend during first interim um and we are committed to assigning the funds and those funds will stay um restrictive for those purposes only one of

075the things that we've been working on is a high dosage tutoring plan and so using uh using that funding to really you know get get people into our classrooms and support the learning so i think there's a there's a quite a bit of opportunity for us to be able to do that this year and then the other question i have is not i don't see it here but um some of the additional dollars that have come in for this year right um it would be great to understand those one-time dollars maybe some of the federal ester funds right i appreciate that we don't have to have a plan until later on later on this fall but i think it would be good to understand at our next board meeting not the study session for the

076next board meeting at least how much money how much money that is and just like roughly what are the criteria around that money so i i would say that all blanket to all of these covered one-time dollars to understand um that as well as understanding some of the potential opportunities that were in the state budget like for example the community schools grant right there a couple other pieces that we're going to be getting on we we have the potential to get i just want to understand what those opportunities are out there as well as the money that we have in the bank and thinking about how are we gonna any other questions on this slide thank you so next step so upon approval um from the board of education tonight this will be sent to

077the county office um of education um preferably tomorrow or on before the 15th up and then on our december 14th board meeting our auditors will be here i'm giving us basically a report card on how did we do um are our numbers good if they had any audio findings or any recommendations that they at this time is a recommendation it is our recommendation that the board approves and receives the unaudited action report closing out the 2021 physical school year thank you mr mall with that we move uh is an info and action item and so is there a motion on the floor uh in regards to this item i make motion to approve 12.2 moved by board member rodriguez pena the 12th for 12.1 right board member rodrigo um okay 12.1 excuse me yes and

078do we have a second by second seconded by board member beau any other discussion with that we will move to a vote and the vote passes for yes to one abstinent moving on to item 12.2 approval of resolution number 21-22 0-3 2021-22 2022 appropriations limit is there a motion to approve make a motion to approve i'll appoint you moved by board member rodriguez pena do we have a second second and seconded by board member cruz gonzalez any discussion we have an explanation on this uh superintendent mr ball can you hear me i'm sorry got myself off so yeah so the game limit is literally uh the game limit as well through by the voters um back uh to ensure that our funding levels do not exceed that which was in place from 1978 to 79

079school districts also have to follow under that same guideline meaning based on our revenue that we receive and our population and our population is based off our enrollment and the cost of inflation we have to maintain those spending thresholds and the cost of living cola that comes about um this is exactly what's going on in the state of california so you see right now the governor is issuing the stimulus effect because the government also has to follow the gang limits so when their expenditures are when they receive more revenue that's not in line with their expenditures they have to release some of those fundies to stay in alignment thank you any other discussion hearing then we'll move to a vote and the vote passes four yes to one app moving on to item 12.3 approval

080of portable a modernization at blossom middle school um a number zero three one one nine five six make a motion to approve moved by board member cruz gonzalez second seconded by board member rodriguez pena any discussion um yes i have some questions regarding um what is the cost if we have to remove it i would have to get that um information we had not explored the possibility of removing um the portable um right now we were just exploring that if we were to do a modernization ask lawson then we would just put a fence around and it would just sit there until then yes because we currently do utilize the portal um it's used for nutrition services they have their storage and all their refrigeration in there for the central kitchen oh okay so they

081are okay you can utilize in yes yes ma'am any other comments questions then i'll i'll just add just to be clear true or false uh this is this is we're not approving funds or or investment necessarily in modernization on the site as we are having continuing to have conversations on um school reorganization and and what campus our campus composition will be so this is not us making a decision to go in a particular direction this is a something to help get us in alignment with with something that maybe we realize that we can better be in alignment by adding this fence around yes sir so essentially we have plans um that were previously submitted for um slauson in order for those to finally get approved bsa is requiring us to acknowledge that if we were

082to do those modernizations or implement them any part of it that we would at least put this fence around it and so this letter upon approval would just be given uh the essay that good faith that we're acknowledging that if we were to move forward with any modernization we would at least put defense do you have any idea how they missed this is measure k how how they missed this portable so it's not that um it was missed under a bond this was uh previously installed and it's not um it's almost like if you do a reference and i hope this is not going too far off but if you're adding on to your home you can add a bedroom to your home but until you're ready to sell it you won't get credit for

