001all right welcome everyone it is 5 30 p.m on june 16 2021 for all of our staff members and all of our parents here today um congratulations on last week what a beautiful inspiring motivating professional week we had with all of our graduations and promotions it was it was a sight to see and experience and be there and just congratulations again to all of our staff and uh all of our parents uh and of course our students um that were able to participate in that help and assist and and make that a reality uh it was it was a great week uh for sure um all right so i want to bring us up to up to speed on where we are and where we can go and what next steps may or or may
002not be so as everyone in this room knows on the 24th which is next thursday we will be holding a parent community meeting and at that meeting we will be updating them on the school reorganization process now keep in mind that that update we don't know i don't know what that update is right as of right now right uh tonight a myriad of things can happen and all of them work for thursday so so nothing doesn't work for thursday right today you're going to be asked to fill out a a poll a survey in a form and no matter where we land that is okay for thursday uh all that means is that we have to adjust our content our delivery what we're going to be saying and we have to adjust what we're going
003to be asking right we're either going to be asking model 3 or model 4 or these ideas versus these ideas or you know lots of different things that we can do but it all works um it all it all works um i want to clarify and just to be 100 sure i know i put this in the email but just for the record um there was a request to get the data from our staff survey again i just want to kindly remind all of us that the results of that survey were pre the program's presentation pre the budget presentation pre the staffing presentation uh so they literally voiced their opinions and ideas um not having any of that information that you all were privy to have um and they they did not so in my
004head um for the board of education um we need to re-assess and re-reach out to our staff to make it equitable so that when we go to the board of education and they see the feedback from the community they see the feedback from the staff it's it's equivalent right it's equal because the the staff feedback i'm sorry the community feedback will be more informed than the staff feedback and so we want to make sure that it's fair and that they're seeing as close as close to apples to apples as as possible it's not it's not a hundred percent that we can do that but as close as possible because the vision here is that the board is going to be taking multiple sets of data right they're going to take your data your data 24
005people who have been on a journey and again we have said from day one that that data that recommendation can be one solid recommendation or it could be a divided split recommendation and that again is okay it's okay to say 12 people landed here 12 people landed here six people landed here six people landed here and six people landed here that doesn't add up to 24 eight eight and eight um so it is that is okay at the end of the day the board of education is going to have to make a decision but we want to bring your data set we want to bring the community staff data set and we want to bring i'm sorry community parent data set and then the staff data set and then at any point in time they
006can also be asking our data set our meeting district staff okay well this is what the team said this is what the community said this is what staff is saying what are you guys saying like what sense do you make of this right and that that's a possibility as well and then at that point in time we would have to chime in to say well this is you know this is what we would recommend or things to consider so there there's going to be a lot of data that the board is going to have to again chomp on chew on consider study uh to make a final recommendation i'm sorry to make a final decision and again we have been uber transparent with you all that you are not a decision-making body you're recommending body
007the board can agree with you 100 they can agree with you 75 they can agree with you 25 they can agree with you zero percent and again at the end of the day they're gonna have to listen to to um all this information and make a very very very difficult decision we know that it's not easy but we do know that it's necessary we have been talking about over and over here that what is happening is not happening just to azusa it's happening to the valley it's happening to glendora it's happening to covina valley it's happening to balwan park hacienda la puente duarte monroe it's happening to all of us and some of us over the course of years have taken some action other of us have kind of waited to see what happens and
008right now as we speak there are districts in our neighborhood who are taking steps in the same direction that we are there maybe maybe they're taking the steps in a different manner but we have one district very close to us that this up and coming school year when we when they show up in the fall of 2021 they will have four less schools and it's a small district smaller than ours and they're shutting down four schools this school year right all of us glendora covina valley charter old casino we've all everyone has shut down schools uh because again you have gentrification you have um low birth rates you have cost of living um and all of that adds to declining enrollment so it is it is something necessary so that we can provide high class
009programs high class facilities and high class opportunities not only for our students but for our staff and parents as well but we know it's not easy we know it's not easy miss melissa wilkins wilson perkins you had a question i did i wanted to request um another um bit of information um from the administration team i we still don't really know what the difference is between running two seven through 12 campuses versus a larger middle school and one larger high school i know we saw the programs that would be offered at the different schools but what i'm wondering is um a high school cohort of 900 to 900 cohorts versus 1 800. i guess as a parent i'm i'm still very very nervous about what that means you know do can we still run all
010of our sports programs can the middle school children the 7th and eighth graders joined the marching band i don't i don't even know if that's allowed there's just um so much i am i'm fearful of with model 4 just because it's not what i'm familiar with um i don't know what that means for ap classes it's a much smaller cohort and i prefer the larger high school cohort so i didn't know if there was some data that could be presented before parents are asked to vote where we could get someone helping us kind of figuring that out a little bit yeah i want to triangulate and just make sure that we're speaking the same same language because of course these are all projections right but if we look into 2223 which is when anything would
011begin right and it's a it's a phase so it's not like a band-aid just comes off and oh my gosh in 22-23 everything happens but just so we're we're we're calibrating our numbers to make sure that we're talking the same thing because my numbers would be a little bit different but let's let's make sure we're on the same page if we went with model 3 which is one high school we are projecting that in 2223 that high school would have 2022 kids okay now in the same vein we are projecting that that continues to decline but in 2223 we are think we are we are we are projecting that there would be 2022 kids in that school now let's go to your other one that you asked about the 712 if we went the 712
012model in the same exact year we are predicting that each 712 would have 1527 students again declining enrollment and they would go down now of course 1527 students because it's a 7 12 right so now you're taking the 9th 10th 11th 12th graders and on that campus now you're also putting 7th and 8th graders on that campus as well um so those numbers are a little different uh does that square away and calibrate does that make sense so i'm looking at the completion after the three years so i'm looking at 24 25 when there's about 948 kids at one campus in the in the high school cohort and the other high school cohort has 920 versus combining those two numbers and giving us you know almost 2 000 kids at one campus for high school
013programs the thing i don't understand is what what programs can seventh and eighth graders join at the high school level what does that mean for sports what does that mean for ap classes that seventh and eighth graders can't participate in versus us running one campus with both those four hearts yeah and anything and anything that that we can wrap our heads around again these are these are these are possible drawbacks or right possible uh uh benefits so just like right now right with the with with our with our high schools um we know that programs have to be separated out um to offer at different at different locations um but having 7 12 kids students i'm sorry 7th and 8th grade students can definitely help uh with uh electives uh you know offering uh a
