Azusa Unified School District Board Meeting - August 17, 2021

001i think are we streaming on youtube yes well good evening everyone and uh welcome to our azusa unified school district board of education regular board meeting it is seven o'clock and we are calling this meeting to order and we will begin with our flag salute which will be led by yamilette luiza sanchez from center middle good afternoon buenas tardes azuza my name is yamilette i am an 8th grade student at center middle school please stand place your right hand over your heart ready begin i've pledged 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 thank you thank you so much tell me that moving on we have our 4.2 roll call and so i will

002call for board member rodriguez pena president board member bo board member cruz gonzalez here and board member arianes here can you hear me and uh board member i am here as well moving on to uh item 4.3 approval of the agenda do i have a motion for uh the approval of the agenda i'm making motion to approve 4.1 1.3 i'm sorry so that's a move by board member rodriguez pena and seconded by board member beau let's go ahead and vote and the motion passes uh 5-0 moving on to item 5.1 a report action of closed session matters we're looking at student matter final settlement of our office of administrative hearing oah case number two zero two one zero four zero seven five six student number 21-21 is there a motion on the floor i'll make

003a motion to you have approve second second that's moved by board member cruz gonzalez and seconded by board member bo any discussion being none we will go ahead and move to a boat and the motion passed passes four uh to one abstention and that is uh approved moving on to but i just mentioned i'm obtaining because i was not in the closed session moving on to item number 6.0 recognition and awards and 6.1 california school employees association member of the year recognition and we will turn the floor over to principal gabriel fernandez mr fernandez are you here i hope so can you hear me yes sir welcome all right uh good evening board of education superintendent ortega and members of this cabinet on behalf of all the faculty at gladstone high school we are very

004pleased with the high honor that our library technician elizabeth morales received over the summertime she is a fine example of a hard-working cse employee she goes above and beyond for the students especially last year in this pandemic with the services she was delivered delivering daily um we're very appreciative of of this honor that she brings to herself into her family name and i would like to now turn it over to csca president laurie ray hi well hold on my there we go i'm here now hi um my name is lori ray and i'm the csca president of azusa chapter 299 and i'm so happy for rc pro liz morales for being named csea's member of the year for 2020 just to give you some background on the award the member of the year award is

005one of csca's most prestigious member awards this award honors chapter members who have gone above and beyond to enhance their school their chapter and their community and liz morales does just that whether it's serving our students uh in the library at gladstone high school and also keeping our staff informed there whether it's serving as our on our e-board as our um community our community our chapter public relations officer or also we're working in the community with uh foster youth and so we're very happy for you liz our holy board congratulations and thank you for all you do and miss morales would you like to say anything yes thank you um i just wanted to show you the wonderful award that they did i did receive my courier and um i'm just so honored to have

006received this award and grateful to be a part of this as a community as a library technician it gives me the opportunity to help others in providing resources for all ages and needs i'm thankful for the support from my family and the team at gladstone high school i also want to highlight some of the great resources that i work closely to to do the greater good uh the adult education team eggleston youth center and the zuzu city library i'm glad to know that there are so many others willing to help lastly and most importantly a great kudos goes to all our classified employees and ours was a chapter we are stronger together and doing the best for our students and children they are the ones that i hold dearly in my heart and hope that

007each and every one of them knows that they are a special part of my life thank you so much can i say something i want to congratulate you miss library liz i always see her in the library and she's always smiling her face even there's a lot of parents in there and we have our um coffee with the principal and students and she's always willing to help thank you very much and it was well deserved thank you any other comments from the board i would just like to make a comment that um ms morales not only received thank you for showing us that award uh we also uh received a really nice award for miss morales here at the district office and so in collaboration with miss president lori ray we think that we have

008found the perfect spot for it and so it'll be centered uh it'll be a focal point when you walk in to our district office and so we're very proud to to be able to display that thank you thank you very much and and to add to your collection of awards uh we also have on behalf of the board we congratulate and celebrate you and i have your certificate the zeus unified school district uh certificate of recognition is proudly presented to elizabeth morales for receiving the california school employees association member of the year award uh dated august 17th 2021 thank you for your dedicated service thank you so much moving on to item 7.1 public comma on agenda or non-agenda items this is an opportunity for the public to address the board of education on agenda

009or non-agenda items individual speakers may be allowed up to three minutes to address the board of education on any agenda or non-agenda items to address the board of education please raise your hand while in the zoom attendant lika do we have anyone with their hand raised we do we have one to start uh claudia you may have meet your mic good evening board cabinet members and superintendent ortega i am claudia tonte and i'm an employee of asus unified school district's business service division i am also part of csea's chapter asusa chapter 299 negotiations team and this evening i'm here to request your consideration in a dire matter regarding benefits that affect 100 of the classified workforce in your district i could tell you that employees can no longer afford to carry medical coverage but you

010already know that i could tell you that the family coverage plans available are no longer affordable due to the cost that falls in the range of sixteen thousand seven hundred thirty eight dollars for the most comprehensive coverage down to eight thousand five hundred and fifty four dollars for the least comprehensive coverage but you already know that too what i'm here to ask is that you consider what happens to an essential part of your workforce when the wages offered are not enough for this work classification to meet basic needs and making the cost of coverage a burden that can no longer be afforded what happens to your workforce when the relationship is no longer an equitable relationship between employee and employer what happens when an employee has to make difficult decisions between basic needs such as

011food under table and to whether continue medical coverage what happens when an employee is demoralized and no longer engaged or feels devalued because working an eight-hour day is no longer enough when eight hours if you are lucky to have an eight-hour job is no longer enough to provide basic needs now just consider how this affects the workforce that works less than eight hours i ask you to consider the damaging emotional and mental effect that this has on your workforce and the repercussions from it it's especially damaging when we continually hear how valuable we are how essential we were during the peak of the pandemic how invaluable classified employees are to the district and how much we meant to the community but in reality as a workforce it is clear that to the district to you

012we don't mean enough not enough to earn better wages and not enough to receive a higher district contribution towards health benefits it is truly an alarming thought it is specially alarming when you consider the importance of a school district to its community how this special purpose government entity plays a significant role in the general improvement of their respective community how a school district connects people within the community how it promotes positive changes and promotes positive impact in the lives of students and parents how it shares in parent engagement is a critical factor affecting the success of students and how working together and supporting students sets path for higher grades and eventually enrollment into higher level education ultimately improving the social and economic platform for the community and improving lives my final request for consideration to

013you board and cabinet members this evening is to consider how fragile this relationship truly is the impact it has on so many of these community members not only as parents in your district but also as your employees to understand that a change is imperative because you are hurting the same community you are fighting so hard to improve please consider the repercussions of that thank you for your time thank you ms tonsei for taking the time to come and share your comments with us moving on to item 8.1 comments uh reports can we double check with uh lika to make sure there's nobody else absolutely lika is there anyone else in the room with their henries we do not have any more hands raised thank you thank you mr tigger uh moving on to 8.1 on

014uh comments reports and requests by the board of education we'll go ahead and start with board member rodriguez pena uh good evening everyone um i just want to um let people know that i did attend the um staff leadership seminar it's really great to see um your employees out of the boardroom you know you you get to speak to them and spend time with them have coffee with them i really enjoyed the bright spots video from the disney unified school district also the um ted talk that had a great ted talk video regarding why credibility is a foundation of leadership you should look that one up and and he has a very great message the icebreaker that was great too i really appreciate that reminded me when i went to the western justice and um

015it um was about getting to know each other i partnered with frank chang and brian ellen which i didn't know very well due to the pandemic um i seen them in passing but i didn't know too much about them but we had great conversation i didn't know much about them they didn't know much about me and now we do know and it was good for that time spending with them um uh the parent zoom meeting i i seen that on on zoom and it uh it was done very well superintendent ortega and and uh in your cabinet and normal camacho a great job parents were available asked very great uh questions and questions were answered and i know if they didn't get a chance to speak they were answered afterwards and then another successful event

016the 12th annual kathy cool cuts for kids three haircuts backpacks with school supplies over 200 children were there assistant police chief verdessen gave out three 7-11 flipping certificate it's all done by donations and volunteers i want to thank mayor gonzalez for continuing this great service to the students and the children here in in azusa community uh finally i noticed the left turn yield green light signal on the corner of air ohio and eden going to glaston high school i happened to be going there and i looked up like oh it's working now it's been over 10 years that i know that parents and community members have asked for that light and i don't know how it happened but i want to thank whoever made it happen and then i did notice the bright lights at

017all the school sites they look really bright and they look beautiful shining you can even see to the backyard of murray school so no one can hide in the bushes anymore and um it's going to come in really handy during their open house during daylight saving time and also for safety reasons thank you board member rodriguez pena board member bo thank you good evening everyone and as this year's district representative to azusa golden days i'm happy to report that the golden days has met a couple of times and in considering um the tradition of golden days as one that's deeply held here by the community as well as concerns over the delta variant um at this time the golden days is not going to host a carnival nor a parade this year however the planning

018committee is very committed to creating a series of virtual and or smaller pop-up outdoor events um including a concert and so we're looking at ways to continue the tradition create events for people to gather in small groups and safely outdoors and um i look forward to reporting back additional updates as we get closer to you thank you board member beau board member cruz gonzalez thank you i'm really looking forward to the first day of school in a couple days um and i appreciated being able to also participate in the just at the beginning of the the management meeting earlier this this month i did want to say yolanda i'm not i won't say that that gladstone high school can take credit for that but i think that the work that they did um with when

019the uc berkeley trek people came in and we did a walking audit and um the community there both students and parents got involved in sort of mapping out how to make the walkability around gladstone high school that process we did that about four years ago i think i don't remember um but i think maybe that had a little bit to do with that like going in there so it's great to see community action and engagement turn into reaction from the county right to the reaction to our needs so i look and that's a really great example of how our empowered students were able to make something happen even if it may we may have forgotten because you know it happened so long ago and those students have moved on but they can look back and

020see that they had an impact on on that community so that um and i think with that i think that's all i have for right now thank you thank you board member chris gonzalez uh board member already honest i have no comment and i myself just want to stay a couple days to go and and school will will commence and so we're grateful for the the staff and and uh just everyone doing all the hard work to ensure that things are ready to go here and and those are already back at work doing doing the work um and just are excited and can't wait to see our students on our campuses um and just know that you are in my prayers for uh for a healthy for a safe and for a rich school year

021with that we will move on to item 9.1 which is comments and reports by the superintendent and cabinet and so mr ortega i will turn it over to you thank you lord pres i'm vice president um i will start it off um so our maintenance operation team is working diligently to get our campuses ready um we have been hit with a lot of absentee of our employees so we have been trying to work and multiply our manpower to make thursday work we're confident that our team at hand will achieve that goal um also we are happy to continue to announce that we will continue to offer curbside meal distribution in addition to providing all of our students with breakfast lunch and supper on campus while having instruction and then lastly tomorrow we will be celebrating