083that home if you go to the proper channels to be able to say oh i now have a five bedroom versus the four bedroom this is the same place we can put um portables on our campus um but if we want students to go in them then it requires dsa approval business this one was never installed with the purpose for students they didn't go through that channel but now if we were to modernize the campus we will be forced to either put a fence up for sure that we're making sure students still go on it or we would have to bring it up with hope so the fencing will go around except in the entrance where where the captures they needed to enter yes but around the back so no one yes ma'am so currently

084absolutely there's already a fence that will keep you from going to the area but we also leave that fence open through the day so dsa is just in just to give us that level of storage they want it around the perimeter of the room uh portable and we would have to unlock it every time we would need to go oh i understand any other questions okay then we will go ahead and move to a vote and the vote passes for yes to one abstinent which brings us to 13.0 curriculum and instruction and 13.1 approval of agreement between azusa unified school district and corwin do we have a motion to approve make a motion to approve 13.1 motion to approve moved uh moved by board member roger gaspina we have a second and seconded by um

085board member cruz gonzalez any discussion when will this workshop be given this will be on september 20th any other so will that mean that the people attending this are not going to be attending the western justice training so we have um we've made a pivot with that and so western justice is not going to be presenting on that day um we have had some issues getting substitutes for professional learning we're going to have uh nancy akavon with our elementary teachers working on some literacy um and some unit plans for that and then for the secondary we're going to have doug fisher talking about agency and learning acceleration i'm just i'm curious that you said we're having trouble with substitute on that for our teachers yes so um we had planned on having some professional learning

086uh this month and next month and uh it's quite a lot of subs and so we've had a difficult time um making sure that we if we have that number of subs it's going to be a challenge and so rather than having to cancel things um we went ahead and made a decision to pivot so we're going to do some different things with western justice right now and then we're going to um we're going to we're going to readjust i just i'm just looking forward to i mean i thought i thought the 20th was the non-sold it it is but what we've had with the professional learning with some of our other things um we're a little challenged and we're worried that we won't be able to cover the professional learning with substitutes so we

087decided that we would do it on the non-student day so this is the priority then the first thing in terms of it yes any other questions or comments then let's move to a vote and is this going to be in on in person or on zoom or virtually it's going to be virtually on google me and the item passes four yes the one absent moving on to item 13.2 presentation regarding state steel of civic engagement eligibility requirements mr frank kang good evening board um to try something new i'm gonna present on my screen you also have people coming in by zooming in i believe it is i just needed to speak closer um let me first try to hear my screen um and trying to share this green d no i guess they do not

088yet is there a way hope then that you can bring up the presentation or dr mitchell if you can bring up the presentation thank you and thank you for adjusting on the last minute um so good evening board vice president uh mcgreer my members aboard superintendent ortega members of cabinet and the azusa unified community thank you for the opportunity to share about the state field of civic engagement or for the rest of today's presentation we'll refer to the ssde as the acronym the progress we have made in developing is this unified criteria and how students will ultimately earn this deal first i would like to recognize members of our district committee who contributed the development of the criteria as you can see we have alfred zamora from gladstone marlon brown who is now at azusa

089high school gary lambrecht sierra canada union at sierra irene sanchez who serves thought freestyle althea zimmer who is our mr costa rice long assistant principal of glaston dr martin gomez prince of waters high school and myself we'll also be having alfred gary adam and althea helping present later on this evening the intent of ab24 the legislation that established the ssde was to encourage elementary and secondary school students to become civically engaged at the local state and national level in creating ausd's criteria our committee members always made sure the steel was accessible by our students and that student engagement reflected our community interests needs and resources also we wanted to make sure that the steel will be awarded to students who demonstrate civic engagement and understanding of the u.s and california constitutions and our democratic system