014robust set of electives because now seventh and eighth graders can kind of jump in on that uh and and provide for that um but but but again ultimately um there are pros and cons but we we can we can kind of share some of those things uh but they are they are possibilities because we we don't know right somebody in this room or somebody outside might challenge the district and say wait a minute time out how could you say for model 3 that in year one there would be 2022 kids don't you know that if you close one high school for sure you're going to lose 400 kids so that should be 1600 not 2022. so yes that that challenge can come but but that is those are possibilities we can build a high school
015right if i somebody else can say but wait a minute timeout you're not going to lose 400 kids because we're going to build the best high school in the san gabriel valley with top-notch top-notch programs and top-notch facilities and we're actually going to do the opposite we're going to be attracting students that is a possibility no one can say for certain that things are going to happen or things are not going to happen these would be just conjectures right these are possibilities yes that's all possible we've talked about today about i'm not today but in the course of this of these meetings um what can we do to help mitigate some of these things and some of the things that you guys have talked about not us but you guys have talked about is maybe
016offering a robust transportation system so that families and students find it easier to move around and get around to the to the sites or the sites that they want to attend so so those would be possibilities again if i'm going to pro and con this again on the on the pro side you keep if you do the 712s you keep both high schools open again i'm just this is these are not my opinions okay i'm just trying to think of like the things that i've heard you keep two high schools open you spend all this money on the new field so that's not money done wasted uh you keep tradition alive and the gladiators uh continue to be gladiators and the aztecs continue to be aztecs uh you have a a school in the north
017and the south to make it easy easy easier and accessible um if i'm going to play the other side uh again these are things that i have heard or people have emailed me or you have you guys have said in this room uh if you have one high school just imagine the football team just imagine the the band just imagine when you're pulling all the students together right to have to have one place and now kids don't have to choose between programs i can now be in ib and in the medical pathway i don't have to i don't have to choose anymore um electives grow uh plcs grow all of that so i mean we can we can pro it but all of these things would be again uh conjectures and opinions and we as
018staff facilitating this particular part of of the school reorganization uh we're only facilitating uh again we can definitely have a conversation if we just let people unmute themselves i'm sure that uh many of us in this room uh would have pros and cons depending on what i feel or what i think um and and again people might get passionate about about those things so so yes there would still have to be a separation of program um i i can't imagine having two 712s and having you know an early college program on both sides an ib program at both sides the same pathways at both sides i think there would be some similarities in terms of some of the um some of the electives that might be offered so adding 712 would would add a relief
019uh for sure i think in electives without a relief in terms of the facilities um but but some of the things that that we currently have as a two high school district uh would still would still exist um and miss patricia and then mr anthony yes all right so um off of uh mr wilson perkins um i i believe it may be my interpretation because there was discussion you know um earlier today um with my team and it was very similar to your concern and i mean a lot of this when we started it a lot of it was um already created for us and what we've done is we worked at it to bring it to where it's at now but you know it is the ideas of the district that created these and
020this is what we're working with i mean we have done adjustments but not truly because we have to stay within you know uh what we've been given so um when it does come to no matter what we end up in the end we're all not going to be a hundred percent going yep that's what we want we're just trying to get to something that's feasible to present to the board um but the one thing i believe that i don't know if that at least for me i can speak of is the assurity of how this is going to play and like you said eventually we'll get there but i think we need to have a discussion of it because you know the board is we're helping the board in a lot of ways we're asking
021the hard questions that maybe they haven't thought of or or or never looked at it in that perspective so when it comes to 712 we have parents are already that are fearful of sending their child to just a general middle school because they know how drastically it changed from elementary to there and that's our weakest point in our district is losing our students in middle school how do we reassure that when they if it goes this way if the district the board decides to choose this how do we does the district already have a plan that they can share with us that explains are we going to have a seventh eighth grade academy and they're going to have their own world they're just sharing the campus of the high school or are they going to
022be implemented with the upper grades and how are we going to prevent because one of the biggest issues we have throughout our country is anti-bullying how do we make sure that we have a 7th grader that is alongside a 12th grader how do we make sure that that that that's workable feasible that the student feels comfortable ha you know those little things i and we're here to ask the hard questions that that's basically what our job is here is ask the hard questions but we i think our community i think like i said my team and i were discussing that these are questions and concerns that our community our parents our our co-workers are are asking is how is this going to how is it going to live out with assuring parents the community that
023that it's going to work and you know and also in the other way you know if we do have a middle school and we don't have them in high school you know how do we i mean there's a there's still a lot of discussion i guess i could say you know and and we're looking for you as our administrators to discuss that with us because also at the same time with all the big and creative ideas that dr mitchell presented to us you know we're also looking at this is a great opportunity to have more electives for our high school to bring back all those things that a lot of us here probably participated in that no longer exist and that's what we lack as a as a district if we compare ourselves you know
024a lot we lose some because down the street they offer agriculture down that street they offer culinary you know what do we offer to it also encourage the trade for our students not just the college bound college pathways that we offer every variety so i think if i'm not mistaken this will wilson perkins that is it something similar to that that you were inquiring on at least the first part of it well i wrote it in the chat i meant more like legally like i don't even understand if those seventh and eighth graders can fill those spots and round out the numbers with electives i don't know if they're allowed to do competitive dance would would a high school team be accepted with seventh and eighth graders on it like these are things i don't
025know let me let me so some of those things no right so they they cannot be on the sports teams right so that doesn't help that now again if i'm again if i'm gonna if i'm gonna be on the other side well no it doesn't help it but they're on our campus and we can start uh a little league with the other with the other school and we can start training and we can start doing skills right to start to to promote and to recruit and to get ready uh but but i mean no they cannot participate uh in that um i wanna i wanna touch on on a couple things that that miss patricia said uh because i just wanna be uber clear about this um i i'm not 100 sure that i understand
026uh the comments that um you know we're just working with what the district gave us um from my perspective and again if i am wrong please call me out on this i really do want to be called out on this but but from my perspective we brought four models to the team and we said hey these are four there could be six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve but we're we're starting with these four if you guys have other ideas go for it this team decided that we were going to focus on model three and four and then this team changed model three and four so we're allowed to change but not really there there's adjustments there were some things that you still had to say within the model um because i think there are