022outside at gladstone high school in the quad to celebrate all of our employees to show them how much we value and appreciate them which is a little token of a lunch of a subway meal with the drink cookie and a chip we will have some raffles we'll have music so we're hoping everyone can stop by and we welcome all to just come by say hello and say let's kick off this 2020 dude 21-22-22 school year thank you uh thank you um a couple of things uh number one just wanted to share that uh azusa unified school district in partnership with california ed partners uh has been um accepted uh our proposal was accepted we wrote a proposal for csba and i'm happy to announce that we got a a thumbs up on our on our

023uh presentation uh it is titled the case uh for coherence building capacity pre-k to third grade and so we're we're happy that we're gonna be able to share uh our story and the journey that we have been uh on in uh in the primary grade uh also another uh highlight uh last week um we were approached by edsource edsource is a publication educational publication um and we were contacted to interview azuza they wanted to talk about three things they had heard about our summer extravaganza and some other and some other things and so they wanted to just pick our brains we spent about an hour with them the three things that we talked about were summer extravaganza or community engagement and our reopening and so again just proud that that through our work um we're

024garnering some of some attention um and so just very proud of the staff and uh what we've been doing with that board member rodriguez pena alluded to our town halls again thank you to all the staff that worked so hard not only for the meeting but the website the guidebook uh everything that that goes behind the scenes to prepare for something like that um we had uh i believe somewhere around six to seven hundred attendees over the course of the two meetings they had extremely good uh questions um and we are close to being being able to publish an faq uh that we will post on our reopening um website uh as well for the questions that we couldn't get to uh because of time and then just like everybody else has shared um just

025really excited uh we are two days away uh from opening and so just uh excited to to welcome back our staff to welcome back our parents and welcome back our students onto our campuses thank you good evening yesterday we held our certificated staff development day and one of our presenters was the western justice center which included a panel q a that included our teachers counselors administrators and two students from gladstone high school and i want to give both of these students kathy cortez and yet theory ochoa a very special shout out and thank you for sharing their perspective they were not only poised and articulate but they just absolutely um represented um the program and the students just so well and we're just also very very proud of them and want to thank them for

026presenting to the entire certificated staff yesterday thank you and good evening board of education staff and community i want to welcome everyone to the upcoming school year while this is an exceptionally busy summer i look forward to seeing our students staff back at our school site also last thursday august 12th they are hosted our annual new orientation we invited 28 of our new teachers counselors and a nurse orientation was held in person and we followed all of our folded 19 protocols we were able to present each of our cabinet members and their fees to our newest certificated team members in addition to the 8-star information that i presented our new teachers counselors and the nurse were introduced to our instructional focus and priority a huge thank you to dr mitchell and mrs framer for leading

027this presentation i'm also grateful to our aea executive board who were also there to provide valuable information and a delicious thank you board and cabinet if i could just remind everyone as they're speaking to ensure that you have your microphone pretty close to your face uh we're hearing that there's people who are having a challenging time hearing it moving on to 10.1 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

028to provide input regarding the composition of the districts before drawing draft maps of the proposed boundaries of the district may i have a motion to open the public hearing make a motion to approve moved by board member board member rodriguez pena do i have a second second second by board member beau and now we will vote to open this meeting and the motion passes uh five to zero mr ortega thank you vice president grier um at this at this time i would like to introduce jonathan salt who will be walking us through today's public hearing thank you good evening members of the board staff and district community my name is jonathan salt i'm an attorney with fagan freeman full frost and i'm joined by justin rich a demographer at cooperative strategies um tonight is the

029first of a series of public hearings regarding the district's transition from at large to buy trustee area elections i think you all remember back earlier this year the board took action to start this process and now that the census data is about to be released now is the time to pick up the baton so to speak and run the gamut of all these hearings and transparently build trustee areas for the district so first i'll give a little bit of background about the process justin will talk about some of the demographics and about the kinds of information we're looking for tonight and we'll hand it back over for additional comments and questions so first what is the california voting rights act or the cvra well it passed about 18 years ago so my new favorite joke

030is that it's old enough to vote um and the cbra prohibits at large elections if that system impairs the ability of members of protected classes from influencing the outcome of elections or electing candidates of choice there's no intent like the federal voting rights act so it's very easy for a plaintiff to bring a claim against a government entity like a school district or a city because proof of intent to discriminate is not required for a plaintiff to show another big reason why you're hearing about this around the state is that a prevailing plaintiff earns the right to reasonable attorneys fees and expert fees if they were to prevail on a cvra claim but if a school district or city or county successfully defends itself it's not afforded that same right and so some of these

031costs get pretty astronomical pretty quickly the only safe harbor from a cvra claim is the transition to a buy trustee area election system think of this like congress where the district's divided into roughly equal population areas and one board member will be elected by the residents of each area and that board member must live in that area now those of you are already elected at large so this doesn't impact your current term but prospectively this is how the transition would work so right now step one was to adopt a resolution which the board did several months ago so step two is to hold these two pre-mapped public hearings before the demographer is able to draw draft map options and so the point of it is to receive community and board comments about sort of uh

032input on what you'd like to see in these maps justin thank you my name is justin rich and i'm with cooperative strategies i'm the demographer that'll be helping you through this process and so i just want to talk a little bit about the data that goes into creating these maps and just walk you through some of what we see from our perspective so we've included a map here that shows the district boundaries and obviously this is our starting point when we start to separate the district into various voting areas we've included the various jurisdictions that are within the district and right outside we've also included some of the topographical features you'll you'll see those on the following slides as well we've included here a table that has the 2010 census data and it has the

033total population based on the census at that time jonathan talked about the fact that we're expecting 2020 census data it's been released uh we're currently going through that and the state is going through a process of validating that data uh so we should have that shortly and we'll be using that throughout the process we've also included the various protected classes that comprise the district and that the percentage uh and breakdown of that total population again this is from the 2010 census so we'll be interested to see what the 2020 census data shows us we've also included what we call a graduated color map here and we're looking specifically at the latino population within the district you'll see these blocks of colors that are darker and lighter in color this represents the concentration of latino voters

034in the census blocks and it's important to note that the foundational puzzle pieces if you will for putting the map together are based on these census blocks which are the smallest units uh that the census releases in in terms of geographical information we'll use those in order to to make the various map scenarios that we present to you and we will be very interested in the the composition of those areas once we put them together to ensure that they are compliant with the federal voting rights act i'll note that this is based on the 2015-19 citizen voting age population this is a figure that comes from the american community survey this is run through the census and it's updated periodically this is the most recent data that we have but it's really a proxy for

035uh who might uh might be eligible to to vote in in an election and it's it's important to ensure compliance with the federal voting rights act uh that's distinguished though from the total population which is a requirement in terms of drawing uh drawing areas that are balanced in total population and so the purpose of this pre-map public hearing and the one in a couple of weeks is to solicit feedback on what the community thinks or basically where should the lines be drawn you know i'll zoom in here on a map where the population is concentrated um so this is sort of the information we're looking for tonight you know i think neighborhood x and neighborhood y should be in the same trustee area where i think the 210 makes sense as a trustee area boundary

036because it makes sense geographically or i think azusa avenue etc so um you know you all know the community better than we do and so this kind of feedback for that makes sense or uh portions of the district that makes sense to maybe be boundaries is the kind of feedback we're looking for tonight and so i'll hand it back to justin to talk about the actual criteria for drawing the maps he alluded to it a few moments ago and so our our uh task is to draw uh the the draft plans and share that with you all um and looking for input and feedback again at that time about how we can uh improve those map scenarios how uh from from the sense of creating better representation and keeping certain communities of interest together so

037that's that's important for for us to do uh i alluded to the balanced population um uh requirement that that is in keeping with the one person one vote doctrine uh so what we have to do is make sure that when we put these areas together that they're roughly equal in population that threshold that we have is that the smallest area and the largest area can be no no more than 10 in in terms of differential so so that's a really hard and fast rule that we have to comply with uh and and that's certainly one of our foremost charges here um that i mentioned there's a certain amount of deviation that will happen but uh they have to be roughly equal in population and so we must comply with with the us constitution uh we

038we we try to to achieve that population equality but we also have to comply with the federal voting rights act which uh means that we cannot impair the ability of of a protected class to uh to uh elect the candidate of their choice there's those are hard and fast rules that that we need to comply with but there's also other things that that we take into consideration because we want to achieve good representation uh and we also think that this is uh this keeps communities together so that their their vote can be as one so um we we we have to make sure that these areas are are contiguous uh we also take into consideration the the communities of interest that exist within the district so that we're not splitting those uh we we look

039to keep these areas relatively compact so that when somebody looks at the map that it doesn't appear that they're being drawn in a in a particular way to to manipulate the uh the the electorate um and we also have to take into uh into account the incumbency of of those candidates as well um these are all things that um as long as we're meeting those those first two requirements um that that we will also consider these other ones but i would uh really characterize them as being uh things that we should do as opposed to things that we have to do and that is being balanced in population and complying with the federal voting rights act a few final thoughts about this transition itself it does not change the district's overall boundaries it doesn't change

040school attendance areas where anybody goes to school or even how the board is governed each board member regardless of trustee area which he or she resides still owes the duty to the entire district so it's still one district with common goals and challenges this transition just changes who can run for board when and who is voting for them and so um one thing i want to draw some additional attention to i mentioned that there's another hearing coming up so tonight is the first pre-map public hearing in a few weeks at the next board meeting there will be the second one somewhere after that and before november the full census data will be released as justin mentioned and so then uh justin based on the feedback received tonight and on the 7th and also just based

041on the data for the district's demographics justin will prepare uh you know three or four draft map options that'll be shared with the community posted on the website uh for uh you know public consumption um and then there'll be three public hearings uh into november one in december where folks can chime in on what they like or don't like about each map option or which map option is their favorite or if there's any suggested changes and then at the december 14th meeting the board would ultimately vote on one of those options to be the district's trustee area map option which then goes to the county for approval and then to stay up to date on what's going on the district created a tab on the website underneath board of education where there's some information some

042frequently asked questions and some updated um information as we move on here about the process and ultimately this is where the maps will be posted so if you have questions about this check out the website if you have more questions feel free to to email staff and we'll get back to you with an answer but so with that um you know what let's uh the public hearing can continue if there's comments from the community or board thank you gentlemen for uh this presentation as part of 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 system speakers will be given three

043minutes to make comments on this matter and this matter only if you wish to address this subject please make sure to raise your hand in zoom lika do we have anyone raising their hand at this time we did not have any hands hearing none uh thank you for uh your comments and uh this public hearing to receive public testimony conserving concerning the composition of potential trustee voting areas is now closed at 7 39 pm i have a clarification question so we don't need to make a motion to close the public hearing that is correct that was clarified and it was determined that we do not need to do that okay moving on to item can we ask questions now okay great yeah i have a couple questions um maybe a point of order if we

044could have our attorney speak to that it being a public hearing if there's any matter uh anything that will prevent us from asking questions at this time mr jonathan salt um can you address uh that is that is that can we do that you can it's it's it's common for boards to ask questions as part of the public hearing just for um it's also public hearing for the board too the community can share their thoughts with you but you can also share your thoughts or ask questions as well um maybe before formally closing the the public hearing this would be a good time to ask questions we're happy to answer them um and help any way we can so i actually prefer to have the questions after the public hearing is closed so that it's