090of government so up next we have althea zimmer disruptosa who will provide background information leading up to our committee determination althea yeah hello good evening i hope you can all hear me um i i just wanted to take just 10 seconds and say how great the discussion was earlier um about the boundaries and voting and federal law and you know all of those things that this seal is exactly made for and how exciting it is that we're going to be uh promoting the state seal of civic engagement and azusa unified and so what you see here is just a few of the key state level activities sort of a breakdown of the timeline and when ab24 was signed into law and then the various steps that they took to develop the criteria at the state

091level you can see in september of 2020 so september last year the final criteria was adopted we received notification of that and then we began kind of the early stages the early process of getting more information as to what exactly was involved with that criteria and more will be said about that yeah we can go to the next one and then the next steps for the california department of education was to make sure that they were giving the support that would be necessary for um local agencies to adopt a local criteria that made sense for their um their students for their districts by providing as you can see technical assistance presentations webinars give out resources there's a newsletter there is a whole entire section of california department of education's website that is dedicated to the

092state seal civic engagement and then in addition to that there's a lot of local support by um laco in addition to that a little bit of our background like what brought us to where we are today and the presentation that you're seeing and the discussion around our local criteria as we developed it you can see that that news release was was given on september 10th um and the cde's web page to support the state seal was created there was an overview webinar about in november i attended that and then i brought that back and we started putting together a committee of secondary teachers at the high school level for now although this is a k-12 k12 program and and we'll get to that but for right now we put together a team of high school

093teachers at committee and then everybody went to a webinar uh together there were about eight of us that went and it gave us a general overview and then from there lake will put together these collaborative meetings which i have been attending every single month since and the great part about lako and michelle herzog who runs those meetings such a champion of hss is that you have districts from all over some in our county some outside of our county some from northern california coming together and helping each other kind of figure out uh what the process should be and i will say this after seeing many many districts our district is right on pace with everybody else um you know last year was a difficult year to get the ball rolling a bit um and we're

094we're right on pace and then again um you can see that laco has a web page it's very very it's got a lot of stuff in it all of that information all the folders everything has been shared across the district with our hss teachers uh frank i believe this may be somebody else's yes um it's gary in the audience uh gary's actually trying to get in he hasn't been sent the leak yet the link was sent in the email i during this meeting i was sent a link within zoom and gary was watching the meeting but the in zoom link was not sent to him i would bring gary lambreit over give me just one second [Music] i think i found him good evening um alfred zamora will also need to have access he's also

095waiting so this slide here is um as atheia said that the estate took action and then la county took action so here we have is this is a board is the next um stakeholder to take action in in the process of implementing the the state seal so you can see the board approved um pbar-5126 on april 13th 2021 and if you go to the next slide then as althea said um many of us were that first webinar uh the committee was formed that's the committee that uh the members are in the first slide and then we did monthly meetings through um through google meets and althea and frank facilitated the meeting but the meeting was really a collaborative effort by um all the the people who are on that list including tim medeiros who who

096left the district over the summer we looked at the template that the la county gave us we looked at templates from other schools to see what they were doing we discussed the criteria in detail we were very very collaborative in terms of consensus and we never move on until everybody from all the sites that were there could agree on the the criteria of the protocols to issue this state seal um yeah you can go the next slide so the criteria in alpha we'll talk about that in a minute but we wanted to make sure that we were inclusive of all students not just the uh the ones who had a perfect education from the get-go we want to look at every single student including our our um you know our homeless students and and students

097who maybe not had success early on because we wanted to make sure that this was available to everybody and adam and i being from sierra we really took that to heart made sure that everybody would be included and that's it next one is alfred yes and like miss lambright said um there's far critics that our students have to meet in order to get to steal the first criteria it is that our students are engaged in the academic work in a productive way our students are going to meet this criteria by be on track to receive either diploma or also a certificate of completion the second criteria uh basically understanding how government works um our students are gonna receive this by just kind of going through their basic energy and the social science core classes and