027some individuals that again like i said i'm talking within my team that if they could they would had would have taken a model three and a model four made a model uh hybrid from that those two models so i i agree and disagree at the same time i agree that once this team not the district once this team decided that this was going to be model 3 and model 4 then yes for for for the integrity of this team we could not have people creating a model five now or a model six because we were beyond that now right we had miss we we were beyond that and so yes once this team decided this is what model three is and this is what model four is then yes you cannot deviate from the models
028because this team had decided that that's what those models were going to be and again we were not point we were not at a point where again we can now be allowed to create a model 5 or a model 6 or a model 7. once those two models were decided upon in this team then the district came and said okay if it was up to us this is what model 3 would look like and these are the schools this is what model 4 would look like and these are the schools again just like with the models we said this this is only our interpretation it's built a hundred percent of capacity but you are more than welcome to change it up the models that the district brought forth don't even exist anymore so i just
029wanted to to kind of clarify that point uh that all along this team has been the one that has been driving the decisions in terms of where we are right now um so in terms of of talking about and asking the hard questions yeah absolutely we welcome that and we want that um in terms of all the minutia and all the details um those things are going to come up when when we when we know right now we're trying to suppose right the this nebulous kind of what if this what if this what if this what if this and we can definitely keep iffing it you know all all the way all the way through but we are determined and committed to whatever the decision the board makes we are going to make it the
030best of that if it's model 3 we're going to make it the best model 3 ever and is it going to be tough and is it going to be hard 100 but we're going to again build those dreams and market and and and do it and have hard conversations and say okay this this is the way it's going to go and we need to rally behind behind that if it's model 4 the same thing we're going to build the yes we've all heard again the the concerns for both models there's concerns for both models there are positives for both models and so our job and our stance right now is that whatever wherever we land where we are 100 committed to make it the best of that decision um possible miss natasha who's next mr
031gabriel and then mr anthony i think anthony's handle up was was up longer than mine then i apologize mr anthony i did say you after patricia good then i will lower my hand good afternoon everybody i hope everybody found out ac or outside as i see a few people at least got a little bit of time here um i'm going to start off right here in terms of the losing students i'm just some of the stuff is uh as a representative as everybody else as mr ortega was mentioning sometimes people offer information to me and at that point you know they've asked me to share some information so sometimes i do because they've asked me to share this in their opinions or their concerns other times they're just thoughts from the years of experience in
032azusa and or as is a unified um but overall right now i just want to start with at the end of this process my overall hope and the reason i've stayed in this process for the whole entire time is i want to create the best district possible going forward and then that is i want our district to be the district other students are choosing and trying to get into they're applying for the transfers to go to to come to azusa not that we're losing students to other districts because we changed to one format or another but that we have the best and the highest quality it's apparent and everybody is trying to get it that would be that would be my my goal here in the construction and that's why i've kind of stayed aboard
033and try to listen and i'm hoping that that's what uh we get at the end of this process so now i'm not i'm not fearful uh i'm i'm looking forward to so just wanted to start there um to answer when uh when ms wilson perkins was talking it there is something administratively and mr fernandez kind of alluded to as well is um what does that look like when we have two we still basically have two small high schools i'll say eight nine hundred student plus um the the same with myself you know as administrator when we create master schedules it is a little difficult the smaller it is the more difficult it is to put program it is that that's just true uh any administrator will tell you the smaller your school the more difficult
034it is to kind of put program in and make it match up um it would be small high schools so can i can i qualify that that is also true at the elementary yes it's true at the elementary about that adding in programming something just the smaller it is the more difficult it is to to move people around adding programs for example our avid teachers of honor sections we haven't had an honor section in a while et cetera it just doesn't fit in the master schedule anymore uh we need that for just our general education and all students um it would be uh having a 712 would alleviate that with the and this is where my transparency to the community who asked me the question which is the exact same i don't know if miss
035sanchez's uh parents were talking to me as well but you know the same thing about on a 712 model will middle school students and high school students you know be together or be mixed i was originally told no the model could be where they're absolutely 100 separate kind of hearing a little different so i just want to make sure going forward that we're open with the public that the community that that model means that students would be going to the high school whether it's for band or art or avid or an honors class or whatever we're talking about but that they would be going back and forth for that for that matter i just want them to know that that was a yes because they did ask that actually very specifically to me um and
036more than one parent and i just wanted to be open about that as they asked in order to get the most out of your on staff that you have involved in there and to create those programs that's what would have to happen um so the best utilization of teachers in order to make that happen is that they were teaching so you might have a history teacher that teaches seventh grade history and tenth grade history et cetera that means there's a possibility their their credentials would allow them um all of our secondary teachers are very very very very high percentage uh have a single subject credential they can teach anywhere from six to 12 in that subject area so there wouldn't be any any issues with that um let me see my other little point right
037here anthony while you're thinking about your other point uh just to add a little bit to to what you're talking about right now um yes right now again anything can change right we are a year more than a year away or years away from having to actually make like you know the final decisions or whatever uh but yes um there would be right now in our thinking that this is not a closed off seventh and eighth campus um because if if part of this is to alleviate and to offer um electives and those sort of things it is not fair or or even logistically if you have a ceramics teacher as a high school who has a room right with the kill and everything we can't pick her up and then take her to the
038seventh and eighth for a period or whatever right so the students have to have to go there uh for the elective and so there has to be um some some some form of integration that the students would have now that being said that doesn't mean that the entire day and it's you know wide open there's still things that we can do in terms of the schedule in terms of breaks in terms of those kinds of things that may help or assist but those are again intricate details that would have to be figured out as as we move forward depending on the model that is chosen yeah and to go through a little bit more so thank you um an 800 student school is a smaller high school it is very it is it's a smaller
039school right i mean to be honest if you look at numbers you look wide most of the school areas in the school are somewhere between uh 1500 and a little over 2 000 about 2 200. so i don't want to say our average is about 17 1800 in the area kind of took a look in general just to get an idea um that's about what we're looking at you're right if we were at one campus all those programs would be on one campuses mr ortega was saying everything would be there there wouldn't be that choice i've heard that a bit um the same thing with one middle school if there was one middle school um and i saw some people in the chat if we had one middle school we would be able to offer