045just a board discussion or conversation not necessarily a public hearing conversation so is that that's why i waited till the public hearing was closed you can also close the public hearing and just ask some questions since we're still sort of on the item you know the public knows that this item is on the agenda and that the topic of potential trustee areas is here before you thank you yes so i just have a couple questions um could you just please um explain uh just a little bit about the difference in terms of when you use the population data i know you were clear about that versus or actually just maybe focus on the c-vap the citizen voting age population and why you would use that data and how will be how we'll see it being

046used sure excuse me um the total population data that's that's provided by the census and that we'll be getting soon is how we balance population uh and and that's to make sure that the various areas are roughly equal in population and then in terms of the citizen voting age population if we are looking to making sure that we're not splitting communities and we're not you know impairing the ability of a protected class to be able to elect the candidate of their choice the the citizen voting age population is a more accurate measure of how you would see potentially a majority minority district and see see those types of dynamics so because there's going to be differences in terms of age groups and uh eligibility to vote that's that's really a better measure to see whether

047or not we're achieving that okay that's great and then my other question is so i noticed on the presentation that the um that you're saying that you're going to bring the data the updated census data not at the next public hearing but but at the when we do the map the map setting hearings so so are you able to use the data that just came out last week and use that to give us information at the next public hearing or is that you're just you're going to wait till after these two pre to public hearing two pre-map hearings yeah i think our our goal is to bring that to you as soon as possible and and we're going through that right now what what happens is the data comes from the census and goes to

048the statewide database that's held at the the university of california berkeley uh there's a certain amount of validation in aggregating of that data that happens and then they will release that in september now i know that we have access to the data as well and so we're going through the process of pulling all that together and i think in conversation with with jonathan and making sure that we're not jumping the gun so to speak as soon as we can share that data we will and i think it makes sense um so hopefully by the next public hearing will at least be able to share the uh the total population based on 2020 as opposed to 2010. so so that's my goal and important importantly um the new data the data that was released the other

049day that's ultimately kind of siphoning through at the state level now and they'll eventually be finalized in the next month or so that's the data that's going to be used for eco population when the maps are drawn not the 2010 census data we just wanted to show um more or less you know that there were about 66 000 people in the district at the last census you know which equals you know roughly i'm not sure 14 000 or so or 13 000 people per trustee area based on five um you know that's obviously going to change a little bit uh depending upon the census but we just wanted to kind of ballpark it and show what the old data would have been and we can compare that to the new data when it's ready yeah

050i really appreciate that yeah so i just my request is it would be really great if you're able to bring that data even if you're getting it from the raw data and we just would have understanding that it would it could it could and will probably change just because we know it hasn't been fully validated i would appreciate that because i think that would give me as a board member a better sense of what we're looking at um so that that would be very much appreciated yeah i think we'll we'll we'll do that to the extent we can and just uh provide the appropriate caveats or or clarifications adrian that's it for me thank you any other questions from the award okay then we move on to item 10.2 the 2021 summer extravaganza programming presentation

051and so i will turn it over to mr frank king good evening board i will start us off this evening we are excited to provide you with some of the highlights of our summer extravaganza programming um i want to tell you that the team this year really pushed themselves to reimagine a summer learning program in partnership with our think together partners and focus really not on remediation but on acceleration and also focused on hands-on project-based learning we were able to see firsthand the reciprocal relationship between project-based learning and social emotional learning as well we learned a lot along the way and in a cycle of continuous improvement we're going to take our new learnings and provide an even better summer extravaganza program next year so with that i would like to turn it over to

052mr frank kang but we'll take it from here good evening board of education superintendent ortega cabinet and the ausd community um before we start the presentation i would like to take this opportunity to thank all those involved with our 2021 summer extravaganza so many people made it happen teachers including ptosis classified staff counselors administrators citrus college think together staff with particular thanks to stacey gautamas and samira mejia we were able to offer both online and in-person summer opportunities for three 12-day sessions for a total of 36 days not only does students have an exciting enrichment and learning opportunities but our high school students had the opportunity to recover credit thank you to the ed services team for their collaboration site administrators who accommodated all the students who wanted to participate the human resources team particularly

053dr alexis norman mr ortega for his leadership and dr dana mitchell for her vision to realize the extravaganza now i would like to present mr david luebenos who did such an amazing job as summer principal he will speak about the summer program at both gladstone and azusa high school david thank you very much frank good evening superintendent artur ausd board members administrators colleagues friends and families i will agree i will be presenting in somewhat general terms for both glaston and azusa high schools james arianis did a fantastic job at this is a high school but he's not available tonight because he has since accepted an administrative position with the bassett unified school district therefore the four middle and high school slides may be displayed while i present first i would like to express my appreciation

054for the opportunity to serve the summer program at glaston high school i personally attended azusa schools including gladstone so it is a service that is close to my heart i would also like to recognize and express my appreciation for all those that work together to make the middle and high school summer programs a success the director of the summer programs at the secondary level frank chang and his secretary georgina rodriguez maldonado the clerks irene rodriguez and annette campos the data entry technicians magdalena vargon and laura navarro and the counselors dr janae korum joyce de leon and jackie oak the citrus college and think together directors coordinators and leaders and of course all the teachers and instructional aides for their instruction and care given to our students each brought their talents to the summer programs and

055played an invaluable role as a member of the secondary summer school team i would also like to express a special thank you to the sci principals gabriel fernandez and dr martin gomez for their and their staffs for welcoming the summer programs and providing their support and an environment conducive to our work at both high schools middle and high school students were engaged in project-based learning activities middle school students were enrolled in math language arts and art classes where they worked collaboratively and culminated each session with presentations or their projects to their peers they also received a wonderful opportunity to to familiarize themselves with the high school campuses and the rising ninth graders were able to earn elective semester credits this will help make the transition to high school much easier as they begin the new

056school year the high school students were also enrolled in math and language arts classes as well as physical education at azusa high school in the computer-based apex classes students were able to complete courses in a variety of subject areas depending on their needs and through the sped program students were enrolled in math language arts science and social studies classes students had the opportunity to recover from five to thirty semester units and advanced in their high school course requirements in addition to the in-person courses many other students were able to complete their courses virtually in 17 different apex classes during both sessions one and two in association with citrus college again the students were able to advance in their high school course requirements through both grade report recovery and grade improvement opportunities the combination of the

057modes of instruction and the variety of courses available allow the summer this summer's program to reach and meet the needs of a larger diverse group of high school students thank you i now pass it on to dr dana mitchell thank you very much david i appreciate that so much um we also had uh our um as they mentioned our summer bridge program um one of um there so many projects stood out there's one in particular that stood out in a math class the students were learning uh geometry principles but they for their project they were building um a designing a blueprint and building miniature uh tiny houses um and it was just it was just so fantastic to see the students just uh so engaged and being able to apply um their mathematic as well

058um so it was just excellent um in terms of our elementary program um we were at six uh elementary sites this summer and we had three fantastic summer administrators uh we had patti abalo david hartman and anna kwok um who were um our summer administrators and so i'd like to introduce uh patty abalo who is one of our uh fabulous teachers at powell elementary and she was one of our summer administrators and she's going to give you a couple of highlights from our elementary summer program so patty i'll turn it over to you good evening everybody thank you so much for letting me have a few minutes um i really want to start off by saying the best part of summer extravaganza was hearing kids laugh i would be in the office and you would

059just hear kids and teachers laughing and it was just heartwarming they were so excited to be on campus and it really was it was great it was at lee and powell you would hear just kids giggling and just being excited to be there um so yeah we had some kindergarten teachers who really um dove into the project-based learning um they read a story to their class called um oh my gosh can't think of it right now um oh my goodness they were planting seeds though and the book was about seeds and what was it called again the empty pot that empty pot oh my gosh great book yes thank you yes so they read the empty pot and so the teachers took it definitely um to the max with that they got seeds they put

060seeds in dark closets they put seeds with too much water and did all the different kind of experiments you would do with seeds these were the littlest kids so these were our kindergartners and our first graders um and of course project-based learning isn't about craft but with the kindergartner who doesn't want to put a paintbrush and paint and great stuff like that in their hands and dirt and so they did and so you can see on this slide that they had some pots that they got to plant and they were able to see how their seeds were growing and how they grew best so it was a great project for our littlest kiddos um the other thing also that they did at lee um which was pretty amazing um yasmine trujillo she read the book

061the wild robot and so she decided that they were going to build robots and she gave me this list of supplies and i was just shocked of all these different things but she put it all together and these kids it was amazing to go into this class these kids had motors and batteries and there was glue guns and it was just chaos in that class that the kids were just learning and enjoying and learning off of each other and i know i had told this to dana a few times that um this one boy he kept trying to put the battery onto the motor and this little robot kept trying to take off and you know he looked at mrs trujillo and she said you know try making a switch for it and the first

062thing he said was okay well where's the aluminum foil which blew my mind because if somebody told me to make a switch my first question would not be where is the aluminum foil it would definitely be how do i make a switch um it was just it was really heartwarming to see all of it and again just like david lewevano said think together and everybody else they were amazing some of the things they did and so i really appreciate it we had a great time thank you so much thank you patty um just uh just a couple of other highlights um part of that curriculum that patty mentioned is that um the students uh read grade level literature and then they engaged in this hands-on project um and that was aligned is something that was

063going on uh some kind of concept that was in the story and so um for example um here's some on this slide you can see some of the books that they read um there is one book ada twist scientists they they uh did a lava lamp um project with uh and made their own uh lava lamp uh they read rosie revere engineer and tested propellers with paper and created leo airplanes um they read after the fall and created ways to protect egg from dropping um uh they um they read holes and they engineered a machine that would dig dirt faster they read the lemonade war and they created lemonade stands and so um it was also a chance for the upper graders to um to work with the primary grades and they the little ones

064enjoyed pretending to be customers and so they they had to create a business plan and so um it was just a fantastic project that was able to uh incorporate multiple uh grade levels as well um they read charlie in the chocolate factory and did several experiments to test buoyancy and weight they read hoot and they um created environment for owls um just absolutely fantastic um we we did we learned so much and again um we are just so grateful to um everybody that participated um and really made this happen uh teachers spent a lot of time uh with their um pbl uh professional learning over the summer and worked with our high tech high graduate school of education uh project-based learning camp and um we just really were able to put a lot of those

065things into place and so again super grateful to everybody who participated um now i want to turn it over much of this we had a tremendous partnership with our think together partners and so i'm now going to turn it over to samira mahia and who's going to talk to uh to you and just tell you a little bit about how think together partnered with us good afternoon damon thank you so much for the introduction um good evening honorable board president board cabinet and community um as dana mentioned my name is samira mejia and i'm the director of program and operations for think together programs in our san giber valley region and i'm really excited to be here today to share about our summer learning extravaganza programs in azusa um so as you've heard the summer