098my maintain or 2.0 or higher in these courses uh criteria three our students is like a next step so our students are gonna participate in a civic engagement project actually addressing a real world problem uh my students are going to address this problem or this criteria by presenting an issue at the city council meeting or school board meeting and actually bringing an issue to life so it's like a next step um and then criteria four uh students will demonstrate their civil understanding uh our students will do this by completing a self-reflection this can be done in various different ways to be an oral way um video or a paper it's pretty much going to reflect the experiences from start to finish so it's like no i started here at point a and i'm here now

099at point z so this will show their path and then criteria five it's basically a wrap up the entire process so at the very end the students are meeting with the panel um this is with the panel um and the panel will be in the ultimate you know yes or no no yes we see you see the growth that you made we see that you did pretty good and yes you will receive the civic the states of engagement or else we'll try again um but the last step step five there will be the panel with the district all righty good evening so in conclusion our next steps we'll be meeting with the social science departments to make sure that uh each school is on the same page any questions or concerns about the process will

100be addressed by this committee uh it's important to you know get the word out uh to the broader school uh community and as we move along you know all best practices that we use within uh this process uh will be shared amongst uh all the schools and it's a you know it's an ongoing process it's we're just at the beginning but i really feel that we have really hit the ground running uh through uh through our meetings and the progress that we have made so far in developing uh this program for the district uh regards to uh rubrics uh they will be developed and they'll be fine-tuned as we move along so that it's clear to all participants of what's expected and such and so uh as the uh as for the panel the location

101the meeting dates uh these will be established and we will share with you guys when these are and don't be surprised if you are asked to participate in one of these in the near future and so ultimately the goal is to get the individual student involved in civic engagement starting out at the primary grades so that as they move through the program they will be less likely uh be disenfranchised voter when it comes time for them to vote so thank you very much well thank you to the teachers um for joining us for the presentation and all their work and being part of the committee um i was wondering if the board has any questions yeah i just have a question regarding the do the students need community service hours to show their they're involved

102in the community yeah those community service hours could be part of one of the criteria uh because there would not be the only thing that would qualify them but yeah that they are volunteering their time or they are uh yeah yeah well more comments but yes um just first i want to thank all of you for serving on this committee i know it was something additional that you volunteered for but i think it shows your commitment and our community's commitments to the bedrock of our country right civic engagement i just want to thank all of you for that um i do have i'm really excited about this i actually when i was csba president this was my topic that i wrote in the in our csva magazine in october so this is something that's very

103much a passion for me and so i just wanted to throw a couple things out there for you to think about um i would love to see how we actually integrate this into our curriculum that all of our kids get so they have obviously there's steps they have to take to actually get this still but but giving them opportunities within within their regular instruction i would love to see that happen some examples that i've come across um is a really great program out of berkeley called y plan where they have they have materials that that have a teacher how they can materials teacher can use to engage their classroom in a some kind of civic um process or advocacy like around planning or something and i know for a fact that l.a county planning department

104has used it with a local school district so i think it's that's a really great resource and then the second resource that i want to point out is and i know you guys you've mentioned michelle herzog and and al lakel wright you know democracy school came from lake over and so i would love to see that come to our schools i would love to see that have us get that training really live that um and then the third piece that i would just recommend is we look at anaheim union high school district who sort of oh you guys i see nods right we've been really a leader in this so i'd love to see us sort of follow in their pathway um and i know we already partnered with them on other things like our

105community engagement initiative but i would love to see us sort of follow that lead and maybe even accelerate right because they've sort of laid a path out but we can we could leapfrog them so just a couple things thank you again so much any other questions or comments on the board okay thank you so much mr chang and everyone else for sharing this with us moving on to item 13.3 approval of the agreement between the azusa unified school district and the city of azusa we have a motion on the floor to make a motion to approve 13.3 moved by board member roger gaspina do we have a second i second seconded by board member bo do we have any discussion we do um and for those of you on the board we'll know i just

106want to make very clear that i'll be voting against this and i would hope that you would consider voting against it with me um and i just want to say why um i think um i really appreciate our azusa police department i think about in like 2008 students walked out of our district i'm on a mayday on late on may on may 1st and walked down i think it was citrus right there honestly and i just remember how as they were walking down um azusa pd were there but they were just sort of there to keep the kids safe and tabs on them and then as soon as they hit the border with west covina they hit the police who are in the full riot here like facing them ready to like so just it's