040honors classes we would have they'll have an honors section and avid and programs we would from my experience we would be able to manipulate that being honest about it like if i had that much staff there yeah we should be able to work a master's schedule to be able to have a lot more offerings um i i saw somebody mention about the competition for sports i i i was in the activities office over at glaston well uh competition's good you know i i tried out for many a team i i made some i didn't make one a year you know there's some character in there but to tell you the truth i'd rather see a varsity at jv and a freshman team all together um with us having three levels instead of us really scrambling
041to have one team and bringing that back to azusa as well again that that would be nice to see uh i'm just going to call it extracurricular i'm going to take action i'm going to take the sports out of it really extracurricular we're talking everything from song and dance to cheerleading band um anything that's done after school all those extracurriculars you're correct it would be um there and there somebody's right uh some units do have tryouts you know and i don't know how many of us grew up with tryouts and you know tryouts were were just a part of life and i think a lot of us learned a lot from getting ready and having a trial i don't think it's necessarily a bad thing the other one with vertical articulation i saw on the
042saw i just want to mention that i'm at a middle school level we've already been articulating as once a month we have it built into our early release time and i and once a month we have that set up to be district-wide uh articulation so i could absolutely see us using that once once a month release time to be the high school and the middle schools uh getting together for articulation i think that would be a great idea what regardless of the model we're at right now but i think that would be something we should probably look in dr mitchell you can write that down for next year maybe about some more articulation vertically so um though those were my points i just heard ms wilson perkins mention a little bit i think she was
043more worried about that side and you're right uh students can go up for like a band class or nest but not necessarily for sports athletics is run by um the california interscholastic federation cif and they run under a different uh set of rules so that would happen okay that's my piece for right now thank you thank you um and again i just want to just piggyback a little bit on what anthony said i think all 24 individuals in this room are here for what they believe is the best for the district and that could be 24 different ideas and all 24 are valid and okay um and so that's the beauty of what we are doing right we're not trying to rubber stamp we're not trying to force you we want to hear your voice
044and we understand that there are 24 individuals and again you can't be wrong with an idea someone can rebut someone can challenge someone can try to persuade but at the end of the day you have to make the decisions and that you have to that you have to make just a couple of things before we move on just to be super transparent because it's gone away a little bit uh at 6 30 uh 6 30 p.m i only see two hands right now uh so if it happens before that's fine but at 6 30 pm we're gonna pause and we're gonna take a poll on that form that i sent you in the email so you knew the questions in in front and the reason we have to do it at 6 30 is because
045based on the results of that poll we might have to talk about next steps and so i don't want to escape today without without that so latasha who is next mr gabriel and then missy bet thank you thank you miss latasha um just a couple different ideas that haven't been expressed yet out loud i think to add to the pros and cons for either model i think about school size and our ability as school leaders and as teachers and support staff to focus on students and the larger we get the harder that gets um i have colleagues in high schools of three thousand i have colleagues in high schools of 2000 i have colleagues in high schools of 400 and i'm at a school where we're about 900 right now and one of the things
046that the school experience really is rooted in i think a quality school experience is the ability of all the adults to pay attention to kids and beyond the programs the the essential fact of any successful school i think any model is the ability of teams of teachers and teams of counselors and teams of parents and students to have those quality relationships and the larger we get the harder that gets and i and i can speak for the team at gloucester and i know the same of dr gomez that azusa we have good teams at those schools and if we can enhance that and build on the strengths of our two schools we there's something there and the ability of us to sequence or articulate uh seven and eight into the programs that we have existing
047would enhance the quality of our existing programs we're not looking to restart something we have an outstanding medical academy at gladstone and there's no reason why we couldn't have a seventh and eighth pre-medical academy there's no reason why we couldn't have a pre-ecp program for seventh and eighth graders that are going up it is already working why are we going to try to combine it all together and that's just my opinion like you said mr ortega it's a conjecture but i mean in in the science of schools we start from what's working and we have a lot of what's working in the district and as we start to bring the complexity of high school programs together onto one campus we're going to have some challenges and some things are going to be lost so i
048don't know what's going to be lost in a one high school model but i am concerned because we have some high quality programs at both sites that we could lose and and again what is it going to be we don't know until we try so that that's that's something else um regarding sports like dr contreras said cf doesn't allow it and we've seen that but um one of the things that we need regardless is is a strong athletic program at the elementary middle level no matter what so whatever model we have we have to build our programs and and it does come down to what i'm seeing in the chat box playing time the more kids you have i mean it's likely that we don't see a lot of playing time for some kids at
049a bigger school where you do get to participate at a smaller high school and i'm thinking about schools like edgewood high school in west covina that is 7 12. i've i've supervised and watched all the kids on that bench getting playing time that's that 7 12 i think is like 800 or 900 students total 7 through 12. but those kids are getting rich opportunities so even at that level of a thousand twelve hundred kids seven through twelve they're staying still getting a high quality educational experience so i don't think the smaller we get we have to be in fear that it's gonna get worse i i do think that we really need to keep our eyes open when it comes to relationships and focus on kids i think that's crucial to the decision we're making
050so that's that's my two cents thank you missy back hello so um in regards to what patricia was originally saying about the original four models um what she was trying to explain was that um it would be a good idea to discuss uh the possibility of a fresh model five or six because although we were uh given the option between the four models and to modify them i don't know that we were given the option to create a model um that was completely the idea of the team um to offer what could possibly work or not work and i think that's where she would that's what she was getting at um is to create because she's right um we have talked about it before and we've talked about it to with other parents staff members
051within our little team that we have and um we like you know uh something about model three something about model four and we kind of almost want to make a model five out of both of them and say you know what this is actually the best way to do this or this is the best suggestion and not only offer um something like that to the board but also give them the background information as to how we came about um that idea and explain the pros and the cons to the to the board about what we see um because i think that that like like you guys are saying we're doing we're asking the hard questions and maybe they're not seeing something or they haven't thought about something that maybe we can help them see and