066was really one like no other in partnership with azusa unified our student learning recovery program really provided the summer learning opportunities resulting from the covid related disruptions to the teaching and learning experiences of that typical school year and so in collaboration with the district and through our leadership with dana mitchell and frank chang uh we were able to collaborate and really design uh the instruction and the program offerings for our programs supporting and staffing hiring and training our paraprofessionals as well as our certificated teachers and providing that high quality summer program so as you can see we had the opportunity to provide summer programs at six of our elementary sites and our middle school students had the opportunity to participate in program and expose themselves to that high school setting and so you see here

067our students from center had the opportunity to participate at azusa high school as well as foothill and then our students at slauson participated at glaston high school and then we were servicing our full programs at isuzu high and gladstone um and some of the uh continued reinforcements and and program aspects uh included a lot of the safety uh protocols so reinforcing our social distancing our temperature checks those hourly cleanings and just ensuring that our students were our students and staff were maintaining safety throughout all of the program and so with our think together summer extravaganza we had the opportunity to reach and serve over 1300 students across our elementary middle and high school sites and so students that attended the full session from june 14th up until august 3rd had an opportunity to receive 36

068additional in-person instruction days which is huge a safe space for them to one interact with their peers and start participating in the hands-on activities that we provided and so that equated to the 252 additional hours of safe interactive hands-on learning and so the design and supplemental instruction provided that active and engaging positive school environment and so we integrated subjects throughout our program offerings that included visual and performing arts science technology engineering physical education and enrichment activities and so embedded throughout our summer offerings included on-site excursions and workshops some of the fun things that we saw in elementary sites included bubble shows where students had an opportunity to engage and learn about the signs of bubbles and participate in bubble assemblies for our middle school students we had an opportunity to participate with bricks for kids

069lego workshops and so we had a lego expert provide instruction and support students through their own design of robots and each student had an opportunity to receive their own lego kits and so in addition to the academics as dana mentioned programs included the highly engaging enrichment that introduced our students for high school and so similar to elementary and middle school programs our high school students were able to participate in offerings that included the social awareness aspect the visual and performing arts life skills and stem and so i'll be able to go through a little bit more in depth as far as what each of those look like and so in terms of our academics as presented earlier our students participated in that daily instruction support from 8 a.m to 12 p.m with that emphasis on

070project-based learning and so throughout summer students were able to receive that additional 144 hours of academic instruction provided by our credential teachers included many of those that were as a unified teachers and so it was really nice to see students having an opportunity to see face to face with some of the teachers that they hadn't seen for months back and so in our elementary middle school students again engaged in that project based learning with a focus on grade level literature and in addition our ninth grade summer bridge students participated in math and ela supports and so specifically as you heard students participating and presenting their business plans and branding concepts and developing their lemonade businesses and so in partnership with mrs rossi at valley dell students a little quote that i wanted to be able

071to share from one of our students he indicated that it has helped him in various ways and it's given him the opportunity to advance himself in mathematics and language arts and it's helped him to be more social and interactive with his peers so it's truly a testament to our certificated teachers um that supported our students and so as you can see with our stem offerings with our invention adventures our paraprofessionals our program leaders supported students through a variety of exploratory inventions so students had an opportunity to engage with a kit of different household materials and they had an opportunity to engage from the design concept discussions how to build the eiffel tower with um aluminum foil or um q-tips and laminate um and so it was really interesting just to see all of the different

072inventions and how different materials really impacted the invention success in our high school programs you saw our high school students focus on drone building and technology and successfully accomplishing drone mission and design in terms of our physical activities students were able to perfect their skills and time by participating in a very competitive game of sports stacking so each school each student received their own individualized sports decking kit uh and week over week they were changing their methods of collapsing and building the cups and participated in many student tournaments also including dueling different program staff in addition to the sports stacking curriculum students also participated in outdoor team building and problem solving activities and so through our continuous partnership with the u.s soccer foundation each student also had the opportunity to receive their own pair of

073cleats and soccer balls and they engaged in weekly skill building summer program moving on to our visual and performing arts our students participated in weekly dances on perfecting their skills and showcasing some of the new moves that they were able to groove to as programs reconvene together at the welcome and closing of programs in our middle school and high school students they explored reading comprehension through music as it relates to history and so they had an opportunity to take a walk down memory lane as far as how history and how music has really impacted how music has developed time and time again and so it was really exciting and interesting to see and and have students learn about history the events and the artists that are impacting our communities today and then finally with our

074high school program uh students participated in some life skill opportunities so with our workforce readiness education program students participated in resume building job interview skills they participated in live mock interviews to better prepare them for either college interviews or future workforce interviews with our driver's ed program in partnership with state farm we had about 20 students participate in the teen driver education program that really supports them and prepares them for the driver permit test and then with project citizen and dude be nice students really had an opportunity to revisit current events um policies that are important to them specifically dress code and maybe how they would want to impact and and advocate for their peers and each other and really being able to build and create that positive environment in the school setting so as

075you can see with our summer extravaganza it really was an exciting time as mentioned to see students laughing once again interacting with one another and i cannot thank you enough for just the support and the opportunity to be able to bring expanded learning programs to the children and families of azusa it truly has been an honor to be a part of this learning community and we're thrilled that we can continue to support rss unified children and help them grow and really become productive young citizens and leaders of the community so i thank you again so much to our partners dana mitchell frank chan and all of our summer administrators for their continuous support and site visits students really were excited to welcome you onto campuses and showcase the work that was happening um for the

07636 days of summer so thank you again um for your partnership and for your time thank you so much damira and again thank you to everybody um to frank chang who oversaw the summer program and the entire ed services team all of the summer administrators and of course think together who partnered with us to reimagine this innovative learning opportunity for our students so thank you again for um uh providing us some time to share this with you thank you any questions or comments from the board um i'd like to make a comment i i thought that the program it was really its name the summer school estrada i did go to some of the elementary schools and i did see the kids in motion they were doing that sports stacking that they were talking about

077and the move and groove that was really good it was really cute yes to see all the kids laughing and playing and the teacher was even dancing and um i do recall uh some of the projects that i seen the the building and the inventions i recall in the past the students that were gate students where the only students are able to do that at pictures college now here we have it here with azusa and any child was able to participate so i want to thank you all everyone include administration thing together and i know dr dana mitchell was a captain of the ship and you know it worked well the kids were having fun and i want to thank you all for taking that time board member roderick espana did did you personally get

078out there and move and groove with the students and i wanted to but then uh mr ortega was there and i didn't want to embarrass him that's a good call i thought about it you know i'm like i want to jump in there with those kids they were having too much fun you know any other questions from any other board members yeah i have my hand raised i i probably can't see it though um yeah just i'm just first just say i so amazing and as we heard um arturo saying earlier right i think we have um people at the state level recognizing the work the hard work that you guys did the amazing work you did that you pulled together in a very short time period i will just i'll just say um and

079so that's actually leads to my question i have two questions and maybe this is for dana and arturo so do we anticipate trying to offer a summer some kind of summer offering next year as well that's the question number one and then i'll follow up for that yep sure we do actually plan on offering summer programming again and we we actually start planning um we start planning uh the in the fall uh for our uh summer programming so we uh we have meetings on the calendar already i believe in i wanna say november is when we get the team together to really begin to look at what we will be offering for our students that's great so anticipated my second question is that was going to be around the planning process and and how and

080how do we anticipate building in enough time enough collaborative time to be able to really have a really um full experience i would just add i hope that we could find a way to engage the city um i think um the city was running a parks and rec program at the same it and there was some overlap in the time and it would be great especially if these offerings are going to be available to everyone that we find ways to collaborate i've seen other places too where um where there's like a connection where kids go are going to the day program the school program they get like a pass to go to a free swim with the swimming pool so i'd love to be able to incorporate the city in our planning and make this

081really a true community summer extravaganza so that's that's one request that i do have thank you board member cruz gonzalez any other comments or questions from the board i will echo much of what has been said i i thought uh dr mitchell and mr chang when when i heard the name summer extravaganza for a moment i wondered would we live up to it it only lasted for a moment because then i remembered all of the those who are involved in making it an extravaganza and so now hearing this report um i can say that it definitely was an extravaganza and so ms mejia thank you so much for for your partnership and and please on behalf of of the board and the district uh send that thank you to the rest of the think together

082team we're grateful for you and grateful for the partnership i also have to say just some of some of the names that i heard mentioned during this time appeared miss abalo mr luevanos my former science teacher uh dr coram former my former english teacher miss de leon miss hoke miss trujillo miss kwok my former uh math teacher i mean name after name that i hear who are not only heroes in my own life but legends in our community and so i just want to say thank you so much for all of the hard work that went into truly making this an extravaganza uh during i mean a a very unique and challenging time period a very unique and challenging summer um and so just just thank you so much for for for everything um that

083that was was done for for our our students this summer board president board vice president if i may um add uh i have had uh such an amazing opportunity this summer to connect with over 100 families and one of the things that i go out of my way to ask is how summer's going how is summer's going and then to follow up to say did you happen to go to summer program summer extravaganza and overwhelming uh sentiment of gratitude of um content like my child is now going to be ready for the first day of school um comments like i see new life in in my in my kid i see excitement comments like i actually could use summer extravaganza as a as a as a ticket to say hey if you don't clean your

084room you're not going to go to some extravaganza tomorrow um that's how engaging students were were connecting to to the program and so uh to hear that um directly from our parents um is is one of the greatest testaments to uh to that and so i also want to join in the in the thank you salute to all the people to all the folks who came together to provide this love it moving on then to item 10.3 ausd restorative restart and we will turn that over to mr ortega uh thank you uh so we had uh an opportunity to uh to listen uh right now uh to uh summer extravaganza right um and so um that that closed out a couple of weeks ago uh but now uh we want to focus uh our next

085attention to uh restart um in two days um we open our doors uh to our students uh to our community uh to to welcome them uh to our new school year and so uh tonight um what we'd like to do is is kind of give a multi-dimensional look uh into what a restorative restart means and by multi-dimensional i'm talking about health i'm talking about safety i'm talking about program i'm talking about academics talking about social emotional i'm talking about really looking at a system as we as we get ready to open our doors uh two days from now the summer extravaganza gives us a little preview into what we can do as a district and so i'm thankful to uh dr mitchell's uh comment and i i praise the team that really lives to um

086this this this mindset of continuous improvement uh so uh with that um if we can go to the next slide um i would like to turn it over uh to miss uh latasha jamal thank you superintendent ortega so we're going to talk about health and safety so all of our campuses are equipped with um their own stock of inventory for perps on personal protective equipment this would include but not limited to additional face shields disposable masks gloves gowns additionally we have sanitation that will be taking place on all our campuses so nightly all of our classrooms will be disinfected in all our offices uh we will continue having hand washing um stations outdoors all of our campus had one installed as well as most of our classrooms have hand washing stations indoors in addition to