107an example of how how community driven our police are in our community right and how they're a really valued partner that being said i just i i feel like it's become very clear in the last couple years as we've had conversations around like we asked our police to do too many right and i think um having them on school campuses i think that there are ways that creative ways that we can build those partnerships with them build partnerships um and build relationships with our with both our students in our community that don't require us spending education dollars that should be going to a counselor or to go on to expanding our restorative justice work that we do um peer mentoring um i'd rather see that money spent on that and find creative ways to partner

108with l with our police rather than spending education dollars on having an sro on camp i would just add um and i asked our twitter to share with all of you as probably um the aclu just released a report this last this last month that really looked at the impact of having police on campuses and i just want to share a couple facts so um just these are some key findings so what they found was that in cal this is looking at california so uh schools that have as they have assigned law enforcement black student arrest rates are 7.4 times higher and their law enforcement referral rates are 4.7 times higher with latino students the 6.9 times higher um arrest rate and 4.4 times higher and enforcement referral rate for students with disability it's 4.6

109times higher higher in um arrest rate and 4.8 times higher in referral rates and i just want us to think about i guess like i said i really appreciate both the thoughtfulness but that azusa pd and glendora have have had in terms of who comes on our campuses but i also want us to think about where education dollars should go and the impact of having that police presence on campus the unintended consequence of having police on campus for um for all of the school hours so with that i just want to put that on the table so everyone's clear about why i'm i'm voting against this um um and also clear that i really do appreciate the work that we do in the collaborative partnership that we have with our assistant pd and um i'd

110like to speak on um i i need to disagree on that um i will vote yes on it because i know we've had the sros on our campus uh our three campuses for many years and i have seen them also um working with parents working with students i do like how they've added work um going to the uh western justice and wanting to do better and wanted to work with our students i've seen them in a classroom and speaking to students i've also seen them in the parent coffee you know helping the parents understand you know why they're there on campus and if they need any assistance you know where they're at and parents were asking questions there and this is where i i look on here with this prevention you know their um safety

111education and prevention and um parents were um really happy they were able to open up because and i don't think students should be afraid of police officers and and i don't think that our classified employees or our administration could handle a situation that they're not trained for i i think that when my grandkids were in school and my children i actually felt safer if there was a a police officer there in in any of the campuses and i've heard parents say the same thing that they were comfortable with that i i don't think we've had ever had any big major situations i know mr phil's not available but i wanted to know how many situations have we had but bad situations at our smooth side with any of our sros at any time i myself

112been here almost you know 10 years i've i've never seen anything but i have seen positives i've seen the ones at azusa high and even at sierra uh when um uh miss peralta i believe she was from glendora but you know um how the how the girls went up to her and asked her questions that you know they just wanted to speak to her they're very friendly at the high schools they give award to the students you know and they acknowledge them and they should not be afraid of the police officers i think that's why i disagree and and that's my feel on it do you want to echo your request so i really would like to understand in terms of um our students right i guess the the referral rate that we have so

113either arrest rate and or um referrals i know i mean anecdotally i know for example i heard of an incident with a student at glasgow high school who through the sro referring them ended up with some kind of picket from covina police department so i would like to understand like what do those numbers look like in our district right um um maybe over the last five well this last year doesn't count so i i think maybe you can use judgment in terms of what kind of information you can get first in terms of looking back on that that probably could have happened like two three years ago i remember the situation we did discuss that any other questions or comments they did add on here um the provision that that i requested regarding parents being

114contacted um you know and that was another situation we had with the parent any other questions are coming i do for allowing me to share my thoughts um miss pena what one thing you said that really hit me was what are we trained to do each of us are trained to do generally we're specialists right and generally trust each other and as experts in our specialty and at the same time i want to acknowledge that i think it's critically important that we um are deliberate and meaningful in our efforts to cross train so that we don't have to be experts in everything but we need to have continuous development and understanding in a little bit of something else and if that means law enforcement training in or sort of justice in counseling strategies and a