052so i think that's what she was getting at um and so i just wanted to add to that in case there was some confusion yeah so again just to to reiterate um when we took the models one two three four at that point in time we said there could be models five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve uh there was no five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve uh this team decided to do three and four with changes to three and four um now again that does not mean that we cannot do model five um as your facilitator though um i have to say like how does that happen do we say okay we're going to start all over guys go back and everybody you guys can come up with a different model
053and then we're going to present these models here and then we're going to go through the same process again because you and i'm not me i don't mean you events i mean you in this room can be thinking of a model 5 right now but those model 5s can be 27 different things and so so so i again if this is what the team wanted to do again this is your process but now we're in a pickle because we have a community meeting next thursday and so what what what what are we saying at this community meeting next thursday um if if if we are entertaining and again this is the group this is not arturo if we are entertaining going back to the drawing board to create more models then everybody needs to have
054an opportunity to create more models not one person not two people not three people not four people but everybody should have that opportunity to do that and then in my head and i could be wrong but in my head now we we've and again i'm not saying is bad i'm saying we we have to restart this whole process again not the whole process but the the process of all right everybody gets to go back reimagine the model reimagine what schools were were selected and then we have to go through this process uh here um and again we have a community meeting next thursday and so what what are we presenting or what are we saying uh at that meeting would be my wonderings uh in terms of in terms of that we have miss jen
055then we have miss meg and then we have miss melissa can you hear me clearly because my husband is also talking at a meeting right here can you hear me at the same time okay so um i i think i might be the only person in this group who has actually um experienced a school closure because i was a gladstone street teacher and i want to tell you a little bit just i want to reflect on that experience and um some things that when we're starting to talk about possible new models um this far down the road um well that concerned me a little bit and um when we uh closed gladstone street and mountain view um there was a whole process the 7-eleven committee that we were required to go through and we did
056and um the decision came so late in the year that the school board had to make the decision really quickly and then move people and it was all very very fast and full of lots of unnecessary stress and problems and things that happened simply because there wasn't the school board didn't get to have enough time to make decisions and i would really like it at this time if we could avoid dragging the process out for so long that the school board doesn't have time to make decisions and then start working on construction and things that need to be fixed as it was glaston street couldn't even be used mostly on one half of the school for a full year when we could have maybe planned ahead and made it a little bit easier to start
057using that school site a little easier if uh if it had been done in a timely manner so i think the purpose of this committee is to have these discussions and make our recommendations as one of many groups of stakeholders in the district that are going to have something to say and then the district is if we are not making the decisions the school board is going to make the decisions and i have to tell you once again because i've had this experience the decision that they make may be completely different than anything that was recommended and so we the best we can do is offer our opinions and put them in there so that they can get started on what is going to be an extremely difficult process if they're closing this many schools
058it's going to take months to go through all of this stuff and i don't want to keep dragging this out and bringing up yet another thing and thinking that we need to get another little piece of information that is just going to make it more difficult for them um when we are giving them so little time because frankly we could be asking questions forever and whatever we decide here no one there's not going to be a unanimous agreement about what we recommend to this committee and there's not going to be a unanimous agreement in the community after the school board makes the decisions and so i think that we just need to look at what we can get done and say this is our best and here is what we have and we hope that
059it is it is so clear and so good that you can use some of it in helping you to make your decisions thank you who is meg ms meg several of you have talked about going and talking to parents or talking to teachers and your constituents and while we did that as as a as a group of um teachers i also went and spoke to my father my father was a high school principal and then after being a high school principal for four or five years they decided to change his school to a seven through twelve and so i called him and said dad oh my gosh this is crazy they're they're gonna go for it and he said great tell him it's the best thing that we ever did and the reason why he
060said that was because um he dealt with all of the issues that we're talking about now fearful parents um worried kids about what that new dynamic was going to look like pissed off older brothers and sisters that didn't want their little sibling on their same campus in their high school experience all of those things and he said after all of those worries were put to bed in year two everybody said they were so glad they did it for all the reasons that we've been talking about the vertical articulation amongst teachers um the parents being able to drop all their kids off at one site the master scheduling being an easier thing the ability for the seventh and eighth grade kids to start at ground zero with electives and become masters in that craft by the
061time that they're seniors also it made the kids have ownership to the school and want to stay there because now they're either an aztec or a gladiator or you know whatever you're going to call the school and and that pride that came with it my dad's circumstance was very much what our true described whereby yes the kids for the most part are kept to themselves as seventh and eighth graders but those kids that are ready to go to an advanced math class and be in ninth grade with parent permission could go ahead and do that you know the kids could during pe have similar pe teachers that are in high school and those those coaches are going to spot those kids in seventh and eighth grade and start building those skills while they're in seventh
062and eighth grade and so i guess i just um and this isn't me saying to make that choice that's not it i i want to one most first and foremost as a teacher and a parent alleviate nervousness and fears of parents who are anxious you know mrs perkins i can sense that you're anxious about that the possibility of that choice and and as a teacher and a mom i don't want you to feel anxious i want you to feel safe and so i just wanted to share that because i felt like he made me feel like yay that's great you know and that's good for kids and again back to what anthony said what gabriel said what many of you have said is ultimately we want what's best for the kids and so i don't
063want anybody to be fearful if that is the ultimate choice that we come down to and my father wound up being a superintendent and um he said he'd be happy to come and talk to us and answer all the questions that you may have if interested because he too wanted to make sure that everybody felt good about that choice so there you have it okay we have miss melissa missy and i believe missy bet if her hand is still up and then this dish um thank you and i'll try to be fast i i am i am worried um i you know we we sort of like we're most familiar with often um and i love the idea of my two little sons staying in azusa and going to this like high school that offers
064everything right and um i appreciate everyone's input the the other the other thing i i'm worried about is how much more model 4 costs and what we could get for that by doing model three if we could restore the pool at um azusa high um i i want to apologize to parents who are watching last week i did not bring up the um the differences in the the cost i hadn't seen them as a chart i saw them on individual slides and like my brain my math brain isn't the best i needed to see them well stacked on top of each other as a parent pointed out after the last meeting for me to realize that it was silly of me to say let's not spend extra money on on on rebranding and parents aren't