087that we are going to continue to have the hand sanitizers throughout the campus as well as inside the classrooms all of our high entry points like our entry points outdoors and play yard they will also have the touch list and um sanitizer stations um upon entering all of our campuses including district facilities you all staff and students will be required to have their temperature scans that will be done through the mega scanner that are in most of the cafeterias or the multi-purpose rooms and each office is equipped with the touchless individual scanner also all of our campuses also have the handheld thermometers that all of our staff can use at leisure we will continue to provide our ausd transportation on our buses mask will be required the students will enter from the front and sit

088through the back and exit from the front first our bus drivers will take all of our students temperature upon entering the bus as well as having a screening question and as i shared earlier we will continue to offer our meals we will have our breakfast lunch and supper in addition to our curbside distribution that will continue twice a week throughout the school year and at this time i will pass it over to mr monkeyo thank you mr mall i'm going to start off and talk about the notification protocols that we have a notification process that we will follow once we're made aware of a confirmed positive state this process begins with this school or district being notified of a clovit19 positive employee or student that process is directed that's why that person is directed to

089isolate and they are interviewed and the contact facing process begins the individual is also provided with clovid19 resources notifications to the schools and to on the employees are sent via email as required the district will also communicate with lacdph and cal osha as is required moving on to the decision tree uh we have multiple decision trees that we've uh shared with community and staff uh and it starts with the student or employee indicating that when upon entering that they have no symptoms or exposure and the employee or student enters a school site or disability if however on the other hand the student or employee screens and screening indicates symptoms for pulvin 19 the employee or student is directed to not report to school or work and then seek medical attention if the uh if there

090is a the symptoms are not consistent with clovid19 then the student and or employee i must stay home for medical provider guidance uh if on the other hand the um employer student is provided the test and the test is negative the employer student must stay home until they are symptom-free if they employ your student test positive then the employee or student must isolate we go through the process that i explained earlier and if the employer student is not tested we treat those cases as if the employee tested positive and must also isolate if the screening identifies that the employee symptoms is not consistent with cloven 19 then the stat administrator in hr if appropriate will determine if the employee should be sent home um i wanted to talk now about close contact um because this

091is going to be a term that we use often as we talk about close contacts and whether or not quarantine but first let me allow i mean let me um define what a close contact is it's a person who is within six feet of someone who is a confirmed 12 in 19 positive for a total of four or 15 minutes or more in a 24 hour period so it could be 15 minutes all at once or it could be a set of five minutes here another five minutes there totaling 15 in a 24 hour period another person who could be close contact is a person who has unprotected contact with bodily fluids from someone with cloven 19 for example if someone passed without a phase covering and you're in that space where the cough particles

092may be coming uh so uh allow me to distinguish between a closed contact that is vaccinated versus a close contact contact that is not vaccinated uh vaccinated post contact are recommended to take it over 19 tests five days after exposure and will be provided in medical grade face covering uh if the student or staff member who is a close contact is asymptomatic uh and vaccinated they are they can continue to go to school or work uh these clothes contacted i'm sorry these close contact vaccinated individuals to monitor their symptoms for 14 days any change in their symptoms to be reported to the school or to hr uh employees uh if on the other hand the student or staff member who's a vaccinated post contact test positive for cloven 19 the individual must isolate for 10

093days uh until fever-free without um for 24 hours without people reducing medication now unvaccinated close contact uh these uh folks uh are also recommended to take a cloven 19 test and if they're on campus they'll be provided a medical brave face covering if the test is negative the close contact or staff member i'm sorry the close contact student or staff member was quarantined at home for 10 days and if it's a student and the student remains asymptomatic while quarantine they may end the quarantine after seven days if they receive a negative test after day five from their last day of exposure employees do not have this option to have a store and quarantine period if they are asymptomatic these individuals these individuals must all still monitor their symptoms through day 14. if the unvaccinated student

094or staff member test positive for clover 19 the individual must isolate for 10 days from the onset of symptoms until fever-free for 24 hours without fever producing medication and then i want to uh close with the point on on exposure uh we are constantly working to communicate and uh be a part of the process of contact pricing and we follow the exposure management plan that is outlined in uh by the department of um county of department of public health uh and will continue to go above what is even required in that protocol and we do communicate with the department of public health after each single case uh and when we have additional cases at one site we will uh partner with them to determine if we have uh what would become a cluster um so

095i want to i end my part of the presentation by um sharing with our board of education members and our community that we have some vaccination dates that we will be um offering here in uh the school district and i want to give dr mitchell and her her team i know mr creel was also part of this uh and um we have the following dates for our vaccination uh clinics that we'll be offering here at the district uh at asusa high school on saturday uh september 11th uh from 9 00 a.m to 12 p.m would be the first administration and then the second administration also at azusa high school would be on october 2nd also a saturday from 9 00 to 12 p.m and gladstone high school will um follow a similar rhythm uh we'll

096have first administration on september 25th uh from nine to 12 p.m and on october from 16th to 12 p.m uh and now i'd like to turn it over to dr mitchell uh thank you thank you uh there's just been a plethora of evidence-based research and best practices that have surfaced over the last few months around bringing students and staff back into the buildings there's been a recent report from pace which is the policy analysis for california education and that's led by faculty directors at stanford uc davis uc berkeley and usd and it's titled reimagine and rebuild restarting school with equity at the center and the report synthesizes uh some important points of research and evidence-based practices talks about that the impact of coven 19 has been difficult for all students particularly devastating for students of

097color students from low-income families our english learners youth in foster care students experiencing housing insecurity students with disabilities and other marginalized children on youth they talk about how this year constitutes a critical opportunity for schools to offer students families and educators a restorative restart this is the moment for districts and schools to reimagine and rebuild equitable school systems where all students have the support and opportunities they need to thrive as we recover from this emergency and build toward an educational system that does place equity at the center so all students especially those that were most affected by the pandemic have the support that they need to achieve to launch this restorative restart yesterday our certificated staff development day was intentionally designed to provide staff with learning around instruction restorative practices and social emotional learning three

098priorities as we focus on a restorative restart our keynote speaker yesterday was jennifer gonzalez uh she spoke about approaches to post pandemic teaching in four areas in support of our restorative restart we talked about lesson design things like reducing our overall quantity of student work to only the essential elements that are more densely packed with learning that leaves more room to plan hands-on experiences more project-based community-based and movement-based learning he talked about meaningful collaborative work that students can do together we talked about innovative assessment practices such as more feedback fewer grades and more robust collaborative project-based tests talked about giving students more opportunities to improve through iteration and fluid or incremental deadlines higher order tasks that require a level of originality we talked about inclusivity and universally designed learning experiences we talked about better representation

099in classroom materials making sure that the books and other materials students learn from reflect our students our families and the diversity of our world and she talked about regular dedicated time for relationship building to make sure we're connecting with everyone and more restorative practices and more bias awareness work on ourselves jennifer's keynote transitioned us to our workshop with the western justice center who led the learning around conflict resolution education and their work partnership with the zeus unified we ended the day with the principles leading a social emotional learning module which included a plethora of classroom resources that teachers can use right away to implement social emotional learning or seo in an integrated instructional approach now that we've given you an overview of our restorative restart components i want to transition to our ed services team

100it's going to take a few minutes to highlight some of the exciting work that we have ahead and now i will turn it over to norma camacho thank you i'm excited to share some highlights from the multilingual services and categorical programs division our commitment is to provide a high quality education for emerging bilinguals and ensure that the work that we do is aligned to the california english learner roadmap which is the policy for educating els in california we are thrilled to be able to expand the sobrato early academic language seal model beyond preschool to three elementary sites with the largest population of english learners in our district seal is a research-based model that provides professional development curriculum support and technical assistance equipping teachers to meet the needs of diverse populations and english learners the seal

101model is detailed in the california english learner roadmap as it illustrates principles 1 assets orientated and needs responsive schools principle 2 intellectual quality of instruction and meaningful access and principle 4 alignment and articulation within and across systems we will also be working through the blueprints for effective leadership and instruction for our english learners future also known as belief modules during our instructional leaders instructional leader meetings this year the belief modules were designed to support administrators thinking and planning around english learners and english learner programs to ensure a high quality education for emerging bilinguals in the area of family engagement we are looking to implement california association for bilingual uh education cabez project to inspire project to inspire is a leadership development program for parents and families that is aligned to the community learning theory the

102work is centered around developing social capital while developing our families as leaders as families complete modules they become trainer of trainers and in this manner we continue to grow the capacity and leadership capabilities of our families internally this work will be done alongside our community liaisons and site leadership teams we will also have math and literacy support teachers at all of our sites who will be supported through professional learning and coaching by our tosa teams to provide targeted supports to students in order to continue to accelerate learning we will also have some focused literacy training to better equip our teachers and how to build and develop literacy not only during language arts but through content as well our goal is to increase the academic achievement of our emerging bilinguals by supporting and building the capacity

103of our teachers administrative teams and families and now i'm going to hand it over to mr gary creel thank you norma good evening uh one of my responsibilities as the director of child welfare attendance is overseeing the district's health services department and i work with three registered nurses uh mim coombs ellison melissa lofton and our newest hire bob judge and they are integral in the district's response to covet 19. not only do they hold certificates in dph or public health i'm sorry uh but they also do a lot of the the work with training our health aides our principles and doing that sort of work um they were instrumental in building uh part of what we did with um the observation rooms for students who were exhibiting or who were symptomatic as opposed to students

104who maybe were just sick and were sent to the health offices and we we set up that protocol in addition to them uh we will also be hiring a program specialist in uh health and wellness and that person will be uh working with me and the nurses uh to ensure that you know the students are safe we're looking at hiring health care professionals such as lvns and cnas to assist the health aides these these hires would be on a temporary basis and we would have more staff on hand to assist with things like contact tracing the screens and everything that uh ms jamal and mrs ronkio spoke to earlier we have several employees and are training more in contact tracing they took a eight-hour course in contact tracing from johns hopkins and they're the ones

105that will assist us with uh some of the work that we do with students mr ronkio mentioned the vaccine clinics that we have planned we also have the covid tests that are happening now at the high schools and we will have those tests available for the community uh the vaccine clinics are not just for students they are also open to everybody in the community and we are hoping to schedule some more vaccine clinics at some of our elementary school elementary schools so we can have a more of a neighborhood approach once the vaccine becomes available for students who are younger than 12 years old we also have a post shutdown independent study program uh this is in addition to the in-person instruction the district's independent study program or isp program is designed to provide an

106alternative excuse me to in-person instruction for students whose parents feel that their health may be put at risk by attending class face-to-face the independent study program is an educational program that will provide instruction based on the state adopted content standards by certificated teachers tk6 students will receive 60 plus minutes of daily synchronous instruction from a certificated teacher and then live academic and social emotional support from the teacher and other support staff this could look like small group instruction pull outs tutoring that sort of thing students who are in the 7th through 12th grades will be enrolled in apex the district's online curriculum they will be in a program that has a certificated teacher employer employed by apex who is the teacher of the class and they'll also have the uh like a case manager who