115little bit of um training among our teachers and staff of what law enforcement does and kind of what they're faced with not asking for everyone to jump into the other person's shoes but to build that not only the perspective but some of that prostrating um and ms cruz gonzalez i also uh really some things you said really resonated with me um and i'm taking it a little bit step further regarding the over representation of black and brown students in both our dis discipline referrals and of course in our prison system and um we need to as we have talked about in several meetings about our diversity equity inclusion work i think if we don't um bring those statistics into a real-life analysis of what we're trying to do with sros and restorative justice and trauma

116informed teaching and learning i think we're missing the mark all of that being said um i come from a law enforcement family and so i i see i have my own personal experience and also as as a parent i have hope and i also have some insecurity around what law enforcement can do around um securing our schools and um i hope that we can allocate educational dollars towards counseling and restorative justice programs and cross training and perspective building and be able to support sros on campus in this way if only for the um the outcome that we hope never happens where we might have an active shooter or other type of catastrophic event on campus um i hope that never comes to bear but i'm i'm not willing to take that risk at this moment

117in this way and i hope we can continue to have a very healthy and critical dialogue around school safety and what that means um and not make it school safety is one dimensional and that means we have an sro on campus thank you any other comments questions i'll just go ahead and add it it seems to me that we we oftentimes have this conversation every year when this item comes up for for the vote and and i i think that it may be wise for us to have some space to discuss this outside of uh outside of a like a pending boat and if we were to have some some conversation around what what are those things we as the i guess for lack of better where the contracting agency that that is that is

118contracting our the sros to be on our campuses what are those things that we are asking uh those officers to do or not do what what what are those parameters i know that we added uh you know in addition to the contract how does that even how does that play out and and what is the enforceability of that or not um i think that there's there's room for some conversation i mean it it may be worthwhile to kind of to hear um you know some thoughts and perspectives from some of our students what what what do they say how can we how can bring in some of this data and and understand what that data says and and what data do we have um as board member cruz gonzalez uh requested what data do we

119have for our school district and how that plays out here um border rodriguez pena one of the things that you said is no one should be afraid of police officers and and while i while i agree with that i also acknowledge that there are many folks who are many students who are um and and and that's a and that's a reality and so even as we as we look at uh maybe some of the you know unpack and examine some of the reasons why that may be the case but also explore what are some of the ways that we can dismantle some of those those uh fears that that exist in partnership with the azusa unif um apd as well as covina pd and i guess i would say it probably depends on each person's

120personal experience i'll say for me having gone to the gladstone high school and i'll say having been a knucklehead myself um the the resource officer that was there officer bob schenko was i i still remember him and know him and recognize the resource that he was in my life and the ways that he mentored me in in ways that others put it in ways that others didn't and and i and i'm grateful for for him and and for that that relationship that i had with him but i know that that's you know that's anecdotal that's that's my experience and not everybody has that same experience so i guess what i'm what i'm suggesting that we we do is how can we find space to to have a larger conversation around we've had a large conversation

121today but how can we have a conversation where there where we can discuss our philosophy and our preferences and then we can we can go to our partners within the city with this as opposed to um having a conversation only when there's an item is on the floor for for a vote i mean i like that idea i would just i would suggest to sabrina's point earlier that maybe we think more broadly right because in my mind this is the conversation about how are our schools both safe and welcoming right i mean how we create an environment and to me that's the conversation that i'd like to have because i would like to talk about not only the vision for the outcomes but how do we get there and i think obviously the srs may

122be a part of that but to me that's not in terms of when we look at our vision and mission for our district i mean that's not that's a really granular conversation and i'd rather have the broader and i i agree i think that i think that this could be a broad conversation i i would hope that as as this comes up every year and every year we have an extended conversation about this and so i i would hope that as as we as we cast vision and have that that that broader conversation that there is still room to certainly ensure that we discuss this item within it um so that we can have a general you know an understanding of of where we might go within that particular lane of of this product maybe