065interested and community members aren't interested when we were dealing with something catastrophically more five times more money to do model for so i want to say that i also want to thank the school district for sending out the snail mail i think that's really important and i'm just really looking forward to hearing what parents think and i hope that all the information is presented in a an easy way to parents and teachers with the cost stacked on top of each other and that we never value a building or money that we spent on on fields over you know over kids i mean we all want we all want it to be good for the kids for azusa all right and this fish was six minutes remaining sorry helps if i mute before i start talking
066um so i'm i'm listening to everything you guys are saying and i i want to jump on board it's so hard as a parent of a young student and talking to other parents who have young students who are going to be in this district as a long haul um between model 3 and model 4. i feel like model of four is a good option when you're trying to fill in your school district but we have the ability to fill in a middle school with all of our students we can fill in a high school with all of our students combining them it's instead of splitting them up you allow all these kids to grow up together instead of separately putting these great programs together in one location and i hear a lot of you guys
067talking about vertical articulation having azusa high school and foothill high school across the way how can we wait get our teachers working together at those two campuses they're they're across the street from each other we can have our our 7th and 8th graders or 8th graders come and take electives they can cross the street have have proctors walk them across make sure they're going um you're talking about sports bring those kids over to the high school afterwards let's have them do their sports on that high school campus with those um with the older kids like uh i think as mr fernandez was mentioning if the campuses are next door to each other we can still have that seventh through twelfth filling without having the children on the exact same campus and i just feel like
068parents are going to be more comfortable with that and i know it's the comfort zone like megan meg said that she talked to her father they said it was a great idea but maybe their community needed that because they didn't have enough to fill to a full high school and a full middle school are we can do that here and we can make the best we have the best varsity teams we can have the best marching bands our middle schoolers can do the same things they can be trained with our high schoolers so they can come in prepared to to be a part of our high school programs i'm i just feel like we're look we're worried more about keeping to schools and we're trying to be fiscally responsible and as miss perkins said it's
069a five times greater price to change to seven to eights as it is to keep a semi-traditional model as what we have here but i also wanted to note i read the feedback from the parents and the staff it was a lot and i noticed we noticed that there were a lot of mentions about changing gladstone to the middle school i don't know if that's feasible i played with some numbers without knowing what sixth graders um without how many sixth graders i roughly put in 500 and it makes our middle our campus would be right at about 75 if we made gladstone our middle school and that's again totally guessing the numbers for sixth graders but it did seem like that was a lot of what parents were mentioning and i don't know if that's
070what um some of you were talking about when you said you wanted to re-imagine models but that could be an easy change if that helps get more people on board with having a mega middle school and one high school just just my thoughts miss fish thank you and just for clarification uh what was sent to you was only staff sorry yes staff yeah there was no there was no uh parent um yeah and in addition to um in addition to that um this is a good example um that we have heard multiple people not only on the survey but on in other avenues saying like hey if you went model three why why would you close glaston high school you have a beautiful campus why can't that be the middle school the one middle school
071um but again these are all things there's so many right we there's so many ways that model three can exist there's so many ways a model seven could exist um that at the end of the day and i think people have said it really in an eloquent manner tonight um at the end of the day those are the the the pieces information the data points uh that that the board uh is gonna have to uh consider uh as they're moving forward uh to uh to make a decision um all right well we have we have reached um the point of our meeting um before we launch uh the survey um i again i cannot say enough to thank you so much for what you have done uh so far i've lost count i think we're
072on meeting something like that you've dedicated so much time so much energy so much brain space so much heart so much emotion uh that i want to thank you uh before you we launches this uh form i want to briefly discuss your three options when we get there option number one is going to say i am ready to vote for my preferred model and my preferred idea idea what does that mean that means that you're ready to say i want model 4 or i want model 3 and you're ready to say i want 4.1 i want 3.10 you know whatever that whatever i'm just making up the numbers i don't know them outside my head that's what that means if that were to happen and that's what we were to land today then we are
073semi-officially done uh in terms of next steps the reason i say semi officially done is because when we get if we were to finally finalize this portion of it tonight when we get to the board i don't want it to be my voice i want it to be your voice and so i want to imagine how this recommendation would come to the board and that's why i say semi because i would still be tapping into this team to help in terms of voicing what this team went through and where we landed and presenting that to the board your second choice is gonna is gonna say i am ready to vote for my preferred idea so that means 3.9 3.10 3.2 3.3 so you're ready to vote for one of those and then you're ready to
074go for the the fours there's two models left i think it's four point five and nine i'm not sure so you're ready to narrow it down so that we only have one model three and one model four but you are not ready to then decide between model 3 and model 4. that's option number two if that option is what ends up being the most popular then after the after we get the data then we need to talk about next steps the last option is i'm not ready for anything i'm not ready for model 3 or model 4 and i'm not ready to talk about an idea um you still need time um some of you have voiced in this room that you want to wait to see what happens with the parents um and so
075eventually as your facilitator um i will have to uh say um you know sing a mr mr rogers friendly neighborhood song or something because eventually we will have to be over um we cannot uh just you know continue and continue to continue uh eventually we will have to be over and so again if the decision is i'm not ready to do anything then i want to be very clear about what our next steps are um because i don't want to as they say in the trade right have a paralysis analysis um where we we just we're not we're never going to be ready and we're just going to continue continue and continue and so eventually we just have to um do the best that we can be satisfied with the best that we can and
076move forward and and move it to the next to the next steps um so those are the those are going to be the three options for the survey and again depending on the results then we will go from there this also plays into what happens at the community meeting if number one wins and you guys have a recommendation and we want this model and this idea then great when we get to the community meeting we say these were the models that were up for discussion for for feedback the team decided on this model and this idea but tonight we're here to get your perspective and your feedback so even though the team this is what the team is recommending you can disagree with the team and that is okay to disagree with the team but
077we want to hear your input and your ideas that information then goes to the board of education and we do the same thing with the staff if option two wins where you're ready to narrow it down to two ideas but you don't know about the models yet then again great we go to the community meeting we say okay these are the two models that are left but there's no more you know four model threes and two model fours there's just one and so again we want your input where would you land on this and if we're not ready to decide anything then i think we need to take everything to the community meeting because that's that's what we have right now we don't we don't have more we don't have less so last thing before