107will be working with the the apex teacher and site administrators and counselors and the like so students will receive instruction live academic and social emotional support just like the tk6 students and all students will be signing a learning agreement wherein the conditions and expectations of independent study will be outlined and must be signed within 30 days of the start of school dr mitchell has spoken a lot to the restorative practices and peer mediation that the district is involved with uh in addition and i believe this has come up with previous board members we had about 15 staff members who were trained in the abc's of conflict and they will be expanding our peer mediation program from foothill and gladstone high school i skipped one i'm sorry the student reengagement to improvement attendance that's something maria

108mejia our outreach consultant and i'll be working with school sites and uh community liaisons to welcome students back to school that there there are a lot of people who are rightfully concerned about the new delta variant and their student safety and we just want to make sure that you know parents understand what their options are that the schools are safe and to get kids back into school los angeles county as it does at every beginning of every school year is providing the district with um banners and whatnot to welcome students back and just talk about the importance of attendance uh we will continue with our therapeutic counseling that we have for students we've had a relationship with mckinley children's center where they have uh clinicians on all they had clinicians on all of our school

109sites and you know with an office and they were very much [Music] integrated into the uh the school after the pandemic they had to change things up um and so we don't have them back at the school but we do have those individuals who will be working with students we also have uh doctoral candidates from mizzou specific unity or university uh that we they're we call them psyds and they are working with us um to provide counseling as well as other providers and with that i will turn it over to the director of special education aaron kramer good evening so to expand our power we're having difficulty with the audio we're going to skip to the next one and we'll come back to you okay good evening i'm here to talk about the college and

110career career pathways department and as you can see one of our main goals is to meet the objectives of lcap and we have eight cte grants and each of them have their respective objectives and goals and we intend to of course meet that um one of the main things that are that are the same across all of the goals regardless of this lcap or the cte grants is that we want to ensure pathway completion for cte students we have transitioned to a two core sequence for all of our pathways a concentrator and a capstone course and these students upon completion are known as completers and that helps not only with cci but it definitely helps them develop the skills necessary to transition to post-secondary goals we want to also involve middle school students and teachers

111in what is known as a cte advisory meeting we started these advisory meetings last school year in which we bring industry partners to talk to our teachers about what are the expectations out in the industry that students should be prepared prepared for and so we want to bring in the middle school teachers who teach some of the stem courses project lead the way courses and then also have the students participate so that they get a sense of what is needed in the industry what are the big goals that pertains not only to cte grants but overall in regards to equity is to increase el special education and female participation in cte pathways that is proportional to school demographics this is a critical piece if there are students who are not accessing cte pathways they're not

112they're not able to see necessary skill sets that will prepare them for post-secondary goals so we would definitely want to increase that participation we also want to increase participation in student work based learning and internships as well as what is known as ctsos we've been very fortunate to increase each and every year from the past three years the number of business partners who are willing to offer our students internships we started with one mou now we are up to 12. so we want to make sure that our students have a direct line to the industry so that they can practice the skills that's necessary to maintain good careers also we want to offer our students our high school students the opportunity to earn college credit while they are here at azusa unified so as you

113know we have the early college program over at glaston high school but we are off also offering dual enrollment courses at the other two high schools and so we want to continue that and we want to increase that enrollment we also want to start initiating the opportunity for our our teachers ausd teachers to teach these dual enrollment courses as long as they qualify with citrus college they should be able to teach for these courses so that our students are learning with those who they are familiar with and lastly we want to increase the number of articulated courses in the cte area our students upon taking these capstone courses if they are articulated with the community colleges they will be able to receive college credit as a high school student so those are the things that

114we want to do at main things that we want to do at college and career pathways i now pass this over to miss jenny lee oh i'm going to go back to karen kramer back on the line again so aaron would you like to yes hopefully i'll do an audio test very quickly i have traded offices there okay great thank you to mr creel for giving me this space for a moment so to continue with what i was sharing um in the special education department we are working with our resources to really support our students families administration and teachers to come back to really service the needs of students who are on ieps and all of our students in general we've expanded our school psychologist support by bringing back one of our wonderful retired school

115psychologists who has agreed to come work with us for a few months to support that our assessments are up to date and completed it was very difficult to provide assessment opportunities for our students during shutdown because our students weren't as accessible to us as we needed to have them be in order to do appropriate assessments for special education services we also experienced some difficulties with record updates because we were not here on campuses to update our records within our annex files so our expanded school psychologist support will support making sure that all of our records are accurately updated and filed and also to support our iep teams as students come back we want to make sure that we're providing their services and that they are having their iep meetings to meet their needs to tag

116on to what gary creel was sharing our ed services department is working together and collaboratively to develop and to really improve our systems to coordinate the breadth of services where we have in our district available to students and families in the area of mental health we have incredible partners um in our community we also employ our own mental health therapists and so our mental health supervisors will be working with ed services to really help us look at what areas we can make better and to expand what is available for our schools and our community through our school district professional learning continues to be incredibly important we've learned a lot after shutdown and and from this experience and so really focusing on the needs of our students in social emotional learning as was mentioned before and

117how that applies in the special education setting and in special education programs and so working with our mental health therapists and our community partners to really focus on learning on how we support social emotional learning which began yesterday also behavior supports um really helping students regulate and come back to school to be successful in classrooms and on campus and to support our teachers and para professionals in supporting students to learn how to be back in school trainings for our new teachers we started that off of um last week and so really welcoming our new teachers especially those that are venturing into special education programs to support our our students in those classrooms and then professional learning on compliance because we do have a lot of guidelines and things that we are required and are needing

118to do in the special education programs lastly i will highlight our partnerships with english learners with disabilities we have a robust resource with the practitioners guide for students with disabilities or english learners with disabilities excuse me that was published by the california department of education and the ed services team has been working over the last few years to develop training model modules for our staffs for administrators teachers paraprofessionals to really focus on the needs of our students who are english learners and also are eligible for special education services and that is something that we are very proud of and we'll continue to work on to really get our students a successful restart at this point i will turn it back over to um i will turn it over to jenny lee our director of early

119childhood education thank you ms kramer good evening board i'm happy to announce that dalton and lee schools will welcome ausd's california state preschool programs to their brand new classroom starting this thursday dalton offers our am session and lee offers a pm session so we now offer csvp at eight school in azusa thanks to the hard work of so many people in our district in our continuous effort to improve as we grow as to improve us was to grow we partner with california education partners in preschool to third grade coherence collaboration or p3 p3cc p3cc brings together teams from 10 participating districts throughout the state in a joint effort to provide a smooth transition from preschool to kindergarten and beyond california education partner staff provides districts team the support that we need to plan to execute

120and to assess the effectiveness of real solutions to real problems that we face in aligning learning objectives research-based teaching strategies and assessment in preschool through third grade as ms camacho shared this year we begin a new partnership with seal this partnership will also allow our new preschool teachers and tk teachers who did not receive the seal training a couple of years ago to join in the new cohort and be trained in what we know as a highly effective teaching strategies that have made a great difference in our students learning especially in academic language acquisitions in preschool through third grades our teachers have the opportunity to receive professional learning in county collections which is provided by california education partners and none other than dr megan frankie who is known for her work in cognitively guided instructions

121or cgi county collection is a research-based instruction construction practice that provides opportunities for children to count collections of objects using counting strategies at their skill level it also supports students in making sense of a variety of other mathematical concepts this work aligns with the california early math initiative that we worked we pursued for the last couple years it also aligns with seals because as they participate in the lesson or the activities our students are asked to explain in detail ways how they sorted their or group their collections of objects in addition to these professional developments we will implement a maze work early childhood curriculum which is a which is a literature-based supplementary curriculum that fosters social emotional learning through the lens of anti-bias education for preschool and tk students the program will help our teachers

122to intentionally address our students social and emotional learning in the classroom at this time i would like to turn the presentation over to our director of mathematics and outcap dr jennifer edick bryant thank you ms lee good evening board members it's wonderful to be with you this evening and share with you uh what the el capitan metrics department will be doing this year as we continue to evolve and improve the work that we do this year we are going to be implementing a new pack plus selection process and we're hoping that that's going to lead to even more opportunities for all parents to participate and also make sure that we maintain and increase our equity in participation all parents have been invited to complete an interest form and we're sending out multiple communications with multiple

123modes district level site levels these communications are taking place now directing parents to the link where where they can um complete the interest form after the september third deadline we will 20 parents will be randomly selected to serve on the pack plus uh for this year and we will then do that with balancing schools in mind and and making sure that each school has site representation also selection of our specific student group representatives such as students who are learning english or students who are on ieps that will continue to be done through our district directors and we're also going to ensure that we have ethnic representation that reflects all of the student groups in our community our employee groups that are part of pac plus our teachers our classified staff our administrators will continue to

124select their employee representatives and so we're excited to see how this new process plays out and get feedback from our our community on these improvements we also are starting our first year of our brand new lcap this plan for our district with all of the goals five new goals 43 metrics measuring those goals that's a large number of metrics that really are going to help guide us and 52 actions and services that we'll be implementing beginning this year um we have uh the actual lcap document itself available on our district website um but we have our lcap overview which is uh available in both english and spanish and that's going to be made available to the public starting this week we will begin the tracking monitoring of implementation of our lcap we look forward to

125sharing that progress with you as well as tracking and monitoring our our metrics and the lcap is also a tool that we use to support our sites as those sites begin to develop their school plans we also are focusing on our improved balanced system of assessments this year we are starting the year with diagnostic assess assessments in both reading and math um we're going to continue with our district-wide common formative assessments in ela math eld and spanish language arts for our dual immersion students our school staff at sites will continue to have those opportunities to work on a grade level and content area common formative assessment and our focus continues to be on this actionable data that allows for instructional decisions to to be made by teachers and really helps us best meet the needs

126of all of our students we also will continue to gather the voices and experiences of our students we will convene our lcap student advisory committee which is is the student version of pac plus we'll get that group going this fall we will select 10 students from each of our three high schools who have a good representation of the different groups and they too will support the development tracking and monitoring of our lcap and uh will further gather student voice through our student listening circles with students in grades 5 through 12 the the input and information we gather from our students is is so important because it helps us understand their perspectives hear their voices and it's important as we consider how best to meet their needs that we actually hear from our students as we

127go into this new and unique school year so finally we are entering year two of our partnership with youth truth for our district annual survey and this survey provides data for many of our lcap metrics it also helps us track and monitor progress of many many of our district initiatives because this is the second year that we are able to partner with youth truth we are now going to have an opportunity to look at year-to-year changes in our data and continue to be able to disaggregate all of the data in multiple ways to really dig deeply into equity and and ensure that all students and families and staff are are having positive experiences and showing growth and improvements so our partner with youth the truth also allows us to continue to see comparison data at

128the state and then national level so this concludes a brief summary of some of the things happening in the el capitan metrics department and i would like to now turn this presentation back over to superintendent ortega thank you um obviously this is a presentation um high level uh but i hope that um you share in my excitement um as we see um to you some of the words that were used tonight uh the evolvement uh the continuous improvement uh the innovative uh pushing uh to think about uh what we are being able to offer our students in our community it's a source of pride that we are pushing ourselves to continuously think about uh other ways other practices to really offer a high quality experience for our students i am thankful to not only the