123adding it to one of our workshops or you know study sessions or what have you we think we can paste it just on this item or remember um maybe one thing we can think about mr ortega is some longitudinal data around discipline referrals and sr activity so that when we do have this conversation again we can talk about our statistic and you know increase how many how many more counseling hours have we provided to our students how many fewer discipline referrals that we had that i think those that type of data would be helpful in this conversation but could i also request um did we have this conversation prior to may of 20 is that if is that feasible to have again so that we're we're not but up against uh the next time that

124we're voting about this but instead we have the conversation well before any other questions or comment okay then we will go ahead and vote and the item passes three yes one no and one abstinent moving on the item 13.4 approval of the memorandum of understanding between azusa unified school district and the city of covina do we have a motion on the floor to make a motion to approve 13.4 motion to approve by board member rodriguez pena that we have a second second seconded by board member beau any discussion um just so it you know that for our our board norms you know explaining if i'm gonna vote against something and for the same reason as a previous item i'm gonna be putting no as well here any other questions comment you know what i said

125prior i say the same on um 13.4 you too we'll go and move to a vote and the motion passes uh four yeses i did that by accident i was on autopilot can you change that to a no for me please yeah or you could just can you just change it in the in a minute yeah i i was just you know you just go on auto pilot okay so we will we will vote again all right thank you and the motion passes four excuse me three yeses one no and one app moving on to item 14.0 human resources and 14.1 approval of the memorandum of understanding between the azusa unified school district branch alliance for educate uh educator diversity and azusa pacific university do we have a motion to approve 14.1 make motion to

126approve 14.1 move by board member rodriguez pena do we have a second i second seconded by board member bo any discussion yeah i have questions about this um so is this is this going to be connected to a residency program or this is just bringing in more diversity in the teacher pipeline what is this this is not uh the future residency that we've um talked about previously this is um teacher or future candidate preparation um by way of the branch alliance uh for educator diversity uh referred to here at branch ed they will be providing uh professional development training to students who are in the teacher preparation program at the souza pacific university uh and those candidates when um assigned to school sites for the student teaching program would come with that training and um

127apu being one of our closest and biggest partners for our teacher candidates um we see this as being a vehicle to continuously grow in this area of diversity education for our future uh candidate so just so this would would this just be for the teacher candidates coming to azusa then it's not it's or is apu going to be doing this video on this we uh we are one of several um districts that this is a pacific um university is partnering uh for this for this branch at mou so i just want to say i really i really think that we should find a way to just um congratulate or just appreciate apu that they're focusing on diversity and bringing somebody with this depth around some teacher diversity and equity because i think it it's a

128smart move maybe based on our community but i think but you know one that maybe not um um doesn't just happen on autopilot so i just want to appreciate the intentional intentionality of it any other questions or comments then let's move to a vote and the motion passes four yes to one absent moving on to item 14.2 approval of the memorandum of understanding between azusa unified school district and concordia university is there a motion on the floor make a motion to approve 14.2 on second move by board member rodriguez pena and seconded by board member uh cruz gonzalez uh any discussion yeah i have a question regarding the um the budget turn at the impact they're we're not paying anything for for this correct but outside here i noticed that it talked about money i'm

129wondering if there's no money or where is this coming from correct this is not this this does not have any uh budgetary impact wherein the district has to pay for this uh partnership with concordia with this mou articulates is that we would be receiving um a teacher candidate for uh student teaching purposes and also their counselor uh candidates for uh to clear their i'm trying to get their service hours um so the the reference in the mou payment is um does not does not signify that we would be uh paying or rather the district will be paying for this third obligation for the program to participate in the program and the the uh the master teacher or the counselor supervising the counselor who was in the program would be getting payment by way of the

130universe oh the students painted correct oh all right thank you any other question or comment hearing none it's a call for the vote the motion passes four yes the one absent moving on to item 14.3 uh azusa unified school district sunshine proposal for the 2021-22 fiscal year negotiations with azusa educators association yes the next series of board agenda items and they will be presented in trios represent the sunshine process um actually i'm happy that uh this comes on the heels of the presentation we just i received from the services team and the teachers because this really is the public's opportunity to speak into the parts of the contract that will be negotiated throughout the negotiation year uh so this is a it starts this process starts off with a um a information item uh announcing