078we ask sam to put the form again you are an individual an equal partner on this team doesn't matter who you are of the 24 you are an equal partner on this team all of us have heard different opinions all of us of us have heard different ideas all of us have heard different uh you know ways of looking at things and seeing things but at the end of the day i we want to hear you that's what we want to hear we want to hear you and so as you are filling out your form please fill it out as you all right sam we are ready you are going to put the link to the google form on in the chat please thank you sir the link is in the chat if you can
079please open it and fill it out um [Music] sam as you are seeing the responses come in if i'm not mistaken i think there are 20 so we're looking for 20 responses okay i'll let you know when we get 20. where are we out sir we're at 19 just waiting on one more okay i never got a anything to vote with it's in the link oh it's in the link never mind i'm the one that you're waiting for all right that is no one it's been a long day sorry no worries okay we are now at 20 responses all right sir um you're going to show us the results of this so you'll show us the the graph portion of it okay give me just one second no worries okay can you see my screen
080i can we have 50 percent for i am ready to vote for my preferred model and idea and fifty percent for i'm ready to vote for my preferred idea for models three and four but not ready to vote for a model we have what looks like zero percent of not being ready to vote for a model nor an idea perfect thank you sam um i'm gonna be talking i'm gonna give you uh a little bit a little bit of time um you are going to create another google form um sam um and there's going to be two questions um maybe uh jorge you can assist with this uh with him since sam is is jumping in tonight uh question number one is going to be of the model threes which model do you prefer um
081and the four choices are going to be um let me before i lie here let me double check it with another piece that i have here the four choices are going to be 3.1 3.3 3.8 and 3.10 so question number one my my the model three my preferred model three um and it's gonna be 3.1 3.3 3.8 and 3.10 okay question number two is going to say my preferred model 4 is and for model 4 there's going to be only two options and those two options are going to be 4.4 and 4.5 okay all right i need a moment to create this and i will let you know when the form is ready all right jorge can you run over there uh with sam just to to double check um as they are doing that
082uh just so so we're on the same page this was 50 50. um so so number three was out so therefore there's one thing in common with number one and number two and the one thing that's in common which means a hundred percent of you are ready to choose an idea um and so that is why we're moving in this direction hey how's it going sir sam you're on you're i'm muted i mean you're yeah you're unmuted uh just a nice greeting for mr jorge thank you uh so just for clarity again uh that is why we're doing what we're doing uh based on the way you answered this uh zero percent chose number three and because a hundred percent of you chose either one or two then by default that means that everyone is
083ready to choose an idea not everybody's ready to choose a model but everybody's ready to choose an idea and so we're going to give them some time to uh go ahead and uh create that mr rotary i understood the reverse way that everybody was ready to choose a model three or four not necessarily an idea uh let me let me double check unless i have the model and idea verbiage backwards uh based on the way i sold it and wrote it i am under the impression that um that everyone is ready for an idea question number two said i am ready to vote for my preferred idea for models three and four but i am not ready to go for a model and i just double checked the question to make sure and that is
084the way it reads now just for funsies uh once we do this this this this uh this this round right now uh and if there's time uh we might do one last one last run um while we're waiting uh let's uh let's play this out um so half of the people in this room are ready to move forward and say we're ready to pick a model 3 or model 4. half of the people in this room are saying i am not ready to choose between model 4 or model 3. so no pressure don't feel you have to but can we hear from someone or some people that are not who have who said i'm not ready to choose model 3 or model 4. and if you are not ready to choose between model 3 or
085model 4 if there is some rationale or some reason why or what you need to get you to that particular readiness if you will we have miss fish hand was raised first then we have miss melissa then diana i'm going to be a big big advocate for our parents here big you're talking about changing the actual structure of the current school system that we have we currently have tk5 tk6 tk8 middle schools and high schools you're talking about changing that completely to having a tk6 and a 7-12 and i do not feel that it is fair for us as a committee of 12 to make that decision without having parents feedback parents the people who have their children going to this school district willing to keep them or take them somewhere else throw out their
086opinion if our parents come back and say we love model 4 i will jump on board if our parents come back and say we love model 3 i will jump on board it's we're 12 people out of thousands and i just i don't feel that we should be able to make that decision without having parent feedback this fish may i ask a question yes absolutely because i don't want to assume so please correct me if i'm wrong i'm just trying to listen very carefully to you would it be fair for me to assume or to to interpret that once you hear or see the data from the parents then you will be ready to choose a model three or four is that is that a fair statement yes okay i see miss melissa wilson perkins
087so so you're you're good okay diana are you in the same boat as miss fish and miss uh wilson perkins yes but i would like to add a comment um just because i know our district is huge on hearing all stakeholders and having their input um i feel like you know you've gone a lot of our input as a committee you've gone the staff um input but now we're missing the parent input and just like meg asked her father about the two high school model um because obviously to me that seems like not the best idea having uh 12 year olds with 18 year olds so i since i don't have children i asked my niece who um just went into seventh grade this year what were her thoughts on you know she had to
088go to a school that was 7 12 and she said no way thea um it's hard enough to go to a middle school and have those eighth graders that are older to you than you i can't even imagine being with students that are much much older um so i was like okay i got a student perspective okay so so the people that have that thank you first and foremost so um all right thank you for that we're gonna consider next steps uh but first uh we're gonna put uh the next uh form uh in the google form in the chat again we're looking for 20 responses uh and again now we are narrowing down our ideas in the models sam please post it thank you so um sam where are we we are at 12
089responses okay uh update some 18 responses just waiting on two more and just needing one more okay we have all 20. all right you want to show us the results okay so for the model threes can you scroll down a little bit on your screen so we can see both graphs thank you um thank you thank you sam all right so um based on this um we'll start with model four because that's an overwhelming uh 4.4 um and so um that is the model that's i'm sorry that is the idea not the model that is the idea uh that we will work that will be our working model for uh for model three um i don't know the percentage but obviously a small percent on three point oh there you go thank you five percent
090on three point one uh fifteen percent uh 3.3 20 on 3.8 meaning that none of those um three options came even close uh to half because there are four models 60 is an overwhelming uh set again the other three models did not receive even even uh even half so it looks like 3.10 would be the idea that we move forward with model 3. um let me talk to you about next steps i want to remember we're a group we're a team and so we have to respect all of our opinions and all of our voices and all of our needs and all of our wishes so this is what we're going to do unless there's somebody in the room who also voted oh anthony you think it needs more discussion yeah i was just thinking
091uh similar to some of the other panelists just uh after all the financials came out i think everybody's like whoa whoa whoa and they kind of wanted to go back but i think we were too far into the process and i think that's what i heard a few of them talking about and one idea that i had mentioned before just like what we lost this year when doing everything virtual is we didn't have that one good big work day like in a facility so we can all have those discussions and kind of hash out some of the other items we've been doing it in these uh 90-minute blocks and i think it kind of got a little lost rush so that was just my thought maybe there was so much there because um now people