129ed services team which rightfully so um took the the highlight but also to to latasha and to jorge for the work that's being done gary around uh health and safety uh as well uh so at this point in time i'd like to open it up for uh any questions or comments that we can follow up with thank you board members i just want to thank them for the great presentation it was right just one question um as we look forward to the first day of school in a couple of days how many students do we have enrolled in the district so we have our projections um who's like our project enrollment but i don't know the current enrollment as of today i was wondering if we have the current enrollment if we expect to show

130up on thursday we can we can get that and we can get that number and uh share that out any other questions uh yes one question regarding the vaccines do people need um appointments or they walk in and and what is the vaccine do we know um i can take that i believe it's pfizer i'm not 100 sure but i believe it's pfizer and there's an option that you can uh schedule an appointment but they will take walk-ins as well that the the appointments will be done online uh mercy pharmacy is handling the the clinic again and superintendent ortega organized their previous uh vaccine clinic that they had at gladstone high school so it'll be similar to what happened previously and do you know if the um website is the my term dot com or

131what is the website is that that's when they use it usually used i'm sorry would you ask that again if it broke up the website is it the my turn.com i don't have the website yet we just got the sites uh finalized so in the coming weeks i believe you'll be seeing uh our advertisement and promotion of the events no they were posted okay thank you yep and then board member cruz gonzalez yeah thank you i actually have a lot of questions but i think they're just more i'm happy to just give them to our tudo and writing and just get some responses for some of them but there's just a couple that i did want to ask tonight so first i just want to say i really appreciate us leaning heavily on the restorative

132restart brief that was that was put together by many organizations across the state led by pace so i think that's it's really valuable i did i just wanted i so i did want to ask a couple pieces so um dana you talked about integrated integrated social emotional learning right and so how do you anticipate um that's a you know that approach is the best practice but it's also very much intensive in terms of professional development because it really requires teachers to sort of change the way they interact with students so how do you see us really diving deep into that sort of integrated scl approach as opposed to thinking about it like as like a some kind of purchase project program that we're going to put in 15 minutes a day so that's my first

133question um yes i can address that that's a great question so um yesterday we the ed services team put together a social emotional uh learning module um that uh talks it's largely was um based on work from hazel or castle um as well as uh some research from uh fisher-free and hattie's work um around uh you know restorative restarts um so the work um that or actually the activities that were in um our participation guide included a plethora of different kinds of activities that teachers would be able to use right away so um and and many of the activities are things that teachers have been have been using for quite some time so that's one piece is to be able to give the teachers a quick start um our goal was to be able to

134really have a definition and a vision of what what is this what is social emotional learning and what does that look like um in our classroom practice as we integrate that but this is the first part of it so our plan is is that we will continue to integrate the social emotional learning modules throughout the year and we will be doing that with our with our principals our system principles our instructional leaders in our um il meetings so we will be developing some modules then we'll be presenting to principals and then principles we'll be providing to the staff that's that's really great to hear um so my my other question is around you reference accelerated learning so i what i would what i would like to understand is how are we building um how are

135we building common a common understanding or common definition of what accelerated learning is what it looks like how it is not remediation um and then two how are we going to be changing practice in our classrooms so that we really are truly trying to do acceleration and not trying to find do like a interventionist remediation approach yes excellent question um that that is the goal right because if we take a uh remedial approach or a remedial stance and we're going to widen the gap right we're going to um we're not we're not going to provide students with with that grade level um you know more instruction that is the goal and that is the vision that all students will receive grade level uh curriculum and instruction now there are times when uh you know as

136assessments will tell us uh there might be some areas in which students will need some you know some additional support with that and so when you're looking at a a multi-tiered system of uh support right what do all students get grade level content instruction some students might need a little uh extra support right so that could be um you know with uh within the classroom small group instruction right and then there'll be some students who will need a little more intensive support right and so that's part of that system as well and so um we have been also um in the ed services team we've been talking about um something called a high dosage tutoring uh support plan and so we look forward to uh telling you more about that uh we're really in kind

137of the beginning stages of that but um that's a system in which you really take a look at you know the assessments and then determine you know what kinds of support we can provide additionally but again the idea is is that all students grade level and then what is it that we can do to be able to scaffold that support so in terms of professional learning right our teachers on special assignment uh we'll be working with uh with teachers throughout the year we'll be working with principals again um and that's that is that is that is part of what we need to do yeah it is about that that learning acceleration piece if i can uh tag on to that just uh as a quick second so we had a microcosm uh or or a

138prototype or a an opportunity to iterate this beginning with our summer extravaganza and so i think dana's selling herself and her team a little bit short because for the first time uh we flipped the script on on summer programming uh we had a jar you had to put a dollar in every time you said summer school uh to to say we're not when you're not using that terminology uh i think uh board member rodriguez pena said uh she saw things that she only used to see uh when we were doing gait um at at apu and now that's something that every student has access to and can do and so as we as we as we looked at and we i don't want to i don't want to give um i don't give i don't

139put myself into that credit but um as the ed services team has been working uh to to kind of shift that mindset uh we we did get a preview with our summer program what can happen uh when we uh flip that script and say no uh this is grade level we're gonna we're gonna access uh grade level work and we're gonna focus on on acceleration and so just wanna kind of add a little bit to that yeah i appreciate that and i think i mean i think you sort of i appreciate you just really sharing what in terms of our district what we see as a as a common definition of what accelerated learning is and should be um i think really what i'm asking and this is maybe you don't really have an answer

140for me right now is really around like how are we going to ensure that this is going to roll out across the district that that principles are really going to be this is going to be the belief system with our principles and our teachers because it is very much a change of practice and mindset right and so that's all you know that's a lot something that needs a lot of support if we really want to be successful so i think that's why i was asking and i and i look forward to seeing it in an action and seeing how how um and when it transforms the way we interact with students so i so that's i really appreciate that um and so then just i just have one last um question or comment um but

141before i say that i just want to say i really appreciate all of the really focus on additional staffing for especially around the social emotional supports and counseling i think you know a lot of times a lot of districts are very leery of spending one-time dollars on staffing but we know how important that is to be able to create this relationship so i appreciate that that being said um when i look at the restorative restart brief from free from pace and i look at what the what you're talking about the pieces that i see missing um and maybe they're just missing this presentation are really around the one-to-one relationship building and interaction right so the the pace restarted restart brief talks about creating a system so you can have a one-on-one connection with every single

142family um developing individualized learning plans for each student creating dedicated space for relationship building and engagement and so those are the pieces that i didn't see in this presentation i'm not going to assume that we're not finding not working on those but i think that those are really critical pieces of this idea of a restorative restart because um that's really that because that's really the relationship building part right so i just want to know like where we are i i know you've delved deeply into the to the brief so where where are we on those pieces are those pieces that we see bringing into our district um those ones we decided not you know that we're not going to focus on well i think uh is jennifer um gonzalez yesterday in the um in her

143keynote she talked about um you know relationship building as the key especially um you know as we're as we're planning this you know restorative restart um i can't really point to anything in terms of like a specific program um however that is part of it right in terms of how um what are we doing you're right to be able to build those relationships um you know with students um we have been working um with our on track team which is another california ed partners team on some of the areas so there are a couple of tools that we have been exploring um and so there has been some conversation around that which is tied actually to the ninth grade on track um we're going to be testing out uh some of these things in kind

144of a prototype uh manner um to see uh to see how it works and so we're gonna look forward to testing it out and trying it out and so that's that's actually something that we're doing in in that realm as well okay yeah i just i'll just say that i mean i there are some good examples from other districts where they're building in systems so they're gonna that they're they know they're gonna check in with every single family when they come back to school they know that they they're like creating schedules time space so that that that they're saying in the beginning of school we are going to do this um oakland's a good example of this we are going to we're going to dedicate this time to create relationship building not necessarily focus on

145diving right into the academic standards right so there are some good examples out there districts that have already decided to do this or already have started doing it that we could maybe look at and think about how do we embed and be proactive about it i think training is very important but i also think structures that that enable people to do this work is also important too so i'm happy to to maybe point you in the direction a couple of those but um um i think that it's those pieces are so critical post pandemic right post post hybrid distance learning um so that's all i have adrien thank you i i have one last question regarding the social emotional well-being um our well-being centers they were open at glaston high in azusa in february 2019

146are they going to continue or return i should say have you guys remember yes that is the plan big parade and then in march 13th we closed and and after dr ferrer he was there right he was there yes the plan is to continue and pick that back up again who would have known yeah yes i'll add just a little nuance to that the answer is a hundred percent uh they are committed uh to re reopening um originally we were completely on track uh to open uh right after labor day um we're not 100 sure if that's going to happen um they they reached out to us to the principal specifically to say that they're working hard to make sure that that that happens but they cannot commit to a particular date just yet uh

147because of schools reopening delta variant and those kinds of things and so they might be busy with other a task before they they can they can move to that so adriana do you have one more quick question um that's sort of related um you know i really appreciate talking this focus around like our metrics and how important it is to track and focus on youth truth data i also i also think that um if we're refining that that assessment data that we're doing internally i think that's wonderful right you know we all hear too much about how much overtesting we do and how maybe it's not aligned with the outcomes we want to see um but i am curious and just in terms of you know we've talked last year arthur you talked about your

148data dashboard and focusing on certain key metrics that are going to drive our work right that would be shared common understanding at school sites and you know at all levels around what this is the data that we're focusing on because we know it's gonna this is this is telling us the certain outcome um so where are we on on getting like an initial look at what that data will look like so that you know so that as we start the school year everyone can be on board in terms of even if it's a pilot approach right so that we have some common data points that we're all talking about yeah absolutely i can uh definitely provide some insight on that um we have not landed on something but i can tell you that we have

149begun to have robust conversations around uh focusing on on one or two things versus focusing on all of the metrics and so again don't hold me to it but let me tell you some of the things that we have discussed uh in terms of impact in terms of high leverage so we know that we have been working we started a journey and so one of the things that we thought might make sense although all the metrics are important and you will get the two uh alcap updates that we have grown accustomed to that highlights where we are with that uh one of the things that that we are contemplating or discussing and having lively conversations around is maybe this is a perfect opportunity to really focus on number one dnf rates especially at the ninth

150grade level and so that's something that again we're chewing on and we're talking and really trying to to make the best decisions possible and then another area that we have been discussing or talking about again for for consideration we're not done yet um is k3 uh numeracy um and so those are two areas that again we we we had conversation around we've been having conversation around uh the conversation's not done yet but those are two uh two considerations that that we are thinking about in terms of um being specific or being intentional even though we we have to look at all the metrics in the outcap being intentional about raising this to a kind of you know a different level uh if you will so i just wonder in terms of timeline when do you

151anticipate coming to the board with something um that is a good question that i haven't wrapped my head around uh let me put some thought on it and i will supply you with uh with that but um i do want you to know that uh we have a made space uh to have this very important conversation and discussion around um you know what what what's going to be our foci in terms of this this up and coming school year i appreciate that and maybe maybe maybe some of our follow-up my fellow board members went away and i just feel like we've had we've been talking for a while um about you know this data and we want to look at um we're starting a new school year i would hate for us to go deep