131that we will be entering uh negotiations um and the second piece to this uh is the uh actual hearing that will take place and then this uh will conclude in the third part with the board taking action uh for each of the different uh components so today you will see on three different uh groups of sunshine processed the uh district's sunshine proposal with aea uh the district's sunshine proposal with csda and then lastly the aea's sunshine proposal for the district any other questions okay then we will move to item 14.4 uh which is indeed that public hearing um do we have a motion to open a public hearing i make a motion to open uh public hearing 14.4 a second so moved to open public hearing uh by board member rodriguez pena and seconded by

132board member uh who's gonzalez any discussion then let's go for the vote the vote passes four yes the one absent do we have anyone present here in person or do we have anyone uh joining us virtually who would like to speak on this item we have no hand grades virtually hearing none then i will go ahead and close this public hearing and we will move on to item 14.5 the board of education is required to officially approve the azus unified school district sunshine proposal for the fiscal year 2021-22 fiscal year negotiations with azusa education educators association is there a motion to make a motion to approve 14.5 moved by board member rodriguez pena my second seconded by board member bo any discussion then let's move to a vote and the item passes four yes to

133one absent moving on to item 14.6 azusa unified school district sunshine proposal for the 2021 22 fiscal year negotiations with the california school employees association uh mr unkill do you have anything to add no my previous comment uh captured this is another information item this time this is a district sunshine proposal with uh speaking negotiations with psta okay then we will move to item 14.7 which is public hearing uh is there a motion on the floor to open the public hearing i make a motion to open public hearing on 14.7 moved by board member rodriguez pena do we have a second a second seconded by board member bo uh lit any discussion let's go ahead and vote uh it passes four yes to one absent so the public hearing is now open do we have

134anyone present or anyone joining us virtually who would like to speak on this item we have no hands raised virtually [Music] then we will go ahead and close this public hearing at 905 pm and we will move to item 14.8 uh the board of education is required to officially approve the azusa unified school district sunshine proposal for the 2021-22 fiscal year negotiations with the california school employees association we have a motion on the floor and make a motion to approve 14.8 moved by board member rodriguez pena do we have a second a second seconded by board member bo any discussion then let's move to a vote and the item passes for yes and moving on to item 14.9 azusa educators association sunshine proposal for the 2021 2022 fiscal year negotiations with azusa unified school district

135uh mr rankino i i presume that there's nothing to add on this item correct the only difference is that this is the the educators association sunshine proposal uh for the articles they intend to bring forward in negotiations with the district thank you then we will move to item 14.10 public hearing is there a motion on the floor to open the public hearing make a motion um on 14.10 to the public hearing moved by board member rodriguez pena do we have a second second seconded by board member bo any discussion hearing none let's move to a vote and the item passes four yes to one absent so this public hearing is officially open at 9 07 pm do we have anyone here uh or online joining us virtually who would like to make a comment on

136this item we have no hands raised virtually okay i'm hearing none then i will close this this public hearing at 907 pm and that will move us to item 14.11. the board of education is required to officially approve the azusa educators association sunshine proposal for the 2021-22 fiscal year negotiations with azusa unified school district is there a motion on the floor to make motion on 14.11. moved by board member rodriguez pena um what is your motion unfortunately to approve where the board of education is is required to officially approve the azusa education educators uh association aea sunshine proposal for the 2021 fiscal year negotiations so this is unified school district ausd thank you i do have a second second seconded by board member both uh any other discussion hearing none we will move to a

137vote and the motion passes four yes the one absent which moves us to our final item uh 15.1 adjournment and again i would ask that we adjourn in honor of uh the late honorable eurovial misdias and can we please ask reina gonzalez the community liaison at glaston high school as as well as as well as thank you do we have a motion to uh approve move through during the meeting uh and we have a second second any discussion then let's go ahead go ahead and vote and the item passes for yes to one absent and so that officially adjourns our meeting at 9 09 pm have a good night