092are reconsidering like oh man i would have done this i probably would have gone that way but that one needs to be tweaked now because of the cost all right that's just my thought got it okay thank you sir um so so based on what what i heard and and then there was nodding after miss fish uh spoke and uh diana spoke as well um this is what this is what we're gonna do um we're gonna have the town hall next thursday you are more than welcome to come participate listen look learn um and that all of that is fine uh that day we will be launching the survey i don't want to launch it before um because i want to be able to explain the survey and the form and what it is and
093what when you click on this this is what it means and this is what you're voting for and this is what you know the opinions that you're going to be giving giving uh we will give it a window uh windows are are are interesting because if you leave it too long then the sense of urgency kind of goes away but if you do it too short then you know oh i didn't have an opportunity to do it so we're trying to find a sweet spot of what that window will be in terms of being open because we have a diverse community we will have to do it uh at least in um uh at least in spanish uh and we'll entertain if there's other other possibilities as well uh once that is wrapped up and
094by wrapped up i don't mean the town halls by wrapped up i mean the the actual survey the form and it's locked and here's the data um i will share that data with you all only because i i'm going to assume that well i don't want to assume i take that back then i will reach out to all of you uh with a new date uh for us to reconvene and meet the the the request today would have been satisfied at this meeting because we're going to be meeting a after the town hall and b after you have gotten the information from the community and from the and from the from the parents so i will throw out a date and say okay we're reconvening uh at that meeting then uh we will be moving
095to the next phase to say are we moving with model three or are we moving with model four um and then at that point in time um again we will be um we will be um moving to the steps of recommendations to the board of education unlike the unlike previous things that we have done uh when we get to the model 3 and model um and all along the board is going to know let's pretend we go to model 3 and model 4. and um let's pretend that one model gets 92 percent and one model gets eight percent eight percent that information will be shared with the board of education we also plan to share with them 92 of the committee or the team voted for this model and this is not by name but
096this is how they're made up eight percent voted for the other model and this is their makeup and by makeup i mean staff parents uh teachers classified admin you know those kinds of things we want to give them as as robust a data set as possible as they start to move and navigate through this again i want to end by thanking you for what you have done so far what you are doing so far and what you will continue to do at least for one more meeting uh stand by again i will i will send that email once we have wrapped up and by wrapped up again i mean with the with the survey and the data i will share with with you that information and then i will also share uh our new date
097uh to do that in the meantime uh yes ma'am what what are you sharing with model for the parents for model three are you only sharing model 310 or were you sharing okay just want to make sure based off of mr contreras comment yeah they will know again when we when we present to them they're going to know that this has been a process they're gonna know that we started off well at least my vision is i'm gonna know that we had four models that it was never down to two that there was i think at one point in time i think there were 12 ideas for model 3 and how that got dwindled down to um to four and then that was doing go down to one so we're not gonna hold or with
098with with withhold kind of that information uh they will they will know the process at least again that's my vision right that they that they kind of understand the journey that you have been on and where we have landed but when we when again right now on the spot the idea would be that when we're asking for feedback we're asking feedback on where we landed today which is uh model 3 310 model 4 4.4 but just like we did for staff there will be open-ended and again we want to make that visible like hey if there was something else or you had a you know that you wanted to chime in then they'll be more than more than uh able uh to also write um open-ended kind of uh suggestions ideas comments or dislikes or
099likes or whatever whatever it is that they that they want um so again i'm sorry can i ask a question yes you had said earlier that you were going to resurvey all staff again as well because of the fact that they did not know all of the information that the parents are going to get um so is that going to happen at the same time so we could look at those results too or how's that going to go down yeah i've been thinking about that again if you want to provide input right now live with one minute left my concern is if we do it right now that we're going to have a section or sections of our staff that might say you cheated me from the opportunity because i wasn't there i wasn't checking
100my emails and so that is a concern of mine because people are are now out and we cannot and should not uh expect them to be engaged with work when they're off contract uh on vacation or doing their what what they need to do so um i i i it's not it's not sitting well on me to say we we should do this right now with staff i i don't think it's fair and so again looking into well when do most people start checking back in the beginning of august um and so that's why i said i'll send you a new date because i got to play with all of these considerations uh in terms of getting us back because i want to make sure that everyone has a true opportunity now if they don't
101want to do it that's perfectly okay as well but we want to provide them a true opportunity to be able to to provide input so for clarification um when um you meet with the parents of course like you said you're going to dwindle it down to what it is uh first question is will parents have an opportunity to discuss or is this just information provided and then they take the survey and then secondly will um when it's all brought to us i mean it i think it's important that we do have the staff input like you're saying because um why introduce it if we're not going to use it um i mean we couldn't do just an all-call would do with parents but um but and then at that point will we also have a
102moment of discussion before we just you know like you said get to that point of closing out and submitting it to the board so to answer your first question no unlike you guys they will not be taking the survey or the form live uh so we will not be sharing a link to that to that so that they're doing it live right there and there this is for them to hear then go home and then think about it and there will be a window that they will have an opportunity to fill this out the second point that i want to say is that they don't have to be at this meeting to be able to fill out this form so maybe they skip the meeting and they don't want to watch the video they don't
103want to watch the recording and they just want to you know vote that that is going to be perfectly okay as well um so no they will not be doing it live right then and right then and there um and yes again in terms of of staff again i think that uh we have to give them an opportunity to be able to chime in the way the parents in the community are because again they're chiming in at a different in a different level right we've kind of gone past this journey and so now they're a different level and so they should have the opportunity to chime into that and that will be provided to you all as well and so again i will i will make sure to make that all visible uh in our
104in our email and then just for clarification purposes you will be receiving a cancellation in your inbox it's not because i don't like to be with you it's just uh next week um again would be prior to the meeting prior to any day any any data sets oh no i didn't answer your question patricia your second question we'll kind of do it like the way we did uh this time around so yes if we want to open and dialogue and get those last words in and those last you know whatever that's awesome and that's great but there will be an end time and i will say okay at this time conversation's over uh and it's time to uh to cast our cast our votes and cast our opinions so uh again thank you thank you
105thank you thank you thank you so much uh you have been doing an amazing job we are indebted to you so so thank you for everything you do again if i don't get to speak to you for for a while have an awesome break have an awesome uh week have an awesome weekend have a good night everyone