152into the school year and then we start deciding it could because you're really then pushing it out to next year right in terms of what we're doing so you know for me the even if it's pilot and it's like okay this is what we're gonna try this year like for me coming to us with something by next month before if you're looking especially dnf grades if i before the first trimester so we know we're talking about to me is more valuable in moving us forward then worrying about do we have the exact right ones that we need to focus on thank you for for that i mean that gives me a little bit of context so let me um definitely assure you that it will not be deep into the school year and i definitely

153foresee within uh within a month's time for sure that's thank you i appreciate that any additional questions from the board thank you um mr tigger just briefly i i echo the urgency i hear in board member cruz gonzalez's request for uh something i know we've been talking about it for several months and uh there's been a board request at board meetings a couple of times and um you have our full support to do it but we want to see the it and we want to work with you on it um so i'm i voice my support for you and support for the project but we want something i understood thank you okay and i will echo those same those those same comments and not not to beat a dead horse here but it would be

154great to uh uh yeah to stick within that that month's timeline to be able to get something in i would agree the only uh other comment i would have is uh to jennifer edith bryant dr bryant i would first of all thank you for all that i see that you are doing here and all that you continue to do one of the things that that kind of put out to me and that excites me that i see here on your uh slide is the the revised and improved pack plus election process and so i would be interested as we have as we see here listed that the intentions behind this is to increase kind of increase opportunities for parents to participate and also increase equity i would love to see if it were possible to

155to kind of gauge what this intervention does by way of of either representation or or or just uh you know demographics as we're comparing what was and what will be after this yeah so i don't know that i have a whole lot of thoughts on on the exact specifics of what that would look like but but if you were able to provide some type of snapshot um that's something i would appreciate being able to see yes yeah i'm happy to do that we've had fairly improved uh representation of student groups but one of the things we've heard from our community and perhaps you have to board member greer that you know more parents want at least opportunities to try to be part of pac plus and that's that's one of the things that we're trying

156to address so not only is it looking at the configuration and increasing the equity but it's also hearing our constituents uh our parents and families responding to that and then gathering feedback from them then uh hopefully on the the increased opportunities as a as of today and and the info has been out since friday i have 33 parents already interested and i think that's far more than we have schools so right there that that shows me some real promise uh but i can come back to with some other data as well as we finalize the process thank you this is you know more than a notion here easier said than done and the fact that that you are taking this you know head on i i applaud and appreciate any other questions or comments from

157the board okay then we look to uh item 11.0 consent calendar and specifically 11.1 approval of the consent calendar all matters listed under the consent calendar are considered by the board of education to be routine 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 is there a motion on the floor in regards to our consent calendar i make a motion to approve the 11.2 through 11.10 we have a second so there's uh the we have a it was moved by board member rodriguez pena and seconded by board member bo any discussion then let's go ahead and move to a vote and the motion passes five

158to zero we now move down to items uh 13.0 curriculum and instruction and 13.1 in particular ratification approval of the contract between azusa unified school district and the los angeles county office of education for school-based ovid 19 testing is there a motion on the floor make a motion to approve 13.1 all second moved by board member rodriguez pena and seconded by board member cruz gonzalez any discussion yeah board member rodriguez kenya we used to have an explanation personally um so we as this unified is going to receive a little over 1.2 million dollars from the centers for disease control and prevention epidemiology and laboratory capacity for infectious diseases they allocated grant funding to the los angeles county office of education we applied for it a few months ago and we are going to we are

159receiving it um so the purpose of the funding is to support any expenditures that are related to our school-based cova 19 testing so for example uh this would be contracting with some of the healthcare agencies that would be providing the licensed vocational nurses this would be supporting our covid testing program this would be supporting the coordination of that so that's what this funding would be for so on the lvns um are they taking the place of the um our health aide or are they only working with students there first question the second question is if they don't have any students that day that they're working pertaining code 19. yes so what are they doing got it so their primary uh function would be to support the testing program but also um when you contract with

160both agencies these individuals can perform any nurse related duty so they would they would be assisting the um cal state um no not necessarily they they so for example we are going to continue to uh do our temperature check uh in the morning when students are arriving on campus and so uh the lvns would be uh stationed um at the temperature scanning machines and then they would be assisting uh with any students who you know were perhaps showing any symptoms of povid they would be contacting parents regarding that they would be offering uh testing to families and if they're interested in having their students tested we could we're able to do that at school and that would be for one year that is correct yes okay great thank you welcome uh board member cruz gonzalez

161that is wonderful so do we anticipate having and then a part-time lvn at every single one of our school sites is that what you just said dana yeah yes we do we're we're bringing forward contracts from uh two health agencies today to be able to um recover that that's wonderful um just a couple other questions then so um how are we gonna ensure that our families know that they have an opportunity to be tested if they want to um at our school sites and that that that that would be available to them and their families how are we going to get people so um part of the funding for this is also to have a program specialist that will help to coordinate all of the lvns and the school-based testing at each site and so

162as we are um putting this together we will definitely include a communication plan um we uh we partner with a state testing agency right now and so we um i contacted them just to get more information but we are we are able to not only provide cover testing for students but also for families as well so we do plan on uh communicating that out um but once we once we get our plan in place we're definitely going to do that so that's why so my last question is just around the actual testing so if we are going to have somebody face at each site um is there a way that we can explore surveillance testing i understand that it's not required by the by the the state guidelines at this point or the county health

163guidelines um but you know you see other examples like l unified where they are have rolled out and they plan to do surveillance testing um so i'm just curious about whether we can and i and i heard questions about it on the in the spanish town hall last week from some of the parents so i'm just wondering what the what is the feasibility of us starting surveillance testing with both our staff and our students at this time we don't have we don't have any plans to do that it is possible um that is something again uh because we do have our coveted testing um that uh we're part of that the the state laboratory um it we could do that we don't right now we do not have any plans to do that um right

164now we are going to uh you know offer testing uh to uh to families if uh if their students are symptomatic right or if the families are symptomatic so that's where we're starting so i would appreci i would like to request at least an understanding of what it would take to be able to implement surveillance testing i'm not sure dana i don't think this is probably going to be your purview but maybe arthur i would like to request that we investigate what it would take for us to implement surveillance testing okay thank you excuse me still what is that kind of is it surveillance testing surveillance testing i don't know if you want to explain what that is what does that mean uh yes um so um what that means is that in a systematic

165approach we would have some kind of cadence where we would be testing either students and or staff members whether you are symptomatic asymptomatic vaccinated not vaccinated it's just a layer of protection that um that we would be doing testing on a on a cadence right in a continuous uh manner uh to help in our coven 19 kind of safety effort thank you any additional questions on the board okay then there is a no further discussion we'll move to a vote and the motion passes five to zero moving on to item 13.2 approval of the contract between azusa unified school district and collaborative learning solutions is there a motion to approve 13.2 make a motion to approve 13.2 moved by board member uh rodriguez pena is there a second high second seconded by board member bo

166any discussion hearing nothing let's move to a vote and the motion passes 5-0 moving to item 13.3 approval of the agreement between azusa unified school district and maxim healthcare staffing services incorporated is there a motion to approve 13.3 i'll make a motion to approve 13.3 moved by board member rodriguez pena and seconded by board member cruz gonzalez any discussion i just want an explanation on yes this is one of the um health care agencies that will be supporting us with the licensed vocational nurses for our site-based testing any additional questions then let's go ahead and move to a vote and the motion passes five to zero moving to item 13.4 approval of the agreement between azusa unified school district and row health incorporated is there a motion to approve 13.4 make a motion to approve

16713.4 moved by board member rodriguez pena do we have a second i second seconded by board member bo any discussion i hear cricket we will move to a vote and the motion passes five to zero for those who are at home listening there are literally literally crickets that we hear in the room and now we move to item 13.5 approval of the memorandum of understanding between azusa unified school district and california association for bilingual education we have a motion to approve uh 13.5 make a motion to approve thirteen point five i'll say boy rodriguez pena by second and seconded by board member bo uh any discussion hearing none we'll move to a vote and the motion passes 5-0 i said a quick question adrian how many how many school sites will this be at or

168is it going to be virtual and across schools how is this going to be rolled out well let me go ahead and ask for oh norma go ahead i'm sorry um it will include all of our schools um and we are going to be rolling it out in cohorts of 25 um so we'll have four cohorts of 25 going simultaneously um um in order to be able to utilize their trainers that they're going to be sending out we'll have some trainings um that will include all of their admin team they'll start with admin team community liaisons and then you know continue to roll out but it's going to include all of our schools this will be a district-wide um initiative are there any additional questions okay then we'll move on to item 13.6 approval of

169the agreement between the azusa unified school district and the city of azusa is there a motion to approve item 13 points i make a motion to approve 13.6 is there a second i second uh so it's moved by board member rodriguez pena and seconded by board member beau is there any discussion i i have a discussion regarding um i know that we have it this i will like reaching in this agreement we have on our board policy that states if a student is being detained or interviewed by the police department or an sro that parent or guardian will be contacted prior to the interview so maybe they need to be present but especially the students that are under 18 years old is that possible um mr stega uh it's definitely possible that we can broach

170that conversation uh it is a memorandum of understanding with two different i mean right now we're talking about one agency but the next item is with a second agency so i'm going to assume that that request would be for both yes uh so it is possible to broach that conversation um i would just need clarity if we are approving with that caveat or if uh if we're motioning to table this uh to move uh i would need clarity on that our next board meeting is not scheduled i believe until september step well i personally like to see it written on here um before i vote or label it rodriguez pena is that a motion to table this item until yes she wants to mentor motion right isn't there any emotion on the table do we

171already make a motion there is a yeah that's very true there's a motion for approval so uh board member rodriguez would you want to amend your emotion to table this yes i would like to mend my motion to table this item into ending the addition of a language language change addition yes is there a second that motion i second the amended motion moved by board member rodriguez pena and seconded by board member beau with that said is there any additional discussion or question hearing none we will go ahead and move to a vote a vote that we're going to table the item uh yes it'd be my understanding that we still would need to vote the table this is a vote able the uh 13.6 not to approve thank you and the motion passes 5-2-0

172which brings us to item 13.7 approval of the memorandum of understanding between the azusa unified school district and the city of covina their emotion on the floor well i like to table despite him also for the same reason 13.7 so for remember rodriguez payne i hear you tabling 13.7 uh until we we make the added changes in language that you mentioned 13.6 yeah that is your motion is there a second on that motion to table this i second the motion any conversation hearing none let's move to a vote and the motion passes five to zero which brings us to 14.0 uh in 14.1 adjournment adjournment and uh due to no more items on the floor i are there any other questions or comments from the board before we adjourn then we will go ahead and

173adjourn at 9 36 p.m i make a motion to adjourn and we have a second one i second the motion any discussion on how we will adjourn bye let's go ahead and vote and the motion passes five to zero thank you everybody for joining us tonight um have a great night and again look forward to seeing you in a couple days as we as we kick the year off bye-bye